“No, I know, I know.” Jodi tried to straighten her hair and button her blouse with hands that shook. She wiped at her smeared lipstick. Why had she done that? Why had she attacked him that way?
And why had he stopped her?
“You can’t do that.” Vorn pointed a finger at her. “It’s hard enough to resist you as it is, Jodi. You can’t fucking jump me like that.”
Jodi glared at him.
“I didn’t mean to do it! And besides, it’s your fault I’m this hot! You talk about my scent but yours is driving me insane!”
For the first time since she’d met him, the big Kindred actually looked shocked.
“My scent?” he asked, frowning. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s that…that musk you exude,” Jodi snapped. “I don’t know if it’s some kind of aftershave or a Kindred cologne or what but every time I’m close to you I smell it and it makes me want to…to do things I shouldn’t do,” she ended weakly and then looked away. “Things like what I just did,” she whispered.
God, what had she just said? What had she just admitted?
And what had she just done?
“My scent,” Vorn repeated, as though stunned.
“I guess you can’t smell it, huh?” Jodi demanded. “Any more than I can smell the scent of my ‘hot little pussy’ as you so bluntly put it last night. But it’s there—it’s all around me.” She made a swirling motion with one hand, indicating the way the scent filled the interior of the car. “It’s like leather and smoke and spice and sex and it makes me think of all the things I want but can never, ever have!”
God, she really had to stop talking—the things she was saying were stupid…crazy…
True.
Vorn still looked stunned.
“But you can’t be smelling my scent,” he growled. “That would mean my body was putting out its Mating Scent, which is completely wrong.”
“What the hell is a Mating Scent?” Jodi asked, frowning at him.
“A scent—a pheromone-based smell that’s meant to draw a female to you—to a Kindred, I mean,” he explained. “But only the right female. Only one you’d want to bond with for life.”
“Well…” Jodi threw up her hands. “I guess we know that’s a stupid idea. We’d want to strangle each other.”
“If we didn’t fuck each other to death first,” Vorn said darkly. “There’s something about you, little girl. Something that calls to a part of me I haven’t thought of since I left my home world of Rageron. A custom of my home tribe that…” He shook his head. “Never mind. The point is you’re taken by another male—even if he is a sorry excuse for a human—and you hate my guts. So there’s no way my body ought to be making my Mating Scent for you.”
“Well, I wish you’d tell your body to turn it off, then,” Jodi snapped. “Because it’s driving me every bit as wild as the scent I’m apparently putting out is driving you.”
“We’re pushing each other higher and higher,” Vorn murmured, frowning. “This is a vicious cycle, baby. If we don’t break it, one of us is going to snap and I’ll wind up buried balls-deep in your sweet little cunt before the end of the night.”
Jodi felt a thrill of fear…mixed with something else.
“You…you told me Kindred wouldn’t commit acts of sexual violence against women,” she reminded him.
His golden eyes narrowed.
“Who kissed who just now? I didn’t say I was going to rape you—more like we’re going to end up raping each other if we can’t stop this.”
“You could just go back to the Mother Ship,” she pointed out.
Vorn shook his head.
“Already told you, that’s not happening. What if the Varians come while I’m on my way to find a replacement to guard you? I’m not leaving you alone, little girl—especially not at night.” He gestured to the gathering dusk outside the car.
Jodi put a hand on her hip.
“Well then, what are we supposed to do to, uh, break this ‘vicious cycle’ as you put it?”
Vorn looked out the window for a moment before turning back to her.
“Exactly what I wanted to do in the first place,” he said. “We’re going to go into this fucking store and buy you every-fucking-thing your little heart—and pussy—desires. Whatever you need to get off, we’re getting it.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Jodi protested. “Sex toys—at least really good ones—are expensive. And I’m living on a TA’s salary. I don’t have a whole lot to spare from groceries to feed the ‘spank bank’ as I’ve heard some of my male students call your personal fantasy life.”
“Don’t worry about the cost,” Vorn told her. “It’s on me. It’s the only way to save both your relationship with that asshole James and my sanity so I’m more than willing to pay.”
“But…but you can’t just buy me sex toys!” Jodi exclaimed.
“Why not? I broke your best phallus, didn’t I?” Vorn sounded completely reasonable. “And in my culture, when you break a possession of the host while staying as a guest in their home, you pay it back ten times over.”
“Ten times over?” Jodi arched an eyebrow at him. “You do know that the python—that’s the dildo you broke—cost me over a hundred dollars, right?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He pulled a platinum card out of an inner pocket and showed it to her. “Come on, baby—stop beating around the tree and let’s go in there and find something to make your little pussy happy.”
To her utter surprise, Jodi burst into laughter.
“The expression is ‘beating around the bush’,” she exclaimed, through a fit of giggles. “And could you please not talk about my pussy like she’s a spoiled princess who needs a spending spree to keep her happy?”
“Hey, whatever she needs to be happy, she gets,” Vorn said seriously, but she thought the corners of his mouth were twitching too. “Because when pussy’s unhappy, we’re all fucking miserable.”
This only made Jodi laugh harder and soon he joined in, a deep, rumbling chuckle that seemed to vibrate
