Out of Mind

kiss her breasts, to run his tongue in circles, growing ever closer until he took each nipple in his teeth and she writhed.

On her side, she used two hands to guide him between her lips, letting the very edges of her teeth rake him all the way.

A click came from his throat and he swayed forward, tore her panties off and caught her beneath the arms.

Willow rocked her head from side to side. With her eyes squeezed shut, she felt tears run along her temples. Ben moved her as if she were nothing, spread her across the middle of the bed and mounted her. She felt him try to gentle the first thrust, but his restraint broke and they came together as if he were flowing lava filling her up.

Her breasts and belly ached and she didn’t want them to stop aching.

Once, twice, he surged into her. Then the climax broke. His and hers. Bursting over them, drawing out a fine sweat that turned their bodies slick, melded their skin into one skin bonded together.

Ben stilled. The only sound was their panting.

She reached down to feel where their bodies were still joined, his strong shaft impaling her just as it was meant to.

Slowly, he slid out, and she held his face, brought it to hers and kissed him, opened their mouths wide, got as far over and into him as her tongue would take her.

His fingers, landing on her unbelievably sensitive clitoris again shocked Willow. She tried to say his name, but he took over the kiss and she couldn’t speak.

He was tall.

She wasn’t.

Kissing her into oblivion while he worked where she could barely stand to be touched was easy for him. She vaguely felt the rumble of satisfaction in his throat.

He slid fingers up and inside her, drew out and swept to finish what he had started.

Willow struggled beneath him, then fell back, sated, incapable of moving.

He began to kiss her breasts once more, and she spread her arms wide to give herself to him again. The nudge against the entrance to her still-throbbing body opened her eyes.

“Is it okay?” he said. “Again?”

“Again, and again.”

Chapter 17

“I know who you are,” he said. “The blindfold is senseless. And it’s irritating.”

Best ignore him, she thought. Breaking him might take time, but break him, she would.

“My name is One. Say it,” she told him. One suited her well, for that’s what she was, the first one, the most important one. “Say it.” This time she raised her voice.

“One.”

Sullen. Why must these underlings always become sullen? She knew the answer. He was male and chafed against not being able to control her. But she had brought him with her and he would share in her success.

“You are…” She thought about it. “Servant,” she said with satisfaction.

“Damn you—”

“Damn you, One.” She cut him off.

“I am no woman’s servant.”

“You are my Servant for as long as I want to play with you. You are such fun to play with, but I have some lessons to teach you first. I have a purpose to fulfill and I do what I set out to do. Your future depends on my success, but it won’t be easy.”

Sunlight slanted through a window high in one white wall, slanted across his naked body. She stood before him, glad of her height, and stroked him until he tried to catch her hands.

One laughed and slapped his face.

He bared his teeth, made fists at his sides. He knew better than to strike out at her, even if he didn’t quite mask the brief start of what would have been his transmutation. The forked tongue actually flashed from his blackening lips, but he collected himself quickly enough to show only what he wanted humans to see in the two male images he had perfected.

“This is a very important day,” she said, lowering her voice to a warm, whispering, soothing hum. “The most important day of your life. Do you want to know why?”

He breathed heavily.

“Because if you don’t do exactly as I tell you, it will be your last day.”

“I don’t have to take this.”

“But you do,” One said, still all but purring at him. “You made a mistake. You acted on your own. You decided to make your mark by doing something I hadn’t told you to do. That was a mistake…Servant.”

Power thrilled her—and fear. This man longed to dominate her, but did not dare to as much as try.

“What I did will help us,” he said. “It will save time. You need what I brought you.”

“You took a risk. I knew nothing about this…Caroline. If you have made a mistake, you’ll suffer. I will report you to the Embran Council and their judgment will be swift—and final.”

“I made no mistake,” he said. “What I did was to help you. The woman, Caroline, she has no family. No one will look for her. I made sure.”

“No one has looked for her yet,” she pointed out. “If they do, you will join our research into saving our kind— as a subject.”

He laughed and relaxed for the first time since she’d called him in. “I’m not the right makeup, One. I don’t think I’d serve your purpose.”

“We will need host Embrans,” she told him. “Didn’t you think of that? Hosts to test our findings on. This could be a good thing. If our experiments go well, whatever we implant in you could make you live forever as we all used to. If not…” She let him consider what she had not quite said.

As with his other human manifestation, he was beautiful, an outstanding specimen, one of very few of his kind in their world.

“I have a question for you,” he said. “This plan of yours—your backup plan. Did you clear it with the Council? All they sent you here for was to make sure the work got done and the Millet specimen they selected is captured and taken to Home Place—by the one who thinks he is here alone to complete the task.”

Anger tightened her. “You know better than to question me.”

“My only purpose is to serve you, One. I live to serve you. My fate depends upon you. It wouldn’t help my career if something went wrong because you decided to become the big hero by charting your own course. Is this sexy little sideline you’ve come up with, this secret collection of shrunken specimens, in keeping with the Council’s wishes?”

“You’re beginning to bore me.” In fact, he caused her to question her own decision, which she would not tolerate. To question was to risk doubt—doubt could cause careless mistakes, or complete disaster.

“Why am I here now?” he asked, but she saw how he braced his feet apart, flexed the heavy muscles in his arms and his thighs, and aimed his hips in her direction.

“That’s why,” she said, and almost wished she could really purr—like a panther with huge, lethal teeth.

He made sure his subtle movements showed everything off to best advantage. “I’d like to see you,” he said, managing to make a simple request sound suggestive.

“I can see you. That’s all that matters—I’ll make sure everything goes where it needs to go.”

He trembled. His color heightened with excitement. “Whatever you want,” he said.

“First, what I want you to do—later. You took matters into your own hands. I didn’t like that, but you accomplished the task well. I have a list of names with information about where they can be found. There are many names, men and women. Amazing how many loners there are among these humans. All these people with pasts to