defies any explanation. I like you and care about you. All these feelings are new to me though, and even a little scary because I yearn for you in ways I don’t understand. I don’t want to be parted from you… I hate the idea of it. But I expect a male who wants to mate with me to ask me.”
Stopping at his doorway, he glanced back at her over his shoulder. “You would be agreeable to mating if I asked?”
“Well, don’t males of your species ask the females?” she asked.
Oh gods, what if it was a culture of arranged matings? He might never understand. To her relief, he relaxed and nodded.
“A fair request,” he murmured. “I did not wish to see you mated with a stranger against your will, so I requested to avoid this very thing —and I nearly committed the same unpardonable act.”
The warmth that had been flowing through her veins flickered out as she stared at him in horror. He had volunteered to keep her from mating a stranger? Embarrassment heated her cheeks as she withdrew from him.
Of course it wouldn’t be genuine interest.
She felt like a fool.
Rhyst’s eyes narrowed on her, watching her every move as she backed away.
“What are you doing, Cha’lii?” he growled.
“I’m a fucking idiot,” she choked out around a miserable laugh. “This is like a pity fuck but a hundred times worse. You’re mating me out of kindness… Un-fucking-believable.” She rubbed a hand over her face as she stepped back. “Here I thought that you wanted to mate me. Of course you wouldn’t… You haven’t shown any interest… Gods, I’m so embarrassed.”
As she dragged her hand away from her eyes, she saw a flash of understanding in his gaze as his lips pinched together into a firm line. One of his hands came forward to capture her wrist and pull her hand away.
“No interest, Cha’lii?” he murmured, his breath stirring over her, making her nipples pebble and her gut clench as if everything was tied together with one long thread. “No, I do not have interest,” he hissed, and her heart plummeted as she dropped her head in misery. His fingers tipped her face back up to meet his eyes.
“Interest pales next to what I feel. It is need and desire, thirst and hunger… Not just for your body, despite its beauty, but all the things which make you—you. I demanded to mate you because while, yes, I did not want to see you suffer the touch of a stranger, in truth I could not bear to even imagine you in the arms of another. I demanded you because I long for you and need you. I have burned for days for only you.”
“What is this between us?” she whispered back.
“I do not know,” he replied, and she heard the honesty in his words, “but I cannot tolerate being separated from you. I need you, Cha’lii, like I need the breath of Inara Tahli to live. You are my breath.”
She licked her lips and stilled, her breath drawing in on a gasp as his head dropped and his tongue slipped along her mouth, following the path of her own tongue, chasing it into her mouth. A rattling groan shook her as he claimed her mouth, stroking his tongue against hers so deliciously that a wet heat shot through her, seeping out from her cunt to slick her upper thighs. His low, possessive growl filled her ears as he clutched her to him, the fingers on one hand coming up to skim the sensitive flesh nestled at the apex of her thighs.
He scented her arousal. That knowledge sent a fresh wave of desire through her as she shivered against him. His eyes held hers as he leaned down toward her, his focus so finely attuned to her that she shivered under the weight of his stare.
“Will you accept me as your mate, Cha’lii?” he purred in a soft, deep voice. “Choose wisely, because once you are mine, the bond is irreversible. You will be mine until the day neither of us draw breath.”
I would be his. Desire unfurled from within her of another sort. The part of her that she had always kept locked away, the part of her that yearned to have someone or something that was hers and only hers. To belong fully to someone. Not just anyone. He wanted her. He wanted to keep her forever. A tear slipped down her cheek.