Burning for Love Read online

  Also, she had been kept in ignorance long enough, he thought. Even though the Collective had ruled his home planet of Zeaga Four with an iron fist, they hadn’t forbidden knowledge of anatomy and the basics of biological procreation.

  Naturally, since there were no women, sexuality was not encouraged, but knowledge of it wasn’t discouraged either—nor was masturbation a purging offense. Rather, it had been considered a biological need like eating or sleeping.

  For all that she was a Princess of Royal blood, Ka’rissa was treated worse, in some ways, than the inhabitants of his old world had been under the Collective. She was forced to wear a wire intended to keep her from touching her own body and she was expected to enter into a lifetime Joining with a male without knowing what to expect sexually. It was very unfair and unreasonable, at least in his view.

  For all these reasons, he reluctantly decided that he would do as the Princess asked.

  “All right,” he said, and started to unfasten the magno-tabs that held his trousers closed.

  “Wait—let’s go to the bed,” Ka’rissa suggested. “I want to lean against you while you show me. That way you can cool me down if I get, er, overheated. You know, from shock at seeing…male forbidden parts,” she added in a whisper.

  James considered and decided this was probably a good plan. She was already close to overheating since she hadn’t allowed him to help her with her Heat Cycle the night before. It would be a good thing if she could lay against his side for a while and he could cool her down.

  “All right,” he said, nodding. “Let’s lie on the bed.”

  Liza had made the bed earlier when she dropped off the breakfast tray so the two of them lay on top of the downy-soft, rose-gold coverlet with James propped against the cushioned headboard and Ka’rissa lying against his right side. Once they were settled, she sighed in contentment and pressed her hot cheek against his chest.

  “Mmm, so lovely and cool,” she murmured and for a moment, James thought she might drift off and take a nap. After all, she hadn’t slept well at all the night before, so it wouldn’t be surprising if she was still sleepy. But after a moment she said, “Well, are you going to show me?”

  “Do you still want to see?” James asked, his left hand hovered over the fastening of his trousers again.

  “Of course. Show me—prove it to me,” she demanded. And then added, “Please?” with a sidelong glance up at him through her long, dark lashes.

  James felt the by-now familiar feeling of warmth filling his chest. He thought that he would have given his Princess anything she asked when she looked at him like that.

  “All right,” he said. “But you mustn’t be shocked or upset.”

  Then he unfastened his trousers and pulled them down, revealing his bare shaft to her for the first time.

  “Oh, is that it? That’s your shaft?” Ka’rissa’s eyes got wide with interest as she stared at him. “It’s so big! Can I touch it?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” James said, frowning. Though he longed to feel her soft little hand caressing his length, he wasn’t sure it would be proper. Just the thought of it, however, caused his shaft—which was already half-hard from feeling her soft, curvy body against his own—to harden considerably.

  “Oh—it’s growing! It’s moving by itself!” Ka’rissa exclaimed, her eyes getting even wider. “Now I know why I heard some of the maids calling it a ‘snake’—because it moves on its own!”

  “It’s only getting harder because I’m so close to you and you’re so beautiful, Princess,” James said, his voice coming out slightly hoarse.

  She looked up at him.

  “You mean, it got hard because of me? But why? What is the purpose of it getting harder and—oh, my!—so much bigger?” she asked, looking down at his shaft again, which was standing at full attention now.

  “A male’s shaft gets hard so that he can put it into a female’s pussy,” he lectured. “That’s how he shoots his seed inside her and makes her pregnant.”

  “Where does the seed come out? Is it from that little hole in the tip, there?” Ka’rissa asked. She was leaning over him as though to see better and her long, silky hair was brushing over his exposed torso and thighs. James felt as though his whole body was tensing at the soft, ticklish sensation of her hair caressing him.

  “Yes,” he said tightly. “From…from the tip.”

  “Oh, I think I see some now!” she exclaimed, pointing. “Look, is the seed that shiny, clear stuff?”

  James shook his head.

  “No, Princess—that’s only precum.”

  “Precum?” She frowned, looking up at him. “What’s that?

  “It’s a kind of…lubricant,” James explained. “It helps a male fit his shaft into a female’s pussy.”

  “Is that why my pussy gets wet as well when you, er help me with my Heat Cycle?” she asked, looking up at him.

  James nodded. “Exactly.”

  “But I don’t see how you could fit something so large inside me,” she protested, looking back at his shaft. “I mean, you can barely manage to get two fingers halfway inside me, James. And your shaft is much, much larger than your fingers! Why, I bet I couldn’t even fit my own fingers all the way around it.”

  As she spoke, she casually reached out and wrapped her soft little hand around his aching length. Somehow, though James had forbidden her to touch him earlier, he found that he lacked the willpower to ask her to take her hand away. Still, he tried to protest.

  “Princess,” he said, shifting a bit as she touched him. “I don’t know if you ought to do that.”

  “But I want to know all about a male’s shaft,” she protested. “Your skin is so soft here but the flesh under it is hard as a rock,” she went on, her long, slim fingers sliding up and down his length. “Oh, and when I touch you here, more of that, er, precum seems to be coming out,” she added.

  “Yes, because it’s extremely pleasurable when you touch me,” James said hoarsely. Gods, did she have any idea what she was doing to him? Probably not—she was so completely innocent. “My shaft produces more lubrication the closer I get to orgasm,” he told her. “The same way your pussy gets wetter and wetter as you get closer to coming yourself.”

  “I still don’t see how something this size could fit into my pussy,” Ka’rissa remarked, frowning. “It’s just huge.”

  “That shouldn’t worry you because my shaft is never going anywhere near your soft little pussy,” James told her sternly. Though, gods, the idea of that, of taking her, Claiming her…filling her with himself and bonding her to him…

  No—he couldn’t think like that, he reminded himself. It was wrong and it was never going to happen.

  “I know that.” Ka’rissa looked up at him with wide eyes. “But I just wonder…how can you use it on anyone? I mean, any woman at all?”

  “Part of my Kindred DNA is Beast Kindred,” James told her. “Which means that my precum has chemical compounds in it that help a female open to receive my shaft without pain.”

  “Really? So if you were to ever put your shaft in…in my pussy, rubbing your precum all around my pussy would help me open up and let you in?” she asked innocently.

  James gritted his teeth. The mental image she was causing by talking this way was bad enough, but she was stroking his shaft with her soft little hand as she spoke, making things even worse. He could feel his pleasure rising and he had to make a conscious effort to keep his hands by his side and not touch her.

  “Yes, but I told you, Princess, that’s not going to happen,” he gritted out.

  “Yes, but if it did,” Ka’rissa persisted. “What would happen next? Would you just put it inside me and then shoot your seed and then I would be pregnant?”

  He shook his head.

  “It takes a bit more than that. I would have to move my shaft in and out of your pussy for a time. After a while, the friction would cause me to orgasm. Only then would I shoot my seed.”

  “I want
to see you shoot your seed now, though,” Ka’rissa protested. “Can you only shoot it when your shaft is deep inside a pussy?”

  James shook his head.

  “No, Princess. In fact, just stroking my shaft can make me shoot—or ‘come.’ So if you don’t stop what you’re doing, I’m afraid you’re going to see my seed fairly soon.”

  “But that’s exactly what I want!” she exclaimed.

  He shook his head and finally found the strength to pull her hand away.

  “I don’t think so, Princess. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “But you make me come all the time!” she protested.

  “That’s different,” James said sternly. “I do that in order to help you control your Heat Cycle, Princess. Whereas, I have no Heat Cycle to control—there is no need for you to make me orgasm.”

  She gave him a pleading look.

  “Please, James—it would make me feel so much better to actually see the seed coming from your shaft and know that is where it comes from and not a man’s tongue,” she begged softly. “Please…let me make you come. Just this once.”

  James looked down at her, undecided. He could feel the emotion he thought was most probably guilt welling up in him again, but it wasn’t nearly as strong as the desire he felt to have her soft little hand on him again.

  “Well…” he began and sighed. “I suppose just once can’t hurt—just so you can see for yourself where the seed comes from.”

  “Oh, thank you, James!” she said eagerly. Gripping his shaft in her soft little hand again, she looked up at him. “Tell me how to do it. Tell me how to make you come.”

  Feeling like he was drowning, James cupped his own, much larger hand, loosely over hers and helped her stroke him up and down.

  “Like that,” he instructed hoarsely as pleasure shot through him at her light touch. “Just up and down—get a rhythm going. Gods, your little hand is so soft and warm!”

  “But not as soft and warm as my pussy would be, I’ll bet,” she murmured. “If you really could fit your long, thick shaft all the way inside me.”

  “Princess, don’t talk like that!” he groaned. “Gods, it makes me want you so badly and you and I both know I can never have you! Can never Claim you and bond you as a Kindred should!”

  “I don’t—” she began, but at that point her soft little hand on his aching shaft became too much to bear. James could feel his balls tightening and suddenly a deep pulse of pleasure went through him and the first spurt of seed shot from his shaft.

  “Oh!” Ka’rissa exclaimed, watching avidly as he came. She didn’t stop stroking, though. In fact, if anything she pumped him harder, as though wanting to see how much seed he would produce.

  It was a copious amount, since Kindred were always big producers. James thought dimly that they should have brought a towel from the bathing chamber with them, but of course, he’d had no idea he was going to let her make him come when they first lay on the bed together.

  He definitely shouldn’t have let things get this far…but her hand on him felt so damn good. And she was so beautiful, with curiosity lighting her lovely face, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright as her slim, brown fingers caressed his throbbing length.

  “Gods!” he groaned again as the last spurt left his shaft. He felt the tension drain from his body but his shaft didn’t go soft—partly because Kindred were multi-orgasmic and didn’t require a recovery time and partly because the Princess was still stroking him. “That’s enough now, Princess,” he muttered, moving her hand again.

  “Why is it still hard, though?” she asked innocently. “Does that not mean that you could make some more of the, uh, seed?”

  “I could,” James told her. “But only because I am Kindred. Most other humanoid males would need some recovery time before they could, uh, spurt again.”

  “So they go limp in between times?” she asked.

  James nodded.

  “Yes.”

  “But what if it was limp instead of hard when you wanted to…to make a baby?” she asked. “What would you do then? I mean, how could you fit your shaft into the lady’s pussy?”

  “It would be impossible, I suppose. Such a thing has never happened to me,” James said, truthfully. “But I believe most males would consider limpness at such a time a shameful thing—an inability to perform.”

  “Well, you certainly performed,” she remarked, eyeing the puddle of seed on his belly. Then her eyes went back to his shaft. “But tell me—is it hard all of the time in your trousers? I mean, when you are just going about your day,” she added.

  “It is not hard most of the time or it would be difficult to concentrate on anything else,” James told her.

  “So it is only hard when you are…are…” She seemed to be groping for words.

  “Aroused,” James supplied. “And believe me, feeling your hand on me was most arousing, Princess. Not that we should do it again,” he added, when she started to reach for him once more.

  “Forgive me,” Ka’rissa murmured. She leaned closer to him, looking once more at the puddle he’d made on his flat abdomen with interest. “So that is what a man’s seed looks like?” she asked, frowning at it. “It is nothing like the kind of seed one plants in the ground to grow a tree or a flower.”

  “Nevertheless, there are seeds in it,” James told her. “Millions of them.”

  He explained briefly about sperm and eggs and how they met inside a female’s body after a male and female made love. Then how the two merged and the cells began to multiply until a baby was formed. As he spoke, her eyes got wider and wider.

  “Why, it is much more complicated than I thought! I had no idea about any of this, James!”

  “I know you didn’t,” he said briefly. “Though I probably shouldn’t have taught you in such a graphic way,” he added, feeling the guilt emotion again.

  “Why not?” she demanded. “I wouldn’t have believed you any other way. And besides, it’s good for me to know what to expect on my…my wedding night.” She looked up at him shyly. “Not that I really want to have a wedding night now. I mean, not with anyone but you, James.”

  James felt something clench inside his heart as he looked down into her warm, amber-brown eyes. Gods, was she saying what he thought she was saying? Was she saying that she…loved him? And did he love her, too?

  No, you can’t think like that—can’t let these foolish emotions get the better of you! he lectured himself sternly. You’re only here to guard the Princess—not fall in love with her and Claim her! You know that can never be. She’s destined to stay here and Join with another in order to rule her planet. And as soon as she does, you have to go back to the Mother Ship and get your emotion damper fixed.

  It was all true and James knew it, so he made himself frown at her and shake his head.

  “You can’t say things like that, Princess,” he said sternly. “I am only your guard—”

  “And you have no emotions, so you cannot care for me,” she finished for him softly, dropping her eyes. “I know, James. But sometimes I almost forget that you do not have feelings. Like just now when you let me make you come,” she added, looking up at him shyly. “Or when you hold me in your arms so gently at night and touch me until I come. It feels so good and I feel so close to you. I cannot seem to help it.”

  Her words made his heart squeeze in his chest, but James knew he couldn’t let her see that he was having emotions for her. However, he made his voice a little gentler as he cupped her face gently in his palm.

  “Princess, I am honored that you feel close enough to me to confide in me when it comes to these delicate and private matters,” he murmured. “But I am only here to guard you until…” He cleared his throat, having some difficulty going on. “Until you find the right mate and are married,” he got out at last. “And you know the two of us can never be together.”

  Ka’rissa hung her head.

  “I know that,” she said in a small voice. “I am sorry, James. I…I will
try to do better.”

  The sorrow on her lovely face was almost more than James could bear.

  “Princess,” he murmured, tilting her chin so that her eyes turned up towards his. “You know, don’t you, that if I could have emotions for anyone, it would be for you.”

  “Oh, James…” Her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed a becoming pink. “Thank you,” she whispered. “And I am sorry. I will try not to have feelings for you, only it is so very difficult not to. You are so tall and strong and brave and handsome and you’ve taught me so much. And the way you touch me makes my whole body light up with pleasure.”

  This little speech touched him so deeply, that James felt he could not longer help himself. He wanted to tell her that his emotion damper had failed and he felt for her, too. He wanted to tell her that he thought he was “falling in love” with her, as he had heard other Kindred say, when they spoke of the females they were attached to.

  “Ka’rissa,” he began. “I—”

  Just then, a loud banging on the main door of the Princess’s apartment echoed though the room.

  “Open up!” shouted an imperious voice. “Open up right now, I say! I must see the Princess—I demand to see Princess Ka’rissa at once!”

  36

  Rissa gasped and the two of them jumped apart guiltily. She and James looked wildly at each other for a moment and then the gravity of the situation struck her.

  They were lying on her bed together and the big Kindred’s trousers were open with his long, thick shaft sticking out of them on full view. Not only that, the creamy puddle of seed he had spurted for her was still on his flat, muscular belly—mute testament to the forbidden act the two of them had committed together.

  In a flash, James was off the bed and heading into the bathing chamber, where he would presumably clean himself up.