Penny's Protector: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Icehome Book 10) Read online

  Bahr, she said over and over again.

  So I peeled her damp leathers off her body, trying not to look too closely at her body without her permission. I stoked the fire higher and pile furs atop her to keep her warm.

  She immediately reached for me, so I stretched my legs next to her. I told myself it was just to share warmth. Any pleasure I received out of her curled up next to me was welcome, but not necessary.

  Then, she opened her eyes, looked at me, and touched my cock.

  She said she would take it in her mouth.

  Her actions left me stunned. Stunned, and aching. I thought I knew how matings happened—I have seen animals in the wild do so, of course. I have vague memories of my parents in our hut when I was a kit. But I do not remember anyone ever taking a cock into their mouths.

  Does…P’nee not know how to mate? Perhaps I should talk to her about such things. I do not wish to hurt her feelings, though.

  The aching parts of me want her to do it. Over and over again, except this time she will not promise and go to sleep. She will mouth me until I come, my seed raining on her pale skin and—

  With a groan, I jerk to my feet, rushing for the cave entrance. Panting, I step out into the snow and take myself in hand. The wind whistles around me, a storm brewing, and the breeze makes me acutely aware of the wetness on my calf. I am damp there where she rubbed her cunt against my leg and made those soft, sweet noises.

  I rub my cock furiously, my movements frantic. My tight, callused grip does not feel as good as the wet heat of her mouth—nothing does, nothing ever will—but just thinking about the soft, sleepy look in her eyes as she held my cock makes me come furiously. I growl, pumping the seed from my aching length. It steams as it hits the snow, freezing moments later.

  And I feel…unsatisfied. My hand has always sufficed before, but now?

  Now that I have felt her hand on me, I am going to think about that always. Even so, when she wakes up, I must point out to her that she was going to do kissing wrong. I do not want her to be embarrassed, but other males might not be so understanding.

  It is a good thing I stole her away. Now that I know the feel of her touch, even the thought of her smiling at O’jek makes me want to howl with frustration.

  9

  PENNY

  It feels like I partied too hard.

  Ironic, since I don’t think I’ve been partying at all. I crack one eye open and stare at the cave wall a few feet away from my face, groaning. Well, I guess I could have partied too hard. We were celebrating Nadine and Thrand’s resonance, but everything’s super hazy.

  It takes me a moment to realize I’m naked. Takes another few moments before my brain fills in a few gaps with flashes of memory.

  Naked.

  S’bren in my cave. With me, naked.

  My hand on S’bren’s dick. My pussy grinding against his leg.

  Do you play the bottle game, P’nee?

  Oh boy.

  I fell asleep just before giving the man a blow job. What the fuck, me?

  I don’t know which part horrifies me more. That I was immediately all over him like a drunk ho, or that I did a terrible job of it. I rub my hand over my mouth, trying to remember how many cups of sah-sah I had. All I remember drinking was tea…but it was sweet. Spiked tea? Is that a thing with the sa-khui? I have a sinking feeling in my gut as I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling overhead.

  It’s…not the ceiling in the women’s cave. I remember S’bren—pantsless S’bren—in the furs with me. I remember how quiet it was, with no snoring or sleep-talking at all. Steph’s a sleep-talker and she’s noisy. It’s silent in here.

  I sit up, clutching the blankets to my chest and look around, confused. It’s a small cave, no bigger than a small bedroom, the ceiling kind of low. By the fire, S’bren squats, wearing his loincloth. He hasn’t noticed that I’m awake, his tail flicking against the floor like a relaxed cat’s. Not too far ahead, there’s a privacy screen covering the entrance of the cave, and snow is pouring down outside. It’s chilly and crisp, the way it is when you leave the protected inlet of the beach and head into the mountains.

  I lick my dry lips. “Where are we?”

  S’bren jerks around, startled, his eyes wide and guilty. “P’nee. You are awake.”

  “And you’re clothed again. Sorta.” I can’t help but notice his loincloth, I guess because I keep envisioning his big fat balls. I had no idea balls were so appealing, but I can’t stop thinking about his. I press the heel of my palm to my brow. “My head is seriously fucked up right now. What happened? Why are we out here?”

  He looks uncomfortable with my questions. “You are here because…I brought you here.”

  “I don’t remember the party. Did I get too wild? Wander away from camp?” Something isn’t adding up. How can I remember touching his dick with such vivid mental images and can’t remember a thing about the actual celebration itself?

  “No.” He gets to his feet and his horns smack against the ceiling, so he quickly hunches his shoulders again. “I stole you.”

  “Stole me?” I squint, not entirely sure I heard him right. My hangover head is throbbing. “Repeat that?”

  “I put visshek in your tea and when it made you tired, I took you from camp and brought you here.”

  I’m still not putting two and two together. “Why?”

  “I am keeping you.”

  Um, what? My head pounds again, and I try to put together everything he’s telling me. He put something in my tea—I remember it tasted sweet. No wonder I can’t remember anything after that. “Wait, you roofied me?”

  “What is roof-ee?” S’bren looks confused.

  “You drugged me so I’d have sex with you?” I’m horrified. Oh god, no wonder I wanted to slurp his dong. Now I’m glad I fell asleep. “What the everloving fuck, S’bren?”

  “No, I gave you tea so you would sleep and be quiet when I carried you away. M’tok said it was a good idea.” But he looks uncertain.

  “What does M’tok have to do with this?” I rub my eyes, unable to believe what I’m hearing. “You fucking drugged me!”

  “It was his idea.”

  I gape at him, shocked. I’m well aware of S’bren’s awkward crush and I thought he’d been letting go of it. NOPE. Turned out he was just plotting with his sneaky-sneak of a brother. “Your brother told you to drug me? And Callie?” When he nods, I grab the nearest thing—a bone cup—and throw it at his head. “I can’t believe you did that!”

  A guilty look steals across his broad face as he ducks. “I knew you would be mad.”

  “Of course I’m mad! You gave me tea to mess with my head!” I think about how horny I was when I woke up. “Oh my god, you stripped me naked!”

  “You asked me to.”

  “I what?”

  “You kept saying ‘bare’ so I took your clothes off of you. I thought they bothered you.”

  Oh jeez. I have vague memories of calling him my teddy bear. Last night in a drugged haze, I guess he was cute and cuddly and appealing to me. Today, I’m appalled.

  “You are rubbing your head,” he points out. “Are you hurting?”

  “I have a hangover,” I hiss at him, still outraged. “From your drugs. Of course I’m hurting!”

  S’bren frowns to himself. “But it does not give me a headache.”

  “Does it make you super horny? Because it has that charming side-effect, too.”

  He is silent for a long moment. “No.”

  “Well, it did me!”

  “Then…you did not wish to put your hand on me last night?”

  “No!”

  It’s like kicking a puppy. S’bren looks utterly devastated. “Oh.”

  I shake my head at him, so mad that I’m trembling. “You don’t get to drug people and steal them away, you fucking asshole. Do you have any idea how fucking wrong that is?”

  He just stares at me with those wounded eyes. “I did not know it was wrong. Why?”

  “Be
cause I’m not awake! Because I’m not myself! I can’t defend myself if you do anything to me while I’m unconscious or when I’m loopy on drugs. It’s taking advantage of me!”

  He looks pale. “Like when you put your hand on me.”

  “Just like that!”

  I didn’t think it was possible for a man to look even more ashamed, but he does. “This is…bad for humans?”

  “Yeah it’s bad!” I grab another cup to throw at his head, but then…I stop. In a way, his upset makes me feel better. It’s clear he had the most innocent of goals—where the tea was concerned, at least. I vaguely remember last night and how uncomfortable and surprised he was when I touched him. That wasn’t the expression of a man who expected to get laid.

  Okay. So he wasn’t drugging me to get some. If that’s the case, I’m less freaked out. How many horror stories did I hear from college roommates of guys who seemed nice and turned out to be creeps? Ugh. I didn’t think I’d have to worry about something like that with the men here. They’re weird, but they’re always respectful.

  Like now. S’bren gets to his feet, his gaze averted, and hands me my tunic. “I dried it for you by the fire.”

  I snatch it from his grip. I don’t thank him…but I don’t yell at him either. It’s not my nature to be angry all the time. I leave that for others. I’m hurt that he broke my trust, but seeing the upset on his face takes away a lot of the rage I’m feeling. “Bad things can happen to girls if you do this sort of thing to them, S’bren. In the world I come from, this is very, very dangerous and I would never speak to you again.”

  He looks even more crushed than before. “I will always keep you safe, P’nee. Even if you hate me.”

  I sigh heavily. “I don’t hate you. I’m mad right now, but I’m going to need some time to get over it. Now, where are we? Which hunter cave?”

  S’bren shrugs. “M’tok says I should not tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the goal is to keep you with me until we resonate. If you go back to camp, everything has been for nothing.”

  He makes it sound so reasonable. Like oh, we’re here because I needed to pick up milk from the corner store. Just your run-of-the-mill, everyday errand, stealing a chick. “I’m not sure that’s how it works, S’bren.”

  “M’tok said it might.”

  That makes me grit my teeth. “M’tok has some really terrible ideas, just so you know. Have I ever been mean to you? Treated you badly?”

  “No.”

  “So why would you steal me?”

  “So you do not resonate to O’jek or I’rec. Or anyone else.”

  I sputter. “I might not resonate to anyone for years and years. I might not ever resonate to anyone.”

  “M’tok—”

  “Isn’t here! I’m asking you!”

  He scratches at his head, clearly feeling out of his depth with my pointed questions. Up until now, I didn’t realize how much S’bren depended on his brother. It’s becoming clear that one of them is the mastermind, and he’s not in this cave with us. “M’tok is the thinker, I am the doer,” S’bren eventually says. “If he is sure this plan will work, I am sure it will, too. I want to resonate to you, P’nee.” He gives me a look full of longing. “I will be a good mate to you.”

  It’s hard to stay mad when a seven-foot-tall beast of a man is giving you woebegone looks and sad puppy eyes. I’m still frustrated, but all that frustration has nowhere to go. I sigh, determined not to feel pity for S’bren. “Stealing me was wrong.”

  “R’hosh stole his mate.”

  “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” And now I sound like my mother.

  “But they are happy. I would like to be happy with you.” The puppy look is gone from his face, leaving nothing but utter earnest devotion. “Whatever you need from your mate, P’nee, I will do it.”

  “Did you mean for me to get all turned on by the tea?”

  He shakes his head. “It puts my people to sleep. I thought you reached for me because…” He goes silent, and his forehead flushes a deeper shade of blue. “It does not matter. It was wrong. I see that now. I should not have stolen you.”

  “No, you should not have.”

  “I should not have given you visshek.”

  “Damn right.”

  “How can I fix this? I wish to be your friend, P’nee.”

  Gah. I chew on my lip as he declares his devotion. And here I was just thinking to myself the other day about how I was in no hurry to have my freedom taken away from me by resonance. That I was going to enjoy every moment I had of independence before this planet’s biology walloped me and chose for me. Looks like someone’s already decided otherwise.

  “So…what’s this plan?” I indicate he should turn around while I dress, and he does so, crouching low by the fire as I yank my tunic over my head. “You drug your woman, steal her away, and then what?”

  “That is as far as we got.” He grimaces.

  “Dude, that’s a terrible plan.”

  “I am starting to realize this.”

  With my tunic on, I’m starting to become braver. I get to my feet and realize I’m still a little wobbly from the stuff he gave me, so I move slowly over to where my leggings hang near the fire and pull them free. “I can’t believe you did this,” I tell him.

  “Does this mean we cannot be friends?” He watches me, his jaw set, unhappy.

  I want to scream at him. I almost slobbed on your knob! You drugged me! How are we friends? But I know I can’t think of this like I would if he were a human man. He doesn’t grasp how dangerous this is for me as a woman. Somewhere out there, M’tok is probably getting hell from Callie for the same thing, and I’m kinda glad. She’s going to make that man hate life for a while, and he deserves it.

  S’bren is the only one here, though. I curl my cold toes on the rock floor of the cave and then tiptoe toward the front, where the worst of the wind is blocked by the hide stretched over a frame. Some of the wind and snow still trickles in—gaps are left deliberately so smoke can leave—but it lets me glimpse outside. Even in the dark, I can see that it is snowing like there’s no tomorrow.

  That’s going to make a rescue party a real pain in the butt. Any tracks we left out in the open are going to be covered at this point. I glance over at S’bren again. “Did you guys deliberately pick a stormy night to do this?”

  “No. It is the brutal season. I am told most nights are snowy.”

  He’s right. The weather has been getting worse and worse, even though we’re insulated from a lot of it in our tiny beach cove. We’re warned constantly about it by the sa-khui hunters, but it’s hard to see it as reality sometimes because we don’t go that far out into the mountains.

  Especially not as a girl. We’re delicate flowers or something, and we can’t go around without a man. I snort to myself at that thought—how many times have I gone out with Nadine and yet she’s never drugged and kidnapped me.

  “Does anyone know where we went?” I ask him, turning.

  “M’tok. But he is gone with his female.” He picks up a pebble and tosses it aside. “So you…you did not wish to put your hand on me last night?”

  “I’m pretty sure that was the tea you gave me.”

  His shoulders slump and he looks utterly defeated. “I do not like that it made you act in strange ways, P’nee. I did not keep you safe, even from me.”

  I’m having a hard time staying furious. He seems horrified at my adverse reaction. I go to his side and pat his shoulder, well aware that I’m comforting my captor. “Look, you could have just talked to me, okay? If you said Penny, I want to go away for a while and take you with me, I don’t know that I’d have said no.”

  S’bren looks up, brows furrowed. “You would have gone?”

  I laugh because he sounds so incredulous. “Are you kidding me? An adventure beats out sitting around camp times a thousand.” I might have said no if it was just me and him, though. I’d have probably tried to drag Bridget alon
g so things didn’t feel romantic. But I don’t tell him that part. I peer at the snow instead, and move a little closer to the fire to warm my bare feet.

  “I did not know,” S’bren says, and he sounds defeated. Depressed. I give him another pat, but it’s good that he realizes what he’s done. He won’t do it again in the future, and he realizes how problematic his actions are. “I will take you back when the weather clears.”

  I open my mouth to thank him, and then pause. My jaw snaps shut.

  No one knows where we are.

  I should be terrified, but instead, I’m thinking of all the places I’ve wanted to see and been told I can’t because they’re too far away. The fruit cave, the ancestors’ ship, the great purple mountains that look like clusters of amethysts. Heck, the other village with all the ancient huts full of carvings. The sa-khui tribe. There areso many cool locations on this planet that have been described to me, but every time I ask if we can go, I’m given a dismissive answer.

  The weather is too bad.

  Your human legs cannot walk that far.

  It’s dangerous for humans. Take a penis with you.

  Okay, so they don’t SAY penis exactly, but it’s implied. It’s implied that I’m a girl and I have to be protected, and therefore I can’t see shit.

  But no one knows I’m gone or where S’bren has taken me.

  Hmm.

  This…could be exciting. I thump down to the ground and look at S’bren. “So.” I give him my most winning smile. “How far are we from the fruit cave?”

  Because it’s safe to go there now, right? Old Grandfather has been defeated and so there’s no longer a threat to the valley that houses it. And according to Brooke, and Hannah, the fruit cave is warm constantly and the vines drip with fresh fruit. There’s a big pool at the bottom of warm water that you can bathe in all day long.

  I’m thinking it pretty much sounds like heaven.

  And I want to go there.

  S’bren watches me warily. “You are not mad at me?”

  “Oh, I’m still mad. How fast I get over it depends on things. Let’s talk about plans. You said you didn’t have any, right?”