"Taurus, my child belongs to my people. Look."

Although that might be the last thing he wanted to do, he had no choice. The Maia-figure had reached a collection of huts, and a number of people were coming out of them and enthusiastically greeting her. An older woman who he didn't think was The Lady placed a cape around Maia's shoulders and then dropped to her knees, widened Maia's stance, and began what he had no doubt was a gynecological examination although Maia continued to stand.

"Who is she?"

"My grandmother. She will guide me during birth, and when my child is born, she will wrap it in furs and take it to our spirit-leaders to be blessed."

Your child? What about me? s.h.i.t, that's right. I have a business to try to save. "What then, Maia?" he challenged. He tried to focus on his company and the pride, effort, and determination behind it, but he couldn't. "Just because I caught that priest's robe on fire doesn't mean the threat to your way of life is going to go away. Your people don't know how to fight for their rights. You can't guarantee that our child will be safe."

"The child is my people's hope, our future. He will carry the clan's soul and spirit, and yet he will be more. His blood will be that of Taurus the bull. He will have great courage and that courage will protect our way of life."

Taron had never seen himself as a parent. To his way of thinking, a child needed a full-time father, and his company claimed so much of him that he wouldn't be able to give his children the love and attention he'd never gotten. His son-son!-was nothing more than a collection of cells right now, and yet...

His hand was less than steady as he focused on the dagger. He wasn't sure what he wanted to have happen; the last thing he expected was to have her image fade and be replaced by one of him.

He was standing in a ma.s.sive, expensively decorated living room, something that would grace the pages of an upscale architectural magazine. The ceiling was ridiculously high, the white leather couch, so large he wondered how they'd gotten it through the door. A large-screen TV and entertainment center dominated one wall. The carpet felt lush under his feet. No doubt about it, the place belonged to someone who'd made it.

"Where are you?" Maia asked.

In the home I promised myself I'd buy if I defeated the take-over attempt, he nearly told her but couldn't spit out the words. "That's what houses-huts-look like where I come from," he said instead. "At least some do."

"Where are the others?"

"Others?"

"Who lives there with you? Surely it is too big for one person."

Surely.

He didn't think he was capable of manipulating an image, but by concentrating, he propelled himself through opulent rooms until he opened a pair of double doors and found himself in a bedroom nearly large enough to play football in. The king-sized bed was masculine with a dark, wood headboard and a royal blue bedspread.

"What is that?" Maia asked.

"Where I'll sleep."

"Who-who sleeps there with you?"

"I'm not sure." Maybe no one.

"It is so big. Perhaps many people-?"

"No." He rested his hand on her thigh. "That's not the way it's done in my time. The only one who'd share that with me would be a woman."

She didn't say anything, but he could hear her quickened breathing.

"What?" he asked. He started working his fingers toward her c.u.n.t. "How do you feel about that?"

"About-what you are doing to me?"

"That too. I was talking about my bringing a woman to my bed."

Not looking at him, Maia drew the dagger out of his grasp and laid it on the ground, stone down. So much had happened since she'd first approached Taurus, but this morning none of that mattered. Without checking it, she knew that her wound had nearly healed, just as her body told her she was carrying Taurus' son. When The Lady had chosen her to mate with the bull from the future, she'd willingly accepted her role, but that's all it had been back when she was still a virgin-her responsibility.

Since then everything had changed.

"When will you leave and go live in your house?" she made herself ask.

"I don't know."

"It must be soon. Your time waits for you. You said you had important things to do."

"I guess."

She couldn't think of anything else to say; just the thought of his walking out of her world brought her to the brink of tears. She should stand, pick up the dagger and return to her people so The Lady and elders could tell her what she must do next-and learn what the priests and soldiers were doing. But how could she, with Taurus' hand on her?

Barely believing what she was doing, she took hold of his wrist and guided him closer to her baby-place, her p.u.s.s.y.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

She wasn't sure of anything, least of all herself. Right now the only thing that mattered was finding escape from the image of each of them walking alone. And only one thing would bring that escape.

"There-there was no one in your bed," she managed. His fingertips brushed the hair around her p.u.s.s.y, but already she was losing touch with her surroundings.

"No, there wasn't."

"If-if you could bring a woman there," she managed, "a woman who has come for s.e.x, what would you have her do?"

"That's a h.e.l.l of a question."

"You have not thought of such a thing?"

"I'm a red-blooded man. Of course I have, practically full-time, back when I was a teenager."

He started rolling some of her pubic hair back and forth. Because he was doing so gently, it didn't hurt, but it wouldn't take much to turn pleasure into pain. Despite that, she trusted him.

Trust this man who the stone said would live alone in a great house?

"What about you?" he asked. "Back when you were a virgin, didn't you have thoughts-needs? Don't tell me you never touched yourself here?"

He began a slow circuit of her p.u.s.s.y, not touching her hungry l.a.b.i.al lips but their outsides. Just like that, she felt as if he'd touched her with a burning branch. She braced her arms behind her and leaned back so he could have easier access.

"You're incredible, Maia. Your p.u.s.s.y's a playground to you, isn't it? No hang-ups."

He'd said that word before. She wasn't sure what it meant except that to have a hang-up meant she wouldn't want him to touch her p.u.s.s.y, her c.u.n.t.

"No," she told him and slid closer to him.

"Whew. You've got that right."

He'd completed one journey and had started another. This time his fingers tiptoed closer to her c.u.n.t lips. The blaze he'd started burned hotter. She wanted him to put his fingers deep inside her so she could close her muscles down around him and keep him there. If she didn't, when this last mating was over, he'd go back to his world and the things that were important to him, and she'd...

With a start, she realized he'd completed his second journey around her s.e.x-place. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s felt hot and heavy as she waited for him to start again. He didn't.

"I don't want this to be fast, Maia," he said. "I want it to last."

"So-do I."

He sighed, the sound long and slow. "s.h.i.t, I don't want to think. That's the h.e.l.l of it, I don't want to think."

They could do that, couldn't they? Just be?

Chapter Twelve.

Taurus hadn't told her what he wanted her to do, but when he took hold of her blood-stained gown, she lifted her arms so he could pull it off. Then she said she wanted him naked and he complied. Maybe he'd wanted her to disrobe him, but she didn't trust her strength. Besides, she loved watching him unfasten his strange clothes and push what he called his slacks down his well-muscled legs. Even before he removed his briefs, she saw enough of his c.o.c.k to know it was large and hard enough to completely fill her.

And not just her p.u.s.s.y.

"There is a thing husbands and wives sometimes do," she said when he stood naked over her. "Not always does a man put his c.o.c.k in a woman's p.u.s.s.y."

"Is that a fact?" He was looking at the s.p.a.ce between her legs. "And how do you know about that?"

"You know my people do not sleep each to their own house. That way, together, we can share what we have."

"Maybe it's better that way," he muttered. "So you've watched more than just your parents going at each other? Having s.e.x, I mean."

"Yes." She bent her legs a little to make it easier for him to see her p.u.s.s.y. Although he was no longer touching her, the fire he'd started hadn't gone out, and she felt warm fluid building inside her. "Sometimes the women take their husbands' c.o.c.ks into their mouths. Do you like that?"

"You're a.s.suming I've, ah, had the pleasure of that experience?"

"Have you not?"

"Guilty as charged, but don't ask for details because you're not getting them." He lowered himself to his knees and was so close that she could easily stretch out her toes and rub them against him. She'd have to change positions to reach his c.o.c.k however.

"You might have been a virgin," he said. "But you're pretty earthy. I think-maybe that's what I sensed when you walked up to me that first time."

She wondered if he had any idea how nervous she'd been. More than that, she wanted to ask if he too had to guard against thoughts of what would happen when this mating was over.

Determined to put that off, she slid closer and spread her legs so he was now between them. He wasn't smiling, and his eyes seemed to have sunk deep in his skull. "What are you thinking?" she made herself ask.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"That's right, Maia. My thoughts don't go beyond this moment. I won't let them."

She reached out and grazed a fingertip over the underside of his c.o.c.k. As she did, the sac where his seed were stored, tightened. Curious about what else she could make them do, she cradled them in her palm and then folded her fingers over them.

"I think-" He kept his eye on what she was doing. "That might be what they mean by having a man right where you want him, or maybe it's having my b.a.l.l.s in the palm of your hand."

"This." She lightly jiggled his b.a.l.l.s. "This is an amazing thing. So soft."

"So vulnerable."

So am I, she nearly told him. Because she didn't dare, she released his b.a.l.l.s and slid her fingers over his c.o.c.k. Although his skin here was just as soft as the flesh over his b.a.l.l.s, beneath that he was all hardness, all strength. "How were you injured?" she asked.

"Injured?"

She indicated the k.n.o.b at the top. "The flesh which covers a man's c.o.c.k is missing. You cannot have been born like this. Who hurt you?"

He shrugged. "Probably the pediatrician. I was circ.u.mcised at birth so my memory's pretty sketchy."

"Cir-c.u.m-cised? What is that?"

"That-that flesh you're talking about is called foreskin. For reasons I'm not going to go into, the majority of American boys have that removed."

"How cruel!" Did he want her to kiss him there? Maybe he didn't want to be reminded of the pain. "I would hate to live where such things are done."

"It's all right. I have no memory-"

"But why?"

"Maia, I'll never be able to explain everything about my time and people."

And it doesn't matter because when you return to it that will be the end of us.

Although the ground wasn't free of twigs and other sharp things, she didn't hesitate to position herself on her side so she could get her mouth close to Taurus' c.o.c.k. It was larger than she'd expected, at least it felt that way against her lips. Despite her initial shock, she opened her mouth and licked the tip. The tiny bit of moisture there tasted salty.

She didn't expect this to happen, but her p.u.s.s.y moisture increased, and she involuntarily squeezed her thighs together. He must have seen because he leaned over and ran his hand over her hip. Just like that, her p.u.s.s.y-fire increased. Much as she wanted to spread her legs again so he could play there, she didn't. Soon, yes, but now was for him.

She thought he'd warn her to be careful not to bite him, but he didn't. Every man acted as if his c.o.c.k was precious, and she wanted Taurus to know she understood. After licking him again and hearing him gasp, she opened her mouth as far as it would go and settled it around him. She wanted to feel him deep in her throat and give him shelter there, but she might gag if she went any further. If they had more time, more days and nights together, she'd learn- No! She refused to take her thoughts beyond now.

Her c.u.n.t was deep and large enough to swallow all of him; it seemed cruel that her mouth wasn't made the same way. Just the same, she managed to draw her tongue out of the way while he was going in. Now she touched, licked, and caressed every bit of his c.o.c.k that she could reach. His hold on her hipbone tightened. Closing down with her lips, she alternated between pushing and pulling motions.

He must have liked that, because he took hold of the sides of her head and helped with the rhythm. Having his c.o.c.k in her mouth, close to her teeth, gave her an unexpected sense of power. Was it possible, did men sometimes release their seed inside a woman's mouth? If so, what did the women do with it? Those questions kept her from concentrating fully on what she was doing.

Although she hated to, at length there was no denying that her jaw muscles were getting tired, and she reluctantly pushed him out of her. Instead of leaving him completely, she cradled his tip between her lips, softness against softness, moisture mating with moisture.

"That was mind-blowing," he whispered. "Are you trying to make me your slave?"

"My people do not have slaves!" she gasped, appalled. "Only barbarians do."

"That's a figurative slave, not literal," he told her. "And I'm glad to know that. Now, because I seem to have broken your concentration, it's my turn."