“Feeling isn’t a war or a price,” Tarrel said behind her. “It’s an extension of the actual experience that fills out the details into something memorable. Like us, on the skiff.”

Thrax laughed. “Tarrel, if you’re trying to make me jealous, you’ll fail. I’m fully aware that a grown woman will have many partners in her life cycle. You and I are only two.”

“I want to be the last,” Tarrel told them.

Thrax’s smile faded. “That’s becoming my equal hope.”

She looked between the two men as their words sank in. She wanted them both. She was attracted to both. She’d never considered a permanent life with any man, but then her kind didn’t generally believe in monogamy. That was an emotional reaction to family that the Elarans didn’t share with other alien species. Yet as these two men shared their thoughts on the subject, she realized that it didn’t scare her or disgust her. It appealed on a level she’d never anticipated.

She’d enjoyed sex with Tarrel. A lot, actually. She wanted to have it again and she wanted to see the look in his eyes when he came inside her and showered her with kisses she knew to be emotionally delivered. She wanted the same from Thrax.

Could both men love her? Continuously? Was there a reason to pick one man over the other? Would they allow her to have both men?

She mentally shook herself. As yet, that hadn’t been offered. She’d gotten too far ahead of herself. What’s to say that after these few days the men would even want more of her? The king had access to any number of women in and outside his realm. He had political attachments and reasons to see those attachments through. Tarrel, too, was a favorite among the women. He was a novelty for Elaran women who wanted to have a man make love to them and lose himself in their bodies like no Elaran man would. Humans wanted him too. As men went, he was a fine specimen in every way.

Neela didn’t want to share either of them. Today they were hers. “I’ll take the antidote before I leave. First, I want to know everything.”

Neela dropped a hand on his bare chest. It trembled slightly as though she weren’t sure of her decision, or was second-guessing it. She didn’t have doubts.

Thrax slid his large hands down her arms to her wrist without breaking eye contact. He seemed to be waiting for her to change her mind. A surge of gratitude tightened her chest with emotion. She’d never questioned her bravery. She’d always looked passed her fear, but her body wasn’t familiar to her at the moment. It wasn’t behaving the way it had always done. Looking into Thrax’s clear green eyes gave her the anchor she needed.

She’d trust him. And she’d trust Tarrel.

“Take her waist,” Thrax told Tarrel.

Tarrel’s fingers clasped her loosely. He moved in close behind. The heat from his body was as much a support as his hands were. She wondered if he knew that she needed him there, as close as possible, in order to trust herself.

Tarrel’s chest brushed her back, and her shoulders relaxed. Nothing in the way he stood felt like he was on guard, which eased her conscience further. Thrax lifted her wrists and clasped them behind Tarrel’s neck. She sank her fingers into his short hair and rested against him as Thrax’s regard drifted over her exposed body.

She affected the king. His eyes had dilated and Thrax’s lips had parted as though breathing through his nose was no longer sufficient. She shifted, watching him watch her. When she opened her legs, his breath rasped heavily. Not quite a sigh, or a gasp, or a grunt, but all three conjoined in a timeless utterance of hunger.

The king untied his draping, and the cloth fell away. Neela bit the inside of her cheek. Where Tarrel’s cock had been generous in length, Thrax’s was full and smooth as it filled.

He reached for the deep vee of her covering and roughly ripped it down the center. She gasped, but held to Tarrel. In this position, her breasts pushed up and out. Tarrel groaned and leaned in to nibble her ear. She turned her head to the side, feeling every pull of his lips track answering tugs in her pussy.

Thrax took one of Tarrel’s hands and pushed it under Neela’s breast. He tapped the tip of his own finger on her nipple, jolting her with sensation she didn’t know how to categorize. Thrax leaned down and claimed her lips with a savage kiss.

She arched to reach him, wanting to hold him closer, but enjoying the position Thrax had put her in, as it heightened her urgency to do more, have more, yet denied her the pleasure of taking it.

Thrax plundered her mouth, suckling her tongue and lips with the gentle edge of his teeth. It left her gasping and wet, and he seemed to know exactly how kissing him had affected her.

Already aroused from the hands-on bath, the subsiding ache began its dull, pounding return. She heard herself whimper almost as though it were some other pathetic woman, not a battle-wise warrior.

But the hidden world of her mind was no longer her own. By choice, she’d made it available for sharing. Perhaps she’d think it a mistake when she came back to herself, but at the moment, her own soft sighs and eager sounds were a revelation of desire. She craved the invasion of these men upon her body.

“Touch me,” she pleaded.

Her body ached for hands to move on her. Yet Tarrel hadn’t changed his position, and Thrax’s rough kiss had grown soft, plying her lips and wakening secret tender parts of her body and mind she didn’t know she had.

Neela tried to curl her leg around Thrax’s waist to encourage him closer, but he held his ground. She wanted to feel the hot prod of his cock against her folds, feel his hands clasp her breasts. Why wouldn’t he begin?

“This is madness,” she rasped. “Why don’t you touch me?”

Thrax’s low chuckle spilled across her ear as he kissed the shell. “And rush your experience? I think not. Delaying the inevitable heightens your pleasure, my love. I must insist that you never forget what happens between us here.”

“I won’t forget. How could I?”

“I’ll see to it all the same,” he murmured.

His hot breath sent shivers over her body. Her nipples tightened almost painfully. The dull throb between her legs became a building sting as need filled her pussy and found no release. She squeezed her thighs together, but Thrax kicked them apart. “Tell me, little dove. Do Elaran men adequately torment your body before sex?” Thrax asked.

Had he entered her mind when he said he wouldn’t? She’d been on a similar line of thought just now. “Elarans do what is necessary to reach satisfaction. They do it well and quickly,” she said a bit defensively.

“As with anything, I’m sure. Elarans are efficient and well trained in every activity.”

Thrax finally touched her, his hand sliding over her drenched pussy. Her eyes nearly rolled back in her head when his light touch didn’t come close to satisfying what she truly wanted from him.

“There’s something to be said for clumsy and inefficient,” he teased. “Or so your body would lead me to believe.”

The king nipped her neck. He moved Tarrel’s free hand to cup her other breast as Thrax bent to flick his tongue over the needy buds.

“Touch her,” he told Tarrel. “Fondle her. I want her much wetter than she thinks is necessary. Keep your legs open, Neela. Don’t deny me.”

Thrax stepped back. Neela offered a wordless complaint. Still he backed away, watching almost leisurely as Tarrel’s fingers found her nipples and began to play.

She cried out. Tarrel lightly bit her shoulder then soothed the bite with the tip of his tongue.

“Want me,” he whispered for only her to hear.

“I do,” she rasped back

His thumb and forefingers caught the tight peaks and pinched rhythmically. He rolled them and plucked, stroked her full, aching breasts. Neela writhed against him, feeling the hard ridge of his erection at the base of her spine.

She rocked against it, wringing a long grunt from him. Moisture touched her where his cock rubbed and she knew he was as painfully aroused as she was. Neela thought she might explode if Thrax didn’t put them both out of their misery soon. But the king calmly lifted a glass of water.

“Touch her cunt,” Thrax told him next. “Push your fingers inside her. Hold her pussy lips apart so I don’t miss anything.” He dragged a chair over and sat eyelevel to her apex. He leaned back as though he had all day to watch her beg to come.

Tarrel reached around her with one hand and parted her pussy. His other hand eased between her legs from behind and two thick fingers speared her trembling channel.

Her hips rocked automatically. She blushed at the telling sign of her need. Control was a dream that had long fled. The men had grown just as intoxicated with her, it seemed. Thrax wrapped his fist around his shaft and Tarrel’s hips canted forward to push against her. Her need sparked theirs.

She no longer feared herself, she realized. There was power and strength in feeling everything these men had to offer.

Her thoughts were stripped from her as Tarrel pumped his fingers. He circled her clit, and Neela’s mind dropped into a swirling pit that spiraled out of control. She clung to Tarrel, giving her body over to his skill. She rocked into each thrust, crying and panting as each sensation took her closer to that precipice she’d been longing for.

“Come for me,” Thrax growled. “Let go. Give me everything you have, Neela.”

His words loosened something in her she hadn’t realized she’d been hanging on to. Her body shook, swallowed itself in all-consuming ecstasy as passion swelled and devoured her in wave after wave of erotic bliss. She screamed, her knees gave out, and someone kept her upright until there was nothing but black and her lungs begged for air.

Dazed, she felt herself lifted and carried. Thick blankets greeted her as her garment slid off her arms, and she was laid out.