It was news to her that the place had a name, but she supposed he knew it since he was obviously referring to the village where she’d been held captive. And he seemed to know she’d been a captive rather than a welcome visitor. “It would be more accurate to say they were warring with us. We sent a delegation to make a treaty, but ….” She broke off and shrugged. “That’s when me and Monica were captured.”

He frowned, as if trying to recall the incident. “The darkling that was with you?”

Indignation fluttered in Noelle’s chest. “My friend with the dark skin,” she responded tightly.

He looked at her in surprise and then with a mixture of amusement and anger. “You are offended by my choice of words and yet you use much the same description. Why is darkling offensive and dark skinned not?”

Uneasiness slithered through Noelle. He was way too big—and powerful—for her to simply dismiss the possibility of pissing him off. “You called her a name. I described her,” she said a little weakly, it having occurred to her that she didn’t have a clue of whether he’d intended the comment as an insult or not.

He looked genuinely puzzled. “We all have names—for ourselves as individuals, for our tribe or clan …?”

Noelle felt her face redden. She didn’t want to try to explain prejudice even if it wasn’t something complicated enough she didn’t feel competent enough to explain it. Instead, she searched her mind for something to change the subject. “K’naiper means sister to Aiper?”

The amusement was unmistakable this time, but he sobered at once. “Yes. More accurately, I suppose, she is the wandering sister. Long, long ago, in the distant memory of the people, she came. She brought much sorrow with her, much death and destruction. But then the god, Aiper, set her in her place and bade her to behave herself or he would cast her from the family once more and she would wander forever. She promised to behave and so Aiper made a place for her, taking this colder path for himself so that little sister could stay warm.”

Noelle stared at him as she absorbed the story of the twin worlds, trying to decide if it was a story he and his people still believed in or if it was just how his people, in their distant, primitive past had explained what must have been a cataclysm to end all natural disasters! It sounded as if he was saying the sister world was a rogue that had wandered into their system and taken up a place, shoving their world further from the sun and making it far less habitable, maybe, than it had been.

But was that true? Or was it just made up to explain things much as primitive humans had tried to come up with stories to explain things that happened around them?

And how had it come about that some of their people were here and others on the other world? Specifically, it seemed that the sexes had been separated and that didn’t seem likely to be accidental at all.

Of course, she supposed they might have been separated and the women thrived there but not here and the men, maybe, were being systematically killed off in the raids these tribesmen made for females? Maybe that explained why the ‘Amazons’ made themselves up to look androgynous? It was to throw off the raiders?

“Your turn.”

Dragged from her thoughts so abruptly, Noelle stared at the Prince blankly. “My turn?” she echoed.

“To tell me about your people,” he prompted. “You see, I have been trying to decide how you can be most useful to me and I thought you might answer that yourself.”

Uh oh, Noelle thought.

Chapter Nine

Noelle wasn’t entirely certain of how it happened. She hadn’t thought she was within reach of the Prince when she’d settled on the stool. Clearly, she’d been mistaken, however, for he simply leaned forward, grasped her arms, and dragged her to him. One moment she was trying to think of something ‘safe’ she could say that would make her sound useful enough to insure her safety without getting her into deep shit. The next, she was sprawled awkwardly across his knees, watching his face go out of focus as it descended toward hers.

She jumped when the heat of his mouth covered hers, sucking in a sharp breath. But that quick intake dragged his scent with it. A wave of debilitating dizziness followed. His taste, as he settled his mouth over hers and plunged his tongue into her mouth, lit her up like a Christmas tree. Electrical sparks zipped along every nerve ending, it seemed. Warmth flowed through her and became molten as he deepened the kiss and began to strum her body with his hands as if he was playing a musical instrument.

It occurred to her as he rose with her and strode toward the bed—she assumed—that she was about to get teased unmercifully—again.

Maybe it was his idea of torture, pleasurable but still miserable dealing with the unsatisfied aftermath?

It could’ve been a very great deal worse, but she wasn’t inclined to think so at that moment.

And yet she also couldn’t see much possibility of assuaging the hunger flowing from him and into her.

He was actually amazingly adept!

He had loosened the waist of the trousers and stripped them down her legs almost before she felt the tug.

Unfortunately, they hung there on the damned boots!

Plus her breasts felt achingly tight and full, throbbing for his touch.

He shoved one hand beneath the tunic and tormented her by plucking at her nipples with his fingers and massaging her breasts all the while he explored her mouth with his and made her drunk with need.

He broke the kiss, grabbed the tunic and jerked it over her face, burrowing his face against her breasts.

Noelle came up off the bed in a bow as he caught one nipple between his teeth and pinched it hard enough it took her a few seconds to decide whether it was more pleasure or pain she felt.

The muscles in her sex were not in doubt. They began to clench and unclench rather frantically, in a milking motion that pumped liquid want through her channel.

He sucked that tormented nipple hard after he’d teased it with the edge of his teeth and then switched to the twin to torture it as he had the first. Noelle grabbed two fistfuls of his long, golden brown hair, discovering it was amazingly silky to the touch.

His head felt absolutely enormous caught between her hands, making her suddenly acutely conscious of just how huge the man was—as if the hand and mouth that engulfed her breast wasn’t enough!

If everything on him was as big ….

He distracted her by leaning away and jerking first the boots off and then her trousers.

Actually, it wasn’t a distraction. It brought her to cold hard focus, ripped away the glow of heated desire.

According to sex class and social protocols, a woman didn’t let a man get that far and then say ‘I’ve changed my mind!’—not if they were smart and wanted to avoid what might turn into deadly opposition to her conflicted desires. Men—Earth men who weren’t savages—weren’t inclined to take rejection well at any point, but they could get really nasty if a woman let them make it almost to the finish line and tried to yank the rug out from under them.

She stared at him, wide eyed, trying to decide if it was possible that she could make it into the bathroom and bar the door before he could catch her.

No, she decided, wasn’t an option at this point if it ever had been.

His chest was almost as broad as she was tall!

The muscles on his upper arms were bigger than her thighs!

Oh my god! The man was a monster!

Tossing his tunic off, he dove at her again, covering her mouth with his.

Noelle struggled to retain her sanity and ignore the lure of his taste and scent and touch.

It was a losing battle.

Everything about the man—including his size—made her drunk with need, hunger, desire.