Lexi held out her hands, both palms facing the woman, and took a few steps back, sinking down on the edge of the basin. She sighed. Dealing with these savages was exhausting. Behind her, water continued to pour into the basin. She longed to bathe, but she didn’t dare remove the cylerian. If the women got their hands on it, she might never get it back. She’d seen the harsh conditions outside the cave. Unlike her, these people had had centuries to adapt to the harsh climate outside. Without her cylerian, she might not survive.
She was contemplating climbing into the tub with it on when her captor burst into the room, the attendant she’d shoved on his heels. The woman chattered nonstop, pointing and gesturing toward her all the while, probably reciting a list of grievances including Lexi’s failure to drink their nasty-tasting concoction at first.
He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her then said something to the women. They advanced again, one on each side. With nowhere to go, Lexi eyed them warily. Suddenly they both pounced at the same time, curling their fingers around the opening at her mouth to tear off the cylerian.
Calling on skills she’d learned in the hand-to-hand combat drills that were part of her training for the mission, Lexi fought back, tossing one to the ground and giving the other a solid punch in the stomach. The woman let out awhoofand collapsed, hands clasped around her midsection, gasping for breath.
The man’s eyes narrowed. Lexi pressed herself back against the stone basin. She’d never seen anyone radiate such strong negative feelings. On Earth, the injections everyone received didn’t only temper the sex drive. They leveled out nearly all extreme emotions. Exuberance. Rage. Passion. Fear was the only emotion unaffected.
Lexi pegged his reaction as anger. The intensity of it activated every synapse of her fear response.
Two long strides put him at her side. He grabbed her arm and sank down next to her on the rim of the stone basin then dragged her facedown across his lap. Lexi fought, kicking and punching, but she was no match for his greater size and strength.
When his broad palm connected with her backside, Lexi cried out. First in shock then in pain. She struggled even more fiercely. The savage locked her flailing legs between his, shifted her body on his thighs, and whacked her again, spouting off all the while in a harsh tone.
Lexi hardly registered the sound. Her entire being focused on the hand cracking down on her nearly bare bottom. The cylerian might protect against heat and cold, rain and wind. But it did nothing to prevent the burning sting he’d ignited on her backside.
She’d heard of spanking. An ancient form of discipline on Earth, used primarily on wayward youth by primitive people who lacked the ability to control their offspring with reason and logic. But she’d never heard of it being practiced in the modern world.You’re not in the modern world,girl.You’ve been dumped in an uncivilized land filled with crude beings. And, right now, one of them is treating you like a naughty child.
She tried to control her thoughts, send her mind far away from the sensory overload her body was being subjected to. It was no use. Nothing in her training had prepared her for the sound of his sharp, rhythmic swats. The warm hand sending licks of fire dancing across her backside. The iron-hard thighs crushing her nearly naked breasts. The tension radiating from him, tightly controlled power pouring through his body, ready to explode.
She’d never felt so helpless. He whacked her again, and she squirmed wildly, trying to evade his hard palm.
He stopped and shifted her on his lap. In her state of heightened awareness, she caught a strangely compelling scent emanating from him — at the same time she became aware of a growing bulge in his crotch pressed up against her.
Lexi froze, remembering the swollen penis she’d seen on the other man, the way he’d stroked it and leered at her. Now the man who’d protected her was the one in an obscene state of arousal. Would this crude savage try to engage her in some bizarre sexual act after his display of mastery?
She panicked, writhing and struggling. But that only increased the contact, grinding her mound against his engorged member. The fire on her bottom was spreading through her core, flooding her with a different kind of heat. Shocked, Lexi felt slick arousal building between her thighs like it did when she pleasured herself with her holographic device.
A jolt of desire rocked her so hard she shivered.
Chapter Six
“Behaving like a wild... Can’t keep you safe if you…”
Bits and pieces popped into her consciousness. It was like sitting in one of Director Nilsson’s boring lectures, her mind roaming free, reined in from time to time when an occasional phrase intruded on her thoughts.
Lexi forced herself to concentrate. Suddenly the words snapped into focus.
She could understand everything he was saying. Far from primitive guttural noises, the sounds he made formed a rich and expressive language. Capable of expressing complex thought. Some of the words he used were unfamiliar. Lexi thought they might refer to things unique to Iridia — people, places, even creatures for which she had no frame of reference.
To her horror, another thing leaped to the forefront of her consciousness once she made out what he was saying — the fiery sting his palm was creating on her backside. He kept spanking her as he spoke, lecturing her as though she were a wayward child.
“Don’t you know Mara and Nadina are only looking out for your own good? If you don’t bathe in cleansing herbs soon, the rays of our suns will do lasting harm to your body. I don’t know what this odd covering is all over you or what it does, but I do know it has to come off. Now.”
He emphasized his words with firm swats. Lexi squirmed, trying to avoid them, but that only increased her contact with the hard bulge between his legs. She forced herself to remain still, thinking fast.
He had no idea she now knew what he was saying. That might work to her advantage. If they thought she couldn’t understand them, they’d speak freely in front of her. She’d be prepared for anything they planned to do.
Lexi quit struggling and lay across his lap, docile and limp, as though admitting defeat. He gave her a few more smacks, to assert his control once and for all, then stood and pulled her up with him.
He pantomimed taking the cylerian off. Lexi bowed her head and began the slow process of wiggling out of the garment that fit her like a second skin. She worked slowly, stalling for time. The opening around her mouth stretched wider and wider, until she could pull it down off her head.
Her hair sprang loose from its tightly coiled bun. The humidity in the room was much greater than in the climate-controlled environment on Earth, and it fanned out in a mass of golden-brown curls reaching below her shoulders.
His eyes widened. She looked back at him and then at the two women. They both had thick dark hair, straight and shiny, plaited into long braids and tied with leather thongs. Everyone she’d seen had the same dark-brown hair, except for a few men who were bald. Some, like her captor, had streaks of gray here and there, and the old woman’s hair had been nearly white. But she could never hope to go unnoticed, not unless she cloaked herself head to toe. And, from what she’d seen, that, too, would make her stand out.
Everyone was in a partial state of undress. She’d seen quite a few half-naked men in the cavern, their chests as bare as that of her captor. And like most of the other females, the two women wore only a narrow band of cloth over their breasts, crisscrossing in front and tying at the back of the neck. It left the midriff bare all the way to colorful sarong-type skirts riding low on their hips that stopped above the knees.
