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A low, pleasant rumbling beneath her cheek woke Mia from a deep and dreamless sleep. The best sleep she’d had in ages. She stretched, shifting her leg along a hard length of muscle and her hand down warm, smooth skin.

“Time’s it?” she mumbled.

“Time to rut,” a familiar, humor-tinged voice said.

Mia’s eyes popped open on a gasp. She pushed herself upright and stared down at Zoran’s strong features, horrified. “I thought you were a dream.”

“I can be, if you wish.” His hand covered hers where it rested against him and shifted it lower, his gaze so dark and hot, she nearly melted from that look alone. “Do not stop.”

She stared for a moment at her hand under his, low on his washboard abdomen, just above the thin gray sheet covering his lower body, then yanked it away as if scalded. “Oh, my God. You corrupted me in my sleep.”

“If I had corrupted you, we would now be rutting.”

“Now who’s being predictable?” she huffed. “Besides, you promised to give me some time.”

His green-irised gaze shifted to the wall behind her, and he visibly stifled a sigh. “Very well. Come. You have more to learn.”

He flicked the sheet off and stood, giving her an eye-level view of his amazingly sculpted, nude backside. She goggled at the miles and miles of flexing muscle as he walked toward the bathroom. Honestly, was the man made of nothing but muscle?

Then her memory caught up to her and she remembered the flash of a very hard organ jutting from between his thighs as he rolled off the bed, a very hard, very large organ that promised all sorts of naughty pleasures. An unfamiliar heat settled between her own thighs, warming her to the point of squirming. She hadn’t had a good romp in the sheets, as Leona put it, for at least a year, maybe two, not since that rat bastard Timothy Riley had broken her heart, ending a whirlwind fling that had lasted a scant two months.

Which is what she got for dating a co-worker, albeit one working in an unrelated department.

Zoran stepped into the bathroom, and Mia caught another glimpse of his very un-Timothy like erection.

God. Here she was, acting like a nympho at the first sign of temptation. The barbarian really had corrupted her.

Her bladder awakened, reminding her that she hadn’t tinkled in hours. She slid off the bed and was about to bang on the bathroom door when Zoran reentered the bedroom, still as gloriously nude as when he’d left it.

Mia crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “I need a shower and a toilet and fresh clothes.”

He raked his gaze down her body, and though his face remained as hard as a certain other part of his body, she got a sense that he was displeased. Abruptly, he stalked to the foot of the bed, opened the trunk, and rummaged around in it. Curious, Mia sidled over and peeked over the lid as he pushed aside neatly folded fabric and pulled out a thin, shimmery robe similar in cut and color to the one his mother wore in the screensaver image.

He stood and handed her the robe. “I did not bring appropriate undergarments.”

“I can wash mine,” she replied gruffly, then temptation got the better of her and she held the robe to her chest, measuring the deep red color against her skin, the length against her height. It was too long and probably too loose, but it was so beautiful, his gesture so generous, she didn’t have the heart to complain. “Thank you. I’ll make do.”

He nodded solemnly, somehow regal despite his nudity. “Allow me to demonstrate the toilet functions.”

Her cheeks flared hot again, and she cursed both her fair skin and her modesty. He must think her a prude by now. Which is what she wanted, she assured herself hastily. If he thought she was a prude, maybe he’d prolong this rutting thing as long as possible. She wasn’t so sex starved that she’d fall into bed with just any old stranger, even one with hard slabs of muscle, an intense gaze, and a very promising, er, organ .

Zoran guided her into the bathroom and squeezed into the tiny space behind her, said organ prodding irreverently against her spine. Quietly, he demonstrated how to turn on the faucet and adjust the water’s temperature, how to use the miniscule toilet, and how to extract what he called “bathing scrubs” from the shower stall.

By then, she was nearly dancing from the need to tinkle. “Ok, got it,” she said and all but shoved him out, ignoring the humor softening the hard planes of his face. A few minutes later, her most pressing need taken care of, she stepped under the shower’s weak, tepid spray.

Mindful of his warning about the limited water supply, she squirted a tablespoon of bathing scrubs onto her palm. She’d expected something like liquid soap. Instead, the mixture resembled dark brown mud dotted with charcoal black specks. Cautiously, she lifted the mixture to her nose and sniffed, got a whiff of ocean and sand, and drew back. Not soap, she guessed. Definitely something to query the database about.

Quickly, she scrubbed herself clean and dried off with a thin towel stashed in a cage above the toilet. As she’d suspected, the robe he’d given her fell to the floor when she pulled it on, draping in a pool around her bare feet. She shrugged. Well, he was a lot taller than her. It stood to reason that Xeruvian women would be tall, too.

Carefully, she gathered her soiled clothes into a bundle and stepped out of the bathroom, her finger-combed hair falling in damp rings to her shoulders. The bedroom was empty, but the screen-table was down and food had been left on it. Her muscles relaxed, and she sighed happily. Alone with an alien database. Every research scientist’s dream.

She dropped her dirty clothes on the trunk, then hunkered down in front of the screen, absent-mindedly gnawing on an apple while she dove into an entry on Zephyria’s climate.

Mia wasn’t sure how long she sat at the fold-down console, scrolling through the ship’s database, absorbing every facet of Zoran’s culture and home world that she could fit into her brain. After floundering through the incredibly non-intuitive—to a human, she amended silently—search, she’d chanced upon the Xeruvian equivalent of JSTOR, without the password protection or the sociopolitical bias.

Or, at least, if there was sociopolitical bias, her knowledge of Xeruvian culture was too limited to detect it.

Once there, she managed to find research papers related to her own discipline and was absorbed in a study covering the intersection of biodiversity and crop rotation when Zoran’s hard warmth surrounded her.

She sucked in a gasp and stiffened in his grasp. “Don’t startle me like that!”

“How can you miss the hatch opening?” he chided in that ever-patient tone of his. “You did not finish your food.”

She glanced guiltily at the half-eaten apple she’d shoved to one corner of the console, along with an unopened cereal bar. “I guess I just got carried away. Your scientists have made some fascinating discoveries—”

His tongue raked along the column of her neck, and she squawked and slapped at the arm he’d wrapped around her, pinning her against his hard chest.

“We are not rutting!” she snapped.

“This is not rutting,” he replied. “It is licking. I enjoy tasting you.”

Every cell in her body lit up like a cheap neon sign. “You really need to learn to ask before you touch me like that.”

“If I ask, you will say no.”

Well, he had her there.

He settled her more firmly into the cradle of his body and nuzzled her throat. “Is this a human female pleasure point?”

“I am not telling you that.”

“Do you not wish me to please you?”

His voice had gone husky and a little needy, and her body softened against his. The traitor. She tried pushing him away, even clasped his forearm with her hands, but they refused to cooperate.

“We really shouldn’t,” she whispered.

He laughed against her throat and gently nipped it with his sharp teeth. “And deny ourselves such pleasure?”

“You promised.”

“Yes.” A sigh shuddered out of him, and his breath caressed her throat. “Come, little klika . I have something to show you.”

“I’ve already seen your penis,” she said, then slapped a hand over her mouth as heat of an entirely different kind flooded her cheeks. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe I said that. See what you do to me?”

The corners of his mouth tilted into a feral smile, and he lifted her high, cradling her against his chest as he gazed down at her. “I wish to do more.”

“That’s what worries me.”

No, what really worried her was how easily he slipped under her defenses. They’d barely known each other a full day, and already she’d allowed him to get halfway to first base. By the time they reached Zephyria and the much-dreaded deadline, how much farther would he get? Could she even hold out that long before she completely gave in?

Her thighs clenched together, trembling under the long robe. God. When had she become so easy? She’d never had such a hard time resisting a man’s advances. Not even the Rat Bastard had gotten her so hot so fast, and she’d crushed on him for weeks before their first date.

Her stomach sank as Zoran strode out of the bedroom, still holding her tightly against his gloriously massive chest. There had to be a way to get out of this rutting-mating thing he insisted on before he completely melted her defenses. There just had to be.

Zoran leaned against the wall next to the cargo hold’s interior hatch, his gaze on the women clustered at the far side. The minute Mia had spotted her friends, she’d wiggled out of his embrace and raced on bare feet toward them, holding the skirt of her shinsek’uk high enough to expose an enticing amount of her pale, smooth flesh.

He bent his knee and settled his foot flat against the wall, hoping to hide the erection the sight had caused. Merciful Fates, the way she affected him! If anything, the quickness of his lust reinforced the mating instinct still roaring inside him. Roaring loudly now, he acknowledged grimly, so loudly it threatened to drown out sense. Instinct urged him to cross the room and claim her, there in front of her friends and colleagues, to lift her silky shinsek’uk with the tips of his claws, to surround himself with the welcoming heat of her body and fill her with his.

He forced his urges down, ruthlessly quashing them for his own sake. A warrior who lost control also lost the respect of himself and the people he led. He could not afford such a loss, not when the means to save his people was finally within his grasp.

“Zoran!”

His mother’s sharp tone snapped him out of his thoughts. “Yes, Mother?”

“Has the human female so addled you that you can no longer focus on matters of state?”

He ignored the biting humor in her tone and forced the disgruntlement out of his. “I can do little about such matters from here.”

“Nonetheless, they must be dealt with.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Alara barked out a laugh. “Such obedience! Has the little one broken your resolve already?”

“She does not wish to mate. I fear she may never accept me,” he bit out, and let his foot drop to the floor, his gaze automatically seeking out his female, well aware of what he had not confessed. “I cannot force her to want me, and she does not bend to me as she should.”

“My son, my son.” Alara sighed, then clicked her teeth together once. “You have never liked when your problems could not be solved by strength alone.”

“I am more than muscle and bone,” he grouched.

“And yet, you talk of forcing her.”

A harsh breath hissed out of him, and he straightened away from the wall. “I have said I will not use force.”

“Did you?”

“Mother,” he said, a warning note underscoring the word.

“So like your father,” she murmured. “Rushing headlong into a fray when subtlety would work better.”

At the reminder of his father, the mating instinct withered under an onslaught of shame. “I am not my father,” he reminded her. His father would never have missed in the same situation.

“You are very like your father,” Alara countered harshly. “Honorable to the last. Do not assume the burden of his choices. He would never have asked that of you.”

Her words echoed his own to Nyklan, too closely for his liking, and he found himself voicing his deepest fear. “What if honor is not enough for her?”

“My son, you are a warlord, worthy of any woman the mating instinct chooses for you. Mia is a wise female, is she not? Thus will she learn to love you as you will learn to love her.”

He could find no counter to that, and after a moment, his mother continued.

“Seduce her, my son, but slowly. Give her time to know your heart. Show her who you are.”

He huffed and clicked his teeth together. Had he not been doing exactly that?

“Do you care for her?” Alara asked, her tone surprisingly gentle.

“I could,” he said slowly. “In time. She is an unusual female, as small and curious as a child, intelligent and questing. Strong of spirit.”

“You admire her.”

Mia glanced up and met his gaze, and just as quickly glanced away. His erection, softened by the conversation with his mother, twitched to life. Just one look and the mating instinct surged forward. She had only dared touch him in her sleep, had not stroked his horns or bitten him, and already she affected him so.

He quashed another sigh. “I do. But she is human, and humans are weak. I fear she may not be strong enough to survive our first mating, let alone the mating frenzy.”

“The Fates have given us guidance, my son,” Alara intoned solemnly. “All will be as it should.”

The ancient proverb soothed him in a way that nothing else she said had. Yes, all would be as it should. Mia would accept the mating bond, she would give him many fine sons and daughters, and his people would survive for another generation. By the ashes of his father, who had sacrificed so much, Zoran would accept no other outcome.

“Now,” his mother continued briskly. “Kaelen Drexus has forwarded a proposal requesting that all unmated warriors be given a chance to try the human females.”

“Kaelen Drexus.” Zoran’s upper lip curled, baring his teeth. “If he wanted a human mate, he should not have opposed me at the Warlord Council when the matter was discussed.”

“He has the right,” his mother reminded him. “The Council agreed—”

Zoran clicked his teeth together. “I lead the Council.”

“And thus must you be its greatest champion.”

“You should have taken the seat, Mother.”

“I could not deprive you of such joy.”

His bark of laughter was loud enough to draw Mia’s gaze. She smiled shyly at him from behind a curtain of her silky hair, and the need to touch her rose so swiftly, he took half a step toward her. “I can find my own joy, Mother. We shall speak of Drexus’s plea at another time. Peace be unto you.”

“And unto you.”

Zoran flicked off the call on his wristcom, his gaze yet again seeking his mate. Show her who you are, his mother had counseled. Aye, he should show her the warrior he had become. Thus could he use force to sway her without using force against her.

Decision made, he contacted the other warlords and commanded them to gather in the cargo bay bearing light weaponry, all save Nyklan who had taken watch on the bridge and would not agree to Zoran’s plan anyway. Most agreed eagerly, even those reluctant to accept human mates. Zoran closed off the last call, satisfied, and stalked across the cargo hold. His little klika had had enough time with her friends. It was time for another lesson, one she might enjoy learning as much as he’d enjoy teaching her.