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  "The plague," put in Fiyero.

  "But the ones who didn't die passed on that genetic trait to their offspring. It became the dominant trait. A survival trait. The first time you made love to someone and exchanged fluids, the virus entered your bloodstream, altered the chemical reactions in your brain and bam...monogamy."

  "Wow." It wasn't the smartest thing she could have said, but the only word she could form.

  "Yeah, wow." Ghislain laughed. "Like I said, you won't read about that in the Xanderran history books. Nobody wants to admit this didn't happen by accident. You've got to go into the jungle to hear those stories, straight from the Esheethim themselves, and even they don't all believe it. What we do know is that we carry the virus and they're immune to it."

  "Crazy, half-ass theories," Del said. He'd opened his eyes now. "Nobody knows for sure if they're true."

  "And most people don't care," said Fiyero.

  "If it's a virus," Linna said, "can't there be a cure?"

  All three men swiveled their heads to stare at her. One by one, they began to laugh. Fiyero took her wrist and Del's, put them side by side, and she could see how the lines that made up her name interwove with his to make one flowing design.

  "The only cure is death." Fiyero passed his thumbs over their wrists. "And not many people choose that, huh?"

  She shook her head. "No. I guess not."

  She looked at Del, whose eyes were blazing with a look she knew well. He ran his tongue over his lower lip, and just like that, she was on fire for him again. The inking on her wrist flared, stinging, but the pain was sweet like a love bite.

  "Uh-oh," she heard Ghislain say, laughing. "Second stage setting in."

  "First comes the happy, next comes the humpy." Fiyero stood up and pulled Linna and Del's arms until they stood up, too. He pointed toward a door she hadn't seen before. "Go on through there, you two."

  Del pulled her into his arms, then lifted her and strode toward the smaller room. He kicked the door shut behind them and fell with her onto the bed that took up nearly the entire space. She was too horny to be stunned.

  The robe she wore had no convenient stickseam. Del pushed the fabric up around her hips and groaned aloud at the sight of the sheer briefs she wore beneath. Though the panties covered her from hips to thighs, the material was completely transparent. She shifted, opening her thighs, and he groaned again.

  In the next second his mouth was on her, tongue stabbing her clit through the thin material. He licked her. The rasp of the cloth on her aroused bead sent her hips jumping upward. Her back arched. She yanked the robe up over her head and tossed it, not caring where it went, only wanting to be naked under him.

  "Take them off," she urged, but Del only licked her again. He replaced his tongue with his finger, stroking her clit in a pace too slow for her taste. She wanted to get off now, to scream and writhe. She wanted to come, hard, but he kept teasing her.

  "Del, I want you to fuck me."

  His head dropped onto her hip and he continued to press gently on her clitoris. Still the orgasm eluded her, danced just out of her reach, making her growl and moan and wiggle underneath him.

  "Make love," Del said.

  Linna looked down at him, to see him looking up at her. "What?"

  He pushed himself upward until he hovered over her, his body weight pressing her down into the soft mattress. How had he gotten naked without her knowing? He kissed her. "Make love. Not fuck."

  She smiled. "All right. I want you to make love to me, Del."

  "I want to make love to you, Linna. I want to so much it hurts." He licked his lips, and then his tongue flickered over hers, tickling.

  "We can't have that," she replied. "Maybe if you show me where it hurts, I can kiss it and make it better."

  Del ducked his head and ran his tongue along her jaw before rolling onto his back beside her. He lifted up his elbow. "Hurts here."

  She kissed it, taking the time to taste his skin. "Better?"

  He nodded and put a finger to his chest. "Here, too."

  She bent over him and kissed the spot he'd indicated. It was temptingly close to his nipple, so she kissed that, too. It didn't seem fair to ignore the other one, so Linna gave that one some attention as well. They both stood up satisfactorily, two hard buttons on his smooth, muscled chest. The ring beckoned and she licked him there, too. Then she nibbled.

  Del's cock fit her hand just right. Linna stroked him as she sucked and licked his chest. When she let her hand slide down to tickle his balls, she looked up long enough to ask, "Any place else?"

  "I think you're touching it right now," Del whispered.

  "Kiss that?" She pretended to be surprised. "I don't know if I should. It looks dangerous."

  Del's body wiggled with his silent laughter. Linna scooted further down the mattress to look more closely at his cock. She breathed on it first, still lightly stroking his balls. Del's laugh became a groan.

  "I mean, you could probably kill someone with that thing," she said. She licked away the small jewel of fluid glistening on the tip of his cock. "And you want me to put that in my mouth?"

  "Sheol, yeah," Del said. "Please."

  As if I wouldn't do it, she thought with a grin. She took him into her mouth and as far down her throat as she could manage. With Del's perfect proportions, it was no easy feat to make love to him this way, and Linna reveled in the taste of him as she moved up and down on his shaft.

  His hand nudged her hip and urged her to straddle his face. At last he tore away the thin panties she'd begun to hate. Completely bare, she let him pull her down toward his waiting mouth, and when his tongue licked her, she shuddered instantly.

  His cock twitched in her mouth as she sucked. She was going to come. She couldn't hold back, not now, not with his dick in her mouth and the taste of him filling her, not with his tongue and fingers on her pussy. She was coming, and Del was coming, too, and they came together in a loud, messy tangle of limbs and mouths and sheets.

  Somehow, they'd managed not to fall off the bed. Linna blinked. Whatever she'd drunk was wearing off, taking with it the blurry haze, but leaving behind the heat of desire. Her body limp, she rolled onto her back and pillowed her head on Del's thigh.

  "After sex like that, I have to wonder if I'll ever be able to do it again," she said.

  "I hope you will." Del reached down to stroke her hair. "Maybe later today."

  She rolled her eyes, pleased but pretending scorn. "You're insatiable."

  Del sat up and lifted her to him for a kiss. "Yeah."

  "You're not even apologetic," Linna said.

  "Should I be?" He raised one eyebrow.

  "No." She kissed him thoroughly, then snuggled into his arms with a sigh that became a yawn. "What was in that drink?"

  He didn't have time to answer her. The door flew open and Linna looked straight into the mean end of a gun.

  Chapter 15

  "You didn't have to arrest us," Del said to his father. "We'd have been here on time."

  "Your mother seemed to think otherwise." Noar Tennvic tapped the arm of his chair, face inscrutable as it always was when he thought he was right and Del was wrong.

  From beside Del, Linna made a loud noise. "Del's mother needs to take a few steps back."

  Noar's eyes flickered, the only evidence of how Linna's words affected him. "Nobody's speaking to you."

  Linna visibly tensed, and Del put a hand on her shoulder to keep her from saying more. "Aba, Linna is my behshera."

  Noar snorted and flicked his fingers dismissively. "You ran away from home, from your duties and your family, because you didn't want to make a behsherit with someone. Now you come home with this? She's not even Xanderran."

  Del kept a grip on his temper. "I didn't intend to come home. We just ended up here."

  "Delek, do you think that makes me happy to hear?" Noar shook his head. "The man who takes this seat of power from me must be a leader. He must know his own mind, know right from wrong, and be a