Free Warrior by Cara Bristol

they’d retired. Fortunately, she’d thought to grab some medicinal herbs the females of the camp had collected before she and Urazi had left. Her tea had contained contraceptive agent, while his had an extract to ensure his sleep would be deep to enable her to slip away afterwards.
    Decision made, Anika tightened her fingers around Urazi’s manhood. He grabbed her wrist, and drew her arm away. A lump thickened in her throat at his rejection. Why did it have to be like this? Why could they not have the liberty to choose whomever they desired? Why was it considered perverse?
    Urazi released her and rolled to face her. In the flickering firelight, his face seemed etched in stone, his eyes piercing—yet unreadable. He’d never appeared more alpha and fleetingly she pondered if Protocol made mistakes—misassigned status—for clearly his musculature, his bearing were as fierce as any alpha’s she’d ever known. Commander like. He could stand shoulder to shoulder with Ilian, Dak, or Marlix and, without foreknowledge, one would be challenged to identify who was not Alpha. A frisson of awareness, part fear, part excitement heated her blood.
    He slid his hand into the mass of her hair and wound the strands around his fingers. “Look at me,” he ordered.
    She raised her eyes.
    Tugging on her hair, he drew her face so close that wisps of his breath caressed her face. Then he covered her mouth, and kissed her. Using his lips, and tongue and even teeth, he commanded control of her senses. She moaned in surrender under the pleasurable assault. He plundered, but this was no war she had any intention of resisting.
    Anika wound her arms around his neck. Urazi rolled them over so his weight landed on top of her and continued to ravish her mouth. At last unleashed, his passion poured forth like spring floodwaters cresting the bank.
    Anika mashed her face against his, their noses bumped, and their teeth clashed in a needful dance eliciting moans from her throat and a growl from his.
    He nipped the side of her neck, the tiny sting shooting pleasure darts into her sex. Was this what Omra and Tara had talked about? This crazy, urgent yearning? But where did it lead? And what of the moisture that leaked from her now? She would have pressed her legs together to halt the flow, but Urazi had wedged a strong, sinewy limb between them. With his thigh resting against the mound of her sex came the urge to grind against him in a most uncommon manner.
    She was on the verge of doing so when he ducked his head and captured a nipple in his mouth.
    Pleasure rocketed through her so strong, she gasped. He seemed to hesitate, and for fear he would stop, she threaded her hands through his short alpha hair and arched her back. Moving from breast to breast, he sucked and pulled on the taut peaks.
    Her hips did rock then—she had lost control over her body.
    “Your nipples are as hard as the stones of fruit and taste like berries,” he murmured.
    What could she say? No male had ever made such a praiseful-sounding comparison. Her face heated in embarrassment as more moisture pooled between her legs.
    In a flash of epiphany, she wondered if moisture was related to pleasure. Did the dampness create the pleasure, or did the pleasure result from the moisture? Further inclination to analyze vanished when Urazi pushed both breasts together and alternated between the two, nipping and sucking.
    Her body burned as if she’d slept too close the fire. A sharp shaft of disappointment stabbed at her when he abandoned her breasts and scooted downward, although she found pleasurable compensation in the slight rasp of his hirsute body.
    He settled between her legs, his broad shoulders forcing her thighs wide, exposing her disgraceful wetness. Her face flamed. “Urazi….” She protested, but her breathy utterance sounded encouraging even to her ears.
    He took it that way. Heat flared in his eyes then he lowered his head and touched his mouth to her sex. Employing lips,