Free The Tracker's Quest: (Forced To Serve #6) by Donna McDonald

made the rest of him hard and hurting to have her.
    When she raised her gaze to his, Seta looked to be in great emotional pain. His heart contracted with an emotional reaction so fierce it froze him in place. At the moment he wanted nothing more fiercely than to love and comfort her.
    “You know, I used to wonder if any of your bonding partners ever braided this for you after you’d been with them. That tiny little detail used to eat away at my imagination even though I felt no curiosity at all about what you did with them otherwise. I felt jealous only of someone performing that tiny intimate task—and to this day I have no idea why. All I remember is that a part of me wanted to be the only female who braided your hair for you.”
    Ji swallowed hard. Though not a declaration of love, her statement was a declaration of possession, even if a veiled one. The thought of Seta longing to possess him in any way at all was more thrilling than if she’d simply agreed to be his mate.
    “Since we are confessing—I will tell you I lost count of the females who passed through my bed on the Paladin . I remember only the last one just before you. I remember her because she was the first partner in my entire Siren life that I was unable to pleasure. All I could think about was how she wasn’t you and you didn’t want to be her. My sadness over my seemingly unsolvable dilemma was so great my body wouldn’t respond even in a cursory fashion. My entire family would have been ashamed of my failure if they knew. After her I stopped asking females for bonding and contacted Synar about coming to the Liberator .”
    “So you really did give up being captain of the Paladin because of me,” Seta said.
    Ji stepped closer. “It wasn’t about leaving the Paladin or my work there. It was about needing to be with you. Even though I didn’t understand my true motivation at the time, I now think I knew on some level your destiny was following a stronger path than mine. We are together now and it keeps me sane enough. The least word of kindness from your lips makes me forget everything except remaining at your side. Needless to mention, your invitation to share a cleansing just made my whole trip here worthwhile.”
    Seta shook her head and dropped his braid. They both watched it swing down the front of him and swish across proof of his extreme physical interest in her. The reality of their connection was an uncomfortable tightening in her gut. It signaled a stronger neediness than when he had consoled her while she grieved for Rena. It signaled something growing between them she had vowed never to let happen with any male. She would not be owned. And she had no intentions of giving control of herself away.
    She had issued the invitation as a way of having a private discussion. Her error loomed large between his legs. “What if I changed my mind about the cleansing offer?” she asked.
    Ji smiled as he walked around Seta until he could stop and bend close to her ear. “You can either relieve me with your body, Sweet Joy, or you can watch me relieve myself. If you choose the latter, we’ll consider it training for future times when you decide at the last minute you aren’t in the mood.”
    He leaned in and traced the edge of Seta’s ear with the barest brush of his lips, then righted himself to walk away when she shivered violently. “Come with me,” he ordered, leaving her to follow. “You can decide which it will be after we’ve rid ourselves of Ethosian desert dust.”
    After he’d disappeared from sight, Seta covered her breasts with her own hands, an action which demanded she acknowledge the ache for Ji to be doing it. Because of him she throbbed between her legs, a sensation only the boastful Siren male had ever caused in her.
    Whirling around she marched to the cleansing area, opened the cylinder, and climbed inside. Liquid ran in tiny streams over every muscle of Ji’s body. It even dripped off his face onto her as she crowded