Keeper of the Heart by Johanna Lindsey
He was no longer interested in the monitoring. “You are still resentful of your punishment?”
“No.”
He raised himself up to demand almost angrily, “Then why are you not happy?”
She almost smiled, he looked so exasperated, but this was no subject for amusement. “I told you, there is something that you haven’t got around to telling me.” A sadness entered her voice when she added, “You may never get around to it.”
Gently now, cupping her cheek in his hand, he said, “Shanelle, I would not deny you mere words if they will make you happy. You are the keeper of my heart, the only one I can ever love. Tell me what I must say—”
“You just said it—I think.” And then, in wonder: “You love me, Falon? Ba-Har-ani warriors actually experience love?”
“Those fortunate enough to find the keepers of their hearts do. But do not tell me this is what you waited to hear, woman, for this was told you.”
“It wasn’t. I wouldn’t have overlooked something that important to me.”
“When I asked you to be the keeper of my heart, I was asking you to accept my love.”
“Well, how was I to know?” she complained. “It’s not as if your country and mine are exactly alike. You have to explain these things to me, Falon.”
“Then let me explain this,” he said as he rolled her over again to assume the position he was most fond of. “My life is yours. My heart is yours. Now do I also give you my child.”
Shanelle gasped at the words, then again as he entered her with exquisite slowness. Then she couldn’t make another sound, for he was kissing her as deeply as he was buried within her, and the feelings that had only just died down from their previous joining rose again with raging swiftness. And it was not long before she climaxed in a starburst of sweet passion, having no doubt at all that her warrior had done as he said and given her his child this night.
When he rolled to his side this time, she crawled onto his chest to assume the position she was most fond of—at least for afterwards. “Don’t you want to hear me say it?”
“Say what?”
“That I love you, too?”
“This is already known to me, woman. I am not as lagging in intuition as you.”
“Is that right?” she growled in mock anger. “Then I guess I don’t need to say it again.”
“I would not mind hearing it on occasion, as well as being shown.”
“Don’t try to make amends now—”
The teasing died abruptly as Shanelle heard a scream, a very frustrated scream that she easily recognized as her mother’s. She groaned and covered her ears, hiding her face against Falon’s chest.
“I am sorry, chemar” he said, holding her tightly, trying his best to soothe her. “I should not have put them in a room so close to ours.”
No sooner had he said that than they both heard Tedra laugh. Shanelle gritted her teeth and made a sound of disgust over the discomfort she’d been made to feel. “I swear, I don’t think my father takes punishment very seriously these days.”
Falon could not help laughing. “When you have had a lifemate as long as he has, you know when she is sufficiently remorseful.”
Shanelle reared up to give him the benefit of a dark scowl. “Are you telling me I’ll have to wait that long before you start easing up on the strength behind my punishments?”
“That is very likely.”
Wanna bet? she said—but not aloud.
Above the planet, the Rover hovered, its communications system humming in a low sound resembling a purr. Brock enjoyed the sound of Martha’s satisfaction. He had been invited to join with her terminal earlier in one of her more magnanimous moods, likely so she would have someone to gloat to. He did not mind, for she had good reason.
He couldn’t resist a little gloating himself. “Your females are both well pleased with my males.”
“Aren’t they just.”
“But Shanelle will come to miss Corth, I think.”
“Why?” Martha replied, adding with confidence, “Shani’s learning how to get exactly what she wants from her warrior.”
“True, but now that she no longer needs Corth, he will be returned to your Tedra, will he not?”
“I suppose.”
There was silence for a moment, then Brock’s hesitant suggestion. “We could collaborate in the creation of a new Corth for Shanelle. My ship happens to be equipped with a Duplicator.”
Martha injected a full dose of surprise into her voice. “Are you suggesting we make a baby, Brock?”
He put some disgruntlement into his own tone. “It was only a thought.”
“Did Falon’s mention of a child get to you, honey?” Martha couldn’t resist taunting.
“Your sarcasm is uncalled for, woman.”
“When did that ever stop me?” she snorted, but after another moment, she said, “You know, your idea isn’t that off the wall. We could program this Corth II from the start to be uniquely Shani’s. But he’d look like Corth, which would annoy that big barbarian of hers to no end, and I definitely like the idea of that.”
Brock came out with a large dose of surprise himself. “Then you agree?”
“Why not?” Martha allowed mildly, as if the idea didn’t thrill her, when it did.
But Brock was so pleased, he tried out something he’d only just recently figured out how to do. He sent her such a powerful surge of energy, it was almost climactic. Martha certainly thought so. She was utterly stunned to figuratively get her own “socks knocked off.”
“How the hell did you do that!”
Brock chuckled. The surge had been sent from his ship, but he had been on hers to experience it with her.
He said smugly, “It was necessary to counter your ability to deny me access. Perhaps now you will not want to.”
He had that right. She’d never felt anything like that before, and already wanted to feel it again. But it infuriated her that he’d figured out something that she hadn’t, and she tried her own simulation, but it wasn’t the same. It was only mild in comparison.
Brock chuckled again, aware of her failed experiment. “Do you want it again, woman, you will have to ask me nicely.”
“Don’t count on it, warrior,” she retorted with as much of a sneer as she could manage.
But they both knew she would.
* * *
Johanna Lindsey, Keeper of the Heart