All the ideas he’d had about babying her that planet rotation—carrying her to his sleepdisk and feeding her from his own fingers—faded. Which was fine. She’d become a distraction. He needed to be focused on his work. She played a part in that work, but that was all. Somehow he’d allowed her human wiles to activate something in him—something that sparked and sputtered and exploded with life. But that tremendous energy was dangerous. It made males lose their focus, lose their control. Zandians, in general, were quite even-keeled, and he’d been the least emotional of all.
Science. Data. Medical studies. Those were the things that mattered to him.
Still, something wedged in the door of his heart as he attempted to slam it shut.
His female was unhappy. The itchy, achy need to fix the situation kept creeping back, no matter how many times he shoved it away.
With a sigh, he released the clip on her ankles. “Release wrist cuffs.”
She didn’t exactly glare at him, but there was a sullen set to her mouth as she regarded him warily. He scooped her up and carried her to his room. “Cage or my sleep disk?”
Why, in the name of the true Zandian star, am I offering her a choice? She was his slave. His test subject.
But his heart, his body, refused to acknowledge what his mind screamed.
Must care for her.
“Sleepdisk.” Her arms didn’t circle his neck. She didn’t lean her head against his shoulder.
He set her on her back on the mattress and propped her ass up with a pillow. Then he flicked the loose end of the coverlet across her naked body. “Don’t move from this position until I tell you. Understand?”
She nodded.
“Say it.”
“Yes, Master.”
“You’re trying my patience this planet rotation, Bayla. I don’t know what has you out of sorts, but you’re this close to getting that pretty little bottom spanked.” He held his forefinger and thumb a small width apart to illustrate.
Her jaw clenched, and she looked away from him. “Yes, Master,” she mumbled.
Things still seemed unsettled, but he didn’t know how else to straighten them. His eager-to-please slave had fled, and now he realized her docility, her obedience—had he even imagined...affection?—had nothing to do with him. He wasn’t a better master than Zander had been. He remembered when the young prince had first taken Lamira and had called Daneth in exasperation and frustration with her disobedience. No, Daneth had simply been lucky that this particular female had been properly trained first. Trained by some other being. Why did that thought make his fingers clench into fists?
Punishment was what he had recommended to Zander. Striking human females on their buttocks and thighs caused pain but did no physical harm. This manner of chastisement, especially with required nudity or with the insertion of plugs in the anus, humiliated the female, and thus helped her find submission to her master. Or so the research had shown. He hadn’t found punishing her unpleasant. In fact, he’d loved watching her rounded posterior turn pink and squirm under his hand. Knowing it aroused her had made it all the more pleasurable.
But, for some reason, he hesitated to punish her now. Perhaps he had enjoyed her voluntary submission so well that forcing it on her seemed wrong.
He shook his head to clear it. Zander’s decree she wasn’t actually a slave had him thinking too much. She as his to punish, regardless. She must show respect and obedience or suffer the consequences.
He returned to his lab and watched the hologram of the implantation once more. What if it didn’t take?
He’d only created one embryo for this protocol and had used two eggs. The other egg hadn’t proven viable. He only had one more left if this implantation didn’t take. If that one wasn’t healthy, the future of his species—at least for pure bred Zandians—would be hopeless.
He returned to his chamber with two needles and vials of hormone cocktails for Bayla and found her still in position, but with her arms folded across her chest in subtle rebellion.
~.~
She wanted to hate Daneth. Sometimes he made it easy, barking orders and acting like a typical high-handed master. Nothing she wasn’t used to, but somehow more irritating coming from a male who had also brought her to orgasm on numerous occasions.
But, sometimes, he made it hard. Like when he’d brought her into his chamber to make her more comfortable. Obviously, he hadn’t had to do that. And she hadn’t been begging him. In fact, she’d been acting like a brat, and he still did it.
What did that say about him? Did he like her as much as she sometimes imagined?
He’d certainly seemed incredibly satisfied with her the previous planet rotation.
But she didn’t want to soften toward him, especially because she was now hell-bent on ruining his implantation procedure. It would be easier to thwart his important endeavor if she thought of him as a heartless ass.
“What is that?” she asked, eyeing the needles in his gloved hand.