Amorous Overnight Read Free Page A

his failure to challenge for higher rank stemmed from a lack of ambition rather than ability. But any male who submitted himself for consideration as second to the minister of the Garathani high council—purely on speculation, before a pending claim was even announced—would have to be very ambitious indeed.
    Or have ulterior motives.
    Stopping beside him, Cecine wondered aloud, “What’s your interest in the matter?”
    Hastion’s tongue darted out to wet his full lips and Cecine’s testicles tightened. He could dream up all sorts of perversion to wreak upon such a mouth, were it attached to anyone but a warrior.
    “I like Shelley, sir, and I don’t wish to see her further traumatized by a forced mating with a male who clearly terrifies her.”
    “It won’t be forced,” Cecine said impatiently. “She will have some choice in the matter.”
    “With all due respect, sir, to mate with you or be parted from her children isn’t much of a choice.”
    Cecine’s brow climbed upward. All due respect, indeed. “And you think mating with two males would make it less traumatizing?”
    After another brief hesitation, the ensign said firmly, “I’m one of the few Garathani males she’s invited to call her Shelley, sir, and she seems more comfortable with me. I believe that will make the transition easier for her.”
    A risky argument, Cecine thought as he continued his slow pacing. Ordinarily, being perceived as no threat by a female would be the deciding factor against any male. The ensign’s failure to challenge for rank, coupled with the fact that his sister had kicked him unconscious in an escape attempt while she was still in her small pretransition form, already made him an unimpressive candidate at best.
    His tendency to participate in sexual demonstrations didn’t aid his cause. Bad enough he’d fucked a Terran female in front of the Alliance medical staff, but demonstrating the use of a masturbation probe for hundreds of Garathani warriors and actually ejaculating before their eyes…?
    He might as well have tattooed DISRESPECT ME on his own forehead.
    Not that he hadn’t done a mesmerizing job of demonstrating the probe, Cecine recalled with an uncomfortable surge of blood into his brief-restricted cock. He’d viewed the recording of the nude ensign’s enthusiastic orgasm more times than he cared to remember in the last ten days and grown hard as a pillar every time.
    He went on the offensive again. “Were you intimate with her at the compound?”
    Hastion’s eyes widened a fraction, then his jaw hardened and he turned to give Cecine an uncompromising look. “No. Sir.”
    “You wouldn’t be the first. There were two other instances of unauthorized intercourse between warriors and married females.” Both males involved had been returned to the ship and permanently removed from the mating rolls, while the females had been offered the choice to return to their husbands or join the ranks of the recruits and be assigned mates. Both had elected to return to their husbands. Cecine didn’t know whom to pity most—the males who’d fallen prey to their own long-denied urges, the females who claimed to have fallen in love with them, or the husbands who’d been betrayed.
    “I would never dishonor my father’s House by violating a council directive, sir,” Hastion said stiffly without looking away, “and I don’t believe Shelley would betray her mate, no matter how comfortable she might be with me or any other male.”
    And the puzzle that was Ensign Hastion deepened. Cecine had never felt any interest in challenging the unassuming young male in the arena the way he did other warriors who needed taking down a notch or two, but he was definitely feeling some interest now. Perhaps too much interest.
    “You realize she may never be able or willing to accommodate either of us in the mating bed, much less bear young,” he said. “Are you prepared to sacrifice your chance at a suitable mate for what may be