Pursued(145)

"What then, honey?" she asked gently. "What is the dream trying to tell you?"

"I don't know." He shook his head and frowned. "But I do know that female is not you. She only takes your shape to trouble me."

"Not me but looks like me. The clone," Lauren breathed, feeling sick. "Is she…do you think it's her?" Every time she thought of the perfect clone of herself which they had left light years away in a far distant part of the universe, she felt both a twinge of guilt and a twist of dread. She had all my memories, she thought. She looked just like me. She thought she was me.

"It may be the clone," Xairn said, frowning. "But I don't know—she takes other shapes too. Other forms and disguises. I don't know if it's her or not—I only know that when she takes your form I'm filled with both confusion and…" He trailed off, shaking his head.

"And what?" Lauren urged him, when he didn't go on. "Go ahead, say it, baby."

"And desire," Xairn whispered in a low, hoarse voice. "But I know it isn't her I desire, it's you. I don't want my body to react to her but it's been so long since we've touched each other—I…I can't help it. Forgive me," he ended, looking down.

"We stopped touching each other because you started running," Lauren reminded him. Her heart ached when she remembered all the rejections of the past few weeks. "You abandoned me, Xairn—sexually, anyway. And now is not a good time for me to be feeling abandoned. These pregnancy hormones…" She sniffed and shook her head, determined not to cry. "They make me crazy. And not just crazy—needy. Hungry. I think you know what I'm trying to say."

"Yes," he murmured and his red-on-black eyes flashed. In their depths Lauren could see an echo of her own hunger. "I can smell your heat. Your need to be taken," he admitted.

Lauren finally lost her patience. "Then damn it, why don't you take me?"

"Because." Xairn looked away again. "I felt such shame at the way I reacted to the dreams. To the female who isn't you but looks like you." He looked up at Lauren. "How could I take you after waking from such a dream? How could I use you to slake the lust that was wrongly woken in me? It would be dishonest…unfaithful."

Suddenly Lauren had an idea. "So let me understand this—you've been avoiding me because this other woman—this dream skank—who looks like me, comes to you in dreams and gets you all hot and bothered. And when you wake up, you're too freaked out and guilty to make love to the real me. Is that right?"

Slowly, he nodded. "Yes."

"Then we just have to get you over those dreams. Tell me something, baby…" Lauren crawled up to him and straddled his thighs so that she was sitting astride him.

"What?" Xairn looked at her warily but made no move to get away.

"Do you remember the way you told me apart from that clone in the first place?" Lauren murmured. "It was by my scent." Reaching down between her legs, she lifted the lace hem of her negligee and slipped her panties to one side. Her pussy was already hot and wet, just from being close to her man again after so long. It wasn't hard to slip two fingers inside herself and coat them with her honey.

"Lauren…" Xairn's eyes were burning with lust and she could feel the hard lump of his cock branding her ass. It only reinforced what she intended to do.

"My scent," she repeated and brought her fingers to his face.

Xairn inhaled deeply and a hungry groan that seemed to come from the bottom of his broad chest escaped him. Gripping her wrist, he brought her fingers to his lips and sucked them deep into his hot mouth.

Lauren moaned softly and felt her insides tighten at the blatantly erotic gesture. God, she was so hungry for his touch—needed him so damn badly. And from the way Xairn was sucking and lapping the honey from her fingers, he needed her every bit as much.

At last he released her hand. "Gods above, Lauren, you don't know what that does to me," he growled.

"Yes, I do," she murmured, smiling. "Would you like some more?" She showed him her well-cleaned fingers. "Or would you like to taste it right from the source?"

With a low groan, Xairn pushed her back on the bed and got between her thighs. "The source," he growled, ripping away her panties. "Gods, how I've longed for this—longed to taste your sweet, wet pussy again."

"Come on, then…" Lauren spread her thighs seductively. "Taste me, Xairn. Take what you need—what we both need."

He pressed his rough cheek against her sensitive pussy and then looked up. "But…the dreams. Don't you hate me?"