LOGAN (The Innerworld Affairs Series, Book 5) (19 page)

"Nice to see you again, Parisia," he said when she was close enough for him to confirm her identity. "I didn't drink any water, like you said. What's in it anyway? Some kind of tranquilizer?"

"Something like that," Nadia answered brusquely. She had been dying for this hour to arrive all day and she had no intention of wasting one more second than necessary on foolish conversation. She was more than ready to get on with it but she remembered the procedure from the previous night and knew he required certain actions before he could deliver what she needed. "You may ask your question after and I will answer, as I did last night...
if
I find your performance satisfactory."

"Oh, I think you'll be satisfied with what I'm going to show you. And I have a big surprise for you at the end."

There was something different about him tonight, Nadia noticed. He seemed more sure of himself, even smiling at her with a hint of mischief. The pulse between her legs throbbed a bit stronger as she anticipated what he may have planned for her. Her fingers grasped the neck closure of her caftan.

"Wait," he said, taking her hands in his and lowering them to her sides. "Part of what I have to show you is the undressing."

Nadia had been undressed by Fulton a thousand times and couldn't imagine how it could be done differently but she was willing to give the Earth man a chance to surprise her. "Go on."

Her first surprise was that he didn't immediately remove her caftan. Instead, he ran his hands through her hair, over her face, and down her clothed body. He continued to stroke her in that manner as his mouth pressed to hers—
kissing
, he had called it. Shortly after his tongue began its interesting little dance in her mouth, she felt the urge to touch him back in the same ways and was rewarded with an approving murmur from him.

The removal of their clothing took place an inch at a time, and more touching and kissing accompanied the gradual exposure of naked, tingling flesh. The law against men touching women in her world was fundamental to their way of life. And yet, Nadia couldn't help but wonder why women would deny themselves this delicious entertainment. How could they believe something that felt this good was detrimental?

As Ray Higgs's mouth closed over her nipple, concern over the other women's beliefs fled her mind. She only knew that nothing had ever been as exciting as what this man was doing to her and she didn't care if she was the only female in her world who knew about it.

So caught up in a whirlpool of sensation, she noticed, but didn't care why he tossed her caftan far from where she was standing. All that mattered was that he lowered her to the grass and was rubbing his nude body against hers. She parted her legs for his entrance but received her second surprise instead. As he buried his face in her womanpiece, she squealed with shocked delight. The notion streaked through her brain that she could teach this trick to Fulton, then, in the next instant, only one thought remained.
More
.

She was lost to the desperate hunger he aroused, fed and aroused again. She climaxed several times and yet she still felt the clawing need to have his manpiece ramming into her body.

She heard herself cry out to him, begging and pleading in a way no woman of Heart would ever demean herself and finally,
thankfully
, he gave her what she demanded.

"
Now!
" he shouted.

"
Yes!
" she cried back. "
Now! Now! Now!
" The explosive release hurled her to the very edge of consciousness, where her weightless body spun out of control in a sea of darkness. As she floated back to awareness on wave after wave of pleasure, she felt the man abruptly shift his position so that he was straddling her hips and pressing her shoulders to the ground in the most peculiar fashion.

All of a sudden, her hands were yanked over her head, her legs shoved together, her wrists and ankles bound so quickly, she was immobilized before she was fully alert.

"What is the meaning of this?" she screeched indignantly. "Release me this instant!" She glared up at the man she had mistakenly assumed was under her control then realized too late they were no longer alone.

"Ride's over, sweetheart," Higgs said with a grin. "Time to pay up."

"Okay, Higgs," Logan said. "We'll take it from here." As Higgs rose to his feet, Logan's gaze dropped to his sex, which hadn't yet gotten the message that the game had been cut a few seconds short. He shared a look of amazement with the others as they realized the little man was
not
built proportionately all over.

Some of those looks turned to envy as Alicia and Lee stepped forward to assist the hero into his clothes then offered to escort him back to his tent... with Sergeant McKay's permission. Logan gave it but told them to first let the major know they had their hostage.

As they saluted and walked away smiling, Logan thought the last three days held more surprises than the previous three years. With a shake of his head, he got back to the business at hand. "Gianni, check her clothes for that weapon Higgs mentioned."

"You have no right to take what is mine!" she squawked. "I
order
you to release me! You will all be severely punished for this impertinence!"

Logan decided they would be better off with their eardrums left intact and promptly rectified the problem. He pulled off his shirt, twisted it into one long band and, covering her mouth, tied the makeshift muffler behind her head. Her first reaction was incensed shock but as she checked out his bare chest, her nostrils flared as if catching an intriguing scent and a predatory gleam filled her eyes. She was clearly considering taking him on for dessert. He hoped all of her kind weren't as hungry for men as she was or he was going to have one hell of a time convincing his team to fight for their freedom.

His gaze shot to Gianni to see what was taking him so long and caught the man staring at the woman with his mouth open. Despite her bindings, she was managing to move her thighs and hips to relay her message of sexual need loud and clear. "Gianni!"

Gianni's attention jerked back to the robe in his hands. He pulled two objects out of a pocket and passed them to Logan.

No longer doubting Higgs's claims about anything, Logan deduced that either the cigar-shaped thing or the thin metal square thing was a weapon. He turned them in his hands, but carefully avoided touching anything that looked like a button or trigger. "Cover her up... before any of you catch whatever she's got. Don't untie her though, just wrap her up in that thing."

It took several men to handle that order but she was soon trussed up like a large black sausage.

"Well," Logan said. "I think it's safe to assume she doesn't have any of those super mental powers Higgs warned us about." Standing at the woman's feet, he asked her, "How is it that you were going to punish us?" Her eyes were filled with loathing. He pointed the flat box toward her chest. "With this?" No reaction. "Or this?"

The second he raised the silver cigar, her eyes squeezed shut in expectation of something bad. "Very good. Of course, I don't know how to use this thing but I'll bet if I pushed this little slide up and down or pressed one of these buttons, I'd figure it out eventually." She definitely didn't want him to do that. "So, what do you say? Would you like to be cooperative or shall we play trial and error?"

Her narrowed eyes shot out lethal threats but she appeared willing to hear more, so he explained. "Cooperative is where we take the muffle off your mouth but you talk only to answer our questions. And you
do
answer our questions...
truthfully...
or we move on to door number two."

Before she could indicate her choice, Geoffrey, Tarla and Robin arrived. "You haven't missed much," Logan said to Geoffrey. "Higgs exaggerated a little about her size and powers but everything else is pretty much the way he described."

Geoffrey took a moment to appraise the bundled-up female on the ground and went with a friendly tone. "Hello, I am Geoffrey Cookson, of the United States, Planet Earth. Higgs said your name is Parisia, that your people are human like us and that we're in an alternate dimension, on a mirror planet called Heart. Is that correct?"

She tried to say something that only came out as muffled noise, glared at Logan, then mumbled again.

"It sounds like she wants to talk to you, Geoffrey," Logan said. "Must be that British accent of yours. Okay, lady, you've got one chance to play nice. If you behave and answer our questions, you might get home in one piece."

Her eyes widened at his implication that she might
not
get home again then she slowly nodded her agreement to his terms. Logan retrieved his shirt and helped her into a sitting position.

Nadia's mind worked frantically to come up with a means of escape. She had to get back before dawn, at which time someone might witness her passage through the barrier. If her little excursion were discovered, she would be chastised and humiliated, her plans for the future irreparably damaged. She understood Earth women had no power over their men, so she couldn't depend on them to assist her.

Looking from one man to the other, she had the feeling that the blonde man could be manipulated, whereas the scarred man exuded too much hostility to be of use to her. Directing her response to Geoffrey Cookson, she said, "Ray Higgs spoke the truth."

Geoffrey hunkered down to her level and smiled. "We mean you no harm. We only want information."

Nadia smiled back and spoke in a tone meant to sound cooperative. "I will tell you whatever you wish to know, but only if you treat me in a civilized manner. Untie me, allow me to dress and return my property to me."

Geoffrey ignored her order. "If we are truly on another planet, how did we get here?"

She guessed he might be more pliable if his peers were not observing him so closely. "I prefer to speak only to you. Send the others away."

Geoffrey glanced at Logan and noted his disapproval of that idea. "If you wish to be left alone with one man, it will be him," he told her, pointing at Logan. "And I assure you he's not nearly as
patient
as I am."

She might have given it a try but the minutes were ticking by and she had no more time to waste. She emitted a loud sigh of disgust. "I should have known it was impossible for men to behave in a civilized manner. What is it you wish to know?"

Geoffrey began his list of questions by repeating his first one. "How did we get here?"

Since she had no idea how extensive his scientific knowledge was, she decided to stick as close to the truth as possible, rather than try to fabricate answers and risk being tripped up in a lie.

"You came through a gateway. As far as we can tell, there is a magnetic field that flows between the northeastern hemisphere of Earth and the northwestern hemisphere of Heart. Apparently, the magnetic pull goes only one way, from your world to ours, and it only causes a problem when there are violent, electrical storms in the fields on both worlds at the same time. When that happens, a gateway opens and whatever or whoever is in the eye of the Earth storm is pulled through. Fortunately, the precise conditions required for such an incident have been rare."

"It sounds like Higgs was right about that Dragon's Triangle business after all," Logan said to Geoffrey. "But how did we land here in one piece?"

Nadia waited for Geoffrey Cookson to indicate that she should answer the other's question. "Once you were through the gateway, your pilot regained sufficient control to land your craft."

"Why doesn't anyone remember that?" Tarla asked.

Nadia assessed the woman who spoke without the man's permission to interrupt. Perhaps she had some power after all. "A near-term memory depleter. We find it is best to keep our existence as secret as possible. May I ask you a question now?"

Tarla looked to Geoffrey and received his approval. "All right."

"Why do you allow these barbarians to abuse one of your own kind? Do you have no control over them at all?"

Tarla wasn't certain which question was more surprising—that this woman considered them sisters of some sort or that she assumed the men could be controlled. "As second in command, I fully endorsed the actions of our men. By imprisoning us here, it is
you
who have abused
us
."

Nadia arched an eyebrow. "Release me and I will make arrangements for all the women here to be freed. You would have happy lives, unburdened by the demands of any man."

Geoffrey brought the interrogation back on track. "Higgs said your men are impotent. Is it your people's intention to use us as breeding stock?"

Nadia laughed aloud. "Introduce your primitive genes into our society? What a ridiculous notion! Our men's bodies provide the sperm necessary for reproduction without the barbaric act of copulation."

Logan snickered. "You didn't seem to find it so disgusting a few minutes ago."

"If you don't need us for reproduction," Geoffrey countered, "what was the purpose of your visits?"

Nadia paused to form a credible answer. "I needed to experience this physical contact for a scientific experiment I am conducting."

"Why didn't you use one of your own men?" Logan asked.

"Contact between men and women on Heart is unacceptable."

"Hold everything," Robin interjected. "I'm beginning to get a very interesting picture here. A minute ago you offered to free the women to get yourself out of here but not the men. And you keep referring to men as though they're some inferior species. Is it possible that your men are not only impotent, they're slaves?"