She leaned back slowly to meet his eyes with bewilderment in hers. “Was I wrong in thinking service in your bedchamber meant we would be sharing sex?”

“Sharing sex?”

He didn’t know what she was talking about. “What did those warriors call it?” she asked herself. “Oh, yes, use.” But he still didn’t comprehend, and it dawned on her that the Sha-Ka’ari, being slaveholders and accustomed to taking their pleasure without giving any back, would have a different name for sexsharing than these warriors would. “What do you call it when a man and woman come together intimately?”

“Fun.” He grinned, finally understanding.

“I’ll buy that.” She grinned back. “But is that your only word for it?”

“There is joining, mating, giving pleasure. You would call it making love.”

“I would, but you wouldn’t? Why is that?”

“Enough questions for this rising, kerima. Now do we sleep.”

Stars, even talking about it didn’t get him interested. Obviously she was not going to get breached today no matter what she did.

She sighed. “All right, friend, just point me to my bed and I’ll-”

“Your bed is here with me. Did you think it would be otherwise?”

“With as little interest as you’ve shown in wanting to have ‘fun’ with me, yes, actually, I did think it would be otherwise.”

She could have bitten her tongue off for letting that out, especially when it sounded so much like a complaint-and in fact was. But the barbarian chose to ignore it and simply moved over some to make room for her on the fur. There was nothing for it but to lie down beside him, though she wasn’t likely to get much sleep with him so close. She wished he would have the same problem, but that was her problem, that it wouldn’t bother him at all.

“Put your arms around me, kerima. ”

She looked at him askance. “Have you changed your mind about sleeping?”

“No.”

“Then I’d rather not touch you anymore if it’s all the same to you.”

“But you will.”

Stars, how she was starting to hate those three words. “Am I being punished, Challen?”

“You are being shown the manner in which you will sleep each night. Because it is not yet the time for joining does not mean I do not want you close to me. Do you now do as you were instructed.”

Not yet time for joining? Were there customs that must be adhered to in this, too, so many days maybe, that he couldn’t take advantage of his challenge win? It made her feel better to think so, which was why she didn’t come right out and ask. At least it meant he wasn’t oblivious to her charms, that he was only practicing his miraculous warrior’s control.

She scooted over and tucked one arm to his side, draping the other over his chest. One of his own arms came around her to hold her there.

“Do you now kiss me.”

Tedra closed her eyes as those words sent a thrill down her spine. “Is that to be part of the nightly ritual, too?”

“It is.”

“All right, you asked for it.”

She squirmed upward until she could reach his mouth, then plastered hers to it, but that was not what he’d had in mind. He stopped her so quickly she barely got a taste of him.

“This was to be a kiss for sleep, woman, not for joining,” he chided her.

“I never thought I’d contemplate rape,” Tedra growled, but she said it in Kystrani, didn’t care if that annoyed him or not, and turned around to give him her back. If he insisted she put her arms around him again, he’d have a war on his hands. He must have sensed that, for he didn’t insist. He didn’t say another word. But his big hand came to rest on her hip. He was still keeping her close.

Challen woke with the woman’s movement. He had lost count of the number of times she had disturbed his sleep with her sighs, mumblings, and turnings, but fortunately, each time his sleep had easily resumed. He doubted that she had gotten much herself, though. Such was to be expected of a captive or newly claimed woman, but not for the reason that bothered his little challenge loser. She had not lost sleep through anxiety, tears, or simple fear of a new warrior she must obey, but because her need was upon her. He had gone to sleep with the smell of her arousal strong in his nostrils.

Long did he debate whether to ease her need without joining. Such could be done easily. But did she not know this, he would prefer she remain in ignorance of it for now, so he did nothing. Also, she could only benefit by her need still being great when he did join with her. Better a slight discomfort through the night than true pain, were she not ready for him when the effects of the dhaya juice wore off.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the sun had begun its rising already. When he turned to find the woman was facing him again, he also discovered, instantly, that the last of the dhaya juice had, in fact, worn off even while he had thought about it. His loins filled with need, and as was expected when denied with dhaya juice, that need was now so powerful it was painful. It was also worse than it had ever been before, for he had the previous rising’s memories to goad him, clear and concise, memories of his touching the Kystrani, of her touching him, of every burning, passion-filled look she gave him from those fascinating aquamarine eyes.

He groaned, closing his eyes again, fighting down the need to draw the woman beneath him and end the pain immediately. He had bragged to her of a warrior’s control. Where was it now?

He concentrated on the pain rather than on his need, opening his mind to it so that it surrounded him. It was not intense enough to put him into the trance-induced state that would ignore all feeling, but it was enough to give him a measure of calm, to return some of the normal control a warrior possessed when not influenced by dhaya. The urgency was still there, but it was no longer the crazed wildness of a mindlessly driven beast.

Again he looked at the woman still in the deep sleep of exhaustion. Even with dark smudges beneath her eyes to attest to her unpleasant night, he found her incredibly beautiful. She was using his arm as a pillow, but both her hands were wrapped around it, too, as if she felt in sleep what he had also felt, a need to hold tight to what he had found, a fear it might be lost otherwise.

The fear was not unfounded on his part, not that he thought the woman would flee him. He had spoken true when he told her he trusted in her honor. There was not another woman he would have said that to, for Kan-is-Tran women could claim honor, but were known to overlook it when it suited them. He was certain this was not so with the Kystrani, for she was, in fact, a warrior woman. Her every action claimed this to be so, even the arrogance she professed to be as great as his.

No, the fear stemmed from another source, one not imminent, but there nonetheless. He had bound this woman to him for no more than a month, and a month was a very short time. It had seemed the ideal solution at the time, to use her unwise challenge against her, but now he was not so sure. True, he had sensed her strength of will, had known it would be set against him for as long as she resisted his claiming, and he suspected that resistance would be like nothing he had ever encountered before. Not even her attraction to him, which was clear in her bold, warriorlike manner of looking at him, would surmount that resistance. And yet he had decided from the moment he had gotten a closer look at her that she would be his. Had a protector appeared suddenly to prevent his claiming of her, he would have fought for her, such was his desire to have her bound to him. But he did not want her to fight him, so the challenge had indeed seemed ideally suited to his needs, except that it was a temporary solution.