by Laney Kaye
I cringed.
“You have passed the tests, Stella of the Stars, and I would mark you as willing.”
Oh yeah, I was willing, all right. I winced and cowered a little as he moved the machine to the back of my ear.
“There, it is done,” he said, as cold metal brushed the tip of my ear.
“Seriously? That was it?”
“I am pleased you did not say that a few minutes ago, my Stella,” he grinned, putting the machine on the bench with a soft thunk.
It took him only a couple of strides to reach the paneled wall, where he activated something that made one of the drawers slide open. He pulled out a bundle of lilac fabric. “You may be more comfortable in this. I believe the temperature here is cooler than that to which you are accustomed. Particularly as you are apparently not from Austria.” His horizontal eyelids shuttered, the corners of his eyes crinkling.
“Thanks.” I clutched the soft material against my front. Funny; with Tennn between my thighs, I’d not felt the least embarrassed. But now, with the stars rapidly receding and my ear chilled from the tattoo gun, I was keenly aware of my nakedness. “Actually, do you have a shower? I could do with a quick visit…”
“Shower?” He cocked his head. “Precipitation, you mean?”
“Um, yeah, I guess so. But warm.” Please, God, aliens were supposed to be technologically advanced, right? Just let them have heated water.
Tennn’s confusion cleared. “Oh, the sanitation unit. Come, I will show you.” He pressed a series of wall panels. A large, vertical, clear cylinder slid from the wall. He reached in and adjusted something, and a fine spray filled the tube, although it seemed to come evenly from every surface rather than from a showerhead. “My Stella, will you do one thing for me?”
I nodded, the garment still clutched against my front.
Tennn stroked one finger along the ear he’d just tattooed. “Don’t rush. I’ll join you, once I’ve deflected the CUM threat.”
Chapter Six
Tennn
I was all kinds of royally screwed. Or, given my birthright and the fact that this woman was human, most unroyally screwed; which presented even more of a problem.
I wanted Stella.
And not just for the trip to Daorheris.
Maybe it was her exotic features. Perhaps her perfect body, or the fact that she was entirely unique and totally fearless. No matter the reason why, I needed her with a deep, soul-shaking urgency. No female across the stars had intrigued or enchanted me as she did.
No part of me wanted for our dalliance to be temporary.
Yet I knew it had to be. I was of the royal bloodline. When my crew — and the many others working for the Family — had completed enough trips and stashed enough xasa in the royal coffers, the correct royal bride would be purchased and impregnated. With my succession ensured, I would ascend to the throne.
It had always been that way. Even before breedable females had become a premium commodity, the royal bride had been selected and purchased. But never by the groom. We had a duty to our people; neither desire nor…love?...had any place in that.
In any case, Stella had chosen her own path. Even though she’d not been tagged by ASS, she met their criteria. Surpassed the criteria, as far as I was concerned. I wiped a hand across my chin, removing the last fragrant taste of her juice. I had no right to interfere with her destiny.
But, with only two lunar cycles until we entered the stasis tubes for the leap to Daorheris, there was no reason I shouldn’t tell Yanno and Xander I’d picked up some bug on Earth, and confine myself to my quarters for the duration.
With Stella.
Two entire cycles of sampling her charms. Two lunar cycles that would have to last forever in my memories.
Xander glanced up from his reader, his feet, as usual, propped up on the control panel. As if nothing had happened over the last hour. As though the worlds, the universe, his future hadn’t just imploded.
Guess it was just mine.
Yanno scowled. “In case you didn’t notice the grav pull, we’ve warped out. I took control so we’d avoid the CUM.”
Xander snorted. “Pretty sure the Cap felt terra shift.”
“Mmm,” Yanno grunted, rubbing a hand over the tattoos beneath his fade. “You know whatever you’ve got going on with the human can’t go anywhere, right Cap?”
“You going to quote me chapter and section on that, Yanno?” It figured he’d worry about the rules. Though, to be fair, that trait was part of what made the three of us a great team; while we were all handy with our weapons, Xander tended to be distracted, and I could be…impulsive. Yanno kept us in line.
“Doubt I need to. I reckon you Royal Bloods have your obligations drummed into you from birth, right?”
Xander’s booted feet hit the studded floor with a loud thud, and he stood, still holding the donkey-cat. “Time to recharge.”
He was right. Though I’d been captivated by Stella, lost in her glow, my energy was waning. I needed to recharge if I was to make her remember me the way I intended.
Xander toggled a control on the panel in front of him and then the three of us strode down the corridor and into a chamber on the starboard side of the vessel. The shutters on a massive plate-glass window slowly retracted, revealing the infinite blackness of space.
“Ten seconds,” Yanno said.
Xander shrugged out of his coat, dropping it to the floor and placing the donkey-cat on top of it.
In a rustle of leather, Yanno and I followed suit, shedding our coats, leggings, and undershirts. Our bare feet braced against the cool sirdar floor, we waited for the craft to adjust course.
The blast of moonlight, captured and magnified by the feeder window, seared my eyeballs and I squinted, looking away. But I spread my arms wide, welcoming the energy that streamed through the glass. The multi-colored glow from our travel tattoos flickered and danced against the steel surfaces of the room as we absorbed the lumens.
“You really are warriors, aren’t you?”
I startled. With the power of the moon throbbing through my blood, I’d not heard Stella’s bare-footed approach. I swiveled toward her voice.
Her wet hair dark, she was dressed in the one-piece uniform I’d given her — which, I realized with a stab of irritation, meant I couldn’t see enough of her skin. But the fabric did cling to her tantalizing curves.
“Warriors?” I croaked. The enticing memory of what lay beneath the smooth synthfab she wore was enough to bar me up instantly.
And I was naked.
“Out. Now,” I barked at my lieutenants.
Xander barely hid a chuckle as he collected the donkey-cat. Yanno shook his head but bent to pick up his clothes. “You sure, Cap? Remember the rules.”
I ignored them and tried to focus on Stella. On her conversation, I mean.
“Warriors?” I repeated. “I told you, not anymore. There are no wars in the near galaxies.” Hadn’t been for five years. If I could just focus on how pissed off that made me, maybe I could control my erection.
Stella nodded, her gaze tracing my naked body as she padded toward me.
The sanitation unit only carried one type of cleansing solution, which we all used; so how the hells could she smell so good? Like a mixture of warm beejus and aromatic merspice. I tilted my head back to stare at the textured ceiling, counting to ten in every language I could recall. Which, with the lack of blood flowing to my brain, was only Crasasi. And by number seven I had no idea what in the hells should come next.
Stella’s eyes were huge. “But so many scars. You must have been in tons of battles. And what are these?” She reached a tentative finger to trace the glowing patterns beneath my skin.
The minuscule stars leapt and flared at her touch. “Skin maps,” I grunted. Should I cover my erection? Though, at the moment, Stella’s attention was elsewhere — which was somewhat insulting. “The maps are individual to each Crasasi. A different color thread represents each journey we’ve made dur
ing our lives.”
“You’ve traveled more than Yanno and Xander?”
Great. She’d obviously managed to check out their naked bodies before announcing her presence. That fact, coupled with a healthy dose of jealousy, should deflate my erection. Except her breast brushed my shoulder as she leaned closer, and I was instantly harder than sirdar. “Travel goes with my job,” I ground out. What the hells came after seven?
“As a warrior? Or a businessman?”
“Before.” All Royals were required, from their sixteenth annuity, to make regular visits to each outpost.
“And these?” Her breath warm on my chest, Stella traced a fingertip around the moonstone ring pierced through one of my nipples. Then she repeated the action on the sunstone on the other side.
“Kalex. They are galaxial anchors, keeping the planetary systems represented in the skin maps in the correct place. Although the systems shift and travel across our bodies, revolving around their own suns, the Kalex retains their position relevant to our home. Crasasi.” I tapped the silver orb that glowed and pulsed on my right pectoral muscle, over my heart.
“So you can always find where you need to be?” She pressed up against me, her fingertips dragging up my thigh.
“That’s the idea.” My voice came out gravelly as I fought to control the urge to flip her onto her back. To put her right where she needed to be: under me.
“And this?” Her nails grazed my flesh as her hand slid around to my buttocks.
My tail whipped forward, wrapping twice around her wrist. “This has many uses.” I flattened the tip to stroke her palm, and then formed the adaptable muscle into a pulsing ball, massaging the hollow of her hand in an erotic rhythm.
Instant understanding and desire flared in her eyes. “Holy crap. Like an organic, permanently attached vibrator? That’s probably not even illegal.”
I frowned. “You’ve lost me.”
Her gaze darted up to mine. “Oh no,” she shook her head. “I’ve found you.” Her free hand closed around my rigid yakeet, which I’d been manfully trying to ignore as it nudged into her soft belly.
Seizing the lapels of her uniform, I tore the fabric apart from her chest to her thighs. Yanno would just have to fabricate the requisition orders to cover that one. I needed her naked. Now. Because no way in hells were two lunar cycles of her company going to be enough.
My tail released her wrist, the tip feathering to tease at her nipple, which instantly responded, swelling into a tight bud.
“Your clothes, Stella. Off. Now,” I ordered, pushing the fabric down her arms.
“Well, wriggling into this was kind of an unnecessary effort, then,” she grumbled, one palm placed against my chest to steady herself as she stepped out of the bundle of clothes. “Oh,” she gasped, lifting her hand to squint at my hardened nipple. Immediate interest replaced her surprise, and she smirked. “Looks like two can play at this game.” Her thumb flicked my Kalex, then her wicked tongue darted out to trace the jewelry before sliding off course, thrusting against my nipple.
Impossibly, my yakeet jutted even harder into her belly.
My tail slid from Stella’s breast, down over her wondrous soft stomach, to tangle in the golden forest that hid my desire.
“Ohhh-oh!” Stella gasped as my tip found her sensitive nub. “Oh, holy fucking wow!”
“This is good?” I thought her exclamations were of pleasure, but there was much I had yet to learn about this woman.
And no time to learn it. My jaw tensed and twitched, but I brushed the unwelcome thought aside.
“So-o-o-o good,” Stella moaned.
I slid my tail further along her slit, her juices lubricating me.
Her eyes half-closed as I found her entrance. “Oh, my God. Is that safe? I mean, should you really put it in there?”
“There are many parts of me I’d like to put in there, my Stella,” I said. “But, for now, I shall not enter, but I will pleasure you.”
“Oh. Yes. Pleasure,” she moaned as my tail stroked deep along her valley.
The pulse in her neck speeding up, her pupils dilated. With one of my hands on her breast, the thumb massaging her nipple, I slid the other around the back of her neck, holding her firm as I lowered my lips to hers. My tail maintaining the tempo in her beautifully wet cunnusk, I darted my tongue into her mouth, my fingers tweaking her nipple in a matching rhythm.
My tail stroked faster, teasing the tight bud at the top of her sweet cunnusk, and Stella arched back, offering herself to me. Her arms wound around my own neck, as though she wanted to keep me close, and she moaned into my mouth as her body stiffened.
That wasn’t the only thing stiffening. Jabbing into the softness of her stomach, my yakeet was leaking, and I knew it painted silver trails on her abdomen.
Trails that were not permitted.
But right now, I didn’t care: Stella was in my arms, and I was spinning her to the stars, the intoxicating perfume of her lust filling the lunar immersion pod.
“Tennn,” she gasped, my name on her lips as seductive as the call of a sirenus that drove lonely men to madness. “Tennn, I’m going to cum.”
“No. I tattooed you, Stella. You’re authorized, now. CUM can’t spray you.”
She shook her head and then grasped my face between her hands, driving her lips hard against mine.
I liked the way she used her tongue. Her lips. Her hands, as they slid down to cover my chest once again, her nails digging into my maps as though she couldn’t decide whether she was forcing me away or holding me closer. Her legs, hells, I liked the way she used her legs, wrapping one around the back of my thigh, as though she’d give my tail better access to her cunnusk.
Her hand slipped even lower, and she palmed my erection.
I started to jerk back, but she tightened her grip. “Tennn, now! God, I’m cumming now!”
Despite the language barrier, her panting breath and the way her eyes fluttered back behind her single set of lids explained everything I needed to know; Stella used the term cumming in place of star-splashing.
And, watching her abandon, the way her neck elongated as she keened toward the stars, I was right there with her. My control threatened to shatter, my yakeet twitching frantically against her belly, as though I could pound into her that way.
Stella shuddered, both hands braced on my shoulders, shoving me a little away, as though she was having problems breathing. But as she glanced down, she grinned. “Looks like one of us didn’t quite get there, yet.” Before I had chance to speak, she dropped to her knees and ran her tongue along my throbbing erection.
“No, you cannot!” I regretted the words the second they were out of my mouth. Because what she’d just done felt amazing, beyond anything I’d ever experienced.
She rocked back on her haunches, a frown flickering on her forehead. “No? You don’t like it?”
“Well, yes, I liked it.” Gods, it would be wrong to admit how much I liked that brief hot, wet, slash of her tongue.
“Then why not?” She sounded genuinely puzzled.
I raked both hands through my hair, deliberately tangling them so I couldn’t grab her head and hold her still while I thrust myself into her mouth. “Because using our mouths is how we pay homage to our women, to thank them for gifting us with the life that continues our race. Women do not degrade themselves to return the favor.” Only in the forbidden pictures in the sleaze-easy.
Stella puffed her cheeks and blew out a long breath, warm against my balls. “Wait. Let me get this straight. Do you mean you guys go down on women, but you don’t expect swapsies?”
“Swapsies?”
“Tit for tat. Suck for lick. Head for…oh, I don’t even know what the feminine of that is. It’s not like it exists on Earth much, anymore. What I mean is, don’t alien men like blow jobs?”
Her increasing frustration showed in the tightening grip she had on my erection, but even with the imminent danger of my most male part being ripped off, I couldn’t make se
nse of what she was saying. Instead, I repeated her words like a rare pet parrotus. “Blow jobs?” Her breath had certainly been warm; perhaps she intended to blow on my member until the silver droplets of star-splash dried? Not an entirely unappealing notion.
“Blow jobs.” Now she was the parrotus.
Except she bent forward and swiped her tongue along my erection again, and I was damn sure no parrotus ever did that. If they did, I was pulling every royal privilege and demanding a cage full of the animals the minute we got back to Crasasi.
She pulled back. “This” — another swipe of her tongue — “This is a blow job. Do you not like it?”
“There is much to like…” I said uncertainly.
“Then why can’t I do it?”
Both of us were ignoring the fact that, between questions, she was doing it. And I sure as hells was liking it. “It’s just…not…what we do,” I said, my jaw tensing as she bobbed her head, taking the tip of my erection fully into her mouth.
She let my member slide free with an audible pop. “Well, it’s what we do. And if we’re going to have inter-racial sex, I think we should be incorporating traditions from both sides, don’t you?”
She bent forward again, and a third of my erection disappeared into the hot, wet cave of her mouth.
“If you put it like that…” I had a royal responsibility to unite races. My hands wound in her hair, guiding her head.
I closed the first set of lids over my eyes, the better to concentrate on the amazing sensations Stella was pulling from me. Her teeth grazed me lightly, adding a thrill of fear to the hot suction she applied, and I flashed my eyes open again. Her hands dug into my buttocks, pulling me closer, although she choked a little as she tried to take more than a third of my length.
She looked up at me, her beautiful eyes watering.
And I exploded.
My star-splash filled her mouth and she pulled away, the silver strands decorating her cheeks and glittering in her hair.
Instead of being angry at the permanent markings on her skin, Stella laughed delightedly, her hand working my yakeet to get every last drop from me.
