by Presley Hall
I laugh, leaning in to kiss her again. “You haven’t even seen the inside of it yet.”
She shrugs. Her body molds to mine as she leans into me, and her blue eyes shine like stars. “Doesn’t matter. I love it. I love you.”
My breath hitches, and for a moment, it feels like my heart has swelled so much that my lungs will never draw in another breath of air. I run my hands down Sadie’s lower back, relishing the feel of her smooth, warm skin beneath my fingers. “Say it again,” I murmur roughly.
She smiles almost mischievously, but her voice holds nothing but sincerity as she repeats, “I love you, Jaro. So much.”
My mouth drops to hers in a forceful kiss, claiming her lips as my cock hardens between us. Arousal and tenderness and fierce need all rise up inside me, and I can barely draw my lips away from hers long enough to whisper, “I love you too.”
She laughs, tilting her head back to allow my hungry mouth to travel down the column of her neck. “God, if I told anyone back on Earth about this, they’d say I was crazy for falling in love with a guy in a week.”
“You are not crazy, my kira,” I growl against her soft skin, nipping at her collarbone as the need to claim her nearly overwhelms me. “You are mine.”
With that, I sweep her into my arms, catching her under the knees as she wraps her own arms tighter around my neck. I carry her inside the small dwelling where I’ve lived alone for too many years, and in the space of only a few heartbeats, I’ve placed her on the bed. Her clothes are gone a moment later, and as I settle myself between her thighs, she clutches at me, whimpering softly with need as she pulls me toward her.
She’s wet already, and her soft heat clenches around me as the head of my cock breaches her entrance. I slide in as slowly as my self-control will allow, savoring every moment of the connection with my mate as I kiss her deeply. When I’m fully rooted inside her, she tugs on my hair, pulling my head back so she can meet my gaze.
“You’re right,” she gasps, shifting her hips beneath me, grinding against me and bringing me even deeper inside her tight channel as we both groan with pleasure. “It’s not crazy. It’s perfect.”
My cock pulses at her words, and I know she feels it, because she groans again. Our lips meet in another kiss as she tightens her grip on my hair, holding on as I begin to thrust into her in deep strokes.
I’m home.
We’re home.
And I plan to spend the rest of the day and well into the night showing her just how much she belongs here.
24
Sadie
“Holy fuck, this planet really is insane.” Raina shakes her head, making a face. “It’s almost like they want most of the animals, and even the plants, to try to kill you.”
“I don’t think that’s necessarily too far off,” I admit, glancing over at her. “Jaro told me that the solar council, the group charged with overseeing this place, doesn’t really do much to stop weapons from being smuggled in either. They crack down on other types of contraband, but they seem totally fine with the prisoners killing each other—if the wildlife doesn’t get to them first. Maybe they think it’s a good thing, keeping the population on the planet down.”
“That’s so… messed up.” Gemma frowns, wrinkling her nose.
“This whole thing is messed up.” Elizabeth snorts. “Our own government tried to sell women to aliens as sex slaves, so it’s not like they’re any better than this solar council.”
“True.” Gemma bites her lip, her gaze dropping downward for a moment. Sadness shadows her brown eyes, and she tucks a lock of dark hair behind her ear. “I still can’t believe that. I mean, I can, but… I wish I didn’t.”
Elizabeth grimaces and nods, wringing out a shirt. The four of us are washing clothes in a large basin on one side of the village. A lot of the women are still wearing clothing they scavenged from the ship, but I’ve followed Charlotte’s lead and am wearing a modified leather top and skirt-like thing that Jaro made for me.
We’ve only been in the village for a week, but I’m already starting to settle in here. The other women all had a bit of a head start when it came to acclimating to the Voxeran village, but being mated to one of the warriors helped me a lot on that front. It doesn’t make any of this seem any less foreign or strange, and learning how to live in a rustic environment on an alien planet will have its challenges no matter what.
But I meant what I told Jaro. My home is where he is, and that feeling of home makes all the adjustments to this new life so much easier. I know this is where I belong. Everything else can be worked out along the way.
Today, the ladies offered to show me the system they’ve developed for washing clothes, and I happily agreed. It’s a hell of a lot different than popping down to the laundromat back on Earth, but the company is nice.
As we’ve scrubbed at the clothes, Raina has been peppering me with questions about my trek across the wilderness with Jaro. I already told everyone the whole story the day after he and I reached the village, but she seems eager to know more.
I know we all have different coping mechanisms for dealing with fear, and I wonder if one of hers is trying to learn as much as possible about what scares her. I don’t know her very well, and I have no idea what her situation was like back on Earth, but she seems like someone who’s had to fend for herself a lot.
So I obliged her, filling in details of my story while casting careful glances at Gemma to make sure I wasn’t scaring her too badly. I can relate to the nervousness I sometimes see in her eyes, and I don’t want to send her running screaming into the jungle like I did after we first crashed.
“Shit.” Raina shakes her head, pursing her lips. “If this is what the wilderness is like, imagine what it’s like in the city. What’s it called? Pascia?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth says. “But I have absolutely no desire to find out the answer to that question. It’s probably even more dangerous than it is out here. We’re unbelievably lucky that the people Charlotte ended up meeting are a group of honorable men. We could just as easily have ended up getting captured, raped, and tortured.”
Gemma winces, her face paling a little, and I grimace. Elizabeth was a doctor back on Earth, and she tends to be a bit blunt at times. She’s nice, but she’s also so smart and analytical that she sometimes forgets how to be human.
“Yeah. It’s lucky the Voxerans welcomed us,” I interject, smiling reassuringly at Gemma. “They won’t let anything happen to us.”
“At least, not to two of us.” Raina cocks an eyebrow meaningfully, and I flush a little.
I can’t tell if she’s jealous of the mate bonds or skeptical of them, but she definitely has a strong opinion on the subject—although she’s never shared her thoughts with me outright. Some of the women still seem a bit wary of the Voxerans, which I understand. And some of them seem to be happily getting on board with the idea of living with a bunch of muscular, gorgeous aliens, which… I also understand.
Everything changed for me when Jaro and I bonded. He fulfills me in ways I never thought anyone would. I never thought I’d enjoy sex again, and yet he’s made me come so hard I’ve seen stars. He makes me happy, and his complete acceptance of me—old wounds and all—has shown me that I don’t have to be defined by my past.
After Charlotte and Droth showed up at the crash site, I think a lot of the women thought the mate bond was either made up or a one-off kind of thing, some sort of fluke that made the two of them fall in love. But now that word of my bond with Jaro has spread through the entire village, there seems to be a constant whispered refrain among the other ladies.
Who’s next?
I honestly can’t tell if Raina hopes it’ll be her, or if she’d kick a guy in the balls if he claimed to be her mate.
“The Voxerans will protect us all,” I say, my voice firm. “That’s something I learned from Jaro, and one of the things I love most about him. The Voxeran people value their honor very highly. They wouldn’t make a promise to us and then break
it.”
Gemma nods, seeming satisfied with that answer. Raina just narrows her eyes, looking skeptical, and Elizabeth chews her lip thoughtfully.
Our conversation moves on to other subjects as we finish with the clothes, and as we’re draping them over rocks to dry in the sun, Jaro approaches.
My heart skips a beat when I look up and see him striding toward us. One of the strangest things about the mate bond is that I feel completely comfortable and safe with him, as if I’ve known him my whole life—and yet I also get a rush of butterflies in my stomach when I look at him, as if we haven’t already gotten naked together multiple times. As if he hasn’t touched and worshiped the most intimate parts of me.
When our eyes meet, a smile spreads across his face, and the butterflies inside me go crazy. I take two steps toward him before I even realize I’m moving, and Elizabeth chuckles as she glances from me to him.
“Go ahead,” she tells me. “We’re almost done here anyway.”
“Thanks.” I shoot her a slightly sheepish grin before walking quickly toward my mate.
As soon as we reach each other, his arms wrap around me, pulling me tight against his body. Everywhere our skin touches seems to blaze with fire, and I can’t help tugging his face down to meet mine for a kiss.
I try to keep our public displays of affection to a PG-13 level as much as possible, but it’s not always easy. Especially not when he kisses me like he wants to devour me, making the sexiest little noises in his chest as he slides his hands through my hair.
When we finally break apart, my whole body is tingling, and I bite my lip as I smile up at him. “Hi.”
“Hello, my kira.” He kisses my nose, and the tingles intensify. “Are you busy?”
“No, not really. I just finished doing some laundry.”
He smiles. “Good. Will you come with me? I want to show you something.”
“Sure.”
Taking my hand, he leads me out of the village, and I glance up at him curiously as we walk through the gate. “Got another adventure planned for us?”
He grimaces, pulling me closer to his body in a protective gesture. “No. I told you, I plan to keep you away from life threatening situations from now on if possible.”
I chuckle, wrapping my arm around his lean, muscled waist. We don’t go too far, heading a short distance away from the village in the opposite direction from where we approached when we first arrived. The walls of the settlement have just disappeared behind us when Jaro veers to the right, leading me up a small hill. As we crest the rise, I realize that it’s not a smooth slope downward on the other side, but a steep drop-off, creating a sort of mini plateau at the top.
He sits down on the grass near the ledge, tugging me down beside him, and as I rest my head on his shoulder, I ask, “What did you want to show me?”
“This.”
He gestures toward the landscape below us, and I let out a soft gasp as I look out across it. Vines with bright orange and red flowers climb up the trees and wrap around the branches, interspersing with the foliage, and as a gentle breeze picks up, it looks as if the tops of the trees are full of dancing flame.
My jaw falls open slightly in awe. “Oh, wow. It’s beautiful, Jaro.”
He nods. I’m still staring at the scene before us, but I catch the movement of his head in my periphery. “I used to come here often, after I recovered from my wounds and Droth offered to let me stay in the village. I would let the peace of it wash over me, let myself find a little fragment of happiness amidst the hardship. I haven’t visited this spot in a long time though. For a while, I stopped trying to find the beauty in things, stopped trying to find hope. I was focused only on surviving.”
“I get that. I did the same, back on Earth,” I say softly, turning to look at him. His gorgeous green eyes are fixed on me, his expression serious.
“You helped me see the beauty again, Sadie,” he murmurs, tucking a strand of hair behind my ears. “You helped me find hope.”
Emotions well in my chest, making my throat tighten as I gaze into his eyes. I lean in to kiss him, pressing my lips gently to his. It’s slow and deep, as if we’re both finally starting to realize we have the rest of our lives to do this. The rest of our lives to make each other happy.
I shift onto my knees to face him more fully as our kiss grows more heated, and when that isn’t enough, I crawl onto his lap, straddling his muscled hips. My fingernails rake gently over his skin, and he growls against my lips, pulling me closer so our chests press together. I brush my fingertips over the nodes along his spine, and he shudders. The first few times we slept together, I didn’t know how sensitive they are, but now that I know how good it feels for him when I touch the rounded nodes, I love finding new ways to tease and caress them.
His cock is hard and thick between us, pulsing against my inner thigh as I grind against him. I’m not wearing underwear, so the buttery leather of his loincloth is all that separates us, and I’ve never resented a piece of clothing more.
We’re out of sight of the village, but honestly, the heat surging through my veins is so insistent that I’m not sure I’d even care if we weren’t. I need to feel Jaro inside me, and I can’t wait until we get back to our hut.
Reaching between our bodies, I shift the soft leather of his loincloth out of the way, wrapping my hand around his thick length and sliding my fist up and down. Jaro grunts, his hips jerking upward, and I smile against his lips as my eyelids droop shut. I love driving this man crazy. Almost as much as I love giving him exactly what he wants.
Bracing my knees on either side of his hips, I rise up a little, keeping my hand wrapped around his thick length. With slow, deliberate movements, I drag the broad tip of him through my folds, teasing him as I circle the tip of his cock around my clit.
We both let out low groans, and he deepens our kiss, sliding his tongue against mine. His cock head brushes against my clit, and I whimper.
“Do that again, my kira,” he murmurs roughly. “But look at me when you do. I want to see the pleasure in your eyes.”
The rumble of his deep voice makes goosebumps spread over my skin, and I do what he asked, drawing back a little and locking gazes with him as I drag the tip of his cock around my clit again. My breath is coming faster, and I’m already close. When I used to lock up with anxiety just thinking about sex, I never would’ve imagined that I could reach this point with someone—touching him so wantonly, so confidently, chasing the release we both need so badly.
In between strokes against my clit, I drag my hand up and down his shaft, and both of us are breathing heavily as we stare into each other’s eyes.
“Oh god, Jaro,” I whisper, my voice throaty and raw. “I’m close. Fuck, I’m so close… I’m going to…”
“Yes.” His pupils expand, and he slides his hands under the leather top I’m wearing. His large hands palm both of my breasts, his thumbs brushing over my nipples. “Let me see you, Sadie. My beautiful mate. Akhi, let me see you come.”
And just like that, I fall over the edge. As the first tremors of the orgasm move through me, I line him up with my entrance and sink down, impaling myself on his length. The node at the base of his cock presses hard against my clit as he fills me, and a fresh wave of pleasure crashes over me.
“Fuck!” I arch my back, and Jaro drops his head, dragging his lips over the curve of my shoulder as I roll my hips against him.
He grunts, wrapping his arms around me and pressing our bodies flush together as his hips shift beneath me, meeting mine as we rock together. He thrusts up into me, and it doesn’t take long for him to follow me into bliss, his cock pulsing inside me as he floods me with his release.
In the aftermath, my mouth finds his in a hazy, dazed kiss. Our lips cling together for a moment, and then I drop my head to rest my face in the crook of his neck, breathing hard against his warm blue-tinged skin. He nuzzles against my neck too, still holding me close in a tight embrace.
“Holy shit,” I pant. “Oh
, fuck.”
His chuckle vibrates through his chest and into mine. “I like your curse words. They’re very satisfying.”
I grin, trailing my fingers over his back. “I like yours too. I like making you say them during sex.”
He growls softly, tilting his hips up to press his barely softened cock deeper inside me. “I’m happy to oblige.”
A laugh falls from my lips, and he laughs too, the sound light and carefree. Letting my eyes drift closed again, I inhale deeply, savoring the scent of him—something spicy and rich that belongs solely to Jaro.
As our heartbeats slowly return to an even tempo, I send out a quiet prayer of thanks to the universe. The road for both of us to reach this point was bumpy and twisted, and we each have scars we’ve borne for so long.
But we found each other.
It strikes me in a sudden rush of certainty that even without the mate bond, I would’ve fallen in love with this man. Maybe it would’ve taken me a bit longer to break through my old fears and doubts, but the end result would be the same. Whether we took the long road or the shortcut, the two of us were always meant to end up like this, exactly where we are.
That’s what the mate bond is, after all. A nudge toward your perfect match.
And I know without a doubt that Jaro is mine.
Epilogue
Elizabeth
“Do you think it’s real?” Gemma asks, her voice quiet as she glances over at me. “The mate bond?”
The two of us are gathering up the clothes we left out to dry earlier. Sadie and Jaro are still off together somewhere, and Raina wandered away shortly after they left. There’s no one else nearby, either Voxeran or human, so I don’t know quite why the dark-haired woman is keeping her voice low as if we’re sharing a secret.
Lifting an eyebrow, I glance over at her. “I think it must be. I don’t really understand it. There’s no scientific explanation I can think of for it, besides some kind of pheromone response—but from conversations I’ve had with Charlotte, it definitely seems like there’s more to it than that. There’s an intense physical attraction, yes, but the way she describes it, the draw goes a lot deeper than just sexual desire.”
