by Mina Carter
“Jay… lady… I…”
She couldn’t finish a sentence, struggling to process all the sensations at once. Luckily her body seemed to know what to do, her back arching to offer more of herself to him. The deep rumble of approval vibrated against her nipples and she tried to close her legs, needing to press them together.
He smiled as she arched up, their gazes locking as he let go of her nipple with a soft pop. Her hands were still in his hair as he moved up to kiss her again—a torrid, heated exchange that left her gasping and desperate for more.
“Shhh, I got you,” he murmured.
Whether he was a mind reader or she’d vocalized her need for more she didn’t know. Didn’t care. A big hand swept over her hips, the bite of her panties against her skin making her cry out before they were gone, torn off her in a negligent display of strength and power that took her breath away.
“Relax, sweetheart,” he murmured, nudging her jaw to the side to nuzzle her neck under her ear. She bit her lip, melting in his arms. Pleasure and need fought with a sense of anticipation as his big hand slid between her legs.
He parted her with a soft touch and…
“Draanth!” she gasped as he brushed the sensitive spot between her thighs. Her clit… Knowledge unfolded in her brain and she clung to him. She knew all the details of sex, the various positions and mechanics of it. But…
No one had told her it would feel so amazing.
“Oh lady… Do that again, please.”
He nipped the bottom of her earlobe lightly. “Your wish is my command, my lady.”
She had been going to chuckle, but he touched her again. Stroking and teasing her in small circles and slow rubs. Reaching down, he collected the wet heat of her arousal and slicked it over the sensitive nub under his fingers.
Soft gasps and small whimpers filled the air, all from her, and there was nothing she could do to stop it as he drove her higher and higher. Her head fell back to the bed, eyes wide and stunned as she looked up at him. His gaze didn’t waver from hers as he stroked her, pleasure unfolding through her until…
She gasped as it reached a peak and an explosion of heat and something rocked through her lower body. She tensed, hips jerking against him, and then groaned, all her muscles going pliant as her clit pulsed. Each pulse heralded a wave of sensation and need through her body.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” Jay murmured as he kissed her neck, down her throat to her shoulder. He still stroked her gently, the whisper of his fingers over her enough to stretch the pleasure out. She closed her eyes, biting her lip as she savored the sensation. She knew what it was… climax. Sexual release. And it was…
Her eyes flew open and latched on to his as he pulled away.
“You… I came and you didn’t,” she whispered, mortified. “I’m so sorry. I should have waited. I didn’t mean to… Can we try again tomorrow? I’ll hold on. I promise.”
He looked at her, a puzzled little frown creasing his brow. “What do you mean… tomorrow? What’s wrong with now? I didn’t hurt you. Did I?” he asked in sudden concern.
“No, no!” She shook her head quickly. “But I came… doesn’t that mean it’s over?”
He chuckled and pulled away for a moment, stripping off right in front of her. She caught her breath at the sight of him as he freed himself from his combats, his thick, long cock springing free to arch proudly up toward his toned stomach.
“Oh, it’s not over. I’m nowhere near finished with you yet, sweetheart,” he murmured as he crawled over her, the dark promise in his eyes making her heart stutter.
Bracing himself on one forearm, he nudged her legs apart with his knee, reaching down to slide his fingers between her folds again. She was slick and wet, her cheeks heating at what he could feel.
“You’re perfect,” he told her, dropping his head to claim her lips again as he replaced his fingers with the head of his cock.
She paused, breaking the kiss for a moment as she registered him there. He made a small sound of reassurance, brushing her lips with his. Then he pushed against her, rocking his hips. She gasped as her body parted around him. Each thrust was perfect as he slid into her bit by bit. It was strange at first and maybe a little uncomfortable, but it felt right.
More than that, it stoked a fire inside her she hadn’t realized was simmering, building it to a full blaze. Anticipation filled her, and she felt like he was handing her the secrets of the universe, just there within reach. Just one more thrust and she’d be there to claim them.
He paused for a second, muttering roughly against her mouth. “I’m sorry.”
Then he took her lips, sliding his tongue deep in a mind-blowingly passionate kiss. She moaned, clinging to him as he thrust again. A short, hard thrust that filled her completely. Pain tore through her lower body and she gasped, tensing up. But almost as soon as she’d registered it, he was kissing her in long, drugging kisses, distracting her from the fading ache.
She whimpered against his lips, giving him her trust and surrender. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. That much she knew. The last thing he would ever do was cause her pain on purpose.
Her hands slid over his shoulders and upper arms, going from biting to a soft caress. He groaned, pulling away from her lips for a second.
“God, you feel amazing,” he murmured before chasing her lips urgently again. Pulling back, he slid into her again, and then again, setting up a slow and steady rhythm that kept her spellbound with sensation but didn’t overwhelm her. She felt it all—every slide of his skin against hers, every soft caress, every pulse of his cock within her when he filled her.
And it was wonderful, all-consuming and beautiful. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes as she moved with him, feeling connected to him in a way she never had before. Like they were two halves of the same whole. The heat in her body swelled to an inferno, sweeping everything else away as he pulled back. Bracing himself over her, he looked into her eyes as their movements became harder. Faster. Like he was imprinting her onto his memory.
Then it was all too much. The same hard-edged explosion of sensation she’d had before overwhelmed her and she cried out as she shattered apart. He was there, kissing her again to swallow her cries of pleasure before tearing his lips away. She floated in a tumultuous sea of sensation, a prisoner of pure pleasure as he sped up.
Her reality narrowed down to his face, the feel of him within her, and she held him close as, he too, reached completion. With a hoarse cry he stiffened, dropping his head down to rest against her shoulder as he emptied himself inside her.
They lay there for long moments, the harshness of their breathing the only sound in the quiet of the room. Then he gave a soft bark of a laugh.
“Fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever come that hard. Felt like I about turned inside out.”
She smiled, trailing her hand up the center of his back. His skin was slick with sweat and he shivered at her touch.
“It was good then?” she asked softly. “I… didn’t disappoint you?”
“What?” he pulled back to look down at her. “Christ, you’re serious. You were worried about disappointing me?”
Biting her lip, she gave a small nod. “I mean, you’ve done this a lot before. I was worried I wasn’t going to be any good at it.”
He smiled and the expression in his eyes, somewhere between male triumph and complete adoration, soothed her worries.
“Sweetheart, you gave me the greatest gift I’ve ever been given,” he said, smoothing her hair back from her face with gentle fingers.
“Your innocence,” he added at her confused expression. “Knowing that you’ve never given that to any guy before me?” he chuckled. “Yeah, I’m a total caveman. I like knowing you are mine and mine alone.”
“I didn’t have the equipment before—” she reminded him, a small smile creeping in at the edges of her lips. He seriously wasn’t disappointed. She felt euphoric. She’d been so worried.
He kissed her, grinning against her l
ips. “That’s it, go and ruin my happy glow there.”
“But even if I had,” she whispered. “I never met anyone I wanted to do this with before. Just you.”
“Better,” he growled, kissing along her jaw again. The swelling of his cock within her again made her gasp.
“Again? Already?” she managed as he rocked against her, causing another avalanche of sensation.
“Again,” he murmured, nipping at her lower lip with his teeth. “Already. I’m a marine, babe. I got the stamina to do this all night.”
14
Jay wasn’t innocent. Not by any stretch of the imagination. He hadn’t been innocent for many years, not since he’d first worked out what his cock was actually for. But spending the night with Keris… touching her for the first time… he’d felt like a damned youth discovering the wonder of sex all over again.
She’d been willing, welcoming and so gloriously responsive his prick was half hard just thinking about it. Although he’d told her he could go all night—and he could have, his need for her was that great—he’d only taken her three times before letting her sleep.
She was new to sex and he’d been worried about her being sore. Her first time shouldn’t be marred by physical discomfort. He felt bad enough she’d winced that first time. Some men might have weird porn-driven fantasies about virgins crying and then turning into sex kittens up for everything, but Jay lived in the real world. He’d taken his time making sure she was relaxed and ready for him, but there had only been so much he could do, what with her being so tiny and he wasn’t the smallest of guys that way. Instead, he’d held her safely in his arms and thanked whatever gods, human or Lathar, who might be listening for bringing her into his life.
“Lady Kelly not joining us today?” Seren asked, using Keris’s cover name when Jay joined him in the command suite for the day’s working party. They both ignored the plugged in B’Kaar, like silent sentinels around them. It was freaky as fuck but he was pleased to see Berr among them. At least the alien asshole wasn’t free to run around chatting Keris up now.
“No, she’s tired. Didn’t sleep much,” he explained in a low voice.
Seren’s lips split into a slow grin as he studied Jay’s face. “Really now? I wonder what could have kept her awake?”
Jay winked. “Keep telling you. Us humans have the edge when it comes to the ladies.”
Seren blinked. “Holy draanth, I was kidding, but you actually did it. Didn’t you? Finally!”
“Keep your damned voice down!” Jay hissed, looking about quickly. The last thing they needed was any of these assholes working out that he and Keris hadn’t been intimate until now. Fortunately, none of them seemed to be paying the two of them any notice.
“Yes,” he admitted with a grin the size of a solar system. “We did.”
Seren grinned. “Details, brother, details! Some of us are still deprived in the bedroom department.”
Jay ran a hand through his hair, feeling ten feet tall. “A gentleman never kisses and tells. Let’s just say we didn’t get much sleep.”
“As it should be,” Seren nodded. “A male should always ensure his female is well-satisfied so she doesn’t seek fulfillment elsewhere.”
The comment was so out of left field and matter of fact, Jay had to run it through his head again to make sure Seren had said what he thought he had.
“Wait… what?” he turned to face Seren directly. “That’s not seen as a social no-no? For a woman to look for a new partner?”
Seren looked at him like he’d grown another head. “No, why should it be? If a male cannot meet all his female’s needs, why shouldn’t she seek to fill those needs elsewhere?”
His view of the Lathar reset in a heartbeat. They came over as chest-thumping alpha males solely focused on claiming fertile females and their need for procreation. He hadn’t considered their social mores when it came to the rights and treatment of women. Or even that claimed women would have any rights.
To find out that they could leave if the alien who claimed them didn’t give them everything that they needed was mind-blowing.
“I’m sorry to say humans are not like that,” he said in a low voice. “Even in these supposed enlightened times, a woman is usually looked down on if she seeks a different partner while in a relationship, no matter what.”
Seren’s eyebrow winged up. “And that would be why your females would be much better off with Lathar mates. We know how to treat them well.”
Jay grunted—not quite ready to make that last step to agree with the alien warrior just yet—and looked around.
The B’Kaar leader, Risyn, wasn’t here, which made him nervous. He didn’t trust the alien leader as far as he could throw him. For all their size differences, humans and Lathar weren’t all that different.
Jay had met men like him before. They were all civility on the surface and played well in whatever group they found themselves in, but underneath they were lethal and utterly lacked conscience. He usually stayed well away from them. While he was certainly no special snowflake—he’d been in too many warzones for that—he was a marine, and men like that were not team players. If the shit hit the fan, they would absolutely do what they needed to do, regardless of the collateral damage.
So he was thankful the asshole wasn’t around at the moment.
“Well… since we seem to be it for today, shall we head out?” he asked the other male, and together they left the command deck for the hangars that still needed checking.
“So what did you call us in here for?”
Indra’s voice cut through the air before all three women were through the door, her tone clearly expressing her displeasure at the fact they’d been roused from their beds and summoned to the command center. As mate to the highest-ranked warrior in their group, their little trio’s defacto leadership had fallen to her. She’d taken to the role like a natural, looking down her nose at the assembled B’Kaar like the empress herself.
Keris and Gracie crowded in after her as Risyn B’Kaar turned, moving aside to reveal his second in command, Berr, seated at the console in front of him. Neither wore their kasivar, the armored suits standing guard at the back of the room.
“Exactly what we’d like to know,” Jay said, and she turned in relief to find their three males behind them. She smiled up at Jay as he reached her, sliding a protective arm around her waist. She hadn’t seen him since he’d left her in bed this morning, and her body still sang from his possession of her.
“Ahh, my friends,” Risyn was all smiles that didn’t quite reach his pale eyes. “So glad you could join us.”
Nyek inclined his head, coming to stand beside Indra. “You are most welcome. How can we be of assistance?” he asked, the former paladin’s voice polite but wary.
None of them could forget that the B’Kaar were not close allies with the K’Vass, which meant they were all now technically behind enemy lines. It would be easy for the cyberwarriors to vent them to space and tell the empire that the base malfunctioned before they arrived. She shivered and drew closer to Jay.
Risyn’s expression didn’t alter, a pleasant mask Keris didn’t believe for a moment in place as he motioned toward Berr and the holo-screen in front of him. She blinked in surprise. There, rotating gently in front of them, was a strand of human DNA, right next to a Lathar DNA strand.
“The emperor himself has tasked us with the creation of a genetic matching program,” the lean B’Kaar explained. “One that will search for and isolate the best genetic match among the human population for each of our warriors.”
Keris had flitted a few steps forward before she realized. “That would be a massive undertaking, though. The computing power alone would be immense. Not to mention the differences between the two species’ genomes… how would you work out what would be a match or not?”
Berr half turned in his seat, his dark gaze latching on to her with interest. “Easier than expected since humanity are a form of Lathar. Admittedly, they evolved from a
n adapted variant, which has necessitated some… inventive recoding of the discovery algorithms, but it’s possible. As you can see,” he indicated the DNA on screen, “almost identical.”
To the layman’s eyes they were, but Keris wasn’t a layman, and she quickly spotted the differences between the two. The Latharian helix was crammed full of information with the human one looking like a stepladder in comparison. But simple had its advantages. Even she could see the human genome was more elegant and uncluttered with unnecessary information. Less information meant less chance for errors, or for information spurs to cancel each other out. The worst-case scenario had already occurred. Scientists had removed a seeming redundancy; the effects only discovered when the plague had ripped through the Lathar and killed all its women.
Playing along like a dumb human who didn’t know any better, she nodded. “They do look kind of similar, yes. Does that mean parts match up or something, like a puzzle?”
Berr grinned. “Somethin’ like that, yeah. Bit more complicated, but that’s the basics of it. What we’ve been doing is analyzing the genetic information from the human databases. Some ark or somethin’.”
“Wait… what?” Gracie exclaimed. “You have the Terran DNA ark? How the ever-loving fuck did you get that?”
Berr twisted in his seat to look over his shoulder. It looked like he’d trimmed his beard a little, his dimples showing through the short hair as he grinned at Gracie. “Your president gave it to us, wrapped up in a neat little bow and everything.”
“Halland gave you the ark?” Jay sounded surprised, making Keris turn and look at him, suddenly concerned she’d misstepped by not sounding worried about it. Perhaps this ark was something culturally or religiously important to humans? If so, she’d just given herself away. “I’d be surprised if he even knew what it was. The man’s an utter idiot.”
Her relief tried to exit her body with the air in her lungs. She hadn’t draanthed up after all.
