In all her years of working with Gabe, Flo had never heard him speak so seriously about anything. She felt a sharp longing to have the same bond with Daegan that Gabe and Keshara shared. “I wish it was that easy. You paint quite a picture of domestic bliss.” She walked to the console and plunked herself down in the chair.
Gabe pivoted to watch her. “Final bit of advice from big brother Gabe here? You’ve got to shut all the other doors to open the one that’s right for you.”
“Meaning?”
“Life’s got infinite possibilities, up to a point. At some point, if you find the person or situation or both that’s what you’ve dreamed of, you have to close off all the others. You have to choose.” Gabe studied her face. “Is he the one? Is he worth walking through one door with and allowing all the others to slam shut? Would you regret it the rest of your life if you let him walk away?” He held up his hand as she opened her mouth to answer. “Aside from you, I was probably the least likely person in the galaxy to find a mate and settle down. Totally not interested. Planned to die in space with my boots on and no personal attachments. And then I met Keshara. And all those other open doors? Didn’t matter anymore.” A companionable silence stretched between them until he said in a lighter tone of voice, “I’m going back to the card game. You want anything? More tea?”
“I’m good. And thanks.”
“Any time. That’s what friends are for.”
Flo heard the sound of his footsteps receding in the hallway. She slumped in the chair. Hard to believe I just had that conversation with Gabe of all people. Rubbing her forehead, she had to admit he’d addressed all her doubts. The one thing she knew for sure was her life had already changed beyond all recognition and retreat wasn’t an option.
Daegan watched Gabe re-enter the big room where they’d set up their central command. He wondered why Flo was avoiding him so assiduously, even taking on guard duty. He was fairly sure sitting and staring at the storm wasn’t something she’d normally volunteer for, although of course she’d take her share of the duties like any good soldier. To his surprise, Gabe made his way across the room to where Daegan sat, pulled out a chair and sat down.
“I think if you have a hope in hell of convincing Flo to become your mate, now would be the time to go talk to her,” the pilot said.
Daegan tamped down his automatic anger at another man being involved in any way with his interaction with Flo. Gabe was mated to a Badari himself and he’d known Flo a long time so his advice was worth listening to. Rising, Daegan said, “Perhaps the two of us should talk.”
Gabe stood and put himself in Daegan’s path, clearly a challenge. Surprised, he again reined in his instinctively hostile reaction. This human wouldn’t stand a chance in a physical fight between the two of them so he must feel strongly about what he wanted to say. Daegan would listen, up to a point.
Speaking quietly and with considerable intensity, Gabe said, “If you ever hurt her or make her unhappy, you’ll answer to me.”
With his Badari instincts, Daegan registered the fact the other Badari were observing this challenge and were definitely in agreement with Gabe. He was pleased his Flo had earned the respect of these hardened warriors. Lowering his head closer to Gabe, he said, “I’d die before I’d hurt her, or allow anyone else to do so. Your warning is unnecessary but I take it as a sign of how much you care about her.” Sidestepping the pilot, Daegan left the room without meeting anyone else’s gaze directly. He was angry and he didn’t want to force a challenge on anyone, which could happen if they weren’t careful. Only his tight self-control allowed him not to react more visibly to Gabe’s threat.
Killing a man who was Flo’s best friend, as well as respected by all the Badari and a claimed mate with the rank of enforcer probably wasn’t the best way to enter into his new alliance with the northern pack. The thought amused him and took the edge off his white hot anger over Gabe’s treading into personal matters.
As he walked through the darkened halls, Daegan pondered what he should say to Flo when he arrived at her guard station. You’re the air I breathe and without you at my side I’ll die? He laughed a bit ruefully. When did I become this man, to spout near poetry? Not to say the sentiment wasn’t true because the words expressed how he felt about her but he was dubious those were the right arguments to persuade her to claim him as her mate.
She was standing at the closed portal, gazing out at the storm. Deliberately he scuffed his boot on the threshold so she’d know he was there and not be startled.
Without turning, Flo said, “I figured you’d be here sooner or later. Did Gabe send you?”
He came up behind her and put his arms around her, craving a physical connection. The way she leaned against him was like a balm on his sore heart. “No one sends me anywhere unless I wish to go there. I’ve been beating myself up all morning for not having stayed in bed with you, letting you wake in my arms and having a conversation then. I believed you’d prefer to sleep in and have time to yourself but now I think I was wrong to leave you alone. Forgive me?”
She patted his arm but didn’t try to move away. “Nothing to forgive. I did appreciate some time to take a shower and reflect on the past few days. It’s been a whirlwind. ” She laughed and pointed at the raging storm. “About like that in fact.” Now she turned in his arms and stood gazing up at him. “You said you loved me.”
Ah, that’s my Flo, tackling the issues head on. Her directness was an attribute he prized. “I do love you, with all my heart. I want to claim you as my mate and face all the change and challenges we know are coming in the future together.”
Her forehead wrinkled in a frown and she bit her lip. “I never contemplated settling down before and I’m not convinced I’m the right woman to mate with an Alpha. I’m not sure I can be what you need.”
“I’m a man before I’m anything else,” he said. “Until I met you I didn’t think I even had a future and I had no dreams. We were fast approaching the termination age for our generation and the most I allowed myself to consider for the future was to kill as many Khagrish as I could when they came to kill me. You flipped my world upside down, not only because you brought word of unknown brothers from the north and impending freedom, but because looking at you unlocked parts of my heart I didn’t even know existed. The craving for a mate and a family someday maybe, but only with you.”
She reached up to push his hair behind his ear and then touched his cheek tenderly. “I’m kind of the same. But Daegan, I’m not a long range, strategic thinker. I don’t have any idea how to make your pack a success, or how to create a community if we relocate back to the islands after the war. You need a woman at your side who can figure those things out, like Aydarr has with Jill—”
Frustration boiling over, Daegan dropped his arms and stepped away. “If you never compare me to this Aydarr again, I’ll be happy,” he said with more heat than he’d intended. “The man seems to be a paragon and I’m only me, alpha-born but not able to walk on water as he apparently does for his pack. Do you have any idea how often you quote him to me? Or compare yourself unfavorably to this woman Jill? They’re people with strengths and weaknesses and so are we. We’ll follow our own path and do what our hearts tell us is right for ourselves and our pack. Of course we’ll make mistakes because that’s what people do but not because you aren’t the right mate for an Alpha. You’re the right mate for me, Flo. The goddess brought us together for a reason although the ultimate choice is up to us.”
Mouth open, Flo was staring at him. “I’m sorry, I had no idea I was making comparisons, or at least not so often. I apologize.”
He sighed in frustration, letting his shoulders slump under the weight of his teetering hopes to claim her. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters if you choose not to be my mate, which is the important topic at hand.”
Flo came to him and he watched her approach, wary that she was going to refuse him. He was acutely conscious he hadn’t been particularly articulate. Getting the rig
ht words out of his heart was harder than he expected when he wanted her so much and dreaded her refusal.
“I had a lot of doubts,” she said, staring up into his eyes. “And fears. But no matter how I look at it, there’s no future worth living for me if I’m not with you. And I’m an all-in kinda gal. No half measures. So either I’ll be your mate and you’ll be mine, or nothing.” Swallowing hard as he gazed at her, transfixed by her words, Flo added, “I think I fell in love with you the first day we met but I was fighting it out of fear. Well, today my internal battle against my own heart’s desire stops. I love you, Daegan, Alpha of the South Seas, and I’m not afraid to say it.”
He took her in his arms and kissed her with relief and passion, lifting her off the floor to hold her close. Flo locked her legs around his waist and deepened the kiss further, her tongue dancing with his in a fierce, sensual duel. Her ample breasts pressed against his chest, the thin tee shirt fabric doing nothing to hide the tightly furled nipples signaling her arousal. His cock lengthened, shoving against his pants, aching with desire to plunge himself into her right here and now and claim her while doing so. She ran one hand through his hair in the way she had that made him want to purr like the great cat hidden in his DNA would have reacted at being so petted.
He broke off the kiss and placed tiny nibbling caresses along the beautiful column of her neck as she held her head high. “I want to take you to bed now and claim you, mate.” His voice was more of a growl and he hoped he hadn’t frightened her.
Flo laughed, the sound delightful, echoing in the empty chamber. “I’m thoroughly on board with the idea but I’m on guard duty here.”
Kierce! Daegan’s thought was probably strong enough to give the poor man a headache but he was burning up with desire and frustration.
I’m on my way. I’ll take over the duty. Barely concealed laughter lurked behind the answer from Kierce but Daegan didn’t care. All he could focus on right now was taking Flo to their sadly inadequate but private quarters and claiming his mate.
Flo hid her face in his shoulder. “I’m going to be embarrassed to face him.”
Kierce entered the chamber and gave Daegan a two fingered salute. “I’ve got the duty.”
“Thanks,” Flo said faintly.
Daegan didn’t wait for a reply from Kierce but set out to reach the converted cell by the fastest route from the entry area. Shoving aside the hastily hung sheet and then tugging it back into place, he carried Flo to the bed and set her gently down on her back. Standing over her, he looked at his soon-to-be-mate with satisfaction and desire and impatience warring in his mind and body. “I’m going to have a hard time being gentle,” he said, fisting his hands.
“I never said you had to be.” She sat up and pulled the tee shirt over her head.
Daegan was transfixed by the sight of her luscious breasts cupped in green satin, black lace trim barely covering the pillowy tops.
Evidently pleased by his reaction, Flo grinned and yanked off her boots, throwing them aside carelessly. “There’s more to see, if you’d like to give me some assistance here.”
He didn’t have to be asked twice. After kicking his own boots off, he came onto the bed and slid her utility pants slowly down her hips, drawing a deep breath as he saw the tiny garment covering her mound. Tossing the pants aside, he hooked one talon under the piece of lace holding the panties on her body.
“Don’t rip it,” she said, although she didn’t sound upset. “This is the only pair I have and you might like to see them again.”
Daegan pressed his nose to the vee of her legs and breathed deeply of her scent, which brought his whole body to attention, including his already aching cock, imprisoned in his utilities, which grew even harder if that was possible. Using his teeth, he carefully dragged the scrap of fabric from her body and then returned to his area of interest, parting her thighs gently with his hands and settling in to lap and taste and enjoy the addicting woman who was his mate. Soon he had her squirming on the bed, trying to resist his skillful efforts with his tongue as he traced figure eights on her delicate skin, pausing to flicker his tongue over and around her clit.
Flo moaned and threaded her fingers through his hair to keep him at his task as he added stimulus, inserting two fingers into her hot, wet channel and massaging. She climaxed with a gasp and a deeply satisfied series of sighs.
It was the sexiest sound he’d ever heard and only inflamed his own desire further.
Daegan moved away to remove his shirt and pants, the relief immediate as his cock was finally free of confinement. “I want to claim you now, my love.”
She was eyeing him appreciatively and reached to stroke his shaft root to tip. “I’m ready.”
Gently he urged her onto her stomach. He hadn’t planned the move but a force deep inside him was insisting this was the next step. Flo rose to her hands and knee, facing away from him and the visual of her shapely butt ratcheted his desire even higher. Holding her hip with one hand, he guided himself into her channel from behind with the other, amazed at how tightly her body fit him as he sheathed himself. “I love you,” he said in a voice he scarcely recognized as his own, low and guttural with passion. Fully sheathed in her hot, welcoming body, his sac slapping against her with each movement of his own hips, he held her in the perfect position and drove hard, pumping in and out in a rhythm she had no trouble matching.
Flo made little moaning sounds as he continued, reassuring Daegan he wasn’t hurting her or being too rough. His climax swept over him and he thrust a final time, so deep they were like one person, no idea where he ended and she began. Flo responded, the ripples of her orgasm encouraging his, heightening the pleasure until he thought he might die right then and there. His fangs deployed and impelled by the influence of his unusual DNA, he leaned forward and grazed the tender place where her neck met her shoulders, tasting the rich, iron-flavored blood on his tongue. “Mine,” he said as if challenging the world to dispute his claim. Now he licked the spot to seal the small wound and then they collapsed together, wrapped in each other’s arms.
Coming down from his sensory overload, he said, “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
Flo rolled over to face him. “Absolutely not. That was the best I’ve ever had and when you marked me as your mate, it got even better. You’ll be a hard act to follow.”
“But you are going to claim me?” The bonding wasn’t complete until she did and suddenly he was desperate for them to be linked by the mate bond. Merely being telepathically linked wasn’t enough.
She stared at him, noting the amber fire in his eyes, and savoring the afterglow from their lovemaking. She loved being pressed up against all the hard planes of his body, with his already reawakening arousal pushing into the vee of her thighs. Her mate was magnificent and now she was impatient to claim him. Sitting up, Flo put her hands on his shoulders and gave Daegan a gentle shove. Obligingly he rolled onto his back, gathering her into another hug as he did so. She kissed him, exploring the warmth of his mouth with her tongue, enjoying the heat and the spice.
Flo ran her hand over his broad chest, across his taut stomach and further, until she reached his cock, hard and pulsing, weeping a bit at the tip. Breaking off her kiss, she moved to a position where she could take him into her mouth and give him a different kind of oral attention.
“I won’t last much longer,” he said through clenched teeth. “You’re too good at what you do.”
“Too good?” she said in a teasing voice, raising her head. “Should I stop then?”
He groaned and wiggled his hips. “Forget I said anything. Please, continue to your heart’s content.”
“I’ll never have enough of you,” she said truthfully. Flo moved on top of him, holding him firmly in her hand and slowly lowering herself onto the ridges one inch at a time. He groaned in frustration but moved his hand to toy with her clit, which felt so good she was tempted to move faster. Flo was enjoying drawing this out and building to the climax, however, and the slow
progression to the irresistible moment was erotic for them both. Once he was fully inside her, she leaned over him, changing the angle, which enhanced her own sensations and seemed to make Daegan even hotter as he watched her ride him.
He held her hips with his massive hands and she could feel him adjusting his body to provide different stimuli for them both as she moved up and down. The ridges on his enhanced cock gave her overstimulated nerve endings a powerful workout as they moved together. Daegan closed his eyes but she could see the golden amber glow under his eyelids and took great satisfaction from how powerfully she was affecting him. Her own thoughts were becoming fragmented as she tried to hold off her orgasm but the effort became too much for her and she let go, sinking into the maelstrom of sensation as he took his cue from her and sped up his own rhythm.
Satiated and floating on waves of pleasure, she leaned over and bit him in roughly the same spot where he’d marked her, at the base of the neck, until she tasted the tiniest amount of his exotic blood on her tongue. Hastily she copied his example and licked the wound, minor as it was, then kissed him tenderly. “Mine,” she said. “No one else’s not ever.”
“Only yours,” he agreed as the strength in her arms gave out and she collapsed on top of him. He held her tight and rolled them both onto their sides. “I love you and I’m proud to be your mate.”
Those were the most beautiful words she’d ever heard. “I love you too and I’m honored to be yours. We’re a team.”
Daegan Page 16
