by Amanda Milo
Her eyelids flutter, and she gives herself a little shake after I finish speaking. Her scent says she’s less afraid, so, not waiting for the agreement I know she doesn’t trust me enough to gift me with yet, I draw her leg over my hip, clamping it there to keep access to her pleasure center.
She shivers. “Don’t hurt my baby.”
I feel my gaze soften. “Narra,” I rumble.
Her eyes have not gone soft. In fact, the set of her mouth has turned hard. “Clearly, you’re not afraid of what I can do to you—but if you hurt my baby, the crew will kill you.”
The crew. Not our crew. She doesn’t consider me part of the crew—her crew—because she only knows the others.
But I’m her crew too.
I’m worthy of being one of her mates. And I’m going to prove it. “Beth,” I soothe, navigating the slightly awkward restriction of my other hand by rolling my weight further back on my weight-bearing hip. Once I’m able to articulate my wrist and fingers, I begin petting her between her legs, learning her. I skim over her, not dipping in, just brushing and teasing and caressing. “You don’t know me well enough to give me a chance with you,” I tell her, bending my neck to kiss the lovely curve of her rounded shoulder. “But that’s fine. You know that as a Na’rith, I’ll have just as much fun stealing this chance.” I lock eyes with her. “And believe me, I’ll be very good at plundering for your treasure.”
After a few moments, the scent of Beth’s coaxed lust hits me hard. I inhale it greedily. I don’t think I imagine the slight whine in her throat when I pull away from where I’m learning her. I bring my fingers to her lips, pressing on the bottom one. “Suck my fingers,” I order her.
Reluctantly, she opens her mouth, and when her tongue laps against the length of them, it’s my turn to whine. She’s as good as engaged the Nitro switch for my cock. “Good narra,” I praise hoarsely. “Get them nice and wet.”
She proceeds to suck me into fifth gear—and I still have my pants on.
It has a like effect on her. The leg of hers that I’m keeping over my hip starts to press and shift over me, her hips moving a little restlessly. She begins dropping excited kisses along my wrist—
And sucking. She’s licking and sucking me, giving me a lovebite.
Her approval of me makes my heart swell so fast my chest hurts. I want to pay her homage and reverence with affection equally ensorcelling.
“Give me back my fingers, narra,” I growl. “It’s time to put them to another use.”
Her eyes slide open, looking dazed as my fingers ease from her lips. I draw my thumb down her front, over her sweat-slicked throat, her tightly-bound breasts and bare belly, and finally, to the spot between her legs
Beth cries out when my wetness-coated finger slides over her clit.
Digging her fingers into my shoulders, slowly, she teaches me what she likes by writhing on my hand as I tease her.
Following the heady scent of her pooling sweat, I nosedive between her breasts to lap at her damp, fire-hot skin. She is so pillowy. But her top is too restrictive. I bite through the front fastening in one snap, and her chest bounces hard as her tits explode free of it.
Best teveking view I’ve ever taken in in my lifespan.
Her shocked gasp turns my cock to stone.
I suck her heavy flesh into my mouth, groaning like a starving man. But I freeze when her fingers sift through my hair, and her elbow comes to rest on my shoulder, our skin clinging.
I feel so connected to her; I don’t ever want to lose this. I lose my breath though as I resume sucking on her skin, lapping at her, covering my teeth with my lips and delighting in my mouthful. To my surprise, her nipples begin to dampen—a lot.
I pull back, and lap experimentally. “You’re leaking fluid everywhere,” I say in amazement.
“Ahhh!” Beth moans, her fingers spreading over my head and tightening to my scalp to keep me in place.
Her nipple-taste is mild, a little sweet, and it feels beyond deviant to feast on what she’ll be suckling our spawn with. It also fills me with a fierce pride: this is mine. Beth and everything of Beth’s belongs to me, and until someone steals her away, Beth belongs only to me.
Pulling back, placing soft kisses in trails that are less than her body wants, I start to rise up.
“Mmgrr,” Beth pants.
I almost smile in response. I think I’ve beguiled away her ability for coherent speech. My heart is banging against my chest as my breath saws into my lungs. “What I’ve had of you is so teveking good. I need to taste you everywhere.”
Letting her leg free, I pile pillows behind her and roll her to her back. “I want you to watch me,” I tell her. “I want you to see how much I want you.” She’s breathing through her mouth, her lips bright red from our kisses. Her eyes are heated, and trained on mine.
Nebula’s star-making mist! Just this from her fills me with pleasure.
Adjusting the bedding that props her up, I drag her to the edge of the bed until she’s forced to fold her legs up for me, or dangle them over the side.
She draws her legs up, closed together.
Nostrils flaring, I stare down into her eyes, waiting.
Staring right back, Beth drops her knees, exposing herself to me.
Growling, my own knees thud to the floor. My shoulders hit the insides of her legs and she widens her spread, laying herself open like a table at a feast. Creator—for the first time in my life, I’m a lucky Na’rith.
I kiss her lips here until she’s bucking on my face. I lick and suck on her until she’s whimpering, begging, writhing, her fingers catching and pulling my hair so she can keep me where she wants me.
When her crescendo hits, with her rump resting in the palms of my hands, her thighs shaking against my ears, her screams of pleasure calling out my name—I shove to my feet.
Barely feeling the ache in my knees or the numbness turning to spikes in my back, I rise over her, and dig my hand under her nape, gathering her hair in my fist. I use my grip to lift her head up enough to meet my mouth. “Who are you with?”
Her breath hitches, but she opens her eyes again, her gaze locking with mine. “You.”
My voice husky, it’s my turn to beg her. “Say my name, Beth. Who do you want?”
Beth licks her lip, and I want to suck her tongue—but I want her to want me to.
When she doesn’t say anything, my jaw tightens. I pull away from her, straightening.
“Wait,” Beth says softly—and instantly I’m stopped, not moving a muscle, not daring to breathe. “Qolt?”
My entire body tenses.
Beth draws her knees up a little, so that her legs are less splayed and more intentionally positioned to take a partner. “Come here.”
I fall over her—but brace myself up enough so our stomachs are only brushing, careful of the little spawn. My mouth crushes against Beth’s, and my thighs crowd the backs of her thighs as her knees ride up my ribs.
I praise her with my lips, my tongue, and a little nip of my teeth, making her moan so loud that I’m throbbing when I finally rip open my fly, the buttons snapping off their threadings and pinging across the bed. Shoving back my mating membrane, I fist the club of my cock, and prepare to surge inside her.
Panting, Beth brings herself up farther on her elbows to look between us, her face and throat painted bright with her heightening desire—
She shrieks.
My mating membrane retracts back with a snap. “Tevek!” I curse, eyes screwing shut as temporary nausea rolls through me.
“What IS that?!” Beth screeches, scrabbling out from underneath me.
“My cock,” I manage through my clenched teeth. I gesture to her stomach. “What got you full of spawn?”
“Nothing like your—your thing! Oh my—are all you Na’riths packing—that?” She’s starts to clutch at her throat, but the brush of her arm against her breast reminds her she’s topless and she starts searching for her item of clothing, scowling when she sees the
re’s no fixing it after I bit through the fastening.
The glare she sends me has my club swelling up again. I give her a pained smile and jerk my chin at her top. “Sorry. Got carried away.”
“You think?”
Out in the corridor, a sudden cacophony of scuffling, roaring, cussing, cursing, and thuds signals the arrival of luck-bearing, imminent invasion.
I tuck myself back into my pants, finding enough buttons are still intact that nothing’s hanging out.
Ekan bursts into the room, frothing mad. “You’re a teveking idtrek, Qolt!” His words are issued in nothing less than a snarl. “What have you done?”
CHAPTER 26—BETH
BETH
“What have I done?” Qolt asks slowly, projecting lazy satisfaction. “Whatever I wanted—just like you, brother. I see why you enjoy it so much. This was…” He licks his teeth, one side of his mouth curling up suggestively. “Fun.”
“FUN?” Ekan’s turning purple from the top down, even out to the tips of his pointed ears. He sends me a look, an assessing, you’d-better-be-unhurt-or-he’s-dead look.
Arms crossed over my chest, I feel my face heat because I’m topless in a room that feels full of men (even though it’s only the rocketing rise of testosterone from two males preparing to battle)—but I do appreciate Ekan’s protective concern. “I’m fine.”
I see the flicker on Qolt: he’s visibly relieved.
But then he looks at his brother, who’s watching me, and I literally see the moment in which Qolt decides he wants to shove Ekan over the edge of Outrage Mountain. I feel my face transform to stupefied horror when Qolt essentially slips on a mask, sending a comically big leer in my direction—so obscene, Ekan can’t miss it—and he’s not even facing him at first. “That you are, narra. Anytime you want to scream for my club again, just—”
Fun-loving as a loon and usually cool as a cucumber under all kinds of pressure—Ekan slowwwly turns all the way to face off with his brother, and LOSES. HIS. SHIT.
He catches Qolt by the shoulder, his teeth bared, but Qolt doesn’t look worried. He smirks at his enraged sibling, it’s smug as all get out, and I know before Ekan cocks back his fist that Qolt’s going to take it in the teeth.
He does.
And the fight is on! The two men start snarling like rabid dogs, and the sound of fists impacting with vulnerable flesh makes me shudder and feel phantom aches.
Adrenaline bleeds through me, making my eyes widen and my heart pound. I hate that I react to loud shouts, but I do. Even if the shouting is happening all in fun (obviously not the current circumstances), and even when the sounds are not directed at me (like now, when they’re roaring only at each other)—it’s like I’ve got some form of PTSD. A little danger-flavored sex is fun times, and I’ve known that about myself and I’m fine with that part of me, but I hear a raised male voice, and I’m in trouble. My skin prickles, my heart rate speeds up, I get the anxious rush in my system and I want to run, or duck, or cry. Maybe all of those things.
I can almost taste the anger and aggressive hormones filling the air, and I’m starting to shake.
“Narra, come here, come away from these inconsiderate jacklegs.”
The voice does not come from the guys breaking everything in the room as they throw each other around like extra-large punching bags. I twist to find Tiernan, his big body crouched beside the bed.
His eyes move over me, his jaw tight as he takes me in. I’m covering as much of my chest as I’m able to, and technically, not a lot more boob is exposed than when they were bound up in Ekan’s little Bandaid bras, but I still feel more naked than ever. Tiernan takes me by the elbow to help me up, so that I don’t have to drop my hands. He rips the sheet off the bed, and I huddle under it, and when he tucks me to his side, I huddle into him, too. With a glower in Qolt and Ekan’s direction, he starts urging me away from the skirmish/melee/deathmatch. When he’s steered us to the safety of the corridor, I see we’ve joined Prow and Oquilion, who both look about ready to wade into the fight.
But Qolt’s already getting beaten by his brother—and he’s going to get all the bad luck if he tries to resist the ass-kicking Ekan is determined to deliver.
“This isn’t a fair fight,” I shout to the three men standing with me, trying to be heard over the sound of the brothers’ violence.
Oquilion rolls his shoulders, like he’s trying to relieve tension rather than perform one of their alien-shrugs, at least I think. His jaw is hard. “Qolt’s getting better than he deserves.”
Prow almost lunges forward. “Did he hurt you?”
Obviously anxious for this answer, Tiernan tightens his grip on me. Wordlessly, I shake my head.
It’s a long few minutes in which I wonder if Qolt’s a dead man—either at his brother’s hand, or because if Ekan stops, I’m afraid the other three will take up where he leaves off. But finally, finally—almost as abruptly as it started—it’s over.
Teeth beginning to chatter, I eye the combatants, who have gone still amid the damage to the room—items ripped off the walls, what looks like electronics crushed on the floor, circuit boards and whatnot fractured by booted feet or bodies crashing into them.
Ekan, chest heaving, lips drawn back in a tired snarl, drops Qolt—who’s bloodied but still grinning. The scene from the movie Deadpool zips behind my eyes, where the hero (or is that antihero?) of the film surveys his damage to the injured, beaten-bloody, smirking villain.
And Qolt is beaten bloody—it’s dripping from his nose, or maybe his split, swelling lip. Or from the oozing gash above his swelling eye. He, however, appears pretty darn pleased with himself.
Ekan does not look pleased. In fact, he’s suddenly starting to look less and less purged of his aggression, and he says something completely unexpected. “She gave you a lovebite?” He takes two steps back, shoving his hand through his hair. His jaw is clenched, and he’s staring at Qolt’s wrist.
I squint at the miniscule smudge of a mark on Qolt’s wrist too. “Are you talking about the hickey?” I wave to encompass all of the mess that is Qolt’s messed up face and chest. “How could you even tell?”
This is not a helpful question to ask.
I know this when Ekan bares his teeth at Qolt like he’s ready to dive back in to finish him for real this time.
I bite my lips.
Qolt tips his head back to send Ekan a direct grin and a dirty stare, declaring, “Don’t look so torn up; yeah, I earned this—but Beth might give you a little pity-nip later.”
Now, I’m an alien here, so I’m not about to claim that I catch all conversational nuances—but even I know it’s gauche to trap the woman everyone’s been sort of soft-dating, have your way with her, then goad your brother about what you did with said woman. For shame, Qolt.
“Stop it!” I snap. “You don’t need to be nasty.”
Qolt sends me a very bad, very wicked grin. “You’re right: I’ll save my nasty all up for you, narra.” He blows me an unwholesome air kiss. “After all, you are a rutting delight at taking ‘nasty.’”
I don’t have to respond to this. I don’t have a chance—because this, it turns out, is Ekan’s limit. He rips open the pocket that sits at his hip, pulls out a gun, and shoots Qolt in the head.
“NO!” I scream—a beat too late I realize, because the sound of the shot is already vibrating in my ears.
Before the horror can finish rolling through me, Ekan glances in my direction, and waves off my concern. “Don’t fret, Beth,” he says over the beginning of my immediate protest. “It’s set on low, and this teveker’s head is thick as a brick.”
Qolt topples over and thuds to the floor.
Ekan nudges the toe of his boot into Qolt’s bare shoulder, lifting it off the floor—and dropping his foot away sharply when Qolt’s sex-sweaty skin tries to stick to him. Ekan’s voice is about five hundred degrees cooler when he adds, “I’ve never had the opportunity to test out this weapon, but at worst it might scramble his brains
a bit,” and without pausing to take a breath, he finishes on a near hiss, “And that’s fine with me.”
We all stare down at the Na’rith laid out on the floor. It feels like a lifetime ticks by as we take in his stillness.
“Are you sure—” I start, panicked.
Qolt groans, and my lungs fill with air: he’s alive! Slowly, he shifts enough to roll to his side, his eyes squinched shut as he holds his head between his hands. “Ugggh, tevek. No more drinking.”
Ekan, who’d been opening his mouth to say something, goes quiet instead.
Qolt inhales through his mouth once, twice, as if he’s nauseous, or it hurts to breathe—and then he draws his hands away from his head a fraction, wincing slightly, and he glances around—and his eyes land on me. His face turns stunned. “Jarekt, narra. Jarekkkt.”
That’s the first thing Ekan said to me too, the day I was auctioned. I didn’t know what it meant then, I just knew it sounded pretty. Now my ears hear jarekt, and my translator supplies his greeting: hello, beautiful. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be bilingual. You hear the word, then your brain matches the word to your mother-tongue’s equivalent almost instantaneously. Despite my implanted ability, I’ve noticed that when there is no match for alien-to-English Earthen, it’s like my translator throws up its hands: ‘Good luck, girl—you’re on your own.’
Qolt’s gazing at me like he’s never seen me before.
Apprehensively, I worry my lip as I stare back at him. My stomach rolls hard, stunning me—am I going to be sick, or did I just feel my baby roll over?
Ekan shifts impatiently. “Tell me you’re rutting with me right now.”
Qolt’s wondrous expression for me turns flat when he eases back and sends Ekan a quelling look. “Private conversation, jackleg.” Almost distractedly, he looks for me again. “But if anyone’s speaking of rutting, I’d rut with you, narra…” His face morphs to confusion. “Why don’t you come over here, and we’ll...” His eyes cut to Ekan, then to Prow and Oquilion, and Tiernan. Qolt’s voice is almost angry, and maybe I’m just imagining it, but he also sounds a little scared when he demands, “Why in the tevek is everyone here? Get out of my room and…” he trails off. My heart starts racing as his shocked eyes lock with mine before he makes a stunned scan of my clad-only-in-his-bedsheet body.
