by Cara Bristol
Now he would mount her. She lifted her lips.
But he rolled her over.
And did the unthinkable.
He licked his fingers. The ones that had been inside her—the ones slickened by her moisture. Omra’s jaw fell open. But when he knelt and kissed her, she forgot her shock. She met every stroke of his tongue with a curl of hers, teased him for the joy of hearing him groan. The vibration of it sent little tingles dancing through her.
She flailed, uncertain what to do with hands that had become useless appendages until they settled on his head. She threaded her fingers through his hair, marveling at the softness, such a contrast to everything else about him. From there, she followed a natural path to his neck, his shoulders. Biceps bulged as he braced himself on his forearms.
He wedged a leg, strong and hirsute, between hers and pressed against the apex of her thighs, inciting a melee within—comfort and discomfort, satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
His attentions grew rougher. He kissed her almost harshly, but she relished the abrasion of his chin, the crush of his mouth, the way his tongue plundered. His stony manhood dug into her leg, smearing a trail on her skin. Men ejaculated—she knew that, but hadn’t realized they leaked beforehand. Perhaps it was normal to produce moisture? Her own wetness trickled between the moons of her buttocks.
He relinquished her mouth to deliver tingling kisses to her neck, and she moaned in rapture and rolled her head to the side. He nipped; she arched. He soothed each place he bit with his tongue, and she whimpered.
He lifted his head. She stared at him, seeing for the first time an open countenance, her Alpha naked, his expression revealing the same yearning that gripped her.
A spot of red stained his cheeks. “Your eyes are beautiful like the violet Parseon moon.”
Before she could respond to his astounding comment, he ducked his head, hesitated, and then captured her left nipple between his lips.
From nipple to womb, a sweet, shocking current flowed. Omra grabbed the covering on the sleeping platform and twisted it in her fist. He sucked on the tip, and she gasped.
He ceased his delicious torment to peer at her. “Am I hurting you?”
“No.” She shook her head. Her nipple had tautened to such hardness that it hurt, the sensation tugging on an invisible rope that seemed tethered between her legs. She throbbed there too. But the pleasure-pain came from within. He hadn’t caused it. Or maybe he had, but if she said so, he might not continue. She arched her back, bringing her breast closer to him, hoping he would get the message.
He did. He licked the tip, drew rings around it with his tongue, and blew on it, his breath cooling her steaming flesh. He pinched both nipples. Tugged them. Rolled the buds between his fingers, watching her face the entire time.
Sharp longing knifed through her. “I like that,” she said tentatively.
The blaze in his eyes incinerated her. He crushed her mouth and plundered its recesses, his demand somehow so supplicating, she responded with fervor, eliciting a growl that caused her toes to curl. Finally he broke off the kiss and worked his way down her body, brushing, licking, nibbling. Warm breath tickled her abdomen, and a tiny giggle erupted from her mouth. She squirmed. With a smile on his lips, he proceeded to tease until she protected herself by splaying a hand over her stomach.
He picked up her wrist and sucked each finger, stroking every digit with his tongue as if she were a delectable treat, holding her gaze the entire time. When he released her hand, she stared at her wet fingers, astounded.
A minor shock compared to what happened next.
While she gaped at her fingers, he scooted down the bed and positioned his broad frame between her thighs, pushed them wide, and exposed her sex. He bent his head and kissed her there.
She went rigid with shock and pleasure. A molten surge of ecstasy rolled through her body. “Dak.” His name tumbled from her lips. He licked from her channel, which had continued to produce an inordinate amount of moisture, to a nub of flesh at the top that pulsed and throbbed with a keen tension, tightening with every swipe.
“Yes,” he ordered hoarsely, “say my name again.”
He parted her folds with his thumbs, and when he took aim at the nerve center again, she had no problem obeying. “Dak!” she gasped.
Omra pounded the platform with her fists, ineffective in staying the sensation rocketing through her, a rapture hearkening from part joy, part agony. She thrashed her legs. It did not deter him but spurred him to a more devious assault. He sucked on the bud as he had done with her nipples. Pleasure cut through her sex, her womb.
She grabbed handfuls of his hair. “Dak, please, please,” she begged, arching, lifting her hips from the bed.
He took advantage and slid one finger into her channel. No pain, only delicious ecstasy. Pressure and yearning for more. He continued to lick and suck the nub while he inserted a second finger and thrust both in and out, though never fully out.
“I need, need, need.” The words she’d been thinking burst out. Her body hovered at the brink of discovery, yet truth skittered out of reach. Her hips moved of their own accord to thrust at Dak’s face. She flung her head from side to side and grabbed his hair. She wondered if she was hurting him, but he gave no sign, only continued to flutter his tongue over the burning nub, as relentless as an invasive force marching through an unprotected village.
“You’re there, Omra. Give it to me,” he growled.
She had no idea where “there” was located or what “it” was, but at the sound of his rumble, the tension centered at her core drew tighter and exploded. Omra convulsed and shuddered with the most intense pleasure she’d ever experienced. She bucked her hips, flailed her legs, and tore at his hair. He licked until the last swell subsided, and she collapsed in exhausted surrender, the throbbing between her legs muting to a gentle current.
She still gripped his hair in her fists, and she opened her hands, relieved she hadn’t torn out a clump and left Alpha with a bald spot. How would he explain that?
Perhaps he wondered the same, because he chuckled, a lightness such as she’d never heard from him, not even the first day when he’d driven her home and they’d conversed so casually. The oddest lassitude swept in a need for slumber. If she closed her eyes, she would drift away, but Dak moved over her and kissed her. He tasted of himself and of a tang she recognized as herself.
With his kisses, he seduced a renewed response, and sleepiness fled under the assault of desire. Knowledge did not lessen her need; if anything, it was greater this time.
With his tongue between her legs, he brought her once more to the pinnacle, but before she could soar over the top, he halted. As need quaked through her, he shifted her onto her stomach and urged her to her knees. She scrambled to comply, eager for the completion. She would take whatever he gave her—pleasure, agony—she wanted both with him.
With his fingers, he spread her open, then positioned the head of his manhood against her swollen, aching center. Though she yearned for his penetration, courage deserted her then, and she tensed.
“Forgive me,” he said and pushed his shaft inside.
She stifled a gasp of amazement. His erection stretched her, but instead of pain, there was only pressure, fullness, pure sweet satisfaction.
He rocked in deeper, and a whimper of pleasure escaped her. He stilled.
“No,” she moaned. “Don’t stop, Dak. It feels…good.” Her head swam; she’d never fathomed this act could bring such gratification. Did men achieve this satisfaction every time? Was that what drove them to use females? If she’d experienced an iota of this, she would have been an avid participant.
No, she amended; she still couldn’t imagine experiencing this with anyone but Dak. She wanted him to do this to her. No one else.
Her passage felt stuffed already, but she squeezed her muscles tight around his erection in encouragement. More, she silently urged him. More.
“Omra.” Her name rolled off his lips like a song of
praise. He massaged her folds with his thumbs as if to ease the way. Another thrust. Then another, and he seated himself. His member pulsed.
She feared he would leave when he pulled back, but then he slid in. Long and slow, satisfying her in a most elemental way, yet…not. She craved the rest of it, the sensation that she was exploding into hundreds of pieces.
Dak curved his arm over her hip and cupped her mons. He pressed his fingers onto the protruding nub and massaged. She gasped with joy and spread her legs until she risked splitting herself in two. Her hips bucked. Sensation coiled in her sex, in the nub in particular. Winding, winding. Burning. Tightening.
Dak’s breath grew ragged in her ear, and his body slickened with sweat as he pumped his erection harder and faster, working his fingers in tandem.
With a snap, she was hurled into the flames again, her body bucking and spasming.
He groaned her name, and his body shuddered, and then he was pounding into her with a force that would have driven her to the floor if he hadn’t been holding her. His erection jerked, and a flood of wetness merged with her own.
Her knees gave way, and she collapsed, Dak atop her, still inside her. Her passage pulsed, continuing to milk his member, unwilling to relinquish the most incredible sensations she’d ever experienced. He buried his face against her neck, his jaw rasping, his breath steaming. Her hands rested palms down on the bed, and he covered them, curling his fingers between hers. Though the compression of his body made it hard to breathe, she relished the intimacy of his weight. She felt safe, secure.
For a long moment, they remained like that; then, without breaking contact, he rolled to his side and tucked her body into the crook of his. Held snugly with his member still inside her, Omra surrendered to slumber.
Chapter Eight
Morning fog shrouded the ground and dampened the sound of Dak’s footfalls as he crept along the tree line, hugging his injured arm to his chest. His ears filtered out the chirps of awakening insects and fowl, listening for sounds that did not belong. He’d evaded capture thus far. His comrades-in-arms? Not so fortunate. It was common for prisoners to be beaten half to death for the sport of it. Bloodlust of friend and foe ran high.
Their team of four had set out a fortnight ago with orders to seize the crested grail. Under cover of darkness, Dak had crawled through the enemy camp and whisked it away under the noses of the men guarding it. Their safety, their win had seemed assured until Dak’s brother, who’d led the operation, committed a serious blunder, allowing the enemy to swoop upon them.
Of the four, three had been captured. Only Dak remained free, though he’d been wounded in the battle. His arm ached, and red tracks spread from the deep laceration in his shoulder. He’d bound the wound with a length of cloth torn from his uniform. Irony mingled with the burning pain. What if he survived the fight only to succumb to infection?
In his pack, he carried the enemy’s crest.
He’d marched all night, but now, the grayness of a waning eve covered the land. The earth released fecund odors, which seeped into his nose and into his pores as he trod across the spongy ground padded by decaying leaves. Dawn would break soon, and he would be forced to hide until he could travel under the cloak of darkness once more.
The hairs on his nape stood up seconds before a twig snapped behind him.
Dak whipped around, feinting to the side, but not soon enough. Agony lanced through him as a dagger sliced between his ribs.
His injured arm hung useless, and Dak roared with pain and rage and shoved his attacker. His assailant’s face contorted into a rictus of hatred as he latched on to Dak’s shoulder and twisted the knife. “You shall not best me, brother!”
“Dak! Dak!” From the forest floated Omra’s voice, and fear arose, not for his life, but hers. He could not see her, but he could hear, feel her panic.
“Run, Omra, run!” he shouted.
A smile as evil as a serpent slid over his brother’s face. “So she is what you hold dear…”
“Dak! Commander!” Omra sounded frantic.
Lodged inside, the poison-tipped knife burned, and his life force began to slip away as the toxin spread. He had lost everything—failed in his mission, placed Omra in harm’s way. She materialized out of the wood. He tried to yell again for her to flee, to hide, but his tongue and lips had swollen. His mouth would not form the words. Fog clouded his vision. Weakness paralyzed his limbs, and he would have fallen except his twin gripped his injured shoulder and was shaking, shaking, shaking—
Dak jerked awake.
“Commander, please!”
The forest, his brother, the knife—evaporated. Omra leaned over him, jostling his shoulder. “Commander!”
He blinked, drawing breaths of sweet air into his perspiration-soaked body.
“You were shouting in your sleep. I couldn’t wake you.” Her concern deepened the ache inside.
“It was just a dream.” He banished it with a toss of his head and wrapped his arm—the one that ached when winter descended—around her and pulled her to his chest. She rested her cheek on his shoulder. “A dream.” He pressed his lips to her hair and inhaled, let her scent replace the smell of the earth, of blood, of fraternal duplicity.
His brother had not erred on that long-ago training mission but had deliberately led them into a trap. Parseon did not cosset its soldiers or cadets. Training exercises were as real as any wartime battle; men could and did die, but his brother had plotted Dak’s demise, aware it would be assumed he’d perished in training. But Dak had survived to return to base with their opponent’s crest, and his performance in the operation had earned him a commendation. Much later, after fighting many wars, going hand-to-hand against Parseon’s bitterest enemies—Dak had been awarded the coveted fifth Parseon province.
He did not know why his dream altered the events of that long-ago day.
His sire’s favored first son had relied on their opponents to kill him—had not laid a finger on Dak—yet in the dream that had dogged his slumber for years on end, his brother always hunted him down to finish the deed.
Dak thought he’d triumphed over the night terrors and had laid them to rest, but the evening’s events had triggered another one. He shuddered anew in contemplation of Marlix using Omra. No female should have to endure a cruelty of that nature—certainly not his. Though Corren did not know everything of what he felt, he was aware of enough to have made his offer of Omra tantamount to betrayal.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Had he kept them too near?
Omra caressed his chest, making whorls of the hair with her finger, and under her soothing ministrations, his breathing calmed. He lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to her palm. Kissing her had been an insane impulse. He’d witnessed Terrans doing it, but until recently had never imagined engaging in such an unhygienic, pointless gesture. What was to be gained from pressing one’s lips to another, licking the inside of the mouth, and exchanging saliva? And with a female, no less.
But something about Omra bade him to try it. Demanded he do it. The sensations had floored him. The softness of her lips. The wetness. The heat. And when she’d responded in kind, a lust such as he’d never experienced had unleashed. Stories he’d heard had pounded at his brain, and he’d wondered, what if? What if Terran blood made a difference? What if everything he’d been taught about females was wrong?
He had discovered the answer.
“Your dream was very fierce to have taken hold of you so.” Omra worried her lip.
“But just a dream. It was of no consequence.” He faked unconcern with a shrug. Parseon military training organized around teams, but only one individual of the team could emerge as victor. By the end, the exercises pitted comrade against comrade. Brother against brother. But the contest between him and his brother had begun the moment his twin had preceded him out of the womb. Primogeniture had conferred all birthright and their sire’s favoritism to his elder sibling, yet it had never satisfied his br
other. His hunger for power was insatiable.
He kissed Omra, and she twined her tongue around his. Monto. There was no going back.
“I like that…kissing,” she said, shyly, when he broke it off. The way she said the Terran word, her accent, made it sound so foreign, exotic. But then it was. Deviant too. Dangerous, should anyone find out.
He cupped the side of her face and stared into her eyes. “Do not go alone with another Alpha under any circumstance.”
“If he is Alpha, I would have no choice.”
“You do have a choice. I give it to you. I will deal with what happens.” I will protect you. He wanted to reassure her but worried that doing so might scare her more. He did not want her to creep about in fear but to be cautious, prudent. Stay close to his domicile, so that he could protect her. Corren was gone, and Dak doubted he would risk punishment by returning to the domicile. But the conversation with the other Alphas had left him uneasy. He had betrayed too much of his feelings for Omra. He was probably being overly cautious, but he would post a guard on the morrow but not tell her about it. She could attend to her chores, and he would have peace of mind while away.
She nibbled on her lower lip, drawing his attention to its plumpness, to the memory of its softness under his. “All right,” she said hesitantly.
He checked a reflex to brush the damp hair from her face, to trace the line of her mouth, to kiss her eyelids and feel the flutter of her lashes. He needed to impart the seriousness of the situation without frightening her unduly. “And I am your Alpha, and you shall obey,” he said sternly.
“Your will is mine,” she answered. The trusting, tender expression in her eyes thickened his throat. He kissed her because he had to explore the wonders of her mouth, her pouty bottom lip, the equally luscious top one, the avidness of her wet little tongue, the sweetness of her breath. A man could lose himself in a mouth like that, in a female like her. Forget his responsibilities. Had that been the intent of Protocol? Keep the sexes separate so Parseon’s warriors would not be distracted?
