Maryam

by Tracy St. John

  “No bat­tles to in­ter­rupt me?”

  “If so, the sight of your naked body run­ning for the es­cape shut­tle will in­spire the crew to fight harder.” He was only half-jok­ing.

  She gave him a play­ful shove, laugh­ing. His heart skipped a beat to see her at ease. He was glad she felt safe.

  “I can help you wash faster,” Pana of­fered.

  “As can I. Al­low me to be your de­voted helper,” Der­gan said, shoul­der­ing the Imdiko aside.

  Kels stepped up. “As Dramok, I should ac­cept that re­spon­si­bil­ity. There’s not enough room in the shower for all of us. You two will have to fight for the priv­i­lege to as­sist.”

  “Hey! No pulling rank, Kels.” Pana’s shove was a lot harder than Maryam’s had been.

  The Dramok’s com went off, and he frowned at the fre­quency, all amuse­ment ban­ished. “It’s Se­bist.”

  Der­gan re­mained merry. “Looks like you’ll be too busy for the next few min­utes to per­form shower duty af­ter all.” He scooped the laugh­ing Maryam up and took her tri­umphantly to the shower, with Pana in tow.

  His stom­ach churn­ing as sickly as when Der­gan had put their shut­tle in a dive, Kels an­swered the com. “Hello, Se­bist.”

  His friend whooped. “Still alive, by the skin of your teeth, I hear. I just re­ceived word from Cap­tain Rosark.”

  “Many thanks for send­ing him af­ter us.” Se­bist had said he’d pull some strings to get help to them quickly.

  “What are friends for?”

  “You hap­pen to be the best of those.” A headache was form­ing be­hind Kels’s eyes.

  “I learned from you. I have yet to re­pay you for be­liev­ing in me when I was ac­cused.”

  “That was decades ago, and you owe me noth­ing.”

  “Not even the woman car­ry­ing your child?”

  Kels stared at the com in si­lence. Had Se­bist guessed his clan might de­velop feel­ings for Maryam?

  There was a sigh on the other end. “Be­fore you de­cided to va­ca­tion on a Du­mai pre­serve, I re­ceived a com from your clan­mates and the lovely Matara Maryam.”

  “You did?” Kels had to sit on the huge sleep­ing mat be­fore his shak­ing knees gave out. What had they told Se­bist?

  “The lady made it abun­dantly clear she wouldn’t be forced to join a clan, es­pe­cially a clan that wasn’t yours.”

  “I—uh—I had no idea, Se­bist. Not that she’d have any in­cli­na­tion to­ward my clan. At least not when she spoke to you.”

  “You have an idea now, I take it. She’s be­come more than a sur­ro­gate for your son?”

  “She’s—I—damn it. I didn’t in­tend for this to hap­pen. I didn’t want it to hap­pen.”

  “You know Kels, you’re not just more for­tu­nate than most. You re­al­ize and ap­pre­ci­ate how for­tu­nate you are. You never take it for granted. In fact, I think it em­bar­rasses you some­times. Like now?”

  Kels rubbed his fore­head, ir­ri­tated that Se­bist wasn’t an­gry with him. Af­ter all, he’d done ev­ery­thing wrong when it came to Maryam, yet she’d given him rea­son to hope she’d find him worth­while. He didn’t de­serve her. “It’s not fair to you. I had a Matara. You should have one too.”

  “Who says life isn’t fair? I have a won­der­ful clan and the best friend a man could wish for. Who knows, maybe an­other Earther is in my fu­ture. There are close to fif­teen hun­dred of them on the way to Kalquor as we speak.”

  How many are com­ing will­ingly? Kels de­cided not to ask. He had more than his share on his con­science as it was. “You’re not go­ing to talk me out of feel­ing guilty about this.”

  “As long as it doesn’t keep you from a woman who’ll be a good fit for you. Good luck win­ning her, Kels. Maybe she’ll rec­og­nize her own good for­tune in hav­ing a chance to be with your clan.”

  He clicked off be­fore Kels could say more, leav­ing the Dramok swal­low­ing against the lump in his throat. “I not only don’t de­serve her, I don’t de­serve you, old friend.”

  He had Se­bist’s bless­ing to pur­sue Maryam. The ques­tion re­mained, could he and his clan win her? Had his luck re­turned, or would things fall apart again?

  Only one con­sid­er­a­tion wasn’t in ques­tion. “No mat­ter what, it’ll be her choice.”

  The drip­ping trio of Maryam, Pana, and Der­gan emerged from the bath­room sev­eral min­utes af­ter Kels’s com with Se­bist. Maryam was draped in a towel. Kels’s clan­mates were nude and aroused. Ap­par­ently, there hadn’t been room in the shower for sen­sual fes­tiv­i­ties.

  Kels rose from the sleep­ing mat to greet them. Maryam grinned. “We haven’t been blasted into bits?”

  “I’m im­pressed. I thought only an all-out war would have chased you three out of there.” Their laugh­ter, fil­ter­ing into the main por­tion of the quar­ters, had been con­tin­u­ous.

  “What did Se­bist say?” Cau­tion sobered their moods. They watched Kels care­fully.

  If he did clan Maryam, he’d have his hands full. Not as he had with Briel, but Maryam was her own sort of chal­lenge.

  A most de­light­ful chal­lenge.

  “He wished me luck in court­ing you. With the bunch of you con­spir­ing be­hind my back, I’m go­ing to need all the luck I can find.”

  Pana and Der­gan winced, but Maryam showed no guilt over hav­ing commed Se­bist with­out his knowl­edge. “The ver­dict is—?”

  “Af­ter you’ve given birth, the choice is yours to go where you will. In­clud­ing stay­ing as my Matara. Be warned; I’m go­ing to en­tice, pur­sue, and flat­ter you out­ra­geously for the priv­i­lege.”

  Maryam smirked. She dropped her towel, re­veal­ing a breath­tak­ing view of curved, freck­led skin that made Kels’s mouth go dry. Her know­ing gaze sent heat zap­ping straight to his groin.

  “Af­ter I scrub ev­ery inch of you, you can make your case,” she purred.

  Chap­ter Nine­teen

  Mother of All, he was hard, and grow­ing harder still as Maryam slunk to­ward him, her hand held out. As if in a dream, his arm drifted up­ward. The pres­sure of her fin­gers on his helped him emerge part­way from a lust-in­duced fog.

  He let her lead him into the bath­room, past his leer­ing clan­mates. She turned to him and tugged on the front seam of his form­suit, part­ing it open from his throat to his groin. “Hello again,” she said to the twin shafts when they popped free.

  “We’re very glad to see you,” Kels man­aged.

  He wasn’t one to hand over con­trol, but Maryam hadn’t done any­thing to set off his in­stinct to dom­i­nate. She saw to his needs; peel­ing his out­fit off, or­der­ing the wa­ter on, step­ping into the spray to set her pale skin gleam­ing. He watched with fas­ci­na­tion the droplets that clung to her red pu­bic hair.

  “Come in. Al­low me to wash you.”

  He ac­cepted the in­vi­ta­tion, join­ing her in the shower. He grabbed her by the ass, pulling her in so he could rub his cocks against her while claim­ing a de­mand­ing kiss. She moaned and clung to him, let­ting him han­dle her as he pleased. The ea­ger sur­ren­der in­flamed him more than be­fore, and his fin­gers pressed hard into the yield­ing flesh of her but­tocks. Her nip­ples hard­ened against his chest, but oth­er­wise, she was all soft­ness.

  “Mas­ter,” she whis­pered against his lips.

  He kissed her again, then re­leased her and stepped back.

  Maryam pumped cleans­ing gel from the wall dis­penser and rubbed her hands to­gether to cre­ate a mound of suds. She set about bathing Kels, rub­bing his neck and arms with a firm touch, knead­ing tight mus­cles un­til he groaned in re­lief. She worked his back next, find­ing and un­rav­el­ing knots with prac­ticed fa­mil­iar­ity.

  “You’ve done this be­fore,” he sighed, brac­ing his hands against the wall to give him­self fully to her min­is­tra­tions.
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br />   “When he was a med­i­cal stu­dent, my ex had long shifts at the hos­pi­tal. He’d be ex­hausted, but too stressed to sleep. A good mas­sage was guar­an­teed to put him out like a light.”

  She didn’t miss an inch, even work­ing on his ass, thighs, and calves, her hands slick with soap. Were it not for his aching cocks, Kels would have been per­fectly re­laxed.

  The an­tic­i­pa­tion of what would hap­pen once she deemed him clean made them jerk. He looked for­ward to prov­ing his value as a clan­mate.

  Just as she’s prov­ing hers. I’d let her get away with any­thing for this mas­sage alone.

  Her for­mer hus­band was a proven id­iot. But his loss might be Kels’s gain, so stu­pid­ity was a great char­ac­ter­is­tic for the man Kels had never met.

  “Turn around,” Maryam said.

  He did so, lust wal­lop­ing him anew at the sight of her ris­ing from her knees, fin­ished with rub­bing his calves into ooze. Her at­ten­tion went to his chest, which she lath­ered thickly. Once he was rinsed, she gave the freshly washed flesh a good go­ing-over with her tongue.

  He watched with fas­ci­na­tion as she traced the con­tours of his pec­torals with her pretty pink tongue. She had to know how de­li­ciously wan­ton she looked do­ing that—didn’t she? Lick­ing the droplets from his skin, her breath warm. Now us­ing the tip of that tal­ented tongue to flick a dark brown nip­ple be­fore fas­ten­ing her mouth on it and rub­bing the flat of her tongue against the sen­si­tive flesh. He breathed through parted lips as she kissed her way to the other nip­ple for the same treat­ment.

  An­ces­tors, she was amaz­ing.

  She treated his ab­domen with the same at­ten­tion, lap­ping the swells of mus­cle with closed-eyed in­ten­sity. Mov­ing lower and lower, sink­ing to her knees a lit­tle at a time. As she lav­ished wet kisses a mere inch above his bob­bing pri­mary, she lifted her cupped hand. Kels guided her palm be­neath the soap dis­penser and filled it.

  His head fell back as she stroked his cocks, her tiny fin­gers rub­bing as skill­fully as they had other parts of his body. He screwed his eyes shut, want­ing only to feel the gor­geous pulls on his lengths, the care­ful scrub­bing on the more sen­si­tive un­der­sides. Warm wa­ter sluiced down, adding to the en­thralling at­ten­tion. Kels prayed it wouldn’t go cold, not now, not ever.

  He was en­veloped by greater warmth, a more pro­found wet­ness. A soft tug­ging, her mouth re­treat­ing from his sec­ondary, suck­ing it as she went. He slammed a fist against the wall as ex­cite­ment surged.

  He stared down, watch­ing her bob over him, work­ing his shafts in turn. Lovely pink lips, wrapped around his dark mem­bers, her cheeks dim­pling as she drew on him. Her tongue slid along the veins be­neath each length, ten­derly abrad­ing so that he al­most came up on his toes. Serv­ing her mas­ter with no thought to her own needs, suck­ing him with only the de­sire to please. He imag­ined spurt­ing cum in her sub­mis­sively opened mouth, watch­ing her ac­cept his pas­sion, her throat work­ing as she swal­lowed his seed.

  His breath caught as heat surged from his sec­ondary to the space be­tween it and his pri­mary. For a mo­ment, he nearly let it hap­pen. It was too al­lur­ing to deny him­self such an in­cred­i­ble gift.

  His in­stincts came to the fore, how­ever, sav­ing him from self­ish im­pulse. He was a Dramok, a leader. A leader al­ways thought of the good of oth­ers be­fore him­self.

  He bent, scoop­ing Maryam in his arms and or­der­ing the shower off in a shak­ing voice. He dashed to the sleep­ing mat, where he crashed them both to its giv­ing sur­face.

  “Who the hell is per­suad­ing who to stay?” he gasped. He didn’t give her the op­por­tu­nity to an­swer be­fore press­ing his lips to hers.

  Kels’s wet body plas­tered against her, and Maryam couldn’t help writhing against him. Fel­la­tio had al­ways been an agree­able ac­tiv­ity with her hus­band, but only as a step to­ward in­ter­course. With Kels, it had been a di­vine ser­vice. The in­creas­ing spurts of pre-cum had told her he was clos­ing in on cli­max, and she’d ac­tu­ally wel­comed the po­ten­tial of his pas­sion flood­ing her mouth. Per­haps he’d or­der her to swal­low. The idea was ex­cru­ci­at­ingly arous­ing.

  It tied to the fan­tasies of ut­ter sur­ren­der. Of giv­ing her­self with­out re­serve to oth­ers. Maryam was be­gin­ning to ac­cept that she en­joyed sub­mit­ting to the men of Clan Kels. She won­dered if she could deny them any­thing.

  Kels leaned back, his drenched hair rain­ing on the bed linens. Big, strong, un­flinch­ing Kels. Maryam felt her spirit draw to­ward him, seek­ing more than phys­i­cal union. If this wasn’t the first blush of love, then it was damned close.

  “Love me,” she whis­pered.

  “Do I have a choice?” he whis­pered in re­turn.

  Even with that promis­ing re­ply, he stood, leav­ing her alone on the mat. Pana and Der­gan had drawn close, so that they stood on ei­ther side of their leader. Three men, carved gods, their bod­ies poised to claim her. Maryam spread her legs in of­fer­ing.

  Kels said some­thing that sounded like tut­l­ito tolp. What­ever that meant, the oth­ers re­sponded im­me­di­ately. Pana gasped, straight­en­ing. Der­gan growled low in his throat. Their sexes jerked.

  “My Nobek.” The Dramok mo­tioned his clan­mate to­ward Maryam.

  Der­gan crawled over her, his gaze in­tense. Maryam closed her eyes against the fright­en­ing stare, need­ing to hide from that view of fe­roc­ity. Yet his kisses were gen­tle as they lit first on her lips, then her chin, her throat, its hol­low, down to the swell of her breast.

  Two tiny pin­pricks against the fleshi­est part. Maryam whim­pered but of­fered no re­sis­tance.

  The pain of his bite was fleet­ing. She shud­dered at the cruel dart, then lay qui­etly. As he in­jected her with his venom, he teased her pussy lips apart with two fin­gers, then pushed in. He stroked her clit as he pumped within her, and Maryam arched with a cry.

  Plea­sure mounted, in­creas­ing a hun­dred­fold as the in­tox­i­cant spread its magic through her. As she gy­rated with greater en­thu­si­asm, Der­gan eased his fin­gers free and with­drew his fangs.

  “Don’t go,” she begged.

  For an an­swer, he licked her juices from his fin­gers, watch­ing her face as he did so. “I have no in­ten­tion of leav­ing un­til I’ve fucked you as you’ve never been fucked be­fore,” he promised. “Hold your legs open for me.”

  Maryam did so, grab­bing the backs of her knees and splay­ing wide, feel­ing how the cool air danced over her pussy. The slight sen­sa­tion sent thrills up and down her spine.

  “Lis­ten to me, lovely Maryam,” Der­gan said. He ap­peared more dan­ger­ous than ever, but in­stead of warn­ing her off, she wanted him with des­per­a­tion. “What’s about to hap­pen re­quires cau­tion. A large de­gree of care­ful­ness. That means you’ll lie there and be very still. Do as you’re told, or I’ll put you in the cor­ner with your arms and legs tied so you can’t bring your­self to cli­max.”

  She cried out to hear such cru­elty. Would he re­ally do that to her?

  He nod­ded, as if hear­ing the ques­tion in her thoughts. “If you dis­obey us, I’ll not only deny you or­gasm, I’ll keep you aroused un­til we reach Kalquor while grant­ing you no re­lief.”

  With the in­tox­i­cant singing in her veins, its ea­ger­ness mak­ing her des­per­ate to be filled, Maryam couldn’t imag­ine more hor­rific pun­ish­ment. Bet­ter to be beaten than en­dure the tor­ture Der­gan threat­ened her with.

  “I’ll do what you want. Any­thing you want. I prom­ise.”

  “See that you do. I don’t hold back when it comes to dis­ci­pline.”

  She could see that he didn’t.

  Trem­bling, she kept oth­er­wise mo­tion­less as Der­gan crouched over her, brac­ing him­self on one hand while gath­er­ing both his shafts in
the other. As his hips low­ered to­ward her wait­ing pussy, ea­ger­ness made Maryam’s heart pound. She wanted noth­ing more than to thrust against him, to stuff her­self with his veined, livid flesh.

  How­ever, with his warn­ing ring­ing in her ears, Maryam didn’t move. Not even when his pri­mary nudged her wom­an­hood, urg­ing it to yield. A stab of vi­o­lent de­sire bul­leted through her as it drove the first inch, but she man­aged to keep still. Barely.

  He was forg­ing deeper. His ta­per­ing girth widened sud­denly, press­ing hard against the walls of her wom­an­hood. Forc­ing her achingly open. Maryam grunted as sur­ren­der­ing to the in­va­sion be­came ef­fort­ful. Der­gan hadn’t been this thick be­fore.

  “Easy. A lit­tle at a time now. Such a lovely cunt, tak­ing both my cocks at once.”

  Maryam whim­pered as a shock of de­sire shot through her. Both? In her pussy? Was it even pos­si­ble?

  Pos­si­ble or not, she had no in­cli­na­tion to stop him. As the strain in­creased, verg­ing on painful, she held her­self open to him, kept in place by des­per­ate yearn­ing and the need to please. Ex­cite­ment over­whelmed her, mak­ing her wet, eas­ing his pas­sage.

  “Good, Maryam. Give your­self over to it. Yes. Yes.”

  He ground against her in slow cir­cles, find­ing that magic spot within her sex, bring­ing hair-rais­ing ela­tion to the fore. The ache of tak­ing him was lost in elec­tric ex­cite­ment. Maryam’s fin­ger­nails dug into the meat of her leg.

  It was in­cred­i­ble. If he’d torn her in two, she wouldn’t have stopped him. Der­gan paused with each in­cre­ment gained, and her head swam with the sen­sa­tion of be­ing stretched to her lim­its while bliss poured through her. Such ut­ter pos­ses­sion was arous­ing all on its own.

  Then he was fully within her. Der­gan leaned down to kiss her, his tongue stroking hers. She was as­tound­ingly full, her body oh so aware of his. Maryam re­leased her grasp on her legs to cling to the Nobek. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, clutch­ing him tight.