by Zoey Draven
Against her forehead, she felt subtle vibrations as he began to purr from deep in his throat. Even though she thought it odd, hearing it comforted her, made her muscles relax against him until he was practically holding her up. She heard his heartbeat thrumming, different from her own, slow and languid.
Something settled in her and calmed. Her breathing returned to normal.
And she realized something.
It felt right to have him hold her. Even though they barely knew one another, even though they bickered constantly, even though Lainey wasn’t sure whether she wanted to scream at him or bang his brains out…she couldn’t deny that Kirov gave amazing hugs.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, though it was hard to say. She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry I freaked out for a moment.”
“Never be sorry for that, luxiva,” he said and the words vibrated against her skin. “I should not have pushed you that way. But you frightened me when I saw you on the ledge.”
Lainey sighed against his tunic.
“You misunderstood what I said,” he said softly. “If you die, it is not as if the Fates simply end my life too. I would do it myself.”
She gasped and she pulled back to look up at him. His expression was serious, somber.
“That’s not funny,” she said, equally quiet.
“It is the Luxirian way,” he told her. “Instincts are powerful forces. Once it is awakened, nothing can stop it. Fated mates simply cannot survive without the other. That is a fact. If you were to die, it would be like half of my soul ripped away. No being can live a half-life.”
“You don’t even know me, Kirov,” she said, even though her tone was gentle, even though her heartbeat was suddenly racing in her chest.
“That will come in time,” he said. “But even you cannot deny this. You feel the Instinct binding you to me, as it is binding me to you.”
Lainey swallowed, the hairs on her arms standing on end despite the heat.
“I—I don’t know what I feel,” she said.
Kirov’s lips turned up, but something about it struck Lainey as sad. And the fact that he might be sad, or disappointed, because of her struck her in her very core.
“I wish to show you something tonight,” he murmured after a brief moment of tense silence. “I want to take you somewhere.”
“What?” Lainey whispered, her brows furrowing. “But Vixron—”
“We will be cautious,” he said, his blue eyes flashing golden for a brief moment in the sunlight. “I…I need to see you. Where it is just us. Where we do not have to whisper when we speak, where I can touch you without worrying that your guard might see.”
Lainey couldn’t help but soften at that.
“Will you come with me?” he asked again.
And because Lainey was a total sucker, she nodded.
Even though she thought it might be the biggest mistake of her life, she nodded.
Chapter Ten
Later that night, when the moon was high overhead, Kirov returned from the command center, impatient to see his female.
Every moment that he was apart from her felt unnatural. Luxirians needed to be around their mates. It was a compulsion, a need.
How he’d managed to leave her was a mystery to him. How he’d managed to withstand the passing time…he didn’t even know. He hadn’t made any progress on his work, his mind completely consumed by her, not his latest project, which was an anomaly in itself.
So the moment that Kirov landed his hovercraft on the terrace, he had to calm himself. If he was too hasty, Vixron might be even more suspicious than he already was.
The guard was stationed inside the dwelling. The females were nowhere in sight, had probably long gone to their sleeping platforms, and even Kirov wondered if he would find his luxiva sleeping.
“Ambassador,” Vixron nodded, coming to his feet, from the fire pit.
“I must return to the command center, but Vaxa’an wished for me to check in with you,” Kirov said, the lie falling easily from his lips, especially if it meant he could spend some time with his female, away, alone.
“The females went to sleep long ago,” he told Kirov. “I do not expect them to wake until the suns rise.”
He nodded and said, “Good. I will see about relief duty for you tomorrow evening so you may rest a full night, yes?”
“Thank you, Ambassador,” Vixron said, though his eyes were careful.
Kirov inclined his head and then left, shutting the door firmly behind him. He made a show of walking back to his dwelling, but then did what he did the previous night: cut down the alley and quietly stride along the backs of the dwellings until he was right back where he started.
Her window was open and his breathing hitched with anticipation.
Luxirians had better hearing, better senses overall, than most species, so Kirov employed every technique he’d been taught during warrior training to ensure Vixron wouldn’t hear him as he approached the window.
Peering inside, he saw her. She was sitting at the foot of the sleeping platform, idly playing with the device he’d made for her. She’d figured out how to retract it back into its spherical form and she tossed it back and forth between her hands.
Fates, she’s beautiful, he thought, awed, his body aching at the need he felt for her. He’d never thought that a need and desire this potent was possible, even though Luxirians had always been known for their fierce intensity when it came to matings.
His cock was almost constantly hard and aching, even when he wasn’t near her. Just the memory of her, her scent, her eyes, her lips, her voice could make his Instinct prowl in his chest, urging him to return to his female so he could mate her thoroughly. So he could mark her, fill her with his seed, so every male around her knew that she was his and his alone.
Vrax!
Get control, he said, gritting his jaw.
Only when he’d pushed his Instinct’s will down slightly, did he said, quietly, “Luxiva.”
Lani’s head snapped to the window. Before, her eyes had been unfocused, like she hadn’t been aware of her surroundings, like she’d been in a quiet place in her own mind.
Kirov wanted to know those places. He wanted to know everything about her, what made her happy, what lit her beautiful eyes up with excitement, what made her mind work. He wanted to know what she feared in life so Kirov could ensure those fears never came to life, he wanted to know what had made her sad on the terrace with him that afternoon—a memory that still made him want to roar, that memory of her watery eyes and trembling hands.
He wanted to know her.
She’d been right earlier. They didn’t know one another. Not yet. But Kirov didn’t have to know everything about her to know, with a certainty he’d never felt, that she was meant for him and he was meant for her.
Even if Lani continued to deny their connection with her words, she couldn’t deny their connection in other ways. Like how she looked at him, how her lips parted in awareness, and her body loosened at the sight of him.
Like that moment.
His luxiva might not even be aware that her body was telling him everything he needed to know.
Tossing the sphere on the sleeping platform, she rose and approached him at the window.
“I almost thought you weren’t coming,” she whispered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She looked at him in a way she’d never looked at him before and Kirov cocked his head, trying to discern what it was.
She was nervous, he realized, blinking in surprise.
Nervous that he wouldn’t come? Or something else?
“I would never leave you,” he said quietly, as if it should be obvious. He frowned. How could she think such a thing? “What is wrong? Have you changed your mind?”
“No,” she whispered quickly. “No, I just…I just haven’t had a first date in a while, I guess.”
She smiled in a way that made Kirov think her words were teasing, a joke, though he didn’t understand what a ‘date’ was.
His brow furrowed, showing his confusion, and she said quietly, “Never mind. Where are we going?”
Kirov’s lips quirked at her inquisitiveness. “You will see.”
Lani pouted at that and Kirov almost groaned, his cock thickening even further, which he didn’t think was possible.
Her expression changed and she asked quietly, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Kirov exhaled a rough breath. If only she knew the wicked thoughts he had about her, she might rethink coming with him.
“Are you ready?” he asked instead. At her hesitant nod, he said, “Push yourself up on the sill.”
The sill was high for her, coming up to her breasts, but she managed to hop up just enough so that Kirov could snag her waist through the open window and lift her out easily, without making too much noise.
The only problem, which Kirov realized a moment later, was that the maneuver made her tunic ride up her thighs. Way up her thighs.
“Vrax,” he cursed, almost forgetting that they needed to be quiet.
His hands were still wrapped around her curvy waist, keeping the tunic locked in position, and he set her on her feet on the ground in front of him…but he couldn’t look away from those thighs…and what was on full display between those thighs.
Her cunt was pink, tufted with light, wispy red hair, and it was only until that moment when he realized he could scent her arousal.
His hands held her in place, even when she started to squirm. He spotted dampness on her inner thighs.
Vrax, vrax, vrax!
Now he knew why she’d had a distant, unfocused expression on her face when he’d first seen her.
“You were thinking of a male, luxiva?” he growled softly, bringing his lips to her ear, because he feared that if he continued looking at her beautiful cunt, he might do something…rash. “Tell me it was me that made your cunt ache.”
He heard her gasp and she squirmed in his arms again, trying to lower her tunic. “That’s none of your business,” she hissed and Kirov’s heart drummed in his throat, blood rushing at his sudden jealousy, at the prospect that his female might’ve been thinking of another.
“Do you have a male on Earth?” he rasped, his body going still, dread pooling in his stomach, momentarily cooling his arousal.
He pulled back to look in her eyes because he needed to know the truth. Because if she said she did, he would look in her eyes and tell her that it was only him, from that moment forward, that she could and would forget about any that came before.
Her expression was heated, her lips pursed with annoyance. When Kirov inhaled, he was struck with another heavy dose of her arousal and he realized she liked this.
He growled low in his throat, his muscles shifting and growing, his Instinct pushing him to mate her right there and then, against the dwelling wall, Vixron be damned. Kirov needed to erase any other male from her mind and a thorough fucking from a Luxirian warrior would do just that.
“Tell me,” he rasped.
“Maybe I do,” she hissed again, a little feral privixi, unsheathing her claws. “What would you do about it?”
“You do not wish to know what I would do.” Kirov grinned, but he felt far from amused. It felt more like a baring of his teeth. “Not any longer. It is only me and it will always be me. Do you understand?”
Her lips parted, her eyes flaring with heat…anger perhaps, but also desire.
“Why you overbearing—”
Before she could finish her sentence, Kirov hauled her up in his arms with ease, wrapping her legs tight around his hips.
Which put her aching cunt directly over his aching cock.
Vrax, her heat!
Both of them hardly suppressed a groan and Lani looked at him, her eyes wide and slightly dazed, like she didn’t know what was happening.
Kirov’s eyes narrowed, determined to make a point. So, he began to purr quietly and Lani let out a strangled gasp that she tried to silence.
His purring made his chest vibrate and that vibration went directly down to his cock. She felt that vibration against her cunt and her hands desperately clamored around his neck and shoulders, trying to hang on, when her legs went limp with shock.
Kirov gave a dark grin and began to silently walk back the way he’d come—which elicited a startled moan of surprise from his female—striding along the backs of—thankfully—empty dwellings. He allowed his purring to strengthen the further they went, away from Vixron.
His luxiva was squirming in his arms, her hands tightly clenched into the muscles lining the backs of his shoulders. She seemed not to know whether she wanted to get away or press closer. He growled when he caught her rocking her hips against him ever so slightly, but then seemed to force herself to still.
“S-stop, Kirov,” she whispered finally, once they reached the back of his own dwelling, once they were huddled in a dark corner, far enough away from Vixron where they didn’t have to whisper any longer. “O-okay, you win.”
“Say it, luxiva,” he rasped, ceasing his purrs for just a moment as he waited. His body was tight, already hovering on the edge of orgasm, just holding her this way, knowing that she was receiving pleasure from his body…just not in the way he truly wanted her to receive pleasure from him.
When she hesitated, he purred and growled deep in his chest, at the same time.
Lani’s head lolled on her shoulders, her eyes sliding shut, lips parted. And Kirov almost orgasmed right then because he’d never seen anything more erotic in his entire lifespan.
“Vrax, female. Say it!”
“I…I don’t have anyone back on Earth,” she finally admitted. Her eyes opened and her cheeks reddened even further when she whispered, “I was thinking about you.”
Kirov relaxed a little at that, relief threading through his limbs, knowing that no other male held her heart. That would be his alone, once he won her.
He pushed his forehead against hers, his horns threading through her hair. It felt like the most natural thing in the entire universe, to hold her this way, knowing she was on the edge.
Lani let out a shuddering sigh and he felt her breath drift across his cheek.
“I could spend my seed in my coverings like an untried youth. Right at this moment, just looking at you,” he rasped, his eyes locking with hers, so close that he could see flecks of green in her blue eyes. “Vrax, you drive me to madness, Lani.”
She bit her reddened bottom lip at his words, her breathing rough, her heat still pressed into his cock.
“Do you wish to cum, female?” he asked her quietly. “I can ease you.”
Lani looked at him, wide-eyed and dazed. Fates, he could tell she was tempted.
But she said, “N-no.”
“Nix?”
She shook her head, clarity returning to her gaze. She bit her lip, her expression suddenly unsure. Shy, even.
“No, I don’t want to…right now,” she said.
Kirov tried to read her, fearing that he’d pushed too much. But she didn’t pull away from him, didn’t push at his shoulders. She seemed content just to stay in his arms.
That knowledge warmed his chest and he nodded. “Very well.” But he had to be sure he hadn’t vraxed everything up, so he asked, “You still wish to come with me?”
Her hands flexed on his shoulders.
Lani relaxed a little and some of the shyness in her expression disappeared.
“Duh,” she whispered. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”
Kirov smile was slow. He didn’t know what ‘duh’ meant, but he figured it was another word for ‘yes’ based on context. Mentally, he filed it away, with all her other strange words his language implant didn’t translate.
“Let us depart then.”
Chapter Eleven
Kirov - 4…5?
Lainey - 0
She exhaled a slow, albeit shaky breath, but it was difficult to pout about that lackluster score when she was flying on a freaking hovercraft, with the moon their on
ly source of light, with a crisp Luxirian breeze whipping through her hair.
Oh, and a Luxirian male behind her, keeping her pressed between the control panel and his warm, hulking body, as they hurtled to their unknown destination.
A Luxirian male who gave her a hat to shield her from the sun.
A Luxirian male who drove her crazy, who pushed her when she didn’t want to be pushed, but needed to be.
A Luxirian male whose huge cock vibrated when he purred and growled.
Lainey’s cheeks flushed all over again, still unable to believe that things between them had escalated that far and that fast.
One moment he’d been pulling her through a window, trying to sneak her out like she was a teenager going for a ride in her boyfriend’s Mustang at midnight. The next moment, he was looking at her accidentally-exposed pussy and growling with a sexy scowl about whether she had another male.
Lainey would never admit to him that she’d liked seeing him a little jealous. It just made him even more…intense. And he was already crazy intense.
It had turned her on even more and before she knew it, she was in his arms, pressed against his cock, and her clit was being vibrated.
Yep, things had definitely, definitely escalated.
Now she knew that his voice deepened, that his muscles grew, and his eyes became so dark they looked black when he was turned on, when he purposefully played with her body, when he asked her if she wanted to cum.
Thank God for the cold breeze because Lainey might just spontaneously burst into flames.
Kirov’s arms tightened around her and in her ear, he growled, “Female, I know what you are thinking. I can smell you.”
Lainey bit her lip.
She didn’t know why she turned down his offer to make her cum. Heaven knows she needed it. Wanted it.
Maybe before the night was over, she might want to fool around with him a little bit. It was a date, after all.
Handjob in a hovercraft, anyone? she thought, unable to help the amused smirk that crossed her lips.
Besides, she couldn’t deny that she was curious. She was curious about what sex with him would be like.
