by Zoey Draven
And Eve knew what he meant.
What he meant was that her flimsy excuse to not have sex with him no longer mattered. They were there, in the Lake District, under a canopy of trees, with no credits attached to their visit together.
For the first time, Eve wasn’t paying him for his time.
He’d asked to meet her because he wanted to be with her, because he cared for her the same way she cared for him.
His words were a question.
And Eve found herself saying, “Yes.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
It had been too long.
The moment she said yes, Khiva didn’t waste another moment before he was hovering over her, his hands up the long skirt of her dress to rid her of any undergarments. His cock was already hard and aching for her, so strong with arousal that he wondered if it would rip through the seams of his clothing.
Evelyn helped him with an eagerness that only fueled his need. Their hands were blurs as they moved over one another’s bodies and when Khiva was about to duck his head between her thighs, needing a taste, she squeezed his shoulder.
“N-no, I need you now,” Evelyn whispered, tugging him back up until he met her lips. Khiva groaned into the kiss, but he let out a trill of surprise when she pushed him off. And though she was about a third of his size, she maneuvered him onto his back, before throwing a leg over to keep him in place.
If Khiva was aroused before…he could hardly think a coherent thought then. It was not a sexual position he’d expected for her to initiate.
“Is…is this alright?” she asked, quietly, her cheeks flushed.
Khiva exhaled sharply. Still shy and unsure, despite how sensual she was. She didn’t see it. Khiva would make sure she knew how erotic he found her.
“Pax,” he rasped, his hands running up her stocking-clad thighs before gripping her hips underneath her dress. “Pax, leeldra.”
It was all she needed to know before her fingers were tugging down the hem of his pants and Khiva growled when he sprang free, when she immediately wrapped her soft hand around his thickened base. His hips bucked of their own accord. Just a single touch and he was on the edge. His attraction to her wreaked havoc on his control.
As if sensing his urgency, Evelyn led his cock between her thighs, pushing away the cloth of her undergarment.
“Demav,” he hissed in Keriv’i when the tip of his cock encountered her warm, tight sheath.
Evelyn’s breaths were rough and deep as she slowly worked him inside her, while Khiva tried his hardest not to move, to give her time to become accustomed to his size again. But vauk, she was tight.
When she was halfway seated on his cock, she began wiggling and rocking her hips in a way that made sharp tingles run up his spine. Without realizing it, Khiva thrust up, hard, until his thickness was fully inside her. It was her surprised cry that made him freeze.
“Leeldra,” he rasped, “I apologize, I—”
His words ended with a grunt as she slid up and immediately snapped her hips back down, taking him even deeper.
“Pax,” he hissed, his eyes rolling into the back of his skull. “Nrivi!”
More.
Evelyn’s lips were parted, her eyes glazed with pleasure, as her palms spread over his chest, steadying herself as she slowly began to rock over him. Her pace was just fast enough to keep him growling, but slow enough to drive him mad, hovering on the edge of orgasm as her walls clenched around him.
Khiva looked up at her as she mated him. Even fully clothed, she never ceased to arouse him in a way no other female had before her. What struck him most was the openness around them, the cool air, the quietness of the Lake District at night, the only sound the rustling of leaves and the sound of him inside her.
Khiva pressed his fingers between her thighs, finding the hardened, aching bud of her clit, and she let out a strangled gasp, her hips jerking in an uneven rhythm for a brief moment.
“K-Khiva,” she breathed.
He gave her a responding trill in the back of his throat, beginning to take over once she began to falter. He recognized the signs of her orgasm before perhaps even she did. Her inner walls tightened the smallest amount, her abdomen clenched, and her movements became frantic over his cock.
As he continued to stimulate her clit, his other hand gripped her hips, nudging her slightly higher so he could fuck her with more leverage and power.
“Ohhhh,” she moaned, huffing out quick breaths as he plunged into her cunt, over and over again, with a pace that made her breasts bounce wildly, even in her thick dress. Though he was underneath her, though she’d started their mating with the erotic control, it was now Khiva who held her captive.
Evelyn bit her already flushed bottom lip, her eyes rolling into the back of her head, which lolled to the side. Her palms put more pressure on his chest as she leaned more fully into him, trusting him to take her weight and see her through her orgasm.
And when she came on his cock, when he felt her inner walls spasm and flutter before her keening cry met his ears…Khiva knew ecstasy.
He only lasted until her first orgasm receded. By the time, she’d sagged into him more fully, his jaw clenched so hard with the force of his orgasm that he felt it pop.
Evelyn gasped, feeling his teela empty inside her, lash after lash of hot cum that coated her walls. Mind-numbing pleasure made his vision blacken for a moment, his spine arching, his muscles tightening.
Masculine satisfaction lengthened his orgasm, that primal part of him compelling him to mark her with his teela so any nearby males knew that she was his and his alone.
Her choked cry made him return to reality as his teela began to react in her body. Khiva growled, wrapping his arms around her, keeping her against him as his instinct demanded, as his cock continued to pulse and empty inside her. Even after his orgasm tapered off, he refused to leave her body. Among Keriv’i mates, there was no higher intimacy than remaining connected in that way after sex.
Evelyn moaned and trembled and writhed on top of him and he let out a comforting trill, smoothing his hand through her hair. A dangerous, stray thought hit him hard and for a moment, it stole his breath.
It didn’t stop him from voicing it though. In her ear, he rasped, “I want this with you. Always, leeldra.”
He wanted this freedom with her. A life with her. A family. A life that was only possible away from Everton, which was made it only a fantasy in his mind. Because to him, there was no escaping Everton.
Not unless you accept the help she offered, his mind whispered.
Khiva shut down those thoughts, wanting instead to watch his leeldra take his teela. There was nothing more sensual than watching her in this state, knowing with masculine pride that he was the cause of her pleasure, that she was at his mercy, made even more potent by the fact that he didn’t have any neutralizers for her.
He trilled in anticipation, his gut clenching again as his cock hardened fully inside her.
Eventually, it became too much for her.
“K-Khiva…uhhh,” she gasped and shuddered. “Please.”
She wiggled over him, moving her hips. She drew in a rough, whistling breath, panting as the crest of pleasure continued to peak for her, over and over.
“Please what, leeldra?” he growled, teasing.
“It’s…it’s growing,” she rasped, her voice strained. “O-oh God, it’s…please!”
He bit into her shoulder gently, through the layers of clothes, just another way he wanted to mark her as his.
“Veki, leeldra,” he purred. “You can take more.”
“K-Khiva,” she gasped, surprised that he would deny her relief.
But it was the Keriv’i in him. It was a need, an old age instinct that had long been denied. “You are not my client this night,” he told her. “You are my lover. My leeldra. You will take more.”
And she took more. Much, much more.
Khiva didn’t know how long he kept his teela inside her. But he watched every flic
kering expression over her face, listened to every gasp and pant and grunt, tasted her tongue when he needed to, and felt every pulse and clench deep inside her.
Half-spoken words and sounds clawed their way up her throat as her head lolled, as her fingertips clenched deeply into his shoulders, as if to keep her from floating away entirely. When she began to plead with him, to beg him with half-finished words, he knew she’d reached her limit.
With one last light kiss across her lips, a thank you, Khiva guided her off his body, laying her beside him. With infinite gentleness, he slipped two of his fingers inside her, doing his best to clean his teela out from her cunt. On Kerivu, they’d never had neutralizers. And while this old method would give her relief, some teela would still remain within her, which would keep her in a state of arousal until it naturally dissipated.
If I do not pump her with more by then, he couldn’t help but think.
After a few moments, Evelyn let out a breathy moan, almost like a sigh as her body slumped slightly.
Her breath came fast as she tried to catch it and Khiva trilled, crawling up her body, so he could kiss her. Evelyn’s eyes were half-lidded, her cheeks a bright red, as were her lips from biting them.
“Vellka,” he rasped against those lips. “Vauk, I will never get my fill of you. I only want you more than before and I did not think that was possible.”
Her hand gripped his neck and her legs opened to him so he could sink between them. He didn’t mind getting his teela on his clothing. He only needed to be closer to her.
“That was…” Eve murmured, her voice husky.
Khiva trilled, trailing his lips over her cheeks, her forehead, her temple, around the sensitive flesh of her ears.
“Pax?”
“Amazing,” she whispered. Then she gasped, a small moan escaping her lips.
Khiva nudged her head to the side so he could nibble on her neck. “The teela will take time. How do you feel?”
Her eyes met his when he pulled back to observe her. “I feel…high. I feel warm and I feel like I need you again, Khiva. Soon.”
“You will have me again, leeldra,” he purred.
The sound of echoing laughter made them both freeze. It sounded like a group of young men and Evelyn relaxed only slightly when she realized they were far away, perhaps on the other side of the lake.
Even still, she realized they couldn’t stay there all night. If teenagers didn’t stumble upon them first, she knew that Patrol were sometimes tasked to comb through the Lake District at night.
“Come home with me, Khiva,” she whispered to him. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him. She was never ready to say goodbye to him and every time she had to was harder and harder.
“Leeldra…” he murmured.
“Please. We’ll have privacy there.”
Softly, he stroked her reddened lips. “If I go with you, I might never want to leave you again,” he confessed.
Evelyn’s lips parted, those words filling her with a sense of hope and determination, though Khiva seemed to feel the opposite.
“And I must leave eventually,” he finished. “We both know that.”
“Not until tomorrow night,” she said softly, that knowledge stinging her, knowing that he would leave her to go to a nameless, faceless client. “Stay with me until then. Please, Khiva.”
He exhaled a sharp breath, closing his eyes.
“Please,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, feeling the roughness of his skin.
Those beautiful eyes found her when she pulled away, those swirling greens and blues and golds stealing her breath for a moment. It was like he saw everything about her with that gaze.
“Pax, leeldra,” he rasped and bright relief burst in her chest. “I cannot deny you anything.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Eve ordered a driverless car on her Nu device, which picked them up close to the Lake District and dropped them off in front of her townhome.
Given the time of night, the Garden District was quiet and empty, but Eve knew that the neighbors could be nosy. Khiva made sure his hood was in place before they exited and they quickly strode to her front door. She wondered if there would be a time when they wouldn’t have to sneak around in this manner, but knew it was unlikely.
Eve pulled him inside once she closed the doors, the familiar scent of her townhome hitting her nostrils. It was a comforting smell, the smell of old books and Old Earth restored leathers, but she wondered what Khiva thought of it. Genni had always complained that it smelled strange.
She let him take in his surroundings in the foyer and she went to all the windows and activated the shielders so that no nosy neighbors or anyone walking past would be able to see them inside. They could still see outside, however, one of the few modern amenities her father had installed in their townhome.
When Eve returned to him, she found him in the sitting room, one of the front rooms of the house, whose bay window faced the street. He’d taken off his hood, so Eve could see the way his eyes flickered over the furnishings. Eve got the sense he was acutely observing every little detail, absorbing everything.
“Let me take your overcoat,” she told him softly, going to him. For some reason, she was nervous about what he thought of her home, a place she’d spent the majority of her life. Her home was a reflection of her, or at least, who she’d been.
Silently, Khiva shrugged it off and handed it to her. She went back to the hidden closet in the hallway, opened it with a swipe of her hand over the scanner, and deposited his overcoat inside.
When she returned to him, he was looking at the shelves of books lining the wall next to the fireplace. Eve approached him and placed her hands on his strong back, feeling the way his muscles shifted there at her touch, before sliding them around his front, embracing him from behind.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she admitted softly.
He cupped her hands in his own and then turned, so that he could look down at her. In the warm light of the room, his skin looked more gray than blue, like the first time she’d seen him. His eyes appeared more golden.
“I’m happy you’re here,” she said next.
“Even if it is only for a short while?” he asked carefully, studying her.
Eve’s lips press together briefly. “I’ll take whatever time we have together.”
Khiva’s eyes closed, his jaw tightening the barest amount. When he opened his eyes, he murmured down to her, “I wish I could give you more. More than this.”
Eve’s heart fluttered with both happiness and despair. “I told you I would help you.”
Khiva shook his head, dismissing her words immediately. Eve sighed, but she wouldn’t give up. She would do anything she could to make him accept. She could easily pay for his passage off Everton, could help him pay for his application renewals to continue searching for his mother and brother.
His pride was stopping him.
Eve thought it was ridiculous, but in a way, she understood. He’d been a Krave for so long and had been paid so little for it. Perhaps his pride was something he needed to hold onto to, to not feel completely…used.
It made her want to cry. It made her want to scream. It made her want to put Madame Allegria on the Quentin colony for the rest of her natural life.
At that moment, she didn’t press him, however. Later, when they were lying in bed, she might bring it up again. Or perhaps tomorrow morning, or during her visit to him that week.
Eve sighed and then asked, “Are you hungry?”
A dark trill rose in his throat. “For what?”
Despite her thoughts, Eve couldn’t help but give him a smile, at the teasing tone she heard. She realized that during her visit, when she’d lost her virginity to him, he’d asked her that same thing. And she’d responded with those same words.
“For food,” she said, trying to keep her tone stern.
He huffed.
“Veki,” he rasped, his arms suddenly plucking he
r from the ground and she gasped, automatically wrapping her legs around his waist to secure herself. “Not for food. Where are your sleeping quarters? Or would you prefer to be mated here?”
“Khiva,” she said, unable to help a flush and a grin appearing on her face. Then he leaned forward, his arms flexing, those muscles bunching with his obvious strength, and took her lips in a slow, but fierce kiss. When he pulled back, she was dizzy, her arousal ramping up again. “U-upstairs.”
Khiva made a sound. An amused sound, but before she could say anything about it, he carried her out from the sitting room, up the stairs in the middle of the foyer, and when she pointed to her door, he brought them into her bedroom.
“Vauk,” he cursed. “I can smell you everywhere. Your scent drives me mad.”
As if to prove a point, he set her down on the ground and immediately started ridding her of her clothes, his movement jerky and hasty, a steady growl in his throat. As she stood there, dumbstruck, he pushed off her coat, tugged her dress over her head, rid her of her shoes, her stockings, and her undergarments, until she stood completely naked in front of him.
And then, he tossed her onto the bed. He got down on his knees on the ground, pulled her hips to the edge, gripped her ankles and pulled her thighs wide.
Then he buried his face into her sex.
Her scream would’ve woken the neighbors, had the walls not been so thick. Khiva groaned, his eyes rapt on her as he looked up at her from between her thighs. With expert precision, he tongued her clit, lapping with a steady, yet unpredictable rhythm that made her body erupt with tingles.
“Khiva,” she moaned. “Oh yes.”
“Demav, I’ve dreamed about your taste, leeldra,” he growled before lightly suckling on the aching bud. “Every time I slept, I saw you.”
Her heart fluttered and she said, panting, “I’ve dreamed of you too, Khiva.”
Khiva trilled but took his sweet time. His fingers stroked over her ankles and he kissed her inner thighs, nibbling on the sensitive flesh there on occasion. Keeping her right on edge as he teased her clit.
