by Cathryn Cade
Self-supporting, with temperature and humidity control, and recirculating water, it resembled a Pangaean rainforest. Warm breezes rustled in the trees. An occasional birdcall rang over the waterfall splashing into the pond.
It was a place of sensual delights. A place that teased the senses, made one long for a partner to share it. More than one couple was doing so tonight. Navos winced in distaste as he sensed a pair of Serpentians coupling in the underbrush nearby, at least three human couples embracing torridly and even a pair of Barillians at the far end of the place.
His bad humor finally getting the better of him, he sent out a strong wave of empathic power, suggesting to all the couples they really wished to continue their liaisons in their staterooms. Widening his circle of power, he sent the same command to a young couple just entering the doors behind him.
There was a flurry of rustling, smothered laughter and a few growls from impatient males, but at last the footsteps died away and he was alone. And why the seven hells should he always be alone, when others seemed to find it so easy to couple, both physically and emotionally?
And when the woman he wanted was only a few steps away. Flirting with other males. By the great God beyond, he would stand for it no longer. Stopping on the soft moss before the pool, he gazed down into the depths of the warm, clear water and focused his mind.
Chapter Nine
Nelah stood before the restroom mirrors, a tube of plum lip color in her hand. Outside, the infectious beat of a samba-lea throbbed, calling dancers to the floor. Her eyes sparkled a deep blue in her glowing face. She knew she looked her best, holding her own among the other pretty females in the bar. She was having a grand time, dancing and flirting. The two Indigons’ admiration was balm to her wounded soul.
She stilled, her tiny bag forgotten in her hand. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to be alone. Somewhere…moist and green. Somewhere quiet. The arboretum.
Thrusting the lip color into her bag, she slipped out of the restroom and around the back edge of the dance floor, ducking behind two hulking Ceruleans as she saw the Indigons watching for her. They were nice, but they were boys, really.
The arboretum was quiet, hushed, the moist, flower-scented dimness beckoning her in. In its encircling shrubbery the pool glowed, enticing her to its warm, clear depths. Raising her hands to the back of her neck, Nelah unfastened her gown. It fell to her feet in a slither of silk, leaving her clad only in her jewelry and tiny evening sandals. She smiled at the caress of the warm, soft air on her bare curves, feeling deliciously wanton as she unfastened the earrings and bangle and dropped them on the gown.
Kicking off her shoes, she stepped forward into the shallow water. Crooned a low sound of pleasure as it lapped at her ankles. Touched herself, cupping her hands over her breasts. They tightened in response and an answering pleasure throbbed between her thighs. Slowly she slid her hands down over her body, enjoying the slender curves, the play of muscle beneath her skin.
Reaching her mons, she cupped it with one hand and slipped one finger into the silky lips of her labia. Slowly, savoring the rising tension in her pussy, she drew her arousal up over the tiny knot of nerves at the apex. Her clitoris was already swollen and one touch sent a deep shudder through her. With just a few more strokes, she would come.
“Nelah.”
She started violently as her eyes flew open, revealing the man in the shadows of the tropical trees. Navos stood there and she knew with a flash of clarity that he’d watched her performance. She’d never felt so vulnerable, so naked in every way.
“Oh! You bastard,” she choked out, feeling a scalding blush flood her face, race down over her throat and breasts. “You called me here.”
“Yes.” She felt his answer in her very core, and shivered as pleasure and need held her on the cusp. His eyes burned across the small space that separated them, hot as molten sapphire, scorching a path down over her naked curves. She swore she could feel the heat on her taut nipples and she gasped as her own touch suddenly seemed hotter, more tantalizing.
He was a shadow in the warm, moist jungle, watching her, ready to devour every nuance of her helpless response. Because she could help herself no longer. She had to have the orgasm waiting for her in her own touch.
“Yes,” he urged gently. “Now, Nelah. I’m watching you.”
With a wild little cry, she began to stroke herself, her wet fingers circling her clitoris hard and swift. Naughty delight suffused her pussy and burst outward. His gaze, his presence in her mind, even her embarrassment made it all the more delicious.
When the small cataclysm was over, she forced herself to open her eyes and lift her chin proudly as she looked back at him.
“You don’t play fair,” she accused. She wanted to slap him, she wanted—
“Neither do you, lovely one. You dressed to tease in that gown and it worked. You may leave if you wish. I won’t hold you against your will.”
Her eyes narrowed as he tugged at her psychically, gently enough she could choose to turn and walk away, or go to him. She took a step toward him and then another, out onto the soft mossy bank, quaking deep inside with need for more of what she’d just experienced. The memory of holding him deep in her vulnerable core made her melt. She could feel the moisture of her arousal on her inner thighs.
“You do have your uses, Commander.”
She inhaled deeply as she stepped into his arms, drawing his male fragrance in, heady and intoxicating. His heat called to her, urging her to press her own bare curves against him, shivering with delight at the hardness of his larger, clothed frame against her own smaller, softer one.
She smiled with secret delight as she measured their differences. He was the alpha creature here, more powerful in both the physical and the psychic realms. And he was hers to pleasure and be pleasured in return.
She opened her mouth on his throat, tasting him as she rubbed herself against him. His arms tightened and through his snug flight suit she felt his erection against her belly. She moaned softly, her fingers digging into his back. She wanted him inside her, now.
“Have me.”
“Oh, I most certainly shall.”
Before her next breath, Nelah found herself flipped around and set on her hands and knees in the soft moss. She was shocked, but apparently he found this position satisfactory, for he dropped to his knees between hers so her bare bottom was displayed for him to look at and touch.
She opened her mouth to protest, but then his large fingers stroked her from stem to stern and she dug her fingers into the moss, biting back a soft cry. He did it again, and she moved helplessly, offering herself to him, arching her back.
“Do you want me?”
“Yes!” she cried. Beyond shame, she waited only for the broad head of his penis to replace his fingers. He inserted two fingers into her pussy and drew them apart so that she was open, waiting. When he paused, she knew he required more before he would give her what she wanted, needed. She opened her mind and let him in, all the way.
With dark, male satisfaction, he surged into her mind even as he thrust into her waiting pussy. She gave a soft, feminine cry of surrender and joy. It was swallowed by the moist darkness as he withdrew and thrust back into her sleek heat.
She’d forgotten, how could she have forgotten, how big he was? It was all her body could do to contain him and yet being stretched to the hilt was perfect, was exactly what she craved.
He held her firmly with one hand under her belly, taking her harder and harder. She felt their bodies slapping together, heard the succulent wetness of their union.
They were in the open, so anyone might see them. This thought glanced through her mind like a stray butterfly, followed quickly by the realization that even that wouldn’t make her want him to stop. She wanted him to go on having her even if the clearing filled with beings.
“I could arrange that. Voyeurism is very popular in certain circles.”
“I didn’t mean it—oh, perhaps I did. I’m coming
—I’m coming!”
The pleasure seized her, even as the image of how they looked filled her mind’s eye. She saw herself from his point of view, the lovely curve of her bare back, the round swell of her bottom, his penis moving in and out of her. She saw them as others would. A slender, graceful young woman, crouched completely nude before a tall, lean, fully clothed man, her face suffused with ecstasy as he took her hard and fast.
“Yes! Oh, Daron.” Her pussy imploded with pleasure that tightened and tightened before it flooded outward, through her entire body. And still he thrust.
“Again!” And incredibly she felt it happen again. This time he was with her.
Outside the arboretum, strange things began to happen as the mingled power of the two Indigons seeped into the corridors, past the barriers of walls, of flesh and bone.
Mandy and Luke Jones were dressing for dinner with their backs to each other, a pout on her face and a scowl on his. She’d arranged this cruise hoping they could regain the magic in their marriage. He’d come with the steely resolve that if things didn’t get better between them, he was gone. There were plenty of other pretty women in the galaxy who didn’t argue with everything he said.
Suddenly, they stopped, turned, looked at each other and remembered exactly why they had wed so swiftly. She dropped her gown, and he tossed his jacket on top of it and opened his arms. Their lips met and clung as he turned and fell back onto the bed with her on top of him.
“Oh, Luke,” she gasped. “Oh, I love you.”
“Mandy,” he groaned. “Oh, baby. You’re the one I want.”
Jarra Bak had just met Jak Cree in the elevator. He’d noticed her the first day of the cruise and watched her longingly. The two Hobians smiled shyly at each other and then looked away, blushing. She thought him handsome with his red-speckled hide. He thought her pretty as a blossom with her peach-dappled curves.
Now she turned and looked up at him with a sultry invitation in her eye and his own narrowed with new purpose.
“Come to my room,” he invited. “I will have dinner sent up.”
“I’m hungry,” she said daringly. “For you.”
They barely made it in the door of his stateroom before they were wrapped in each other’s tentacles.
“I know little of coupling,” he admitted. “But when I hold you close to me, I do not care.”
“Nor do I. We will figure it out—together.”
The two young Indigons had finally given up on Nelah. At loose ends, they left the lounge and wandered back toward their stateroom. Then they forgot her.
A Serpentian guard was strolling toward them and they both stared at the way her golden-yellow uniform set off her lovely body. She smiled at them both and stopped, striking a pose.
“Hello, boys. Why don’t you invite me in?”
Incoherent with lust, they nearly fell over each other to get their door open.
Captain Steve Craig was on the command deck, frowning over a holo-vid review of the recent attack. A vision assailed him of his lovely bride all alone in the big bed in their quarters at the top of the ship. His crystal blue eyes narrowed and he smiled slowly. He’d been meaning to show her a little move he’d learned as a wild bachelor cruising the space ports. He flipped off the holo-vid and strode purposefully to the elevator.
Prince Dragolin and his bride were already engaged in sensual activities. They merely accepted the waves of pleasure as a consequence of what he was doing to her at the moment. She cried out in ecstasy and he joined her with a dragon-like roar.
Chapter Ten
When Navos finally withdrew, Nelah could not move for a moment. She collapsed on the soft, cool moss and lay there, panting. She was still pulsing with aftershocks of pleasure, damp and hot.
She opened her eyes just enough to watch him strip off his clothing. He looked down at her.
“Come for a swim.”
She managed to lift her head. “Can we?”
He raised a haughty brow. “Certainly.”
She let her head drop back. “In a moment. I don’t know if my legs will hold me up.”
“Let me assist you.”
Nelah let out a squeak as he lifted her high. But she curled her arms about his neck as he carried her into the warm water. When he held her she felt delicate and feminine, and she loved it.
She let her head fall onto his shoulder as he sank down into the water. Oh, no. She wished she hadn’t voiced the word love, even in the privacy of her own thoughts. What if, next time he had her, he divined her infatuation for him? What if he thought her in love with him? She wasn’t, of course. It was just that he was so…so very…
Navos tipped her chin up with his hand and kissed her. She sank into the heat and power of his kiss, the truth bursting inside her with sweet pain. She was in love with him. And he just as certainly was not in love with her.
Navos, if she’d only known it, was nearly as shaken and uneasy as she that he needed her so powerfully he’d called her to him. He was used to being a lone pillar of intellect, the one who always remained a little apart. He had few close friendships—Steve Craig and a couple of old friends on Indigon, both still at the university. He was on good terms with the other crew commanders, but he did not seek them out to socialize. He’d certainly never used his power to beckon any of them.
He intended to draw back, but her mouth was so sweet, so fresh and eager. The kiss went on as he held her, light and buoyant, slipping against him under the water.
He cupped her round bottom in his hands, enjoying the resilience of the soft curves when he squeezed. The feel of her breasts sliding against his chest. The lithe strength of her legs as she wound them around his waist and her heat against his groin.
Slowly he relaxed his mind-block on the doors of the arboretum. It seemed much less important than the way she felt in his arms and the magic of her mouth. His body responded, arousal tightening his penis once again. How could it not, when it was cradled in the soft, hot furrow of her sex? And she, so perfectly attuned to him, responded with yearning in her kiss, in her embrace.
They were both startled by voices on the path. Nelah jerked in his arms and he waded swiftly into the deep shadows under the hanging branches so they were enclosed in a shadowed grotto. Only what light could reach through the branches dappled the water.
“Let me go,” she whispered urgently. “Someone’s coming. They’ll see us.”
“Be still.”
“You be still.” She arched in his grip as one of his hands slid lower, into the crevice of her bottom. “Oh! Stop that.”
“Be quiet,” he reminded, his long fingers continuing their intimate exploration. “You don’t want them to hear you.”
No, she most certainly did not. But she wasn’t as sure how she felt about what he was doing. She listened to a small group of tourists stop on the very banks of the pond, exclaiming at the reality of the grotto, the pretty flowers blooming by the waterfall. Even as her heart thumped at the danger of their being discovered, he was stroking her, tickling and probing her under the water in her most private places. And her traitorous body was responding with secret tremors, her pussy beginning to clench with longing.
She clung to his tall, powerful body, suddenly guiltily glad she could do nothing to free herself. Any splashing or sudden movements would alert the visitors to their hiding spot. All she could do, all she wanted to do was stay in his arms.
His penis, hard again, nudged her labia as he rocked his hips against hers. Swallowing a cry, she bit at the column of his throat and arched her back so the tip of his penis could find entrance into her. She waited for him to thrust into her, but he was still.
“You’re right,” he murmured. “We should stop.”
“Daron!” She dug her nails into his shoulders.
“No, no, I was wrong to coax you. We’re only a few meters away from them. Imagine if they should see you having me, here in the water.”
At this, Nelah couldn’t bite back her moan of need. She
rocked against him, impaling herself on his penis, taking him into her.
“Don’t you dare stop now!” Fiercely she wriggled to take him deeper, feeling every single centimeter in her sensitized channel. His arms tightened and he thrust hard into her pussy, seating himself to the hilt and setting off a small cataclysm of pleasure.
“You want me?”
“Yes!” She dug her nails into his back, already starting to come again.
He rocked slowly but steadily against her. “Shh. Be very quiet or they’ll hear you. They’ll know what we’re doing.”
She came so hard she nearly screamed. He locked his open mouth over hers, swallowing her cry, and drove his hips into her in sharp movements. Water lapped around them in wavelets.
Nelah sank against him, her face tucked in the curve of his throat. Her legs slackened, so only his arms held her up.
She was exhausted, blissfully sated, but a small part of her mind whirled with mingled outrage and astonishment.
Daron Navos, who rarely smiled, who placed himself above the emotions of those around him, haughty as any prince, was a tease! He’d toyed with her unmercifully while he pretended detachment.
“You are a naughty man,” she told him sternly.
“You’re angry with yourself, because the idea of voyeurism excites you. Every being has particular sexual triggers.”
It was maddening to argue with a man who could analyze her emotional processes while he still rested inside her, especially when she really didn’t want him to withdraw. She loved having him there, loved being joined in this most intimate of ways.
“I would never really want anyone to watch us…I don’t think.”
“Hm-mm. What about hearing you in your passion?”
She lifted her head and peered past him in alarm as voices penetrated the rush of the waterfall. Through the swaying branches that shielded them, Nelah could see a pair of humans on the pond’s edge. They stood over her gown, the discarded length of silk bright silver against the green moss.
