His By Command (Primarian Mates Book 2)

by Maddie Taylor

  She mentally began counting to ten. At three she blurted out a flippant response. “No, yes, yes, in that order, if you must know, and I’ve lost my appetite. I think it’s the change in the atmosphere, or the after effects of the appendectomy. Those drugs kicked my ass.”

  “It’s the separation sickness. Chills and delirium would have come next if we hadn’t come after you.”

  “Like what everyone is saying the Princep went through when Eva left? That makes no sense. Why would I experience that when it’s exclusive to mated couples?”

  “It appears that during our one night together, you bonded with me.”

  “I don’t understand. We didn’t… you never—”

  “Actually, I did, though not in the way of a usual breaching for Primarians. It seems your Earth chemistry might make you more susceptible to the transforming effects of our seed.”

  She shook her head as she demanded, “Make it stop.”

  “That isn’t possible.”

  “That’s what you claimed about us mating before you came down my throat!”

  “Maggie, I’m going to have to insist you guard your tongue.”

  It was her turn to ignore him. “If you didn’t know it would happen this way, maybe there is a way to reverse it.”

  “There isn’t.”

  “Find one!” The corners of his mouth turned up when she shouted her demands. “This isn’t funny.”

  “No, but your fire amuses me, when you don’t use that disrespectful tone. I believe I mentioned that before. I’m also pleased by the fact that I don’t frighten you at all.” He tugged down the sheet she held clasped over her chest and began undoing the buttons of her nightgown.

  She smacked his hand away. “What are you doing?”

  “Undressing you. Be still.”

  “I won’t, and I can see very well that you are undoing my clothes, but I don’t want you to.”

  “You will.”

  “Stop saying that. Further, we’re in the middle of a serious discussion, you can’t simply change gears and decide to jump my bones? Are you insane?”

  “You’ve asked me that several times. I can assure you I am very sane. And this expression, ‘jump your bones’ isn’t exactly my intent. Tasting your skin, sucking on the tips of your breasts, making them stiff and sensitive, and licking the warm, wet, sweet spot between your thighs until you come crying my name. That is more what I had in mind.”

  His hands went back to the buttons and she smacked them away again, denying the raw hunger that possessed her whenever he was near.

  Roth gathered her hands in one of his, held them over her head, and calmly resumed undoing her buttons.

  “Because you amuse me, little captain, doesn’t mean I’ll tolerate disobedience. Now be still.” His fingers brushed the skin between her breasts as another button gave way. Sucking on her nipples wouldn’t be necessary because with that inadvertent caress, they were hard points straining against the fabric.

  “I don’t understand you. The last time we spoke, you were ready to hand me over to your council; now suddenly I’m your mate and you’re stripping off my clothes.”

  “I’m curious about something.”

  “Um, perhaps you could just ask me?”

  Amusement flickered in the eyes he tipped up to hers. “This I have to see for myself; besides, doing it myself is a lot more fun.”

  “I bet,” she said with a smirk.

  “Maggie, be still for a moment, then we’ll talk.”

  It was still an order, but given in a gentler tone, far less irritating. And, since she was already undone to her navel, it was a bit late to try to get him to stop as he swept the right half of her gown aside, baring her from breast to hip. His fingertips touched her ribs and began a gentle exploration. The skin there was ultra-sensitive and she hissed as pins and needles swept over her skin.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he murmured.

  “You might be,” she bit out wryly, “but can you tell me what you’re looking for first?”

  “I’ll do one better. I’ll show you.”

  In a blink, he released her, plucked her from the bed with his big hands around her waist, and was halfway across the small apartment to the bathroom. She squealed, clinging to his shoulders as she was carried, several feet above the floor. Once inside, he set her down and in one quick motion, stripped her gown off her shoulders and let it fall to her feet.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Hush, mate,” he whispered as he pulled his tunic over his head. As she suspected, he was all muscle, his shoulders seemed a mile wide, and his chest was molded in a smooth bronze like a work of art. She couldn’t tear her gaze away. At the same time her mouth went dry, a surge of wetness dampened her tingling pussy.

  He raised his right arm over his head and angled his body sideways. She watched the play of rippling muscle with his movements and it was a moment before she saw the tattoo gracing his side. No, they called it a marking. Unable to stop herself, she reached out and touched the curls and swirls of the design lightly with her fingertips, marveling how it was similar to the tribal tattoos that were common at home. Shades of blue, black, and purple, the same color as his eyes, ran along his ribs and down his flank to his hip. He turned more and she saw that it wrapped around his back. It was detailed, precisely symmetrical, and utterly beautiful.

  Roth stepped behind her and with her right hand in his, pulled her arm over her head.

  “Look, Maggie,” he urged softly. When her head came up, he angled his to the mirror. She glanced that way and nearly choked. Identical to his own, the marking was replicated on her body. Starting at the underside of her breast, it too ran down her side, along her ribs, slightly over her abdomen, and across her hip.

  “How?” she murmured in awe, gliding the tips of her fingers over the same curves and twists as were on him. They were in the same exact places, but to scale on her. How had she not noticed it before? Further, how had he known the marking was there?

  “The med-tech who cleared you brought it to Jarlan’s attention,” Roth supplied before she could ask.

  “But that was days ago…” she breathed, gaping at the colors too brilliant to have been missed. It was true, since being re-captured and waiting for her sentence to be carried out, she’d been depressed, only going through the motions. Had she been wearing blinders?

  “We are fated mates; this is your proof.”

  “Impossible, we haven’t had sex.”

  He chuckled. “I’d disagree.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “You took my seed into your body, Maggie. How, with your species, evidently doesn’t matter.”

  His hands on her hips, turned her to face him, and he fell to his knees, his fingers following the path of her own.

  “The contrast of the vivid colors with your fair skin is stunning, the pattern more dramatic along your lovely curves.”

  He bent his head and began tracing over the design with his lips. Warm and soft, his breath on her skin sent chill bumps racing over her trunk and down her spine. Her nipples became even more pronounced and the wetness increased between her thighs. She swayed on her feet as the arousal he was building, combined with the long days of wanting him, and the endless nights of erotic dreams starring him culminated in an overwhelming need for him to take her.

  Roth’s mouth opened on her belly, adding his tongue as he traced the pattern upward to where it curled under her breast. Her head fell back, sending her long hair, worn loose while she’d slept, cascading over her bare bottom. Her fingers curled into his shoulders, hanging on as her spine arched like a taut bow thrusting her breasts forward in an open invitation to his hungry lips.

  Immediately, they closed around a stiff nipple and he sucked, his tongue flicking and swirling around the tip inside as he did so. Without easing up, his fingers splayed wide as his hands moved to her backside, palming her cheeks as he lifted her and got to his feet. He was moving, carrying her in a reverse path
of minutes ago, to her bed.

  The mattress and rumpled covers were beneath her the next instant.

  “I’ve dreamed of you,” he rasped as he lowered himself over her. “Day and night my thoughts have been consumed by you, and the moment when I would have you, all of you.”

  “I’ve dreamed the same dreams. Please, don’t make me wait any longer.” Brazenly, she opened her legs and wrapped them around his hips. He was there, with no hints of teasing or of further delays, because in that instant, the large head of his cock nudged her entrance before pressing inward.

  As he sank into her, his impressive size stretching and filling her, stimulating every nerve ending—most she didn’t know she had—as he slid deeply, it was more delicious than in her wildest dreams. When he began to move, she had a moment of unease as she realized he was also bigger than her dreams. Inhaling and blowing it out, Maggie forced herself to relax, accepting all of him, eagerly, because she wanted him to fully claim every square inch of intimate space.

  His mouth found hers and his tongue slipped inside, searching and savoring, while his cock did the same below. Smoldering hot and exquisitely pleasurable, she became lost in the power of his possession, of his kisses, and the driving pace of his body.

  She slid her hands up his smooth back, feeling the bunching of his firm muscles beneath her palms. As her climax built, she began to quiver. Enveloping him tighter, she curled her fingers over his shoulders and crossed her ankles behind him. While teetering on the brink of an incredible release, she hung on, knowing when it came it would be cataclysmic.

  As if sensing her imminent surrender, he slipped a hand beneath her hips, lifting her as he drove into her harder, while sealing his lips over hers and absorbing her cries of bliss.

  “Maes Eternium,” he groaned huskily as he surged into her, spilling himself inside with one final thrust.

  A fire engulfed her from within, scorching hot as it spread from her center down to her toes, and swept up to the top of her head. She bowed off the bed as an incredible heat licked up her side where she’d been marked.

  “Roth,” she cried out in a panic.

  “Shh, Maggie,” he crooned, gathering her close, “it is the intensity of the breaching and will pass in a moment.”

  She gasped for breath, holding on to him desperately as she rode out the culmination of their fiery passion.

  Still joined as one, they lay wrapped around each other as their damp skin cooled and the thudding of their hearts subsided to a normal pace. After several long, edgy moments, the scorching discomfort eased, as he assured her it would.

  “Why didn’t this happen before, or when the marking appeared?”

  “I don’t know. And neither does our best physic.” He raised his head, bathing her in the lavender warmth of his sated gaze. “As similar as we are, there are still differences we need to learn about.”

  “That’s not very comforting, as you look to us to repopulate your world.”

  Dipping his head, he pressed a slow, drugging kiss upon her lips, sending new spirals of longing coursing through her. “Jarlan can be trusted, have no fear. He will figure this out.”

  Without withdrawing, he rolled them to their sides. Pillowing her head with his arm, he slid his other hand lightly down her warm flank to her thigh, where he hitched her leg up and hooked it over his hip. Aligned along the length of him, he flexed his arms, drawing her even closer until her face pressed into his neck and he rested his chin on top of her head. She felt surrounded and intimately connected with him, and it felt wonderful.

  “The burning has subsided?” he asked softly while stroking her side.

  “Mm-hm, mostly.” Her drowsy, muffled reply into his chest was all she had energy for.

  “Sleep, then, little one.”

  A multitude of questions swirled in her head, but her body, already attuned to him, obeyed as it began going lax even if her mind wasn’t quite ready. He seemed to sense her disquiet and his arms tightened. The hand on her marking swept up her back. His fingers gently combed through her hair, something that always had the power to curl her toes and make her purr like a kitten.

  His head angled down so that his lips brushed her ear as he murmured, “Settle your mind, Maggie. We’ll talk more about our future on the other side of your dreams.”

  The temptation to do exactly that, to switch off fully for the first time in days, with him there holding her, enveloping her in his warmth and strength, was too hard to let pass. She finally let go, enjoying the lethargy and surprising sense of contentment that invaded every fiber and calmed every nerve, until soon her mind followed and she drifted off.

  Hushed voices speaking urgently roused her from the deepness of sleep. Bits and pieces penetrated the lingering fog of her dreams until one rising in volume demanded to know, “Why are you here?”

  “How is that your concern, warrior?” Roth’s reply came low and unhurried but carried an unmistakable underlying tenor of steel.

  “I served as Maggie’s escort often before this recent incident and have developed a fondness for her. Naturally, I’m concerned to find you have spent the night when she is expected to be mated.”

  She rolled to her back, eyes squinched tight. Without seeing, she knew it was Kanei, although she wasn’t sure how. With her, he’d always been soft spoken, his manner soothing and always gentle. Never had she heard him angry or this agitated before.

  “Also, not your concern,” Roth told him. “And lower your voice. If she still sleeps, I’d like it to continue. She hasn’t had much of it lately.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “I’m not going to stand naked in her doorway arguing with you, Kanei. What is your business here?”

  She sat up, her eyes popping open. Did he say naked?

  Her head twisted toward the door. And indeed, Roth was standing there without a stitch on. His powerful upper body tapered to lean hips, which topped long, sinewy legs, and in between a firm, perfectly sculpted ass. Her mouth watered at her first sight of him.

  With his arm raised and propped on the half-open door, Roth was blocking her view of Kanei. He was also preventing their unexpected morning visitor from seeing inside or entering. And because of his stance, Maggie could see the beauty of his marking. The view sent a tingle of remembrance running lightly over her side, where only hours earlier, he had traced the same indelible imprint with his hands and soft kisses, the sensation coming like electrically charged fingers along her skin.

  “I’ve come because the council has summoned her,” Kanei was saying, startling her out of her lecherous stupor. “They are demanding Maggie appear before them on charges of treason.”

  “Tell the council I shall see to her charges and penalties.”

  “You don’t have that right, Commander, but I intend to request that she and I be screened for a match. I shall also demand a reprieve until it can be determined. As her mate, I shall be able to intercede.”

  “You’re too late.”

  “No, before the guards arrive, I will explain and get her to understand her compliance is needed for me to—”

  “I spent the night here, Kanei.”

  “I am aware of that,” he answered, his voice tight. “But I want her enough to put that aside.”

  Roth tensed. “There will be no setting aside of what happened here.”

  “She will forget you.”

  “You misunderstand. When I said you were too late, it’s because I have already claimed her.”

  There was a long pause, during which the emotion emanating from the doorway bounced around the room like charged ions.

  “You’ve already claimed her,” he repeated, as if trying to make the words penetrate his disbelief. “Why would you do this when you swore you never would? That you didn’t want a mate, that you couldn’t in your position.”

  “You know these things are often out of our control, my friend.”

  Another pause. “I was planning to have us tested,” he repeated.r />
  “If that is so, you should have done it before now. Still, nothing would have come of it. My profile is in the system.”

  “You don’t know…”

  “I do. She bears my mark, my friend. She wasn’t meant for you.” There was a loud bang and the sound of something, no, many somethings, landing on the floor. “I understand your disappointment,” Roth said quietly.

  “That does not describe what I feel, Commander,” he growled. “Wait, you say she is already marked?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you…”

  “Yes, there was an immediate attraction that often occurs between mates when they first meet.”

  “But that would have been aboard ship, the first time.”

  “This is so.”

  “That means you took her before you were tested. And after that, you let her go. Are you insane?”

  “I’m getting very tired of being questioned about my sanity,” Roth grumbled. “It is an unusual circumstance, one that we don’t really understand yet.”

  “I demand an explanation. How does a warrior abandon his new mate? What about the hunger? Or her symptoms. I’ve heard some of the Earth women are having a difficult time. Faex! How she must have suffered. You do not deserve her.”

  Abruptly, Roth shoved through the half-open door, moving so quickly it bounced back, as if spring loaded, remaining ajar when it finally stopped shuddering. Maggie leaned forward, going up on her hands and knees trying to see through the narrow gap. She couldn’t see them, but could hear bangs, thuds, and some grunting, as though from a scuffle.

  She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, wrapping the sheet around her, ready to stop whatever was going on.

  “Stand down, warrior,” Roth barked, the force of his seething reply taking her off guard and freezing her in place. “I am accountable to no one for my actions except to my Maker, the Princep, and the council, in that order. Since I respect you, have served with you, and know your ill-chosen words come from the care you have for my mate, I will explain. We don’t understand all about their kind yet, but they experience things differently than our own females do. I didn’t have to fully claim her for the transformation to occur. And in fact, did not breach her until last night. For her to so easily transform and the bond to take place before I did, tells me she was truly fated for me. Do you understand what I am saying?”