by Dixon, Ruby
I nod, gazing out the window, trying to see what she sees. “I see duty. Responsibility to those I care for. My way to contribute.” I glance over at her, unable to resist watching Zoey once more. “And far too much space separating me from you.”
She looks over at me, breathless. Her lips part in surprise and she gets to her feet. I’m stunned that she’s astonished. Haven’t I shown her how much I care for her? Need her?
Clearly I have not shown her enough.
I put a hand on her waist, slow and deliberate, my gaze locked to hers so she knows exactly what I’m doing. Her green eyes are wide as she remains perfectly still. I pull her against me, tugging her forward until her breasts bump against my chest and I can feel her body against mine. Zoey looks up at me, and I can see anticipation and longing in her eyes. She wants my touch as badly as I want hers.
With my other hand on the back of her neck, I lean down…and down…and down, and gently brush my mouth against hers. Humans are short, but I don’t mind. I’m finally kissing my Zoey. My mouth is on hers, in violation of every sanitary law on Homeworld and all its colonies, and I don’t even care. Her lips are soft, and I’m stunned by the feel of them even as my arms go around her and I hold her close. I feel as if I have waited a lifetime to touch her.
And I know it’s not enough. One kiss will never be enough. I want her everything.
Zoey makes an exclamation of pleasure in her throat at the kiss, and then she’s pushing me into the navigator’s chair and then straddling me like in every filthy dream I’ve ever had about her.
This is…unexpected. But good. So good. I’m panting as she settles herself over my lap, her thighs spread across mine, and she loops her arms around my neck. Groaning, I fight for control of the embrace. I want to show her just how much I need her. She can be in charge next time, but tonight she is mine. So I claim her mouth with a teasing, nipping kiss, thinking of all the things that the humans on the Fool have mentioned about kissing, because I want to please my Zoey. They use tongues. I remember that, and remember being appalled at the thought.
I’m not appalled now.
I’m greedy with hunger. I slick my tongue against the hot seam of her mouth, seeking entrance. I can feel her stiffen against me, her smaller body quivering as she straddles me, and my cock aches with need. I’ve never wanted anyone so fiercely. I swallow her little gasp of surprise, and this time when I stroke my tongue against her lips, she opens for me.
And now, I’m the one groaning. Her little tongue is slick and smooth against my ridged one, and the tangle of our tongues reminds me of mating. My cock aches, trapped under my clothing, but it can wait while I plunder the sweet heat of her mouth. I never realized until now why humans were so fascinated with kissing. I’m addicted to the taste of her, the feel of her lips, the soft darting of her tongue against mine, the noises she makes as she rubs against me. My hand slides to her hip, gripping her tight as she rocks against the iron-hard length of my erection.
For so long, I’ve waited for her. “My Zoey,” I murmur between kisses, fighting to keep my caresses tender instead of overwhelming. I want her so much that it’s difficult not to let myself go, to take everything she has to give like the selfish man I am.
“Oh wow, Sentorr,” she breathes, her breath coming in soft little pants. She rubs her nose lightly against mine, her eyes sleepy with desire. “You’re really good at kissing. Have you ever practiced?”
“You are the first one I have kissed,” I admit to her, though I’m secretly pleased she finds my touch skillful.
“Me too,” she admits. “I’ve never done any of this.” Her hand slides down the hard wall of my chest, and she licks her lips, slightly swollen from my kisses. “You’re…really big.” And she reaches down between us and caresses the length of me through my clothing.
Everything in my body tenses. I bite back a snarl of need and put my hands gently on her shoulders. “Wait.” I want her. I want her more than I have ever wanted anything, but her words are bringing me back to my senses. I know Zoey. She told me she has been with the pirate ship for the last ten years. Now that I know she’s human, some of the pieces are filling in. “How old are you in human years, Zoey?”
“I’ll be twenty-one in two months,” she tells me, then leans in and bites lightly at my lower lip, tugging at it with her square little teeth.
I nearly lose control, because kef me, that feels amazing. She seems as eager as I am, her lithe body sending hungry, wild need through me. But I have to be smart. I have to be careful. Her brothers have entrusted me with her, and more than anything, Zoey trusts me. I won’t abuse this trust.
I have to go slow and take care that she only feels hunger, that I don’t scare her with the intense, possessive need I feel at the moment.
Because gods, do I want her.
“Slow down, Zoey,” I murmur as she leans forward to kiss me again. “I want to make sure you’re enjoying yourself.”
“Are you kidding?” Her eager hands move over my chest, sliding up my pectorals and brushing over my nipples. “This is the most amazing, incredible feeling. I can’t get enough of you. Are your nipples really this hard? I know my brothers have slightly different bodies than mine, but I’ve never touched their nips to find out. I want to touch yours.” She tugs at the collar of my shirt.
“Calm,” I tell her, capturing her hands before she can undo the fastenings on my clothing. “We don’t have to mate right here on the bridge.” And I press a kiss to the inside of one palm to ease the sting of my words. I keep kissing her, because I can’t seem to stop myself. The skin of her wrist is so soft, so fragile. I lick it, feeling the heat of her against my tongue.
She shivers, her eyes full of desire as she watches my mouth on her skin. “I want you, Sentorr. Don’t you understand? I’ve wanted you for so long. I’m tired of being patient. We’re finally together. I want to do all the dirty things we’ve told each other.” Her hand moves back to my cock and she strokes me again, so skillful that my breath catches in my throat. “Let me explore you.”
Need wars with common sense. I want to touch her. Gods, I want to rip that pretty floral tunic off of her and shove my cock into her cunt and pump her full of my seed until she’s screaming with joy. Even the mental image of that is so delicious that I nearly lose control, and I have to close my eyes. But I remember who I’m holding. My Zoey, who’s hidden away from the world for ten years under one mask or another, because of her humanity. She’s fresh and young and innocent.
I can’t abuse that.
I kiss her again, and I keep it light and playful. When she whimpers against me, I break the kiss and stroke my thumb lightly over her cheek. “My Zoey. We have all the time in the world to get to know each other. Let us be patient a few days more.”
“I’m not good at patient,” she tells me, her pink lower lip thrusting out so prettily that I can’t help but haul her against me to kiss her once more.
I’m not good at patient, either, it seems.
10
ZOEY
When Sentorr sends me back to my room that night with just a kiss and a promise to see me in the morning, it’s clear that my gorgeous, sexy mesakkah hunk of a navigator is going to be honorable and take things slow.
Kef that.
I’m going to need to take things into my own hands. I lie in bed, cupping my throbbing pussy and know that touching myself to get off? Not gonna be worth it tonight.
Masturbating’s great, don’t get me wrong. But the real thing is down the hall and I want to touch him—and be touched—so badly that I’m aching inside in places I didn’t know could ache. I slide my fingers down to my pussy, and I’m so incredibly wet and hot with arousal that I’m shocked. I’ve never turned myself on half as much as a few stolen kisses with Sentorr does.
Part of me loves that he’s honorable. Part of me wants to show up at his doorstep, naked, and force him to lick my pussy. I don’t think there’d be much forcing…but there’d be a hell of a lot of lic
king. Then I could do the same to him—tease him with my mouth until he got off.
That’s…kind of going slow, right? No cock in pussy, so I’m sure that’s slow by someone’s terms.
I moan, my hands between my thighs, pressing on my mound as I contemplate my options. We can go slow, sure. We can also go slowly mad while honoring my brothers’ wishes to have a real, honest-to-goodness courtship. Except my brothers don’t seem to understand that I’m finally here with Sentorr. Courtship? What do they think we’ve been doing over the comms for the last few months? Trivia? Please. We’ve had the world’s slowest courtship already—now that he’s here in person, sexier than I ever imagined, I want to grab him with both hands and put my mouth all over him.
It’s sweet of my brothers to think of my well-being, but they don’t know the torture that the last few months have been, to be so deeply in love (and lust) with someone and think you can never have them. Now that I know I can have him? I’m tired of waiting.
I sit up on the bed, determined. I don’t want to be alone tonight. I’m not scared or worried or shy—I’m turned on and I want the man I love to hold me and rub me in all the right places. I get to my feet and grab the pretty floral tunic. Everything’s come unknotted, so I wear the drapes of it like a loose robe, tucking it around my body and not bothering to do up the ties. I grab my blaster, because I’m on a ship full of strangers, even if I trust Sentorr, and then open the door, peeking out into the hall. Deserted.
Good.
I tiptoe out of my room and shut the door quietly behind me, then move to Sentorr’s door. The hall is silent, the only sound the whirr of air filters as they scrub the carbon dioxide from the ship’s atmosphere. I go to Sentorr’s door, and hesitate. Is he just going to send me away again? Protect me like my brothers have always been protecting me?
I glance down at the blaster in my hands and smile to myself. Not if I have a gun.
It might be a little extreme to hold my lover at gunpoint and demand he kiss me, but what do I have to lose? Nothing but my pride, I suppose. I pop the cartridge out of my gun and tuck it into the pockets of my tunic, since it’s all clear.
Then, I knock quietly.
Before I have time to get nervous, the door opens. Sentorr’s shirtless and disheveled, his normally military-perfect hair a tousled mess between his horns. He looks surprised to see me, eyes narrowing. “Zoey? What’s wrong?”
I decide to grab the moment by the balls. “Pussy Patrol.”
He blinks. “What?”
I turn the blaster on him. “Pussy Patrol,” I repeat again. “We’ve heard rumor of unsatisfied pussy and have come to investigate.”
Sentorr’s lips twitch. “Is that so?”
“It is. If you’ll step inside, please.” And I flick the gun, indicating that he should move out of the doorway and let me in. When he hesitates, I nudge him with the end of the blaster. “Don’t force me to take matters into my own hands, son.”
I want him to smile, but all he does is step aside gravely so I can enter. I hope he’s not upset at me or full of regret that I’m here and pushing things forward. I head into his room and I’m momentarily surprised at how very spartan it is. The bed’s still made, with a few wrinkles mussing the blankets that tells me he was lying atop them. His walls are bare, with only a military plaque for service decorating the nearby desk. The door to his closet is closed, as is the adjoining lavatory, and the room is stark and bare and lonely. It makes me sad to see it and I forget all about my game—
—Until his hand closes over my wrist and he pulls the gun out of my grip. “What the kef are you doing here this late at night, Zoey?” He doesn’t sound amused by my antics.
I turn to look at him, my hands going to my hips. “I wanted to see you. I wanted to kiss you. Hell, I wanted to sleep next to you. Is that a crime?”
“You should be in your room—”
“So my brothers can be satisfied knowing they’ve cockblocked their little sister even when they’re not here? What about what I want?” I jab a finger into his chest. “Maybe I want to touch you. Maybe I want to have more than just a few stolen kisses. Maybe I’ve waited far too long to see you to just sit across the hall and twiddle my thumbs and—”
The words die in my throat because he tosses my empty blaster down on the bed and then cups my face in his hands. His mouth is on mine before I can think, and the world tilts around me. I lean into his kiss, the fierce, delicious caress of his lips against mine. I’m lost in him, in the slick of his ridged tongue as it drags against my own, teasing and plunging as if he’s been waiting for this, too. There’s such fierce hunger in him, in his kiss, that it makes my toes curl with want.
“Zoey,” he murmurs between kisses, his breath warm and wonderful on my skin. “Just because I’m honoring your brothers’ wishes doesn’t mean I don’t want you.”
“How about you honor my wishes?” I fire back, biting at his lower lip. His horns are just out of reach, but man, I want to grab them so badly. “Or should I leave you to hook up with Kaspar or Adiron—”
He groans and then his mouth is on mine again, and the kisses get hotter and fiercer. I’m lost to the sensation of his mouth delving and nipping over mine, the drag of his tongue as he plunges into my mouth, the feel of his hands on my skin. He cups my cheeks a moment longer, and then his grip moves to my ass and he squeezes it tight, flexing his fingers. “I tried to be honorable,” he tells me. “But kef it.”
A little thrill shoots through my belly at his rough tone. “I don’t want honorable. I want you to touch me.”
Sentorr squeezes my ass again, and then he’s lifting me into the air. I automatically wrap my legs around his hips, clinging to him as his mouth devours mine again, and the breath catches in my throat when his tail locks about my ankle, pinning me against him. Over and over, his mouth slants against mine, giving me hot, wet kisses that leave me breathless and distracted. And so good. God, his mouth is so good. I’ve dreamed of what it’d be like to kiss Sentorr, but I never imagined that it would make me feel this…lost, yet utterly possessed. Like the only thing anchoring me to this world is his fierce grip on my hips, or else I’d spin out of control.
His mouth hungry on mine, I barely notice that we’ve moved closer to the bed until the mattress is against my back and he rises up on his elbows. I whimper a protest, reaching to pull him back down over me, because I’m not ready for the kissing to be done. I might never be ready. Sentorr looks down at me, studying my face. “Pussy Patrol, huh?”
My cheeks flush. I feel exposed—and a little silly—now. “It was just a joke—”
“Is it? Because I’d hate for your pussy to be unsatisfied when I’m around.” He lowers his head and gently nips at my chin, then moves to my neck, nuzzling against it.
His horn moves scarily close to my face, and I reach out and caress it with a sigh. It’s covered in metal, so I know he can’t feel my fingers, but I like touching them. I like learning him. I want to learn all of him. “I’ve wanted this for so long,” I admit.
“Mating?” he asks, his mouth moving along my collarbone in a ticklish way.
“Touching you,” I admit. “I didn’t really think about mating at all until I met you. Then it made me want what I couldn’t have.”
Sentorr groans low in his throat and his face presses against my neck. “You never touched yourself?”
“Oh, all the time,” I admit. “But I thought that was all I’d ever have. Now it feels like…” I break off, because I don’t want to say it aloud. Masturbating’s never going to be the same, not after kissing him. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s not going to be enough ever again.
“Feels like what?”
“Nothing.”
He lifts his head, eyes narrowing at me. “Don’t make me force those secrets out of you.”
Ooooh. “What are you going to do?”
“Everything. Anything.” His hand moves over my collarbone, lightly brushing over the skin he just kissed, and then mov
es lower. I realize that my tunic-slash-robe is barely covering my breasts, and I suck in a breath, wondering if he’s noticed the same thing. “Satisfy your pussy. Can’t have the patrol coming after me.”
I moan, because just hearing those words sends a pulse of heat between my thighs. I realize dimly that my legs are still wrapped around his hips, and I dig my heels into his butt, trying to drag him down against me. I want to feel his cock against my body.
Sentorr ignores the pressure of my legs, though, and his tail loosens on my ankle. Instead, he lifts his body off of mine until he’s only caging me with his arms, and then reaches out and moves the loose fabric of my tunic aside, exposing one breast. I hold my breath, everything in me tensing as he gazes down at my bared skin. No one’s ever seen me naked, not since I grew boobs and went from a flat-chested kid to a top-heavy adult female. I know they’re bigger than they should be. Even the other humans on the ship don’t seem to be as prominent in the torso as I am, and I wonder if he’s going to be grossed out by it. Mesakkah women are all lean, elegant lines and muscle, with very little prominence to their breasts unless they’re nursing. Me, I look as if I’m permanently nursing three very hungry triplets.
He continues to gaze down at me, saying nothing, and I bite my lip, doing my best not to move or jiggle anything. My nipple, already hard, grows tighter and more puckered under his gaze. “I’m sorry,” I blurt out finally. “They’re big, I know.”
“Stop talking,” Sentorr tells me.
“W-what?”
He looks up at me, and I can tell he’s angry. “You’re apologizing for your body. Stop talking if you’re going to do that.”
“Well, I know I don’t look much like a mesakkah female,” I begin, only to break off when he glares up at me once more.
