Pausing in the doorway, she looked over her shoulder and smiled slyly. “Coming?”
“Minx,” he growled, tearing his clothes in his haste.
Just large enough for two, they showered together. Merit inspected his mate, cataloging every scrape and blossoming bruise. Then, as he soaped up her lower back, the bloodlust swelled within him. “I’m sorry, but I need you,” he said, pushing her belly against the tile wall and wedging himself between her thighs.
He took her hard, half-disgusted at himself for his lack of control and half-thrilled at how she responded to him with enthusiasm. Every push forward was met with a push back of her own. Wet skin slapped, beating out a primal and necessary rhythm. He loved this female, needed her in a way that devastated him. She was life. There was nothing without her, and he nearly lost her that day.
Merit gripped the underside of her jaw and placed his teeth on the back of her neck, holding her still. Not that Kal would go anyway, but the heat in his veins needed to have her like this. He climaxed, fangs scraping her skin. She moaned, caught in her own climax. Her hot grip rippled around his cock, milking him for every drop.
They stayed joined like that, with his teeth on her neck and Merit unwilling to let her go until the last of the tension left his body. He licked the red marks on her neck, stepping back.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t apologize.” Kal stretched up on her toes and kissed the tip of his nose. Soap suds still clung to her hair.
Merit finished rising her off, this time taking care to keep his thoughts clinical and detached. The worst of the bloodlust had been purged but touching her soft, slippery skin, feeling her warmth under his fingertips—
He shut off the water and wrapped her in a towel before too much left his head and went south. He shoved the tunic at her.
“I have to ask, what is limited permissions? Sounds like a military term,” she said.
“It is a disciplinary technique. What do you call it?”
“Being grounded.”
He wrinkled his nose and sniffed. That sounded barbaric.
Kal noticed his distaste and chuckled lightly. “It’s a military term, too. Disciplined pilots weren’t allowed to fly, they were grounded. So, just this?” She held up the oversized tunic.
“For now.” More layers might be better, but his trousers wouldn’t fit.
While he pondered how to find properly fitting clothes that did not belong to another male, Kal dropped the towel and slipped the tunic over her head. Merit saw the red claw marks on her hips.
He grabbed her as he fell to his knees, twisting to examine the wound. “I hurt you.”
“It’s nothing, really. Just a little love scratch,” she said.
“No. I should never have touched you like that. I should have isolated myself until I was calm enough to act civilized.” He rummaged in the nightstand drawer and found a tube of antibacterial ointment.
“I liked it.”
“You can’t mean that. You didn’t see me.” He applied the ointment to the scratches. They weren’t deep, but they highlighted how utterly fragile and human Kal was.
“You’re not listening.”
“Of course, I am, kitten.”
Kal took the tube out of his hand and his attention swiveled away from her hip to her face. “I see you,” she said.
He held her gaze, pouring his intensity into his stare, daring her to look away and prove his point. She didn’t see him. She couldn’t. If she did, she’d reject him as defective.
Her gaze didn’t waver. “I see you,” she repeated.
His breath hitched in his throat. He was an elite warrior, lauded in legends on his homeworld and feared by those who saw him in battle, and this female would not back down. She humbled him.
“And I like what I see,” she said.
“I was out of control.” His behavior shamed him. What had he been thinking? Taking Kal to his bunk and stripping her naked and standing in the shower, their bodies pressed together, warm, alive and thrumming with awareness of each other.
“I. Liked. It,” she repeated.
“Truth?”
“Merit,” she said with a sigh. He loved the way his name sounded on her lips with a slight accent. Her hand tangled into his hair, giving a tug to catch his attention. “You expect so much of yourself. You shoulder so much responsibility for your family and the entire town. All these people depend on you to keep them safe. They trust you. And as much as you seem to think that you’re an out-of-control monster, no one here has ever expressed that worry to me. Not a soul.”
“They worry—”
She tightened her grip on his hair. “No. Listen to me. I love that you lose control only with me. I love it when you get heated and greedy.”
“For you,” he said.
“For me.”
Hmm. He felt greedy now. Running a hand up the inside of her calf to her thigh, he encouraged her to widen her stance. His fingers swiped along her lower lips, finding her still wet and ready for him. With her cunt at eye level, she spread before him. Pink and swollen from his recent attention, she fascinated him. She was so very human with her external clit. What purpose did it serve being there, so easy to reach and stroke?
“Tell me what you like about it,” he said, his gaze never leaving the swollen pink flesh of her cunt. The bitter taste of mornclaw blood lingered on his tongue. He needed to replace that with the sweet taste of his mate.
His tongue rasped against her heated flesh. The musk of her exploded on his tongue.
“This,” she gasped. “Oh, yes. Do that again.”
He did, lapping in slow, measured strokes. Her thighs trembled when he touched her clit, so much that he cupped her bottom to prevent her from falling.
“Tell me,” he commanded, lips pressed to her clit. She shivered and sighed at his words. Humans were made for pleasure, that much was clear to him. With their soft skin, they felt the slightest touch. Without claws, they could touch each other without fear of scratches or gouges. Even at the height of pleasure, Kal’s fingernails could only damage a surface layer of skin.
He circled her sensitive bud, drawn to the most human feature of his mate. The clit served no purpose other than to provide ample carnal delight.
“I like,” Kal said between gasps, “knowing I can make such a powerful man lose his control. Knowing that you could have anyone woman you wanted but it’s me that you can’t resist.”
Her words spurned him to increase his speed, adding pressure to her clit and she hummed with pleasure, hips moving as she rode his face. She cried out, cresting again and he wanted every drop of her sweet cream. He drank her up, not stopping her body subsided into tiny quakes and gasps. Finally, when she stilled, he released his grip on her ass, but his face remained planted firmly in her cunt.
“Merit,” she said, stroking his head.
He growled, not ready to let go. This was his pussy.
Then he remembered.
Kalini
“The roof,” he said, rising to his feet. He tossed her a tunic and put on a pair of trousers. While they hung deliciously low on his hips, Kal was sad to see him dressed.
“Do I get trousers?”
“Not on my watch.” He pressed a hidden recess and slid open a panel, revealing a ladder bolted to the wall. “Access to the roof deck. After you,” he said.
Kal stepped onto the lowest rung, very aware that she wore nothing other than the tunic. “You’re looking, aren’t you?”
“You’d be insulted if I didn’t. And I like what I see.” He gave her bum a playful slap, spurring her upwards.
The ladder emptied onto the flat roof, complete with wooden decking. It lacked furniture or any sort of shade, but Kal could tell it functioned as a roof deck. Well, furnishing would blow away in a major storm and Merit wasn’t exactly in his bunk waiting out the storm.
Twilight stretched out around them. Insects droned in the last of the fading summer warmth.
“Th
“No reason,” he said, climbing up. He had a blanket and pillow tucked under his arm. “I like to hide up here from Sigald and all that paperwork.”
“Clever. Paperwork hardly ever climbs a ladder to find you.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.” He spread out the blanket and sat, tapping the spot next to him.
Kal settled in, marveling at how ordinary the scene felt, like they didn’t just do battle with a swarm of man-eating spider monsters.
Or her husband had turned into a red-eyed blood-lusting beast.
Enough of that. She saw him. All of him. The raw, naked nerve that was the bloodlust and the good man who married a stranger in desperation to provide a good home for the children he loved. He was more than these two warring aspects and she loved him.
“What’s that look for?” He stretched out and arranged a pillow behind his head.
“There’s no look,” she said. “Why are we up here?”
“To watch the fireworks, of course.”
“It wasn’t canceled?”
“My Hunters sent the folks home, but the show will still go on. Right now, most everyone is on their roofs.”
“Sounds delightful.” She moved to lay next to him, but he stopped her.
“That’s not your seat.” He patted his flat stomach.
“You can’t be serious,” she said, noting the tent in his trousers. Apparently, he was serious. “You’ll miss the show.”
“I won’t. The reflection in your eyes is the only thing I want to see,” he said.
Wow. That was about the cheesiest line she ever heard, and it totally worked.
He pulled down his trousers enough for his cock to spring free. She straddled him, her bare muff brushing against his very hard member. “Happy?”
“Not yet,” he said. His hips bucked, as if to prove a point. “Don’t be shy, kitten.”
She sighed dramatically, the poor over-sexed wife serving the unrelenting lust of her husband. Poor her.
Truthfully, despite being swollen and a bit sensitive, she was ready for more. For him.
Kal reached down to line him up at her entrance and slowly sank down. They both moaned in satisfaction. “I need to write a thank you note to the scientist that did this to you,” she said.
He tensed underneath her, remaining silent long enough for her wonder if her jest had been in such poor taste. He burst out into a laugh. “That is the most human thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“It’s called manners,” she said in a high and icy voice.
She rocked forward, setting a gentle pace. As much as she wanted him, and she always seemed to want him, her body was only human, after all.
“Kalini,” he said, his hand pressed to the center of her chest. Bliss flickered across his face as she moved. “You carry my heart.”
“You carry my heart,” she said.
His hips bucked up and his hands gripped her hips. Thankfully, no claws this time. His tail wrapped around her wrist, as if he needed another point of contact. “I wanted to pledge my oath to you the first night but I was a coward,” he said. He bit his lower lip, eyes fluttering shut as his hips bucked again.
Kal leaned down, brushing her lips against his. He strained up, a thirsty man demanding more, and she gave him the deep drink he craved.
In the distance, she heard the pop of fireworks moments before green and silver burst in the night sky.
“You carry my heart,” he said, eyes fixed on her face, still pumping into her. “Until the light leaves me, all I hunt, I hunt for you. All I build, I build for you. My body worships yours, and my soul is humbled by yours. You carry my heart until the light leaves me.”
The colors of the fireworks danced across his face, casting him in shadow.
“I see you,” he said.
Kal gazed down at her husband, a man who was a stranger half a year ago. Spread below her with her hands on his chest, he gazed up at her with utter devotion and love. It shone from his amber eyes, brighter than any firework. He saw her.
Her. No one had ever really noticed her. On Earth, she walked through the world on a superficial level, ignored and alone. He saw her and loved her.
Fireworks burst in the sky, one after another, as she reached her peak. Their bodies were bathed in the soft glow of red, green, blue, and gold lights. She cried out his name, loving the feel of him deep in her as his cock twitched and pulsed.
Exhausted, she slumped forward. He pulled her in. “You carry my heart, Merit Isteimlas,” she said.
Chapter Seventeen
Merit
Nine Weeks Later
“It’s weird being here again,” Kal said, adjusting the wrap to protect her from the cool wind. Little more than packed dirt, the landing field offered no shelter.
Merit’s tail snaked around her ankle in a subconscious effort to keep her in place.
Kal noticed. She noticed everything. “Really? I’m not going to run.”
“It is instinct.” He knew she wouldn’t leave, but the primal part of his brain didn’t like the fact that his mate watched shuttles as they landed. The proximity might tempt her to stow away and return to Earth. The same jealous and possessive part of his brain also did not appreciate the fact that other males were looking at his mate.
Much had changed in the last two months. He completed the repairs to his house, and everything functioned as intended. No more power failure or leaking roofs. Now that his rambling urge had settled, he had another urge. One had never expected to experience. He wanted to make improvements.
Nesting, Kal called it.
The first thing he needed was a larger cleansing room, with a shower stall large enough for both of them to move about comfortably. And a tub for soaking. His mate had not asked, but she spoke highly of the relaxation found in a hot bath at the end of a hard day. She also mentioned bubbles. He needed to see her in a bubble bath.
Regarding the Watchtower, once Kal found spotted the pattern, they traced the source of the inventory discrepancies to a mid-level clerk at a shipping and receiving warehouse. The male had altered invoices and manifests, either selling the stolen goods outright or replacing them with inferior products. The entire situation baffled Merit. Beyond embezzling, how could someone allow their greed to jeopardize an entire community? No one had perished, thankfully, from the missing equipment but the Watchtower had been stretched to the breaking point, working to do too much with too little.
He derived much satisfaction the day the greedy male had been arrested.
“There she is.” Merit’s tail swayed with joy as he familiar figure descend the shuttle’s ramp. He couldn’t help himself. As much as Amity annoyed him, he loved her and was happy to see her again so soon.
“Is that a happy tail or a grumpy tail?”
“Happy.” He draped an arm over her shoulder and pulled her close. All the people he cared about most where back in the same place again.
“The circumstances could be better,” she said.
“Prospect will rest next to Reason. What better circumstances could there be?”
The mining company took nearly two weeks to clear the rubble and find Prospect’s remains. Merit did not feel the need for a funeral service. Just having Prospect out of that mine brought him comfort. He felt, however, that the kits would benefit from a service and the ability to see their parents resting side-by-side. He set the date and sent an invitation to Amity, giving her enough notice to make the journey if she wished. To his surprise, she booked a flight immediately.
“Brother.” Amity embraced him, her tail thumping against his leg. To his everlasting surprise, she turned to Kal and said, “Sister.” She gave Kal a stiff, one-armed hug.
Kal’s mouth hung open, speechless.
“Good trip?” he said.
“Tolerable.”
Same old Amity.
A member of the crew pulled over a large cart, laden with luggage and crates. Amity signed off on the shipping manifest. “Will we be able to transport all of this or should I hire out?” she asked, handing back the data tablet.
“You’re not here for a visit,” Kal said, putting the pieces together much quicker than he.
“No.” Amity flexed her fingers and sighed. “I intend to settle here. If you’ll have me.”
“That’s awful fast,” he said. She had to have left Talmar days after his message to arrive in time for the funeral, which left no time at all to prepare for a major move.
“Plans were already in motion,” she confessed. “I realized you were right. My family is here. I should be here with the people who hold my heart.”
Emotion swelled in his chest: pride, joy, and a touch of gloating. “You are always welcome in my home.”
Kal shot him a sharp look.
“Our home.”
His mate nodded, appeased.
A light rain began to fall as he loaded half the luggage in the vehicle. The other half he arranged to be delivered on a slower transport.
Kal produced an umbrella from some secret compartment. “Care for lunch? We haven’t eaten yet.”
“Yes. Doing reconnaissance on my competition is a good idea.”
Kal rolled her eyes. “Or, you know, it’s a long drive and you really don’t want to listen to my stomach growl.”
“You closed your cafe?” he asked, surprised.
“Sold it,” Amity said. “I decided to start a new cafe here, specializing in Tal cuisine.”
Merit scratched behind one ear. Corra had a large Tal expatriate population. It was not a bad idea. “In Drac or a larger city?”
“We will see what property is available. It cannot be too large or too small.” Amity handed him the last of the bags. Slick with rain, it slipped from his grip. The contents tumbled to the ground. Papers fluttered away. He chased after them as Amity scooped up the containers of lip balm and other small items.
He retrieved the thick document and dusted off the dirt from the back. Rain splotched the print. “Caught it in time,” he said.
His name in print snagged his attention.
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