Alien Romance: Hunter: Space Commander's Fated Mate (Space Beasts Book 3)

by Alyssa Ezra

  Zalgar came up behind her, so close that she could feel the warmth rolling off of his body. “You can’t just reel it in,” he instructed, “You have to pull it too.” Juliet inhaled sharply when she felt his hand cover hers, pulling gently at the fishing rod. “Bring it closer to your body in smooth, firm movements.” Juliet did as he said, pulling their hands closer to her torso. His thumb brushed up against her stomach, just below her breasts.

  “Like that?” she asked.

  “Yes.” Zalgar’s hand dropped, and he stepped away. “Now drop the tip of the rod, and then reel in.”

  Juliet found it easier to follow his instructions, easier to focus now that there was distance in between them. She did as she was told; dropping just the tip of the rod in one, smooth movement. And then she started reeling in as fast as she could.

  The blonde watched, a smile growing on her lips when the fish started to get closer and closer, flopping against the surface of the water as it grew shallower. It was nothing like the fish she saw at home, but she’d tasted it now, thanks to Zalgar’s previous catches, and her mouth started to water. Triumph ignited inside of Juliet, making her forget, at least for the moment, that they’d just been given a time limit on her escape.

  “I did it!” she gasped, excitedly, the fish now just a foot away from her face, still twitching from the lack of water. Zalgar took the fish off the hook, gripping it tightly in his large hands before throwing it into the basket. He didn’t look as happy as Juliet had expected he would, especially since he’d been the one to press for her fishing lessons so much.

  “You did good,” he said, and when he looked at her, Juliet noted some pride in his eyes, though the rest of him was still so tense, “It’ll be a fine last dinner, if any… We’re leaving tomorrow morning.”

  Juliet frowned. “But they said three days.”

  Zalgar snorted, grabbing the basket as he made his way back to the cave. “That doesn’t mean anything,” he replied, “If they’re smart, they won’t give us to the end of the night.”

  Chapter Five

  He was in a rush, moving quickly. Juliet had to practically run to keep up with Zalgar’s long strides back to the cave. “What are we going to do then?” she asked breathlessly, just as they neared the entrance. It was the only time that Zalgar stopped, looking all around them. Scared of his paranoia, Juliet looked around as well.

  The forest was quiet, besides the chirping and buzzing of the animals around them. Satisfied, he turned back around and headed inside, lighting a fire to create more light in the room.

  “We grab enough supplies for a day trip, and we make our way into the city. We should be there by night and can use the darkness to sneak you into the hangar more easily,” Zalgar explained, meanwhile moving to the bag beside the bed and dumping the contents out. It was full of the ointments and saps that he used on Juliet’s wounds. “Sit down. We need to check your wounds.”

  Juliet obeyed immediately. She was used to following his instructions at this point, and mostly it had to do with the fact that Zalgar was the only person she could trust on this planet. He hadn’t steered her wrong yet. Sitting down, she followed the routine that they’d set up, popping out her legs and dangling them in front of him to get full access.

  Everything was healed at this point besides the burns from her space suit’s straps, but Zalgar was careful and thorough each time he examined her. Juliet remembered the last time, when his hand was on her inner thigh, how her legs had opened unthinkingly. There had been an unreadable expression on his face, and then he’d pulled away. That was a week before, and she was sure that she’d scared him away.

  She tried to behave herself this time, remembering her arguments for trying to stay as unromantic with Zalgar as possible. Not to mention, Juliet didn’t want to be so forward that he grew irritated.

  She rolled her ankle as his thumb brushed over the cut caused by an exposed tree root. His touch was always so shockingly gentle for someone who was once a warrior and still a fierce hunter. “This seems fine,” he mused, moving further up to her calves. Juliet hummed in agreement.

  His thumbs moved in firm circles, massaging into her muscles. Her fingers dug into the sides of the chair, withholding from making any noises or further moving her legs. Slowly, he moved up past her knees, the scrapes and shallow cuts there long since healed and without scars.

  “Anything else hurt?” Zalgar asked quietly. Juliet shook her head, and he responded with a firm nod. Fingers sliding up to her thighs, he went to the worst of the wounds. The skin that was there was still rough from where the straps burned her skin, but it didn’t hurt to the touch anymore. “And here?”

  “Only when you press hard enough,” the blonde said honestly, frustrated when that statement caused him to stop drawing circles into the skin and leaving his warm hands resting on the skin instead. “I’ll be fine.”

  Zalgar sighed. “You always say that,” he muttered, “You said that even when these wounds were fresh.” He went back to the now-empty bag and shoved the sap inside that he used for the burns. “We’ll take this, just in case. The rest is room for food. Fit what you can, while I clean the fish and prepare tonight’s meal.”

  Juliet let her legs down, but his hands stayed at her thighs for just a moment longer. Before he could move away, she stopped him, one hand resting on his. “Wait,” she said, “Can you just tell me why you ran from the city?”

  She looked down at their hands, not wanting to meet the glare that she knew he was giving her. It was the same glare he gave her the first time she brought it up. “I mean, you lost your friend and your fiancée for doing it, probably your whole family. Why’d you choose to give everything up to be by yourself?”

  “I told you not to ask me about the city,” Zalgar said, voice low.

  She sighed, looking up finally and brushing a hair away from her face. “I think, given the circumstances, you owe me some more information. What are you walking me into when we get to the city? Why do they want you back so bad?”

  His eyes looked at her, pained. “None of that is important to getting you out of here.”

  “I think it is,” Juliet persisted, though she tried to keep her tone gentle, “I’ve told you everything that you’ve ever asked me. Why can’t you do the same?”

  There was a moment of hesitation, a moment where Juliet thought he was really going to tell her what happened, something about his past, and why he decided to pick loneliness over the life he had before. But then he fully sat up, sliding his hand out from under hers, away from Juliet. “We’re done talking about this. I need to go start on dinner.”

  Juliet stood up with him, knocking over the chair. “But-”

  “If you try to talk about it again,” Zalgar warned, “You’ll find yourself out of here and navigating your own way to the city.”

  She scoffed, putting her hands on her hips. Juliet wanted to call him on his bluff. They had only had each other for the past month, and while she needed Zalgar in ways of physical survival, things like getting food and shelter and starting fires, she knew that she had helped him too.

  He was happy to have someone there, was growing warmer to her every day. He made her smile, too, made her happy to have company, and that was something that very few of her friends could do back home. Her own boyfriend hadn’t been able to do that.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “You want to bet?” he challenged.

  “Yes, I do,” Juliet said bravely, “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “And what makes you say that?”

  She didn’t expect him to ask her that. Juliet expected a refusal or some acceptance of what she was saying, not further inquiry. Even her answer was completely unexpected, Juliet not thinking before the words came out of her mouth. “The way you’re looking at me right now. The way you looked at me down at the river.”

  “Wha-”

  “You almost kissed me,” she went on. Her heart was racing, while her mind was yelling at her to stop talk
ing about these things, reminding her that she was crossing a line that they would be stupid to cross. “I thought it was just me at first, but you were leaning in too, I know it. You like having me around, whether as a friend or… Or… As something else.”

  Zalgar didn’t respond, and Juliet was almost afraid that she was wrong. Had she really imagined it, the leaning in, how he grew hard every morning while curling his body around hers? Had she imagined the friendship, too? The camaraderie?

  She was almost ready for him to follow through on his threat of making her go out on her own. But then, he gave her another unexpected reaction. In one smooth movement, Zalgar was closing the distance between them, his hands wrapping around her waist and pulling Juliet tightly against his body.

  She gasped, her arms finding their way around his neck. Juliet didn’t see who leaned in more that time, their lips crashing together, battling for dominance. While kissing Zalgar, the human female didn’t think she’d felt more relaxed in the past month. She was completely absorbed in his touch, how strong and muscular his arms felt as they tightened around her, trying to keep Juliet as close as possible.

  She didn’t think about anything past the way his lips smashed against hers with a burning passion that Juliet had yet to experience in her short life. Juliet didn’t think about the fact that she was still stranded, that they had been found out, and that there were very slim chances of her getting home alive. In Zalgar’s arms, she felt safe.

  One of his hands moved down over her hips and to her thigh. With one rough movement, he hiked her leg up to his hip, then did so with the other. Juliet could feel his hardened length pressing firmly into her, and she pressed back against him, moaning into his mouth.

  Her hands moved up into his dark hair, untying it from the bun that he had it constantly put up in. Zalgar’s tresses fell down just an inch short of his shoulders, and her fingers eagerly tangled themselves up in them.

  So caught up in the kiss, she didn’t realize that he was laying her down on the fur blankets until she felt something soft against the back of her arms. Juliet pulled away to breathe, smirking softly when she saw Zalgar’s face, his eyes blackened with lust and lips red, swollen from their rough kissing. Juliet had never seen a sexier sight. “I thought you needed to make dinner,” she said breathlessly.

  The alien growled, taking her hands and holding them firmly above her head as his hips continued to press into hers. Juliet could feel through the few layers of clothing between them that he was big, bigger than Simon, or any other Earthling boy she’d been with before. She realized that when she’d first felt him against her, waking up in the morning next to him.

  Juliet moaned at the thought of it now, wanting him to take her completely, fuck her into the furs that they’d shared for the past weeks. Zalgar seemed to share the same thoughts. “I’ve been wanting this for too long,” he murmured, dipping his head low and biting at Juliet’s ear lobe, “I’ve resisted… For so long…”

  “Why?” she asked breathlessly, squirming beneath him.

  He chuckled low in her ear just as her hips pressed up into his. “A hunter is always patient,” Zalgar replied, “When he’s patient enough, his prey will come to him.”

  Juliet wanted to roll her eyes. They could have done this earlier, but it was in his nature to turn this into a sport? To wait it out and see her crumble? She remembered his challenge when she’d first told him that she wanted to keep a distance from him while they slept in bed together. Good luck with that. She should have kept her mouth shut, and then maybe he never would have challenged her, would never have held back just to prove a point.

  After that, Zalgar didn’t play anymore games, and Juliet didn’t mind that at all. She felt the same hunger he did, like they were on fire and the only way to extinguish it would be to get as close to each other as they could be.

  Juliet pulled at the strings on his vest, trying to get them untied as quickly as possible without further knotting it in the process. After a couple of minutes of fumbling, she finally had it unlaced, pushing it off his shoulders. By that time, he already had her shorts peeled off and thrown to the opposite side of the room, and took off her shirt the first chance he had after she finished with his top.

  She wanted to examine his body, fingers dancing over Zalgar’s taught muscles. She marveled at the way their skin looked together, the contrast of his olive tone compared to her pink tone. But Juliet noticed she wasn’t half as pale as she had been before, tanned by days out in the wilderness and sun. A thin sheen of sweat covered him, glistening in the fire.

  Juliet didn’t want to stop looking. Lifting her gaze, her blue eyes met his lilac ones, and she realized he’d been doing the exact same to her, looking over her body, admiring it, lusting after it even more.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said in true amazement, “Are all humans this beautiful?”

  Juliet laughed, lifting her head up to kiss him, appreciating the flattery. She knew she was good-looking on Earth, but right now she was covered in dirt and grime and sweat. Her hair was a mess, having only had her fingers as a brush for the past month, and she was stripped of any makeup or scented soaps. And yet Zalgar still found her beautiful in this raw, completely natural form of herself.

  With her lips busy, she tried at the laces on his pants, untying them much easier than his vest. Zalgar assisted by pushing them down to his knees and off of his body, managing to keep their bodies as close as possible.

  “Zalgar,” Juliet moaned, a plea for him now that their bare bodies were pressed together. He was so warm, so strong, and she didn’t want to stop this feeling, this feeling of being absolutely and completely safe. “Zalgar, please.”

  He didn’t hesitate. His prey was begging for him, and with her body writhing beneath him with want, Juliet had him too distracted to say something clever or to gloat. Taking her thighs in his hands, he kept her legs firmly attached to either of his hips and pushed forward into Juliet’s warmth, joining them completely.

  Juliet had never been so completely filled. She gasped, her fingers finding his shoulders and digging her nails into his skin. He started to move, sliding his cock back and forth, and her fingers raked all the way down to his ass, squeezing his cheeks in time with his thrusts. “Don’t stop,” Juliet murmured, “Oh God, please don’t stop.”

  His muscles on his back and buttocks rippled and tensed with every movement, and at Juliet’s request, he didn’t stop. In fact, Zalgar started to move faster, grunting. She looked up at the beautiful man above her. His hair was falling around her face and tickling the sides of her cheeks, his eyes shut as he started to lose himself completely in her.

  Juliet did the same, closing her eyes and pressing her chest up so that her nipples brushed against his chest hair. Her moans became louder, bouncing off the rock walls of the cave, first starting off as his name, but then becoming incomprehensible noises, her mind too far gone in the pleasure to form words anymore.

  She came undone quickly, despite the fact that Juliet wanted it to last through the night. She blamed it on the fact that he was so good, that her body had been wanting him for weeks now, and that she’d gone without sexual activity since even before her break-up with Simon. When Juliet felt the tension starting to build between her legs and at the pit of her stomach, her hips began snapping up into Zalgar’s in earnest.

  “Juliet,” he groaned, feeling her walls close tightly around him. Juliet smiled, knowing that he was going to come with her, and clenched her walls even tighter around him. His thrusts came faster, harder, tipping Juliet over the edge with a cry of his name. Zalgar came shortly after with one more hard thrust, his body stilling inside of her. He hid his final cry in the crook of her neck, biting hard on Juliet’s soft flesh.

  She knew it was going to leave a mark, and she didn’t care. In fact, she liked it, which was a different reaction from when Simon had once left her a hickey. When Simon had done it, she’d been irritated, trying to figure out the best way to cover it up. But w
ith this one? Juliet didn’t want to hide what they’d just done, the claim Zalgar had made on her.

  The cave grew quiet besides the sounds of their heavy panting. Juliet could hardly see Zalgar anymore from the dying fire. He hadn’t put much wood on it in his haste, when they’d first gotten into the cave, and it was quickly becoming just glowing embers.

  After a few minutes, Zalgar rolled onto his back beside her. Juliet curled her naked body against his side, kissing his neck and up along his jawline, then finally to his lips. Zalgar didn’t refuse her, instead pressing his lips against her hard, taking a hold of her left leg and using his hold to pull her towards him.

  Juliet smirked against his lips as she found herself straddling him now and pressed her breasts against him, then rolled her hips down. She was so warm, the tingling sensation from her orgasm still remaining just behind her knees and in her toes and fingers. But she could feel Zalgar starting to harden again, and her body was starting to respond to it, ready for more.