by Jaide Fox
She sucked against him, moaning in the back of her throat as he pushed his hand down and up into the blouse she still wore.
He tore his mouth from hers. “This has to go. I want nothing between us but skin and sweat and heat.”
She shuddered at his words, liking the husky growling quality to his voice. How could sound make so much pleasure erupt along her nerves?
She lifted long enough for him to divest her of the top, and he kissed her clavicle and lower. Nibbling a path down her narrow cleavage, he moved to one small, pale pink nipple.
Orcha gripped his shoulder, writhing in the bed when he enveloped the peak in his hot, wet mouth. His tongue felt rough against her sensitive flesh—his teeth, hard as they scratched the surface to draw maximum pleasure with the slightest touch.
When she seemed unable to take any more stimulation to one breast, he moved and tortured the other. And when she was panting uncontrollably, he licked and kissed down her belly and navel to her groin.
Here, she was slick and hairless as all of the women on her planet. There was nothing to shield her from his scorching breath and questing fingers, the lurid swipe of his wet tongue which he insisted on using with debilitating precision on her clit.
Her clitoris swelled with his rough stimulation, pulsing to the beat of her heart. Rough, possessive fingers parted her pale folds and tickled her labia and the edges of her hole.
“Sweet cream of your body. It almost quenches my hunger for you, Orcha. You’ve no idea how good you taste,” he said on a near growl.
Her thighs tightened around his head. “I cannot take the commentary, Torin. It’s too much for me to bear. Please, put me out of my misery. I want you inside me. Now,” she demanded, tugging at him when he ignored her pleading to jab her cleft with his tongue and lap up her juices.
“Ahhh! There will be nothing left to let you inside if you drink it all.” She groaned.
“You can make more,” he said, smiling like the wicked man that he was as he crawled back up her body and settled his hips between her legs.
“So you say,” she said, biting back a smile.
“One or two?” he asked.
She frowned. “Two what?”
His eyelids lowered, making him look drunk on desire. “As you wish.” The tattoos on his arms glowed and he gave a push against her womanhood, one hand down there for guidance.
She understood what he asked when her vagina opened to not one, but two cocks.
She could slap her forehead for forgetting that he had the ability to shift in any form, any direction, any time. Perhaps that’s why they’d gathered a reputation for being unmatched pleasure masters?
“Torin,” she said, gasping as two thick cocks spread her pussy further than it should have allowed. “You kill me.”
He nipped her mouth. “I thought that was exactly what you wanted.”
“It is,” she said, nipping his lips back and lifting her hips to drive him home.
He looked appreciative, if surprised, and began a rhythmic pounding into her body as he wedged tight inside and then back again.
Moans tore from her throat. She clung to his arms, felt nearly unbearable heat erupt from the scrawling ink on his skin. Purple glowed beneath her tight fingers and the cocks inside her changed, became rippled with nodules that rubbed delightful nerves in her passage she hadn’t known were there.
“You really are killing me,” she said again, moaning without control.
“Mmmm. A pleasurable death is preferred, I thought,” he said, groaning to the tightening pulse of her cunt muscles.
Inside, sensation unfurled like a tornado. The room seemed to spin out of control along with her pulse. Her heart drummed against her ribs, making breathing an effort
Muscles fisted around Torin’s body, milking and desperate for fulfillment. Torin sucked a spot on her neck, twisting his hands into the covers around her head as he fought for purchase and found the stroke to send them both over the edge.
His hips pounded into her. Her knees knocked against him. Her ass bounced off the bed, making her feel like she was on one hell of a ride and about to lose gravity and leave the confines of the earth.
The tension inside her had nowhere else to go but out. It spread to her thighs, her stomach. Even her fingers and toes curled and knotted.
Torin broke suction on her neck, breathing hot and harsh in her ear, moving steady with her body, and she exploded in a firestorm of pleasure with the rub of his silken skin against hers.
She’d known it was coming--she thought she’d been prepared.
She wasn’t.
Every nerve burst into the climax, leaving muscles like jelly, veins like lava. She was crying and moaning and couldn’t stop herself—not even when Torin kissed her again and swallowed her unstoppable cries with his mouth. She scarcely noticed he’d come with her, or maybe that was why the orgasm was so powerful inside her.
Finally, he rolled off her and snuggled her against his chest, tangling fingers through her hair as he rubbed her back and nuzzled the top of her head.
“I gave you a baby,” he whispered.
Or, at least, that’s what she thought he said just before she passed out.
Chapter Ten
Orcha looked up at the master of the games and watched as his hand dropped, signaling for the fight to begin.
She waited for the alarm, but could hear nothing until the rush of feet slapping on the dirt filled her ears. A blade whined as it cut through the air.
She ducked, narrowly missing the blade as she lifted her sword to shield from the killing stroke.
Spinning on her heel, she whipped around to face her attacker.
Elgir Kanto stood over her.
***
Orcha gasped as Torin’s hands shook her out of the nightmare back into reality.
“A dream, Orcha. It’s just a dream,” he said, staring at her in the dark and repeating himself until she stopped screaming and fighting him with claw-like fingers.
Worry filled his voice, and she was touched by his concern. Her body still shook from the tremors of terror. Sleep should have lulled her into paralysis, but her body felt rigid and tense from struggles. “I know, Torin. I’m glad you’re here to save me from them.”
He sighed. “It’s been weeks of this. I’d ask you what this one was about, but I know you won’t tell me.”
She shook her head and burrowed into his neck, seeking solace. “No. It’s too awful. I’m too close to it right now. Just hold me,” she whispered.
On her back, she could feel the burning itch of the ink struggling to inhibit the change within her. She wondered if it was weakening, or if the pull of her emotions and the moons was too much to control the beast struggling to get out.
The fear of changing again was always in the back of her mind. No amount of lovemaking could erase the dread. Maybe time could not heal all wounds.
“Is it the fight tomorrow that upsets you?” he asked, still holding her tight against his chest.
“Maybe. I know you are used to it, but the thought of what could go wrong--”
“Nothing will go wrong,” he said.
“You jinx yourself talking like that.”
“Bah. Superstitions and nonsense. We’ve only lost one ShadeShifter before and that because the Antarians wanted to see two against one. They’ve calmed some of their bloodthirst down so they would lose no more of their entertainers.”
Orcha looked up at Torin and bit his chin. “This is not helping. I don’t want to be alone.”
“You aren’t. You won’t be. These worries give you the night terrors.”
He rubbed his body against hers, and she could feel his erection growing. He couldn’t lay with her, naked, without wanting to be inside her—not anymore. It was a wonder he’d ever been able to hold himself back.
The man had a voracious sexual appetite.
“I am a worrier,” she said, trying to talk her nerves down when all he seemed interested in doing was warm
her up.
“I know you are. I’m here to take those away in any pleasurable way that I can find,” he murmured, dragging his lips down her temple and his fingers into her hot, wet center.
“Ahhh,” she moaned. “This is your distraction method?” She jolted when two thick fingers pushed inside and rubbed her g-spot.
“Isn’t it working?” he asked, lazily pushing in and out. “It always has before.”
“No. I have a one track mind,” she said as she parted her legs and he climbed on top of her.
“I will strive to work harder at my distractions then. You are a worthy opponent in battle,” he mumbled against the base of her throat, replacing fingers with the thick head of his cock.
Her body moistened, creaming to ease his way inside her tight passage. It was never easy to devour his cock, and she sometimes wondered if he made it that big on purpose, just to wear her out.
“Don’t say battle,” she said, arching up to meet him. “Just stop talking at all and fuck my brains out.”
“Mmmm. As you wish,” he ground out and stroked her deep within.
Orcha gloried in the feeling of his chiseled chest and belly rubbing against her as he thrust his cock. Slow and deliberate, he worked his length within and without until she wrapped her legs around his backside.
She kicked him with her heels, urging him faster and faster, until they were breathless and sweaty and climaxing as one.
He had a talent for reaching orgasm with her.
She liked it. Probably too much.
Despite her fear for his next fight, sleep claimed her in the afterglow of lovemaking.
Chapter Eleven
Torin left early to do some light training to warm up for his fight that day. He’d left her a ticket to attend as one of his guests, with box seating for the elite and special guests.
She preferred sitting in anonymity with the crowd, but he insisted if she came, she should do so as his guest and mate. He was proud of her and wanted to show her off.
The sentiment was one she wasn’t fully sure she deserved.
Today was special, he’d said, walking out the door. The wardens who’d transferred the women to the ShadeShifters as mates would be in attendance and had brought particularly vile and contentious condemned for the coliseum.
The presence of these condemned would make for an exciting round of games today.
In her mind, that meant bloody and dangerous. The thought left a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that she also did not savor.
On one hand, the desire to take a seat and watch Torin urged her to leave the safety of their suite. She felt, deep inside, that her presence would lend him strength and he would reign victorious. She also couldn’t stand waiting there, alone, to see if he would come home or not.
If he knew her thoughts, he would think it merely one of her silly superstitions and laugh off her fears.
On the other hand, she had no desire to see the warden of the jungle prison planet she’d been confined in, if he would even be present. A brief meeting with him had been enough to last her a lifetime.
She debated with herself most of the morning, keeping an eye on the time as she cleaned the suite and busied herself until there was nothing left to do but sit and stare at the wall and think about Torin’s coming bout.
Orcha jumped to her feet and dressed in a simple white, strapless gown that flowed around her body like a misty cloud. Her stomach in knots, she decided she couldn’t sit in the suite and miss the fight, even if watching him did tear her up inside.
Torin wasn’t scheduled to fight first—that she knew.
She walked to the upper levels of the coliseum, going the way he’d directed her to enter the box seating from the back. As she opened the door, the scent of earth teased her nostrils and the cheering blared in her ears.
All but one of the seats were filled with guests, and she stepped down to the available seat and took it, not bothering to look at the guests.
Torin’s fight was all she could think about.
The game master stood from his center seat to the railing, commanding the crowd with his presence.
“I thought you would not make it,” a familiar masculine voice spoke beside her, sending a chill up her spine.
Orcha swiveled her head to the seat beside her, barely recognizing Elgir Kanto.
But there Elgir sat. And beside him, Otto, from the prison.
Were they here together?
Panic erupted inside her, making it hard to breathe. She swallowed the urge to hurl obscenities at him while the game master spoke to the crowd.
Her head throbbed. The world spun. Blood rushed to her face and chest, making her head hot and leaving her fingers and arms cold.
“What…are you doing here?” she asked through clenched teeth.
Elgir smiled, baring his crooked smile. His white hair was slicked back from his forehead. He’d cut his dreads off.
She’d thought herself seated next to an old man, not someone from her planet. No wonder she hadn’t recognized him from behind.
“I came to watch this so called mate of yours fight. He goes by Torin, does he not?” Elgir scrubbed his chin, glancing at the game master as he dropped his arm and signaled for the fight to begin.
The alarm rumbled through the coliseum, crashing inside her skull. She glanced at the field and saw Torin there alone, fighting some murderer or rapist. She hadn’t heard the crime!
“That is not all you would come for and you know it,” she hissed, trying to keep her voice low.
“You are correct.”
Again came that sly grin that made her want to scratch his face off. She strove for calmness. “What have you done? Have you fixed the game?”
Elgir and Otto laughed.
“Where would the fun be in that? Oh. You missed, Torin’s blow, Orcha. Can you not look away from me to watch your new man fight for his life?”
Orcha’s gaze flew to the center, narrowing in on Torin. He was bleeding on one leg but still had his weapon. Elgir just wanted to screw with her emotions. And she’d let him.
She turned back to him. “Why are you here?”
“I’ve come to take you home.”
She shook her head. “This is my home now. I belong with Torin. I am his.”
“He is easily dispatched if that is the case.” Elgir paused a long moment, watching her face. “Like your previous lover.”
Cold chills covered her bare arms. She stood, abrupt and desperate to flee. Elgir stood with her. The master of the games stood, looked at them as if they were out of their minds, and then turned to the crowd.
“Congratulations, Torin Athun, on your victory over the condemned!”
“I challenge Torin Athun!” Elgir roared above the game master, cutting him off before he could say more.
Rumbles of disapproval rebounded through the crowd. Orcha swayed on her feet, fighting the chaos that threatened to overwhelm her. She gripped the railing with white knuckles.
The game master narrowed his vibrant blue eyes on Elgir as if confronted by a bug. “This is against policy. ShadeShifters only fight the condemned,” the game master said, waving Elgir off with an imperious hand.
Otto, who’d quietly watched everything, chose that moment to speak to his friend. “Elgir, do not be a hothead. There are other ways to get what you want.”
“There is no other way,” Elgir roared, pushing him off.
Elgir caught the game master’s flicking wrist, locking eyes with him before turning to the crowd. “I committed the murder for which Orcha Elmris was charged. I allowed her to go to trial and be sentenced for the crime which I committed. Is that enough to enter me into the game?” he said, looking back at the blue skinned Antarian.
Elgir released his wrist and waited.
The master of the games looked to Torin, seeking acquiesance. Torin nodded.
“Very well. We have a…unsanctioned fight for you today. Let us show our guest how a ShadeShifter battles for his chosen
mate.”
“You…did this to me? To Kon?” Orcha whispered, watching as Elgir as he prepared to descend to the field.
He touched her chin and she jerked away. His face turned splotchy with anger. “Everything, Orcha. Nothing will stand in the way of us being together. Nothing and no one,” he said and joined Torin on the field.
***
“You didn’t choose a weapon,” Torin said, circling his opponent, sizing the man up. He hadn’t had a chance to recuperate from his last fight—no time for the medic. It occurred to him that the interruption was part of Elgir’s plan to fight him at his weakest.
