by Jaide Fox
Jasmine cleared her throat. “So this is your house…”
He smirked, crossing his arms and leaning a shoulder against the wall. He looked good in uniform and better without as he was now. His shirt and pants clung to his muscles the way she wanted her hands and lips to. “I trust you weren’t looking for someone else,” he said.
“No. Just you.” She leaned her back against the front door, glad for the distance separating them.
“What do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
She pinched her bottom lip with her thumb and forefinger, thinking. “I wanted to thank you for the gift.”
“It’s the least I could do, putting you out on that little trip of ours. You never did get to see much of our world. Maybe you will let me try again in the future.”
“I’m not sure I should accept it. The gift or another tour.”
He shrugged. “You’ll do what you want to do. I’ve learned that by now. Women always do. A man could spend a lifetime trying to figure you out.”
“I thought that’s what you wanted.”
He sighed. “And you? What are you really here for, Jasmine? It’s not to tell me thank you.” Dar straightened off the wall and crossed the room to where she stood. His nearness made her pulse quicken in dark, hidden places.
She cocked her head to the side. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t you? You came looking for trouble. You came here to join me in bed.”
“How would you know?” she said, narrowing her eyes—still in denial.
He gave her an incredulous look. “I hadn’t anticipated you would come to me so boldly. You continue to surprise me,” he murmured. He grabbed her bicep, pulling her flush against his body as the other hand cupped the small of her back.
Even with her sight adjusted to the dimness, his face remained cloaked in shadow. Truth was, she had come here to sample the goods—she just hadn’t made the connection until seeing him. The firm grip tightened as he leaned forward, dipping her backward and keeping her off balance and needing his support. She gasped, tilting her face up as he locked his mouth over hers in a soul searing kiss. Suckling her tongue, he toyed with her, leaving her hungry for more. He ripped away to scoop her into his arms with an agility that took her breath away.
Had she had time to react, she would have shrieked when his powerful arms supported her full weight in the air. Spinning around, he treaded back through the hall as she clung to his neck and chest, shuddering with excitement at the unknown.
He kicked the partially closed door wide open, knocking the handle against the wall with a noisy bang. Light streamed through gauzy curtains, shafting over a bed draped in deep purple satin sheets and a black coverlet. Without preamble, he dropped her to her feet and gave her a push, forcing her to fall backwards into the soft mattress with another gasp.
“This is fast,” she squeaked as he grabbed her ankles in his warm hands.
“I’m tired of waiting for permission,” he ground out, dragging her pants down her hips in one fell swoop. “Sometimes you have to take what you want or you’ll never have anything.”
Light and shadows played on his face, making him look intense and sexy as hell. He lifted his simple black t-shirt up over his head, revealing the musculature of his torso that had her near drooling before. She shivered and followed suit, removing her shirt and casting it off to the floor, leaving her with only a thin scrap of fabric covering her pussy—she’d managed to find the panties hidden in the back of a drawer like contraband. She was glad she’d had the forethought to trim the hair down there in a small triangle.
Leisurely, he unbuckled his belt, drawing it through the loops of his soft leather pants before dropping it on the floor. A scar marred his belly, freshly pink but remarkably thin and healed. Slowly, eyes locked on hers, he unbuttoned the buttons on his fly and shrugged them down his hips to unveil his fully erect cock. To say it was impressive was an understatement—the big, tall man had a package that matched. She squirmed forward, tightening her thighs as she imagined trying to engulf the whole of him inside her.
“Let me taste it,” she said, impulsively curious and grabbing his shaft to urge him closer. The moment her hand locked onto him, he groaned. He dug his fingers onto the crown of her hair and flexed his hips as she took a tentative lick.
He smelled freshly bathed, lightly fragranced skin and all him, and the clear bead on the head was unusually sweet. He jerked. His breathing quickened as she guided him fully into her mouth and back out again in a teasing motion. With her free hand she touched his stomach like she’d been craving for what seemed an eternity—he was just as hard as he looked, and her fingers couldn’t seem to touch him enough.
“Now who’s the tease,” he said hoarsely.
“Don’t rile me when there’s teeth involved,” she said just before giving him a long, hard suckle.
“Yes, ma’am,” he croaked, nearly buckling to his knees. “I’ve wanted those beautiful brown legs around my hips. I never imagined your dark lips on my cock.”
His reaction spurred her on. She noisily sucked, moving and twisting both hands in counterclockwise movements on his shaft as she tortured the cockhead with her tongue and lips. Incredibly, he swelled in her mouth, and the veins on his shaft hardened to such a degree she thought he might burst. When he did, it was a sudden gush she hadn’t been prepared for, nor was she expecting the strangely sweet taste of his come in the back of her throat. She’d never been one for swallowing, but she did, sucking him harder until his hands in her hair began to hurt. She released him, looking up and wiping her mouth.
He looked pissed. “You robbed me,” he said angrily.
She grinned. “That’s a little unexpected. Most men would kill to have the blowjob first. You’ll be able to last longer now.” She cocked her legs open, watching his face for every nuanced reaction. A glazed look came over his eyes. He blinked it back quickly.
“You doubted I could please you?”
“No. But I want to enjoy this for a long time. You know, there’s a saying on my planet,” she murmured, pushing her fingers into her panties to play with her clit as he watched.
“Mmmm? What is it?” He got onto his knees between her legs, roughly pulling her to the edge.
“The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.”
He swallowed audibly, hooking fingers into her drenched panties to haul them off her legs. “I’ve developed an insatiable appetite for your plump berry.” He shoved her back onto the bed, slipping his hands underneath her ass to cup her to his hungry mouth. “I see the sweet cream gathers, ready for my sup.”
Fuck he liked to talk and turn her on. She trembled, clawing at the sheets as his hot breath fanned across her moist flesh. Calloused thumbs massaged the ample under-curve of her buttocks. Her body tightened in anticipation. She couldn’t breathe waiting for that first touch. As if knowing she was on the edge, he moved in slow motion, kissing a path up one inner thigh, nibbling a trail across her outer lips. He nuzzled her lips apart with his nose. He nipped and licked her soft skin until he found her swollen clit. She bucked in his hands as he sucked her inside his mouth like a bit of candy.
“Holy hell,” she moaned, grinding against his face. She couldn’t tell who groaned louder, her or him. When his grip shifted and rested her on the bed, only to part her thighs further apart for his mouth and fingers, she forgot to breathe or think anymore. Releasing her clit, he pinched it with his fingers, stabbing her tender core with his tongue. The warm, wet slide inside her was more than she could bear. She bucked and twisted her head, biting her bottom lip, breathing through flared nostrils.
Dar repeated the move, provoking a similar reaction out of her. He rubbed her swollen bud, tongue fucking her and curling his hot wet tongue as deep as he could inside her. She twisted on the bed, gasping and moaning as if she were dying from the little death. The muscles of her core and belly tightened and relaxed, grasping for that ultimate precipice.
He lifted his head, contin
uing with a maddening circular massage of her clit and giving her a brief respite from his tongue. “It’s easier if you hold still.”
“I can’t. Just put me out of my misery already.”
He plunged his thumb into her core, hooking it upward and rubbing a rigid band of flesh within that tightened her pleasure into a coil. Her insides constricted on a delightful spasm, a precursor of pleasure beginning to unfold.
“Fuck…me,” she breathed, looking at him with lust drunk eyes that mirrored his own.
“As my lady commands,” he said, crawling onto the bed and up her body. He hooked one of her legs over his forearm, widening the space for his hips to cradle against her pelvis. His cock nestled in her wet slit, maddeningly slipping back and forth across her engorged flesh.
“Am I doing this right? Think you can handle all of me?” he asked in a hoarse, teasing tone.
If she’d been better equipped to spar with him, she’d have torn him to pieces, but right now she was facing a desperate crisis—she needed him inside. She craved the closeness of his body, the connection before she came. “Give it to me and I’ll let you know. You know you’re torturing me, you bastard,” she said through gritted teeth, clawing at his arms to urge him onward.
He grinned darkly, flashing white teeth and his charming smile that made her want to smack him. He knew exactly what he was doing to her and he enjoyed making her beg. “Some of us haven’t come yet,” she gritted out.
The slippery glide became a push, stretching her opening impossibly wide. Every nerve and muscle stood at attention, suddenly focused on welcoming a foreign invasion. Her body creamed, accepting his girth as he agonizingly forged a path to her womb and sank to the hilt. Pinned beneath him, she could do nothing but accept the full brunt of his thrust. She whimpered, arching her head back and loving every torturous minute. Her pussy trembled, the nerves quickening with impending orgasm. Try as she might to extend the lovemaking, she’d done a terrible job with her own patience.
“I want to feel you come around my cock, sweet Jasmine.”
“Move. Pound me into the bed, Dar,” she begged, grasping his arms and urging him with her eyes.
He obeyed, unable to look away from her imploring look. The time for teasing was done. There was only now, with the feel of each other, hot and grasping, wet and clinging. He dropped her foot to the mattress, leaning over her with her knees in the air, gathering an arm behind her back to draw her closer for his loving. She gloried in it, sucking her belly in and rolling her pussy against him in a grinding match that made her core twinge with impending orgasm. The rocking motion of his hips carried her along on the ride—she couldn’t stop or hold back any longer. White hot heat engulfed her from the inside out, making her toes curl and her eyes roll back in her head. She lost herself in the pleasure, hearing her moans and whimpers and his groans mingle in the air. Electric tingles coursed through her veins, sweeping like a sensual song through the fiber of her being.
And before one orgasm could complete, another followed on its heels, smaller, tighter than the last, but no less intense or enjoyable. Every thrust seemed to push another out of her, grinding on her clit, and she continued to milk his shaft until he’d gone flaccid inside her and collapsed on top of her chest. Their heavy breathing was all she could hear for several minutes, and then her world crashed, her heart slowed, and a slow seepage of pleasure warmed her muscles in a tingling aftermath.
The fact that they’d done the dirty without protection occurred to her. With him half on top of her, she tried not to panic, but she stiffened her spine.
He lifted his head, lazily kissing the side of her neck. “What is it? I can tell something is the matter.”
Shit! “Nothing.” An entire host of consequences assaulted her brain all at once. She wanted to crawl inside the mattress and never come out.
“Did I not do as promised? I felt your pleasure join mine. You cannot deny it.” He traced a circle around her breast, making her nipple harden with the promise of touch.
“No. It was good.”
He grunted, nipped her neck. “Only good? I demand another round.”
She laughed and pushed him off until she could sit up and look at him. “What if we just made a baby?” she asked, trying to be serious and allay her fears.
He watched her, keeping his face neutral. “It is why you are here. Why you’ve all been brought here.”
“That’s tap dancing around the issue if ever I heard it. Is it…I mean…does it bother you we aren’t the same…race?”
Dar frowned at the question. “I do not understand. We are genetically compatible, though we come from different planets.”
She sighed, feeling a sense of relief she hadn’t realized had even been an issue for her. The lack of preconceived notions about her was so foreign it didn’t feel real.
Dar sat up on the bed with the satin sheet around his waist. “You’ve asked me a question, and I have one for you. Were you to have the chance to return home, would you go, or would you stay here on this planet?”
She perked up. “I can go home?”
His frown deepened, and he stood to collect his clothes. “That is not what I said. Would you return to your world if you had the chance?”
Jasmine stood and pulled her clothes on. “I…I don’t know. What is there to stay here for?”
His shoulders slumped, and anger warred with sadness in his eyes. “I have failed,” he said.
Chapter Thirteen
“The riders have recorded the same message in three other desecrated temples. We brought our scholars to translate the inscription,” Prince Dezec Zeta said, standing beside his wife, Princess Adrienne. Both were dressed for the ball happening mere rooms away from them, a garnet shimmering gown for her and a dark grey suit for him.
“And their findings?” Dar asked, his hands clasped behind his back. It was an officers’ ball, so he’d dressed in his regal best—a high collared black uniform trimmed in dark silver thread and pleated across the front. The uniform made his shoulders look unnaturally large and his waist and hips narrow. He’d always disliked the thick padding and high, squared collar, but it was a centuries old tradition for his division. Other divisions had more manageable uniforms.
“You were close in your translation of the message, but one mark off. It read ‘they come’, not ‘we come’. Easily misread.”
Dar lifted a brow. “Who are they if not the ones who left the message?”
“My question exactly. Perhaps it is a warning for us, and they could do little more.”
“Not much of one.”
“I need to see to our guests,” Princess Adrienne interrupted. “I trust you found success with your mission?” she asked Dar as she moved to leave.
His jaw tightened. “I fear not. When asked a direct question of remaining here, she could not say definitively that she would stay.”
She arched her brows, exchanging a look with her husband before returning her unreadable gaze to him. “I see. Well, you are free of your obligation. There are others who may do better,” she said. She waved good-bye and left the men.
The idea of another taking his place made a sickness punch him in the gut. He swallowed, choking the sensation back down.
“You do not like her decision, do you?” Prince Zeta said, scrubbing his jaw. “She does this for the good of our people. She’s wholly embraced our culture, as one must to stay here and retain loyalty.”
“Yes,” he said tightly. “But the other matter, the desecration and message…”
“I suspect a rogue of the elder race, but it is mere speculation. There simply isn’t enough information available. The king has been notified of our findings. I thought you would appreciate knowing your work led to this discovery. We have some time to prepare for any eventuality. Our thanks to you.”
Dar bowed. “I was only performing my duties.”
Dezec Zeta stepped forward and motioned for Dar to walk beside him. Two guards pulled the ornate double doors op
en to allow them to pass unheeded through the doorway. Beyond, the music and voices of hundreds echoed clearly through the marbled room. “Let us see if your lady’s mind can be changed before my princess can reach her.”
***
The noise level inside the ballroom reached an intensity that could make a watermelon explode. Jasmine swore she’d seen a few of the yellow and green melons decorating the long buffet do just that—or perhaps it was only bottles of wine. She had yet to see Dar, and already her head was hurting and she just wanted to run back to her room. Four men paraded an enormous platter with a roasted beast that looked remarkably similar to the one Dar had slain earlier. How just if that was the case, that they would eat the creature trying to eat them.
She smiled to herself, amused, and wished she could share the joke with Dar.
Samara sat at their table with her arms crossed, glaring at any man that felt brave enough to come close. Cyndy was dancing and twirling, shaking her dress as if attending a salsa. Jasmine thought she’d probably drunk too much wine and not eaten enough, but that was Cyndy’s business.
None of the men could dance, but they put forth a valiant effort. It wasn’t a surprise really, considering they’d only had themselves for company—given the shortage of women. In fact, thinking about them dancing with each other put an image in her head that made her laugh. She covered her mouth as she giggled, and caught the eye of one of the attendees. He smiled and made a beeline for her.
She recognized him—Jerik Warsong.
Samara groaned when he stopped at their table. “You’re like a bad penny, you just keep turning up.”
“My intentions are towards your cousin, madam. I crave a dance with you.” He offered his hand.
Jasmine shrugged at her cousin and stood, taking Jerik’s hand. He spun her onto the floor. “I thought you could use rescue,” he said, placing a hand on her waist and lifting her right hand in the air as he led her in the dance.
He was handsome—not her type, but clean cut and muscular. His eyes were the most striking, holding her enthralled when she’d normally look away. “You’re probably right. Samara wants to bring me down. She hates this. Said this is for snobs or some such. It’s funny because when we first got here she was ready to make the best of it. I’ve seen a few men hanging after her, but she won’t let them come near. I guess the claws have been out since I went missing and she forgot to put them back away.”
