by Marie Harte
Though she hadn’t had much in the way of relationships, she knew she’d found something special with Rafe. Her energy pulsed in time with his, and if what he said were true, then the wainu they both experienced had as much to do with each other as it did with the sexual act itself.
“You ready to finish your punishment, baby?”
She shivered, thrilled when he called her those pet names in a husky voice. And the slaps he’d given to her ass did crazy things to her insides. She’d never imagined that a rough hand could arouse her so much, as if he strummed her clit instead of smacking her flesh.
“Yes, Sir.” He palmed her butt and stroked her, sliding his thumb into the crease between her cheeks, stretching the opening of her anus. The feel of him there stirred a dark hunger, a thrilling, forbidden pleasure she’d wondered about, especially after seeing the act in one of the many bars she’d visited since her escape. “Rafe—Sir—can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
She turned her head to see him kneeling to the side of her, his shaft ruddy with desire. “How are you ready again so soon? Your recovery seems incredibly quick, and not typical with what I’ve read about Mardu males.”
“Studious, aren’t you?” Rafe grinned. “But you’re right. Most men wouldn’t equal your stamina.” He sounded pleased with that announcement, and Erin liked the possessiveness in his tone when he spoke to her. “With you, the rules don’t seem to apply. And speaking of rules…”
He smacked her hard, three times successively, the strikes overly loud in the quiet around them. “It’s high time you answered for hitting me, baby. That’s twice now that you’ve knocked me out cold. There won’t be a third time,” he reinforced in a deep, gravelly voice.
Rafe smoothed his hand over the fiery burn of her skin, the contrasting softness of his touch with the hardness of his slaps arousing in the extreme.
She gasped at the surprisingly erotic sensation, her mind pulling her back into a quagmire of submission as he exerted his dominance. “Wh-what are you doing to me, Sir?”
His fingers trailed over her ass and between her thighs, delving into the moisture dripping down her legs. Erin stared at the ground, focused on the feelings he stoked within her. Before she could answer him, he pinched her clit, and she swore she saw stars from the extreme bliss.
“You like that, hmm? The pain and the pleasure.”
Erin blushed, unable to control her response as she flooded his fingers with cream. She waited for more—wanting more—her skin sensitized, anticipation making her lightheaded.
When Rafe did nothing for several moments, she glanced up only to see him staring into the tree line, a look of fierce concentration on his face. Awareness penetrated, and Erin used her enhanced senses, seeing the outline of a man through the leaves, his heat signature obvious now that she knew to look.
“Rafe, there’s someone up there,” she whispered as she rose slowly to her knees off her hands.
“No, get back down. Hands and knees, Erin. Now.”
His authority put her at immediate ease. She resumed her position, puzzled but not threatened. Embarrassment covered her body in one large blush as she stared hard at the tree in front of her, all too conscious of their audience above.
“I know there’s someone up there,” Rafe admitted. “He’s been there for a while, but he’s no threat.”
She swore she heard humor in his voice. “Who is it?”
“Don’t you mean, ‘Who is it, Sir?’”
She groaned.
“What’s that?”
“Who is it, Sir?”
“Does it matter? Why? Do you want him to join us?” The menace in Rafe’s tone set her on fire, and when he shoved a sudden finger deep into her pussy, she clenched him tight. “Because that’s a problem for me, Erin.”
“I…don’t…want…that.”
“I don’t share what’s mine.” He removed his finger and inched it up, pushing into her anus. “No, don’t move a muscle.” The dark command in his voice forced her to remain still, the burn of his intrusive digit soon giving way to pleasure. “It hurts so good, doesn’t it, baby?”
“No, Sir.”
He chuckled. “Liar.” He pushed harder, and she groaned, wanting him out even as she wanted him deeper. “That’s it. Now take another.”
Rafe did as before, using the juices from her arousal to grease his second finger. Then he added it, stretching her virgin passage. “Your body adapts so beautifully, baby. Flor, that’s sexy.”
Erin wanted to cry out in both pain and desire. The burning sensation in her rectum hurt, yet odd tingles raced toward her sex, his probing fingers forcing an electric jolt that rushed straight through to her womb.
“I haven’t claimed you here, yet.” Rafe purred, his breath raspy and his body giving off massive amounts of heat in the cooler air. The light of day rose over them both, streams of sunlight adding a heady joy to their lovemaking. “It’s driving me crazy.” His thrusting fingers increased their speed, and Erin felt his erection brush against her ass time and time again.
Then suddenly Rafe removed his fingers, positioned himself behind her, and thrust his cock deeply into her pussy. He groaned her name as he slid into her heat. But all too soon he withdrew, only to replace the presence of his fingers in her ass with the tip of his cock.
“It’s too much,” she gasped as he pressed steadily deeper, her moisture easing his intrusion. “More, Sir. Please.”
Groaning, he prodded her ass cheeks apart and sank inch by inch inside her. The fullness cemented their joining, turning an intimate physical encounter into so much more for Erin. She didn’t understand why, but she accepted it nonetheless, growing closer to Rafe in that moment than she’d ever been with anyone else in her life.
“Fuck, yes. This is so right. So good.” Rafe panted as he thrust the last inch home, his entire length seated inside her. “I can’t be still, Erin, I’m sorry.” Rafe pulled out slowly, the friction aggravating her tender flesh.
Yet again, the prickly sensation of desire flushed her womb, and when he shoved his length back into her she welcomed the alien fullness with pleasure.
“More,” she moaned, gripping the grass beneath her fingers.
“Yes. All of it.” Rafe surged in and out, his tempo fast, his thrusts rough. Honest lust rode them both as she took him the way an animal takes its mate. Pure possession seared her soul, and as Rafe took that last part of her yet untouched, Erin sensed the great affection inside him and fell headlong in love.
“I’m going to come,” she whispered, shocked at how sudden her orgasm was upon her. The energy enveloping them both sizzled along her nerves, and every time he pushed inside her, his balls slapped her clit. Filled and still teased, the dual sensations on her sexual receptors caused her passion to rise to a fevered pitch.
“Not yet. Not until I let you,” Rafe grunted as he pounded her.
“Please, Sir,” she begged, conscious she’d never in her life begged for anything with so much fervor. Not even her Creator, in the early days of her existence, had bidden such utter devotion. But Erin felt it all for Rafe. Love and tenderness, utter need and basic lust. Everything.
Rafe slammed once more and stilled, his quiet moan incredibly erotic. Erin literally felt his hot seed as it washed her and began trickling down her thighs. She quivered with the need to come, her body one huge mass of nerves.
Breathing heavily and leaning over her, Rafe tongued the shell of her ear and reached a hand around her waist. In seconds, his fingers found her clit and pinched, hard. “Come now.”
Unable to hold back, Erin exploded. She cried out and seized, her walls convulsing around emptiness even while another part of her gripped Rafe, holding him tightly within her.
“Erin,” he groaned as he emptied yet again inside her. Joined, they knelt together, wainu hovering overhead if only they had the strength to reach for it. “Take it, baby. Take it in.” Rafe brought it to her, and she sighed with contentment.
“Rafe?” she murmured drowsily and reached for him. When he remained out of reach, she panicked. “Rafe, where are you?”
And then she felt his arms around her, saw his face in front of her, floating in clouds of bliss.
“Sleep, baby. You’ve had a long couple of days, and you deserve it.”
Erin nodded and huddled close to his warmth, free for the first time in forever as she held onto the blanket of love covering them both.
17
Rafe groaned when Dreyk interrupted his paradise. Damn, he knew he shouldn’t have joined Erin in wainu, but the temptation to sooth and be with her, so close, was impossible to deny. With a frustrated sigh, he pulled back from euphoria, disgruntled, and glared at Dreyk.
“You sure know how to pick ‘em.” Dreyk ran his gaze over Erin with a thoroughness that set Rafe’s instincts on alert. Not bothering with himself, he quickly threw Erin’s jacket over her, effectively covering her from Dreyk’s gaze. “She really is perfection.”
“She really is mine. And don’t forget it,” Rafe growled.
“Sure thing, Mardu.” Dreyk had the temerity to chuckle. Dreyk, laughing? “Course, you’d be much more effective if you weren’t standing there with yet another impressive hard-on. You going to fuck me with that thing or shoot it off again? You know you didn’t finish claiming her.”
Rafe blinked at Dreyk in surprise. How the hell did Dreyk know how the Xema mated?
“I know a lot more about you than you think.”
Answering Rafe’s unspoken question put Rafe on full alert. Whereas before he would have trusted Dreyk implicitly, now Rafe wondered, because it wasn’t just his safety, but Erin’s on the line as well.
Again, Dreyk responded without Rafe uttering a word. “Oh, relax, Rafe. I’m no telepath. I’ve worked with you for years, and I’m a great character study. Besides, I know quite a few Xema, though there aren’t all that many of you. I know the way one Xema claims another. You still have to mark her. What the hell are you waiting for?”
Rafe flushed, not wanting to share that particular facet of himself with his friend, though Flor knew he wanted to finish what he’d started with Erin. Only he hadn’t planned on going as far as he had with an audience. From the onset, he’d known Dreyk watched them. The minute the man had teleported into the tree line, Rafe had sensed him. But Erin, caught up in their loveplay, had been deliciously oblivious.
His cock throbbed, and despite his tired body, Rafe’s entire being quivered with need. I know the way one Xema claims another. Rafe blinked in astonishment. No wonder he was so taken with Erin. She had Xema traits. That strength, speed and agility wasn’t all Ragga, nor was it Zephyran. He should have known. So why the hell hadn’t he? And of all people, why had it taken Dreyk to point out what should only have been obvious to another Xema warrior?
“Come on, Rafe. You owe me. I let you have her when Gar ordered me to bring you in days ago.”
“Please.” Rafe snorted. “You don’t do anything you don’t want to, orders or not. Hell, you barely did what I asked you to.”
“And that’s the difference between you and Gar. You asked. He orders.” Dreyk shook his head. “Now admit you owe me one.”
Rafe couldn’t help recalling all the times he and Dreyk had watched over one another. Truth be told, on their last mission together, Dreyk had pulled his ass out of the fire. Still…Erin was his.
“If it makes you feel any better, it’s not Erin I want to watch.”
Rafe started, staring hard at Dreyk, who grinned slyly.
“If you could see your expression. What’s wrong, Rafe? Afraid you might want what only I can give you?”
Rafe chuckled. “Unless you’ve got a pussy between those legs and Erin’s brain, body, and soul, you’re out of luck.”
“Thought I’d ask.” Dreyk sighed, yet his eyes sparkled with something Rafe hadn’t seen in a while. Real joy.
To Rafe’s surprise, he realized most of what he’d missed about his job as Cheltam had been his friendship with Dreyk.
“Come on, man. Get to it.” Dreyk cupped himself through his trousers, displaying an impressive erection. “It’s been a while for me, too. Your brother’s a stern taskmaster.”
“Don’t I know it.” He glanced from Dreyk, his friend, to Erin, the woman he couldn’t help feeling so deeply for. “This is a sacred part of the claiming. We don’t usually have witnesses. It’s an intimate thing, and one you shouldn’t understand, though you obviously do.” When Dreyk raised one brow and waited, Rafe sighed. “Okay, but don’t let Erin know about this. She wasn’t all that happy about you watching the last time.” Not that Rafe minded overly. Claiming her with an audience only reinforced his possession.
And Dreyk was his friend, as close to a brother as his own siblings. And Rafe had left him behind without even talking to Dreyk before leaving.
Rafe glared at Dreyk. “Fuck. You’re a pain in the ass, you know that? You’re my friend, and I feel like a dick because I left you to Gar.”
Dreyk chuckled.
“I want you to witness this, because this is special. Erin means everything to me.”
“Honest at last.” Dreyk slowly pulled his trouser fastening apart to expose a thick cock.
Stunned, Rafe watched as Dreyk began stroking himself, and to his bewilderment, a subtle, seductive scent enveloped him. It wasn’t Erin’s, yet its pull was almost as strong.
As Rafe’s body hardened even more, he stared at Dreyk in absolute shock. “No. No way. Not you, too? How the hell did I miss that one?”
Talk about the stunner of a lifetime. Most System inhabitants that had ever run across a Creation hadn’t lived to see their next breath, lost in a Creation’s violent madness. Yet not only had Rafe decided to mate and thus commit himself to one, he’d apparently been working with another for years.
“The first batch of us clearly didn’t take.” Dreyk shrugged, the action accentuating the hard organ between his thighs. “But the scientists didn’t stop after the war.” His voice turned raspy as he watched Rafe begin to jerk off. “Fuck, Rafe. Do her and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” The scent around them intensified, and Rafe saw a deep yearning in Dreyk’s hard gray eyes that softened with need. “Please.”
Rafe grunted, incapable of speech, and alternated his gaze between Erin’s beauty and Dreyk’s glittering gaze, his pearling cock. The call of like to like overwhelmed him, and Rafe lost the ability to differentiate between Xema and Creation as he watched the woman he loved, knowing a man he both respected and trusted shared this moment.
Rafe pulled the jacket covering Erin away. Kneeling over his woman, Rafe took himself in hand and focused on her, unable to block out Dreyk’s presence entirely. Still, it was Erin’s scent that called to him. Erin’s body, the image of her deep indigo eyes with their glowing pupils that pulled him deeper under her spell.
Caught by need, Rafe raced to completion, panting as lust overtook him. Frantic with the need to come, to finally mark Erin with his seed and rub it all over her breasts, Rafe shook from the force of his primitive desire.
“By the universe, yes,” Dreyk groaned, keeping pace with Rafe. “Watching you two fuck made me so damn hard. Feel her, Rafe. Love her as she was meant to be loved.”
“Erin.” Rafe could barely breathe, the intensity of his pleasure growing as Dreyk suddenly spurted. Ropy bursts of come jetted from the man’s cock, and Dreyk alternately cursed and prayed as he shot all over his hand and belly.
“Do it,” Dreyk panted, stroking himself until he seemed utterly spent. “Mark her, Rafe.”
Rafe felt his balls tighten as a fist of pleasur
e centered at the base of his spine and blew through his body. Yelling Erin’s name, he came hard, covering her chest with his seed. A force greater than wainu wrapped around them, and he watched with pleasure as his seed seeped through her skin and disappeared, his essence now tied to hers for all eternity.
So beautiful. He was totally committed. Now he could only pray Erin pledged herself as fully to him.
When he finally caught his breath, he felt Dreyk’s intense stare. His friend’s eyes were no longer gray, but a complete black, no iris or white to differentiate.
“Thank you,” Dreyk said quietly, and Rafe sensed the peace of the moment as it affected his friend as well.
“So far so good,” Rafe breathed. “Now I just have to figure out a way to let her know I’ve mated her and hope she accepts the claim.”
Dreyk chuckled, a raspy sound that soothed Rafe even more. “I have a feeling she’s not going to mind too much. Our kind don’t often experience the kind of acceptance you’ve already given her.”
Rafe stirred enough to cover Erin and clean himself, making good use of the small stream nearby. He alternated his gaze between Erin and Dreyk while he donned his trousers, socks and boots, and he said the first thing that came to mind. “Tell me you’re a lot older than four.” He and Dreyk had worked together five years ago, so Dreyk had to be at least a year older than Erin.
Dreyk looked surprised, and with that emotion his eyes returned to normal. “Is that all she is? They must have really advanced the maturation process. Hell, I was created over a thousand years ago. And even then, it was touch and go. I think I’m the ugliest one they ever made.” He grinned, bringing attention to his scar. “But I blended in so much better than their earlier versions, the pretty ones, that they had a hard time letting go.”
A thousand years ago? Yet the male didn’t look a day past thirty. Incredible. “Did they? Let you go, I mean? Because from the way Erin talks and the rewards Blue Rim is offering, I get the impression they’re very fond of their…assets.”
