Her body arched again, my grin widened, and my cock twitched. I’d never been harder in my life, and I ached to bury myself deep inside her, but still I held myself back. Let her tremble, let her need grow, and a delightful flush spread down across her breasts.
She met my gaze, frustration and passion a heady mix behind her eyes. Tongue darting out to lick her lips, she spoke, her voice strained and low.
“I need you, Varok. I need you inside me.Please.”
29
PENNY
Please?The word felt like surrender, giving up in a way I’d never do with anyone else. But with Varok, it was different. With him, I felt safe enough to be vulnerable, to give in to his control.
He rose over me, a titan of silver skin and black hair, rivers of water running over his gleaming form. The fire of passion that burned in his eyes mirrored my own, and I pulled at him, eager and achingly empty.
But he refused to be hurried, and I might as well have pulled at a steel statue—moving him was impossible. My core ached as he pressed the tip of his cock against it, positioning himself just right.
His first thrust, sudden and violent, pushed me close to the edge again. His second, accompanied by a hungry snarl, sent me into a gasping arch, and I shook there, my whole body filled with intense sensations rippling outward from my pussy. I hung there for a moment before our combined weight forced me back down, and Varok pulled back to slam himself into me again. With a paradoxical mix of tenderness and brutality, my alien lover pounded me down onto the warm hard tiles.
Climax followed climax, and I squeezed down around his beautiful, incredible cock, making him shudder above and within me. He kissed and caressed me as we panted for breath under the constant storm of hot water. His firm lips and sharp teeth drove me wild, his powerful hands and clawed fingers teasing and scratching.
I gave as good as I got, biting his shoulder, my nails digging into his back and urging him on. Locked together, we cried out in the same moment, and the world dissolved around me as I fell into the white light of ecstasy.
How long welay there together, the water washing around us, I don’t know. I came back to myself, a haze of joy filling my mind and an ache in all my muscles.
I opened my eyes slowly, groggily, snuggled up against Varok’s glorious silver body. My shifting weight was enough to draw the alien’s attention, and he lifted his head to smile down at me.
It was an expression that lit up my soul, but I felt a shadow fall too.
“What is wrong, my little one?” he asked, the wonderful depth of his voice vibrating through me so that I felt it more than I heard it. I shook my head.
“We have too much to do,” I said, dodging his question. “God knows where our ship is, or if the Collectors are?—”
“No.” His smile was still there, and he squeezed me gently to him, but the tone of his voice was an unmistakable command. “Beloved, if there were an emergency, the crew would have come and rescued us.”
“Crew? We have a dozen random people who chose to become Collector servitors. We don’t know them; they don’t even know each other. They certainly don’t work for us.”
“Nonetheless, they are our crew.” He spoke with such conviction that I couldn’t doubt him. Instead, I sighed and pulled myself up. It wasn’t easy, both because my muscles complained with every movement and because leaving Varok’s embrace hurt. The water cut off at a gesture from him, replaced by a whirlwind of air hot enough to make me gasp as it dried us both in seconds. We dressed in silence, making our way back to the bridge.
We found it in chaos. Amyral still sat in the captain’s chair, surrounded by shouting ex-servitors and looking like her temper would snap at any moment. The others looked frightened, angry, and confused, clamoring for explanations and orders.
Their masks were dull now, lifeless. Our transition to hyperspace had severed their connection to the Hive completely, and now they had no hope of returning. No wonder they were struggling. And the chaotic bridge, everyone shouting over everyone else, a dozen languages rendering each other incomprehensible, only made things worse.
Varok’s piercing whistle cut through the anarchy. Silence fell, every head turned toward us, and he waited a moment before speaking.
A moment that felt like a century.
“Our plan is simple,” he said, once he had everyone’s full attention. “We are traveling to Earth, returning a priceless human artwork. At that point, you can each take your share of the reward and find your own way onward.Oryou can stay aboard and we’ll do more art recovery work, freelance.”
A nice euphemism for piracy,I thought to myself, almost smiling. From the captain’s chair, Amyral raised an eyebrow.
“And what if I want to takemyship back to the Protectorate?” she asked, her tone dangerously sweet.
“Then we’ll charter another ship,” I said. “I hope you’ll stay, though, and I’m not sure you want to go home before you find yourself a suitable mate. Who knows, maybe he’s hoarding stolen Earth art?”
“A chance to run a ship, to build my legend like Grand-mama did?” Her grin couldn’t have been wider. “And to pick a husband while I’m doing it? I’m in.”
That’s shaping up to be the strangest gap year I’ve ever heard of,I thought.
“Why’s it matter what you’re planning? Who put you in charge?” The speaker was a bulky Prytheen female, all hard muscular edges under scarred skin. Definitely tough enough to challenge Amyral and even put up a fight against Varok. She bared her teeth in something only a fool would have called a smile.
