When he bared my core to his eyes, he took a long moment to take in my folds and the neatly trimmed patch of hair at the top. I squirmed and felt awkward, but I didn’t need to be an empath to see how incredibly turned on he was by looking at me. Hispants were still on, and the bulge between his legs was utterly obscene, it was that big.
“Undress. Let me see you too, fair’s fair,” I urged, and he obeyed, rising to stand beside the bed and carefully placing his pistol on my nightstand. He was a warrior down to the core, his eyes quickly tracking to the window and door to ensure everything was secure. Then, he undid his belt with a whisper of noise, and my core drew tight and slick at that sound. Why was it so damn sexy to watch him pull that belt free?
He didn’t wear anything beneath the leather pants, I learned. When he undid the front fastenings and dropped them to the ground, his cocks sprang free—both of them, and both extremely erect and impressive. The heads were flushed purple, the shafts that same anthracite as the rest of him but lined with thick veins. The top shaft was perhaps a little longer and thicker, but the bottom one seemed to curve up slightly, and my whole body tingled as I contemplated how that would fit.
“Oh…” I hadn’t even bothered to read about Aderian women. Did they have two holes to match? I didn’t think so. So that bottom cock, was that supposed to go where I thought it was? My legs clenched together, part fear, part anticipation so tense I ached. “You’re really big,” I said, stating the obvious. He didn’t mind, his grin bright and sudden as he climbed back onto the bed with me.
“But you were made to be mine, mate. We are fated, across stars and time, we would always find one another. We will fit.” His hand stroked along my thigh, teasing my skin until I opened for him. “I will prepare you, Mariska. Trust me.” And I did. That was a fact. I’d trusted him almost from the start, from the momenthe’d growled a disinterested “no” when I tried to hire him to fix my grape-pressing machine. Jeltom would always look out for me.
“Okay,” I sighed, and I let him arrange me on the bed. He spread my legs wide, his cocks jutting proudly, tempting me to stare, and stare a lot. Then he licked my folds, and I couldn’t think. He suckled, nibbled, and flicked with that clever tongue until he figured out exactly what made me tick. I flew apart when he found the right rhythm against my clit, and shattered a second time on his fingers as he curled them deep inside me, forcing me to stretch.
By the time he rose over me and dragged my hips into his lap, I was limp from pleasure, dazed by it. “That’s it, sweet mate,” he assured me as I twitched back from the press of his cock against my opening. “The lower one, the small one first, you can take me.” It was impossible to resist looking down, and I stared in wonder at how pretty it looked: his upper cock jutting proudly over me, the lower one pressing into me, stretching. His skin was that shimmering anthracite, somewhere between black and silver. I was pale, nearly white in contrast, and shockingly tiny when gripped by his big hands.
His angle shifted, his lower cock slid deeper, and then the upper one came down against my clit. It rubbed, slick, warm, oily with its own secretions. Stars marched across my vision, and my body arched as I moaned. Oh, fuck, that was good. How had I not considered that option when I pictured us fitting together? As the lower cock—which definitely did not feel small—sank deep into me, the upper one speared my folds and stroked heat and wetness across the sensitive bundle of nerves.
He rocked us together, a growl rattling deep in his chest. “So good, so wet, my sweet. Come for me. Can you do that?” All he had to do was rock back and forth, thrusting deep and rubbing against me in all the right places—inside me, against my clit—while he caged my body with his and made me feel safe.
I came with a scream, clenching tightly around him, squeezing so hard I nearly pushed him out. He growled, shoved himself roughly back in, and lifted my leg higher against his chest to open me wider. “Oh no, I’m not done with you,” he warned me. Contrary to his words, he pulled his lower cock back out, and I moaned, because now I was suddenly too empty, and that wasn’t right either.
He pressed the upper cock against my core, this one thicker, warmer. “This one is for mating,” he said, and I wondered what he thought the other one was for. I’d have to ask later. When he pushed the bigger cock into me, I felt it, but I was slick and prepared after three orgasms. It didn’t hurt, even though I felt fuller than I’d ever been. As he slid that one deep with one smooth thrust, the cock that had just been in me, slick from my juices, slid between my butt cheeks and nudged against my back passage. He didn’t push in, but it stroked across the sensitive nerves there the same way the upper one had stroked my clit.
It was naughty, it was amazing, and I knew I’d never last. This time, when he began thrusting, I could tell that it didn’t just feel good to him, it felt like a mountain rising, a wave cresting. He was going to come this time, and he was taking me with him. I came hard, overwhelmed by all the nerves he was touching, all the places his cocks stimulated simultaneously. “Jeltom!” I screamed, hands digging into his arms as I clung to him, my core growing tight again.
His hips shifted hard against mine, cocks kicking, and both erupted with seed. Most of it came from the one filling me—or at least it seemed that way—but in my delirious state, it was hard to tell. It spurted in firm jets, warm and silky, the lower cock coating my buttocks. He ground himself deep, holding me tightly to him until he was completely spent.
As the seed began to cool and dry on my skin, he slowly pulled free, and I felt a rush of wetness gush out of me. His head was lowered—chin to his chest—as he watched this, that sexy half-smile curling at the corner of his mouth. Then he spread my legs, pushing them back so he could get an even better look. “So sexy, mate. I wish you could see this.” His fingers stroked through my open folds into the wet, gaping hole, and I shuddered, too sensitive to bear the touch.
“Ah, I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry, Mariska,” he promised when he saw me tremble. I knew he would; I didn’t doubt it for a moment.
Chapter 17
Jeltom
After my mate and I had cleaned up in the far-too-small shower in her bathroom, I tucked her tightly into bed and told her she could sleep and dream of me while I checked on the vineyard one last time. As much as I trusted my work on the shields, and that my cousin had been true to his word and scoured the hills for any sign of Koratalin, I would not rest easy until she was caught or halfway across the galaxy.
My body felt warm and languid, but my senses were alert as I stepped outside to check on the generator. The mating still danced through my veins, and I wanted to crawl back into that small bed and do it again—to fill her not just with one cock but both, to fill her belly with seed until she was pregnant with my child. I’d never had such thoughts before, never wanted to be with a female long enough to consider a future with children.
I could see it now, though: the vineyard coming back to life the next year, blooming into its full potential. I could see my mate on a porch swing, round with child, a smile so bright it matched the copper of her curls. I could see a future down the line, too—children playing in the yard and friends visiting. A life. A full life. A happy life.
I knew I’d been searching for my place because, for a long time, it hadn’t felt like it could be here. On Llykhe, in my hometown, with people who all knew what real empathy was. I felt just a little less—stunted—because I did not sense emotions as brightly as they did. For so long, I’d believed that my purpose had to beas a warrior, and when I left the military, it was because I was done with violence. Now, I knew all that experience had shaped me to be ready for her; to be her safety, her protector, to be what she needed.
Her past, as succinct as she’d been in explaining it, had torn at my heart. No wonder she’d had such a hard time adjusting to life on Llykhe, where kindness, peace, and safety were so expected that we did, indeed, not even build our homes with locks. I’d been in too many unsafe places in the galaxy to be that complacent, but I still recalled those days when I was young. It was something that should be taken for granted by every youth—yet she hadn’t even had enough food to grow.
I was proud of her for making the choice to come to Llykhe, even if that meant leaving her friend. I’d come home to hide and wallow for a while, no clear plan, nothing but a vague intention to drink at Avertom’s saloon and sleep the day away. She’d come here to build herself a future, to claim a corner of the quadrant as her own. It was impressive, and I was going to do everything I could to share that dream now, to guarantee it.
The shield generator was still humming along, perfectly in order, for now. Not even that faint rattle that sounded when it powered on was present. That was good. Readings indicated it would have no problem running all through the night. I still reached out to Avertom to get an update on what was happening in the hills.
“Shouldn’t you be busy with much more pleasurable things? Why are you bothering me?” Avertom drawled, when he answered his comm. I laughed, and the sound—free and easy—surprised both of us. “Never mind,” my cousin said. “I see you’ve taken care of that already. No, we have not found her, she hasvanished without a trace.” He hung up before I could ask any questions, and I was left peering into the dark with an uneasy feeling replacing the languor that had followed the sex.
So, she was missing, Koratalin. That wasn’t good. I had a feeling that she’d been stretched thin and had suffered a very bad blow to her empire when Danitalin’s mercenaries had defeated her. She had fled and come to Llykhe to chase after me. But what if she had lost control of what remained of her empire entirely? She was going to strike at those she blamed until she could strike no more.
That thought had only just occurred to me when something hit me hard in the back of my head. My ears rang, my body spun from the blow, and for a moment, my vision danced as I began to pass out. No! I could not let that happen. Mariska needed me, she wasn’t safe if I fell. Strength I didn’t know I had—perhaps empowered by the mythical mate bond that stretched between Mariska and me—surged through my veins as, with a roar, I hauled myself back to my feet.
A shadow was on the porch, too small to be a male. It had to be Koratalin. She must have made it onto the vineyard before us somehow and gotten trapped in the shield with us. She was trying to open the locked door, which I’d been very careful to secure before walking to the generator. She had a laser pistol, however, and she raised it to shoot at the lock.
I reached for mine, certain I’d be faster on the draw, except my holster was empty. “No! You won’t!” I shouted anyway as I charged her. My weapon had been lost in the dirt when she’d struck me, and the shovel she’d done it with was right beside thegenerator. I picked it up as I passed, bracing myself for pain as she aimed her weapon at me.
As the barrel began to glow, for a split second, I was back in that lab on Radin, when the mercenary had shot me. It looked the same; it was going to feel the same, but I wasn’t going to pass out this time. I’d save Mariska, even if it was the last thing I did. The pistol whined as it fired, scorching through the air. Someone screamed.
