The leader of the three, a young man who looked barely old enough to be weaned from his mother’s breast, and completely incapable of killing, puffed up his chest like a bird with ruffled feathers and lifted his blaster a bit higher. His gaze, however, shifted lower, to my engorged cock. There was no lying, not about this. An Aleran male’s cock did not become fully functional until his mate awakened him. And my body, despite the hours I’d spent lost in the pleasure of Destiny’s soft, warm sex, was very, very awake. And hard. And ready for another round.
And these three were keeping me from that.
The guard cleared his throat and stopped looking at my obvious erection. “Mate or not, she is an initiate of the clerical order.”
“It is Aleran law that you can’t separate me from my mate.”
“We are not separating a mated pair. Both of you are expelled from the property. Take your mate and get out. Both of you. Fornication is not allowed on sacred ground. You should have taken it somewhere else. You are banished.”
* * *
Destiny, The Palace, Two Hours Later
The look on Nix’s face had been hilarious. I doubted he’d ever had three women shut the door in his face before. Well, not three women, but Trinity. It wasn’t as if he was going to stop her. She was the reigning royal and she was a princess. And, as a member of the queen’s guard, he took commands from her.
So if she wanted to yank me out of his arms, pull me into her bedroom and slam the door in his face, he wasn’t going to say a word.
But his look? Half horror at being separated from me—and half painful desperation. I guessed his cock had been the source of the agonized expression because anyone with eyes could see that it was still hard and straining… for me.
Not that I was eager to be away from him either, but the hard-core craving my body was dealing me was not okay. And neither was the emotional attachment I was feeling to that warrior. Possessive. Needy. Desperate.
Desperate. Had I really just applied that word to myself?
My pussy clenched and my skin ached for his touch.
Yes. I had. And I didn’t like being this needy, dependent, weak-willed freak.
Women ruled the world here. Literally. Maybe this was the universe’s way of laughing at us. Since the society was more matriarchal, perhaps this was the males’ revenge.
Ardor.
A biological necessity to keep the males and females together for breeding.
Breeding. Fucking. Clinging. Screaming. Orgasms.
“Don’t worry, Des. He’ll get over it.” Trinity locked the door and walked to me, putting her arm through mine and pulling me to a sitting area that looked like it belonged on one of those billionaire home showcases. And this was just her bedroom suite?
What did the rest of the palace look like?
Did I care? No. Not really. Other than to get Nix into one of those giant beds, like the one in the next room I couldn’t take my eyes from.
“I know. He’s a big boy. He’ll deal.” But I doubted a woman had ever had the balls to shut him out before. Not a big, brawny guy like him. What woman would want to? He was gorgeous, sexy as hell and wickedly skilled in the sack. What woman in her right mind would ignore him? Well, I had. With frequency.
Faith laughed. “Your mate looked like a puppy that just got kicked to the curb.”
I bit my lip to stifle a smile. She was right. I wanted to open the door and hug him and kiss the top of his head and tell him it was all right. He was just outside the door. I had no doubt of that. He wasn’t going anywhere. Although, he was probably freaking out because he knew about all of the secret passages inside the palace. In fact, that’s how he’d sneaked me in here.
Right at this moment, he was probably ordering guards to stand in them so that there was no chance someone could get inside, or more likely, that I could get away. He had made it very clear that he did not want me gallivanting around and placing myself in danger. Whatever. I can handle myself.
And I do not gallivant.
“I knew he was into you,” Trinity said, tugging me down onto the sofa. Her bedroom suite was enormous. And there was that super-sized bed again. Maybe I should get up and close the door, so I didn’t have to look at it. The bed was against one wall, all beautifully decorated, although in colors not quite her style. It wasn’t as if she’d had time to put her personal stamp on things. Fabric shopping and paint swatches weren’t high on her priority list.
“What about you?” I asked. “The last time I saw you, Leo was definitely in you.”
“Leo is mine.”
“I think he would say the opposite, that you belong to him.”