Chapter Nine
Kira, Private Quarters
I closedmy eyes as the drying tube blew hot air all over my body. It was like standing inside a hand dryer in the public restrooms on Earth. This was something I hadn’t gotten used to, being put into a mini-hurricane instead of using a towel. I didn’t mind today because I was in a rush.
Angh was in his quarters.
Waiting.
My heart skipped a beat and when the machine shut off, I took a deep breath, let it out. I was nervous, like a fifteen-year old girl with her first crush. But my body wasn’t behaving like a teenager’s. No, my reactions were all woman. My pussy still ached from our last time together, my nipples hardened remembering the feel of them in his mouth, the tug of suction he’d used, the sweet slide of his teeth over them. My back was bruised along my spine from being pressed against the wall, ruthlessly fucked with a desperation we’d both shared. The whisker burn on the inside of my thighs. The ruthless skill of his tongue.
I shuddered, my temperature felt like it jumped ten degrees.
My body remembered all of it, wanted him again. My brain wanted him, too, but knew it was a bad idea. Bad ideas sometimes felt really, really good and this was one of them.
One night.
He wanted one more night. So did I. I couldn’t deny him, or myself.
Opening the door of the bathroom, I stepped out, saw Angh leaning against the wall just inside the doorway. Naked. Very naked and very, very erect. Why did he look bigger today? I couldn’t believe that beast of a cock had fit inside me. It was porn star worthy. No wonder my pussy was sore. No wonder my body screamed Yes! More!
I froze, surprised, then instantly aroused. “I…I didn’t know you were here.”
The corner of his mouth turned up as his gaze traveled over my body, from the tips of my toes to the top of my head with pit stops at my breasts and my pussy. “The guest quarters are adequate, but not needed for more than the bathing tube. It is your bed I want to be in tonight, although I have no intention of sleeping.”
I licked my lips. Sleep? Who needed sleep? Seeing him again, every bare, gorgeous inch of him, had me needy, and I knew I was going to be insatiable once I got my hands—and mouth—on him.
We just stood and stared. I took in his size, well over a foot taller than me. His hair was dark and a tad unruly and from the looks of it, a touch damp, as if he’d skipped the drying tube in his haste to get to me. His eyes were dark and brooding, as usual, but the heat in them, the need, was scorching. Whiskers darkened his square jaw and I wanted to feel the rasp of them against my skin again. His full lips were parted as if he was breathing hard. He was, because I watched his broad chest rise and fall. A smattering of dark hair covered his chest, specifically between his flat, dark nipples, then tapering to his navel. Below that, it went in a straight line down to the thatch of curls at the base of his cock.
But I’d skipped so much and had to backtrack to his broad shoulders, rippled and bulging with muscles. His corded forearms flexing and relaxing with each opening and closing of his fists. His washboard abs, narrow waist, lean hips. Then there was his cock, thick and long, capped with a broad head. The skin was smooth and taut, a pulsing vein ran up the length. Farther down, his legs were powerful, his thighs as wide as my waist. He was built like a tank, a gorgeous, mouth-watering tank.
But there was one thing—no, two things—I’d skipped over, two places too painful to linger. The cuffs on his wrists. Wide and silver-toned, they were carved with elegant marks. His family’s marks. To him, the cuffs meant he was claimed. That he was mine. Of all the women in the galaxy, he’d chosen me.
That fact was humbling and frightening all at once, because I wasn’t free to follow my heart. I’d signed a contract with the I.C., and no one just walked away. Not before their time was up. And not when there was still so much work to be done.
I could have Angh, but how many people would die because I was selfish? Because I wasn’t strong enough to deny my heart the one thing it had every really wanted?
Him. My beast. He was mine. The truth was there, in his eyes, in the way he looked at me, like I was the only female in existence. I knew, in my soul, I knew he would fight for me. Kill for me. Die for me.
I just hadn’t understood at the time, when he’d placed the cuffs on my chest. I had been too caught up in my body’s needs, mindless with desire. To be with him, I wouldn’t be walking away from a desk-job as an instructor of Planetary History or Interplanetary Species. Those had been my worst subjects in school.
Now I realized just how much a bit of extra studying during my school days would have paid off. I would have recognized Angh’s intent instantly, the depth of his desire for me. The gift he was offering me when we’d been together and he’d placed those cuffs on my chest.
A mate. A lifetime of absolute devotion and protection from one of the strongest, most honorable males I’d ever met.
He’d offered me the matching cuffs and I’d felt the cool weight of the metal when he’d set them on my heated skin. But not the weight of their meaning. I’d turned them down. I hadn’t wanted jewelry from him. Couldn’t wear it in my role. But it wasn’t just jewelry. The cuffs were every bit as powerful as an Everian’s mark. It was a claiming. A connection. An offer of forever.
The thought of what he wanted had me glancing away. I wanted him. I did. My body screamed at me to close the distance between us, put my hands on him. Climb him like a monkey. Kiss him, lick him, sink down on his big cock. But I couldn’t keep him. Not for more than tonight.
I’d signed my life away. Committed to a life of service to the Coalition Fleet, to the war, to protecting hundreds of planets and billions of innocent lives. Just as Angh had done when he’d joined his fellow Atlan warriors in fighting the Hive. I was human and I didn’t have any of the out clauses that other species had. I didn’t have any of the problems like those from other planets. Everians had a back-out clause if their mark awakened. Atlan warlords would be sent to prison if they went into Mating Fever. Prillons could be separated from their mates, but their collars tied them together telepathically, which was pretty darn cool. And creepy. And the Prillons lived and died on their Battleships. Raised their families. Their females accepted two mates in case one of them was killed in battle.
That was what I’d learned about the other species and their customs. I was a battle commander. I led small strike squads of human, Trion and Viken warriors. We were not big enough for infantry battle, for facing the Hive Soldiers head-on in ground combat. That was left to the larger races, the Prillon and Atlan warriors, and a few others who were strong enough to lift a Hive off the ground and literally tear his body in two.
ThatI’d seen. That was something I knew about the Atlan warrior staring at me now like I was the most desirable creature he’d ever seen.
I wanted him. If I was completely honest with myself, I was already falling in love with him. And yet, I was stuck with my contract. I didn’t have a special collar, or ancient mark that would spark to life and get me a get out of jail free card. I could meet a warrior like Angh and fall in love with him, but it could never be more than a quick, wild romp.
What the heck was I doing? Standing here, staring at a naked Atlan warlord who blatantly wanted me, thinking of what I couldn’t have when he was so blatantly offering me exactly what I wanted. Him. Naked. Right now.