“That…” I frown. “Wait, what do kids that have to do with anything?”
There will be children, the beast insists, and I mentally shove him as far toward the back of my mind as I can, before she can see his thoughts in my eyes.
“You don’t…you don’t find me lacking?”
“I find you perfect,” I tell her. Then I steal another slow kiss, drawing a deep moan from her. “And if you will let me, I’ll show you just how much they’ve been hiding from you, at that convent. And on Gebose.”
“Okay. But can we just focus on here and now? On today? I don’t even know how many of my childhood memories are real, and I just met you, so…”
“Of course. That’s fair,” I assure her, despite the ache building in my chest. “No strings attached.”
Claim her, the beast insists. I shove him back again.
“Yes. Okay.” She gives me a teary smile, and I slide one hand beneath her lower back, easing her beneath me again. “Yes, please,” she gasps as I give her nipple a little suck. “But then, I’ll need the rest of you. After your tongue.”
Good lord, she has no idea how badly I want her. Or how determined I am to show her what’s possible, without actually taking her, despite the beast’s demands. She’s not in any position make a “forever” kind of decision, right here and now, and I won’t force her into one.
I’ll just get her off, then take myself in hand in the shower. The very second we get back to the Dinghy. A dozen times, if that proves necessary.
I kiss my way down her body, reveling in every sigh and moan. In the almost innocent way her hips strain upward for me. Begging for contact. I dip my tongue into her bellybutton and nibble on the point of her left hip. Then I spread her thighs with both hands and gaze down at the gift she’s entrusted to me.
“Please…” she whispers. So I lean in for a taste, and I never want to come up again.
I lick a firm line from the top of her opening, as slowly as I can, and she squirms in anticipation. Then I flick my tongue over her clit, and her hands grasp at the blanket beneath us. “Oh!” she cries, and the sound of her pleasure—of her surprise—is my new addiction.
I need much, much more.
I lick her again, long and slow. And again, and again. Her fists clench tighter and tighter around the bedclothes, and her thighs begin to close around my face.
I push them open again, and this time I hold them in place, indulging a barbaric urge to pin her down while I circle her clit with my tongue. “Oh, god,” she cries. So I do it again. And again. Her hips rise toward me, demanding more, and I increase the pace. “Vaughn,” she begs, and her voice has taken on a husky quality. My cock throbs against the bed, and my balls ache with the need for release. “Please…”
So I let go of her left thigh and circle her opening with my finger, to make sure she understands what’s about to happen, again. Then I slide it inside of her. She gasps and goes still for a moment. I lick her again and stroke inside her with that finger, and she begins to relax.
Because she’s so aroused, that slightly rough patch inside her is swollen from increased blood flow. I rub it with every stroke of my finger, in time with the strokes of my tongue, and her body begins to tighten around me, like a hot little cuff. And as unbelievable as that feels, her size worries me.
Or rather, my size worries me. Not that it matters. I’m not going to take her. Not like that. Not yet.
“Vaughn,” she says again, and I lick faster. “Oh, god, Vaughn, I…”
“Relax,” I whisper, still stroking in and out of her with one finger. “Focus on your pleasure, and let it come to you.”
“But I want…the rest of you.”
“We’ll talk about that in a second. First, I need to see you come. Beast’s orders.”
She groans, and when her head falls back onto the pillow, I continue licking her. Then I add a second finger. It’s snug, but she doesn’t seem to mind, so when she begins clamping around me again, panting, her fists clenched so tightly the muscles in her forearms are standing out against her skin, I add a third finger.
Grace flinches until I circle her clit with my tongue and rub that patch inside her again. But there’s no blood. She’s stretched, but not tearing. So I stroke carefully until she calls my name again.
“Come for me, Grace,” I whisper against her overheated flesh. “Take your pleasure.” God knows she’s earned it.
And at the next stroke of my tongue, she falls apart around me, her hips twitching frantically, while her body clamps down around my fingers over and over, so hard that the ache of my cock is almost unbearable.
Finally, her hands go slack and her head rolls to the side on the pillow. Her legs relax and fall open on either side of me. She groans when I slide my fingers free.
I crawl over her body, then I prop myself up on my side, looking down at her. Enjoying the satisfied flush in her face. The way her eyes are half closed, as if she can hardly keep them open. As if I wore her out. “Well?” I whisper. “What do you think?”
She rolls her head toward me, and her eyes open sluggishly. “I think everyone I’ve ever met before this moment has been a terrible liar, for keeping such a possibility from me. Why wouldn’t they want me to know that a woman could experience such pleasure?”
Because they had no intention of giving it to her. There can be no other explanation.
“Shall I kill them all for you? Lay their corpses at your feet?” I’m kidding, but the beast is not. He seems to think they should die for the sin of omission—of sexual oppression—and it worries me that his threshold for meriting the death penalty is so low.
“No, no.” Grace cups the side of my face in her small hand. “I take solace in the knowledge that they will likely never enjoy anything the way I enjoyed what you just gave me.”
My chest is going to burst. My heart is just going to rip its way through my rib cage and throw itself at her mercy. It no longer belongs to me. It is hers, to do with as she will.
She is pleased, the beast announces, arrogance echoing in his tone. She accepts you. Take her.
Instead, I clear my throat and dig the earpiece from my pocket. The entire set is used and outdated, having been purchased second-hand at our only previous refueling stop, but they still function. “I should call Sotelo and see if he’s gotten rid of Meshach yet.”
“No!” Grace sits upright so suddenly that I fall onto my back, startled. “Don’t. Please. We haven’t… I mean, you have to…” Her gaze trails down to the still-prominent lump in my pants. “I want the rest of you, Vaughn.”
“And you will have me. Whenever and wherever you want. But we need to talk about that first, and I don’t want to do that here. I want to get us off of Miscellany and out of Meshach’s reach.”
“I don’t want to talk. I want…” She reaches for the fastenings over my crotch, and I catch her wrist an inch before her fingers would have brushed my erection. Right now, the very material holding it back is an agony against my sensitive flesh, and her touch would be too much to bear.
“Grace.” But I don’t know how to explain this to her.
“You don’t want me?” There are fresh tears in her eyes. “I don’t believe that. I can see that you want me, so why won’t you just take me?”
“It’s more complicated than that. I don’t want you to do anything you might regret later.”
“I won’t regret it. Not with you.”
“I…” Fuck. I push myself upright, so that we’re sitting eye-to-eye. “What the beast wants from you is…it isn’t as simple as I made it sound. He wants to protect and provide for you—”
“You said that.”
“—but it’s a bigger commitment than I let on.”
“Vaughn.” She takes my chin in her hand, and her grip is bold. Here, again, is the intrepid little woman who snuck onto our ship. Who stuck her tongue into my mouth. “I want you. But beyond that I need you. If the beast wants to protect me—if you want to protect me…” She cle
ars her throat and starts over. “The only way to protect me from Meshach is to take me. Right now. And not with your fingers or your tongue. You have to… You have to tear me. You have to make it obvious that I am no longer intact. Untouched. You have to…defile me. Otherwise, if he finds me, he will give me to Silas, and even if I manage to escape again someday, I don’t know if I can ever come back from that. Not after this. Not knowing what’s possible with someone like you.”
She lets go of my chin, and I stare at her in horror while the beast rages inside me, intent on razing all of Gebose in her honor. “You’re saying that if you’re not a virgin, he won’t want you?”
Grace nods. “He might be mad enough to kill me, but he won’t give me to his son. No man on Gebose would have a woman who’s been with another man. Especially not the heir to the planet.” Her eyes close, and she exhales slowly. “I apologize. I should have told you the truth. I’m sorry to be using you this way, but I don’t have any other choice. If you won’t do it, I’ll have to ask someone else. But I would rather it be you.”
A roar rips free from my throat, animal fury given voice, and Grace screeches as she scuttles off the bed. She backs across the small room until her spine hits the door, and she crosses her arms over her body to cover herself. To shield herself.
From me.
I can only imagine how frightening I must look, to leave her trembling in fear.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’ve insulted you. And your beast. I’ll…go.”
She reaches for her clothes, and I’m off the bed in a second. I’ve lost control. Sotelo was right; I underestimated the beast, and now it’s in charge.
The beast pins Grace to the door, pressing his body—my body—against her. Caging her in with my arms. My head dips until my nose is buried in her hair, and I breathe her in. “I am not insulted,” I growl. Not by her, anyway. But the beast is furious at the thought of another man having her. Even to save her from Meshach and Silas. And about that, at least, he and I agree. “You will not touch another man.” My voice is the rumble of thunder across the sky. She shudders, as if she can feel it in her bones. “Ever.”
“I will,” she insists, indignant, and the beast glories in the challenge she’s mounting. “If you don’t give me what I want. What I need from you.”
I snarl at her, but she wedges her hands between us and shoves me back until she can look up at me, her dark eyes flashing with anger. Her brows arched in determination. “I will,” she repeats. “I would rather open myself for a stranger, one time, than lose myself to Silas forever. But that’s not what I want. What I want is you.”
Take her, the beast demands, and it requires all of my willpower to hold him back. To keep myself from lifting her right here against the door and pushing my way inside her. Consequences be damned.
“It isn’t that simple.” I’m growling again, and I can’t seem to stop. “If I give you want you want—if I take you—you will still lose yourself. But to me, rather than to Silas.” And I… Well, I’ve already lost myself to her, even if I never get to sink inside her. To glory in her tight, wet warmth.
My life will never be my own again. She will always be there, the moon on the horizon of my existence, putting every other natural beauty to shame.
Grace blinks up at me, and her focus softens. I can see her confusion. “What does that mean?”
“What the beast offers you isn’t just long-term. It’s forever. That’s all he knows how to give. If you let him inside you, you will be his—you will be mine—forever. Is that what you want?”
Her eyes close. She takes a deep breath.
“It isn’t.” I can see the truth in her hesitation.
“I… I don’t know. In my entire life, I’ve only seen the Theron and Gebose. I didn’t understand how vast the universe is—how much possibility it holds—until I saw the stars, through the viewshield of your ship. There’s so much I still want to see.”
“I will give you the stars,” I swear to her. Then I shake my head, trying to dislodge that traitorous thought. I’m trying to convince her not to tie herself to me. Not yet, anyway. Not until she’s sure.
The beast snarls at me, unconcerned with how sure Grace is or isn’t. He seems convinced that if I just pin her down and sink deep into her, I can spend the rest of my life filling her with babies and with joy. Showing her the universe.
Giving her the stars.
And that’s what I want to do. But she’s still frowning up at me.
“We only met a few hours ago, Vaughn.”
Yes, and what was a few hours to her has been an eternity to me. I will never get her out of my head. Out of my blood. I was hers the moment I saw her. But she still has a chance to flee. To decide for herself what her life will be, without saddling herself to a fugitive. To a man who isn’t even supposed to exist.
To a monster who can’t control the beast in his head, or the weapons built into his bones.
“I… If it has to be forever, I would rather have you than Silas,” she whispers, staring up at me with those big brown eyes. “I know that much.”
Pain lances my chest at the sword she’s driven through it.
The beast scoffs at my tender-hearted agony, convinced that if I just take her, she will see what could be between us.
That unfounded certainty may be good enough for him. And the lesser of two evils may be good enough for Grace. But I don’t want her to come to me because she has no choice. I want her to choose me because she fucking chooses me. But she can’t do that until she’s had more than a few hours to get to know me.
“Decide,” she insists. “Tell me now. I cannot risk seeing Meshach again with my virginity intact. Will you help me, or do I need to find someone else?”
Paralyzed by indecision—by the conflict between what my heart and soul want and what my head knows is right—I can only stare at her. So she bends to pick up her pants. To leave me.
To search out another cock.
A snarl rips free from my throat, and she shrieks as I throw her onto the bed. “Vaughn?” she says as I shove my pants down and step out of them, revealing an erection bigger than anything I’ve ever been able to boast about before. Her gaze drops to it, and she crawls backward across the small mattress until she hits the wall. “Wait.”
“You said if I didn’t give you this, you’d take it from another man. And I will die before I let that happen.”
She shakes her head slowly. “You can’t mean that.”
“I do,” the beast snarls at her. This challenge is beyond what he was expecting. This isn’t just the mating game; this is an insult he can’t abide. I take my cock in hand and stroke it in a vulgar display the beast takes great satisfaction in. “This is what you wanted. What you demanded.”
“I know, but that was before… I can’t possibly…” She’s still staring at my cock. “Is that normal?”
“No. Nothing about this is normal.”
This is your gift to her. The beast believes I will never attain this size for another woman.
“Well, that’ll do the job,” she whispers, her focus flicking to my eyes, then back down. “There’s no way I’ll pass for intact after that.”
The beast huffs, insulted. Why does she not look pleased?
Because she looks terrified.
“You can still say no,” I tell her, though the beast growls in protest. “We don’t have to do this right now. Or ever. But you cannot leave this room and take another man. I can’t— I can’t let that happen.” I take a deep breath. Then I tell her the truth. “If you let another man inside you, I will either have to kill him or take my own life.”
“You’ll have to…?”
“I told you. This is not normal. The beast’s cultural customs are not mine, and there are some things he seems willing to compromise on. But not that. I can make him let you out of this room…intact. But I cannot stop him from killing any man you choose instead of us.” Instead of me.
“Why?” She looks horrifi
ed, as well she should.
“I… As near as I can understand, deep down, he’s convinced that the only reason you would turn him down is if you found a more suitable mate. Which leaves me no choice but to prove that there is no one more suitable for you than I am. No one who could better protect or provide for you. He believes you require a show of strength, to keep you interested. Also…in his culture, suitors evidently murder their rivals, to increase the chance of successful breeding.” I shrug. “The lines between love and war are a bit…blurred.”
“Love…” she seems to be trying the word out. “You just met me.”
“The beast believes this is fate. That we belong together. That we’ve found each other, and nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of that. Not Meshach. Not the rest of my crew. Not anything. Ever.”
“And you?” she whispers. “What do you believe?”
I close my eyes, trying to find words that make sense among a maelstrom of inexorable drives that no human language could possibly explain or define. “I believe that every single cell in my body is drawn to you. I believe that I would kill for you. That I would die to protect you.”
Her eyes are wide. Her hands are trembling. “We just met.”
“‘Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found,’” I tell her.
She blinks at me, brows furrowed. “That’s beautiful. And it doesn’t sound like the beast.”
“It’s a quote from D.H. Lawrence, a poet who died several hundred years ago. He and the beast seem to agree about the fact that love plays by its own rules. Men in my position—men of another species, who lived millennia ago, a galaxy away from here—believed that whatever is between us is worth fighting for. Worth the pillaging and razing of entire planets to defend. I may not understand that, but I can feel it. And I am at its mercy, just as they were.”
As she will be, the beast assures me.
“I will go out there and kill Meshach right now, if that’s what you want.” And some part of me aches to do just that. “In battle, I am worth ten normal men.”
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