by Alana Khan
I’d think with an invitation like the one I gave him, he would be inside me by now. But I should already know not to underestimate this male. He doesn’t want it now. He wants it great.
He leans to lip me, just his lips mock-biting mine. His earthy scent surrounds me. The feel of his soft skin delights my fingertips—soft skin stretched over hard muscle, an intoxicating combination.
I open my legs, nestling him in the cradle of my hips. I was born to be lying in this position under this particular male. It feels so sexy, and so right.
His tongue invades me, striking up a rhythm that will feel divine later, when he’s doing other things to me.
My skin is already burning for him. I need his touch—everywhere. As if he read my mind, he sits on his knees and glances down those perfect cheekbones at me. A slow, sensual smile stretches across his face as his palms travel along every inch of my skin that he can reach. Every cell he touches lights on fire.
Arching my chest, I give him a visual clue. My breasts may be small, but they’re oh-so-sensitive. When he finally cups them, then plucks both nipples at the same time, I lift off the bed.
A few more moments of this and I open myself even wider for him, rubbing against his straining cock.
His head dips to lave one nipple, then the other, and I sink deeper into pleasure. He licks and nips and tantalizes the tips with his mouth and hand.
I’m having a love/hate relationship with foreplay. I want it to go on forever, yet I want him to pierce me, then ride me. Without my own awareness, I find my hands have moved to his shoulders and I’m pushing him downward.
“You want this, Aerie?” he husks as he kisses down the middle of my torso from breastbone to mons. Fun smacking sounds accompany his journey as he licks and nuzzles his way south.
He pulls my thighs farther apart, a harsh yank that, far from hurting, is the sexiest thing he’s ever done. It’s his sign of ownership. I love it.
His thumbs open me wide, but he pauses to spear me with his gaze.
“I’m going to make you come until you beg for my cock. Then I’ll think about giving it to you,” he says with a lazy smile. If any Earth male had said this to me, I probably would have kicked him out of my bed. With Beast? I just want more of all that masculine power and control.
Then his mouth pounces on my clit. No more foreplay. None needed. Just that tongue circling and teasing. I think he’s making deep, satisfied sucking sounds on purpose, just to tantalize me.
“I hate you,” I tell him.
He stops long enough to say, “You deeply wound me.”
Are we playing? At a time like this? How did he make this happen? It’s amazing. Even more amazing is that he gets right back to the very serious business of pleasuring my needy little nub.
He adds a little more pressure and I fly over the edge, my head thrown back against the pillow in ecstasy.
As soon as my moans stop and my thighs cease quivering, he attacks again. And later, again. Each orgasm makes me need him more, because he’s yet to penetrate me. Although he’s giving me release after release, my need is mounting, too. I need him inside me. Not fingers, this time, either. I want the real deal.
“Beast. Please.”
He doesn’t deign to answer. He just attacks me again. I’m so on edge my orgasms are coming faster and faster. He barely needs to suck or lick me before he bestows more delicious pleasure.
“Now,” I put command into my voice as my hand slips down in search of his cock. He just grips my wrist, slams it into the mattress near my head, stretches down and makes me come again.
He’s having far too much fun abusing me like this, and truth be told, so am I.
“Please,” I say after another two rounds of pleasure. My neck feels like I have whiplash from thrashing back and forth against the pillow.
“Please what,” he asks, a seductive smile slashing across his face.
“Please, oh powerful Beast, give me some of your big green cock.” I don’t even know how I managed to string all those words together, but they came out of my mouth through rubbery lips. He grants me a deep, masculine, chuckle and places himself at my entrance.
“You want this?”
I thought I’d made myself perfectly clear the first ten times, but he wants me to beg, I’ll beg.
“Oh yeah. Beast. Fuck me.”
He slips just the tip inside me. I was so desperate to feel his penetration that my entrance quivers in response.
“Aerie,” his voice is serious. All humor is lost as his gaze finds mine. “Aerie,” he breaths again as his lids close and he loses himself inside me.
He slides deeper, in small increments. Filling me. Allowing me to stretch to accommodate his girth.
“Perfect,” he murmurs even as I was thinking the same thing.
He slides to the hilt, in a movement so deeply satisfying I feel something inside me crack open. It takes long mindless moments before I realize this has nothing to do with physical pleasure. It’s a union. A rich connection we share.
In this space, I realize time is truly meaningless. When souls unite like ours have, the stretch of time we’ve known each other fades to insignificance.
It’s not about seconds or minutes or hours. It’s about this. About us. “I love you,” I murmur into his ear.
“And I you,” he responds as his rhythm increases and he unleashes himself inside me. He takes me to physical paradise several times before he spends inside me with a grunt of satisfaction so deep and loud it speaks volumes.
The physical bliss is nothing, though, compared to the euphoria I find in his arms.
Resisting the urge to sleep after all that pleasure, I bask in the look he’s bestowing on me.
“I almost lost you,” I tell him as I sweep his dreads off his forehead. I don’t say it now—I can’t. But in this moment, in the privacy of my mind, I already know that I never want to lose him again.
Beast
I commed the Fool’s Errand and spoke with Zar at length. They’ll land in three hoaras. We have plenty to do between now and then.
I stand in front of the closed crimson drapes in the auditorium. We’ve all spent a lifetime in the arena below. I imagine none of us have any desire to look at it for another modicum.
“Congratulations! Every person in this room is free.”
Everyone whoops and hollers. There are fifteen gladiators, including me, plus Aerie, and Crom.
“A group of friends will land in about three hoaras. They’re good people. One is a good forger and will provide papers for all of you. You’ll all walk out of here not only free, but with the paperwork to prove it.
“You’ve probably dreamed of your freedom since you were enslaved. I’m here to tell you it will not be as easy as you imagined.”
I see confusion on a lot of faces. If someone had told me a week ago that being free wouldn’t taste delicious, I would have called them a liar.
“You’ve known one way of life for a long time. Being free means change. Change can be hard. It involves making choices. Perhaps for the first time in your life.
“Your first choice starts now. I spoke with Captain Zar. He’s a good male. He’s agreed to take anyone on who wants to join us. It will involve work and sacrifice. Ships don’t fly for free. People don’t eat for free. If you don’t earn your way by fighting, you’ll have to learn a skill that will help the group.
“It will be a challenge and an opportunity. Some of you have homes to return to. Zar said he will take you there if that’s your wish.
“It’s not safe on Trent. The authorities will hear of this and the arm of the Federation will arrive sooner than we’d like.
“My thought is this: we spend the next two hoaras stealing everything worth taking from the hoarder who sucked the very life from our bodies. You’ll know what’s valuable if it’s in a place of honor.
“If you want, keep a few trinkets for yourself. We’ll all need credits to start our new lives. The king’s share, though, should
go to the ship that will either house you for the near future, or will return you to your home.
“I’m not your master, your owner, or your boss. I don’t make the rules. What do you say?”
They talk among themselves. Watching this makes my chest swell with pride. Before my very eyes, I see males who have never made their own decisions, never been allowed to have even the smallest control over their own lives, discussing matters of great urgency. And they do it well.
“We agree it’s a fine plan,” Erro reports. “We all have a lot of thinking to do, but this Captain Zar sounds like he will give us time to figure it out. Most of us have never been inside this or any other building on this property, but we’ll go through and take anything we think is worth credits. We’ve agreed on five personal items each, the king’s share goes to our new captain.”
“Fine,” I say as I nod with a smile. “One error, my friend. The king’s share doesn’t go to the captain, it goes to the ship, and the ship is shared by the people. All the people, even you if you remain on it. It goes to food and fuel and fun. By Vorhee’s left nut, I swear there will be fun on this ship. And no masters.”
Epilogue
Three months later . . .
Aerie
Even though we planned our mating ceremony, I never envisioned it as wonderful as this. We’re in the dining hall, which has been festooned with flowers from our hydroponic garden.
Beast is standing at the far end of the room, waiting for me. He’s at the head of a ‘V’ with all the gladiators from Trent as his best men. I’m struck by how proud they all look in their black leather kilts and sashes. Best of all, they each have a sword hanging from a scabbard at their waist. What it must be like for them to be powerful free males who carry their own weapons and answer to no one.
Beast is at the apex of the ‘V’ looking so strong and handsome he takes my breath away. His green and black dreads are pulled into a topknot on his head, the gold rings on his nose sparkle in the light, but it’s the look on his face, full of pure, unadulterated love, that clutches my heart the tightest.
I step forward, wearing a white on white dress that I’m told all the women wear on their mating day. Savannah altered it for me and I know I look my best. The hem sweeps the floor, hiding my bare feet. I don’t need my stilts to protect me anymore. I have my beautiful Beast for that.
“Ready for your vows?” Zar asks, the happy smile stretching across his feline face exposing his long canines.
Beast takes my hand in his, spears me with his loving emerald gaze, and says, “We were thrown together by the slavers, but I think it was the Gods themselves who wanted us to meet. You’re the best female I’ve ever met and the only one I’ll ever want. I’ll cherish you forever and protect you with my life, my beloved Aerie.”
Although long ago I voted myself least likely to cry at weddings, I’m certainly crying now. Tears of joy.
Beast is a male of few words and I get paid to communicate for a living. However, all the speeches I prepared fly out of my head and I speak from my heart. “I knew I loved you from the minute I found myself praying for your life in the arena on Galgon. You’re the most precious thing in the galaxy, Beast. I’m thrilled to be your mate, and I’m the luckiest female in all the galaxy to be able to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Beast
We left the dining room where we were mated moments ago, and our friends are all trailing behind us through the metal-walled halls of the ship.
“The ship isn’t this big. Where are you taking me?” Aerie laughs, her hands still dutifully covering her eyes as I lead her through the hallways, my hand on the small of her back.
“How many times do I have to tell you it’s a surprise?”
“I know it’s a surprise. I’d have to be an idiot not to know. Every time you’re gone for more than an hour and I ask where you’ve been, that’s been your answer for three months.” She pretends to be sullen and grouchy, but her happy smile gives her away.
“Well, you’ll finally get your answer.”
“Good. I’m tired of going in circles.”
Which is, indeed, what we’ve been doing. When we arrive at the farthest end of the dorm area,
Dax opens the door for us. Before I pull Aerie through the opening, he vigorously shakes his head and mimes picking her up. Drack. I forgot that part. He told me the females love when their male does this.
“Keep your hands over your eyes,” I order in my sternest voice, then lift her into my arms and step over the threshold. “Now,” I say, making certain I’m in a position to observe every expression on her beautiful face when she sees what I’ve done.
“Holy shit!”
I know her well enough to know this is a happy curse, not an angry one.
“Beast. You did this?” She wiggles to get out of my arms and stands on the floor. “How did you . . .?”
“I had lots of help. Dax is a good teacher. Almost everyone on board helped with one thing or another.” I raise my voice so everyone in the hallway can hear me, “They all did a great job.”
Dax and the males helped me tear out a wall between two cabins. We had to retrofit some metal to fill in the holes in the walls, then he taught me to work with wood to make all the builtins that will hold our possessions, some of which were lovely, expensive trinkets we stole from Plenum.
I’m proud of this room. Once I decided I wanted to be on this ship as long as the fates allow, I knew I needed to make my Aerie happy here. On the pod she told me she dreamed of a place, high above everything, to safely rest—an aerie. I made this for her. I want her to love it and feel protected here.
Aerie’s narrating everything out loud. “Look at this.” Her hand smoothes over the burled wood on the dresser. “Oh my God, and this.” She points to curtains that cover the small window.
“I didn't do that, Savannah did.”
“Remind me to thank her.”
“Do it yourself.” I turn her toward the doorway, and all our friends spill inside our cabin.
“Everyone’s here!” she squeals in delight.
“Congratulations on your mating!” they all yell at once, then there are so many conversations and well wishes, and talking that I can’t follow any of it. So I just engage in my favorite pastime—watching Aerie. No. Let me rephrase that. Watching my mate. My beloved mate.
I stole that saying from Zar. He never calls his mate Anya, always his beloved mate. It says so much about their relationship. And now, it says so much about ours—mine and Aerie’s.
The last three lunars have been both the fastest and the slowest of my life. Settling into life on the ship has been an experience.
There has been so much to sort out. Which of the gladiators from Trent will stay with us, and who will return to their home planet. Who would be on the Fool’s Errand, and who would go on the new ship the females decided to name the Devil’s Playground. How the two ships would work together, and when we would go our separate ways.
I was shocked when I was voted Captain of the Devil’s Playground. I’m still baffled as to why they picked me. They tell me I’m a born leader. I’m just a male. A male who wonders and frets and plans.
I think that’s the real reason they chose me. They know I’ll take every decision seriously. I’ll worry about every person under my care. I’ll do everything in my power to keep them all safe. It’s a big responsibility; I hope I’m up to the task.
“Sir,” Crom says as he approaches, “here it is.”
“My beloved mate,” I call, interrupting Aerie who is deep in discussion with several of her friends. “I have one more mating gift for you. I’m not certain whether you’ll want to hang it, place it in a position of honor on one of the wooden shelves I made, or officially jettison it out the garbage chute. The choice is yours.”
“Ooh, a wedding gift? You made it? I’m sure I’ll love it.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I say, my face serious as I present her with what I’m told is called a shad
ow box. Inside it is her right stilt, the one she killed Plenum with.
She reaches out to take it, then realizes what’s inside the beautiful box. Her face falls. Drack, I knew this was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have done this, especially not in front of all her friends.
“Tell me, Beast,” her voice is soft, “what does this signify to you?”
I take a calm, deep breath. Good. As soon as she hears this, she’ll know my heart. Whatever she does with it, she won’t be mad at me for gifting it to her.
“It signifies my beloved. Every aspect of her. From her beauty to her self-determination. It speaks volumes about the way she protected herself before she met me, and, of course, after as well. It shines a light on your strengths and your vulnerabilities. It’s the first thing I noticed about you other than your beauty and your bravery. I wanted it to remind you that you can be anything and do anything your heart desires.”