by Erin Raegan
“I bet you could fit a lot of people in this bed,” I told him as he came back. I moved my legs and arms back and forth, snow angel style.
He snorted. “Yes, I suppose.”
“How many?” I asked quietly.
Killian walked to the bed and knelt on it, crawling toward me with mischief in his eyes. “Just ask me, Theo.”
“Ask you what?” I deflected.
“The answer is a good one, I promise.”
I narrowed my eyes as he crouched on all fours above me.
“Ask me,” he rumbled, skimming his nose against mine.
I shifted anxiously. “How many?”
“How many females? Or males?”
“Killian,” I groaned. “Just answer.”
“None. Not a single one since you.”
“For two years?” I asked, shocked.
He nodded, pouting. “It’s been a very long time, love.”
“Why?”
“Now that question is a foolish one that I will not answer.”
“Me?” I guessed. But I needed to hear it. Wanted it so badly.
He kissed my chin. “You. Only ever because of you.”
I flushed. Even my ears went hot.
He chuckled darkly. “That answer pleases you.”
“Shut up.”
“My jealous Theo, how I have missed you.”
He kissed me. Taking my mouth slowly, he savored me. Sipping from my lips as though he couldn’t get enough of them. I relaxed into the bed, letting his hands roam me from head to thigh. Exploring me.
It wasn’t long before I was squirming underneath him and pulling at his arms to get him closer.
He sighed into my mouth. “We can’t. Not when you are still so angry with me.”
As he rolled from me, I bit back a curse. “Are you serious?”
“Very.”
“Why do you keep doing this?” I whined.
“I was not the one who ran away the last time I had you nearly stripped before me.”
I knelt beside him on the bed and pulled off my nightshirt, baring myself from the waist up.
Killian glowered at my naked breasts, his fingers fisting. “Not very nice.”
“I’m not trying to be nice. I’m trying to seduce you.”
Killian said something low and hoarse and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Every time I throw myself at you, you pump the brakes.” And it was hard to do that, dammit. Hard to work up the courage. But I was sick and tired of us getting so damn close and never quite getting there.
“I don’t want a quick fuck,” he bit out and sat up.
“It wouldn’t be,” I hissed, angry.
He stood from the bed and pulled a shirt on. “Yes, without your trust, that is exactly what it would be.”
“Fine,” I bit out and stood, walking to the door. “I’m leaving.”
Killian growled a curse, asking his alien deity for patience, and pulled me back to the bed. “You are hurting, Theo. Now is not the time.”
I rolled my eyes and faced the wall, giving him my back. “I’m hurting because you’re always so hot and cold.”
“I don’t mean here,” he growled, cupping me between my legs. “I meant you’re grieving.”
“I know what you meant,” I said breathlessly, giving an involuntary roll of my hips.
Killian’s hand tightened.
“I am sad,” I said on a sigh. “But I’m also really digging your alien pirate lord look and it’s making me want to jump you.”
He choked on a laugh.
“You can’t keep touching me,” I said sullenly. “Not if you’re not going to follow through.”
Killian looked at his hand between my legs. I licked my lips and followed his gaze. Both of us watched as his hand smoothed up the seam of my night shorts. The fabric was thin, barely there. I felt every hot dip of his fingers through them.
“If you touch me, sweets, this will go somewhere neither of us is ready for.”
I hissed an angry sound and rolled away from him, crawling back to the end of the bed.
“You are so very angry,” he crooned behind me, pulling me back by my hips. My heels bumped into the sides of his legs, his knees spreading my thighs farther apart. His hands smoothed up the backs of my thighs and under the legs of my shorts. “Do not move.”
I froze on all fours, trembling.
“I’m going to touch you, and you are not to move from this position, is that clear?”
I nodded fast, my belly clenching. He chuckled a low wicked sound.
His hands went to the waistband and a sharp tear echoed in the room. My legs jerked as he ripped the shorts and my underwear from me in one go. I dropped my face into the mattress, panting. Killian’s hands froze on my thighs, and he hissed a curse.
“What’s wrong?” I squeaked, bravery gone. I wasn’t even sure where it had come from to begin with.
I looked over my shoulder. His shoulders were tense, his chest heaving as he stared between my legs. I started to move forward, but he grabbed my legs in a punishing grip and yanked me back. I yelped, then his hand was back between my legs. This time skin to skin.
His palm was hot. Unbearably hot. I moaned into the bed, clenching the sheets in my fists.
“You were created to torture me,” he gritted darkly and tightened his hand. One long finger smoothed back and forth, and my entire body shuddered. “Hold very still.”
I nodded fast. Anything to get him to move his finger again.
He moved again, this time using all of his fingers to explore me. It was maddening how slow he was going.
My hips pushed back and my thighs stretched as I pushed my bottom higher up toward him. He chuckled, groaning.
“Faster,” I panted, looking back at him.
“Here?” He dragged a finger to the swollen bundle at the heart of me.
I choked on my next breath, my hips bucking.
“I’ve never been with a human.”
“Killian!”
“I speak truth,” he said, laughing. “You are so responsive.”
“Are we really talking about this right now?”
“I want to explore every inch of you,” he murmured.
I watched him move closer, his intent eyes looking over every exposed part of me. “Killian, I’m very uncomfortable.”
His eyes softened and he slowly petted me again. “I just want to please you.”
“I don’t have a lot of experience. I’m pretty sure anything you do is going to feel good.”
He scowled at me. “Pretty sure?”
Oh shit.
Killian grabbed my waist and lifted me, pulling me down onto his lap, my back against his chest. From behind, his hand cupped me between my legs. “Watch me.”
I looked down as his hand continued its exploration. His fingers spread me open and his thumb slipped up, rubbing little circles. I bucked against him, my hands holding his to me as my hips circled.
I panted, dropping my head back. His lips worked across my jaw and I turned, catching his mouth. This kiss was not gentle and sweet. It was harsh and angry. We both took and took from the other as his fingers pinched and rolled and drove me completely frantic. I had to tear my mouth from his as I panted, my fingernails clawing at his arms as I trembled and bucked against his hand.
“I’m going to settle you, little queen of mine,” he purred. “And then I’m going to walk away from you before I thrust inside and claim you as mine forever. Don’t call me back. If you do, I will not refuse you a second time. You will not be able to escape me. You will belong to me in all ways until the end of my time. Do you understand?”
I nodded fast, whimpering as he pinched and abused my throbbing clit. “Please.”
“I own this,” he snarled. “Not another soul will touch you here so long as I live, is that clear?”
I nodded, my hands leaving his arms to pull at his hair from behind me. His hand picked up speed and Killian pushed me down by my shoulder blades, holdi
ng me there as his hand disappeared for an agonizing second. Then his mouth was there and my toes curled. I wailed into the sheets, clawing at them. My thighs screamed from the pressure as I forced them back closer to him. His tongue slid up and circled and I broke apart, sobbing and calling his name.
He left me so fast, I couldn’t catch my breath. Then the door slammed.
He didn’t come back that night.
Flying in Spaceships with Aliens
Theo
I had no choice but to leave his room the next morning. I was anxious and worried and so torn up with my thoughts that I couldn’t stand to look at the walls of his room another second.
Oren was waiting outside the door and escorted me back to my room in silence. I peeked at him, at the strange aliens passing by. Did they know?
Did they suspect?
Had anyone heard us?
What would they think of their leader cavorting with a human?
Those thoughts plagued me the entire walk back. I wasn’t even sure what to do with them.
I wasn’t used to cuddles and confessions after a sexual experience. My few partners hadn’t been meaningful or particularly memorable. But the way Killian had left still felt wrong.
As though I’d done something, made him leave somehow. Wouldn’t he have needed me? Wasn’t that how it worked? I felt as though I’d done something wrong. Teased him in some way. Maybe even pressured him. I hadn’t meant to. I was just so tired of him touching me and never taking it to that next step.
I must have been throwing some wild mixed signals his way and I was ashamed of myself. How was he to know what I wanted? Sure, he could read my mind, but I didn’t even know what I wanted. My mind was probably just as confusing to him as it was to me.
But if I had messed up, I wasn’t sure how to fix it. Or should I fix it?
What exactly did I want from him? I probably needed to figure that out before anything else.
But now wasn’t the time.
Everyone was crowded around the training room when I came in. I peeked over Iris’s shoulder to see what they were all watching and it was Holden. He and Noah were throwing knives at Leo. Just tossing them at him, pointy ends moving straight toward his head.
But Leo was fast. He snatched them out of the air as though they were nothing. Holden tossed his last one and cracked a smile when Leo plucked it out of the air like it was nothing more than a feather.
It was a relief to see Holden smiling after the abuse I’d put on him.
After what Marcy had told us.
I walked into the room and Noah and Holden both stopped to look at me. I scratched my arm, watching Holden.
“Come here,” he said on a sigh. I walked into his arms, hugging him. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I told him.
Jeremy sighed from the back of the room. “Everyone’s sorry. Let’s forget it.”
Holden and I glared at him. We couldn’t forget. It would mean forgetting Abby and she didn’t deserve that. It would mean forgetting my home and I never wanted to forget the love I felt there.
“They’ve been wearing him out,” Sal called to me from the doorway. “It’s been good.”
“Yeah.” Holden sighed. “I fucked up leaving her, Theo.”
“You didn’t leave her,” I told him. “We had no choice.”
He shook his head. “No, I left her again and again.”
All the other girls.
I looked down. “Yeah, that was shitty. But she loved you anyway.”
“Yeah, she did.” He grinned and his lip trembled, his eyes watering.
We hung out for a while, everyone catching me up on all the goings-on while I was hiding away.
Sal had started to look out the windows, Bets was quick to share. Trying to desensitize himself.
Wes was bugging nearly every alien on the entire ship, pressing random buttons all over the place. Jareth had deemed him too dangerous and locked him away in our rooms. He was forbidden to leave.
Paul and Landon had yet to leave their rooms but for food. May was driving Bets mad with her boredom and anxiety. And Tibert was enjoying the peace and quiet of his own room, catching up on his naps.
We played a few card games at lunch time, then Iris showed me some of the parts of the ship she had explored. It was massive. Impossible to see it all, but she’d found the larger galley area. She loved to make the aliens uncomfortable. She’d ordered Lahn and Kayd to sit with her for mealtimes there.
She also showed me a larger gym and even a sparring ring.
Then there was the viewing room—a cavernous room made nearly entirely of windows. When we stepped inside, we were surrounded by space. Stars and deep unending black.
I only wished it had been Killian that had showed me.
We eventually found our way to a pool at the end of the viewing room. Well, it was less a pool and more a communal bathing area, but it was big enough to swim laps in.
Killian claimed they were pirates, but they lived more like royalty. I guessed you would want to though, if you were living in a spaceship ninety percent of the time. It was like a hotel in space. They even had a trading market in the lower belly of the ship. We’d had nothing of value to trade, but it was cool to explore the area.
I hadn’t seen Marcy or Liza since I’d returned though, and Oren was following us around. So after Iris left I asked him, as I sat and dipped my toes into the pool, “Where are Marcy and Liza?”
“Medical. Their injuries were extensive.”
I nodded. “Why is your water so much thicker than ours?”
Oren shrugged and sat beside me, bending his knees so he didn’t put them into the water. “I imagine everything of ours must seem as strange to you as yours was to us.”
“True.” After taking a deep breath, I asked, “Where’s Killian?”
Oren snorted. “I am not his keeper. My lord does not share everything with me.”
I slumped down, sighing.
“I imagine he is avoiding you,” he said around a grin.
“Me? Why?” Oh, but I knew. And I was feeling all kinds of sad about it. And angry that I was sad.
“He—”
The ship rocked so suddenly, I tumbled off the ledge of the pool, plunging into the deep, warm water. I choked on the water as it was forced down my throat, the wind knocked out of me.
Panic rocked me as vibrations trembled through the water and I was thrown violently across the pool and slammed into the opposite side. I clawed at the edge, pulling my head above the water.
“Theo!” Oren shouted.
I looked at him, gasping for air.
His eyes were wide with warning. “Get out of the water!”
I grappled for a grip, trying to pull up, but the ship made a roar of sound and the water pulled me back under. Then I was flying, flipping up and down. My head came out of the water and I gasped again. I was looking up at the ceiling, but I was falling straight down.
Alarms blared before the water encompassed me again. I tumbled in the water, falling in the opposite direction. I saw Oren sprawled on the floor seconds before I was slammed back into the bottom of the pool with a mountain of water coming down ontop of me.
I felt something crack in my arm and I screamed, letting out the last of my air.
Hands grabbed me and pulled me from the water. I reached for Oren as I choked and gasped. My chest tight and aching.
“Hold onto me,” he roared over the sirens.
I did with my left hand, but my right was useless. He looked at the way it was awkwardly bent and cursed. The ship rocked again, and we slid across the floor. Waves of water slammed us into the window. Oren took the brunt, but then both of us were shooting forward away from the suffocating water.
He crawled, dragging me behind him by my shirt. We reached the door just as the ship tumbled again. I didn’t know if we were losing gravity or what, but we slammed into the door and out into the hallway, along with a ton of water. My hands squeaked along the fl
oor as I grabbed for anything to stop my slide, my broken arm screaming in pain. But the hallway was long and the ship was tipping more and more. We were tipping more and more. The fall was going to kill me if the ship turned completely on its side.
Oren grabbed a doorway below me and held his hand out as I slid past, grabbing my arm. I dangled there, my legs coming off the floor as the ship continued to roll. I was hanging in the air with a hundred-foot drop below me. I looked up at Oren, terrified of falling. He held onto the doorframe with the tips of his fingers.
An alien poked its head out from the doorway above us and reached down, but it was too far.
Oren roared, the veins in his neck straining as he lifted my body with one arm. I cried out in pain as I grasped for the doorway he held onto with my bad arm.
Then we were rolling again, so fast my chest smacked into the wall beside us. Oren shoved me into the doorway and we rolled down and down until we slammed into another wall. Or floor. It was hard to tell what was up or down.
“Hold onto something,” he shouted.
I grabbed the legs of a bench, curling my body up into the legs and bracing against them and the wall and cradling my injured arm to my chest. “What’s happening?”
“We’re under attack,” he shouted as he was tossed into the bench beside me. He wrapped his arms around the bench and held on.
“By who?”
Oren chuckled grimly. “It could be anyone.”
“Just how many enemies do you have?”
“Too many,” Oren muttered.
The ship rolled again and I held on tight.
For two hours, we were stuck like that. When the alarms stopped blaring and the ship finally settles, Oren stood and carried me from the room, practically running down the halls.
“He’s going to have my ass for this,” he hissed, looking at my arm.
I cried out with every step he took. The pain was unbearable now that my adrenaline had drained away.
Oren stopped in front of an alien and roared something in his face. Then we were running again.
When he stopped running, I saw Marcy first. Standing in the doorway, she trembled. A fresh cut on her forehead. Oren had been worried about me, but when he saw her bleeding, he practically tossed me onto a cot and rushed to her with worried eyes.