by Tasha Black
He could hear her light footsteps, feel the air swirl at her approach.
He held out the pouch, its weight insignificant compared to the ache of his heart, the pull of his soul to hers.
“Your eyes,” she breathed.
He was being pulled into prime state, drawn to her like a stray ship into a black hole.
He knelt at her feet, placing the pouch on the floor beside him, thoughts of crowns and duty forgotten.
“Zane?”
He could sense the note of worry in her voice.
“Do you feel it?” he asked her.
For a moment, he wondered if she would ask what he meant, if she would try to deny it.
She nodded slowly.
“That’s a mating bond,” he told her. “Some call it a blood bond or a pair bond. Do you know what it is?”
“Like birds?” she asked.
At first, he wasn’t sure what she meant. Then he remembered tales of the feathered creatures from some of the outer humanoid planets, creatures that laid eggs and mated for life.
He wondered again where she was from.
But there would be time for that.
“Yes,” he said. “Just like that. My people mate for life, too.”
She nodded again.
“Is it like that with you?” he asked.
He knew the answer. With humans it was generally more complicated. That was probably why none of his kind had ever bonded with one.
Until now.
“Yes and no,” she said. “Our intentions are good, but…” She stopped, seemingly at a loss for words.
But he had heard the tales. Cheating and lying and leaving were the antithesis of the mate bond. The idea sickened him physically, especially now that he knew its pull.
“With my kind, there is no such thing as infidelity,” he told her. “We literally don’t have a word for it.”
“What does all this mean?” she asked, biting the edge of her lip.
“For me, it means my soul is now linked to yours and there will be no other mate,” he told her gently. “For you, it means a choice.”
“What choice?”
“Accept me as your blood mate,” he said.
“Or?” she asked.
“Run,” he told her. “Send me away from you now, and then leave this ship at the next port. I will try not to follow, but I’m not sure…”
“You’re not sure?” she echoed.
“I don’t know if I’m strong enough not to try to track you,” he admitted. “No matter how far you run.”
Her eyes widened, the rings of blue gleaming around the soulful brown.
“Don’t be mistaken,” he said quickly. “I would never force myself on you. But the need I feel to protect you is…irresistible. I will try to honor your wishes, I promise. Though I may follow when you run, I will try to stay out of your sight.”
“And if I don’t run?” Her voice was soft, but so intense.
A possibility began to open itself to him, a vision of claiming her, loving her, filling their chambers with young.
She did not even know who he was yet - that he was more than a simple valet, laboring in the service trade. For the first time in his life, someone was seeing him for the person he was, not the position he held.
He fought for self-control.
“Let me love you,” he said through a clenched jaw. “I know we just met, but I have already seen your character. Can you see what kind of man I am?”
He was ready to tell her everything.
But he needed to know she would accept him as he appeared. If she wanted him this way, he could be sure it was truly the bond that drew her.
She studied him, fixing him with those beautiful bi-colored eyes.
He felt as if she had flayed him open, as if she were feasting her eyes on his very soul.
Then before he could register it, she was on her knees before him, her hands sliding over his shoulders, twining around his neck.
His whole body sang with anticipation.
Her cheeks were flushed, a glow seemed to emanate from her skin. Her full lower lip pouted as if begging for his kiss.
He halved the small distance between them, cupping her pink cheek in his palm.
“You are mine and I am yours,” he told her.
She closed her eyes.
The call sang in his blood and he kissed her, pressing his lips to hers gently at first, then feasting on her sweet mouth hungrily.
Juno whimpered lightly against him.
He slid his hands down her shoulder blades, down to the small of her back and pulled her closer.
She seemed to turn to liquid honey, melting her small, warm form into him.
Lust shot through him and he nearly gave in. With the last of his self-control, he pulled her to her feet and half-dragged her to her bedroom.
She squeezed his hand and moved quickly, as if his eagerness were matched by her own.
He wondered again at the small size of the room she had chosen for her own use. In a luxury suite like this one, surely this room had been meant for a child or a servant. It was small and cozy with a wall of built-in shelves where her single paperback book rested.
When was the last time he had seen an actual paperback book?
But she untied the leather cord at her waist, and he forgot everything but the sinuous sight of the string loosening, sliding off, falling on the floor at her feet.
He stepped closer and tucked a finger beneath one button of the blouse.
She gasped slightly as it popped open.
Emboldened, he slid his fingers down to the next and the next, ever so slowly, until at last, the blouse slid off her arms.
She wore no undergarment or bindings beneath. Her breasts were bared to him and she was breathtaking.
He dropped to his knees before her again, nuzzling her tender nipples and pressing kisses against her belly.
She slid her hands through his hair, and he tucked his thumbs under her leggings, sliding them down and helped her step out of them.
The women on Zane’s planet were pampered and passive. He had seen a female’s body before, but he was beginning to realize he had never seen one so genuine. Juno was raw and unedited. Juno was real.
She had a bruise on one thigh and a scrape on the other knee. Her nails were her own, her breasts weren’t bound, and her sex was not stripped. She looked like a goddess to him, more than just a woman, a symbol of all womanhood.
She stood before him proudly, not shying away because of some imagined imperfection.
He found her confidence dizzyingly intoxicating.
“I adore you, Juno of Adair,” he told her fervently, looking up into her blue-brown eyes.
She flinched, and he worried he might be moving too quickly.
“You do not have to accept me tonight,” he told her. “Just let me love you.”
She smiled down at him and he thought he caught a flash of sadness in her eyes before she nodded.
He rose and led her to the bed, soaking in the movement of her curves as she settled herself on her back and put her arms out for him.
He crawled in after her and lay at her side, placing a hand on her warm belly.
“Juno,” he murmured. “I will not claim you until you ask me to.”
She reached her hand up to cup his jaw, her eyes luminous.
He bent his head to kiss her, forgetting everything else he wanted to tell her, and all the questions he wanted to ask.
She tasted like nectar. Her tongue met his, teasing and caressing, making him wild to feel her talented mouth on his cock.
Easy, he reminded himself.
He pulled back slightly and gazed at her again.
Her lips were swollen, her hair spread out on the pillow in dark waves.
“You’re so beautiful, Juno,” he told her, bending to brush his lips against the hollow of her throat.
He didn’t dare kiss her neck in the tender place where it met her shoulder for fear that he wouldn’t be a
ble to resist the urge to bite.
Instead, he crawled lower, nuzzling her full breasts and licking the stiff little nipples until she arched her back and moaned for more.
He pressed his mouth against her belly instead, sliding his hands down to stroke her thighs.
Juno stilled.
He waited, begging himself to stop until she urged him on.
“Zane,” she murmured.
“I need to taste you,” he whispered. “Please.”
He heard her quick inhale of breath.
Then she relaxed her thighs and he thrust himself between them, nuzzling her soft curls and sliding his tongue along the seam of her.
Juno whimpered softly.
His cock pulsed in sympathy, so rigid he thought it would burst.
Easy, he reminded himself.
He licked her again, a long, slow stroke and he felt her hips tremble beneath him.
He buried his face in her, lapping and stroking her, swirling his tongue around her pulsing clitoris.
All that existed at that moment was her pleasure, raw and sweet.
12
Juno
Juno moaned, lifting her hips to meet Zane’s ravenous mouth.
Her only previous sexual experience had been a few furtive encounters in a shadowy corner with a boy she knew and liked from school. It was generally a lot of kissing and then him pressing her hand down his pants to stroke his erection until he finished, or someone shooed them along, whichever happened first.
There was little privacy in the neighborhood on Terra-4. Juno’s experiences were common.
And if she was being honest, there really weren’t any men that had interested her enough to wish for more.
Now, suddenly the universe was turned inside out.
She was freshly bathed, fully naked, and spread out on a soft bed, free to make any noise she liked, free to touch and be touched without fear.
And the man touching her was Zane. Zane with the silver eyes, Zane who protected her, who liked her, who treated her like a princess even though she was just a Terran who’d managed to scrub hard enough to pass for something more.
He slid a finger against her opening, and she felt her whole body begin to throb, as if he were making love to every cell of her.
When he lapped at her clitoris as he moved his finger inside her she cried out, forgetting her own sounds, lost in the dizzying rise of the pleasure as her thighs tensed involuntarily.
Zane groaned against her and the vibration of his voice sent her flying over the edge.
Fireworks seemed to go off behind her eyelids as her whole body soared in the hold of an unearthly pleasure and then crashed down, floating and falling again and again in wave after wave of ecstasy.
At last the pleasure let her go and she floated in the vestiges of it.
Zane crawled up beside her and cradled her face in his big hand.
“Juno,” he murmured.
Was this what mating was? Was this what it meant? She suddenly understood why kingdoms fell for love, why planets allied for it.
She reached for him, eager to bring him the same impossible joy.
But he pulled away from her, his eyes going all silver.
“We can’t,” he whispered harshly. “I won’t be able to control myself.”
“But,” she murmured, desperate to touch him.
“Give me a moment and I’ll hold you,” he said more gently.
She watched him breathing slowly, eyes closed.
When he opened them again the silver was back to just his irises.
He pulled her close, snuggling her against his chest.
“When you’re ready for me to claim you, I won’t pull away, I promise,” he told her. “But I want it to be your choice. And tonight is too soon.”
“Mm,” she agreed, feeling suddenly sleepy from the warmth of his massive chest.
“We’ll talk more in the morning,” he whispered, sliding his hand down the hollow behind her shoulder blade and back up again.
She drifted off before she could think of a reason to protest.
13
Zane
Zane awoke feeling a warm contentment before he even opened his eyes.
He stretched and glanced at his surroundings, and it all came back.
Juno slept beside him, her small, warm form tucked into his side. The purple comforter accentuated the rich hue of her soft skin. He longed to stroke her and kiss her awake.
But he knew where that would lead.
Somehow, he had restrained himself last night. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold back, but for now, climbing out of bed was his best chance at extending that time.
He slipped out from between the sheets and found the nearest washroom.
Once he was under the spray of the hot water, his thoughts went back to Juno.
He closed his eyes and envisioned her in there with him, warm and slippery, sliding her body against his as the water sluiced down on them both.
His poor body ached and throbbed, but somehow the idea of assuaging that desire himself felt wrong and empty.
The bond was in place. He had to claim her, nothing else would do.
He focused on washing up and making a plan for the day.
The ship had every luxury, but his favorite place was the forest. Typically he wouldn’t expect a royal to want to spend much time there - it was far too much like actual nature - but he still wanted to share it with her.
And after all, last night she had been rapt gazing at it through her window. If she liked the view, she might like the interior even more.
He dried off and headed to the massive great room.
The view through the giant window showed the expanse of the forest, dewy from the irrigation system. A clever imitation of morning light permeated the canopy from the UV lighting system above.
Zane had spent many hours at work among the trees, but he had never seen them from this angle. It was breathtaking.
He grabbed the communicator from the wall and typed in a room service order, being sure to ask for a basket and to charge it to his own chip.
He heard the sound of the shower activating again before he was finished. He smiled, his heart racing at the thought that he would see her again in a moment.
He tried to organize his thoughts, make a plan for how he would tell her his story.
He hadn’t been lying to her, not exactly. He just hadn’t told her everything. He had allowed her to believe what she saw.
And she had opened her arms to him anyway, allowed him to hold and pleasure her, allowed him to get to know her.
Maybe she would love him for what he was.
Or maybe he should wait a little longer.
After all, it would be good news for her, not bad. Her royal family would be less disappointed in her for the match, at any rate.
He lost himself in thought as he watched the mist dissipate from the forest.
“Hey,” Juno’s soft voice called to him, breaking his reverie.
He turned to her, drinking in the sight of the fluffy bathrobe, the damp hair, the sparkling eyes.
“I hope it’s okay that I’m here,” he said.
She nodded, eyes twinkling.
She was looking at his body.
He looked down. His towel was in place around his hips where he had put it.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said, turning. “I’m going to go get dressed.”
Oh. She must be from one of the planets that had brought ancient modesty notions from old Earth. Otherwise she would not find his exposure surprising after their encounter last night. Interesting.
He was slowly narrowing down the possibilities of where she might be from. It was becoming quite a small area. How had he never heard of Adair?
For him to ask in his role as a valet, especially where there was a romantic intention, would be vulgar. It would be like asking her what was in her bank account.
Still, he couldn’t help bei
ng curious. Surely, she would reveal everything to him today as they got to know each other. And if she didn’t, that was fine too. She wasn’t the only one keeping a few secrets.
“I’ll dress as well,” he told her quickly. “After that, may I amuse you for the day?”
“What did you have in mind?” she asked.
“I was thinking a picnic in the forest,” he said. “I have a basket on its way in case you said yes.”
“Yes,” she said quickly, looking very pleased indeed.
“Excellent,” he said. “I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes.”
He left and dressed quickly.
By the time he returned, she was waiting outside her rooms for him, BFF-67 flitting around her head.
“I would have come back for you,” he told her, filled with sudden dread at what could have happened if some stranger had broken the security to her platform and reached the antechamber.
She shrugged and smiled.
He couldn’t resist smiling back.
She was dressed simply again in a wine-colored blouse with tan leggings, a brown leather cord at her waist and a pair of soft leather boots.
He liked her this way, looking comfortable and ready for adventure.
“Greetings,” the little droid chirped.
“Hello, BFF-67,” he replied. “Good to see you up and about.”
“My mistress allowed me a lengthy resting period for recharge and upload,” the little drone said cheerfully. “Now I can accompany you all day.”
Juno giggled.
Zane smiled at its enthusiasm. He had been interested in spending a day alone with the princess, but the little origami robot was so friendly, and Juno was obviously so enchanted with it, that he was glad it could come along.
“Shall we?” he asked, indicating the platform.
She stepped on, with the drone hovering over her shoulder, and he followed.
“Lobby,” she said, smiling.
When the platform dropped, he watched her face.
Her blue-brown eyes were sparkling, her cheeks flushed.
“Getting used to the platform?” he asked when they touched down.
“Yes,” she said.
“Too bad,” he teased, shaking his head.