by V. K. Ludwig
“The government won’t let her out of her contract.” Zorvik’s words pull the ground out from underneath me, confirming all my fears. “She told me at the fight, Adrin, after I asked if she’d decided to choose only you.”
I turn away from him, filling my lungs with enough fresh air it manages to keep the nausea at bay. That settles it then. I’m in love with Izzy, and I’ll have to share her with two other males. If she has any feelings for me, I can’t say, and it doesn’t truly matter anyway.
She better not, because I don’t want her to experience the same pain currently raging inside my chest.
“Can we do this as discussed?” Zorvik asks. “She’s very fixated on you, and understandably so, which means you’ll have to help me here a little. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
It’s what I trained for, isn’t it?
Even worse: it’s what I committed to.
Fourteen
Izzy
Whatever they’re discussing outside takes forever, giving me all the time I need to work myself into a full-blown panic attack: complete with hot flashes and a weak bladder.
When the door falls into its lock, I jump from the couch, pulse rushing between my ears. “So?”
Both males smile as if in agreement
That’s… almost scary.
Adrin walks around the couch and runs his hands up and down my arms, his smile bright, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “All sorted out. Give us another chance, and we’ll show you how nice this will be.”
My palms turn sweaty, but Nena’s words quickly float through my head. This is what I signed up for, no back-out clause no nothing, so I might as well own this mess.
My neck is so stiff, my nod comes with a groan of my tendons. “It can only get better, right?”
The three of us chuckle, and I can’t tell which one of us sounds the most strained. This is ‘waving back at someone who didn’t wave at you in the first place’ kind of awkward, curling my toes in their nail beds.
“I’ll guide you into shared touch,” Adrin says as he gestures me to sit back on the couch beside him. “Which means that I will start touching you, and slowly transition you into Zorvik’s touch, the goal being that you alternate kissing us.”
Kiss both of them?
My heart rate spikes.
Oh shit. This is getting real.
Adrin’s palm cups my cheek, and he brings my gaze to meet his. “You can ask us to stop at any time.”
A high-pitched snicker pushes past my lips. “Safe-word Worcestershire?”
His fingers tense on my cheeks, and his eyes crinkle at the corners for less than a second before his features straighten, safe for that smile he trundles up. “Exactly. Remember, we’re here to please you. Not the other way around.”
Another creaky nod. “Okay.”
Adrin turns me to face him and, at his gesture, Zorvik sits down beside me but doesn’t touch. He only watches as Adrin strokes my cheek with one hand and massages the back of my neck with the other.
“Just relax.”
Soft pressure behind my ear.
Gentle tugs on my spine.
This male might not have his penetration angle choreography down, but he sure as hell knows where and how to touch me. My eyes flutter shut, and I allow myself to relax, letting my shoulders fall.
His thumb circles up and down the left side of my neck.
Another one presses down beside it.
Not his. The very touch is… different.
My eyes snap open, and Adrin’s hand molds around my chin as he presses his lips to mine in distraction. They caress and stroke, decimating my unease and replacing it with the craving to sense his hard body pressed against mine.
It lasts until a tongue trails over the back of my neck, and my entire body breaks out in goosebumps. The uncomfortable kind, like the ones after you shave your legs and the stubbles turn your skin into sand paper clinging to the fabric of your leggings.
“Shh,” Adrin hushes me, his tone soft, reassuring. “He’s still learning your reactions, and immediately stopped the moment you tensed. This is all for you, Izzy. We’re just trying to please you.”
I swallow hard.
Please me. Right.
This time, I squeeze my eyes shut. Maybe that’ll help with that pressure slowly invading my chest. Everything’s fine. All I have to do is trust them, enjoy their touch, and—
Whose fingers are stroking my nipple?
I have so many hands on me, my mind can’t keep up with what moves where. They knead my breast, clasp my chin, massage my shoulders, stroke my body. Which digit belongs to whom, and—
Lips press into the depression underneath my earlobe.
Who’s kissing me?
My eyes flash open.
I look at Adrin. He smiles.
Not his mouth then.
Oh fuck.
“You’re so beautiful, Izzy,” Zorvik whispers into my ear, his lips too close, his breath too hot. “Adrin and I will take such good care of you once we graduate.”
“Kiss me.” Adrin’s tongue swipes over my lips before it plunges into my mouth.
Another set of lips kisses along my jawline, easing toward the corner of my mouth. My muscles tighten, and immediately something presses against that depression behind my earlobe, forcing my pulse to calm, my thoughts to scatter.
This is so confusing.
I’m pinned between two males. One feels glorious in every way, the other like nothing but an intruder. Call me a prude, but this is about as pleasing as a mammogram.
Adrin’s kiss slowly eases, and his lips caress over my cheek as he whispers, “Kiss him.”
My heart stutters to a stop.
No… no… no…
His nose gently nudges my cheek, prodding me to turn into the direction of Zorvik, but his knee trembles against my thigh. Why is he trembling?
My face turns, and lips that are too narrow, too hard, too fucking wet creep toward my mouth. Angry heat courses through my body, inflating that pressure inside my chest, making all this too dense, too tight, just too…. too wrong.
The moment Zorvik’s lips brush over mine, I rip my face away and press my lips against Adrin’s with such force my teeth ache. My hands are everywhere, brushing over his chest, digging into his hair, and my arms wrap around him in such a tight knot my joints ache.
“Wrong mouth,” Adrin groans. “Dammit, Izzy, you’re kissing the wrong male.”
“No, I’m kissing the right male.”
Because Adrin is snuggles, and fun, and massages, and safety, and all saikhs I thought I wanted combined in one. And there’s no room or need for another, which means I’m totally doomed. We are doomed, and it’s all my fault.
He’s my friend.
He’s my saikh.
And he grabs my hips and pulls me to straddle his thighs, kissing and biting my lips between moans. “I want to be. Gods, I would do whatever it takes to give you everything you need.”
My kiss turns furious, breath shaking, and I press myself closer, climbing into him as I lose myself to our lips fighting for dominance. “You’re all I need.”
A breeze cuts around us.
The door slams.
“Good thing he left.” Adrin grinds me over his cock, meeting each roll with a thrust. “I was seconds from ripping him away from you. He doesn’t know how to touch you. How to please you. But I do.”
And he proves it by lifting his powerful hips and me right along with it, rolling, pushing, miming how we would fuck if it wasn’t for all this fabric between us.
“Are you wet for me?” Adrin lifts my dress over my head and pushes my panties aside, groaning the moment his finger circles my entrance. “I want to make you scream the way I couldn’t let you the last time. Get up.”
Adrin doesn’t wait and lifts me off his lap, pushing just enough of his pants down for his cock to swell upward over his waistband. “Turn around.”
The moment I do, h
e grabs my hips, gesturing me back onto his lap in reverse. He wets his crown on my entrance in slow circles, guiding himself inside my pussy with one hand, the other supporting my weight. Like that, he slowly lowers me onto his cock.
I shudder with each taunting inch.
Fuck. Was he this big the last time?
“Easy,” I hiss as thick flesh stretches tight muscle, his invasion so much more demanding now that my senses aren’t fogged by mating growls.
“Gods, your cunt is so tight.” His breathing hitches on every ridge sinking into me. “Ask me, and I’ll growl for you.”
I shake my head. “No. I want to be aware of everything.”
“Then you will be,” he rasps and thrusts upward, forcing me to stretch for him before he lets me slide down on his entire length. “Are you aware of how I fill you so completely?”
I let my back fall against his chest, head resting on his shoulder. “Yes.”
“The night I made love to you at the saikhmenti, I wasn’t sure if you could take all of me. But you did it so well and soaked up every single drop of my seed.”
I startle when his tail wraps around my calf, pulling my leg up. “Lift one foot onto the couch.”
His fingers dig into my hips with raw strength. He lifts me up, only to bring me down against his unforgiving thrust. “That’s what I owe you, isn’t it? My cock pounding you hard, every single ridge shoved high up your cunt. How many ridges? Tell me.”
I turn my head toward his jawline and trail my tongue over it. “Thirteen.”
“Thirteen ridges, and every single one is yours, Izzy. Along with everything else I have to offer, including this…”
Something sleek runs over my waist, creeping down my stomach where it disappears between my legs. Broad pressure spreads across my pubic bone, and waves of contractions run over my clit, washing over the pulsations thrumming inside the hard bud.
I want to glance down, but Adrin clasps my chin from behind, whispering, “You’ll come all over my tail tonight, Izzy. Then against my mouth. And against my finger. Plus a bunch more times on my cock.”
He gently pushes my chin upward, angling my face to give him full access to the side of my neck. Kisses feather over the skin, the way they tingle second only to the hush of his deep moans. His hands reach around me from behind, cupping my breasts, fingertips circling my nipples.
I have no doubt his muscles are sore from the fight, and yet his hips roll underneath me, alternating with pulsating thrusts upward, making heat pool between my legs.
Muscles contract and release on his tail, cupping my clit in an orchestra of sensations from all sides, and yet there seems to be a pattern to it. One that stokes that heat into a flame, scorching me, burning me up from the inside, ripping one scream after another from me.
“Your screams echo so nicely in this room.” His short fangs clasp down on the nape of my neck, but only for the fraction of a second before I sense him jerk away. “Look what you do to me, Izzy. Each day, I grow more protective of you, more possessive. And I have no idea how to turn it off.”
“Do you want to turn it off?”
There’s a moment of silence, which he ends with hands on my hips, pushing me down onto his thrust until another scream rips part my lips. “No.”
His hands trail upward to cup my waist, and he continues lifting me up and dropping me onto every stroke of his cock. Sleek and warm, his tail starts stroking over my clit, and its muscles jerk and twitch faster, harder.
His breath breaks against my neck, tongue licking, fangs nibbling. “Come for me, Izzy. I can’t hold back much longer.”
I reach my arm behind me, running my fingers up and down his horns. “How shameful.”
“Terrible scholar,” he groans. “So eager to take pleasure from this tight cunt and spurt my seed deep into this gorgeous female.”
My womb spasms at his words, but I can’t seem to tip over the edge. “I need more.”
A moment of hesitation. “Do not move.”
His tail runs over my pussy, thinning, until something hard presses down onto my clit. Black and shiny, the convex curve of his tailclaw vibrates against it, sending an electric current deep into my pussy. Sharp end pointing upward, it pins the engorged button down, hips rolling against me from behind.
My entire body tenses, and tendons pull tight the moment his cock twitches inside me. “I’m coming.”
“I’m right there with you.” His breathing is hard, every single muscle in his body shaking with control as he keeps his tailclaw steady, the pressure even, the hip rolls rhythmic, guiding us both into a shared orgasm.
It’s that control he displays, his certainty that he won’t hurt me that tingles through my sex long enough I completely submit to my climax. As does he, thighs jerking underneath me with each release of cum.
After our breathing calms, Adrin takes his shirt off. He wraps his arms around me from behind, tail slipping to the ground, and his broad chest coils around me as he hands me his shirt.
“To clean yourself up,” he whispers against my ear, and the tip of his nose pushes against the shell.
I slip off his cock, wiping a trail of cum trickling along my thigh with the shirt before I clasp it between my legs. “Why are your knees shaking?”
“Sore from the fight, and thrusting upward didn’t make it any better,” he says with a wink.
“Take your pants off and lie down on your stomach.” I wipe the shirt over his cock before I pull my panties up and stroll into the kitchen.
From the top cabinet, I retrieve the bottle of gel Adrin keeps here for whenever he comes from sparring. By the time I return to the couch, his gorgeous form stretches across the furniture, arms folded underneath his head to lift his face off the cushion.
Squirting a blob of the green gel onto my hands, I sit down on his calves and massage it into his thighs, the back of his knees, and all the way down his legs.
His horns brush against the couch as he turns his head, not quite glancing back at me. “We failed terribly at including Zorvik, didn’t we?”
I answer with silence.
What else is there to say? I’ve done a bunch of stupid shit in my life, but signing a contract stating that I would live with three Vandalar males sure takes the cake. As bad as I feel for Zorvik, this ordeal made one thing painfully obvious: I’m a one-man kind of girl, and that man is Adrin. Too bad that realization doesn’t make the contract go away.
And Adrin knows it, because an unsettling quiet permeates the menthol-tinted air long enough it’s clear we’re both contemplating this chaos we created.
“Izzy,” he says after a while, his voice dense. “If I wanted you all to myself, what consequences would that bring in regard to your contract?”
Another elephant, and just as suffocating, no matter the size of this estate that feels more and more like a prison. “The council would void my visa, and they’re currently blocking immigration for all women unless they stick to their contracts.”
“And you would return to Earth?”
“I have several open warrants on Earth.” I scoot higher, and apply more gel to his shoulders, mapping every muscle, every drip, every hard plain on his body. “Returning to Agari II would be my only option, a planet that has nothing but slave trade, agriculture, and jobs for hard labor.” And just to make sure he gets how royally screwed we are, I add, “There’s definitely no takresh fighting.”
His tail wraps around my waist just as he turns onto his back, and his arms pull me down against his chest. I drop the bottle of cooling gel to the ground and nestle against him, soaking in the warmth of his skin, his familiarity, and the sense of belonging he provides.
“Adrin?”
His chest vibrates with a “Hmm?”
“I crossed another line,” I whisper, swallowing past a lump of fear. “I love you.”
Strong arms tighten around me, and yet he only repeats something he said once before. “You shouldn’t.”
Fifteen
Adrin
Funny how my life has never been better and worse at the same time. On the outside, I have it all going for me: invited to an estate, a mistress who loves me, about to graduate as a saikh. In short: I’ve achieved exactly what I wanted.
But on the inside?
I’m one bad news away from combusting, and the relentless twitching in my muscles offers proof. I’m such a damn hypocrite. Or what do you call a male who preaches about not crossing lines, then veking broad jumps the shit out of every single one?
Worse yet?
Izzy followed along, sharing in my love and, inevitably, the pain we’ve got coming our way. The all-engulfing warmth when she told me she loves me last night lasted for a second, maybe less, immediately replaced by dread that choked me into silence.
I lean back on the bleachers, probably looking sorry for myself while the other scholars in the gym vibrate with excitement. Some still stand at the holographic chart, searching for their name on the test results of the theoretical assessment, which I passed. Those who will officially graduate gather in the far corner by the window, and the group grows each time a male returns from a sheri’ma with a fat grin.
One of them being Zorvik, who high-fives Lucan before he pounds his puffed-up chest. I owe that dude an apology, though I wouldn’t change a thing about how last night went. And exactly therein lays the problem. How am I supposed to share Izzy? To be more precise, how am I supposed to share Izzy without killing her other saikhs?
I push myself up and walk over to Zorvik. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”
His upper lip twitches and his green eyes narrow, but he nods, and we step out of earshot from the others, the surrounding air tingling with aggression.
“Congratulations on graduating,” I say, and he offers a curt nod. “Look… last night swung out of control a little.”
His scoff comes with another twitch of his lip. “A little? If I wouldn’t have left, you would have veked her right in front of me.”