by Elsa Jade
Her reward for yielding was another one of those irresistible kisses. His tongue traced the seam of her lips and delved inside with a leisurely thoroughness that left her panting. His free hand roamed up her bare back, not soothing her shivers but driving them deeper until her whole body was one harmonic vibration under his caress. And all the while, he held her upright, his grip around her wrists never wavering.
She twisted forward against the binding of the silky fabric to rub against him. Maybe she couldn’t touch him with her hands…
At the lightning tingle of her nipples brushing against his chest, she whimpered into his mouth. His oath was explosive as he flung away the nightgown, and his arm dropped to the small of her back, to drag her tight against him. So much for his torturous teasing.
He kissed her so hard their teeth clicked, and it was like an ignition switch between them. His low rumble of excitement seethed through her when she clamped her hands on his ass and yanked him to her. He still had both feet on the floor while she was kneeling on the bed, which placed the rampant jut of his cock right at the opening between her thighs.
With just a little nudge of her hips… She gasped as the meaty length of his erection slid past the slick heat at her core. He stroked himself once, deep enough to poke out the backside under her butt cheeks, and he smirked down at her when she whimpered again at the promise of just how much he’d give her.
“Half of me is Thorkon,” he said. “But the other half hails from the next galaxy over, and on my natal world, a slow planetary rotation means our dark period lasts forever. My people had to find something to do all night.”
“All night?” The promise was starting to sound like a delicious threat. She clamped her thighs together, to show him she’d give as good as she got, and his pale blue eyes flared wide. “We only have a few hours left, so make it count.”
With a growl, he bent her back over his arm, kicking out of his pants which had still been bunched around his knees. His lips trailed hotly down her throat and traced a collapsing spiral over her breast. When she arched up into him with a keening whine, he clamped his teeth on the wet, swollen nipple and suckled hard. Her breath sharpened to a near cry, and he switched to the other breast with a murmur of delight and licked his way inward until she was writhing on the unyielding bar of his forearm. Finally, he laid her back while he prowled up onto the mattress to loom over her, the heavy weight of him pinning her legs and his thick cock thrusting against her belly.
“I know you’ve been checked over by the medics,” he said. “And I want you to know, so was I before I took command of the Grandy.”
She’d known from girl-talk with Rayna that infections and unwanted pregnancy weren’t a concern with all the futuristic advancements of living on Azthronos, but her chest tightened at the evidence of his concern for her. He wasn’t just charming and compatible—he was kind and caring.
She cupped her hand over his cheek, her fingertips brushing the silvery crescent scar as she stared into the pale blue of his eyes. “Then go ahead and take command of me.”
Chapter 8
Nor almost recoiled, his belly tightening at the trust and willingness shining brighter than the streaks of jewel-tone green in her eyes. He’d been his mother’s blackmail scheme, his father’s sorry secret, a pirate captain prowling the edge of civilized space before buying his way to respectability. No one trusted him, and their willingness to have him in their presence extended only so far as their need to use him.
What Trixie wanted from him was too pure and a wish he knew too well: One night without nightmares and the chance to start a new day unbound by the clinging shadows of the past.
It was too much, what she was asking with the sweet yearning in her eyes and the even sweeter temptation of her arched body, every gorgeous curve straining upward toward him as if Azthronos gravity had no claim on her and he was the center of her orbit.
Too much, and yet there was no way he wasn’t going to give it to her.
He dipped his head to kiss her again, desperately, as if he could find his own balance in the soft heat of her mouth. No, he needed more than that. He angled his knees between her, wedging her thighs wider, exposing that even softer, hotter center. The tantalizing musky hint of her arousal inflamed him, and his engorged flesh swelled tauter, pointing the way to that plump, darkened slit so insistently even the universe’s worst captain wouldn’t get lost.
She let out a needy whimper against his lips as he set the blunt head of his erection at her opening. He was already slick from his last teasing pass across her folds, but with a surreptitious transfer of spit from his fingers to his shaft, he readied himself for her. If only he’d brought more mead or pretty flowering plants of the sort females appreciated or at least personal lubricant, but he’d not guessed this was how his night would end. He had only his spit and his desire to give her pleasure.
He gritted his teeth as the pump of his own hand enlarged him even more. The ir part of his irThorkon heritage had been a smirk-worthy part of his pervy pirate mystique, but for his little Trixie, he suddenly wished for less swagger. He smoothed the wetness of her folds to ease his way and she raised her hips like some primitive offering.
The half a nobleman inside him might’ve been decorously bemused, but the pirate knew how to plunder.
“Wider,” he demanded softly. “Let me in.”
With a sigh of surrender, she splayed her knees. She tilted her head back, exposing the reddened circle his mouth had left on her throat. A roar that was not noble or brigand but pure beast swelled in his throat. He’d marked her as his, and now he would take her.
He framed one hand over the small thatch of springy curls on her mound, delighting in the texture against the pads of his fingers and the darker flesh, glossy with her desire, contrasting against the paler skin of her inner thighs. This was a prize worth keeping…
She bit at her lower lip as he nudged into her core so he paused to lick at her breasts again. She liked that; he felt it in the velvety ruching of skin around her nipples, the hard little thrust of the nubs against his tongue. She wasn’t large in the bosom, like she wasn’t large anywhere compared to him, and he wanted to cradle her protectively to his body, keep her close.
But the wet heat at her center and the upward strain of her hips reminded him that she hadn’t asked for his protection. And she didn’t need it—he’d seen her shoot, after all.
With infinite fortitude (well, not infinitely infinite; he probably had a few lightseconds of patience left) he sank into her body. She took him and took him, and his seething breath hissed out and out until his head was whirling with hypoxic stars, her inner muscles as tight around him as a blind run through an asteroid field.
When their hips aligned perfectly, he finally took a gulp of air, expanding his chest and driving him just a little deeper into heaven. She shifted to lock her ankles at his back, her hips a long-awaited refuge for his, joining them even more intimately. He froze at the all-consuming sensation of connection. By the many Thorkon gods, she had taken him in his entirety. He could stay here forever…
She splayed her hands across his chest, staring up at him, the dark mead-brown striations of her gaze threatening to drown him in their intoxicating depths. “Docking complete,” she murmured.
He stared down at her in consternation. “Really?”
She grinned at him saucily, all mishkeet cheeks and crinkled eyes glinting green. “Yes sir, Captain sir.”
Half growling, half laughing, he rolled her across the mattress and splayed back with her on top. He gazed up at her through half-lidded eyes. “What would you do with command, my little outlaw?”
She lifted herself just a bit off him, and he groaned at the loss.
“First,” she whispered, “I’d get a feel for the controls.” She braced her palms on his tensed pecs as she lifted herself a little farther yet and descended again with aching slowness.
He slammed his arms to either side, clenching his fists in the covers
to stop himself from grabbing her. “Then what?”
“Then I’d get a taste for what’s under the hood.” She leaned down to slant her mouth hard across his.
Ah, she was fierce despite her tiny self. He parted his lips to let her in, letting her control their union, but he couldn’t quite stop himself from reaching up to cup her breasts, weighing the gorgeous handfuls and squeezing the distended peaks between his fingers. The grind of her pelvis against his made every muscle in his body between his knees and his nipples tense in anticipation.
“And then?” he asked huskily when she raised her head.
“Then I’d take it out for a joyride.”
She straightened, her palms flattened on his belly while she rocked into his straining flesh.
Joy… Was that what this was? The runaway racing of his blood was lust. The need in his erection was agony. The warm connection that wasn’t just their intimate parts, the soft sparkle in her eyes… Was that joy? He wasn’t sure he’d know without further exploration.
With her eyes half closed in bliss, she rubbed herself on him, her breaths coming faster and her skin flushing a sunrise pink. He gritted his teeth as each stroke pushed him closer to the edge, but he wasn’t going anywhere without her. To distract himself, he mapped her body with his fingertips, learning every curve and hollow, each tender spot that made her gasp or sigh. When he circled one thumb gently over the tight bundle of nerves where their bodies joined, she gasp-sigh-stiffened in a way that told him he’d found her joy. Or at least this little bit of it.
She mewled as she thrust against his hand, her inner muscles clenching around him delightfully. So much for distracting himself… He bowed up off the bed, as if he might spear her all the way through, and she threw her head back with a sweet cry, her blond hair tumbling down her shoulders to sweep his knuckles where he supported her with his free hand splayed across her spine.
“Oh, Nor,” she purred. “You’re going to make me come.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he rasped.
He redoubled his relentless, gentle assault on that throbbing bead of nerves tucked between her folds. She bucked against him in mindless demand, her teeth exposed in a fierce snarl as she chased her pleasure. He decided even if he exploded first in this battle for satisfaction supremacy, he’d die a happy reprobate.
He lifted his hips higher, giving her more leverage to grind down on him. Unlike grinding a blade, every glide of her slick, hot flesh left him not whittled smaller but more engorged. Just when he thought neither of them could take any more, she convulsed with a choked scream and tightened around him. Though the endless orgasmic gravity waves of her release left him groaning, he held her upright as she shook from the power unleashed inside her. Before the tremors eased, she dragged her eyes open, as if her lashes were almost too heavy, and stared down at him with something like wonder.
That look made him want to strut, even if he’d just been lying there beneath her like an underpowered sexbot. Time to show her what a starship captain could do.
Never disconnecting from the luscious clamp of her body or glancing away from her dazed gaze, he crossed his legs behind her and sat up. She clutched at his shoulders and whimpered as the new position drove him deeper into her core.
He soothed her, strumming his fingertips over her sweat-misted skin. The secret, sensitive places he’d found earlier were even more tender now with her blood high and livid: the inner veins of her wrists blushing bright, her swollen lips, the twitching outer muscles of her thighs spread wide around his hips. With each touch, her trembling seemed to lessen. But he knew she wasn’t done; he felt it in the deeper echoes inside her, still restlessly contracting. He started to pulse in time, and her heavy lashes flew wide.
“Nor, what…” She moaned and tilted her hips forward again. “How are you…?”
He smiled wickedly. “It’s just a muscle, you know. Like dancing, like combat. It can be taught.”
She giggled. “A dancing dick, a combat cock. Teach it to sing!”
Her laughter cascaded through him, scintillating like a comet’s arcing tail. “I’d rather make you sing.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, and the points of her damp, stiff nipples poked his chest. “You already have.”
“Again,” he insisted. “One chorus is never enough.”
Since he’d already found her most vulnerable hidden places, now he exploited every one. With each flex of his engorged flesh and every caress with hands and lips and tongue, he played her, urging her higher. When she was raking at his hair, panting her need again, he anchored one hand at her backside, holding her close, and spun her down to the bed. He pinned her hands above her head—by all the Thorkon gods, how he loved to see her bend to him—and buried himself in her welcoming heat.
She was so wet, so ready, that she took him deep, all the way to the bump of their hipbones, and orgasmed with a helpless cry that reverberated through him. And despite his best intentions—which were never very good—all the muscles in his groin tightened in an uncontrollable spasm that backfired through him and wiped out every intention—good or otherwise—every sentient thought, any sensation except the link of their bodies, any awareness except her gaze locked on his like a plasma blaster set to stun.
He wanted to stay like that, never move or think again, but his muscles—even the great one thrust inside her—finally gave in.
He crashed over her, just conscious enough to aim to one side so he didn’t crush her completely, although her soft curves were a lovely landing pad.
As the raging heat of their skin eased, she groped alongside them, and he roused himself enough to grab the edge of the coverlet and flip it around them. She sighed and snuggled under him, small enough to fit in the crumpled wreckage of his limbs. He’d probably never walk again. With her in his arms, the wry thought drifted toward contentment.
She pillowed her head on his shoulder. “That was…”
He waited long enough that he wondered if she’d fallen asleep. “It was?” he prodded.
“I don’t have a universal translator.” She rubbed her cheek against him.
Despite the tender gesture, he felt as if she’d sunk her mishkeet teeth into him. “I have a translator,” he reminded her. “So you can say whatever you want.”
She was quiet again for a little longer. “What should I say? That it was the best sex I’ve ever had? That you rocked my world? That I’ll remember this night always?”
Any of that sounded good to him, and he didn’t even need the translator’s more high-tech functions for most of those words.
The way she tilted her head into the crook of his arm to avoid his gaze, however… That he couldn’t interpret.
He scowled, wanting to stop talking, stop asking. He didn’t need reassurances after sex. And why should he when he’d felt the violence of her orgasm engulfing him? He knew she’d found pleasure in him. What more did he want?
“Maybe I should give you my blaster,” he mused.
That brought her green-brown gaze up. “You said it was illegal. Are you trying to get me in trouble?”
“As captain of the flagship dreadnaught, I’m in charge of security for the duchy, and I decide what’s illegal,” he reminded her. And then he winced at the stuffiness in his voice. Larf it, he sounded like…
Like a duke.
He refused to consider what that meant. “If you did get in trouble, it would only be with me.”
A little smile played around her lips and eased the annoying tension that had gripped him at her unwillingness to speak to him or even look at him. “And if I got in all this trouble you’re thinking about, what would I have to do to get back in your good graces?”
“Dukes are your graces,” he growled. “And I’m no duke.”
She lifted up to one elbow, gazing down at him through her lashes. “What would a pirate captain do?”
He smirked and rolled her to her back. “You pretend to be an innocent Earther girl, but I think you can imagin
e.”
She stretched her hands above her, arching her back. “Maybe you better remind me.”
He stared down at her offering hungrily. If he had his way, he’d never let her forget.
***
She fell asleep on him just as the sky beyond her window was lightening.
Literally on him. Her body draped across his, her head pillowed on his opposite shoulder. One of her knees was wedged just under his raging erection.
He’d gotten hard again just after her last orgasm. There was no reason for the swelling; he’d been satisfied several times over, a trick of the ir half of his physiology that had left Trixie exclaiming—and exhausted.
And also satisfied, he knew. And yet he couldn’t join her in quiet slumber.
Maybe it was the lingering musky aroma of sex, or maybe the haunting scent that was purely her hiding underneath that. Or maybe it was the too-many pillows scattered among the covers; this guest room had more than his, and he wondered if the estate staff had wanted to fill up her bed a bit since she was so small.
He understood the impulse. Larf it, he’d wanted to fill her all up.
Maybe it was just that he’d never actually willingly spent a whole night with another body beside his. The privateer ship where he’d been sold had housed its lesser personnel in common berths, and once he’d captured his own ship, he’d vowed never to share a bed again. Taking commission of the Grandiloquence had been an even higher step up to his own huge stateroom with an unnecessarily large bunk. Trixie didn’t take up much room on the mattress, but somehow she took an inordinate amount of space in his awareness.
More muscles twitched in his body, not just the aching one at the center that he’d sent dancing—and yes, practically singing—inside her. When she snuffled softly into his neck, a shiver coursed down his spine. Unnerved at the thought of waking her, having her see him in this state, he flattened himself into the mattress and sidled out from beneath her. He grabbed a few of the pillows to wedge under her where he had been and carefully tucked the blanket close to keep her nestled in.