by Ivy Barrett
If he’d just touch her clit, or even let her rub against his leg, she’d go off like a rocket. But he just slid that wicked finger in and out, in and out. She rocked against his hand, driving his finger deeper. It wasn’t enough to make her come.
Frustrated now, she tried to slip her hand beneath her body. He caught her wrist and carefully pinned her hand against the small of her back. He slowed for a moment, then she felt additional fullness as he worked another finger into her tight opening.
“I’ll keep adding fingers until you come. Now stop resisting.”
“I’m not resisting,” she cried. “I’ll never come unless you rub my clit.” And yet she had while he spanked her.
“You sure about that?” He placed a third finger against her anus and slowly pushed.
Her sphincter stretched, burning as he carefully worked her open, demanding her surrender. It hurt and yet it spiked her arousal, making her restless and extremely hot. She tossed back her head and cried out, helplessly arching onto his fingers. The stretching, the sting and heat, the fullness combined into one convoluted sensation and tension gathered deep inside her.
“Oh, God! What are you… how… I’m coming!” Pleasure erupted like a geyser, bursting up through her with staggering power. Wave after blissful wave pulsed through her body. He prolonged the sensations with the slow, rhythmic movements of his long, thick fingers.
“Good girl,” he praised as he carefully withdrew. Then he pulled her up and kissed her mouth. He tasted like coffee, and something she’d never tasted before, something rich and faintly spicy. She ended up on her knees between his legs, face to face with his massive erection.
“Can I—”
He caught her wrist with his clean hand as she reached for the front of his uniform pants. “We want to come inside you for the first time together. Once we’re bonded it won’t matter, but right now it’s all or nothing.”
“For you and Bron, maybe. I’m the one who ends up naked no matter which one of you I’m with.”
“You look delightful naked, especially with a rosy ass and wet pussy.” He kissed her again, then stood, pulling her to her feet in the process. “We’re heading back to headquarters as soon as you’ve eaten, so I suppose we’ll have to rectify the naked part. Take a shower while I clean up and make you breakfast. I put a new uniform on the counter in the bathroom.”
Happy to obey after the orgasms he just gave her, she headed off toward the bathroom grinning like a fool.
* * *
An hour and a half later LeAuntiez ambled into Bron’s office and sat in one of the chairs across the desk from him. “So how are we going to do this?” He waited until Bron looked up to add, “She’s definitely my soulmate. If I fuck her there will be no turning back, at least for me.”
Bron’s brow arched and he deactivated his holo-display. “Is that how you woke her, with your head between her legs?”
“That’s not a bad idea. Unfortunately, I didn’t think of it. Actually, I spanked her ass. She was being an argumentative little brat this morning.”
“Then how do you know for sure she’s your soulmate? Didn’t you say you need to taste her pussy?”
LeAuntiez held up his right hand and inhaled her fragrance with a grin. “There’s more than one way to taste pussy.”
Bron responded with a lazy smile. “Did she come while you spanked her?”
“Oh, yeah. She has no trouble with discipline.”
Exhaling slowly, Bron leaned back in his chair. “Thank the gods. I’m not sure I’d ever feel whole if I couldn’t spank my mate.”
“My original question remains. How do we court her properly with everything that’s going on?”
“We’ll have to be creative. Whenever you’re unavailable, I’ll stay with her and vice versa. I never want her to be left alone.”
“I’d rather take her to Shadow Mountain,” LeAuntiez grumbled. The officers’ lodge was much more luxurious than their house and chances of interruption were greatly lessened if they got away from headquarters. Not that they ever really ‘got away’ from the conflict. Responsibility and pressure followed Bron wherever he went.
Bron had commanded the Brokvata when LeAuntiez met him. And a grizzled old man had been chancellor. Then the chancellor died and Bron was chosen to replace him, leaving a vacancy within the Brokvata. Positions on the high command were elected by the Protectorate as a whole, but the Brokvata advanced through challenge. It only took LeAuntiez a few months to earn the right to command the elite fighting force. And he had been at Bron’s side for the past nine years.
Their psychic link allowed them access to each other’s memories, so they each knew everything there was to know about the other. Still, they never spoke about the past, saw no reason to revisit the pain. Anyone who had come in contact with the Skarilians had a similar story: loss, destruction, violence, and devastation. Past events could not be changed, so they shaped the present by focusing on the future, not dwelling on the past.
“We both know Shadow Mountain is out of the question,” Bron stressed. “As long as Zapt is still out there, we’re both on duty.”
“I know. I just don’t like it.” He closed his eyes and let the images from this morning roll through his mind. “You should have seen her, Bron. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than Kyla when she comes.”
“I’m anxious to sit back and watch. She was so frantic last night. I wasn’t paying attention to her face.”
LeAuntiez stood and stretched. “I’ve got to get to work, or I’m going to go drag her back to our house, the rebellion be damned.”
“You and me both. Thanks to this conversation, I’m hard as a rock again.” Bron chuckled and reactivated his holo-display. “If you found Zapt, we could go to Shadow Mountain.” He glanced up with a grin. “Just saying.”
LeAuntiez made an obscene gesture and left the office.
Chapter Four
“You actually got to fly with him?” Jasmine’s dark eyes were wide as saucers. “I’d heard he had wings, but… What do they look like? Do they have feathers?” The absurdity of Jasmine’s question made everyone laugh.
LeAuntiez had escorted Kyla to the ramshackle lounge several hours ago. This was where the human females spent most of their time at Protectorate Headquarters. With nothing to occupy themselves but electronic books, playing cards, and the Ventori equivalent of video games, the days were long and boring. Still, anything was better than staring at the walls in their tiny bedrooms.
They’d just been served lunch when Kyla arrived so the conversation remained light and casual for quite some time. Then the distractions dwindled and the barrage of questions began. She’d done her best to summarize what had happened the night before rather than reliving every detail, but the other three females weren’t cooperating. At least they’d fixated on LeAuntiez’s heroic rescue rather than the attack.
“Yes, he has wings, but they do not have feathers. They’re… really hard to explain.”
“Wait.” Jasmine held up her hand. “I have a better question. How does he get rid of the wings when he’s not flying? Their uniforms are skin tight—thank you, Lord—and I’ve never seen wings sticking out of his back.”
“How would you know? You’re always staring at his ass.” Olivia gave Jasmine a playful shove. They were roommates, had paired up from day one and their closeness was obvious.
Sort of like Erin and her, Kyla thought with a sigh. LeAuntiez had contacted Urrya again this morning, but there was still no sign of Erin or the skimmer. Was it possible she’d made it across the wasteland and was safely on her way to Waco? She didn’t think the skimmers had that sort of range, but maybe she was wrong. God, she hoped it was something like that.
Jasmine and Olivia sat side by side on a vinyl couch that looked like it had been around since the seventies. Kyla sat in a similar chair facing them, while Star, who had been working on a jigsaw puzzle, sat alone at one of the folding tables. Typical. The snooty stripper spent a lot of ti
me alone now that her roommate, an even more disagreeable hothead named Tracy, had been claimed.
“Forget LeAuntiez. He’s too high and mighty. I’ll take the dark, mysterious one.” Star scooted her chair around so she could join the conversation. She dismissed Jasmine’s interest with a wave of her hand. “Uriel or Orion. I think they’re brothers or something.”
“His name is Urrya and they’re half-brothers. Same mother, different fathers,” Jasmine proudly clarified. “LeAuntiez is full-blooded Celestian, while Urrya is half Celestian and half Ventori.”
“Wow, aren’t you a fount of useless information,” Star sneered.
“I don’t think it’s useless,” Kyla insisted then focused on Jasmine, pretending Star wasn’t there. “What else do you know about LeAuntiez? And Chancellor Savator? Tell me everything.”
“LeAuntiez isn’t just full-blooded Celestian, which is incredibly rare all by itself. His mother was cousin to the Celestian high king. There were a few people in front of LeAuntiez, but he was in line for the Celestian throne.”
Kyla sighed. As if living in Erin’s shadow hadn’t been demoralizing enough. She had to go and fall for Celestian royalty?
“A pedigree don’t mean nothing when your planet is a burned-out ruin,” Star muttered. “LeAuntiez is a mercenary now, just like all the others.”
Kyla ignored Star’s snarky comments. “Was he married when the Skarilians attacked? Did he have a family? I know he’s a lot older than he looks.”
“No wife or children, but he lost two brothers, his mother and stepfather.” Jasmine shrugged and then concluded, “That’s all I’ve been able to flirt out of the guards.”
“‘Flirt.’ Is that what we’re calling it now?” Star tried again to insinuate herself into the conversation, but no one paid her the least bit of attention.
“What about the chancellor?” Olivia asked, taking the words right out of Kyla’s mouth.
“Now his story is really sad,” Jasmine warned. “No wonder he frowns so much of the time.”
“I can imagine,” Kyla tried to back her off. “You don’t need to list all the people the Skarilians killed. I know Ventor was decimated.”
“His family wasn’t killed by the Skarilians,” Jasmine countered. “They were slaughtered by renegade Ventori who used the Skarilian invasion as an excuse to pillage, murder, and rape. You know the type. The cowardly thugs who use any excuse to throw rocks through windows and steal TVs, then try to pass it off as some political protest. I think it would have been easier on the chancellor if the Skarilians had done the killing.”
Unable to suppress her curiosity now that the door was open to Bron’s past, Kyla asked, “Who did he lose?”
“Everyone.” For a moment Kyla thought that was all she’d say, then Jasmine’s list began and Kyla desperately wanted her to stop. “He lost his parents, three sisters, his wife, and two children. Not to mention all sorts of extended family members. The renegades slaughtered his entire village. The only ones left alive were those males who had joined the military. It happened several weeks before the final Skarilian attack.”
“And who’d you blow for that little tidbit?” Star sneered. “You’re depressing as hell.”
“What is wrong with you?” Jasmine shook her head, but looked hurt, not angry. “You’ve been a world-class bitch all day.”
“How did you notice?” Kyla whispered under her breath. Star glared at her, so she must have heard.
“Dr. Baytor said her latest test results preclude her from the next phase of testing,” Olivia told Kyla in a stage whisper. “Star is heading to Camp Accord and she’s not happy about it.”
Star shot to her feet, oversized boobs jiggling like runaway Jell-O. “I told you that in confidence. I can’t believe you just blurted it out.”
“What’s Baytor doing to you guys anyway?” Kyla wanted to know. “I thought all the tests were to figure out what Zapt and Nunez had done at the induction center.”
“It’s more complicated than that.” Star’s chin lifted, making her look particularly haughty. “There is some sort of marker in our blood and only our blood. Dr. Baytor wants to figure out how it got there.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “She makes it sound like we won the lottery. For all we know it could cut our lifespan in half or make us give birth to two-headed babies. Dr. Baytor wants to make damn sure it’s not dangerous before he sets us loose at Camp Accord.”
Olivia was sweet, always positive and supportive. Jasmine could be moody, but rooming with Olivia helped keep her from sulking too often. Star, on the other hand, was just plain bitchy. She strutted around with her augmented boobs thrust out and intentionally drew the attention of the males as often as she could. She was superficial and often mean. Kyla tried to avoid her as much as possible, but that was hard now that there were so few females left at Protectorate Headquarters.
“Didn’t Erin tell you about the anomaly?” The gleam in Star’s eyes warned Kyla that she wasn’t going to like where this was leading. “She has an even stranger one than ours.”
Was the bitch just rattling her cage, or was Erin really affected too? “What are you talking about?”
“She’s right.” Olivia sounded apologetic. “They did something to Erin, just like us.”
“I wonder why she didn’t tell you. Maybe you’re not as close to her as you thought.”
“Cut it out,” Jasmine snapped. “You’re jealous of her and we all know it.”
“It’s not surprising that they didn’t pick you for the advance testing,” Star tried again. “You’re clearly inferior to the rest of us.”
Refusing to be baited by her illogical bitterness, Kyla turned her back on Star and smiled at Jasmine and Olivia. “Did anything interesting happen while I was gone?”
“Since you brought it up, where did you spend last night?” Jasmine raised her brows in playful challenge, daring Kyla to admit the truth. “I wouldn’t mind going for a ride with—or on—LeAuntiez, but Chancellor Savator scares the crap out of me.”
“Why do you presume I was with them?” Kyla felt her face flush and cursed her fair complexion. “Maybe I spent the night in the clinic.”
“And maybe you spent the night on your knees.” Star’s tone was anything but playful. She stalked toward Kyla, gaze narrowed and gleaming with hostility. “Tell us all about it, little miss holier-than-thou. How many different ways did they fuck you?”
It probably would have been wiser to ignore her completely, but Kyla’s emotions were too volatile. She’d barely escaped a violent crime and her best friend was still missing. This was really not the day to give her shit. “Sorry to disappoint you but—”
“Did you take it up the ass?” Star leaned down and brought her face within inches of Kyla’s. “Did you swallow their cum? Do you even know how to deep throat a cock without throwing up?”
“We all know you could teach her,” Olivia said, her voice uncharacteristically cold. “How much cum have you swallowed in the last three years?”
Star ignored her, staying focused on Kyla with bitter hatred.
“Back off,” Kyla spoke quietly, but her temper was building like a storm on the horizon. “Jasmine’s right, you’re jealous.”
“Of you?” Star scoffed, then swept her gaze down Kyla’s body. “You’d have to lose fifty pounds to fit into any of my costumes.”
Kyla had always struggled with her weight, so the insult stung. It had taken her years of frustration and self-loathing to find a healthy, if curvy, middle ground. She would not give this bitch the satisfaction of a reaction. “Is that the best you can do?”
Without warning, Star slapped her hard across the face. “Fat whore!”
Shocked beyond reason, Kyla just stared at her for half a second. Then all her frustration, all her fear and helplessness surged to the surface and Kyla saw red.
She shoved Star back as she came up out of the chair, then swung hard with her right arm. She’d instinctively fisted her hands and caught St
ar squarely in the jaw. The stripper’s head jerked to the side as a startled cry erupted from her gaping mouth. Kyla swung her left arm and snapped Star’s head back around.
Star stumbled back, clearly dazed, but Kyla was beyond caution, beyond compassion or mercy. She shoved Star to the floor and followed her down, straddling her too-thin body. Kyla aimed for her nose and blood gushed, quickly covering the lower half of her face. Ignoring the pain in her hands and Star’s terrified screams, Kyla punched and punched, blinded by anger and tears.
Suddenly hands caught her arms and she was dragged off her senseless victim. She kicked out and twisted violently, desperate to escape their restraining hold. She snarled and fought, until someone shouted her name.
“Kyla! Enough!”
Bron’s deep voice penetrated her rage and she sagged between the guards who held her arms. Guards? When had the guards arrived?
Bron closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. “Take Star to the clinic and give us the room.”
“Yes, sir,” the guards chorused and immediately obeyed.
“Star started it,” Jasmine stressed as she departed. “This was not Kyla’s fault.”
Pleased by the support, Kyla eased away and rested her hands on Bron’s wide chest. “I didn’t mean to hurt her that badly. I just snapped.”
He wiped her tears away, then looked at her hands. Her knuckles were already bruised and starting to swell. “These are going to hurt like hells unless they’re treated.” He looked beyond her as he said, “Savator to Baytor—”
“Please don’t. I need to feel the pain.” A fresh swell of emotion filled her eyes with tears, but she was able to blink them away.
“Cancel that, Baytor. False alarm.” He raised her hands to his mouth and kissed each knuckle in turn. His lips were soft, his breath warm, but already her hands were starting to throb. “We have spar-bots in the fitness center for this sort of thing.”
“That was so wrong.” She shook her head, horrified by her own behavior. “She screamed and screamed and I just kept hitting her.” A violent shudder ended in a sob and her lips began to tremble. “I was as bad as they were. I should have stopped. Why didn’t I stop?” The tears escaped out the corners of her eyes, but the pressure in her chest was worse.