“That’s not what I meant, Von. It’s an Earth saying. It means you two have history together, something happened in your past that made you enemies.”
“I don’t want to talk about Cosmo. Not tonight.” I ran my fingertips lightly over her cheek because I couldn’t seem to stop touching her.
She looked up at me, studied me, her dark eyes near to piercing my soul, but she inclined her head. When I held out my arm for her once more, she wrapped her small hand around my elbow so we could follow the host upstairs to our private dining room.
“Okay, Von. For tonight.” Lexi’s hand tightened on my arm, but I covered it with my own, allowed my heat and confidence to comfort her through the small touch. She responded at once, relaxing next to me as we followed the large man to the private dining room I’d reserved. I’d heard that Viken males had seed power, a chemical in their seed that made them and their mate constantly aroused to help with claiming.
Everians didn’t have that. We had the marks and their ability to make the chemistry between mates so intense that they were unbelievably attracted and eager for each other. I hadn’t believed it before, but I did now. I wanted Lexi with a ferocity that grew each moment I was in her presence. The way she responded to me, it was working on her as well. It seemed to have become even more intense when I’d nuzzled her mark in the dream the night before.
Our host held a chair for my mate, but I shooed him away. Doing this was my honor, my privilege. I would not share her, not even in this small thing. She was mine to treasure, to care for.
With a raised brow, the Officiate hurried to the door. “Senior Hunter Von, are you aware of the dining protocols?” He lifted his hand to the wall, flipping a switch near the door from the left to the right. The switch itself turned from yellow to red. “Yellow is for dining service. Red for privacy.”
I nodded but said nothing as he moved the switch back to yellow and left us alone, the door sliding closed behind him.
The room was small, but more than adequate for my needs. A round table rested near one wall. Delicate dining service, gold utensils, tall glasses for wine or ale and beautiful crystalline lights created an intimate experience for couples to get to know one another. The chairs were plush, a soft green that made me think of forests and living things. Of life outside this artificial fortress.
I walked to a chair and held it out for my mate, pleased when she sat at once. The back of it rested just below her shoulders, and I took advantage of the moment to lean over and place a chaste kiss on her exposed shoulder.
She gasped at the contact and I longed to do it again, to hear her moan. I didn’t dare linger, but took my place opposite her as the first course of sweetened fruit and cheeses was brought in with wine.
My mate ate like a bird, barely picking at the food that melted on the tongue like soft candy.
“Alexis Lopez. Tell me about your life. I want to know everything about you.”
Her eyes darted to mine, and she took a deep breath. “I’m boring. I swear.”
“Not to me.” I put my utensils down and leaned forward, focused, intent on anything she would tell me, any truth she may reveal. She was mine, and I wanted to know everything.
A small smile was my reward and she placed her hands in her lap, her fingers dancing over one another with her anxiety. I wanted to pull her into my lap and pet her, kiss and hold her until she forgot to be nervous. Until there was nothing but her…and me.
“I turned twenty-one a couple weeks ago. I was supposed to finish college, but my dad died last year and I didn’t have time to apply for financial aid, so I had to take a semester off. I just never went back.”
“What is college?” Some of what she said I understood, but not all.
She opened her mouth, frowned, tilted her head to look at me. “Wow. Okay. Ummm, college is a place of higher learning, a place to receive education and training for a special job, like how to run a business, or how to be a doctor, engineering and computer programming. Stuff like that.”
“And what were you studying to become?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought I wanted to go into graphic design, but I don’t like drawing on a computer. I prefer pen and paper. And there just isn’t any money in art, unless you get lucky or are some kind of genius.”
“And you need money on your world?”
Glass of wine halfway to her lips, she paused to stare at me with round eyes. “Yes. Don’t you?”
“Barter and trade is a primitive social structure.”
She laughed. “I am so on an alien world right now.” She sipped the wine, set the glass down and licked her lips. I wanted to lick those lips. “So, if you don’t have money, how do you pay for things? Buy things? Where do you live?”
“I am a Hunter.”
“I don’t know what that means. What do you do? Kill animals to eat?”
“No. I enforce the laws on our world.”
“So, you’re a cop?” Fingernails drumming the table, she frowned. “How did I end up mated to a cop?”
“I do not know your word cop, but I am one of the Hunters assigned to maintain order on Everis. I hunt criminals, determine punishment for crimes, settle disputes between parties in my region. Should a convicted criminal escape prison, I would hunt him and bring him to swift and final justice. Is that what your cop does?”
“Hell, no.” She stared at me, her gaze holding mine as if she were trying to see into my soul. I let her look. “So, you’re more like police, detective, judge and jury in one?”
I considered her words carefully. “Yes. We are highly respected. Most of us served, fighting in the Hive wars before being assigned to the Hunter forces. I am a Senior Hunter of the forces in this region. But my authority is respected anywhere on the planet, or within the Coalition Fleet. We have been called upon to track criminals to other worlds. Our tracking skills are legendary, and we are often hired by leaders of other planets to hunt their criminals and bring them to justice.”
“How do you track someone? Do you have special Spidey-sense or something?”
Spidey-sense? “I cannot explain it to you, mate. But know this, Hunters use instincts older than our race in pursuit of our prey. I can’t describe the feeling to you, but if I focus my thoughts on a person, on a criminal or a thing, eventually, I will find that which I seek. Even if I have to travel across worlds.”
“Wow. You’re a total badass.” Her words were barely more than a whisper and her pulse raced at the base of her neck.
“I am not an ass. I am a Hunter. And now, I am yours, Lexi. I will never leave your side, never betray you. I will kill to protect you, and avenge any who wrong you or bring you dishonor. I will bring you pleasure you can’t imagine, fulfill every fantasy and desire if you but ask. You are mine, mate. And I take care of what’s mine.”
“All because we share a mark?”
“Yes.”
The server refilled both of our cups and I watched, amused, as Lexi took a long drink, emptying nearly half the glass. The slight tremble in her hand worsened to a noticeable shaking.
“Are you nervous, mate?”
Lexi replaced the glass on the table very careful not so spill. “No. Yes. I don’t know.” Her gaze darted across the room to the long, green settee draped with assorted pillows, blankets and binding scarves. “I just don’t know what to expect. I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Yes, you do.”
Her cheeks heated to a dark pink once more and she bit her full lower lip in a move that forced me to readjust my cock in my pants. “I do, but I’ve never felt like this before. What we share, this…heat, is overwhelming. I don’t know what to do or what to say. I just don’t know. I don’t want to disappoint you.”
I loved her honesty, loved that she was just as eager for me. But I was not an innocent. I knew exactly what would come next and I wasn’t fearful. I was almost frantic for her. I had to go slow and enjoy the awakening.
Instead of answering her, I rose
and walked to the door, flipping the switch to indicate we were in need of privacy. It was time to claim what was mine.
* * *
Von
I pulled Lexi to her feet. Standing before me, she trembled with innocence, with fear of the unknown. Not of me.
She was so small and soft and curved and perfect. So ripe. I was sure I could smell the wet welcome between her legs, the musky scent of her wet pussy. Her mind might not know what to expect, but her body was ready.
Lifting my hands to cup her face, I lowered my head and claimed her lips. The taste of her an explosion of wine and sweets and woman on my tongue. She gasped and I took advantage, pushing my tongue into her mouth to explore and conquer, to claim.
“Do not be afraid. I showed you in the dreams what it would be like between us. Do you want more?”
Her hands came to my forearms and I barely heard her. “Yes.”
I growled in possessiveness. She was telling me yes, giving me permission to please us both, to take the first step toward making her mine. To claiming her.
“This mouth, love. This mouth is mine.” I kissed the side of it, tugged her bottom lip between my teeth before sucking it into my mouth, tasting, exploring, rubbing and suckling until her knees buckled. Arms around her waist, I held her upright and continued to kiss her. Her lips. Her cheek. Her brow. Her nose. Her jaw. “Mine to claim with my kisses, with my cock.”
“Oh god,” she whimpered.
“Do you like that idea?” I kissed along her jaw, nibbled on her earlobe. Nipped it.
She shivered again. “Yes,”
“You like the idea of licking the pre-cum off the head? You want to swirl your tongue around me, learn my taste, my shape? Then open those lips nice and wide and take my cock nice and deep?”
She licked her lips and my cock pulsed painfully in my pants.
“I do. I want to see it, feel it in my hands.”
I stepped back, tugged at the front of my uniform pants, pulled my eager cock free so she could see it.
“Your first cock?”
She nodded and reached out, then stilled, her fingers a few inches away.
I jerked my hips involuntarily.
“Touch me.”
She didn’t need more permission than that. Her dainty fingers stroked over the head, slipped through the stream of pre-cum oozing from the tip.
“This is crazy,” she said, her eyes focused on what her fingers were doing.
I was gritting my teeth, trying not to come, to spurt all over her hand because I was too eager. Damn, she was too fucking hot and this was only her fingertips. When I got in that hot little mouth, I wasn’t going to last.
“We’ve just met and your dick is out and I’m touching it and I shouldn’t be this excited for you and—”
“Is your pussy wet?” I asked, cutting off her words. I needed her mind focused on what she wanted, not on what she thought she should be doing.
I watched her shift her weight from foot to foot and I knew her clit had to be aching. Surely her juices were sliding hotly down her thighs.
She nodded.
“Do you know what it does to me when you tell me that?” I asked.
Her fingers tightened around the head of my cock. “I think I have an idea. Does fluid always come out like this?”
“That’s all for you, love. Knowing that’s going to be in your mouth soon has my balls so tight. Cup them, see what I mean.”
Her hand slipped away and I hissed out a breath at the loss. But then I groaned when she did as I said and my balls were cupped in her palm. When she began to play with them, I had to step back.
“Did I hurt you?” she asked.
Slowly, I shook my head. “It’s your turn.”
She frowned.
“I’m going to do what I’ve been dreaming of, even when I’m awake. I’m going to lick up all that juice that’s coating your pussy, then suck your clit until you scream, make you come all over my face.”
She flushed hotly, not in embarrassment, but in eagerness.
“I see you like that idea.”
She nodded again, finally becoming emboldened, perhaps knowing this wasn’t all about me. In actuality, it was all about her. My mate would always come once, if not twice, before I ever got my cock inside her. Then several times after that. I would always see to her pleasure first.
Having my cock out, letting her play with it, learn it, before she got on her knees was to put her at ease, to make her hot and eager.
Making her come first? It was my pleasure to do it and then she’d be sated and frantic for more. For my cock.
“After you come, then you’ll be all ready for my cock between those lush lips. It’ll be time to fill that virgin mouth, to have you swallow down my seed.”
She moaned and the sweet sound had me stepping close to her again, my cock pressing against her belly. Her head fell back on her shoulders as I kissed my way down her neck.
“If you suck me hard, mate, claim my cock for your own, I will give you a reward. Once I come in that sweet mouth, I’ll fuck you with my tongue until you can’t breathe, until your clit is so sensitive one flick of my tongue will make your hot little pussy flutter and spasm, desperate to be filled.”
When I reached her ear, I told her the rest. “Don’t worry, this is all we’ll do tonight. But you’ll want more. You might even beg me for it.”
She shifted her hips into mine, an action I doubt she even knew she made.
“Soon, your ass will be mine, mate. I’m going to stretch you open, get you so desperate for me that you beg me to take you, and then I’m going to fuck that virgin hole slow and hard and deep. I’m going to fill you with my cock, play with your nipples, rub your clit as I fuck you and make you come over and over again.”
“Oh god.”
“But not tonight. Tonight, I’ll take that virgin mouth and learn your taste.”
“Von,” she murmured.
Fuck. I loved to hear my name from those lips.
Her nipples were hard pebbles against my chest and her breathing came in soft, rapid huffs as I cupped her ass with my hands and pulled her up onto her tiptoes, until her sex rested against my hard cock. “And then, when you are ready to be mine forever, I’m going to fuck your hot, wet, virgin pussy until you can’t remember your own name, until you’re screaming mine, begging me to fill you up, begging me to fuck you raw, fill you with my seed, put my baby in your womb, make you mine forever.”
“You’re really good at this.”
“What?”
“Dirty talk.”
I grinned. “You like it when I tell you what I’m going to do to you?”
“Yes.”
“There’s one word I want to hear, love.”
She knew it instinctively, for she didn’t pause, didn’t even think.
“Please.”
Yes, that was it. Submissive and begging.
One word, and my control snapped.
Chapter Ten
Von
I lifted her from the floor and carried her to the cushioned settee lining the wall. I knew no one would enter and I knew that I wasn’t the first Everian male to use the room to sate his need.
With one hand between her breasts, I laid her back like an offering to the Divine. Except she wasn’t offering her lush curves to any god, she was offering them to me.
Her dark hair spread out beneath her, a striking contrast to the pale green cloth, and I stood over her, admiring the exotic beauty that was mine now. Part of me wanted to rush like a wild man, to conquer in a frantic lunge to victory.
But more, I needed to savor this moment, commit the vision before me to memory so I would never forget the way she looked this first time. I’d been alone a long damn time, never thought to have this deep connection, a marked mate.
But the fire pumping through my veins would not be denied. My mark pulsed with life, filling me with need. Lust. Obsession. I would never get enough of her.
Slowly, so as not to
frighten her, I dropped to my knees, gripped her ankles and tugged her so her ass was at the very edge. I ran my hands up her legs, to her knees, applying gentle pressure to open her for me. Dropping my head, I kissed the inside of one knee, then the other, her feet dangling over onto the floor. I ran my hands up her soft thighs, gathered the soft folds of her gown in my hands as I went.
Her scent hit me like a bludgeon and my mind went blank, my cock jumped. Hunter’s instinct took over, a primitive side of my nature I rarely used. And my base desires were focused on one thing, not prey, but her.
My mate.
Before me was her virgin pussy. She’d come up on her elbows and looked down her delectable body at me.
“Von,” she whispered.
No one had ever seen her like this before. Passion-filled eyes, ragged breaths, tight nipples, parted thighs, her perfect pink pussy exposed to me.
“Are all Earth females bare?”
She frowned and looked down at herself. “I am bare. Is this what you wanted?”
I breathed deeply again, her scent intoxicating. With a shaky finger, I ran it along her slit, felt the silky heat of her as it coated my skin. Lifting it to my lips, I tasted her for the first time.
“All mates are bare. You’ll see why. You’re going to be so sensitive for me.” I touched her again.
“Von.”
I needed more of her flavor on my tongue. That sample hadn’t been enough. I had to taste her.
I gave her no more time to prepare, no warning, simply lowered my mouth to her cream and licked, hard, through the plump folds.
Lexi whimpered, but held her legs open when I released them to move my hands to her pussy.
Another lick and her hands were in my hair, tugging. “Von.”
Yes. That’s what I wanted to hear.
“You may say my name, mate. But nothing else. If you say anything else, I will stop. Do you understand, Lexi? My name. I want to hear my name.”
“Please.”
I nipped the inside of her thigh. “My name, Lexi. Only my name.”
“Von.” Her hips shifted beneath me as she attempted to force my return to her core. “Von.”
His Virgin Bride (Interstellar Brides: The Virgins Book 1) Page 7