by Leslie Chase
Some kind soul had left a jug of water and a drinking bowl beside the medicine, and I blessed whoever had thought this far ahead. Downing one bowlful quickly, I poured another and had just taken a sip when someone flung the curtain aside behind me.
Zarkav. As silent as he was, I recognized the sound of his breathing and turned with a smile.
He stood there, towering over me as I sat on the bed. Someone had patched the wound on his stomach, and I wondered if it would scar. The thought made me blush, fortunately hidden by the blood rushing to my cheeks at the sight of him.
Damn, girl, you’ve got no self-control at all, do you? It would have been embarrassing if Zarkav controlled himself any more than I did. Now that I knew how to read them, the purple patterns on his broad torso spoke of need and lust and love more clearly than any human expression would.
Not to mention the very visible bulge beneath his kilt. I allowed myself a hint of smugness — I made this wonderful, sexy giant lose control of himself. Me. No one else. It was a magical feeling.
He didn’t pounce, which disappointed me. I tried to be understanding. After such a long and stressful day, he might just want to rest? Though another glance at his body, those strong purple patterns of his ssav, that massive bulge, told me otherwise.
“Taru-ma, how are you?” His voice formal and restrained, he looked me over. Even this distant tone set my body shivering and my sex aching for him. God, how I needed this man.
“I’m fine,” I said, hiding a wince as I swung my legs out of the bed. “Whatever they gave me to drink really helped my ankle.”
Okay, so I hurt all over. I would not give him any reason to avoid touching me. Zarkav might play rough, but he was also sweet — perhaps too sweet to risk hurting me.
That wouldn’t do. We needed each other more than ever now, and I wasn’t about to let his gentlemanly side get in our way.
“You’ve sorted things out? At least for now?” I rose from the bed as I spoke, realizing my mistake the moment I put weight on my right ankle. Pain shot through me and I toppled to the side, flailing for something to stop my fall.
Zarkav reached me before I hit the floor, sweeping me into the safety of his arms. His warm, musky scent filled my senses and I nuzzled against his chest. The powerful beat of his heart steadied me.
“Fine, are you?” Zarkav looked down at me and shook his head, hints of blue and orange mixing with the purple in his ssav. “You cannot even walk.”
I kissed his chest and was rewarded with a gasp as the purple intensified. “I guess you’ll have to take me back to bed then.”
That got a laugh. “I see your wicked ways, taru-ma, don’t think you’ve fooled me.”
Still chuckling, he carried me back to the big, soft bed, bending to lay me down with infinite care. Frustrating care — bruised I might be, but I was no glass sculpture. He wouldn’t break me with a careless touch.
I took matters into my own hands. Or rather, my mouth. As Zarkav straightened up, I twisted to bite his chest. Even my full strength couldn’t get through the scales that protected him, but the sharp noise he made showed that I’d had the effect I wanted.
“Behave…” he growled, the dark menace in his tone melting me. I’d never wanted to behave less in my life.
“Make me,” I suggested with a broad grin, running my fingers along the waistband of his kilt. Zarkav’s growl intensified, and he stopped trying to back off.
“If you are not careful, Tessa-ma, I will do something you regret.”
“Sounds good to me,” I mumbled, kissing his stomach. My fingers found the knot holding the kilt on and fumbled with it while I kissed and licked, exploring his muscular body with my mouth. Kisses reached the leather kilt just as my fingers undid the knot, letting his garment fall away.
Something snapped in Zarkav at that moment, and he snarled at me with animal intensity. Hesitating no more, he grabbed hold of me, one hand sliding into my hair, he other grabbing my wrist.
It ought to hurt. His tight grip pressed on bruises, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Quite the opposite, it made my senses sing.
My lover’s hard cock rose in front of me, huge and intimidating but oh-so-desirable. I doubted I’d ever see it without a frisson of fear, and that was part of the attraction. The adventure, the excitement.
I tried to move toward it, mouth opening to kiss and lick, but Zarkav held me back effortlessly. Frustrated, I moaned and squirmed in his grip.
“Not until I say,” he commanded in a voice that spoke straight to my soul. A whimper was all I managed in response, looking up to meet his powerful gaze.
His intensity nearly overpowered me. So much emotion, so much need and desire, all aimed at me. A mirror to my passion for him. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Zarkav pulled me over his lap in one swift, brutal, unimaginably hot movement.
The hard plates covering his erect cock pressed into my side and I pushed myself against him, wanting — needing — it inside me. But he had other things in mind first.
“Do not think I have forgotten about your punishment.” His voice had roughened, his breathing sped up. A rough hand stroked across my bare ass. I whimpered, wriggled, and even I didn’t know if I was pleading for him to stop or begging him to do it.
Zarkav made his own mind up about that. The first smack echoed off the stone walls and I jumped with a yelp. Another, and I gasped for breath as I writhed against his body.
“I tried to keep you safe,” he admonished me. “But you simply would. Not. Listen.”
He punctuated each of those last words with a smack hard enough to make me pant and whimper, a delicious burning spreading from my ass.
“I saved your life.” I couldn’t help myself, the words burst out before I could rein them in. Zarkav’s answer was to spank harder still.
“Not the point. You disobeyed me, put yourself in danger, got hurt. I will not have that.”
It was unbearable. Not the pain, but the hungry, eager need that filled me. Zarkav paused in his spanking and ran a hand down between my legs, brushing gently along my pussy lips. My blush deepened as he found me wet and ready for him.
Rubbing tenderly, sliding a finger between my folds, my taru-ma teased me as mercilessly as he’d spanked me. Between the warm stinging of my ass and the rough but somehow gentle pressure of his hand, I thought I’d go mad.
“Please,” I gasped. “Zarkav, please, I can’t take much more of this.”
A rumbling growl vibrated through me. If I’d thought I was turned on before, that sound turned it up to eleven. He stood, lifting me easily and placing me on the bed. I pulled at him, trying to urge him closer, but I might as well have tried to pull down the moon. Zarkav would do what he wanted, and I would take it.
I couldn’t think of a better arrangement.
His tongue darted out, forked tip playing across my pussy. My body jerked at his touch and he repeated it until I was left a trembling, desperate shell of a woman. Everything but Zarkav faded from my mind. He, and what he did to my body, were my entire world now. Kissing his way up, tongue darting out to caress me, touching every bruise with loving gentleness, Zarkav slowly and maddeningly worked his way up my body.
He paused at my breasts, licking. Kissing. Biting, just hard enough that a little jolt of pain mixed with the waves of pleasure, raising them to a crescendo that threatened to overwhelm me completely.
My fingers dug into the sheets, I threw my head back, and I panted like an animal. Zarkav moved on, upward, teeth closing on my neck in the lightest of bites.
I jackknifed under him, crying out loud enough to wake the temple priests. In that moment, I didn’t care. Let them hear. Let everyone know how wonderful, how marvelous, how perfect my lover was. Just don’t let him stop.
Freeing my hands from the sheets, I reached down between us. Gripped his hard cock, slick with its natural lube, felt it swell in my hands as I stroked and guided him toward me. Now it was his turn to shiver, to arch, his mouth closing harder.
And with one perfect movement, he thrust, driving himself into me.
Our bodies slammed together, his massive cock at once too large and a perfect fit for me. I shook as he buried himself inside me, my muscles squeezing him. The ridges of his armor plates felt amazing as he thrust again. Again. Over and over, and each time I felt so empty as he withdrew, ready to be filled again.
His long, flexible, amazing tongue pressed against my lips, a kiss that bound us firmly as his cock buried in me. I lost track of where my body ended, where Zarkav’s began, whether there was any difference between the two.
His thrusts grew faster, harder, driving me down into the mattress. Pleasure rolled through me and I clasped him to me, my fingers digging into his back. As though he needed any urging!
The waves of ecstasy built and built, growing stronger and higher, closer together, until my entire body trembled with the nearness of my climax. Zarkav’s grew closer too, his cock swelling inside me until I knew that he was on the edge. We were both there, together.
And in that perfect moment Zarkav bit my shoulder, razor sharp teeth digging into the skin. I cried out, shock and pain and pleasure all merged into one perfect moment, and the world dissolved with a deafening crack.
I’d never experienced anything like that before. It was as though I’d been washed out of my body by the tide of joy and ecstasy Zarkav sent through me. Driven out into a sea of white light, surrounded by the sensations of him.
The moment stretched out forever, our orgasms blending with each other’s. It might have lasted a minute, an hour, a day. But eventually it had to end, and the light withdrew, leaving me back in my body, clinging to Zarkav, wrapped in a nest of blankets, panting for air.
We lay at an odd angle and it took a moment to work out what had happened. Zarkav looked around too, as surprised as I was until we saw the splintered wood.
Short of breath, I only managed a splutter rather than the laugh I’d aimed for.
“You broke the bed,” I told Zarkav, mock-accusing. “You fucked me so hard you broke the bed.”
He chuckled, running a hand through my air. “I think we broke it, taru-ma.”
“Oh no you don’t.” I grinned at him, nestling close, but I wasn’t willing to leave this bed just yet, splintered or no. “Nope, you were the one doing the pounding. Your strength, your fault. You’re not giving me half the blame, lover boy.”
“Oh? And what will you do about it?”
“Maybe I’ll spank you,” I answered with a grin, reaching around to smack his ass. It was like spanking marble. Deliciously shaped marble, a sculpture of the perfect ass, but still stone. “Ow.”
I waved my stinging hand in the air to cool it while Zarkav laughed and laughed. After a short effort to look angry I gave in and joined him, curling up to his chest again.
“Okay, maybe not that,” I said between laughing fits. “I’ll think of something, though, don’t you worry.”
“I know you will, taru-ma.” With grave gentleness he took my sore hand and kissed the palm, his tongue dancing across it. Perhaps it was my imagination, but the stinging faded almost instantly.
I sighed a happy sigh. There was a lot of work to do here, and there were the human colonies to contact. What had they been through since they crashed? My curiosity gnawed at me, but I knew that I’d find out. After all, someone would have to open diplomatic relations with them: we’d be neighbors until they got off world.
They? The little voice was quieter but still there.
“Yes, they,” I said quietly. “Hang Arcadia, I’m not going anywhere.”
Zarkav’s arm tightened around me, pulling me close, and together we drifted off to sleep. For the first time since waking on Crashland, I was totally relaxed.
In Zarkav’s arms, I’d found my home.
Epilogue
My forearm tingled gently, the ssav-marks shifting and moving. I smiled, lowering my binoculars and looking out over the forests of Crashland without their aid.
Watching the sky had become a daily habit, climbing to a vantage point high on the mountain to stare at the horizon, hoping for a sign of human settlement.
No more luck today than yesterday. It wasn’t likely, but it was good exercise — and it gave my mate a chance to catch up with me alone.
“You know you’re not sneaking up on me, right?” I said without looking round. One advantage of being taru-ma: the ssav marks on my forearm told me when he got close.
Zarkav chuckled, closer than I’d expected. Okay, maybe even the link between us wasn’t enough to catch him out completely. He closed the remaining distance, Killer bounding along behind him, and I smiled. The wristband would never be the same, and Killer’s holographic body sometimes fritzed into static for a few seconds, but I’d been able to repair most of the damage. And damaged or not, the hologram wolf was happier with his new master than he’d ever been with Fanwell. Zarkav treated him like a real person, not just an extension of himself.
Zarkav put his arm around my shoulders, chuckling. “It’s no fun if I don’t even try. How goes your hunt, little one?”
“Nothing yet,” I told my mate, leaning into his side and snuggling. “I know I’m being impatient, it’s just frustrating.”
He nodded, squeezed my shoulder, and stayed silent. Zarkav had a gift for knowing when to keep quiet and when to speak, one that more men could learn.
“I know you’re busy,” I said, earning a fresh Master’s degree in Understatement from Crashland University. This was one of the rare moments that Zarkav wasn’t busy judging the thousand arguments inside the Temple Tribe or arguing with El-Ensha — sorry, she’d become Eldest now — over some vital resource. “I’m not complaining. But the sooner I contact the other humans, the sooner I can find out what happened, where we are, and what the deal with the Prytheen is.”
Zarkav squeezed again. “There is much to learn from your people, and I know you would like the company of your own species. As soon as I can spare some hunters to scout for your human companions, I will.”
Which was why I kept watching the sky. Until things settled down in the Temple Tribe, my vigil here was the only way we might find the humans. And if it drew Zarkav out to check on me, well, that was a pleasant bonus.
Zarkav worked too hard, he needed a chance to relax. That was the excuse I used to justify it to myself, but we both knew it was an excuse. We had other reasons to want to spend time alone.
Just the thought made me tingle and squirm, and I felt the faint rumble of a growl from Zarkav in response. In a second he’d be bending me over the nearest rock and having his way with me.
“How are the preparations for the grand conclave coming?” I asked quickly, changing the topic to safer ground. Zarkav looked bemused — it wasn’t like me to avoid a chance for sex, whether in bed or over a rock. Today, though, some instinct told me to delay.
“Well enough, I suppose,” he answered me. “Though it will be a long time before every tribe can send a representative. Spreading word about the humans will take years.”
Perhaps I ought to have been disappointed, but I smiled instead. Years of work ahead of us, together? That was nothing to be afraid of.
In the distance, something crossed the sky. Too big and fast to be a bird. Too shiny as well. Humans, or Prytheen? Through my binoculars I recognized it as a transport flier, like the Wandering Star used to ferry goods to and from orbit. No way to tell who flew it, and no way to attract its attention. Not yet. Kitty Fantastic noted the time, direction, and speed of the passing flier. Next time we’d have a pyre ready to light.
There wasn’t any rush. I missed human contact, but I knew exactly what I wanted to fill my days with while I waited.
Zarkav caught me grinning, orange and purple appearing in his ssav. “Tessa-ma, you are insatiable.”
I laughed and tossed my hair, carefully putting my irreplaceable binoculars back in their case.
“Zarkav-ma, you wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said, and pounced.
>
The End
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The Crashland Series
This is the first book of the Crashland Castaway Romances, the second trilogy set on Crashland. You don’t have to have read the first trilogy for it to make sense, but they will give you some context.
Crashland Colony Romances
On the trip to Arcadia Colony carrying a cargo of human colonists in suspended animation, the Wandering Star is attacked by Prytheen pirates. The muscular blue alien warriors want the terraforming equipment aboard and will stop at nothing to get it.
Auric, a Prytheen alpha, decides to protect the humans, racing ahead to warn them. And when he arrives, he recognizes the ship’s engineer Tamara as his fated mate.
Trying to save the ship, Tamara jumps the ship into a forbidden system inside the Tavesh Empire. Now, stuck on an unknown planet, humans and Prytheen must work together to survive on the planet they call Crashland.
Auric
Torran
Ronan
Are you a STARR HUNTRESS?
Do you love to read sci fi romance about strong, independent women and the sexy alien males who love them?
Starr Huntress is a coalition of the brightest Starrs in romance banding together to explore uncharted territories.