by Alana Khan
“These are my people now. This will be nothing like what I imagined as a little girl. It will be better. Because I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
My big guy beams.
~.~
“Stand still,” Savannah scolds through the pins clamped between her lips.
“Sorry.” I try not to fidget, but I’m wiggling, trying to relieve some of my anxiety.
“Okay, take it off. This better fix it. We don’t have time for any more alterations.” Savannah was a clothes horse when she was abducted, now she’s become our resident seamstress. She whipped up this wedding dress out of patterned white on white Mirasian silk we found in the hold.
“I hid this fabric months ago. I knew there’d be a special occasion we’d want it for. Truth be told, I’d hoped it would be for someone’s wedding. I’m so happy for you, Dahlia.”
I nod. It means a lot to have such good friends to surround me on this special day.
Petra hurries in with her makeup and hair kit. Her hair is royal blue today and done up in a bunch of braids and pigtails. She looks fabulous as always.
“Chair,” she barks.
“Stop wiggling,” she scolds seconds later when she’s applying mascara. “Seriously Dahlia, you’d think this was the most important day of your life or something.” She beams a huge smile, then hugs me. “You and Dax are so cute together. If you’re even half as happy as Shadow and me, you’ll have a fabulous life together.”
Half an hour later my hair is coiffed, my makeup’s complete, the dress fits me to perfection, and everyone is telling me “it’s time.”
Axxios stopped the ship in midair so everyone can attend the ceremony. They’re all waiting in the solarium, which is bursting at the seams with my friends and the potent champagne we discovered in the original cargo hold.
Savannah and Petra escort me to the solarium, and somewhere on the short trip all my jitters disappear and the most beautiful feeling of calm surrounds me.
I’ll be walking into that room a single woman and leaving as part of a team. I’ll have a forever mate. My big, gorgeous Dax, who tells me how much he loves me whenever he feels like it —which is often. Who’d have thought being abducted by aliens would be the best thing that ever happened to me? Well —a picture of Dax naked in the shower flashes in my mind —almost the best thing.
My calm disintegrates after I walk through the solarium’s double doors. The room is full of all my friends, but Dax draws my eyes like a magnet.
He’s even more gorgeous than usual. His brown hair is cut tight around the sides with a thick lock hanging over his forehead. He’s polished the black leather kilt and sash to within an inch of their life. But it’s those leaf-green eyes, focused only on me that take my breath away.
“Welcome friends to the wedding of Dahlia and Dax. They asked me to say a few words.” Captain Zar looks serious and excited at the same time. “I’m certain I speak for everyone when I say we’re all happy you two have found each other. I hope you will love and cherish each other forever.
“Dahlia? You’ve prepared your…” he consults his notes, “vows?”
My hands flutter, and my heart thumps; I have no idea how to stop it, so I plunge forward.
I look Dax square in the eyes and see his compassionate smile; this calms me.
“Dax, I love you more than life itself. I discovered that in Asher’s dungeon. I would have died for you, as I know you would have died for me. Sometimes I regret that it took me so long to discover the miracle that you are, but it allowed our love to blossom.
“Lucky me, to find such a great man in one package: smart, funny, kind, loyal, and devastatingly handsome. A man of integrity. There are so many things I love and adore about you.
“I am so excited to start this, the beginning of our great adventure together.”
There was more, but my voice is quivering and I think I said everything that needs to be said.
Dax smiles, winks at me, and leans over and whispers, “You did great, Dahl,” into my ear. Lucky for me he has no idea he just broke protocol, because it touches my heart.
After a long silence, Zar prods, “I believe it’s your turn, Dax.”
I’ve seen my big guy in many moods: angry, protective, lusty, and loving. I’ve never seen him shy. He swallows twice, then grabs my hands and begins.
“Dahlia, I wasn’t fully alive until I met you. What purpose is there in life without someone to share it with? Having you is having everything. You’re beautiful, but that’s not important. It’s your heart and soul that connect to mine —that’s what I cherish about you.
“Now that I have you, I can’t imagine life without you. I promise to be the best mate you could ever want. Although I’d die for you, Dahl, I want to live with you for the rest of our lives.”
I’m glad he’s moved his grip to my elbows, because his vows made me weak in the knees. The words and the look in his eyes allow me to see into his soul.
“The ring,” Anya prompts from the sidelines.
Dax gets down on one knee and grabs my left hand. Closing his eyes, he kisses each knuckle like it’s a form of worship. He reaches under his sash, which is directly over his heart and retrieves the ring. Slipping the ring on my finger, I smile when I realize it’s still warm from his body heat.
“Kiss your mate,” Zar intones solemnly.
Even as a young girl, I always wondered what the bridal kiss would be like. Would it be fake? Staged? Embarrassing in front of all your friends and family? It’s none of those. It’s bliss. It’s totally familiar and completely different at the same time.
He’s not just my FWB or friend or even lover. He’s my mate. We’ll be together forever until death do us part.
I’m brought back to reality by whooping and shouting.
“Toasts!” shouts Maddie as she opens a bottle of alien champagne.
The toasts go on forever, yet they don’t last long enough. I’m here with all my friends! And they’re all so happy for me.
“Let’s move this shindig to the dining area,” Maddie says, then repeats it again after Stryker lifts her up so she can shout over the din. “I’ve been cooking nonstop since you announced your wedding. All that food wouldn’t fit in here.”
Dax lifts me up and carries me to the mess hall along with the throng. Golden-skinned Axxios sidelines us, claps Dax on the shoulder and gives me a peck on the cheek. “Best wishes, I hope you’re as happy as Brianna, Braxxus, and me. Mated life is even better than I dreamed of. My sincere good wishes. I’ve got to hurry back to the bridge,” he says, then jogs off.
We spill into the dining area and the smells of the meal assault us. We’ve had parties before, but I’ve never seen this much food. I don’t know where Maddie found the time. And there’s a real honest-to-God wedding cake with three tiers and carved wooden facsimiles of Dax and me.
“You did those?” I point to the figurines. There’s so much happy noise I had to reach on tiptoe to shout near Dax’s ear.
He nods. “And that.” He waves his hand toward the long, formerly empty wall of the rectangular room.
Hanging on the wall is a four-by-eight-foot three-dimensional wood carving about four inches thick. It depicts a hillside full of trees and dotted with flowers. It’s stained a rich mahogany, except for the flowers, which are tinted the subtlest shade of cornflower blue.
Dipping his mouth to my ear he says, “It was what I saw out my window from my barracks as a boy. That view was the best thing about my boyhood. Those flowers? I’d swear they were the same color as my beloved’s eyes.”
My heart constricts, my jaw tightens, and my eyes tear up. I made it through the wedding without tears, but this? This tender, giving side of my big guy? The sweetness of the moment clenches my heart like a fist.
“I couldn’t love you more,” I tell him, then grab his hand to pull him over to admire the carving. He couldn’t have gotten any sleep, I think, as my fingers skim the smooth surface of the wood. It’s amazing a
person’s hands could accomplish this.
“I always said you were handy.”
“That’s a real word?”
Deja Vu. How funny, we had this conversation before. It’s the same Dax in the same gorgeous package. Lucky me.
Maddy cooked all our favorite dishes, but neither of us are hungry. We do the stuff-cake-into-your-new-mate’s-mouth thing. It initially scandalizes the aliens who can’t quite understand why it’s a tradition. All of us women shrug and say variations of “don’t ask me.”
Then Stryker feeds Maddie, Maddie reciprocates and within sixty seconds every person in the room has icing on their lips. There are long moments of licking icing off your mate or FWB’s lips, and then the party grinds to a swift halt as couple after couple grab each other by the hand and leave to go ‘consume’ each other as Dax would say.
We thank Maddie, who’s halfway to the exit herself, hand in hand with Stryker. I’m not sure who’s pulling whom.
We make our exit unnoticed and hightail it to Dax’s room. We decided to live together here rather than my cabin. Somehow I’ve always felt safer here.
Although we giggled as we ran down the hall together, now that we’re behind closed doors things are quiet and serious.
I’ve had sex with Dax dozens, maybe hundreds of times —from forced matings to casual sex, to that night in the hotel room on Aeon II with his fake collar on. He’s never had sex with me —not this Dax at any rate. Well, there was the quick mistaken-identity-blowjob, but he wasn’t in love with me then; he didn’t even know who I was.
I’m nervous and a little shy. I look to catch his mood. He’s serious, but always the alpha male.
He sweeps his hand under my hair and clasps my neck, pulling me close. Barely brushing his lips back and forth, he releases a groan of what seems like love and longing.
“You mentioned you dreamed of this night, Dahlia. I want it to be exactly what you want.” His hands travel my back from hips to shoulders, like a racecar driver at the starting gate, all revved up waiting to take his foot off the brake.
I thought of it a thousand different ways, always with Larry, always sweet and loving and uninspired.
“The way I dreamed was for my husb… for my mate to love me any way he wanted.” I suck in a nervous breath, this makes me feel so vulnerable. A frisson of sexual energy zings to my core.
“Mmm, any way? I’ve got many ways in mind. And then we have tomorrow and the next day and the next until forever.” He nips my bottom lip, pulling it into his mouth and sucking. Bending his knees, he bucks me against him, my vee pressed against his rock-hard cock.
My eyes shock open. How could I ramp up this fast? My nipples are hard points against his chest, already desperate for his touch.
After turning me, he presses my front against the metal wall, then lifts my hair and tips my head forward. Biting and nibbling the back of my neck, he slides my zipper down.
I’m already panting with desire as his hands sweep out from my neck to my shoulders. I feel my dress whisper against my skin then puddle on the floor.
He sucks in a breath, “You’re beautiful, Dahl.”
He strokes my arms from shoulders to wrists, barely grazing against my skin. Every cell in my body is on heightened awareness, waiting for the next tender assault.
His thumbs skate downward on either side of my backbone, his hands easily spanning along my sides. Being in his grip like this makes me feel owned, knowing those long, strong fingers could touch me anywhere.
And they do. They stray to the outer swell of my breasts, never touching, only teasing. Amping me up.
His thumbs slide to the two dimples in the flesh near my tailbone, his hands extending around to my hip bones in front. His fingers are inches from my clit. I’m burning for him and he hasn’t touched one erogenous zone yet.
Closing my eyes, I suck my bottom lip between my teeth and pay attention to every nuance of his next move.
Hooking his thumbs in my panties, he skims them down my legs. This isn’t the swift, let’s-get-to-the-good-part removal of panties, but a sensual, downward glide. His hands stroke from hip to knee to ankle as if he has all the time in the world.
A little puff of noise escapes me as I tremble with urgency, eager for him to continue his explorations.
“You like that?” he asks, then brings those huge, rough hands upward, retracing the same teasing path to my waist. Rotating his hands forward a few inches, he glides down my body from waist to ankles again. This time his fingertips graze the sides of my mons then move inward to skim down my inner thighs. It’s slow and sensuous.
Little strikes of lightning zip from his fingertips to my clit. I love him and hate him and want to grab his cock and nestle it against my core all at the same time.
Perhaps he senses my impatience because he grips my wrists and plants my hands on the wall high over my head.
“Step out.”
It takes me a moment to realize he wants me to step out of the dress surrounding my feet on the floor.
After I’ve kicked the dress free, he presses my palms against the cool metal wall. “Don’t move,” he says, then slides his palms from my hands, down my arms, along my sides, giving a quick unsatisfying tease to my breasts while avoiding their aching tips, stopping at my ass. He scoots me forward until I’m pressed against the wall.
The cool against my nipples hits me with a burst of surprise, pleasure, and need. A tiny hum escapes the back of my throat even though my lips are sealed.
“Dahlia likes this?” he rumbles into my ear.
I nod, which he rewards with attention to my sensitive ear. He licks and nips, then breathes in and sucks air out until I’m squirming, pressing my ass back to steal a touch against his cock.
Nipping my earlobe a bit too hard, he scolds, “Not yet.”
He nudges my feet back so I’m tilted toward the wall, my weight on my hands and forearms. One thumb and one finger now start at my forehead and make the slow journey down the midline of my body, barely touching my skin in places. They caress the column of my throat, the inner mounds of my breasts, and my belly.
In my mind I’m ordering his hand to cup my sex, to circle my clit, to penetrate me, but he detours to the crease where leg meets torso and slides provocatively down my inner thigh.
“Dax, please.”
“I will, Dahl. I will please you. Soon.”
He pulls off his clothes —finally —then flattens against me, his cock throbbing against my back. He’s as affected by this as I am.
His hand begins its slow journey again, from hairline down. This time both finger and thumb graze a nipple. I thrust out my breasts for more as I nudge my ass back to feel him against me, but he keeps traveling south to my knees.
Licking the flat of his tongue up my neck, his hand begins its next circuit. This time he plucks my nipple and I moan with pleasure, pressing my breasts, my entire torso to greet his touch. His left hand joins the party and both hands are rolling and plucking my nipples until I feel wetness sliding down my inner thighs.
Still working my nipples, he slips his feet between mine and nudges them apart. Why did he feel compelled to do that? The air on me, the openness, accentuates my need.
“I’m empty, Dax. So empty.” I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I want him right now. “Please. I need you inside me.”
His cock is riding my back, we’re pressed so closely together. He’s so hot and hard and oh so male it makes my mouth dry. I want him so intensely I’m desperate.
Bending his knees, he thrusts between my legs. I can feel how slick I am by the wet noises his cock makes as he slides along my inner folds.
Heaven. It feels like heaven when the head of his cock teases past my core and then...God. Dear God, he bumps my clit once, twice, three times and sends me into orbit. Screaming in pleasure I feel every muscle in my body spasm, clenching and relaxing in release.
“Dax.” I can barely speak, my lips are numb from coming. Who knew?
&nbs
p; He lifts me up, carries me to the bed, sets me down, and flashes me a wicked smile. Fucking handsome devil.
“Good so far? We haven’t even consumed yet, Dahl. Face to face now, my love. I want to see every expression that crosses your beautiful face.”
Dax
She’s so expressive, so exquisite, so responsive —I’m loving the show. Her eyelids flutter closed the moment I crawl between her legs and put my mouth on her breast. I pay attention to every sharp intake of breath, every heavy puff of out-breath. I notice when her head thrashes against her pillow, and when her hands tighten in the sheets. I notice when she whispers my name. My cock becomes more impatient when she moans my name in ecstasy.