by Zoey Draven
“Oh,” she whispered, her fears assuaged. Then a strangled groan tore from her as he lowered his head again, this time sucking.
Wet, obscene, delicious sounds echoed in her ears, mingling with her ragged gasps and desperate moans.
“Oh god,” she whispered, her hands coming to the back of his smooth head, holding him there, fearing he’d leave. Then her hands trailed to his jaw, feeling the way it flexed as he ate her out. Feeling it move as he laved and licked her clit. Feeling his cheeks hollow ever so slightly as he sucked. “Dravka!”
And his eyes never left her. He watched everything from between her thighs, those eyes gleaming with need and arousal. No, she needed to touch him tonight too. She needed to.
When she felt him dip his head slightly, a new sensation bombarded her as he snaked his tongue up her tight sex. She felt the very tip smooth and flick against her inner walls, wiggling to get deeper.
Dravka groaned when he felt her clench down.
“Come on my tongue, mellkia,” he rasped before delving back inside.
Valerie watched him in a daze, her lips parted, her legs tightening in his grip.
He was watching her and she sensed just how much he loved to watch her. Like this. At his mercy with his head buried between her thighs, doing naughty things to her with his tongue and those eyes.
Dravka didn’t even need to touch her clit because she was coming around his tongue a moment later, the orgasm taking her by surprise. Her brows drew together, her abdomen tightening, as she exploded around him, her body breaking down into millions and millions of pieces. Shivers raced up her spine. Through it all, she still felt that hot, seeking, greedy tongue, lapping up everything she gave him.
When it was finished, she came down from that high, panting and gasping and flushed. She stared down at him in surprise. When he pulled back, he flashed her a feral-looking grin and then rose, prowling up her body, pressing her back against the mirror.
And when he kissed her? He devoured her.
Tasting herself on his tongue, Val felt her belly begin to heat all over again.
“Now, let’s get you cleaned up,” he growled against her lips, picking her up from the counter in one swift movement, his palms clasped in a possessive grip on her ass.
Then he moved towards the bath.
Chapter Twenty
Dravka didn’t think he’d ever been more aroused in his life and needing to mate.
But vauk…that was what Valerie did to him. Even when he was in a Rut, even when he dreamed about her, or thought about her when he wrapped a fist around his aching cock, it had never felt like this.
This desperate need, this pinching almost punishing desire. Because he knew he couldn’t have her the way he wanted. Not yet, at least.
He wanted to wait. Though Dravka had been a whore for a good portion of his life, in terms of sex with a mate, Keriv’is held it in the highest regard. When Valerie and he joined together for the first time, when he released his teela deep inside her for the first time—a sacred, intense experience with a chosen mate—it wouldn’t be on Everton.
Not when there was a glimmering future in front of them. So damn close he could see it.
They would wait.
Until then, however, Dravka would do everything else he possibly could to her body without that last final act.
Valerie was clinging to him so sweetly when he finally lowered them into the hot bath. Humans liked the water a little cooler than Keriv’i preferred and Valerie sighed when he settled her between his thighs, her back to his front.
Only she wiggled around, making him groan, seemingly unhappy with the fact that she couldn’t see him.
So, Valerie straddled his thighs instead and wrapped her arms around his neck. Through Dravka’s intense arousal, he felt the warm bloom of affection and partial amusement, taking note that orgasms made his little female very, very happy.
And vauk, she was so beautiful. Her light hair seemed to glow around her, her green eyes shimmering, her cheeks and lips flushed an enticing pink. His hand stroked down her body and she let out a small gasp when he thumbed her nipple lazily.
“Now you,” she whispered.
It was the only warning he had before her quick little hands trailed to his exposed, engorged cock.
“Vauk!” Dravka barked out, the tendons in his neck straining when he registered her heat on his cock. He was so damn sensitive in his arousal that he watched as pre-cum trailed from his tip, which was jutting out of the water.
Her grip tightened on him.
“Please,” she whispered, leaning forward to pepper kisses across his jaw. “I want to touch you like this.”
Dravka gritted his teeth. And he had no willpower because he caught her lips in a punishing kiss, feeling her smile against him, just as she began to stroke his cock, squeezing in a way that made his taxxa tighten against his body, laden as they were with seed for her.
He was going to embarrass himself in front of her again because he already felt the beginnings of his orgasm. She must think he had no control over his own body, no endurance…but vauk, he might not when it came to Valerie.
His Valerie.
Always.
What he didn’t expect to feel was jealousy. Because Valerie knew how to stroke a male and she stroked him well. He knew on Genesis, she’d had what she called ‘boyfriends,’ when she’d been younger. She’d told him a couple years ago. Had she explored this with them?
Dravka huffed out a hissing breath when she encircled the crown of his cock, rubbing her thumb underneath the rim, where he was most sensitive.
When his hip jerked, she watched with glowing eyes.
“Here?” she asked. Her voice was husky and warm, a voice that would vauking haunt him with wet dreams until the end of his life.
“Pax,” he hissed, his breaths coming quicker, his hearts pounding in his chest. “Right there, mellkia!”
She clenched around him harder, using her index finger and thumb to make a tight ring around him as his hips punched forward, sloshing water over the rim of the tub.
She gasped, feeling his pre-cum on her hand, no doubt. Even that would react with her body, making her arousal that much more potent, like she was hovering on the edge of release but not able to get there.
“Can I lick you here?” she asked, those green eyes of hers dazed, flickering from his own to his cock jutting between them.
“Veki,” he growled. No.
She almost pouted. “Why not?”
Val was going to be the end of him.
Dravka closed his palm around the back of her neck and brought her forward for a rough kiss. She squirmed against him, trying to get closer, and he felt the drag of her peaked nipples across his chest. He suckled her tongue before giving her lower lip a hard bite, which she seemed to like, given the way she rocked against him.
“Because when you take my teela into you for the first time, it will be deep in your cunt,” he growled against her.
A ragged gasp tore from her throat and Dravka pulled away from her lips to regard her, his hand slipping between her thighs.
“And if you put that little mouth anywhere near my cock,” he continued, “then I’ll come all over your tongue.”
Her gaze darkened, her pupils dilating until the color of her eyes seemed black.
“Vauk, you want that?” he rasped, his voice ragged with the thought.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“One day, I’ll let you do whatever you want to me,” he murmured, eliciting a moan from her when he dragged his fingers through her folds. The pre-cum coating her hand would make it very easy to make her orgasm again. He might just need to brush her clit. “There will be no boundaries between us.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Pax?”
He needed her to say it. Needed to hear that she believed there was a future away from Everton for them both. Needed to hear her say that she would leave with him and not look back.
A little desperat
ion entered her gaze when he placed his thumb over her clit and pressed.
“Dravka!”
“Pax?” he growled.
“Oh god,” she whispered, out of breath.
His thumb twitched, just slightly, and suddenly, her surprised cry filled the bathroom, echoing against the walls. She was coming. Again.
As she orgasmed against his hand, her own squeezed tighter around his cock and he slipped through the tight grip, imagining it was her cunt—where he wanted to be most.
His own bellow joined hers, though disappointment mingled with the pleasure. She wouldn’t say what he wanted her to. Because she didn’t believe it. But it didn’t matter. He knew they’d be together. Soon. In the way they were always meant to be together.
She would realize that eventually. He just needed to have patience.
His teela shot high from his tip, arching and lashing across his chest in thick, hot spurts. He groaned, feeling his taxxa clench tight, as one of the hardest orgasms of his life coiled through him.
Valerie watched him, her lips parted, her gaze greedy and hot.
When they were both finished, he was careful to keep her hand away from the teela drenching his chest. He snagged the nearest towel and wiped himself clean before dropping it to the floor of the now-wet bathroom.
Valerie’s hand was still curled around his cock in a possessive little grip, as if she feared he’d take it away from her.
“Mellkia,” he rasped, his voice hoarse, his fingers drifting down to her hand. He kissed her as he made her release him.
Dravka gave a harsh groan when his cock twitched, a little more seed pooling at the crown.
“Vauk, that was…” He trailed off, not quite knowing the word in the universal tongue.
“Good?” Valerie whispered, a shy little smile crossing her lips, one that made him crazed.
He licked at her tongue, a small chuckle rising from his throat. “Sublime.”
“I quite agree,” she said, her voice soft as she caught her breath.
He leaned his forehead against her own, a deep trilling purr vibrating his chest.
When she went a little quiet, he asked, “Does it feel strange to you?”
He knew she had doubts about this. About changing their relationship with physical intimacy, about changing what they’d built with one another over five years.
She swallowed and relief filled him when she shook her head.
“No,” she told him. Then with a sheepish smile, she admitted, “It feels strange how not strange it feels.”
He laughed.
“I wonder why I ever feared it. When this is you,” she went on, her eyes softening. “It’s always been you.”
He felt his hearts give a dull throb and he huffed out a sharp breath, bringing her closer. Water trickled around them as he stroked his hand down her scarred back, tracing the raised edges from her aunt’s abuse.
He loved this female. With every part of himself. She was the only reason he’d survived this long, the only reason he vauking lived.
Everything with her had always felt different. He’d had sex with countless females, countless times. And yet, he felt untried with her, discovering everything again for the first time. And they hadn’t even had sex yet.
He wanted to discover everything with her, including a new life, one they would build together. He wanted a family with her, he wanted to see her big with their child.
Dravka growled at that thought, feeling his cock twitch between them.
Valerie sighed then gave him a small, sad smile, one that set warning bells off in his head.
“I went to the Coms building in the Downtown District today,” she told him quietly, her eyes tracing over his face, lingering on his lips.
His brow furrowed.
“I managed to get in contact with Eve.”
Dravka stiffened underneath her.
“You talked to her?” he asked, pulling back to study her face properly. “You talked to Khiva?”
“Not Khiva,” she told him. “He was working apparently. On the firestones. They have a workshop, one they are hoping to expand.”
“Tell me everything.”
“They like Dumera,” Valerie said. It broke Dravka’s hearts that she kept her expression neutral, though he sensed a deep sadness within her. She was trying not to show him her despair because she believed she’d never see Dumera. “Eve…she’s pregnant.”
A shocked breath whistled out of him. Though, he supposed that the contraceptive injection Madame Allegria gave them every year would’ve worn off for Khiva already.
That was when Valerie’s lip trembled. Just slightly.
“Oh mellkia,” he rasped, pulling her forward until her face landed in the crook of his neck.
His chest ached for her. He knew how much she wanted children. A family. Though she was undoubtedly happy for Eve, it was obvious to him how much that knowledge might hurt her. Because Eve had been able to leave Everton with Khiva. They were living happily on a far-away neutral colony. They were building a family.
It was everything Val wanted, everything Dravka wanted.
And she believed she would never have that future.
“I’m s-sorry,” she whispered. “Do…do you ever…?”
“Kruvu?” he murmured, keeping his touch gentle on her back. “Tell me.”
What he didn’t expect her to ask was, “Do you ever resent me?”
“Kruvu?” he rasped, his brow furrowing.
When she pulled back, her eyes were shimmering with tears. “Do you ever resent me…for not trying harder? For not trying to expose her more? For not trying to—”
“Stop,” he growled. “Of course not, Val! How can you even ask that? You did try. Look what she did in retaliation.”
Her head dropped again, but he tilted her face up until she was forced to meet his eyes.
“I have never and will never resent you, Val,” he told her firmly, his brow furrowed. Was this what she thought? What she worried about? He pressed his lips to hers and murmured, “Ever.”
Relief filled him when eventually, he felt her slight nod.
“Pax?” he rasped, regarding her carefully.
She nodded again.
“Pax,” she whispered.
He made a sound in the back of his throat, his arms sliding around her again.
“What else did Eve say?” he asked, steering the conversation back towards where they left off.
Valerie sniffed a little, running her fingertip underneath her lower lash line to catch a stray tear there.
“That she can help all of you find homes,” she murmured. “That you can stay with her and Khiva until arrangements can be made.”
“Val,” he growled, feeling his belly churn. “For the last time, you will be coming with us. If you think I’m leaving you here, you’re sorely mistaken. I don’t care if I have to sedate you myself and take you on the vessel, I’ll do it.”
She thought he was joking by the small, melancholy smile she gave him. But he wasn’t. He’d do whatever it took to get her off the colony.
“Regardless,” she continued, “Eve and Khiva will help. You’ll all have work and a safe place to live. On a respectable, peaceful colony, far away from here. What you’ve always wanted.”
“What I want,” he murmured, “is you and only you. None of it matters if you’re not with me.”
Her brows drew together and she licked her lips.
And it vauking depressed him just how resigned she looked just then. When she was cradled in his arms, after what they’d just done.
Dravka, thinking of nothing else that he could do, simply kissed her, pouring everything he felt for her into that single kiss.
She gasped, gripping his shoulders.
At the very least, it would erase that expression off her face.
Until Dravka could convince her to come—or until he could kidnap her off this demav-forsaken place—it was the only thing he could do.
Chapter Twenty-O
ne
When Valerie woke the next morning, Dravka was watching her, stroking his thumb across her shoulder.
Her heart did a strange pitter-patter, a stuttering of surprise and happiness.
“Kasunu, mellkia,” he rasped, his voice husky and deep. Roughened with sleep.
She was lying in the crook of his arm, their legs entwined underneath the thin coverings of his bed.
“Good morning,” she replied back, knowing that that was what kasunu meant in the Keriv’i language.
And now she knew what mellkia meant as well.
My love.
Her heart did the little stuttering again and she tried not to grin as she rolled away. It was so strange, waking up happy.
But all too soon, reality would crash back in, a reality she needed to return to.
“Where are you going?” Dravka asked, pushing up onto his elbow, the sheets sliding away from his chest, showing off the sculpted muscle underneath. Muscles she’d dug her nails into last night as he’d caressed her in his bed.
She cleared her throat, standing from the bed, dressing quickly in her discarded silk dress, the one she’d worn for him last night. Her underwear were nowhere to be found, however.
When she looked back at him, she scraped her messy hair into a quick bun on the top of her head. Dravka watched her with interest, his lazy gaze flickering over her in a possessive way that made her blood heat. Because she wanted to be his. That was all she wanted.
He watched the hem of her short dress slide up her thighs as she smoothed her hair. His hand reached for her, his fingers sliding up her inner thigh.
Valerie gasped, quickly stepping away, shooting him a look that made his deep chuckle fill the room.
“Val,” he murmured, rolling on his back. “Come back to bed.”
God.
Those words.
Valerie’s hands dropped from her hair and she regarded him, trying to memorize everything about that moment because soon, it would be gone. The way the morning light beamed across the walls, a shaft of it lighting up the center of Dravka’s chest. She wondered if he could feel the warmth of it there.