by Poppy Rhys
Willa quickly slipped her hand behind her, pulling the gun from under her jacket and pointing it at Shu’do’s face.
He froze, eye widening and skin paling to a sickly yellow.
“Easy boys,” Tosh crooned, the tip of her knife pointed at the throat of the Modoe closest to her. She grimaced, “Wouldn’t wanna nick your jugular or anything.”
Shu’do’s yellow shivered blue momentarily, his eye shifting suspiciously. “You wouldn’t kill me.”
Willa’s thumb flipped the charge, that whine breaking the silence and sending Shu’do back to his frightened yellow. “Oh, Shu’do,” she feigned a pout, “I think you underestimate how much I hate dress shopping.”
But he was right, she wouldn’t kill him. Taking off a few of his tentacles she had no qualms about though.
He scowled, “What do you want?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” she beamed, slowly flipping off the charge and lifting a brow that said, ‘don’t make me regret this’ before she lowered the gun to her side.
“You’ve heard of The Wenden, haven’t you?”
By the flicker of his skin, that was a yes.
“Thought so,” she squinted. “I need into that party he’s throwing in two weeks.”
“Impossible.”
When a Modoe to her left shifted, Willa quickly raised the gun and rested her thumb on the charge. “Don’t test me.”
“Stand down,” Shu’do hurriedly commanded. They all backed up.
“Are you saying ‘the great’ Shu’do can’t get me into a simple party?” Willa chewed on the inside of her cheek momentarily. “Maybe I overestimated your abilities.”
If Shu’do had a weakness, it would be his pride, and Willa was counting on it.
That superior puff of his flabby chest didn’t disappoint. He’d taken the bait, and Willa coached her features to remain bored.
“I don’t work for free.”
Naturally.
“What do you want?”
His goat-like eyeball roved over the males at her back, and Willa’s hackles rose.
“Them.”
She gripped her gun tighter, that temper simmering in her gut as she tried to rein it in again. “No. They’re not for sale. Name something else.”
Apparently, she didn’t hide her emotions very well, because Shu’do narrowed that eyeball again and flickered green.
“Them, or no deal.”
She took a step toward the slimy bastard, but Tosh grabbed her arm, her dagger still pointed at a Modoe. “Willa,” she warned.
Inhale.
Willa took a calming breath, and then in a collected tone asked, “Why?”
Shu’do shifted, like he was weighing the pros and cons of telling her his reason. “They possess tech that I want.”
The chips in their necks.
“Is that the only reason?”
He gave a quick nod.
He’d remove it from the protectors, and probably toss them out on their asses if he didn’t kill them in the process. She wasn’t a doctor, but even she knew it would take a delicate procedure to extract something from the spine.
Besides, there was no fucking way she was handing Kyran, Nohr, and Sem to anyone. Especially not Shu’do.
“I’ll get you the tech,” Willa finally agreed, “but I need time.”
“No.”
“Do you want the fucking tech, or not?” she ground out.
Again, his eyeball narrowed like he could stab her, and given the chance, she doubted he wouldn’t do it.
“Fine,” he bit out. “But cross me, and I will hunt you down.”
Willa didn’t doubt it.
“Deal,” she nodded. “Now, tell me how to get into that party.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kyran laid there in the darkness. He thought about the day’s events, and again wondered why Willa needed his pack for protection. She stood up to a roomful of large males, and he hardly scented fear on her.
Why hadn’t she been scared? Was it because she knew he was at her back, and would fight for her?
He scratched at his chest, still puzzled. Sitting up, he looked at her closed door. Nohr and Sem were asleep, so he stood and made his way over.
For some time, he stood there, debating. Would she be mad at him for approaching her door? Was she sleeping? He concentrated on listening through the door, but he couldn’t detect her deep breathing.
Curling his fist, he tapped softly on the wall so he wouldn’t wake her if she was truly asleep.
The seconds passed, and then it slid open. She stood there, long black hair loose and hanging down her back. She was in the clothes she liked wearing at night, and the points of her chest mounds were hardened and poking at the fabric.
Kyran swallowed.
Not again.
Already he felt the blood pooling to his member, and he wondered if it would ever listen to him.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered.
“Talk?”
She looked confused, but waved him inside.
“Talk about what?”
His claws scratched nervously at his mane.
****
“Why keep pack?”
Willa scowled, confused. “What?”
“Not give man what he want. Trade.”
Oh.
She got it. He wanted to know why she didn’t trade him and the others to Shu’do to get what she wanted.
A pang shot through her chest. He looked honestly puzzled, like it was just okay for him to be used in a trade. Then again, he was viewed as property. All of his life, that’s how it’d been.
Willa gulped around the sudden lump forming in her throat.
“I wouldn’t do that, Kyran,” she said lowly, placing a hand on his chest. “I would never trade you. You’re not some thing to be traded. You’re a person, just like me.”
But was he? She’d planned on purchasing him, and she would’ve, if she’d had enough credits to do so. The guilt sent a wave over her. Willa had justified it because she needed protection in order to get back that necklace.
He looked at her hand, and she let it fall to her side. “Why need pack?”
“What do you mean?”
“Willa fight,” he said, looking down at her from his height. She felt really small next to him, and normally she wouldn’t like that, but… she found herself taking a measure of comfort in it. Like, if she faltered, nothing could touch her because he’d be there. Just like on Tor’s.
“You’re wondering why I would need you, Nohr, and Sem if I can fight for myself?”
He nodded.
“There’s this necklace, it’s an heirloom, and-”
“What is heirloom?”
“It’s an item passed down through generations.” When he looked slightly confused, she added. “My mother gave it to me, and her mother before that, and her mother before that…”
“Think understand.”
Willa felt her mouth turning up at the corner.
“Anyway,” she rubbed her throat, “I did something stupid and the Wenden took it from me, so I want to get it back, except he’s a dangerous guy.”
He nodded, following along.
“So, I needed… you, and Nohr, and Sem, in case things go sideways. I needed muscle.”
He lifted his chin proudly. “Kyran have muscle.”
Willa snort laughed, despite the serious tone of the conversation, and agreed. “Yes, you have lots of muscle.”
Her eyes skittered down his body, and then she squeezed them shut, trying to block out how much she wanted to touch him.
“Willa no need fight anymore,” he shook his head, his fingers hesitantly rubbing a lock of her hair. “Fight for you. Always.”
Something in her chest tightened so fiercely, she placed a hand there, rubbing like a fist punched her. It took her breath and made her pulse race.
All her life, she’d been fighting to earn her place in her parent’s company, her world, the universe. She’d fough
t tooth and nail to be seen for her brains, and ability, not her body or what she could offer a man. While her home planet of Dor Nye viewed men and women equally compared to the past, there was still a whole universe stuffed with many races that didn’t.
She fought to be respected, physically and mentally, facing fears most would never encounter.
Willa fought to survive, to be independent, and to prove to herself, and everyone else, that she could do it.
Even after Kyran said those words, upon reflex, she almost blurted, ‘I can take care of myself’.
But he didn’t look at her like she was a ‘little woman’ that needed a man’s protection. He gazed upon her like she was beautiful, and strong.
Willa’s throat convulsed. How could he look at her like that after she’d intended to buy him and his pack?
She could barely look at her own reflection after leaving Shu’do’s place.
“Why leak?” His knuckle brushed across her cheek, wet reflecting in the dim light.
Willa touched her face, not even realizing she’d been crying. Her nose felt stuffy, and she sniffed, quickly brushing away the wetness upon her cheeks.
Get a grip, Willa!
“That’s embarrassing,” she nervously laughed, pulling up the hem of her shirt to wipe her face dry. When she let it drop, Kyran’s gaze was locked on her chest.
As if her body had a mind of its own, she stood up on her tip toes, hands sliding around his neck and fingers threading through his mane as she pulled him down for a kiss.
Their lips locked. Heat spread through her body like liquid fire, rolling from her shoulders all the way down to the arches of her feet. Firm, warm lips.
She pulled at his mouth hungrily, mindless, their teeth clashing together a couple times, but she didn’t care. Willa just wanted to feel him, all of him.
A yelp escaped her when she felt his large hands cup her ass and lift her body against his. Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around his waist, and dove in for another kiss. He groaned against her, and she felt it down to her bones.
A shiver shook her frame, and then she was tilting backward as he laid her down on the bed.
“Undress me,” she breathed heavily, biting her bottom lip with anticipation, and holding her hands above her head, squirming.
Kyran didn’t waste time, turquoise eyes like glazed marbles, heavy lidded, and greedily eating up her body. His black claws tucked into the waistband of her shorts and pulled them down, letting them drop to the floor.
Immediately, his sight glued to the trimmed black curls of her pussy.
Willa wriggled, a sharp pang of arousal clenching her sex, knowing he looked at it like a starving man.
Hands traveled up her thighs, and every callus brushing against her soft skin felt like a shock of electricity, riling her up and milking her body of all the slick it had to give.
She was panting like a running woman, the promise of what was to come short circuiting her brain. He trailed his nose along her abdomen, placing a kiss upon her mound that had her moaning, and bucking her hips.
“Kyran,” she sighed his name.
“Willa,” he breathed, warm waves making her skin tingle.
He pulled the shirt off her, tossing it aside and turning into a statue as he watched her breasts move with the slightest wiggle of her body.
“Put your mouth on them.”
Under her command, he hovered above, brushing his warm lips across her left breast. Her eyes squeezed shut, and she threaded her fingers through his hair, gripping, stroking.
Feathery kisses had goosebumps popping up along her entire body. Had anything ever felt so good?
His scalding, wet tongue flicked a nipple.
Scratch that. Nothing had ever felt better than his tongue just then.
Willa gasped, her fingernails scratching along his skull. “Do that again.”
Another lash, harder that time.
“Yes,” she moaned. “Suck them.”
His first pull had her hissing air between clenched teeth. Her pussy squeezed tightly, aching to be filled. If he continued to tease her like that, she was gonna go nuts.
“Take off your pants,” Willa demanded, pushing on his shoulders. She couldn’t wait any longer.
He stood, doing as she asked and she watched, eyes wide as his cock stood erect, and jerked to the left under her gaze. Scooting back on the bed, she crooked a finger.
“Get over here.”
Willa’s knees fell open, her hands capturing his face as she dove in for more of his blatantly hungry kisses. His open need of her turned her on even more. He didn’t hold back, he wasn’t hiding. Kyran simply wanted her.
His cock slid down the seam of her pussy, her arousal already wetting her own thighs.
Willa broke the kiss, digging her fingernails into his shoulders as she looked him in the eyes and said, “Fuck me, Kyran.”
The head of his cock wedged forward, and he groaned in her ear as she dragged her lips along the side of his face.
“Mhm,” she begged, clawing at him, her heels digging into his back as she wrapped her legs around, preparing for the ride.
Willa pulled back, their gazes locking, and then, as if he couldn’t take it, he thrust forward, splitting her pussy wide.
Her mouth dropped open, a strangled scream of mixed pain and pleasure stealing her breath.
Suddenly he pulled back just enough to pound his cock home.
“Fuck,” she squeaked, her nails burrowing into his shoulders and the back of his neck as he impaled her.
Kyran didn’t even stop to let her catch a breath before he pulled back and pummeled forward, thrusting hard enough to jolt her entire body. Had she not been wrapped around him like a fucking snake, she’d have shot half a foot up the bed.
He showed no mercy, pounding her pussy like it was his mission, and Willa was too lost in the chills of pleasure wracking her body to even care.
The ridges along the top of his cock rubbed against her most sensitive spot ruthlessly. Every ridge, every slide, every jolt and slap of his body against hers engulfed every thought she had.
It was just Kyran, his body, and hers, fucking.
Nipples hard enough to cut diamonds, scraped against his hot chest with every hard, thorough pump of his body, and she babbled ‘yes, yes, yes!’ so many times it became nothing but a string of bone deep moans.
His strong, toned arms supported most of his weight as she clung to him, only her ass touching the bed as her arms wrapped his neck and shoulders, her legs tightly wound around him.
Her teeth nipped at his tall ear, causing Kyran to snarl and piston her pussy like a hammer to a nail for a handful of seconds.
“I’m gonna come, I’m gonna come!” Willa gasped, repeating it over and over, that snarl shooting jolts of electricity zapping to every erogenous zone on her body.
Kyran didn’t let up, pumping her so fiercely, so possessively, she thought she’d bruise. Willa didn’t care, because it felt so fucking good.
Her toes curled, her fingers kneaded, and her pussy convulsed as she burst, that orgasm licking every damn nerve in her body.
No sounds could escape her mouth, it was so strong. Her jaw slackened, hung open as her eyes rolled back in her head and her legs shook like the muscles were gonna fall off the bone.
Willa breathed, gasping as she babbled, finally getting enough air, and pitching into the throes of that orgasm just in time to feel Kyran’s hot seed splashing her womb. His sweat slickened skin grew hotter, shivered and quaked beneath her hands as he grunted, emptying himself within her.
Every last drop, until they both collapsed, breathless, gulping for air and tingling in the aftershocks.
Willa couldn’t even form coherent thoughts for a span of time. How long, she didn’t know.
Sleep kept tempting her, until she felt Kyran move off, and get to his feet. Her lids cracked open lazily as he began to put his pants on.
He was going to leave her again.
�
�Stay,” she whispered.
Willa swallowed, unsure why she voiced that thought. They locked gazes, and she realized she meant it.
She didn’t want him to leave tonight.
“Stay with me. Please?”
Without another word, he crawled back onto the mattress, lifting the cool sheet from the foot of the bed and covering them both. When he lay there, unmoving, Willa moved against his side, draping a leg over his thigh and tucking her body tightly against his.
Kyran squeezed her to him.
A strong sense of safety enveloped her, and she absently wondered if anyone had ever made her feel completely protected.
None came to mind.
Willa fell asleep as his fingers softly brushed through her hair.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Willa woke up early, judging by the clock, and her body ached in the best way possible. She sat up, sheet held against her chest and brushed her hair out of her face. Kyran was sound asleep beside her, the sheet around his narrowed waist, playing peek-a-boo with the dark trail of hair that started just under his navel.
A fleeting peek at his face confirmed his eyes were still closed. Willa bit her bottom lip and then slowly lifted the sheet, her greedy gaze taking a gander at the merchandise.
“Jesus,” she breathed. How in the world it fit, she had no idea. The vagina was a wondrous thing, apparently.
Already she felt that familiar tightening in her abdomen, thinking about how hard she’d come last night. An orgasm had never rendered her speechless in her life.
Suddenly, his cock twitched, and started growing before her very eyes.
Willa’s head whipped toward Kyran, his orbs glued to her.
Caught!
A nervous snort-chuckle escaped her, and she felt her face heating. “My bad…”
Instead of dropping the sheet, she pulled it down further. Why waste a good opportunity?
Kyran didn’t seem to mind when she slid a leg over him, straddling his lap. In fact, he sat up, threading his claws through her hair and planting a kiss on her lips.
She moaned. He was getting better. Much better.
The kiss deepened, grew insatiable, and when his claws scraped against her scalp, her jaw dropped open and her eyes rolled.