Ninth Orb

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  And still they fed on her flesh, sucking and tugging until she began to think she would die from the pleasure as darkness filled her mind. Almost reluctantly, they stopped at last. Limp as a wet rag, Eden hardly knew when they bore her from the pool and lowered her feet to the floor to dry her. She tried and failed to lock her knees as they settled her, tried to hold herself upright.

  Cal caught her as she began to wilt limply to the floor, stroking her body soothingly until she’d ceased to shiver with the aftershocks, nuzzling his face almost lovingly along her cheek.

  Still dazed and confused, she merely draped her arms around his neck without protest as he leaned down to scoop her off her feet and lifted her against his chest.

  It didn’t occur to her until they’d reached the bed room that they’d broken yet another tradition. Usually, four men lifted her up and carried her--probably because it generally took four strong men to carry one of their queen sized women, but still a part of the ritual they hadn’t deviated from before.

  He took her to what Eden had come to think of as the sex couch. Stepping across, he sat astride the wide bench and settled her between his thighs. Pulling the arm from beneath her knees, he stroked his hand up her thigh to her waist as he tightened the arm around her back, bringing her breasts up against his hard chest.

  Thoroughly disoriented by his deviation from what she’d come to think of as the ‘norm’, for them at least, Eden lifted her head as he leaned down. He met her halfway through the movement, fitting his lips to hers, mimicking the kiss he’d watched Baen give her she realized dimly as he nipped and sucked at her lips sending a pleasurable tension through her.

  There was little comparison beyond that first, tentative foray, however. His lips and mouth, his taste and scent were as uniquely different as his face, form, and personality from Baen or any of the others. The moment she responded, kissing him back, he transformed from supplicant to conqueror, thrusting his tongue into her mouth in a bold, restless invasion of her senses that allowed no room for passive acceptance. Startled by his unrestrained passion, but sinking fast beneath the intoxicating waves of desire generated by his ravenous, demanding assault, Eden captured his tongue, sucking it. A shudder went through him. A rumbling groan sounded from deep in his massive chest. It shattered the last of his control.

  Capturing her face between his palms, he made love to her mouth with a quaking need that resurrected Eden’s spent passion and churned it into a fiery conflagration that quickly matched his. Breaking the kiss after a moment, he dragged in several harsh breaths and slipped his hands beneath her arms, lifting her and ravishing her breasts as he had her mouth, nipping and sucking at the exquisitely sensitive tips as if he meant to devour her.

  Moist, heated tension coiled in her belly with each tug of his mouth on her aching, distended nipples, depriving the rest of her body of any strength at all in moments. Gasping, too weak from the sheer force of his passion to hold her head up any longer, she allowed her head to loll on her shoulders, fighting the waves of darkness that threatened to snatch her from consciousness and deprive her of drowning in the wickedly delightful sensations.

  The world shifted. She felt herself falling, and for a split second she thought the darkness had overtaken her. The softness of the bench beneath her shoulder blades dispelled the illusion. The heat of Cal’s mouth and tongue as he shifted the focus of his exploration from her breasts to her body emphasized the fact that she’d lost none of her awareness of his touch.

  His sucking, nipping kisses on her lower belly seemed to punch the air from her lungs. Before she’d managed to fully catch her breath, he moved lower, parting her thighs and nipping a trail of kisses from knee to groin on first one leg and then the other.

  She reached for him, desperate by now to feel her body impaled on his turgid flesh. Instead of gratifying that desire, however, he scooped his hands beneath her hips and buried his face against her mound, licking and sucking at her clit.

  A near painful jolt went through her at his first touch that dragged a cry from her lips. Her body burgeoned in great leaps that sent her skyrocketing toward the brink of release.

  He was too, too good at this, she realized dimly, struggling to fight off her release.

  Tangling her fingers in his hair, she tugged gently, and then more demandingly.

  “Cal,” she gasped out shakily when he either ignored the demand or simply didn’t notice in the heat of fervor.

  He enjoyed kissing her there far too much, she thought a little desperately, fearing she would come before he entered her, feeling a desperate yearning to feel him inside of her.

  Her tugging at him finally penetrated the heated fog of his mind and he lifted his head. She pushed herself up with an effort, grasping his shoulders to urge him to cover her. Instead, he caught her waist and pulled her upright.

  She didn’t care. She just wanted to mount him, she thought, looping her arms around his neck to hold herself up as she struggled to position herself for him.

  Hands grasped her, lifting her upward, parting her thighs and aligning her body with Cal’s. She sucked in a sharp breath as she felt the swollen head of his cock spreading her flesh. Arms--Cal’s arms tightened around her as the helping hands were withdrawn. He bore down on her, impaling her on his hard flesh with slow but persistent pressure until his cock was buried to the root inside of her and she was panting for breath from the frantic pace her heart set.

  He went still when he could bury himself no more deeply inside of her, his teeth grinding as he savored the excruciatingly wonderful fit of their bodies.

  Eden stroked her hands along his neck, back, and shoulders, nuzzling her face against his throat and then working her way up his neck to his ear with nipping kisses. He released a harsh breath as she explored the sensitive cavity. Gripping her hips almost painfully, he lifted her up slightly and bore down on her again, sending exquisite waves of pleasure through both of them that brought Eden’s focus to the need to feel him driving into her.

  She shifted, trying to set a rhythm, but the position was awkward for both of them. With her legs draped over his, she could get no purchase for ease of movement.

  Dizzily, she leaned back, tugging at his neck and trying to urge him to lay her back against the couch. She might as well have tried to pull a tree down for all the effect she had on moving him.

  He acquiesced to her demand after a moment, however, holding her tightly to him as he surged forward to lay her on her back. She lifted her legs, wrapping them around his waist and locking her ankles together as he withdrew and thrust into her again, slowly at first and then with more surety as he found the rhythm that drove their pleasure upward to new heights, and then faster still as his own pleasure drove him to a mindless quest for release until he was pounding into her at a furious pace.

  Eden’s tension ruptured in an explosive discharge of pent up tension. She cried out as her body seized and began to spasm in intense paroxysms of undiluted bliss. The sound of her rapture and the milking seizures of the muscles of her passage dragged him over the edge moments behind her. He uttered a deep, guttural growl that was a mixture anguish and ecstasy as his body tensed at the precipice and went over, grinding his pelvis into hers as his cock jerked, pumping his seed into her.

  Thoroughly spent, weak as water in the aftermath, Eden held on to him for several moments and finally gave up the effort, allowing her arms to slide from his neck and droop limply at her sides.

  Cal, supporting the weight of his upper body on his elbows, sagged more heavily against her, allowing his head to drop to rest against hers as he struggled to catch his breath. Dragging in a deep, gusty breath after several moments, he nuzzled his face against hers, murmuring her name, whispering words she couldn’t begin to understand as he brushed light kisses along her forehead, her cheeks, her lips in what she knew was a lover’s praise even if she couldn’t understand his language without the aid of her translator.

  She kissed him back to show her own appreciatio
n, more than a little stunned by the things he’d made her feel, the magnitude of the pleasure he’d wrung from her.

  Lost in the wonder of it, it wasn’t until Cal finally, reluctantly pulled away from her and sat up that her focus shifted from him to the room around her and her awareness encompassed the others.

  Baen knelt beside the couch. Slipping one arm beneath her shoulders and the other beneath her knees, he lifted her up and carried her to her bed.

  This was a signal that had, up until now, meant that she would be left to rest. As exhausted as she was from the expenditures already, she found she didn’t want to be left alone. More than that, she wanted to give Baen a taste of what he’d given her by teaching the others to pleasure her.

  She knew it was him. As scattered as her thoughts were, she realized that that was what he’d been doing when he’d joined her in the bathing pool, showing the others what she needed and how to pleasure her.

  There would be other nights, she also knew, but despite the temptation to simply roll over and ignore the fact that their needs hadn’t been assuaged, she found she couldn’t, found that she was moved to give them something they had never had, a lover’s appreciation, passion, affection. She tightened her arms around Baen when he would have simply released her and stepped away.

  He studied her in surprise for a moment and finally settled beside her on the bed, stroking her body more soothingly than with purpose.

  Trar, who’d come to bathe the semen from her thighs and cleft, a ritual they’d added when they’d seen she would get up and attend to it herself if they didn’t, hesitated in confusion when Baen settled beside her. After a moment, still looking uncertain, he climbed onto the bed and pushed her thighs wide.

  She watched him through slumberous eyes as he carefully bathed her thighs and genitals. His hands shook with his own needs, she saw, feeling her resolve harden.

  They wouldn’t ask. They certainly wouldn’t demand. They would simply withdraw, and no doubt suffer a sleepless night of aching without release.

  They did not service themselves, no matter how desperately they needed release. She supposed that had been denied them, as well, perhaps for fear that they would ‘waste’ seed meant to be used in their queen’s service.

  In any case, as sated as she had been moments before, her body responded to the glittering need in Trar’s eyes and his touch.

  Her motives were not entirely altruistic, Eden thought with wry, inward amusement as she lay supine and completely still, savoring the soothing touch of Baen’s hands while she drifted lazily. She did empathize with the discomfort she knew they must feel. She did feel a sense of unfairness about taking her own pleasure and then ignoring the needs of her lovers.

  Beyond that, however, their hunger was almost palpable. She felt it deep inside of her in a hunger that refused to be entirely quenched, felt their heated gazes move caressingly over her body and even as she cooled a restlessness entered her that prevented her from relaxing entirely, a budding of warmth, a resurgence of need. She felt a wild, wicked yearning to have them all, to glut her senses with their touch, the taste and scent of them, to feel them thrusting into her with savage need.

  Resolved, she dragged in a last deep, sustaining breath and rolled onto her side to face Baen. Lifting a leg and draping it over his hips, she shifted closer, tilting her head up to nuzzle her face against Baen’s neck, breathing in his scent with a sense of welcome. He stiffened, his hand hesitating for many moments before he resumed stroking her, more hesitantly now, as if he wasn’t entirely certain of what her objective was.

  She decided not to leave him in doubt. As she felt his cock, engorged with his needs, nudging her belly she arched her hips against him.

  He exhaled a faint hiss of pain, flinching at the pressure against his painfully swollen member. Contrite at once, she moved a little away from him and reached between them, caressing his cock with her hand and finally shifting until she could push the head of his cock into her nether mouth.

  He swallowed thickly, arching his hips and pressing deeper, claiming her passage by excruciating inches that sent her heart rate soaring.

  The heat of his desire enveloped her as he shifted closer abruptly. Grabbing her hips, he thrust upward, struggling against the awkward position to seat himself fully inside of her in a series of breathtaking sorties. He stopped when he had worked his way as deeply inside of her as he could manage, breathing in short, harsh gasps. After a moment, he grasped her hair, tugging her head back so that she was looking up at him.

  “Feels so good inside you, baby,” he murmured hoarsely and claimed her surprise parted lips before she could speak. Rolling on top of her, he thrust his tongue deeply into her mouth as he drove his cock deeply into her passage, grinding his groin against her clit. The effect of the double penetration was total annihilation of her senses. She groaned, sucking his tongue greedily as he withdrew slightly and drove deeply inside of her again and again until he’d set a pace that spoke of unleashed, savage need.

  Eden felt her body respond to the call, burgeon so quickly that she had no time to relish the building, no time to savor his possession before her body reached its crescendo, catching her so totally by surprise that she tore her mouth from his, crying out.

  He uttered a throaty groan, then, burrowed his face against her neck and shuddered with his own release.

  It wasn’t until she lay panting, struggling to catch her breath in the aftermath, that it occurred to her that Baen had spoken to her in her own tongue.

  Chapter Twenty One

  It was morning when Eden roused to awareness again. One moment she’d been worrying over the fact that Baen had spoken to her in English and the next--oblivion.

  The memory was the first thing that teased her when thoughts began to whirl through her mind and it roused her more fully, making it impossible to simply roll over as she felt inclined to do and burrow deeper into the bedding.

  Warmth flooded her at the memory, too, not just because he’d said it, but the way he’d said it.

  It dawned on her abruptly that she’d said almost those exact words to him when they’d made love in her office. Had he merely repeated the sounds he’d heard her say without any idea of what it meant, she wondered?

  He didn’t have to know what it meant to repeat it, she realized, and repeat it with much the same inflection that she’d used.

  She didn’t know whether to be relieved or outdone when that occurred to her.

  Frowning, she recalled that she’d worried before that he might have understood some of what they were saying because he had said he didn’t want her to leave him.

  Had she dismissed that anxiety too easily because she didn’t want to face the possibility that he might know of their plans?

  Aside from that remark, though, and the fact that he’d repeated what she’d said when they’d made love, she couldn’t think of anything he’d done or said, any particular looks she’d encountered that would seem to indicate that he was watching, listening--spying on her.

  He was intelligent, though. She didn’t doubt that for a moment. Intelligent enough to begin to learn her language only by listening to the words she used?

  It dawned on her abruptly that the translator, because of its very nature, told him what everything she said meant. She hadn’t considered that before, that he could be listening to what she was saying and the translation at the same time and learning her language.

  It hadn’t occurred to her because he’d never used it before.

  So, could she consider that there was nothing ominous in her discovery? Was he only just now beginning to learn it? Or had he had a good grasp on the language long before now and kept it from her?

  If that was the case, though, why reveal such a strategically important factor only because he was in the throes of passion? Only because he was disturbed that he had failed to please her?

  She was worrying for nothing, she decided. He was a soldier, incredibly well disciplined and trained, but h
e did not have the slyness, she felt certain, for subterfuge.

  She knew now that he was beginning to pick up things. She would just have to make sure she was more careful, and she would have to warn the others to be more careful.

  It was Trar and Vladiv who came to help her with her morning bath and to dress her, Adri and Pizan who brought her breakfast. Guilt swamped her when she saw them. She’d intended to give tit for tat, to please them because they had tried so hard, and succeeded in pleasuring her--fabulously. Instead, she’d flaked out after her third mind-boggling climax and left them to deal with their ‘problem’.

  She had work to do, however. As tempted as she was to ignore business just for one day and spend it with Baen and his brood, she knew it was a bad precedent to set. Instead, once she had eaten and rose to leave she paused before each of them, and caressed their cheeks. “Tonight,” she promised, smiling at each of them, wondering even as she made the promise if she could handle the four of them--which still left two, she reminded herself. She couldn’t ignore Miccan and Pael only because they were warriors when she had taken Baen into her bed.

  Pausing on the threshold where they stood like matching bookends guarding the door she lifted her hands and stroked their cheeks affectionately, as well. “And then the two of you.”

  It was a hell of a job, she thought with a mixture of wry amusement and anxiety as she was carried to the city, but somehow she was going to manage.

  It would’ve been easier if she didn’t have two other broods to be concerned about.

  Despite her anxieties, Eden’s spirits were high when she reached her office and she settled to work in a more cheerful frame of mind than she could recall in years. It was a struggle to keep her mind off the night she’d spent with her men and almost as hard to keep from dwelling on the promise she’d made to the others for the night.