Coriolis: Intergalactic Dating Agency: Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides (Mermaids of Montana Book 2)

by Elsa Jade

  “Oh, Coriolis, I know you thought you were buying a bride to save your world. But you already know that I’m here to help in any way I can, and you don’t need to do this”—her fingers tightened around the sternal strap of his battle skin, giving him a reproving tug—“out of duty or honor—”

  He caught her hand. “Kharea iriwyl”—sweet silverwing—“I am a battle-hardened Tritonyri warrior, once commander of the western fleet. I gave my body to the war, and I would’ve pledged what was left of it to my chosen mate. But hunger cannot be commanded, only denied, and for once, I would let my own wishes guide me. If you’ll have me, not to fulfill a contract that doesn’t exist or even to save the world, but because this is what we want.”

  Her lashes fluttered, and the rise of her breasts was faster with every breath. “I thought you said you memorized no poetry,” she murmured. “If the violence and lies brought us together, then let this be our simple truth, our moment that none may command or control.”

  As she let out at a breath on a yearning sigh, he reeled her closer with an irresistible grasp. “I should tell you, despite being a battle-honed Tritonyri and one-time commander of western fleet, I don’t actually know what I’m doing.”

  On her knees, she stalked him across the narrow bunk. “Then as we do it, you must tell me what you want, what you like. Is that a command that pleases you?”

  His blood raged like a storm surge that would roil even the deeps. “Such a command would please me,” he whispered.

  “Then rise, Tritonyri, and serve me.”

  Chapter 9

  The furious thunder of his heartbeat against her knuckles where she gripped the central strap of his wetsuit reverberated into a secret pulse of desire that arrowed between her legs. She held back a moan. He hadn’t even speared her yet, and already she ached deep inside. His wetsuit left little enough to the imagination that she had no doubt she could take her pleasure there.

  And give it too, if the rise going on between his legs was any indication of how badly he wanted it. But he was a virgin, if she understood his personal history and Tritonan relationship issues correctly. With all their women contained to the deep-sea trenches and all of their men at war, there would’ve been little opportunity for him. Plus, according to their rituals, not every Tritonyri was permitted to attempt their mating season dives into the trenches. Between war and tradition and his own sense of duty, Coriolis was not the sort to notch his belt with one-night stands.

  A twinge of guilt almost stopped her. As far as she could tell, he was the equivalent of a prince among his people, sacrificed for their planetary survival. But his impassioned if not actually poetical request for this encounter tempted her more than any other consideration could dissuade her. He knew enough to know what he’d been missing, and now he wanted it, just as she did.

  She could thank the Cretarni at least for crafting a convincing enough IDA contract to ensure that Coriolis had arrived on Earth not just with extra universal translators but with the basic inoculations given to all galactic citizens to deal with common infections and unintended fertility. Of her various affairs, some of them even international, strangely—considering she was on a different planet, with an alien—this one seemed the most thoughtful.

  With another tug on his strap, less gentle this time, she brought him onto the bed with her. When she’d tested the thin mattress earlier with a little bounce, she’d wandered how well she would sleep on it.

  Now that she knew she wouldn’t be sleeping, she didn’t care at all.

  Knee to knee with him, she gazed up into his turbulent gray eyes. “Would you like to kiss me? Not to serve, but to share.”

  His throat rippled as he swallowed hard against some curtailed emotion. “I’ve thought of little else since you put your mouth on mine.”

  A flutter of nerves made her hesitate. “I wasn’t even sure that Tritonans kiss,” she admitted. “I didn’t do all the reading. I know I should have—Lana even highlighted the good parts—but…”

  He reached up to brush one fingertip across her lips, wiping away her urge to keep babbling. “Tritonans kiss. Sharing air is an act of faith with us. It’s an instinctive reflex between mother and spawnling, a gesture of fealty between a Tritonesse-ra and her tribe, a life-saving measure between a Tritonyri and an injured fighter.”

  “But you can breathe underwater.”

  “We still need the air—the oxygenated gas—within the water. Our word for water is wey, while the word for air is ah-wey, and the word for breath or breathing is lah-wey, which shows the intimate connection of air, water, and breath.”

  “And the breath of rising desire?” She skimmed her hand up along the strap to anchor at his nape.

  He arched his neck to accommodate her grip. “That is the act of faith between lovers—la’ah-wy.”

  “La’ah-wy.” She exhaled the word softly against his mouth when he dipped his head to brush his lips over hers. One tender caress—and then he deepened the kiss.

  Their first kiss on the Bathyal, she’d led and he’d followed a step behind, echoing her touch. Now, whatever restraint had held him back was gone. The pheromone of aroused Tritonyri flooded her tongue with that subtle heat that trickled through her veins, awakening every nerve until her body tingled with anticipation and the yearning for more.

  With shaking hands, she skimmed the silver-threaded robe off his wide shoulders, leaving him only in his battle skin. While she’d hopscotched through enough of the handbook to learn that Tritonyri designed the revealing wetsuits to not interfere with their own exquisitely calibrated senses for their underwater home, she had to admit… Mostly it was just sexy.

  In this sensual clash between them, the satin-textured straps were not a scaffold to hang weapons and supplies, not a tether for their submersible tech, just a handhold for her cling to while his kisses drove her wild. The breath of rising desire gave them the stamina to kiss long past the point where she should have been gasping for air. And his tongue, tangling with hers, was just a prelude to his endurance elsewhere.

  Never breaking the kiss, he slipped her arms free from the loose folds of her silk blouse, leaving the fabric to drape down her spine like a cape. He fumbled a moment with the front clasp of her bralette. Ah, her battle-honed Tritonyi warrior, once commander of the western fleet… But he persevered, and his grunt of satisfaction as the stretchy fabric sprang away almost made her laugh.

  But she didn’t want to lose the joining of their kiss.

  The kiss went on and on, until she would’ve sworn she needed it to survive. Not like an addiction to the intoxicating pheromone, but as pure and simple and vital as breathing.

  And the kiss was a carnal torture too. The fierce lock of their mouths held them in place and the restless wandering of their hands could only go so far. Luckily, his arms were long, his hands so large…

  One handed, he spanned the distance between her bared breasts, his palm pressed to her sternum, the calluses at his fingertips teasing her nipples to stiff, aching points. Wordlessly, she arched into the caress, seeking more. With both hands, he cupped the swelling flesh, tormenting her with the sparkling pulses of la’ah-wy that streaked through her blood like the stars of a million galaxies passing through her… It had been so long, an eternity and never anything like this. She shuddered with the sensation.

  As if he felt her about to fall apart, he hauled her up tight against his chest, the hard press of his pectorals crushing the sensitive peaks of her breasts and sending a jolt of lust straight through her core. When he stroked his wide palms down her spine, her skin shivered in his wake, coming alive in a way she’d never known. He slid those long fingers under the waistband of her palazzo pants to grasp her ass, and she couldn’t hold back a moan this time.

  He swallowed the sound but it seemed to echo in his chest as he growled back. Inexorably, he drew her closer until there was no space between them, then bent her body into his until her hips were snugged tight into his groin and the insistent nudge
of his pecs was nothing compared to the demand of his erection.

  Shattering with need, she broke the kiss to let her head fall back into the cup of his big hand, and her gasp was a keening cry.

  His whisper of her name rasped, but the note of victory was unmistakable. Their breath had been a battle, she realized distantly, and he’d won.

  And so had she.

  He wound his fingers through her hair to bow her back, and his mouth continued the sensual onslaught with an erotic bite to the tender pulse in her neck. She whined out another desperate gulp of air, but he gave her no quarter, no chance to catch her breath.

  She was drowning, awash in passion.

  And yet somehow she was rising, whirling, not knowing which way was up— Oh, he was lifting her off her knees, laying her back, and peeling down her pants and panties, but her mind kept spinning and her body was gyring tighter yet, every nerve shimmering as his mouth traced lower, to the hollow of her throat—lower, to the valley between her breasts—lower, to the dip of her navel—lower yet to the thatch of curls between her legs…

  His exhalation riffled the coarse hair, triggering a thousand little earthquakes in her pussy.

  His soft laugh sent off another paroxysm of pleasure in her nether bits. That sound was, she imagined, the self-satisfied response of any lover in any galaxy appreciating such a reaction. When she clutched his head, combing her fingers into his dark hair, his amusement twisted to something darker, hungrier, with a low growl that reverberated through the bones of her pelvis, rattling her clit like a fleshy, engorged dice. She was about to get lucky…

  So lucky. His tongue was proportionate to the rest of him. Like his first kiss, the first lick was a gentle exploration, following her lead as her restless fingers adjusted the cant of his mouth over her greedy flesh. But as she pumped her hips against his mouth, he grew bolder, the suckling of his lips and tongue seeming to draw all her blood and need to that pulsating point at her core. Scales pebbled on his shoulders under her clutching hands, the texture like silk over armor, and the frill of his extended gills tickled her knuckles.

  The evidence of his alien nature should’ve frightened her, shouldn’t it? Instead, she was wickedly delighted that he didn’t seem to need to breathe.

  He lifted her knees around his ears, urging her to lock her heel at his nape, all the while his tongue and teeth and breath were delving deep, leaving her trembling as she rose higher and higher.

  How long could he go with this breathless devouring? She wanted to challenge him, defeat the commander. But in the end, he conquered her with a merciless plunge of that long tongue across that tight bundle of nerves that sent her over the edge into the sweet, irresistible plunge of ecstasy.

  His exhalation, when it finally came, on a slow groan of her name was a hot gust across her clit that triggered another bloom of bliss perpetuating outward from her still quivering flesh like a tsunami.

  It seemed like forever, but the waves of pleasure still swamped her senses when she rolled him to his back and straddled him.

  The ferocious jut of his erection strained even the dynamic, space age material of his battle skin. His stormy eyes glittered at her, even brighter than the slick evidence of her pleasure on his mouth. “You taste like the sea,” he murmured.

  The guttural need in his voice sent another clench through her pussy. “Coriolis,” she sighed, rolling on her tongue like the perfect wave. “That was worth coming all this way.”

  “I’m delighted you like coming this way.” He shot her a wicked grin.

  She blinked down at him, startled to hear the American English word coming from his lips and echoed by her translator at the same time. “Have you been looking up naughty words in my language?”

  He shrugged, bouncing her on his thighs. “Just the ones I thought you might like.”

  Even as she smiled at the charm of the gesture, a little jolt of alarm followed the aftermath of the pleasure pathways. He knew she wasn’t staying. There was no contract between them. Maybe he was just practicing his technique for other would-be brides. Maybe even other Earth girls. Or perhaps he’d stay closer to home with a certain Tritonesse-ra…

  An unfair jealousy twisted inside her, souring the recent pleasure. And she hated the unwarranted taint. She’d always been the one to break off her affairs. Nothing had ever felt right. She’d always attributed her reserve (the other halves of those affairs had sometimes called it coldness) to a healthy suspicion of golddiggers and portfolio padders, and she wasn’t sure which of those was worse. Even where there’d been commonality and kindness, she always felt a distance.

  A distance she now suspected could be measured in light years.

  But that didn’t mean Coriolis Kelyre was right for her either. After centuries of genetic drift, she was no more true Tritonan when she was Earther. And any match he’d believed between them was a lie, thanks to the Cretarni.

  This was just supposed to be a night, to purge the lingering tension of their space hot tub prelude, maybe a celebration of the return of the Atlantyri treasure.

  And yet the thought of him with another made her bristle. As if she could slough off the discontent, her hands went to the many fastenings of his wetsuit. The straps were rigged to make numerous configurations possible, and with a grunt of annoyance, she suspected this variation was “make the stranger feel stupid”—as if she wasn’t already halfway there.

  Gently, he grasped her wrists. “Why the fierce look?”

  “So many damn buckles,” she growled.

  “Here.” He guided her fingers across his chest, the lower. “And here. And then…” The rig sprang open, unfettering his turgid erection.

  The suddenness reversed her bad mood with a shocked giggle and a renewed surge of lust. “Oh, that was easy. Got a lotta call for quick-release out in the field, er, stream?”

  “Sometimes you just need to be free.” His gray eyes sparked. Not the dark hematite blood stone—all his blood was much lower right now—but a beautiful silver, like a frosty Montana morning.

  The blush of skinshine suffused his body, arcane, wordless messages flashing hypnotically across his skin, glimmering on the edges of his emergent scales. Where her fingertips passed, the colors bloomed in iridescent hues like the silky interior of an abalone shell, except soft. Well, parts of him were hard. Her clit seemed to throb in harmony with his skinshine.

  She could see this all the time, feel like this, if only…

  Refusing to go down that path, she wrapped her fingers lightly around his heavy flesh. Very hard—and hot, with a purplish flush like her very own lava lamp. He sucked in a breath, those silver eyes rolling back. Not so commandeering now.

  She might not be staying on this alien world, but she would leave this particular alien with a memory of Earthly delights.

  Chapter 10

  When she took him in hand, Coriolis almost lost control.

  Against his will—but very, very much to his wish—his body arched up to her touch, burying himself between her stroking fingers.

  In the years of fighting, he learned to pleasure himself, fast and feverish, in the stolen minutes between battles. He’d had only his hand, as she was doing now, so how was her touch so much sweeter and fiercer than his own? How did she know his body better than he did? He could come to love this…

  And then she scooted down his body to take him between her lips.

  He almost levitated off the meager mattress of this bombed-out and stolen spaceport. How could something so wondrous happen here? Because she was making it happen. The suction of her mouth was like a whirlpool, and when she cupped her palm between his legs, his every muscle trembled with awe.

  But when she reared above him, centering his swollen, needful flesh at her gate, his trembling awe turned to ferocious lust.

  Instinctively, he clamped his hands on the rounds of her hips, his fingers sinking into the yielding muscle, half carrying and half captivity. He wouldn’t ever let her go…

  Even as
he thought it, he knew that was not his choice.

  As she sank down upon him—deep, so deep, lifting herself only to sink again and again—his skin shine flashed a warning completely out of his control. His Tritonyri blood would claim her, would not be denied…

  He bucked his hips up wildly into her, leaving no room between them. But when she would have thrown her head back, lost in her own pleasure, he tangled his fists in the lashing ends of her pale hair and forced her to look at him, to see him. Her passion-dazed eyes were dark, already half drowned in her own pleasure, and for a moment he doubted she could see him at all.

  Then she braced her hands on his shoulders and lowered herself down for another kiss. Her tongue was musky with la’ah-wy. On and on it went, as if somehow she’d stolen his breath, his very means of breathing. The hidden muscles of her chasm tightened around him, throbbing like the deep heartbeat of the world.

  When she arced back again, this time he let her go, because the furious clench of her chasm seemed to seize his whole body, a seismic shift that would trap him forever, willingly…

  Unsure whether he was rising or falling, he let himself go. To give himself over to pure sensation, with no thought as to what happened next, was such a relief that he thought he might’ve lost himself, just for a moment. No need for strategy or discipline or fretting for the future. This was just a moment between the two of them, a treasure she’d given him that had nothing to do with the Atlantyri the fate of any worlds.

  When she slumped down on his chest, curling close, he wrapped his arms around her, wishing he were a hectopi so that he had even more arms to hold her.

  Just for this moment, he reminded himself sternly, just for this night.

  “May I stay with you?” And in case she’d sensed the reckless yearning for possession in his Tritonyri blood, he added, “Just for tonight.”

  “I’d like that,” she whispered. “And I have other things I think you’d like.”