His hand circled her dainty wrists easily. He pinned them to the pillow over her head. “That’s more like it. If I had cord, I would tie them down. Maybe your ankles too, so you’d be spread wide open for me. I’d play with your pretty pussy and breasts until you begged me for mercy.”
Hope’s vagina gave a powerful surge at his erotic threat. Lokmi’s eyes fluttered at the reaction, and his grin deepened. “Oh yes. We’d explore these little hints you’ve given me, those signs that you might enjoy a bit of pain with your pleasure. The biting and pinching made you wet, my lovely. I wonder what turning your ass red with spanking would do?”
Hope was startled to feel another bolt of hunger tighten her cunt around him. Yes, she was wetter than before at the idea of Lokmi’s calloused hand smacking across her rear.
He chuckled. “At least the idea holds some interest. Should I be so lucky as to have the chance, I will satisfy our curiosity about that. For now, we’ll take what we can get.”
Then Hope discovered how easy he’d been with her so far. Lokmi’s pace and strength increased, driving him hard and fast against her. She arched against him, her body reverberating to the shocks of his cocks thrusting deep, to his hard groin shoving against her clit. Her pussy clenched tight, making him rub harder still against the hotspot of need within her.
Desire built, growing larger by the second, pressing with demand against her insides. She felt as tight as a drum, her belly as clenched as a fist, overflowing with a ravening fullness which wanted to devour her. Lokmi shifted, getting his knees under him as he scooped one of her legs into the crook of his elbow, bringing her ass off the bed. He still pinned her arms, and she could no longer move. She could only lay beneath him as he pounded against and in her, sending bolts of lightning through her body.
All at once, her pussy seized. Hope’s vision went blank. The dam burst. A tidal wave of exquisite rapture tore free, enveloping her from pussy to head, rolling through to even her hands and feet.
Lokmi grunted and worked her faster than ever. He gasped. “Again. Do it again.”
As if her bliss was chained to his will, Hope did. Another surge of exaltation billowed through her, wiping her consciousness clean of anything but its explosive light. She shattered.
Lokmi groaned, thrust deeper than before a couple more times. His movements went erratic, and Hope felt his cocks jolt within.
He’s coming. He’s coming inside me. The thought somehow had the power to bring another spasm of pleasure racing through Hope.
Bit by bit, the Imdiko’s hips moved slower, then stilled. He released her wrists and leg, and gathered her in his arms. He pressed featherlight kisses to her forehead, nose, cheeks, chin, and lips. He held her until the quakes of both their sexes calmed.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Hope made a disbelieving noise. “Hell, no. I’m amazing. When can we do this again?”
Lokmi muffled his laughter against her shoulder.
Chapter 11
Piras stared at Kila, his face reddening. It was a sure sign his temper was spiking. “Alone? You let Lokmi go to the battlecruiser alone?”
Kila’s fists clenched, tension making him as tight as a drum. “He was supposed to get in and out. He was to grab biometrics to ensure the phase devices would work on the Nath family. That’s all he said he needed to do.”
“But he’s been gone for three hours, Kila. Three!” The Dramok’s voice rose to a shout.
Kila bowed his head. He’d fucked up. Had Piras berated him on the bridge in front of his crew instead of in the privacy of their quarters, he wouldn’t feel more shame than he did now. Or more terror.
Lokmi was his intended Imdiko, his clanmate in all but name. Kila was Lokmi’s protector, sworn to keep the man safe. He’d failed as a Nobek. Now he had to find out if he could redeem himself. Kila had to find one of the two men he loved and pray he could bring Lokmi back safe and sound.
“I’m hoping he lost track of time talking to Hope. He’s infatuated, as we all are. Nevertheless, he should have been back long before now. I just stopped in here to grab my phase device.”
“You’re on your way over to see if you can find him? Not without me, you don’t.” Piras went to the shelf where he’d left his own phase.
“Piras, if something has gone wrong, one of us has to be here to handle whatever happens next.” Kila may have already screwed up once. He wasn’t adding Piras to his list of failures.
The door to their quarters opened. Lokmi strolled in, as whole and handsome as ever. The bastard’s face was lit with a familiar smug grin. Kila didn’t know whether to kiss the man or beat his ass.
Maybe both. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d doubled up on Lokmi like that.
Piras sagged in obvious relief. “Thank the ancestors.” His temper returned in an instant. “Where the fuck have you been? I swear, you need to be shoved out of an airlock. What the hell are you doing, walking in here like you haven’t done a damned thing wrong?”
While Piras yelled at their errant lover, Kila caught a whiff of the scent hanging on Lokmi. Respect and fury rose in tandem. “You son of a bitch. You had sex with her?”
Piras stepped close to the chief engineer and inhaled. His eyes went wide. “Mother of All! You did have sex with Matara Hope! I smell her all over you.”
Lokmi responded to none of their questions or comments. He stood as stoic as a mountain in a storm as they berated him. It was so unlike him to stand there and take rebukes, particularly Kila’s, that the Nobek and Dramok’s fury soon lost its voice.
When they stopped exclaiming to stare at him in confused anger, Lokmi took Piras’s hands. His smirk gentled into a tender smile—an Imdiko’s smile. “I accept your offer to clan, my Dramok.” He glanced at Kila, including him in the moment. “My clanmates, please forgive me for taking so long to agree to it. Thank you for your patience. I don’t deserve either of you, which makes me all the more grateful you would have me.”
Kila was stunned anew. Piras dropped to the sleeping mat, as if his legs had given out. They both stared speechless at Lokmi.
He said yes. He said yes.
Fierce joy blazed through Kila. Then disbelief. Then joy again. Finally, he decided he was angry, jubilant, and incredulous all at once. His head threatened to explode.
Lokmi let go of Piras’s hands. The soft expression of the nurturer fled before his more commanding guise of a Dramok. In a businesslike tone, he told them, “Now that that’s done, yes, I took too long on the battlecruiser. Discipline for my behavior is warranted. However, I did get my biometric readings. And yes, I had sex with Hope while I was at it. I hadn’t planned on it, but things kind of took off on me. I apologize for upsetting you.”
Piras looked from him to Kila. His expression was helpless. He still couldn’t speak. The poor man was floored by the abrupt turnaround in Lokmi’s reluctance to clan. Or maybe he was overwhelmed that the bastard had romped with the delectable Hope Nath.
Kila also had trouble ordering his thoughts, but he did come up with something to say. “Was she enjoyable?”
“Of course, that would be the first thing out of your mouth, Kila.” Piras had found his voice again. “Ancestors, save me from you both.”
The clan leader jumped up and embraced Lokmi, who laughed and hugged him back. Not held back by any code of strength as Kila was, they spent a minute being sentimental and affectionate. Kila watched his two favorite people in the universe enjoy their union.
It was against a Nobek’s beliefs to speak of his adoration for another man. At the moment, his heart was too full for words anyway. To have tried to express any of it verbally would have diminished how much Lokmi and Piras meant to him.
Instead, Kila stood there and nodded as Piras gushed, “Welcome to my clan, and thank you for accepting. I am beyond happy right now. What about you, my Nobek? Any words to commemorate this wonderful occasion?”
Kila grinned. He discovered he had a few words he could use after all. “I�
�m enthralled you figured out who you belong with, Chief. Truly. Now hold still while I kick your ass for everything else you’ve done today.”
* * * *
Hope rose in the morning, feeling like the universe had undergone some fundamental change. All her activities were as mundane as ever. She showered. She dressed. She stripped her bed linens to have them laundered and was grateful the system to do so was mechanized. Heaven help her if anyone suspected what she’d done. Lokmi’s scent seemed to permeate the room: the linens, the bed, the air itself. Hell, she thought she could detect Lokmi’s spicy sex scent all over her even after soaping and shampooing twice.
She was in shock. She’d had sex. With a Kalquorian, no less. What had seemed so natural and good the night before had turned into the unfathomable. She struggled to come to terms with her actions.
Hope had given up all control. She’d let Lokmi do all he’d wished. She reveled in her lack of power in the situation. It made no sense she’d like such things.
I’ve never been a pushover. I’ve always been strong. Why did I give in like I did? Why did it feel so good to let him have authority over me?
The confusion grew as her body reacted to the memory of what they’d done. Her pussy clenched. It became wet and warm as she remembered him pinning her down, of him confronting her about her reaction to pain, of his suggestion she might enjoy a spanking.
A spanking, of all things!
I shouldn’t have wanted it. Any of it. And yet I did. I still do.
Strangest of all was how surrendering herself to Lokmi had felt inexplicably safe. Where was the bizarre sense of security coming from?
She jumped as a knock sounded on her door. Her father called, “Hope, is everything okay? You’re going to be late for your shift.”
She realized she’d been standing in the middle of her room, twisting her sheets in her fists. She hurried to the laundry intake slot in the wall. “Yeah, I’m almost ready. Thanks, Dad.”
Hope needed to focus. She needed to get through the day with a clear mind. She firmly told herself she would concentrate on her work, then on her family when she returned to quarters. Maybe later, when she was alone again, she would let herself think about Lokmi. About how good his hands and mouth felt on her. About how right it felt to give herself to him. To open herself and let him make love to her.
I shouldn’t, though. I’m never going to forget it, but I should try to put it at the back of my mind and not deliberately remember what it was like to have him moving inside me, making me feel like nothing else in the universe mattered.
Hope snorted at herself. She already knew not contemplating sex with the magnificent Kalquorian would be like telling her heart not to beat.
* * * *
The evening hours on board the Sword of Truth came after a long day. Somehow, the time after dinner and before Charity retired for the night was longer still. As it grew later and later, Hope paced the family area with growing nervousness.
She wasn’t sure how he’d done it, but Piras had sent a message through her unit at work. It had come in like all the secret communications from her father’s allies on board the other ‘cruisers. It had been terse and to the point: Meet tonight. We have a week to stop the attack.
Piras was coming to see them. Maybe he’d bring Kila. And Lokmi? The thought made Hope’s mouth go dry. She couldn’t decide how she felt about seeing the man who’d awoken her body so completely the night before.
That consideration should have been secondary to the knowledge they had a week to pull together the impossible mission of saving two colonies, one which held hundreds of women and children. Hope didn’t know the exact number of spies on board Kila’s ship, but she was sure it wasn’t more than a couple hundred people, at best. Plus the handful of co-conspirators her father had recruited. They were so few against the thousands marching to the beats of Maf and Copeland’s causes. One destroyer against hundreds of warships. The odds were not only stacked; they towered against the rebels.
Her father sat in a chair, staring at his handheld. He tried to work to distract himself, but Hope had noticed he’d been looking at the same report for at least half an hour. His expression said he was as much on edge as Hope. That kind of tension did not bode well.
Hope wished she could take a page from him and control her nervous energy. However, she couldn’t. She could not sit still. If she tried to work on her bugging project, she’d botch everything up. And probably lose her mind in the process.
Hope was making what must have been the millionth circuit of the space when the three Kalquorians abruptly materialized in the middle of the sitting area. She jumped and had to bite back a cry of surprise. Lokmi had been right when he’d said there was no way to warn someone beforehand, but it made her cranky with them all the same.
Borey rose to his feet as the Kalquorians bowed. “We got your message, Admiral. I also received a communique from the Basma late today, stating I needed to ready my fleet and meet with you as soon as possible.”
Hope knew there were bigger matters to deal with than her tryst with Lokmi, but she couldn’t help but glance at the Imdiko. Since he’d told her he was going to join Piras’s clan as soon as he got back to the destroyer, she assumed he’d told them what had happened. Surely neither he nor the other two would say anything to her father though—she prayed such would be the case. She watched the Imdiko for any sign that might clue Borey in on their sexual activities.
The engineer’s nod to her was respectful and nothing more. He didn’t gaze at her overlong or give her any secretive signals. Nothing the three men did or said hinted she’d been intimate with one of them. She relaxed and finally felt like she could concentrate on what was important.
Piras’s expression was grave. “We’re up against it, General. I tried my best to delay the attack on Haven’s defenders, but Maf’s having none of it. The man’s madness is as impatient as it is fanatical.”
Borey managed a conciliatory, if tired, smile. “At least your version of a week is three days longer than mine. It gives my associates a little extra time to get ready. Please sit.”
Piras and Lokmi did so, as did Hope’s dad. Kila remained standing, and Hope perched on the arm of her father’s chair. She noticed her leg bouncing the way it always did when she was impatient or nervous. She made it stop.
Kila had one bit of good news for them. “I have placed those listening devices on Copeland and Sitrel. I fixed the bugs to the backs of their scalps, where they should attract no notice. Shall we test them first?”
Hope sprang up. “Let me get my handheld.” She was back in a moment, tapping hurriedly to bring up the program. “Gosh, I hope this works. Those sound blockers with their fluctuating jamming patterns are the very devil to beat.”
“Try Copeland first,” her father suggested.
Hope locked in on the bug’s transmission, eyeing the waveform monitor with cautious optimism. “It looks like there is something there, but the signal isn’t steady. Here we go.”
There was a wash of static and a momentary hum before the sounds of a woman sobbing faded in. The sound wavered, steadied, and wavered again.
Then Copeland’s voice bled through, also coming in strong and then going distant in turns. The usual serene tones he used when addressing his followers were missing, replaced by irritation. “Shut up your stupid whining before I smother you, whore. You should be thanking me for each and every thrust. Shut up!”
The sound of something striking something else hard transmitted loud and clear as the signal found momentary strength. The sobs rose in a wail of pain. Another violent thud sounded. They kept happening and the cries of pain kept coming until the transmission faded once more.
Hope shut it off, realizing what she was hearing. It was a far different scenario from what she’d shared with Lokmi the night before. Far, far different, where the little tweaks of pain had been delivered to enhance the pleasurable things they’d done.
Hope had only the one night of
experience to rely on, but she knew even the spanking Lokmi had teased her with was far different from what Copeland did to his wives. There was no comparison at all.
She darted glances at the men. Her father’s face had gone blank, and he stared at his knees. Piras and Kila wore almost identical expressions of revulsion and fury. Lokmi’s mouth hung open, his features filled with horror. He visibly shuddered.
The Kalquorians’ reactions told Hope how false the war-time propaganda had been, at least where these three men were concerned. Earth’s government had shouted about the inhumanity of the alien race, how they were rapists and monsters who sought Earther women for nothing more than breeding stock and sex slaves.
It reminded Hope of something her mother had once said. “Beware those who are loudest in their condemnations. They usually have far worse things to hide.”
Copeland, as head of that government, had more wrongdoing behind his vilifications than most. She’d just heard the proof.
Hope swallowed and tapped on her handheld. “I’ll try Dramok Sitrel’s bug now. His ship is close to ours, so we may get a signal.” She switched channels, trying to erase the memory of those terrible thumps of fists hitting flesh. After a moment, a low whine sounded. She adjusted the frequency and boosted the receiver as much as she could. At last a faint series of snores faded in and out.
“Unless he talks in his sleep, I suppose we won’t get anything from him tonight,” Hope joked weakly.
Piras smiled at her. The expression was sickly and his jaw was tight, but she knew it had nothing to do with her. “Good work, Matara Hope. Neither of them have detected they are wearing those on their skin. Good job to you too, Captain, for getting them where they won’t be easily found.”
“Those devices are a great design,” Lokmi enthused. Hope thought his gaze on her was softer than perhaps it should have been.
“They certainly are.” Piras moved on to the problems which still needed solutions. “Let me update you on my conversation with Maf yesterday.”
Alien Revolt (Clans of Kalquor Book 11) Page 15