“You weigh a thousand pounds,” Veryn wheezed, unable to move her arms.
“Five hundred and seventy-two,” he corrected her.
“Christ.”
“Your mortal God-figure can do nothing to help you now.”
“Asshole.”
Bennu chuckled.
“You’re smothering me.” Veryn wiggled left and right to no avail.
Fuck, he wanted to linger. He liked being on top of her. Liked the way their gazes remained locked. He may not have experienced the Frenzy, but lust was still lust, and this human inspired all sorts of desires.
Bennu relented and rose, leaning down to offer her a hand off the ground afterward.
Perhaps he had beaten her in the end, but he couldn’t help but feel she’d come out of their spar victorious. The gloating in her green eyes tensed his cocks again and made both erect lengths throb with unfamiliar hunger. His natural regenerative abilities had already soothed his bruised balls.
When had he last experienced desire of this magnitude for any woman, let alone a human who—
Human stock breeds inferior children.
—wasn’t in the same galaxy as him, let alone the same league? Princess. Future queen.
He was only an alpha, the second-in-command to a greater Lexar.
I’ll be an exarch within the year, Bennu thought with certainty. Who better to claim a princess than an exarch? Confidence rose in direct proportion to the need tightening his loins. Beneath his loincloth, he was harder than Zelarian steel, proving a most uncomfortable experience.
Veryn raised her chin, failing to flinch from his gaze.
“You already knew how to fight a Lexar.”
“I do.”
“You said nothing to me.”
“That’s right; I didn’t.”
He stared at her with a gaze that had wilted lesser humans. “Why is that?”
“For precisely the reason I've thoroughly demonstrated to you, Bennu. You underestimated me, and sometimes, that is all it takes to turn the tide of battle. You took me to be a weak human woman and—”
Bennu closed the distance in a step. She didn't back down. “I’ve never once taken you to be a weak woman, Veryn.”
“Didn’t you?”
Perhaps he had overcome her in the end, but he finally understood something about Veryn that he never anticipated. She was clever, adaptative, and everything he wanted in a woman.
Arm’s length stood between them. A heartbeat passed, pulse thundering powerful in his ears. He had her in his embrace before the next, bending down to claim her lips in a hungry kiss. They were soft and supple, responsively parting to flick her tongue within his mouth.
Now that he knew what it was like to kiss her, he didn’t believe he could ever stop.
Bennu was kissing her.
Bennu was kissing her.
More than a few times, Veryn had fantasized about that very moment, wondering what it would be like to be at the mercy of a Lexar. She envisioned herself in Nia’s place—not with her friend’s handsome mate-to-be, but with her own alien warrior—and imagined the way it would feel to be held in strong arms, cherished, and loved.
Within seconds of taking her into his arms, Veryn knew all of that.
I’m being ridiculous. It’s only a kiss.
Wandering fingers squeezed her ass and dragged her onto tiptoe. A skilled tongue delved into her mouth as she leaned into him and grinded her body against his prominent bulge.
The palm resting against his chiseled pec drifted lower, skipping down the muscular ridges of his abdomen. His cocks twitched, protected by a layer of heavy material but too huge to be concealed entirely by the padded fabric.
Fuck, she wanted to touch them—just to know if all Lexar were as hung as Nia implied.
Her fingers drifted lower.
One touch would be enough.
Before she reached her prize, Bennu grabbed her wrist. His huge fingers overlapped around the narrow circumference.
Veryn froze. “I’m sorry. I—”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” he said silkily, heat and desire in his voice that she never recognized before. “But be careful what you wish for, Veryn.”
“Why?” Her response sounded like a breathy exhale. She hated what he did to her.
Bennu released her in favor of cupping her face between his strong hands. He tipped her mouth up to him, kissing her sweetly at first with simmering hunger in every touch of their mouths. “You humans have a story. The tale of Pandora’s Box.”
“Yes.”
“Once you open this one, there will be no putting it back.”
The warning chilled and excited her.
With the figurative ball in her court, Veryn could do nothing more than unsnap the clasp of his sparring kilt. In her haste, she almost tore one of the fastenings. Material dropped from around his hips and bared every inch of his magnificence to her. She’d known from the start Bennu was a gorgeous man, but seeing him in all his nude glory took her breath away.
“Isis, disable the door mechanisms to the officers’ sparring arena. This chamber will be in private use for some time.”
“As you wish, Alpha.”
His cocks sprang up thick and veiny, the mirrored appendages as bronzed as the rest of his body. Each second was another moment she spent in awe of him and pinned beneath a lust-filled gaze that scorched through her.
How did they even begin?
Her fingers skimmed over one of his dicks, much to his delight. He groaned, guiding her fingers to wrap around it with one of his big hands.
“Yes, Veryn. Touch me.”
At their height difference, it would be too easy to dip her head and take one in her mouth. Despite her tongue yearning for a taste of him, she didn’t. Her pussy throbbed with a need he seemed to understand.
“Undress.”
Since she was young, defiance had been a large part of Veryn’s personality. She defied her mother throughout her life, failing to meet her expectations as a noble young woman in dresses and petticoats. She disappointed her father when she discarded a brilliant scientific career in favor of joining the Royal Navy. She infuriated her handlers again by refusing to budge from the Exemplar, going above their heads to gain special permission from Catherine.
It seemed natural to tell Bennu to blow her too. Veryn had a habit of defying all orders.
“Isis, elevate the floor beneath Veryn by three-fourths meter.”
“What—”
The floor shifted, a four-by-four-foot section rising slowly, bringing her to nearly Bennu’s height.
“Undress,” he repeated. The order brimmed with need.
Temptation warred with her natural desire to challenge him.
Then he tugged the band of her sports bra, yanking it up and over her head, baring her. Her nipples tingled in the cooler air, a brief discomfort remedied when Bennu’s mouth lowered over one stiff peak. She moaned and arched into him, threading her fingers through his hair.
He gave the other tit the same attention. “Undress then touch me,” he murmured against her skin, breath warm and soothing. Tightened nipples tingled under the delicious ministrations of his tongue.
Veryn’s hands cooperated and thrust her thumbs in the waist of her workout leggings, shoving them and the scant undergarment beneath toward her knees.
Wasting no time, Bennu’s big hand slipped between her thighs and slid against her wet pussy. His strong fingers cupped her shamelessly. She rolled her hips and rode his hand the way she wanted to ride his cock.
Within moments, they wore nothing at all, every inch of fabric and clothing stripped away. Whenever her nipples weren’t at the mercy of his mouth, the cooler air tightened them pebble-hard. Goose bumps danced over her arms.
This is the most foolish thing I’ve ever done.
Despite that vexing realization, she also recognized nothing had ever felt more right.
“Do you think you can take my cocks, little human?”
<
br /> Did she?
No. Veryn wasn’t at all confident in the likelihood of her body accepting either of his monstrous lengths, both so thick and veiny she felt compelled to touch them as bidden. Her fingers slid over the hard, pulsing flesh and squeezed one throbbing erection. When she gazed into Bennu’s eternally beautiful face, she watched his features contort with pleasure.
Bennu plucked her from the platform and propped her spine against the adjacent marble pillar. She felt tiny and doll-like in his arms, pinned between his muscular frame and the chilly stone. Contrasting the cool surface behind her, he emanated pure heat. He dipped his head and kissed her again.
How many times had she fantasized about exploring his body and learning those chiseled angles?
Lips molded together in another searing kiss as Bennu swept the tip of one cock against her folds. Up and down, he traced, teasing and gathering wetness, taunting her with the thickness of it on her skin. He shuddered and placed his mouth beside her ear.
“I will ruin you for all human men.”
From anyone else, she would have taken the outlandish statement as sheer bravado.
“I’d like to see you try.”
Bennu chuckled and positioned at her entrance. There was a satisfying stretch of the blunt tip nudging for acceptance. As much as she hated it, a low moan automatically parted her lips.
Fuck, he was huge.
Bennu moved slow at first, sliding each delicious inch into her tight pussy. Each time he pushed deeper, he’d pause and pull back, only to thrust forward anew, slickened cock sliding that much farther until her sharp hiss made him pause.
“Fuck, don’t stop.”
One cock filled her in the swift stroke that followed, its twin caught against her thigh, as heavy and hard as the other. She took it in her hand, fingers pale against his bronze flesh, slender digits unable to surround him in her grasp.
“Bennu, please. I can take it. I want... I want….”
She needed more.
He didn’t waste breath asking if she was certain or offering apologies and worries. He took her at her word and thrust again, this time with one hot palm grasping her ass cheek, helping her open farther. Her body stretched, soft flesh adapting to take in the whole of him. Bennu’s chest rumbled, his growl one of pure lust and satisfaction, a predator with his prey firmly within his grasp. The sound only made her hotter, molten heat coiling between her thighs.
He withdrew again—the backstroke smooth and torturous, the returning thrust absolute bliss. Desperate for anything to hold, she grasped his shoulders and curled her fingers into hard muscle. Each thrust nudged her upward along the polished marble, and she relied on the powerful Lexar looming above her.
“Harder,” she panted. “Don’t hold back. God, you feel so good.”
“Do I? I don’t believe it. You aren’t screaming my name yet.”
Her lust-hazed gaze darted from his face to the door then back again. His smug smile remained, eyes bright in his face.
“No one will hear, Veryn. No one but me. You will scream for me. I will not stop until you do.”
Fuck, she didn’t want him to stop until she did.
With nothing to hold onto but his strong shoulders, she clung tight, back and ass taking the brunt of his powerful thrusts, hitting the column in uneven knocks, but the building pleasure coiling within her made the potential bruises of tomorrow a trivial event.
A ghostly touch skimmed her nipples and dragged a startled moan from her. Her clit throbbed with pleasure as if the three points were connected by a shimmering, magical wire only Bennu could strum.
His length reached a point inside her stranger to all cocks save for the artificial one in her bedside drawer. The second remained between their bodies, a warm and thick torture she envisioned in her—
Veryn had never so much as toyed with the thought of anal, but if it meant she could take both of his dicks, she’d pound his stateroom door down with a bottle of lube in her hand. She managed to slip her hand between them and take the other, pumping to the same frantic tempo as their lovemaking. The deep growl that rumbled in his chest told her all she needed to know, bringing a triumphant thrill to her spine and a flush of power. He enjoyed everything as much as she did.
“I’m so close. Please…. Fuck, please!”
“You know what I want.”
He wanted her surrender, and she was on the knife’s edge, prepared to offer it to him. His lips laid a line of suckling kisses up her throat, his teeth catching her earlobe and tugging. “Let go. I know you want to.”
She did. She wanted to give it all to him, to drop her defenses and lay herself bare before a man for the first time.
Pleasure skyrocketed on a cresting wave, the intensity pulsing between her thighs blooming to nuclear levels. She tipped her head back against the wall and gave him what he asked of her, calling out his name with wanton abandon. Release came on the same breath, great shuddering spasms clenching her body tight around him. Her toes curled, the legs wrapped around his hips locking as every muscle in her body pulled tight. Bennu never stopped, tireless and determined, the only slip in his tightly held control the mounting tempo in which he moved. The nibble on her ear sharpened to a bite, a pleasant spike of pain to heighten the pleasure, and then he seized her mouth in another demanding kiss.
When the pulsating waves of pleasure began to ebb, a single push was all it took to set her off again. She ripped her mouth from his, desperate for air, her panting breaths ragged and unsilenced. Bennu’s harsh groan followed as he burst within her, and in those labored sounds, she heard her name. Before he could so much as sag, she quickened the tempo of her hand and watched with smug satisfaction as she brought him to a second orgasm, uncaring of the thick cum that squirted against her abdomen and bared breasts.
“You are a rare woman,” he said after both their breaths had gone from ragged to merely uneven and shallow.
With the utmost care, Bennu lifted her from his cock and cradled her in his strong arms, his sweaty brow pressed to hers. After a moment, he carried her to the adjacent locker room, where he delivered her into the showers. In silence, he washed her, hands and lips tracing across every inch of her wet skin until the quenched fire between her thighs reignited. She wanted him again. There, with steam filling the room, they made love again, this time with her on her hands and knees as the hot water swirled around her, Bennu behind her.
If this was the only time she was going to get, then she planned to make the most of it.
“Someone seems like they’re in a good mood today.” Dusty peered at her from across the laboratory table through pinched, half-shut eyes. The telltale red crease across his brow indicated he’d been staring too long through the microscope.
“Why do you say that? I just walked in.”
“You were humming.”
An involuntary denial sprang to the tip of her tongue, only for Veryn to reel it in before more than a syllable escaped. “Can’t a lady be in a good mood?”
“Sure, she can. I guess it’s to be expected, given recent events.”
The words brought her up short, panic sliding though her. Shit. How does he know? Who else knows?
“Why didn’t you ever tell us you were royalty?” he continued, oblivious to her worries. “I mean, I guess I can see why you didn’t.”
“It’s complicated. I didn’t want to be treated differently.”
“I guess.” But he didn’t sound convinced, and she hated the pang of sadness radiating from him.
How could she keep the two people closest to her completely in the dark about all aspects of her life and still call them friends? For three grueling years, they lived together in the most isolating environment in all of Veryn’s military career, forming a natural support system stronger than the one she shared with her own family. She’d been there for Nia when the other woman discovered her family was gone. Likewise, Nia and Dusty never failed to provide the shoulders she needed for crying her bitter tears when news r
eached the lab of her father and brother’s early demise.
She loved them.
They were family. The only family she had left in the world besides Catherine.
“Hey, I’m still me, and I’m sorry. I’ve honestly never considered myself royal. Certainly never in line for the throne. Technically, I was… maybe a minor noble until my father and…” Her ribs constricted around lungs that suddenly felt too tight, and her stomach clenched into a rock-hard knot.
Dusty’s face fell as he realized where her line of thought traveled. He waved his hands quickly, perceptive for a man with no psionic talent. “Sorry. No, I get it. I’m just being stupid.”
“Nah, you’re never stupid. You’re one of the smartest men I know.” She rounded the table to where he sat, leaned down, and kissed his cheek. Dusty flushed all the way up to his ears while embracing her tightly with one arm. “So what’s the latest with the formula? You and Ibi-Ludim make any significant tweaks?”
“A few, I think. The crop is already more productive now that we’ve figured out what nutrients are needed for mass production away from Killandor 2.”
“That’ll make the Avo—” Veryn stumbled over her words. “The Heskarans happy. They’re probably tired of our probes coming by.” The race of flighted humanoid dwelling on Killandor 2 had a name of their own choosing and preferred to go by it.
“Oh, they are,” Nia said, amused voice traveling across the lab from the door.
Veryn hadn’t even heard the hydraulic doors whoosh open. She glanced up from the screen and grinned. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be relaxing and being pampered?”
“I swear, if one more person offers me a massage or a meditation session, I am gonna scream. I can work and still get married. Bonded.”
“All right then, let me put everything up on the big screen.”
For the next hour, Dusty walked them through the specifics, going over chemical formulations and soil compositions. Their biggest obstacle was the fact that the spores couldn’t yet grow on any other planets beyond Killandor 2 and had to be carefully cultivated in special labs that perfectly imitated the planet’s atmosphere. One day, it was Veryn’s hope that they could safely seed every planet without disrupting the natural ecosystems.
Jin-Bennu Page 5