The minister sat at a large black piano in the midst of a treasure trove of instruments from all over the galaxy. Though there was no music display in front of him, he played as if he’d mastered the instrument long ago. Had he downloaded a mastery program or was he naturally talented?
Hovering in the doorway, Hastion cleared his throat. “I didn’t know you took an interest in music, sir.”
Cecine’s long, slender fingers moved quickly over the black and white keys, eliciting a triumphant melody from the piano—and another swell of heat from Hastion’s loins. Those fingers would be touching him soon, squeezing him, holding him, directing him…
“Creating music was my outlet of choice when no other was available.” The minister glanced up at Hastion from under his brow as the music changed abruptly to dramatic pounding on the keyboard. “That and thrashing the conceit out of young warriors in the sparring arena.”
Feeling as though he were negotiating his way over a deep chasm on a decrepit footbridge, Hastion said neutrally, “I enjoy sparring as well, sir.”
The music changed again to a more soothing piece he recognized as a primitive Garathani ballad and he took another calming breath.
“You don’t challenge other warriors,” Cecine observed.
Hastion shifted. “I see no need to.”
“That’s because you harbor no conceit. You’re aware of your own abilities and feel no need to prove them to anyone else.”
“Actually, sir, I see no need to challenge because I am challenged so frequently. I am defeated nearly as often as I triumph.”
Cecine smiled as he continued to play. “The operative word there, Ensign, is nearly.”
Some of the tightness in Hastion’s chest loosened. “Yes, sir.”
Ending the song with a flourish of low notes, the minister pushed back his stool and stood. “Well, Ensign, are you ready to put the matter of compatibility to the test?”
Hastion braced himself. “As a matter of fact, sir, I’ve been on duty since luncheon and thought perhaps I should bathe first.”
“That won’t be necessary. I find nothing offensive in the sweat of labor,” Cecine said, tugging his tunic off over his head as he walked by.
Too enthralled by the play of muscles in the minister’s long, pale back to protest, Hastion followed him across the corridor. Inside the large sleeping chamber, Cecine shoved his pants down his lean hips and stepped out of them without ceremony, tossing both articles of clothing over the back of one of the two chairs framing the flare window.
When he turned, Hastion’s mouth went dry. The minister’s stirring phallus was…huge. Not as fat as Zannen’s monstrosity, but nearly as long.
Holy Powers, he was about to be fucked.
“You look nervous, Ensign.”
“Wouldn’t you be, sir?” he asked with difficulty.
The minister scrutinized him for a long moment. “I believe I misspoke earlier,” he finally said. “I may be vigorous but I’m not cruel, nor do I wish to humiliate you in any way. I’ll exercise caution until you’ve become accustomed to bottoming.”
“Thank you, sir.” Hastion wasn’t the least bit comforted. No matter how much caution the minister exercised, his penetration would be painful.
“You understand this will be easier if you disrobe,” Cecine said dryly.
Realizing he was still staring, Hastion reached for the tab on his uniform and then hesitated as his intestines gave a twinge of protest.
“Second thoughts already, Ensign?”
The minister’s tone was casual but Hastion could hear the underlying hint of tension. For some reason it made him feel better that, even now, the minister didn’t take his assent for granted.
On the other hand, being forced to comply would save him all this agonizing and uncertainty.
“No, sir,” he said uncomfortably. “I merely need to use the waste facility.”
“Ah. I believe I comprehend your difficulty.”
Hastion started. “Sir?”
“You’re welcome to use the facility, but know this,” Cecine said with a direct look. “If I were ever possessed of delicate sensibilities, eight years servicing my departed mate and more than forty as a warrior would have stripped me of them. I’ve been bathed in more blood and waste than your body could produce in a lifetime and, more often than not, gloried in it.”
A cold trickle seized his bowels and Hastion swallowed hard. “I truly need to relieve myself, sir.”
“Very well. The facilities in the guest bedchamber will afford you more privacy than mine. It’s the first door to the right of the music room. Rejoin me here when you’re ready.”
Thank the Powers! Hastion nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Programming Empran to admit Hastion upon his approach, Cecine took several deep, cleansing breaths. Peserin, but the young warrior was dragging out the suspense to unbearable lengths. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was being toyed with.
But the ensign was clearly unnerved, so much so that Cecine had nearly denied him the time he requested, for fear he’d talk himself out of even trying. It had taken every particle of his resolve to get up and walk out of the dining room, especially after he saw those wide blue eyes on his half-risen staff. He’d been entirely too tempted to end their negotiations and take what he wanted whether the ensign was willing or not, to test him and see exactly what he could take, and how much of a fight he’d offer.
An ignoble, unacceptable impulse, if there ever was one, and he was very much afraid it had shown on his face. Half-convinced he was about to receive word from Empran that Hastion had beaten a hasty retreat, he’d removed himself to his music room and vented his apprehensions on the baby grand piano, an ingenious instrument that allowed him to produce soothing melodies with rigorous pounding.
The violence of his arousal was troublesome. The more time he spent with the ensign, the more he wanted him. There was something disturbingly compelling about him, something that went much deeper than the beautiful face and the brazen, carefree character he presented to the crew. He was a complex puzzle, and Cecine wanted to take him apart piece by piece and discover what that something was.
An even less noble impulse. Low-ranking or not, Hastion was a male of worth and entitled to the privacy of his thoughts and emotions.
Cecine frowned. The rush of relief he’d felt when the ensign appeared at the door of his music room had made his fingers tremble slightly. He’d best get this explosive reaction under control or he was going to frighten away his quarry.
Taking one last cleansing breath, he looked around. He’d already decided this experiment was best performed leaning over the side of the bed. It seemed less intimate than kneeling together on the mattress and would limit the amount of physical contact between them. He wanted to give the ensign more of a sense of control, of being on equal footing, however illusory it might be. If the experience left him feeling violated or subjugated, he might withdraw himself from consideration as second.
The door opened automatically to reveal a startled, and quite naked, Ensign Hastion. Cecine was torn between a grin of amusement and a growl of satisfaction, neither of which would be appropriate.
“Welcome back, Ensign.” He heard a distinct gulp before Hastion walked into the room with movements that couldn’t have been more wooden if he’d been carved from a guta tree. The sight gave him pause. “You wish to proceed?”
“I still have a choice?”
“Of course you have a choice,” Cecine said impatiently. “I wouldn’t have you unwilling.”
Much as he might wish to.
Hastion took a deep breath and gave him a direct look. “I definitely wish to proceed, sir.”
To hide his relief, Cecine turned away and picked up the lubricant, pretending engrossment in the ingredients. Which, now that he looked at them, appeared none too savory. If this was any indication of what Terrans routinely applied to their most delicate tissues, it was little wonder their life spans were so short.
“Empran, set the biolabs to formulating a nourishing organic anal lubricant,” he sent.
“Order submitted.”
“All right, Ensign,” he finally said, turning. “Do you wish to prepare yourself or shall—”
“I can do it, sir,” Hastion said quickly, a blotchy flush rising in his chest and face.
Picking up one of the small towels he’d placed on the bedside table earlier, Cecine passed it to him along with the lubricant then turned again to give him a measure of privacy. It occurred to him that most bondmates called each other by name, but he doubted that would make the ensign any more comfortable—they weren’t bondmates yet, after all, and something within him balked at yielding that particular bit of formality before he had to.
“Ready, sir.”
When he turned, the ensign, still an endearing shade of red, handed him the bottle and wiped his hands on the towel.
Cecine gestured toward the side of the bed. “I presume bending over the bed’s edge is acceptable for this experiment, Ensign?”
“Yes, sir.” Hastion approached uncertainly and bent over, placing his hands gingerly on the gray polysheen blanket and spreading his bare feet shoulder-width apart.
Moving to stand directly behind him, Cecine snapped open the bottle’s lid and poured a generous puddle of lubricant into his palm. His already stiff cock hardened further as he stroked it and surveyed the sheer beauty of the landscape before him, hardly able to believe it was here before him in the flesh, his alone to enjoy. Hastion was an ideally formed young male—broad at the shoulder and narrow at the waist, with smooth, rounded buttocks, long, straight legs that bore very little hair, and musculature clearly defined beneath pale skin that glowed with health.
Was this what Draeda had seen, standing behind Cecine all those years ago?
He flinched. No, of course it wasn’t. Like Draeda, he’d been raw from the wind and burned by prolonged exposure to the sun—and far from willing.
The male before him now submitted of his own accord, and Cecine knew an animalistic urge to claim what he’d so grudgingly coveted since he first saw the probe demonstration. He wanted to sink his teeth into the round bulges in his arms and shoulders, his neck and ribs, and even his buttocks. And biting would be just the beginning of what he’d do to the tantalizing sac that dangled between the ensign’s legs. His mouth watered at the very thought of it.
Shuddering, he squeezed the base of his penis tightly. He could only imagine the nervous young warrior’s startled reaction to such treatment, and the imagining only made him harder.
Hastion’s buttocks tightened briefly, as did the glistening pucker of his anus, and Cecine stared, hoping to see it again. He should feel badly about prolonging the male’s anxiety with his inspection—the fact that he found dark enjoyment in the twitches and other signs of nerves was unsettling.
Hot and tense with arousal, all but trembling with it, he wiped his hand on a towel and braced his feet apart on the spongy pad, then he laid his hands on Hastion’s cool, lean hips.
“Brace yourself. I’m going to breach you now.”
“Yes, sir,” the ensign whispered.
Taking an inconspicuous breath, Cecine set the bulging head of his penis in place and pushed.
And met with a hot barrier of resistance.
Disconcerted, his pulse pounding, he managed to say dryly, “By brace, I didn’t mean to defy penetration.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
When another push resulted in a similar lack of headway, he frowned. “You have been using the probe, haven’t you?”
“Yes, sir, but…”
“Speak up, Ensign. But what?”
Hastion flexed his shoulders. “It wasn’t programmed for such imposing dimensions, sir.”
“Well.” Cecine couldn’t hold back a grin. He could hardly fault the ensign for failing to anticipate being fucked by a larger male. “I would suggest that you be more aggressive with your programming in the future.”
“Yes, sir.”
His smile faded at the misery in Hastion’s tone. If this were Portia, he’d have comforted her by squeezing her hips or rubbing her back, but he couldn’t do that to Hastion, or even acknowledge his distress, without offering insult.
Peserin, but this was awkward, and more difficult than he’d imagined.
“You’re certain you wish to proceed?” he finally asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then for now I’ll simply advance slowly, and you must concentrate on relaxing.”
Hastion swallowed audibly again. “I’ll try, sir.”
“You’ll do more than try, Ensign, you’ll relax. Now.”
“Yes, sir.”
And as if he’d uttered a magical incantation, the tension in Hastion’s anus eased enough for him to edge inside. Not giving him time to tense, Cecine continued to push, and for an instant he thought he might not make it through, so tight was the opening. But then the head of his penis disappeared and it felt like a red-hot vise had slammed shut behind it.
Hastion hissed, arching his back and squeezing Cecine’s cock between his buttocks in an involuntary effort to either hold him in place or force him out. Cecine’s eyes nearly rolled back in his head and he bit back a groan. Peserin, but it felt like the ensign had teeth down there. The sensation was surreally good.
“I don’t feel you relaxing, Ensign,” he commented with more calm than he felt.
The ensign lowered his back, and his ribs expanded and contracted like a bellows for a moment before he spoke. “My apologies, sir, but I’m as relaxed as I’m likely to get under these conditions.”
Though he managed to stifle the sound, Cecine’s belly quivered with an unexpected laugh. “Then you have my apology, as well, because this might be more painful than either of us anticipated.”
Without waiting for a reply, he leaned into the spot where their bodies were joined and slid forward a scant inch. Hastion grunted and the tension eased enough for him to sink another inch.
“That’s it. Grunt deeply again.”
Hastion obeyed, and although a slight wheeze provided background harmony, Cecine slid in even farther. One dark, blazing increment at a time, he worked his way inside the warrior, who now fairly vibrated with tension. And perhaps pain.
He couldn’t help asking, “Are you well, Ensign?”
“Fuck,” Hastion muttered.
“That’s not an answer.” He withdrew slightly and Hastion stiffened. “Shall I stop for—”
“No sir! Keep going.”
“Very well.”
He withdrew a bit farther and then pushed to regain the ground he’d lost. He was surprised to feel a response from Hastion, an almost imperceptible rocking that indicated he was enjoying the sensation on some level, and the knowledge spurred Cecine on.
When he was finally seated to the hilt, he was breathless with triumph. He’d never felt anything like this—the tightness around the base of his penis was still almost painful, and when he backed slowly out, that unyielding ring milked even more thick, pounding blood into the head. How had this form of intercourse escaped their investigations for so long?
He continued his careful plundering of Hastion’s bowels, letting his eyes wander from the shoulder blades peeking out from his tousled brown locks, down the bulging lateral muscles of his V-shaped back, to the pale, tight mounds of his buttocks.
And then to his own thick penis sliding in and out of the lovely male’s most inviolable orifice.
Nearly swept away by a tide of dark excitement at the sight, he fought to keep from grabbing Hastion by a fistful of his hair, yanking his head back and demanding to know who it was that claimed him. He wanted to grind his teeth on the warrior’s earlobe until he gasped with the pain of it, to run his hands over all that marvelously fit masculine flesh and proclaim it his to do with as he pleased. He wanted to reach down and fondle those hot, humid genitals and discover what made Hastion writhe and whimper. He wanted to lick the line of
sweat beading his back and then bite at his nipples to discover if they were as sensitive as a female’s—as his own.
He wanted to do all that and more while he fucked the ensign, but he was allowed none of it.
Frustrated, he locked his hands on Hastion’s muscular hips and thrust harder, deeper, relishing the harsh grunts that scraped out of him. He could feel Hastion’s legs shaking, hear him panting through his nose, see his fists clenching handfuls of the blanket. Clearly he was battling for control. What would it take to break him?
Cecine bit back a curse. Unless he became the worst sort of abuser, he would never know.
Impatient to be done with what was suddenly little more than an exercise in aggravation, he kicked Hastion’s feet farther apart and leaned forward, clamping a hand on his shoulder to hold him in place as he slammed into him. The fast, lurid slapping of flesh on flesh drew his testicles up tight and made his toes dig into the pad. Powers, but he needed to come. The way he felt right now, prostate stimulation might not even be necessary.
Hastion trembled violently. “Oh Peserin, please…”
It was barely a whisper but Cecine heard and redoubled his efforts. He was rewarded with one last grunt and then the ensign lurched sharply in his hold.
Without his conscious direction, Cecine’s hands moved, one pinning Hastion’s head to the bed to hold him in place while the other reached down to grab what surged between his thighs. Hastion gurgled and seized Cecine’s wrist, writhing uncontrollably as Cecine squeezed his penis and dragged his fingers over the spurting head.
“Powers, yes,” Cecine ground out, all but slain by the pleasure of fucking through those strong contractions. When they finally subsided, Hastion’s knees buckled and Cecine caught him with an arm under his hips, holding him tightly. With the other, he summoned the probe to his seed-slicked palm and slapped it onto his hindquarters. He squeezed his eyes shut in pained relief when it filled him instantly and zeroed in on his prostate.
Five more brutal thrusts into the ensign’s unresisting body and his own release was upon him. It took all his will to remain silent through those final, jerky lunges into that masculine ass, to not bellow with the rush of pure, electric sensation when his seed was torn from his sac by a dozen spine-bowing contractions.
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