by Leslie Chase
“I will show you such delights,” I promised, voice hoarse with need. Marcie’s eyes sparkled.
“Talk’s cheap,” she managed to say, though a tremor ran through her voice as my fingers teased her nipples. I grinned at the challenge.
“Then let me show you.”
15
Marcie
Oh my god.
I hardly managed to think as my beautiful blue-skinned captain pinned me to the strange forcefield of his bed. Arrax’s touch drove me wild, burned all reason from my mind.
I hadn’t intended this when I’d told him why I was here. At least, I told myself I hadn’t. But the moment he’d kissed me, I’d known that this was where we’d end up, and the sooner the better.
My hand trembled as I stroked his chest, tracing a scar across his body, his powerful heartbeat under my fingers. Caressing my way down to his abs, feeling his blue skin, so unlike a humans, unlike anything I knew. I bit my lip as I came to his belt, fingers fumbling at it.
Above me, Arrax, snarled something again. Aggressive and eager to take what he wanted, he still held himself back. Savored the moment, his strong hands gentle as he explored my body. Every touch drove me wild, and he knew it. Enjoyed seeing me writhe, seeing me bite my lip and arch my back as he pinched and teased my tender nipples.
At last I managed to get his belt undone, slide my hand into his pants. And my eyes opened wide as my fingers closed around him. His cock was giant in my hand and I shuddered at the delicious thought of that monster inside me.
He swelled further at my touch, and I felt hard ridges under the smooth skin. Before I had a chance to explore him further, he moved back and pulled free of my grip.
“Not so fast,” he said to my disappointed moan. “You’ll have your chance, but now it’s my turn.”
He pulled at my jeans, unfastening them and tugging them down my legs. My panties went with them, leaving me naked and exposed to his gaze.
Normally I’d be shy, try to cover myself, to hide myself. But not with Arrax. Something about the frank and powerful desire in his eyes made me welcome his gaze, melt under it. He stared at me as though I was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.
Not how I was used to being looked at, but ohmygod I wasn’t about to complain.
His hands parted my legs, stroked up my thighs. I arched my back and shivered with anticipation as Arrax’s fingers brushed oh-so-close to my pussy, teasing me. His lips followed, kissing one inner thigh, then the other, alternating as he moved closer and closer.
“Please, Arrax,” I breathed, my body shaking in the grip of the bed’s forcefield. I needed him. I’d needed him since I first saw him on the bridge of the Jester’s Last Laugh. And now, finally, we’d both decided to take what we wanted.
His kisses reached my pussy, tongue parting my folds, making me cry out. Unbidden, my hands reached out to stroke through his hair, urging him on. Not that he needed it — Arrax had decided what he wanted, and this was it.
His tongue danced across me expertly, sending pulses of pleasure shooting through me. My fingers tightened in his hair as his hands gripped my hips, lifting me to him. Panting for breath, I didn’t try to fight the building pleasure. It would have been a losing battle, and I had no will to resist the pirate captain who’d captured my heart.
Every stroke of his rough, catlike tongue drove me closer to the edge, and I cried out with pleasure. Arrax growled into me, the vibration running through my body, and that was the final push I needed. With a shout that echoed in the small room, I tumbled into a wave of unbridled delight, bucking against Arrax’s grip and shuddering wildly.
That didn’t stop him. His fingers dug into my hips, holding me in place as he kept licking and sucking and kissing. I thrashed as he pulled orgasm after orgasm from me, howling and crying out until, hoarse from shouting and worn out, I collapsed.
Finally he raised his head, grinning at me. I sucked in a shuddering breath, stroking his cheek and struggling to get myself back under control. Arrax looked happier than I’d seen him, almost smug as he stroked my sweat-slick skin. Happy to have pleased me even if he hadn’t gotten anything himself.
I wasn’t going to let him get away with that. He deserved as much pleasure as he’d given me, and I looked forward to giving it to him. With trembling hands, I reached for his pants, pulling them down from his hips. Arrax’s grin widened and he pulled them off, freeing his dick and making me moan again.
It was huge, even bigger than I’d thought. Standing proudly to attention, Arrax’s alien cock looked like no human’s. Not just bigger, but the ridges and knobs… I swallowed, intimidated. But it wasn’t enough to overcome my curiosity, or my lust for Arrax. I needed him
I pulled him into the gravity field, and he floated beneath me, so tantalizingly close. His alien eyes sparkled as he lay back, watching me, his hands stroking my bare skin and driving me wild.
Biting my lip, I pulled myself closer, stroking him tenderly. My hand closed around that monster cock, and his moan sent another shiver of need through me. I lowered my mouth to kiss it, my cheeks burning. My tongue darted out to lick him and his whole body stiffened.
It was strange but wonderful to have so much power over a man like this. To be able to drive him wild, to make him shudder and moan and need. I looked up along his body, meeting his eyes and watching the fire burning inside him as I slid his cock into my mouth.
Arrax groaned again, hips pushing up, urging me to take him deeper. I groaned around him, trying to tease him as he’d teased me, watching him struggle for self-control. Fuck he was gorgeous when his reserve slipped away.
No, he was gorgeous all the time. But now, he was irresistible. His hand stroked my hair as I sucked, and the touch of his fingers made me groan again.
He hardened, the ridges of his alien cock pressing into my tongue, and then he gently pulled me back. Looked me in the eyes and smiled, shaking his head.
“Not yet, Marcie,” he said. “I have more in mind for you.”
With that, he rolled me onto my back and rose above me, his body easily pinning mine. I squirmed and laughed, struggling playfully, but against his strength I was helpless, trapped between him and the forcefield.
Good. I didn’t want to escape, not now, not ever. Arrax held me in place and moved between my legs, his cock pressing against my aching, eager opening. The strange and wonderful texture of his skin against mine, the warmth of our naked bodies pressed together, the scent of him as he leaned in to bite my neck, all combined to make me shudder with delight and groan with need.
I will not beg, I told myself as he pushed against me, just enough to make me ache and need. He wants me as badly I do him. I will not beg him for it.
But Arrax had the patience of a rock. He grinned at me, and now it was my turn to growl. Squirming, I wrapped my legs around him and tried to pull him to me, but he stayed still. And I didn’t have the strength to wait him out.
“Please, Arrax?” I panted. “Please. I need you.”
The fraying edges of his willpower snapped as I spoke, and he buried himself inside me with a hard thrust that made my body jerk. I cried out as he filled me, each of those ridges adding a delicious touch to the wonderful sensation of him. Arrax took a deep breath, looking down at me. The galaxy-swirls in his eyes lit up with pleasure as he thrust again.
Harder. Faster. Each thrust driving the air from me in a gasp, my body on fire with need and desire, my hands clutching at him.
Holding him tight, urging him on.
Not that he needed the encouragement.
Thought was impossible, my mind lost in a storm of pleasure as he drove deeper and deeper into me. I’d never felt anything like this, and my body shook with the joy of Arrax’s touch. I squeezed him tight, felt him grow and harden inside me, and that was all I needed to push me back over the edge.
The world around me dissolved in waves of pleasure. All I was aware of was Arrax. His hands holding me. His cock filling me. His body against mine.
As I howled in ecstasy, Arrax roared, losing the last of his self-control. One last thrust buried him deep inside me and he came, filling me as we clung to each other.
White light filled my mind and we gasped and clung to each other. Nothing else was real, nothing else mattered. Just him. Just us — it was impossible to tell where he ended and I began.
It took a long time to recover, and we lay there holding each other tight. His body pressed against mine, completing me in a way I hadn’t thought possible. The sound of his heartbeat filled my ears as I rested my head on his chest, and it was the most calming thing I’d ever heard.
Arrax lifted his head, kissed me tenderly on the lips and smiled.
“Mine,” he whispered, and I didn’t want to argue. “My mate.”
I nodded, kissing him back. “My pirate captain.”
Clinging to each other, floating in the gravity field, we drifted into sleep.
16
Arrax
We woke late, far later than I’d expected. For years sleep had been difficult to find, but in Marcie’s arms I fell straight into a warm and deep slumber. It was as though she was what I’d been missing, what I’d needed all this time.
When my eyes opened, it was mid-morning watch and I was better rested than I had been since I’d left Atreon. Disentangling myself from Marcie, I stood and looked at her.
Floating in the gravity field, peacefully asleep, she was beautiful and calm. Serene. I didn’t want to disturb her, didn’t want to pull her back from her dreams to the dangerous life of a pirate.
I stroked her hair, marveling at its softness. Marcie smiled in her sleep, muttering something unintelligible and wriggling against me. I chuckled, overcome by how cute she looked, and her eyes opened at the sound.
The smile on her face broadened as she saw me, and she took my hand.
“I thought I’d dreamed this,” she said. “It’s too perfect.”
I chuckled again. “Perfect? You’re on a leaking ship in the middle of a hostile nebula. I can’t offer you perfect.”
Perhaps I shouldn’t have raised that, but it was out before I thought about it. My Marcie deserved the whole truth of the situation now we were talking, and I wouldn’t hide the danger she was in.
Though I would do everything in my power to protect her from it.
Marcie laughed at my seriousness, her eyes gleaming, and she squeezed my hand. “Trying to frighten me off? It won’t work. I’ve come too far, and it’s not like I was any safer back home.”
That spoke to a darkness in her past I hadn’t seen before, and I pulled her to me in a powerful embrace. Whatever she’d left behind, I was with her now. I’d protect her from the ghosts of her past.
“Why didn’t you tell me why you’re here?” I asked. She brushed her fingers across my bare chest, taking a moment before she answered.
“Because I wasn’t here to find a pirate captain,” she said eventually. “I was expecting a mining supervisor, only to find you’d taken up a life of crime. How could I know that you’re trustworthy?”
I sighed. She had a point, and it wasn’t as though I’d been any more open about my feelings than she’d been. “You make a fair point. It is enough that we found each other at all.”
Marcie grinned and nodded, wrapping her arms around me. Pulling her into an embrace, I held her tight. Her body, warm and soft and fragile, gave me strength. Reminded me that there might still be more to life than striking back at those who’d hurt me. Maybe.
If I dared to risk bringing Marcie into my life.
But piracy was no safe way to live. For a second I imagined her floating in vacuum, face distorted into a silent scream, and I recoiled at the idea. No. Unacceptable.
“You are my mate, Marcie, and I will not allow any harm to come to you,” I said, holding her tight. “I should not have needed the Celestial Mates to tell me that. We’ll make a plan for what to do, how to live, but it will be safer to take you home to your Earth than for us to remain here.”
What would happen to the Revenge? I didn’t know — there was no one aboard who I’d trust with it. Oh, Zarr would be happy to take it off my hands, might even pay me for the privilege of command, but I didn’t trust him to take care of the ship or the crew. Jorn was a good doctor but didn’t like risks and a pirate captain had to embrace chance. Vissa? The fighter pilot had the killer instinct needed, but she lacked the command skills.
It didn’t matter, I decided. That was a problem for the future; for now, Marcie had to be my focus. But when I looked at her, I saw that she was chewing on her lip, nervous and distracted.
“Do we have to go back to Earth?” she asked, voice tentative. My frown deepened and she hurried on. “I, ah, I’ve got another secret.”
“What is it?” I held her close, trying to reassure her. To make her feel safe enough to share the cause of her pain. Whatever, whoever, she feared, I would protect her from it.
The words poured from her in a rush, like air through a ruptured hull. “I didn’t go to the Celestial Mates looking for a man. I just needed a way off Earth, because they were hunting me, and the agency was my best bet.”
If someone had hurt her, I would tear his throat out. Who was my mate running from that she was afraid to return home? I quelled my anger, letting Marcie speak in her own time. This was already hard for her and I didn’t want to make it worse by pushing.
“I worked for a company that turned out to be a front for the Antaran mob,” she said, the tension draining out of her body as she spoke. “I found out that they were laundering money, and they found out that I knew. So I had to get off Earth quick, buy some time to figure out what to do.”
My laugh startled both of us, bursting out of me before I managed to stop it. She looked at me, confused, and I apologized. “I am sorry, little one, but it is amusing. Both of us fight the Antaran gangsters in our own ways, me by hitting their shipping and you by exposing their operations. No wonder we make a good match.”
“I didn’t do anything to them,” she protested. “I mean I tried, but they found me before I had a chance. I just ran away like a coward.”
“No.” The word came out hard, and Marcie flinched from it. I took a calming breath, stroking her hair and meeting her eyes before continuing. “No, Marcie, that’s not cowardice. If you’d tried to fight them alone you’d have died, and we’d never have met. You retreated from an impossible fight, now you regroup and counterattack.”
She opened her mouth to object, but I laid a finger across her lips to silence her.
“I faced the same choice, back at the start,” I continued. “If I’d stayed and fought on Atreon Station, I’d have died. Maybe taken a few slavers with me, maybe not, but that wouldn’t have mattered. Instead I withdrew, gathered my strength, and fought when I had a way to. Picked up a crew to fight at my side, and actually hurt the people who wrecked my life and killed my friends.”
Marcie shook her head. “You retreated to find a crew and fight back. I just wanted to get out of there, get to safety. I’m not brave like you, Arrax.”
“No? Do you still have the files, the proof that the gangsters were using your employers to launder money?”
A moment of silence, then she nodded. “Well, yes, I kept them just in case…”
“In case you had a chance to use them,” I finished when she trailed off. “When I left Atreon, I didn’t have a plan. All I knew was that I had to live in order to fight back. That’s the same as you, Marcie, and you are no more a coward than I am.”
That got me a smile, and my soul lit up. Even if she wasn’t convinced yet, I’d made a start and that was the main thing. I would not have her call herself a coward, not when I’d seen her willing to face my entire crew with just a stolen blaster pistol.
“Fine, you win,” she said, stretching. “I’m a big damn hero just like you, and together we’ll conquer the Antarans and save everyone.”
“Exactly,” I agreed, watching her move with delight. She caught me l
ooking and blushed, but didn’t try to cover herself.
“In that case, though, we have the same enemies,” she pointed out. “Taking me back to Earth won’t keep me safe from them, it just takes away the weapons you’re using to fight them.”
I grimaced at that. She did have a point, though I didn’t want to face it. “I will not see you die here,” I objected. “We will get you to safety.”
“Nowhere’s safe,” she said. My arms tightened around her. That was unacceptable — my mate would be safe, no matter what I had to do to arrange it.
But she smiled as she looked up at me. “As long as I’m with you, Arrax, I know you’ll protect me. The thing is, you’re a pirate captain. There won’t be anywhere safer than your ship. Going home puts me in more danger, not less.”
“Are you saying you want to stay here?”
Marcie sighed. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for the pirate life, but it beats going back to Earth and waiting for the hammer to fall. At least here we’re shooting back.”
I gripped her shoulders, looking her in the eyes. My human had carried this fear the whole time she’d been here, and that was unacceptable.
“I will keep you safe, I swear it by the Red Sun,” I told her. “I will do what is necessary to keep you alive and in one piece, and I will take care of you.”
“Take care of yourself too,” Marcie said, grabbing my arm. “I don’t want you to get yourself killed trying to protect me.”
“My love, I do my best to keep myself safe.” It was impossible to promise more: a pirate captain’s job was too dangerous. Marcie wrinkled her brow and shook her head.