by Alana Khan
You will, though, Grace. By the end of this night, you’ll want many things more desperately than you do right now. Do you doubt that?
No, Tyree. I believe you.
Good girl. Now take the index finger of one hand and place it on the opposite nipple. Draw a line down your breast, through the valley between them and to the other peak. Just the pad of your fingertip. Just the slightest pressure. Back and forth. Until I tell you to stop.
Oh. So good.
Yes. Now use your fingernail. The point of your fingernail from peak to peak. Are your nipples straining to receive the touch?
Yes.
Do they want more?
Yes.
Stop. Just wait.
Oh. It hurts. I hurt with need.
Yes. That’s just what I want. I want you to hurt with need. Where does it hurt?
Between my legs.
I would be there right now. My head between your legs if there were no cameras in this room. But there are. I’m going to torture you tonight. Unless you say “red.”
My lips are still sealed.
Good girl. Take the thumb and forefinger of each hand and grasp your nipples. Good?
Yesss.
Tell me you’re imagining those are my fingers.
Yes.
Pluck the tips. Pluck them and twist them. Just like I did the other night. Just the way you like it.
I let out a tiny sigh.
You’re being naughty, Grace. You don’t want them to hear you, or do you? Would it make it more arousing to know someone is watching what you’re doing to yourself?
No. No. Only you. I wish you were watching.
So do I, Amara. I am watching, in my mind’s eye. Lick your fingers and your thumbs and go back to doing what you were doing. Plucking those beautiful pink nubs. Pulling and twisting them. Use one word to tell me how this feels.
Incredible.
Good. Imagine my mouth on you there. Imagine my teeth grazing you. I would start soft and then increase until it was almost too exquisitely hard to bear. Would you like that?
Yes.
Good. Keep touching yourself with your fingers. Raise your heels until they touch your bottom. What are you aware of?
My clit is pulsing. My core is clenching. I’m thinking of your fingers inside me the other night. Your cock inside me. I wish I could feel that again.
Good. I wish I could slip my fingers into your wet warmth. And my cock, Grace. I want my cock buried inside you, joining us together. That will happen again if you want. But not tonight. Now allow your knees to open outward until they touch the bed. But I want you to do this slowly. I want you to imagine I’m on my knees in front of you. I’m looking at you. Admiring you. I want you to reveal yourself to me in the slowest tempo possible. Can you do that?
Yes.
I’ll describe it. I saw it the other night and the image is branded on my brain. Your folds are like the pink petals of a delicate flower. The bud at the top is juicy and plump. Engorged so that it can garner pleasure. I’m a male now, Grace. I don’t like to share. I would like to believe I will be the only male who will ever see that sight. The only male who will ever give you pleasure like that. Tonight I’ll watch in my mind’s eye as you give yourself that pleasure. Are your knees on the bed yet?
Yes.
Good. Take one or two fingers and dip them in your core—just the pads of your fingers. Tell me what you feel.
Wetness, Tyree. I’m sopping wet. I’m drenched for you. I’m pulsing down there. I can’t find any thoughts but these. I can only focus on my body, my skin, my need, and what you’re telling me to do.
Good, Grace. Because in a short while, I’m going to tell you to come. And you are going to do exactly that. You are going to come the modicum I tell you and not a moment before. Do you understand?
Yes.
Take those fingers, they should be saturated with your cream, and drag them up through your folds to your sensitive bud. Tell me what you feel.
Shaky. Needy. Desperate.
I’m going to make you feel more desperate, Grace. I’m going to make you so desperate you’ll beg for release. Are you willing to follow my instructions? To wait until I allow you to come?
Yes.
Good girl. Take those fingers and slip them down through your folds to where you’re flooded with your juices, then slide them up again and circle your bud. Now do it again. Are you good and wet?
Yes.
Do you wish it was my fingers, Grace?
Yes, Tyree. I can imagine it’s your fingers.
Do you wish my tongue was swirling around that little pink nub right now?
Yes. Oh my God, yes.
Good. I want you to allow your fingers to move just the way you like. The way that makes your hips thrust and grind. The way that makes you pant and yearn for release. And I don’t want you to come. Tell me when you’re desperate. More desperate than you’ve ever felt.
He’s quiet. There’s no noise in the room. No noise in my head. But I can still feel him here. He’s with me—waiting...listening. I can feel myself ramping up. Fire is sliding along my veins. My clit is throbbing and needy and yes, desperate, but not more desperate than it’s ever been. I tease myself to new heights. I dip my fingers in my core again. I’m saturated with my juices. My need is spiraling higher. I want to make noise, to moan, to grunt, to beg.
I glance down quickly and see that although my hand is circling furiously, the movement can’t be seen from above the covers. The eye in the sky could never detect what’s going on.
My hand is moving faster, my knees are pressing into the bed as if I’m opening myself to Tyree, even though he’s two fucking feet and a million miles away.
Tyree. Now. I’m desperate.
Good girl, Grace. Slow down for a moment. Do it for me.
Oh, don’t ask that.
I am asking, Amara. Slow down. Keep touching yourself, but less pressure and slower.
I’m beginning to hate you.
Are you saying “red”?
No!
Are you touching yourself slower and softer?
Yes.
What a good girl you are. I will definitely allow you to come, but not right now. I can hear your breathing slow. Still desperate?
Yes.
More desperate than you’ve ever been?
No.
Good. Tell me, Grace. When we’re off this dracking planet and we’re alone in a bedroom, what are you willing to do to thank me for letting you come?
Anything.
Get creative, Amara. Make me an offer.
Anything you want, Tyree.
Whisper to me, inside your head, Miss Grace. I know you’re shy. Keep touching yourself and tell me what you would do for this explosive orgasm I’m going to allow you to have.
I want you to take me, Tyree. Anywhere you want, any way you want. I can’t be more specific than that. Please. Please, can I come?
You can touch yourself the way you were before. Harder and faster.
I’m going to die. Can a person die from being too horny? Oh my God. I want to come so badly I feel like I’m going to come apart.
Please, Tyree. Please. Please.
Yes, Grace. I want you to come. Now!
And just like that, as if my body is a puppet that can perform on command I come with an orgasm that feels like rolling thunder. It begins heavily in my pelvis; every muscle contracting at once, allowing instant relief from the buildup of arousal, yet ramping it up even more. I have absolutely no control over the deep moan that explodes out of me. Tyree begins a loud coughing fit. Even in my bliss I know he’s covering for me, not wanting our “hosts” to hear the intimate noises of my sexual release.
I continue to ride the waves of my convulsive peaking as he coughs loudly. My thigh muscles are quivering, still spasming. My inner muscles are clenching, wishing they had something to clamp down on. My jaw tightens. My eyes are pressed shut so tightly tears are squeezing from the corners of my eyes. It t
akes long moments of aftershocks to come down.
Oh my God, Tyree. Oh my God. Thank you.
Thank you, Grace. That felt amazing to me, too. I’ll be back in a minima.
I know why he’s going to the bathroom. I don’t blame him. How could he have lived through that and not want release for himself?
As he rises from his pallet, he tells me, I’m going to slip out of your thoughts, Amara. You go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning. Sleep tight. Know that you are well and truly cared for.
Tyree
My first thoughts upon awakening are of Grace...and last night. Gods, she is so feminine, so responsive. She was so open to me last night. It felt as though the barriers she always erects disappeared and I slipped behind her defenses for the first time. She’s never revealed her true self to me like that before.
I don’t care if she’s not the truemate I would have found on Larian. She’s the mate I want. There will be no other female I could ever desire the way I want her.
After my Transformation, I worried if I’d ever become legitimately masculine, or if I’d forever be in the limbo of confusion about who I truly am. I’m not confused anymore. I’m male. I may not ever be able to fight in the gladiator ring or master the chainsticks, but what happened between Grace and me last night proved everything I need to know. I want to protect my female, I want to ease her fears, and I want to breach her, enter her, give her ecstasy. I’m all male—and I want to be her male.
Drackhead woke before I did. He is hard, insistent, throbbing. Just thinking about her incendiary release makes me want one of my own. Time for another shower, and then I need to find her some food.
Chapter Twelve
Grace
I wake for the first time in days with no anxiety—zero. Yes, I know I have a performance tonight, and tomorrow. I’ll weather it. Everyone loved me last night. My fingers can play my music without direction from me. We’ll be off this planet in less than forty-eight hours and I’ll never see any of these people again.
And Tyree? I’m not certain I even want to think about what happened last night. But, of course, my mind sprints to a complete, face-reddening rehash of every second. I can’t believe I revealed myself to him like that. I let him into my head for God’s sake. Not only did I allow him to crawl into my mind, but if that wasn’t enough, I told him every thought I had. Every sexy, intimate thought. And every feeling—every horny feeling. I described how he made me feel. Oh my God, I practically promised to be his sex slave when we got back to the ship. My ears are burning in embarrassment.
At the time, it was exciting and sensual and like agreeing to a sexy dare. Now, this morning, I feel like I did something while I was drunk that I’m regretting the day after. If I was a sorority girl, I would do the walk of shame out of the frat house and hope I never ran into the guy on campus. But Tyree is my personal bodyguard! He’s not going to leave my side for the next two days. And then we’ll be back onboard the Warrior along with twenty other souls. How am I supposed to avoid him?
I hear a muffled grunt from the bathroom, then a flush, then the shower running. The man is one big walking hormone. And it’s all directed at me. This thought pricks my nipples, now standing in tight points under my gown. The same gown I pulled up my body as if I was exposing myself to him last night.
“Stop it, Grace!” I order myself. I don’t even care if whoever is monitoring me thinks I’m crazy. Perhaps I am.
I get up, pull a blanket around me, and march down the hall in search of an empty bathroom. The suite is bustling with activity. Half the males are already dressed in their uniforms, the others seem to all be noisily showering in every available bathroom. I skulk back to my room. I’ll have to deal with Tyree sooner than I’d like.
When I approach, Petra’s standing at my door, about to knock. “Oh, Grace. Dax and Theos went back to the ship and grabbed us all some clothes since we hadn’t planned on sleeping here. Clean panties!” She holds a pair aloft and waves them like a flag, “And a few of your dresses, as well as a large t-shirt to sleep in. I hope you don’t mind that he pawed through your stuff to find this.”
“Great!” I try to sound cheerful. “I was wondering what I was going to wear today.”
Luckily, Tyree is dressed when I crack the door to our room.
“Morning,” I say, avoiding his eyes as I skirt around him, enter the bathroom, and close the door behind me. I’m sure that was obvious as a slap in the face. I immediately turn on the water to drown out any questions he may be lobbing at me through the door, although I know I’ll have to face him at some point.
In less than ten minutes, I’ve showered, dragged a comb through my hair, and pulled on underwear and a dress. Moment of truth. When I open the door, though, he’s gone. Why are my lips pressed into a thin line of dejection when I realize he’s not here?
Obviously, I don’t know what I want. Half of me wants to avoid him for the rest of my life, the other half doesn’t want to be separated from him for more than a minute. Perhaps insanity runs in my family. Maybe I’m as unbalanced as my mother.
I know something’s wrong as soon as I open the door to our hallway. It’s quiet. Like eerily quiet. Gladiators are not quiet people. They’re big and loud and uninhibited—even when they’re wearing clothes, and that isn’t all the time. They laugh and joke and make fun of each other, that is when they’re not farting or arm wrestling or arguing over who gets the last pastry—which is always Dax by the way.
I walk into the sitting room, where everyone is quietly gathered, and it’s like that old game of telephone where one person whispers in another’s ear and the secret is passed around. In this version, as each person receives the information their face becomes pinched, their eyes downcast, their whole expression somber.
By the looks of it, Tyree has already heard the secret. When he sees me, his eyes dance from mine.
I’m sure you’re wondering what’s going on, his thoughts flash into my mind. Dax and Theos went back to the ship and came back with some disturbing news. Callista has been monitoring deep space comms and has some serious concerns. We’re all but certain that the Bird of Prey II, one of MarZan’s swiftest vessels, is on its way here. They’ve tracked our ship. Zar’s thought is to leave atmo and lead them on a chase. Luckily our hyperdrive was repaired yesterday.
Okay. I respond. I’ll grab my things. I’m certain the Emperor isn’t going to like this, but we’ve got a fast ship and can be far away from this planet before they know we’re gone.
We don’t need another enemy, Grace. His brow furrows in determination. MarZan knows every gladiator on the ship. They were idented and well documented. They would never suspect me, I was three fiertos tall. The women’s info never left the ship. I’m convinced they won’t be looking for either of us. You and I will be safer here on Emirus.
Separate from everyone? My eyes are wide in panic. These people have become my family. I feel safe on the ship. If we separate, I won’t have all my friends.
They’ll come back to get us, Grace. The crew will just have outrun MarZan and come back to pick us up when it’s safe. That way you won’t incur Emperor Quirinus’ wrath. I don’t want to be on his bad side. He doesn’t look like the forgiving type.
So, Tyree, everyone would take off and leave us here? Just like that? What about our safety?
The Emperor has been generous with his personal guards. We don’t have to even leave our quarters. We’ll just sit tight here and await pickup.
I hate to express my next fear, but it has to be communicated, What if...what if they never come to pick us up? What if the cartel…?”
We’ve discussed that possibility. This is a civilized planet. You have your music, you’ll always be able to earn credits—you can live here comfortably. You’ll have me as your bodyguard. People have been stranded with far fewer resources.
I care for everyone on board, even Shadow. I don’t want to contemplate losing them. They’re my family more than my mother ever was. It stri
kes me with sudden force that I have a family now. And I might lose them. I swallow several times in rapid succession, trying not to release the tears threatening to spill from my eyes.
We’re waiting for a signal from Zar. Tyree continues. The ship is still monitoring comms. If our suspicions are confirmed, the males and Petra will be gone within minimas—she refuses to leave her male. Shadow will give me his wrist comm so they can keep in touch with me regarding retrieval. We’ll tell Emperor Quirinus the captain’s mother is ill and they have to fly through a hazardous quadrant to get to his home planet. We’ll tell him how safe we feel here, and that we’ll stay until our comrades return.