by Robin Lovett
The taste of her, the smell of her, how it makes me want to be inside of her. I need this. I need to eat at her until she screams for me to stop.
I stroke her with my long tongue, feeling into every crevice, tasting every bit of the wetness she has for me. I rub my nose against her hardened clit, and she writhes against my face.
Cries pour from her mouth. “Gahnin! Like that. Yes.” They become incomprehensible. The desperate sounds of a woman desperate to climax.
I urge her other leg over my shoulder until she is sitting on me. I hold her to my mouth, digging my fingers into the delectable muscles of her ass cheeks.
I would like to bite those, too.
I snake my tongue as deep inside her as it will go. Her whole body is gathering upward, straining and pulling against her chains. My mouth is in a frenzy, craving the feeling of her cunt spasming in climax.
And then, like I willed it to happen, she does.
She digs her heels into my back and thrusts her hips against my face, and I can’t take anymore waiting.
I lower her legs from my shoulders, her thighs still trembling with her climax.
I stand, rewrap her legs around my hips, and bury myself inside her.
She throws her head back and keens a wild noise. Her cunt is still pulsing; it squeezes me, once, twice.
I force myself to thrust through my own orgasm, wanting to make it last. I pour into her in spurts so harsh, she’s filled up with me, but there’s more.
I cannot stop coming. It’s because of the force of the Attachment my body believes it is starting to feel for her. My come overflows onto her thighs, but still I cannot stop thrusting.
She is everything. She is all there is. Her body is my universe. For now.
Eventually, it stops. My hips cease their convulsions. My cock lies still inside her, still hard, but at least the orgasm stopped.
I cling to her. She clings to me. I forget to think there’s anything wrong with that. Until she pulls away, I slide out of her, and she rests her feet on the floor.
I’m unstable on my feet and a bit delirious.
She grasps one of my hands over my head, and I do not understand why, until she gets the other one raised as well.
And I look up…
To see my wrists locked in the chains.
Chapter Eleven
ASSURA
The crowd roars.
I have to back away from him, walk it out. My legs are numb, my arms are numb, my body so heated from the roller coaster of orgasms he sent me through, I can barely feel my feet move.
The referees wave to me, assuming that we are finished.
I shake my head and point to Gahnin, where his erection is still protruding from his body. “He’s not done, and neither am I.” He is far from spent, and I have revenge to enact.
What he did to me—putting me at his mercy like that—and how much I liked it…
Just hanging there, unable to touch him, all I had to do was come. It was the most blissful thing I’ve ever felt—but still, torture.
It’s his turn. I am not a prisoner. I am no one’s captive. I am the tormenter. And it’s time he knew that. I know things that my past job with the Ten Systems taught me about the Ssedez body and what it can feel. I know where all the most sensitive places on him are.
But there is one thing first. I don’t know what his hard limits are. I have to ask him, “Do you like the chains?”
He snarls at me and refuses to answer.
I point a hard finger at his chest. “Admit you like it, or the referees will take you down.”
He inhales a hard breath and grits through his teeth like it’s a threat. “I like it.”
Triumph, I can’t stop from smiling with it. Game on.
I pick up my blindfold that lies on the ground. He tied it so loose that while he was thrusting in me like a man possessed, it fell off.
The haze in his eyes wanes, and he yanks the chains. “How did you get out?” he growls at me, his gaze alight with fury.
I take pleasure in his resistance. “I used to lock people up for a profession. I know how to escape chains.”
“What?” He stares at me like he doesn’t know who I am.
“You’ll see.”
His arms aren’t high enough, since I am slightly shorter than he is. I wave at the referees to raise the chains, and they do. I give him the same courtesy, let his elbows remain slightly bent, so the restraints don’t completely lock his joints.
I’m struck motionless staring at his stunning face. I never knew someone’s features could be so sharply masculine and yet beautiful at the same time, and not just because of his vividly blue eyes, either. It’s something in the sculpting of his cheekbones and the regality of his brow and nose. Those human myths that mistake the Ssedez for immortal deities make perfect sense. And then there’s the kissable plushness of his lips…
I will blindfold him, but first, his fangs retracted some time in that last few minutes. I’d like to take advantage of his mouth being free of them. It happens so rarely around me.
I stalk to him, twist a hand in his hair, and yank his mouth to mine.
He smells like me, tastes like me. I like that. This great Ssedez warrior surrendered to me. I am his master now.
His mouth is lush, his lips thick and sucking. He tries to take over the kiss, wrapping his tongue around mine. I like it. I want it. His delectable tongue is starved for more of me. It’s all there in his mouth—how if I hadn’t restrained him, he’d already be fucking me again.
I pull his head back.
The desire in his blue eyes is molten hot, and the demand in his words is palpable. The way his chest and arms bulge with his hands restrained over his head makes me salivate. I have to make myself wait to feel how hard his muscles are. “Lower the chains. I can’t fuck you like this.”
“That’s because the plan is to fuck with you.”
He unleashes an animal growl. “Assura. Do it. You want it. Do not make me wait. You do not want to know what will happen if I—”
“Oh yes, I do.” I lift the blindfold to his eyes and tie it as tightly around his head as I can. His will not be falling off.
He swears at me in Ssedez. “You will regret this.”
I lift my mouth to his ear. “I will enjoy every minute.” From the props table, I grab a feather and a knife with a two-inch blade.
Let the torture begin.
The myth about the Ssedez, that they’re impervious to everything, is only sort of true. His skin can’t be pierced easily, even when his armor isn’t out; a Ten Systems blaster laser will glance off his natural armor. No knife, no matter how sharp, will ever draw his blood. But it’s like biology forgot something when it reinforced his skin. It’s as though by making his skin thicker, it filled it with extra nerve endings, because the Ssedez skin is even more sensitive in some ways than a human’s.
I stand behind him and run the feather from the tip of his fingers, down his arm, across his back, then back up the other arm to his fingertips. I do it slowly, and with the moans he makes, you would think I was sucking his cock.
He likes it. I was right.
I kneel in front of him and do the same thing from his toes up his leg. I brush it around his hardness in a light circle, and his knees go partly weak. I trail the feather down his other leg to his toes.
He threatens me. “Now, open your mouth and suck me off.”
His cock is at my eye level; it is tempting. I salivate to do exactly as he says, but not on his time.
But I do want to tease him.
“You will like how I taste,” he taunts.
I flick my tongue over the tip, then pull back.
His hips buck, and he roars, “Assura! If my hands were free—”
“But they’re not, are they?”
He jerks on the chains so hard they rattle. “How the hell did you get out of these things?”
“Not telling.”
He wouldn’t be able to do it my way, anyway.
His wrists are too big to maneuver inside the cuffs like mine could. Plus, I have extra dexterity in my fingers—through practice, of course. I speculate, he likely has no such skill.
I drop the feather and stand in front of him. Close enough that he can feel my breath.
“I know your cunt is aching right now. Let me help.” He tilts his head, trying and failing to find a way to see around the blindfold.
I stab his thigh with the knife.
“What the hell?” he shouts, but he doesn’t even grimace. The knife can’t hurt him, any more than a scratch of the finger on human skin. It won’t leave an indentation for more than a second, and the blade can’t leave a mark on him.
He lifts a leg and brushes it up my calf.
“Don’t touch me,” I assert.
It works, though. He puts his foot back on the ground, but now he knows I have a knife.
“What are you planning to do with that?” He’s nervous. I wonder if he even knows what kinds of things I can make him feel with a blade.
I set the edge of the knife on his firm, gold pectoral, and he holds his breath.
I put pressure on the blade, and he inhales a ragged breath but remains still, trying not to reveal how it makes him feel. I keep the pressure and drag the blade across his chest. It leaves no visible mark on his skin.
His jaw falls open, and he makes a guttural sound in the back of his throat. It’s hard to know if it’s a sound of pain or pleasure, so I stop. I lift the blade from his chest.
His breath gasping, “Again,” he whispers with a note of shock in his tone.
I smile. He didn’t know. I’m making him feel new things, that he likes.
I set the blade to a different spot on his pec and draw it across again. I increase the pressure as I go. His sounds escalate to moans, and I don’t stop.
I’m elated, and for the first time in a long time, I feel a lightness in my chest. A softening of the burden of guilt I’ve carried. Surely, making him feel pleasure like this can erase some of my crimes.
I keep going. I make stripes with the blade across him, moving downward, though it leaves no mark. It’s like scratching across leather. I skip his nipples and move to his abs. I increase the pressure with every swipe.
His skin shows no indentation, no change in coloring from where I’ve touched him. My pressure gets harsh enough that, on a human, it would scrape their skin off.
But by the time I reach his navel, his body is wracking so hard with ecstasy that he starts to orgasm. He spurts onto me as I stand in front of him.
I look down, and I’m stunned. By two things.
His come is silver. It glistens on my pale skin like he’s coated me in molten metal.
But even more surprising is what’s happened to the tip of his cock. The gold armor of his skin has peeled back. Just an inch; it’s not much, but what it exposed beneath looks more tender than human skin.
“Don’t…let them…see,” he whispers, amid his climax, and there’s a note of panic in his voice.
If I stabbed him with the knife there, I would without a doubt pierce him. I’ve found the one and only true point of weakness where the Ssedez natural armor is vulnerable to a blade.
I never discovered this in my torture. I never made a Ssedez orgasm from my knife skills. Though I never set out to make it feel good, either. It makes a difference. The things I did were the minimum of what I was ordered to do.
My heart accelerates over what Gahnin’s secret means. The Ten Systems military doesn’t know about the Ssedez’s vulnerability in the state of arousal. No one does.
I hide the tip of his cock with my hand.
“Thank you,” he gasps and keeps coming against my hand.
I’m dying to taste him, so I drop to my knees and take him into my mouth.
The sensation of him in my mouth is exquisite. He’s spilling onto my tongue, a flavor so rich, I suck on him, trying to draw out more.
“Yeah, like that,” he groans and thrusts into my mouth, the chains jangling above his head.
I swallow and keep swallowing, until he’s flooded my mouth, and his silver come is dripping onto my chin. But I want more. It has an addictive quality. The more I get, the more I crave.
It makes me feel how empty I am to my core. I’m aching between my legs, dying to be fucked there, the way he is doing my mouth.
But I can’t stop, either. I can’t bring myself to take my mouth away. Luckily, he makes the decision for me.
Somehow, he managed to get out of the cuffs. It seems I’m not the only one good with locks.
He grabs my shoulders and tosses me onto my back.
I bounce on the soft surface and land with my legs spread wide. I reach for him. “Gahnin!”
He wrenches off his blindfold, then he is over me and gorging himself inside me with ceaseless abandon.
I don’t know how much longer he will last. I hope he never stops.
But more, I hope he never finds out how I knew the way to make him feel all those things I did.
Chapter Twelve
GAHNIN
I wake the next morning in a strange bed without her.
My body is confused. I reach for her, already hard, straining for her again. Expecting her to be there, like last night, hungry and dying to be fucked, the way I like to give it to her.
I am a Ssedez obsessed. I do not know what is happening to my body.
It was absurd and ridiculous how many times we orgasmed on that stage.
In the end, the referees had to tell us to stop. We were declared the prestigious winners by a record-breaking margin, and Koviye informed us we achieved our goal of winning the Fellamana’s respect. The sheer number of times we orgasmed alone was enough to put us above the competition, to say nothing of the spectacle we put on.
It was like a contest between her and I, neither wanting to give in and show satisfaction to the other.
What I suspected is true. With her body at full strength, she can take as much as I can give. I want her again so badly, it hurts.
But she’s not here.
I flop onto my back, cover my eyes, and swear.
These godsdamn Fellamana and their games. I did not get her out of my system. The desidre feels no less. It hurts more than ever. And this forsaken Attachment leaching through my veins… My fangs are throbbing so much; my head is pounding. Everything is worse. So much worse, I wish I could go back in time and let Pvotton take my place in the cell with her.
A tone so low that it resonates through the walls fills the room. It takes me a minute to realize—it’s me. I am growling like a crazed beast. The strength of my visceral reaction forces me to admit Pvotton taking my place was never an option.
Damn, what she did to me…
How did she know a knife would make me feel like that? I did not know a blade across my skin would feel so good, or that it could make me come.
I wonder if this is something many Ssedez do, and I have just missed it because I have only ever had one lover, my mate.
Tiortan. A well of emotion floods my chest, and I cover my face with my hands. I do not know what to do with myself, with all the certainties of my past that are being erased by the present, with what I am feeling for this human that is a tragedy of catastrophic proportions.
There has to be a way to stop this. The Attachment is spreading in me. My body has already fallen. My heart is on its way. My soul will be next, if I can’t stop it. All it takes after that is a willingness to sacrifice my life for hers—and the Attachment will be complete on my side.
I will never bite her, and so my venom will never cause her to grow fangs and return my bite, as Nemona did for Oten. Therefore, no threat of her ever forming the Attachment for me exists, but the respect I began to feel for her last night has not diminished. It has grown.
I…can’t believe it… I actually…like her.
She was impressive last night. Her tricks with the knife were too good to be guesses. Doing that to a human would skin them alive. It
was like she knew how it would affect me. Like she’d done it before.
I bolt up in bed.
She’s been with a Ssedez before.
My fangs are dripping with venom, and a possessive need to do violence storms through my body. Whoever the Ssedez was, I will kill them.
Oh gods.
I shake myself. What the hell is wrong with me?
But I cannot stop seeing it. If she has been with another Ssedez, I need to know who. I have not left her since she entered this town, so it did not happen here. It must have been while she was with the Ten Systems. Though I do not know how, since the humans have believed we were extinct for the past hundred years.
I have to find out.
I launch from bed, naked, and find my leather pants and boots. I dress, grateful I never again have to see that strap contraption the Fellamana put me in.
I look around and see for the first time I’m in a room with opaque walls.
The Fellamana actually gave me some privacy for the night. Or maybe they wanted to block my view of Assura, so that I would not try to fuck her again in my sex-crazed state.
I’m determined to find her now.
I throw the door open and storm into the hall. “Where is she?” I bellow.
My warriors, all nine of them, are outside my door. They are a lineup of gold muscle, strapped with weapons and ready for duty. They stare at me like they have never seen me before.
I freeze in horror, cover my mouth, and turn my back. It is bad enough I had my fangs out last night for them to see during the competition. For me to have them out now is akin to an adolescent lacking control over his hormones.
I grit my teeth, think of innocuous non-sensual things, like weapons and knives…
Not knives.
Trees and flowers and plants and gradually, my fangs withdraw into my gums. I force myself to take a calming breath and turn back around to my warriors.
They all politely stare at the ceiling or the floor, pretending they did not notice my obscene faux pas of having my fangs out in public.
“Commander.” Pvotton steps forward and speaks in Ssedez as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened. “We’re ready to travel to the Origin crash site.” Hearing my own language snaps my attention back to reality better than anything.