by Bex McLynn
She pulled at his hips, urging him on. He pressed forward, sinking in deeper, spreading her more.
"So fucking tight." He trembled. "Gods, Seph. Your cunt is taking me. All of me."
She struggled to remain pliant, resisting the dual urges to rear up and clench down. "More, Zver."
He hissed and swore when he was fully seated, his hips flush against hers.
She was full. So overly full. It had been years, but surely she should have remembered this and not have been so profoundly affected. Should have remembered the icy-hot throb of a cock inside her. Should have remembered the tingling sensation of invasion paired with connection. But she was caught off guard, pinned beneath him, yet reeling.
His fathomless voice poured explicit benedictions directly into the slope of her shoulder. He praised her tiny cunt. How it swallowed his thick cock whole. Grasped him so tightly, he was in Direis’s embrace, and Unholde damn him, because he never wanted to leave. He shuddered and admitted he was a breath from breaking. One exhale away from unloading inside her, and he hadn't brought her a lick of pleasure.
Encircling her in his arms, his large mass deliciously pressed down on her. He caged her as he settled, unmoving. But something moved. Dozens of tiny tongues slipped through her wetness, gently spread her folds and exposed her to seeking anthers that lapped at her clit again and again. The chilled strokes tingled and heated as her entire core coiled tighter and tighter. She shook, her body warring between hauling him closer and thrusting him away because the intensity was too much.
A strangled noise broke from her as her orgasm blew her wide open.
"Fucking beautiful." He groaned and rubbed his nose along her throat as if encouraging her cries.
He kept her there, stuffed full of his cock, and languidly strummed her. Her pussy spasmed, his fullness damming the gradual ebb of her release. With a satisfied groan, he slowly worked her clit and the sensitive skin of her folds, winding her tight until she broke apart all over again.
Another low, hungry groan reverberated from his chest, traveling down her body and quaking her core.
He started again, his anthers relentless.
But she couldn't. Not again. Not so soon.
"Zver. God, Zver." She struggled beneath him, weakly pushing up against his chest.
He nipped her shoulder as he complied, extending his arms to raise himself up. His eyes blazed. His chest bellowed with his breaths. Pulling away cost him.
Seph, still soaring on her orgasmic high, panted and said, "What about you?"
He arched a brow. What about me?
She huffed. "Well, did you? I mean... Do you? How do you?"
He directed her gaze to where they were connected. "Your cunt's clutch. So tight. So close."
Dear god, he gave her phenomenal orgasms. If clamping down on his dick was what he needed to come, she could do this. One more. Maybe two.
Her heart still hammered against her ribs, so she asked, "One more?"
He made a noncommittal growl. She clenched around him and moaned—both dismayed and aroused.
Time to try something new.
"Off, Zver."
Zver couldn't suppress his disgruntled growl, but he did as she bade and slid out of her tight cunt.
Gods. So fucking surreal.
Sex in a bunk was different for him. So many games and protocols coated sex for the Teras. House Braces and clutching were clinical negotiations. He had never before encountered any well-bred woman who embraced sex without the brace. So when Seph's gaze flared with lust and anticipation, he nearly climaxed right then.
She shimmied out from under him and issued a command. "On your back, Zver."
Like a green recruit, he hastened to obey.
She rose over him, breasts hovering just a span from his lips. "We'll go slow. Tell me if we need to stop."
Like hell he would.
She grinned, wickedly. "I don't want to hurt you."
Gods, he wouldn't mind it if she did.
Once astride, she squeezed him with her lean thighs, wordlessly promising to clutch him with other muscles.
Those muscles. Nothing like a Teras woman's clyccana, the corresponding cilia to a man's anthers that stroked a man to spill his seed. When he entered Seph—even though he had explored her with his fingers—he had not been prepared. He truly had no knowing until he burrowed himself inside her. Immediately he was undone. Her flesh welcomed him with warmth and moisture. Soft, plump muscles encased him and, unbelievably, sucked him in further. He'd been swallowed down to his root.
He braced for her descent, but it was useless. Seph gave him no quarter. No moment to process the changes before rising up and sinking down onto his straining cock. Her soaked cunt enveloped him, and she shuddered with a passion-filled sigh. Only a gravid woman could take all of him without pain. Seph, amazingly, parted her lips and released a decadent moan.
Unholde damn him. She wanted him.
The shuttling in and out of her ravaged him. Her tight heat sheathed him over and over. He tucked his anthers so she could take his entire shaft with each undulation of her hips. An instinct he didn't know he possessed had him thrusting up into her.
"Fuck, Seph!" he shouted. Hell, he might have roared.
Her rhythm faltered as concern pierced her lusty gaze.
His hands shot to her hips, locking her to him. He pistoned her up and down on his aching cock. Such a fucking sweet ache.
"I'm. Fine. Fine." At least, he hoped he spoke those words, because he had thought, Don't fucking stop.
"Good. Good." She picked up her pace and bore down on him. "God, so good."
She looked so damn beautiful riding him. Her nipples were hard, flushed points. Her hair—gods, her hair—bounced in rhythm to her bucking, rolling hips. His eyes kept returning to her saddle, staring at her flesh that glistened and stretched over his girth.
Girth and length, she took all of him.
He could sense it coming. Fiery ice raced down his spine, up his thighs, and spooled in his gut. He clenched his teeth, wanting the sensation to last. Wanting to release.
"Zver—" She choked on a sob.
She clenched around him so damn hard. Her lips parted on a wordless cry.
With a roar, he came. Fire and ice shot forth, battering his heart and igniting all his muscles to spasm in blissful agony. He gazed up at the woman above him. Light haloed her.
Starburst.
Seph lay on her back and unhooked her hands from Zver's neck. He stunned and confused her. Zver. No longer the thane. After spending several hours entwined, his name passed through her lips as naturally as an exhaled breath. However, she wasn't flummoxed by his name, but that she came. Again and again, she came. Good god, every damn time she erupted like a geyser—on a cock, of all things. She'd never done that before. Strumming fingers and battery-operated accessories always polished her off. A non-clit triggered climax was her orgasmic unicorn. It just didn't exist.
Yet, here she was, cocooned in Zver's embrace, heaving like she just sprinted a marathon. Unheard of...
She focused on the ceiling, trying to pull herself together before acknowledging the hulking man poised over her, pressed between her legs, with his massive cock still inside her. His labored breaths rocked her effortlessly, like a raft floating atop water—cresting and lulling.
Her peripheral vision twinkled. Sweet Sexual Unicorn. The man had her seeing stars.
She groaned in disbelief. "You. You."
Breath and brain failed her. Her skin tingled with continuous sensations, and she felt his chest stall, then rumble. He was laughing.
"Ass." She managed to wheeze out.
"Cease," he said smugly as his large palms, refreshingly cool on her overheated skin, possessively caressed her jaw and throat. Coarse thumb pads stroked her, sending a delicious chill through her.
She bristled as he rolled to his side, gathering her up in his wake. With a huff she settled onto his broad chest, propping her cheek on his shoulder.
"Ass,"
she whispered petulantly.
His response was achingly sweet. Another soundless chuckle rumbled through his chest and down to her sore pussy. "As you will, Seph."
Ping!
"Yours or mine?" Seph asked, too tired to lift her head to check her WristCune for herself.
"Mine." He inhaled and held the breath, something he did when accessing his technopathy. "Lekar, again. Wants to see you."
"I'm fine."
"He wants me to order you to sickbay."
She scoffed, delighted that Zver mirrored her sentiment with a stiff laugh. Order her, hilarious...
"I'll take you there myself," he said, as if that settled the matter.
Well, she'd let him think that, for now. She had other matters on her mind.
The Trine inundated her WristCune with messages, demanding that she see them. And she would see them, after she composed her speech—a 'thank-you, but no thank-you' spiel. She decided to throw her lot in with Zver. He had his own damn fleet, spirenought included. Surely he could place one ship at her disposal when the time came to go home. Until then, she'd offer him her fledgling technopathic abilities, such as they were, in service to his house. It was all so beautifully simplistic, she damn near giggled in relief.
He squeezed her. "Speak your mind."
"I'm happy," she said, pleased her tone matched her words.
He grunt-hummed in reply. Good.
Why stop at disclosing her state of mind? She might as well tell him why. She had decided, after all. "I don't want to go with the Trine."
"Then you won't go."
Thrilled, she smiled and nipped at his shoulder. "But you'll drag me to sickbay?"
"Aye." He planted a kiss into her hair.
"And give me a pony?"
He huffed. "I still don't know what that is. Or that other thing."
"A unicorn."
"Yes, that."
"Don't worry, Big Guy." She patted him reassuringly on his hard chest. "You've already given me plenty of those."
Chapter Twenty
Zver growled as he exited the Athel Hall. He didn't want to leave Seph, but he'd spent more than his four-hour bunk time with her—six to be exact—and he had duties to address. He'd left while she slept—the only way he could have left her. She was exhausted from her ordeal and from endless fucking, and knowing she needed sleep more than she needed him enabled him to break from her side.
She had rejected the Athela Academe, and the joy of that declaration soothed him like a balm. She resolutely knew what she wanted, and tenaciously reached for it with both hands. He adored her for her resiliency. The Trine and the Great Houses could beg for Seph until the stars go dark, but House Borac would not relinquish her.
He chose her.
His first stop, before shuttling over to Deleo to see his officers in sickbay and check-in on Rannik, would be the bridge of Prykimis. The bridge crew was skeletal, both in numbers and physical health. Therion vouched for a handful of Prykimis's original crew to man the consoles, while Zver's men recovered from the marauders’ attack.
Therion himself manned the Command Console, resembling a scarecrow propped up in a chair.
Zver had to satisfy his curiosity. Yes, Seph awoke numerous systems in Prykimis, but the fact remained that those systems had to have been present to be awoken. Components supposedly stripped out of Prykimis decades ago were now operational. Components that he hadn't known were there.
"Jahat is en route," he said to Therion without preamble.
Therion scoffed and sounded strained without his usual spark. "Of course he is. All the hard work's been done. How's our Seph?"
His Seph. Only his. She chose him, and as she vehemently told him more than once, she only chose one man.
"Resting." He saw no need to skirt the issue, so he said, "Prykimis has as many working systems as Vayant."
Therion, looking like a specter, blinked. "Yeah, I know."
He just stared at his brother, silently accusing him... of what? Of complying with Thane Jahat's orders to fix Prykimis without TerTac being aware? Of perpetuating a ruse so that House Borac would pour resources into a ship that wasn't a derelict?
Therion sighed. "I installed them, Zver."
"You?" After that single word, he found himself speechless.
Therion rolled his eyes. "Not personally, but I had the work done. Some of the guys here are not half bad." He weakly gestured to the men about him. "Even in a clade with a few of them. The Awesome Anthers. Perhaps you heard of us—"
"How could you have installed that many components?" More importantly, how could his officers—how could he—not have known? How did he miss it?
His brother's smile waned. "Complete your thought. I know you want to."
Zver, rather than admit he overlooked the repairs, instead asked, "How'd you get the repairs past Jahat's men?"
"Misdirection," Therion said.
Chagrined, he shook his head and thought of Seph and her 'red herring.' "Explain."
Therion heaved and managed to slouch in his chair even more. "Well, mostly I threw parties. Played endless hands of krope. Sponsored lots of trips to Radost brothels. Bought that clutch clunker of a Lassie." He paused, scratched his hands roughly through his hair, then yanked at the roots. "Ran out of ideas, so I had to, you know, do things. Like run military maneuvers, create a spire flight school—we had a pretty good curriculum, too. Hosted theater nights. Hell, even had a chaplain aboard trying to give religion a go."
He didn't know what to say. He just stared at his brother like he was seeing him for the first time in ages.
Therion seemed to wilt in the chair. "It is exhausting, trying to misdirect an entire ship."
He swallowed thickly before he trusted himself to speak. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I did. Well, Seph did. Or she should have."
"When?"
Therion huffed while recounting his memory. "After the whole running through the ship screaming thing. Just the other day."
Recollection dawned, and he grimaced. "You asked her what she thought of the ship."
Therion lit up for a second. "And she got it! Incredibly astute lady, Zver. She truly impressed me."
He thought back on what Seph had said. How she tried to connect with Therion on a personal level, to encourage his brother to be better. To not be Therion, The Ass. The Disappointment. The Bane.
The ship is not what she appears to be...
What is on the inside doesn't match the outside...
What people see, that's not the real ship...
The outside was a derelict ship—a mash-up of cheap TTS parts. But the inside—a functioning Athelasan spirenought. By Unholy Unholde, Therion had fooled them all.
"Why did you do all that, Therion?"
Therion shrugged. "Because I knew you wanted her."
Godsdamn. Fucking. Brilliant. Therion.
Therion sagged back into the chair and scrubbed his hands over his face. "You think there're more like her?"
"Her?" he asked in a daze.
"Seph. Do you think there're more, or is she the only one?"
Zver did not like the sensation that crawled over him. By Unholde, that thought had never entered his mind because he had never seen anyone like Seph before. She was so singular in his mind, he had not considered if there were other Humans, lost in the Tendex Worlds.
"Fucking Therion!"
Both brothers jolted. Lekar stormed onto the bridge, jamming an accusing finger at Therion.
"What are you doing on the bridge, Therion?" Lekar railed. "Not once have you been to sickbay for your ordered treatments."
Zver found himself moving, sliding between the medicmaster and his brother, ready to defend Therion.
Lekar pinned him with a hard look. "Your brother has the worst case of scrubber's lung out of the lot of 'em."
He blinked as the floor tilted beneath him. Therion wasn't strung out from over partying and idling his time away on Prykimis. The man was ill.
Therion blustered. "Listen, here, Medicmaster—"
Lekar bowled over him. "Get the fuck out of the chair before I relieve you of duty on medical grounds."
Therion hung his head in defeat and dragged himself up. "Getting out of the chair. I was just waiting for the day shift." He nodded to Zver as he shuffled past. "Big Chair's all yours, Thane."
Jahat had raged that the men on Prykimis were useless. That they hadn't seen to duty. Hadn't repaired the ship at all costs for the glory of the house. To vent them out to space. Declared them Unsworn.
Well, his brother accomplished the damn near impossible, by himself, with Jahat none the wiser.
Still reeling, Zver sank into the abandoned command chair.
Therion barked from the corridor. "Don't touch the seat recliner! It's exactly how I like it. You can fuck with the pneumatic lift, though. Go wild."
Seph ran into the Athel Hall, launching herself into Rannik's arms. She squealed and squeezed until her arms threatened to go numb from lack of blood flow. Was it undignified? Definitely. Did she care? Absolutely not.
"God, I missed you!" she said, squealing into his shoulder.
She was so damn grateful that Rannik had remained out of the conflict. Only a handful of crew-turned-marauders in Deleo's sickbay had tried to riot, but Zver's men quickly subdued them.
"Seph, come on," Rannik said gruffly while gently trying to loosen her spider-monkey hold on him. "All right, Seph."
With a disgruntled sigh, she hopped off him. For now. She would never stop attacking him because her affection for him was that fierce. He was a one-man boy band, and she was his biggest fangirl.
He cast his eyes about the Hall, and she wondered if he saw what she did. Her guard unit, although not smiling, acknowledged Rannik with professional nods. Her chest ached, swelling with pride. For a staggering moment, Xander filled her thoughts, making the ache bittersweet.
Seph blinked, mortified to feel moisture on her lashes. She boxed up her sadness.
"Hey, our clade, Rannik!" She forcibly cheered. "Our clade is badass awesome now!"
Rannik ducked his face, already flushed with a blue blush, and smiled shyly. "Yeah, pretty brilliant, isn't it?"