Kraving Khiva by Zoey Draven

Chapter Four

Khiva’s nostrils flared as the female’s scent hit him hard. She was wanting and she needed to be mated. And soon.

But underneath the obvious scent of her potent arousal, he sensed hesitation, perhaps even fear, neither of which he was used to. The human females that visited him and the others under Madame Allegria’s employ were regular clients. It wasn’t often that he served a new female and Khiva knew he must be out of touch, considering she…puzzled him. For a brief moment, when he’d first seen her, his mind had gone blank and he’d felt like an untried youth presented with his first mating.

Khiva had been well-educated in the art of seduction and sex, as all the Keriv’i were, even before Madame Allegria had taught them of human female’s needs. He knew that he would be able to please this female—Evelyn, she’d said—as he pleased all of his regular clients.

Something about her, however, made him act on instinct without thinking. Never had he initiated touch with a female client without her permission and yet, before he had spoken one word to her, he had moved behind her in a very dominant Keriv’i way.

He had palmed her full hips and stroked down her sides before he’d even realized what he’d done. Even when he had realized it, even when an apology was on the tip of his tongue, he hadn’t stopped. Instead, he’d dragged her closer, enjoying the feel of her body—so unlike the slim and narrow figures human females seemed to favor and try to emulate, especially among his clients.

Demav, she had a lush body. It was already perfect to him and he had yet to unclothe her.

A soft growl tore from his throat, eager in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. Then he remembered himself. Evelyn was a client. She was in control of everything and he shouldn’t grip her like an untried youth, especially since he sensed her nervousness.

It was one of the hardest things he had to do—and he’d had to do many hard things in his lifetime—but he slowly released her, guessing he would need to ease her into their night together.

Khiva stepped around her, inhaling a sharp breath for control. Though he’d released her, he still stood close.

For a moment, he simply studied her. Looking at her filled him with a gentle pleasure. It was unexpected. While he thought all of his clients had a beauty about them, never had he wanted to memorize one’s features. But this female…he committed her to memory, from her long, dark wavy hair that tumbled over her shoulder, to her large and round dark eyes, to her pink mouth with a slightly fuller bottom lip.

Evelyn shifted in place and Khiva’s voice came thick and dark when he asked, “Is there anything I can provide for you that would make you more comfortable tonight, Evelyn?”

He heard her swallow and his eyes came to the hollow of her throat, at the delicate skin there the color of rich cream.

Her pink lips quirked in a nervous smile. “Am I that obvious?”

“You have nothing to fear from me,” he purred softly, needing to comfort this female. “I am here to please you, in whatever way you wish.”

Khiva watched as her pink tongue darted out to wet her lips. He felt it like a punch in his gut and his aching cock gave another pulse, his abdomen clenching. The Keriv’i had always possessed higher sex drives in comparison to other races.

It was, perhaps, one of the many reasons why they made excellent whores.

Khiva’s lips tightened, but he pushed the thought away, choosing instead to focus on the female in front of him. When he dragged her scent into his nostrils, she made his mouth water. She smelled…like how the bright western valleys of Kerivu had smelled during the warm season. As a young male, he’d often journeyed there with his mother and brother and they were days of happiness and peace…before the Great War. Before everything changed.

Her voice anchored him when she said softly, “Can I look around?”

A surprised sound rumbled in his chest, but Khiva assumed her odd request was meant as a comfort. Madame Allegria, during their training, had always told them that human females craved feeling safe. Even if they requested darker fantasies of their ‘Kraves,’ as the humans referred to his race as, they still needed to trust their mating partners. That ‘trust’ extended to physical places, or so he assumed. Perhaps human females liked to feel nested and protected.

“Pax,” he said, lifting his chin up. But then he corrected himself. “Yes.”

She seemed to relax at that, her tight shoulders loosening. She turned away to look at the opposite side of the room, walking a few feet towards the fireplace. When Khiva’s eyes tracked the gentle sway of her hips and the way her silk dress caressed her figure as she moved, he almost growled in appreciation.

When it came to his clients at Madame Allegria’s, he knew how to arouse himself for them. Like a switch in his mind, he could become sexually charged if necessary, especially if he had a particularly demanding client for the night.

But with this female…

His cock was already aching for her. Khiva was already picturing what she would look like, her face scrunched in intense pleasure, as he released his cum—his teela—inside her giving body. He was already fantasizing about how long he would keep his cum inside her, how long her orgasm would last before he gave her mercy.

Khiva had a very particular fantasy of restraining a female’s hands and legs to his bed before releasing his teela inside her. And no matter how much she begged, he wouldn’t clean his cum away until it suited him. She would thrash in the restraints and experience orgasm after orgasm after orgasm for hours on end. Her body would tremble, her abdomen would clench, and her back would bow. She would be at his mercy, his plaything, to do with whatever he desired.

But of course, Khiva could not act out this fantasy. Not with his clients, whom he had to obey, in everything, which he struggled with always. Keriv’i were not naturally submissive beings, though being one of the Krave, he had to be.

Of course, there were times when his clients wanted him to be aggressive and dominant, which was freeing. It was a role he enjoyed because it felt the most natural to him, especially during mating and sex.

But as he watched Evelyn, as he studied the gentle curve of her body and the way she curiously inspected the small room, he wondered how she wanted to be mated. Would she want him to be gentle, to mate her softly and slowly? Or would she desire a demanding, rough lover?

He could be both. He could be either.

The room was small, which didn’t give her much to explore. Khiva had not looked at the room with a fresh gaze in quite some time, though he spent his evenings and early mornings there almost every day. Madame Allegria had furnished all the rooms at the brothel and a pair of cleaners came in after every night to launder the bedding and disinfect the furniture.

Khiva wondered what Evelyn thought. Except for a large bed, a fireplace with a black, iron mantel where he burned incense, numerous mirrors, and a cabinet filled with items for erotic play, there wasn’t much to observe.

But the female was inquisitive, it seemed, which made a…lightness fill his chest. Khiva cocked his head to the side, his eyes narrowing, trying to discern what it was about her that drew his interest so.

When she stopped to look out the circular window—the only one in the room—to the courtyard below, he found himself approaching her. Her shoulders tensed for a brief moment and Khiva frowned, wanting her to be comfortable in his presence.

“What are you searching for, Evelyn?” he asked, softening his voice so as not to frighten her. He stopped mere inches from her back, but she didn’t turn from the window. Instead, their eyes met in the reflection of the glass and Khiva marveled at how small she was compared to him.

He saw her lick her lips. “I’m buying time, I guess,” she admitted just as softly. “I…I’m surprised I’m here, that I actually came here. And I don’t know…I don’t know what I want from this.”

Khiva’s brow bone shifted upwards. Her honesty was…refreshing. He was so used to his clients pawing at him the moment they stepped through the door, demanding the heat of his body, demanding his seed and the pleasure he could give them. It was why he had always felt like a whore, to be used and nothing more.

And Khiva accepted it. He accepted that every client visit brought him closer to what he truly desired: his freedom. Because his freedom from Madame Allegria’s, from Everton meant he could finally begin to search for his mother and brother, if they still lived.

It had been a long time since Khiva had felt like a male…a male that a female truly desired above what his body could do. And perhaps this female would be the same as the rest eventually…but she wasn’t looking at him like a whore right then. She wasn’t treating him like one.

“Tell me what you need, female,” he said, his hands shaking from resisting what he truly wanted: to touch her. He wanted to pull her back into his body and run his hands underneath the silk of her dress. He wanted to strip her bare and feel the heat of her against him.

Desire was dangerous, he realized. It had the potential to undo him, to make him lose control, when all of the Krave needed to be in control, no matter the situation. If Madame Allegria learned that he’d acted on his instinct, or that he was on the verge of losing that control…she would punish him.

“Or tell me what you want,” he added softly. “Want and need are very different, pax?”

“Pax,” she whispered, meeting his eyes again in the reflection of the glass before turning to face him. She had to tilt her head all the way back to regard him. “Is that your language?”

“Pax,” he said again. That lightness in his chest grew. “It means ‘yes’ in yours.”

Evelyn’s smile started small, but grew. Then she became shy again and looked down at her feet, breaking his gaze. Khiva had the strongest urge to reach out and lift her chin so he could see her dark eyes. Again, he didn’t act on his instinct.

“I tried to research the Krave on my Nu device,” she admitted, finally lifting her eyes, “before I came here. I couldn’t find much, not even a picture, which I thought was strange.”

“Perhaps because my race is called the Keriv’i,” he murmured gently. “Not the Krave.”

Some of her nerves left her, perhaps without her even realizing it, and she blinked, a curious expression enveloping her pleasing features.

“It is?”

“Madame Allegria gave us that name…the Krave,” Khiva told her and he didn’t know why. “It is more fitting for what we do, I suppose.”

Khiva could’ve cursed himself for saying that because Evelyn suddenly lost some of her ease with him and bit her lip, as if remembering where she was, as if remembering who he was.

Which only puzzled him further. Unable to help himself, he commented, “You say you are surprised you came here. Will you tell me why?”

She swallowed, her eyes darting to the door and a flash of panic went through him. He didn’t want her to leave, even though he’d be free the remainder of the night. He wanted to be with her, to talk with her, to touch her. He wanted to figure her out because she intrigued him.

“Forgive me,” he said swiftly. “It is none of my business why you came.”

“Isn’t it though?” Evelyn asked softly, meeting his gaze.

Khiva looked past her out the window. The room was on the third floor, so beyond the stretch of buildings just outside the circular courtyard below, he could see the Lake District, with its towering trees. His gaze returned to hers.

“Females come to me for one reason only,” he said.

Those same females kept returning to him because he could give them unfathomable, pure, lasting pleasure. He’d felt panic when Evelyn had looked at the door and he realized that if he wanted her to stay that night, if he wanted her to return as a regular client, then he needed to give her reason to.

For some reason, though they had just met, he wanted her to return. Again and again.

Shifting slightly, he held her gaze, tilting his body towards her. He didn’t touch her, not without her permission, but he came as physically close as possible. Her breath hitched softly, her lips parted. When he saw her pupils dilate, he knew that signaled her attraction, despite her shyness.

The body didn’t lie.

He was just about to ask her permission to touch her, desperate to get his hands on her and begin their night, when she whispered, “Wait.”

Khiva immediately stilled.

She looked up at him and even Khiva recognized the vulnerability in her eyes. It made him feel even more protective of her. He wanted to take that fear away. He wanted her to find comfort in him, in his body.

He could give that to her.

He would.

Khiva never would’ve guessed, in a million years, what she said next, however.

“I’m a virgin,” Evelyn said quietly, a light flush blooming underneath her softened cheekbones. “I thought it only right that you know.”

Forgetting himself, he asked, “Kruvu?” When he saw her confusion through the baffled haze in his mind, he repeated, “What?”

“I…I’ve never had sex before,” she said, as if he might not know what ‘virgin’ meant.

Of course he knew what it meant.

He’d just never taken an innocent before.

Vauk!

His clients tended to be wealthy, powerful females, usually in equally powerful marriages. His clients were confident in their sexuality and came to him because they knew exactly what they would be getting…good, thorough fuckings punctuated with multiple orgasms.

They didn’t come to the Krave to talk. They came to the Krave to release tension and find the intense pleasure only a Krave could give them, intense pleasure they couldn’t find among human men, or their husbands for that matter.

Khiva realized too late that his lengthy, stunned silence was beginning to fray Evelyn’s nerves.

“I…I understand if you don’t…if you don’t want to…” she trailed off, looking down at her feet. Again, she desperately glanced at the door, making his shoulders bunch with tension and she whispered, “I’m sorry, Khiva. I shouldn’t have come. I’ll just—”

“Veki,” he growled. Alarm made Khiva grabbed her around the waist when she tried to slip past him. His two hearts thundered rapidly in his chest, a mixture of panic, surprise, and arousal...and fear.

Demav, she scared him, in a way no other female had scared him before.

He didn’t know what to make of that. Or why he felt this strange, strong attachment to her.

Khiva bracketed an arm around her lower back, pressing her front into his chest, holding her against his body in the way he’d craved since she’d stepped into the room. He almost groaned at how good she felt, how right she felt.

“Forgive me,” he rasped, holding her startled gaze. “You surprised me. It was not meant as a rejection against you, female. Never. Not when I desire you so much.”

Almost subconsciously, he ran the very tips of his dull claws down her back, hoping he didn’t ruin the silk. But he wanted to comfort her, to reassure her. Selfishly, he wanted to mark her, to touch her wherever he could reach, a Keriv’i instinct, one he didn’t want to deny.

Khiva swallowed. So close she had come to bolting. He knew that if she had succeeded, he would’ve never seen her again.

Slowly, her tense body began to respond to his touch and her shoulders loosened. Her eyes began to go soft and the lines on her forehead smoothed.

Khiva began to relax also, though he was still processing what she’d told him, his mind firing.

A virgin…

What had possessed a virgin to come to Madame Allegria’s?he couldn’t help but wonder. Surely she had heard that a night with a Krave was…intense.

It does not matter, he realized. She was there. With him.

Khiva intended to give her whatever she sought and more…and he would pleasure her so well that she would return to him, again and again and again.

A low purr rose in his throat, pleased with that thought and suddenly very determined.

“Will you stay, female?” he asked quietly. He would beg her, if he had to. “I wish that you will.”

When their eyes connected again, he saw that her gaze was all softness, relaxed in his arms.

She likes to be touched, he realized and his chest rumbled at the thought. She pleased him tremendously. He would never take his hands off her, if that was the case.

If she stayed, of course.

He didn’t have to wait long, however, because Evelyn took in a small breath and then she said, “Yes, Khiva.”

His hands clenched into her waist at the sound of his name on her lips.

“I’ll stay,” she said quietly.