Alien Mercenary’s Destiny by Mina Carter
9
The door slid open in front of them and he stepped into the small room beyond. It was dark, only the bed illuminated by the overhead light.
“I want to see you,” he said, sliding her down the front of his body until her feet hit the floor. He didn’t step away, looming over her in the darkness, the heat of his body a siren’s call. All she wanted to do was wrap herself around him, rub her skin against his and breathe in the scent that was uniquely his.
She nodded, unable to speak, and reached for the hem of her top.
“Let me,” he murmured, covering her hands with his.
She let him, watching his expression as he lifted her top, drawing it up and over her head. His features tightened as he looked down at her, naked to the waist before him.
“Human females are probably all soft and pretty,” she said, her hands lifting to cover herself, conscious of the small scales that ran under her breasts and in lines down her ribs.
“They can be pretty, yes, but nowhere near as beautiful as you.”
He reached out, tracing a strong finger across the scales under her breasts. Her lips parted as her nipples tightened in response. His hand was so warm, and she arched toward him.
“You’re beautiful,” he said again, his deep voice a sinful temptation. “These are beautiful.”
He bit his lower lip and it was the hottest thing she’d ever seen, especially when combined with the wicked look in his eyes. “All it makes me think is…”
“Yes?” Her voice was soft, breathless, all her attention on him. She couldn’t have moved, not even if an interplanetary war had broken out in the room.
He smiled, the curve of his lips making her ache. “I want to find out if there are more.”
“T-T-” She couldn’t get the words past her lips.
“What was that?” he whispered, leaning down to brush a kiss against the side of her throat and then down to kiss the line of her collarbone.
She swallowed and tried again, her voice little more than a whisper. “There are more.”
“Good.”
She clutched at his shoulders as he dropped to his knees in front of her, the barest whisper of his lips against her nipple making her breasts perk up, desperate for his attention. But he didn’t take the obvious invitation. Instead, he kissed the side of her breast, nuzzling the scales softly.
She tipped her head back, her eyes closed as he traced the line down her side, his hands busy at her waistband. He stripped her of her pants, pushing them down over her hips until they slid to puddle on the floor around her feet. The move left her naked before him with waves of heat and chills washing over her skin as he looked at her.
Need and desire showed stark in his eyes and his big hands skimmed over her. His touch wasn’t hard but gentle as he reverently outlined her sparse curves. She wasn’t fooled, though. He wasn’t passive by any stretch of the imagination. He was exploring her, studying her in the most sensual of ways. His large hand spread out over her stomach, outstretched finger and thumb brushing against her hips.
“On the bed,” he murmured as a soft push urged her back toward it.
She stumbled a little as she stepped back. Her kind weren’t good at backpedaling, preferring instead to attack, but she kept her eyes on him trustingly. Built for taller frames, the bunk hit the backs of her thighs. She boosted herself onto the mattress slowly, watching him all the time.
His eyes were dark, and for a moment it was like looking into those of a warrior of her own kind, one who had been overtaken by the mating fever. He moved closer; his gaze intent on hers. Big hands parted her thighs, revealing her to him. Heat mounted on her cheeks as he looked down and then smiled.
“Perfect,” he murmured, his lips claiming hers in a heated kiss.
There was no warning, no exploration. He drove in and claimed what he wanted, his hand sliding down her body. She arched against him in welcome, her breathing catching as his strong hand slid between her thighs. He parted her lower lips, seeking and finding her clit with deft fingers.
A whimper of surprise escaped her as he stroked and caressed her. Males of her own kind rarely bothered with any kind of foreplay, more interested in reaching climax and whether her scales would soften enough for a claiming bite. Half of them didn’t know where to find the clitoris while the other half probably thought it was a leisure resort in the Fnarian expanse.
But Eric definitely knew where it was, his strong fingers teasing and stroking as he kissed her. She moaned and clutched at his arms, parting her lips beneath his as she surrendered to him. The tension in her body tightened, and she rocked her hips against him, needing more.
He tore his lips away, moving his hand, and she keened softly in loss and disappointment.
“Shhhh,” he soothed her. “I’m not done with you yet.”
Before she could reply, he urged her back and slid down the front of her body. She lay back on the cool sheets, every cell in her body tight with anticipation as his hot breath washed over her stomach and then over the soft flesh of her inner thighs.
“Sexy,” he whispered, trailing kisses against the line of soft scales that ran down her inner thighs. “So beautiful and all mine.”
She bit her lip as he reached the apex of her thighs and the treasure concealed there. Her pussy tightened, her clit aching as she parted her thighs wider for him. He slid big hands around them to keep her in place, leaving her opened wide for his attentions.
The first brush of his tongue made her gasp. The second made her moan. By the time he licked her for the third time, the warm heat of his tongue almost sent her to heaven right there on his bed. She gasped, hands above her head to mangle the sheets as he feasted on her, licking and kissing until she wasn’t sure which way was up or even what her name was.
Then he pulled her clit into his mouth, suckling the tiny bud as he flicked it with his tongue, and she screamed as she shattered apart. There was no warning, the pleasure crashing over her, exploding through her body like a supernova.
She gasped and shuddered through her release, her thighs clamped around his head as he continued with his sensual assault, his hands cupping her ass. Each sensual lick and suckle stretched out her pleasure until finally she went limp, releasing him from her hold.
He rumbled approval as he crawled over her. Bracing himself over her, he wiped at his wet lips with the pad of his thumb, his eyes dark with wicked heat.
“Mine,” he growled, using a hard knee to part her thighs further so he could settle between them. Somewhere between putting her on the bed and now, he’d liberated himself from his clothes.
“Yours,” she whispered, sliding her hands around his shoulders. She drove her fingers through the dark hair at the back of his neck and offered him her lips. She needed this. Needed him. More than that… she wanted him. She’d never wanted to give herself to any male before. Not like this.
Oh, she was no innocent. She’d had physical relationships before, but they had been driven by curiosity or physical need—an itch to be scratched, no more, no less.
This was different.
She wanted Eric. Her eyelids drifted down as he dropped his hips and pressed the thick, hard length of his shaft against her slick pussy lips. She ached for him to claim her. Wanted to belong to him and for him to belong to her.
Shaft slickened, he altered the angle of his hips and the thick head of his cock pressed against her. Hard. Insistent. Huge.
“God, you’re so tight.” His face tightened as he pushed forward, rolling his hips until her body parted, surrendering to him. She gasped as he slid in half an inch. He rocked his hips, and the pressure was gone for a second. When he pressed again, it was harder, the thrust impaling her on half his length.
“Oh scales!” Her eyes almost rolled into the back of her head at the pleasure. She was stretched tightly around him, but her pussy ached to be filled more. Ached for more of him.
“Please…”
“I got you, sweetheart,” he whispered, the roughness of his voice both brutal and reassuring. He gathered her up closer, wrapping strong arms around her to keep her close to his heavily muscled body. Another powerful thrust of his lean hips drove his cock so deep inside her she wasn’t sure where she ended and he began.
“You’re mine, Zadaenae,” he groaned, his cock pulsing and jerking within her. “You were from the moment I saw you.”
“Yes… yes,” she moaned as he began to move, pressing her to the bed and taking her in a hard and fast rhythm. She wrapped herself around him, urging him to move harder and faster. It was no gentle mating, but she didn’t need it to be… didn’t want it to be. She just wanted him, however she could get him.
“Oh god, yes!” he gasped, speeding up as tension rolled through his body. She kissed along his neck, scraping her short fangs against his skin. He gasped and then captured her hands, stretching her out beneath him. Pinned. At his mercy. And she loved it.
He loomed over her, powerful hips driving his thick cock deep with each snap. She whimpered, the tension in her body rising again. Pleasure and anticipation shivered through her. Then, between one breath and the next, she was there, hovering on the edge.
He paused, black-on-black eyes locked to hers. Then he smiled and shoved her over the edge into absolute pleasure. She screamed as she came, her talons raking his back. He grunted, redoubling his efforts, as his hips slammed into hers. Then, with one last, hard thrust, he stiffened. Head thrown back, he roared his own release, cock jerking and pulsing within her.
Human males had more stamina than she’d expected. Way more stamina. Eric hadn’t let her have more than a couple of minutes of sleep all night and she was pleasantly sore in some intimate places. Scales rustling in contentment, she stretched out next to him with her arms above her head.
With a wide yawn, she nestled back against him and looked around the room. She hadn’t gotten a good look at it last night. They’d been too… distracted at the time, but now she relished the look at his personal space.
The first thing she noticed was how small the room was. It was the same size as hers and probably the rest of the crew’s, but somehow it seemed smaller with the clutter. It wasn’t untidy as such, a shirt hung over the back of a chair, clothes folded and left on the desk ready to be put away. It was the room of someone who had other things on their mind than the mundane.
The second thing she noticed was the notes pinned to the walls. Not just writing she couldn’t read but also mathematical equations on every inch of the space, all written in the same small, neat hand.
“Are these all yours?” she asked on a whisper, her eyes wide as she nestled between his larger body and the metal wall.
“Huh?” He moved, one arm curled behind his head to use as a pillow, and looked at the notes. “Oh, yes. I’ve been studying the effects of different environments on the human genome.”
She nodded, even though she wasn’t entirely sure what he meant. Something to do with DNA—she understood that much at least. Her gaze shifted back to the notes as she drew lazy patterns on his bare chest.
“Why do that group there…” she pointed a small group of notes near the door to the washroom. “Look different to the others? The same with the ones above the desk, they’re different as well.”
“Ahh.” He smiled as he reached for her hand, kissing her fingers. “They’re in different languages. Now that I have access to other species’ scientific studies, I’ve been compiling and cross-referencing what I already know about how DNA works against what the rest of the galaxy has discovered.”
“Uh-huh.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes there aren’t direct translations, so it’s easier to keep the notes in their original languages.”
Her gaze darted back across the room. “You mean those aren’t human languages?”
A strange expression crossed his face and then he shrugged. “It’s no big deal. Lots of languages are very similar.”
“Oh, totally. No big deal at all…” she waved dismissively, looking at him like he was a crazy male. “No… you’re just reading and writing in multiple languages from all over the galaxy, when some of us can’t even wri—”
She clamped her mouth shut quickly before she gave too much away. But his focused expression told her it was too late. The sensual haze had cleared from his eyes, now back to their normal blue, and he watched her steadily.
“Can’t even what?” he asked softly.
She shrugged, wrinkling her nose. “It doesn’t matter.”
He flipped her over, pinning her beneath him with ease to loom over her.
“No,” he said, his voice firm. “What were you going to say?”
“Don’t push it,” she snapped, her anger rising. “It really doesn’t matter.”
“For this to work, love, we need to trust each other.” He braced himself on one arm, lifting a hand to stroke her cheek with gentle fingertips. “You can tell me anything.”
She bit her lip, watching him. Her body was one thing, but could she trust him with everything? With the truth about herself? The real truth…
“I’m not what you think,” she said softly. “I’m a full-blooded female Krynassis.”
He nodded. “You’re a queen.”
She gave him a small look. “Yes… no, not really.”
A small frown creased his brow. “Everything I’ve read about your species says full-blooded females are always queens.”
She closed her eyes, trying to hide. “Yes, eventually. But for us to become queens we need a hive ship. Normally we ascend when our mothers die…”
“But?” he prompted her. “I’m sensing a but here.”
She opened her eyes to glare at him. No shit there was a but. “When a hive queen has a daughter, she knows her life is nearing its end. There can be only one queen in a hive. Normally she protects her daughter and raises her to take over.”
“That’s not what happened for you. Is it?” His expression softened, the tone of his voice understanding.
She snorted in bitter amusement. “Nope. What gave it away? The fact that I’ve been in the fight pits for years?”
His eyes flashed dark and he hauled her closer, his hand under her shoulders and nape. The little display of possessiveness and anger didn’t scare her. Instead it made her weak, a thrill of awareness running through her.
“What happened?”
“My mother considered herself too young to have a daughter, so she denied my existence for years. My father tried to keep me out of her way a lot of the time. She tried to kill me when I was barely able to walk.”
Horror washed over his face and his hold went from hard to comforting. “That’s terrible.”
Shrugging, she bit her lip. She’d lived with her reality for so long and had accepted it, but sympathy from someone… him, threatened all the walls she’d built up around her heart.
“It could have been worse. She could have thrown me into the pits when I was a kid, not an adult able to defend myself.”
“Your mother put you in that place?” He blinked in surprise and then his expression hardened. “And no, don’t say that. Just because others have had it worse doesn’t invalidate your experience.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, overwhelmed for a second.
“Zad, listen to me,” he murmured softly, stroking her hair back from her face. “You’ve been through a lot, but I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You can trust me. I promise. With anything.”
She nodded, opening her eyes to smile at him. She didn’t say anything. Those notes on the wall, in all different languages he’d never seen before he’d left Earth systems, ensuring the words dried up right there on her tongue.
How could she tell him, someone who was so intelligent, that she couldn’t even read something as simple as a safety or exit sign on the ship?
He’d think she was stupid—worse, an animal—and would want nothing more to do with her.
And she didn’t think her heart could take that.
