“That is one, love,” he said, gasping a little after he finished. His cock softened slightly, but not completely. After a while, she made him fully hard again.
“Take me deeply,” he ordered. “Down your throat.”
She did, and he quickly climaxed again.
Finally spent for a little while, he relaxed and let her stay where she was. He gently stroked her head. “I need to sleep, love. So do you.” When she whined in protest, he laughed. “You may stay there, if you wish.”
She fell asleep with the comforting feel and taste of his cock in her mouth.
* * * *
“You don’t even know he’s going to like me.” Fear tugged at Aine’s heart as she ate breakfast the next morning. Sammuel once again dressed her in one of his shirts and nothing else, but he let her sit at the table in her own chair instead of on his lap. He pulled on a pair of his trousers, his bare chest a tantalizing view.
Sammuel laughed. “Ki’ato, he will absolutely love and adore you because I love and adore you.”
“How do you know I’ll even like him?”
“Because you love me. So you shall love him.”
She wanted to argue she didn’t love him, but she would have been lying and he damn well know it. She couldn’t deny she loved him, as crazy and surreal as it felt.
He clasped his hands together, elbows on the table. “Aine, it is okay to let your mind struggle with this even though your heart and soul have effectively settled the issue. I well remember how I felt. I tried to protest that there was no way I could love Master even while at the same time I begged him to let me suck his cock again, even though in my life had I never been attracted to another man. What happens is beyond our control. It is not like when two humans meet and take time to get to know each other and learn to like before they love.”
“Why do you talk like that?”
“Like what?”
“Formally.”
He shrugged. “I have been with Master for so long, speaking Act’huran, and his English was very proper. I just eventually mimicked his speech patterns, I suppose. It does not matter, does it?”
“Doesn’t it?”
He laughed. “You are very spirited, Ki’ato. I love that about you.”
He was still eating after she finished. She used the facilities, then walked around the cabin, exploring. “It’s been a year since you’ve seen him? How do you know he hasn’t been sleeping around on you?”
She turned at Sammuel’s dark tone. “When you truly understand the bond we have, you will understand the utter nonsense of that statement. When t’wren are taken, the bond is, literally, for life.”
“But you’re eager to fuck me, aren’t you?” Truth be told, she was getting pretty eager for him to fuck her, too.
“Because you are my t’wren. I have never once been tempted by another until I met you. The t’arn always picks the other t’wren. Only if our bond were broken by death would I possibly conceive of being with any other. It is not the mind, but the body and heart and soul that picks the triad and completes it.”
She had an easier time accepting her strange affection for the commander based upon extreme horniness and a dried-up love life than she did a supernatural or biochemical bond.
“Once we complete the ritual,” he said, “you will feel it the way I do, totally, and you will understand without question.”
He finished eating and summoned the doctor to his cabin.
Aine’s nerves tightened even as her body wanted to drop to her knees and devour Sammuel again. She could mentally try to fight it all she wanted, as he said, but her body wanted him.
The doctor arrived and examined her. “Exactly what do you want me to say, Commander?” he finally asked Sammuel. She had a suspicion the doctor still felt a little miffed over how Sammuel took control in his medical bay upon their arrival.
He crossed his arms over his bare chest and glared down at the doctor. “She is my t’wren. You know what I ask.”
The doctor shrugged. “If you absolutely cannot wait any longer, then I would judge it’s safe to—” He couldn’t get anymore out because Sammuel crossed the cabin in three strides and grabbed him by the arm.
“Good day, Doctor,” he brusquely said as he threw him out the door. “I will summon you if you are needed.” When the door closed behind the doctor, Sammuel laid his hand over the control panel, locking it, she guessed.
Then he turned to her. His eyes fiercely burned, making her gasp. She involuntarily took a step back, butting against the wall as she watched his cock grow and swell beneath the snug fabric of his trousers.
“Bed. Now.”
She felt frozen as an animalistic wave of passion almost visibly flowed from him.
He started to unfasten his trousers. “Do not make me ask again, Ki’ato,” he dangerously rumbled as his pants hit the floor and he stepped out of them.
She edged her way around the cabin, never turning her back to him. Okay, now she felt truly afraid since the first time she realized he wasn’t a raider. Maybe she could get around him—
“I do not wish to wrestle with you today, Aine. I do not wish to risk hurting you so soon in your healing. Perhaps another time you can pretend to want to run. Get on the bed. Now.”
Where before she lusted after the stiff shaft proudly waving in the air before her, now she wondered how she’d escape it.
He looked like he would stalk her and bring her down, a predator after game.
“Ki’ato, if you truly do not wish this, then tell me to stop. Otherwise you are treading into very dangerous territory by testing my patience in this matter.”
Her feet slowly shuffled her closer to the bed as she kept her eyes on him. He watched her, not moving from his place beside the door.
“Remove your shirt,” he ordered.
She did, then felt herself climbing onto the bed. Her mind struggled, wanted to say that one word to end this madness she knew would only grow deeper once she let him fuck her.
Her body refused to comply, her pussy already slick and wet as her juices flowed in eager anticipation of the fucking she was gladly about to receive.
His voice softened in volume, although the intensity didn’t fade. “Spread your legs wide for me.”
Her face reddened, but she complied.
“Are you wet for me?”
She nodded.
So fast she almost couldn’t follow the movement, he crossed the cabin and leapt onto the bed, his body covering hers.
With his face an inch above hers, his eyes so close they looked like one intense green orb, he whispered, “I claim you, Aine Lorcan, as my t’wren. This is your final chance to tell me to stop if you do not desire it.”
Her breath came in hitching gasps. She couldn’t say it.
“Then if you want it, tell me so.”
“I want it.”
He plunged into her, hard and fast and larger than anything she ever felt, stretching her, making her cry out in surprise and shock at the erotic sensation of her muscles giving way to this huge invader. Hell, the sex toys she used had never been this big!
He drew up onto his knees and pushed her legs back until her thighs touched her chest. “I warned you this first time would be hard and fast,” he growled as he fucked her. No other word for it, the enormous head battering her deep inside as her muscles clenched and struggled to accept the onslaught.
He braced his hands on the bed on either side of her head as she grabbed on to his arms. All she could do from the way his heavy body pressed her down into the mattress.
“You are mine, Aine,” he said as he fucked her even harder, the entire bed shaking with the force of his thrusts. “Say it.”
“I’m yours!”
He picked up speed as he plunged deeper, totally owning her, her muscles protesting even as her body longed to catch up and come with him buried inside her.
Among the sensations bombarding her, she suddenly became aware of warm heat flooding her from the inside out
—not a metaphorical sensation, but a literal one.
Sammuel.
“This is it, Ki’ato,” he grunted. “No going back.” His last, final thrust, harder and deeper than the rest, made her cry out as she dug her nails into him. She felt his hot juices inside her, her body urgently welcoming them and whatever changes they were already working on her, wave after wave, filling her.
He lowered her legs and wrapped them around his waist as his forehead dropped to her chest. He gasped for breath, his cock still hard and throbbing inside her as it pumped his essence into her body, marking her.
Claiming her.
He wouldn’t let her move, even long moments later. “Wait,” he hoarsely said. “It is not done.” And he wasn’t, his cock just as hard as it had been at the start and still pulsating inside her.
Her own need had taken over, her clit swollen and throbbing for his touch. She tried to wiggle her hips against him, but he simply pinned her to the bed with his weight. “No, not yet.”
After a half-hour joined, she felt the warmth begin to ebb and fade as his cock gradually softened to its familiar semi-flaccid state. If he’d been coming that entire time, she had a feeling they’d need to change the sheets.
He propped himself up on his elbows and kissed her, tenderly, lovingly. She wrapped her arms around him as he shifted his hips just enough so she could move. He nuzzled the base of her throat. “Oh, Ki’ato,” he whispered. “How I love you so.”
He finally withdrew. He laughed at her surprise when she sat up and the expected gush did not occur.
He lightly laid his hand upon her belly. “Your body drank me in just as your mouth usually does,” he said, smiling. “It is how the changes will begin to occur.”
That’s when a thought struck her. “I’m not going to get pregnant, am I?”
He threw back his head and laughed, long and hearty. “No, love, you’ll be happy to learn your menses will cease. When Master wishes to reproduce—after consulting with you, of course—it is his body that determines our fertility.”
“Our?”
He leaned in and kissed her. “Mine too. I cannot get you pregnant unless Master makes it so.”
Okay, so it was too late to have this conversation, but her post-coital bliss had receded a little. “Dude, you mean I can only have a baby if and when he decides it?”
“If you wanted one, it would be so. If you did not want one, it would not happen. He will never force you.”
She didn’t want to think about getting back to her duties in the Confederation. She also didn’t want to think about the fact that in all likelihood she wouldn’t be with the men long enough to worry about the question of kids. At some point, she’d have to return to her fleet.
He stroked her cheek. “Within a few days you will start to feel me in your mind, and you will be in mine. Then perhaps you will feel safe enough to tell me about the thoughts that make you frown so.”
Chapter Seven
Even Sammuel the stud needed time to recover from that session. Aine didn’t feel the craving the way she had before. A new peace had crept in, allowing her to snuggle in his arms and relax without wanting to dive south between his legs.
His fingers brushed up and down her spine. “May I ask about the pendants around your neck? And the ring? That ring is much too large for a woman to normally wear.”
She stiffened, afraid her memories would bring a return of her tears. “The ring belonged to Father. Captain Edmund Lorcan.” She touched one of the pendants. From the difference in the chains, she knew which was the one he placed on her neck and which had been Mal’s. “This one belonged to Da. Malvous Dentry. His yeoman…partner.”
“Lover?”
“Yes.”
“And the other?”
“Mine. I was bonded crew before they could legally adopt me. My birth parents died in a raider attack. My older brother died trying to save me.”
He lay quietly for a moment. “I would like for you to tell me the story, if you can,” he gently said.
She rolled on top of him, her face pressed against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, sensing her need for his strength.
“I don’t know if I can. I’ve never told anyone before.” Not even Hector. All she told him was she’d been orphaned and adopted. It was all he could find out from his snooping anyway. Never the story. Never the memories of that horrible escape and her last view of Aggie’s still body as the cargo pallet lifted into the belly of the Bagtopy Yau. Even as young as she’d been, that image was forever seared into her brain.
Beneath her body Sammuel’s cock stiffened again. He grabbed her hips and slid his member inside her as if she weighed nothing.
With the return of his shaft came a return of the calming peace she felt.
“Now then, love,” he whispered into her hair. “As part of you, you part of me, does that help make you stronger?”
Strangely enough, it did. Her sexual need temporarily abated, she told him what she remembered of that hot planet, their escape, Aggie’s voice faint in her memory, her two fathers who loved and raised her and gave her their name. Their death.
Returning to bury them all together.
Aine lost track of time as she told the story, her tears rolling hot and heavy down her cheek and onto Sammuel’s chest. She cried, she sobbed, until an hour later she lay limp in his arms, her eyes glassy and staring into a distance of time, not space.
“I hate being alone,” she whispered.
This is when he finally spoke, after listening in silence as she ripped the ancient hurt from her soul, debriding the wound, cleansing her heart. “You will never again be alone. Ever. Never again, Ki’ato, for as long as there is breath in my body, and in Master’s, you will never again suffer.” He gently held her inside the iron fortress of his arms.
For the first time in her adult life, she felt safe.
Loved.
Also for the first time in her life she considered possibly giving up her career in exchange to keep feeling that way.
“I understand why you hate planets so, Ki’ato,” he said as he stroked her hair. “Your experiences outside of ships have not been pleasant.”
“If I never set foot on a planet again in my life it will be too soon.”
He rolled them onto their sides with Aine cradled in the crook of his arm and his cock still deeply embedded inside her. “I promised you that the second time I fucked you, love, it would be long and slow and you would come many times.” He shifted his hips against her, his thick shaft sliding along her clit and drawing a soft gasp from her. “I keep my promises, Ki’ato.”
He thrust so slow, torturously slow, then let her shift position a little until she found exactly the right angle that his strokes made her gasp with each glide of his cock in and out. His free hand cupped first one breast, then the other, back and forth. He rubbed his thumb over her nipples, making them hard and only adding to the hot throbbing in her clit.
He kissed her, sweet and long, his tongue gently caressing hers. “Come,” he whispered.
Her eyes dropped closed as a tremor swept through her, not as intense as some of the others, but enough she felt his hard shaft inside her as her muscles clamped down around it.
He chuckled. “That is one. I promised you many.”
“You never specified a number!”
His deep, rumbling laugh warmed her heart even as the juices flowing from his cock warmed her insides. “I know. Master always says I am an overachiever.”
“Many” turned out to be ten over the next hour before her body finally quit responding to his commands.
He rolled her on top of him. “That was very good, love. Excellent.” He slid his hands down her sides to her hips. With two quick thrusts he came, another flood of heat making her shiver in a good way.
“Why does that happen?” she weakly asked.
He kissed her damp forehead after he pulled the covers over them. “I told you, being a t’wren, your body will change in some wa
ys. If you think I last a long time, just wait until you meet Master.” He deeply sighed. “I miss him so much.”
She heard, or was it felt, the melancholy in his voice. Maybe those changes had started already. “You love him a lot, don’t you?”
He laughed again. “Love is an English word. It does not do justice to the emotion you will feel once we are officially a completed triad. There are twenty different words to describe deep, passionate, soulful love in the Act’huran language. That does not even begin to cover other types of love, like parental or friendship. When I tell you ‘I love you,’ it is too simple, too basic a statement. It does not encompass the light you have brought into my soul.” He touched her chin as a smile curled his lips. “I cannot wait until you understand our language so you will properly understand how I feel.”
With that out of the way, they eventually made it to the shower where he held her, caressed her. He dried her with a towel, kissing her flesh as he did. Aine watched his eyes, mesmerized by the intensity within. His blatant, obvious need and desire for her.
Then he pulled one of his shirts over her head. “I shall have to find more for you to wear so I can show you around the ship, Ki’ato. For now, this will suffice.” He pulled on a robe and summoned his yeoman again to order their food.
While they ate, he surprised her with a question. “Do you ever laugh?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
He waggled his eyebrows at her. “I have seen you smile and cry and scream with passion and pain, but I have yet to hear you really, truly laugh in joy.”
She felt her face color. “I laugh,” she mumbled, her gaze dropping to her plate. “I just haven’t had much reason to do a lot of it until now.”
“Then we shall make sure laughter is a large part of your life.”
* * * *
Laughter wasn’t next on Sammuel’s agenda, though. After they ate and napped, the agenda held more screaming with passion as he fulfilled his last promise, to fuck her until she screamed his name and begged him to let her come.
“Look at me, Ki’ato,” he ordered.