71. Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
S teele
“We’re going to brave it!” I announce to the room as I tug Zoey toward the front doors. As soon as I unlatch them, the wind whips them open and one of the doors slams against the building. I have to let go of her hand to press them both back until they click into place.
We’re under a small covered porch, but the blowing wind has already plastered us with cool rain.
“Are you sure about this?” I ask, trying to make out her features in the dim light.
“Let’s go!”
I don’t know what’s changed, but I love it. The Zoey of a few days ago would have pulled us back inside. She certainly wouldn’t be wearing the wide smile now brightening her face. But Zoey happily grabs my hand and pulls me toward our cabin.
Clouds are partially obscuring the moons, but we can easily find our way. Zoey stops, pulls off her shoes, and carries them in one hand while her other clings to mine. We quit trying to pick our way through the puddles and just make a splashing, muddy run for it, Zoey giggling all the way.
We pass Abraxx and Juno’s cabin and arrive at our front door. There’s a small, covered stoop over our entryway. It can’t even be called a roof. Just enough to cover someone as they make their way into the house during a rainshower, not enough to protect us in this hard, blowing storm.
As I move to open the door, she stops me. “Kiss me, Steele,” she urges as she lets her shoes fall to the wooden floor with a clatter.
I hiss with pleasure as I push her against the door. My lips descend on hers. My mouth is hard and demanding. She grips my upper arms like she never wants to let go.
A hard crack of thunder booms, and the sky lights up in broken slivers of lightning. Our clothes and hair are plastered to our skin. None of that matters as I kiss her hungrily—and she kisses me back with more passion than I’ve ever felt from her. Her desire kindles mine as my cock strains against my pants.
Her little hands lodge under my shoulder blades and press me against her even harder. When my cock wedges against her belly, she motions me down. Bending my knees, I give her what she wants as she widens her stance and rubs herself against my hard length.
She gasps so loudly even the wind can’t tear the sound from my ears.
“Steele.” She fills the word with a world of emotion: surprise, pleasure, and need.
She’s riding me, her hands now on my ass, pressing me against her even harder. Her mouth is more demanding than ever before as she not only responds when my tongue invades her mouth, but she slicks into mine and explores.
If I don’t slow us down, I’m going to spend right here in my pants. Pulling away, I turn her around and press her front against the hard wooden door.
Magic is happening on this front stoop. There’s something wild about the storm. It’s elemental. I fear everything will change if we walk through the door. I don’t want to stop now. No one else lives out this far from the main buildings.
We passed Abraxx and Juno’s empty house on our way here and they’d never wander over in this weather. I doubt they’re planning to make the mad run to get to their cottage, let alone come over for a visit. We’re completely alone.
I press her even harder against the door with my hips and dip my head to speak into her ear. She juts out her ass toward me and I accept the invitation as I side my cock along the seam of her ass. Her moan is loud enough I hear it over the next loud crack of thunder.
Nipping the cords of her neck, I growl into her ear, “Tell me. Tell me now, Zoey. Everything you want. Every. Single. Thing.”
Is she cold? She trembles. But she turns her head, her cheek smashed against the door, and words pour out of those beautiful pink lips.
“I want you, Steele. Dear God, I love you. I love every part of you.”
She stops so abruptly I wonder if the magic spell has been broken, but her body is still speaking as she writhes against my cock. Her hands are splayed against the door to help her lever herself against me.
“That’s right, mate,” the words are torn from her by a gust of wind, but I hear her fine. “I’ve dreamed of you taking me.”
She wants this. I know she does. But she’s holding back.
Skimming my hands from where they’re lodged on her hip bones, they slide up and pluck her hard nipples through the wet fabric of her dress. My mouth at her ear, I insist, “Say it, my love. Tell me everything you want. We’re mates. There’s nothing you can say that will shock or upset me. I’m dying to know. Let it all out and it can be carried away on the wind.”
As she pauses to think, it seems the elements are colluding with her. The wind dies down, the rain slows, and the sky remains dark rather than being illuminated by lightning.
The moment she begins to speak, the howling wind picks up, and thunder claps.
“I want your cock in me, Steele. Your big, thick, beautiful cock.”
“That’s right, Love. You want my cock. Tell me more.” I nip her earlobe and reward her admission by riding her harder.
“I want you to fuck me.” She comes to a full stop, as if saying the coarse Earther word was all she could manage.
“Fucking. You want fucking, my Zoey,” I say, trying to take the sting out of her word. “I will fuck you all night, Love. All. Fucking. Night.”
When she doesn’t say more, seemingly mesmerized by my cock sliding along the crack of her ass, I urge, “That couldn’t be all, my love. More. Tell me more before we go inside and fuck.”
“I love the slide when you enter me. I love that first moment when it feels like I’ll never be able to handle you. The stretch and burn of your possession. The way two become one.”
“I love that too, Zoey. I love your wet heat. How tight you are. How we’re a perfect fit when we fuck.” I can’t wait another moment. I pull my cock from my pants, lift the hem of her dress and drag it higher, and slide my cock between her thighs. Her panties are still on, but they’re so drenched it’s as if I’m sliding along her silken folds.
“Tell me more,” I whisper into her ear as the rain picks up again, pelting us so hard some of the raindrops sting. It doesn’t bother us.
“I’ve dreamed of…” She pauses too long here. To pull her out of her own head, I slide her panties to the side and feel my cock glide between her slippery folds.
“More, Love. Let it all out.”
She’s paralyzed.
Remembering how she responded to my threat in the sanctuary, I say, “Tell me right this instant or I’ll be forced to punish you.”
She instantly responds to my forceful words as her whole body quivers and she makes a sexy, aroused grunt.
Turning her head from me but speaking louder so I don’t miss a word, she says, “I want your mouth on me again, Steele. I think it felt too good at first.”
“You’re doing so well to tell me that, Zoey. Say more.”
“Maybe… maybe I didn’t think I deserved it. But I want it now.”
“You want my mouth on you,” I breathe into the shell of her ear. “You want my tongue inside your hot xyzca ?”
I wait for an answer and when she doesn’t respond immediately, I withdraw the slow slide my cock has been making against her wet lips.
“Yes. Your tongue, your fingers, your cock.”
“More. Tell me more. All of it.”
“I want to try everything, Steele. Everything the other women talk and laugh and swoon about. I want to let you in. I want to be able to turn off my mind and enjoy it. And I want all that to start tonight.”
“It will,” I reassure her. “It will.”
I can’t hold back any longer. This is what I’ve dreamed about since I met her. I knew she was full of passion and that she was holding herself back.
“Let’s go inside,” I urge as I begin to pull away.
Zoey
“No!” I say with force.
Something seems magical out here. It’s surreal, like something out of a movie. Maybe it’s the wind or the white noise of the steady rain or the total darkness pierced by flashes of lightning. But it’s helping me cast aside my inhibitions. I’m afraid it will all disappear once we cross that threshold.
“Here. Fuck me here, Steele.”
His amazing cock has been riding me for long minutes, ramping me up. If I’m ever going to come, it’s going to be now. I’m so wet I think I can hear the slick slide of his flesh over the cacophony of other noises.
My channel has been quivering for long minutes.
“Yesss,” he hisses into my ear.
He pulls my hips away from the door, flips my sopping dress onto my back, and rips my panties off my body. Heat flares through me with the wrenching tug as he frees the impediment. This. This is the Steele I mated. He’s strong and dangerous when he needs to be. I’ve wanted this Steele in bed with me for two years, not the one with the concerned eyes and tender, tentative touches.
“Fuck me!” I shout to somehow remind him I’m not breakable. I reach behind me and although my face is smashed against the door and I can’t see him, I can find his cock easily. It’s hard and huge and pointing right at me.
He slides into me in one unerring stab. When he’s fully seated, he pulses inside me once more, to gain that extra fullness. We’ve never done this from behind. He’s deeper than I’ve ever felt him. I’m so full, so stretched. The tiny sting of pain seems to add accelerant to the inferno that has been lit inside of me.
“Touch yourself!”
Oh yes. I know I need it, but I never wanted to be so bold before. His order released me from making the decision. I comply.
My hand slides between the rough door and my thighs and arrows directly to my clit. I just practiced this two days ago. My body knows how to do this.
He’s pumping into me with deliciously hard strokes. It’s as elemental as the storm raging around us.
I’m aware of everything in this moment. The smell of the rain, the drip hanging off my nose that’s threatening to fall, the distant boom of thunder, and the light show brightening the sky.
My nipples scrape against the door on every single hard thrust, and the sound of his excited grunts is music to my ears.
My fingers are circling, circling as he pounds into me. I finally reach that place I found the other night. The plateau that happens right before my body is ready to jump off the ledge.
I’m straining now, teeth clenched, thighs tight as I push myself to come. My fingers circle faster, harder. The grunting noises I’ve been making turn into a high, keening whimper as I get closer. Closer.
“Come, Zoey. Come for me.” His words are somewhere between persuasion and a command.
He’s breathing hard and fast, rasping in my ear. At the end of every thrust he presses his pelvis so hard against me his flesh slaps wetly against mine.
I know he’s close. I want to come desperately now. There will be no better time.
The thunder peels loudly and a dozen streaks of lightning brighten the sky. The clouds release a deluge and the little covering above us does nothing to protect us.
I’m grunting with the effort, willing myself to come. My fingers are pressing so hard it hurts, yet I can’t get over the last hurdle.
I keep straining for release for long moments, then everything falls apart. That spiteful bitch who lives inside me and comes out at times like this tells me I don’t deserve pleasure at the same time my father’s voice says the word “abomination.”
All momentum is lost and I know as sure as it’s raining that I’m not going to have an orgasm tonight.
“Come, Steele,” I tell him as bite my lips, trying not to cry.
He hesitates a moment, probably wondering what happened, but he was so close it has to be a relief to spiral into his own burst of pleasure.
“Come, Love,” I say more forcefully. “Take your pleasure.”
“I love you, Zoey,” he says through gritted teeth as his hips stutter for a moment, then piston into me again.
His warm semen mixes with the cold rain that’s blown in on my upper thighs as my hot tears join the cool raindrops on my cheeks.
Failure.
Steele
Broken bird. Zoey reminds me of a broken bird as I lift her and carry her inside. She’s silent, although her body is wracked from crying.
She doesn’t protest as I peel off her wet, clinging clothes and set her in the shower. She doesn’t move except to shiver and dash her fingers on her cheeks to flick her tears away.
I take care of her as I always do, my hands gentle as I wash her, then dry her with a soft, white towel and carry her to bed. I managed to clean and dry myself in the process, but I’m too focused on her to care.
“Want to talk, Zoey? It’s fine. It will be okay. That was spectacular. You got close. We’ll try again, my love.” I’m babbling, but don’t know what to say to make it better.
“Right, we’ll try again,” her voice is hollow, barely a whisper.
When I lie down, she slides next to me, her back to my front. After throwing my arm around her waist, I pretend to go to sleep.
She’s pretending too, but not very well. Her body is stiff as a plank of wood, and she sniffles from time to time.
If we were on the Fool , I’d wait for her to go to sleep, then slip out and go to the ludus . When I feel this way, running helps, or bench-pressing far too much weight to be safe. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, one of the other males will wander in and we’ll spar. I never ask why they come to the ludus in the middle of the night, and they don’t ask me. I’m certain it always has something to do with a female.
I was stolen from my planet and forced to fight at such a young age it’s hard to know what I really want. I was raised to be a fighting machine, and that’s what I am. I’ve never given myself a chance to try anything new.
I’ve casually wondered why I’m the one who fights more often than anyone on the ship. But it strikes me like a thunderbolt. When I’m in the arena, whether pounding or being pounded, I feel like a male. A strong, masculine, virile male.
It’s the only time I feel that way.
I know what my friends would say if I told them I’d never given my mate pleasure. Actually, they’d say nothing. But I know what they would think—inadequate. How could that thought not float through their minds? I feel that way every hoara of every day. Especially right now.
I knew she hadn’t come yet, but I didn’t hesitate long when she told me to take my pleasure. Now she’s crying. Blaming me, I’m sure. She won’t look me in the eye. Won’t talk to me. Why should she? She deserves better.
I tug her closer, even though I don’t deserve her.
I don’t have a clue how to fix this.
Zoey
I don’t know who is more miserable, me or Steele. He must regret ever mating me.
As alive as I felt half an hour ago, my body on fire with lust, aware of every raindrop and every spark of passion, I feel dead now. Dead and dry and useless.
I’ve toyed with this idea for a while, but never wanted to pull the trigger because I still had hope. I have no hope left. My head is too messed up, my body too non-compliant. I can’t drag Steele down anymore. He’s too good. He deserves better.
The timing is perfect. Blessed Peace Day is in two days’ time. I’ll be here with him, supportive as I always am. I’ll memorize every second of the day, every sexy tilt of his head, and sparkle in his eyes. I’ll make sure Callista is taping the obstacle course competitions so I can watch them over and over in the future when I no longer have Steele at my side.
When it’s time for the Fool’s Errand to fly away, I’ll tell him I’m not coming. I’m certain the folks at Sanctuary will allow me to stay here. They could use another pair of hands. Steele will try to convince me otherwise, but there won’t be time. The engines will already be powering up.
Our connection will be severed quick and easy. I’ll have a lifetime to unfold the happy memories we shared, and he’ll be able to get a fresh start. We were never married by clergy. There’s no need for a divorce. He’ll be able to move on without dragging the dead weight of a broken Earth girl around with him for the rest of his life.