77. Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
S teele
I woke her twice in the middle of the night to love her again, to take my fill. There has never been a night since we moved into a cabin together that I haven’t woken in the middle of the night with a cock hard enough to hammer nails. Usually I slip out of bed and head to the ludus to lift weights or practice parkour.
Tonight, I took my fill of my mate. And she welcomed me. She didn’t just welcome me as she’s done in the past, as if it’s a gift she gives but receives nothing in return. No, last night she was lusty, at times even demanding. It spurred me on and made me drive into her like a madman unleashed.
I woke with the sun to look at her. I’ve always found my Zoey the prettiest of all the human females. It’s her sweetness, and the way she looks at me as if I’m the most important thing in her life.
She’s never looked like this in the morning. Never. Her hair is matted from when she laid on her back and I pounded into her. It was made worse by the way she tossed her head in pleasure. Perhaps I’ll be lucky and she won’t brush it today. Every time I look at her, it will remind me of everything we shared in this bed.
She’s also never slept with this particular smile before. It’s as if she holds a secret.
The sexy secret she holds begins to make me harder until I focus on her other secret. The one she’s evidently kept from me since the day we met. The one I had to hear about from a female she knew for less than an hoara . We have to talk about it. It’s been eating me alive since the moment Emily Jane Jackson told me about it over tea at the fair.
I know the instant Zoey’s consciousness comes online. Her soft posture tightens a bit and she sucks in the softest gasp. She turns on her side and her arm shoots out as she reaches for me. Her anxiety vanishes when she sees me.
Those beautiful pink lips lift into a smile as she looks at me. All the love she possesses shines brightly out of her luminous brown eyes.
“Did we really do it twice in the middle of the night?” she asks.
“Do what?” I ask innocently, goading her to speak her mind, to say the words she thinks are dirty. I don’t want her to slip back into her shell.
“Do what? Hmm… Did you wake me by spreading my legs so you could stick your tongue in me Steele? Or did I dream that? And that other time when I awoke with you suckling my breast and your hand in my pussy , was that a dream?”
My Zoey’s smart. She knows exactly what I want.
“I think both of those were real, Love,” I say with a warm smile.
She lays her soft palm on my pec and drags it downward as if she’s on a military mission, but I grip her wrist and stop her. I can’t wait another day. Not even another hoara . We have to talk.
“You made me a promise last night. I want to collect,” my voice is direct, serious, and the look in my eyes leaves no doubt.
Her lids fly open and she avoids my gaze. She doesn’t know what’s on my agenda, and letting her wonder will only increase her anxiety.
“I met some interesting people at the fair when you were shopping with Allura. I believe they’re coming to the Blessed Peace Day feast today,” I say, then give her a moment to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. Watching her face, I see several emotions cross her face: confusion, surprise, and worry.
“We’ve been mated for two annums , Zoey. You said you love me. You’ve let me inside your body, but you’ve never let me all the way inside your mind.” I allow her to see the full effect of her behavior on me. My lips are vibrating with emotion and for the first time since Emily Jane told me part of Zoey’s story, I allow myself to experience the depths of rejection I feel knowing my mate kept such a big secret from me. And for so long.
Her eyes shutter closed in what, shame? Sadness? When she opens her eyes, she reaches to press her palm to my cheek, but pulls it back. She knows she can’t make this better with a touch. Not this. It’s too big.
“Now would be a good time to tell me. Everything.” I have to hear it. Whatever it is, she can’t keep it secret anymore. I want the whole story, and I want it from her.
She closes her eyes and breathes, just breathes, for long minimas . She’s in pain. I can’t let her stay like that for long. I grab her hand and she grips it like it’s a lifeline.
Finally, she lets the words spill. They start as a trickle and then progress to a torrent. She mixes facts with stories, and even tells me the history of her country, which used to condone slavery. She tells me so many terrible beliefs that had been pounded into her brain that my head is spinning.
When I picture her as a youngling carrying a sign spewing hatred, bile rises in my throat. What type of parent would force that upon their child? But I say nothing.
After the first moment or two, I scooted closer. We’re both on our sides looking at each other and I’ve reached around and have been stroking her back, wordlessly giving her my support as she goes on and on. The floodgates have opened, and it’s as if now that she’s started, she can’t stop until every ugly story, thought, and feeling has been divulged.
“So I was raised to hate. My mom and dad didn’t have a good marriage. As an adult, I’ve begun to believe I was conceived in hate. Uncles, aunts, and family friends—all haters. It was the norm. It was all I knew.”
She looks at me, and this time, when she pulls her hand out of my grip to touch my face, I allow it.
“I’m coming clean, Steele. I have to tell you everything. Maybe, though, you’re the one who will need to say red. If you don’t want to hear what I’m about to tell you—”
“I need to hear it all, Zoey. I’m a male, a gladiator. There’s nothing you could say that would be worse than keeping this secret.”
She pauses, swallowing. I feel her fear.
“And Zoey, there’s nothing you can say that will make me not love you. My love for you is a fact. It’s as real as the air we breathe. Nothing you can say will change that.”
She nods, then proceeds. “When I was thrown into that cell with you, my father’s voice was screaming in my head. It was louder than when we were marching and protesting. You may not have seen him in that cell with me, but he was as real as the collar I wore and the metal bars that surrounded us.
“The first layer of emotion, having just woken up on a spaceship and being chipped and forced to wear a collar, the first layer was terror. But under that, Steele, was revulsion. You were… other. The thought of you touching me. The idea of you having sex with me. I was ready for them to kill me. Part of me would have welcomed it and I would have died a religious martyr.”
As she pauses, I remember every nuance of that day. I remember the expressions on her face. It’s true. My belly tightens in pain. The hurt from the rejection I’m feeling crashes through me with the force of an ion cannon.
“The only reason I didn’t let them kill me was that they threatened to kill you, too. That’s when I agreed to have sex with you.”
I can’t stay apart a moment longer. I pull her into my arms and hold her tight. That’s exactly how I remember it, too.
“Don’t you see, Zoey? All the stories you just told me. All the programming they performed on your brain just as Star programs computers. It couldn’t overcome one basic thing.”
I wait for her to look into my eyes.
“You’re the best person I know. Your compassion was stronger than your upbringing, your programming. You were willing to sacrifice your principles, override your feelings and revulsion to save my life. That’s the Zoey I fell in love with. And that’s the Zoey who’s in my arms right now.”
Her eyes are brimming with tears as she gazes into my eyes. She nods slowly, then faster.
“Last night at the well you said love trumps hate. You were right,” I tell her, then kiss her lips in the least sexual kiss a male can give his mate. This kiss is full of love and support and acceptance. It has nothing to do with passion.
“I’m sorry I never told you,” she says. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“But it’s been between us, Love,” I say, and as I heave a long sigh, I add, “And now it’s behind us.”
She surges closer and clasps her hands behind my neck as she kisses every ince of my face. They start out as little pecks but then progress to loud, exaggerated smacks. I return them in kind until one thing leads to another.
Our coupling is different than it has ever been. For two annums it was filled with Zoey’s ghosts and prohibitions and the remnants of her programming. Although she fought it, she couldn’t overcome it. Last night, we crossed a bridge and acknowledged the passion that’s always been between us.
But now, this mating is about connection and compassion and true love. It’s deeper than passion or sex or orgasms. It’s so rich, so deep, so full it makes my heart swell.
“All that is behind us, Zoey,” I say later as I stroke her hair and kiss her forehead.
“Yes, my love,” she says as she burrows into my embrace. “We have the rest of our lives to look forward to.”
Zoey
For some reason a snatch of poetry I read a decade ago never left my mind. “Silence turns secrets into lies.” It keeps playing in my mind.
My secret became a lie. It was always between us. I didn’t realize how poisonous it was until today. Now that I’ve come clean, everything is better between us. “Come clean,” what a wonderful saying.
I do feel clean, like I’ve been bathed in holy water. I never have to look back.
“Get a move on, mate,” he scolds as he stomps at the door like a racehorse waiting at the gate before a run.
“I know. We have to get to the arena for you to win the competition,” I say as I try to work the tangles out of my hair. Having sex five or six times really did a number on it.
“Yes. I want to win.”
“You know I love you whether you win or not, right?” I ask absently from the bathroom.
When he doesn’t respond, I wander to the doorway, brush in hand, to see what’s going on. He’s standing still, looking toward me with his head cocked.
“You do?” he asks, then shakes his head. “Of course you do.”
By the way he said that, I don’t think he believes it.
“I don’t care if you win this ridiculous competition.” I shrug. Winning is nothing. “I wouldn’t care if you won your gladiatorial matches except you could get physically hurt if you lose. It means nothing to me.”
His eyes narrow as he stares at me. “Really?”
It hits me like a thunderbolt. He enters himself in more matches than anyone else on the Fool or the Playground . I always attributed it to his desire to keep the ships running, to have enough credits to keep us safe. But it was more than that.
“You did it to impress me?” I ask, my voice almost girlish. It sounds so preposterous, but by the serious look on his face, I think it’s true.
He nods tightly, just once.
“I’ve messed everything up so badly. Keeping that secret hurt us both so deeply. Steele, you don’t need to impress me. You don’t need to earn my love. I love you, Steele, whether you win or lose. Whether you’re a gladiator or whether you retire to garden or do origami. You’re the best male I know. I release you from your need to prove anything to me. You’ve done enough, proven enough, you’re loveable enough.”
He bridges the distance between us in a few steps and holds me tight. We kiss once, sweetly, then he pops me on my ass.
“Get a move-on, mate. Let’s see who’s going to win the competition.”