Chapter 21
Despite its age, and the calculably high amount of work that it was going to need to be updated and reconfigured, Zil was satisfied with the ship.
It was silent and fast, and that made it nigh perfect as far as he was concerned.
Even more importantly, the previous captain had enjoyed considerable creature comforts so the captain’s quarters had a large bed and plenty in the way of bedding and furnishings.
Enough for his mate to make appreciative little sounds when she saw it.
Her delight with the cleansing unit, however, had been unparalleled.
She shrieked and stripped off the TRS and kicked it aside, abandoned as she enclosed herself within the stall running water hot enough to cause him some mild concern judging by the steam setting off a few outdated sensors.
But she emerged rosy and clean with a fragrance that went directly to his cock.
Daisy stretched out on the bed with a moan of pleasure, a thin sheath of material wrapped around her, and her breasts lifting as she arched her back with pleasure.
He had never seen so much of his mate’s skin at once.
“I swear, the captain must have gotten this bed from a manufacturer of beds for the pleasure palaces on Galaxoros. I have heard of them but have never experienced anything like this.”
He studied her curiously. “Galaxoros. You have a strange preoccupation with it. You have mumbled about this place often enough in your sleep.”
His mate sat up with an indignant scowl. “I have not!”
Zil grinned. “Perhaps not as of late, but you have mentioned it frequently enough that I first suspected that you had a lover waiting for you there.”
Daisy snorted mirthfully and shook her head.
“Not even close. In fact, my intention in going there was to be alone and enjoy some well-earned peace and quiet,” she said as she crawled across the bed toward him.
Bracing a hand on his leg, she pushed herself up and skimmed her hand upward, higher on his thighs until he shivered in reaction.
“Running away from my responsibilities, you could say.”
He approached the bed, his tail hooking flirtatiously behind him. He rested his hands on the bed, dropping eye level with his mate and smirked. “And now? Do you still wish to run from your responsibilities?”
She regarded him through her lashes, a teasing smile on her lips. “I would say that it depends on what my responsibilities are, Daranthiki.”
“Just two, little human,” he rumbled. “Love me and remain by my side.”
Her expression softened. “I can’t think of anything I want more.”
A growl rumbled in Zil’s chest as he looped his arm around his mate and pulled her against him, their bodies flush against one another.
Lowering his head, he captured her mouth with his, drinking in her flavor as his tongue delved deeper to give her what she desired.
Although she no longer required his nectar any more than she required the TRS when the ship possessed replicators, nutrient materials for said replicators that were still viable, and adequate temperatures, the sharing was a part of the pleasure of mating that he had never heard spoken of.
It aroused him in equal measure as she sucked hungrily on his tongue.
Every drop of nectar triggered something within sexual organs, exciting his eagerness to copulate as his cock thickened and lengthened in preparation.
He held her to him, his hands exploring her soft body.
He slipped his fingers beneath the material wrapped around her torso to skate over the peaks of her breasts and explore the silky heat of her cunt.
Although each touch elicited a soft sigh or a hungry moan, it was not enough.
Gripping one corner of the fabric, he leaned back to put some space between them, breaking their kiss, and pulled it free, baring her completely to him.
Zil swallowed a groan at the sight of lush, naked flesh.
Her breasts were softer in texture than anything he had ever touched before.
He ran his knuckles down the side of one, watching the way her nipples tightened in response before cupping them in his hands and feeling the way the peaks pebbled hard against his palms. From there his hands dipped downward, tracing a path to the top of her mound before sweeping back over her plush hips.
His cock felt like it could cut steel with how hard it was, but as much as he wanted to spread her beneath him and rut her, he was enjoying himself far too much.
From her bottom, he trailed his claws up her back, tracing the lines of strength to her shoulders before dipping downward again to cup her ass. That grip brought her hips and cunt in alignment with his pelvis so that the part of him that ached the most was pressed against her.
Daisy pressed little needy kisses along his throat and jaw, inflaming him further, but no... there was something he wanted to do first.
Growling deeply, Zil lifted her up in his arms. For a moment he allowed himself to savor the sensation of his mate wiggling excitedly against him, but then he lowered her to the bed.
She whimpered eagerly, her legs parting, exposing her glistening sex to him completely.
He caressed the side of one leg with his tail as he withdrew, his gaze hot on her as his eyes traveled over the visual feast that she made for him.
His hunger for her expanded through him, growing rapidly with its ravenous demand to claim her completely... properly.
“So beautiful,” he rumbled.
He dropped to his knees worshipfully at the side of the bed, and his hands extended upward reverently to hook behind her knees and drag her bottom to the edge.
Her excited perfume bathed his face, and he breathed it in eagerly as he parted the soft petals of her sex with his fingers.
Mindful of his claws, he explored them with gentle strokes, bringing forth more of her internal dew.
His eyes lifted, holding her gaze with his as his long tongue extended and traced lightly over her slick.
Daisy’s hips jumped in response, and her head fell back as she made a tiny sound in her throat.
It was so small and vulnerable that it brought a smile to his lips.
He lowered his mouth ravenously to her cunt, his tongue lapping in long, wet strokes.
She bucked against his tongue, and he responded quickly by pinning her hips with one arm, holding her in place for his feast as he plunged his tongue into her.
She cried out, her cunt squeezing around his tongue.
He knew that, if not for his hold, she would have come up off the bed—such was the intensity of her pleasure.
He smiled against her sex and drove it into her again, twirling.
Because his species used their tongue as an emergency feeding apparatus, their tongues were longer and had many more fine muscles that could make them more rigid.
Those tiny muscles served him well as he drove his mate to the point of madness as her sex fluttered and squeezed rapturously, delivering gushes of her hot honey onto his tongue.
He fed eagerly until he was well sated and his other hunger raged to the point where it could no longer be ignored.
Another growl broke from him as he rose between her legs, his cock jutting proudly as he quickly divested himself of his garments.
Daisy—her face flushed—watched him with glazed eyes that darkened further with her heightened arousal as her pupils expanded even further.
He savored the way his body heated in the places her eyes touched as they wandered over him, dropping lower.
This was his mate. The other half of his heart and being.
Behind the rush of desire, contentment and a fulfilling sense of joy settled deep within him.
Now that they were safe and far from the dangers of surviving on Habtal, the full range of sweetest emotions that were held back by the necessities of survival flooded through him in a spike of euphoria.
The cold emptiness that had invaded him over the long march of revolutions since he became a legionnaire was filled with the heat of their bond.
He settled his hands on her knees, his thumbs making tiny circles. “This is a moment that I will treasure for the rest of our days.”
“This moment?” she breathed, and he nodded.
“Though what happened in the mine was the biological part of our mating and was instinct-driven, it is this place, here and now, where I truly claim you for all time within me. Two beings made whole, each unique and independent, each filling the void in the other in counterbalance. Instinct aside, this is the moment where I am claiming you by my choosing. You shall dwell forever in my heart.”
She smiled, her eyes brightening with unshed tears of heightened emotion. “And you will forever be in mine,” she whispered.
Zil dipped his head in acknowledgement, barely able to speak with the emotion rising sharply through him.
Taking the outer shaft of his cock in hand, he pressed down the spines and directed it to her dripping sex.
The internal part was already fully extended, the glans red and plump with his arousal.
There was the smallest teardrop of deepest crimson to forever mark the spot where he had lost his mating spine...
a permanent echo of the mark upon his heart when he gave that to her as well.
Grunting, he thrust forward, his cock burying deep as the soft spines slipped within her, following the glistening head.
Daisy tipped her hips to meet him, her breath escaping her a low moan.
He drew back and watched her shiver as his spines flexed and dragged along her inner walls as his inner cock retreated before driving in again, extending at the last moment to nudge her womb.
Her sex rippled and clenched as she loudly cried out, and Zil’s eyes slid shut with his mounting ecstasy as he did it again.
His hands slid to her hips, gripping her firmly as he rocked his hips, his cock shuttling in its bi-segmented movement.
The slap of their pelvises grew louder as their urgency heightened, their bodies colliding in a primal swaying movement as he rutted her, his cock driving home with every lift of her hips as her cunt swallowed him again and again.
Desire beat in his head, his pulse a drum within his ears, but it did not drown out her sweet cries.
It was those which he focused on, his satisfaction increasing as he brought her to the pinnacle again and again.
Not just for the way her cunt kissed and held his cock tightly within her depths, not for the way it spasmed so hard that he swore he could almost see the abode of ancient gods, not even for the pleasure that tripped through him, growing exponentially with every thrust.
It was because they were a testament of their bond. He was proud to bring such pleasure to his mate.
He guided her hips as his urgency heightened, drawing them together quicker.
Daisy’s cries were broken with ragged pants, but still she tried to keep up.
Her keens at every thrust and the flood of her arousal spilling over him were evident of that as her body writhed and undulated in its sexual dance.
His own arousal grew sharper, sending a tingling tightness through his groin.
It gathered through his back, compressing through him, deep within his belly.
The moment was coming. He was nearly trembling as his muscles clenched in readiness to give up his seed.
Zil’s eyes drifted to her face, lovingly imprinting the moment forever in his mind and recording into his processor, and he waited, waited until her cunt bore fiercely down on him yet again, sucking and gripping him as it milked him while his mate sang her pleasure.
Her pleasure broke over him, and he roared as his own climax tore through him.
He gave his seed to her over and over, his cock shuttling even when he could no longer move his hips due to the force of his ejaculation.
He held her pinned to him as his inner cock tapped rapidly at her internal walls and womb until she clenched and screamed and he came again.
Rolling to his side, Zil enclosed his mate in his grip, his tail curling around her. They clung to each other while his cock continued to work inside of her, their bodies trembling with the unending currents of pleasure passing between them.
It was as he was holding her, suspended within rapture, that he felt it.
Peace. It slid into his being, and his face relaxed with a smile.
He was a legionnaire—a male designed to be the deadly hand of the empire, and yet he was overcome by a delicate and tenacious little flower.
Gods help anyone who tried to take her away.