Chapter 18
Vessa
“That is quite a run session you had, ” Liv mused, “and you brought back a stray.”
“Only a minute,” he responded breathily.
“Twenty-three minutes, thirty-three seconds, and seven nanoseconds, actually.”
Vessa groaned. “Liv, some privacy.”
The AI made a derisive sound but said no more.
Her bedroom door slid open for him. The room was deliciously cool and dark compared to the rest of the ship. She unwound her legs from his torso as she nipped at his throat. “No tearing these clothes.”
And he didn’t, but the way he undressed her was with a barely contained frenzy.
“Fuck,” he muttered as he pulled down her shorts, and she flicked them away with her foot. He tore his own clothes off until there was nothing between them.
They were beyond everything but need. Vessa was starved for him. His touch.
He stepped forward, guiding her back, with his head tilted down to stare at her. But there was so much weight in that violet gaze. A desperate hunger, unquestionable adoration.
“Kedar,” she murmured as her legs hit the edge of the bed. His pupils dilated at the sound of his name, his lips parted. She pushed herself back on her large bed, thanking her past self for the over-indulgence. But he didn’t follow her.
“You’re so blood-damned perfect. Look at you.
From the first moment I saw you on the battlefield, I knew there was nothing in this universe that could ever compare to you.
I’ve known no other deities beside those of death, but you must be some dark goddess from the deep stars.
Beautiful and dangerous. I’m not worthy,” he breathed, “but I will worship all the same.”
Vessa’s body reacted to his praise, to his reverence as he dropped to his knees. “Roll over for me,” he said, his voice rough.
Vessa obeyed immediately.
When he pulled her up by her hips, she spread her legs wider, arched her back. Showed herself to him. She couldn’t see much of him with her face pressed into the soft fabric of the bed, but she could feel his gaze on her.
He brought his face to her center. Her hips moved toward him of their own accord as his hot breath hit her thighs.
“Fuck, you’re so wet for me, Ves. I have to taste you. Have to—”
He cut himself off as he licked her from clit to hole. Growling against her in satisfaction, he licked her again. She moaned at the sensation, her eyes squeezing shut. No one had ever done this. Had ever tasted her.
“So damn good,” he muttered. His tongue circled her clit, plunged into her hole. Again and again. He drew soft whimpers and breathy moans from her as he sucked and probed. Then he spread the globes of her ass and, before she could protest, his tongue was there, too.
“Kedar, don’t,” she gasped. She tried to move away from him, bat at him with her hands, but he held her in place.
“I told you. I want all of you,” he growled.
Her cheeks heated with embarrassment even as she shook with pleasure through his ministrations. She was on the verge of orgasm, legs shaking, when he suddenly stopped.
Vessa was pliant in his hold as he positioned her once more on her back. Her arousal glistened around his mouth. He licked his lips sensually. Wickedly. Something primal and possessive filled her at the sight. No one else could have him. No one else could ever see his face.
“You’re mine,” she said.
“I’ve been yours for a long time.” Kedar moved between her legs. His cock pulsed on her stomach as he took in her body. “You own all of me. My hearts, my soul.”
She wrapped her hand around as much of his cock as she could, spread the precum over his broad head with her thumb. “And this?” she asked, delighting in the way his bulges strained.
He swallowed hard, his lips parted on words he couldn’t quite get out.
“It’s mine,” she answered for him as she stroked his shaft. “You don’t know how much I need it right now. How much I need you to knot inside of me.”
His eyes closed, and he tipped his head back as if in prayer. His hands tightened on her thighs. “Say it for me again, Ves. I want to hear you say it.”
She moved back, just enough that she could fit his head to her center. “I need your knot, need you to pump your seed inside of me. I need you to make me yours. All of me. All of you.”
He let out a harsh breath, his muscles tightening as he pressed into her. “Vessa,” he groaned.
“Yes,” she murmured as he opened her up. He moved slower this time, and she felt every delicious inch of him. Every raised ridge. She took every throbbing bulge until he was deep within her, filling her.
This was more than a carnal act. There was no more lying to themselves, to each other. It was anguish to anguish. Scars to scars. Confession and sacrifice.
Surrender.
Tears came to her eyes, spilled into her hair.
“I know,” Kedar soothed. He wiped her tears away with his rough-padded thumb. “I know.”
She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, holding his hand in place against her cheek, but the tears only intensified. He gathered her up, and she threw her arms around his shoulders. Heart to hearts.
“I told you that all we could ever be was ruin to each other,” she said with her face buried in his neck. “But we’re also the only ones who can fix each other. You’re both my damnation and my salvation. And I’m yours.”
“Look at me,” he commanded. They were face to face, foreheads pressed together. Sharing breath. Vessa fisted his hair as he kissed her softly.
“Never again, I swear it,” he vowed as he rocked into her shallowly. “And you know I keep my word. You’re my mate, Ves. I’m not going anywhere. Even if you try to push me away or lash out with all that fire you have burning inside of you. I can handle you.”
She swore she felt her heart healing from his words alone. The timeline repairing itself. Past and present connecting. “Show me,” she murmured.
Kedar was in full control as he thrust into her, supporting her body with his strong arms. He nipped at her neck and whispered devotion to her.
“You are all I need. My mate. My beautiful and violent mate. I thought I’d never get to say that. I am sorry I ever hurt you. I’m sorry I ever took anything away from you. You deserve worlds, all the cosmos—you deserve someone better than me. But I swear, I will give you everything.”
“I’m yours, Kedar,” she panted. “You have my heart and every broken piece of me.”
His name fell from her lips as he moved her up and down his cock. His ridges stroked her walls, and she clenched around him. She was so close. Her head fell back in ecstasy, but his hand was there to support her, wrapping around the nape of her neck.
“Fucking perfect,” he groaned. “Going to knot inside your tight cunt. Can’t—” He was panting as his thrusts grew erratic. Vessa could only catch snippets of his broken sentences. “So deep in you. Mine,” he growled. “Always been you. Come with me. I need to—”
“Please,” Vessa pleaded, and Kedar knew exactly what she needed.
He buried himself as deep as he could inside her.
His knot expanded fast, but his seed was already filling her in hot waves, leaking out the sides.
Pleasure swept over her, and when she broke in his arms, he gathered her impossibly closer.
Their bodies convulsed together, a rhythm that only passion knew.
Nothing could separate them now. His hearts beat against her, into her.
His breath filled her lungs. They were so deeply connected she was certain she’d find their veins entwined, their ribs overlapping.
Two halves of a whole. All this time, their souls had only ever longed for this.
“How is it that your helmet is in my room right now?” Vessa was sprawled across Kedar's chest, her fingers absently tracing the deep grooves between his abs. It’d been hours since she brought him back to the ship.
Which made the fact that his helmet was sitting between two of her leafy plants on a shelf in her bedroom an impossibility.
“I put it here on the off chance you killed me,” he rumbled beneath her.
“So, you thought that I would want it if I killed you? And you broke into my ship again? Liv and I are going to need to have a long talk about what the directive ‘let no one else on the ship’ means.”
“I went through your underthings again, too. I couldn't help myself.”
She groaned. “Is nothing sacred?”
“He also took a spoonful of your jam and left the sticky utensil out,” Liv reported.
“Kedar,” she growled as she propped herself up to see his face. “I’m already regretting this.”
He shook with laughter, and his smile was full of mischief. The golden flecks in his eyes seemed to glimmer extra bright. A new detail to add to her growing collection of expressions.
She bit her lip, fighting the urge to laugh with him. “Don’t make me laugh. This is serious. You owe me more jam, and stop being weird with my underwear!”
Kedar pulled her up higher on his chest and patted her ass. “I’ll buy you all the jam you want. From all over the galaxy.” He kissed her shoulder, then the Xaal mark he’d given her beneath her collarbone. “As for your undergarments, I don’t need them when I can go straight to the source.”
“Is this how it will be, then?” she asked with a long-suffering sigh. She traced his lips, tapped the point of one of his fangs. “You being here? In my things?”
He nipped at her finger. “I fear so, and there’s no takebacks. If you try to kill me now, your honor would be in question. Besides”—he rolled them over—“you love me.” His gaze softened as he took in her naked form.
Vessa couldn’t help but smile at him. “Gods help me, I do.”
Never had she thought that a job on the universe’s shittiest planet would lead to this. Lead her back to him. Her best friend. Her mate. Her beautiful hunter.