Chapter 10
His eyes went dark with hunger. A delicious shiver rolled down her spine as her pulse kicked up into something that had nothing to do with pirates or near-death experiences.
"Six hours," he said again, and this time it was a promise.
Before she could respond, he scooped her up. One arm hooked under her knees while the other braced her back. She squeaked and wrapped her arms around his neck as she was pressed against his chest. He stood, carrying her off the bridge like she weighed nothing.
"Thyaar—"
"Amelia." His voice dropped into something rough and low as he looked deep into her eyes. "I’ve wanted you… needed you since you broke my nose with that bat. I am not waiting another second. Not for anything."
Well. Okay then.
She bit her lip as he carried her down the corridor toward the bedroom.
It was still half-jammed from where she'd broken the lock panel, but he shouldered through the gap without slowing. He didn’t stop until they reached the edge of the bed, looking down at her with an expression that made her breath catch.
"If you don't want this," he said, his voice a low rumble. "Then tell me now."
Her heart hammered against her ribs.
"Because if you don't, I'm going to make you mine right now." His jaw was tight, his eyes blazing. "I don't care if I'm covered in blood, or this isn't romantic. I'm a warrior, not a poet. You get all of me, rough and raw."
She reached up and cupped his cheek with her hand. His skin was warm under her palm, his stubble rough against her fingers. She felt the tension humming through him, as if he were holding himself back by sheer force of will.
"Why aren't you naked already?"
The sound he made was low and feral. Then he was kissing her like he was drowning and she was his last breath of air.
His mouth crashed down on hers, hot and demanding, and she opened for him instantly.
His tongue swept in and she groaned against his lips, her fingers tangling in his hair as she pulled him closer. She needed more. Much, much more.
Letting go of her legs, he slid her down the front of his body.
And she felt everything.
Every solid inch of muscle… The hard planes of his chest, the ridges of his stomach, and lower. She whimpered in the back of her throat.
Oh god, lower. The thick, hard length of his cock pressed insistently against the softness of her belly and she could feel the heat of him even through the layers between them.
Her feet touched the deck, but he didn't stop kissing her. His good hand fisted in her hair, tilting her head back, and his mouth moved from her lips, along her jaw and down her throat. He grazed his teeth against the side of her throat and she gasped, her knees going weak.
How did a man from a species with no women learn to kiss like that?
She didn't have time to wonder because they tumbled back onto the bed in a tangle of limbs. She landed on her back with him half over her, and then they were tearing at each other's clothes with the kind of desperation she'd only ever read about in the holo-romance novels she binged on.
His uniform went first, or what was left of it anyway.
Shoving the ruined jacket off his shoulders, her hands skated over bare skin over muscle that flexed under her touch.
He hissed when she hit a bruise and she murmured an apology between kisses.
She tried to be more careful, she really did, but then he was yanking the shirt over her head and she forgot about careful entirely.
Cool air washed over her bare skin, then his mouth was on her breast. His lips closed over her nipple, hot and wet, and her back arched off the bed.
He suckled, hard, and she gasped as the sensation arrowed straight down to her clit.
Her hands clutched at his shoulders and all she could do was hold on as he worked her, tongue swirling over the stiff peak.
Then his hand shoved between her thighs.
She hadn't even registered him getting her pants off. They were just gone, and his fingers were there, parting her folds to find her slick and ready. A groan broke from her throat as he stroked her.
"So wet." His voice was gravel. "Draanth, kelarris, you're soaked."
Two thick fingers pushed inside her.
The stretch was immediate and perfect and not nearly enough. She gasped, her hips rolling up to meet him, and he thrust deeper, circling his fingers back. He pressed inside and her eyes all but rolled back in her head at the pleasure.
His thumb found her clit and she keened, a sound she didn't recognize coming from her own throat.
"That's it." He watched her face, eyes dark and intent. "Take it. Take everything."
He fucked her with his fingers, hard and relentless, his thumb circling her clit with devastating precision.
She couldn't speak… or think. She couldn't do anything but feel as the pressure built, tension coiling tighter and tighter inside her until she felt like her whole body was strung like a wire about to snap.
"Come for me," he ordered. "Now."
She shattered apart as the orgasm ripped through her, brutal and explosive, and her scream echoed off the walls.
Her pussy clamped down around his fingers, but he didn't stop or slow down.
Instead, he just worked her through it, wringing every last pulse of pleasure from her until she was gasping and shaking as she clung to him.
Her handsome alien made love like he fought. Ruthless and giving absolutely no quarter.
Before she'd caught her breath, he was there over her. He shoved her thighs apart with a hard knee as he settled his weight between them. She looked down to see—
Oh holy hell.
She'd felt him through his clothes so she'd known he was big. But seeing it, the thick length of his cock flushed dark and straining toward her, was an entirely different thing.
"Thyaar—"
"You can take me. All of me." His voice was rough but certain as he fitted the head of his cock against her. She bit her lip as liquid heat slipped from her and she clenched in anticipation. "Every inch, kelarris. You're going to take every inch of me."
He pushed and she sucked in a breath. The stretch was immediate. Intense. He paused, his jaw tight as he watched her face, sweat beading on his forehead.
"Too much?"
"No." She grabbed his hip with one hand, nails digging in. "Don't you dare fucking stop."
The smile that flickered across his face was feral.
He didn't stop. But he didn't rush either. He worked her in shallow thrusts, each one sliding a little deeper than the last. It was erotic torture… the pressure building as he forced her body to open for him.
"So tight," he groaned. "Draanth, you're squeezing me so hard. Perfect. You're so perfect."
She whimpered, biting her lip as pleasure hit hard and fast. His cock pressed against nerve-endings she hadn’t known she had.
"Good girl." The words were a growl against her ear. "You can take all of me. All of my cock."
Something inside her clenched at the words. The dirty talk was devastating… this man who'd been so careful with her before, now telling her exactly what he wanted in that rough voice while he split her open on his cock.
"You're mine now," he continued, pushing deeper. "My mate. My kelarris."
The translator patch did something it hadn't done before. Instead of just giving her the word, it gave her the full meaning.
Kelarris. Beloved. Soulmate.
Her eyes widened. He'd been calling her that since the beginning. And she hadn't understood.
But then he thrust again and he was fully seated inside her.
She couldn't move, could barely breathe. He was so deep, so thick and wide that he filled her completely. The sensation was overwhelming and all-consuming.
"Breathe," he murmured as he slid a hand between them, finding her clit again. "Just breathe. I've got you."
He stroked, slow and steady, and the tension in her body began to ease. The stretch turned to fullness. The fullness turned to need.
She rocked her hips. She couldn’t help it.
"Draanth." His head dropped to her shoulder, his whole body shuddering. "Do that again."
She did it again and his control broke. He pulled back and his first full thrust was devastating.
She cried out, her nails raking down his back, and he groaned and did it again. Harder. Deeper. He set a rhythm that drove the breath from her lungs and every single thought from her head.
She couldn't do anything but gasp as he claimed her. It should have felt rough. Brutal. And it was—but it was also tender. The way he watched her face and the way he stroked her clit was gentle even as his hips snapped forward with bruising force.
He was claiming her and worshipping her all at once.
And the fact that she could reduce a man like him to this—this raw, desperate need—made her feel like a fucking goddess.
"I'm—" She couldn't finish the sentence. The orgasm was building again, faster than before, coiling tight in her belly.
"I know." He pressed harder on her clit. "Come for me again. I want to feel you."
She came.
It hit her like a tidal wave, her body clenching around him so hard she saw stars. He groaned and kept thrusting, kept taking, and before the first orgasm finished he’d pushed her into a second one.
She screamed his name as she came again, and again.
Then his rhythm faltered. The smooth strokes turned ragged, his breath coming in harsh gasps against her neck. She wrapped herself around him, and held on as he drove into her one final time and shattered.
The groan started in his chest and became something closer to a roar, his whole body shaking as he spilled inside her. His cock jerked and pulsed deep within her, and she felt the hot flood as he bathed her inner walls with rope after rope of his seed.
He collapsed against her, catching himself on his arm to avoid crushing her.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. Just lay there, tangled together, as their hearts raced. His face was buried in her neck, his breath hot against her skin. She ran her fingers through his hair and tried to remember how to form words.
"I love you," she whispered.
He lifted his head. His eyes were warm, his expression relaxed, all the sharp edges smoothed away.
"And I love you," he murmured. "I have loved you since you broke my nose and demanded to know where your friend was."
She laughed, the sound watery with tears she hadn't known were falling. "That's a terrible beginning to a love story."
"It's our beginning." He kissed her, soft and sweet. "I wouldn't change it."
She pulled him down against her. His weight was warm and solid, and when he moved to the side to keep from crushing her, she followed, curling into him like she'd always belonged there.
Maybe she had.
She'd never had a home. Not really. The apartment had been Emily's. The places before that had been temporary, transient, somewhere to sleep until the next eviction notice arrived.
But here, in the arms of an alien warrior on a crippled spaceship in the middle of nowhere, with Barnaby probably still asleep in the pilot's chair and an Imperial war-cruiser holding station outside...
She was finally home.
"Thyaar?"
"Mm?" His voice was drowsy, his hand tracing lazy patterns on her hip.
"The war-cruiser captain said six hours, right?"
"He did."
She propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at him. He was a mess, bruised, bloodied and exhausted, and he was smiling at her like she'd hung the stars in the sky.
"Good," she said. "Because I'm not done with you yet."
His laugh was warm and rough.
"As my mate commands."