Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Jacaranda

T hose earthly butterflies gnawed at my gut after they had fluttered in it for an hour. I do not want to participate in the pomp. I want nothing to do with this. But it was expected of me and the Ladrang family was nothing, if not traditional. If I wanted to remain a faithful employee, then I would participate.

More importantly, as Deacon’s best friend, it would insult him if I did not join in.

As I stood in the hallway waiting for the door to his quarters to open, Kapok, Tiger, and Drift walked toward me.

Shit . Drift was the smallest of us—even shorter than me. But he wasn’t muscled like I was—his was the runt of his family. They had sent him to the academy when he was barely a child, and from what I had heard, the Skir clan had hoped the academy would kill him. But he had thrived instead, becoming the youngest pilot in the academy’s history. On a day like today, none of that mattered. It was impossible to view any of the others with more than mild disdain.

I frowned and said, “Tiger, I thought you weren’t going to be in on this.”

“Kapok says I should learn about the pomp, so I’m here to observe.”

I grimaced at Kapok. “Really?”

“He’s got to learn some time, doesn’t he? We’re all under Deacon’s employment. He would be mad if we weren’t all here to make the union official, so—”

The door opened. Deacon was nude and Sarah was on the bed, covered by his fur, her eyes huge with shock.

He grinned and said, “Welcome, friends, come in.”

But she was not as happy as her groom. “What is going on, Deacon?”

“The pomp,” he said, tipping his head at her. “Do you not have the pomp on Earth?”

The door closed behind us, sealing us in. I felt as trapped as Sarah looked.

She said, “Pomp on Earth means you celebrate. What does it mean here?”

“The same thing.”

She nibbled anxiously on her bottom lip. “Then why are your friends here when I’m naked?”

Deacon frowned and waved a hand impatiently between them. “To celebrate, as you said. I don’t understand why I keep having to explain everything many times.”

Because I was well aware of the various miscommunications between earthly beings and aliens, I tried to explain the situation to my friend. “Celebrations on Earth are different than for Ladrians, Deacon.” I walked toward the bed, but Sarah visibly shrank back from me, so I stopped. “Sarah, the pomp after a union means Deacon will share you with us.”

She gasped, her jaw dropping in shock. “Share?”

“We are here to fuck you, little human,” Kapok growled as he stripped.

She stared at me, her eyes begging me to deny his response. But I nodded and averted my own gaze instead so I didn’t have to see the fear written all over her face.

Sarah shifted her gaze to Deacon. “You want to share me?”

“That is the way of things,” he said and shrugged, because it was a Ladrian custom. “After a union, the consort is shared with the partner’s friends and employees. This way, if she were to become pregnant right away, no one knows who the father is of her first born, and they all work to protect the child, and you as well.”

She looked appalled. “You have all this technology, but you can’t do a paternity test?”

I quickly interjected. “We can. We choose not to, in order to preserve the tradition. It keeps bonds strong between our people, the classed and the unclassed. This way, there are no revolts and less abuse between us.”

Deacon tried to brush my cynicism under the rug. “But that’s not the only reason why we do it. We do it, because it is a beautiful tradition.”

She sat up, keeping the fur over her chest and ran her fingers through her hair, tousled from her first round of sex with Deacon. “So, you want me to have sex with all of these guys—”

“Not me,” Tiger said, shaking his head. “I’m only here to watch.”

“And you think that’s beautiful?”

Deacon smiled and nodded. “Yes. Very much. I want to see you with them. I am aroused by the thought of it.”

That much was plain for all of us to see. Kapok was, too, and I wondered how this small human would accommodate our kind. But since Deacon seemed as though he had already taken her, I knew she could do it.

I told Sarah, “If you would prefer I didn’t, I won’t—”

“I will.” Kapok eagerly leapt between us and started at her feet. He picked her up by her ankles, leaving her shoulders on the bed and making the fur drop from her body. She gasped as he licked her feet. “So small.” Then he let go, and her legs fell straight down onto the bed. He parted them as he climbed onto her body. “I’ve never had a human before.”

She squeaked in surprise. “That’s not how we like it—”

“I’ve fantasized about how I would take one, though.” He lifted her hips up and his cock pressed against her entrance. “I’ve always wanted to make one scream with pleasure.” He thrust into Sarah, making her scream.

It was not a happy scream of ecstasy.

I grabbed his shoulder and ripped him back from her, pulling his cock out, too. He rocked back onto his knees and growled at me. “What are you doing, Jac? I am doing my job.”

But Sarah crawled back from him, trying hopelessly to yank the fur out from beneath his weight so she could cover herself.

“Jac, this is his duty,” Deacon said.

“That’s not…” I sighed and struggled for the right words. “Kapok, you can’t take a human the way you take a Ladrian. You have to make her want it. Her body does not respond to being taken forcefully like that.”

He frowned and looked at Sarah more than a little skeptically. “It doesn’t?”

She quickly shook her head.

Softly, I asked the one thing I didn’t want to ask. “Sarah, is it okay if I show him how to pleasure a human woman?”

Her lashes blinked rapidly. “You…you know how?”

“I do. I’ve been with many humans.”

She licked her lips to stall for time. Then she whispered, “Okay.”

Her agreement was enough to make my cock hard, along with the sweet curves of her body. I took my clothes off and climbed onto the bed next to her.

“Lay on your back for me, Sarah.” She got comfortable but seemed cold—her nipples were hard. “Kapok, get off the fur.” He stood, and I pulled it up over her waist. “Better?”

“Yes,” she whispered, still wary.

I told him, “Generally, humans do something they call kissing before they fuck.” Which was not something we did at all with our own kind.

I brushed the hair away from her face and cupped the back of her head, before I gently pressed my lips to hers. She was cool to the touch, but receptive. We made out, and her moans filled my head. I was pleasantly surprised when after a few minutes she hooked her leg over my hip. Guess she’s decided to give this a try . Her wet sex brushed against my cock, making me want to thrust into her as boldly as Kapok had.

A Ladrian woman’s body did not respond unless the man’s body was forceful. They loved when we threw them around and took them in every way we could think of. I was on a scouting mission when I discovered human women were not that way at all. At least the majority of them.

Reaching under Sarah’s ass, I pulled her on top of me without entering her. She was shocked I had done so—her face told me as much.

I told Kapok, “If you let her be on top, then she can control the depth of our cocks.”

He grumbled, “Why would you want to do that?”

“Humans are not as deep as Ladrians,” I said, sliding my hands over the curves of her waist. “You don’t want to hurt her, right?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then let her control the depth and pace,” I said, staring at her perfect tits and hard, rosy nipples. “Plus, you get a nice view when she’s on top. Come see.”

Sarah blushed as the men walked around to the head of the bed, which afforded them the same seductive view as I had. Full breasts, soft stomach, and spread thighs that were straddling my hips.

“Keep your eyes on me,” I told her, seeing how nervous she was as they stared. “Only on me. They’re not even here. It’s just us.”

She nodded, and keeping her eyes trained on mine, she began grinding her wet sex up and down my shaft. She was already so slick and hot. I couldn’t help myself—I pumped up toward her. She reached between us and took my massive cock in her tiny hand and aimed me toward her entrance. As she sank down onto me, my body tensed. It wasn’t the first time I had fucked in front of Deacon or Kapok, but Tiger and Drift were new.

A strange sense of exhibition came over me. I wanted to give them a show.

Placing my hands on her quivering thighs, I ran my fingers up that smooth skin past her belly and up to her tits. They were soft and smaller than any Ladrian woman, but her nipples were just as responsive when I plucked them. Her pussy clenched on my cock when I teased the mound of her breasts, and she moaned again.

“You like that?” I asked, certain she did.

“Yeah…feels so…good,” she murmured, lost to the sensations I was creating in her body.

Grabbing her ass, I sat up so I could feel her tits against my chest as she rode me. Her tail-free backside was so strange—like all humans—but the muscles squirmed under my hand—like a Ladrian woman. Sarah Hollinger was small, but mighty. She had a power in her core that was fiercer than any human woman I had met. Even when she had been on all those drugs, she was still quick enough to cut me—no small feat for a human.

I held her close to me, the sensual squeeze of her pussy mesmerizing me, pulling me deeper under her erotic spell. Her diminutive body—

“She doesn’t have a tail?” Tiger asked, taking me out of the moment.

I had forgotten I wasn’t just here for the pomp—I was also here as an educator. I had to push my pleasure aside and answer his question, but it was hard. “It is the rare human who has a tail—almost none of them do.”

“How odd,” he noted.

“Do you think I could fit in that hole?” Kapok asked, pointing to her backside.

But she tensed up and said, “No!”

I kissed her again to calm her down. “I won’t let him. Don’t worry.”

She smiled at me and kissed me again while she rode me, only taking a small part of my immense length inside her body. It was strange—I was simultaneously at ease with her on my cock and distraught by it, as well. I could not sort out my feelings on the matter. She held onto my neck, and I rolled her onto her back. When I thrust into her again, her sounds renewed a passion that had not waned. Fascinated by her, I touched her face, her lips, her throat. She cried out as I grabbed her breasts, pinching them, biting them, wanting to release deep inside of her.

But that was not the custom.

A first born, if conceived on the day of the union during the pomp, was to be a mystery child. If I came inside of her, that would be a breach of protocol, an insult to Deacon, and grounds for dismissal. It would irreparably ruin our friendship, too. I couldn’t do that to him.

But every cell in my body wanted to.

Sarah’s keening wails told me she was already there. As her body rolled beneath me, her sex tightened against my cock. It was all I could do not to release in her.

She stared into my eyes and gasped, “Mmm, fuck!”

I pumped into her twice more, before I pulled out and came on her belly. I laid onto her, irrespective of my mess, and kissed her wildly. Nothing else mattered in that moment. I didn’t know my own name. Her tongue and her small body were the only things that existed.

“Here,” Deacon said, interrupting our moment. He passed us both steamed towels to clean ourselves.

We did, and I kissed her one more time before I left her on the bed. Now comes the less fun part.

The watching.

Kapok laid next to her and said, “I don’t want to hurt you, little human. You can be on top.”

She laughed sardonically and said, “Gee, thanks.”

“The kissing, Kapok,” Deacon said.

“Right, right.” He fumbled through it for a minute, before he said, “This is odd.”

“But good?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. We should try again.”

They made out, and a surge of envy shot through me. I didn’t like watching him touch her. I was worried he might hurt her. Or she might like it better with him. Whatever the reason, I was worried for her.

And for me, because these were inappropriate feelings for Deacon’s mate, let alone a human.

She carefully pushed Kapok onto his back and sat astride his lap. He laughed and said, “This is a good view.”

Sarah blushed, but she was less timid this time. She allowed him to penetrate into her and started to ride him. But when he reached up and grabbed her tits, she winced.

I advised, “Gentler, Kapok.”

“I’m being as gentle as I can!”

I huffed and got onto the bed behind her and between his legs. Her ass was round, and I liked watching it bounce. I understand why he wants to try that hole …I shook my head of the thought and said, “I’m going to touch you, Sarah.”

“Yeah,” she panted.

I reached around and cupped her breasts as she rode Kapok. I loved touching them, and it felt good to protect some part of her from him. But I had no right to stop him from her, so I made it an instruction. “See, Kapok, gently, like this.” I gave her hard nipples a subtle pinch, and she squirmed on him.

He looked completely perplexed. “I don’t think I’ll get the hang of it.”

“Gentleness is not in your nature, Kapok,” Deacon declared. “Perhaps it is best that you take her only for the pomp.”

I could not agree more. I moved her long, wavy hair over her shoulder and kissed Sarah’s neck, and my cock grew hard once more as I pressed against her ass. She moaned loudly, reaching over her shoulder to touch me, sliding her hand around to the back of my neck. I wanted to throw Kapok out of the bed and take her again. Frustration hit me once more but I kissed her bare shoulder one last time before I left the bed again.

But she reached out for me, her eyes hazy with arousal. “Come here.”

“Yes?”

“Stand in front of me,” she said in a husky tone. “I want to taste you.”

Unable to refuse that request, I climbed onto the bed, carefully balancing a foot on either side of Kapok. There I stood before Sarah, and she studied my cock, like it was the first one she had ever seen. She licked along the underside, her tiny tongue fluttering all over my most sensitive places. Then, she tried to get me into her mouth. But she couldn’t.

She giggled and said, “Sorry.”

Deacon chimed in. “I have an idea. May I assist?”

She shrugged. “Sure.”

He reached between her and Kapok and played with her clit. When her lips parted on a soft, sudden gasp, Deacon gave my ass a shove forward into her mouth.

He smirked up at me. “She needed to be relaxed.”

Once she adjusted to having a few inches of my cock in her mouth, her tongue began to slip and slide over the head while she rode Kapok’s cock and Deacon stroked her clit. It didn’t take long before she was making those arousing moaning sounds, telling me that she was orgasming again, and I could have come right then, but I held back. She reached up and grabbed my ass to pull me into her mouth in time with her bucking on Kapok.

Pleasure pushed through my cock as I came, and I snarled, “ fuck !”

Sarah choked on my gift and had to stop to swallow as I filled her mouth. Once she was done, she coughed and gasped, then said, “Punch, please?”

I frowned in confusion and stepped down from the bed. Deacon left for his producer and returned with a glass of water with herbs. She drank it down, before continuing with Kapok. But he didn’t last much longer. He pushed her off of him before he came.

Sarah fell to the bed beside him on her back, while Deacon gave them more steamed towels.

He brushed his lips across hers and said, “I am so proud of you.”

She laughed breathlessly. “What for?”

“This has been a lot for you to take, I know this,” he said in that formal way of his.

She nodded, her eyes shifting to Drift. “Next, I guess.”

But the Ladrian flinched. “I, um…I know this is wrong, but I cannot.”

Deacon shot him a look, then smirked. “Good. Get out. All of you,” he ordered brusquely. “I will have my consort again, without an audience.”

I took a deep breath and corralled the other two from the captain’s quarters, relieved to be leaving. I was the last one out the door, and heard Deacon tell Sarah, “Now, you are mine .”

His words were like daggers.

I put them out of my mind. Sarah was not mine—there was no reason to feel this way—so territorial and possessive of someone I could not have beyond the pomp. Instead, I caught up to Drift in the bright halls of Allegiant .

“Hey, why didn’t you join the pomp?” I asked him.

Drift’s eyes darted to Kapok and Tiger, as they headed to Sovereign . He guided me to a storage room, free of Ladrian ears. “I have been courting someone in secret.”

This was momentous news. Last I had heard, Drift had no interest in courting anyone. “Who?”

He shook his head. “I cannot say. Our passion is forbidden.” He quickly glanced away. “I want to tell you, Jac, but the more who know, the more we are at risk. Please don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t tell, Drift. I promise. Secrets are sacred to me.” I had a secret of my own, and I knew how heavy that burden was.

“Thank you.” He clapped me on the back. “One day, I may tell you who it is.”

I smiled. “No matter who it is, I am happy for you.” And I meant it.