16. Hazel

16

Hazel

Valmore walked backward into our bedroom… The bedroom he left entirely to me for the last three days. He had insisted on sleeping on the floor, despite me telling him it was fine to share the bed.

But I knew he did it for my sake. He did it to make me feel comfortable. He did it so I wouldn't feel any pressure to consider myself his mate, even when he felt that way himself.

His mate. My mate. Those words meant so much more now. Why did I refuse to admit to myself that I felt this way about him?

He shut the bedroom door and walked toward the bed, my hand still in his. I wondered then, when did we become mates? I could point to the mess hall, but it happened before then. Valmore wouldn't have been so insistent about protecting me from the crew if whatever it was didn't already compel him to save me.

Maybe it happened when we met in the docking bay, but my heart told me otherwise. I could almost believe it started before that. It might even have started in the dawn of time… in the mists of fate.

I knew only one thing for certain. I needed him. I needed him like I needed the blood in my veins. If I lost him, I would bleed and keep on bleeding until nothing remained. He never spoke any truer words than those.

So this was what it felt like to be mated to someone. Every touch of his hands, every graze of his fingers, every flicker of his eyes meant the world—the universe. I craved the breath from his nostrils, the scent of his masculinity hovering around his mouth and neck and hair. Every pore of his skin and every hair on his arms became a priceless treasure I could never live without.

He combed a stray strand of my hair, moving it behind my ear. His hands glided down my arms to my waist, and he picked up the edge of my shirt. I didn't try to stop him from lifting it over my head. I belonged to him. All of this was natural. It was inevitable.

He dropped my shirt on the floor and unlooped the long blade he wore over his chest. He set it aside too. The inevitability of every move didn't lessen this moment. Nothing ever could.

He unsnapped my pants and pushed them down to my knees. He held them open for me to step out of. If I ever feared he didn't take this seriously or me seriously, I only had to see his eyes tracing down my body.

He straightened up and his eyes returned to my face, but his hands never rested. They explored every corner and crevice of my body. Aching desire welled up within me. It overflowed the barriers that once held it back. All thoughts of resisting or protecting myself from him vanished in a blink.

All worries about the IPA, the Ranxi, my parents, everything—it all disappeared. I knew I was safe with him.

His mouth explored my chest, my neck, and my breasts. His fingers delved between my legs, and I spiraled into another world. I moved on his hand and released into a dizzying orgasm almost immediately.

I clutched at him, teetering on unsteady legs. He straightened me up to kiss me again, then he slipped his own pants off and pulled me onto his lap.

My legs found their own way around his waist, as if they belonged there. Somehow, his cock found its way inside me. Even that happened by itself, effortlessly, inevitably. My body swallowed him where he belonged. We became one, joined at the mouth, at the eyes, at the mind, at the chest, and at the skin. No space remained to hold us apart.

When I opened my eyes, I saw him gazing back at me. His hands possessed my body the same way he possessed my being. I dissolved until I could no longer tell where he ended and I began.

I rocked on his penetrating length, feeling the never-ending waves of pleasure washing me clean. What came before and what came after no longer concerned me. Only this moment mattered. In this moment, we were mated for life, for all time, never to part.

His fingers slid down my spine to the sea of wetness surrounding his hardness. I heard myself sighing and moaning as he teased me to fresh heights of rapture. My flesh slapped against his skin, his lap spattered wet and slippery with my juices.

He gripped my arms with both muscular hands and pulled me into his strokes. I added my frantic rhythm to his until I thought I would shatter. I felt myself splitting apart, but I didn't try to stop it.

My head lolled back, and I gave myself up to moans of bliss. He kissed me again, but I hardly felt it. I couldn't do anything except roll my hips on the maddening flesh filling me to bursting.

His hot lips roamed down my neck, sucked my nipples, and returned to my face. I floated somewhere in the sea of space where things like bodies and planets and ships and politics didn't exist.

He brought me back to reality by tilting us sideways onto the bed. He laid me next to him, where I had no choice but to look into his eyes.

His body kept undulating and arching between my legs. He lifted my knee over his hip so he could drive from underneath, but only he was real to me. His eyes… Those all-consuming eyes…

I stroked his cheeks and ran my fingers through his hair. I fondled the chiseled ridges of his chest and arms.

He leaned in and kissed me again. This time, his kiss sent chills through me. I grabbed him. I had to steal as many kisses from him as I could. I didn't know how much longer I would get to be with him before the Ranxi attacked, and what would happen to us then.

I got on top of him. All that spaced-out bliss evaporated and pure animal need took over. I needed him. I needed his body, his essence, all of him, inside of me.

I bucked my hips on his cock and dug my fingertips into his rock-hard chest. He relaxed back onto the bed and guided my hips in cruel strokes. His shaft drilled into me deep—so deep. I couldn't stand it, but the endless waves of pleasure going off in me wouldn't let me stop .

I worried I might hurt him by digging my fingernails into his chest, but I couldn't help it. I had to hold on to him. I had to anchor myself to him before I went completely over the edge.

Incredible heat poured out of me. Hot wetness drenched between us as I felt his cock throbbing against the contraction of my inner muscles. He strained to keep up with me, hurling his hips into me from below. He knocked me up with each thrust. Scorching fire burned my insides and our muscles spasmed in unison. He snarled through his teeth, and sweat broke out all over his body.

My breath hitched as I felt his seed pour in and out of me in ceaseless waves. The slightest throb of his cock sent me reeling into another dizzying climax until I had nothing left in me.

I collapsed across his chest, spent, but those orgasms didn't stop when I did. My body took over. It rippled around the cock still slipping in and out of my saturated channel. I felt Valmore kissing me, finally bringing me back to reality.

He rolled me onto my side again, then pivoted me into his arms. He loomed over me, and his tongue found its way into my mouth while his shaft kept up a steady pulse between my legs. How he kept going, I didn't know. I didn't question it.

My body turned to rubber and my rational mind shut down. I became aware of his cock entering me, withdrawing, then entering again. My awareness dwindled to very little beyond that and the two burning eyes right in front of me.

He lowered his weight on top of me. I caressed his back, his ass, his legs, his face… If this was how we were going to spend the rest of our days, I'd never complain.

This was all that mattered.