I couldn't get over how beautiful everything was. I felt like an idiot, staring down and paying no attention to the date that I'd come here to enjoy this with, but everything was so beautiful. We weren't that far away from home, but I'd never done this kind of thing before. My mother was slightly acrophobic, so we never went up in any kind of aircraft.

There were some things that money and social standing couldn't pay for. I gasped as we came too close to a mountain.

"Xuan!" I screamed. "Get us away from that thing!" There was a rock face that was mere inches away from our ship.

"Chill," he said, although the ship swung outward as I'd asked. "The ship can steer itself. The lasers are far more precise than I could ever be."

My heart was beating faster nevertheless. "I don't want to be so close to crashing into a mountain."

"Were you scared?" Xuan asked, with a slight smile on his face. He came over to huge me and kiss my forehead. My entire body lit up with sparkles. "I promise that I won't put you in danger. This hover floater is the top of the line, I swear. I'll get you home safe."

Just then, an alarm sounded. My heart started exploding.

"What's that?" I asked.

"There's some kind of malfunction," he said. "Hang on." He went to the panel at the front of the ship. I could see how intent he was. Then his shoulders relaxed. "It's just low on water. We need to take some up from the environment, then we'll be fine."

"Let's do it right now," I said, my heart still pounding a little hard.

"No problem," he said. "I know a turquoise lagoon that I always go to. Sound good?"

"Yeah," I said. When he fiddled with the computer, his shirt was stretched tightly across his broad shoulders. I didn't know why I liked it so much, but I did.

The ship banked around a turn, tilting a little bit. I closed my eyes. The faster we came to a stop to pick up water, the happier I'd be. I was severely regretting getting into this death-craft. No wonder my mother was afraid of aircraft and flying.

We soared through the air for another 3 minutes, well away from any mountains. I went straight to the bathroom as soon as the ship stopped in the air. I could see Xuan pressing buttons, but I knew that I needed to get a quiet moment to myself before I did anything else. I ran into the sonic shower with my clothes on just to get rid of the sweat all over my body. Then I came out and gasped when I saw the stunning vista below my feet.

"This is amazing," I said. "So beautiful," I sighed.

"Not even half as beautiful as you are," Xuan said. I didn't know if it was the kind of sweet talk that Draka nobles bandied about, so I just stared down. I could see giant fish jumping in and out of the water. The water was a shade of turquoise that I had no idea occurred in nature. There was one so big that when it came down, I thought that it would splash our craft. There was an almighty splash when it came down, but we weren't close enough to hear it.

Despite the death-defying trip out here, I was glad that I came out with Xuan. Maybe we could stay on the ground next time. I'd liked being on his airbike, although I didn't know if it could handle a trip this long. If he visited the turquoise lagoon on a hover floater, it probably meant that he couldn't get here otherwise.

"What are those carvings?" I asked. I pointed to the floor. I could see the opening of a cave mouth and a giant face next to it.

"It's an ancient Yore carving, from long before the Draka had even heard of this planet, let alone colonized it." Xuan knelt next to me and looked down at the stone face. He stroked my hair gently, which sent a small shiver down my back. "Do you want to know more about the Yore half of your heritage?"

I burst to my feet. The moment that I got over my initial shock, I put on my polite society face, one that was faintly interested but not emotional. I'd gotten enough spankings as a little girl for my tantrums, as my mother called them. I'd been an easy crier, which wasn't ever acceptable in polite society. I swallowed before I answered him in my coldest voice.

"Where's the food that you promised me?"

"Right here," he said, accepting the change of topic. I breathed a sigh of relief when I watched him get to his feet with easy grace. He disappeared in the back of the ship. I'd look through the floor for a few moments before joining him.

* * *

Less than ten minutes later, he came out with a few serving platters. They had Amila stalks, sautéed greens, and a platter of wild fruit that were mixed with wild vegetables that were endemic on this planet. The hover floater was evidently worth we'd paid to use it for a little while. He set them on a table that he made appear by touching a button on the wall.

"Wine?" he asked after he'd set the platters down.

"Yes, please." The Draka almost always drank a glass of wine with dinner, but I'd learned early on that it gave me a headache almost instantly. When I was a stupid and reckless teenager, I'd drunk an entire bottle on my own because I'd been dared. I spent the next half hour vomiting up everything in my stomach.

"White or red?" Xuan grimaced. "I'm afraid that I don't know what they have in stock."

"White, please." Red went to my head a little faster. He pulled out a nice bottle of white wine and poured it into my glass. I pointedly ignored the label. Everything that was imported from the home world was outrageously expensive, but since all Draka drank wine on a daily basis, the off-world merchants could set their own prices. There were some grumbles that the government itself would start importing wine, but it was just talk. There wouldn't be consensus on the idea that the government should be taking up limited space with easily consumed wine. The Draka swore that reconstituted wine wasn't anything like real wine. I couldn't taste the difference, which my mother attributed to my Yore blood.

The almost instant sickness upon drinking wine was part of my Yore blood. They drank rice-based alcohol, not grape-based alcohol. I'd never tried rice wine or anything, but my mother had always said that it was for commoners, not me.

I sipped a little bit of it. "It's dry."

"Do you want something a little sweeter?"

"No, I like dry wine." I drank a little more but had to stop before I got embarrassingly intoxicated and started barfing. Considering that I had to get through a return flight to town, I really had to pace myself. I helped myself to some of the Amila stalks. I cut them into tiny pieces. They might be expensive, but they were difficult to chew. I could use them to avoid too much conversation with Xuan.

"I don't drink much, either." Xuan wrinkled his nose. "Because I live with my sister and her mates, the only thing we keep around is wine made from Draka grapes."

"It's a shame that the climate on this planet isn't kind to grapes."

"Believe me, they've certainly tried to establish vineyards here. They just haven't been particularly successful." Xuan shook his head. "Vineyards were part of my get-rich-schemes before I wised up."

"What are you talking about?"

"Before my sister married two princes, we weren't wealthy. I knew that we had to get surgery to get implants out of our heads, but we didn't have the money. I kept trying to figure out how to afford surgery and made stupid decisions." He drank the rest of his wine. "But my sister's last job led to her marrying two Draka princes and gave me my twin nephews, so it's not all bad."

"You had implants?"

"Nobody knew who we were. We were supposed to forget."

"Forget?"

"Our heritage," Xuan said in the softest whisper possible. "We still don't know the whole picture. We don't know everything, so I've been hunting down the truth while Phuong takes the reins of being the face of the Yore empire. He looked down at his hands. "That's why I'm surprised you don't want to learn more about being half-Yore."

I shook my head. "I was never allowed to ask questions about it. My birth was a scandal, I knew that much, and I was spanked if I tried to learn more. I'm sorry that I cut you off before. I didn't want to. You can tell me more about being Yore if you want to."

"We definitely will spend more time together, right?" He said the first half like a statement but ended with a question.

"Yes." My heart spoke before I could think through the implications of a single word. He leaned forward, not heeding the plates of food between us, and kissed my mouth. He blinked a little bit as he pulled away. I could recognize that the kiss was a question. He was initiating what we could do with all this privacy as the ship took water from the lagoon below.

Rising from my seat, I

ignored my food, which was unlike me since I loved food. But I sat in Xuan's lap and drew his face down to mine. I captured his mouth in the most passionate kiss that I could muster. I couldn't breathe, but I stole his air from his mouth. We were resuscitating each other.

He ripped his mouth away from mine, making me afraid that he'd changed his mind.

"There's a bed in the back."

"This ship really has everything."

He didn't grunt as he stood with me in his arms. I locked my hands around his neck. He kissed my forehead as he strode to a door that we hadn't opened yet. I had just enough time to see that it was a small bedroom before he was pulling my clothes off. Then he stripped off the clothes he put on after the fight. Up close, his muscles looked a lot more defined than the TV had been able to show. I touched them, half sure that he was some kind of illusion. There was black fire lurking in the back of his eyes. He bent his head to take a savage bite of the top of my breast. His teeth would leave marks on me that I'd have to be careful to conceal. I moaned beneath him, my back arching as he savagely bit my breasts and neck. I'd have to wear hot clothes in order to hide these marks, but every second was worth it. I tried to rock my hips against his, sliding against the lower half of his body, but he shifted so that it was out of reach.

"Right now is for you, starlight."

I couldn't think in complete sentences anymore. The only words that I could say were "Harder" and "More." He complied.

Just from the biting, I orgasmed into a million pieces beneath him on that bed. He waited while I tried to catch my breath. Maybe the altitude contributed to how breathless I was.

He turned me over so that I was on my hands and knees. "You've recovered enough from Round 1 that I can start Round 2." I didn't get a chance to ask what it was before he showed me. He parted my thighs, lowering my body a little bit on the bed. Then he pushed his tongue inside of me.

"Xuan!" I screamed. I hadn't expected it, so I didn't know if I was screaming in surprise or if I wanted him to stop touching me there. In another moment, I just didn't know becasue my body was blazing with pleasure. I could only moan in short pants.

He did something where he rotated the pressure that made me start scream his name uncontrollably. My body shook so hard that my face touched the chartreuse bed covering. My legs felt like I would never walk again, but it was worth it.

"Do you want another orgasm?"

"I want you inside of me," I growled at him. I looked over my shoulder. His face was a little shiny from my juices. "Now."

"So demanding," he said, although he lined his cock up with my opening. "Just for that, I should make you wait."

I squeaked in protest as he rubbed his cockhead all over my labia and clit. I writhed, trying to throw my hips back on him, but I just couldn't catch him. He use his cock in long strokes that touched me from clit to ass. I couldn't get my timing right and he used his strong hands to keep me in place as I tried to take him inside of me.

"Xuan, I'm going to die if you don't take me right now," I panted. I felt half crazy from trying and failing to get him inside of me.

"Whatever you want, Arienne." He slid just an inch inside of me. My mouth opened. He was huge, the girth stretching me further than I thought possible.

"I need to tell you something," I panted.

"Can it wait?" he asked as he slid another inch inside of me. "Stars, you're tight."

"I've never done this before."

"Had sex in a hovercraft above a lagoon?"

"Had sex," I said.

He pulled out of me, making me feel cold where he'd pulled out.

"You're a virgin?" he asked. His face was paler than I'd ever seen it.

"I'm supposed to wait for marriage," I said. "But that's my mother's decision, not mine. And I want you."

Xuan ran a hand through his hair. "I shouldn't do this."

"Then let me." I crawled to the edge of the bed, grasped his shoulders, and swung him so that his back was on the bed while his long legs were still dangling off. I couldn't force him to move if he didn't want to. There was a small moment where we stared into each other's eyes before he pushed off of the floor and got on the bed fully. I straddled his body, my breasts swinging the tiniest bit. I grasped as much of his cock as I could fit in one hand before I pressed it to my opening. I tried to open my mouth to relieve the pressure in my throat.

"You're too big for my body," I moaned. He gasped as I clenched around his shaft.

"Just take it slow. You're wet enough," he told me. He reached up to pinch one of my nipples. Startled, I fell down another inch on him. I was feeling all kinds of pressure and discomfort now.

"Slow," he said. I breathed out and took another inch. I knew that he'd pushed up against my barrier.

"No," I said as I seated myself fully on his giant cock. I screamed in pain and pleasure. The sensations coming from between my legs were a mixture of both. I didn't know that I could feel like this or even survive it, but he was incredible. I leaned forward and braced my hands on his shoulders. "You're so big," I grunted with my throat a little tight to speak comfortably.

"Breathe through it," Xuan said. I took in little pants of air. He moaned below me as my body involuntarily clenched around him again.

"Like that," he said. "Imagine those muscles relaxing."

I let go and we both groaned. I rose two inches.

"And now tighten them again." He put his big hands on my hips, guiding me down. His cock didn't hurt anymore. It felt like the best thing ever, better than the nicest chocolate cake or the most expensive wine.

"I'm going to die from pleasure," I told him. I was having a hard time getting enough air.

"We'll die together," Xuan told me. He started using his grip on my hips to rock my small body on his big one. My head fell back. I couldn't look at him, just feel as my mind filled with white fire that blanked out all my senses: sight, taste, hearing, and smell. The only thing that I could feel was touch. I felt like the sex between us was consuming my entire body in red-hot fire that could never be put out.

When I climaxed, I did it harder than any other time I'd ever experienced. The two orgasms that he'd given me earlier were tiny compared to this one. I shuddered all over and lost control of my muscles as every single one went taut.

"You're beautiful," Xuan said as he slid out of me. He was still hard. I knew he hadn't orgasmed, and that seemed unfair as he'd given me multiple orgasms. There were some rumors that men liked it when you put their cock in your mouth. I reached for him, but he dodged out of the way.

"I want to taste you," I pouted.

"Another time," he said. "I'm going to take you from behind. Put your face down and lift your ass."

I could feel my body waking up again as he moved into position behind me and tested my body with two fingers. They weren't as big as his cock, but he moved the fingers around so that he touched my G-spot. I shook on the bed in front of him.

"You're ready," he said before shoving the entirety of his dick inside of me.

I screamed. I was still tender from losing my virginity. And here he was, shoving into me roughly, much more roughly than he could take a virgin. But the pleasure that radiated from the pain he generated overwhelmed me.

His pace, now that he was standing at the edge of the body, was rhythmic and unstoppable. I writhed under him, but his hands were holding my hips so tightly that I knew that he'd leave bruises. I could hear his breathing start to quicken behind me. As his thighs got a little tighter, I felt the beginning of his climax. It was just a little pre-come. He started groaning in earnest as he held me in place as his cock moved a few more times inside of me.

"Ah!" Xuan screamed as he let go inside of my body. I could feel my entire body filling with his warm seed. I knew intellectually that it could only be going into my opening, but it felt like he was pouring far more than I could hold. I could feel it spilling out of my body as he filled me with more and more. When at last his body stopped spurting into mine, he pulled out.