Chapter Eleven
Catherina
“Thank you, Kergah,” I said as he escorted me to the door to Stevan’s quarters.
I was allowed to roam the palace freely, but I couldn’t travel alone. The only place I was forbidden entry without invitation was Stevan’s quarters and the various rooms where Stevan ruled his world. As Stevan didn’t want to cause rumors, only his most trusted ally, Kergah, was allowed to deliver me to his private rooms and know the reason for my visits.
“You look tired, Catherina.”
I smiled. “I am a bit. I’m not sleeping well.”
“Is there something I can do to ease your discomfort?”
I smiled. “No. Thank you for asking.”
He nodded. “You have been working hard, and you have taken no mate that any one has seen. Perhaps you should relax for an evening. This problem has been ten thousand years in the making. Taking a day off to relax and enjoy the company of another won’t make any difference to the outcome.”
I giggled. “Have you been spying on me?” I teased.
He smiled in return. “No, but it is common knowledge you sleep alone, and have since Quathaul returned home five months ago. You do nothing but work, eat and sleep.” He took my arm and pulled me to a stop. “While I appreciate your dedication, there is still much work to do. If you destroy yourself before it’s complete, who will pick up your sword to fill the gap?”
“So, you think I need to get laid?” I asked, unable to hide my smile.
“I don’t understand the reference.”
“I should mate.”
He smiled and shrugged. “You have no shortage of willing partners. Perhaps that will help you sleep.”
My grin spread. “Perhaps it would, but the Fires are too aggressive and the Waters are too passive.”
Kergah started us walking again. It wouldn’t do to keep the leader of the galaxy waiting. “Perhaps one of your students, then? I understand you have made great progress.”
I liked the sound of that idea. I liked it a lot and had considered taking a lover from the group many times, but I needed to keep them focused on the Waters. I was discussing with Quathaul when the time was right to introduce the Fires and Waters to each other and allow nature to take its course. We agreed we were very close now, perhaps within the month. There were about four Fires for every Water. I might take one of the Fires that didn’t mate with a Water. I mentally shook my head. No, that was a bad idea. I was going to use them to help train the next batch of Fires, a much larger group, to introduce to a much larger group of Waters.
“Perhaps,” I said, wanting to drop the conversation.
I loved it here, and I loved what I was doing, but I was beginning to miss home, Earth, and I was certainly missing having sex and cuddling afterwards. I’d been in a two-month drought when Stevan had taken me. Added to the length of time I’d been here, and the Fires longer units of time measurement, I’d been without a man for nearly an Earth year. I’d never been in a drought that long before and I was craving the tender touch of a lover.
Worse, Stevan was an apt pupil, and as his touches became ever more pleasant and natural, and the sheer animal magnetism of him, meeting with him once or twice a week wasn’t helping. It was making things worse.
We stopped before Stevan’s door and Kergah touched the wall.
“Enter!” Stevan called.
I’d never been able to figure out how people outside the door could hear someone inside bid them entry, when at the same time they couldn’t hear the doorbell or any other sound in the room. More of the magic. Sereni had tried to explain it to me once, but she might has well have been trying to explain calculus to a baboon.
I stepped inside and paused on my knee until Stevan called me forward. I approached and he smiled at me, giving my face a soft caress and a gentle kiss on the lips. It was all part of the lesson, all part of allowing him to perform the actions naturally and without thought. And goddamn, was he good at them.
“Are you ready to begin our lessons?” he asked.
“No, my Lord. Your lessons are complete. I have nothing else to teach you.”
He looked almost disappointed. “Are you sure. I feel I have so much more to learn.”
I shook my head. I wanted to cry. I simply couldn’t do this anymore. “No, my Lord. You simply must practice what you know.”
“But it’s been only two months. The others you have worked with for five months. I don’t understand.”
I nodded. “I… worked with them during mating.”
I saw realization dawn on his face. “Ah. That explains a few things. Sereni has been… different of late.”
“She has?” The news surprised me, and my astonishment was clear in my voice. “In what way?”
The women were just a prop to help the men, but perhaps they were learning a thing or two along the way. During our classes we discussed, but the mating was occurring in private. I had been so focused on the men, I hadn’t even realized the women were changing as well.
He smiled and shrugged. “Difficult to describe. She’s just a lusty as she ever was, but her touches were more like yours.” He paused then smiled. “She was giving me pleasure, not just taking it.”
I smiled, but my heart was tearing. It was then that I realized how lonely I was. Not for friends, or companions. I had made many friends in my time here, Sereni and Quathaul, Tokalas, Kergah, and even Stevan, along with many others. But none could fill this empty place in my heart. I was lonely for someone to care for me, to hold me in the night and kiss away my tears when I felt overwhelmed, to smile and laugh and share my successes with me.
I looked to Stevan. “Then the trickle is already turning into the mighty river,” I said, then looked away.
“Catherina? What’s wrong? You should be celebrating!”
“I can’t do this anymore!” I cried, then broke into sobs and turned away in shame. I felt weak and helpless, but I couldn’t hold it in any more.
He stepped in front of me and pulled me into his arms. I sniffed. He was such as good student. He tipped my face to his. “Tell me, Catherina, what’s wrong? Why are you sobbing? Is it because you wish to return home?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I like it here, but I’m lonely, Stevan.”
He nodded and pulled my head to his chest. “I understand. You’ve been without your own people for so long. If you wish to return, I won’t ask you to stay. You have carried us so far. Perhaps we can walk the rest of the way on our own.”
I nodded into his chest, his warm strong embrace comforting me. He stood, holding me for a long moment and I could feel the ache inside me subsiding. I could return to Earth, but I couldn’t let these people down. Not when we were so close to success. I could stand it for a little while longer.
“I’m sorry,” I said with a sniff. “I don’t wish to return home just yet. I just…” I couldn’t finish the sentence as the ache returned along with my tears. I wiped at my eyes, thankful the Fires didn’t wear makeup. “I’m sorry. I should go.”
“Please stay,” he said. His voice made it a request, not an order.
I hesitated. I wanted him so badly, more than I’d ever wanted a man in my entire life. He was now everything, everything, I wanted in a man. Big, strong, handsome, fully in charge of himself and his surroundings, but at the same time, he had a gentle side. Granted, I’d had to teach him his gentle side, but that didn’t matter now. I looked at him, wanting desperately to stay, to have him take me to his bed and make love to me, but I knew it was wrong.
He smiled, and pulled me to him. He held me again and I could feel the pain receding. I wept into his chest, clinging to him desperately tight, not wanting to let him go but knowing I had to. Finally, after a time, I cried myself out, and still he held me, his big hand on the back of my head, holding my cheek to his shoulder.
With a sniff I backed out of his arms, and he allowed me. Then, he took my lips and I melted into him. We had kissed before, as part of his lessons, but I had always held myself in tight control, calling a stop when I felt my passion, my desire starting to overcome me, but tonight, I didn’t. I couldn’t. I simply didn’t have the strength anymore.
He responded as the kiss became deeper, my arms going around him and holding him into the kiss. He began to lose himself in the kiss and the kiss became harder, more brutal. I broke away from his lips.
“Gently,” I reminded him as I took his lips again.
I was lost, adrift in a sea of desire, desire for Stevan. Fire men and woman didn’t make noise during mating, but I couldn’t contain my voice and moaned into kiss as his hands began to roam. I grabbed his manhood and his lips went to my neck. He bit me and I hissed.
“Gently!” I reminded him.
He bit me again, but much softer this time, then kissed away the string. I was beginning to pant in desire. I pulled his mouth and tongue from my neck and back to my lips as he manhandled my breast.
I pushed him away. I was losing myself. “We have to stop!” I gasped.
He didn’t answer and moved back in, taking my lips again. I couldn’t help it and returned his kiss before pushing him away once more.
“We can’t!”
He paused, his red eyes hard as he held my gaze. “Is that what you want? Is that what you really want, Catherina?”
I didn’t trust my voice so I nodded.
“I wish to mate with you, Catherina. Tell me you don’t wish to mate with me and you are free to go. No dishonor will follow you.”
“But—” I began before he held up his hand, commanding me to silence.
“There is no but. Tell me you don’t wish to mate with me and you may go. Or stay. The choice is yours.”
I licked my lips. This was so wrong! “I… wish to stay.”
He smiled and moved in again, kissing me hard, but not brutally so, and I again moaned into his mouth.
“That sound, are you in pain?” he asked as pulled back from the kiss and touched the closures on my gown. It loosened and I shrugged it to the floor. He then touched the closures on his clothing and allowed it to fall away.
“No, my dear Stevan,” I said softly as I took him in. He was simply stunning, the perfect example of a male, cut and ripped to perfection. “That is the sound of a human woman in pleasure.”
He smiled as he lifted me and carried me to his bedchamber where he threw me into the bed as if I weighed nothing at all. I bounced to a stop in the center. There was no danger of falling off as the bed was easily twenty feet on a side.
“Then I shall have to cause you to make more of those sounds,” he said with a smile.
For the next eternity, he pleased me and I made a great many sounds. He was a hard, aggressive lover, and I had to keep reminding him to be gentle, but he always followed my instructions. Fire mating consisted of kissing on the lips and neck, biting on the neck and shoulder, fighting and fucking. I was up for that, but there was so much more for them to learn. I showed him how to use his mouth to please a woman, and as he licked and suckled at my breasts I swooned in pleasure. I pushed him lower, but I sensed he was reluctant to use his mouth on my womanhood, so I didn’t press.
I smiled as I nudged him to his back and began to return the favor. I kissed his lips and chest, working my way lower. He kept wanting to take control, and I kept reminding him that part of my pleasure was pleasing him.
As I approached his manhood with my lips I felt him stiffen. “What are you doing?” he asked.
I smiled. “This is one of the ways a human pleases her mate.” I could see the doubt in his eyes. “There are many ways to please a mate, Stevan,” I cooed as I held him erect. His cock was impressively large and I was looking forward to having him inside of me, but I wasn’t done with tonight’s lesson yet. “You didn’t know that simply touching a female could be so enjoyable,” I murmured as I kissed the head of his manhood. “Open yourself to new things and experiences.” I kissed him again. “That is how you learn to please other Peoples.”
He groaned as I swallowed him, the sound pleasing me unlike any lover before him. I enjoyed pleasing men with my mouth, and I’d been told I was good at it, but I will give him this, he had amazing endurance and I didn’t think I would be able to finish him.
“Stop, Catherina! Stop!” he growled as he came, splashing onto my chest. “I’m losing control and I’m afraid I will hurt you!”
Having him understand what pleased me and what didn’t, and calling a stop so he could collect himself before he lost control of himself, was like throwing gasoline on a fire. I took his lips in a hard kiss. I wanted him to be rough with me, so long as he didn’t hurt me.
“Take me,” I demanded, and he did. And did. And did, pounding into me hard and fast as he threw me around the bed and took me from every possible position.
I had so much pent up need, once wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.
“I’m cumming,” I wailed, not for the first time, as I suffered through another mind twisting, brain melting, orgasm, my nails biting hard into Stevan’s back as he fucked me.
As I cried my pleasure to the world, Stevan grunted and I felt him splash into me as he held me tight and bit me softly on the neck. The Fires obviously liked to bite, and I was going to have to remind them that gentle nips were nice, bites were not. I’d had to remind Stevan of that several times, and I knew he was struggling to contain his urges as his hands gripped and released me, gripped and released me. Finally he collapsed, lying against my chest with his face buried in my neck. After a moment, he looked at me and smiled.
“Those were the sounds of pleasure?” he asked and then kissed me hard.
“Gently!” I reminded him. “Very soft kissed after mating!” He kissed me again, but softer and slower, and I smiled as he released my lips. “And yes, the sounds of great pleasure.” God, I loved being twenty again!
Suddenly I flash hot. “Stevan! What if I become pregnant?” Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, what had I done? I hadn’t been on birth control since I left Earth and with my new, young, body, I was probably fertile Myrtle.
He smiled at me. “It would be a glorious day!”
“But…”
He touched my lips gently with his finger then kissed me softly. I couldn’t help but smile. The lessons had sunk in. “Be still. If you don’t wish to be with child, the nanites will prevent the fertilization of an egg.”
“How?”
He smiled and pulled away from me and crawled across the bed to retrieve his mating dagger. He touched something on the handle, then touched my temple with it. I felt brief tingle.
“That’s it?” I asked.
He nodded as he sheathed the blade. “That’s it. The nanites are destroying my essence even as we speak.”
“You have to do that every time?”
“Or before mating, yes. It must be done before the egg is fertilized. Tomorrow you can reset the nanites and it will be effective until your next mating.”
“I don’t have a blade.”
“I can obtain one for you, or there are other, smaller, devices that do the same thing.”
I flopped back on the bed and smiled, relieved beyond words, then frowned as he left the bed. “Where are you going?” I asked.
“We’re done, are we not?” He must have seen my face. “What?”
“Human and Waters like to cuddle after mating.”
“Cuddle?”
“You hold me and I hold you. We touch each other and kiss slowly and gently.”
He smiled as he returned to the bed. “I see there are still a great many lessons for me to learn.”
I smiled as I received him into my arms. He did have a great deal more to learn, but I didn’t mind teaching him.