Chapter 4

 

The sweet bite of ethanol twinged in Tynan’s nose as he crossed the threshold. Ah, every time and place enjoyed its indulgences.

He’d followed the sounds of merriment, but it was the sight of one statuesque beauty who lured him within.

Lishelle. There was a music to her name that had intrigued him from the moment she’d shared it with him. It sounded like a wistful sigh, like a gentle wind through lamanya blossoms, like fingertips through bubbling waters…

To be clear, the name didn’t quite suit her. She was tall and bold and greedy for pleasure. She had screamed when she came and clenched around his hand as if she would not let go.

He rather liked it.

She was one of the players at a table of countip. The tile game was a test of speed, dexterity, and mathematics, with a hefty dose of luck. Making his way through the small but close crowd, he took a space just beyond her elbow to watch.

With four other players, she was building a ziggurat of tiles with multicolored sides and edges etched with different numbers of hatch marks. By aligning colors and completing numerical puzzles with the hatch marks as the tower grew higher, the players reduced the stack of tiles in front of each of them. Whoever used up their tiles first would win and the other players would be stuck with the final count of their unused tiles. An ill-placed tile could collapse a section of the ziggurat—which meant having to add the tiles to one’s pile—and there was no awaiting one’s turn: find an opening, fill it.

Rather like the game of love.

The current game had just started, but obviously the evening had been in progress long enough for the players to have completed a round of drinks because their hands were less steady than their cheerful insults to each other. One of the other players knocked down a corner of the ziggurat and groaned as he pulled the extra tiles in front of him. Lishelle laughed and quickly added three of her tiles to the opened section, the colors and numbers on the edges of her tiles aligned with the others.

She was good, and her big laugh connected with something in him as if he were one of the tiles she played.

The game quickened as the ziggurat grew higher and open slots were fewer. Lishelle and another player had only a few tiles left. When the clumsy man beside her bumped his corner again, there was a fury of throwing down tiles. Lishelle sped through her remaining pieces until one was left in her hand. She hesitated, scanning the ziggurat for an opening.

“Blue twelve-seven-nine,” he murmured.

She didn’t glance at him—he wasn’t even sure she heard—but she slid the tile home…into a different slot and threw up her hands. The other players booed good-naturedly and someone called for another round, but she shook her head and stood.

He took a step back, but when she turned, her dark gaze speared unerringly to his.

“Thanks,” she said as she closed the small distance between them. “But I don’t cheat.”

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I was caught up in the moment.”

Her mouth, so wide and mobile when laughing, was set in a straight line. “That’s what cheaters say.”

She angled past him to the bar. He followed, a little more slowly. The dispenser must have registered their proximity, because it poured two drinks. After a diffident beat, Lishelle took both glasses and handed one to him before swiping her wrist device past the scanner.

With an arch of one eyebrow in his direction, she stalked across the room to a quieter corner while the countip game continued with a new player in her seat.

They settled into the cushioned bench beside a viewscreen showing an underwater simulation. The wavery blue-green glow shone on the black curls of her hair and added highlights to the richness of her skin.

He leaned back without sampling the drink, all his focus on her. “I’m sorry someone cheated on you.”

She took a sip from her glass, her gaze on something—nothing—else past him. “Who said someone did?”

“Wasn’t that what you meant by your comment?”

Finally she looked at him. “How does the God of Beloveds feel about cheating?”

He tilted his head. “At countip?” When a reluctant smile curved her lips, not even an eighth of the full laugh the game had wrung from her, he continued, “Bodies and souls entwined leave no room for straying.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Can’t be having sex every moment of every day.”

He inclined his head. “But the heart stays bound.”

The faint line that remained between her brows told him she wasn’t convinced. “If you say so. I guess you need to believe it if you’re doing the vows for Rayna and Raz’s wedding.”

She doubted him? “I believe it because it’s true.”

Her snort blew bubbles into her drink. “Not where I come from, not often enough.”

“Where I come from…” He paused, frowning. A strange unease wafted up in him like a darker bubble.

But she was still talking. “I know this isn’t Earth, but I hope these Thorkons guys are good to my friends, and not just because we have this space station that will make money for the duchy.”

“The God of Reserves is often invoked by well-wishers at weddings,” he said, “as is the God of Fortuity. Petitioning for wealth and luck is no bad thing.”

She set her glass on the table and spun it between her fingers. “And you share your…teachings with every girl you walk into?”

He started to remind her that she’d walked in on him, she’d invoked the Prayer of Steps Seeking, but knowing her heart had been bruised by unfaithfulness, he thought better of teasing her. “Not every girl. Not even most. Actually…” He frowned again, looking down at his drink that he hadn’t yet drunk. “Only one. This is the first time.”

She let out a scoffing noise. “This is your first wedding? You’re a virgin minister?”

He nodded once hesitantly, then with more vigor. “The first.”

With a softer whistle between her teeth, she clinked her glass against his. “The dowager duchess doesn’t mess around with appearances, so you better be good.”

The chime of crystal jarred him back from his wandering thoughts, and he took a quick gulp of his drink. The chill and the burn confused him for a moment, and he coughed on the smoky-looking liquid.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Lishelle said. “I’m sure you’ll do great. You seem to know all about beloveds.”

If that were true, wouldn’t she believe him when he spoke?

He touched his mouth where the sensation of the cool crystal/alcohol burn lingered.

Lishelle’s dark eyes followed the gesture. “So,” she drawled. “Last night…”

He dropped his hand. “Last night?”

“You vanished.”

The flatness of her accusation—and the image it evoked—made him stiffen. “I didn’t…vanish. Something happened.” He brushed his fingertips across his lips again.

She leaned toward him. “The flowers. Or the radiation. Or something. Did it get you too?”

He tilted his head. “I don’t…”

She put her hand on his knee. “I talked to the medics today. They didn’t find anything, but I felt weird too. C’mon.” She slid her hand up to grab his.

He was still distracted by the feel of her hand on his knee. His hand had been on her…

In her. “What?”

“Let’s go see if it’s happening again.”

If he would happen to touch her again? For that, he’d follow her anywhere.

When she dragged him up from the seat, his shoulder bumped into a Thorkon male, almost spinning him around.

“Apologies,” he said to the younger male, who had recoiled, green eyes widened with outrage. “The lady is stronger than she knows.”

She tugged him out of the bar, and in a couple steps he caught up so he wasn’t being dragged. “There were no more flowers today,” she said. “But what if they’re night-blooming?”

“Is it night?”

She snorted at him. “You know what I mean.”

With her long legs, they made quick time to the joining of the hallways where he’d first…

He frowned. He’d first encountered her here, but he’d also…

She turned a circle beneath the skylight, pulling him with her, out of his chaotic thoughts. “Not a single flower.” She sounded disappointed.

He cast a wary eye upward. “Last night,” he said slowly, “in the sky above us, there was a…”

She diverted her gaze to him. “The black hole. Yeah. You can’t always see it because of the spin of the station.”

He swallowed, tasting the aftermath of the alcohol. He preferred the taste of her.

She must have seen his disquiet, if not understood the reason for it, because she stepped closer to him, not letting go of his hand. “It’s weird at first, seeing it out there and knowing it could rip apart this whole station without a single weapon, just because of what it is. But the engines keep us in a high orbit, out of reach.”

He’d been out of reach…

He lifted their joined hands to his brow. “Lishelle.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It freaks me out too.” She leaned into him and brushed her lips across his.

There were no flowers, but the memory of her perfumed scent as she’d opened her thighs to his touch was all he needed.

He gently twisted their linked hands to the small of her back and pulled her to him. Having her close calmed the strange mystification in him, filled a hollow he couldn’t quite explain. He slanted his mouth across hers, tracing his tongue over the thick, lush curve of her lower lip. She opened to him sweetly, as if she were one of the missing flowers, and he deepened the kiss.

Her moan reverberated through him, shattering any hold he had on his control. He crushed her to his chest, no space left between them. Since she was tall enough, even when he bent her back, the strong arc of her body didn’t significantly alter their perfect alignment. She twined her free arm behind his neck, holding him as fiercely as he held her.

She tilted back just a little farther, and their lips parted with a sibilant smack. The dazzle in her dark eyes gratified him more than seemed proper in a public hallway.

As if she’d read his mind, her fingers tightened in his hair. “You aren’t tossing up my skirts again here.”

“You’re wearing pants anyway,” he pointed out.

“That will make it harder.” But her impish smile was a challenge.

“Where then?”

“My bed.”

“Take me there.” The demand in his voice lacked all finesse when several key tenets of the God of Beloveds included wooing.

He would have to do that later.

She twisted away from him gracefully, but their hands at her back were still joined and she towed him down one of the corridors.

If he’d been asked to retrace his steps, he doubted he’d be able. All his attention was on her backside, the opulence not merely a curve but most of a glorious sphere.

Wooing and finesse would come much later. He’d be lucky to make it to her bed.

When she palmed open her door and drew him inside, he crowded her back almost before the portal closed behind them. She shoved at his tunic, unsealing the seam down his front, then rolled him, thumping his shoulders into the wall. He returned the favor by grabbing the thigh-length hem of her robe and peeling it upward. She raised her arms obligingly, and while she was briefly blinded as the robe went over her head, he backed her against the other wall and crashed his mouth down on hers as soon as her lips were visible.

She tossed aside the robe and stripped the tunic from him. When he let his arms go slack behind him to let the tunic fall, she tightened the arm holes around his wrists, binding him. A rough sound of appreciation jolted from his chest as she wrestled him backward down the short hall toward the living area, both of them kicking out of their footwear, a hasty dance of disrobing desire.

Low lights flicked on as they strained against each other on the way to the bedroom, but he had eyes for nothing but her: the shining black curls of her hair wild from their tussling, her lips swollen from his kiss, and her stunning posterior revealed as she shed her pants and stood before him naked.

He stumbled to a halt, letting her gain a few steps on him before she turned to face him, her brows arched in question.

“Wait,” he said hoarsely.

Her brows shot higher. “For?”

“I want…” His fingers curled helplessly over the tab of his own pants.

Her gaze raked him, like lightly pointed fingernails tickling down his chest. “I do too,” she said. “That’s why you’re here.”

That’s why you’re here.

He knew she meant her bedroom, with her, but something about her words made his heart thrash in warning.

He was here to share the blessings of the God of Beloveds…

The seal on his pants parted. Under Lishelle’s fingers because she had taken matters—and his swollen flesh—into her own hands.

The low moan of wanting she made in the back of her throat sent a surge of hunger through him, and his shaft thickened in her palm even as the fabric whispered down around his ankles.

She took a steadying breath before saying, “I thought maybe it was the pollen that made me so crazy, like an aphrodisiac.”

“The invocations of the beloved must not be forced or false.” His own voice was rough; the last thing he wanted to talk about was the intricate steps of courtship and matrimony.

“Exactly,” she murmured. “There’re no alien flowers here, no weird black hole radiation.” She gave a toss of her head that set her oiled curls bouncing over the upper slope of her breasts. “This is just us here. What we want.”

He wanted so much. How fortunate for him that she was all that.

His body arched ecstatically into her hands as she guided him toward the bed. Her breasts swayed with each step, a counterpart to the swing of her wide hips, mesmerizing him, with no need for aphrodisiacs of any kind.

When she sprawled backward onto the bed, the lights obligingly lowered, and only the enhanced starlight beaming through the viewport remained, highlighting all the peaks of her body: her cheekbones, the dusky-dark jut of her nipples, her knee as she angled one leg toward him, though the entrance to her paradise remained in mysterious shadow…

He stalked her across the bed, bending the soft mattress toward him. She spread her arms, to catch herself or to catch him, he wasn’t sure, but he fell into her embrace with all his weight. She took him easily, the soft cushion of flesh on her inner thighs belying the power of muscle and strength of bone underneath. She guided the blunt head of his erection across her folds, and the slick heat of her desire teased him. So close… But he pulled back, ignoring her huff of protest.

Suspending himself on all fours above her, he stared down. “The second invocation of the God of Beloveds is the Prayer of Eyes Meeting.”

Lishelle groaned and bowed upward. The stiff tips of her nipples grazed his bare chest. “That wasn’t what was about to meet,” she complained.

Balancing on one palm, he levered his other hand under her chin. Her dark eyes were half-lidded and glazed with passion. This wasn’t about beloveds, he reminded himself; this was simpler, more primal and earthy, mere bodies in motion. And yet…

His voice fell into the familiar cadences. “After the first Prayer of Steps Seeking, where the beloveds’ search takes them on a journey of discovery, their eyes finally meet.”

She stilled under his hand, her lashes fluttering as if she might be resisting his words. But after a heartbeat, she raised her gaze to his. The passion was still there, widening the infinite black of her pupils, and something deeper too. A yearning even more powerful.

Anchoring her heels behind him, she angled her hips upward. For a moment, she was almost suspended underneath him, her weight a delightful, irresistible force, pulling him down into her body. “And then,” she continued in a breathless, singsong voice, “the lover fucked her until she screamed with the most awesome orgasm of her life. The end.”

Despite his not inconsiderable strength, his thighs trembled and he sank desperately into her welcoming heat.

He might know all the prayers, but she was the answer, and he fell upon her with an oath that was everything profane and glorious.

 

***

 

Oh God, he was magnificent. She’d known that, of course, since that first kiss, when he pressed up against her and the bulge between his legs have been an insistent presence even if he hadn’t unveiled it until now. She’d always been a big girl, and she liked big things. His cock definitely fit her big criteria.

And he fit her, perfectly. His caresses—and, okay fine, his words—had left her wet with wanting. So he plunged into her with the ease of a longtime lover, as if they’d known each other forever. And yet each stroke felt stunningly new. She was intimately aware not just of his body but her own, each gasp and tingle feeling fresh-minted. Like a virgin… She and her Earther girlfriends had giggled at the unlikelihood, yet here she was, trembling on the verge of an overeager, too-quick orgasm, as if she never done this before.

Well, technically she hadn’t, not with an alien.

The way he held her, stroked her with a masterful intent, as if he knew her better than she knew herself, triggered some unfair resentment in her. If he thought he was going to make her come alone again, he was sorely mistaken. She clenched her inner muscles, half vengefully, half inadvertently, and he groaned. The bone-deep sound echoed inside her like the best vibrator ever, so she bore down again. All hail the God of Kegels…

They rocked together and it was almost a battle, straining against each other, even their gasping breaths stealing from each other. She clamped her hands on his shoulders, reveling in the powerful breadth as he plunged into her. With the words of a poet, the rhythm of a drummer, and the shoulders of a linebacker, he might not be her beloved, but he had everything she loved…

And that was reason enough to not want another beloved.

But she wanted this, and Tynan, right now.

She framed his face in her hands and brought him down for a kiss, their tongues a wet and wanton tangle that felt even more intimate than their joined hips. When he snaked one hand between their bodies to slick his thumb over her clit, she arched back with a gasp. His mouth sliding down the taut column of her neck, he nipped at her pulse under her jaw, licked into the hollow of her throat, and worked his way lower with tickles and bites over the sensitized swell of her breasts, teasing-torturing her nipples until she was writhing against him.

She pushed his head lower and he obliged, withdrawing his cock with a succulent pop that almost made her regret her choice. The fiery trail of his mouth blazed over the soft mound of her belly to pause—more torture than teasing this time—above her widespread legs. The hot gust of his breath ruffled her pubes, and she keened in the back of her throat. He made a sound of smug satisfaction and crashed his mouth over her.

His tongue delved deep past her puffy folds into her core then lapped back to encircle her throbbing clit. Not poet, drummer, or linebacker, but an erotic calligrapher, spelling desire into her hidden depths.

Shouldering between her knees to splay her wide, he was merciless, and when she was shuddering helplessly, clamping her legs around him, he speared his fingers into her. With that one final touch, like a final exclamation point, he pushed her over the edge.

She jackknifed with a sharp cry, reaching for him, and he surged forward to replace his clever fingers with his thick cock. Her inner muscles convulsed around him as he pumped into her, and she realized hazily that he was already coming. At least she didn’t have to feel bad about orgasming first again…

They sprawled across the bed, their lower bodies still entwined. Leaving one hand centered on his sweat-misted chest, she let herself drift, eyes closed, while his pounding heartbeat slowed.

A whisper across her skin made her crack one eyelid, and she gave him a satisfied smile. As he finished tucking the sheet around them, he returned the smile.

“You shivered,” he said softly.

“Just…aftermath,” she said. “It’s all good.”

“Very good.” He smoothed a wayward curl from her cheek. “I’m glad I found you tonight.”

“And the night before.” She stretched against him, luxuriating in the feel of his strong body against hers, the heft of flesh and muscle a more comforting bulk than all the pillows in the universe.

He rumbled low in his throat when she clenched around him. “My seeking steps brought me to you.”

“Sure, sure,” she murmured, distracted by the answering flex of one particular muscle of his. “Are you…ready to go again?”

His lips curved wickedly. “It might take me longer this time.”

It did. And she didn’t mind.

When they collapsed again, they fell a little ways apart, and she wondered if his nerves were as overexcited as hers, every tiny hair on her body quivering and exhausted. His gusting sigh seemed to say as much.

Almost without her permission, her hand slid across the tangled sheet to tuck under his. He twined his fingers through hers without opening his eyes. The second invocation, the Prayer of Eyes Meeting…

“You can stay tonight,” she whispered. “If you want.”

“Confession,” he whispered back. “I think you’d have to shovel me out if you wanted the bed to yourself.”

Maybe she should be mad at his presumption, but she was feeling rather too pleased with herself to care. Excellent orgasms, a muscle-y, self-heating pillow, maybe even a date for the festivities when he wasn’t busy. She shouldn’t have been so quick to hate on this wedding madness.

He drew her closer, tucking her against his shoulder, and she relaxed with her own sigh.

He looked even better the next morning.

Any awkwardness she might’ve feared was erased with his waking kiss—not too early and not too much tongue, which would’ve gotten him kicked out of bed. He didn’t try to hold her back, just gave an appreciative grunt when she rose and sauntered to the bathroom.

She peered back at him before closing the privacy panel between them. “You can shower with me.”

He reclined back on the pillows, one arm crooked behind his head. Did every sexy male in the universe know that pose? His dark eyes gleamed. “If you want.”

She wanted.

It was too perfect, she thought dreamily as they dressed—he in his sonic-laundered white tunic and she, feeling pretty, in one of her best Thorkon gowns. She hadn’t wanted more than a couple of one-night stands and a few disastrous dating site let’s-do-coffees since her divorce, but maybe her life was finally looking up.

Or sideways, or whatever.

While he was pulling on his boots at the door to the suite, she admired his backside. Linebacker, tight end, whatever. “Would you like to have breakfast with my friends?” she asked shyly. “Rayna said she hasn’t had a chance to meet you yet.”

He straightened. “I would enjoy that very much.” When she reached past him for the door, he snagged her into his embrace. “Though perhaps not as much as I enjoyed you.”

She sagged contentedly into his arm as he kissed her—with plenty of tongue this time—and walking to the duke’s private dining room with her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, she floated as if someone had stuffed anti-grav units into her slippers.

Yes, things were definitely looking up. Up being, of course, relative in space.

She smiled at him as he ushered her into the dining room. Though serviced from the main commissary, the duke and his personal entourage received all the little special extras: fresh pixberries, Cook’s tastiest confections, Earther coffee.

“Have you ever tried flavored creamers in your coffee?” She’d explained the concept to Cook at the Azthronos estate and the woman had been experimenting ever since.

Tynan’s brow furrowed. “In my what?”

“You’ve not had Earther coffee yet?” Delighted that she could show him something—it got a little tiring always being the country cousin in the future—she waved to Trixie and Nor, since Rayna and the duke were apparently lagging, but angled toward the side board first.

A crash from behind brought her whirling around.

Trixie was staring toward them, the steaming contents of an entire teapot pooling around her feet. “Blackworm!”