Authors: Robin L. Rotham
Unable to stand being cooped up, she finally pulled on her robe, checked on the twins and then headed for the dining room. The minister had said she’d be able to see both moons before midnight, and the deck had a number of padded chaises she could lounge around on and stargaze for a while. She hadn’t noticed any mosquitos nibbling on her earlier. Hopefully that meant there weren’t any to worry about.
The deck doors were still wide open, and when she stepped outside, several hovering lanterns were still lit. She touched the three closest to her to extinguish them, as the minister had shown her earlier, and then settled onto one of the chaises to stare up at the sky, the sounds of the surf whispering in her ears. Sure enough, one small white crescent was almost directly overhead, while a larger half moon with a distinctly blue cast hung low on the horizon. If it weren’t for that blue moon—and the fact that she was alone—she could almost believe she was in Hawaii, taking that honeymoon she’d never had. The night scents wafting on the breeze were absolutely mouthwatering. Was it the tropical flora, or was someone baking in preparation for tomorrow’s breakfast, or both?
Whatever it was, she wanted more of it. She lay there soaking it up in deep breaths as she watched the stars flicker. Was Sol visible from here? She’d have to remember to ask Hastion or the minister tomorrow.
Suddenly the indistinct rumble of Minister Cecine’s voice drifted in with the breeze.
Speak of the devil. Shelley looked around, but didn’t see anyone so she got up to look down on the beach. As soon as she stood, she gasped and dropped back onto the chaise, her hand over her racing heart. Surely she hadn’t just seen Hastion on his knees in the sand, giving the minister a blow job. She couldn’t possibly be that lucky. Could she?
There was only one way to find out.
She scooted her butt as quietly as she could over onto the next chaise, and then to the one by the rail, and then—
Oh sweet Jesus.
The view was absolutely breathtaking. They’d obviously been going at it for a while. Cecine was nude, his long, straight legs braced apart, and he was using both hands on Hastion’s head, fucking his mouth while Hastion hung on for dear life.
It occurred to her that she really should give them their privacy. But why should she? They were the ones who’d decided to do it on the beach, and she knew for a fact that Hastion got a thrill out of being watched. If the minister didn’t…well, he knew where his bedroom was, right?
Mesmerized by his mouth-fucking technique, she slid a hand under her robe and into her panties just to tease herself. No coming—she didn’t trust herself not to scream anymore.
After a few more minutes, Hastion reached between the minister’s legs and Shelley held her breath in anticipation. The minister seemed to lose it then—he shouted, thrusting far back into Hastion’s throat, obviously coming with epic force while poor Hastion gagged and choked and writhed in his hold. Just when Shelley was getting worried enough to consider charging to his rescue again, the minister released him and Hastion lurched to the side, sprawling on his hands and knees in the gentle surf, his whole body visibly racked with spasms.
When the spasms subsided, the minister said quite clearly, “I…beg your pardon, Ensign. That will not happen again.” Then he walked back toward the house.
Shelley didn’t even have time to comprehend that he was coming up the steps to the deck before his head came into view at the other end. Flushing painfully, she drew her legs up and made herself as small as she possibly could, thankful she’d turned off the lanterns at this end.
She held her breath, cringing as he strode by. Every inch of his naked, still-hard glory was illuminated by the lanterns he passed, and she could clearly see his tight jaw and clenched fists. He stared straight ahead, but if she had to guess, she’d say he wasn’t really seeing anything—he looked like a man tortured by regrets.
Once he’d disappeared into the house, Shelley just sat there blinking, letting herself relax only gradually, one trembling muscle at a time. God, if she was this much of a wreck after just watching, what kind of shape must Hastion be in?
After a long moment of indecision, she got up and crossed the deck, looking behind her once to make sure the minister wasn’t having the same idea. Hastion had crawled out of the surf and curled almost into a fetal position on the sand. Biting her lip, she crept down the cool steps and made her way silently to his side.
She touched his shoulder and could feel his trembling.
“Shelley!” He rolled to his back with a shocked look, his eyes glassy. Then he sat up, looking around nervously, and wrapped his arms around his knees. “How much did you see?”
“Probably a lot more than I should have. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have spied on you, but, um…” she cleared her throat, blushing hard, “…you were so hot, I couldn’t help myself.”
“After what happened between us, you have every right to spy on me.”
She laid her hand on his shoulder again. “Are you sure you’re all right? You’re shaking like you have a fever.”
“Of course,” Hastion said with false heartiness, so confused and overwhelmed he hardly knew how to react to the fact that she’d watched them. “And did you enjoy watching us?”
“I…” She bit her lip.
“Don’t bother denying it,” he told her with a grin. “I can smell your arousal.”
And it told him exactly how to react—with arousal of his own. Peserin, but he was insatiable.
“Hastion!” She looked scandalized. “That’s not important right now. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“It
is
important, but I’ll let it go for the moment.” Sighing, he leaned into her hand as she rubbed the sand off his skin. “And yes, I’m fine.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
He looked at her warily. “Yes…”
“He left pretty abruptly. Is he like that all the time with you?”
Pain tightened Hastion’s throat enough that he couldn’t speak. When he nodded, she said, “That’s why you’re unhappy, isn’t it?”
“I’m not unhappy,” he said resolutely. “He—”
“If a man walked away from me without so much as a kiss after we did something like that, I’d be hurt and royally pissed.”
“You are not a warrior, Shelley, and my agreement with the minister is not about kisses or tenderness or affection, but about sex. I am whoring myself for an advantageous alliance. Whores on your world don’t kiss their clients, do they?”
She looked stunned. “Hastion…”
Embarrassed, he turned to gaze out over the dark sea. “The truth is ugly, isn’t it?”
Shelley didn’t let him hide. Grasping his chin, she pulled his face around and said, “You’re in love with him.”
“And you’re wrong. Again,” he added pointedly. “Warriors do not fall in love with each other.”
Or at least not with me.
She pressed a berry-scented kiss to his lips. “Sorry, but you’ll never make me believe you’re sleeping with him for purely mercenary reasons. You’re just too nice a man for that.”
“I am not
sleeping
with him, Shelley—he fucks me and leaves, exactly as he did tonight. That is our agreement.”
“And what are you getting out of it, besides fucked?” she challenged.
He ground his teeth, wishing more than anything he could just blurt out the truth—
You!
“The details of our agreement are private,” he said instead, “but trust me when I say that what I am getting is more than worth anything I must endure for it.”
Shelley was silent for a moment, feeling sucked into something bigger than she’d ever anticipated. On her first night on Garathan. “I hope that’s true, because you deserve better than what I saw tonight.”
“I’m fine, Shelley.”
“Hastion, look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t want more from him.”
“Will you please leave it be?” he asked desperately.
“I think you need to talk to him.”
He laughed bitterly. “And tell him what? That I want him to treat me like—?” He caught his breath, looking appalled at whatever he’d almost said.
“Like what?” Shelley prompted. “Like he would a woman?”
He snorted. “That would be the fastest way I can think of to make him discard me.”
“He’d be a fool to discard you,” she said instead, running her hands over his bulging muscles, being unbelievably forward but unable to help herself.
“I still smell your arousal,” he told her, his voice huskier.
“Well, you’re still hot even when he’s not here.” She leaned forward to lick his salty chin. God, he smelled good.
He put his arms around her and pulled her against his side to kiss the corner of her mouth. “I find it both comforting and distractingly arousing to know you enjoyed watching us together.”
“Are you crazy?” she asked, moving her lips down his throat, enjoying the way his Adam’s apple bobbed. “What woman wouldn’t?”
“The females of Garathan wouldn’t enjoy it. Before the attack, sexual contact between males was unthinkable, both to them and to us.” He groaned when she licked his nipple, but continued, “Females exercised strict control over males and the penalties for straying could be severe. A male wouldn’t have risked possible castration or death for anything less than the relief of ejaculation, something other males simply couldn’t provide. If anal orgasm had been discovered while females still ruled, our history might look quite different.”
Shelley tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but it was impossible with all those rock-hard hills and valleys to explore with her tongue.
Hastion pulled her back up until they were face to face, chest to chest.
“But I want to go down on you again,” she whimpered.
“And I want to kiss you, Shelley-Belle.”
Her heart skipped several beats. “Kissing is good.”
And wow, was it ever. His lips were soft and smooth, salty and a little swollen against hers, his tongue like velvet as it delved into her mouth. He didn’t try to choke her with it like some guys did, but toyed with her, explored her and did a winsome mating dance with her tongue. She followed his lead, stroking teasingly into his mouth, totally entranced by the musky-sweet flavor of—
Semen.
She jerked back with a gasp, covering her mouth with her fingertips as another lust bomb detonated between her shaking thighs. He’d just gone down on the minister. Holy crap, he’d just gone down on
Minister Cecine
and she had the flavor of semen on her tongue to prove it. She should have been appalled to be tasting secondhand semen, but after what she’d just witnessed between them, it was too impossibly hot to believe.
“What’s wrong?” he asked in a distracted voice, licking a path down her neck and pulling aside the lapel of her robe.
“Not a damn thing,” she purred, licking her fingertips and then sucking them into her mouth.
I tasted Minister Cecine’s semen in Hastion’s mouth…
Completely diverted by her imagination, she didn’t even notice what Hastion was doing until her nipple was sucked into the wet inferno of his mouth. She arched up with a wild cry, grabbing his head to hold him there as a hot tingle reminiscent of letdown reflex swelled in her breasts.
“Yes, suck! Oh God, that feels so good,” she groaned. “Harder, Hastion—please!”
The suction increased dramatically, so good her eyes rolled back in her head, and when he thrust his hand under her nightgown and twisted her other nipple with sand-roughened fingers, she came with a choked cry, lunging at him with her hips.
When she finally came down enough to open her eyes, she wished she hadn’t bothered. Hastion’s wide-eyed grin made her flush from head to toe.
“You amaze me, Shelley,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’ve done enough research to know that most Terran females require direct and prolonged clitoral stimulation to orgasm, and yet you’ve done it twice for me and I haven’t even had my hand in your undergarment. Yet,” he added meaningfully.
She cleared her throat. “Um, yeah, about that…”
The hand under her shirt skimmed down over her belly. Gasping, she grabbed at it but it kept right on going, dodging under the elastic of her waistband. Then his fingers were sliding through her soaked curls and into the crease of her dripping sex.
“Oh fuck,” she panted when he zeroed in on her oversensitive clit, which felt like it was about twice its normal size and getting bigger with every throbbing beat of her heart.
“Listen to that, Shelley-Belle,” he murmured. “You’re so wet.”
Mortified at the slippery sounds his fingers were making and perversely aroused by his pointing it out, she cried, “I’m not like this! I swear, I’m never like this!”
Hastion lowered his mouth to hers. “You can’t know how it thrills me to hear that,” he rumbled right before he took control of her mouth again. His fingers picked up a quick, firm rhythm on both sides of her clit, and she bucked hard, almost too aroused to come. She needed a cock inside her. Now.
She tore her mouth away. “Fuck me! Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me! God, please, Hastion!” she wailed.
“I cannot!”
Growling with frustration, she pounded her fist on his shoulder. “God dammit, why the hell not?”