Page 95 of Across The Stars
I just couldn’t focus on anything Vahko was saying. Every time his lips touched my skin, I felt heat zip through me. His fingers stroked my clit and I arched back against him, longing for more.
“Vahko, please,” I squirmed.
He growled against my neck, his hands releasing me to pull at the tied sleeves of my jumpsuit until he’d exposed my backside. I could hear the material of his suit straining behind me and then the warm hardness of his cock rubbed down my back. I moaned as he gripped my hands again, his fingers weaving through mine as he raised them over my head and pinned them to the wall. The head of his cock was poised at my entrance as he returned his mouth to my neck. As he bit downgently with his teeth, he entered me in one steady push. I hadn’t been filled like that since the last time he’d claimed me and the suddenness of it was startling, waking me from the numb trance I’d been in since we parted ways.
I cried out, reveling in the way I stretched around him. He plunged so deep it almost knocked the air right out of me and I fucking loved it. I squeezed his hands, pressing my forehead to the wall as he thrust. Pleasure built inside me like a flower blossoming, the petals spreading wider and wider until I couldn’t take it. When one of Vahko’s hands left mine, he slid it down between my thighs, fondling me exactly the way I wanted him to. He drove me so close to the edge that I already felt like I was falling.
And like the hopeless sap I was, my emotions once more got the better of me. I clasped my eyes shut, trying to focus on the shallow pleasure instead of all the deeper crap that had really been eating me up the past couple months. Truth was, every time Vahko touched me, everything else disappeared. My problems. My doubts. My worries. Even if those doubts and worries were about him.
Taking a sharp breath, I arched back, my head falling against his shoulder. And before I could take another, Vahko’s lips were on mine and he was kissing me like he had been deprived just the same. And that thought made the waterworks start.
I was crying during sex…
There was nothing more embarrassing and yet Vahko didn’t stop. He moved his other hand to my cheek and wiped my tears as he continued to pleasure me.
Just as the tension began to unravel and my release teased my senses, Vahko freed me from our kiss so I could breathe. I gasped loudly and let out a long whimper as I came, reaching back to touch his face while I fell apart. Both of his hands came up under my thin shirt, cupping my breasts as he pumped intome with more ravenous need. Soon, he was coming, too. He stiffened, plunging deep and then suddenly pulling out of me. Our mouths crashed together again as his climax shuddered through him and a hot stream of his seed painted my backside. By then, my legs could barely keep me up, so I was glad Vahko could.
I felt cold and empty and as confused as ever as Vakho ripped a rag from a rack near the door and cleaned me off. I straightened my clothes, dried the remaining tears from my eyes, and slowly turned to face him. I was trembling, all of my feelings rushing at me at once until I couldn’t even tell them apart. Looking up at Vahko, I saw regret in his eyes, though I didn’t know what it was over. Letting me go? Asking me to stay?
“I can’t risk getting you pregnant right now,” he panted. “Not yet. Not until we know more. It could… hurt you.”
“Hurt me?”
“At the lab. Omira had doubts that your body could hold a valerian embryo. I…”
When he didn’t finish that sentence, I was starting to put things together. That look silenced me, though. It silenced the one thing I wanted to say. The thing I’d been mulling over for weeks. Then, like he was asking me to decide, he reached around me and hit the wall panel, opening the cargo bay entrance. Was that a sign to leave? I bit my lip in the way I did when I was uncertain. It was also the thing I knew drove Vahko crazy. He eyed my mouth for a split second and then tore his gaze away. So, I pushed my hair behind my ears and stood up straight.
I think I love you or something…
“I need to bring this to the dock,” I said, retrieving the mag cart.
“Leave it.”
“No, I need to get back to work.”
“Innifer.”
What the hell was I doing? I started toward the ramp, unsure if I was ready to face Omar and the others with “post-sex” written all over my face.
“I can’t lose you,” Vahko blurted.
I halted, nearly choking on my own breath as I turned to face him. His eyes weren’t on me. They were tilted low, his fists balled by his sides.
“You didn’t lose me,” I said. “You let me go.”
His eyes lifted at that, deep and filled with sorrow. “When they pulled me out of stasis, it was because I had the least chance of reproducing and they needed soldiers. Those thought to be lost causes were the first to be recruited.”
“You told me.”
“But I didn’t tell you that before I was put in stasis, I was mated.”
I didn’t expect the conversation to go that way. He had my undivided attention.
“Her name was Orli. We were young. We’d surged. We chose to court. Then the gek attacked our water, infecting us all.”
“The Thinning. It shut down your second heart, limiting reproductive hormones in 92% of your people, which caused a plethora of other ailments that were hormone related, bringing down your life expectancy on top of making it hard to breed. Which ‘thinned’ your population considerably. You know I know all this already.”
Vahko looked tongue tied for a moment like he wasn’t sure the words came out of my mouth. I was starting to sound smart, like I actually belonged on the Nexus. I could barely believe it, but I’d spent a lot of time studying and training the past few months trying to wipe him from my mind. It didn’t work, but at least I was learning.
