Page 77 of Clan and Command

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Control shifting to Kila was a palpable sensation to Piras. It seemed to shake the floor beneath his feet as it marched from him to the man who commanded him during sex. Who commanded his heart always.

Piras relaxed, happy to surrender to the scarred brute who had saved him in more ways than just his life. The horror of Laro, the pain of torture, the worries of what yet lay ahead…all those were swept away under the Nobek’s burning stare. None of those matters were Piras’s to brood over right now. All that he needed to concern himself with was doing what he was told. To give Kila everything he wanted. The relief of surrender was incredible.

His shoulders sagged as the weight of responsibility slid from them. Kila came to him. His calloused touch cupped Piras’s chin, tilting his head back for a kiss. Piras moaned into his lover’s mouth as Kila’s tongue swept in, claiming him with delicious thoroughness. With every stroke of Kila’s tongue, with every touch as the Nobek explored his chest, stomach, back, ass, and groin, Piras submitted more completely.

He knew he was ready to give Kila everything, as he had given to no one else. It was easy to do so, because Kila wanted him the way he’d always dreamed of being wanted. Piras welcomed the opportunity to prove it.

Kila released him from the demanding kiss, leaving his lips tingling. Piras looked at the brutally handsome face in front of his and the small spark of hope he’d carried the last few days grew brighter. It became a true flame, filling him with warmth he’d thought he’d never feel again.

“What are you thinking?” Kila’s low thunder of a voice penetrated his senses.

Being no Nobek, and at his core a man who could always speak the bald truth, Piras told him. “I love you.”

Kila responded with the slightest of tremors, a minute vibration that Piras would have missed if he’d blinked at that precise moment. “You mean that?”

“You’ve given me no choice, have you?”

“And Nobek Lidon?”

Piras waited for the pain to hit him. It did not. Instead, he felt a twinge of fondness, like for a long-ago childhood friend. Someone whose memory was precious, but not hurtful. A sweet and fading memory.

He smiled at the Nobek who he’d been meant all along for, the one for whom Lidon had kindly stepped aside so Piras could have a chance at real happiness. He said, “Nobek who?”

Kila’s grin widened. “Then tell me again.”

“I love you.”

“Thank you, Piras. With every bit of my being, thank you.”

It was as close to an admission to love a Nobek could offer another man without breaking the harsh warrior code. Piras laughed and pressed a kiss to Kila’s chuckling lips.

Kila grabbed Piras’s collar and tugged. The resealable seam opened with a subtle purr, parting all the way down to his groin. The Nobek growled as Piras’s cocks, hard and gleaming with readiness, sprang out of the opening. He stooped and caught up a foot, forcing Piras to hang onto his shoulders for balance as he tugged a boot off. He repeated the operation with the other boot. With a teasing lick to the Dramok’s primary cock that made Piras catch his breath, he stood up straight again. He stripped the uniform off, leaving Piras naked before him.

Kila’s fingertips rasped over Piras’s torso. The touch lit trails of fire over his skin, the heat spreading down to add to the avid sensations in his cocks. Both shafts jerked.

The Nobek traced over the still livid marks left by Fleet Security’s knives, his eyes narrowing. “You could never be anything but beautiful to me. Even marked as you are—” He stopped. His body tensed, and he shuddered. A snarl trickled from his throat.

Piras caressed his clenched jaw. “Medical says it will all heal. No scars. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

Kila lifted his gaze to stare into his eyes. Equal parts fury and torment roiled within them. “I know why they did it. I might have done the same in their position, not knowing what was actually happening. Not knowing that those they lost died for a worthy reason. Also, I had to concentrate on getting you out of there and nothing else. But damn them, I needed to make them bleed for this. I still want to kill them for hurting you.”

He shook, emotion expressing itself in violent physical reaction. Piras wasn’t sure how to handle his lover’s fury. Would trying to comfort him insult the Nobek? Would not trying hurt Kila’s tumultuous feelings?

Piras was not forced to make the choice that might have ended in a mistake. Kila abruptly dropped to his knees, licking and kissing the healing skin of the Dramok’s torso, moaning as if he suffered the now-absent pain. Piras’s fingers tangled in the Nobek’s thick hair, holding on, feeling the strength of Kila’s devotion in the raw, wet kisses soothing his damaged flesh. Kila told him plainly with action what he could not put into words. Piras basked in the care of this fierce but dedicated protector.

I thought Lidon was worth the wait. I know for a fact that Kila is.

Yet Piras didn’t think this Nobek would make him ask for sixteen years. He was convinced he wouldn’t walk away in the end. Kila was no Lidon. For the first time, Piras found that to be a good thing.

Kila’s grip on his cocks shut down Piras’s ability to think. The strong hold on his vulnerable flesh tugged him down. “On the floor, boy. On your back,” the Nobek commanded.

Obeying him was as easy as it was right. Piras felt the nubby but soft texture of the flooring under his shoulders and ass before he even thought about complying with the demand. He looked up at the big, gorgeous brute he planned to spend the rest of his life with. Kila looked down at him, his mouth twisted in that half-smirk, his eyes dark, his expression one of compassionate demand.

He put Piras through his paces, making the submissive Dramok prove his will to surrender. Those big, tight fists pumped his cocks until Piras couldn’t keep from writhing beneath the heady torment. His grin grew fiercer as Piras suffered beneath the demanding attention and begged for mercy.

“Don’t come,” Kila insisted in answer to the sobbed pleas to be allowed to climax. “Don’t you dare, boy.”

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