Page 55 of Sheltered in the Storm

A few more moments of sucking and flicking her clit with my tongue, and she came for me, her fists twisted in the sheet as her juices flooded my mouth. I had never tasted anything as rich and honeyed, or heard anything so much like music as her calling my name.

As she shook and gasped, I stroked my cock until I came as well. This time I covered her cunt, thighs, and stomach with my glowing cum. I wanted to come inside her, but I would have other opportunities to do that. In our future together, I planned to see my cum drip from her cunt and her asshole and her mouth.

She was mine. My mate. My joy. My heart that beat outside my own body. My universe.

Trembling from my release, I lay on the floor beside her and drew her close so I could look into her eyes. “My mate, are you satisfied?”

Calla let out a sigh. “Gods above and below, of course I am.”

With nothing but a sheet under us, the floor was not comfortable, but she seemed insensible to it and at the moment I did not care. I felt drunker than if I had drained a bottle of Bacorian wine.

I pressed my lips to her forehead and let my tentacles roam her body at will. She tasted of sweat and smelled like sex. Nothing in the galaxy could be better than this.

“This is strange,” she said, her voice soft. Blinking slowly, she touched my lower lip. “Vos, I’m suddenly so sleepy.”

I kissed her fingertips. “You are healing, my Calla.” I gathered her in my tentacles and rose. “Sleep. I will bathe you and put you in bed.”

“Thank—” A yawn interrupted her. “Thank you.”

I carried her to the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub. As it began to fill, she murmured, “I’m sorry.”

I brushed hair back from her forehead and searched her face for some clue as to what weighed heavily on her mind. “For what could you possibly be sorry, my mate?”

“Lots of things.” She nestled her head against my chest and closed her eyes before adding, “More than you could know.” Moments later, she was fast asleep, her brow furrowed.

Now uneasy, I slipped into the hot bathwater with my Calla in my arms.

She had asked me if I would fuck her this thoroughly if she took me as her mate, and of course I had promised to do so. But she had not said anything more on the subject, and now she had apologized for reasons she did not want to disclose.

I did not believe our lovemaking had been only casual sex to her, but I feared what might happen after she slept and healed.That she was my mate and I was hers, I knew in my hearts. Everything else I did not know for certain.

Despite how peacefully Calla slept in my arms, all that remained in the balance would keep me unsettled for the remainder of the day and well into the night.

CHAPTER 19

CALLA

According to Vos,in the language of its first settlers from Jakora,Iosameant “a new beginning.”

But as I sat alone in Vos’s garden the next morning with a cup of tea, watching Poe putter around and enjoying a rare hour without rain, I wondered what “new beginning” meant to me.

Could someone who’d enlisted in the Galactic Alliance Defense with such enthusiasm and felt most alive in the cockpit of a fighter somehow find happiness living on a sparsely populated moon of a non-Alliance planet on the edge of uncharted space, even if Vos really was everything he seemed to be?

I truly didn’t know.

I couldn’t think clearly around Vos because every time I looked at him I wanted to jump on his face or his cock, so I’d come outside by myself to consider my options. And as much as he clearly wanted to be by my side, he’d stayed in the house—after telling Poe that I must be safe at all costs.

No one had ever said that about me. The closest I’d ever come to that level of protection was my squadron mates, who’dalways had my back in any battle just as I’d had theirs, and not just because of honor or duty. Even so, Vos’s care was different. He didn’t just want me safe. He wanted me to be happy, content, sheltered, and satisfied, in every sense of those words.

I expected his devotion to feel smothering. The fact it wasn’t, and that I wanted more of it, left me confused and lost.

I’d had no parents to speak of, no family, and no sense of belonging until I joined the Alliance Defense and spent years living, working, fighting, and surviving with my squadron. Maybe it made sense that I wanted to be treasured and adored for a change, even if I’d never really entertained that possibility before. Treasured and adored simply weren’t in my vocabulary—or hadn’t been until after I’d crashed on Iosa.

Who are you, Calla Wren?Vos had asked me yesterday. I’d given him a reply, but the question had swirled in my mind ever since as if I hadn’t found the right answer yet.

Who was I? I didn’t really know. And if I couldn’t answer that, how could I tell Vos whether I’d stay with him?

I sipped my tea and studied the trees beyond the wall as if the answer could be found in the scarlet moss that hung from their branches or the wings of the carrion birds perched near the tree tops, waiting to feast on whatever bits the predators left behind.

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