Page 21 of Chased By the Alien Mercenary
It all seemed calm, despite the chaos outside. Our path was winding, swerving to avoid projectiles and the spray of rock as meteors struck. Despite that, we weren’t jostled inside the small ship, just lightly pressed into our seats by the force of our speed. Solear also seemed tense but calm, focused in a way that shouted he had it all under control. So I relaxed just a tad and focused on taking more pictures of the raw force of nature outside my window. Leaning just a bit more to get a downward angle, Inever expected the window to abruptly unlatch and the hatch to swing open.
I flung forward, not held by any seat belt, and would have nearly fallen out of the ship if not for Solear’s abrupt jerk on the yoke. Then his arms were around me, hauling me inside, and the door slammed shut. My heart pounded in my throat from the shock, my fingers numb around the comm, but when I looked at Solear, it was like he’d just seen me die. His already bone-white face looked possibly even paler, his eyes huge inside the dark eye sockets. He was panting, his hands clinging to me as if he could not let me go.
“The yoke,” I said when I realized he wasn’t steering and the sky was still raining with falling space debris. “The yoke, Solear! Someone has to steer. I’m okay!” I had to physically pry his hand off my hip and put it on the metal bar, but when I did, his fingers clenched and he gave me a nod. I did not move from against his side, ignoring the crashing chaos outside. My eyes were on his face, making sure he was flying this ship so we wouldn’t crash. The near fall was already half-forgotten, that was nothing after what we’d been through.
“I’m okay, you had me,” I said again, when it became obvious that Solear was not shaking off the incident the same way I was. His body was so tense, he was like a live wire, crackling with energy. A low growl had begun to rattle inside his chest, and it was growing louder by the minute. When it became louder than the storm outside, I knew I had to do something. It seemed to be abating outside anyway, we’d come through that without a scratch. “Put it back on autopilot. Tell your brother to help you. We’re fine.”
When his hands unclenched from the yoke to flick at buttons, I crawled into his lap and threw my arms around his neck. “I’m okay; you didn’t lose me.” Then I said the words I knew mattered most to him: “You’re not alone.” His eyes flicked from the console to my face, a bleakness in them that I didn’t expect. Was it so bad, the thought of losing me? “I’m not going anywhere,” I tried to assure him, but that only seemed to make his expression grow even grimmer.
Since my words weren’t getting me anywhere, I tried a different approach. He was a telepathic being, more so than any other of his kind, because of the trauma he’d suffered as a boy. Maybe I could reach him that way. It felt awkward—clumsy—to try to formulate thoughts to reach out to him, but once I did, it was easier than I expected. “You’re here with me. We’re safe.”
Solear’s expression turned anguished, and then came the tumble of thoughts—the real problem that was bothering him.“I don’t deserve you! I do not deserve a mate. You nearly died again, and it’s my fault.”I was overwhelmed then by a bombardment of images he’d been holding tightly to himself ever since last night.
It started with him seeing how the hatch on my side had gotten hit by a shot, which was likely why it had been able to swing open with a little inside pressure, like me leaning against it. “That’s not your fault!” I protested, but it wasn’t the core of the problem anyway. What he really blamed himself for was my capture by Goldie and the Krektar.
“If I’d put you first like I’m supposed to, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”His hands dropped from my middle to stroke along my legs, where only faint pink spots reminded me of the small cuts the flowers had inflicted.“But I chose vengeance overprotecting you.”Had he? I didn’t recall it in quite the same way. Well, I supposed he had stubbornly gone down to the mansion to steal information when we all thought that was a suicide mission. But I was certain he’d only gone because he thought I was safe. If he’d had any inclination that I’d be in danger in that cave, he never would have left.
He growled, having clearly read my thoughts that time. “I might have!” he stubbornly declared, but I shook my head, not convinced. Everything this guy had done had been to keep me safe. Sometimes that had involved awful violence and feral rage; other times, it had come in the form of stolen gifts and the sweetest pampering. I didn’t believe for a minute that he would purposely put me in danger. And that conviction was so powerful that I knew, right then and there, that he was right about something else: we were mates.
“I love you, Solear,” I said. “I should have been safe in that cave, but they tracked down the comm signal somehow. Besides, I’d left because I was determined to come rescue you or something… That data mattered to you, so I understand why you wanted to go after it.” Truthfully, after learning that this Jalima was the reason my Solear dreamed of being a small boy buried beneath rubble—alone, trapped—I wanted him dead too. “Did you get it?” I asked, rushing to cup his face and pull him close when he growled and a new wave of self-recrimination washed over him. That was probably a no, he’d abandoned his quest to rescue me. If that wasn’t confirmation of the very thing I believed, I didn’t know what was.
“But it was almost too late!”he said, still not willing to accept that I didn’t think there was anything to forgive. His eyes left myface to shoot skyward, though the roof of the small ship blocked his view of the, by now, bright blue sky.
“You weren’t. You came when I needed you. That’s all that matters.” And then, for the first time, I heard that voice—the one that sometimes spoke to him—louder and clearer than ever before. It sounded just like the voice on the comm of his twin; I knew it was him, but more serious at the same time:“She is right. Listen to your mate, bro.”
Oh boy, had he been listening in the entire time? He must have sensed his twin’s inner turmoil and come running, which was sweet, but still—wasn’t this sort of private?“Nope,”Aramon responded. It was exactly the kind of thing that shook Solear out of his spiral. He growled, the sound echoing inside my head and down his brother’s bond. It was a message that was loud and very clear: stay out of this.
“I’m still a mess,”he said after silence had reigned for a minute.“I can’t speak.”He touched his forehead to mine and held me more tightly against him in his lap. I shifted just enough so I could fold my legs around either side of his hips, straddling his thighs. That left me exposed, but I did not care, this was Solear I was with, and he’d already seen every part of me.
“You can’t speak, or you won’t?” I asked, but I assured him—mostly with my feelings—that I didn’t care either way. Besides, wasn’t he speaking to me just fine? Even before this telepathy had come to be, I’d understood a lot of his non-verbal communication. Only at the beginning had he scared me, but I’d picked up very quickly that he wanted to protect me, hadn’t I?
He sighed, but I felt his amusement, as if that one stubborn question showed him exactly what he needed.“Dravion says I could speak, but I’ve associated speaking out loud with going unheard.”He did not need to explain that further; I was instantly recalling the trapped boy he’d been, crying out for help and nobody coming for him. Nobody but his twin, who had heard him telepathically. It made sense, but it meant that he could still learn, with time. Even if he didn’t, would I care? I doubted it.
When we kissed this time, it felt like the kind of kiss where all barriers came down. Nobody was hiding anything, and, with his mind freely sharing what he felt—his need for me, his love—I needed nothing else. Well, that wasn’t true; I very much needed him. That made him growl, the sexy, aroused kind this time—and that made me smile against his lips. See, I knew all his growls now.
Unlike our lovemaking from before, back in the cave, this was all frantic and fast. Tongues tangling, teeth clashing, his mouth dropped to my neck and sucked there until it left a red mark he admired proudly. My hands fought with the odd magnetic tabs that kept his armor closed. Pleasure zipped down my spine when he took over, roughly freeing his magnificent cock. Then he was prodding my entrance with a finger, pushing aside the thong like the lackluster barrier it was, and testing my wetness.
“Fuck!”he declared, a curse as much as a statement of his intent. My body was responding like wildfire to each and every touch. I was wet after just blinking, a need that was as old as time, a reaffirmation of survival, of being alive. He lined us up, rough hands against my thighs, raising me over him. The head was hot and smooth, slippery with my wetness and his precum as heslipped it through my folds. Then I was sinking down on him, the stretch, the burn, the craziness of the moment, it all contributed.
He was large—I knew that—but at this angle, he felt huge. Every bump of his piercings, each ridge of a vein, I felt it against the tight ring of muscle. Shaking, sweat slipped down my spine as I let him lower me onto him. My nails dug uselessly into hard armor, scrabbling for purchase. The fact that he was dressed and had only bothered to push aside my panties was fuel to the flames.
When he was seated to the root, I felt like I’d burst if he didn’t move but luckily, my mate could read minds as well as he read my body. His hips surged, and then we were moving together. Rough, fast, the slap of flesh against flesh. My moans were loud inside the tiny space, but Solear was silent, watching every expression that crossed my face, his eyes like burning coals, all passion, all heat.
I shattered in minutes, the orgasm cresting and breaking, spiraling through my body. His name shouted from my lips. That, he liked, and his cock kicked deep inside me as his own end followed mine. Seed washing my walls with its warmth. His thrusts slowed, stuttered, then stopped. Twined together, he held me tightly, not allowing me to go anywhere. And then he dipped his head, and with his lips against my ear, he whispered, out loud, “I love you.” It was rough, it was broken—that whisper—but it was the best thing I’d ever heard. That he’d tried to say such an important thing out loud, that meant the world.
“And I love you, Solear.” It was definitely a first for me to say that to a guy, though I’d been saying it for the past hour to my sweet, feral alien. It felt good, like I was finally in touch with all parts ofmyself. I was definitely in touch with some very important parts of his.
Awkward as the position was—me in his lap, squeezed between his chest and the yoke at my back—we were so lost in each other that I did not move away. Solear held me, eyes glowing, his mind filled with that love he’d proclaimed. Then the naughty man shifted his hips, and pleasure rocked through me. His mouth lifted into this sexy half-grin, indicating he knew exactly what he’d done, and then he did it again.
I wriggled on his cock, relishing the sensations of his thick intrusion, the piercings that lined his shaft, and the veins that gave delicious extra texture. We might have just flown through a meteor storm, we might have a city looming on the horizon, and yet this—what we had together—was more important. I was lost to that touch, to the heat he was building with precision between my thighs. And when we came together for the second time, it was bright, sharp, and beautiful.
Chapter 19
Solear
Aramon was miffed when I reached out to him to ask for help landing the slicer at the Aderian port. I couldn’t speak with the port authorities to get a landing slot, and nothing landed on Llykhe without their say-so. Well, almost nothing, we’d definitely flown in with our shuttles illegally earlier this week, which was why the Varakartoom and the captain were on their best behavior now. I needed Aramon to tell me what to do so Lyra could make that call.
“You shoved me out of there pretty roughly, buddy. My head’s still spinning.”He was joking, I hadn’t pushed that hard, and he had a soft place to land: in the arms of his Evie. He was only pretending to be annoyed, too, because his next words were:“I’m glad you guys made it through that meteor storm. Damn it, Solear, the captain warned you about that! You know Llykhe gets those this time of year!”He was right, I should have remembered that. But the mission prep had filled me with far too much worry about the mission. After that, everything had been pure chaos. From vengeance to love for my mate, I’d never had to deal with so much all at once.
