Page 15 of Matched and Mated

Unless Commander Zakar himself started pounding on the door to my private quarters, the rest of the ship could take care of itself until I'd seen to my mate. I was busy. Very, very busy. “I am with my mate. Tell your superior I am occupied and that she should consider me unavailable until I inform her otherwise. That goes for the rest of the crew as well.”

There was a pause. “Understood.” The notification bell sounded again, letting me know the call was over.

“Don’t you… don’t you have to go?”

“Go where?” I stood then and she came up onto her elbows. Looked up at me. Gods, she was gorgeous, a pink blush went from her cheeks all the way down across her breasts. She looked well-sated, but disappointed. In my skill? In the pleasure I gave her? That would not do. I would not allow her out of my bed until she was completely satisfied.

“Don’t you have to help run the ship? You’re an officer. Don’t they need you?” Her small frown of confusion was adorable. Vulnerable. I felt the uncertainty in her, the aching hurt, the fear that I would cause her pain in some way. That was unacceptable.

“Not as much as I need you, mate.” I toed off my boots, then stripped, throwing my uniform on the floor without care where anything landed.

“Aren’t you going to go? What if something goes wrong? Don’t you have a duty to everyone on the ship?”

The emotional turmoil blasting me through the collar caused an ache in my chest that would not go away. Not my pain. Hers.

What idiot had made her feel this way? As if she were not a priority? As if I would have any duty beyond caring for her. I would serve on this ship. I would fight the Hive. But where I’d been fighting for my people before, now I would fight for her. Kill for her. “My only duty is to you, Miranda. You are mine now. You wear my collar. I will fight for you. Kill for you. Die to protect you. So, go? Leave you naked and vulnerable in my bed because someone wants me to look over engine maintenance updates? Absolutely not. My priority is you. The moment you accepted my claim, mate, you became the most important thing in my world.” I flicked my gaze to her dripping, swollen pussy. “You, mate, and sating this very greedy pussy.”

I sensed all her worries slip away and felt… surprise. Yet I knew she needed to hear it again. And again. “Nothing is more important to me than you are, mate. Nothing.”

Lowering my lips to the top of her foot, I kissed her there. Then on her calf. The inside of her knee. Her thigh. Her skin every bit as soft as I’d ever imagined.

“Trist.” She said my name and I growled, sucking h

er clit into my mouth, claiming her again. Gods, she tasted like the sweetest nectar. Mine. She was mine. And nothing would tear me away from this moment, from tasting her, touching her, fucking her. Filling her with my seed.

Her fingers wrapped in my hair, pulling with a sharp sting that drove me wild. She arched her back and moaned as her desire flooded me.

Desire. Lust. Need. An agony of arousal I had given her.

But beyond that, the subtle pain lingered like a ghost haunting her mind, a ghost I was determined to slay. She was mine now, and no one would ever hurt her again.

6

Miranda

* * *

Staring up at my new mate, I couldn’t believe this was really happening to me. He’d just told off the entire ship. For me. Stripped naked, shed the uniform of the Coalition to be mine. He couldn’t go save the world naked.

I couldn’t believe he was mine. Really, truly mine. I’d met him less than an hour ago, and yet I knew he was wholly devoted to me. The completely insane psychic link between us through the collars was like some kind of miracle. I could feel what he was feeling. Knew he meant every word he said. Knew exactly how much he desired me.

Only me. The truth of it was undeniable and I’d never felt anything like it before. No one had ever wanted me the way he did. No one. Not even…

No. I wasn’t going to think about him. Not now, with this beautiful Prillon captain between my thighs.

And god help me, he was gorgeous. Tall and golden and pure muscle on top of muscle. He looked like what he was, a warrior. An alien, with his sharp features and intense eyes. But that intensity made my body burn like it never had before. And it was all focused on me. On my pussy. Oh shit.

What would I do when there were two mates looking at me like that? Needing me. Wanting me and touching me and fucking me.

I nearly came again just thinking about it. I could wait. Trist Treval, captain and Prillon warrior, was more than enough for me right now. His emotions were drowning me... in the best way possible.

Was this what Natalie felt like with Roark? The center of his world. His everything? She didn’t have a collar to sense his emotions, but it was obvious every time I caught a glimpse of him looking at her. Of course, they’d gone through so much, being separated when she’d been transported back to Earth, thinking he was dead. Their bond had been tested… and held.

Trist kissed my foot and my thoughts went back to him, to the lightest of touches. He’d kissed my foot. Then my leg. He was working his way back up my body toward my greedy pussy—it was totally fucking greedy for the big cock of his—and I knew where he was going, exactly what he was going to do. He was going to lick and suck me into his mouth and make me come, make me beg and whimper and surrender to him in every way.

I wanted him to dominate me, need me, demand I give him everything. I knew I was different from other women in that way, but I needed him to leave me breathless and sweaty and completely at his mercy. I needed. Desperately, almost as desperately as I needed to fight the urge to cry. This was why I’d become an Interstellar Bride. The devotion I felt from him through the collar, the fierce protective and possessive instincts. The possessive way his hands moved over my skin, the way his mouth clamped down without pause or pretense.

The way Brax had taken me.

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