Page 15 of Single Stroke

Yas’kihn nodded. “Then we must determine our compatibility as mates through fucking.”

“I—what?” Louella’s eyes widened in surprise.

He shook his head, interpreting her expression as doubt. “You need not worry about your pleasure as my mate. My cocks will ensure you do not lack for that.”

Louella’s eyes went wide, thinking she had misunderstood him the first time, but apparently not. “C-c-cocks?”Plural?

He nodded and gave her a close-lipped smile. His yellow eyes seemed to burn. Louella practically felt heated lust emanate off him. She backed up another step and held up her hands, open palms facing outward. Her eyes flickered to the front of his leather battle kilt. The front of the kilt bulged.

Cocks! Two! If they’re proportional … oh, no!Aloud she said, “Oh, no, no, no. This isnotgoing to work.”

He moved forward one step, his step larger than hers. Her open palms now rested on his hard chest, the finely scaled hide smooth beneath her skin.

“I am assured that our species are compatible,” the general superior said.

Louella’s eyes widened and she squeaked, “By whom?”

“The very happy females mated to Ahn’hudi males,” he replied as he settled his big hands over her shoulders.

Louella felt something wrap around her waist and draw her forward. It wasn’t his hands. Her gaze flickered down, then back up. She gulped. She hadn’t realized his tail was prehensile. She swallowed again, wishing that lump in her throat would ease. A cold sweat broke out on her skin

Yas’kihn lifted a hand from the human female’s delicate shoulder and smoothed his palm over her closely shorn hair. His mouth watered with the venom dripping from his fangs, the venom that would bind her to him as his mate. He was tempted to strike, to bite the soft flesh where her neck gracefully eased into the gentle slope of her shoulders and inject his venom deep into her body. His primary cock swelled against his battle kilt, tenting the heavy leather. But the distrust in the female’s eyes and the sour smell of her fear restrained him when nothing else could.

He leaned down and inhaled the scent of her smooth, fragile skin. “I am not an unreasoning beast to force your compliance, pretty spark. I will be patient.”

Relief shuddered through Louella, and she gave silent thanks for the reprieve as Yas’kihn’s tail unwrapped itself from around her waist and slithered away from her body.

“You are weary and must rest,” Yas’kihn said, struck by a sudden need to wash off the reek of her fear. “I will rest with you and keep you safe.”

“But who will keep me safe from you?” she whispered yet again as she was gently propelled toward the sanitizing chamber by the one hand still grasping her shoulder.

Louella muttered to herself as he ignored her request for privacy while the warm, enveloping mist cleansed her hair and skin. She muttered to herself, disgruntled that the door to the sanitizing chamber would not open to let her out while Yas’kihn was cleaned. She continued to build her anger when he insisted on drying her body and his with the same towel.

He then escorted her back into the bedchamber where a tray waited. Repeating the action of the previous day, Yas’kihn settled Louella on his lap, held her there with his tail, and fed her choice morsels until she indicated she’d eaten enough. He quickly finished the remainder.

“You shall rest now,” he declared.

Louella rolled her eyes and decided that any protest would be futile. Instead she squirmed and said, “I’m not having sex with you.”

“Not tonight,” he agreed in a mild tone.

The sour stench of fear rose from her as she went still. “Never.”

“You need never fear me,” he assured her as he picked her up and set her on the bed. A second later, he had snuggled in behind her, one arm draped over her shoulder with a hand cupping her breast, one leg anchoring both of her legs, and his tail again wrapped around her waist. He rested the underside of his jaw over the top of her head, his body enveloping hers. Louella wasn’t sure whether she felt protected within the warm shelter of his body, or possessed.

Perhaps a bit of both.

Chapter5

Louella spent the next several days plying her compassionate trade in the ship’s medical facility, tending to such a diverse species of patients she wondered if she should have pursued veterinary medicine, especially when a few of those patients regarded her with undisguised hunger.

Healer Esillon mek Uskand’Kihn caught her shudder of distaste as he joined her at the sink where they washed their hands. “What is amiss, Nurse Louella?”

Drying off her hands, she glanced over her shoulder and shuddered again. “I don’t like the way those blue-scaled beings look at me, like they think I’m a tasty meat snack. One of them damn near bit off my finger.”

The healer frowned. “Ah, I had not considered some of the more predatory and less civilized species might be a danger to you here. They regard you as a prey species.”

Louella went still. “A prey species?”

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