That perfect face, intense with arousal that left only a thin ring of purple around her huge black pupils. She shifted to get a better angle on his cock, opened her mouth wide, and swallowed the length of him right down almost to the balls.
Alerio was not a small man, but she didn’t choke on his size as other women had. Instead she suckled him with wicked skill, one hand stroking his balls, the other drifting up his chest to find his small male nipples.
He gasped at the pleasure. It took real effort to manage speech. “Let me . . . taste you. Let me touch you.”
She looked up at him a moment before she slowly, slowly rose on her knees to give him an evil smile. “Well, if you insist.”
Dona rearranged herself, planting her knees on either side of his head, then stretching the length of his torso. Her lush breasts teased his skin as she moved. He reached a hand down, seeking one of those lovely breasts, finding its peak.
As he started to stroke and tease, he slid the tip of his tongue the length of her lips, up and down, then circling her clit. She purred in sensual approval and engulfed him again in a gorgeous erotic rush.
Shuddering in delight, Alerio concentrated on her wet rose folds, savoring her taste and scent as he toyed and licked. Need stormed through him until he ached with it.
Dona’s eyes shuttered in bliss as she filled her mouth with Alerio’s cock. As she slid the hot, smooth shaft over her tongue, Alerio’s fingers teased one nipple while he slowly lapped her sex. The pleasure she felt was so intense and pure, it was like being immersed in heated honey. Floating weightlessly on a golden bed, buoyed by delight.
The orgasm broke free like a champagne cork propelled by a froth of bubbles. It happened to hit just as she raised her head. “Alerio!” she gasped. “Oh, gods, Alerio!”
Strong hands grabbed her waist, picked her up, and tumbled her down on her back. He reared over her, his eyes a solid sheet of fire. He caught her knees and pulled them up until he could hook her heels over his shoulders. Wrapping his hands around her thighs, he aimed his cock for her slick opening. His first thrust was so hard and hot and delicious, her climax spiked even harder.
Watching her face, he reached one hand around to pluck her right nipple, teasing and flicking as he hunched slowly. His hips ground against her ass, first in long drives, then in grinding circles, then thrusting again, varying the stimulation with perfect skill. Maddened, she threw back her head and screamed her way through the wicked pounding.
His roar rose beneath hers, a raw male bellow of existential pleasure, savage and intense.
CHAPTER NINE
A furious banging jolted Dona awake.
“Chief!” Jessica Arvid shouted from the other side of the corridor door. “Chief, he’s taken Galar! That bastard Terje took my husband!” That last word rang with anguish.
“Jessica?” Alerio surged up beneath Dona, rolled her gently aside, and hit the floor, jerking on a robe before striding toward the door.
Dona sat up, swiping her hair out of her face as she stared around them, disoriented. Belatedly, she remembered she and Alerio had returned to his quarters after their adventures in the woods.
“Alerio!” Jessica screamed, genuine panic in her voice.
“I’m coming!” He threw Dona a look. She grabbed her clothing and dove into the bathroom. As she pulled on her uniform, she listened to their conversation through the closed door as her lover let Jessica in.
“What happened?” he demanded. “Did Galar send a courier bot?”
“No, I don’t think he had time. It was a vision.” Her voice sounded tight with strain, pitched higher than her normal throaty voice. “I was asleep. Next thing I knew, I was watching a gang of Xerans in T-suits attack Galar’s coach. He was driving. They shot three of the horses . . .”
“Pendragon?”
“No, him they missed. The others, the mares. Galar tried to brake, but that thing doesn’t exactly stop on a dime. The coach overturned when it hit the bodies, and he was thrown. I think he sustained a head injury.”
Dressed again, Dona slipped back into the bedroom. “Are you sure it was a vision and not a nightmare?”
“She’s had visions before,” Alerio reminded her. “Remember when she saw the Xerans capture Charlotte and the two Sela females?”
“Yes, but she told me the other day that sometimes she has nightmares and isn’t sure they’re not visions.”
“Not this time,” Jessica told her grimly, whirling to pace. Her velvet robe flapped as she moved, revealing the filmy skirt of her negligee fluttering around slippered feet. “The details were too solid. I could even smell the horses. The blood.” She closed her eyes as if fighting for control. “Galar’s blood. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never smelled anything in a dream.”
Alerio watched her agitated pacing with grim, narrow-eyed attention. “How badly was he hurt?”
“Galar tried to get to his feet, but he could barely stand. Ivar stabbed him in the chest. Right through his T-suit. The blade chimed like one of those quantum swords of theirs, but it looked more like a stiletto.” Wringing her hands, she reached the wall and spun to stride the other way. “He tried to fight even then, but between that and the head injury . . . Ivar cuffed him with restraint cable and Jumped, taking Galar with him.” Jessica looked so pale, Dona feared she was going to faint. “He’s not dead. I won’t believe he’s dead.”
“And he’s not going to die,” Alerio told her, stepping into her path and catching her by the shoulders. “I’m taking a Jump team and we’re going to get him back. Now, tell me exactly what you saw.”
“After you sit down.” Dona slipped an arm around her friend’s shoulders. Alerio stepped back as she guided Jessica to a chair. “Now tell us.”
“Chief Dyami?” Nick called through the corridor door.
“What do you want to bet he had the same vision?” Alerio growled as the door opened at his silent command.
“Sorry, but that’s a bet you’d lose. I didn’t see Galar’s kidnapping.” Nick paused to allow Riane and Frieka to enter first. The bedroom was growing crowded. “What I did see was that Jessica and I have to go with the Jump team, or you’ll fail.” His handsome mouth tightened into a tight line. “And we may anyway. I didn’t see all the details.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Dona muttered. “Because that would make it too easy.”
“Goddess knows we never get easy,” Frieka growled, the lights of his vocalizer flashing from his fur.
Alerio gestured for the three to take a seat on his bed. “So. Tell me what you did see.”
Peter Brannon died defending Kangse Wei, the documentarian the Enforcers had been sent to protect. The two men lay in a bloody ring of five dead Xerans fifty feet from the remains of the coach. As Jessica had told Alerio back at the Outpost, the two had apparently escaped the wreckage and attempted to escape.
“He didn’t sell his life cheaply,” Dona said quietly from just behind Alerio’s shoulder.
“He wouldn’t have.” Alerio studied the arc of spilled blood and disordered sand around the bodies. “He wasn’t as big as Wulf, didn’t have the raw power of Terje, but he was a fighter. Intelligent. Courageous.” He winced, remembering Gailisha Brannon, the apple of Peter’s eye. “And I’m going to have to tell his daughter she’ll have to bury him.”
Once Dr. Chogan reattached his head, anyway. One of the Xerans had decapitated him, probably with a quantum sword.
At least Peter had made good use of his own weapon. His fingers still curled around the big axe’s handle, and blood soaked the sand. He would have swung the weapon in wide arcs, hacking right through the Xerans’ armored T-suits with merciless skill.