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  Darven eyed her for a moment. “Control yourself or I won’t be able to get this done. Do you want to go to your mating rituals naked?”

  She thought about it. It might speed up the mating portion of the proceedings. “I will try, Darven. Just move a little more slowly. Try not to startle me.”

  “Done. But don’t move.”

  Darven worked her magic and Seval held still. It was a collaboration that worked out most satisfactorily for both of them. Her formal kimono would be ready that evening and the loose trousers that went under it were ready for her now.

  All she needed now was a mate.

  Chapter Twelve

  She was expecting chimes and gongs, but all she got was a quiet tea ceremony in the garden, watching the sunrise. The knelt on the edge of a pool, a tray of tea between them.

  As they watched the dawn, Seval reached out to take Ben’s hand and the words just came. “Vorabenik of Azon, I choose you to be my mate and the guardian of my days. The father of any children I might bear, and the one who dries my tears.” She kept her face to the dawn, tears tracking down her cheeks.

  Ben let go of her hand and stood, then walked into the pond and turned to face her, blocking the dawn and covering her with his shadow. “Seval of Terra, I choose you to be my mate and guardian of my days. I will love with all my heart any children you might bear, and will always be there to dry your tears. I will never leave you, and I will always look for you when I cannot see you. You will be forever in my heart and mind.”

  His own tears were coursing down his face as the truth of the emotion caught them both in its grip. Love was not spoken, but it was all around them.

  He leaned forward to kiss her and she met him half way, ravenous for his taste. A sudden jerk from her had him flying through the air to land on her prone body and she broke the kiss for one more question. “When can we get to sex?”

  He groaned, “The shuttle comes in five minutes to take us to my family’s home. Can you last that long?”

  “I am going to have to.” She writhed against him, their layers of clothing defying her attempts to get out of it. Finally, a shuttle landed in the main courtyard and they ran for it.

  Flower petals were thrown by Kyra and her little girl and it was just like a human wedding back on earth with the couple heading for the getaway car.

  The shuttle driver ignored them as they eschewed seats to cuddle on the floor, spoon fashion, then they were off to his ancestral home. By the time they arrived, they were both vibrating with the effort to keep their public displays of affection to above the clothing. They almost ran into his home and, when they startled a servant, he did not stop. Dragging her by the hand, he pulled her to what had to be his private wing of the house, carried her into the room and locked the door.

  “What do you know about the Nyal mating rituals?” He was walking toward a bed with a chain extending from the headboard.

  “Not nearly enough.” She settled in as he dropped her gently onto the silky bedding and turned to get something off a nearby pedestal. “What is that?”

  “A Nyal mating mask and it is going to allow me to win your trust once and for all.” He took it up and showed it to her. “The eyes have been sealed so that the female cannot see, and it keeps her from trying to run during the mating. Our species engages in the occasional kidnap mating.”

  “And what do you want me to do?”

  “Wear it until I can tell that you trust me completely.”

  He held it out to her and she adjusted it over her eyes and the straps over the back of her head. There was a slight snick as he did something at the back that tightened the mask just a little.

  She did trust him. She trusted him with her life so now she was going to trust him with her body. That trust began right away as she felt his hands caressing her through her gown and robes and then her clothing began to leave her. His fingers moved smoothly between the fabric and her skin, her body shivered in reaction. Her nipples stood at attention and her breath was coming faster, and the robes had not even left her shoulders yet.

  Buckles were carefully undone, knots were untied and every inch of her body was caressed as it was exposed. She did not know if she was visible or not at this point, her mind was rioting as her body was flushed with sensation. “Oh boy.”

  “You said something?”

  “I don’t know how much of this I can stand.” She pressed her thighs together to hide the damp reaction of her body, but that only drew his attention. He grasped her knees and gently but firmly parted her legs.

  “I think you are doing well for a controlling personality.”

  She felt his tongue on the inside of her thigh and shivered. As he leaned forward, she gasped in surprise. He was still wearing his shirt and it was scratching her skin as he drew loops and designs up her thighs with his tongue.

  When he firmly lodged his head against her and lapped at her cunt and clit, she went over the edge, gasping and shaking against him. He did not stop. He kept her locked in her orgasm until he decided that she was done. Then stopped his catlike tongue to let her relax.

  The rustling of fabric brought her slowly aware to his clothing making its disappearance. He suddenly turned her and then his body covered her completely, his hard cock against her back as he rubbed himself against her.

  She tried to push up and off the bedding, but he set his teeth in her neck and growled. He wanted her where she was.

  Fangs that she did not know he had nibbled his way down her spine to her butt. So that was what he had been doing in Medical during the trip. Getting back to his physical roots. Wait, that meant… Yup. His claws trailed her flesh, caressing the sides of her ribs in a gentle but persistent manner. She simply was allowed to squirm with her hands fisted in the sheets while he brought her body awake again.

  He caressed her fingers, stroked her forearms and biceps and generally worshiped her entire body before he suddenly pulled her to her knees. With one arm banded around her belly, he held her against him. His cock nudged her opening insistently and he thrust against her a few times, wetting her with his own lubrication and hers.

  She only heard his mutter of, “Mine” before he pushed his cock into her with controlled ferocity. Seval gasped and clenched her hands in the sheets, pushing her hips back to him and arching her spine as he made his way into her.

  Her channel burned with his arrival, flexing around him and trying to make room within her. When he was fully seated, she sighed and tried to relax. Seconds later, he withdrew slowly and then forged forward again. As Ben moved against her, she pushed back, trying to take him deeper. They formed a rhythm that worked for them both, moving as one to take their pleasure to the next level. The hard beat of their bodies embarrassed her at first, but soon the slapping of their flesh together became a counter point to her heartbeat.

  The angle of his cock within her rubbed against the forward wall of her channel, bringing a tingling pleasure with every stroke. When she climaxed again, he was with her, roaring his triumph and then bending to bite her neck again. She rode out his orgasm and her own, then let her arms collapse so that she was once again pinned underneath him.

  He may smother her into the pillows, but what a way to go.

  She turned her head to the side, letting the mask prop her head away from the fabric so that she could breathe. His head nestled in the curve of her neck and he kissed her. Now she could feel his fangs, and they tasted like her blood and sex. He shifted them so that she was draped across him and he was on his back.

  “That was worth waiting for, and only the start. Are you all right?”

  “Yes. So that is what you were doing in Medical, getting your fangs back?”

  “I had them trimmed for work on the station. They are a little too closely linked to mating for us.”

  “And your claws?” Seval let her palms learn his textures. Sure, she had seen him naked, but had not felt him naked before.

  “I just missed them. They were a part of me for so long
, but not needed in the roll of Agent.”

  She tangled her fingers with his, then slid her fingers to the tips of his to learn the mechanism that triggered his claws. It was not pressure so it was emotional. “Do you control them completely?”

  “Yes. I have to tell you, it was hard not to use them to tear your formal clothing from you.” He chuckled.

  “Well, I am sure that Kyra will appreciate your restraint. And Darven, too. She was rather militant about the fit, colour and everything else about it.” They were holding hands again. She loved listening to his heartbeat. It matched hers perfectly.

  “I aim to please. By the way, my parents love you.” He tilted her head up for a soft kiss.

  “Was that important?”

  “In one way, yes. It will make your life here easier. My mother is a charismatic woman, and she can help introduce you to people, help you make friends.”

  “I have all the friends that I need, right here.” She snuggled against him.

  “Everyone needs friends of their own. The women here are friendly and will help you with feminine aspects of Azon life that I am not familiar with.” He was frank.

  She loved that about Vorabenik, he was always honest with her. “Well, that might be a good idea. I just have not had any friends my own age since I was six or so. I had one sister a year older, and one a year younger. They seemed to have the personalities that attracted people. It was never my forte.” She was not bitter and had made peace with her lack of people skills years ago.

  “The Azon look for a different set of skills in a person. They look for strength of character, not just personality. And that, my dear, you have plenty of.”

  A small peck on her lips led her to return the kiss and soon she was moaning as he ran his hands over every inch of her body again. Even her toes were not ignored, his claws slid lightly between them.

  She sighed, arched and twisted against him. And finally, enough was enough. She mounted the shaft that had remained hard against her belly. Because she could not see him, she had to depend on the feel of him beneath her hands, listen to his groans and gasps.

  Sliding herself over him while blindfolded involved fumbling, but he did not seem to mind. Seval let her body weight push her down on him, over and over, using her thighs to rise and gravity to drop onto him. He coaxed her knees out until she was flat on him and had to substitute rocking for the pistoning motion.

  So rock she did, the hard rod of his cock a source of blooming heat within her. She flattened her hands on the iron of his stomach and moved in a slow circular motion, churning him inside her. Desperate for another release, she grabbed his hand with some more blind fumbling, and put it on her clit. Mewling for him to complete her torture, to end this most pleasurable of suffering.

  His stressed chuckle preceded the delicate motion of his finger on her clit by seconds, and seconds later, she was soaring again. He joined her with another groan, his hands now both on her hips, holding her to him tightly enough to leave marks.

  Seval let her body relax against him, her head on his sweaty chest and her legs extended to either side of his. She could not keep the question in her any longer. “So, you live with your parents?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  He did not dignify her question with an answer, merely swatted her backside and held her close. “We need a bath.”

  Nyal must not need the refractory period because he rose to his feet and took her with him. It was fine with her, she could not find her way around anyway.

  The shower of water felt so good on her overheated skin. It reminded her of something. “I think I will require quite a bit of water if we are going for a marathon workout here.”

  He chuckled again, on her left. “I will keep that in mind. Are you sore?”

  He stroked his fingers down her back, probably so he would not startle her. When two of them entered the channel he had just been in, she did jump a bit. “Yes, I am. To be expected since I am a little out of practice for this sort of thing.” She tried not to sound defensive, but she was slightly insecure. “Was it okay? Did I do anything wrong?” Geez. The one thing she had hoped she would not do.

  He grabbed her hands and kissed them both. “It was fine. Wonderful. Beyond what I thought would happen when we finally mated.” He sighed heavily. “Should I remove the mask so you can see that I speak the truth?”

  “No. Remove the mask only when it is time.” She smiled slowly. “I can feel it in your voice that you are telling the truth, and in your touch. I trust you.”

  “Good. Now, let’s get you clean.”

  After the short shower, he ran a bath for them and lifted her in, settling her on his lap. She snuggled in and simply enjoyed the warm scented water and her new husband. They both felt good. After she relaxed completely, he began to clean her from head to toe. She could not even help as she couldn’t see what he was doing so he moved systematically from limb to limb, telling her what he was doing.

  “Did you know that you only turned invisible twice while we were together? And oddly enough, it was when you first started responding to me.”

  “Yeah, I thought so. I am somewhat insecure when it comes to making love with anyone. Especially someone I love.” The words were out of her mouth before she knew it. The care, the sex and the freedom of not seeing his face let emotions out of her that she would not normally admit to in the light of day.

  “So you love me?”

  She jumped at his whisper when came to her out of nowhere. “Yes. I do. I have for a while.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  His voice moved again, this time from near her breasts. “Um. When I first realized it, you thought I was male. I did not think you would like the announcement. Besides, we were co-workers, nothing more.” His mouth had to be hovering over one nipple, she was getting a wave of his breath across it and it brought the soft skin to a hard peak in seconds.

  “Interesting. So if Xara hadn’t tried to seduce me?”

  “We would have continued as co-workers and I would have died a little inside every time you took a new woman to your bed.” The instant his mouth made contact, she moaned. It was better than she had imagined, his mouth on her breasts. Strong suction, light nibbles and the threat of those teeth. Her body gushed moisture at the thought. His fingers stroked up her inner thigh and she moaned through clenched teeth.

  She was almost sure that her body was going to boil the bathwater, but her orgasm would not come. No matter how his hands moved or how she shifted her weight, her orgasm eluded her. When she began to hiss in frustration, he drew his head away from the breast he was suckling.

  “I did wonder. Now I know. You are a better match for me than any other woman in the Alliance. Only my true mate would link to me like this in my mating fever.”

  “What? You mean I cannot come unless you are ready to. No fair!” She smacked the water with her hands.

  “It simply means that while my body is trying to get you pregnant, you will not want to have sex with anyone other than me. That includes yourself, or my hand.”

  “You should really warn a girl before you strap her into the mask.”

  He was amused again. “Where would the fun be in that?”

  The next twelve minutes were spent with him dodging her and her trying to drown him in the tub while the mask was on. It was a damned big tub.

  “Don’t worry, once your oestrus is passed, you will be able to have an orgasm if I am not in the room and horny.”

  He snuck up on her and kissed her chin, which opened up another round of her trying to drown him. Finally she gave up and sat panting in a corner. “So, you are saying that I am in heat. Kennek mentioned it on the shuttle, but I didn’t think he was serious.”

  “Oh, he was serious. Your cycle stopped when you became an Agent, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When you allowed your glands to be reactivated it woke up your reproductive system. You are now going to be in heat until you get pregnant.”
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br />   Pregnant, whoa. She had not thought about crib midgets. “Is there a way to end this without having kids?”

  “Only having Medical turn off your hormones again. And even then, they will simply freeze you in this mode with your body sending out thousands of pheromones trying to get pregnant.”

  She asked in a small voice, “Do you want kids?”

  He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her into his lap again. If the erection he was now sporting was any indication, the answer was yes. “Yes, I do. I asked you to be my mate because I want offspring with you, and to see your face every moment of every day.”

  Tears seeped from behind her closed lashes. That was what she needed to hear. She cuddled against him tightly and he stroked her hair. Life was good. And with the sudden pressure of his hand on her mask, she could see again.

  He was wearing tearstained eyes that were bright red, marks of his mating fever, which matched her own. Laughing and crying at the same time, she leaned up to kiss him. A solid kiss, a meeting of mouths, emotions and souls.

  With sudden clarity, she realized that he was hers for life and she was his. It was all a little heady and it had her straddling him to get a better grip on his hair for the kiss.

  His obvious interest in her was re-awakening as the kiss continued. She shifted against him and trapped his cock between her belly and his. She was definitely interested, but she was not sure how much more she could take. “Can we just cuddle for a bit?”

  His eyes sparked with heat and amusement. “Sure, but watch out. If you fall asleep, you are fair game.” He got to his feet, water sluicing off him, dumping her back into the bath.

  She got up on her own and gracefully took the hand that he extended to help her out of the tub. “That was sneaky.” She flicked his cock with the snap of a finger and he winced, but took the punishment in stride.