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Thalan’s fingers, so hot and precise, somehow knew exactly where to find my g-spot, and he stroked it relentlessly. I lost sense of time and place or what if anything I said as I came, shuddering and gasping and crying out.

Only when he withdrew his dripping fingers and turned his attention to my swollen clit did I open my eyes. Of course, the first thing I saw was our reflection in the metal wall. I’d never been fingered to an orgasm in front of a mirror—in fact, I’d never been fucked in front of a mirror at all. I saw myself in the metal, flushed and trembling, my legs spread wide for his hand, which was so large it covered my pussy entirely. I felt self-conscious to be so boldly confronted with my reflection.

When he spoke, his voice seemed to come from a long way away, traveling though a thick haze of my pleasure. “My ledger?” His tone sounded like this wasn’t the first time he’d asked. “How much are you still owed?”

How much…?I could barely understand his question, so I picked a number I thought was less than the total he owed when he started. “Seven thousand five hundred.”

His chest rumbled. I didn’t know if his reaction was anger, laughter, or simply his own arousal. The enormous, rock-hard cock pressing into my lower back made it clear he was more than ready to fuck me.

When he reached for my shirt, I batted his hand away and pulled it over my head. I had to keep at least one or two pieces of clothing intact after this encounter. When I hesitated, somewhat inexplicably, to unfasten my bra, his fingers resumed their circular movement on my clit. I gasped and lowered my hands to grip his forearms.

“Remove it,” he ordered, his fingers slowing again.

I did as I was told, but now with my eyes open I saw my nakedness reflected and tried to close my legs.

“No.” He slapped my pussy, somehow making precise contact in a way that felt like more pleasure than pain. “Spread yourself open for me with your fingers. Show me your beautiful pussy.”

No one had ever asked me to do that before, much less in front of a mirror. My face heated, and it had nothing to do with my orgasms. “I can’t.”

“Yes.” He said it so forcefully that I almost obeyed reflexively. When I hesitated again, he pulled my hand to where he wanted it. “Spread yourself open,” he repeated, but this time he accompanied the command with a slow drag of his tongue across my shoulder. “Show me how beautiful it is,” he murmured, his lips against my skin. “I want to see.”

My face burning, I rubbed my fingertips over my slick folds, then slid my index and middle finger between them to spread myself open as he’d demanded.

He cupped my freed right breast, his fingers large enough to do so and still strum and pinch my nipple into an even more painfully aroused nub. “Perfect.” His murmur alone made me quiver now because it belonged to the same body as those talented fingers. “So beautiful,” he said, laving my shoulder and the nape of my neck with his tongue until all I could think about was being fucked by its rough length. “You glow when you come, lady of the diner. Beautiful and powerful and strong, like a sun.”

He met my gaze in the mirrored wall. His black eyes shone and glittered like space itself, with blue pupils that traveled slowly and very deliberately from my face down my chest and abdomen to where I’d opened myself for his admiring gaze. My whole body heated in a combination of desire still tinged with embarrassment.

“So very perfect,” he repeated. “Don’t move.”

His fingers returned to my clit with a gentle circular motion that made my head fall back. He stopped immediately. “Eyes open,” he ordered.

That dragged a groan of aggravation rather than pleasure from me. “This isyourdebt you’re paying off,” I said, breathless. I turned my head to glare at him. “You make a lot of demands for someone in my debt.”

“And I am the one who won the wager,” he countered, his expression suddenly grave. “Atolani take their wagers extremely seriously. It is a matter of life and death for us.”

“Oh.” That deflated my anger. Respect for the nuances of nonhuman cultures was important everywhere, but especially on the frontier, where disrespecting another culture could lead to war.

“So eyes open, Ariel,” Thalan told me. “Eyes open, legs open, pussy open, all for me.”

“What about my mouth?” I said it almost without thinking. My free hand slipped between us and found the hard outline of his cock. I could not wrap my hand around it fully. That made me wonder if I would even be able to take it, in my mouth or anywhere else.

“You will,” Thalan stated.

I turned and blinked up at him. “What?” Then I realized what he meant, and I tried to free myself by digging my nails into the hot flesh of his wrists and pulling at his arm. “You bastard, are you reading my mind?”

He held me still with so little effort that my ego was irrevocably bruised. “Not in the least. It was not difficult to know what concerned you.Now.” His expression turned almost ferocious. “If you do not put your hand back where it belongs, you will never know for certain if you could accommodate what I have to give.”

What a decision to have to make: continue to obey him, or spend the rest of my lonely days on this outpost wondering what an Atolani cock felt like.

Damn him for leaving me no choice.

I turned away resolutely and faced the mirrored wall. He made a satisfied sound and pulled my legs open a little wider, just to make a point, I thought. In the mirror, he met my gaze and then looked pointedly down.

I slipped my hand into my wet folds, shocked at how much liquid drenched my fingers. But instead of holding myself open and still, I rubbed myself the way I liked the most—the way I gave myself pleasure when I was alone in my quarters. He might take his wagers deadly seriously, but that didn’t mean he got to makeallthe rules.

He watched me in the mirror, his free hand stroking my stomach and my hip as I touched myself for him, showing him precisely what I liked as his cock throbbed against my ass through his clothes. Soon he seemed to grow impatient and nudged my hand aside to take over. I held myself open for him without being asked again and was rewarded by a series of precise caresses that had me shuddering in his arms, despite already having come hard enough that I wasn’t sure I could come again.

“Thalan,” I moaned. “Yes, please. More.”