Page 18 of Entangled by the Alien Mercenary (Monster Mercenary Mates #4)
Elyssa
I woke from the warmth of a sunbeam shining down onto my face, the light soft but bright as it warmed my skin. Having slept better than I had in months—and for the first time in days, also in a proper bed—I felt rejuvenated, ready to face whatever danger still awaited us outside the Bloom grove. I’d learned so much over a late dinner last night after a long nap, and I’d seen how much it had healed some of the wounds on Tass’s soul. He had positively glowed by the time dinner had finished because Cyperus had talked to him easily, like he was an equal.
Stretching slowly, I smiled when I felt Tass’s warm body press against my back, his arm tightening around my waist. We were resting in a tiny room with a grass roof, with a round window to let in as much sunlight as possible. It was very cozy and cute, and the bed was extremely comfortable. Sleeping properly and enjoying a nice hot shower last night had been exactly what I needed. Now, I felt entirely different things stirring through my bloodstream at the feel of all that green skin and muscle at my disposal.
Twisting in his arms, I wriggled until he gave me enough space to drape my arms around his neck and pull him in for a kiss. “Good morning, Tass. I’m so glad Brace sent you in his place.” I was pretty sure that if Brace had survived that shuttle crash, he would have also tried to help me, but meeting Tass was, hands down, the best thing that had ever happened to me. My only regret was that I’d taken so long to realize how much I could trust him. If I hadn’t sent us in the wrong direction that first day, we might have been out of the woods—literally—by now. At least things had turned out well in the end.
When Tass pulled back from our leisurely kiss, it was to search for the little Entling. Nelly had found a pot of dirt with pretty blue ferns and had nestled herself into them to take advantage of the warm sunlight. His smile at the sight of her made my heart speed up in delight; it was cute, with a dimple and a glitter in his black eyes. How could I not adore a male that sweet on the pink little plant girl?
“Nelly is asleep,” he murmured, and the soft smile transformed into a grin that hinted at the rising heat between us. Last night, we’d tumbled into this bed after our showers—naked but too tired for anything but sleep. Now, I could reap the rewards. I felt his cock flex and stiffen against my belly—a hard, textured bar and silky, fluttering feather touches. “What say you? We try out this bed for real?” He dipped his head and covered my mouth again for a kiss. This time, there was nothing soft or leisurely about it. This was not a morning greeting but the first step in a dance as old as time.
Throwing my leg over his narrow hip, I shamelessly exposed my already weeping core to him. He hissed into my mouth as my wetness glided along his hard, twisted shaft. I felt each bump and ridge of him hit my sensitive flesh, and then I reached the bottom edge, where his erection sprouted from a nest of thick, leafy fronds. They felt like ticklish feathers against my flesh, teasing me when they fluttered against my core.
“So ready for me, Elyssa. Aren’t you? Did you dream about me, my sweet mate?” I loved the dark timbre of Tass’s voice when he spoke to me like that, and with a needy shudder, I nodded. That had to be the truth—I’d woken up needing him, already wet. It must have been his sexy, warm, protective body curled so tightly around me that had turned me on.
“Hush, I’ll take care of you,” he assured me, and then his hands began moving. They glided over my skin, following the curve of my spine, cupping my rear, and urging me to move exactly how he wanted me to. It wasn’t just his hands that touched me all over; he touched me with his vines, too. One circled my ankle and gently squeezed before gently pulling until I couldn’t do anything but fall forward on top of him. I found myself straddling his hips, riding the hard bar of his cock but not sinking onto him yet. He rose, his mouth closing around one of my nipples and sucking just right. Delicious pleasure skated up my spine and arrowed from nipple straight to my core.
“Ride me, Elyssa,” Tass said, and his hips shifted, his vines and hands moving me until I was hovering above the blunt, dark-green tip of his hard cock. As I’d learned the first time, he was big, and I was very small, but the lubricant leaking from his blunt tip would make everything work. The ridges of his strangely twisted cock would feel so good, especially when they flexed and moved inside me. There was no fear this time that this couldn’t work; I just craved what he had to give me—that huge, fat cock and all the pleasure that came with being filled so completely.
Panting as I felt the blunt pressure of his cockhead against my opening, I forced my inner muscles to relax. There was a burn and an ache as he forced the thick head past my tight entrance. It felt like a pop that rocketed through my body when he slid past that first edge. Then he undulated with his cock, and all those twisted ridges rubbed against my sensitive walls. If not for his vines holding me up, I would have collapsed against him from the effort.
He was too much, and then he wasn’t, as I sank down on him another inch. The first brush of the leaves at his hips against my clit, and I saw stars, a moan rippling from my throat. “Ah, Tass.” He gave me a feral grin, and his hands tightened around my hips, lifting me nearly off his cock before plunging me back down. Another inch went in, and then another. When I looked down, I fully expected him to be almost all the way in. No—not even halfway—and that should have been daunting, but it was so freaking hot to see that thick green shaft stretching me wide. I moaned again, shuddering around him, and I felt how he fluttered and twisted inside of me in response.
Every dark purple line that marked his body seemed designed to emphasize his beautiful, lean muscles, and they all made my eyes trail down to his even prettier emerald cock. Wetness leaked down the veiny sides, mine and his combined, easing the way for me to take more with each rise and fall of our bodies. He gritted his jaw, tension tightening the cords of his neck, and I loved how obvious it was that he was fighting to stave off his own pleasure.
By the time his cock was fully seated inside me, I was so full I felt like I’d burst. Sweat coated my spine, and my legs trembled with weakness. Tass and his vines were there to hold me, as were his strong hands. We rose and fell in a steady rhythm, his hips punching up to meet mine each time he urged me back down. Pleasure rocked through me with each push and pull, until it was inevitable that I shattered for him—shattered into a million pieces, bright as starlight—and he was there to catch me as I fell.
Breathing like I’d just run a mile, I let him gently lay me down against his chest, draped over him with his huge cock still filling me to bursting. His hands stroked along my spine and my hair, petting me, easing me until the last waves of pleasure had run their course. “That’s it, sweet girl,” he told me against the crown of my hair, his warm breath stroking like a caress against my scalp. “But you can take more, can’t you?” It was as much an encouragement as a promise.
When I curled my fingers against his shoulders, gripping him, he knew I was ready. His hips shifted, pressing up, and then he began to fuck me with hard, rapid thrusts. This made the first bit seem all gentle and slow, though it hadn’t been. He kept me pinned in place with his arms and his vines, and then he curled the tip of one of those handy appendages between our bodies and found my clit. Pleasured by his pounding cock, his ridged texture, the fluttering leaves, and the tip of that vine against my clit, I was helpless to resist another orgasm. It crashed through me hard and fast, my core tightening around him in a tight squeeze. He could barely move then, and with a loud growl, he came with me, hurtling over the edge together.
His seed left my core tingling, and I knew it would glitter and sparkle, leaving me painted in the prettiest way until I could wash it off. Curled together, the two of us did not move, his cock still deep inside of me as it slowly, bit by bit, began to soften. Beneath my ear, I could hear the steady beat of his heart, and my fingers were tempted to dance across his emerald skin and trace the deep purple lines that marked him. I was beyond satisfied and very much ready for another nap. Thankfully, Tass was more than happy to remain exactly where he was with me.
Neither one of us wanted to get up and face the new day and the things that were waiting for us outside of the sacred grove. This place was like a slice of paradise after the wet, monsoon-plagued jungle. But we had to leave; we could not risk De’tor discovering the grove and trying to find a way to get to me here. That would put the Sire and the other Entlings—not to mention Cyperus—at risk.
Unfortunately, the world and its woes had a way of intruding upon such perfectly happy, private slices of paradise. The plantist who guarded this grove soon came to knock on our door, interrupting our post-sex nap. Tass was immediately awake and alert, rising on his elbows to gaze at the window above us to estimate the time. “Blazing stars, Cyperus must have sensed our backup or our enemies outside the grove. I’m sorry, Elyssa, but our time is up. We’ve got to go.”
We were both subdued as we hurried to wash up before getting dressed. Cyperus had run my clothing through the cleanser, and he’d even mended some of the tears, so at least I felt snazzy and pretty again as I pulled on my outfit and braided my hair. That was a better way to face De’tor and Tahirel, should it come to it, than feeling like a half-drowned Batan. Tass’s armor was not fixable, but several hardened pieces of bark had been left at our door. Tass tied them over the worst damage in his armor in a casual way, as if he was not at all surprised, though privately I wondered how bark could possibly be helpful against laser fire the way the rest of his armor was.
Once we emerged from our little nest—a tiny, half-underground home specifically for guests of the grove—Cyperus met us with a worried frown. He carried a tray with sandwiches that we both eagerly took to munch on while he explained what was going on. “I suspect it’s your backup waiting politely beyond the forcefield. But they walked right up to it, and I don’t like that. There are more stirrings in the forest beyond—men moving stealthily and with a killing intent.”
“I wonder who it is,” Tass said. He was kneeling now to check what supplies remained in his backpack. Nelly was hanging from his shoulder, where she’d claimed a spot covered with the hardened but still flexible bark. She curiously peered into the bag with him, then yelped with excitement when she discovered something shiny in the front pocket. She was faster than Tass, leaping down to snatch it, then huddling behind my legs to inspect her pilfered treasure.
I winced when I realized it was a tiny silver lighter. That did not seem like the most appropriate toy for a plant lifeform, but she would not let me take it from her. Tas tried once and gave up almost immediately. “She’ll give it back when we need it. But we have to leave. If it is De’tor, we cannot let them try to breach the grove.” He waved his hand at the strangely organic, tiny little homes lined up on one side of the clearing, and then he waved at the Sire where it stood next to a tree taller than its hulking shape.
The long draping of the pink flower vines made it seem like it had long, pink hair, and when it raised an elegant, long-fingered hand to wave back, it seemed so womanly and human—shaped just like any other humanoid life form in the quadrant. I could be forgiven for imagining that she was a mother, come to wave her child goodbye as she left home to go to college. Except, when I looked at tiny Nelly, it was more like she had to part ways with her infant, as the Entling didn’t even reach up to my knee. Last night, I had learned that those looks were deceiving—Nelly was much older than I was. They stayed this small for hundreds of years, sometimes longer, before they became rooted for another long while to turn into a Sire.
I half expected the Sire to step forward to say farewell, but they never moved as if rooted in place. Tass inclined his head at her, then picked up Nelly to settle her atop his shoulder. She made herself comfortable immediately, but I saw how she clutched the silvery lighter tightly against her chest. Cyperus did walk with us to the entrance of the grove, his steps slow and plodding on the uneven, mossy ground. With his vines, he supported himself, but he was not as fast as when the Sire had aided him. He took advantage of the slow pace to talk to us.
“I have submitted the appropriate paperwork, Tasseloris, affirming your status as a freelance plantist and sanctioning from the Sire to be Nelly’s protector and guide. Under the guise of finding her rooting spot, this is allowed.” Tass tried not to look like those words struck a chord, but I could see how he struggled to keep the emotions from his face. Affirmed as a plantist? That was something he never expected to hear—to be accepted as such by his species, by the Sire and plantist of a very esteemed grove like this one. Neither of us had expected that Nelly would be allowed to accompany us when we left either, but it sounded like they had been waiting for someone like Tass to arrive precisely so that she could.
“Thank you, Plantist Cyperus,” Tass said politely. “Are you certain you will not get into trouble for sticking your neck out for me? You know my history.” The plantist assured him firmly that he and the Sire had discussed this at length and wanted to right the wrong that had been done to him. I could see a wet sheen in Tass’s black eyes at the response, and, without words, he began to pull a rolled-up piece of parchment from his backpack. His vine caught it and held it out to the elderly male. “Then take this as a token of my appreciation—a way to remember us by.”
I had seen the paper and writing kit in Tass’s supplies before and wondered why he’d carry something like that into the jungle with him. It was hardly practical. When Cyperus unfurled the tight roll, it revealed a beautiful map of the grove, inked with precision and in a wild array of colors to match what plants grew where. I had no idea when Tass had found the time to make something like that, unless he’d snuck out of bed during the night to do so.
The surprised gasp of the plantist matched my own, and as Tass began to hurriedly assure him that it was just a little something and he did not need to feel obligated to keep it, the male shushed him. “This is beautiful, a piece of art, and I will display this on my wall with my other pieces with pride, son.” And then, as if the moment was getting too fraught with emotion for him too, he waved his hand at the vines between the pair of trees that functioned as the gateway into the grove. “Now go, get faraway from here and rid yourself of those who threaten your mate. Bodies are easily hidden near the Takchaw pits.”
There was a laugh that burst from Tass’s lips at those words, and I hurried to throw my arms around the old male’s neck in a final goodbye. Then the three of us were stepping through the gateway, tingles teasing over our skin. As soon as we were through, the world changed from bright and full of possibilities to drab and dreary, and fear for what lurked there rose in response. The gateway was nothing more than a pair of trees covered in climbing plants and vines; there was nothing there to indicate that a lush, still-sunny grove lay beyond those branches.