Page 27

Zoriss

After that awkward conversation with Emerson, I helped Lumina go through her house one more time, then carried her belongings to her hover. She was nostalgic about leaving things behind, yet didn’t want to take a lot of them with her.

“I’m starting a new life,” she said with a happy smile. “So . . . the mating ceremony? Care to tell me what that means in your culture?” she asks with a provocative smile after we hover away.

“It’s an extremely private and personal ceremony that two partners share. I couldn’t believe your mother mentioned watching. Otherwise, I thought she was a wonderful person.”

“It happens in the bedroom?”

“Usually. You’d like it somewhere else?” His eyes leave the road for a moment and flash to me. “On Earth, it’s done in . . . public?” I don’t recall them covering this in my indoctrination during stasis.

“You are so handsome when you’re scandalized,” she says as she reaches over and pats my thigh. “I might just have to dream up more ways to shock you.”

Then she explains that on Earth the ceremony is fully clothed and performed in front of family and friends. When I give her a hint of what the Draalian mating ceremony entails, her mouth pops open in surprise. She asks a few more questions, but the aroma of her arousal fills the vehicle.

“When, uh, when would a couple perform this Draalian mating ceremony?” she asks as we enter the outskirts of the largest city I’ve seen since I arrived on Earth. The downtown welcomes us with a huge, metallic arch.

“We’ll conduct the ritual when you’re ready.”

She’s quiet for a while.

“Having second thoughts?” I ask.

“No. Just counting up the miracles, Captain. If you’re ready, I’d like to do it tonight.”

My cocks kick in unison. “I’m ready, Love. Do you think you could find lodgings that are nicer than the East-West Idaho motel?”

“That can be arranged.”

Two hours later, we’re in our room in a nice hotel. It’s clean, and I have no worries that the proprietor is watching on a hidden camera. We stopped to buy proper clothing, and I’ve taken my ritual bath.

I asked Lumina to download Draalian drum music, and it’s playing in the background while she is in the bathroom.

I’m on my knees, in a private moment with my God, giving thanks. I grew up with the certainty I would never have this. I didn’t even allow myself to dream of this day, knowing it would never come.

From a young age, every Draalian knew the dire consequences of global warming on our population. Our family wasn’t one of the few that was rich enough to provide a dowry for a female. Zorn and I had no hope of mating and became content to spend the rest of our lives in the military.

Having this, with a female I love, is the best thing to ever happen to me. My heart bursts with happiness.

Lumina emerges from the bathroom in the simple white dress we just bought her. I’m wearing white slacks and a tunic.

“Join me, Love.” I motion to the floor, and she kneels facing me. I hold her hands, gaze into her lovely blue eyes, and speak from my soul.

“We’ve spoken of all the miracles that brought us together. I’m the luckiest male in the galaxy to have the sweetest, most generous, and definitely the most beautiful female forgive my numerous imperfections and agree to be my beloved lifemate.

“I promise to cherish you, try to put your needs before mine, and take care of you to the best of my ability. I love you with all of my heart.”

I search my soul for a moment and realize I’ve said everything I need to say.

“Just speak from the heart, Love.” I squeeze her hand, then realize that isn’t good enough, so I bring it to my lips and kiss her palm.

My heart clenches when I see the luminous look of love in her eyes.

“I dreamed of this day, even though I thought it would never come. You’re my soulmate, Zoriss. The universe conspired to get us here because we were meant to be together. I love you.”

She looks shy and maybe a little worried. I glossed over most of the details about the mating ceremony. I wasn’t certain how it would work between a Draalian and a human.

Lumina

We’ve had sex dozens of times since we met. He tells me this will be different, and special.

Scooting on his knees to get closer to me, he smooths my hair from my face and holds my cheeks in his palms.

“Listen to the drums, Love. It’s two heartbeats. Always two heartbeats.”

He’s right. I can hear it. No matter how fast or slow, or whatever other instruments might intertwine with them, it’s the two beating drums that take center stage.

His mouth covers mine, and he kisses me chastely over and over in time with the drums.

“I love you, Lumina. Are you ready?”

I’m not even sure what I’m ready for. I guess I’m ready for anything. “Yes.”

“I lead. You follow. When we’re done, we’ll be lifemates. Forever,” he tells me, then rises and pulls me to my feet.

We stand, kissing for long moments. At first, they’re just soft kisses. They punctuate the beautiful words we just shared with each other. Then his tongue slips between my lips. He delves into my mouth as the cool of his slim tongue strokes my warm one.

My nipples prick in excitement, and I feel his cocks press against my belly as he scoots my body closer to his with his hand on my ass.

“I’m going to love you as you were meant to be loved,” he breathes against my lips, then nibbles them.

I slide my palms from where they’re lodged at his shoulders, down the steel cables of his back muscles, and let them settle on the curve of his fine ass. Pressing him closer, I pay attention to the length and girth of his primary as it pulses against me in the rhythm of the pounding drums.

The sweet ceremony of a moment ago is a distant memory as his movements become wilder. His hands roam and he makes deep noises from the back of his throat until he can’t keep up the pretense of civility anymore and yanks my dress over my head.

He gives me a sensuous smile when he finds me naked under the dress, even though those were his explicit instructions before I took my shower.

“Gorgeous,” he says in English, although it sounds more like ‘jus’ because his mouth is busy kissing a path down the sensitive column of my neck toward my nipple.

The white pants and tunic he wears are soft muslin. They’re so thin they barely contain the prodigious bulges in his pants, but I want them off. I want us skin to skin. When I try to pull his top up, though, he shakes his head, lifts me, and deposits me on the bed.

I can almost hear the war going on in his head as he argues with himself over pouncing on me right now or continuing his leisurely pace. I know which side won the war when he tears his shirt over his head, shucks out of his pants and kicks them out of the way.

He prowls up my body, nipping and biting with his flat front teeth.

Pulling out the big guns, he slides down to my ankles, then skims up the inside of my leg with the sharp points of his two fangs.

He’s on a collision course with my sex, but veers at the last moment, pulls his head up, and places a sweet kiss on my mons.

“Do that again,” I order, and he does, mirroring what he just did on the other leg.

His teeth are so sharp I lift my head to see if there are two parallel red lines racing up my leg, but no, the skin is intact.

My self-control, however, is in shreds as I desperately want to feel his tongue between my legs.

He’s not in a compliant mood, though, because he slides back to the foot of the bed, crouches there, and makes a slow journey back up the inside of my leg, this time with his tongue.

I can’t tear my eyes from the display as that talented blue tongue glides up, the two halves of his tongue painting me with his saliva in precise figure-eights of lust.

“Zorisss!” I love to hiss his name, but I don’t want to play. “Stop teasing.”

He doesn’t spare me a glance, much less comply. He just splits my legs wider, presses his nose into the spot where my thigh meets my torso, and tongues me until I shiver, then writhe, then moan, then beg.

“Please.” I can’t speak in complete sentences. I want him to read my mind and know what I want.

Finally, he takes pity on me and moves his head a few inches. When both halves of his tongue flick my clit, I clutch the bedspread so hard my nails snag the fabric.

“Yes. Right there,” I instruct, even though he obviously knows exactly what he’s doing.

The onslaught has begun. Whatever game he was playing before in his attempt to go slow, he’s pulled out all the stops now. His tongue is flicking so fast it’s like a perpetual motion machine.

My arousal is ramping, my thighs clenching as they tense for their release.

Zoriss chooses this moment to hiss. I never knew how snakes made this sound, but it feels like a constant vibration from somewhere in his mouth.

It shivers its way down to the ends of the tongue that are stimulating my bundle of nerves.

I’m not sure whether the surprise of the vibration adds to my arousal or whether it’s the movement itself, but what he just did detonated my orgasm like setting off a depth charge.

My hands leave their perch on the bed and grip his shoulders so hard I know in the back of my mind they’re going to leave deep furrows in his scales.

At this moment I don’t fucking care as every muscle in my body spasms in endless bliss.

He lets me ride the crest of the wave, then doesn’t even let me drift fully back to normal before he attacks me again. For a split second I consider asking him to give me a moment, but I immediately think better of it as I’m already well on my way to another release.

This time I get there faster, and the orgasm is even more powerful as he slides first one finger, then a second, into my spasming channel.

Again and again, he takes me to the peak of delight, lets me fall almost back to Earth, then assaults me again. I’m mindless and boneless and can’t even think as he provides me with wave after wave of relentless pleasure.