Page 56 of Star Crossed Delta

SABA

T hat night, Mak, Saba, her sister, and Zolan sat in the living room of their lodge after dinner.

Saba’s feet were on her husband’s lap as he massaged her calves with his free hand.

Shiloh, curled up on a loveseat, was next to Zolan, holding a mug of hot chocolate.

Saba pulled her shawl close as she gazed out at the passing stars and moon above the faux lake.

Mak cleared his throat. ‘So Kaal and I had a fruitful discussion with your Uncle Tewa in his concrete isolation cell.’

They all smirked at his words.

‘Exile, you mean?’ Saba murmured.

Mak gave her a wry smile. ‘It’s the retirement he never knew he needed. Turns out he did order the sachem attacks on us. He also had Suri locked away, for her good.’

‘What audacity!’ Saba exclaimed.

‘Indeed. His ego and arrogance have been at the root of a lot of our collective misery,’ Mak muttered.

‘How did he start this strung-out madness?’ Zolan rasped.

‘You want the full story?’

Shiloh exchanged glances with Zolan and Saba. ‘Of course.’

‘Brace yourselves for it,’ Mak warned. ‘This all began before the flotilla left Earth on Melilla. After my parents died and I was declared ?ar , the Sauvage elders began searching for an appropriate consort to provide me with an heir. They wanted to get it right this time. One of the luminaries was familiar with the Lisade girls. He said they were beautiful, accomplished, and pious. He recommended one to me. After messaging Tewa for permission, I agreed to meet her in a private garden. When I spotted her, I was taken by her beauty. I fell for her hard, a young man’s crush.

I was just 25, and I thought she was meant to be mine. ’

Mak paused and took a sip from his whiskey glass.

‘We met for walks, for kahawa , always chaperoned by Sylvana. Suri was always sweet and smiling, but unknown to me, she was resisting our union. She’d decided to enter a convent, but Tewa used emotional extortion to get her to comply.

He made her agree to marry me after seven years.

From then on, our courtship was unhappy.

Suri was cold and disdainful. It turns out, Tewa had dragged her from the cloister to meet with me.

I clung on, naive. She grew to hate me. She refused to stand when I entered the room.

Once, I visited her while she was reading, and when I demanded to know why she was ignoring me, she said, ‘I am speaking with a power far greater than you.’’

Mak’s raw timbre cracked, and Saba’s heart ached with sympathy.

‘ ?arrum ,’ Saba murmured, touching his arm.

Mak shook his head and continued in a throaty rasp. ‘Suri’s coldness hurt me, since I didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes. When Tewa realized it was going nowhere, he locked Suri in the cloister ark ship when we left for Pegasi and promised me Shiloh. The rest is history.’

Saba sighed, soft with understanding. ‘Shima Kemisa on The Basilica hinted that Suri’s early-onset dementia might explain why she retreated and treated you that way. Her behavior could have been the first sign of her deterioration.’

Mak stared at her, his eyes reflecting the weight of her words. ‘Makes sense.’

His gaze shifted to the view outside, and Saba detected the sheen of tears in his eyes. He glanced back at her. ‘It cuts, ?arratum . So many years wasted. But the gift from all this is that it led me to you. Given what you’ve shared about Suri, all is forgiven.’

Shiloh, holding her cup still, cursed. ‘Is manual labor and whippings included in Tewa’s retirement package?’

Mak huffed, tossing his head back, exposing his neck.

‘Trust, he’s already showing signs of trauma.

From tantrums to face tics and full-blown hair pulling, to flashbacks and nightmares.

His brain cannot deal with the reality of losing his wealth and influence, and being reduced to life alone in a concrete cube. ’

Saba nodded with an inhale. ‘That man was toxic to live with and greedy. He gaslit us, sold us, and locked Suri away. He never told us when she became frail of mind. He deserves every moment of the hell he’s in now.’

Later that night, Saba and Mak found comfort in each other’s arms.

She lay in their bed, her legs up, eyes gleaming as Mak stripped off his tee.

His injured shoulder bothered him less, so his doctor removed the sling and left the plaster in place. It stopped short of his palm, leaving his fingers free.

Damn, his muscled chest, rippling abs, and an array of inked patterns spilling from his sculpted spine and over his broad shoulders were fokkin ’ alluring.

Then there were his sinewed forelimbs. One was still encased in a cast, which did nothing to detract from his corded muscles.

Saba loved his waist, particularly how the whirls of hair below his belly button accentuated his ridged sinews and pelvis.

He lowered his pants and shorts, as their eyes locked.

Her eyes glazed over at the sight of his thick cock bobbing in front of him, columned by his bulging thighs.

A wave of wet hit, and her hand went instinctively between her widened legs, stroking her clit as he stared, eyes hot, glittering.

One thigh sank into the bed beside her.

Without hesitation, Saba reached for the prize presented to her, shifted her hips, stroked, and slid her lips around his mushroomed cockhead.

His hand glided into her tresses and cupped her nape.

‘Woman.’

His growl ignited her, and she sucked harder, then lifted off to slide her mouth lower over the throbbing vein on the underside of his shaft.

Loving the scent of his musk, the aroma of his arousal.

Fokk , the straining veins of his groin as he worked his cock into her hand and lips.

Above her, Mak’s head canted backward, harsh groans hissing from between his throat.

His hand left her hair and went under one armpit as he hauled her up his chest and then rolled into her so he was on top.

Mouth on her, fingers plumping her tits, thumbs, and forefingers working her nipples.

Mak slid his member into her slowly, and she moaned as he filled her.

She widened her thighs, and unable to wait any more, he plunged his cock deep.

His hips moved against hers, and Saba arched her back, wanting more.

Mak growled into her mouth and held on tighter, his tongue thrusting deeper, faster.

She liked the growl.

She also adored what he was doing.

How his fangs were flaming and icing her at the same time.

So she returned the gesture of holding on tight.

He pistoned hard as the sound of their coupling, the unrestrained slap of their bodies moving over each other, filled the air.

Accompanied by long moans and wild grunts of pleasure escaping their lips.

He shifted his incisors to her lobe and bit firm, and a shudder of sythyric bliss went through her, one so potent she convulsed.

‘Oh, Mak,’ she breathed. ‘You’re so good inside me.’

‘Saba, you feel so good encircling me,’ he grunted, his breath hot in her ear. ‘I could stay like this forever as your sacred, eternal lover.’

She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him closer, and he groaned, deepening the kiss.

Their bodies flowed in sync, his heart racing against hers.

‘I love you,’ she whispered among the soft moans of pleasure.

‘I love you too,’ he murmured, his inflection tender. ‘More than anything.’

As they continued to move together, the intensity of their lovemaking grew, and Saba felt as if they were soaring higher to the heavens above.

He lowered his head and captured her nipple with his lips.

Sucking and laving her hardened tip with such sensual need, she exploded, ribbons of euphoria working their way around her body.

She cried out, a long, husky, and hoarse wail, as bliss surged all through her, an implosion that began at her nipples, joining her clit in a wild detonation.

Mak shifted, slid, and moved her on top of him with almost superhuman strength.

Using his hips as a lever, he pistoned into her.

She gasped, her arms enveloping his shoulders, thighs tightening to his waist and groin.

Even as her orgasm kept rolling over her.

‘ Fokk ,’ Mack growled into her lips between grunts, ‘so freakin’ tight.’

She got even tighter, still cumming, rippling, gripping, squeezing him.

She raised her head, gasping in desperation, as his shaft worked harder in a harmonic rock and roll.

It’s base rubbed her clit, even as his fingers grabbed her tit and his mouth descended on her turgid nipple.

It drove her so wild that another climax began to build.

Her hands went to his jaw, boxing in his face as she breathed out, moaning.

‘I can’t come again,’ she moaned.

‘Why not?’ he grunted back. ‘I’m still stroking, woman. Ride it all the way coz you’re not getting off this love train.’

With a long moan, she gave in to the untamed voyage of delight.

With a scream, she came again in an eruption of white-hot ecstasy.

Mak wasn’t far behind, his roar of triumph echoing off the walls.

Saba slumped into him as he gritted through his come down, slicking in and out of her until he stilled, and in her hair, lips to her ear. ‘ Fokkin ’ hell, that was bliss.’

‘It was,’ she breathed.

He stayed in her, hands gliding over her skin, hitting the spots she loved.

They shared a gentle kiss, but it grew more passionate as their bodies re-ignited.

Mak lifted his head with a groan and pistoned his groin some more.

‘I’m cumming again,’ she cried out, burying her head in his rippling nape.

He, too, came, his cock unleashing scorching rivulets of his seed inside me. ‘Woman, how I fokkin ’ love you,’ he growled, his voice raw and hoarse as he shook through his bliss.

‘I love you too, my ?ar ,’ Saba whispered as the world around them melted away, leaving only the two of them lost in the ecstasy of their ardor.

It was as if they were floating among the stars, moving in perfect harmony, hearts beating in sync with the universe’s rhythm.

At that instant, they were infinite; their passion a force that could move mountains and conquer all.