Triumphant (Battle Born Book 14) Read online

  The vehemence in his tone affected her more than his words. He meant every word. When he looked at her he didn’t see her imperfections. He saw his mate, the other half of his soul. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his mouth, demonstrating her appreciation with actions rather than trying to put her feelings into words.

  Their lips slid until they found the perfect position, then their tongues took over the kiss. He ran his hands down the backs of her thighs, separating her legs as he went. She wrapped her legs around his waist and his hands returned to her bottom. All the while, their lips and tongues explored each other. His taste was familiar now, yet she’d barely begun to memorize the shape and textures of his body.

  He sank to the edge of the bed as they continued to kiss. She quickly folded her knees and rearranged her legs so she straddled his lean hips. His hands swept up and down her back, slid down her arms, then one sneaked between their bodies to cup her breast. He tore his mouth away from hers and bent, capturing one of her nipples with his lips. She gaped as his firm suction pulled sensations up through her body and into her breast. How could such a simple caress feel so good? The answer was simple. Her mate was touching her, arousing her. That had never been true before. Her clit twitched and her core clenched eager for his attention.

  His mouth moved to the other side while he kept the first nipple hard with his fingers. She arched her back and rolled her hips, restless and hot. Empowered by the knowledge that this wouldn’t end until they both were satisfied and sleepy, she reveled in the sensations.

  She stroked his head, shoulders and arms, anywhere she could touch. He hadn’t allowed her to touch him before, so she was thrilled by the freedom. His mouth moved back and forth, making her gasp and shiver. She ran her nails up his ribs and smiled when he gasped, then shivered.

  “You want to play rough?” The growl in his tone would have frightened her if his gaze hadn’t been filled with warmth. He turned suddenly, laying her sideways across the bed on her back. His feet ended up on the floor and he arched over her half-naked body.

  She watched him closely, fascinated by the combination of strength and control so apparent in each of his movements. The defused lighting cast his face into high relief, accenting the angles of his features until he looked sinister. She tensed, unwanted fear intruding on the perfection of the moment.

  “Turn the lights back on. I need to see you clearly.”

  He said another Rodyte phrase and the illumination increased. “Anything you need,” he reminded. “Just say it and it’s yours.”

  She smiled, but the concept made her sad. It was a sweet sentiment, but inaccurate. She desperately needed to overcome the darkness created by her past. Yet already it was tainting their interaction. Her strategy had always been to shut out the pain. She had escaped Jim’s control, and with Sedrik’s help, she would make damn sure her ex couldn’t hurt anyone else. So all she had to do now was stay focused on the future.

  With that goal in mind, she sat up and reached for the fastenings at the front of his pants. The simple garment was similar to the one she wore, so she easily parted the waistband and pushed the material to his knees. He stepped out of the pants and kicked them aside.

  Her first look of his naked body took her breath away. Her imagination hadn’t done him justice. His torso flared dramatically from lean hips, but his legs were just as tightly muscled as his arms. And his cock… She looked at his sex, groaned then glanced away. The rest of his body was big. Why should his sex be any different?

  She reached out, hand trembling, and encircled his shaft. His flesh was hotter than her palm, clear liquid beading on the broad tip. The long column of flesh was hard as polished rock, yet the skin was soft beneath her fingers. She stroked him, thrilled by the tension in his body and the obvious pleasure in his expression.

  His eyes drifted closed and his hips pumped, sliding his shaft in and out of her fist. Fascinated by his reactions, she bent and circled his tip with her tongue. He hissed in a breath and his eyes flew open. Their gazes locked and feminine power rushed through her body. She quickly licked her lips and took just the tip into her mouth. His abdomen rippled and his hands pushed into her hair, his strong body trembling. For the first time in her life she understood why women enjoyed doing this.

  She took him deeper, then slowly pulled back, savoring the slide of his shaft against her lips. His musky taste grew stronger as he moved against her tongue. She sucked harder, working his base with her hand while she caressed him with her warm, wet mouth.

  He only allowed it for a few moments, then tossed her back onto the bed and quickly unfastened her pants.

  “I wasn’t finished,” she complained, playfully kicking at him as he peeled off her pants.

  “You were for now. I’m not coming until I’m deep inside you, and that needs to be soon.” His needful vow sent a fresh rush of heat cascading through her body.

  He knelt on the floor beside the bed and pulled her hips right to the edge of the mattress. Hooking the backs of her knees, he opened her thighs wide. He stared at her sex with possessive hunger, and she fought back the urge to close her legs. She wanted this, had instigated it. Besides, she’d tasted him moments before. Turnabout was only fair.

  “Mine,” he whispered the word as he lowered his head. He’d said it in English, so he obviously wanted her to hear. He traced her slit with the tip of his tongue, teasing without parting her folds.

  She shifted restlessly and her clit throbbed, begging for his attention. He draped her legs over his shoulders, and grasped her hips, holding her still while he explored her slick crease. She watched him until the pleasure closed her eyes.

  Tingles zinged across her skin and tension gathered deep inside her. She refused to think about how he’d gotten so good at this. All that mattered was he was hers now, and he was utterly focused on driving her crazy.

  An orgasm built with alarming speed. She didn’t want to be this easy to conquer, but her body was so in tune with his. It was more of a struggle not to come than to let the pleasure take her. She arched and wiggled, powerless against the rising storm. But just as she accepted the inevitability of her climax, he pulled back and made her wait. The first time was actually a blessing. She hadn’t wanted the pleasure to end so abruptly. But he did it again and again, building the sensory shower into a raging tempest, then backing off and allowing the sensations to dissipate.

  “Please!” she cried as he denied her for the fifth or sixth. “Stop teasing me.”

  Rather than using his mouth to appease her, he surged up along her body and positioned himself at her entrance. She was wet and ready, but he was huge. Their gazes locked and he entwined their fingers, pinning her hands against the bed. His gaze drilled into hers, his expression pained yet elated. Then he slowly pushed inside her. Just his flared head at first, then more, and still more of him.

  She stretched around his width, opening gradually, but fullness quickly turned into sting. She tensed, hissing out a breath as unwanted memories intruded again. She didn’t want her past to ruin this. Everything had been so perfect. She wanted this more than anything, wanted to move beyond the nightmare and—

  “Look at me, Rebecca.” His tone was insistent but filled with tenderness. “Think only of me, only of us.”

  She stubbornly blinked away the past and refocused on Sedrik, her lover—her mate? It was the first time she’d allowed herself to entertain the possibility.

  “Relax, love. I won’t hurt you if you just relax.” He kept his weight balanced on his knees and one forearm while he brushed her hair back from her face. He hadn’t withdrawn, nor had he attempted to go deeper. He just waited for her to accept their joining and allow his body into hers.

  Her tension gradually eased as he leaned down and covered her mouth with his. She opened for him, welcoming his tongue even as she struggled with the other penetration. He kissed her, tongue teasing rather than demanding. Then he slipped his hand between their bodies and covered her clit with
his thumb.

  She dove into the kiss, losing herself in his taste. His thumb circled and rubbed, encouraging her body to release more of her slickness. When the moisture finally appeared, he eased more of his length inside her. She moaned, but he stopped before the sting returned. He kept kissing and caressing her, and she took even more and more of his cock. The sensual cycle continued until his pelvis was flush with hers.

  “Home,” he whispered against her parted lips, “where I belong.”

  Home. The word echoed through her mind as his tongue filled her mouth. Home was a safe, welcoming place filled with people who loved her. She’d had that once, a very long time ago. But it had been so long since she’d even imagined having a home of her own that she could barely relate to the concept.

  He carefully drew his hips back while his mouth caressed hers. She felt the unavoidable slide of his thick flesh pulling free from her clingy passage. She could almost see it and it was as if she were feeling it from the inside and from without.

  Her eyes flew open as a staggering possibility disrupted her arousal. Was the link still active? Was she feeling what Sedrik felt as well as the signals being sent by her own body? It was hard to sort through the emotions and sensations. They were woven together too closely.

  He drove back into her, faster this time and she focused on what she was feeling. The fullness was inescapable, easy to identify. But she also felt the tightness of her body wrapped around his. The disquiet was hers, but the frantic battle for control had to be his. She was too distracted.

  Suddenly he stopped and tore his mouth away from hers. “Where’d you go? You’re suddenly in another star system.”

  “Is the transfer link still open? Why am I sensing your emotions?” She was sensing more than just emotions. She was literally feeling what he felt.

  He rocked back onto his knees, still buried deep inside her. “I’ll lock it down when we’re finished.” He panted harshly, shaking with the effort it took to remain still. “I don’t have the control I’d need right now.”

  She shook her head, less concerned now that she’d identified what was happening to her. “It’s okay. It just surprised me. All this empathic stuff is new to me.”

  He smiled, his phitons just beginning to glow. He ran both hands over his face and across his head, then he asked, “Are you with me now?”

  “Yes. Only with you.”

  The stipulation clearly pleased him. He shifted his weight again, moving his body over hers. He paused for a long, tender kiss before he started moving again. He filled her with slow, deep strokes while they stared into each other’s eyes. His phitons gradually intensified until they burned with purple fire. She stroked his chest and arms as he rocked over and into her.

  His shaft moved easily now, her body fully adjusted to the size and shape of his. She drew her legs up high against his sides, taking him even deeper. The steady plunge of his cock into her core felt wonderful, yet experiencing the joining from his perspective was even more exciting.

  She arched beneath him, mirroring his rhythm as he filled her again and again. He moved faster, thrusting even deeper than before. Desire burned away his determination to go slowly and make it last as long as possible. She appreciated the effort, but the ache inside her had long since flared into pain. She needed him pounding into her, driving away every thought, every sensation but her mate deep inside her.

  Rather than attempt to articulate her need, she pushed the urgency across the transfer link. He cried out sharply and grabbed her hips. Then he thrust with frantic speed, and pleasure detonated like a sensory bomb.

  She barely bit back her scream, arching violently as every pleasure receptor in her body was triggered all at once. She shook and moaned, her inner muscles rippling around his thickness. Sedrik threw back his head and shuddered as his body echoed her release.

  He collapsed over her, only aware enough to catch the majority of his weight on his forearm. His chest pressed into hers and his shaft still twitched inside her. She stroked his sweaty back, struggling to regain control over her mind.

  She’d known making love with Sedrik would be more intense, but she hadn’t expected flashing lights and a temporarily blown mind. A dreamy smile curved her lips as he rolled them to their sides. When she looked at him again, his phitons were no longer blazing. The purple rings smoldered, reflecting his contentment.

  “Let me know when you’re hungry and I’ll order dinner.” He stroked her hair, clearly in no hurry to separate.

  “I ate fairly late,” she told him, “and this feels too damn good.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me.” He pulled her leg up to his hip, better aligning their lower bodies in an effort to maintain their joining.

  For a long time they snuggled in silence, content in the afterglow. But reality gradually returned, filling Rebecca’s head with thoughts and worries. She would never be truly safe until Jim was in custody or dead. It had been a long time since she cared which outcome took him out of her life. “The bastard has several aliases. One of them might help you locate him.”

  He tensed against her, then raised her chin until their gazes connected. “That is why I came after you, but it’s not why I’m here with you now.”

  “I know.” She smiled. “I want to find him as badly as you do, and I finally trust you enough to let you help.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He reached down and pinched her bottom, making her wiggle and protest. “Is it all right if we take a bath before we get back to work, or are you too distracted to relax?”

  “I’m not sure we’ll both fit in your bathtub. You take up a lot of room.”

  He pinched her again, a little harder this time. “Does sex always make you feisty?”

  She dragged his head down to hers for a quick yet searing kiss. “Let’s do it again and find out.”

  * * * * *

  Sedrik worked in his cabin for the rest of the evening. He apologized to Rebecca for allowing work to cut into their time together, but he was still behind because of the hours spent in the cave. “Besides, I need to figure out a way to stop the Outcasts,” he told her. “Meeting with Arton, if it even happens, is more than likely a waste of time.”

  “Did you get in trouble for yesterday?” He sat at his workstation, which put him perpendicular to her. She sat sideways on the sofa with her legs drawn up in front of her. It was becoming her favorite position. At least for relaxing, she thought with a dreamy smile.

  He turned his head and looked at her, but the transfer link was shielded again, so she couldn’t feel him. She missed the closeness of sensing his emotions. “Let’s just say catching Big Jim and getting back the captives will go a long way toward restoring my reputation.”

  “Then let me help you catch my useless ex.” Using her datapad, Rebecca made a list of Big Jim’s aliases, some lesser known associates and locations he was known to frequent, anything she could think of that would help Sedrik’s investigators. She also detailed what she knew about the three “secret rooms”. Unfortunately, that wasn’t much more than their locations. Much of the information was speculation on her part, but it would give the investigators a place to start.

  “This is wonderful,” Sedrik told her after he read through the information. “I’ll input everything into the central database. That will make it accessible from any of our ships or facilities.” He stroked his chin and stared past her as his tone turned contemplative. “And I’ll send it directly to Kaylar.”

  “Who’s Kaylar?” she asked, hoping that something in her list would move things forward.

  “He’s my lead investigator. He organizes the tracker teams as well as personally questioning anyone he deems important.”

  “Is he good? Can we trust him?”

  Sedrik looked at her and nodded. “I haven’t known him long. He basically came with the ship, but his reputation and his record are impressive.”

  Her only response was a tentative smile. She didn’t want to distract him from his work, s
o Rebecca read for a while. When her restlessness grew, she played letrexta, an addictive pattern game Lily had demonstrated when she gave Rebecca the datapad.

  An hour or so later Rebecca looked at Sedrik and asked, “Is it all right if I call Thea again?”

  “I thought you were going to give it until morning?” he muttered, clearly absorbed in what he was doing.

  “I was, but with everything that’s going on, I’m starting to worry.”

  “Of course. You can call whomever you like.” He glanced at her as he asked, “Do you remember how to activate cell phone emulation?”

  “I think so.”

  He nodded then turned back to his holo-display. After dinner, they’d tried to contact Thea again, but hit her voice mail. The first time Sedrik set up the call he’d done it so fast, Rebecca had no idea how to do it herself. So the second time, she slowed him down, making him explain each step as he did it. She accessed the main communications menu, then chose ship-to-planet transmission.

  Ship to planet, the phrase made her smile. The Triumphant was so damn big, it was hard to think of it as a ship, and it still seemed impossible that a signal from behind the moon could activate an individual cell phone. The menu changed as it executed her selection and she chose mobile phone emulation. The datapad had saved Thea’s number, so all Rebecca had to do was tap on it and the datapad went to work.

  Soon Rebecca heard a dial tone, then the call connected.

  “Thea’s phone, Lenore Fermont speaking.”

  How odd. Lenore must be the lawyer’s mother, the one who had taken Thea in, but what was she doing with Thea’s phone. “Hi, this is Rebecca Dayton. I’m a friend of Thea’s. May I speak with her, please?”

  “I know who you are. Thea speaks of you fondly. Do you happen to know where she is?”

  She could hear the tension in Lenore’s voice now. Something was wrong, very wrong. “I’m with the battle born. Is there a problem they should know about? What’s going on?”

  Sedrik must have heard her questions. He suddenly rose and moved to stand behind the couch. “Put her on speaker.”