“Lexie, baby, are you still a virgin?” Frek growled above me. His eyes were so light a gold they were almost white, and his hands gripped my thighs in an almost punishing grip.
I nodded, because I wasn’t capable of talking. Having his fingers inside me and the release he had coaxed me to had left me trembling and on the brink of madness. My insides were clenched painfully, and the only thing that would relieve it was Frek coming inside me. I throbbed, I ached, my core clenched tightly waiting for the first thrust of his cock. I could feel my wetness running down the crack of my backside to soak into the covers underneath me.
“I thought you said you’d been through the ceremony already?” he asked, his voice so harsh it was like rocks grating together.
“It was never finished. We never got that far, and after, my Craving was gone. For a long time, I couldn’t stand the thought of people touching me, then it just never seemed important. And I suppose I was secretly hoping you would come and magically we’d end up together.” I looked away as heat blasted across my cheeks. “Stupid, I know.”
“Lexie, it isn’t stupid at all, and you have no idea how fucking thrilled I am to know you’re giving it to me.”
I looked back at him to see he was deadly serious. As he stared down at me, he caught his lip between his teeth and pressed forward with a small surge. I could feel his heat against my sensitive flesh and desperately wanted to feel him inside me, but every time he moved forward, I felt a burning sting.
“Baby, this is going to hurt, no matter what. I can do it fast, or I can do it slow.” He huffed out a breath, sucked in another and let it out with a deep groan. “But you need to tell me what you want. Just... hurry. I can’t hold on much longer.”
Frek, I realised, was in as much pain as I was, just a different sort. We both needed release, we both needed what the other could give. “Fast, please. Frek, it hurts,” I gasped, as I put a hand on my lower stomach to show him. My whole body was trembling. I needed this. God, did I need this. To feel him part my slick flesh as he thrust inside. To feel the full extent of what it was like to be filled by a male, to be connected to Frek.
He didn’t give me time to think about it or ponder what it was really going to feel like or how much it was going to hurt. He surged forward, pain seared through me, then was gone as the most incredible feeling I’d ever felt took over. I couldn’t help the small cry at the pain, but the tears were all because he was in me, connected to me like I’d dreamed about for so long. I felt stretched and full. I could feel him throbbing inside me. His shaft was hot and so hard and thick.
I lay there gasping, unable to control the fluttering of my core around him, the tiny little spasms that squeezed and released, squeezed and released. I could feel his heat pressing against my thighs and the oh-so-firm grip of his hands on my thighs. Even though I was gasping, inside I was purring in delight, because this was what I’d wanted for so long. This, right here, right now, was like a dream, a fantasy come true. Everything inside me tingled and squirmed in absolute pleasure.
“Fuck, Lexie! You feel, gods, baby. Ugh. I gotta...” and with that babbled group of words, he moved—a long slow slide back that made my eyes pop wide as I stared up at him.
My breath caught in my throat, and then he was thrusting forward. A low moan that sounded nothing like me slid up my throat from the amazing sensations he created inside me. God, was that me? Did I really sound like that? Was this what sex is all about? This overwhelming, soul destroying pleasure as a male stroked the inside of you with his... cock.
Frek grinned down at me, and it looked feral and definitely wicked. “Baby, the look on your face. Fuck, that’s priceless.”
I fisted the blanket underneath me as he repeated the slow movement, this time pressing his body firmly against me. It was torture... exquisite torture. The thick head of his shaft rubbing across the most delicious places inside me, the way my core closed as he withdrew only to be spread open again as he forced his way back through the tight clench of muscle. “Frek, just shut up and do it. Please, please, please.”
Every time he moved, every time he pulled out and thrust back in, I thought stars were exploding inside me. It was the most incredible thing I’d ever felt. I’d touched myself plenty of times. I’d even had my finger inside me while I’d fantasised about Frek, but nothing could compare to this. Nothing compared to the heat, the feel of him pressed against me, the slick wet slide of flesh on flesh, the deep feeling of rightness that filled my chest.
“Do what, Lexie? I need you to tell me what you want,” he asked through gritted teeth, his lips curled in a snarl.
Staring up at him, I knew he was torturing both of us for some perverse reason that I was going to get out of him later. “Fuck me, Frek, please.” My cheeks flamed at the vulgar word, but I’d beg, I would, I really would, if that was what it would take.
Another wicked grin, then he did exactly what I’d asked. He moved, long powerful strokes that rocked me on the bed, jolting me back every time he smacked against my backside with his thighs, making me clench the blanket tighter. The pleasure and pain rose in equal measure, my core gripping him tighter and tighter, my teeth clenched as my back started to arch of its own accord. Exquisite pressure wound through me as Frek fucked me long and deep and hard. Each thrust, each time his hard shaft rubbed across a place inside me I never knew existed, he pushed me inevitably towards release.
Sounds filled my room. The lewd squelch of his cock pounding into my dripping core. Low moans and huffed breaths. The slap of his skin hitting mine and the squeak of my bed as he pounded into me.
A low sound started in my chest and grew and grew until it broke from my throat as a scream when I shattered apart. Blazing, pulsing waves of release rolled through me, warmth spreading through my lower body and down my legs. It was so much more than I’d expected. Being with Frek was like all my Christmases had come at once. Coming around his thick shaft was so much better than the empty orgasms I’d had in the last week. I felt fulfilled, I felt complete in a way I never had before.
Frek groaned low in his throat, his thrusts stuttering for a few beats before he resumed his smooth rhythm. His continued strokes prolonged the pleasure of my release as I pulsed around him, my core so sensitive every thrust dragged a whimper out of me, until he thrust in with a roar. I felt him swell inside me for a second, then the almost scalding wash of his cum filled me. He stroked in small pumps that sent small shudders through me as his release went on and on.
He looked beautiful like this, with his hair all around him and his face fierce with pleasure. His eyes had deepened to the beautiful medium gold that was their normal colour, his lids heavy with the pleasure of his release. As my insides started to ease, as the pain started to wash away with the hormones from his seed soaking into me, emotion rose in my throat and started to choke me.
I covered my eyes with my hands, not wanting him to see the depth of my emotion, not wanting him to see the tears that welled. But he was right there and he didn’t miss a thing. The next thing I knew he was lifting me into his arms and striding for the bathroom.
“Baby, it’s going to be all right. I know it hurts. Let me run some water and you can soak in the bath,” he said his voice still rough.
“What?” I gasped. “Frek, wait! That’s not why I’m crying.”
We reached the bathroom and he set me down on the long white counter. The stone top was cold on my bare skin and I gasped in shock, earning a chuckle from Frek.
He looked down at me, his golden gaze serious, his warm hands cupping my cheeks as he tilted my head up to look at him.
“Talk to me, Lexie.”
It was a command. A soft one, but definitely a command.
“It only hurt for a moment, Frek. I’m not in pain and having you... having you... finish inside me has helped my Craving a lot. It doesn’t hurt as much.” I couldn’t help the blaze of heat that spread across my cheeks from talking about him coming inside me. I wasn’t accustomed to talking about something so intimate.
“Then why were you crying, Lexie?”
What to say? I wasn’t ready to completely expose my heart to him, not yet. But there were other truths I could tell him that would relieve his mind.
“I felt overwhelmed. I’ve been dealing with my Craving since I first contacted you, and to finally feel a little relief was overwhelming.” I looked away and whispered, “And it was you.”
“Baby.”
His voice rolled through me, rough, sweet and infinitely sexy. It took that one word to start the burn inside me again.
Soft lips pressed against mine and Frek kissed me with a surprising amount of tenderness, sipping at my lips and stroking his tongue against mine in a sweet dance that made me reach for him and wrap my arms around him so I wouldn’t dissolve into a puddle.
After his amazingly sweet kiss, he helped me down and we ran a bath. I poured a small amount of my favourite bubble bath in and the soft tangy scent of jarlin flowers wafted up with the steam. Heat flamed across my cheeks when I realised we’d had sex and I was still wearing my sandals. I watched Frek strip out of his pants with avid fascination, my eyes widening at the sight of his erection. Good Lord, he was... big! How had all that fit inside me?
I caught a glance at his back and the intricate black tattoo that covered him from shoulders to waist. It looked like a family crest or emblem. I would ask him about it later. Maybe all of their males had tattoos like that.
Frek grabbed my hand and we climbed into the white stone tub together. He settled me down between his long muscular legs and whisked my breast shield over my head before pulling me back against his chest.
I felt more relaxed than I’d ever felt in my life. His strength and warmth surrounded me. I felt safe, secure and protected for the first time since my Craving Ceremony. Having him here with me like this was more than I’d ever dreamed of. He was more than I’d ever dreamed of.
He was rough and coarse, but sweet and gentle at the same time. He was dangerous and ferocious, with his knives and heavy boots that thundered on the tiles and stone of the palace, but he told me I was beautiful, and strong. He was a contradiction in so many ways, capable of being courtly and proper, but choosing to be the rough crude pirate instead.
Frek trailed his fingers up and down my arms as he nibbled at my shoulder sending goose flesh running up and down my neck. “Tell me about these,” he said quietly.
He meant my scars. I took a deep breath. Was I ready for this? It was the most painful terrifying thing that had ever happened in my life. But Frek was my mate. I thought I was in love with him, or very close to it. He’d shown me over and over again that he thought I was beautiful and strong and brave. I could be brave and tell him about this.
“I went into Craving around my eighteenth birthday, which is a little late for most Borakoy females, but my sister Alina was late as well, so nobody thought anything was wrong. My parents arranged everything and picked males from the elite families for my ceremony just like they did with my sister. Alita never went into Craving so they knew she would be different, but Alina was classic Borakoy and everything went as expected with her, so they thought I was the same.”
Frek wrapped his arms around me as I spoke and held me close like he knew I needed it. And I did. The only person I’d talked to about it was the counsellor my father had forced me to see. Talking about it always made me feel numb. I always went cold, like I’d turned off all my emotions. It was the only way I could get through it.
“On the first night of the ceremony, my parents left me at the temple with the Sisters and Brothers who oversee the ceremony and guard the couple while they are together. I was anxious, but excited, nervous and scared. The male who was supposed to be my first wasn’t the male who showed up, though. The male who ended up being first was from outside the city. I’d never met him before.”
Frek squeezed tightly for a second, forcing my breath out of me in a rush. He relaxed and murmured an apology before kissing my shoulder. I continued, but I could hear how flat my voice sounded.
“He was the biggest Borakoy male I’d ever seen. Almost as big as Arik, but not quite as muscular. We’re supposed to participate in the ceremony of our own free will, and come to each other only in the clothing the Goddess gave us, but for some reason, he hadn’t been stripped out of his clothes. I don’t know why.
“He was late and he scared me as soon as he came in. I was sitting on the edge of the bed with nothing to cover me but my hair, and he towered over me. Things started off all right, I suppose. He didn’t say much. He just told me his name and started undressing, but he never removed his pants, which I thought was a bit strange.”
Frek remained perfectly still behind me, but I could feel the tension running through him. I was surprisingly relaxed.
“We started kissing and touching like I’d been taught. Sometimes the hormones don’t kick in straight away, and it takes a little while. But he started to get rougher and rougher. I didn’t know what was happening. I was in the middle of my Craving, and I needed to be with a male. I was in pain, although not as much as this time. Eventually he... he...”
I swallowed and scrunched my eyes up as heat washed over my face. “He put his mouth on me... down there and made me come, but that only made it hurt more. When he’d finished, he slapped me so hard that I was stunned and couldn’t cry out to the guard before he’d pulled a knife from his pants and cut my face.”
Frek’s fingers were digging into me so hard, it hurt, but I knew this was probably as hard for him to hear as it was for me to tell. I had every intention of asking him how he got the scar on his stomach and knew I would find listening to his story hard, too.
“I screamed, and he was so calm as he started to cut my chest. I fought back, which is how I got the scars on my arms. I was screaming and there was blood everywhere. The guard came in, but the male had the knife and the guard is really ceremonial more than anything, so the male just stabbed him and turned back to me. I was still screaming and fighting, but he was straddling me and had me pinned down. And then all of a sudden he was dragged off me and the sisters were there trying to stop the bleeding.
“The Sisters and Brothers were panicking because I was the Emperor’s daughter. I was losing a lot of blood, with cuts all over me, and some of them were really deep. I don’t really know what happened after. I lost consciousness and woke up back here at the palace. Papa wouldn’t tell me what happened, but somebody tried to stitch up some of the wounds.”
Frek was completely silent behind me, only the sound of his almost harsh breathing and his warm body holding me tight, keeping his presence firmly in my mind.
“Our physician spent days working on me with a regenerator, but all it did was reduce the scarring. It would have been a lot worse if he hadn’t worked so hard. I was up and around in a week, but I wouldn’t leave my room for the first month. My Craving vanished in the stress of the attack. They don’t know why—there are no records of that ever happening before. But it wouldn’t have mattered. I couldn’t stand for anyone to touch me for six months after. I didn’t hug my family or hold my nieces and nephews. I didn’t attend family gatherings or anything. I spent most of my days in the forest wrapped in a blanket.
“Eventually, it was Arik who had a big fight with me one day and just grabbed me and held onto me while I screamed and fought him until I was exhausted, then I cried all over him for hours, but after, I felt better and started to come back to myself. Except I’m terrified of young males. I can’t stand being around them, especially if they’re big. The only ones who don’t set me off are my brothers, because I know they would never hurt me.”
Frek sat there in silence for so long I thought he wasn’t going to say anything, then he turned me in his lap and pressed my face against his shoulder. He pressed kisses in my hair and against my forehead. “You are the bravest, most beautiful, most courageous, most astounding female I have ever met. Gods, Lexie. You astound me. That you could let me touch you after you went through that. The fact that you could be around me while I had all my knives on me.” He tilted me back and stared down at me with his beautiful eyes. “I couldn’t have picked a female more perfect to be my mate if I’d had a hundred years to choose. You will make the most extraordinary queen. I’m so proud to have you as my mate, Lexie. You have no idea.”
He kissed me then. It started soft and sweet, filled with everything he was feeling and a soft hesitancy, like he expected me to push him away, but he was warming me with his touch, chasing away the memories, chasing away the cold I always felt when I talked about the attack. I wanted to feel him inside me again. I wanted to feel him hard and throbbing like the first time. Not because I was in Craving, but because he was my mate and I wanted to be connected to him.
I kissed him back, doing to him all the things he’d done to me. Sucking on his lower lip and biting gently before sweeping my tongue across the small hurt. He groaned and I could feel the hard jerk of his shaft against my hip. I wiggled against him and he shot up in the bath and stepped out with me still in his arms so fast I squeaked. He didn’t bother with drying us off—he just carried me into my bedroom and laid me on the bed.
Expecting him to pounce on me, I was surprised when he lifted my arm in his hand and started to press soft kisses on the scars on my arm. Tears pooled in my eyes as Frek kissed every scar up one arm, then the second before moving to my chest.
“Frek,” I whispered, unable to speak any louder and break the moment he was creating. I would never forget this. Nor would I forget the look in his eyes when he glanced up at me before returning to his slow journey.
After kissing a few scars on my chest, he took one nipple in his mouth and sucked, swirling his tongue around the taut peak, sending pleasure arcing straight to my clit. His mouth was a furnace around my nipple, the heat branding me with his possession, the slick slide of his tongue over my tight bud decadent and illicit.
I arched underneath him, a low moan sliding up my throat as he teased and tortured first one breast and then the other until I was squirming underneath him, then he returned to finish his achingly sweet journey of reverence.
Tears streamed down my temples at the beauty of what he was giving me. “Frek, please,” I whispered. He’d broken me. Broken me wide open and exposed the tender wounded heart I hid inside.
He looked up my body at me with pale gold eyes filled with an emotion I wasn’t sure I was ready for, then dipped his head down to press one last kiss to a scar on my stomach as his thick silky hair trailed down my side. He didn’t stop there though—he kept going down until he was resting between my parted thighs and I felt his hot breath brush over the bare skin of my sex. My thighs flexed at the tease. I knew what was coming—why else would he be down there?
My breath stuttered out of me, my insides squirming with anticipation. What would it feel like to have his tongue there? On my clit? On that most sensitive of small bundles of flesh? What would it be like when he slid his tongue into my depths and licked up my arousal? Would it be like the young male who had hurt me, or would it be different?
“Do you have any idea how good you smell, Lexie? I bet you taste good, too.”
He didn’t let me answer, and I couldn’t have even if I’d wanted to. He swiped a long lick up the length of my sex, brushing gently at my throbbing clit, and a low sexy moan rumbled up out of him.
My hips arched off the bed as my own low moan eased out of me. He chuckled and wrapped his hands around my hips to hold me down. “So it’s like that, is it?” But I didn’t think he was really expecting me to answer. Frek proceeded to devour me. I squirmed and bucked, moaned and groaned as he tormented me. It was indescribable, sweet, sweet torture of the most carnal kind. Frek knew exactly what he was doing. There was no hesitation, no fumbling, just intense, searing pleasure.
I speared my hand into his silky hair, holding him to me as I tried to arch under him, but he pressed down, holding me against the bed. He turned what he was doing into an art form, and I was his willing muse. He licked and sucked, nibbled and teased. He pushed me closer and closer to release before backing off to start all over again, over and over until I was crying out and shaking, but he wouldn’t let me come.
My core rippled, clenching tight on nothing before relaxing only for the muscles to draw up tight again forcing more wetness out for him to lap up, which he did, his tongue hot and dexterous against my straining, clutching core. Oh, God I needed to come. I needed to feel him inside me. A finger or fingers, a cock, anything!
“Frek, please!” I begged.
He surged up over me and set the head of his hard throbbing shaft against me, took my lips in a hard, passionate kiss and surged inside, filling me, stretching me, claiming me. I cried out in bliss at his forceful penetration, feeling the delicious burn of his thick cock spreading me wide.
“I’m going to bind you, Lexie,” he growled after ripping his mouth from mine. “I’m going to mate you and we’ll never be parted again. You’ll be mine forever. You are my Sacred Mate and I will allow nothing to break our bond.”
Then he started to move and all I could do was wrap my arms and legs around him and cling to him as he drove me even higher, my hips moving in time with his. Every thrust and withdrawal sharpened the pleasure until I was keening one long sound in the back of my throat. It was intense, exquisite and I would never forget how he made me feel. I felt raw and exposed, I felt bared to my soul. I felt stripped and vulnerable as he made love to me, and I knew that was what this was. This wasn’t fucking. This was Frek showing me that he loved me. He claimed me, and I couldn’t look away from his blazing eyes.
He slid one hand under the back of my neck and found my hand with the other and twined our fingers, clasping our hands together tightly against the bed. A halo of golden light started to shine around him, enveloping me in its ethereal brilliance. A tingle started in my chest and spread through my entire body, like electricity zapping through me. My body spasmed, my core clenching tightly around his driving shaft.
“Frek,” I moaned. Oh God, I was going to come.
“That’s it, baby. Feel me inside you, feel me fill you, stroke you, pleasure you. That’s me, Lexie, your mate. I want you to come on my cock. Let me feel your pleasure,” he growled.
At his growled command, my world exploded into pulsing, rolling waves of ecstasy as I cried my pleasure to the room. Frek groaned above me and shuddered as he thrust in to the hilt and I felt the heat of his release. The golden halo around us swirled and gathered between us, twining together to form a cord that stretched between his chest and mine.
I stared at the cord as my release continued to pulse gently through me. “Frek, is that...”
“Yeah, baby. It’s our binding. It will continue to be visible for a few days, then it will fade, but it will always be there, binding us together. Over time, it strengthens and is supposed to be unbreakable, but I know that’s not true,” he replied.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered looking at the glistening, glowing cord between us.
Frek didn’t respond, but he did take my lips in a searing kiss that sent butterflies through my stomach and caused me to clench around him. He groaned low in his throat, his cock flexing inside me, then pulled back and away, getting to his knees and off the bed.
“Stay there,” he commanded in his firm or else voice that wasn’t scary in the least. It just sent a quiver through my sex.
He disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a wash cloth and, to my shock and not a small amount of embarrassment, he carefully cleaned me with light delicate strokes. He threw the damp cloth through the bathroom door and climbed back up onto the bed and pulled me close.
I snuggled into him thinking a nap sounded really nice. I was exhausted from the constant pain of Craving, plus the attack and subsequent rush through the palace. Not to mention two rounds of sex and telling him my deepest horror. But I didn’t get a nap.
“Alexia, where did you get that?” Frek demanded with a growl.
“Get what?” I asked baffled. I had no idea what he was talking about until he reached over to my bedside table and picked up the image frame.
“This is me,” he said staring down at the image. “Where the fuck did you get this?”
Oh, damn. He was angry. Maybe even furious, and I had no idea why. He looked gorgeous in the image. He looked like an erotic dream.
“From Alita. Well, technically she didn’t give it to me. I kind of... stole it.”
“Alita had this? Wait, you stole from her?” His voice was still rough, but had a tinge of amusement to it.
“Yes, she took it while you were asleep,” I said looking at the image. Frek was completely naked, spread out on Alita’s bed with his hair all around him and a sheet covering his legs and groin. One hand was resting right next to the long thick erection only partly covered by the sheet. It left practically nothing to the imagination, but was the sexiest most erotic thing I’d ever seen at the age of fourteen, and my parents probably would have been horrified if they knew I had a copy. “She described you to me when she came home, and I pestered her and pestered her until she dragged the image out and showed me—well she showed me part of it. I... I... wanted it so badly, but I knew she would never give it to me, so I snuck in her room and took it. But I felt so guilty, I had it copied so I could put the real one back before she realised it was gone.”
Frek ripped his gaze from the image and looked at me. His eyes had lightened to a pale gold again. “Why did you want this image so badly, Lexie?”
I rolled over so we were facing each other and lifted my hand to run my fingers down his cheek. “Because I had this huge crush on you from the first time Alita described you to me, and I needed to have you close to me. I knew I might never meet you, but I desperately hoped if Lita had a boy, that you’d come here and I’d have a chance with you.”
He threw the frame onto the bed behind me and brought his hand up to my face. His touch was feather light as he stroked down my scar.
“Did you know that I knew you were mine the minute I saw you up on the view screen of the Fallen Star? Nothing would have kept me away. I’d never seen a female more beautiful than you, baby, and you just keep proving to me you’re as beautiful in here...” He pressed his flat palm against my breast right over my heart. “As you are on the outside.”
Tears welled in my eyes. He kept saying it, that he thought I was beautiful, and I was starting to believe he really meant it. I burrowed into him as a sob wracked my body. How could one person contain so much happiness?
Frek just held me through my tears, then showed me again how beautiful he thought I was.
* * * *
Frek stared down at Lexie’s face. She was almost asleep. He’d worn her out well and truly. He’d fucked her and made love to her over and over again all night. His rut was finally under control, the raging need inside him easing to a hum rather than a roar. It was the quickest rut he’d ever had, but maybe that had to do with the fact that she was his mate and it had been as much about claiming her as needing to sow his seed.
He stroked a finger down the scar on Lexie’s face and felt his gut twist at the pain she must have felt, must have gone through. The fear during and after. She was so strong. Such a fighter and survivor, and she loved him. He had no doubt of it. He’d seen it in her eyes every time he’d been inside her when she was too overwhelmed to be able to hide her emotions from him.
Knowing that was how she felt was fucking brilliant. It burned through him like a soft warm flame, lighting up places inside him that had been dark for too many years. There was no way he could ever let her go now. There was no way he could be separated from her for even an hour. Well, not yet—not while their bond was so fresh and new. In everything they’d done that night, all they’d talked about, he’d forgotten to ask her one important thing.
“Baby,” he whispered.
“Mmm.”
He grinned at her cute little noise. “Lexie, baby, look at me. This is important.”
She opened her gorgeous eyes, the lids heavy with sleep.
“Will you come and live on the ship with me? Make it your home until we have to go to Alloria?”
Her eyelids fluttered shut and she snuggled her warm naked body against him, her lush curves pressing enticingly against his hard muscles. His cock tried valiantly to seem interested, but it was as exhausted as he was.
“Frek, I’ll go anywhere with you. Home is wherever you are,” she mumbled.
All the tension drained out his body and he relaxed around her, holding her tight. Fuck, how did he get so lucky? Pale light filtered through the split in the curtains beside the bed, dawn only a few hours away. Frek let his own eyes close and pressed his nose to her hair, breathing in her lightly floral scent. His mate, his female, his queen.
Frek slipped into the deepest sleep he’d had since his father had forced his mother to leave.
When he woke, Lexie was gone, the bed cold beside him.