Chapter One

 

There it was again, that eerie, exciting, almost sickening twist in his gut that made his bowels clench and his cock ache even before the rebellious shaft in his pants unfurled. It was unnatural to be so aroused by the mere thought of another person. Unnatural. Annoying. Frustrating. Thrilling.

But the beast’s spell had been cast over him and there would be no breaking it as far as Aidan Maymon could see. Voodoo from a great hulking sea serpent, stronger than any he’d seen in all his twenty-some years as a pirate on the Caribbean. No charms or magic talismans, not even the ones his mother’s Ceme religious beliefs had taught him as a lad before he went to sea as a cabin boy, could break it. In fact, the bewitching grew stronger every day.

Aidan could feel it growing heavier, yanking at his insides like he’d swallowed lead from the old blunderbuss that he had once kept tucked into the sash around his waist. Back before he’d been snatched from the ocean by the interfering beast that had pulled him from his own adventurous time and brought him to this confusing place called ‘space’ in a future so far ahead of him that even the people weren’t all humans and the Earth was a dot in the night sky somewhere too far away for him to even see.

Granted his immediate future had been one of death by drowning or shark bite, courtesy of a mutinous mob, if his abductor hadn’t shanghaied him when he did, but some days he wondered if that wouldn’t have been better. Then there were no limits on his movements, his language, his games of sport or his tendency to acquire things by ‘accident’. He had lived his life as a freeman and was to die that way.

Now he was a captive, both body and soul, to Talos, a delightful, horrible beast of a creature. A bounty hunter of all things! He was held hostage by ties he didn’t understand, a life devoid of ocean, ship, captain’s status, and personal freedoms. In their place he had been given a safe harbor, a healthy body unmarred by the disease of 18th century pirate life on Earth, and a lover that turned his insides to jellyfish with a mere thought.

Oh, and he was alive. Not that he would admit it to anyone else, but more alive than at any other time in his short life. Talos made him experience things he never thought possible before and the people and events on board this place were fascinating and intriguing to him. At was almost as if he was living a dream. Torture of the best kind. But he missed the trappings of his old life.

It still irritated him that Marius Webb, the Commander of the vessel they lived on—Pathos Six others called it—a sort of giant, anchored ship in the sky, refused to allow him to carry a pistol anymore.

Or a cutlass.

Or a knife.

Or a lock pick.

Or a…

Churning in his groin pushed at the bitter thought, desire overriding everything else.

Sexual escapades from his past had been nothing more than rough trade, hapless, hurried fumbles in a deserted hold or over a ship’s railing. That was life aboard ship, whether pirate ship or Her Majesty’s naval vessels. It had its pleasurable moments, but hadn’t prepared Aidan for the type of coupling Talos demanded from him.

Nothing in his memory came close to the feelings and pleasure the massive bounty hunter had shown him. Talos of Menalon was a fierce warrior with a chiseled, attractive face. He was one of the largest of the Oracan Aidan had seen so far. His huge, heavy body was a mass of curves and lean dips with every muscle defined and highlighted by a natural sheen on his gray flesh. Each bulging, sinewy strip of flesh weaving around his limbs and torso led to another, forming an impressive tapestry of immense strength and power. His thick, protective skin had a soft gleam, its harsh gray color making charcoal shadows in the shallow dips of his body’s contours.

Aidan was fascinated by the dull, gray ridges and nubs of bone on his chest that spread out in a regular pattern, dotting the valleys of his broad chest wall and breasts then tapering down to disappear near his groin. Their sharp, ragged edges belied their sensual nature and the part they played in Oracan biochemistry. Aidan’s ravenous attraction with the hunter was the unique cock and other dangling bits the alien boasted, but Aidan suspected it all had more to do with the depth of feeling and attraction Talos had for him. He had never known a possessive lover or one that made him feel so many thrilling, terrifying things.

At times, he felt like he’d been crimped, pressed into service, but he knew that wasn’t true. Kidnapped, yes, but Talos had saved his life at the same time. If the bounty hunter hadn’t snatched him from the hands of his mutinous crew, Aidan would be now be sleeping in a watery Caribbean grave with Davy Jones.

And over seven hundred years would have passed.

Aidan hadn’t aged during the time jump. His young, lean body gloried in arousal and craved satisfaction. A satisfaction that he suspected he could only get with a tussle in the berth of his lover. Talos had explained it was his body changing to adapt to Oracan mating, brought on by their exchange of fluids, but Aidan still suspected magic was at the heart of it.

He’d seen a man bewitched once, cursed by a spell from an exotic, lovely but vile priestess. Now he knew what that man must have felt like. Only weeks ago it’d taken Talos’s physical presence before Aidan’s body began to yearn for a bit of buggery. Now all that was required was a glance at the solid, towering, gray beast he bunked with and his knob was sword-fighting its way out of his trousers to do the deed. He was bewitched, no doubt about it.

Movement in the larger living area drew his attention. Talos had returned from gathering supplies he wanted for some celebration that was approaching. Aidan had stayed out of the way, preoccupied with his growing desire to be at Talos’s side constantly.

Unnatural.

Unnecessary.

Unmanly.

And still, at this very moment, his spine tingled and his breathing became labored. An ache under his breast bone pulled his hand to his sternum to rub at his chest. In a flash, Aidan was off the bed and into the water closet, putting distance between them. At least for a little longer.

§ § § §

Aidan leaned his head back and let the hot water flow over his body, losing himself in the delicious decadence of the steamy, unnatural rain. The majority of things and people in his new lover’s twenty-sixth century world were perplexing, but this hot, luxurious running water was amazingly pleasant. He found he almost enjoyed bathing.

But by far, his favorite part was the sex he and his powerful bounty hunter indulged in while in the shower. He had been introduced to his alien lover’s unique and expert sexual skills in this very room along with the fine art of kissing another man and enjoying it.

He wasn’t a virgin to man-on-man sex by any means, but the tender, rough, thrilling sex they shared was so much different with his brawny, stoic warrior than any Aidan had experienced with sailors during his seafaring days. Sex was now mindboggling, blissful. Aidan couldn’t get enough of it.

Which was why he was presently wasting away his time taking too long in the indoor rain, hoping Talos would join him.

When his skin started to wrinkle, Aidan gave up and stepped out of the shower area, disappointed when the glorious waterfall instantly stopped. He liked the sound of it falling almost as much as the feel. It was the closest he’d gotten to being outside in nature for ages. The space station was interesting, but there was no wind against his face, no salt air to tease his nose, no sunshine to warm his skin, or thunder to rumble through his bones. Not even a tiny grain of gritty, warm sand to be found. He missed the feel of the ship’s wheel under his hand. Life had definitely changed.

Ignoring the drying vents that had turned on the moment the water had stopped, Aidan shook himself all over like a dog coming out of the ocean surf, water flinging everywhere. He squeezed the moisture out of what little hair Dr. Rice had left of his once waist-length locks, resenting the doctor’s diligent efforts all over again. After all, what had been the harm of a few dead bugs? They were dead, matted in his hair, yes, but dead. Scalping him like a barbarian head hunter had been extreme for the sake of that accursed cleanliness thing they all harped on and on about.

Shaking his head in silent, lingering resentment, he walked to the exit, but drew up short when the door stayed closed. Normally, the smooth wall knew he was coming and slid out of the way.

Almost afraid of the magical contraption, he touched his fingertips to the cool metal. When it didn’t budge, he leaned closer, an ear tentatively pressed to the surface. Talos was on the other side of the door. He could sense him. He could hear the occasional, low growl the hunter usually made when he was doing something he found frustrating coming from the bedroom they shared. The sound made his cock jump, its full length reached in seconds. Aidan’s entire body was flushed and tingling.

Earlier in the day, Commander Marius and Dr. Jaclyn Rice had insisted the two of them join them for a feast to celebrate the old custom of Christmas. A large group of humans on the space station had joined in on the festivities, playing games and exchanging tokens. None of which Aidan recognized and some he didn’t understand.

In a jovial mood, Dr. Jaclyn had coaxed Aidan into promising to tell a group of the stations school children about how he had celebrated the Christmas holiday in the Caribbean. Aidan suspected she did it to gain a bit more of Talos’s ire. Things were less tense between the hunter and the doc since their last adventure together, but there was no kinship among them as there was between Talos and Commander Marius.

He considered the merits of telling the truth about his usual drinking until he could barely stand, pickpocketing the crowds at the traditional Jonkonnu celebrations, and then spending said procured funds at the local whore house versus limiting himself to describing the colorful masked Cow and Head dancers, the massive feasts of pork and fruit, and the fun of the sweets and games. He made up his mind by giving them a little of both to make up for the good doctor having put her cutting blade to his prized hair.

With their friends and the majority of the human population on the space station caught up in the holiday, the fuss and ritual seemed to kindle a sort of frustrated restlessness in the big, stoic warrior.

Aidan didn’t understand it. Oracans didn’t celebrate the Earth holiday. And since, Aidan had been banned from picking pockets on the station—a fine point Aidan didn’t intend to bring to anyone’s notice—and drinking to excess, the holiday was really just another day. He would miss the music and the dancing, but gift-giving and religious expressions were best left to others.

He pushed aside thoughts of the celebration and concentrated on getting out of the water closet he was apparently locked in. Pounding an impatient fist, he hollered into the place where the door opened each time, oblivious to fact it was a sealed seam.

“You bloody beast! Are you fixing to let me come to bed with you, mate, or am I to make me berth in here for the night!”

He tossed his wet hair out of his eyes, smiling at the muffled growl that answered him from the bedroom. At least the domineering bastard didn’t plan on leaving him here. Aidan was suddenly looking forward to the night.

The burly alien bounty hunter had capture his heart, as well as his body, when he had rescued him from the ocean depths while shanghaiing him. It had been the strangest and best thing that had ever happened to Aidan and he was living every fascinating day to the fullest, curses and bewitching to boot.

Being thrust seven hundred years into the future was confusing, but his mate had made it bearable and enticing. Having a male lover he could openly call his own and share his bed with was a new and exciting experience. It was the rest of the constraints this world put on him that were intolerable. He tugged self-consciously at the bounty band permanently encircling his wrist, chafing at the light metal that warmed against his skin.

His spirit needed freedom even if his heart and body were captive.

Suddenly, the door popped open. The room was awash in bright lights. He had no idea where they came from, the colors just were, peeking out from behind objects and edging furniture and walls. The sharp bite of cloves, ginger and cinnamon, all coveted spices to a seafaring man, made his nose wrinkle. Pale candlelight flickered around the room, columns of dancing white light perched on every surface that could support them safely. The effect was exotic, festive. It all brought a smile to his lips.

Shaking off the lingering water droplets, Aidan’s cock bobbed, poking the warm air like a cutlass at the ready. Stepping out of the rain closet naked, his usual walk turned into a sexy saunter.

Talos stood in the center of the room, all seven feet, three hundred-plus-pounds of gray-skinned muscle, naked of his usual attire of multi-pocketed, thin pants and boots. His broad, heavily muscled chest and arms invited touching and exploration. Aidan’s fingers twitched in anticipation.

He watched, intrigued as always, as Talos sniffed the air. The hunter’s cock instantly swayed, growing longer, as if reaching out to Aidan.

Aidan pressed close, making Talos’s skin drip with the lingering water beads on his body. Aidan rubbed his open palms over the hard cartilage nubs on the warrior’s chest. He didn’t understand why, but he knew the act inflamed the hunter’s desires.

“You’ve redecorated a bit whilst I was enjoying the rain.” He smiled up into Talos’s brilliant violet eyes, a wry twist to his full lips. “Like the candlelight, but can’t say the green and red lights do much for your eyes, luv.” He tipped his chin in a questioning tilt. “What’s the grand occasion?”

Grabbing onto Aidan’s wet, slippery ass and tightly muscled thighs, Talos kneaded the smooth flesh, reluctant restraint in his expression. “Humans seem to want to be reminded of their birthplace during this religious ritual time.” Talos lightly kissed Aidan’s lips. “I wanted to give you pleasure.”

“Know a better way for ye to give me pleasure, luv.”

The pirate seized the opportunity and pulled Talos’s hairless, thick-skinned head back down to ravage the hunter’s mouth. Talos was the first male to actually kiss him like a true lover. Aidan had discovered he liked doing it. Besides, the alien tasted like brandy, Aidan’s favorite beverage.

After one startled second, Talos returned the voracious attention, stroking Aidan’s tongue with his own, drawing a low moan of pleasure from his lover.

Aidan’s fully erect cock jabbed against Talos’s thigh. The pirate squirmed trying to get closer then gave up and shoved Talos backward. Still entwined, they both bounced on the large bed behind them. Using the advantage of being able to crawl up the hunter’s taller frame, Aidan refused to release his hold keeping their lips sealed together and his tongue down Talos’s throat.

Straddling the hunter’s chest, Aidan tucked his knees into both of the Oracan’s underarms, planted his bare ass on Talos’s sternum and sat up straight, his eager cock bobbing in the air between them.

“Never celebrated Christmas the way your commander and Dr. Jaclyn do.” A quick glance around them took in all the special effort Talos had gone to. “This is all lovely, mate, but it doesn’t mean much to me.” He rubbed his palms over Talos’s chest, delighted in the way his usually stoic lover seemed to melt into the bed.

A frown pinched together the nubbed ridges that ran above Talos’s eyes. “With all the English sailors around Jamaica during your time period in Earth’s history, I thought you’d have acquired their customs just like you did their speech patterns.”

“Learned to speak the King’s English on board ships, from the sailors in port, but me mum raised me. Despite me Spanish father’s looks I got saddled with, she’s a native of the islands, luv. ’Sides, the Caribbean does things amight differently.” Aidan caught a fleeting glance of disappoint as it skittered across his lover’s face. “But it were a lovely and kind thought. Got any other lovely thoughts to share? If not…” He wiggled his ass, still resting on Talos’s chest, and watched the light in the hunter’s eyes turn heated and bright. “I have a few suggestions of me own.”

Slowly sliding backward off the warrior’s long, thick body, Aidan evaded Talos’s grasping hands and got to his feet.

“Caribbeans celebrate Jonkonnu, that’s Christmas to you, with dance. Tricksters parade down the streets and entice villagers to pay them for songs. If you pay you get a blessing on you and if you don’t you get a wicked verse to embarrass you. But the dancing is the best part of the fun. I’ll show you.” Aidan shook his hair out of his eyes and ran his hands over his naked body in slow, provocative strokes. “Consider it me gift to you.”

Grabbing a slim wooden candle holder, Aidan blew out the flame and removed the candle. “Listen to the beat.” Taking a firm grip on the candle holder, he began beating out a primal one-two-three beat on the nearby table top. After a few minutes, he tossed the make-shift musical instrument in the air to Talos. The hunter caught in one beefy fist.

“Beat it like I just showed you. On the floor.” He winked and gave Talos a cocky smile. “Easier if you can hear the music playing in me head, too, luv.”

A deep, pulsing rhythm filled the room as Talos began beating the wooden holder on the floor, occasionally adding a tap to the side of the bed. It was a primitive ritual filled with sexual implications. Talos’s gaze locked on Aidan’s naked, now swaying body, as his fist beat out the tune. His free hand found his own thick cock and he stroked it in time to the movement of Aidan’s hips.

Not having indulged much in dancing during his previous life, Aidan still had a smooth, flowing sway to his walk under the best of conditions. Years of ship board life had taught him that.

Aidan spread his legs, bent his knees and moved his arms through air, mimicking all the many dancers he had witnessed in his early years on the islands. The dancers had been exciting and athletic. He tried to copy some of their more suggestive and sensual moves, picking ones that accented his bare state and bobbing cock.

He stomped closer to Talos, his gaze taking in his lover’s every reaction, watching for the moment when all the violet color disappeared from the hunter’s eyes and only the yellow remained. By then he knew the warrior would be ravenous for him. There would be no comment or hesitation, just hard and powerful, satisfying.

Hips rotating and thrusting in time to the music, Aidan edged closer to the bed. The primal beat invaded his blood and his heart seemed to pulse along with it. A fine sheen of sweat covered him and he shivered, adding a shimmy to the dance. Talos gasped. Aidan did it again and grinned when Talos swallowed hard and continued to stare, the candlestick falling harder, moving faster.

The stoic hunter lay propped up, stretched out on the side of the bed silently watching, waiting, and beating out the tempo. When he was only two feet away from the bed, Aidan turned and presented his firm, smooth ass to his lover. Reaching around to spread his cheeks open, Aidan found his arms pinned to his side and his body lifted off the floor, then deposited on the bed. Talos rubbed his face over Aidan’s skin, inhaling deeply. The pulsing beat was only an echo in the room.

Talos made a rich, deep clicking ‘ta-ti’ sound at the back of his throat and gave his young lover a look Aidan thought of as poker-hot, lustful need. Aidan scrambled over Talos’s body and positioned his ass against Talos’s groin. He stroked his open palms over his lover’s breast plates.

The pirate’s ass clenched and his asshole spasmed, anxious to be filled. A blunt poke from behind fanned his needs higher. He scooted back until his ass rested directly above Talos’s impatient cock. Talos’s strong hands aided his movements.

Aidan hissed, and then panted as the suction cup-tipped tubulars surrounding the Oracan’s long, stout cock tapped the sensitive flesh of his spread hole. Each tip grabbed and nipped at his body until it found a suitable spot to latch onto at the tender opening. The sensation was of needle-like jabs and soft, teasing sucks that felt like tiny, nipping kisses to his skin. As usual, several questing tubes burrowed out, seeking the delicate flesh of his scrotum and the bulging root of his shaft where it attached to the floor of his perineum.

Moaning, Aidan rolled his head on his shoulders. He raised up as far as the attached tubulars would allow him, swiftly reached behind, and guided Talos’s eager cock to his opening. With a half-lidded glance at Talos to be sure the warrior was watching, he slowly sank down onto the long, smooth shaft, gasping and grunting as it slid into him, the cock’s own alien ability to slither and undulate into his body making him shudder with indescribable pleasure.

Grinding his ass, the opening to his body fluttered and clenched around Talos’s cock as the growing shaft thickened and moved inside of him. His own cock bobbed between his wide-spread thighs, leaking pearls of milky white. His swollen, hot nipples ached to be touched. His stomach rolled and clenched, his mind hazy with the white-hot flush of sexual hunger.

Steadying himself with one hand on his lover’s pressure sensitive, heaving chest, Aidan began to raise and lower his hips, savoring the delicious rippling effect that the combination of his movement and Talos’s cock’s wiggling produced. A warm, tight fist engulfed his cock and began a slow, leisurely caress up and down the length in time to Aidan’s rhythmic hips movements.

The hunter shifted and Aidan fell forward. He grabbed the hunter’s face for a kiss, gasping as the change in position shifted the shaft inside of him to rub directly over his prostate. He shuddered at the shot of sizzling sparks that shot up his spine from deep inside his gut. He pulled Talos’s face to him and rubbed his own wet, hot lips over the hunter’s willing mouth.

When they finally broke off the embrace, Aidan panted as if he had just climbed to the top of his ship’s crow’s nest and back down again.

“Could get to like celebrating the holidays with you, luv. Maybe we need a few Christmas traditions of our own, eh?” Aidan hissed and wiggled his ass against Talos’s clutching, sucking groin.

Talos wove a hand through Aidan’s hair and turned the pirate’s face so he could purr in his ear, proclaiming, “We’ll have decades together to make them. Christmas dance will be the first one.” He gave his ‘I love you’ clicking sound of ‘ta-ti’ and another deep, blistering kiss.

Talos shifted his hips, plunged his cock deeper and rolled them both over on the bed. Latched together by their groins and mouths, Aidan had no choice but to ride out the action.

Once Talos had Aidan under him, the hunter began thrusting into Aidan’s ass in long, hard, deep strokes that brushed over his prostate both coming and going. White lights exploded in Aidan’s head and his limbs felt like they were on fire.

The hunter’s snake-like cock wriggled and squirmed inside of him, touching places no one else ever had, no one ever could. It sent shivers of exotic bliss up his spine. The sucking kisses from the attached tiny tubulars heightened his awareness of the tender flesh around his hole. He reveled in the burn and stretch of the tight muscles that guarded his opening.

Every stroke out was like a rough caress. Every forceful thrust in jarred his pleasure core and sent bursts of flame through his entire body. His flesh gleamed in the candlelight, sweat glistening on his arms and belly.

Without warning, Aidan’s climax barreled down on him. He arched and cried out, a startled bellow of cosmic release. The orgasm peaked with a staggering force. Aidan floated on the crest of it for an incredibly long time, the momentum sustained by Talos’s continuing thrusts to his prostate and the sucking actions of the tubulars, some of which and burrowed inside his ass along with Talos’s shaft and were now nipping and sucking at the nerve filled ring of muscle from the hyper-sensitive inside.

A wave of wetness washed into his channel. Talos was preparing to climax. He squeezed his ass tight and clamped down on his lover’s shaft, making the now rapid-fire thrusts more powerful. Talos growled deep in his throat, a throaty, animal sound, the vibrations echoing through Aidan’s chest.

Talos’s guttural reaction shot a thrill through the pirate. He loved being able to affect the stoic warrior like this, loved knowing he could take the hunter down to his most primitive level. He liked knowing Talos was just as hungry for him as he was for the warrior. It lessened his fears.

A sudden gush of wet heat flooded his gut. Aidan gasped and squirmed harder, the thick liquid of Talos’s fluids coating his insides, his body absorbing it. The alien cum invaded every corner of his body, making him a part of Talos, altering his body and binding the two of them together. Some days he resented it, but not at this moment.

Aidan glanced at the flickering candles, and the muted red and green lights still burning softly in the room. Talos was right. Humans did want to be reminded of their home at the holidays. Unnatural as it was, bewitched or cursed, he was home. Here in his beast of a sea serpent’s embrace.

Talos eased down, took Aidan into his arms and rolled them over. Aidan balanced on Talos’s chest, then slowly sat up, the squirming alien cock still buried deep inside of him, its length slender and long when he needed it to be to accomplish movement. It grew thick and firm, shortening and less active once he was comfortably upright. He felt plugged like a cork in a jug of rum, his hole stretched wide, a pleasant burn making him arch his back to intensify the sensation, the hunger rising again, need for more building at the base of his spent but firm cock. He raised his hips until the cock inside him grew thicker in protest and the tubulars sucked harder, both pulling him back down. He obliged with a forceful thrust of his own and then pulled up again.

“More, runt?” The burning, yellow glint in the hunter’s eyes almost made Aidan come again. Talos was rising to the challenge. Aidan leaned his weight on his hands, spreading his palms over the cartilage ridges on the Oracan’s chest. He wet a thumb with his tongue then painted a chest nub with the slick spit. He could feel the rumble of passion rolling under his hands in Talos’s chest.

“You’ve been boarded, me hearty.” With a wicked smile, Aidan clenched his ass and rocked back and forth, defeating the tubulars’ effort to slow him down. He could feel that growing, odd sensation swirling through his body, almost as if his blood was boiling like thundering ocean waves, and reason was swept away with the tide. Lust ruled his every thought, and all of them were of Talos. “Surrender, luv, or use your sword.”

“I think I’d better disarm you first.” Suddenly Aidan was pulled forward, the tubulars instantly disengaged. Talos’s cock slithered out and was gone. He barely had time to cry out at the loss when his stiffened cock was swallowed whole. The battle had begun.