Balm (3 page)

Iskanu threaded his hands through her hair and cupped her head. He broke the initial contact and trailed kisses down her cheeks.

She shivered but could not stop her tears. Sobs started deep in her chest.

He stopped kissing her, drawing her close and holding her while she broke down.

He rubbed her back and arms until she stopped wailing in his grasp.

She was sure that her skin was a horrible shade and her eyes were bloodshot, but when he slipped his hand under her chin to raise her face to his, she didn’t see anything but a slight smile in his dark galaxy eyes.

“What was that about?”

She sniffed. “You were dead. I saw you die. I held your hand and felt your mind slip away, and now, you are here, and I don’t know how to cross the two things in my mind.”

“You will learn how to do it. Just as I had to hold myself back when I learned I had to watch you die. These are things we have to adjust to as Sentinels.” He stroked her hair away from her face.

“You knew that I would return in fairly short time. I thought you were gone forever.”

“Did you miss me?”

She balled up her fist and smacked him in the ribs.

He caught her hand and flattened it out against his chest. “Answer me, Quinn.”

She didn’t bother struggling. “I did. I thought about that last moment of your mind touching mine every single day. The light dying in your eyes, your body crushed by the explosion, those are my memories.” Quinn put the pain of those memories front and centre on her face.

Iskanu stroked her cheek. “I am sorry for the memories, but can we begin again? Now?”

Quinn chuckled softly. “I suppose. How do the Selna begin a courtship?”

Iskanu smiled, “We males are normally sold or traded to a woman of high family. Our responsibility is to mate as often and frequently as we can with her and members of her immediate family. Those children will be assessed and traded as necessary.”

“What happened to you?”

“A most extraordinary woman came to the Weeshkan settlement, and she negotiated for my sale to the Citadel. My sister parted with me, and I began my tenure with the Citadel as an assessment specialist. I grew up with Citadel personnel training me, and when it was time, I entered the Enforcers.”

She blinked at the tale of his origin. For years, she had wondered how a Selna had ended up in the Alliance Enforcer department. “I always wondered about that. Who picked you up and took you away?”

He smiled and stepped away from her. “That is a story for another time. For now, how do your folk come together?”

Quinn blinked. “Well, we usually stumble around and try and become familiar with a person of interest. Once we have their attention, we go out on social outings. We gradually increase the intimacy between us and the person we wish to mate with, sometimes using intoxication as a medium to further the contact. After we decide that we cannot do without the other person, we choose to pair bond for life, or as long as it is convenient.”

He extended his hand, “Now, for a more personal question. How would you like to pair bond?”

She sighed and followed him into the living room, tugged by his grip on her hand. “I have never given it a thought.”

“Never?” Iskanu chuckled. He sat on the couch and pulled her into his lap. His grin was contagious. “Never?”

She leaned against his chest and settled in, ignoring the pressure under her thigh. “When I was a teenager, I dreamed of feeling love, but I was never quite sure what it actually was. My first sexual partner was nice enough, but I didn’t love him, and he didn’t love me. We parted soon after.” She leaned against him and breathed him in.

“What do you dream of now?” His voice was low and warm.

“I don’t dream, I wish. I wish for love, I wish for comfort, I wish for laughter.” She inhaled again, letting her body relax completely. “I wish to be safe for just a little while.”

“That I can help you with. Just sit here and relax. I will watch over you while you sleep.”

She nestled against him and sighed softly. “That would be nice, I haven’t felt this relaxed since Eckhari Common.”

* * * *

Iskanu fought a tear as she slept in his arms. Eckhari Common was a tense fight, plenty of wounded on both sides of the battle. They were pinned down by blasts overhead and a meteor shower that kept them behind shielding. She had curled next to him that night, and he had watched over her as she slept.

If it had been three years since she was able to relax, there was no wonder that she was brittle when it came to keeping her emotions under wraps. Her cracking control had shown when he first came across her in the garden outside the medical facility. The Quinn that he knew from their previous lives together would never have confided weakness to a stranger.

What happened to her after I was gone?

Chapter Five

Quinn stirred restlessly, kicking herself awake. “Why am I flat?” She remembered falling asleep sitting up, and right now, she was definitely not sitting.

“Because I was getting a cramp.” Iskanu murmured next to her. He was flat on his stomach, but his tilted head made his starry gaze point toward her.

She grumbled and shifted to lie on her side, facing him.

He did the same.

“So, how do we tell if we have an assignment?” Quinn blinked and stretched, keeping the sheet over her otherwise naked form.

“We glow. The Orb gives us the hint and will start feeding us details, flickers of scenes that we have no reason to know. We will understand them in context but usually not before.” His tone was low and lazy.

“Was there a reason for the nudity?” She deliberately kept her gaze on his face. The rest of him was far too tempting.

He chuckled and reached out to caress the curve of her hip. “The best reason of all. I wanted us to speak with no barriers.”

“I thought that is what we did before I slept.”

Iskanu shifted closer, giving her plenty of time to object.

Quinn kept her mouth shut and watched him approach, his velvety skin growing closer with every small shift.

“We did not discuss one very important matter.” He dropped small kisses against her shoulder and down to her elbow.

She shivered as he took his time with the tiny caresses. “What matter was that?”

He rolled her to her back and nipped at her lower lip with his teeth. “The matter of my no longer being your commanding officer and you being in my bed.”

Quinn blinked and stretched under him, her body arching a centimetre away from him, his body heat making it through the light sheet.

“Oh, that. I am up for a discussion.”

He brought his body weight down on her, and she enjoyed the feel of his skin where it touched her own.

Iskanu delved between her lips with his tongue. Despite their just waking, he tasted like mint, and when she analyzed the coolness of her own mouth, she tried not to smile that he had cheated. Breath tabs were commonly used on Enforcer assignments when they were overnighting it. Sneaking them into the most offensive mouth in the squad while they slept was a bit of a sport.

She returned the caress of his tongue with her own, taking in the slick slide with enjoyment. Iskanu stroked the side of her face as they kissed.

She slid her fingers through his hair and mentally sighed at the cool feel of his locks against her hand.

He rolled her to her back and pinned her arms over her head. “I have wanted to do this since you were first assigned to my unit.”

Quinn grinned as he slowly stroked her skin with his own in a catlike arch of his torso. “Tell me more about your unit.”

He narrowed his eyes and chuckled at her turn of phrase, repeating the stroke that sent shivers through her.

“I have heard that our skin texture is pleasing to your species.”

She bit her lip and nodded. “It is wonderful, hot, soft and hard all in one package. Velvet wrapped around steel.”

Her hands clenched, but he was still restraining her, and she couldn’t stroke her hands down his chest and back the way she wanted to.

“Why the restraint?”

Quinn closed her eyes as Iskanu licked and tasted his way from her throat to her collarbone. She could feel him smile against her skin.

“If I remind myself that you are helpless, I will keep track of my actions. If you start to touch me, I may lose control and that would end this first time too soon.”

She shivered as his words were spoken between her breasts. Iskanu’s tongue had catlike qualities and the light rasping against the undersides of her breasts made her squirm.

Her body dissolved into a confusion of tension and pleasure as he slowly and carefully built a fire in her senses. When she inhaled, his own arousal amplified hers with the scent he was producing. She would have been seduced with a simple kiss, but this was far more than she needed to get her motor running.

Quinn closed her eyes and let his touches drive her slowly to the edge of release or madness. She didn’t care which.

With her eyes closed, she concentrated on each small touch, a lick here, a puff of air there and each brought her closer to ending the tension inside her. He released her wrists, and she immediately threaded her fingers through his hair, holding on for dear life.

She heard his chuckle when he parted her thighs and moved between them. Her wet heat was obvious, even to her, the interior of her thighs slick with her honey. His tongue lapped up all traces of her arousal before parting her lips with a slow stroke. When the stroke caressed the aching bud of her clit, she let out her breath on a low moan. Her limbs shivered, and her inner muscles flexed, desperate to hold him inside her and coming up empty.

Iskanu continued to lap at her slowly, keeping her in the wave of pleasure. When she relaxed against the sheets, he moved forward and pressed his mouth to her, sliding his tongue inside her with a slow undulation that stroked her from the inside out.

She released his head and clutched at the bedding to either side of her hips as the wave that had subsided roared to life. Quinn arched her hips, tilting to allow him full access. She didn’t even care that he laughed softly, she wanted more, and he was going to give it to her or she would take it.

He moved his mouth from her wet opening and concentrated on nibbling and sucking at her clit. Two fingers slid into her and began a hard and fast rhythm with the fingers curved slightly upward that struck a spot within her. She bucked against his hand and mouth, but he continued to rub against the area, giving her conflicting signals of irritation and bolts of fire. The fire won.

She screamed, but this time, he didn’t continue to press into her with his hand. He withdrew his digits and slid up her body, his cock working into her, the width forcing her inner walls open until she was stuffed full of him and biting her own lip.

He feathered a kiss across her lips, and she tasted herself on his mouth. She opened her eyes and stared into his. The dark universe inside him expanded until it was all she could see, and he started to move.

She leaned up, and her mouth met his as he rocked inside her, slowly at first and then with long, grinding strokes that lit her up from within. Fire ran through her blood, and he had both brought it and could end it, that she was sure of.

Quinn wrapped her legs around his waist, and she stroked the sweaty muscles of his back, her hands endlessly caressing the velvet of his skin.

When his thrusts took on a hard rhythm, she shivered and held tight. Her body was trembling on the edge of release, and when it struck her, she screamed out in a low, wordless vocalization.

“Thank the stars,” was Iskanu’s whisper as he threw his head back and groaned as his body bucked against hers.

She held him close until his weight slowly dropped onto her. If he wanted to roll away, she wasn’t going to hold him.

He lifted his head and grinned. “That went rather well for a first time.”

She chuckled and caressed his cheek. “I would say so.”

Inside her, his cock lengthened and widened again. “Now that the dreaded first time is done away with, how about a second?”

She arched her hips against him. “Why not, we have all the time in several worlds.”

He reared back and slid forward, oh, so slowly. He repeated the sensual undulation over and over until they were once again shaking together as their bodies harmonized.

Lying in his arms after the rush to release, it was almost poetic that her skin and his lit from within. “Honey, it’s time to go to work.”

Chapter Six

A quick shower, a selection of appropriate clothing from the unit near the kitchen and Quinn was ready for her first job, if a little sore.

“This seems really complicated. Are you sure we can do this?” Quinn frowned at Iskanu.

She absently appreciated the leathers that he was wearing. The vest barely contained his massive chest, the bulging biceps were left bare and the muscled plate of his abdomen was just visible. The leather pants were a tease of another variety, because every time he looked at her, his cock swelled.

Their unit had not gone under cover, but they had been involved in covert activities, so this was not completely out of her wheelhouse. Her costume was more of a cheap Companion set, but considering what she had to do, it was ideal.

Strips of fabric in a variety of colours wrapped behind her neck, down over her breasts and tied into links on a tight belt around her waist. Long streamers went from the belt to the ground and fluttered as she moved.

Iskanu’s eyes heated every time he looked at her, and she was having trouble fending him off. The largest problem was that she didn’t want to.

“I am sure that we can do this. Are you confident that you will be able to pull the power when the time comes?”

She tilted her head and did a status assessment. “I think so. How do I get back here again?”

It was important to check on her ability to return on her own, because if this went well, she would not be with him when she had completed her assignment.

“You call the Orb and concentrate on this apartment. It will bring you back.”

“And you will be?”

“Waiting for you.” He didn’t look happy about it.