Favored by Felix (4 page)

“No.”

He chuckled, a rich sound that intrigued
her. Unwillingly. The man was a bossy brute.

“Too bad,” he purred. “Because I rather
like the look of my marks on your pert ass. I like the fiery color on your
cheeks.” His fingers stroked and delved, made a foray between her legs. “And I
think secretly, you might like it too.”
Smack.

No doubt about it. This time the heat had a
decided sexual edge and desire directed her blood downward to pulse in her
pussy.

“Do you agree?”

“No.”

“Liar,” he purred, and as if to prove his
words, he struck another blow, the angle different. Lower.

A lick of heat roared through her, and this
time she felt her arousal fully, heard the sound of her excitement when he slid
his finger along her folds. He skimmed with skill and purpose, teasing her clit
while holding her in place.

“Imagine my cock filling you,” he said. “Sliding
inside your moist cunt until I’m balls-deep. Can you imagine that?”

A shudder went through Casey as his words
seemed to crawl inside her and take root. Gods, she wanted a man that way. A
real man, not one of those pleasure droids she had to make do with whenever her
squad had leave. She wanted—no,
craved
—a real flesh-and-blood man like
Felix.

His finger moved, lightly massaged, and a
thrill of pleasure streaked from his touch. The movement of his digit came to a
stop, and she felt the pulse of her clit, the way it swelled at his touch.

“Imagine me sucking your nipples until they
change color from light pink to cherry red. Each time I suck, you feel it down
here.” He pressed her clit and it jumped beneath his touch. “Then think about
me fucking you hard, cramming inside your pussy so deep we’ll feel as one. We’ll
both come and once we’ve taken everything each of us has to give, we’ll smell
like each other. Any other male will know you belong to me.”

Her heart jumped at his words, even though
she knew he didn’t mean them. This was a game. Pure fantasy. But oh, she liked
the sound of it—the raunchy fun. The sense of knowing he wanted to mark her with
his scent. So primitive and thrilling.

“No comment?” His finger moved again, a
sensual slip and slide. Then he thrust a finger inside her, grunting with
satisfaction.

She cried out in protest when he withdrew
his finger, her hips jerking as she tried to drive him deeper. The hot skin of
her backside pulled, the streak of pain combining with the erotic teasing of
his finger to make something better.

“It’s all right, sweetheart,” he crooned,
and drove three fingers into her needy flesh.

Casey gasped at the intrusion. It wasn’t
painful. In fact it was just what she wanted, and she made a hum of pleasure
when he set up a quick rhythm. On each withdrawal he twisted his fingers,
catching a sensitive spot deep inside her. A groan sounded and his laugh told
her the throaty cry had spilled from her mouth. Gods, that felt good.

“Do you like the feel of my fingers, Casey?”

“Y-yes.” Her body shuddered when he hit the
special place again.

“Can you imagine my cock? Can you imagine
my body draped over yours as I slam into you from behind?”

“Yes.” Gods, she wanted that so much.

His fingers thrust, pulled out, thrust,
pulled out. She quivered, her hips rising and falling on his lap as she
strained to reach the climax hovering on her horizon.

His fingers danced over her delicate flesh.
They teased, and Casey squeezed her eyes shut. Her heart was hammering so hard
she wondered if it might climb up her throat and burst from her mouth. Felix
moved his fingers, stroked, and she came so hard she saw stars. Her channel
pulsed around his digits, clutching and releasing for long moments until the
spasms tailed off.

“Good girl,” he whispered, and pulled his
fingers from her body.

He lifted her off his knee and placed her
facedown on the bed. “Stay,” he said when she attempted to roll over. “Let me
put something on your backside to take away the heat.”

Too bemused by his actions and wrung out
from the orgasm, she gave up the idea of disobeying because it seemed like too
much effort to fight.

“This will feel cool,” he warned. “But it’ll
take some of the residual sting away.”

She started, despite his warning, the cold salve
a shock against her hot skin. And he was right—the ointment did take away the
heat.

He shifted off the sleep-bed and she turned
her head, curious as to what he was doing now.

Stripping.

His boots thudded onto the dirt floor then
he started working on his shirt. One fastening at a time popped open. Her
breath caught upon seeing his bare chest, the bulge of muscles as he shrugged
off his shirt. Muscles more spectacular than anything she’d imagined when they
were together on the resort beach. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and she
felt an answering grin knock against her lips, ready to come out to play. He
knew she was interested.
Scurvy sky pirates
, she was more than interested.
Man-deprived soldier that she was.

His hands dropped to the fastening of his
trews. She watched, enthralled, as he revealed more of his body. His hips, his
muscular thighs and long legs, and when he straightened, she got her first
glimpse of his cock.

His erect cock.

“Like what you see?”

Her tongue swiped across her bottom lip,
and her gaze skipped up to his face to find him grinning.

“Casey? Are you going to answer?”

“Yes. I haven’t had sex for so long. Don’t
tease me.”

Interest glinted in his eyes. “How long?”

“Whenever we have furlough, we stop at one
of the pleasure planets. Only droids available there. No men.”

“So you haven’t had sex with a
real
man for how long?”

“I can’t remember.” And she never would if
the general had anything to do with it.

“What about the men on your squad?”

“It creates problems within the squad.
Discipline. Jealousy. Envy. Problems with the chain of command. Sex screws
everything up.”

Felix nodded and cupped his cock. “Understandable.”
He stroked himself, his gaze on her the entire time.

Casey licked her lips again, and he gave a
soft groan.

“I’m not going to go easy on you this first
time, Casey.”

“That’s okay.” The truth was, even though
she’d come and climaxed hard already, she ached to feel his cock stretching
her. And even more, she craved the feel of him wrapped around her…because no
one touched her anymore. “You won’t hurt me.”

Weirdly, she truly believed he wouldn’t
hurt her. She didn’t know why—it was a gut instinct, and in her line of work, that
aptitude was part of the skill set.

Felix released his cock and crawled onto
the sleep-bed. He pulled her into his arms, and she shivered at the avalanche
of emotions that struck her with brute force. Foremost was the sense of
connection, and tears—those wretched tears—stung her eyes again.

Why?
Why did
she have to find this man now when it was too late and everything was about to
change?

Felix stilled at the sudden tension in her
body. “Have you changed your mind?”

“No!” She gripped his shoulders with talon-like
fingers. “No, I want this. You.”

Instead of answering, Felix pushed her flat
on the mattress and rose over her. With his thigh, he wedged her legs farther
apart and settled into the space he’d created. Her arms wound around his neck,
and she gave a sigh—a happy one, he hoped. Something he’d said or done had
tripped her buttons and caused the unhappiness to cloud her whiskey-brown eyes.

Felix lowered his head and pressed a kiss
to her temple. Her hair was prickly beneath his exploring fingers. So short. He
usually liked his women with long hair.

“Why do you keep your hair so short?”

“So I blend. It’s important to fit in with
the military style of life.” She sounded as if she was regurgitating an oft-repeated
lesson, her tone rigid like the volcanic stones littering the compound.

“It feels spiky yet soft. Smells good too.
I bet the other soldiers don’t smell like you.”

Her nose wrinkled, and some of the
murkiness disappeared from her eyes. “No. Some consider it a point of honor to
shun the sanitary unit whenever possible.”

“I bet they spruce up before they hit the
pleasure planets.”

Casey made a scoffing sound. “Of course
they do. They want to get lucky with the real thing, if possible. Too much
talking,” she muttered and drew his head down to crush their mouths together.

Since she was heading in the direction he
wanted, Felix allowed the distraction. But the important thing was he knew she’d
used sex to change the subject, and his gut told him it was something in her
military life causing her heartache. He could be patient. He had days to exert
his fortitude.

Felix settled in to erase her problems—for
a time, at least.

He took the kiss deeper, made it slower,
more suggestive, until his balls burned with the need for release. His hands
plucked at her breasts, tugged on the pink nipples until the color deepened to
a pleasing rose.

She was with him every second of the way,
her hands roaming his back, his buttocks, meeting every kiss with urgency. Her
soft cries pushed at his feline. Felix gritted his teeth, astonished when he
felt his canines lengthening.

Crap!
He’d
never faced this problem before.
Double crap!
His claws were starting to
protrude from above his fingernails.

Faster. He needed to stop with the lazy
exploration and getting-to-know-her stuff. “Close your eyes,” he ordered. “Tell
me everything you’re feeling.”

“I feel wonderful,” she said with a happy
sigh. “My breasts are tingling, and I can feel myself getting wetter and
wetter. Ready for your cock.”

“Pleased to hear it.” God, his voice. It
sounded as if his throat were full of gravel. Time to get moving with this
fucking. The last thing he wanted right now was to show her his dual nature.
Bad enough that he intended to keep her possibly against her will. One shock at
a time would work best.

Felix ran a careful finger down her slit
and found she hadn’t exaggerated her readiness.

“
Ooh
,” she said and shivered.

That did it. Felix guided his cock to her opening
and slammed home with one seamless thrust. Balls-deep, he panted, trying to get
a firmer grip on his feline.

“Move,” Casey ordered.

Felix chuckled and obeyed her bossy tone.
He withdrew and thrust back hard. She winced and he froze. “Am I hurting you?”

“My butt’s sore,” she whispered, and a
delicate pink flooded her cheeks.

“I didn’t know soldiers blushed.”

“I don’t. We don’t.” At the mention of the
military, she went wooden beneath him, and he silently cursed.

“The sore bottom will help remind you that
misbehaving won’t go unpunished.” Unable to stop himself, he pulled back and
plunged into her moist heat. Her sheath clenched around his cock, gripping his
dick in a loving embrace. Fuck that felt good, made him wonder why he’d waited
so long to have a woman.

“Faster, Felix.”

“Whatever the lady wants.” He set up a fast
pace of thrust and withdraw, his balls screaming at him to release, but he
gritted his teeth, foolishly wanting to come with his new mate. He wanted
perfect for their first time. He squeezed his fingers between their bodies and
stroked her clit. The tiny bundle of nerves was swollen, much to his great
relief. He gave her a couple more rubs and when he felt the ripple of her
channel, he pulled back and let himself go. One stroke. Two. Three.

She groaned, and the spasms around his cock
became more regular. He stroked into her one more time and his orgasm exploded
like a volcano. Sensations tore up his dick, streaked through his body until he
felt as if he were imploding. The contractions of his cock went on for long
moments before tailing off and ceasing.

“Wow,” Casey said. “That was worth waiting
for.”

Hell yeah, Felix thought. He shifted his
weight so he wouldn’t crush her but remained inside her body, liking the
physical contact. At least neither of them needed to worry about producing
offspring from their mating. Saber had insisted his brothers get control
inoculations, and women visiting the resort had to consent to receiving a similar
common shot upon arrival. No messy slipups for Middlemarch Resort. The control inoculations
made things simple and spontaneity would never hit them over the head with
consequences.

His feline had settled, but Felix felt him
beneath his skin, the contented purring. They were both in agreement.

Casey Seonaid was the one for them. She
would become their mate.

* * * * *

Casey woke hours later, after the best
sleep she’d had for weeks. Felix was stretched out beside her, soft snoring
sounds coming from him. It was kind of cute, and it allowed her the freedom to
visually explore his body.

Coming from the military, she was used to
muscular men who kept in good shape. Felix certainly didn’t fail on that score,
and she couldn’t wait to tell her best friend Eva about the spectacular sex.

The best friend she might never see again
after this trip.

The unhappy notion slipped into her head as
she thought of the general’s plans. She wondered if her mother had known of his
perfidy, then scowled. Of course her mother knew. Her mother knew everything
the general did, and presented a united front with her husband even if she didn’t
agree with his actions. The picture of a good military wife.

Wife.

Phrull.
They’d
given her screeds of documentation about the process and told her to read
everything before she asked questions. So far, she couldn’t bring herself to
open the folder. It was locked in her briefcase back at Middlemarch Resort. But
now she wondered about children. She’d never consciously thought of the
possibility, but now…

If she decided to go along with the general’s
plans and opened that briefcase—

No! Tears stung the back of her eyeballs
and she swallowed hard. Why not admit the truth to herself, at least? She hated
the general’s plan, was appalled at the lengths he’d gone to in order to
achieve his goals. She was more than a commodity,
phrull
it. She was his
daughter.

His daughter.

The urgent need to scream her fury pummelled
her and she scrambled off the sleep-bed. She was halfway across the dirt floor
before she recalled Felix. Glancing back, she noted her abrupt movements hadn’t
woken him. Casey stumbled to the door, opened it and bolted outside. Rapid
footsteps took her to the middle of the compound and she let rip with an
unearthly howl of anguish.

The chatter of birds came to an abrupt
halt. The hum of insects ceased as her frustrated screams rang out again and
again and again.

Felix appeared in front of her. His
face—his mouth was moving. He was talking, but she couldn’t hear anything above
the shrieks. The anguished cries that ripped up her throat and exploded
outward.

His hands curled around her shoulders, and
he shook her.

Another scream rippled through the air. And
another. Another. Another…

Her throat burned in protest, the interior raw,
stinging, each new scream shredding a path of pain. Her head throbbed in
concert but she couldn’t seem to stop.

Felix shook her again, then drew her into
his arms and hugged her hard, almost squeezing the breath out of her. She
started to hear him, could just make out the words above the desolation swamping
her mind.

“Casey, sweetheart. It’s all right.
Everything is going to be all right.” His hand smoothed down her back, a
reassuring stroke. His voice was a low murmur and gradually, the urge to scream
receded.

Instead, tears overflowed her eyes in a
never-ending stream, shrouding her vision.

Soldiers don’t cry. Soldiers don’t cry.

For once she didn’t give a flying
phrull
about soldiers. She wanted to be plain Casey Seonaid, the woman who liked
sewing and fashion and spending time with her likeminded aunt, but kept it
hidden because such
female
interests weren’t worthy hobbies for a lifer.

Felix eased her away and studied her face. “Sweetheart,
did I hurt you?”

She shook her head, swallowed, winced. At
least she’d stopped crying. Probably dehydrated and her body didn’t have any
water to spare. She stared at his chest and saw the dampness caused by her
tears.

“Then what’s wrong?”

She’d been wrong. Her body had plenty of
tears left, and they trickled from her eyes anew, no matter how much she
blinked.

“It’s nothing I’ve done?”

She shook her head again.

“Okay,” he said and tenderly brushed a tear
off her cheek. “It’s not safe out here. We’ll go back to the hut and tuck you
into bed. Then we’ll have something to eat and drink. Have you ever tasted
Earth wine? I stole a bottle from my brother’s stash. He’ll try to kick my ass,
but it’ll be worth the beating.”

Casey let Felix guide her back to the hut
and put her to bed, this time with the covers over her naked body.
Phrull
,
she’d run outside with not a stitch of clothing. She was losing it. The
military doctors would have fun dissecting that one, and she could all too
easily imagine the general’s disgust at her weakness, her older brothers’
ragging.

Maybe she should have stopped in to visit
Aunt Elsa, her mother’s younger sister, before she’d left Dalcon. She’d wanted
to, but self-preservation had kept her away. Elsa would have seen something was
bothering her, and would have pried and pried hard to discover the truth.

Casey turned her face into her pillow and
let it absorb her unhappiness. Running away wasn’t helping, but she wasn’t sure
she had the strength to stand against the general.

Not alone.

Most people who had parents and siblings
went
to
them if they had trouble, to discuss and sort out their
problems.

Not her.

The general’s ambitions
were
her problem,
and her mother, her brothers, never went against the general. The man was a law
unto himself, both feared and revered by her peers.

Phrull
, no
matter which way she looked at the problem, she was screwed.

* * * * *

Felix selected items from the food stash he’d
organized and placed them on a tray. When he’d heard her scream, he’d panicked.
Thought one of those big-ass birds had snatched her, or worse, a cute and
fluffy zylon had enticed her to pet it before the creature sank poisonous fangs
into her silky flesh.

She wasn’t crazy—he sensed that with every
particle of his gut—but something big was ridin’ her hard, causing her all
kinds of mental and emotional stress. She obviously didn’t want to talk about
it. Frustrating as hell, not knowing what the problem was, because he wanted to
be there for her in every way. He wanted to fix stuff and make things right.

No, the best thing would be to give her
space and plenty of affection and loving. He could almost hear his mother
giving him the advice, so he knew his gut instinct was right. Hopefully, in
time, she’d come to trust him.

He grabbed the bottle of wine plus the two
fancy glasses he’d pilfered from the bar and added them to the tray. Wine plus
snacks to entice her to eat and some harmless conversation. Yeah, sounded like
a plan.

When he entered the hut, she was exactly
where he’d left her, but he could tell she wasn’t asleep.

“Casey, you have to try this wine. This
bottle comes from our own vineyards back on Earth. It’s a sauvignon blanc. I
want you to tell me what fruity notes you pick up from your first taste.”

She rolled over in the bed and he got his
first glimpse of her face. It was pale and blotchy from her weeping, the lack
of color highlighting the shadows under her eyes caused by sleepless nights.
His heart twisted hard, but he bit back words of concern. Better to distract
her, he thought.

“Here, you take a sip while I sort you out
some food.” He gave her face another quick glance and noted the thinness. He
added more cheese to the plate and a fruity pie. Whatever was worrying her had possibly
led to weight loss, as well as emotional trauma. He only hoped the food didn’t
hurt her throat too much. He placed some of the local fruit on the plate—soft,
pink, juicy and easy to digest.

After snatching up his glass of wine and
the plate of food, he went to her. “What do you think?”

“I went to Earth once. That’s where you’re
from, right?”

Her voice was throaty, and it sounded as if
it hurt when she talked. “Yeah. We left because of the virus. We lost a lot of
friends and relatives during the outbreak. They say the population loss was
even greater than the black plague of several centuries earlier.”