Karun: A Sci-Fi Alien Dragon Romance (Aliens of Dragselis Book 2) Read online

  For minutes, we lay there, sharing breath, the beating of our hearts mating in their own erotic way. Here, still, I felt faint surges of the orgasm that had rocked through me.

  Karun rolled over to my side, keeping a hand at my breast and licking and kissing at my chest and shoulder like I was a treat he couldn’t stop eating.

  “Did that please you?” I asked, smiling and warm in this newfound intimacy.

  “Very much so,” he muttered.

  I had never made love like that. I wasn’t a virgin, but what I had done before didn’t even qualify for the term. I felt like I had crossed through a veil I had never known existed.

  The thought stuck with me. I rolled to my side, propping my head up with an arm and stroking at the hard, mossy green of his chest.

  “That was pretty new for me. Is it . . . is it always like that for you?” I asked, not really wanting to know but needing to ask because I hadn’t ever thought it could be like that. I had never imagined that sort of physical intimacy, that sense of connection. I certainly had never experienced such unending waves of pleasure.

  “No, it has never been like that,” he said quietly, one hand still upon me, unmoving, his eyes serious and difficult to read.

  I laid my head in the crook where his muscled arm met his chest and raked my fingers lightly across his skin.

  “I thought I was going to die today,” I said wonderingly.

  “You nearly did,” he added, and then, after a moment of silence, “I was terrified that you might.”

  I mused, “Maybe I did, and this is just my projection of the afterlife. After all, that was reality shattering sex.” After a pause, I asked, “Do you regret it?” I hoped I knew the answer.

  “I could never regret that,” he said as he stroked my arm. “Actually, I do regret part of it.”

  My heart sank. I wasn’t expecting that.

  “I didn’t get to spank you silly,” he deadpanned.

  We both laughed, and I swatted at him but he grabbed my forearms and pinned them to my chest, lifting me up above him just enough to lick at the incredibly sensitive skin of my breasts.

  I sighed approvingly, and he eased me back down, kissing my neck, maybe leaving marks, but who cared?

  He lifted his head and stared at me. He tangled his fingers in my hair, brushing it back from my face and playing with it in his hand.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said.

  “So are you.” I smiled, but then I wondered, “What do Dragselian women look like? Are all Dragselians as gorgeous as you and your brothers?”

  “The Dragselian race is blessed with many gifts. Compared to Earth human standards, we are exceptionally fast, exceedingly strong, our senses are more acute, and we possess the ability to heal from virtually any injury. However, like any race, there is great variation in physique and appearance. Good looks are not inherent. Though, I will take it as a compliment that you assumed as much.”

  I moved my hands, exploring his toned torso and finding the light dusting of hair that led to his remarkable shaft.

  “Are all human women so sexually voracious?” he asked, breathing more rapidly as my hands closed around him.

  Laughing as I stroked, I said, “I guess it’s just being with a dragon-man—it brings out the harlot in me.”

  He was throbbing in my palms and I was startled at the speed of his readiness.

  I sat up, pushing him down onto his back so that I could enjoy the full view of my dragon-man, naked and straining with desire.

  He was chiseled perfection, and in the warm light of the fire, I was in awe of his beauty.

  Humbled that he was in the throes of passion from my touch, I worked to earn the honor.

  Throwing my knee over his outstretched legs, I straddled his knees and bent down, bringing my lips to his swollen manhood in my hands. I licked tentatively, reading the responses of his body, and parroted his words back to him.

  “Does this please you, Karun?” I asked, dropping my voice to a seductive purr as I let the vibrations of my words shudder against his shaft.

  He groaned his approval so I continued. I lowered one hand to support the weight of his smooth, round balls. They felt taut in my hand, so I gently caressed and massaged them, then paid my respects with my tongue as I traced them.

  I wet my lips and closed them around his girth. He arched, and I felt him strain not to finish right there.

  Sucking, I lowered my chest and angled it, allowing my breasts to press against his firm thighs.

  “I need you, Andromeda,” he pleaded. I loved the sound of my name coming from his mouth, his deep, ragged with passion voice.

  I felt his legs stiffen, and he seemed to grow in my hands, in my mouth.

  I was ready to taste his hot release when he bolted upright and lifted me effortlessly into his lap, my thighs straddling his waist.

  He impaled me, making me gasp at the sheer joy and pleasure of it. We rocked like that, his face buried in my chest, my hands tangled in his silver blonde hair.

  His hands gripped my cheeks and lifted me in time to a rhythm that quickly brought me to the same level of arousal.

  My skin felt on fire everywhere, but it burned hottest where his core stone rested against the skin of my solar plexus and at the crux of my womanhood where he entered me.

  I threw back my head on a scream as he groaned and we both came together. Like before, it was a wave of unending sensation. We were locked together in the shattering release of our passion for minutes, it seemed.

  Gasping for air, I rested my head on his shoulder with him still hard inside me. Every tiny movement reinvigorated the pleasure, not just for me, but from the apparent throbbing of his member, it seemed, for both of us.

  I wanted to never leave this position. I wanted to stay wrapped around him, in his lap, penetrated, forever. Thunder struck what must have been directly above us, shaking the ground and our still joined bodies.

  “Oh, God, Andromeda,” he ground out as another wave of pleasure slid through us both. Staying still for a while, just sharing breath, the wave finally began to ebb.

  He pulled back, brushing away the hair that had fallen into my face and looking into my eyes.

  “You were right,” he whispered.

  Nice as that was to hear, I asked, “About what?”

  Searching my face, he finally said, “Something is definitely happening here.” His hand fell to just below my breasts and rested on the stone.

  It still hung between the weight of my breasts, searing me. I raised my hand to it, covering his, and remembered the sensations I felt when I had touched it as he slept.

  “When I woke in the canyon, I felt you . . . well, I think I felt this.” I loved the way his calloused hands felt tangled with mine.

  “I think I felt . . . your emotions. Is that possible? Am I crazy?” I asked.

  He tangled his fingers with mine, interlacing them and bringing them to his lips.

  “No, you’re not crazy . . .” he said, his voice trailing off. Laying us both down again, he slid free of my center. We each lay on our sides facing one another.

  I waited for him to finish his thought. When he didn’t, I prodded, “Exactly what is this thing between us?”

  He was silent for a while. “I don’t want to frighten you.”

  “You won’t, but I need to know.” I stared into his eyes pleadingly. “Ever since I met you, it feels like there has been this invisible force pulling me toward you. If you understand this or know more, tell me.”

  “I don’t fully understand. In my culture, it is something you choose to do, not something that happens of its own volition.” He paused. Looking down at our entwined hands, he continued, “If it is what I believe, we are linking.”

  “Isn’t that what Zaruv and Jennifer are going to do?” I asked, forgetting that I wasn’t supposed to have heard that conversation.

  He grinned. “So you were listening.” I blushed and gave a sheepish smile.

  “Not intention
ally . . .” I croaked.

  He laughed, released my hand, and reached behind me. The spank was quick and light. I laughed and grabbed at his hand but he was too fast. Instead, I missed and ended up rolling backward, away from him. He caught me and dragged me back, bringing my back up against the length of his body.

  I shifted, pressing into him, reveling in the feeling of our bodies molded together.

  Sucking in his breath, he muttered, “You keep doing that and I won’t be able to finish explaining.”

  Marveling at the pressure at my lower back and his stamina, I asked, “You don’t wear down easily, do you?”

  “You might say that there are many distinct benefits to Dragselian regeneration capabilities.”

  “Hey, you won’t hear any complaints from me. Okay so finish explaining before you ravish me again.”

  His arm had wrapped around my waist as he continued, “As you said, Zaruv means to link with Jennifer. They have an understanding, it would seem. Which is what confuses me—I have never heard of it happening on its own. Linking is, essentially, the joining of life energies.”

  That sounded pretty serious, and yet it didn’t really bother me. It felt exactly like what was happening.

  “It is a mating of souls, you might say. As each Dragselian is linked at birth to their core stone, so we do when we find a mate.”

  Tracing his fingers around my belly button, he asked, “Does that scare you?”

  Closing my eyes at the sensation of his rough fingertips on my skin, I answered, “No. Maybe it should, but since my brother’s death, I’ve learned to hold on to the good things when I find them and worry about the consequences later. Whatever this is feels right, and I want to see where it leads.”

  “You’re pretty reckless, you know,” he said, nuzzling into my neck.

  “I know, but that’s why you love me,” I jokingly quipped and realized belatedly that I might have just gone too far. But hell, we had both just acknowledged that our flipping life energies were mated.

  For his part, he growled and lifted my thigh, the length of him sliding into me again, where it felt so good. With his other hand, he reached over my hip and teased with his fingers, first at my breast and then lower, his fingers plunging into the small patch of curls where we joined.

  It didn’t take long for my body to start responding.

  Karun thrust slowly, casually. As he did, he whispered in my ear, “You are a jumble of contradictions, you know that? I can’t quite work you out and yet I’m driven to unravel you. I want to learn every curve of your body, explore every crevice of your soul. I want to consume you and be consumed by you.”

  He edged me slowly, purposefully closer to the brink of release.

  “I need you, Andromeda, do you understand?”

  I felt helpless against the immensity of so much pleasure and the emotion roiled within it. Still, something in me recognized what he was asking, what he was needing.

  “Yes,” I panted, intoxicated by the hedonistic thrill. “I understand,” I gasped.

  His pace quickened and surged into a rhythm far more primal. The slick glide of him, in and out, brought me to a swell of crashing ecstasy.

  I let out a cry, and we crashed in it together as he bit down on my shoulder, the brief, faint shock of it mixing with the pleasure and enhancing it.

  We were drunk on each other, tumbling through layers of sensation. Not just of our bodies. It felt like my mind, my spirit, was overflowing with joy. Every cell in my body seemed to be pulsing in the waves of our connection.

  The fire was nearly dead when I finally felt lucid again.

  I had fallen flat on my back, as had he, our hands laced together, limbs outstretched everywhere as we recovered from what we had just done.

  He had marked me as his mate.

  Maybe it was because I wore his stone that I knew, or maybe it was just so instinctive that I understood without his explaining it. We were joined now, and nothing had ever felt so natural, so honest and good . . . so absolute.

  We fell asleep to the sounds of the storm raging outside, enveloped in the warmth and safety of this newfound connection.

  Chapter 15

  Karun

  I awoke to find Andie’s lithe body draped across my side. Her breasts buffeted against my ribs, her golden hair spilled across my arm, and one leg tangled with my own. Even now, I was acutely aware of the heat of her pressed against my thigh.

  I wanted to roll her over and plunder her until she was screaming my name again. Just the thought of her sensual voice filling the small cave made me hard.

  She needed the rest, though. She was a human, after all, and was not yet fully recovered from the fight that had brought us to these canyons. While I would have thoroughly enjoyed making love to her all day long, I knew we both needed to save our strength.

  Even more, I needed to wrap my mind around everything that was happening. How was it possible that we had linked? When Dragselians linked, it was ordinarily an elaborate process involving a Spectrophotometer and hours of meditation and focus. There was ceremony and formality and . . . awareness. How had our energies linked without either of us realizing or choosing it?

  Some part of us must have chosen it. Some subdued parts of our consciousness recognized each other. It was a force I couldn’t begin to understand or guess at, but there I lay beside this incredible woman with whom I had shared the most intimate moments of my life.

  It felt right, like my body had always been meant to fit with hers. I realized that it didn’t matter how this had happened because it already had, and I felt strangely at peace with it.

  She slept soundly. The sight of her bare and resting before me aroused a sense of warmth. Not the heat of lust, though there was that too, but a new feeling. It was an emotion I had never experienced before. More than affection or attraction, it was deeper and more satisfying.

  It also reminded me that she had nearly died, and the fact was that with all of these things happening between us, still so fresh and unexplored, I was determined not to lose her.

  Mentally emerging from the cocoon of our intimacy, I took stock of our situation. Light shone in through the cave entrance. We had spent the night worshipping and discovering each other as the electrical storm had laid waste to the surface above us.

  It was morning again, which meant we were on our second day of separation from the rest of the group. We had no supplies, and what energy we had taken in from our meager meal the day before wasn’t likely to fuel us too much longer, not after the exertions of the night before.

  I slipped my arm out from under Andie’s head slowly, adjusting her back against the purple clover, and sought my clothes. The had fortunately dried from the heat of the fire that had long since dissipated.

  I was about to take off to scout for something to eat and to ascertain our location when Andie’s sleep-heavy voice stopped me.

  “Karun?” she asked, sounding vulnerable and confused.

  I turned back to her. “I’m just going to look for food and get a quick lay of the land.”

  “If you’re looking for a quick lay, you don’t need to go outside,” she teased.

  That was devastatingly tempting. She was seated now, her knees encircled by her arms as long silken waves of her hair draped around her, framing her face.

  “It is not easy to resist such an offer, but we need to find the others, especially considering we know at least one of the demons survived, possibly all. Have you tried to EE Jennifer or Hardin?”

  “Yes. When you took me up yesterday, I sent one to both of them, but I got nothing in return. The range for EE is limited, and I don’t know how far that demon pushed us from them.”

  “I have a faint idea, but in the dark and as injured as I was, I am not certain. You should continue to rest. I’ll be back with food soon, and when we’re recovered, we can set out to find their camp again,” I said, turning back to leave.

  “Karun, wait. What happens when we find them?” she asked, st
anding up and looking insecure.

  I recognized the subtext of her question. Coming back to her, I took her hands and kissed her possessively.

  “We hold on to the good things,” I said.

  Reassured, she sighed. “Hurry and come back.”

  I emerged from the cave, taking stock of the fresh rocks that had been knocked loose by the storm. There were minor changes from the landscape I recalled, but nothing terribly drastic. Large boulders dotted the vegetation and the bank.

  I shifted and stretched out my wings in the warm light of morning. It felt different shifting now that I had linked. It was as if I suddenly saw more, heard more, felt more.

  Closing my eyes, I took in the smells, checking for signs of my brothers. If we were too far for Andie to EE, we might be too far to call to them with a roar, as was the way of our people.

  Instead, I took to the air, buoyed by the sensation growing within me.

  For the first time since our exile, I felt free of the weight of our rejection. I had been held at arm’s length my whole life by all but my brothers. It was liberating to know that someone might care for or want a future with me.

  I flew further upstream, surveying the river and looking for any signs of danger. Seeing nothing, I climbed upward toward the tall mouth of the canyon where it opened up again to the broad, flat terrain above.

  As soon as I rose above the walls of the deep crag, I heard the brief zip of a stun charge the instant before it struck my leg. Two more hit me before I retreated below the rim.

  These weren’t regular stuns—these were designed to take down a dragon. Guessing from the fact that I could barely hold my dragon form, the amperage was probably around 400 milliampere, enough to knock out the average Dragselian.

  I dived gracelessly as several more charges struck the wall of crag above me. Falling as much as flying, I glanced back to pinpoint the source and saw the gangly gray figure of the demon, Baluwama.

  It seemed our enemy had been waiting. Luckily, as I clumsily withdrew, he did not follow. Unluckily, this brief reprieve was part of a longer strategy with which I was well acquainted.