Sentinel's Hunger (6 page)

“What has changed your mind?”

He felt her nudging at his shields, trying to fortify herself before she thought he would bring her world crumbling down with a wrong, or worse, insufficient answer. “You belong to me,” he said.

“I belong to no one.”

He smirked as he reached down to pinch her clit between his thumb and forefinger. “Repeat that for me. I didn’t quite catch what you said the first time, prisoner.”

“I said—” She gasped and pulled against her bonds as he stroked her slick folds before slowly sliding two fingers inside her.

“Please…”

“Please what?”

“Please release me so that I may touch you the way that you are touching me.”

He wanted that more than anything but knew that he wouldn’t last longer than it would take him to free her once she put her hands on him. He was barely holding it together now, surrounded by all her female sensuality and wiles. Just imagining her fingers wrapped
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around his aching shaft and her tongue lapping his pre-come already had him poised to blast off. “Not yet.”

“But…”

Michael bent his head to take one turgid nipple into his mouth and halt any further objections.

Xevera arched towards him, tense as a whore in church.

He circled his tongue around her sensitive aureole until she was writhing and muttering incomprehensibly beneath him. He shifted his attention to her other nipple and thoroughly laved it, too, before moving further down her body in search of more sensual treats.

“Please feed me, Michael. Feed me now.”

“When I’m ready.”

“
Lilith,
you are a cruel!”

“Cruel to be kind.” He chuckled and brushed his tongue across her hot swollen nub.

She trembled as he nibbled her clit then lowered his head further to lick the dew gathered on her soft folds. He spread her labia with his thumbs and closed his mouth over her in an intimate devouring kiss of ownership.

Xevera panted and bent her knees as far as they would go. “More,
mishva
. More!”

He licked and sucked her vulva for an endless moment, driving Xevera mad with want before he plunged his tongue into her pussy as deeply as it would go and finally sampled her.

Michael moaned at the pure taste of her, female flavors exploding on his taste buds like the most intoxicating liqueur, only more creamy and sweet.

He withdrew his tongue only to replace it with two fingers, plunging and stroking against her inner walls until her vaginal muscles clenched tight around him.

Michael closed his eyes and groaned at the feel of her closing around his fingers, his cock pulsing with jealousy.

“I…I am coming, Michael!” She bucked her hips against his hand
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several times before collapsing back on the bed, panting.

Minutes later, when she finally opened her eyes, Michael lay on his side next to her, head propped on a fist as he caressed her from breast to hip with his free hand.

“That was exquisite, but I still need more.”

“I know. So do I.”

Xevera glanced at his hard cock jutting before him, the mushroom head flushed with color. She licked her lips as a creamy pearl of liquid gathered at the tip of his penis.

“Stop that.”

“I do not understand.”

“Staring at me as if you could eat me alive.”

“I am sorry.”

“Don’t be. I like it. It just takes some getting used to.” He palmed one breast and squeezed, losing himself in the soft resiliency of her flesh.

“I need more, Michael.”

Wordlessly, he climbed on top of her again, hooked her legs over his arms and saw her eyes light up when she realized that her legs were no longer bound. “Is this better?” He teased her sultry opening with the head of his penis, circling his hips as he slowly pushed into her.

“Mmm, much better. But I need more.”

“My greedy little succubus.” He thrust further, taunting her nerves with several shallow strokes before he drove into her balls deep.

“Like this?”

“Oh yes. That is it!”

He paused for several moments to appreciate the pulse of her inner flesh against his, and rolled his hips. He moved slowly, building to hard-driving strokes before he finally felt her pussy muscles tensing around him with another approaching orgasm.

Michael’s balls tightened in response and he lowered his head to kiss her hungrily, thrusting his tongue in concert with his cock. He
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was so caught up in the miraculous melding of their tongues and Xevera milking his penis, that he didn’t immediately notice the glowing orange bubble surrounding them.

“Oh,
mishva!”

“What is it?” And what was this
mishva
jazz all about? Was it his name in her language? Was it a term of endearment or a curse on his heritage?

“The circle is your energy joined with mine.”

As she said it, he saw the points of origin—a lemon-yellow light radiating from her chest and a brilliant vermilion light radiating from his—that melded to form the rich orange bubble.

“Our spirit-lights are one.”

The tone of awe in her voice and her foreign terminology made him tenser than the thought of her draining him dry and ending his life.

“There is nothing to fear, Michael. We are joined.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

She looked at him as if he was silly for asking such a question before she finally decided to answer. “You survived the hunger. We both did. That is a good thing.”

Michael wasn’t so sure anything that had him feeling soft for his captive was a good thing. Hot and lustful sex with a woman was one thing, but bonding with and relating to a demon, one of his own kind by default, was something altogether different. And relating to this particular demon came too close to touching his feelings in a way they had yet to be touched, feelings he had long buried. That an otherworldly being had accomplished the feat and unearthed his forgotten humanity disconcerted him more than a little bit.

He didn’t want to examine his feelings, the meaning of his survival, or the orange light of his and Xevera’s spirits any further than the fact that he’d had the most explosive climax of his adult life with an alien demon woman.

And he wanted more.

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When Xevera opened her eyes after a brief slumber, she fully expected to find her ankles bound again and her mouth gagged as punishment for her impudence and loose tongue. She was surprised when neither was the case, though her wrists remained shackled.

She knew that Michael was angry with her from the abrupt way he had separated from her body before he turned his back on her and went to sleep.

Xevera did not understand his mood.

She reached out to try to get into his dreams and read him, but his mind was completely closed off to her, even in sleep, his shields firmly in place.

How was she supposed to know what was troubling him if he did not let her in? How was she supposed to remedy the obvious rift between them without having at least a hint of what was going on in his mind?

She wondered how Genesis dealt with being mated to a hybrid.

Xevera would be the first one to admit that Alex had grown on her since initially appearing on the outskirts of Emsharra naked and carrying an unconscious and badly injured Genesis in his arms.

Over the last three years, he had since proven to be a dedicated recruit in the Alliance and a fearless warrior in the New Regime’s struggle to unite Inanna and Sebitu and conserve the human race through his tireless efforts with the Harvesting Program and Longevity Project.

Often Xevera found Alex’s sense of humor as unfathomable as his allusions to human pop culture, especially when he insisted on calling
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her Ms. Spock and Xena. However, no one could ever mistake him for foolish or imprudent. For that alone, Alex earned a great deal of Xevera’s affection and respect, more than she had for any human or even most Inanna.

That was, until now.

She glanced over at the back of Michael’s head as he slept and bit her bottom lip in frustration. Her fingers itched to plow through the bushy cinnamon-brown curls and feel their springy softness beneath her palms.

Xevera closed her eyes and tuned into his deep, even breathing, trying for several long moments to gain access into the intricate workings of his mind but failing miserably.

Was Michael so incomprehensible to her because the half of him that was not human was Sebitu and not Inanna? Was this difference what separated him from Alex? What made Michael feel he was unfit to love or be loved by anyone—human, Inanna or Sebitu alike?

Xevera cursed in her native tongue. She was not used to confusion and indecisiveness, did not know how to deal with the inaction and setback. She was a leader and a soldier and too proactive to let this situation continue without taking action and making her mark—good or bad but never unremarkable.

Michael had said she did not know ‘a damn thing about’ him and perhaps he was right.

However, it did not take a genius to realize he was hiding more than just his thoughts with his methodical shielding techniques. He was hiding a past that he thought was too painful and shameful to share.

Despite their vast differences, in this they had more in common than Xevera would have ever thought, more in common than Michael wanted to admit.

“Stop digging.”

Xevera started as he turned on his side to face her, keen gray-blue eyes trained on her like an arrow on a bull’s eye.

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“I guarantee you won’t like what you find.”

She raised her chin a notch. “I will be the judge of that.”

Michael curved his lips in a leer that was half-amused and half-admiring. “So you think you know me because we fucked?”

“You are being intentionally cruel and there is no reason to be so.”

“Like you said. I’ll be the judge of that.” He reached for an already hardening nipple and firmly pinched it between his thumb and forefinger.

Xevera winced at the pleasure-pain of his touch, sensation zinging straight to her center in a warm flood of lust.

He could be as cruel as he wanted. She still wanted him. Not because he sated her hunger, not because he satisfied her—though these were each immensely pleasing in and of themselves—but because she genuinely liked him and enjoyed his company.

“You think you like me, Xevera. But trust me, it’s only gratitude.”

She wished he would stop invading her thoughts like that! “You can be such an impolite human when you wish to be.”

“You should take the hint and be careful who you entrust with your affections.”

“None of us chooses who we…” She was going to say love, but snapped shut her mouth and her mind. She knew he would not appreciate the term, much more the emotion, especially from her, no matter how true it was.

He still did not trust her. He still saw her as the enemy. She felt hostility flowing off him in waves as big as the desire growing and surging through her.

“I am not going anywhere,” she murmured.

“You belong to me as long I say you do.”

They were talking about two different things, and she knew he had purposely misunderstood her meaning.

“I belong to no one.” At least, her body did not. She feared she had already lost her heart to the arrogant human who held her prisoner. She was sure that he knew it and refused to acknowledge the
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fact.

Was it because he did not feel the same way and did not want to entertain her embryonic fantasies of an impossible relationship? Or did he just find enjoyment in seeing her suffer from his remorseless rejection?

“I see my prisoner didn’t learn her lesson from our first encounter.” Michael mounted her, straddling her hips, and Xevera immediately raised her legs to wrap around and bring him closer to her.

“I am not a prisoner, either.”

“You’re saying you want to be here?”

“I am saying I want to be with you.”

“I think you’ve forgotten why you’re here, Xevera. This isn’t a romantic tryst between you and me. You’re my captive and I’m your jailer. We aren’t lovers.”

She gasped when he nudged her moist folds with the tip of his penis, gyrating his hips as he viciously drove into her. It would have been painful had she not been so wet for him already, but Xevera tightened her legs around his waist welcoming him, welcoming his roughness. “That is a nice speech. But you do not frighten me, Michael Constantine.”

“You haven’t seen the real me yet.”

“I know.” But she would.

He growled, as if to refute her thought and not her words, alternately circling and pistoning his hips, movements simultaneously sensuous and brutal.

Xevera eagerly matched his strokes, arching her neck until he slid his arms under her back and curved his fingers around her shoulders to pull her closer.

She buried her face against his chest, inhaling the raw male scent of him, reveling in the tangy taste of his skin when she pressed her lips to his pecs. She darted out her tongue, teasing a flat male nipple before impulsively sinking in her teeth. She felt his cock grow harder
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inside her as if in response, squeezed his flesh with her inner muscles and drank from him ravenously.

Michael suddenly threw back his head and stiffened between her legs as he released a guttural cry.

Xevera held him to her and reached out beyond the violent pants in her ear to experience his tumultuous feelings and thoughts instead.

He was displeased that he had come and even more displeased that he enjoyed coming inside her more than any woman. He did not like wanting her, did not want to need her as much as she needed him.

“Shit,”
he hissed before rolling off her and leaping from the bed.

Xevera watched him as he raked a hand over his hair and paced at the foot of the bed.

His agitation was a living thing, spirit light surrounding his body in a red glowing circle that sent the temperature in the room up at least ten degrees.