A vision of his dark head between my legs floats into my brain, his thick tongue on me, and my body clenches in sudden desire.

I bet he’d be as good at it as he says he is.

I cough gently, and his hot gaze flickers to my face.

“I will not touch you unless you request it,” he says gravely, then narrows his eyes. “And you are not well enough to request it.”

“Right,” I manage. “Well. Now that that’s cleared up, can you trade me the soap for my underwear?”

“You would trade me your undergarments?” A slow, mouth-watering grin tugs up one corner of his lips.

“Ah, it’s a figure of speech. I just meant… will you hand me the soap?”

“And I get to keep your undergarments.”

I duck my head under, blowing bubbles out from my mouth in a steady stream.

What if I said yes? That he got to keep my undergarments?

What if I want him to do everything he says he’s going to do?

Maybe something’s wrong with me, maybe it’s the vestiges of fever or snail slime or whatever, but it’s true.

I want Draz. I want the big alien warlord, and what’s more… I like him. A lot. I can’t think of one person who would take care of me like he has, save for my crew. I rise up on my tiptoes, breaking through the water again.

He closed the distance between us when I was underwater, and I stare up at him. His chiseled jawline, the complete confidence in his eyes. The scar, which is somehow unbearably sexy. The long, black hair, now drawn up into a strap on top of his head.

And he only looks more masculine and delicious like this.

“Soap?” It comes out a croak, and his smile deepens, eyes raking over my face, to my exposed shoulders, to where the tops of my breasts are visible in the water.

He takes the underwear from my hand, but he doesn’t hand me the soap. He weaves the underwear around his wrist, where it looks obscene, floating next to his arm in the water.

I’m hardly breathing.

Draz circles around me, the water not deep enough here to cover the thick muscle of his chest. His tail creates a strong current as it lashes back and forth in the water. The surface is anything but still now.

“Can I touch you, Ni-Kee?”

“Yes.” I exhale as his powerful hands run over my shoulders. Gentle. Undemanding. Exploring. It slowly turns to slow circles, delicate and careful.

I’ve just given him permission to touch me, and I expected sex. Wanted it, even.

Instead, the warlord washes me, soap lathering up on my skin and smelling of something clean and herbal I don’t have a name for.

The muscles in my shoulders gradually loosen, the ache of disuse and lying quiet on a cave floor for days on end melting away under his ministrations.

He works his way over one arm, then the next, and lower… down my back, until my eyes are squeezed shut with anticipation.

One hand ghosts over the naked curve of my ass, and then his touch is gone.

“Here,” he says roughly, pushing the soap into one of my hands. “I will wait to make sure that you do not fall over, but you should clean the rest.”

I’m hot all over, near-trembling, and not from the residual weakness of being sick.

But from desire.

I want Draz, and I want him badly.

I take the soap, turning towards him. Locking eyes with him. The soap skims over my front, and my hands follow, chasing the thin, foamy square. My fingertips brush over the hard peaks of my nipples.

I moan, and his diamond-pupils dilate.

“Wife.” It’s a challenge, a command.

I hold his gaze.

My hands run lower, and I scrub the soap over my stomach, careful to avoid the barely healed blisters. Lower still, and the soap rubs over the short curly hair between my legs.

The Suevan blinks, then rolls his shoulders. “You play a dangerous game.”

“I’m just washing myself,” I say, and we both know it’s a lie. That something’s changed between us, irrevocably.

There’s no going back now. Now, we’ll see who will crack first. The corner of my mouth slides up, then the other one.

“I think I should wash all my clothes, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he grits out.

“Will it bother you too much if I’m not wearing them today? There isn’t anything else for me to put on, but they really need to be cleaned.” I stand still, curious about what he’ll say.

What he’ll do.

“No.” He shakes his head emphatically, and I almost laugh. “You are the one with strange notions about your body coverings.”

“Mmm,” I say, the soap sliding between my legs, letting my head fall back.

I know I’m teasing him, this tightly controlled warlord who’s proven himself over and over again.

“Ni-Kee,” he says, and the water rushes around my legs as his big tail thrashes behind him. “What are you doing, my wife?”

“Just getting clean.”

“I do not think that is what you are doing at all,” he mutters, his fang flashing.

“Hmmm,” I answer, non-committal. I can’t stop smiling. I haven’t had this much fun in ages.

Maybe I’m playing with fire, but I like this game almost as much as I like the huge warlord staring at me with naked desire in his alien eyes.

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

OceanofPDF.com

DRAZ

The human female is capricious, perhaps meaner than I first thought. I barely restrained myself as she cleaned her whole body.

I wanted to ask if I could help her, if I could part the delicate places of her, if I could make her scream my name.

But she is healing. She is recovering, so I said nothing.

Did nothing.

And the day passed by with her scrubbing more of her clothes, parading around naked as they dried.

I could hardly make conversation with her. I shouldn’t have looked, but the image of her lush, soft body is burned in my memory.

Her full breasts, tipped in deep pink nipples, more brown spots speckled across the tops. I may have counted the 127 that scatter across her cheeks and nose, but I ache to count the rest. To catalog each and then kiss them with my tongue.

I burn to taste her.

So now, she sleeps beside me, as she has off and on all day, waking to chat and check on her drying clothes, only to eat and fall back asleep.

Which is good, because my female needs her strength.

Because when she is fully healed, I am going to ease the ache in my cock with her teasing body. For now, my hand will have to do. I slide my palm over my hard length, gritting my teeth, imagining it’s her soft pink one. Imagining she’s licking it, like she promised she would do, high on the snail’s slime. Imagining that I’ve spread her legs as wide as they’ll go, licking and teasing between her thighs, until she’s screaming my name and coming in my mouth.

And then, because she is a human, I will make her come again and again, with my mouth, with my fingers, with my cock and my xof, until she is limp with pleasure and can think of nothing but being my mate.

I work my cock into a frenzy, grunting slightly, my eyes squeezed tight.

Next to me, Ni-Kee stirs in her sleep, and the fragrant perfume of her arousal shocks my senses. My cock grows impossibly harder.

Is she aroused in her sleep? The thought sends me close to the edge, and then Ni-Kee turns over. I pause, watching her breathe, watching the rise and fall of her breasts under the thin blanket, the way her nipples peak underneath it.

When my gaze slides upward, to her face, her pretty eyes are wide open, her cheeks flushed, and her focus firmly on the hard cock in my hand.

I groan, so close to spilling, and stroke myself again, unable to stop, excited by her watching me.

“What are you doing to me, my wife?”

She sits up, her hair tousled around her shoulders, the sheet falling off her bare breasts, and part of me wonders if I am dreaming, if this is real.