Royal: A Sci-Fi Romance (The Jekh Saga Book 5) Read online

  “Know how to this time,” Luke finished for her.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s okay, then, I suppose,” Alex said. “Better than you finding me completely repugnant. I was wondering if I should stop.”

  “No, don’t stop!”

  Chuckling, he lowered his body more horizontal and took her deeper and faster, each thrust coming faster and harder than the last, the sound of their bodies coming together like an erotic round of applause.

  “Oh, God.” She squeezed him harder, both inside her and with her fingertips, and he forced an animalistic groan through his teeth. His body contracted against her—inside her—as his thrusts slowed.

  He put his head down and just breathed and she pouted. He’d stoked her to a hot peak and left her on the edge she hadn’t wanted to be pulled away from.

  But then he backed off of her and Luke sat her up before she could get her grips and try to fix her body in a way that wasn’t awkward.

  He had her on her belly and yanked her hips back toward him. “Got a condom for me?” he murmured.

  Alex grunted and the floorboards creaked.

  A minute later and there was another cock inside of her, stretching her in different places. They were shaped differently. Alex straighter. Luke a bit curved in just the right way.

  She giggled as he retreated and delved in once more.

  “Yeah, that’s what a man likes to hear.”

  “I’m sorry,” she spat in a rush. “It’s a reflex. The…sensations are…” She pulled her hips away when he slid past her G-spot—practically vaulting her off the bed. “Holy…”

  “Common response for you?” Alex asked him.

  Luke made a noncommittal grunt and tightened his grip on her hips. He was pulling her back onto his cock rather than thrusting forward, and moving her body as though the resistance of her weight was nothing to him.

  She liked having a man strong enough to move her around. Two men strong enough to move her around. She’d likely be spawning some perfectly deviant fantasies in her sleep—things she’d never asked anyone for before, and things she’d never dreamed of sharing, but she’d let them do those things.

  Tie her up and she’d pretend to resist so they wouldn’t feel guilty about being a bit rough. So she wouldn’t feel guilty about not wanting to make decisions. She made countless decisions in the line of business. In the bedroom, she wanted someone else to do all the work.

  “Gonna need to get more condoms,” Luke mused as he reached beneath her and found her tender clit.

  She would have collapsed onto her belly from the electric jolt his touch sent through her body, but he’d preemptively put his other hand beneath her and kept her propped up.

  “Or else decide not to use them. Are you on birth control, sweetheart?”

  “No.”

  He’d slowed his movements, and she didn’t like that, so she squeezed her muscles tight around him until he relented.

  “Okay, okay.” He laughed and pulled her onto him again and again, building up the pressure in her sex and making giggles fall out of her mouth as the sensations built. “You should probably get on something.”

  “A-and be the o-only woman on J-jekh… Damn, your cock.”

  “Hmm? What about my cock?” He pressed the top of her torso down so her breasts ground against the bed and there was only the tiniest pop of her ass, angled up by his arm beneath her belly. A shallower angle of entry that increased friction. Friction they didn’t need.

  God.

  Her body was starting to convulse with the first tremors of orgasm, but it was bound to be unlike any orgasm she’d ever had before. She felt like the sensation inside of her was too large for the body holding it in and if she didn’t let it out, she was going to explode.

  She’d never understood why people screamed out during orgasm. She’d never thought the sex was that big of a deal, but apparently, she simply hadn’t been with the right people. The men she’d been with hadn’t known how to touch her. They hadn’t understood her. They couldn’t get under her skin or righteously call her out on her bullshit. They could see right through her and know what she needed even when she was afraid to receive it.

  The shout started as a broken warble and built to a full-out scream as Luke plowed forcefully into her, taking her in the way she’d needed to be, and in the way he wanted.

  She didn’t know when the orgasm truly started or when it ended.

  She didn’t even know when he’d pulled out of her, only that he was beside her rubbing her back as her body quivered and there was another pair of strong, capable hands lower down, rubbing her cramping feet.

  “Luke, turn on the lights,” Alex urged.

  Luke sighed. “Lights, dim,” he turned the computer.

  The room illuminated just enough not to assault pupils sensitive from the dark. Enough for Autumn to see Luke looking down at her with something she hoped was tenderness. Enough for her to catch Alex moving off the bed in her periphery.

  She didn’t know what to say, and she suspected she looked like a horror show with her hair at odd angles and makeup smudged all over her face, so she closed her eyes.

  Luke lifted her hair from her face and stroked her cheek. “Is this too much for you? Tell me if it is.”

  “No.” She laughed. “It’s not too much. It’s nice to have someone…look after me.”

  “We’ll look after you,” came Alex’s voice from across the room.

  She turned her head over and found him standing by the side chair, nude, checking the pockets of his pants.

  She sighed. He was unquestionably a beautiful man, but so was Luke. Compared to the two of them, she was the ugly duckling, and that would never change. She was trying to decide if she cared.

  “I’m out of condoms,” Alex said. “Do you have more on your ship or in The Tin Can?”

  “Nope,” Luke said. “I can ask my brother, but I’m pretty sure Sera doesn’t want him to use them. I’ll see if Allan has any at the meet-shop the next time I go into town. Otherwise, I’ll have to get Precious to bring some back.”

  “Oh, that exchange will be a comedy show.”

  “I’d rather not ask her, but…” Luke shrugged.

  “I don’t want to be the only woman on Jekh on birth control,” Autumn said.

  “I doubt you’d be the only one,” Alex said.

  “Yeah.” Luke snorted. “You’d be like, one of three. Jekhans are actively trying to rebuild their population, so most women don’t see the point of it.”

  “What if I say no?” It wasn’t that she disliked taking precautions, it was just that she was used to taking them one night at a time rather than over the long term.

  “If you say no, we’ll be ordering condoms in bulk, I guess.”

  “Have Precious bring them in bulk,” Alex said. “Whatever’s in excess, give to Dorro and let him have them on hand for any patients who want them.”

  Autumn pushed up onto her forearms and met Luke’s gaze levelly. “Does that mean we can’t have sex again until your sister gets back from Earth?”

  Luke grimaced. “I don’t think the situation is that extreme. Someone on this farm has got to have a few. If not, there’s always the wish and a prayer method of birth control that bad Catholics like me have been practicing for centuries.”

  Autumn shrugged and laid back down. She was going to have to get into the shower, but not until her bones grew back. For a little while, she wanted to simply wallow in bliss and try to get a handle on the fact that she had two wonderful men to take care of her and love her, and she’d been expecting that the one she had wouldn’t keep her.

  Crazy.

  “The last thing I needed when so many people are suspicious of my motives is an anchor baby, but…”

  “You’ll risk it?” Alex said.

  She closed her eyes and smiled. “For you two? Absolutely.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Everyone on the Beshni farm had a place to go when they just needed t
o clear their heads, and Brenna’s place was at the edge of a field of a tall crop called agodar. She needed to think. Everything was coming together beautifully for everyone else. Valen Merridon had moved in with her boyfriend Phillip in town. It seemed Edgar Salehi was getting closer to demanding a romantic commitment from his co-pilot Eileen. Even Luke had gotten his mess sorted out, thank goodness. His infatuations for Alex and Autumn would have been evident to a blind person, and Autumn loved those men so much. She was awkward about it, but Brenna could tell she adored them because Brenna was used to being on the outside looking in and had learned the signs.

  When it came to her own relationships, she was less sure.

  She had her blanket and a book of Jekhan folklore she’d borrowed from Ara and had planned to sit in the silence for a while to decompress and think about what was going to happen with Rajan.

  He was friendly enough, she guessed, but something seemed off about him. A sort of disconnect between words and emotions, or perhaps he simply didn’t have any when dealing with her.

  “Maybe that’s fine,” she murmured, shaking out the blanket.

  Loveless partnerships weren’t unheard of on Jekh. Women had borne the brunt of being practical and self-sacrificing from the first moment the Tyneali incorporated their DNA into the human genome. Without the women’s compliance, there would be no Jekhans.

  But that didn’t feel right to her. Maybe she was too human.

  Or just…too needy.

  Watching everyone she cared about forming their own little family units was hell on her self-esteem. She was used to being the last at things, but this felt different. Relationships were supposed to be permanent, and she didn’t think Rajan even looked at her in a romantic sort of way.

  “It doesn’t matter.” She crossed her legs in front of her and fidgeted with a fallen leaf.

  She knew her role—to stabilize Rajan’s hormones and give him a child. She was okay with those things, really.

  “We could just be friends with a baby.”

  “I believe you’re shortchanging yourself, as the Terrans might say.” Herris moved out of shadows of the crops, hands in pockets.

  Startled, she put a hand over her pounding heart. She hadn’t realized he was following, though him being here wasn’t all that unusual. He walked a lot. He walked the entire farm because apparently, that served his mood better than sitting still.

  “What do you mean?” she asked him.

  He crouched beside her and draped his forearms over his thighs. “You’re not Jekhan. You don’t have to do things that way. You have the ability to set a different standard.”

  “But is that fair?”

  “To whom?”

  She shrugged. “To him? Or to the other men who desperately need women?”

  “I find concerning myself with fairness under these circumstances to be difficult.”

  “I suppose you would,” Brenna said quietly.

  “Of course, you don’t need to take my advice.” He turned his hands over. “It may be unwelcome.”

  “No! Not at all. I appreciate it.” She wrung her hands and stared at the cloth cover of Ara’s book. “I guess I don’t know how to navigate this stuff as well as Courtney or Erin have been able to. No, that’s not right. They didn’t know, either, but they figured stuff out as they went along. They had experience going for them. They knew how to deal with men, and I’m just…”

  She didn’t know, so she shrugged and felt childish for her inability to articulate her anxiety.

  She always felt so childish around the grownups on the farm—as though she weren’t one, too.

  “You’ll do fine,” he said. There was a note of certainty in his voice and no sign of jest in his expression. Just concern.

  “You sound so sure of that.”

  “I won’t let you get less than you deserve.”

  That sounded so much like a threat that she laughed. She’d needed that laugh badly, but he didn’t laugh. His smile was too flat, his gaze too sober. Her giggles fell off and, with burning cheeks, cleared her throat and looked away.

  “Leave your book,” he said quietly.

  He took her hands in his and pulled her to her feet and then wrapped her arm around his like a perfect gentleman. “Come with me, if you’d like. I want to show you where Trigrian is going to grow the plants that make the kind of fiber that goes into Jekhan shoes. I’d appreciate the company.”

  “Of course. You’re comfortable to be around.” She scoffed at herself. “Exactly what I needed.”

  “Good.” He led her past the pond and put his hand over hers, not patting, but rubbing. “Good.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Perhaps you’ve noticed the pattern I’ve set up in the last couple of Jekh Saga books. Whenever there’s a cutaway scene to a person who’s not a part of the main trio, that person is who’ll show up to lead the next book.

  You learned a little more about Brenna in Royal, and her story is coming up next in Match. I’ve partnered her with Herris and Rajan, and I think you’ll find them to be an exciting trio. The two men have very different crutches and vices, disparate long-term goals, and wholly divergent opinions about women. Brenna’s in for a wild emotional ride with them.

  Match will be out in early 2018. Make sure you don’t miss it! Subscribe to my newsletter to receive notifications about new Jekh Saga releases.

  OTHER JEKH SAGA STORIES

  ERSTWHILE

  As an adamant opponent of Terran settlement on the planet Jekh, Owen McGarry made his family name synonymous with “traitor” on Earth. Lobbyists standing to profit from off-world colonization hinted that the Jekhans were preparing to declare war. Nearly twenty years after Owen’s supposed death, his granddaughter Courtney wants to learn the truth—even if she has to travel to the far-flung colony to do it.

  Court soon learns that not only was her grandfather right about the Jekhans, but that conditions on their world are far more hostile than she feared. Terran forces decimated the population of the resident human-alien hybrids, and the people who remain seem to be all out of fight. That is, except for the pair of men Court finds hiding in her basement.

  Fugitives Murki and Trigrian see a future in Court. On a planet where so few women remain, she has the potential to be the mate the lovers need. And more, she could become the advocate for their people that her grandfather didn’t get the chance to be.

  When the corrupt local government seeks to punish Court’s friends and family for her actions, she has no choice but to make a stand. If it takes a riot to make the people on Earth see that they were misled about Jekh, she’s more than willing to start one. After all, her reputation couldn’t possibly get any worse.

  ___

  CRUX

  Erin McGarry fears she’s becoming the very thing she hates. She traveled to the planet Jekh to get her big sister, Courtney, out of a jam, and now Erin has become a colonist, too. In spite of the planet’s unstable political environment and ongoing rioting by the native Jekhans, Erin fears that retreating to Earth would mean she’d never see Courtney again.

  To complicate her ordeal further, as one of very few women on a planet of desperate men, people expect Erin to pick a lover—or two—and settle down. With the Jekhan race having nearly been obliterated by Terran colonists, Erin refuses to help further dilute their culture. But at least two men think Erin’s objections don’t hold water.

  They may have been enemies at first sight, but Esteben Beshni and Headron Jiro intimately bond over a common goal: making Erin their mate. Just when they think they’ve made headway with convincing her, the men’s efforts are choked by the reemergence of Erin’s long-missing grandfather and by unsettling revelations about the abductors who created the Jekhan hybrid race. If they can’t convince Erin that a mixed-culture ménage is the intergalactic ticket to happiness, they may miss their chance to have children.

  How can they help rebuild Jekh if the one woman who wants them both is too idealistic to commit?

&nb
sp; ___

  SALVO

  Owen McGarry’s plan to isolate himself on planet Jekh in hopes of escaping survivor’s guilt about his identical twin’s death drastically backfires when the newest inhabitant of his sister’s farm proves she can’t be trusted with independence.

  Raised in an alien lab and designed to be a “better” Jekhan hybrid, lonely Ais is actually nearly blind and can barely communicate. While her hostesses bend over backward to make Ais feel welcome, their brother Owen treats her like a petulant child who lacks common sense. After enduring a quarter century of experimentation on a cold Tyneali space station, Ais wants to feel useful and wanted, but Owen thinks what she needs is to be locked away for her own good.

  Lust and affection bloom in close quarters when gutsy Ais shows she’s more than a problem for Owen to solve. His gruffness doesn’t deter her. She soothes his wounded spirit and can actually put a smile on his face, but love on Jekh is never simple. Ais is being hunted by three entities with competing agendas, and they won’t stop until they have her.

  Owen didn’t move to Jekh to play hero, but if he doesn’t want to see true love slip away, he’ll have to quickly learn to be one.

  ___

  WAGER

  After sixteen lonely years on Jekh, ex-soldier Jasper Escobar resorts to drastic measures to land one of the most sought-after women in Little Gitano. Access to the mysterious Sera Merridon comes at a steep price, because behind the scenes, solitary men like him bid huge sums of money for chances at romance.

  Untrusting Sera has spent more than half her life being traded from one Terran space pirate to the next. When schoolteacher Marco Cipriani helped to liberate her from her traumatic existence as a space station courtesan, she wondered if perhaps not all of Earth’s men are the same. Sensitive Marco chases her fears away, so of course she wants him to be her lover and companion.