Free Queen of Starlight by Jessa Slade Page B

way down to her core.
    How unfair that he could control her with a flick of his tongue. Time she did the same…
    She raised her head with difficulty against the wicked gravity that seemed to have immobilized her. He seemed equally determined to hold her in place, so she levered her hands between them, inside his shirt.
    He caught his breath, and his sucked-in belly gave her extra room to shimmy her hands higher. The crisp scrape of hair across her palms made her close her eyes. Her fingertips skimmed the beads of his nipples and his hips bucked against her thigh.
    “Etta,” he growled into her neck.
    “Yes, Captain?”
    He bit her. Not hard, but enough to make her fingers tighten in surprise.
    He groaned. “Again.”
    She did and then he was over her, his big body pinning her in a curve to the seat and viewport, and his hands were everywhere, unwrapping her veils to get to the simple white tunic shift underneath. With one hand, he eased down the neckline of her tunic, exposing her shoulder. With his other hand, he reached for the hem, pushing it up her thigh, then trailing his fingers back down the length of her leg.
    As was l’auraly custom, she was barefoot to better experience the flow of life around them. But of course she’d also been taught to keep her skin soft and supple, a blank canvas for her future patron. So the path of his fingers over her arch made her foot twitch in reflex.
    He grabbed her ankle, and the lock of his big hands around her slender bones made her heart catch again. Only her years of training kept her foot arched, her pose at once graceful and yielding.
    He stared into her eyes, so close the shining rim of Qv’arratz gleamed back at her from his dilated pupils.
    “I want you,” he said.
    “I feel that.”
    “I don’t want to want you.”
    “I feel that too.” She touched his cheek. “I won’t take anything you don’t give me, Corso. I can’t.”
    “But what if I—?” He cut himself off to kiss her again, hard, without the teasing heat from before, just the possessive fury of two suns locked in a declining spiral orbit.
    Ah, she needed him to fall into her. She must use everything she had been taught, everything she knew in the depths of the qva’avaq. Feminine power flowed through her. This time, he would not stop. She wouldn’t let him.
    With a hand anchored at his nape, she drew herself close against him. His hand slid up her leg from ankle to knee to thigh, setting fire to every nerve and thread of crystal along the path. She writhed, letting the motion ruck her skirt higher, reveling as his big, calloused hand tightened possessively on her hip. The bench under her was warm from their body heat. The parts touching him were much, much hotter.
    “No underthings,” he murmured. “I love these backwater planets.”
    “The traditional l’auraly keying ceremony undergarment has nine latches, thirteen ties, twenty-one threaded rivets, and two locks,” she informed him, her voice husky. Oh, by all the shining stones, she was melting.
    “Good thing this isn’t a keying ceremony.”
    She drew back just enough to meet his smoldering gaze. The distance seemed to cool the torque around her neck. “It could be.”
    “Etta...”
    She kissed him, as hard as he’d kissed her. No, harder yet, at least it felt that way with the crystal crushed between them.
    She slipped the tunic from her shoulders. The fabric slithered down but snagged on her breasts.
    “Benedetta...” Instead of a rejection this time, his groan was pure entreaty. He swept the material away, his hand fisting in the folds as he stared.
    This was not how a l’auralya unveiling should go. If she’d been given in the traditional way, the a’lurilyo would have his payment in one hand. With his empty hand, he would accept the qva’avaq ornamentation while her l’auraly mentor retrieved the payment and bowed out.
    When they were alone, she would undo the many closings on her ceremonial undergown—although she’d