Grace Goodwin - Matched and Mated

I needed a vat of it. An IV right to my heart.

Even though it was my quarters we were in, she turned and handed me a very full glass as if she were the hostess. While there weren’t grapes on Trion, there was another kind of oddly named fruit that was fermented. I wasn’t a connoisseur by any means, picking up the smoky notes and all that, but my taste buds knew a good wine when it hit them and this stuff packed a punch.

Natalie took her own glass, full to nearly the top, and plopped down on my sofa. “Okay. Spill.”

As I dropped down onto the sofa in my living area beside her, we both knew she wasn’t talking about the wine.

Sighing, I bent my knees and tucked my legs up beneath me. It had been over a month since I’d last seen Brax and I missed him. Terribly. “It’s Brax.”

“Of course it is.” Natalie looked at me with nothing but sympathy in her blue eyes. “Did you talk to him today? What did he say to you? That jerk, I’ll strangle him if he wasn’t good to you.”

“What? When? I thought he was out on a mission.” What the hell was she talking about? Brax was here? In the city?

And he hadn’t called me?

Oblivious to my pain, Natalie kept talking. “He was here, last night, giving his report. I assumed he told you he was leaving again tomorrow, and that’s why you were upset.” Her raised brows and matter-of-fact voice made me feel like I’d just swallowed an entire bucket of ice. Brax had been… was here, in the city? He was alive and well and hadn’t seen me in weeks.

I shook my head and took a gulp of wine. “No, that’s not why.”

Maybe it would have been, if he’d contacted me.

But he hadn’t called. Not once. No messages. No comms. Nothing. I’d been in total communications blackout for the last five weeks trying to focus on my little students, worried sick, imagining him dead and rotting in the sand, lost in the middle of the desert. I’d imagined scorpions climbing in and out of his eye sockets—and they didn’t even have scorpions on Trion. I’d been going crazy with worry, thinking I’d made a mistake the last time I saw him, thinking I’d misread his words. Waiting for him to get home so I could ask him once and for all to be mine. And he’d been here? Home? In the city and NOT calling me?

“Shit.” I didn’t normally cuss, at least not out loud, but this was too much for my brain to process and keep control of my mouth at the same time.

The last time I was with Brax, I’d fallen asleep in his arms, too blissed out on sex swing induced orgasms to do anything else. When I woke up, he, too, was asleep. He’d said our time was short, that he’d leave again in the morning.

The idea of watching him walk away—again—had been too much. I hadn’t been able to be there when he left. Again.

And after what he’d said, when he’d been fucking me as I’d been tied to that swing— you will look beautiful one day, Miranda, when your mate adorns you properly— I knew I couldn’t stay. Couldn’t say goodbye. I had come to realize that he had no intention of ever being my mate. He spoke openly of another male taking on that role even while he’d been buried balls deep inside me.

He intended me for another. Not for him.

And so I’d left, sneaked out in the middle of the night. For the first time in all the months we’d had sex, I’d done the walk of shame. Felt that our friends with benefits arrangement was… cheap.

I took a big gulp of wine. Then another.

“Okaaaay.” Natalie dragged out the word. “Then what’s up?”

“I think you were right,” I said finally.

Her mouth dropped open and she stared, wide-eyed. “What time is it?”

“What?” I asked, frowning. “Eight-thirty? Why?”

“Because you never say I’m right. I want to get this on record.”

I rolled my eyes and laughed, took a gulp of the wine. “Whatever. I’m done.”

“Done? With what?”

“Friends with benefits.”

Understanding crossed her face. “Why? The sex isn’t good anymore?”

I thought of Brax and the way he moved his hips. How he could work his tongue in some magical way that made my eyes cross. The way he filled me up, took his time, had claimed me completely, in every way. Front, back and sideways. He knew every single inch of my body, intimately. My pussy clenched just thinking about him. My nipples had been sore for days from the jeweled nipple clamps he’d used. Adorned me with. He said he liked to see me adorned, that they were gifts to me. And yet I’d left them on his bedside table. For the next female he took to his bed.

Based on the way his cock hardened as I squirmed when he’d put them on, he liked seeing me with them on, seeing the effect they had on me. He knew it made me hot, made me wet, made me beg for it rough. Wild and untamed.

“Hello? Earth to Mira?” The laughter in Natalie’s eyes made it clear she knew exactly what I’d been thinking about.

“Yeah, sex is not the problem,” I replied, squirming on the couch. The sexy little outfit I’d worn that night was buried in a drawer. Tonight, I had on some Trion-style loose pants and a good, old-fashioned Earth t-shirt. My hair I’d put up in a messy bun. “God, if it got any better, I might not survive.”

Natalie grinned. We didn’t talk all that much about her sex life; Roark was ridiculously possessive, but I knew she was never left unsatisfied. Having had a baby recently, I imagined she should still be sitting on an ice pack and trying to remember the last time she’d showered. One thing Trion had over Earth were those sweet ReGen pods. Two hours after having Talia, she had been completely recovered. I had no doubt she and Roark had already been practicing for baby number three.

And yet I didn’t even have a male who wanted me for more than sex. Oh, I’d asked for the arrangement with Brax, so I didn’t feel used. Hell, I’d used Brax’s cock as much as he’d used me. But I wasn’t his mate, had only been adorned temporarily. I knew Natalie was adorned with all the customary jewelry of a Trion mate. Nipple rings—not just the jeweled nipple clamps Brax used on me—and a thin chain running between them with Roark’s medallion. It was hidden beneath her clothing, but sometimes the outlines of the adornments were visible. And more than once, on special occasions, she wore gowns designed to show them off. Sexy, flowing pieces of clothing that made her look like a sex goddess.

When it came to exuding sex like a Trion female, Natalie had it down.

If we weren’t on a strange planet having sex with aliens, I’d think we were living in some kind of desert sheik porno. All we needed to do was go to Outpost Two, in the middle of the desert, to make the scenario complete. That’s where the leaders on the continent gathered for their meetings. Roark had dragged us along once. Well, insisted Natalie and Noah accompany him. I’d been the tag-a-long. And to be perfectly honest, I loved the tents and the piercings—or adornments— as the women here called them. They were intimate and taboo and hit all my hot buttons. But the sand? Umm… no. The sand I could do without.

Whatever. It turned out I liked sheik porno, especially with my own super-sexy, super-dominant sheik. Or doctor.

“Sex isn’t enough anymore,” I said, finishing off my glass and reaching for the bottle to give it a refill.

She tilted her head, eyed me. Her glass was still full. I wasn’t sure if she could drink and nurse, but maybe she was just holding the cup for me, because when I was done with the bottle, I’d be emptying her glass, too. Didn’t want to waste any.

“You fell for him.” She wasn’t asking.