Sure, he hadn’t expected to go down this path so soon, if at all, but that body moved so beautifully against his he’d thought about intimate contact between them more than once or twice in the last sixty seconds…and repeatedly since he’d started this dance.
There was no way something that felt this good could be bad.
A hot mouth covered the sensitive spot below his ear, right where his jugular pulsed. Lightning sizzled through the pathways of his nerves and, in that moment, Liam’s reality changed.
* * *
Mike couldn’t stop himself. He sucked the erogenous point hard enough to leave a bruise. The accelerated beat of Liam’s pulse against his lips matched the wild tempo of his own heart.
He opened his mouth to take in a larger taste before he cupped Liam’s head and raked his blunt teeth down the arched sweep of skin and tendon. Hunger exploded into his soul. Intense and unexpected, he nevertheless dove through the gateway and into sensation like a famished man into food at a feast. In truth, that’s what he was.
It had been so long…too long…and to find that part of himself again with an alien astonished him. His body told him a truth his mind hadn’t considered. Their people were different, yes, but were the same in the heart, and that’s where it mattered.
The music paused, but Mike only noticed it because Liam shifted in his grip to pull away from his mouth and turn face to face with him. They were close enough to breathe each other’s breath. They both stilled, balanced between one heartbeat and the next.
Liam took that step.
He fitted his mouth to Mike’s and ignited a firestorm. The kiss was hot, hungry and needful and moved across his mouth with pleading abandon. It was as though he, too, felt Mike’s long-restrained passion and wanted to have it all.
Mike was happy to give.
He slanted his mouth for a tighter fit and urged Liam’s lips open with a meaningful lick. Those lips parted without hesitation, and he plunged his tongue inside. The taste and feel spun his mind, especially when Liam began to suck. Each pull tugged and teased the pleasure conduits between his mouth and his balls. The sensation was fierce and devastating and breathtakingly intimate.
He reveled in it. If that was the way Liam sucked a tongue, Mike’s dick wouldn’t stand a chance. A mouth like that could coax a man to take risks.
Yeah, he was open to the idea. In fact, he wanted more of this and was willing to— A hard hit to his shoulder punched into his haze at the same time Steve’s voice sliced into his mind.
::Break free!::
He fought to think. ::What?::
::Surface.::
The warning in Steve’s tone finally broke through the slowness in his brain enough to catch Mike’s full attention. He forced himself to pull away from Liam’s amazing mouth and check their surroundings.
His men had circled him. They smiled and chatted, but Mike registered the pattern of back-to-back and shoulder-to-shoulder positioning as a ring of defense. A glance past his people’s bodies explained why. A mass of festival-goers framed their position.
They pointed and whispered among themselves— that’s not good— and worse, some of them held those ubiquitous hand units up to their faces. The red winking eye indicated they were recording the action— a kiss?— and he knew he was about to show up on their global data feed again.
Mike stifled a wince, put on his game face, and stepped away from Liam. He noted the guy looked uncomfortable, if the hunched shoulders and red face were any indication. Mike slapped him on the back, the same way he would have if Liam had just bought him a drink, and strove for a calm expression, even though he felt about as beastly as a just-hatched.
“Thanks for the dance,” he said. ::Fall back,:: he ordered his group.
::The vehicles, :: Steve added.
Yeah, he should have said that, but in his defense he was a bit rattled.
“We got your back,” Steve said from beside his elbow.
The mass of humanity surrounding them parted as the Urilqii surged. Together, they moved through the crowd, like a flight of birds navigating through a stand of trees, each slipping between obstacles with the shift of alignment, weight and angle. All the while, they maintained an arm’s reach distance between each other. The crush of humanity thinned the farther they went from the music, but the noisy thunder of scampering feet reported followers. When the opportunity arose to quicken the pace, they took it and shifted into a fast jog that left the curious and their recording devices behind.
In time, they arrived at the area where their ground transport waited in the care of the armed protective team he’d brought along for the party. Everyone hauled aboard with the clatter of boots, chatter, and the slamming of doors. Locks engaged with soft clicks. Engines engaged with a hard cough and a primal growl.
A quick check of their surroundings—the panting crowd behind them had stopped a distance away from the vehicles, where they looked curious but not aggressive—and with a mental prod from Mike, they rolled for base.
He stared outside the window as the vehicles sped along the hard, night-darkened landscape’s protective surface and counted the pathway illuminations as they blurred past. As distractions went, it wasn’t much, but it did the job to keep his mind off what he’d just done.
The memory of his dead adnama’s face blasted into his mind.
The last moments of Arvidnan’s life. How he’d mouthed, Live for me, as the breathable atmosphere bled from his shattered space suit.
He pushed aside painful memories. Easily done this time because the glances Steve threw his way wore on his nerves. He strove to ignore them, but had to stop playing oblivious when Steve cleared his throat and worked
