Free Preview – His Virgin Bride

Chapter One

Katie, The Touchstone, Planet Everis

Hours of preparation. Days of seduction. Flirting and batting my eyelashes and pretending that my soul was as pure as my virgin body.

All for nothing. My beautiful ball gown was in a heap on my soft bedroom carpet two floors below. The hours spent on my hair and makeup, nothing but a huge disappointment. Bryn had escorted me to the ball, told me I looked beautiful, danced with me. Held me. Tormented me with his body, his scent, the heat he allowed to show in his gaze when he thought I wasn’t looking. But when it was time to take things to the next level? Nothing.

Again.

“Stubborn jerk.” The words were barely a whisper, but I couldn’t be more committed to their truth if I’d shouted them from the top of Mount Everest back on Earth. The Elite Hunter, Bryn of Everis, was mine, even if he wasn’t ready to admit it. I’d dream shared with him. The marks in our palms heated whenever we drew close. What more proof did he want?

I stared at the man sleeping soundly in his bed a few short steps away. Yes, it was crazy to be here in his room—even worse, roaming the unmated males’ floor of the Touchstone in just my nightgown. What was the saying? Desperate times called for desperate measures. And I was desperate. And needy. And horny.

I slid the thin straps off my shoulders and let the material fall silently to the floor so I stood naked in the light of the two moons. They were beautiful, one a small silver disk in the sky, held a prison colony. The other was the palest green, the color said to be caused by miles and miles of farming structures built into the moon. Both moons were glowing, the light on Bryn’s face making him look too beautiful to be real.

Ethereal. Mystical. I wasn’t one for romantic notions, but as I stared at his sleeping form brought to life by dips and shadows of moonlight, he looked like something out of legend. A vampire. A god.

Too perfect to be real.

I’d sneaked into his room, the formal ball over hours ago. The dancing over. The dreaming?

Over.

I was tired of trying to seduce him in the dreams we shared. I didn’t want dreams. I wanted reality. I wanted to touch and taste and feel.

Stalking to the side of the bed on silent feet, I stared down at Bryn, the man who made me ache and want and burn. Made the mark on my palm pulse.

He’d given me a chaste kiss after the ball, walked me to the suite of rooms I shared with two other brides, Lexi and Dani, and ordered me to go to bed. Ordered! As if I were going to be docile and obedient when all I wanted was to be with him. Under him. Maybe then I’d let him be in charge. My nipples hardened, either from the cool air of the silent room or from the idea of a bossy Bryn in bed.

I ignored his command. Didn’t go to bed. I didn’t want to dream. Even in dreams he was implacable, refusing to touch me. We’d been dream sharing ever since I’d transported to Everis, the connection strong, just like my friend Lexi shared dreams with her Marked Mate, Von.

But Von acted as a mate should. He touched Lexi. Kissed her. Gave her pleasure and made her feel special, desirable, wanted. Lexi’s virginities were being taken one by one in the sacred way of the Everians, the way Officiate Treva had told all the Interstellar Brides about upon their arrival at the sacred site known as the Touchstone, where new brides from the Interstellar Brides Program were sheltered and protected until they accepted their mates’ claim.

A Hunter, a sexy-as-hell alien mate, was supposed to find me, seduce me, and claim my body in the sacred order of three. He was supposed to be so drawn to me that he didn’t have a choice, he would need to touch me. He’d first claim my mouth. Then my ass. And only when I agreed to be his forever, he would claim my pussy, filling me with his seed. The idea made me clench my inner walls. Ever since that first dream, I’d ached for him, yet he left me wanting.

Stubborn jerk.

No one had ever wanted me that badly. The way Von wanted—no, needed—Lexi. The way an Everian was supposed to want his mate. Just the way he looked at her made my chest ache for the same from Bryn. Hell, no one had ever really wanted me at all. Not my parents, who’d always been more interested in their next fix or their next party rather than the two children they’d brought into the world. Not my brother, who’d found his real family in the ruthless motorcycle club and had died for them last year on a deserted dirt road two counties over. A drug deal gone bad was all the cops would say. Not my loser ex-boyfriend who only wanted me for my lock picking and carjacking skills. Not the string of foster parents who’d seen nothing but a smart-mouthed teenage girl and counted down the days until my caseworker could find a new place for me to live.

I’d left all that behind. Dead and buried, light years away. I was ready to try, one more time, to trust, to open my heart and take a chance. That decision had been a painful one. Trust was hard. Thankfully, with Lexi and Dani, my fellow Interstellar Brides and new best friends, the risk had been more than worth it. I had friends now, real friends. It had actually been easy. They were both nice, both like me, nervous about being sent to a new planet. A new life where no one knew anything about me or my past. I could start over. Try to be open to a relationship. No, a mate.

But with Bryn? If we dream shared and my mark flared whenever he was around, that meant we were Marked Mates. That gave me a little extra nudge, a little spark of hope that I could risk my heart with him.

But no. He’d left it beating, but bleeding. Why? Why was he being such a stubborn…a stubborn jerk about it? I wanted to hate him. I wished I could just shrug my shoulders and move on. But no matter how sternly I lectured the foolish organ, my heart refused to listen.

Mine. That was the only word my heart could speak when I looked at Bryn. I hadn’t believed Officiate Treva’s words. At first. But the first dream sharing had changed that. Like a switch had been flipped, I was the one focused solely on making Bryn mine. I never backed down from anything, and I wasn’t about to start now, even if that fight was with a big, brawny alien.

If he was going to keep me at arm’s length—much too far for me to get anywhere near that big cock of his—I was determined to change that. All I had to do was push him. He wanted me, I could see it. In his eyes, in the bulge in his uniform pants. We dream shared. He had to be feeling all the same things I was. So why didn’t he touch me? Claim me? We were Marked Mates. Something that everyone on this stupid planet told me was rare and special. A gift. A gift he refused.

Bryn was mine but would not touch me, despite the fact that we were sharing dreams, that the mark on my hand burned, that my entire body burned for him. I had taken a huge risk coming to this planet, choosing to become a bride rather than rot in prison for three to five years only to hit the streets again after. I’d taken an even bigger risk, listening to Warden Egara’s promises of a fresh start, a clean slate.

The past is the past, Katherine. You can be anyone you want to be. Start over.

What a line of bullshit that turned out to be. Sure, Lexi and Dani thought I was a Midwestern princess, a farm girl from Wooster, Ohio with a golden fucking halo around my head, a woman who went to church every Sunday and volunteered at the homeless shelter every week. I had remade myself, and kept my secrets.

And Bryn didn’t want me anyway.

Like a ghost, I slipped under the covers, moved closer to him. I feared Bryn would wake and toss me out, but I’d been in his dreams so often that it felt natural to be next to him, my naked flesh pressed to his muscled heat. Perfect.

As if sensing my presence, he moved toward me, pulling me closer when I draped myself over him and rested my head on his chest. The erotic scent of musk and man surrounded me and I breathed it in, breathed him in. Felt the beat of his heart, the solid feel of his chest beneath my cheek.

I closed my eyes to hold back tears as I knew the only way he’d hold me was if he was asleep. The connection was real. I felt it with every fiber of my being. Real, yes, but it wasn’t forever since he wouldn’t claim me. And I was willing to do almost anything to change that, to force his hand, to discover the truth. My mate had secrets. That had to be the reason he kept pushing me away. Damned secrets. Secrets that kept him away from me.

Enough of that shit. If he wasn’t going to claim me, then I was going to claim him. That was why I was here, naked. To take matters into my own hands. No, to take his cock into them. To feel how big he was, how hot and hard. To stroke him, then to take him into my mouth. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was going to do it, even if I fumbled.

I kissed my way down his chest, the smattering of dark hair soft and springy against my lips. I pushed the sheet down as I moved lower and he groaned in his sleep, his hands tangling in my hair. I knew from talking to Officiate Treva that the Hunter would fuck my mouth first to start the claiming process, slide his cock deep into my throat and mark me there before he would touch me anywhere else.

If Bryn wouldn’t give me what I wanted, I would just have to take it. And it was growing bigger and bigger before my eyes. Even with the minimal light in the room, I could see his cock.

I’d seen people fuck. The streets and the rough inner-city life didn’t gloss over anything. These encounters—the casual, meaningless feel of them—had made it easy to say no to men. I didn’t want a quick fumble in an alley. I didn’t want to get on my knees and give a guy what he wanted just to make him happy. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to trade my body for drugs. I’d seen too many people ruined walking that path, their lives snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane. No, it had been easy to pretend, to hide the fact I was a completely untouched virgin. My pussy hadn’t warmed for any guy. Ever.

Until Bryn.

Now, I was willing—and eagerly wanted—to climb in his bed and suck his cock. Not for favors or payment. Not for short-term gratification or a displaced sense of personal worth. No, he was my mate and I was claiming him. But this wasn’t Earth. This was Everis and if I wanted Bryn, I had to play by the rules. If that meant taking that big, hard cock into my mouth, licking it like an ice cream cone and then tasting every inch of it, then I’d do it. I wanted to. My mouth watered with the need to do so. I needed it. My body ached to find out his flavor, the feel of him against my tongue, how wide he’d stretch open my mouth.

And so I continued on, closer and closer. His skin was warm and smooth, hot against the cool press of my lips. I lifted my head, hovered directly over the broad crown. I had no idea it could stick straight out from his body, that it would almost aim right for me, seemingly knowing exactly where it wanted to be. In my mouth.

With a wicked grin, I parted my lips and sucked him down, swallowing around his huge cock until the head bumped the back of my throat. My eyes flared wide and I moaned at how big he was, how much more of him I couldn’t take. He was awake now, the tension in his thighs making them feel like steel beams beneath my palms. The fist in my hair tightened as he protested, but I sucked harder, nipped his cock with my teeth in warning. He was mine, and I wasn’t giving him up.

“Katie?” he growled. “What the fuck are you…?”

I scraped his thighs lightly with my nails on the way to cupping his heavy balls. I rolled them between my fingers as I continued to work him with my tongue. I had to hope his stalled question was because he was surprised to find me on his cock instead of because I wasn’t pleasing him. I hollowed out my cheeks, sucked as I slid my tongue over the pulsing vein. He stopped protesting then, using his grip in my hair to raise and lower my head, to fuck my mouth.

He was using me for his pleasure and for the first time, I felt powerful.

“Fuck,” he grated out through clenched teeth.

God! Yes! He was losing control, trembling beneath me. Just as I’d imagined. Exactly what I wanted. I was done waiting for him to work through whatever issues he had. He was mine, and it was about damn time he accepted it.

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