Jory Strong

Restlessness rode Raeder du’Faerin. It howled along his nerve endings with the same force as the sandstorm battering and rubbing against the outer walls of the tribe’s tent city.

He wasn’t the only one on edge.

Men he claimed as friends looked up, their expressions ranging from guarded to hopeful as he passed where they gathered in small groups, waiting—as he waited—for the council to finish its contemplations and send word to those who’d be lucky enough to claim a female, a third joined to a pairing that had already proven itself stable and useful to the tribe.

Among the Faerin, there was no petitioning for a joining as there was among some of the other tribes on Adjara. The Faerin elders met in council, listened to reports from the scouts—men who traveled to other planets in order to locate and identify the females who should be brought into the tribe—then decided which bonded pair of males would take her as their third.

The council’s decisions were final. Its word, law. And the matching of a given female to a pairing wasn’t subject to negotiation, only to acceptance or rejection.

Raeder had never heard of anyone turning down the chance to add a third, though occasionally a pair returned to their home world without the female they’d gone to claim. It was not an outcome he understood or found acceptable. It didn’t matter whether the females were initially willing to be brought to Adjara or not—in the end they all made a place for themselves in the tribe and most found great happiness.

As he drew near the tent that was home, Raeder’s hand went to the erection hidden beneath the loose folds of the robe he wore during those months when the tribe lived in the desert. Anticipation turned his thoughts away from the council elders and their deliberations.

Raeder knew even as he reached for the tent flap that he’d find Haven inside—waiting not on the council’s decision, but for him to return home so they could spend the time when the sandstorm raged making love.

He tightened his grip on his penis, steeled himself against revealing any weakness. It was a game they played, a test of dominance and masculinity, each trying to make the other beg first. And though he was most often the victor, he made sure Haven had no cause to complain.

They’d been together for years, knew every inch of skin, every sound of pleasure—and yet still Raeder’s cock throbbed when he stepped through the tent opening and saw Haven sitting on their sleeping pallet.

Dark eyelashes framed gray eyes guaranteed to inspire fantasies of fucking. And unlike most of the Faerin men who wore their hair short, Haven’s was a black mass of waves flowing down his back to stop at his hips.

Raeder had wanted Haven from the moment he first saw him at the spring gathering. He’d known the attraction was more than physical even then.

“Come here,” he said, his voice harsh with command as he unbelted the robe and it slid to the floor, leaving him standing in only a loin covering.

Haven smiled at having correctly guessed the mood Raeder would return home in. He flopped backward in a lazy sprawl so his loosely fitted trousers settled against his hardened cock, revealing its state and tormenting Raeder with it.

“You know I don’t obey those kinds of orders,” he said, sliding his hand beneath the waistband of his pants and wrapping his fingers around his penis. Reveling in the tightening of Raeder’s face and the pant that escaped before Raeder clenched his jaw against another one.

Haven slowly pumped his hand up and down his shaft, shivered as exquisite sensation shot through him. The only thing better would be Raeder’s mouth, and if this played out the way he’d planned, that’s what he would get. He lifted his hips on a moan, letting Raeder see and hear how needy he already was, knowing that only rough, dominating sex would take the edge off Raeder as they waited for the elders to finish their contemplations.

Lust pooled in Haven’s belly, fueled by fantasies of sharing a woman with Raeder, of making love to her together and separately. He imagined her soft and submissive, delicately featured and wonderfully curved as she knelt in front of him and took him in her mouth as Raeder watched, as Raeder mounted her.

Arousal leaked from the slit in his cock head. Haven used his free hand to push the light trousers down, watched Raeder’s hand tighten on his cloth-covered penis before taking a step, and then another—silently conceding a measure of defeat as he closed the distance between them.