Ensnared: An Alien Romance Trilogy (The Spider’s Mate Book 1)
Ensnared: Chapter 23

Though all Ketahn wanted in that moment was to be inside Ivy, to sate this consuming hunger, he remained in place and dragged his gaze over her body. The silk dress cradled her breasts and hugged her waist, following the curve of her hips. The bottom reached the middle of her thighs, leaving most of the pale flesh of her legs bare for him to appreciate. In the crystal’s dull light, the fabric was a silvery blue that made her eyes seem all the brighter.

To see her wearing something he’d created, something he’d given her, made Ketahn’s chest swell. It was his silk, his crafting, his gift, and it was on his female. She was not vrix, but she was beautiful.

Ketahn filled his lungs with Ivy; her scent dominated the air, that irresistible sweetness layered with the heady, demanding fragrance of her arousal, creating something stronger and more alluring than he could ever have imagined possible.

His stem throbbed, pierced by a deep ache that spread outward to the tips of his legs and fingers. In all his life he’d never needed anything as desperately as he needed her now.

And this time, he wouldn’t fight it. He was done fighting it. The Eight had led Ketahn to Ivy, and it was well past time to claim her.

He closed the distance between them. Her eyes flicked up to meet his, gleaming with uncertainty and yearning. With his upper hands, he grasped the straps of her dress at her shoulders; with his lower, he took hold of the bottom of the dress. The backs of his fingers glided across her warm, soft skin as he lifted the dress. Ivy shivered and raised her arms, not resisting as he removed her clothing. Her hair tumbled around her bare shoulders as it came free of the fabric.

The uncertainty in her eyes grew, and she crossed her arms over her breasts, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. She had not hidden herself from his gaze like this since their earliest days together.

Ketahn would not have that. He would not have her hiding from him.

He moved without thought, taking her wrists in two of his hands and prying them away from her chest. His spinnerets were already working as he raised her arms over her head and clamped her wrists together in one hand. He passed the thick strand of silk to his upper hand.

Ivy gasped and looked up, tugging on her arms. “Ketahn, what are you doing?”

“You are mine, Ivy,” he growled, winding the silk around her wrists and arms, binding them together with a series of intricate, instinctual knots. Her skin grew impossibly warmer under his touch as he attached the strand to the ceiling of the nest, allowing her only enough slack to remain on her feet. He released her wrists.

She grunted and pulled down on her arms, attempting to back away from him. He easily dragged her back to him.

Ketahn wound the silk strand lower, using it to hold her close. He looped and crossed it around her torso and between her breasts, adding more knots so it ran beneath those full, fleshy mounds. His hands moved faster and faster as he lashed the strand around her waist, her hips, her thighs, and ankles, effortlessly overpowering her when she tried to kick at him or pull her legs away.

“Ketahn!”

He caught her jaw and lowered his face to hers. “I have conquered you, Ivy, and now I claim you.”

Speaking required more effort than ever before, more focus and willpower than he’d thought possible. Between her feel, her heat, her beauty, and her scent—by the Eight, that scent!—Ketahn could barely form a full thought. His body had forced his mind aside. The desperation in his movements was as much from instinct now as from desire, and instinct demanded this—the Claiming. A female had to be overpowered, restrained, suspended. Conquered. And then he could make her his.

Somewhere in the deepest reaches of his mind, he knew what this was. He was succumbing to the frenzy.

There would be no stopping it now…not until he’d mated with her. Not until she’d taken his seed.

He spun her around so her back was toward him and wove the silk strand through the loops he’d made around her body, quickly crafting a web of interconnected anchors. His stem pulsed, the pressure within it so immense that he was certain it would burst before ever touching her again, and his heartbeats were like an unending peal of thunder.

Turning her to face him again, he raised his upper arms, stood high, and attached the strand to the ceiling at a dozen points, hoisting Ivy off the floor.

Ivy yelped, wriggling within her bindings, making herself shake and sway. “Please, Ketahn! Let me go. I don’t know what this is but let me go.”

The fear in her voice was the same as Ketahn had heard when she’d first looked upon him, and it pierced his lust-driven frenzy. Her cheeks were pink, her golden hair tousled, and her nipples hard and straining. The bindings he’d fashioned held her torso upright with her breasts jutting toward him, her thighs spread apart, and her calves bent back out of the way. Her weight was evenly distributed between the various loops around her body, ensuring the silk was not digging painfully into her skin anywhere.

Ketahn swept his gaze over Ivy. She was bared to him, exposed to him.

And she was afraid.

Drawing upon what little willpower he’d retained, he reached forward and buried a hand in her hair, cradling the back of her head. She met his gaze with rounded eyes.

“You are mine, Ivy,” he said, his voice rough and raw. “My nyleea. I will not hurt you.”

Her brow creased as she searched his eyes. Slowly, some of her fear bled away, and a trusting light bolstered her gaze. “I know you won’t. I…I just don’t know what this is.”

“This is the Claiming.”

Gently, he swept her hair behind her shoulders, placed a hand on her chest, and trailed it down. He grazed her skin with his claws, his hunger intensifying each time she trembled, each time her skin twitched, each time tiny bumps rose on her flesh. When he reached her breasts, he stroked a budded nipple between his finger and thumb.

Ivy’s lashes fluttered and she arched into his touch. “Ketahn…”

His chest rumbled in appreciation, but he didn’t linger there; her scent was too much to ignore, drawing him toward its source, toward the center of her heat, her desire. Ketahn sank low, continuing the downward trek of his hand over her belly. He teased at the short triangle of hair that pointed down toward her slit.

Lifting his lower hands to her ass, Ketahn squeezed her yielding flesh and angled her slit toward him. Her heady fragrance struck him anew, and he breathed it in greedily, fixing his gaze upon the open pink petals of her sex. They glistened with nectar, and more of it was evident upon her inner thighs.

Her scent beckoned him, demanding he taste her. He opened his mouth, extended his tongue, and dragged it along her slit.

Ivy gasped, her body shuddering. “Oh God…”

She tasted sweeter than any fruit. She tasted unlike anything, tasted like she truly was from another world, like her essence was so pure and potent that it was never meant for the likes of Ketahn. His hunger flared, declaring itself in a fierce growl that made her shudder anew. The pulse in his stem was so strong now, so rapid, that it seemed impossible for him to hold back his seed, impossible to avoid giving in to the torrent of pleasure Ivy had granted him through this single taste.

He lapped at her thighs, grazing her skin with his mandible fangs and licking away all her nectar, unwilling to let any go to waste. Then he returned to her slit. He pressed his tongue between her folds and swept it upward, sampling every bit of that slick, pink flesh, seeking every drop of her sweet essence.

When his tongue flicked over the little nub at the apex of her slit, Ivy gasped again and bucked, her thighs quivering on either side of his head.

“Oh Ketahn, please…”

Ketahn had touched that bud when he’d first inspected her slit a lifetime ago. Her reaction had been similar but for one thing—this time, she did not say no.

He lowered his mandibles, pressing them to the undersides of her thighs, and ravished her slit with his tongue. He stroked that nub, he delved between her petals, he pressed the tip of his tongue inside her and growled at the tight heat of her channel.

All throughout, Ivy pleaded, begged, and moaned, straining against the webbing, but she did not tell him to stop. She wanted only more. He had never seen a female so responsive. Had never heard such beautiful, musical sounds as those his Ivy made while he pleasured her.

Clutching her ass, he returned his tongue to that nub and circled it, flicked it, laved it with attention as he stared up at her face. Her brow creased, her lips parted, and her chest heaved with her panting breaths until, suddenly, her body tensed. She threw her head back and cried out, rocking her hips against his tongue as fresh nectar flowed from her channel.

Ketahn lifted her higher and positioned her over his face, drinking her essence as he continued to worship that nub with his tongue. He was eager for more of her, eager to watch her, eager to learn her every response to his attentions. Her cries escalated.

She writhed in his hold, struggling against the restraints, but she arched toward him, seeking his tongue. “Ketahn! Oh God, please, please, I can’t… Ah!”

Her body stiffened again as she released another flood of nectar.

It was more than he could bear. His blood blazed hotter than a goldworker’s fire, his hide was taut and tingling, and his stem was straining toward her with such desperation that it hurt. Though Ivy was the one restrained, Ketahn was the one bound—bound by his overwhelming, uncontrollable need for this female.

Ketahn rose, keeping his lower hands on her backside. He reached around her with his upper hands, banding one around her lower back and cradling the back of her head with the other, twining his fingers in her hair. His claspers extended on their own, wrapping around her hips. The tip of his stem pressed against her entrance.

Breath ragged, Ivy opened her eyes and met his gaze. The blue of her eyes was nearly engulfed by black.

Ketahn tipped her face up closer to his. “You are mine, Ivy.”

Tightening his grip on her ass, he pulled her toward him hard as he thrust forward, forcing her entrance open to take his stem. He encountered none of the resistance he’d expected. Entry with a female vrix was a struggle, a fight, a battle of strength and will against muscles determined to keep everything out.

But with Ivy, he’d slid right in, aided by her slick nectar. As though her body welcomed him.

Ivy released a pained cry. Her eyes flared, and her body tensed, but she did not push him out. Her channel gripped him, hot and wet.

Ketahn shuddered against a wave of pressure and pleasure that threatened to shatter his mind. He tilted his head back and arched his spine, burying himself deeper in her and coaxing a ragged growl from his throat. Her silken heat clamped around his stem with surprising strength, but it still did not force him out—it only seemed to draw him in farther.

Nothing in all his life had felt so good. Nothing had been even a sliver as pleasurable. And he wanted—he needed—more. More of this, more of her.

“My nyleea,” he rumbled. The heat inside him built to an unbearable degree, burning in his veins. His senses were clouded, overtaken by her scent, by ecstasy, by Ivy.

Ketahn’s fingers flexed. He could hold it back no longer.

He let the frenzy take over.

Ivy’s heart pounded, its pulse echoing between her legs where Ketahn’s cock stretched her. The initial hurt of his entry had faded, and now all she felt was incredible fullness—fullness and heat. Perspiration trickled down her spine, her neck, and between her breasts. Her skin was abuzz with sensation, and each time her nipples scraped against Ketahn’s plated chest, another bolt of pleasure spiraled through her, making her clit thrum.

Ketahn eased back, withdrawing his cock and stretching her anew as its width expanded, only to thrust back into her. The angle of his thrusts struck her clit and G-spot perfectly. Ivy whimpered. He did it again and again, each time faster and harder than the last, sharpening her pleasure, making it coil tight within her core.

It was too much. She’d never felt so full, had never been so blasted by ecstasy, and she was certain she’d come undone, body and soul. But there was no escape; Ketahn was her world now. His spicy scent filled her nose, his heat bathed her skin, his touch cocooned her, and his silk kept her bound and helpless but to feel everything.

She felt the rasp of his hide against her skin, his claspers anchoring her hips, his hands gripping her ass, and their claws pricking her flesh, all of it adding to the whirlwind of sensation swirling through her. Most of all, she felt his cock plunging in and out of her. It was pain and pleasure, a torment that scattered her thoughts into a million fragments and an ecstasy that fused them all together again as something new and powerful.

Ivy came apart, swept away by a roaring inferno that consumed her, its flames licking at every nerve, stoking her pleasure, building it higher and higher. Cries tore from her throat, and her body tensed as wave after wave of fire rushed through her. Her sex squeezed, clamping around Ketahn’s cock and quivering as liquid heat flooded her.

Ketahn hissed and quickened his pace. His claspers clutched her hips, their tips digging into her skin. His hide slapped against her flesh, and Ivy’s slick ran down her thighs. His front legs rose, darting past her on either side to slam against the wall, granting him only more leverage and making his thrusts all the deeper.

Unbelievably, another orgasm swiftly followed. Ivy’s muscles strained against her bindings, and she clenched her teeth as powerful tremors rocked her.

“Ketahn,” she rasped again and again.

His cock swelled, stretching her even more, and his already hard body tensed. Ketahn roared her name and pounded into her, his claspers clamping her in place. His shaft pulsed, somehow expanding further, and his hot seed exploded within her—but it was accompanied by a firm, fluttery sensation at the head of his cock. Something swept insistently against her cervix, stroking her inner walls.

That fluttering quickly grew in speed and urgency as the pulsing of his shaft intensified, turning into a vibration. Ivy’s gaze met Ketahn’s as her panting breaths escalated.

He touched his forehead to hers, shuddered, and growled. Another spurt of seed flooded her.

Ivy’s skin prickled, and the sensations within her built higher and higher until Ivy could withstand it no more. She surrendered.

Intense white filled her vision, blinding her. She squeezed her eyes shut as she was hurtled into another universe where only Ketahn and this intense, impossible pleasure existed. Her scream echoed into the jungle, raw with passion, with rapture, with pleasure so pure she’d been scorched to ash and reborn.

The white dominating her mind faded slowly toward black, and her awareness of both her own body and Ketahn’s returned. His arms and claspers were around her securely, holding her with that gentle strength that seemed to come so naturally to him. His embrace was all that kept her from floating away. Without Ketahn, she’d be spiraling off into the stars, drifting through the vast emptiness of space in a state of stupefied bliss.

The beating of his hearts was a comfort, a soothing rhythm lulling her to sleep…

As the darkness behind her eyelids solidified, wrapping around her like a warm, soft blanket, Ketahn rumbled, “Now you are mine, my nyleea. My mate.” He smoothed a hand over her hair. “My heartsthread.”