Chapter 32 – Love and Loathing #2
"Sashen." His voice was tentative, but not rough with sleep. I remembered that abaya needed a lot less sleep than humans. I remembered the morning he'd woken me up and asked if he could touch me, when he'd clearly been up for ages, eager and waiting.
How long had he been awake, my cock stiffening against his back, grinding slowly against the plush curve of his ass?
"Sorry," I said, trying to blink away that string of images.
The sheets rustled softly as he moved, the bed shifting under his small movements. "Do you want to fuck me?" he murmured, his head facing away from me.
The question made desire tighten immediately in my belly. A tether gripped and pulled. My throat was dry and I stayed perfectly still. "I shouldn't."
I meant that we shouldn't, that it was a bad idea, that it was stupid when we were on such shaky ground and emotions were high and we were headed into an interview with some judicial body and had to talk to them about everything.
Sex usually didn't mean anything to me, but it felt like it meant something with Araxis, and we didn't need anything to be messier than it already was.
That's not what he heard, though. His legs shifted, and I realized he was taking his pants off under the covers; that he'd been untying his waist and easing them down, and now he'd pulled them down over his calves.
"You shouldn't want to," he repeated, "but you do.
If you fuck me like this, you don't have to look at my face –" there was an edge of a subvocal there, faint, "so you can use me as you see fit. "
The lights beyond the bedroom were beginning to warm to daylight colours, like sunrise spilling in across the floor.
I shifted and looked at Araxis's back, my chest hollow.
Use me, he said. You don't have to look at my face.
I could see in the line of his shoulder that he was suppressing a tremble, and he was doing it badly.
I knew what it felt like to be used, and he certainly wasn't the first person to do it.
My whole life, that's what I'd been: an object to make use of.
First, I was a child shaped into a mould I didn't fit, a tool wielded by the righteous to ends determined by a god that didn't exist. Then I was a thing that existed to make money for Alet Trident.
I was an object of desire for clients, who used me to chase their own pleasure.
I was a character in a drama in the Tournament, my worth only in my ability to generate interest and engagement.
And of course I was a virra to be moved and used in order to gain status for Creche Thiel.
That was true, and Araxis had looked at me every day on the ship like I was worth something. And when he cared for me, I didn't feel like a pet or a particularly difficult plant. I felt like a person. I felt cherished. Maybe I even felt loved, at least some of the time.
"I'm not going to do that," I murmured, and allowed myself to roll toward him.
My hands moved to my waist and I untied my pants, sliding out of them; my cock sprang free, the relief immediate.
I shifted to my knees and reached for him, pulling his body toward me.
For a moment, he resisted, muscles taut, shaking – but then he gave in, rolling to his back beneath my hands.
I nudged his knees open and slid between them, curving my body down towards him.
In the dim light, I let my fingers stroke the side of his face.
A startled intake of breath slid past his lips; his features were stoic, although I could see the sheen of his eye as he took me in, uncertain.
"Why?" he murmured, lips barely moving, even as he pressed into my touch. His body shifted beneath mine, his hips moving, and my other hand slid up the length of his muscular thigh, curving around the back of it, feeling the strength of him.
"Because it doesn't feel good to be used, not even when you think you deserve it," I said gently. "I don't want to be your punishment, Araxis. I won't consent to that."
His eyes were gleaming as he stared at me. "Oh." His chest rose and fell beneath his soft shirt, shadows shifting in the hollow of his throat. My hand on his thigh moved, thumb skimming up his inner leg until I found the slick that had already gathered on his skin.
"But if you'd like to fuck, not because you owe me anything but because you'd like to… I could fuck you like this." I shifted my hands so that they rested on his hips, his thighs on either side of me, his back flat on the bed. "Or would that make today more complicated?"
He was quiet, throat working. And then, gently, he reached for me, fingers trailing up my forearm. "Could we pretend, just for a little while, that there isn't a universe beyond this room? That the morning won't come?"
I exhaled, skin buzzing beneath his touch.
I wanted to cradle him close, to kiss every inch of his skin.
I wanted him to never hurt again, even though the hurt was of his own making and I was the one who'd been caught in the crossfire.
I wanted to protect him from his own bad decisions.
I wanted to stay in bed with him forever.
He'd given me, as best he could, a fantasy on his ship.
Maybe I could do that for him now. I nodded, moving to plant a hand up by his head, and then I curved down and I pressed my mouth against his.
A soft, surprised sound escaped him, and then Araxis's body shuddered against mine, his mouth open and pliant.
His hips shifted, rocking upwards, and my cock slid against his belly.
Araxis's hands came to my face, my neck, tracing the shape of me as my tongue slid against his, my mouth tender against his in the dim morning light.
I deepened the kiss as he held me, his hands sliding to the planes of my shoulders, insistent, firm, and I reached down with one hand and ghosted my fingers along his slick slit – tentative. Araxis jolted, and then he surged upwards, mouth hungry against mine, tongue plundering. Voracious.
My fingers traced the shape of him, the scaled texture outside of his slit, the wet heat along its length, as my thumb caressed the pink plate covering his cock, and he whined, deep in his throat.
His teeth caught on my lip, tugging, tongue swiping away the pain a second later.
My cock throbbed with heat, and my hips pulsed forward, chasing friction against his body.
I wanted to be patient. I wanted that but –
"Please," Araxis murmured against my swollen mouth, my fingers dipping inside of him as he squirmed beneath me.
Quivering, hot, willing. So I shifted my wrist, sinking three fingers into him, and his channel spasmed around me.
I crooked my fingers, and tracing the hard length of his cock through the inside of his channel.
I thrust slowly, gently, rubbing against the ridges inside of him, and I could tell from the way he gasped against me that he wanted more.
I wanted to treat him well, but there was a part of me as well – petty and maybe a bit unkind – that wanted him to beg.
To make him say the words. So I nuzzled my mouth against the long line of his throat, teeth grazing his skin as he rumbled and keened beneath me, his fingers divoting the skin of my shoulders.
"Please what?" I mouthed against the skin where his neck met his jaw.
My fingers thrust into him, a steady rhythm as his hips flexed against me, his slit dripping.
"Sashen," he breathed, tipping his head back.
I slowed the pace of my fingers, pushing into him and then easing out, and I knew from experience that could be its own type of exquisite torture.
My fingers were curled hard against the top of his channel, rubbing against his cock through his slick walls, and he was panting against me.
"Will you –" He bit back the other words, hips rocking against my fingers, his channel growing tighter even with the gentle thrusts of my hand, the languorous drag of my fingers within his responsive body.
"Use your words," I ground out, angling my hips so that my cock would stop brushing against his taut abdomen.
Even that minimal friction was taking me closer to the edge than I'd intended; between the taste of his skin and the slick heat of his passage, the breathy sounds slipping from his mouth, the glide of my fingers into him –
"Use –" He hissed, as I withdrew my hand and pulled back to look at him. I wanted him to know I was looking at him. He'd shut his eyes, his face a pale oval in the dim light of the room. "Will you fuck me with your cock?"
I reached up with my hand, wet from touching him, and brushed my fingers against his chin.
"Look at me," I said, and his eyes fluttered open.
Those pretty dark eyelashes, those pretty eyes; his pretty swollen lips, the pretty flush darkening his skin.
I could tell it was a struggle, that he wanted to glance away, the black of his eyes gleaming and flickering with movement.
He drew in a shuddering breath, and brought himself to meet my stare. "Good," I murmured, tracing my thumb over the curve of his lower lip. "I want you here with me. Alright?"
His chin dipped, just slightly, and I knew I had him.
I moved my body down, using my hands to shift the angle of his hips; my cock brushed against his wet entrance, and Araxis let out a sharp breath.
He reached for my hand; I let him take it; and I nudged the head of my cock into his slit.
He was all heat and pressure, and I bit back a groan as Araxis's hips shifted against mine, urging me deeper.
I gave myself a few moments to adjust, to make him wait, barely thrusting into him, gentle and shallow. And then, when we were both making breathy, strangled sounds of desire, his eyes fixed on mine, boring into me, I slid all the way into him, deep and certain, right to the hilt.