Epilogue
"Fuck, can I –"
"Yes – anything you want." His weight shifted, instinctive, as I leveraged myself off the table, rolling Araxis so that he was beneath me.
His slick had dripped all down my thigh, which he'd ground himself against until he'd come all while stroking my cock with his elegant white fingers.
From this angle, I could palm the muscle of his thigh as I pushed one leg upwards, splaying him beneath me so that I could admire him.
His body stretched out luxuriantly, pale against the dark wood beneath him, arms reaching over his head so he could press his palms against the wall.
This meeting room was small, like many of the others in this wing. We'd already figured out that we had more room to work with if we jammed the table against one wall. Not that we needed much space.
I let out a heated breath, dipping my head to bite at the skin of his stomach, tracing my tongue against the faint texture pebbling his abdomen, like the ghost of ancestral scales.
It hadn't taken me long to map all the places on Araxis's body where I could scrape my teeth against his more textured skin to great effect – his stomach, the inside of his thighs, his ankles, the skin just behind his ears, the edges of his ribs, the base of his spine and every single delicious vertebrae – and, as usual, he rewarded me with a long moan.
The muscles of his abdomen twitched under my attention, hips stuttering instinctively, seeking friction; his cock nudged against the bare skin of my chest, beading slick against me.
I looked up at him as he watched me, flushed and dazed, his black eyes wide, like he wanted nothing so badly as to commit to memory exactly what I looked like in this moment, eternally embossed in his mind.
I grinned against his stomach and shifted my head, biting his hip.
His hands pressed more firmly against the wall, heels of his palms flexing as the muscles in his arms corded: strong and pliant and mine to command.
He was an absolute feast.
I bit down again harder, and Araxis choked out another pretty moan.
"You know," I said, licking at the place I'd just been teasing with my teeth and casting an appreciative eye over his arms, "and I don't mean now, but if you ever wanted to experiment with some ropes – you would be a treasure without equal, beloved. "
The flush that pinked his cheeks was nearly as lovely as the surprised flare of his eyes and the flick of his lilac tongue against his lips. "Ah," he said, low and throaty, "but I do have an equal, Sashen. Not that I am averse. I am certain I could find an amenable instructor."
And, look, I wanted so badly to crack a joke about being up for showing him the ropes but I didn't have it in me to really consider whether that would translate, not when I had Araxis spread out beneath me.
Pleasure tightened low in my belly, my hips nudging against the strong muscles of his legs.
"How about, in the meantime, you keep your hands on that wall for me while I get you off again?
I like your arms like that. Stars, you're perfect – you know that? "
His skin gleamed, iridescent at the praise. "I can do that," he murmured, eyelids drooping so that he stared at me through his dark lashes. His fingers flexed against the wall, obedient. "Anything you wish is yours."
My smile sharpened, and then I slid my mouth down to his cock, which was dripping wet against his pale skin.
I grasped the base of his length, tracing my tongue up a scaled ridge while Araxis writhed beneath me.
My other palm shoved his thigh up so that I could control him fully. Not that he ever resisted.
Araxis liked it when I used my teeth. He liked it when I bossed him around in bed, whether that was doing exactly what I wanted to him – and what I knew he wanted – or telling him in no uncertain terms what he was going to do for me.
And it turned out that I liked all of that too.
I liked it in a way that made my heart pulse double-time, my blood turning to radiant gold.
My shoulder hooked under his calf as I swallowed down his length, his hips spasming against me. Yeah, I fucking liked this a lot.
He was quivering and twitching, his cock sliding over my tongue, gliding across the roof of my mouth.
I let one hand move down, my fingers slipping inside of his slit as he tugged me closer with his leg, grinding against me as if any space between our bodies was too much to bear.
His cock thrust gently into my mouth as I worked my fingers into him, matching the rhythm of his movements beneath me.
I traced my fingers along the ridges inside of him, which were pulsing in time with those sliding against my tongue, my mouth full of his sweet slick as I bobbed my head, drinking him down, devouring him.
I really couldn't get enough. Not even after a month in Xitera. Which wasn't to say that I wasn't getting the occasional offer but –
I pulled off, skin flushed and hot. "Just to be clear," I said as Araxis, accustomed to this particular treatment, let out a sigh that was mostly affection and only a little sexual frustration.
"That absolutely dipshit –" I had to use the English word, "from Creche Bathel can take his little insinuations and choke on them.
I wouldn't fuck that sinnenthi if my dick was on fire and he was the only way to put it out. "
At once, Araxis spasmed beneath me, but of course he wasn't coming, he was laughing, a startled and delighted trill vibrating through him.
His hands flew off the wall, clasping his throat as he trilled, and I grinned, pleased.
Good, I wanted him to be able to laugh about that shit-show of a meeting.
Despite being on pretty fucking shaky political grounds, Creche Bathel hadn't been repentant, useful, or even fucking polite – which was particularly egregious given their support for Creche Naival's deplorable and now officially illegal writ of propitiation – and we had the afternoon's ceremony to contend with as well.
I wanted him to be sated; I wanted him to be glowing. And in order for him to be luminous…
I slipped out from beneath his thigh, shifting upwards. "I thought I told you where I wanted your hands," I said, low, and Araxis beamed at me, his eyes gleaming, his skin flushed.
"Yes, you're right. I am sorry, Sashen. I will have to do much better."
The muscles of his arms flexed, his body warm and pliant beneath mine, and I couldn't wipe the smile from my face, no matter how fun it sometimes was to play at being serious when we were fucking.
Which we were doing a lot of, here in Xitera.
And, sure, I could have said it was all strategy: strategy to help establish Araxis's status; strategy to help remind him of his power; strategy to continue to strengthen the bond between a (sort of) sinnenthi and his virra.
Except, really, it was just because we wanted to, and I hadn't yet found anything in the universe that felt better than being close to Araxis.
I liked the way he opened up for me; I liked the way his hands felt on my body; every part of my body liked every part of his, just like every part of my soul loved every single part of his.
Even my darkest corners reached for him, although I kept him safe from the worst parts.
I blinked, and one of his hands had drifted away from the wall so that he could touch the side of my face, thumb stroking my cheek. I leaned into the touch, lost in how he made me feel. I can do better, he'd said.
"You don't have to do better, not really," I said, chest aching in a way that was totally different from how my dick was aching at that very moment, throbbing where it touched his thigh. "You know that, right?"
His expression softened, his touch against my face gentle. "Yes, beloved, I know that. And you know that as well, yes?"
I could certainly pretend that was true. I could pretend for him.
"It's a shame, though," I sighed, shoving myself up, shifting my weight as if to move away. "I thought you wanted to come again, but I guess maybe I was wrong –"
He reached for me, catching my wrists with his strong hands. "I can see I've let you down," Araxis murmured, grip certain. "Perhaps there is something I might to do show you how contrite I am?"
And then the bastard fluttered his eyelashes at me, and I was a goner.
In the end, he knelt between my legs as I sat on the edge of the table, jerking me off and tracing the length of my dick with his angular tongue until I'd been ready to come all over his pretty face.
Instead, I'd hauled him into my lap, fisting his cock and fucking him hard enough that, when I'd come, his slit vise-tight around me as he bit down on the caldathess, I'd been gasping desperately for air like I'd just sprinted from one end of the Great Hall to the other, stars shimmering before my eyes while my body trembled.
And it was pretty fortunate that Araxis had a thing for praise, because as usual, in the end, all I could gasp against his skin as the aftershock of yet another ground-shaking orgasm rippled through me, was that I loved him, that he was perfect, and that he was mine.
"What do we have," I asked conversationally, once we'd done a perfunctory clean of both ourselves and the surfaces in the room and we were each trying to pull back on the delicate layers of formal wear that were now decidedly rumpled after their rough use, "another three rooms?"
"Four," said Araxis, reaching to undo and then re-plait a short section of his crest. He plucked out the gold beads which had come loose, instead dropping them into my waiting palm with a wry, pleased smile. "There is another in the west wing. It was in use the last time we passed through."