Chapter 37
Ani
As someone who has two hands, one wouldn’t think of the utility of four. However, his fingers are far more dexterous than expected, his touch feeling like it’s all over me, the slide of claws making my heart race.
I let out a moan and before it is all the way up my throat I hate it, cutting it off before it can fully bloom. It’s the practiced sound. The one that’s part of a mask I don’t want to use ever again.
For a long moment all I can do is panic as I try to think of what to put in its place.
Who am I? Who the fuck… am I?
“What do wrong?” Szhe’ka asks, letting my hands go and stopping me before the galloping thoughts can take over.
“Not you,” I sing, then gulp, skin prickling as I think of a way to explain, wondering if he will judge me.
I’m about to switch languages so I can move through the concept faster, but then I realize I don’t have to.
That this beautiful, slow language I have been fighting against already holds the explanation, and only with a few words.
“Wrong song for new feathers,” I intone.
He lets out a hum of understanding, cocking his head to the side. “We make new song,” he lilts. “Your melody, my harmony.”
Is it really that simple?
“Not just now. What melody me? Which feathers mine?” I ask, heart pounding as I sing out the many notes it takes to ask.
He runs a gentle claw down the side of my neck as he ponders my questions. “One note goes to next note. Last note dies. Use again if good for song. Only then matters.”
I blink slowly, processing. He touches me gently, not rushing me, simply waiting for me to sing again. To set our direction. There is no expectation here.
A practiced moan will not be what he expects. There is no expectation. Nothing to act out. We are making this up together as we go along.
As I pull in a long, slow breath it occurs to me that I could stop all of this right now if I wanted. He wouldn’t pressure me or feed me lines about blue balls.
That thought makes my lip twitch, taking in his long blue and green feathers. It’s possible his balls are permanently blue. With a small shake of my head I throw off the mental side trail and think of what he said.
“Song can change,” I trill, a quaver in my voice.
“Yes. And song can repeat. Still your melody,” he sings, harmonics communicating his firm belief as he strokes my side.
I let out a huff, the many songs I love flitting through my mind. Repeated lines. A motif that is spun out in multiple ways before returning to the original, just to spin off from it again.
Am I trying to sing a new song after removing most of the possible notes?
A memory of playing the piano as a child and only using the black keys surfaces and I smile. It was a fun song, but it didn’t take me long to return to using white keys to make a more complex song.
Don’t throw out the notes.
The simplicity of the concept makes my brain want to point out all of the ways it breaks down as a comparison, but I hold myself in check.
It doesn’t have to be perfect to help. I’ve been so hyperfocused on what I don’t want to be, rejecting all the ways my “true” self might cross over into masks I have worn that I have left myself nothing to work with.
I don’t ever need to moan like that again, but I won’t find what comes naturally if I am focused on what I don’t want.
I just need to sing one note at a time.
And so I do, reaching for the bottom of my range, using that low resonance to take me out of overthinking and back into this moment.
Szhe’ka’s answering note thrums even deeper, creating a slightly discordant counterpoint that wavers into dulcet harmony, then pulls back into dissonance. Then again, and again, each one in time to an increasing pressure of his hands against me.
I almost lose my note when my body responds, knowing before my mind that this is just a foreshadowing of him moving in and out of me.
He’s staring at me, waiting for me to move us into another note pairing, patient enough to simply remain in this throbbing counterpoint until I am ready to drive us forward. As soon as I raise my tone up a third, moving the melody forward, his arms move just as swiftly into motion.
A fiery sensation sweeps my body as three of his hands caress my body while the last one pins my arms above my head again.
His tongue drops back to my chest, tasting both nipples before focusing on one like he is savoring an ice cream. One slow lick after another, each one doing a better job of driving me wild as he learns my body, knuckle moving against my clit more rapidly with each lick.
My orgasm comes so fast it catches me off guard, shuddering through me for a long moment and leaving me hungry for more. This is the fastest I‘ve ever been brought to finishing and it’s a little embarrassing. How is he so good at this?
“Szhe’ka, please,” I beg again, trying to pull my hands away from his grasp so I can pull him to me, have his entire weight crush me until I feel whole again but he makes a clicking sound with his mouth, as if he knows what I want and is holding it back from me.
“Be patient,” he hums before releasing my hands and letting his tongue start a dance from the space between my breasts, swirling in my belly button, sending a shiver down my spine.
I’m afraid to even breathe, watching the gaggle of feathers around his head move in the rhythm of his tongue.
I pull my arms from his grip, and reach forward to run my hand through it.
It is soft and I tug at it, earning a grunt from him as he meets my eyes, a mischievous twinkle in his that tells me there is more coming for me.
His tongue continues to dance around below my navel, along my mound, and my chest rises in anticipation, falling when he instead spreads my legs farther open and starts lapping at the wetness between my thighs.
I suck in a deep breath between my teeth, holding back the feeling of explosion. He continues to tease, broad tongue twisting and licking everywhere besides where I need him the most.
Just when I start to get used to the feeling of his teasing, the broad muscle presses flat against my mound, licking a flat base from the bottom to the top and then back down again. But Szhe’ka is not done with me yet.
My eyes bulge open, and my voice fails to reach him when two of his hands start squeezing my breasts and one knuckle slides into me, my wetness sucking it in. I can feel how wet I am, and I know that I will erupt at any second.
I want to warn Szhe’ka. Maybe push his face out before I cum but when my hands go to touch the cool, leathery skin of his head, I can’t help but hold onto the feathers and grind my hips against his mouth, thighs spread wide and pressing against the sharp ridges of his brow.
My eyes roll to the back of my head when he replaces the knuckle inside me with his tongue, the muscle driving inside me with reckless abandon.
White hot pleasure travels to the pit of my stomach and starts to make its way around my body, gathering all the momentum it needs and my body finally explodes from being so overstimulated.
My orgasm hits me like a trainwreck, separating my back from the ground and gravity only pulls me down when every ounce of energy leaves my body.
Szhe’ka still continues lapping between my legs, as if he is trying to catch the bits that he missed.
“Szhe’ka, please.” I beg him, too breathless to burst into the kind of song my heart wants to sing. I feel as though my body is on fire, weightless and thrumming with aftershocks.
When he finally gets up, he tries to move away from me but I pull him to lay with me and push my mouth against his.
The kiss is a little too chaste for me and I lick at his bottom lip, pushing my tongue into his mouth and tasting myself off his tongue.
I taste so much better in his mouth, fuck.
Who knew he was such a quick learner, figuring my body out and making it do things it hasn’t done in years, probably?
I start trailing my hand down between us both. A yawn betrays how spent I truly am and Szhe’ka takes my hand back up to his face, kissing it before letting it drop down.
“Want touch you,” I start to beg but he cuts me off with another kiss, giving me a pointed look when I pull away to yawn again. This means nothing; if he wanted to, I would go all night.
“More, when you wake.” He promises, pulling my naked body into his embrace and settling me against him. It takes me less than a second for my body to succumb to slumber, my consciousness drifting as soon as my head hits his chest.
***
He’s still humming as I rouse from my nap. It takes everything I have not to giggle and blush like a schoolgirl who’s just had her first with a crush. Or I assume this feeling is what that’s like.
It’s heady and a bit uncomfortable, but every bit as exhilarating.
Without the threat of impending doom or hunters nipping at our feet, the feelings that I seem to have developed blossom between us, birthing a new feeling of raw lust and desire. I want him more than anyone I ever have.
For once, it’s more than sex. I want to feel his body melt into mine, even if I’m not quite sure how we can make it happen.
“Is all well?” Szhe’ka’s voice pulls me away from my reverie and my eyes meet his, spotting the worry in them.
“Yes. Let’s rinse off and then I want to do more,” I tell him, levering myself up and darting off to the water, eager to be back in his arms.
He lumbers behind me as I take in the water, wondering why there seems to be a cage of logs a short way from the shore. I shrug it off and hop the rocks between sand until I am in the water, eager to rinse off.
I turn to Szhe’ka, just in time for him to slip on a rock and slash water all over me as he gains back his footing.
“My regr—”
He doesn’t get a chance to finish his song before I am splashing him back, cackling in glee when he starts sputtering.