Chapter 20 #4
Stars above, I loved him. I nodded, staring at the colour gleaming across his cheeks.
I wanted to press my mouth against his skin.
I wanted to see how he'd command me when he was focused entirely on pleasing me.
I wanted to be pliant and easy for him. "Uh, okay.
What do I want? A lot. I want anything and everything but –" I cleared my throat, forcing a hard, quick breath out through my lips to try and centre myself.
"But you said you were going to court me properly and I've deduced, I guess, that a proper courtship means…
holding off on sex, even though I'm virra.
Would this – be a problem? Would it mess things up for you?
There's a lot I want, but if what you need is to do this…
right, culturally speaking, then – then I could wait. "
God, I didn't want to wait. It felt like I'd been waiting for weeks, and I suppose I had been. I'd been waiting for, hoping for, this exact moment. This resolution; this new beginning; this – atonement.
He fluted out a breath. "No, it would not be a problem, Sashen.
I wanted to wait so that you could see that my affection for you is not rooted in your gender or in the political value you offer me.
I thought… perhaps it would be another way to demonstrate how serious I am about you.
I do not want you because you are virra, although I cherish all of who you are; I do not want you because you are…
a coup. I wish to have you as my partner, as my boyfriend, because you are exactly as you are. "
"And now?" I asked, a little breathless. I still didn't understand how he did this to me with just words. "Has that changed? Or did you still want to wait?"
"I have made my apology to you and I trust – I trust that you can see that I cherish you for who you are. And you have said you'd like to have sex, and I would very much like that as well." His smile grew sly as my heart thundered in my chest. "Would you mind that I have not courted you properly?"
"By my estimation, this is the third time you've courted me.
And you've dated me. And you're my boyfriend, so –" I tried to infuse the words with some humour so that I stopped feeling quite so bruise-tender, but I still sounded flustered even to my own ears.
"I don't think fast-tracking this courtship will ruin my virtue or whatever.
I know, I know, I'm very shy and reserved and demure but –"
Araxis pushed forward to his knees and reached for me, taking my face in his hands and tilting my chin upward so that when he pressed his mouth against me, he was leaning down, devouring me from above.
At once, he knocked the breath from my lungs, his fingers purposeful and confident as he held me like I had value, like I was a treasure.
I felt strangely small beneath him; one hand shifted to cradle the back of my head, possessive, certain, his fingers tangled in my hair. I felt them tighten, my scalp prickling pleasantly. "You like this, yes?" he breathed against my mouth, as he held me in place, commanded me.
An embarrassing whimper caught in my throat as his sharp teeth toyed with my lower lip, his tongue, slick and cool, tasting my mouth.
He leaned back, just a little, to study me, and gave my hair a gentle, experimental tug so that my entire throat was bared to him.
"Like this?" he asked, black eyes boring holes into me from above.
If you'd have told me a year ago that I'd want nothing more than for a space prince to pull my hair and bite my neck, I'd have thought that was a distinct possibility.
If you'd have told me that he'd also say the softest, sweetest things to me and that I'd be entirely in love with him, that I would feel safe in his hands and would swear to keep him safe in mine, I'd have laughed you out of the fucking den.
"Yes," I gasped out as he tipped his head down, tracing lines down the column of my throat with his teeth.
My skin was tight and hot, my cock thickening as he held me with such certainty, as he pressed fevered kisses against the vulnerable skin of my neck.
Then, my voice hoarse, lips tingling as his teeth scraped against the base of my neck, "Will you –"
"Give you the caldathess," Araxis murmured. He bit down gently, so gently, his teeth barely making an indent on my skin – as soft as a kiss. "Yes. If you will permit it."
"Yes," I hissed, desire throbbing beneath my skin. It felt like all the universe had narrowed down to the wet heat of his mouth on my neck, the barely-there pressure of his teeth, like all of the desire coursing through me had pooled at that single place.
"Hm." The hand in my hair shifted a little as he tilted my head away from him, so that the expanse of skin beneath his mouth was wider, more open – ripe for the picking.
I could hear, as if underwater, the sound of the chains in my ears tinkling together; I could hear the steady drumbeat of my own pulse, tempo speeding up.
"I will mark you when I make you come. You'll like that, yes? "
Fuck. Fuck, yes I'd fucking like that. My tongue darted out to my lower lip, and some set of muscles somewhere in my chest started trembling as he held me, kneeling over me, my head tugged back with his mouth on my throat.
And then Araxis let me go and sat back down, folding his hands primly in his lap like he hadn't just ruined me with a kiss and some hair-pulling and what didn't even count as dirty talk.
He blinked serenely as I stared at him, wide-eyed.
The corner of his mouth twitched as he suppressed a pleased smile.
"I will put away the dishes," he said. "Then perhaps you might unbraid my crest, and we could shower together?"
"Alright," I said, hoarse. I would have done anything he asked, then, my cock painfully hard in my soft lounge pants.
His stare scraped over my body as he sat, unbothered and composed, and his smile grew sharper. "I will be back soon." And then he stood, gathering up the dishes on a tray as if this were any other day, and he ambled from the room, closing the door behind him.
I sat there, body throbbing, and rubbed a hand over my mouth.
My fingers traced down the line of my throat where Araxis's mouth had been; they rested over the spot where he'd mark me, where his mark had once been.
I'd lied to Nizanin when I said that the mark meant ownership to me.
I knew I'd been lying, but this was the first moment I really understood why.
In fact, what it felt like was belonging. Indelible proof that he had chosen me. That he belonged to me, and I belonged to him: not ownership – belonging.
I stood on shaky legs and drifted aimlessly about the room.
What did I do with myself while I was waiting for him?
I surveyed our bedroom, anticipation buzzing beneath my skin.
I made the bed. I rotated his potted plant a half-turn to keep its growth even.
I stood at the window in a beam of fake sunlight, staring out at the park beyond.
Had I ever fucked anyone under the pretense of sunlight?
I hadn't. Why did that make me feel nervous, almost?
Even when we'd fucked on broadcast, I hadn't felt shy or hesitant or – exposed. Why did I feel shy this time?
The door to the room opened as I was rubbing my thumb across my lower lip.
I heard Araxis's soft footsteps behind me, muffled on the carpet.
His hand settled at my hip, and his touch was electric – like it had been at first, like it was all new again.
But when had his touch ever been anything but a jolt of energy?
Sizzling energy crackling along unseen wires.
I shivered, but it wasn't from the cold. It was pure frisson, all anticipatory pleasure, a flood of sensation as his other hand trailed from the bare skin of my neck down the length of my spine.
I turned, and Araxis smiled at me as he nudged me backwards so that my shoulders hit the wall between the windows. He had put me exactly where I'd shoved him a few weeks before, and judging from the wicked glimmer in his dark stare, he'd done it on purpose.
One of his legs slid forward, slotting between my thighs, as his body crowded against mine.
His head tilted as he studied me, stare fixed on my mouth as my breath hitched, his body pressed hard against the length of my cock, which throbbed every time he shifted his weight.
"Would you undo my braid?" he asked, taking my wrist, lifting my hand to rest against the tight plait of his crest.
I nodded, leaning forward so that I could reach the end of his braid. He pressed into me, his skin smelling intoxicatingly of incense and spice. For a moment, it was all I could do to let my eyes flutter shut as I pressed my cheek against the side of his face.
He moved again, mouth back to the column of my throat, his tongue flicking out to lick the sensitive skin there.
He traced the line of my jaw, biting and sucking and kissing every inch of skin as I started to undo his crest with trembling fingers.
All the while, his thigh ground against me, his hips pinning me in place, while my body flushed hotter, my breath growing more ragged.
"Is this distracting you?" he murmured against my larynx, my skin buzzing with the feel of his voice against me. "You are being rather slow."
I huffed out a breath, and was pleased when he shivered against me as my breath skated across his skin. "If you touched me right now, I think I'd probably come immediately," I ground out. "So yes, Araxis, it's a little distracting. It's been awhile."