Chapter 6 Yara
YARA
Idon’t remember moving.
I just remember the feeling of him—Grau—everywhere.
The couch shifts beneath me as his weight follows mine, his body folding over me like an eclipse, blocking out the rest of the world. One clawed hand cradles the back of my skull, while the other traces down the curve of my spine with inhuman precision.
He moves me where he wants me—not with violence, not with cruelty, but with authority so complete, so absolute, that I find myself yielding without hesitation. There’s no room for doubt. No room for anything but now.
I’ve never felt so exposed.
And I’ve never felt so safe.
“Mine,” he murmurs, breath skimming across my throat, hot and primal. “All of you.”
The words shouldn’t work. They should sound like a possessive line in a bad romance sim. But when he says them, I feel the truth of it in my bones.
He means it.
He means me.
His mouth finds the hollow of my collarbone and trails heat downward, slow and sure, until I’m gasping under every brush of his lips. The sharp edges of his bone spurs never hurt—they only tease, skimming past sensitive skin with maddening restraint.
“Grau,” I whisper, my voice already wrecked.
“Shh,” he says against my stomach. “I’m not done admiring yet.”
His tongue drags down my belly, slow, wet, deliberate, pausing just below my navel like he knows exactly how close I am to losing control.
The sensation short-circuits something in me.
My back arches before I can stop it. My legs try to close on instinct—some last, futile attempt at self-preservation—
—and he pries them apart with large, steady hands.
“You open for me,” he says, almost conversational, like this is the most natural thing in the world. “You stay open.”
My cheeks burn.
But I nod.
Because I do.
Because I am.
Because in this moment, I would give him anything.
Then his mouth is on me.
And everything else disappears.
The world vanishes in a flood of sensation, each stroke of his tongue a new star exploding behind my eyes. His mouth is hot, skilled, relentless—alien in the way it moves, the way it learns me instantly, like my body is a language he already speaks fluently.
His grip is unyielding. One arm loops under my thigh, hauling me closer, while the other braces my hip in place like I might float away from the sheer intensity of it. I can feel the strength in him even when he’s holding back, every muscle coiled, controlled.
He devours me.
There’s no other word for it.
Like a man who’s found religion and decided to worship at the altar of my pleasure.
I moan—long, low, helpless. The sound spills out of me before I can stop it, my hips stuttering forward, chasing his mouth, begging without words.
He gives me more every time I need it. Every time my body pleads, he answers—adjusting, shifting, learning, like he’s calibrating to my nerves in real time.
“You taste like sin,” he growls between strokes, voice rough, almost wrecked.
He laughs—dark and low and laced with something feral—and the vibration alone almost pushes me over the edge.
But he doesn’t let me fall.
Not yet.
Not until he’s ready.
He teases me to the brink and then pulls back, licking a slow line up my thigh before rising to loom over me again.
I’m trembling.
Not from fear.
From anticipation.
He takes in my flushed skin, my swollen lips, the sheen of sweat clinging to my collarbones. And he smiles—that same half-wicked, half-awed expression that wrecked me the first time I saw it.
“Turn over,” he says.
My breath hitches.
But I obey.
I feel the brush of cool air as I shift, feel the couch’s fabric scrape against my knees and palms as I position myself. The heat of him behind me is immediate—a living furnace pressed to my back as his hands trace the curve of my ass.
“So perfect,” he murmurs.
I barely have time to process the compliment before his fingers slide inside me.
My cry echoes against the walls.
He works me open, slow but demanding, until I’m panting into the cushion. Until every muscle in my body is strung tight with need. Until I can barely think through the fire curling low in my belly.
“I’m going to ruin you,” he says, his voice a low rasp against the back of my neck. “And you’re going to thank me for it.”
“Yes,” I breathe. “Please.”
He pulls his fingers free with one last lazy stroke, and then I feel him shift behind me.
The weight of his desire is impossible to ignore.
When he finally presses himself against me, I shudder.
Not just from size.
From want.
From the unbearable anticipation of being filled by him. Of finally knowing all of him. Of letting him have me.
But he doesn’t enter me.
Not yet.
Instead, he says, “Show me how much you want this.”
I glance back.
He’s sitting now—lazily, legs spread wide, cock hard and dark and glistening with restraint.
“Come,” he says, crooking a finger. “On your knees, little star.”
I go to him.
Gladly.
Because this is not about obedience.
This is about hunger.
I settle between his thighs, eyes locked to his. He watches every movement with an intensity that steals my breath.
“You want this?” he asks.
I nod, lips parting.
“Say it.”
“I want to taste you,” I whisper. “I want to feel you.”
His eyes flare crimson.
Then I take him into my mouth.
And he groans—deep and raw and unfiltered. His hips twitch, but he holds still, letting me take my time. Letting me learn him the way he learned me.
I savor the weight of him, the texture, the way his breath hitches when I swirl my tongue just right. My fingers curl around the base, stroking as I move, and every growl that escapes him is another victory, another pulse of heat low in my belly.
I want to feel him. To experience him. To taste him all over.
I take him deeper, savoring the stretch of his cock against my tongue, the way the ridges pulse subtly under my lips, warm and strange and utterly addictive. He growls low in his throat, hand fisting gently in my hair—not to control, but to anchor himself.
“Stars,” he grits out. “Yara… your mouth…”
I moan softly around him in response, letting the vibration roll through him.
He twitches.
“You keep doing that,” he warns, voice tight, “and I’m going to come down your throat like a goddamn warhead.”
I pull back slowly, licking the tip like I’m reluctant to let go. “Maybe I want that,” I murmur, my voice thick with arousal, lips swollen and slick with him. “Maybe I want all of you.”
He stares at me like I’m dangerous.
Or sacred.
“You have no idea what you’re inviting,” he says.
“Then show me.”
He lunges.
I’m on my back before I can blink, pinned beneath him with a force that’s all hunger, no harm. His mouth is on mine instantly—hot, deep, claiming—kissing me like he’s trying to memorize the shape of my moans.
My legs wrap around his hips without hesitation.
“Now,” I breathe, nails dragging down the ridges of his back. “I need you inside me.”
He doesn’t tease.
He doesn’t wait.
He thrusts in, hard and smooth, and I cry out—half in shock, half in pleasure so intense it steals the air from my lungs. He fills me completely, the fit impossibly perfect, the weight of him pressing into my bones.
I cling to him, head tipping back, lips parted in a gasp.
“Oh my god—Grau—”
“I know,” he snarls into my neck. “Fuck, Yara. You were made for this.”
He moves.
Deep, punishing strokes that drag the edge of every nerve, that split me open around him and leave me raw and radiant. Our bodies slap together in a rhythm that feels ancient, fated, holy.
He shifts his angle.
I scream.
His cock hits something deep and devastating, and I arch off the couch, clenching around him with a helpless cry. The pleasure is overwhelming, white-hot, crashing through me in waves.
“Yes—yes, don’t stop—please—”
He fucks me like a promise.
Like a claim.
Like the stars themselves are watching.
When I come again, it’s brutal—wracking through me like a storm tearing down a wall. I sob his name, shaking, lost. He follows, thrusting deep one final time, growling low as he comes, spilling into me with hot, thick pulses.
After, he doesn’t move.
Doesn’t pull out.
Just holds me.
Breathing hard, his forehead pressed to mine, red eyes glowing in the dim room.
I blink up at him, dazed and aching and utterly wrecked.
“I think,” I whisper, voice trembling, “you broke me.”
He chuckles—soft and rough, like gravel under silk.
I wake up cocooned in danger.
Not metaphorically. Not emotionally.
Literally.
Grau’s arm—thick as a hydraulic piston and twice as warm—is slung across my stomach, his claws twitching slightly against my bare skin. One of his legs is hooked over mine, keeping me anchored. Wrapped. Claimed.
His breathing is steady, deeper than sleep and edged with something predatory even at rest. I feel the rise and fall of his chest behind me, the soft brush of his breath against the back of my neck.
And my first thought isn’t panic.
It’s comfort.
A dangerous, inexplicable comfort.
My body hums with it. With him.
There’s soreness between my thighs, heat lingering in places I didn’t know could burn, and the faint, delicious ache of being touched—worshipped—by someone who meant it.
The night was… more than I can explain. Intense. Consuming. Like stepping into a solar flare and not getting burned.
I’ve never felt anything like it.
But the light creeping through the slats of my window blinds? That’s reality. That’s consequence.
And consequence doesn’t give a damn about pheromones or eye contact that makes your stomach drop.
I ease out from under him slowly, carefully, not because I’m scared, but because I don’t want to wake him yet. Not until I’ve had a chance to pull myself together.
The moment my skin leaves his, cold rushes in. The sudden absence of his heat makes me feel… hollow.
Don’t be stupid, Yara.
I pull on my robe. It smells like lavender and synthetic detergent and not like him, which is both a relief and a disappointment.
He shifts behind me.
Then he speaks.
“You’re trying to sneak out of bed without a goodbye?” His voice is still husky with sleep, deeper and rougher than usual. It curls around me like a lasso.
I glance back.
He’s lying on his side now, one arm tucked behind his head, the sheets twisted around his hips in a way that should not be legal. Red eyes glow faintly in the early light, tracking every inch of me like a hungry thing just barely restrained.
“I wasn’t sneaking,” I say, trying for cool but only managing flustered. “I was… regrouping.”
His lips twitch.
He pushes himself up, spine unfolding in a series of smooth motions, like some kind of predatory cat stretching after a kill. “You regret it?”
“No,” I say instantly, then wince. Too fast. Too honest.
I cross to the kitchen, not because I need coffee, but because I need distance. A barrier. Something to do with my hands that doesn’t involve trailing them over his skin again.
I activate the brewer, pretending not to feel his eyes on me.
“But,” I continue, pouring a cup I don’t really want, “this doesn’t change the situation.”
He cocks his head. “Which situation?”
“Any of them. All of them.” I take a breath. “Grau, I run a company. One that’s already skating on the edge of disaster. I cannot afford personal distractions interfering with professional responsibilities.”
He rises—naked, unashamed, devastating—and pads across the floor with a grace that makes my pulse jump.
“Distraction,” he echoes. “That what I am to you?”
I lift my chin. “Last night was… incredible. But it doesn’t change the rules I live by. My job is too important. If this”—I gesture between us—“gets tangled up in that, people could get hurt. Or fired. Or worse.”
He stops in front of me, looking down with that unblinking intensity that made me melt under him hours ago.
“I’m not asking to sit in on board meetings,” he says. “I’m asking to be near you.”
“And I’m saying those worlds have to stay separate.”
He studies me.
Silent.
Then, to my surprise, he nods.
“All right,” he says.
Just like that.
I blink. “That’s it?”
“You said what you need. I heard you.”
My stomach does a weird flip. “And you’re… okay with that?”
“I didn’t come here to play corporate games, little star.” He leans in, just enough that I catch the edge of his scent again—spice and leather and heat. “I came here for you. If that means keeping our connection behind closed doors for now, fine. As long as it’s not gone behind them too.”
“It’s not gone,” I whisper.
His eyes darken. “Good.”
He brushes a knuckle down my cheek. Not claws. Not spurs. Just skin. Gentle.
I shiver anyway.
“Because I don’t share,” he says softly.
I nod. “Neither do I.”
There’s a long pause.
Then he leans in and presses a kiss to my forehead—tender, claiming, real—before stepping back.
“I’ll let you get to work,” he says. “But I’ll see you tonight.”
It’s not a question.
And I don’t argue.
Because I want that too.