Chapter 16 Dancing in the Dark
SIXTEEN
DANCING IN THE DARK
Julia
Krellix and I ease away from each other but only slightly. After a moment, he lowers me so I can plant my feet back on the ground.
His heated gaze roams over me as mine does the same to him, tracing the supple outlines of his thick arms and wide chest. His golden hair no longer drips with river water but the gleam of the water’s dew is still there.
My hands are full of him, my front pressed to his, the nearness sending delightful shivers down my back.
With how close he is, he shields me completely from the evening chill.
I’m not new to sex but I’m new to him. I’m new to this.
I’ve been given details from Daisy and the other women about how it works between a naga and a woman, but I never thought I’d be in a position to act on them.
Not really. Not when the one naga that kept sneaking into my thoughts, wasn’t acting like he was interested.
One night is all we have. We’ll be at the encampment tomorrow.
It will be better this way. One night. We won’t have long enough to get attached to one another… When a tear threatens to bloom, I blink it back, refusing to acknowledge it despite having more than enough reasons for it to be there.
Speckled light douses us in the day’s last golden hues.
My eyes trail down his body, over the bulge along his front, and back up over his abdomen and chest. His tail shifts in the overgrowth around us, causing the plants to shuffle as it coils between me and the tree at my back.
I wait for him to change his mind, to tell me this really is all a mistake, but he remains silent, his gaze intense with something I can’t place.
I swallow against the thickness in the air and look around, unsure of where in the forest he’s taken me.
“Are we safe here? We should go somewhere private,” I manage to say, fidgeting. “Somewhere we have room, and where we won’t be disturbed by the others, but still close by.”
“You will always be safe with me.” He stares down at me hard before shifting to my right and passing through the trees.
Waiting for his tail to unravel so I don’t trip, I follow after him.
We don’t travel far before he stops in the middle of a small clearing behind a wall of trees and tangled branches.
Little white flowers populate the ground over thick moss and clover.
With a swipe of his tail, he clears the area of twigs and stones.
Afterwards, he turns around and presses a finger to his lips and indicates for me to stay put as he slips into the shadows.
A couple of minutes later, he returns. “We are alone. Does this suit?”
“Yes. And you’re sure the others will be fine?” I won’t be able to fully relax if I’m not sure they’re safe.
“I checked on them when I left just now. They are all asleep. I will hear if they rouse.”
Already the little light we have diminishes quickly as the stars begin to appear in the sky. Soon, I’ll only have moonlight to see by.
Krellix’s eyes bore into me. Feeling tensely awkward all of the sudden, nervous with how vulnerable intimacy makes me, I kneel and untie the laces of my boots.
I focus on pulling the first one off, not wanting him to see my jitteriness.
In the past, I would go out for drinks with my date before we got down to business, leaning on liquid courage to mask my self-consciousness. Here, I have none of that.
I’m bigger than most women, taller and curvier too.
I used to work out daily between drills, praying that I’d be strong enough to face a Kett when the time came, uncaring if the extra muscle around my biceps was a turn-off.
I never cared nor wanted to be feminine, seeing no purpose in it.
I never planned to be contracted to someone for longer than a fling, knowing my career would one day send me straight to the front lines.
I never wanted to risk having babies to leave behind.
Krellix watches me wordlessly, as unmoving as a predator waiting in ambush where he towers extra high above me, making my insides squirm.
I shift my thick hair over my shoulder and tug my other boot off.
Then I slip off my socks and hide them away.
Feeling the moss beneath my feet, I wiggle my toes.
Standing to meet him head-on, my gaze moves to his middle. Still behind his slit, his cock remains hidden.
That’s a good thing right? He’s not fully ready to mate and that means he’ll be less possessive of me.
I think. It wouldn’t be good if he got possessive of me.
I may someday still end up on the frontlines battling the Ketts.
In a move I’m not prepared for, he clasps my head between his hands and lifts my face to his. “Are you absolutely certain about thissss, female?” His voice is strained and rough.
“Yes,” I huff. “Stop asking me.”
He narrows his eyes like he doesn’t believe me but slowly presses his lips to mine anyway.
Passion flares between us. Immediately swept up, I fist his hair and kiss him back. Bruising lips push into mine, withdrawing only to suck in a hot breath and to graze his teeth along my mouth. Pressing my body against his, I open up to pull him in, working his kiss into something deeper, softer.
He nips my lower lip and I gasp, not expecting that from him.
Grabbing a fistful of my hair in return, he draws my head to the side and drags his mouth over my cheek and down my neck.
Clutching him so I don’t fall, I suck in my next gasp, holding back a hitch.
Trying to regain some control, my fingers dig into him as I feel his tail push up the bottom of my shirt.
Sliding his tailtip beneath, he curls it around my left breast as his right hand grabs my shirtsleeve and pulls it up and off my arm.
Freeing me from my outer shirt and undertop in several swift moves while I untangle my rifle from my clothes, we work together on getting me naked.
Tossing my gun away, I reach around to help him unbutton the clasp of my pants, but he’s already shoving them down my legs.
Half turning me, he grabs me around the front and pushes me over his arm to finish yanking them off.
In a matter of seconds, he’s stripped me almost entirely, my panties now lost somewhere in the tossed bundle of my slacks. I’m naked from my bra down.
“Krellix,” I gasp, taken aback by his roughness.
I expected this from the other nagas, but not him.
“They were in the way,” he rumbles, referring to my discarded clothes.
The evening chill deepens and a cold breeze brushes across my flesh.
My entire body erupts in goosebumps. Aware of him staring at my mostly naked backside, my skin flushes next.
With his arm still wrapped around my front, he pulls me into him.
Shoving his tail up and under my ass he rams his bulge against me from behind.
“Krellix!” I gasp his name again. I shuffle against him with an alarmed curse as he manhandles me like I weigh nothing. It’s easy to tell he’s eager. His eagerness makes me excited.
Shoving up and into my ass again, my legs spread as my feet stretch for purchase.
“Julia,” he rumbles my name into my ear, yanking my hair away.
“Do not make me wait for you. I need to know what it feels like being inside you.” With his free hand, he runs it down my front.
“Wet, hot, slick.” He cups the front of my sex and squeezes, pushing his fingers over my labia and in between, rubbing his calloused fingerpads hard along me, his small claws grazing my sensitive flesh.
“I have thought of thissss more times than I can count.”
“Calm down a little. This doesn’t have to be fast.” I grab his arm, overcome with sensation as he shoves against me from behind again, crushing my clit against his palm. Growing wet from the pressure and his rough handling, I grind down into him. “Krellix, what’s gotten into you?”
“This makes you feel good, doessss it?” He rubs his fingers over the front of me, further widening my legs as he pushes his tail under me at the same time.
“Thissss is what all of us need. What every male desperately seekssss.” He hisses and his long, forked tongue, lashes out to slide over my cheek.
“Thissss.” He pushes his hand further between my thighs, opening my legs up ever wider, spreading my wetness.
Still held to his front from behind, he shifts me back until I’m practically sitting on his bulge.
His heavy breaths, intermixed with short, satisfied grunts as he pets my body everywhere, has me already desperate for more.
I like it. I like his eagerness, his impatience.
“Yessss, Julia. Thissss.” His fingers drag through my labia then back down to bluntly circle my opening.
My body twitches from a myriad of quick but pleasurable sensations.
“Thissss is what they speak of, what I have been excluded from.” Holding me tightly against him, he brings his fingers to his mouth and licks them clean.
Moaning at the loss of his touch, I twerk my hips, sliding my sex over the top of his bulge. “You guys talk?” I whimper, pushing down on him, and seeking a return to my pleasure. He’s consuming me and I like that too.
“No. They brag, female. And now, I will know what they know, what I am desperate to know,” he grunts, replacing his hand back between my thighs. To my surprise, and as if he knows what he is doing, he probes for my opening and upon finding it, pushes two fingers into me.
“Krellix, your claws! Slow down. And you are not allowed to talk about this. What we do is between us.”
He pulls his fingers away and with a hum, brings his claws to his teeth and bites the sharp tips off one by one.
“I would never speak of you so intimately, female.” Without hesitation, he drops his hand and presses his fingers back to the entrance of my opening. “Everything about you is mine. Mine…”