Chapter 19
She initiated the kiss, and every calculation in my mind blanked. For eons, I had known the curves and oscillations of power, and still I teetered between wanting to devour her and the mortal terror of breaking the thing I desired.
Her mouth was relentless, needy, more than the soft mouths I was accustomed to whenever the carnal urges took over, and I ventured out of Nox Eternum.
Hers was ferocious, lips parted and tongue searching, and I wondered for a moment if I'd ended up on the business end of a predator.
I pressed her body against the comm console.
She must have forgotten she wasn't up to my mass, because when she pushed, she only succeeded in pinning herself in place, caught between my chest and the unyielding cold of the bulkhead.
Her hands ran up my ribs, mapped them as if she might someday have to rebuild me from memory.
For a scientist, she had not yet internalized what it meant that an Arkhevari's flesh is not so easily undone.
But I was not about to teach her restraint.
Carefully, I lifted her and set her on the nearest chair.
She reached for me instantly, not willing to cede an atom of distance, and I obliged by kneeling at her feet.
Every culture in every galaxy had protocols for moments like this.
Sometimes a song. Sometimes a ritual. Sometimes, a carefully worded memo about consent and consequence.
I had learned long ago not to overthink the form it took.
Nadine didn't wait for any of that.
I slid the fabric of her dress upward inch by deliberate inch, feeling the tension stretch thin between us.
Heat rolled off her in waves, sharp and undeniable, each new patch of skin meeting air like a challenge.
I was larger, stronger, built for conquest, but this wasn't about force.
This was about friction. About restraint turned into weaponry.
Her mind brushed against mine. She wanted the slow burn. The anticipation. The moment when my control strained just enough for her to feel it tremble. She wanted to watch me want her.
There was far more fire in her than her composed, analytical mind had ever let on, an intensity she had mastered, not extinguished. And now that she'd decided to let it surface, it burned hot enough to make the universe narrow to the space between us.
I worked my hands up, past the trembling of her thighs, careful not to bruise.
Her breath was already ragged. I buried my face at the apex of her, tasting salt and heat and the chemical tang of her need.
She gasped, then clamped a hand into my hair, hard, as if to confirm that this was real, that she could leave a mark somewhere on me.
She would not, but I respected the effort.
Tremors passed through her, gathering momentum, and by the time I slipped my first finger inside, followed by another, I had to hold her steady against the counterthrust. She writhed, arched, tried to pull away and pull me in both at once, and I pressed until her cries vibrated through the deck.
Her thighs locked around my head. She tasted of dark honey.
Her walls tightened against my fingers; her heat and need wrapped in a fragility that sharpened my focus instantly.
My cock reacted without permission, hardening, but I held back, suddenly aware of the difference in our size, the risk of overwhelming her.
Her response wasn't fear—it was readiness—but it demanded care, control, and patience.
She was wet, the taste of her slick was already changing my own chemistry, accelerating my hunger.
I flicked my tongue against a raised spot at the front of her folds to explore it.
Applying slow pressure first, then faster after she let out a sharp breath, I began to alternate, matching the pulse I could feel pounding through her entire system.
Her hands scrambled for something to grip—my hair, the console, the edge of the table—each time I focused on that spot, the tremors grew.
A low, throttled noise bled from her throat, more animal than human, and it made me want to swallow her whole.
Her legs began to spasm, her hips lifted to meet every thrust of my fingers.
I spread them wider, not because it was necessary, but because I wanted to see every muscle tighten, wanted to feel her open for me until there was no room for denial or doubt.
I drew her closer, sucked the magical spot, circled it, then released, letting her teeter on the edge before plunging my tongue deep inside, tasting her, building her back up.
She was glorious like this: untethered, stripped of every defense, her body nothing but nerve and electric need.
"Frygg," I gasped, feeling my own control slipping.
Precum leaked down my shaft in anticipation of it being buried inside her.
It didn't matter. I didn't stop. I hooked my fingers, pressed hard against a spot inside her that seemed to correlate to the one outside that so unraveled her.
I was right, she went rigid. Her eyes flew open, not blue now but black-shot, pupils blown, unblinking.
For a heartbeat, she stopped breathing, then came apart in a series of short, feral cries, her entire frame locked in place, then shuddered as the wave crashed over.
I slowed, gentled my grip, kissing her through the aftermath, licking up the mess I'd made.
Her taste lingered in my mouth, addictive.
When I finally rose, she was slumped against the back of the chair.
I braced an arm to either side of her, caging her in, unable to stop myself from staring at the flush creeping up her throat and across her face.
Her breath evened, but she stayed still, eyes closed, lips parted. When she finally found words, her voice was hoarse. "That… is not… how human sex works."
I smiled, slow and hungry. "I'm not human." I made no move to hide my own need. My erection pressed against her.
She gave a ragged laugh, then opened her eyes, meeting mine.
She let go of my hair. When I looked up, she smiled at me, triumphant, but also a little stunned.
Her dress was rucked to her hips, one breast had escaped its containment, and she made no effort to fix either problem.
She dragged me upwards by the front of my armor and said, "You next. "
She caught her breath only long enough to get her hands under my tunic, but then stopped, pulled back, squinting as if recalibrating. "Wait," she stopped, running her fingers over my side. "What is this?"
I shrugged. "A scar, from the First Collapse."
She traced it, a fractal line of darkness that wound from my hip to my sternum, and when her touch reached the center, I shivered involuntarily. "Does it hurt?"
"Not anymore." But for the first time in eons, I felt my nerves under the destroyed skin respond to touch.
She pressed her palm flat against it, then leaned in and kissed the spot gently. I nearly lost control. I had no vocabulary for this; it was a pleasure so sharp it bordered on pain, gentleness so precise it threatened to undo every defense I'd spent many mortal lifetimes constructing.
She reached for my belt and undid it with surgical efficiency. In moments, she had me exposed, and her hand was around my cock, so small a hand, and yet so hungry. She studied me with the academic detachment of a woman who has dissected the idea of wanting, only to discover it has teeth.
"Jesus Christ," she exhaled softly. Then, more reverently, "You weren't kidding about the evolutionary advantage, were you?"
"No," the word was more a groan than a statement.
She tested the weight of me, then thumbed the slit, rolling her palm over the head. I arched into her, unable to keep from growling softly. "Careful," I warned, "I haven't—"
She cut me off. "Good."
And then she took me in her mouth, slowly, with purpose, and every theory I had ever built about control burned away in the heat of her.
She was careful of her teeth, but not shy about using them to remind me she could do damage.
I held her face, refusing to move, forcing stillness even as every cell inside me howled for motion.
"By the great abyss, stop, female, or I'll come right now."
She paused only for a quick moment. "That's the general idea."
I lost it then. I came, barely catching myself before I could hurt her, holding her at the base of me and letting the rest go with a violence that nearly bent the deck plates.
She swallowed, then leaned back and wiped her chin with the back of her hand. "You taste like copper and starlight," she hummed, hazy and pleased.
"Is that a compliment?"
She grinned. "You tell me."
We sat there for a minute, both of us stunned, both of us blinking in the silence that followed. The only sounds were the hum of the ship and the new whine of an overheating circuit. I could smell her now—on my hands, on my face—and it was the most intimate thing I had ever experienced.
She was the first to break the peace. "So, that's what it's like to fuck a god." She said it in the tone of someone crossing an item off a list.
I got to my feet and scooped her up, easy as breathing. "Not yet," I told her. "We're only halfway there."
She shrieked, but made no further protest when I carried her down the corridor to my quarters, where I unceremoniously dropped her on the bed.
We shed out of the last of our clothing, staring at each other's bodies.
Naked, she looked like a goddess, taking my breath away with every inch of exposed skin.
Her core was already soaked and eager, but when I guided her down, I felt her tense at my size. I held her underneath me, watching her eyes widen as she felt the pressure. Every instinct demanded I push into her, claim her completely, but I remained still, jaw clenched with restraint.
"Slowly," I murmured against her throat, my voice barely recognizable. "Take only what you can."
She nodded, determination in her eyes as I lowered myself inch by agonizing inch.
The tight heat of her enveloping me was exquisite torture.
Her body trembled with the effort of accommodation, stretching around me as if she had been crafted precisely for this union.
When she finally took all of me, a sound escaped her, half pain, half wonder.
"How..." she whispered, her forehead pressed against mine.
I held perfectly still, giving her time to adjust, fighting every primal urge to thrust into her. Only when she began to move did I allow myself to guide her hips, our bodies finding a rhythm that built gradually from careful to consuming.
For the first time in my existence, I let the boundaries fall.
Not just the walls I showed the universe, but the ones beneath them.
I felt her, truly felt her, not as a presence brushing my mind but as something interwoven with it.
Unfiltered. Brilliant. Fierce. The singular intensity of that moment eclipsed memories of wars and collapses, of eons spent holding reality together through sheer will.
When it was over, I stayed where I was, resting my forehead against hers, breath uneven, aura finally quiet.
The universe had not ended. The Abyss had not won.
And yet, everything was different.
She laughed softly, a breathless, disbelieving sound, and shook her head. "Okay. I feel like there should've been some kind of warning label."
I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them just enough to look at her. "You survived," I stated gravely. "That was the warning."
She snorted. "You're impossible."
"I am eternal," I corrected. "There's a distinction."
She shifted, propping herself up on one elbow, studying me like I was a particularly baffling equation. "So, is this the part where you tell me I've just altered the balance of the universe?"
I considered that. Then allowed myself a faint, dangerous smile. "No. This is the part where I admit the universe has been unbalanced for a very long time."
Her expression softened, not in triumph, nor in fear, but something quietly profound. "Good," she murmured. "I'd hate to think I broke it on my first day."
I huffed a low sound that might have been laughter. Might have been surrender.
"You didn't break anything," I corrected. "You reminded it of what it was missing."
She rolled her eyes. "Gods are dramatic."
"Only when they're honest," I replied.
She laughed again, this time warmer, and settled closer without hesitation, like she'd already decided she belonged there.