Chapter 32 #2
He explored. Up my back, spanning my ribs, finding the curve of my waist. Exploring with a growing boldness that made my breath go ragged. He slid one hand up to my neck, threading his fingers into my short hair, and tilted my head to deepen the kiss—an instinct I hadn’t had to teach him.
I smiled against his lips.
Fast learner indeed.
I pulled back. Just far enough to see his face.
His eyes were dark—almost black, the emerald swallowed by blown pupils. His runes blazed along every visible inch of skin, pulsing with a rhythm that matched his ragged breathing. His lips were swollen from my kisses, his hair disheveled where my fingers had been.
Wrecked. He looked absolutely wrecked. And I’d barely started.
Something primal and satisfied curled through me at the sight.
I reached for the living disk at my collarbone. Pressed my thumb against its center.
The suit melted away.
It rippled off my skin like water running in reverse—a cascade of black material folding in on itself, retreating from my shoulders, my breasts, my stomach, my hips, until it collapsed into the small disk in my palm. I tossed it onto the cushioned chair beside the bed without looking.
Cool ship air kissed my bare skin. Goosebumps rose along my arms.
Ryzen stared.
Not the quick, polite glance of a male trying not to look.
He stared—open, unguarded, his lips parted and his hands frozen on my thighs where they’d been resting.
His gaze traveled over me with the kind of stunned reverence that had nothing to do with technique and everything to do with genuine, helpless awe.
My bioluminescent spots flickered—pink warming toward fuchsia along my collarbones, my ribs, the curve of my hips. Responding to the heat building beneath my skin, broadcasting what my body already knew: I wanted this.
His throat worked. His runes flared so bright they cast emerald shadows across my bare stomach.
“Selena.” My name left him like a prayer. Like something sacred and profane wound together.
“Do you still want this?” I held still. Made myself ask even though the answer was already written in the emerald fire consuming his skin. He needed to say it. Needed that agency.
“Yes.” No hesitation. Raw and absolute.
I climbed off his lap. Stood before him, letting him look. Then I reached for the waistband of his pants.
His abdomen clenched under my fingers. I paused. Met his eyes.
“Still good?”
He nodded. Lifted his hips when I tugged the fabric down, helping me work the pants over his thighs, his calves. I dropped them beside the bed and straightened.
His stav was already hard.
Shorter than my other mates’, but thick—flushed with spiritforce, the shaft traced with the same emerald runes that decorated his skin. They glowed faintly, pulsing with his heartbeat, and the head was smooth, ridged with subtle textures I’d learn soon enough. Everything about him radiated heat.
He shifted. Self-conscious. He twitched toward covering himself, and I caught his hands before he could.
“Don’t.” I laced my fingers through his. Held his hands at his sides and looked at him—all of him—with the same unhurried attention he’d given me. “You’re beautiful.”
The word hit him like a blow. Something in his expression crumbled. Not pain—something deeper. Something that told me no one had ever said that to him before.
I released his hands and guided one to my breast.
His palm cupped me on instinct—warm, gentle, his fingers curling with exquisite care. A sound left my lips before I could stop it. Soft. Needy. His eyes snapped to my face, wide and searching, checking for discomfort.
“That’s good.” I covered his hand with mine, showed him the pressure I liked. Firmer. He brushed his thumb across my nipple, and I shivered. “Just like that.”
His other hand found its courage. Settled on my hip, pulled me a half-step closer. He traced his thumb in a circle over my nipple—tentative, testing—and when I sucked in a breath, his gaze darkened.
“You liked that.” Not a question. A discovery.
“I liked that very much.”
Something shifted behind his eyes. He did it again. Watched me react. Adjusted. Did it once more with a slight twist of his wrist that made my hips jerk forward.
“Stars—” I gripped his shoulder.
The corner of his mouth twitched. The barest ghost of a smirk.
Oh, he was going to be trouble.
I straddled him again—needing the closeness, needing his skin against mine. The contact was a lightning strike. His chest against my breasts, his hands gripping my waist, our mouths finding each other with a hunger that was building faster than either of us had expected.
I rocked against him. A slow, deliberate grind that pressed his stav between us, hot and hard against my slick heat. His hips bucked and a groan tore from his throat—guttural, startled, like the sensation had short-circuited something in his brain.
“Breath.” I kissed his jaw. His neck. The pulse point below his ear where his rune blazed brightest. “Just breathe.”
His hands shook against my back. He was trying so hard to be gentle, to be careful, to do this right—and the effort was costing him everything.
I took his face in both hands. Made him look at me.
“Stop thinking.” I kissed the bridge of his nose. His forehead. The space between his brows where tension lived. “You don’t have to be perfect. Just be here. With me.”
He let out a breath that sounded like it had been trapped for centuries.
And then his hands stopped shaking.
They slid down my spine—sure now, steady, tracing the curve of my back with a touch that was no longer hesitant but hungry. His fingers spread across my lower back and pressed me closer, grinding me against his stav with a deliberate roll of his hips that made us both gasp.
Yes. That. More of that.
The emerald thread between us flared. Not a hum anymore—a pulse. Deep and resonant, like a second heartbeat taking root inside my chest. I could feel the edges of his emotions pressing against my shields: want, fear, wonder, need—all of it tangled together, all of it aimed at me.
I reached between us. Wrapped my fingers around his stav.
His entire body went rigid. A choked sound punched from his lungs, and his hips thrust into my grip before he could stop himself. The runes along his shaft blazed beneath my palm—hot, pulsing, responsive in a way that fascinated me.
“That—” He swallowed. Tried again. “That feels—”
“I know.” I stroked him. Slow. Learning his shape, his heat, the places where those runes pulsed brightest. His eyes squeezed shut and his head fell back, tendons standing out in his neck, and the sound he made—
Stars, that sound.
Low and ruined and so honest it made my chest ache.
I released him before either of us could lose control.
“Ryzen.” I waited until his eyes opened. Glazed. Dark. “Tell me what I need to do. For the bonding.”
His voice came out wrecked. Barely a whisper. “Climb on.”
Every mate was different. Every bonding unique.
I positioned myself above him, one hand braced on his shoulder, the other guiding him to my entrance. He gripped my thighs—hard now, no more hesitation—and watched me with an intensity that made the air between us crackle.
I sank onto him slowly.
The stretch was different from what I knew. Shorter, but thick—achingly thick—and the texture of those runes inside me sent cascading shocks of sensation up my spine. Every ridge caught against nerve endings I didn’t know I had, and I gasped as my body adjusted, taking him in inch by measured inch.
Ryzen’s grip on my thighs turned bruising. His breath punched out in harsh, ragged bursts. His runes blazed so bright the room turned emerald—painting us both in green fire, casting sharp shadows against the walls.
“Selena—” My name broke apart in his mouth.
“I’ve got you.” I sank the rest of the way. Seated fully, filled completely, his stav buried deep and pulsing inside me in time with his spiritforce.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
The fullness was exquisite. Not just physical—the emerald thread between us blazed wide open, and I could feel him. His awe. His overwhelmed, staggering pleasure. The way holding himself still was costing every shred of control he possessed.
I combed his long hair back from his face. Tucked the emerald-streaked strands behind his ears. Let myself look at him—really look—at this male who’d given me his soul before his body, who trembled beneath me not from weakness but from the devastating force of feeling everything for the first time.
“Open your mind.” I pressed my forehead to his. “Let me in.”
He did.
His mental walls fell like a held breath—and his spiritforce surged forward to meet mine.
Emerald slammed into gold.
I cried out. Couldn’t help it. The sensation was nothing like my other bonds—not a thread, not a window. This was a merging. His spiritforce wrapping around mine, braiding through my mental web, sinking into spaces I hadn’t known were empty until he filled them.
My hips rolled. Instinct. Need. The physical and spiritual tangled together until I couldn’t tell where pleasure ended and bonding began. His hands found my hips and moved with me—clumsy at first, then finding the rhythm, matching my pace.
I kissed his neck. Scraped my teeth against his pulse. Felt his spiritforce surge in response—a wave of emerald light that rushed through my veins and lit up every nerve in my body.
“More.” The word tore from me. Not a request. A demand.
His arms locked around me. He thrust up—hard, deep—and the world went green.
Emerald fire. Everywhere. Blazing behind my eyes, burning through my chest, consuming the space between us until there was no space left. His pleasure became mine. Mine became his. We were the same flame, the same breath, the same desperate, aching need spiraling toward something inevitable.
His runes sang against my skin. His stav pulsed inside me, hot and insistent, and I felt something shift—tendrils, delicate and pulsing with spiritforce, extending from his stav to press against my inner walls.
Not painful. Anchoring. Locking us together in a way that was purely Verya, purely alien, purely him.
I shattered.
Pleasure crashed through me like a solar flare—blinding, boundless, obliterating every thought except this, this, this. The orgasm ripped through both of us simultaneously, and I heard him cry out beneath me—a sound that was all wonder and no shame.
The emerald bond blazed so bright I couldn’t see.
Couldn’t think.
Couldn’t do anything but hold on as wave after wave of spiritforce surged through us both—braiding, merging, becoming something new. Something permanent. Something that would live inside me for the rest of my life.
Two flames. One hearth.
His.
Mine.
Ours.
And then there was only light.