Chapter Thirty-Five The Nova #2
Inky mass turned to pale skin and black hair the more I touched him. The light crawled over his skin and exposed a human chest, decorated with symmetrical black markings from his neck down to his abdomen. Even the markings were moving. His arms were still beastly, muscular and clawed.
He placed his hands on either side of my head on the table. His eyes were so intense, so bright, it was too much to meet his gaze directly.
“What is it exactly you’d have me taste?” I asked softly.
Altair lowered his lips beside my ear. I could almost feel him breathe.
“Everything that you desire,” he said.
I turned my head away from him, but then his teeth were on my ear.
I flinched at the bite, albeit a gentle one.
His lips dragged along my jugular, sloppily so. A hot trail reminding me how real this was, no matter how dreamlike.
He closed his lips on my throat, a gentle suck before moving to a different spot, then a harder bite.
“Altair.” His name surfaced as a gasp as I pushed at his shoulders.
He replied with the scoop of his arm under my waist, squeezing me tight as he sucked on my collarbone next, then his free hand cupped my breast. His claws dug into the sensitive skin.
“I know what your heart calls for,” he breathed against my skin, those opal-blue eyes staring at me through his brow. “But you have to say more than my name if you want it,” he teased, his lips trailing back up to my jaw.
I swallowed hard, the back of my neck burning with this newfound bashfulness.
“Look at me.” His voice was low but gentle.
I did.
“Let go, let me show you,” he whispered, “just a taste won’t hurt.”
“Only a taste,” I said firmly.
“As you wish,” he mouthed.
Suddenly, everything around us was of little importance. I stopped hearing the trees, the surrounding noises that filled the air, even the worry of the mess of stray fruits.
He was looking at me, but not like before.
It was gentle, like a deep drift to sleep. His lips parted, then closed, as if he was having a second thought, resisting. He glanced at my lips—quickly, but not quick enough. Why was he fighting so hard? He could repeat all he wanted that he was indifferent, but I knew better.
I leaned up on my elbows, our noses brushing before mine touched his cheek.
My eyes closed. Maybe he felt the tickle of my lashes, because I swore I heard a restrained sigh.
“This won’t stop me,” I warned him. The words may have touched his lips before they reached his ears. “From wanting to leave.”
“I couldn’t stop you even if I wanted.” There was a strain in his voice.
Whatever struggle permeated between us dissolved as soon as our lips touched. Silk against pearls, water on skin, his lips on mine: all things easy to fall for.
His tongue swept against mine. The sting of his talons in my back as he wrapped me in an embrace.
My back arched, his lips pressing harder to mine. With arms wrapped around his neck, my leg hooked high on his waist.
With every desperate kiss, my head became lighter. My body settled, my appetite faded, and all I could think of was him.
“Tell me,” I said, breaking our kiss, “do you think of me?”
His brow creased, his hand reaching to cup my face. “Of course—”
“No.” I pushed his hand away. “When you aren’t with me, out here, in the great unknown—do you stop to think of me?”
“No marvel in the known universe could force you from my mind.” He pressed closer.
“You lie.”
“I have seen the birth and death of stars, of cosmoses unseen.” He shook his head slightly, as if in disbelief that I was asking.
“I have witnessed the death of stars, the stones that glitter a hundred thousand times brighter than your world’s rarest gem—from every piece you come from, and the space between, there is no need to see any more marvels after I’ve seen you. ”
If I’d let the words hang in the air any longer, I might have had time to consider them.
Instead, I believed them.
I lay back, reaching down for my petticoat skirts.
He stared, his chest rising and falling like he was fighting back the buildup. It was as if a daze had washed over him.
Slowly, I lifted the skirts. I raised my foot to his chest, letting the skirt slip up my calf, then stopped just below my knee.
I could feel his illusion of a human heart, pumping like he was already chasing.
Did he need permission?
“Florescentia.” I tilted my head, letting the skirts fall over my thighs, my foot tracing across his chest and then falling to the side.
I thought I saw the ghost of a smirk before his form overshadowed me, his hand cupping under my thigh to lift.
A warmth rested on my pelvis, between my body and his. The weight pressed on my abdomen, leaving an insatiable curiosity at the pit of my stomach. I stole a glance, but it was hard to see, as his bottom half was still abstract and completely black.
He took my face in his hand, turning it up and away. “Still intimidated?”
“Should I be?”
His reply was a chuckle as he captured my lips again.
His hand fell from my face and brushed against my inner thigh, trailing closer. A firm press of his palm between my legs before it dragged upward.
He brought up his hand, licking his fingers in front of me.
I arched my hips, shifting under him, waiting for him to move.
He reached down, the member lifting from my abdomen, then the tip wiping the slick between my legs.
I shuddered; every feeling ran my imagination through loops.
It may have been my head in a daze, but I was burning from the inside out.
A more sober sense of reality may have pushed me to feel shame, but right now I was faced with the opportunity for fantasy, and I wanted to indulge as much as I wanted to devour the feastful illusion he’d made for me.
He leaned over, pressing forward.
The thick swell was hard; I was unsure if I could accommodate the pressure. For something that could change its form, it sure didn’t know how to adjust.
He must have felt me flinch, or maybe it was my nails digging into his inky skin.
The phallic limb softened, then moved.
“What was that?” I shivered.
“An alteration,” he said. “Close your eyes—it makes it more fun.”
I spared one long glare before I did so.
The member slipped over my pelvic bone, flexible and wet.
It curled, slithered like a serpent. Then it teased between my legs again, a tapered feeling as it penetrated.
This time I was more prepared for the pressure, a more gradual acclimation.
It shifted, bent inside me. I wasn’t sure whether to be disgusted or to let myself enjoy it.
A curious sensation licked along my sensitive insides.
It paused, steadily pulsing.