15. The Exploration #2
“Tonight.” Breathless. His mouth on my collarbone. My hips pinned against his thigh. “That’s for tonight. Right now I want—let me—“
I look down between us.
He follows my gaze.
“Can I touch you.” Not a question. Nearly not a question. My hands on his waistband.
“The anatomy is—there are differences that may—“
“I know about the ridges. I know about the knot. I’ve carried enough Xarthian medical cargo to have read the literature, and I read every word of it.” My thumbs hook the waistband. “I’m not asking about the manual. I’m asking if you want my hands on you.”
His forehead drops against mine. The horns frame my temples. His eyes close. His hands are shaking in my hair.
“Yes.”
I ease the waistband down. He shifts his hips. Wet fabric drags. And then—
I look.
The xenobiology file was accurate and completely inadequate.
The shaft is the same deep crimson as his skin, thick, the ridges spiralling from base to tip—raised bands of dense flesh, each one slightly thicker than the last, flushed a dark wine-red that deepens as I watch.
Responsive. Alive under my gaze. The fuzz thins and disappears here, the skin smooth and slick with water and heat.
At the base: the knot. Already half-swollen.
Dense, wide, a thickening that the clinical file described in measured terms and that in practice is making my inner walls clench around nothing.
“Oh,” I say. My voice is wrecked and I haven’t touched him yet.
“The anatomy is—“
“Gorgeous.” Because it is. Because the last person who catalogued his body did it in a threat file. “You are gorgeous.”
His head hits the shower wall. Horn cracking tile. Eyes shut. The purr shaking water off both of us.
I wrap my hand around him.
Hot. Hotter than the rest of him—the blood-flush heat of arousal, and the ridges under my fingers are textured, firm, each one a band of dense flesh that catches against my grip as my palm slides up.
He jolts. His hips snap forward into my fist—the reflex of a body that has not been touched by another person’s hand in—years, decades, maybe never like this.
Never with someone watching his face and learning him the way he learns everything about me.
“Tell me what you like.” My thumb traces the ridge below the head. His entire body shudders.
“Everything you’re doing. Don’t stop.”
I don’t stop.
I learn him the way I learn routes—by touch, by feel, by the sounds that mean I’ve found the right line.
The upper ridges make him hiss through his teeth.
The lower ones roll his hips into my fist, a slow grind that presses his thigh harder between my legs and the friction sends sparks up my spine.
The thick band at the midpoint draws a sound that is subsonic and vibrates through my wrist into my elbow into the ache in my core.
I tighten my grip. His claws extend into the wall—ten black points puncturing tile.
“Claws,” I note.
“The wall—not you—I would never—“
“I know. I like it.” I squeeze the base. The knot swells further under my palm—dense, hot, pulsing with his heartbeat. His claws drive deeper and the tile cracks. “Let go, Xor. The wall can take it.”
I squeeze the base again, feeling the thick knot pulse under my palm like a second heartbeat. His claws score deeper grooves into the tile. Water and steam and the low, broken sound he makes when I twist my wrist just right — it’s all too much and not enough.
“Flossie—” His voice is shredded. “I’m going to—”
I don’t let him finish.
I rise on my toes, press my mouth to his jaw, and whisper against the wet fuzz, “Don’t hold back. I want all of you. Right now.”
His control snaps.
In one fluid motion he lifts me, spins us, and pins me against the shower wall with my back to the tile. My legs wrap around his waist instinctively. The water beats down on us as he lines up and thrusts inside me in one long, brutal stroke.
The stretch is immediate and overwhelming. The spiraling ridges drag along every sensitive inch of my walls, forcing me open wider than I’ve ever been. I gasp sharply, nails digging into his shoulders as my body struggles to take him.
“Fuck—Xor—you’re so big—”
He growls against my throat, the sound vibrating through my bones. “That’s it. Take it. Take every ridge like the perfect little mate you are.”
He doesn’t give me time to adjust. He fucks me hard against the wall — deep, claiming thrusts that slap wet skin against skin.
Each ridge catches on the way out and drags back in, rubbing relentlessly against that spot inside me that makes my vision spark white.
The knot is already swelling at my entrance, stretching me obscenely on every thrust, threatening to lock.
His claws are out — not digging into me, but braced on the tile beside my head, scoring deep lines as he holds back just enough not to break skin. The restraint costs him. I can feel it in the tremor of his arms, the way his tail coils tight around my waist like a living restraint.
“You feel that?” he rasps, voice low and filthy against my ear. “This cunt was made for me. So tight. So wet. Squeezing every ridge like you never want me to leave.”
I moan helplessly, head falling back against the tile.
The alien texture of him is devastating — the way the ridges spiral and thicken, the heat of him burning hotter than the water, the thick knot battering at my entrance.
Every thrust forces another inch deeper until the knot finally pops inside me with a wet, obscene sound.
The lock is immediate and devastating.
I come with a broken cry, walls clamping down hard around the swollen knot. The pressure is exquisite — too much and perfect at the same time. My thighs shake around his hips as wave after wave crashes through me.
Xor snarls, fangs scraping my shoulder. “That’s my good girl. Milk my knot. Take every drop like you were born for it.”
He grinds deep, working the head of him against my cervix in slow, devastating circles. The purr drops into a lower register that vibrates directly through the knot and into my core. I sob his name, coming again around the thick swell, my body milking him relentlessly.
He follows with a roar that echoes off the shower walls. His knot pulses heavily inside me as thick, hot jets of cum flood my pussy. I feel every spurt — deep, claiming, filling me until I’m impossibly full and still he keeps coming, the knot ensuring not a single drop escapes.
We stay locked like that, trembling. Water cascades over us. His forehead rests against mine, gold eyes blown wide and dark with lust and something deeper.
“You’re still hard,” I manage, voice wrecked.
His lips brush my ear, dirty and possessive. “I’m not finished with you yet, little mate.”
He shifts his grip, one massive hand under my ass, and starts grinding again — shallow, insistent movements that keep the knot pressed exactly where I need it. The overstimulation borders on too much, but the ache is delicious. I’m sore and stretched and still clenching greedily around him.
“Again,” I gasp. “Don’t stop.”
He doesn’t.
He fucks me through another orgasm, then another, until my legs are shaking and I’m babbling against his neck. Only when I’m limp and whimpering does he finally let the knot ease. He pulls out slowly, watching with dark satisfaction as his cum leaks down my thighs, mixing with the water.
Then he drops to his knees again.
His mouth is on me instantly — licking up the mess he made, tongue fucking deep into my oversensitive cunt while two thick fingers replace his knot. I come one last time on his tongue, sobbing his name, fingers tangled in his wet hair.
When he finally stands, he kisses me slow and deep, letting me taste both of us. His arms wrap around me, holding me up as my legs refuse to work.
“Tonight was just the beginning,” he murmurs against my lips, voice rough with promise. “When we reach Junction One and this is over… I’m going to take my time with you. Hours. Days. Until the only thing you remember is how perfectly you take my knot.”
I shiver in his arms, already aching for more.
The sound he makes—broken, wrecked, somewhere between a groan and a laugh—is the most human thing I have heard from him. Not Xarthian. Not SRS. The noise of a male who has been given more than he knows how to hold and is trying anyway.
I grin against his wet skin. Smug. Satisfied. Aching between my legs with an intensity that is going to require serious attention tonight.
I shiver in his arms, already aching for more.