Chapter 25 #2
Warm bread rested beneath a neatly folded cloth to keep in its heat.
Several unfamiliar fruits had been sliced and arranged on a wooden platter, their flesh ranging from pale gold to deep violet and brilliant crimson.
Beside them lay thin strips of roasted meat, still fragrant with herbs I couldn't identify.
Two carved cups waited beside a small steaming pot that released a rich, earthy aroma unlike anything I'd smelled since arriving on Valose.
I looked from the carefully arranged meal to Vennox. "You planned all of this?"
A faint blue flushed beneath the silver scales along his neck. He dipped his head almost sheepishly before crossing to the table.
"Come," he said, pulling out one of the stools for me. "Sit."
"What is that?" I asked, nodding toward the steaming pot.
"Vernbury tea." He leaned his sword against the wall and sat on the stool opposite me. Then lifted the pot carefully, pouring the liquid into both cups. Steam curled upward between us, carrying a nutty fragrance. "It comes from the Trisess Forest."
“It smells like hot chocolate.”
“I do not know what that is,” he tilted his head.
"It's a drink," I explained. "Cocoa seeds are dried, ground into a fine powder, then mixed with hot milk until it becomes rich, smooth, and sweet."
"The white vernbury fruit grows only in the Trisess Forest." He lifted the small pot and poured the fragrant tea into our cups.
"Much like your cocoa, the seeds are dried, ground, then steeped in hot water to make the tea.
" A faint blue flushed beneath the silver scales along his neck.
"Vallon showed me how to prepare it. I had never brewed it before. "
"You brewed it yourself?"
"I hope I did not ruin it."
"I think the fact that you tried makes it impossible to ruin," I grinned.
His smile widened.
"Before the clans put aside our differences, something like this would have been difficult to obtain," he said, setting the pot back on the table. "Now we share what each clan produces.”
I looked around the quiet cavern, then back at the carefully arranged breakfast before me beside one of the most beautiful views I'd ever seen.
A smile tugged at my lips.
"I didn't realize this was going to be a date," I teased. "If I'd known, I would've done something with my hair and changed my clothes."
"A... date?" Vennox blinked.
"You know," I said, turning my cup slowly in my hands, "back on Earth, there's this thing people do when they like someone.
They pick a place, go there together, share food, talk.
" I paused, glancing at the sliced fruit, the carefully poured tea, the wide opening framing the Caspeen in morning light.
"The whole point is just to be with the other person.
To learn who they are." I looked back at him. "We call it a date."
“I like this Earth tradition.” Vennox’s expression grew more serious, the light from the cave opening catching the silver of his scales.
“I wish to enjoy your company for as long as I am allowed. I know you still wish to return to your world.” He looked down at his hands, then back at her, his voice low but steady.
“But until that suns-rise comes, I want to fill what time we have with moments worth keeping.”
"Not that we're..." I waved a hand helplessly between us. "I mean, we're not exactly..." My words dissolved into complete nonsense.
Desperate for anything, to focus on besides my own embarrassment, my gaze landed on the row of cots lining the back wall.
"You... uh... planned those too?" I pointed.
Vennox's laugh was low and erotic. "No. This was once a medical bay."
His silver eyes drifted toward the cots before returning to me, amusement dancing in them.
"Although," he added, a slow grin spreading across his face, "now that you mention it... they could prove useful."
I rose from the stool before I remembered deciding to.
My legs simply moved, carrying me around the small table until I was standing over him, close enough to feel the warmth radiating off his scales.
He peered up at me, silver eyes darkening into something molten and barely leashed, and the last of my hesitation dissolved.
I closed the distance between us, and the moment my mouth found his, he broke open. His hands came up fast, one gripping my waist and one threading into my hair. He returned the kiss as if he was starving for it, like he had been holding the hunger of it for so long, and had finally stopped trying.
He rose from the stool without breaking the kiss, lifting me with him as he stood.
His steps hurried as he carried me to the nearest empty cot, our mouths still locked together, and laid me down with a gentleness that made my chest ache, his palm cradling the back of my head so it didn't hit the thin cushion.
Then his mouth was on my throat, trailing down the column of my neck with open-mouthed kisses that sent electricity crackling through my nerves.
His hands found the hem of my kilt-dress and gathered the fabric in one fist, pushing it up.
The cool air of the cavern hit my thighs.
His fingers hooked into the waistband of my underwear and drew them down slowly, deliberately, his eyes never leaving mine until the fabric cleared my ankles and was gone.
Then his mouth was on me. The first stroke of his tongue nearly stopped my heart.
Broad, flat, devastatingly hot, he licked through my folds with the kind of thoroughness that left no part of me untouched.
My back arched off the cot, a groan tearing from my throat.
His hands gripped my thighs, spreading me wider, holding me open for him, and the vibration of his thrumming transferred through his lips and into my flesh with a frequency that made stars scatter behind my tightly closed lids.
"Vennox—" His name came out broken, as a half-sob, half-plea.
He didn't answer with words, but by sealing his mouth over my clit and sucking.
The orgasm built so fast it stole the air from my lungs.
Not a slow, rolling pressure. No, this was a detonation waiting to happen.
He circled my clit with tight, focused strokes, his fangs grazing the sensitive skin of my inner thighs with careful restraint, and the combination of hard and soft, textured and smooth, had me shaking apart beneath him.
I gripped the thin cushion with both hands, my knuckles white, my hips rolling against his mouth as his tongue found a rhythm that matched the pulse hammering between my legs, and the pressure built past what I could contain.
My thighs trembled. My breath came in shattered gasps. The world narrowed to the point where his mouth met my body, to the vibration humming through my core, to his hands holding me steady while everything else flew apart.
When my release hit, it didn't crest. It erupted. White light behind my eyes. Blue fire racing through every nerve ending. My back bowed off the cot, a scream tearing from my throat that echoed off the cavern walls and came back to me raw and unrecognizable.
When the last tremor finally faded, I collapsed against the cot boneless, every muscle in my body spent, my chest heaving, my vision swimming.
Vennox lifted his head. His mouth glistened. His pupils were blown with a feral hunger that hadn't been satisfied.
He crawled up my body with the fluid grace of a predator, settling beside me on the narrow cot, and gathered me against his chest. His arm wrapped around me, and I curled into him without thinking, my face finding the hollow of his throat where his pulse beat steady and strong against my lips.
My body was liquid and spent, but his was hard against my hip, the thick ridge of him pressing through the fabric of his kilt.
He had given me everything. Had brought me to completion with a devotion that bordered on worship, and now he lay beside me, rigid and aching, holding himself back through sheer force of will.
I shifted against him, my hand sliding down his chest, past the hard ridges of his abdomen, toward his waistband. His muscles jumped beneath my fingers, every scale along his torso constricting, and I felt the sharp intake of breath he couldn't quite suppress.
His hand caught mine, his fingers wrapping around my wrist and pulling my hand back to his chest, pressing it flat against his shawra's glow.
"No." The word came out strained, almost pained, and I felt the tremor running through his arm where it held mine. "It is taking every ounce of discipline I possess not to roll you beneath me and sheath myself inside you right now."
“Vennox—”
“If you touch me, I will not be able to stop.” He lifted and kissed the palm of my hand before pressing it back against his chest. “The bond between us will grow stronger unless we deny it. Besides, you were warned the only thing that would eat you out here was me.”
I chuckled softly, feeling guilty that he went unsatisfied, but I felt the truth of his words. He was barely keeping himself in check, and I would not push him on this.
We lay together in comfortable silence, listening to the steady rhythm of the Caspeen Sea echo through the cavern. My gaze drifted to the line of cots stretched out beside us. Curiosity finally overcame the lingering haze of contentment.
"You said this used to be the medical bay."
"The exiles brought the unconscious Valosian males and the human females they rescued from beneath the palace here," Vennox said quietly.
"Before Huren was reclaimed, this became the place where they recovered.
Gia was the first to awaken here. Vallon told me she remembered opening her eyes in this cave after they carried her from beneath the palace. "
I closed my eyes for a moment. “How terrifying that must have been to awaken surrounded by strangers.”
In that moment, the cave no longer felt like a relic of someone else's history. It felt like a place where impossible endings had quietly become new beginnings.