Chapter 9
Rose
I think these might be our last moments together, here in the middle of this field. The way Oljin’s kissing me is like a goodbye, like he might never have the chance again.
Is he going to leave me here? Or will he turn me over to whoever has come, whoever prompted him carry me off into the eight-foot-tall grass so urgently. It has to be the lizard aliens who held me captive for so long.
My body panics at the thought of being caged again, my heart racing even faster than it was already. I can’t go back. I can’t. I’ll die first.
I want to ask him how they found me, why they came. But any sound might draw them to us, so I wrap my weak arms around him and lose myself to our last kiss.
He kisses like a demon, long-tongued and sharp-toothed. Like the things they warned me against in Sunday school, and now I understand why. Because this—his hands, his claws in my hair, his lips on mine, his strong arms cradling me like I’m weightless—this feels like heaven.
Sweet. Addictive. Consuming.
The sun warms the top of my shoulders and the vague shapes of the grasses around us sway in the warm wind. Their rustling music drowns out the soft pant of my breath. I never want this to end. The memory of it could get me through another year or two in the cage, I think .
He kisses down my neck, licking the salt off my skin and raising goosebumps along his path. Pointed teeth skim over my collarbone, one shoulder. I arch into his touch, desperate for him to understand me.
Yes. I want this. I want whatever I can have, whatever I can hoard. Every touch from you is a gift. A treasure they can’t take away.
Tears slide down my cheeks. He must feel them because he draws back. Kisses them away. Strokes my hair like an apology, like he did something wrong when he’s the only right thing in the galaxy.
I grab his face and pull it back to mine. This can’t be over. I’m not ready to give up.
“Alara,” he whisper-groans against my mouth. My nails dig into the back of his neck, and I bite his lower lip to remind him to be quiet, that silence is our only defense.
Something in him snaps. I can tell because his whole body, which has been mostly shades of green, flushes light purple. The color of a sunset when it’s tipping over into dusk. Then he buries his face into the curve between my neck and shoulder, clamping his teeth over the muscle there. Holding me.
He doesn’t break the skin, but I can tell he wants to. His chest is heaving against me, his fingers squeezing into my flesh, begging for permission.
For some reason, I’m not afraid. I’m not worried that it will hurt. If anything, I understand his desperation to have a little more of me, to leave his mark before we’re torn apart. He needs this, and it’s something I can give him. One of the very few things.
I stroke the back of his muscled neck, then tap twice. Do it .
His teeth slide into my flesh so easily that I barely feel them. I didn’t know they were so sharp. He’s been taking more care with me than I realized.
He quickly releases me, licking over the small wound, fussing silently like I skinned my knee. His tender care makes my tears stream even faster. This means something to him. He’ll never forget me, at the very least.
I’ll never forget him either. He’ll be the last thought I have when I take my final breath.
The tiny thread of pain winding through me from his bite thickens into something else, an ache that wraps around my heart and makes me suck in a breath. He stiffens, rubbing his chest like he feels it, too.
Pushing his hand away, I kiss him right where I know it hurts. Then I press my cheek against his sternum and listen to his pulse drum out a song that sounds just like mine.
It says This might be the end. It says All I want is you. It says Let’s run away.
I would run if I could. Pick him up and carry him on my wobbly legs, take us someplace else where nobody will keep us apart. But I can’t, so I just scrabble the sash of his tunic open so I can drink up the smell of his skin and taste the lines that describe the shape of his bones and muscles.
His hands slide from my shoulders down to my waist, walking over my ribs like he’s counting them. His thumbs press into the hollow of my hips as he drags me against his body. I can feel how much he wants me in the hot, insistent throb of his cock through the fabric of our clothing.
My core gives an answering pulse, heating me from inside. Oh, I want this. I know it will cost me, and I want it anyway. I melt into him, sliding one trembling hand down his stomach to palm his shaft. It fills my hand, comfortingly thick and solid and... huge .
Oh, he’s going to ruin me for anyone else. That’s the price I’ll pay, though, because I know...I know that there’s no one else in the universe for me.
I squeeze his hardness, and he falls back into the grass, supporting me on top of him so he cushions my landing. It’s like falling into a mattress, an exhilarating kind of comfort.
Propping up to a sit, I straddle his ribcage. The posture makes my borrowed wrap tunic split open in the front, exposing me, but my modesty is long gone. His thumbs stroke my inner thighs as I lean forward to kiss him.
I let gravity bring us together until our lips brush just as his gentle, patient petting bumps against my clit. His other hand grips my waist, half support and half firm guidance as he urges my hips forward so I’m grinding forward against his thumb and then back so my ass bumps against the head of his cock and then forward again.
Delivering and promising, a melody and a chorus.
Oh my word. Nothing’s ever felt like this. I want to tell him out loud. I want to sing it.
But every minute of silence is another minute of safety, so I let it out inside, let it sing through my body in the form of a shuddering, breathless orgasm that makes my temples pound from the force.
My fingernails dig into his chest as I slump forward, trying to regulate my breath before it turns into a moan. Oljin’s touch is so delicate as he holds me while I calm. Like the way you might deliver a cup of tea to someone you love so it doesn’t spill.
I’ve never had a partner with this kind of patience. Most men would be pushing my head down by now, greedy for their turn. I thought that’s just how it was. The funny thing is that they’d be a lot more likely to get what they wanted from me if they just waited another couple minutes and let me come up with it myself.
Spending my last moments of freedom tasting Oljin’s cock suddenly sounds like a wonderful idea. I shimmy down his body and untie his sash as fast as I can. I have to figure out the knot by feel because my eyes still won’t focus on anything, and I end up using my teeth to rip out the last twist of the fabric.
He shakes with silent laughter at my impatience but stops as soon as I tug his pants down and put my mouth on him. His hips buck up involuntarily, and it’s my turn to swallow my giggle. My turn to make him feel good.
I can take my time, too. Floating on my afterglow, I tease and test every part of his cock from the slightly flat, clefted head to the wide, hairless base and the heavy sac beneath, enjoying every jolt and twitch I can coerce from him.
Warm, slippery liquid oozes over my tongue, sparking my tastebuds. He has the bright, bitter tang of orange peel, and I lick it up. It’s so good, it stokes my craving to have him inside me any way I can.
Using both hands, I squeeze out even more, and his pelvis twists with pleasure underneath me. No matter how much I get, it’s not enough, so I don’t stop, not even when we’re both struggling to contain our sounds. It takes all my concentration and strength to perform the task, though, and I can feel my sapped muscles trembling with the effort.
Oljin notices and slides a hand around the back of my neck to support my head, replacing my hands with his free one to milk his own shaft. He does all the work, feeding me fresh drops until he can’t stand it and pulls away from me with a gasp.
It’s fine. I was at my limit, too. I’ve realized my craving for him has moved deeper.
With his help, I crawl up to position him at my slick, swollen entrance. His broad tip stretches me as I push back against it. I was so confident this would work, but now I’m not so sure I’ll be able to take him. It’s been years since I had anyone inside me, and even then, none of them were as big as he is. Maybe I can’t anymore.
I press harder, and the head of his cock slides inside, my flesh burning slightly from the stretch. My core grasps at him with enough force that it almost pushes him back out. He strokes my cheek, nodding his encouragement as he nudges his way to the point he was before, then a little beyond.
The stretch is exquisite, sending electric signals zipping through me as my body struggles to accommodate him. It’s so good and so scary at the same time. I’m already at my limit and there’s so much more to go.
He grasps my shoulders, squeezing them to tell me I should be patient. To take him slowly. That we have time.
But we don’t. Not if our unwelcome visitors are who I think they are .
I wriggle my hips, sinking a tiny bit further down on his length. I can’t wait. I won’t make it through another captivity if I can’t have this first. If I can’t have him .
He wraps both arms around my waist, pinning me in place so I can’t rush it. Instead, he circles his hips, dipping in and out of me, movements slow and reverent. Bit by bit, my clenched channel loosens enough to let him inside. Every heated slide gets us incrementally closer and never far enough.
How is he so patient when I feel like I’m dying? My breasts, squeezed between us, add an extra layer of sensation. A flush builds over me, a wash of pleasure that grows with each exquisite, unhurried contact. It’s impossibly good. He can’t be feeling greedy like me or he wouldn’t have such restraint.
When I flutter my inner walls around him, a quiet, low sound tears from his throat, his fingers tightening a little. He’s just as ravenous as I am, I realize. He just doesn’t want to cause me any more pain. He’s giving me this slow, sweet lovemaking at a great cost to himself. We’re both spending everything we have to have this .
Finally, there’s no space between us, and he stills inside me, lodged somewhere near my soul, pulsing so deep it might be my heart beating.
Then he lets me go. Lets me move, lets me rock on him. Every touch from him feels erotic, even the simplest support as he anticipates when I’ll need help.
It’s like a dance with a perfect partner, but I can’t keep a rhythm. So I let my movement be a melody instead, rising and falling, winding around itself, repeating in variation until my whole body sings instead of my voice .
Oljin quakes beneath me, and I feel the hot pressure of his release just after mine. Oh, I’m glad to give him that. Glad we could share it. He pulls me down to cover my face in kisses, and I choke on my happiness, this moment of blissful connection after being lost for so long.
I’m a puddle on top of him, literally and figuratively. I wish I could soak into him, become inextricable so no one can separate us. I’m also so physically exhausted that I can’t move a muscle, so I just lie there and enjoy whatever moments we have left.
His come drips out of me as he idly plays with my hair. With his other hand he plucks something from the grass and brushes my cheek with it, releasing a burst of honeyed fragrance.
A flower. A tiny, yellow-and-white smudge in my blurry vision.
“Efala,” he says, holding it up.
Panic bursts through me, enough to clap my hand over his mouth. I feel him smile against my palm before he pulls it away. Between gestures and a few words I understand, he makes it clear he can hear that the danger is gone.
Gone!
I can hardly believe it. I’m safe in his arms. We’re still together.
I take the flower from him, gingerly touching the fragile bloom to learn its shape. It has rays of petals like a daisy, but a whorled center like a rose. Like my name. “Did you know Rose means ‘efala’?” I ask him, exhaustion tugging at my eyelids. “In my language, they mean the same thing. Close to it, anyway. They’re both flowers. ”
“Efala,” he says again, tracing around the curve of my ear and down to the place on my neck where he bit me with the same care I gave the blossom, as though he fears bruising me. “Beautiful efala.”