13. Chapter Thirteen #3
His rhythm breaks and he grinds into me. The first pulse of his release hits my walls. Hot. So hot it borders on burning, a flood of warmth that spreads inside me, his cock twitching within me as he spills and spills.
His groan presses into the curve of my neck.
Raw. Undone. It vibrates against my skin and travels down my spine.
His upper cock throbs and I feel the first hot spill of him stripe across my stomach.
It coats me in thick, warm pulses, sliding down the groove of my hip and pooling in the dip of my navel.
He’s coming on me and in me at the same time.
The sensation is obscene and overwhelming: the deep, rhythmic clench of him inside, the slick heat of him outside.
I can sense him everywhere. Inside me. On me.
Marking me. His groan breaks against my throat like he can’t believe what his body is doing, like even he doesn’t know he can let go so completely.
He shudders. A full-body shake that starts in his shoulders and rolls down through his chest, his hips, the tail still coiled around my throat. I grip the back of his neck. His skin burns under my palm. His hips jerk in small, involuntary thrusts as the last pulses of his release empty into me.
His breathing is wrecked. Ragged pulls of air against my neck that come too fast and too shallow.
He winds his arms around me and rolls us onto our sides in one motion, still buried within me, still locked against me.
His tail wraps around my hips and cinches tight, holding us together, holding himself deep.
I sense the flex of it against my lower back, the proprietary curl of it keeping me exactly where he wants me.
He doesn’t pull out. Doesn’t separate. He just holds me there, still joined, still pulsing, his breath slowly steadying against my throat while his tail keeps us sealed.
His hearts pounds under my palm where I’ve pressed it flat against his sternum. “I didn’t know it could be this,” he says.
I’m still catching my breath. “Didn’t know what?”
“That it could be this different. With you. Because of you.”
He turns his head and presses his lips to my hair. Laying my head back down on his chest, I listen to his heart. Let myself believe, for this one moment, that I know what I’m doing.
We don’t move. He stays inside me, softening but still there, still a part of me, and neither of us reaches for separation.
His arms lock tight around my back. One hand splays between my shoulder blades.
The other grips my hip like even in sleep he won’t risk me slipping away.
His tail loosens from around my hips but doesn’t retreat.
It rests heavy across the backs of my thighs, a reminder.
I don’t want him to let go. I press my face into the hollow of his throat and breathe him in.
Smoke and cedar and something else now. Something that smells like the two of us combined.
My body still hums with the aftershocks of him, little tremors that ripple through my core every time I shift and sense him still there, still within.
He’s half-asleep, I think. His breathing has gone slow and deep.
His heartbeat has settled into something steady under my ear. I let my eyes close.
Then the doorbell pings. The sound is soft. A chime, melodic and polite. He frowns before his eyes even open, his brow creasing against my hair.
He brings up his wristband. The small screen glows blue in the dim room, showing Resh outside the door.
Zavin’s voice comes out rough and low. “Go away, Resh. Come back later.”
“It’s Tevan, boss.” Resh looks up into the camera mounted above the door.
Zavin tenses, every muscle going rigid. The arm holding me to his chest turns to iron. His heart kicks against my ear, no longer slow and steady but fast, sharp. He goes hard where he’s been soft. Hard jaw. Hard shoulders.
Our soft moment is lost. He eases out of me, careful, but he’s elsewhere in his mind, and then he’s gone, the absence of him inside me colder than it should be.
“Do you have to go?” I know the answer before I’ve asked it.
“This is a loose end I need to handle.”
He’s already dressing. His back is to me and I watch the play of muscles under his scales as he pulls on his trousers, his shirt.
The fabric settles over skin that was pressed to mine minutes ago.
The shirt stays open when he comes back to me.
He kneels beside the bed. His hand finds my jaw and tips my face up to his.
“Stay in my quarters.” His eyes are hard but his thumb strokes my cheekbone, like he can’t stop touching me. “I’ll keep monitoring the doors. You’re safe here.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
The door slides shut behind him. The lock engages with a soft chime.
I lie there in his bed, tangled in sheets that smell like him, the evidence of him still drying on my stomach and the ache of him still throbbing between my legs, and the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach spreads until it’s all I can feel.
I wonder if he’s going to come back to me alive or dead.