Chapter 33
?rim
When they returned from the festival, the tension between their bodies threatened to superheat his core. ?rim carried her inside their home, and she clung to him, her narrow frame pressed flush against his body as the door swung shut behind them.
He brought her into his room where the only proper bed was. Humans preferred intercourse in a bed, he’d learned. “I want to touch you, Cassie. Is that alright?”
Please touch me.
He ran his hands over her, feeling the lines of her body under the dress she wore. Her narrow hips. The elevation of her breasts. The cleft between her legs. She blushed when his fingertips brushed her there.
“Can we take this off?”
Cassie lifted her arms over her head, and he helped her remove the dress.
Then her undergarments. Her clothes were puddled on the floor around her, and she stood bare in front of him.
He wanted her. However she would have him.
His energy core burned hotter than usual, filling him with the need to feel her.
?rim undressed quickly, leaving his own clothing in a pile beside hers.
I’ve never done this before. Her knees were pressed together slightly, hiding her from his eyes. He wished she wouldn’t. He wanted to see everything.
“That makes two of us.” ?rim was suddenly acutely aware of his own nudity in a way he had never been before. His mating node was hot enough to make him uncomfortable, and he hoped it wouldn’t be too warm for Cassie.
She reached out first, her warm fingertips against his chest. They remained like that, so ?rim took the opportunity to draw her nearer until her body was against his.
“Can I turn all the lights out to see you properly? I’ll be able to read your hand signs without a problem.”
Cassie nodded. He pressed a control on his wrist interface, and the ambient lighting went out completely, leaving only his natural bioluminescence.
?rim removed his eyestones, and there she was in full color.
His Cassie. The puckered scar on her throat where her voicelock had imploded.
The small, rounded breasts and erect nipples.
The flat plane of her belly and the dark patch of hair over her genitals that he wanted to part and explore.
“You’re beautiful, aoseria.” The word came out without thought. He hadn’t asked her to be his. He hadn’t completed any of the ancient rites his ancestors might have done, but it felt correct.
Cassie tilted her head. What does that word mean? A-O-O-S-E-R-I-A?
“Aoseria.” ?rim breathed as he ran a hand along the smoothness of her hips. “It’s an old Tesi word. It doesn’t have an exact translation in Universal. It means mate. Beloved. The peace at the center of a storm.”
You want me to be your mate? Cassie’s fingers wandered down over his thighs, and ?rim worried he would spill his seed with even the slightest whisper of pressure against his mating node. He wanted to offer her pleasure first. He wanted her.
“I want you to be my universe.”
I want that too. Cassie’s breath hitched as his hands moved upward, pressing against her breasts as he’d seen done in holovids. They were the softest part of her, and he marveled at the way her nipples responded to his touch.
“Can I pleasure you first?” His hands were firm on her chest as he soaked in her warmth. “I’ve watched some holos about human sexuality, but you might need to guide me. Tell me what you like.”
I don’t know what I like. Her face had turned a deep shade of crimson he could finally identify in the darkness.
“Should we explore together?” ?rim asked.
His voice was so quiet he wasn’t entirely sure if he’d even spoken aloud, but Cassie nodded.
He wanted her first experience to be positive.
He wanted to prove to her he could give her anything a more compatible male could, that he wasn’t lacking, just different.
He drew her down onto the bed and started by rubbing his thumbs over her raised nipples. Cassie let out a soft gasp.
“Did I injure you?” ?rim withdrew his hand.
She shook her head and replaced his fingers where they had been.
Her nipples grew even stiffer under his fingers.
He’d never been with a teosian female either, so he couldn’t compare, but he was almost certain they had nothing like this.
There was no need. They didn’t feed their young this way.
The view of her lips slightly parted did something erotic to him, and he found himself shifting to try and ease the pressure off his mating node.
“Should I continue?” ?rim asked after a few long moments. “I understand that first couplings can be painful.”
I’m not in pain. Cassie signed before gripping his hand and drawing it lower between her legs. Touch me here. He took a sharp breath and followed her direction.
“Do you want to lie back? If you want me to stop, just grab my arm any time.”
Cassie nodded and let him press her back against the mattress.
Gently, ?rim spread Cassie’s legs wide apart to get a clear view of her vulva beneath the patch of dark hair.
It was one thing to study it on a holo, but the real thing was so much more interesting.
So wet. So different than anything he’d seen before.
?rim ran a gentle finger along the length of her opening, and she arched under his touch, but she hadn’t indicated he should stop, so he didn’t.
His mating node heated to a near unbearable temperature as he pushed a finger inside of her. The sounds of her breathing intensified as he found there was less friction than anticipated due to the slickness she produced.
“Fascinating,” he murmured.
More please.
?rim wasn’t sure if a second finger would fit inside of her, but he would try. The last thing he wanted was to cause her injury, although he had seen human females were capable of stretching.
He added a second finger, which made her exhale sharply.
When he was certain she wasn’t injured, he then used his other hand to search for the pleasure node he knew human females had.
Her clitoris was erect under a hood of skin.
?rim applied soft pressure, and Cassie moved against him, clutching the sheets with her hands.
He increased his speed, stopping only when she shuddered around him, clenching in hard waves against his fingers.
He still wasn’t sure if what he’d done was the right thing.
It seemed like the right thing based on what he had watched, but Cassie would have to tell him.
“Was that… satisfactory?” he asked. His fingers stayed inside of her, feeling the faint aftershocks of whatever had happened.
I think it was. It was really good. I’ve never had an orgasm before. Cassie signed. Next time, don’t stop so soon. I think I could go again if you didn’t stop.
Next time. The words weren’t lost on him. She wanted to couple with him again. He would ask her again when she was more coherent, when she wasn’t surging with mating hormones.
What about you? She reached for him, placing a hand on his mating node. Does something happen here? ?rim could barely concentrate as he withdrew his fingers from her slowly. She let out a soft gasp. He was gratified to see there wasn’t any blood.
“That’s…” He groaned as she moved her fingers over it with more intention. “That’s my mating node. I’m sorry, I don’t have the human equivalent.”
Cassie shook her head. I don’t mind. Tell me what to do.
“I need rhythmic friction. However you’d like to apply it.
With your hands, your mouth, or with your genitals.
” ?rim spoke with more confidence than he felt.
Teosian mating was a brutal thing. A teosian female would grind her own mating node against the male’s until she shed sufficient crystals to start a seeding process, and the male participant spilled his own batch of seed.
It left them both injured and unable to mate again until they had healed from the process.
But Cassie was all softness. All the parts of her she could use would do him no harm.
I can try. Cassie bolstered herself up and then beckoned him down beside her on the bed.
She tilted her head, considering for an achingly long moment.
Then, mind made up, she straddled him. The hot slickness of her against his mating node, combined with the weight of her body, made him groan as she started to rub herself against him.
She stopped then, responding to his vocalization. Is it ok?
“More than ok.” ?rim clasped her hips, guiding her to continue and helping her with the movement.
Her breath grew heavy again, and he hoped the sensation was as intense for her as it was for him.
The heat intensified, plunging directly downward from his electrical core to his mating node.
Then, like a storm surge, something burst, and ?rim’s seed spilled out of his node as he found an incredible release.
An orgasm. It had to be. He didn’t know he was capable. Although he had finished, Cassie continued grinding herself against him until she shuddered with pleasure again, and he felt her fluttering around him.
“Was that a second?” he asked.
Cassie nodded, exhaling hard. Once she was sated, ?rim gently pulled her down beside him, finding he wanted her in his arms.
She lay against his chest with the tiny seed crystals of his ejaculate scattered beneath them.
?rim stroked her hair away from her face, finding her covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
“Did you… did you enjoy our coupling aoseria? If you tell me what to do differently next time, I’ll make changes.
Or if you don’t want to do it again, we won’t.
” He resisted the urge to rub nervously at his wrist node, instead tracing a circle between Cassie’s shoulder blades.
Her body pulled back from him slightly signing, again is good.
Later though. Want to sleep next to you.
She curled into him. Warm against cool. Hard against soft.
?rim wondered how he could be so lightning struck.
She was the fiercest storm he’d ever weathered.
This female, who should by all measure, want nothing to do with him, had accepted him into her bed and asked him to stay.
“I will stay, Cassie. As long as you want me.” He gripped her tighter. “But you have to promise me you’ll stay too. No matter what, aoseria, you need to stay.”
She was quiet for a long moment before her hands fluttered against him. I promise.
?rim gripped her tighter, holding her until her breathing slowed and she was asleep in his arms. No one would harm her. No one would make her suffer ever again. He found unexpected purposefulness in something far beyond his research. He was never going back to Teos.