Chapter 15
Leap Into the Deep, Faith as my Wings
Lily
“And remember, young star-citizens: thanks to nano-injections, two consenting adults can enjoy each other freely without ever worrying about STDs.”
Excerpt from Ner’fol Vas Gorg, Universal Dating Guru: Love with Another Species
Khar lifted Lily with one hand braced at her nape and the other under her hips, careful not to hurt her, yet making the message unmistakable.
She was prey, entirely at Khar’s mercy. She had never been so turned on in her life.
Lily knew she liked giving up control in bed.
But Khar’s confidence was something else entirely.
There was no performance, no uncertainty.
He simply claimed her with his hands as if it were the most natural thing in the universe.
Even through her uniform, his touch made her shiver.
When his mouth found the curve where her neck met her shoulder and his teeth grazed the thin skin, a helpless sound slipped from her lips.
That spot had always been sensitive, but now it felt like lightning, a direct strike that ran from his bite straight down into the aching center of her body.
“Your scent,” Khar murmured, voice low and rough. “You are driving me mad.”
His voice came from somewhere deep enough to sound like the beginning of an earthquake. Lily felt helpless before it the way one was helpless before a calamity. He felt too overwhelming. Too elemental. All she could do was let him want what he wanted.
Their faces aligned, and she realized she had never seen his eyes this close. From far away they were only eerie light. Up close they looked alive, as if lightning chased itself through them endlessly.
Her storm god: violent, beautiful, and entirely too close.
And he wanted her.
“Where is your bed?”
Lily pointed toward the sleeping alcove.
He carried her there as if she weighed nothing.
Beside the berth, he began undoing the clever knots of her jacket.
His movements were smooth, practiced. It was obvious he had spent years in uniform, but in his hands the ordinary act of undressing turned decadent.
Her nipples tightened. Even through the fabric, their peaks were visible. She drew in a breath and her chest rose, and she saw his attention catch on it.
Then, to her shock, he tore away what remained of her uniform and slipped out of his own with a fluid twist, revealing a wide chest and hard-cut abdomen.
When only his trousers remained and Lily was down to her underwear, he lowered them onto the silken bedding, careful not to crush her with his weight.
His hot breath at her throat felt like a brand. She could track him only by sensation as his mouth roamed: along her collarbones, down the hollow between her breasts, teasing first one nipple, then the other with lips and teeth, then lower over her belly until he reached her thighs.
She was already soaked. Want kept building and building. He tasted the skin of her lower belly, caught the waistband of her underwear with his teeth, lifted it, then let it fall back into place. So close. Close enough to make her shake with need and yet still not enough.
She wanted him inside her. She wanted that space between her legs filled until she could not think.
When he gripped her hips and drew her to the edge of the bed, kneeling between her legs, shyness surged back unexpectedly. Lily tried to close her thighs, but his horns made that impossible. His hands pressed her open with calm, relentless certainty.
“You are temptation given form, Lily,” he said. “No wonder humans never made it anywhere in space if this is what they had to resist on their homeworld. I would have discovered fire only so I could watch you even at night.”
The words and the shameless position made her squeeze her eyes shut. She gasped when a single claw neatly sliced her underwear and cool air kissed skin that was already too hot.
“Beautiful,” Khar murmured. “Like the finest bloom in the universe.”
Lily realized what he was admiring and tried to retreat. He caught her hips and held her in place as if she were weightless to him.
“Food does not flee.”
Whatever resistance she had left cracked apart when his tongue touched her.
At first he was gentle. Then he became intent. He explored her with patient precision, the texture of his tongue unlike anything she had known, rough and perfect at the same time. He listened to every sound she made, every twitch and breath.
When he found her most sensitive point and Lily jolted, he smiled as if he had been waiting for that exact reaction. Then whatever patience he’d been pretending to have disappeared.
After two years of loneliness, the orgasm took her almost too quickly. It rolled through her in a brutal wave that stole shame and thought and replaced them with nothing but sensation. When the aftershocks faded, they only sharpened her hunger for him.
When she could speak, she pushed up on one elbow, pleading.
“Khar. I want to see you.”
He did not grant it.
Lily cried out when the first thick finger slid inside her. His mouth returned to that aching point, and when one finger was not enough, a second followed. He mapped her carefully, tormenting her with tongue and touch together.
She grabbed his horns as the second orgasm tore through her, white and merciless, until he finally released her.
She did not understand how it was possible. He was alien. A literal extraterrestrial. And yet her body responded as if he had studied her for a lifetime.
As she lay trembling, Khar rose from between her legs and removed his trousers. The next thing Lily felt was him pressing against her entrance, nudging her, stretching her without fully entering.
“Lily,” he said softly. “I know it seems large. But it will be all right. I will never hurt you. Do you trust me?”
She nodded.
Once. Twice. Three times he dragged himself along her, gliding over her opening and brushing her most sensitive places, building the ache until she felt hollow with need.
She did not know exactly what he carried, and in that moment she did not care.
She only wanted him to fill the growing emptiness between her legs.
Not seeing him made it stranger, and somehow more intense. Like surrendering blindfolded, with nothing but trust and sensation.
Taking her yes, Khar eased forward, slow and unstoppable.
Lily had never felt so full.
It stretched her, yes, but the sensation stayed balanced on the edge between pain and pleasure without tipping too far. He waited, let her adjust, then began to move, slow and rhythmic.
“You were made to undo my self-control,” he murmured. “I knew you would.”
The praise sent another surge through her. Against all logic, it worked. Alarmingly well. It was frankly insulting how quickly her body stopped caring that he wasn’t human. Worse, he felt obscenely precise, like someone had custom-built an alien weapon purely to ruin her life.
Tears slipped from Lily’s eyes as he drove into her with devastating control. Words and sounds spilled from her mouth as she neared the edge again, but she could not quite fall.
Khar noticed the strain.
“Use your words, Lily.”
“My clit,” she managed.
His hand found it at once. “Here?”
Lily nodded, eyes clenched shut. Khar knelt, lifted her hips with one hand, and changed his rhythm to match his fingers.
Her body seized so hard she nearly screamed as her third orgasm tore through her. Khar withdrew, watched her slacken into the sheets, then finished himself with a few hard strokes, spilling onto the bed.
Afterward, he gathered her close, stripped away the damp linen, and settled her onto a soft blanket, holding her to his chest. His breath warmed her neck. One arm cradled her head while the other traced slow, soothing paths over her skin.
Lily’s mind, usually a constant hum of thought, finally quieted. Warmth, touch, and exhaustion pulled her under.
She fell asleep in his arms.
* * *
Hours later, Lily’s bladder woke her.
She and Khar were still tangled together, so she slid off the bed with feline care and padded toward the washroom under the ship’s soft safety lights.
She took care of things quickly, then crept back to the bed.
Khar had not shifted at all. His impressive body covered nearly the entire mattress, and with his eyes closed his face looked calmer, almost ethereal.
The same could not be said of his sex. Even soft, it remained faintly intimidating.
In the half-light, Lily could see both the similarities and the differences compared to human men. Thicker. The head more tapered, broader. She did not linger. Instead, she burrowed back against him, hoping not to wake him while unwilling to give up the closeness.
Who knew what tomorrow would bring. Maybe for Khar this had been nothing more than release. Maybe his species attached no meaning to it at all.
The thought darkened her mood until a heavy arm slid around her waist and pulled her close.
“Do not wander off, Lily.”
He did not truly wake. The words came out rough and drowsy, half a murmur. Lily relaxed instantly and fell asleep pressed against him. For once, her brain stopped trying to catastrophize tomorrow.
Morning came with Helios’s familiar chime, but Khar did not stir. Lily watched him, fascinated, quietly pleased to learn something new about him. Namely, that he could sleep through just about anything.
She showered, pulled on a clean uniform, then carefully climbed back onto the bed and settled astride him. His eyes stayed closed. He only tightened his arms around her, holding her possessively.
It occurred to Lily that despite everything he had done with his mouth the night before, he had never once kissed her properly. That felt strange by human standards, but maybe it was normal for Divani.
She had no intention of missing out.
Sitting on his hips, one hand braced against his chest, she leaned down and pressed a small kiss to his mouth.
A low sound rose from deep in his throat.
“I like that,” he rumbled. “Do it again.”
Lily laughed softly at the effect she was having. Before obliging, she voiced her latest observation.
“I did not realize you were such a deep sleeper.”
She kissed him again, then, heart pounding, caught his lower lip gently between her teeth. Khar growled, his hand sliding up to her nape and holding her there.
“I am not,” he said. “I am in a developmental phase.”
As if sensing the swarm of questions forming in her mind, he added quickly, “It is natural. It will end soon. It will not happen again. Now do THAT again.”
This time Lily used her tongue.
Heat flared low in her belly as she felt him hardening between them, pressing insistently even through her uniform. The contrast between the roughness of his tongue, the flexibility of his mouth, and the sharp frame of his canines sent a dizzying rush through her.
She was still a little sensitive from the night before, but she found she did not mind at all.
“Khar,” she murmured, breathless. “Do you not want to…?”
A warning rumble cut her off. His clawed hands tightened on her hips. He lifted her slightly and let her settle back down so that his erection pressed more firmly against her through the fabric.
“Later. Your silky little cunt needs time to recover.”
Her face burned. Khar opened his eyes, and his entire body seemed to wake at once.
He tipped her back, caught her knees together in one hand, tugged her trousers and underwear down just enough, and bent to her. One hand held her legs steady. The other spread her gently as his tongue worked her with long, powerful strokes, paying deliberate attention to her clit every time.
She was only moments from breaking when he stopped.
With infuriating care, he pulled her underwear back into place, smoothed it, pressed a kiss to her mound, and tugged her trousers back up.
Lily stared at him, overheated and stunned.
“Khar, what the hell?”
He was already pulling on his uniform.
“I have to go,” he said calmly. “I want this on your mind until next time.”
Fury flared, sharp and reckless. She felt the need to reclaim some control.
“How do you know there will be a next time?” she shot back. “Maybe I will finish on my own and will not need you at all.”
His trousers were on, his tunic still open, broad chest on display. Her words landed. He crossed the distance in an instant, looming over her.
For a heartbeat, the otherworldly light in his eyes dimmed into something darker. Lily saw, truly saw, how dangerous he could be.
Before fear could take hold, his hand cupped her cheek, gentle enough to banish it entirely. What he said next stirred a very different hunger.
“That mouth says dangerous things for such a small creature. Perhaps I should see if it is still that brave when it is filled with my cock.” His smile was slow. “Finish if you wish. You will be thinking of me anyway.”
He traced her lips once with his thumb, stepped back, and finished dressing.
“We will meet on Vitro, Lily. Do not worry. You will be safe from me there.” A pause. “No. That is not correct. You are safe with me everywhere. I will be patient.”
He returned for one last kiss, long and searing, lifting her by the waist against him, then simply left.
Lily sat there, stunned.
The audacity. To learn to kiss like that overnight. To know her body after one night. To leave her wound so tight that she was the one tempted to break every rule and climb him during her shift.
She made a decision.
Khar was not getting away with this.
Sooner or later, she was flipping this situation on its head.
And she already looked forward to the moment he begged.