Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
SANDRA
The door slides shut behind us, and the silence in the hotel room feels heavier than the jungle humidity outside.
I should say something. Something witty. Something deflecting. Something that puts a comfortable wall between me and the man standing three feet away, looking at me like I'm the answer to a question he's been asking his whole life.
He asked you to your rooms—his room—my useless internal monologue supplies. And you said yes.
Yes. Thank you. I was there.
And now you're alone. In a hotel room. With a bed.
I glance at the bed. It's enormous. Probably big enough for four people. Or one very large Volscian and one very nervous human who is definitely not thinking about what could happen on that bed.
"So," Fercer says.
"So," I echo brilliantly.
We stand there like two teenagers at a school dance, neither of us willing to make the first move. Which is ridiculous. We're adults. We've already kissed. For "practice." This should be easy.
Except nothing about this feels easy.
But it’s just sex, right? It doesn’t mean that I like-like him.
Everyone leaves eventually. Don't get attached. Don't let him in. Don't—
His mouth claims mine before I can finish being clever about it.
Not soft this time. Not the tentative, uncertain kiss from our first night—the one he blamed on romance novels and then stammered through an explanation that made me want to both laugh and cry. This is hunger. This is a man who's been holding himself back and has just decided to stop.
His hands frame my face, tilting me to exactly the angle he wants, and the kiss deepens into something that short-circuits every synapse in my brain.
His tongue slides against mine, and a sound escapes my throat, something embarrassingly close to a whimper that I will be denying until the heat death of the universe.
You're making noises, my brain observes. Undignified noises. In front of the alien rockstar.
I don't care.
My hands find his chest. That's unfair. That is deeply, cosmically unfair. Warm and firm, and the texture of his skin is different from anything I've felt—smooth, almost like heated satin, with a faint roughness where a scar crosses his collarbone.
Fercer groans against my mouth. Low. Rumbling. The vibration travels through my palms and straight down to my core.
His hands drop to my waist, pulling me flush against him, and—
Oh my.
I can feel him through the thin fabric of his trousers, and he is very interested. Impressively, almost intimidatingly interested.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, his dark eyes blown wide. "If you want to stop..."
"If you stop, I will genuinely never forgive you."
A laugh escapes him. Surprised. Real. It crinkles the corners of his eyes, and my heart does a full backflip because this is him underneath the persona—the one who laughs like he means it.
His fingers find the ties of my swimwear cover. He pauses. Waiting. Asking. I can barely muster the coherent thoughts to nod, let alone talk.
His fingers—large, calloused, tipped with claws he keeps carefully retracted—work the knot at my neck with surprising gentleness. The fabric falls away.
Cool air hits my skin. My body tightens.
His breath leaves him in a rush.
I fight the urge to cross my arms.
Don't, my brain warns. Not when he's looking at you like that.
Like what?
"You're the most beautiful thing in the universe," he says, and it comes out hoarse. I want to laugh at his statement—the rockstar that probably has women falling over at his feet. And yet he’s looking at me so intently with those black eyes, piercing as if they can see through to my very soul. And the thing is, I know that Fercer’s not the type to lie. He’s been honest with me the whole time, even at his own cost.
And he called me beautiful.
Great. That's the most romantic thing he's ever said directly to me, and my stupid eyes are prickling. If I cry right now during what is supposed to be a sexy moment, I will never live it down.
"I'm going to take my time with you," Fercer says, and it sounds like a promise. A threat. Both. "I want to learn every way to make you come apart."
Then his mouth is on my neck. Trailing down.
Slow. Hot. His tongue traces my collarbone, and my head drops back because every nerve ending I own has relocated to wherever his lips are.
His hands span my waist—so large his fingers nearly meet at my spine—and he's holding me like I'm something precious.
His mouth finds my breast. His tongue traces a slow circle. Teasing. Not quite where I need him.
"Please," I hear myself say.
His mouth closes over my nipple, and the sound I make is not dignified. A mewl, high and breathy, while my fingers dig into his shoulders. Fercer groans around my flesh, the vibration sending sparks straight to my core.
His tail wraps around my thigh. I didn't even realize he'd freed it, but there it is, the forked tip tracing patterns against my inner thigh, feather-light and maddening. His hand slides down, fingers hooking into my bikini bottom. That questioning pause again.
"Yes," I say before he can ask. "Yes to everything."
He drops to his knees.
My brain goes blank.
Fercer, galactic rockstar, is on his knees in front of me, looking at me with an expression of absolute reverence. He slides the fabric down my thighs, presses a kiss to my hip, then lower.
"I've been thinking about this since the pool," he murmurs against my skin. "Since before the pool. Since you offered me a half-eaten dumpling in my ship and didn’t even recognize me. I’ve never wanted someone more than you."
His mouth finds my folds, and the world narrows to a single point of blazing sensation.
His tongue is different. Slightly longer, rougher in texture, and when he drags it through my slickness in one long, devastating stroke, my knees nearly buckle. His hands grip my hips, steadying me, holding me up and open as he explores with a thoroughness that borders on obsession.
When his tongue finds my nub and circles it with deliberate pressure, my hand flies to his horn, gripping for balance. He groans against me, and the vibration nearly sends me over.
My thighs tremble. My hips roll against his mouth. I'm gasping, desperate, and the climax builds, a wave of heat and pressure, coiling tighter—
It breaks.
I shatter, my body clenching and shuddering as I cry out his name. Fercer catches me when my legs give out and carries me to the bed.
He's still dressed. I tell him this seems deeply unfair with hands that fumble at his waistband.
The trousers drop, and I get my first look at all of him.
His cokas is thick, flushed a deeper crimson than his skin. Along the shaft, two prominent bulges swell, and between them, a series of ridges that catch the light.
My thighs clench involuntarily.
Fercer goes still, watching my face. Waiting for the reaction. I can see the tension in his jaw, the old fear—the worry that this is where someone pulls back.
I reach for him.
His breath catches as my fingers wrap around his length. Hot to the touch, almost feverishly warm, the ridges and bulges pressing against my palm.
"Sandra." My name comes out strangled. "If you keep doing that..."
"Then get up here."
He's over me in an instant, bracing on his forearms, caging me in warmth and crimson skin. His cokas presses against my entrance.
"I'll go slow," he promises.
"I trust you."
The words surprise us both. But they're true.
He enters me inch by inch. The first bulge meets resistance, and I gasp as my body yields, the pressure of it passing inside me sending a shockwave of sensation that has me clawing at his shoulders.
"Okay?" His voice is strained, his arms trembling.
"Don't you dare stop."
He pushes deeper. The ridges drag against my inner walls, each one exquisite friction. The second bulge presses in, and I'm stretched full, throbbing around him. Too much and not enough.
He starts to move. Slow, deliberate rolls of his hips that drag those ridges along every nerve. The bulges press and catch and release in a rhythm that builds heat faster than anything I've experienced. My legs wrap around his waist.
"Harder," I gasp.
His pace quickens. The ridges work inside me in ways human anatomy cannot replicate. My nails rake down his back. His tail winds around my leg. His mouth finds the sensitive spot behind my ear.
"Look at me," he rasps.
His eyes are dark. Almost entirely black. And the expression on his face—open, raw, unguarded—is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
No mask. No performance. Just him.
Fully known and fully wanted.
The thought crashes through me, and with it another wave of pleasure, building higher than before. My walls clench around him, and he groans, his rhythm faltering.
"I'm close," I gasp.
"Then let go." His lips brush mine. "Let me feel you."
The climax detonates.
My whole body arches, clenching around him in rhythmic pulses, and I cry his name, a full, broken sound.
Fercer follows me over, the first bulge swelling inside me, locking us together as his release floods through me in hot, endless pulses.
His groan is guttural, his face buried in my neck, his body shuddering against mine.
We stay like that. Locked together. Breathing hard. His weight settles over me, heavy, warm, grounding. His hand finds mine, fingers threading together, and he presses a kiss to my temple so tender it makes my chest ache.
"So," I say when I remember how speech works. My voice is wrecked. "Is that how it goes in the books?"
Fercer laughs against my hair. Warm and real and rumbling through both of us.
"Better," he murmurs. "The books have nothing on you."
I smile into his shoulder. My heart is doing something dangerous. Hard edges softening and walls crumbling. Something that feels like I’m letting him in.
Don't get attached, my brain tries. People leave. He’s going to leave.
But Fercer's arms tighten around me, his tail curls around my ankle, and he nuzzles into my hair like I'm the most important thing in his universe.
Shut up, brain.
For once, it listens.