Page 44 of Gravel and Grit

Moaned words of demand, of praise, of need spilled unnoticed from her lips as she clung to him, pulling him to her, needing more, staring into those beautiful, alien eyes. He roared from behind clenched teeth when she scratched her nails down the tough skin of his back. That sound, the repressed ferocity and wild passion of it, pushed her over the edge.

Throwing her head back, she screamed his name as she came. Her thighs shook where they were clamped around his waist, and her walls spasmed around his heavy, thrusting cock. Pleasure expanded to every part of her, coming in waves, each stronger than the last. He didn’t stop. He powered inside her three, four more times then shoved himself to the hilt and went rigid. Even through her own orgasm, she felt his release—the hard jerks of his cock each followed by a warm rush of cum filling her to overflowing. His deep grunts, forced from him with every heave, blended with her cries as they clung to each other.

The warmth of his cum spread outward, becoming that same tingling burn she’d experienced with his kiss. It intensified her orgasm until her screams were choked off by her frozen throat. Starbursts exploded behind her lids.

Just when she was sure she couldn’t take any more, the waves of pleasure ebbed until she could suck in a gasping breath, but it took a long time before she stopped shaking, before the pleasure receded enough for her to collapse back to the floor.

Zaek stayed bowed above her for a long minute until his arms shook threateningly. Before he squished her, he groaned and haltingly rolled to the side, like his muscles weren’t quite ready to work. Mira understood that perfectly. Sparks were still firing through her body and she was pretty sure if she tried to stand she’d just end up collapsing on her ass. He took her with him as he rolled, extending his wing beneath her to protect her naked, sweat-slick skin from the cold floor.

Tilting her head back on his supporting arm, she pried her eyelids open and looked up at his face. His eyes were closed, but he must have felt her gaze on him because his lips curled and he cracked one open to peek down at her.

He hauled her up higher so he could nuzzle his nose into her hair, then released a deep, satisfied sigh that warmed her scalp and sent a shiver down her spine.

Burying his clawed fingers into her curls, Zaek used his grip to gently tip her head back. He pressed his lips to her forehead, each of her eyelids, and to the tip of her nose then finally sealed his mouth to hers.

He kissed her softly, leisurely, the urgency from earlier replaced by aching tenderness.

Mira felt her chest tighten with an emotion she wasn’t ready to name. It was too soon for that unnamed feeling. Things were too uncertain. It was too unrealistic. They were on the run from men who wanted to kill them. They were, quite literally, from different worlds.

And he would be leaving her’s soon.

She knew all of this, but she melted into his kiss anyway, unable to hold onto her logical arguments when he kissed her like she was precious to him.

When he pulled away she thought, this is it, this is when he gets up to make a sandwich or watch television or any number of things men did after sex, but that was just a weak, half-hearted effort to push that feeling away.

Zaek wasn’t a man and had never once given her the impression he was that thoughtless or selfish or uncaring. No, what he did instead made that sneaky, stubborn, persistent emotion grow a little stronger, a little harder to ignore.

He scooped her up into his arms, carrying her like a princess, but he wasn’t the knight in shining armor she’d never wanted. He was the dragon.

He climbed to his feet, his hold of her never faltering, and carried her into his bedroom. Using his wing claw, he pulled back the covers then laid her on his bed and followed her in. He immediately pulled her into his arms again, where she felt safe and warm and protected.

Mira stayed awake for a long while after Zaek fell asleep. As they lay in his bed, the room aglow with the dying light of the setting sun, his soft stroking of her curls slowed before stopping altogether, but his arms never let go as if, even in sleep, he needed her close.

She had so many questions for him, so many things her scientific mind wanted to pick apart and explore, but they took a backseat to what she felt.

When he told her he was leaving Earth she’d been more upset than she thought she should’ve been. Hadn’t she already told herself a relationship with him was a pipe dream? A fantasy and not something she should even let herself think about? But, talking with him for hours on end, learning so much

about him and liking everything she learned, only made that sense of loss stronger.

Worse, it made her wonder why she was holding herself back.

Giving in to the desire to have sex with him was probably a bad idea, for a myriad of reasons, but she’d never felt this kind of connection to another person.

She’d spent the majority of her life alone, first because she was the sad kid who cried all the time, then later because she didn’t care about dolls and dress up, she liked aliens and science and that made her the weird kid. So she built a wall to keep the rejection from hurting so much. That pretend indifference and self-reliance helped protect her from the monsters that preyed on kids who were desperate for someone to love them, but it kept everyone else away, too. After a while, she convinced herself she liked being alone and focused on school, then her career.

Zaek was just so different, so wholly unlike anyone she’d ever met. He was this irresistible mix of stoic, quirky, playful, protective, and devastatingly sexy. That he was an alien, a real freaking alien, was just too much. How could she be expected to resist that? He was everything she wanted and knew she’d never find.

Maybe whatever this was would never be more than a fling. Maybe she would fall madly in love with him and live the rest of her potentially short life pining and heartbroken when he flew off into the sunset on his spaceship.

Maybe, just maybe, they’d fall in love with each other and live happily ever after on an alien planet.

Regardless of what the future may bring, and despite the potential for heartbreak, Mira decided to give in to the desire to explore the feelings she was developing for him.

When she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore and finally fell asleep, it was to images of soaring above an alien landscape, of petting the magical-sounding animal he’d told her of, theat-ukris,and of visiting cities filled with a hundred different species.

In every picture, Zaek was with her, holding her securely in his arms, standing at her side, and showing her a world full of wonder. In every picture, they were smiling and happy and she never had to be alone again.

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