Paws latched onto her shoulders and circled, breaking knots and tangles in her nerves and muscles that she hadn’t even known were there until she cried out and went limp in relief.

“Too much?”

“Nope.”

His head rested on top of hers, and she could feel his tail brushing against her ankle. She rubbed back against him, smiling when it curled slowly up her calf. “Mmm. I always heard Felids were standoffish. Didn’t like to mix with other species.”

“For the best part of the last decade, we were in strict quarantines within our own planets, sometimes our own towns and houses, trying to save our Queens.”

Saddened, she leaned against him. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. When a Knight or King is with a Queen, he is allowed to be affectionate. In Servali culture, the King’s Pride is his Queen and cubs. He is nothing without them. It is his goal to have a Queen who adores him,” his lips were pressing her neck now as his paws worked down her arms, kneading her like dough, “and craves him.”

“This is craveable,” Nessa gasped as his paws landed on her lower back, just above her hips. “Keep going.”

“Anywhere I should avoid, Nessa?”

“No, go wherever you want. Keep talking,” she sighed, licking her lips as she turned her head and his muzzle brushed against hers, making her heart skip a beat.

“Where was I?” Kamau whispered, eyes still locked with hers.

When she spoke, her mouth touched his thin black lips, whispering against them. “Making your Queen crave you,” she breathed.

“Mm. Because our Queens are in heat for weeks at a time, at least three times a year. And we must satisfy her, and mesh with her, hours of giving her pleasure to thank her for choosing us and for having our cubs.”

“Hours?” Nessa didn’t mean to laugh, but the disbelieving sound escaped. “Hours at a time over the course of these heats?”

Kamau pulled back, a slight frown on his face. “Well, usually about two hours each time, and many times over those weeks. But part of that is the meshing.”

“What’s that mean?”

He hesitated. “Well, I should not be the one to tell you, Nessa, I—”

“Do you want to show me instead?”

HIS BRAIN WAS FLOATINGaway, leaving only some hidden, hungry instincts that should never have existed in a civilized Felid.

He rubbed himself against her back, his cock swiveling over her curvy bottom, so plump and squeezable. Slowly, he whirled her in the water to face him, letting her hands brush his sides, swallowing a hiss when she started to stroke them up and down his chest, working lower each time, as if she knew exactly how to drive him mad.

She must know what she was doing to him, staring up at him with wide eyes, long, dark lashes beckoning him as she blinked slowly. Her white suit was now transparent in the water, and with her facing him, he could see her enormous, mouth-watering breasts tempting him. He longed to suck on the barely concealed nipples straining and hard beneath the thin fabric.

“Felid males have small nubs at the base of their erections,” he said, trying to hold onto some semblance of manners, working to put facts ahead of sheer lust. “Once a Felid is inside of his partner, he swells, locking them together for a long time. He stays hard for that time, so his Queens can use him, rocking herself to peak after peak as he is squeezed and massaged in her tight embrace, making sure every drop of his essence is planted in her.”

Nessa’s head tipped back, staring up at him with starry, sleepy eyes. “Really?”

“Mmhm.”

“And... Layla, Wendy, and Jade? And these other women? Do they ‘mesh’ with their Felid lovers?”

Kamau cleared his throat. “I have not seen that directly, but I believe so. I know it, in fact, because a King cannot leave his Queen once they’ve been meshed without pain and possible tearing, and this has delayed Rupex and Talos on occasion.” Kamau placed his paws firmly on Nessa’s shoulders. “You sit. I’m not done with your massage.”

It was the best way to prevent him from ripping off her swimsuit and trying to rut her right then and there.

Nessa let him put her on the edge of the tub, hands planted out behind her to support her weak back, legs parting slightly.

He couldn’t suppress the groan that came from his heart when he looked at her thighs, wanting to pillow his head on them. When he caught the scent of her wet heat that came racing toward him when he grabbed her calf and foot, stroking and kneading them, he almost bit her softly, marking her like the Kings of old.

“You bring out a very savage side of me,” he admitted, because she loosened his tongue with criminal ease.