Page 32 of Crush

Page List

Font Size:

But when she gazed at him, the countdown echoing in her head was more intimate—and somehow more dangerous. She could run and hide, or…

She reached up to touch his face, his tusk pressing into her inner wrist. They might look different, feel different, but in this moment they were enough the same.

“I shouldn’t ask,” she whispered, “not when I’m not brave enough to stay. But will you kiss me again?”

He seemed to require nothing more from her than that request, which almost made her cry again, as he swept her up against his hard torso, his arms gathering her so close to carry her to his bed. He framed her face, kissing her deep, so deep, and she wanted to thank god or evolution or anyone else who wanted to take credit for the way his tongue matched hers in delicious, tea-flavored caresses; how his hands were as frantic and fumbling as hers, times two; the way his antennae and his pulse thrummed a wild, syncopated cadence matching hers, not the melancholic dirge of wanderings in alien exile but an exultant pulse of desire shared. In one heartbeat, she was naked, in the next so was he, the orc kilt and the utility sash across his chest requiring only a one-two snap of her fingers, literally, to remove.

In their kissing, she had ended up on top, and now she gazed down the length of his body to his bared loins. “Oh, she said faintly. “For some reason I thought…” She shook her head. “This is what I get for not reading through all the homework.” She’d thought she’d have more time to get to the good parts.

From now on, she’d always start with the good parts.

As if reading her mind, like he was some sort of psychic space rock, he lay back, folding all his arms behind him, a wicked curve to his mouth that she suspected might be universal to certain male-identifying types across the galaxies. “Just because we usually keep it retracted doesn’t mean it can’t be unearthed on demand.”

“Demand,” she murmured. “I would never be so rude.”

“Be so,” he urged. “With me. Command or beg, whisper or growl, whatever you need, ask and it’s yours.”

Her whole body felt rocked, not in orgasm, not quite yet, anyway, but to be given such a gift, freely. To have someone at her side, on her side…not to mentioninside.

She remembered how he’d kissed his way down her body last time—god, she’d likely never forget—so she echoed that curious, wandering path until she reached the middle of his body. Okay, she might’ve stopped reading the handbook when she got to “claspers and spermatophores”, but the configuration wasn’tthatdifferent from an Earther.

His skin was softer, sleeker around his rampant sex, the blue-bronze shinier, without the toughness of his exposed hide. Even as her pulse accelerated, her heart seemed to melt too. Vulnerable, like her.

Compatible in all the ways that mattered.

Not just because the alien orcs had become familiar, but because of Teq and the way he cared for her. The way she’d care for him.

At least until she left.

Now her heart wanted to break. Was she really so scared that she couldn’t stay and work with the orcs, work for more of this? But she wouldn’t risk Ollie.

If this moment was all she could take for herself, at least she’d give something back to this crusher who swore he couldn’t feel.

She spiraled a teasing trail of kisses around his rampant sex until his breath was a growling groan, then wrapped her lips around him. He tasted like their first kiss with its mineral tang, filling her senses. She took him all in one mouthful, and she was no expert but from the way he gasped out her name, she was rather proud of herself. In her enthusiasm, perhaps she sucked a little too hard, because he stroked the underside of her jaw and crooked one finger into the corner of her mouth, breaking the seal.

“Save the vacuum for space,” he murmured. “I’m delicate.”

When she choke-giggled, he groaned again, his lower hands gripping her shoulders. With his words and his body, he gave her all the power.

She found the pressure and the rhythm he liked, playing him like a synthetar. And the noises he made were music to her, the vibrations from him echoing deep inside her until the harmonic throbbing in her clit threatened to overcome her, the yearning ache in her breasts tightening to laser points of need in her nipples. And he wasn’t even touching her.

And then hewastouching her. He rolled her across the huge cushion of his bed, pressing her downward with the heavy weight of his hard body, his erection nudging between her thighs. He cupped her breasts with his big hands, so many fingers dialing up her need to an all-klaxons emergency fuckmenowdammit.

When he stared down at her, the luminescence in his black eyes made her world spin. No, she didn’t have a world right now.

She had him.

In a low rumble like a coming avalanche, he said, “Before, you asked about penetration.”

Her clit wasn’t just throbbing, it was commanding and begging. And since the IDA initiation had included inoculations that prevented pregnancy and other infections, she could be free as she never had before. “I want you inside me. I want to feel…everything.” Angling her hips, she caught her breath on a keening moan as he eased his body into hers.

While his upper arms braced in the cushions, his two lower arms anchored under her backside, suspending her as if she were flying. And his lower-lower hands…

Wait,what? Oh.Oh! The claspers she’d not quite read about squeezed her labia with a pulsing pressure that sank into her flesh, triggering a rhythm even deeper as he rocked against her.

“Too much,” she whimpered, but when he started to withdraw, she clamped her heels behind his backside, wishing she had a hundred arms to keep him close. “More,” she demanded. “I want to feel you all.”

And there was so much of him.