Page 22 of Claim
“That was amazing,” she said, infusing her tone with sincere admiration.“I really—”
He rolled her to her back, his weight pressing her into the deep cushions, and she oofed out a breath.
His big black eyes flashed in the wandering gleam of the night light stars.“If you can still say nice things to me, it wasn’t amazing enough.”
She blinked at him, and the waning throb between in her legs quickened again in anticipation.“That seems…like a challenge.”
“It’s only a challenge if there was a chance I couldn’t do it.”
Oh, that chance.Wouldn’t it ache more if she let him do it again?“Arrogant apex,” she murmured—and opened her legs wider.
The satiny rough drag of his torso down her body reignited the tingles.But it was his heavy mouth and the threatening poke of his tusks against the flesh of her inner thighs that made her whimper with need.The swollen, tender nub of her clit heated at the gust of his breath, and she tensed, awaiting his touch there.
Instead, he sent only the most delicate ping across the gap between them.With a gasp, she arched up…but he held that infinitesimal space she could not close.
Groping blindly, she feathered her fingers through his antennae.At his shuddering response vibrating through her, she nearly orgasmed again.But she steeled herself against the greedy impulse.
“Why do you hold back?”he growled.“Give me your pleasure, meebu.”
“Not without me getting yours,” she growled back.
“June…”
“Chicken.”
He straight-armed above her, looming like a menacing muscle-y alien storm cloud.“So demanding and cruel.”
“I’m not asking for any promises you can’t keep, just tonight.”She let her hands drop to his shoulders, not stroking seductively or holding possessively.Merely being.“If you want.”
He stared down at her, every facet of those black eyes unfathomable, and for a heartbeat, she thought he would rise, that he’d leave her three-quarters aroused and all regretful.Then another shudder wracked him, not pleasure this time or even the promise of it, but something deeper, something breaking.
Helplessly, her arms went back around him, as if she could block out the hurt she’d just caused—or at least keep him together.When she buried her face in the crook of his neck, his big hand cupped her nape.
“What I want,” he whispered into her hair.“I want to feel you next to me, around me, your hunger on my tongue, your sweetness flooding through my ichor.I want to give you release so violent that my name from your lips etches the stars.This I want so that the heartbeats of my life, should they be my last, may be spent in furious union with yours.To be remembered fondly by you, June, feels like a fortune to me.”
Eyes clenched shut and burning, she clung to him.“I’ve never been anyone’s fortune.”
With his fingers tangled in her hair, he inexorably tipped her head back, sending a delicious thrill down her spine.He stared down at her.“If no one claimed you before, all of Earth is a fool.”
When he kissed her, hard, the thrill swept out through her veins, sparking every nerve, drowning her in intoxicating delight.At the insistent nudge of his body between her legs, she spread wide for him again, inviting every sensation, even knowing it would end.
Eternities were made of moments, after all.
When he sonoscryed her again, she was so immersed that shefeltthe sonorous pulse sweep through her and echo back to him.With all four arms, he held her as they reached for the peak together.When he whispered her name, the short syllable that had sometimes seemed like an afterthought sounded perfect coming from his alien mouth.
When her orgasm rolled through her this time, she couldn’t blame the little bit of yezo but she was thoroughly overcome, and only the depth of the cushions kept her from being hopelessly squashed when he collapsed too.
As their alternate breaths eased, he angled to one side, groping behind him to pull his costume cloak over them as they snuggled together.She’d have to wash it; no way was she letting it go to Luster Station with the musky scent of sex clinging to it.
Brief snuggling, fine, but no clinging of any kind.
His mouth brushed her forehead.“It’s late,” he murmured.“I have to go.”
She nodded against his chest, her gaze fastened on the glyph just beyond her fingertips.
When he rose, he lifted her with him.She didn’t make a sound as he carried her to the bedroom.In the sleeping cushions, half Earther bed and half orc nest, he released her, though his lower arms lingered another moment, as if only half of him was ready to let her go.But then he withdrew even that last connection.
She knew that feeling too.
