Page 71 of Elanie & the Empath
The fabric of his shirt rasped against my fingers, so I pulled it up and over his head, letting it drop into the sand at our feet.
“This is better,” I said, running my fingertips over his skin, slick and hot and smooth as silk. But it still wasn’t enough. I still needed to be closer.
Grasping the hem of my shirt, I started to raise it over my head.
“Elanie.” Sem’s hands landed on my wrists. “Wait.”
“Why?” Each note of the song pulsed through me, vibrating my cells, heating me up from the inside out. “I want to feel you.”
“I want to feel you too, but we’re both”—he blinked several times, like he was struggling to bring the world into focus—“extremelyfucked up right now.”
I snorted, then I burst into laughter, barely able to breathe when Sem started laughing too. Our joy swelled, enveloping us until I couldn’t remember why I’d spent a single second of my life not laughing.
While he raised his eyes to the stars, lost in whatever he saw up there, I took a step back and looked at him. He was so gorgeous. Long throat, broad chest, firm belly. A statue in blue marble. But a statue had never been as soft as he was. Soft and warm, the perfect place for my body to rest. The place I fit, when I’d never really fit anywhere.
Needing to fit against him now, I tried to take my shirt off again, but my arms were so heavy, my body too wide, stretching from one edge of Thura to the other. And then someone was behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and found pearlescent eyes, long limbs, smiling lips. A Ulaperian female helping me lift my shirt over my head. And then a breeze caressed my skin. Her cool hands tracing up the sides of my naked torso. Her long hair brushing over my bare shoulders. Full breasts pressed into my back.
Sem reached for me, pulling me into his arms. “Stay.” He kissed my shoulder, my neck. “Stay with me.”
When my skin met his, the sensation was perfect. More perfect than any efficient line of code or seamlessly integrated upgrade. More perfect than the border between snow and sky.
His mouth trailed across my collarbone as his handskimmed over my ribs, drifting higher until he cupped my breast. I arched into his touch while his lips closed around my nipple. His mouth was hot, his tongue swirling, my eyes closing.
“I want you alone,” he said against my skin. “I need you.”
“Yes,” I gasped as his teeth closed gently over my other nipple, and then a little harder. I wanted him. Needed all of him. Around me, on top of me, inside me. More than I’d ever needed anything. Like I’d combust if I didn’t get it. Burst into flames and burn for a thousand years.
He hoisted me into his arms, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. The muscles of his back flexed and rippled under my fingertips, his heart beating in time with mine, with the drums, with the twinkling of the stars over our heads. With the aching heat between my legs. With the hardness between his.
His hand dove down the back of my pants before we’d even left the boundary of the revel. My head lolled over his shoulder, a whimper slipping between my lips when his fingers found my clit. And when I looked up again, I spotted Gol across the commons, staring at me, grinning.
“He’s watching us,” I whispered before taking Sem’s earlobe between my teeth.
Sliding his hand out of my pants, he held me tightly and picked up his pace. “Of course he is. He’s fascinated with you.” He pushed the door to our hut open and said with a smirk, “I can’t say that I blame him.” Then he kicked the door closed behind us and kissed me.
Swallowing his words, I kissed him back, brushing my tongue over his, tasting the rola fruit still fresh in his mouth. I squealed when he tossed me onto our mattress. But then I was quiet, silent, my heart pounding as he prowled toward me. As he sank to his knees at the foot of the bed.
My breath caught when his hands closed around my ankles, just like they had in my dream, in my fantasies since. Only this time he didn’t slide his hands up my calves. He grasped me more tightly and pulled, sliding me down the bed in one fluid motion.
His lips burned their shape into the skin of my belly. His tongue blazed a path to the drawstring of my pants. His teeth clasped around the rope, tugging it loose.
“What are you doing?” I gasped when he yanked my pants down, spread my legs wide, and nibbled on my inner thigh.
“Tasting you.” He brushed his tongue over the spot he’d bitten.
He’d made me feel good before, given me pleasure I hadn’t known was possible. But none of those sensations had come anywhere close to the soft, wet, glide of his tongue along the crease between my thigh and where I ached for him. But then his nose brushed against my curls, and the heat of embarrassment pushed through the mist of euphoria surrounding me.
“Stop,” I breathed, little more than a whisper.
His head rose from between my legs.
I couldn’t look at him. He was too beautiful, with his glowing blue skin and silvery eyes, with his lips so full and wet. So I stared up through our skydome when I asked, “What if I don’t taste good?”
“Oh, but you do.” He lowered his head, sampling my inner thigh again with a long, slow lick. Giving me a deep, appreciative moan. “Because I’ve already tasted you. On my fingers. On yours. It was heaven. And once I taste you here.” He swirled a fingertip over my clit, dragging it down through my center while I fisted the sheets. “I know I’ll happily eat nothing else for the rest of my life. Can I keepgoing? Please, sweetheart.” Fixing his hungry gaze between my legs, he licked his lips. “You have no idea how much I need this.”
Music vibrated through our hut. Heat rose through our floorboards. Desire pulsed through me in bright surges of light. And I was no longer a part of a program. I was no longer held together by fibers and filaments and bones and skin. I was free.
Shame binds us.
