He complies, pounding into me with all the force he's been holding back. The wet sounds of our bodies meeting fill the room, obscene and perfect. My natural lubrication makes everything slick and easy, letting him take me as hard as we both want.
"Feel so good around me," he tells me, voice rough. "So wet, so tight. Could fuck you all night. Would you like that? Being used over and over until you can't even remember your own name?"
I make a broken sound, and through the bond I feel myself getting close again, impossibly. The dual sensation—his building pleasure and my own—creates a feedback loop that has us both racing toward the edge.
"Going to come again for me?" He reaches around to stroke me in time with his thrusts. "Going to let me feel it?"
"Alex, I can't—it's too—"
"You can." He bites down on my shoulder, hard enough that I know it will leave a mark. "Come for me, Vel. Now."
I scream as I come, my whole body seizing up, bioluminescence going nuclear. Through the bond, my orgasmcrashes into him like a tidal wave, and I feel it pull his own from him with devastating force. He buries himself deep as he comes, still gripping my hair, and our pleasure loops between us until I can't tell where I end and he begins.
We collapse together afterward, both shaking, covered in sweat and come and still glowing faintly. My bioluminescence slowly fades to gentle pulses of gold and satisfied purple. The bond settles into a warm hum between us, no longer overwhelming but constantly present.
We lie there for a while, learning the shape of this new connection. I can feel his contentment, his lingering arousal, his growing affection. The satisfaction, the desire already rebuilding, the overwhelming love that should be too soon but isn't.
"Again?" I ask, feeling him hardening against my thigh, his renewed desire pulsing through the bond.
"If you're up for it. I did promise to teach you everything."
"Everything?" I shift against him, and he groans as my body responds to his want. "That could take a while."
"Good thing we have all night." He rolls me onto my back again, and my colors immediately shift to purple-gold anticipation. "Ready for lesson two?"
"There are lessons now?"
"Oh, so many lessons." He kisses down my chest, heading lower with clear intent. "This one's about all the other fun things we can do with our mouths."
My bioluminescence flares bright with nervous excitement mixing with desire, and through the bond, I feel his delight at my response.
"Show me," I say, spreading myself out like an offering, glowing like a personal galaxy.
So he does.
All night long, he teaches me everything—how humans make love, how to give pleasure, how to take it, how to let ourselves get lost in each other completely. By the time dawn filters through my windows, I'm thoroughly debauched, covered in marks, glowing with exhausted satisfaction.
And through it all, the bond hums between us, permanent now, unbreakable.
I think about how I started this evening—changing clothes three times, nervous about being too eager, too presumptive. Now I'm sprawled naked and marked and utterly wrecked in the best possible way, glowing with a satisfaction I haven't felt in a decade. Maybe ever.
I've been claimed. Thoroughly, completely, irrevocably claimed.
And after ten years of isolation, of careful distance, of protecting myself from feeling too much—I've never been happier.
Chapter Twelve
Alex
I wake slowly, awareness returning in gentle waves. The first thing I notice is the warmth against my back—Vel'aan pressed along my spine, one arm draped over my waist. The second is the bond humming between us, a constant presence now, like discovering I've always had a second heartbeat and just never noticed.
Morning light filters through the curved windows of his dwelling, casting everything in soft blue-green. The zhik'ra fields are visible in the distance, swaying gently in the current. Everything looks different in daylight—more real somehow, more permanent.
"You're awake," Vel'aan murmurs against my shoulder.
"How can you tell?"
"Your breathing changed. And..." He pauses. "I can feel it. Through the bond. Your consciousness shifting from sleep to waking."