Page 35 of Unfinished

“What’s that?”

His feathers went askew, and it gave the impression he was cocking his head though he didn’t actually move. “Music.” He pressed his hands into the couch and lifted himself up. Sienna reluctantly sat up, too. “It must’ve been Jesthi,” he muttered.

“Where’s it coming from?” Sienna asked.

“My desk, I think. Let me check.”

R’kash stood and looked back at her with a fleeting smile. He walked across the room until he was in the first section of the suite. She hadn’t even noticed the large desk set near the wall beside the door. R’kash grabbed a slim tablet lying there and tucked it beneath his arm. The drumming grew louder as he turned back and returned to the couch.

He moved his balché to the side and set up the tablet between their glasses. The device had what looked like a frame surrounding it, an incongruous thing that looked like carved wood. There were a few dull amber stones inset at the corners. The tablet was balanced on the table like a piece of art or one of the big viewscreens people often installed in their homes. A familiar video greeted her eyes.

“That’s the one you sent me two weeks ago! How did Jesthi know about that?” she asked. Sienna reached for her balché. She’d already deduced that he and Jesthi were close, but she didn’t like the idea of his friends reviewing their messages. The things she’d written to R’kash were supposed to be private. She’d stopped sharing their messages with Tasha as soon as she’d realized they might have something serious between them.

R’kash’s fingers froze, perched atop the edge of the device’s frame. “It’s a popular lyrical performance often shared among courting couples. It isn’t too surprising that Jesthi would’ve thought it fitting for a mating night’s entertainment, but, Sienna, I don’t expect that from you yet.” His hand fell to his lap and he looked at her. “I want it, believe me, I hunger for us to be joined that way, but the claiming bite is serious. You must have no doubts. Please trust me that it’s best for us to wait, at least until you’ve stayed at Evathi long enough to make a fully educated decision.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Sienna caught the dancer with the wolf-slash-jackal mask jumping up in the air with a yelp, hands and legs sticking straight out so his body made an X-shape. The sudden movement made her startle before she focused on R’kash again. “I don’t mind waiting for that. I’d like to learn more about what exactly it means for your people. It seems to be the focus of all of these rituals—Jesthi’s song on the stairs, I mean ramps, for example. This,” she said, motioning towards the big tablet. “I know I checked the box that said I was open to it, but you never really wrote much about its significance.”

R’kash picked up his balché and took a healthy swallow. The glass hit the table again with a decided thunk. Then he swiped over the tablet’s surface and the device went completely silent as the screen changed to a still image of the temple.

“We’ll discuss it later, outside of the bedchamber and without the balché. In this moment, I don’t wish to talk. May I touch you, Sienna? May I taste you?” He turned his arm upwards and held it out, offering it to her. “Let me take you to the bed, lady.”

She slid her hand over R’kash’s arm, from the thinner scales in the crook of his elbow all the way down past his wrist until her palm rested snug over his hand. That was all it took to get his rattle working double-time. She was grateful she’d never been around snakes long enough to have cause to fear them. She could hear that shaking hum and think only of R’kash and the strength of his desire.

He rose slowly, making sure she stood along with him, and then he led her to the foot of the bed. Less light was coming in through the side windows. It was nowhere near dark, but the room felt smaller, the air thicker—intimate, like the bed and its curtain were the only markers that mattered and the rest of the space was just shadows. She certainly felt like she stood beneath a spotlight when the back of legs met the bed and R’kash’s gaze swept over her, heated and sharp.

His fingers fell to the top button of her blouse. She hadn’t seen any buttons on his clothing, but it didn’t take him long to figure out how to unfasten them. Once the first was done, the others took only a moment, and then he was pushing the smooth fabric off her shoulders. One of his fangs pressed into his lip when he caught sight of her bra. Maybe she had been thinking of matehood when she’d chosen it. The lace was bridal white, a little nod to what they hoped to be for one another. The way his eyes drank her in made her glad she’d gone to the effort.

Sienna reached back and undid the clasp herself. R’kash’s breath stuttered out of him in one long, disjointed hiss. Then he was on his knees, and his hands closed around her hips. He yanked her forward until she was balanced on the very edge of the bed, and then he leaned forward to suck a nipple into his mouth. She’d always been sensitive there, but the delicate points of his tongue drove the stimulation to another level. The little electric flicks combined with his warm suction had her arching her back to press her chest in closer.

His fingers replaced his mouth as he pulled back to shift to her opposite breast. Edgar hadn’t bothered much with her chest. He’d claimed he wasn’t a boob man and that if he were, he would’ve chosen someone bustier anyway, but R’kash cradled her breasts in his smooth scaled palms like he was handling the rarest treasure. His hands were reverent, but the things he was doing with his tongue were positively profane. No more than a few minutes could’ve passed since he’d started touching her, yet she was already on edge, growing shifty and desperate for some sort of release.

He lifted his face away and looked up at her, lips still wet and his pupils dilated. “You’re so beautiful,” he said. He still had his hands on her chest, and he seemed a little dazed, like he wasn’t sure what to do next. R’kash finally dropped his gaze and gave his head a little shake. He traced a path down to her navel with one fingertip. The pressure of his dark nail was heavy enough that she felt every drag and hesitation, yet he didn’t hurt her. He just kept looking at her with that sense of mystified wonder, as if he’d somehow stumbled into paradise and was waiting to be told he’d trespassed.

R’kash leaned forward, and his tongue extended until the points twitched inside the hollow of her bellybutton. Sienna couldn’t stop the shrieking laugh that escaped her as she twisted beneath his grip. “No, stop—please, it tickles!”

She looked down to see him smiling against her skin, cheek pressed to her stomach. His feathers felt so smooth, but they didn’t give like human hair. She stroked her knuckles over the side of his face. Scales, not skin, she reminded herself. Even his eyebrows were tiny feathers. Here she was with an alien man in her lap. She’d been waiting for the moment when this would all feel real, but she still hadn’t found it yet. It was still like walking through a waking dream.

R’kash inhaled deeply and his expression shifted. “You tease me, Sienna. You give me your beautiful laughter, but I can taste your desire in the air. Don’t deny me—let me pleasure you.”

Now Sienna was the one going still. Did he mean what she thought he did? Was that possible? “What do you mean, you can taste my desire?” she asked.

“You liked the things I did to you and the way I touch you. Your body prepares for me, making itself ready to accept mating. Your scent is so beautiful—just like the rest of you. I thirst for you. I need to taste it from the source, to satisfy you.” His hands moved lower until they rested on her thighs. “Part your legs,” he demanded, his voice going rough.

Sienna lifted her hips. “Help me pull off these pants first.”

His nails were cool against her skin, but they didn’t hurt her as he gripped the waist of her pants and began to tug down the fabric. He inhaled slowly, another one of those shuddery breaths like the sight of her left him struggling to function. R’kash smoothed the pants down her thighs until they bunched at her knees, and then he tackled her shoes. He slid them off her feet and removed her socks, holding one up to examine it with his head tilted. He lifted her right foot and slid the edge of his fingernail along the arch.

“Even your feet are lovely, but so very fragile. You must hurt yourself all the time with such smooth, thin skin.” He raised her leg and planted a soft kiss on the underside of her foot. “Earth must be a very gentle planet to produce such a defenseless species, but I can’t complain. Your ancestors might have never welcomed my people if you’d been otherwise.”

Maybe another time Sienna would’ve argued with that wildly inaccurate assessment of the Mayan civilization, but she wasn’t about to argue human history when R’kash was nuzzling his way up between her thighs, dropping slow, sensual kisses as he went. His teeth closed lightly over her skin, right before he reached the apex of her thighs. He was so close to where she wanted him that Sienna felt like she might scream if he didn’t touch her. The pressure of his teeth increased, along with the faint prick of one of his fangs. It felt like she was being told to stay, like when one of those mother huskies held a pup by the scruff of its neck.

His fingers moved between her legs, slow and patient. She huffed out a dissatisfied sound and he lifted his face with a slight smile. Then he looked down and all amusement left his expression as his eyes darkened even more. “Wondrous,” he said, stroking the pad of his finger over her, letting it dip down between her folds and circle around for another pass. “Like I told you, every part of you is beautiful.”

Before she could decide whether that statement required a response, R’kash leaned in, mouth warm and willing, and tasted her. Tasha would’ve laughed at her if she’d heard Sienna use the term, but the only way she could think of to describe the way he touched her was making love. She couldn’t remember a time when a man had cherished her like this. There was no formula to it, no art. He kissed and sucked, stroked and tasted, curling that agile tongue in unexpected ways, and all the while the rough buzz of his rattle made every point of contact sing.

He didn’t use his fingers, not beyond the steadying pressure of one big hand splayed over her thigh and the other tightening rhythmically on her hip. Was he counting out the beat of her heart? It felt like it.

Her hands fisted the bed coverings, but she fell back to her elbows anyway, unable to support herself any longer once he slid his tongue deep inside of her. Her hair brushed the bed as her head tipped back. He released her hip and helped her set her feet on the edge of the mattress. She dropped her arms and let herself sink into the bed and the softness of the fur she’d noticed earlier.

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