Page 36 of Unfinished

He was sliding his tongue up and down inside of her, pressing firm circles as he went. She felt like she might combust from the inside out. Her hands itched to bury themselves in his feathers, but she didn’t want to give him any distractions. Her breaths were coming fast, her body tensing and releasing, that inner rhythm racing towards an unavoidable precipice. Part of her wanted to skid to a stop, to make it last, but the rest of her was ready to run right off that cliff. Her thighs tightened around his face, and he groaned, so low and deep she felt it resonate up her body in waves. Those vibrations hit something just right, and then she was done for, hips lifting, still chasing the high even as it crashed straight through her.

R’kash’s desperate movements turned gentle, but he didn’t lift his face yet. He kissed her through it, his tongue gliding softly as if he wanted to gather up every last remnant of her pleasure. She finally had to push him back when she grew too sensitive to bear any more.

“Come here.” Her voice was hoarse, her fingers patting ineffectually at his shoulders in a bid to get him to move. She was too boneless for more effort. He’d seemed so confident earlier, but now his grace was gone, and the ease had vanished. R’kash looked at her like he hadn’t understood a word she’d said. She frowned, and tried again in Xithilene.“Come, R’kash.”

She held out her hand and waited.

He pressed his palms into the mattress and pushed himself up on unsteady legs. He still wore the crimson kilt, but it lay crooked, one half lifted to the side. She may have been too weak to feel like doing anything about it at the moment, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate the sizable bulge pushing his kilt all out of order. He watched her but made no move to get on the bed. He made one of those half swallowed rumbles before he finally met her eyes.

“Would you like the balché? Or perhaps you’d prefer water?”

Her brow wrinkled as she stared back, wondering if he had aversion to cuddling or if it were a cultural difference. “No, thank you. I’d really like for you to lie down with me. Humans like to hold each other after sex. Not all humans, probably, but the majority of us like physical connection. Is that abnormal for the Xithilene?”

A series of unreadable expressions flitted over his face until it eased back into an impassive mask. R’kash bowed his head slightly and walked around the corner of the bed. He hesitated, fingers tucking themselves into fists as he took the last few steps and sat down on the side of the bed. He sent her a searching glance, as if checking to make sure she hadn’t changed her mind during the seconds that’d passed.

Sienna opened her arms as she scooted up towards the head of the bed. “Please, R’kash. Come here.”

Finally he stretched out beside her. Sienna slid one arm beneath his neck and wrapped the other around his hips, her fingers resting lightly on the edge of his gold belt. His body was still tense. He felt as fragile as spun glass in her hands, this big man who looked like he could scale mountains. She pressed her lips to his neck, kissing softly over his racing pulse.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, rubbing her nose against his throat before she lifted her head. “I’ve got you, R’kash. You’re safe with me.”

Something frantic flickered in his orange-red eyes. His lips parted, but he only gasped when she rolled her hips closer, pressing his hard cock between their bodies. She wanted to take that panic and twist it until it turned into the hunger he’d displayed before. She wanted to show him just how much she cared about him, how special he was to her.

Sienna’s hand slipped from his hip down to the front of his kilt. She ran her hand over him, the fabric doing little to disguise his excitement, and he jerked beneath her touch.

“Let me make you feel good. It’s only fair. Let me taste you, R’kash.”

She waited for him to say no. When he only trembled against her, she slid down the bed until she could kneel by his hips. Then she pushed him down so he lay flat and looked back up at his face.

She smiled. There it was—the desire she’d wanted to see burning in his eyes. Never looking away, she unclasped his belt. Then she curled her fingers around the edge of his kilt and pulled. R’kash would be shouting to his gods again soon. Sienna was determined to make sure of it.

17

She was goingto strip away every layer of control he still held. R’kash didn’t need the gift of discernment to know that. It hadn’t been like this before. The other women at the temples—they’d never touched him the way she did. They hadn’t kissed him, tasted him and savored his scent. R’kash watched her, wondering how she planned to take him apart. No wonder she’d given him that small, mysterious smile when he’d spoken of humans being defenseless. She’d known even then that she didn’t need claws to rip away everything that kept him whole and shielded—protected.

The last time had been with L’eesha, although he’d not known her name then. She’d been there waiting outside his chamber door, and her intent had been clear the moment she’d planted her hand over the center of his chest and pushed him inside and towards the bed. She’d taken what she’d needed. The other encounters beforehand had been much the same. It was her right as a supplicant at the temple to request the services of a priest. When so few of them took mates, it was a sure way to establish a new generation to serve the temples.

Maybe that’s why he was so shocked at what Sienna did next. She stared at his cock, already risen again from his mating slit, and her tongue darted out over her lower lip. Then she bent down and took him in her mouth.

“Lady’s teeth!” he half hissed.

Her wide-eyed gaze swung to his face, her lips still stretched around him. The sight alone was enough to make his rattle flare to life, but then her tongue began to circle his cock as she sucked. She was destroying him with that skilled mouth, with every swipe and glide, he knew he’d never recover from this night. She had one hand pressed hard into his thigh. The other closed around his shaft as her thumb stroked the soft mating spikes that swirled towards the top of his cock.

He hadn’t even known that such pleasure was possible. All sensation seemed to have migrated to his shaft and his groin. The rest of him felt like so much detritus, his mind static and his body just a vessel for the sweet torture she inflicted with each movement of her mouth. She was sliding her lips up and down him now, and his hips lurched up without his control. He couldn’t help it. She’d broken him—entirely, completely. He was a wreck of vibrating, mindless rapture.

With the few thoughts he could pull together, he wondered how long it would last. Surely she wouldn’t continue? She’d want to take her own pleasure again, wouldn’t she? The hand on his shaft tightened, mimicking the motion of her mouth. This double assault would render him incapable of serving her if she didn’t stop soon. He felt crazed beneath her touch, as if the conditions for a storm had always lived beneath his scales, and now she was the one who’d set the wind in motion, who’d unleashed its madness.

R’kash opened his mouth to say something, anything, but she placed her other hand at the base of his cock and her fingers teased the taut edges of his mating slit until one dipped inside of him, between the sensitive inner skin and his shaft. His vision whited out. The world dissolved into the Lady’s stars, endless light and purifying fire.

He was groaning. He was doing far more than just that. The noises coming from him were animalistic. He hissed as the song of his rattle swelled, his release filling Sienna’s blessed mouth. He stared up at the ceiling, but he wasn’t really seeing it at all. He was simply too gone to move.

She swirled her tongue around him one last time, gliding over the rings of his piercings, before she pressed a soft kiss to the very tip of him. He managed to glance down, and she was looking right back, a mischievous glint in her fine eyes. She knew exactly what she’d done to him.

Sienna trailed her hands over his body as she moved up until they were face to face. Then she tucked herself in beside him, laying her head over his chest. Her hair slid between her skin and his scales, so fine, so silky, so luxuriously decadent. Her left hand curled around his waist, and she sighed against him, sounding utterly content.

His voice rasped when he finally succeeded in speaking. “I’m sorry, Sienna. I’m unable to please you again now, but I can try later if you wish it.”

Her face shifted against his scales. He dared to look down, although he feared seeing her disappointment. She seemed to keep nothing hidden on that expressive face of hers. As he’d anticipated, she looked unhappy, her lovely mouth turned down in a frown.

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