CHAPTER 76
There was a part of her that was quite nervous—she had never done this before after all. “Kallias, you’ve never done this before, have you?”
“No.”
“Me neither. We might not be good at it.”
He shrugged. “Then we try again until we are. But are you sure you want to tonight?” he asked, stroking her face. “You look so tired.”
She imagined a lot of that had to do with Mr. Runington, and she didnotwant to think about him now.
She pushed him down—to his complete shock—and straddled him, smiling triumphantly.
“Daria!” he cried, going red, suddenly looking like the most modest of ladies.
All that kissing he had done down her throat, well, now it was his turn. She kissed him, first his face, then his jaw, his neck, his chest, his abs. She could feel his body tensing, arching up to meet her lips.
“Daria, please,” he murmured. “If I…if I get any more excited, I’m not going to be able to stop.”
“Good. I don’t want you to stop.”
She laughed. His expression was adorable, like a shy bride on her wedding night.
“But honestly, what if…what if it…what if we…?”
She silenced him with a kiss. “We’ll stop if we have to stop.”
It was true; there were valid concerns. He probably weighed more than a man, his tail probably made him longer than one too, and who knew what else was different?
“Would you be more comfortable in water?” she asked.
“Maybe a little,” he admitted. “To move better. Maybe just tothe lapping shore.”
Then sitting up and spinning, he pulled her to him. Her back fell against his chest, and he began running his lips down her neck. She wasn’t sure how such an innocuous gesture could set her soul on fire, but it did—like his lips could create literal sparks under her skin, like he could possess and consume her with just a touch.
And it was so gentle a touch, so loving, so caring that it was as if he was speaking through bodies not words, like he never needed to learn a common language at all to understand her completely too, and for the first time, she asked him for something in his language.
“Tell me how to say ‘I love you’ in your language.”
She could feel his smile against her skin. “Amorare ite.”
She turned her head to meet him and kissed his lips. “Amorare ite.”
CHAPTER 77
They lingered on the edge of the sea, where the waves seemed to cater to them and the slope of the beach seemed like it was built just for their needs. The waves gently lapped, so they barely pushed and swayed them, like billowing seaweed, and the slope let her head stay dry while their bottoms were in over a foot.
Kallias told her those words meant something like ‘you are my everything,’ or at least that was what it conveyed. And that night, under the twinkling stars and glowing moon, she felt it. She felt it with each kiss, with each touch, with each move. She felt it in the way his eyes stayed trained on her, the way he asked and checked on her and her pleasure, the way he fondled her as if she was the most divine thing to ever live. She even felt it as he pulled off her clothes—that constant, caring attention he had as he made sure every little thing was okay.
And though there was a bit of something alarming of having someone atop her and inside her, he quickly banished all her fears, and it was just him and her in this perfect world with his perfect love.
They moved together as one until she could no longer think, could no longer breathe for the intense warmth of pleasure that ran through her. She was wrong: he wasn’t a child of the moon but of the sun with this warmth—glorious and beautiful and all she ever needed.
Her chest was rising and falling heavily when he finished and she felt as exhausted as if she had run from Marathon. Rolling beside her, he was likewise heaving for breath, but his hand clumsily searched through the water until he found hers, and taking it, he brought their entwined hands to his lips and kissed hers.
“How was it?” she murmured.Was it okay?He was wonderful, but wassheokay? In retrospect, she hadn’t bothered doingmuch. She had truly stopped being able to think.
“There are no words,” he said, turning his head to her and smiling—so warm, so beautiful that it was as if he had come to love her even more. “You’re perfect,” he said. “Just perfect.”
