She was so small, her voice melodic and low. How could she make her words feel like a man’s hard blows upon me?
“So I don’t really have a leg to stand on, here. Even if I did want to spend more time with you. I’ll only be gone a week. Seven days. And…” Her sight stars darkened. She looked away. “We should probably get used to time apart, anyway.”
“Why?” I demanded, taking a step towards her.
“Because the longer we’re together the more this…whatever this even is…grows. I can’t…” Maddeningly, she kept her gaze on the wall and not on me. “I can’t fall in love with you if I can’t stay with you.”
“Of course you can stay with me.”
I’d move a mountain to make it so.
“Of course I can’t!” she countered, snapping her eyes back to mine. “For all you know, some other man could get a mate vision of me any day now. One of Gahn Errok’s. Or maybe,” her voice practically crackled with the final words, “one of your own.”
The world tilted.
What if she were mated to one of my own men? Men whom I would gladly lay my own life down for, without a moment’s hesitation? If I would die for them, how could I not give her up?
And yet, how could I give her up? When such a thing seemed like it would be so much worse than dying? At least dying would actually kill me. Losing her would be a sustained agony for the rest of my cursed days.
If the Vrika chose her for one of my men, and I fought to keep her…
I would become the most pathetic, hateful sort of Gahn. A selfish one who puts his own desires above the wellbeing of his people. I would become everything my uncle – and I – had ever reviled. Such a thing would defile my uncle’s memory. He was a Gahn who gave his life to protect his people. He had taught me to be the same.
And now, here I stood, flailing, barely breathing, like my lungs were being slowly crushed inside my chest, at the mere thought of giving up a woman.
Not my life. Awoman.
The panicked reaction in my body told me that they were one and the same.
But they weren’t. They couldn’t be. My life was my people. My tribe was everything to me.
But there, on the other side of everything, was Nazreen.
I reached for her.
In that blinding moment of passion, I wondered if she’d reject me. Push me away and run to Gahn Errok’s mountain. But she threw her arms around me, opening her mouth eagerly tothe questing onslaught of my tongues. Without taking my mouth from hers, I lifted her and deposited her on her back on my bed, moving with her, as if attached to her by some unseen cord. She clutched at me as if in fever, her legs spreading as I ground my aching hardness against her cunt.
“Take them off,” she panted against my mouth. “We don’t have much time.”
My hands trembled so badly I could not even attempt to undo the human fastener of her leg-coverings. She did it herself, shoving her garments down until they tangled about her ankles. She made a sound of frustrated despair, then. A sound that would have driven me to take on an entire army, simply so that I’d never have to hear it again. I took over for her then, ripping her foot coverings from her tiny feet, allowing her to kick off her things. She whipped her tunic off, and the smaller covering beneath, until she was entirely bared to me. The throb of my cock felt nearly ominous. I could spill without even touching her like this.
But she did touch me then, grasping my shaft with one hand and leading it towards her core.
“Here,” she breathed, rubbing herself against me, spreading delirious wetness.
We’d never done this before. Mated this way.
I did not ask her if she was certain. Curse me, I did not even try to stop. With a broken groan, I shunted forwards into her hot depths.
She gave a strangled gasp. “Oh,God. Slow, Thaleo. Slow.”
There was no possibility of anything but slow for now. She was so tight around me I did not even know if I could get any further in her. I regretted not feasting on her first. Drawing even more wetness from her with my tongues. But she was right. There was not much time. And even now, she was rocking helplessly against me, trying to draw me deeper, hereyes scrunched tight with focus. I planted my palms on either side of her head on the mattress, driving myself forwards with torturously incremental strokes.
She was like the finest spinner silk around me, slick and clasping, even hotter here than her mouth had been. The feel of her stretching for my cock killed all thought in my head, killed my past, my future, killed everything until there was nothing left but the agonizing paradise of existing here, in this moment, inside her body.
“Thaleo!” She moaned, her blunt little claws dragging down my back until they reached my buttocks. She squeezed me there, still trying to pull me closer, deeper, sending my tail thrashing with pleasure and my sac tightening beneath my shaft. I let my arms collapse, propping myself up on my elbows so that I could seal as much of my front to hers as I could. Her breasts shook against me. Her wetness coated me, welcomed me, and then I was reallyin her, so much further than before. I ground myself deeper, again and again, as if I could somehow permanently bury a piece of myself inside her.
My seed, I realized with a stab of savagery. She’d have my seed in her. Something no one would be able to pry from her.
