I slid the paper back into his lap, and Araxis blinked down at it, his eyelashes dark and thick as he studied my words.Ask me, I thought furiously at him.Ask me to help.Ask me to stay.Ask me for anything.Just invite me in!
"I wish to keep you safe," he said after a long silence, finally glancing back to me, although his stare skated past me as if he found looking at me difficult."Knowing you are well, that you are safe from harm, will be a source of strength for me.You are like a calm centre in the eye of a hurricane.The soft quiet after a snowstorm.Finding you, and being close to you… you cannot understand what a balm you have been to my spirit, Sashen.I thank the stars that aligned and brought us together.There is no end to my gratitude."
My heart thundered against my ribs, and I wanted desperately to believe him as he said it.But I felt, all at once, that there wassomething he was holding back – his attention drifted past me, and I could see his mind twisting and turning through unseen paths.And still he hadn't asked me for anything, except to get out of the arena and let him handle the hard work.I was cracking open the walls I'd built around myself, I was scrabbling my hands in the mud of my soul to dig up the things I'd tried to bury, and he was giving me pretty words meant for an audience.
And then he added, "Perhaps you will allow me to show you how grateful I am," and he wrote,Today is our tenth day here.
My heart sank, and any hope I'd been holding that this was real drained from me.There had been something real, I knew there had been, and he had wanted totellme something – but all he'd really said was that he was sorry I'd been hurt, that he wanted to protect me, and that he felt bad for not doing a better job.
He had been Araxis, entirely: empathetic and protective.Entinn and sinnenthi.But he hadn't drawn me closer, not in a real way.I'd reached, desperate, across the distance between us, and he offered me… artifice.
He wasn't even blushing, and it was that more than anything else that confirmed that none of this was real.
What he'd intended to say when he'd brought me down here, thinking we'd be free of outside eyes and ears, didn't even matter.If he couldn't write it down, if he couldn't make me understand, if he couldn'tleanon me – then it had probably been nothing at all.
In all likelihood, he'd brought me down here for this exact reason – it was our tenth day, so we needed to fuck – and perhaps he felt a little conflicted about it.Perhaps he felt, like I did in a sudden, sharp spike, that I was just a dancer, and he was buying access to my body by paying my debt.
But I said I'd do anything.And if this was what he needed from me, that's what I would give him.
I smiled, gentle, a coaxing smile I used with shy clients, and I wrote,Sorry about changing our timeline.But everything has played well with the audience.Then, reaching out to brush his hand and pull hisattention back to me, I wrote in large letters where he could see,We don't have to actually do anything.I'm good at making all sorts of sounds.And then I drew a little smiley face, to soften things for him.
Next to me, Araxis's crest rustled."I – would very much like to touch you," he murmured."If I may."He shifted, then, and sank to the floor in front of me, resting on his knees between my legs, his hands coming to sit gently on my thighs.
A jolt went through me, sharp and electric as I stared at him, his eyes black pits behind his dark eyelashes.His hands tightened ever so slightly as he blinked up at me."There aren't cameras here," he murmured for the benefit of our listening audience.His crest bristled around him like a halo, rippling.
"Can I touch your crest?"I asked, breathless.He nodded and I reached one hand forward, sliding my fingers between the quills emerging from the skin behind his temple.They were soft, supple, moving like a cascade of grass between my fingers.I raked my fingers down, gentle, feeling his quills shift and move across my skin – alive and responsive.
A soft sound of pleasure slipped out of his throat, his hands sliding up my thighs as he arched into my touch.It was that sound that made something give inside of me, and I remembered in a vivid flash of sensation how he had tasted when I'd last had him, quivering and pliant in the sheets of his bed.How he'd asked in this shuttle if we might fool around on our way to Thenat-2.
I have you against a wall, he'd said, heated and determined.
Impatient and eager.Not shy at all.
I slid my hand from his crest and grabbed for the paper again.Araxis ignored me, sliding one hand up to palm my thickening cock through my loose pants.He nuzzled his cheek against the inside of one knee, looking up at me as his purple tongue flicked across his bottom lip.
Are you SURE, I wrote in big blocky letters, stifling a sound as his fingers stroked at me through my pants.Of course I wanted him; Ialwayswanted him, even when I thought he wanted me mostly forshow.Even when he was just using me.I was accustomed to that, and he used me more thoughtfully and kindly than most.
He huffed, then, sounding irritated, and shoved himself upwards, batting the note away.His fingers grabbed my wrist while his other hand worked at the ties at his waist."I understand we have a reputation as a sexually shy species," Araxis said.He kicked my legs together and then straddled my hips, pushing my hand down the front of his pants until my fingers came to rest against his slit, wet and ready.I looked up at him, and his cheeks flushed pink."Please believe me when I tell you what I want, hm?And what I want right now, Sashen, is you.Allof you."
I'll believe you when you tell me, we'd promised each other.His free hand shifted to stroke the side of my face and he pressed a gentle kiss against my mouth.
I had promised him anything and everything – and it wasn't a promise I intended to break, even if keeping it did break my heart.I shifted my wrist, sliding my fingers across his slit.He hissed out a short breath against my lips, and then licked into my mouth, hungry,famished, as I stroked the length of him.His hips stuttered forward, eager; he ground against my hand.
My cock was hard beneath him as he rocked against me."Can you take these off?"I asked, voice hoarse as my fingers traced the shape of him, hot and slick and eager.Araxis nodded, and I chased his mouth with mine as he slid backwards and on to his feet, my hand slipping from his pants.My fingers glistened with his slick, and as he shimmied out of the tight-fitting trousers, I raised them to my lips, sucking them into my own mouth so that I could taste him.
His eyes were endless black, watching me, and he flushed a deeper colour, the pattern in his skin gleaming."Yours as well," he said, and although it was near his usual commanding tone, there was the slightest tremble lurking in his voice.Needy.
I stood and untied my own pants, stepping out of my boots.Araxis surged forward, pushing me back so that I slammed back down onto the bench."Stay," he said, firm, kicking my legs open and sinking tohis knees."I told you I wanted to express my gratitude.I would lavish you with all that you deserve."
Fuck, if that was his dirty talk – imperious and formal – I was a goner.A pulse of heat throbbed through me, my cock hot and hard despite the chill in the air – a chill that vanished almost immediately as Araxiswrapped his pretty fingers around the base of my dickand licked a long, wet stripe up the underside.A groan tore from my throat as he pressed his pointed purple tongue to the vein just beneath my cockhead, exploring, tracing.He licked up to the slit, prodding, and my hips jerked.
"Hm."He gave a few gentle strokes with his hand, his other palm reaching to brace my hip down."I have sharp teeth.You'll want to be careful.Don't get over-eager."And then he parted those pretty lips and slid them down over the head of my cock, heat enveloping me.His tongue rolled against the underside, wet and slick and perfect, his cheeks hollowing as he took me in his mouth a little more and sucked, gentle and careful.
"I don't –" I gasped out, fighting against the urge to thrust up into his perfect mouth, to chase that warmth and wetness, to feel him take as much of me as he could.Fuck, Iknewwhat his teeth were like, but –
I squeezed my eyes shut, because I sure as hell couldn'twatchhim bobbing his sweet mouth over my cock and keep a handle on myself.A pleased rumble sounded from Araxis, and the vibrationhumming alongmy length.My dick twitched, and I was sure more pre-come was leaking from the slit; Araxis's mouth was wet and unpracticed, but so eager, commanding.He hummed out a pleased sound as I groaned, his hand holding me tight against the seats as my hips wants to buck against him.
"Fuck, okay – You – I won't last if –" The words spilled out of me, and Araxis slid his mouth from around my cock, swiping his tongue across the head to collect all the pre-come, lapping it up with his lilac tongue.
