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Our kiss gentles to a stop like a feather floating to the ground. When he sighs from my touch and leans his cheek into my hand, I pull back to stare longingly up at him, my gaze roving over his deep-set eyes, bone-white horns, and strong jaw.
I don't want tonight to be our last night together.
He's a Terror, a king in his own right. But I can see the exhaustion burdening him, weighing down his shoulders. All day long, as we planned and the horrors Barnabas isperpetrating kept filtering in from Uni's minions, the tightness in Tesq's shoulders grew more pronounced.
I'm not sure Barnabas has left a single monster under the age of five alive. He's swept through the city on a rampage, desperate to power up his league of beasts before the Terrors come for him. He knows they're coming.
My monsters could never sit idly by and let others take their power. But more than that, they refuse to stand by and let Barnabas and his bastards destroy their future generation.
They may have run a brutal kingdom full of wrongs, but I truly believe they've changed. I've seen their hearts expand, their minds forced to face realities they've never experienced because we all thought I was human and their mate. They've pushed through the idea that I should be a pet, a prisoner, a plaything. And I think they've come to realize that the world, while brutish and violent, is better with a little bit of love and loyalty.
Of course, Tesq was already closest to that realization. He's the most evolved of all of them. A gentleman among beasts.
I want to tell him that, to tell him how he unlocked this side of me that no one ever has before, that he makes me believe in things like soft smiles and fairy tales filled with glimmering sunbeams and dances in meadows. Things I would have dismissed as stupid before. Things I'll still dismiss as stupid if someone like Dev ever mentions them.
But Tesq...
I move my lips to the corner of his mouth and press gently, a kiss as soft and warm as a wax seal of approval. Moving along his jawline, I resolve to kiss every inch. I cannot only hear butfeel his sigh of contentment as it rumbles through his massive chest, and it makes me smile.
But I don't want to be done. The pressing need to be honest with him transforms into a need to show him. I've always been better with actions than with words, anyway.
I pull away slightly and grab his hand, intertwining our fingers and marveling at how thick and huge his are. They’re twice as large as mine, the skin so smooth but also so firm, with no give. Something about the simple act of holding his hand makes me feel both safe and cherished.
I stare down at our linked fingers for a long moment before glancing up at him and then backing toward the cave. He follows easily, without question.
The other monsters are sleeping under the cover of the trees, Creep snoring where he wedged himself underneath a fallen, rotting log. Turning, I walk Tesq away from the others. The cave will lend us a little bit of privacy if anyone wakes, which I think my shyest monster will appreciate.
I duck as we enter the dark space, and the shadows enfold us, only broken by the tiny streams of glowing orange crisscrossing Tesq’s limbs. The heavy thumps of Tesq’s footsteps echo in the tight space as I lead him over to a flat slab.
"Sit," I whisper, though no one is awake or near enough to hear.
But whispering feels right because this is a private moment, and I don't even want the stars above spying on us.
Tesq sits, one hand planted on his knee, the other still woven with my fingers as I stand between his legs. When he glances up expectantly, I can't quite read his expression in the dark, butit's better that way because the nerves inside my stomach are crumbling like a cracker gripped tightly in a fist. I want to do this right, and I don't want to scare him, my timid man. That means going slow, something that's never been my strong suit.
Slow.
I lift our joined hands and gently kiss his knuckles.
Slow.
I step closer and then carefully sit sideways across his legs, bringing our woven hands around my waist to hold me against his chest. His rapid heartbeat drums against me, and I realize that I'm not being quite slow enough. Tesq is a tranquil pond, and I'm causing ripples.
Instead of kissing him again, I lean against his chest, simply soaking in his warmth, waiting for the crash of his heartbeat to mellow. I let him get used to the idea of holding me, of our arms pressing together. I let him reconcile the fact that the rivulets of lava running along his body don’t hurt me at all, merely cause steam to billow up around us, as if his fire and my ice are encasing us in a cloud.
Once I feel like Tesq has calmed, I turn my neck and place a feather-light kiss to the pulse on his neck. His breath catches, and I smile slightly as I drag my lips up and down the thudding vein. His heartbeat starts to quicken again, but this time, I make my intentions a little clearer—I dart out my tongue and trace a hot, wet path up his neck.
“Aliana.” The way he says my name is so full of breathless worship that my stomach skips.
I drag my lips to the hollow of his neck and press a kiss there before whispering, “Tesq.”
I’m certain he can hear the longing in my voice, the ache, when his fingers tighten their grip on mine.
His roiling veins seem to glow a tiny bit brighter, and the steaming mist around us grows thicker as I reach up with my free hand and wrap it around the back of his head, pulling his face down to mine for another kiss.
We spend several minutes that way, my hair growing damp and sticking to me as we gently kiss, not leisurely, but softly. Delicately. Our lips brushing, our breaths colliding as we inhale each other. Something fragile and sweet blossoms between us, like the first spring buds on a tree, tiny little pinpricks that become a burst of bright pink.
I trace my fingers in a pattern over the back of his neck, and as I grow bolder, I slowly sweep them down his spine, trailing across the massive muscles of his back. His strength sends delicious shivers through my body, and I pull him into me, letting my tongue dart out for the first time, cautiously testing the waters.
