No.

I would not let that happen. She’d enjoyed my touch, my tongue on her. At least some small part of her wanted me.

I could work with that.

I was a tenacious male, and though my memory was not clear on the matter I was fairly certain I had always been the sort of man who got what he wanted.

And all I wanted now was Suvi.

As if my very desire had conjured her, my mate appeared, stepping out of the bathing area in a waft of shifting steam. The billowing white of it behind her almost looked like a pair of wings. Her hair was a damp silver serpent along her elegant neck, and moisture beaded along the visible areas of her smooth skin. I already wanted to taste her again. Disappointingly, she was not nude, but dressed in Bohnebregg garments Jolakaia had left for her – a simple pair of cotton leg coverings and a sleeveless tunic that appeared to be sized for children. In front of her she carried the wet and freshly washed bedding and her robe.

She breezed past me without a word. Her cheeks were very pink, and I was not entirely sure what that meant. Something to do with the heat of the bath, perhaps.

I stood and followed close behind her, sensing where she was going and what she needed before she had to speak. When she reached the door leading out to the balcony, I was already there, reaching past her to open it. I had to lean in close to do it, and when my chest brushed against her back, her spine went rigid in the most delectable way.

Once the door was open, she practically bolted through it and set herself to draping the wet things over the railing so they could dry. Meanwhile, I set myself to watching her, slowly retying the belt of my loose robe, enjoying the languorous spill of warm sunshine on my scales as my mate bent and stretched at her task. Skies take me, she really was the most gorgeous creature. A body so lusciously curved it made my throat ache. Hair like finely spun metal, and eyes the colour of rain at dawn.

She turned those eyes on me now, no longer able to hide behind the busyness of the laundry. She had done all there was to do. And now I stood between her and the door.

I grinned, knowing that my fangs were showing. The toothy look of a predator.

But a predator who so dearly loves his prey.

“Well, we might as well go back in,” Suvi finally said, shifting from foot to foot under my stare. Carrying the wet things out here had dampened the front of her clothing, which made the fabric cling delightfully to her body. Even a few paces from her, I could make out the swollen tips of her breasts. Remembering how flushed they’d been beneath me, how pretty they’d looked shining with my seed made my cocks tug behind my slit.

“There’s a toll,” I said.

“Oh, wow. There are tolls even on alien planets?”

I frowned slightly, trying to suss out where I’d learned the word. Were there tolls on Bohnebregg, or was that a concept I’d picked up from some other world I’d visited?

I decided it did not matter. Suvi knew what a toll was and that was what counted.

She sighed with resignation.

“What is it, then? A kiss or something?”

I had not yet actually determined the requested toll. Before I could respond, she’d crossed the balcony to be, grabbed the sides of my snout, and tugged. She was not actually strong enough to pull me down, but I was helpless against her, helpless against those little hands with their deft, clawless fingers.

I bent, and she pressed her pink mouth to the tip of my snout, right along the seam where it opened.

I did not have a mouth like hers, and I was not entirely sure how to react or what to do. But the gentle press of her lips there made my loins heat. I grasped her waist and hauled her against me, letting her feel the swollen parts of me.

Instantly, she drew back.

“There! I paid the toll! Let me in, now!”

“No,” I growled. “The price of the toll has just doubled. You must pay it again.”

“That doesn’t seem very fair,” she said, scowling at me.

“It also was not fair to kiss me and let me go so quickly. I was not prepared. Now I am.”

“Not prepared? What do you mean?” She gasped. “Was that your first kiss?”

I cast my mind back over the roiling river in my brain. I knew I’d lain with other females. I was certain I’d used my tongues on them in various places on their bodies. But I was also just as certain I’d never been with one of Suvi’s kind before. This press of mouth on mouth did not feel familiar in the slightest.

“I do not know. But it is very possible.”

She groaned, and slapped her hands over her face. She looked... guilty. I could not fathom why.

“What is it?”

“I can’t believe I just took your first kiss that way. Paying a toll. Ugh.”

“Suvi,” I murmured, entirely besotted by how adorable she was, “are you concerned that you have somehow stolen some of my innocence?”

She did not answer, but merely made a mewling sound of horror that charmed me beyond belief. Her face was red behind her pale fingers.

“I have had other partners,” I said gently. “I have lived dozens of your lifetimes. I may not have put my mouth on another’s in such a way before, but I will remind you that I just had my tongues in a place far more intimate mere moments ago.”

She snatched her hands away from her face.

“Don’t say that so loud!” she hissed. “And... And that’s not the point! It’s not the same! A first kiss is supposed to be special!”

“It was with you,” I replied. “I can ask for nothing more than that. Although...” My grin returned, and she narrowed her gaze in suspicion. “If you wanted to do it over again, and make it even more special, I would surely not object.”

“Will you let me through the door if I do?”

“Perhaps. Though those tolls do have a pesky way of rising when you least expect it.”

“That’s not the only pesky thing around here,” she replied, but there was no bite to her words. Her gaze was soft now. Searching. My fingers tightened at her waist.

She pulled me down again, more slowly this time, the whole movement like a caress instead of an impatient tug. This time, when her mouth touched the seam of mine, it was not a firm, quick jab of a movement. It was tentative and tender, a gentle wave murmuring across my scales.

I could feel her like this, but not enough, and parted my jaws ever so slightly to let the tips of my tongue lance out between my fangs.

She stiffened, but did not pull away. And then, glory of glories, she did the same thing, her little pink tongue darting to meet with mine.

I groaned, tightened my hold on her, and let my tongue surge in.

It was so much like rutting her with my tongue that my cocks were once again straining at my slit, begging to complete that same motion. I’d gotten to taste the hot inside of her mouth and the sucking tightness of her cunt, and I knew I had not even explored one-tenth of the places I wanted to.

I wanted to lick at the hollowed shell of her ear, nip at the place where her ankles met her legs, drag my snout against each rib so I could count them, taste every single place her heart beat.

But first, her mouth. I had to properly worship that mouth. Suvi had given up on trying to meet the thrusts of my tongue with hers and was instead letting me cradle her jaw, holding her mouth open to me, pliant under my power in a deeply arousing way. I slicked along the smooth upper surface of her tongue, flicked along the sides, grazed those laughably small, pretty teeth.

The sweetness of the moment did not, could not, last. Some of Suvi’s stubbornness returned, and she began to pull back, bit by bit, until I was reaching for her through the air with my tongue. I decided that such a pose was undignified, even for someone who wanted her as desperately as I did, so I pulled back too, and reined it in.

Suvi’s hair had begun to dry, fine long waves of that extraordinary, indefinable colour. Her breaths came quick, and her cheeks once again displayed that heightened colour.