It wasn’t out of reach for Skalla, though. His manic motions stuttered without warning. A roar ripped from his throat, he thrusted again, and again, then once more, a hard, slow jam upwards. His cock pulsed and then spewed inside me, spurting liquid heat.

That did it. Finally, my orgasm came for me, crested then crashed down, rolling over my body like a riptide, dragging and drowning, until I could barely breathe. Skalla was so big I could barely even clench around him. My pussy milked him spastically while I wept, the muscles fluttering weakly, struggling for purchase, before my body finally slammed down around him so hard he gave another feral bellow and he came all over again.

Finally, Skalla actually began to soften a little after spewing. Only the cock inside me, though. The large cock was still as rigid as ever with its turgid knot.

But he wasn’t soft for long. He ground himself against me, giving little panting growls above my head, and was quickly back to full hardness inside my still-spasming core. I went entirely slack, giving myself over to him completely, my muscles spent and limp. It felt like the only thing holding my body together now was Skalla’s hands, Skalla’s arms, Skalla’s shaft.

Another orgasm. Another roar of what could have passed for pain. And then, this time, Skalla really did pull me off of him. One second he was gripping my hips tightly, holding me in place while he bucked up into my body. The next, I was plucked right off of him.

Skalla set me down on my ass on the floor – there was no way I’d be able to stand yet – and stared fiercely away from me.

“Not enough,” he growled, palming the underside of his knot and then hissing like someone had stuck a knife between his ribs. “It will not be enough until-”

He gave up on finishing his sentence, instead shoving to his feet, taking a few limping steps, and then plunging back into the tub again. He fell in so heavily that water crashed upwards and over the sides. A small wave of it soaked my legs, puddling around my hips. The water felt good. It cooled my skin and soothed the tender places between my legs.

“Please go, Suvi,” Skalla said, and it was barely above a whisper. “Go. And do not come again until it’s time.”

This time, when he asked, I went. And I didn’t argue.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Suvi

The next morning, I was starting to think that my hypothesis was bunk. I’d thought (and, frankly, hoped) that introducing some of Skalla’s biological matter into my system would have triggered an immediate reaction.

But it didn’t.

Other than a lingering ache between my legs, I didn’t feel any different from before. At least, not physically.

Mentally, though? Emotionally? That was a whole different story.

I felt both closer and further from Skalla than ever. We’d had sex – he’d come inside me again and again – but now I couldn’t even touch him with a single finger. And it hurt.

I wanted to hug him, to tuck him into bed and take care of him, to tell him that everything was going to be alright. I wanted to run cool water over his scales, clean him off, rub him down, gently stroke the painful places. I wanted to feed him riisipuuro – traditional Finnish rice porridge – topped with bilberries. That was always the way Elvi would make it when I was sick, and I was irrationally sad that I couldn’t do the same thing for Skalla now.

It was strange. Strange that being separated from Skalla was now what brought on my most intense feelings of homesickness.

I still brought him food – nudged along the floor into the room from the doorway – and he picked away at it, eating the bare minimum to keep his extraordinary body alive, but that was the extent of our contact.

Sometimes I just sat in the bedroom without him and stared at the bathroom door.

Sometimes I pressed my hand and my forehead to the wood, straining to hear any sound from him. Occasionally, I’d catch a sigh, a grunt, or a groan, but otherwise it was silence punctuated twice daily by the draining and refilling of the tub.

By the morning of the seventh day, I was distraught. Miserable at my inability to help him. I’d once looked at the starburn like some sort of betrayal, like my own body would turn against me and make me want what I wouldn’t ordinarily want.

Now, it felt like a betrayal that it was taking so damn long.

I stood outside the bathroom door, angry and hurting and quietly acknowledging the fact that Skalla might have gotten what he’d wanted after all.

He’d never gotten the chance to woo me the way he’d desired, the way he’d promised.

But, more and more, it seemed as if he’d somehow, some way, against all reason and logic and against even my own human defence mechanisms, gotten me to love him anyway.

I was sick with worry for him, and it went far beyond the care I’d feel for an acquaintance or even a good friend. His suffering turned me inside out. His absence was a physical sense of soreness. I missed him desperately. Missed his voice, his touch, the hulking stature of him always so reliably close behind or beside me. I missed his grins, his warm golden gaze.

I missed him most at night, when I couldn’t try to distract myself by cooking, gardening, or helping Zev with other various chores. The bed that I’d once been so nervous about sharing with him was wide and cold and empty. Lying in the darkened quiet, I couldn’t back away from the special kind of loneliness that came from missing someone who was very near but terribly, impossibly far away at the same time. All the way on the other side of something as insurmountable as an unlocked door.

Yep. There was no denying it.

I was anguished because I loved him.

It was as simple and as messy as that.

But acknowledging that fact didn’t do a single thing to help. In fact, it felt bitter. Because what was the point of loving someone this way? Of loving them when you couldn’t do a single fucking thing to help them?

I remembered asking that distressing question back when Elvi had been at her worst. On the verge of breaking down entirely and trying to soothe myself with ridiculous, child-like superstitions, I’d made her healing bilberry-topped riisipuuri like she’d always done for me. But of course, it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t even force herself to eat it, anyway.

I felt like that again now. Like I was holding a bowl of rice pudding and it was rotting in my hands because ultimately it meant nothing at all.

He’s not sick, I reminded myself unsteadily and without conviction on the seventh night. He’s suffering, but he’s not sick. He’s not going to...

I tore from the bed, scrambling to the bathroom and opening the door. It was completely dark in there apart from the glow cast by the constellations of golden light all over Skalla’s body. He raised his heavy, dripping head.

“Don’t die,” I said, squeezing the doorhandle so hard my knuckles cracked. “Don’t die. Because...”

My heart raced. I felt like I was about to fall through the floor.

“Because...”

The brave man gets to eat soup.

“Because I love you!”

I slammed the door shut and threw myself back into the bed without waiting for a reply or even waiting to register his reaction on his face. I curled up tightly in a ball, wrapping my forearms around my own knees, my fingers tingling with anxiety. I’d never said “I love you” to a man besides my own father before. I hadn’t said it to anyone at all in years. A nervous laugh bubbled up out of my throat, but there was relief in it, too.

At least he knew now. He might be stuck in there without me, both of us wondering why I wasn’t starburning yet, but he could at least hold onto that much.