At last, his entire body seared with urgent need, Tagen rose and stripped himself of his clothing. Daria’s eyes flashed wide, hungry, and she reached for him, pushing his hands away so that she could tear away the final barrier between them. Tagen forced himself to stand immobile as she pulled his jacket and shirt free, her mouth and tongue a torture on his bare flesh.

“Trust me,” she whispered. Her hands scoured down his stomach to tug at the fastenings of his pants. “I need you to trust me.”

“I do.”

She took his rigid shaft in her hands and then closed her mouth around him.

Tagen’s breath hissed explosively out of him, only partly in the shock of the unexpected action. The sensation was beyond description, almost beyond his ability to feel. He had heard of such a thing but he could never have imagined such resounding pleasure. Her tongue, her lips, her breath, her teeth—all these things in every combination, moving over and all around him. It was ecstasy, enough to be anguish.

She pulled away at last, trembling as she pushed his pants down and helped him step free. She took his hand, smiling at him with passion and with trust, and pulled him down on the bed beside her.

To enter her was a celebration of the soul. She rose above him, her arms outstretched and her head thrown back, flying somewhere in her own mind as she moved with him. Her body swayed and arched, surged and ebbed; she danced with him, the act of sex made into art so pure it hurt to see. His hands could not keep from her, touching her, proving her reality to himself again and again. She was a god in her element. She was a star at the universe’s creation. And she was his.

They climaxed together and Tagen felt this release for the first time as a joining. He thought he could almost reach out and touch her soul; he thought he could see her heart like a glow around them both. They were one. They were truly one.

She folded over, lowering herself with that dancing, dreaming grace until she lay atop him. His arms came up and closed around her waist, holding her against him, holding them joined.

“I love you, Tagen,” she breathed. “Do you know that word?”

“Yes,” he said.

He did now.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Twenty-Eight

It took most of the day to work the dopamine into Vahst and by the end of it, Kane was ravenous and his eyes were smarting from staring at the dark screen at tiny numbers. But he had five new vials of finished product in the preserving compartment and that made it impossible to feel too pricklish. Filling forty vials with concentrated Vahst was a hellish undertaking for a single man, but he was beginning to think he could actually pull it off.

He stood up, sealing his pack and dropping it on the floor, and stretched out all his cramping muscles. “Let’s see it, Raven.”

She handed him several sheets of writing and he studied them with a pride that was almost fatherly, a feeling that struck him as being profoundly disturbing. She’d written out the alphabet, his name, hers, the word ichuta’a, and, he saw with a smile, the word thal. The letters were childishly uneven. He needed to show her better how to form them. She could write well enough in human, there was no excuse for sloppiness.

He let the papers drop to the tabletop and ran his eyes over her instead. Her clothes were dry, but he hadn’t let her up to dress yet. He liked her this way. Glittering. He was proud of the overall effect of her naked body and gleaming ornaments, but there was nothing fatherly about it this time. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Better.”

She looked better, at last. He could still smell blood on her, but not as much as there had been, and she’d stopped griping at her belly. Soon, he’d be able to have her again, and he meant to enjoy her fully. He touched the tattoo on her arm that marked her as his, and then traced a claw lightly down to the rings in her nipples, then to the gems he’d set around her navel, and lower still, to her cunt. His next breath was nearly a sigh. He stroked along her metaled folds, remembering how it had been to take her, to make her cum for him, to feel that wild body writhing and sucking at him in her throes.

She was watching him now, her face guarded and delightfully solemn. He bent and nipped at her jaw, giving her hip a friendly slap before stepping back. She smiled faintly but it didn’t touch her eyes. There were times when Kane wondered if some humans might not be just a touch psychic.

Time to eat.

Kane fetched his pants from the bathroom where they hung, along with those of his humans, over the curtain bar. He dressed and came out to put clothes in the hands of his females. It was a shame to have to cover Raven’s jeweled body, but a pleasure to watch her do it. The way she moved…

“Ichuta’a,” he said, and snapped his fingers as he sat on the foot of the bed. Sue-Eye was at his side in an instant and he pulled her comfortably down onto his knee, giving her a little bump when he noticed her wince. “And how are you feeling?” he asked solicitously.

“Fine.” Her voice was strained, although she fought not to show it in her face. She kept trying to tilt her hips forward on his thigh so that her bottom didn’t take her weight, and he made a point of repositioning her roughly every time she did.

“Fine,” Kane echoed. He bumped his knee for her a few times playfully and nipped at her shoulder when her face puckered up. “Good. Get dressed and find us food.”

She sprang up, and then walked stiff-hipped to the phone. Kane flexed his claws, watching her, restless but lazy.

His eye fell on Raven and he snapped his fingers. She came readily enough, but with far less enthusiasm than his blonde ichuta’a. He pulled her down to straddle him, fitting her legs aside of his and pulling her tight to him. He locked his arms around her waist to keep her there and put his face very close to hers. “Bite me,” he growled.

She lifted her brows. “Where?”

“I don’t think I care.”

She leaned into him awkwardly and closed her teeth on his chin. She bit, lightly at first, and then harder, until Kane groaned with pleasure. He opened his eyes as she pulled back and caught her frowning.

“I’m having the weirdest feeling,” she said, averting her gaze.

“Like you’ve done this before?” He laughed and cupped her head, guiding her to his chest.

She bit, and then, without any prompting, twined her arms around his neck, licked up to his throat and bit again. Her hips rocked slightly, just once, an instinct she quickly stifled.

Sue-Eye was watching from the table, her eyes dark and face tight. Kane waved her over, growling his desire. She was on the bed beside him in an instant, digging her little claws into his chest and sinking her teeth into his shoulder. Her aggressiveness was eerily familiar to him and made her suddenly very appealing. He wrapped an arm around her waist and gave her lead.

He wasn’t going to let this get out of hand. The food was coming and he wanted to eat without rushing, but it felt good to unwind in the grip of these twin pairs of hands, to feel teeth on him in restrained savagery (very restrained, as far as Raven went), and to have the scent of them ripe in his nostrils. He lay back slowly, letting them braid with him, the three of them uniting into a single coil. Even with his eyes closed, he could tell which was which—Raven was gentle, caressing, and Sue-Eye, brusque and demanding.

At the moment, he preferred Sue-Eye’s kind of touches, although he hated playing into her game. But it would be nice to smooth out the evening hours with some rigorous sexplay, the kind that spilled a little blood—his and hers both—and kept the body burning for a few hours afterwards. And Sue-Eye, fool that she was, would be grateful for it, no matter how rough he got. She’d probably even see it as some sort of personal victory.