For some reason, that makes her smile. “That was dumb. You should have slept here, at least.”
I don’t tell her about the night I spent outside her door. “Yes. I should have.”
“Get a shower and then come to bed,” she commands like a queen.
“You forgive too easily,” I tell her.
She laughs, but it’s a sad sound. “I don’t forgive you. I just missed you. And I bet you didn’t get any massages from the healers, so you probably missed me, too.”
Missed her? Iyearnedfor her. Not only because I didn’t have her today. I yearned for all the years ahead that I won’t have her. “I did.”
Her mouth twitches into a smile. “Hurry and clean up.”
Endless hot water from geothermal springs is one of the few luxuries on Usuri, but I’m so eager to have her hands on me again, I don’t linger long under the shower’s spray. Perhaps I should have, because my cock stiffens painfully as soon as I slip into the furs and feel where her body heat has warmed them.
“Where does it hurt?” she asks, and I almost choke on my own tongue.
“You don’t have to—” I break off into a groan when she slides her little hands up and down the back of my neck, fingertips crushing the built-up pigment. I bury my face in the furs andlet her have her way with me, writhing and gasping under every excruciating touch.
“Bad?” she asks, never stopping. I grunt the affirmative, unable to form words, let alone sentences, under her unrelenting onslaught. “Good. This is what you get for avoiding me.”
“Ruthless female.”
“It’s not a punishment. It’s what we call a natural consequence. If you hadn’t stayed away, it wouldn’t hurt so much.” She grabs a handful of my thigh hard in retaliation, kneading whole fistfuls of muscle through the thin fabric of my sleep trousers, pushing deep to release the crystals.
My hips involuntarily buck up against her touch and then down into the furs, like I’m rutting them, and a guttural sound tears out of me. “Delphie, your hands...”
“Are freezing cold, so let’s get this over with,” she shoots back, moving from my ass to my inner thighs. I swear, my cock is going to spend if she gets any closer.
“Enough,” I growl. She ignores me, so in a single gymnastic maneuver, I wrap a leg around her waist, flipping her down beside me in the furs. She tenses in my arms, but the scent of her arousal blooms like telika, and my teeth ache to sink into her shoulder and mark her as mine. “This is why I stayed away. I’ve never felt so much pain and pleasure in one touch. I know you feel it, too. I can smell your need, terrakin, even over your blood.”
“Goddamn these aliens and their heightened senses,” she mutters to no one. “Let go of me. I still have to do the rest of your legs.”
“If you keep going, I might spill in my trousers.” I pull her into my body until my hard length is pressed into her belly. “Let me please you instead.”
“Let me out of this room, and I’ll think about it.”
I don’t even consider it. “No. It’s not safe yet. But I will bring you activities to occupy your mind. I will sleep here. And I’ll share meals with you. In exchange, you will teach me to please you, as you promised.”
“I didn’t promise,” Delphie protests, but her hips move ever so slightly toward me.
“You like the idea of teaching me.”
“I like the idea of leaving this room every once in a while.”
Every cell of my body rebels at the idea of her venturing beyond the door. The base, instinctive part of me wants her bound to me, and until I can claim her, she must be kept. Confined. Convinced. But this is the goddess’s will, not mine. It’s a struggle to separate the two.
“Leaving the room makes you wet between your thighs?” I ask, knowing the answer.
“No?”
I’m pleased with how breathless she sounds. My cock is nestled against her folds, pulsing and begging for her. Surely, she can feel every bit of it, even through our clothing. “I am between them,” I remind her. “And you’re wet. I can smell it. I have to believe these two things are somehow connected. Is this my first lesson in how to please you?”
She makes a sound that is half sigh, half groan. “Fine. We’re going to do this. Your first lesson on how to please a woman is don’t rub your dick on her without asking first.”
“Delphie, may I rub my cock on you?” I ask, holding as still as possible so I don’t accidentally move it against her. She laughs in a surprised burst, like I told a joke. “Is this not correct?”
“Okay, you’re serious. No. Not like that. We need to rewind about five steps if we’re going to do this right.” She pats my leg. “Let me go.”
