I groan again and it transforms into a frustrated hiss.
Needing to see her, I climb quickly through the rest of the tunnel until I am at the boulders and shoving them away, unwilling to waste another second. I make noise on purpose, so I do not startle her when I arrive. I scare enough things as it is, I do not need to scare her as well.
Sabrina is standing in front of her smaller nest, already waiting for me, by the time I slide into the room. Her feet are bare again today, rarely hidden within her armor anymore. Her long black hair is brushed out and swept to the sides, framing her face—which is open like her feet, devoid of black and red coloring. Having never seen her without her painted mask, at least not in the light, I can’t help but linger over her features. I slip to her, beckoned by her green eyes for a closer look.
They widen at my approach. “Darolus?”
Her skin is pale except for a heightened pink hue that has spread across her cheeks, beneath eyes hooded at half-mast. She is lovelier than anything I have ever seen. And her scent…her… delicious… scent…
A groan escapes me as I breathe more of it in. Thick and heavy, her heady smell fills my nose—my body.
Her eyes flick to my lips, then down my chest and lower, hesitating on the unrelenting bulge barely kept in check behind my slit. Her lips part and her tongue slips out to dampen them.
“Darolus…” she whispers. “What’s happening? I can’t… I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Part of me knows, though I have kept the suspicions at bay thus far, deep beneath a wall of denial.It is not possible. She is not my kind.
Unable to tear my eyes away, I clench my hands lest I reach for her. This is madness. Do I know anything at all? Until the ships and her appearance, I thought humans were forever gone. Yet now…Perhaps Sabrina is for me as a female naga might have been.
I never thought such a thing could come to be.
“We are…” I let the words die, fearful of what they mean. Fearful of the shortness of my breath, the pressure inside.
“No, I mean, what’s happening there?” she breathes, staring at my slit so intensely I am taken aback.
Unwilling to explain, I shake my head. Briefly her gaze shifts up to mine, then drops back down as if pulled by some invisible force, her own breathing growing more labored as she waits for me to muster an answer.
“What is inside is hardening. It is heavy,” I manage to say roughly. “And getting heavier, pushing out.”
Once more her eyes leap to mine, and I am struck by how beautiful they are without the black outlining them. They were pretty before, but now it is like I can see insideher, right down to her essence. Glimmering green depths, marbled by soft shadows cast from the faint rays of the sun. I am mesmerized.
“You mean your… your…” she trails off, swallowing. After a moment, she closes her eyes and inhales. Leaning in slightly, she shudders all over with her next exhalation. I groan as I lose the battle against touching her and curl my hands over her slim shoulders. I tell myself it is to stop her from coming any closer. She is so fragile. We cannot…
“I need… I need…” she murmurs, her voice fading again as she opens her eyes. She shuffles nearer—I am too weak to resist—until her brow almost rests upon my sternum, her attention unmoving from the aching slit at my middle.
Of their own accord, my hips thrust outward, toward her, and my hands squeeze her shoulders, liking the feel of her under them, the warmth of her proximity.
She reaches for me. “Darolus, may I?”
I barely have time to answer before her hands land on my stomach. “Yessss,” I hiss as she places them there softly, spreading her fingers wide over my skin and scales. My body goes rigid in response to her touch, my tail coiling up in readiness for a fight. This is the first time someone has set their hands on me without intending harm…
Unless that has been her plan all along, to lull me with her charm and use her knife on me.
I glance at her hips and find the sheaths empty. A thrill shoots through me and, with a tremulous breath, I gently place one of my hands over hers, keeping the other firm on her shoulder.
Her fingers whisper over me, sending shivers across my flesh like ripples on the surface of water, igniting something I have never felt before. Many things. Need. Want. Regret?Envy. Envy toward everyone who has felt this before when I was cursed to be alone.
A deep, unbidden imperative to touch, have, and possess Sabrina in every way possible hits me all at once. It requires all of my willpower to slowly lift my hand off hers and move it back to her shoulder. “We cannot do this.”
She gazes up at me through the screen of her lashes. “I’m only touching you, feeling you. Maybe I can help? It—this looks painful. Am I turning you on?” She tilts her head and considers me. “Is that why it smells good? Whyyousmell good?”
“Yes, female. And it is dangeroussss.”
The side of her lips tease upward. “Is it because I’m too big for you?”
I squint down at her. “You are too small.”
“I know, big guy. That’s the joke.”
