He crawls up my body in a slow, shaking line, bracing himself on his forearms over me. The heat of him is a whole-body sensation. Velvet darkness on brown, starfield over skin.
He presses his forehead to mine, breath hot and ragged.
“Now?” his voice echoes in my head, barely more than a scrape of sound even in the mindspace.
There is no universe in which my answer is anything but yes.
“Now,” I breathe, sliding my arms up around his neck, wrists crossing behind his head. I hook my ankles at the small of his back, pulling him in. “Please.”
He reaches down, guiding himself with a claw that is still shaking.
When the blunt head of him slides against me, even with the slickness he just coaxed out of me, the stretch is immediate.
He pauses there, just at my entrance, watching my face with feral, desperate tenderness.
“Okay?” his voice echoes in my head.
“Okay,” I press my forehead harder against his, eyes fluttering closed. “Push.”
He pushes.
The stretch is slow. A wide, hot pressure that makes my breath stop in my chest. My fingers dig into his shoulders. His jaw locks so hard I can see the cords stand out.
He is holding back with everything he has. Half of me wants him to lose it. The other half appreciates not being split in half.
It burns. But under the burn is ecstasy.
“Good,” I gasp when I can find sound again. “You’re…good. Keep going. Don’t stop.”
The relief that flashes across his face almost breaks me.
He exhales a shuddering breath and eases forward another inch. Then another. Every tiny motion has my walls stretching around him, my inner muscles clenching against his girth.
He groans, low and broken. “Tight,” he projects. “You clench me.”
“Yeah,” I manage. “You’re…not exactly…travel-sized.”
He huffs out a sound that devolves into a moan when my involuntary clench answers him.
“You…joke,” he projects.
“You’ll love my jokes.”
“Later,” he promises. “Many jokes. Now…”He inches forward. “Now I must not die.”
Against all odds, I giggle. It turns into a gasp as he passes the tightest point.
Tilting his head back, Sarven slides in, deeper, the pressure cresting and then changing, less burn, more full. Full in a way I didn’t know was possible; full in layers. Full in stretch, in pressure, in heat.
When his hips finally meet mine, there’s a distinct bump at my entrance, a thicker ring of flesh pressing against my opening.
I suck in a sharp breath at the knot.
He’s filling every empty space.
And then?—
The world explodes.
