He gave her a sharp, encouraging smile. “That’s it, naughty thing. Just like that. Don’t be afraid to squeeze or be rough with me. I’m yours to use, my precious Clementine.”
After just a moment of hesitation, she did as he asked. One quick, firm squeeze made him gasp and drop his head back against the floor. Pleasure, hot and bubbling, rushed through his veins to pool at the base of his stomach, building on the pressure already threatening to release.
Clementine’s lips parted with an astonished breath. Peering through slitted eyes, he could almostseethe very moment it clicked for her, that this thing between them was heady and natural andgood.Her shoulders lost their tension and her eyes…
Those beautiful eyes began to glitter with a hunger that matched his own.
Her pumping fist made wet, sloppy sounds as it glided through his leaking seed. Emory groaned and rolled his hips into her hand, urging her to go faster, to grip him tighter, even as he arched his neck in an effort to beckon her closer once more.
“I want to taste you,” he begged. “Please.Please.”
Clementine watched him with wide, dilated eyes, but she didn’t deign to lower her head for another kiss. Instead, she sat back on her heels, freeing her other hand to run across the dips and rises of his chest and stomach. It was a greedy, seeking sort of touch that set him aflame.
She’s learning me.
“I’ve never felt this… thisneedto touch someone before. I’ve never even thought Icouldfeel something like this,” she murmured, almost to herself. “It’s like my body knows something I don’t.”
Emory’s breath began to saw in and out of him. His ribcage, so much wider than her delicate human one, expanded such with every breath that his stomach hollowed out completely. “It knows the pleasure we can give one another. It knows you’remine.”
“I don’t know about that part yet, but I like this.” She gave him a sudden sharp squeeze just below the head. A shock of pleasure-pain made his spine bow and his arms strain against the bonds. The rope bit into his wrists and biceps, adding new depth to the pleasure skittering down his spine.
“Yes,”he hissed. “Yes, that’s my naughty mate. Make me come for you with just your pretty little hand. Make me yours.”
In some ways it was frustrating to not be in control, but he discovered that he loved letting her set the pace, letting her claimhimin her own tentative way. It was a privilege watching her shyness slowly evaporate as she studied his reactions and began to change her pace, the position of her hand, and the tightness of her grip. His Clementine did not have experience, but, with his encouragement, she was a quick study. Within what felt like moments he was reduced to an undulating, leaking mess beneath her pumping fist.
All the while, her gaze never strayed from his face. Her head was tilted slightly as if she was listening to some sound he couldn’t hear, her expression rapt and her cheeks flushed a dark pink. There was no playfulness in her eyes. No guile. No promise of violence. There was only the hunger they now shared.
He wanted to satisfy that new hunger in her, but he also wanted to stoke it, to build it higher and higher until they consumed one another and all hesitance was burned away.
“I’m going to come,” he bit out. “Do you want to see that, my naughty thing? Would you like to see your mate make a mess of himself for you?”
Clementine’s response was barely louder than a breath. “Yes.”
Her grip tightened even as she gave her wrist a sharp twist. He shouted something then, but it wasn’t a word as she would have understood. It was a singular, low note — a wordless prayer of thanks to the Hungry God for a mate so fine as his.
Clementine’s gaze swung away from his face at last. Leaning a little bit of her weight onto his abdomen with her free hand, she hovered over his midsection, her attention locked on her fist, his flushed cock, and slick, semi-translucent seed that eased her way as she stroked him hard and fast.
Emory willed himself to stay still, but it was impossible. His tail slapped the floor as his spine bowed in a sharp angle. All at once, the pressure that had pulled him taut snapped. His release was short, sharp, and explosive. A grunt of pleasure escaped him as his seed splattered his stomach and Clementine’s finely wrought fingers in long, pearlescent ropes.
“Oh,”she breathed, hand stilling at the base of his cock. Her breath escaped her in excited little puffs as she dragged her gaze over the mess, taking it all in.
Slowly, she dragged her fist up, squeezing the last pearly drops out. Emory gasped for breath as a shudder worked its way down his spine, all the way to the end of his tail.
After several moments of tense stillness, Clementine gently released his cock to lay against his abdomen once more. The way she moved, it was as if she thought it might bite her.
Her expression was wide-eyed when she asked, “Was that… good?”
Good?Emory could scarcely breathe. It was just a hand on his cock, by rights nothing special or revolutionary, but it felt like arevelation.“Come here. Come here, my sweet creature. Let me show you howgoodit was.”
“Um.” Clementine shuffled closer to his head, but she didn’t reach for him or lower her mouth to his. While her cheeks were rosy and her breath short, there was a look of renewed vulnerability in her eyes that made his pounding heart ache. “I… I don’t know if I’m ready for more yet, Emory. That was a lot for me. I hope that’s okay.”
It was a lot for me, too.
As much as he wanted to taste her, to make her come as hard as she’d made him, Emory knew that he had to be adaptable. His mate was inexperienced as well as ignorant to his people’s ways. He pushed her because she appeared to wish to be pushed, but now he sensed that she needed care, not aggression.
Courtship, as his father had once explained, was not all preening and fighting and tricks. It was about tenderness, too.
“All right, my mate. I’m grateful for what you’ve given me. There doesn’t need to be more than this,” he murmured. “Untie me now, so we can wash together.”
