“She’s a fast learner,” Kaede murmured. But he was looking at Zyxel with something that might have been approval. “And so are you.”
Slick fingers found me.
Kaede. His hand between my thighs, coated in the cool gel from the nightstand, and the contrast of the temperature against my overheated flesh made me gasp. He didn’t tease—not this time. His touch was focused, purposeful. Working me open with steady strokes that had me clutching at Zyxel’s forearms behind me.
“You’re already so wet.” Kaede’s murmur was for both of us. His forked tongue flickered against his lower lip, tasting the air between my thighs with that devastating adopted Ezzaska ability that meant he could read my arousal like data. “You needed this. Needed us.”
“Yes.” I rocked against his hand, chasing friction, chasing fullness. Zyxel’s mouth worked the spot below my ear, his breath coming ragged against my skin, and between the two of them—Kaede’s expert fingers, Zyxel’s worship—I was drowning. “Please. Don’t make me wait.”
“Patience.” Kaede added a second finger. Curled them. Found the spot that made my vision white out and worked it until I was shaking, until my thighs trembled and the moans pouring from me were sounds I didn’t recognize. “I’m not rushing this. Not with you carrying our daughter. You’ll be ready when I say you’re ready.”
That tone. The authority of it. The way it brooked no argument and somehow made me feel safer than any locked door or armed guard.
I surrendered to it. Let my head fall back against Zyxel’s shoulder. Let Kaede’s fingers drive me higher while Zyxel’s hands mapped my body with increasing confidence—learning the spots that made me gasp, the pressure that made me moan, cataloguing my responses with the same methodical attention he brought to his research.
The first orgasm hit me like a wave.
Not a crescendo—a crash. One moment I was climbing, Kaede’s fingers relentless inside me while Zyxel whispered something rough and wondering against the shell of my ear—and the next I was shattering, my body clenching around Kaede’s hand, my cry swallowed by the hum of the ship’s engines and the wild pulse of two bonds blazing neon-green and crimson in my chest.
Kaede worked me through it. Didn’t stop. Didn’t let me come down.
“Again.”
I whimpered. “Kaede—”
“Again, star.” His free hand cupped my jaw. Tilted my face until I met his gaze—those blown-out neon eyes, pupils swallowed by black, the predator underneath the control staring back at me with naked want. “You said you needed to stop thinking. So stop thinking. Let go. We’ve got you.”
Behind me, Zyxel’s arms tightened. A cage of warmth and muscle, holding me upright when my body wanted to collapse. “We’ve got you,enax,” he echoed, and the Rkekh endearment in his new voice—deeper, rougher, vibrating through his chest into my back—shattered something.
The second crest built faster. Kaede’s fingers. Zyxel’s mouth on my shoulder, teeth grazing my skin. Two bonds singing in harmony, neon-green and crimson braiding together in a chorus that drowned out the distance, the grief, the fear.
I broke apart again. Harder this time. Longer.
When the tremors faded, Kaede withdrew his fingers. Brought them to his mouth. Held my gaze while he tasted me, and something dark and satisfied moved through our bond.
“Now.” He leaned forward. Pressed his forehead to mine. “Now you’re ready.”
Kaede repositioned me like I weighed nothing—careful of my belly, always careful—settling me on my side in the deep softnessof the nestbed. He stretched out behind me. The heat of his chest against my back. His thick, textured stav pressing against the curve of my ass, and my whole body clenched with anticipation.
“Zyxel.” Kaede’s chin rested on my shoulder, his forked tongue flicking against my earlobe. “Lose the clothes. Then face her.”
Movement across the nestbed. The rustle of fabric. And then Zyxel was there, mirroring my position, his body a breath from mine. I ran my gaze over him—the broad chest, the lean musculature, the warm brown skin that still looked new on him. A body built for something else, worn with the self-conscious grace of a scholar inhabiting a warrior’s frame. His stav stood thick and flushed between his thighs, and the sight of him—aroused, aching, held in check by nothing but Kaede’s command and his own desperate want to do this right—made me reach for him.
My fingers wrapped around him. He hissed—a sound that belonged to his serpent form, involuntary and raw—and his hips jerked into my grip.
“Easy.” Kaede’s hand covered mine, adjusting my grip, guiding the pace. Teaching Zyxel’s body through my touch the same way he’d taught mine. “Slower. He’s close already.”
Zyxel’s eyes met mine. Chartreuse burning into blue-green. “Selena.” My name in his voice was a plea and a prayer.
“I know.” I cupped his face with my free hand. Drew him in. Kissed him slow and deep while Kaede’s hand trailed down my hip, spreading slick where he wanted it, coating his own length. His stav notched against me from behind—the blunt, textured head pressing, pressing—and I exhaled into Zyxel’s mouth as Kaede pushed inside.
Slow. Devastatingly slow. Every ridge of his textured shaft dragging against nerves already oversensitized from his fingers,and the stretch was exquisite—that perfect, aching fullness that only Kaede could give me.
He seated himself to the hilt and went still. His mouth found the juncture of my neck and shoulder—his mark—and he bit down gently. Claiming. Grounding.
“How does that feel, star?”
“Like coming home.”
