His tail snakes up my leg like it did earlier and prods my hole, but I don’t know if he’s even aware he’s doing it with how intensely he focuses on my face. At least that’s what I think until his lips turn down and his eyes frown. My heart rate spikes, andI clench my hands around the arm attached to the hand around my throat.
His tail pushes in further, sending a spark of lightning crashing through me when it brushes my p-spot. The sensation of something sliding so far into me is weird, but eventually he clicks his teeth. “You expelled thecrevelealready.”
My heart sinks at the disapproval in his voice. “Sorry.”
His tail snakes back out of me and he pushes his face in close to mine. The movement of his lips as he speaks tickles mine. “I’ll have to fill you at every opportunity since your frail body expels thecreveleso quickly.”
I probably should have talked about more than just consent before falling into bed with him, but I guess better late than never? “So, uh, what is the, uh,crevele?”
Thoren releases me from his grip, and a sudden wave of loneliness hits me before I realize he’s just reaching for the shampoo. He pours some into his hands and starts washing my hair as he explains. “Humans have euphemisms that match human society. Your farmers plant seeds and grow food, so you talk about planting your seed in a fertile womb to grow your offspring. My people—gargoyles—are stoneworkers. Our resting form is stone, and our euphemisms reflect that. Thecreveleis the proper casual term in the same way seed is a proper casual term for you. Its direct translation is “muddy clay,” like what is harvested from river banks. It has to dry out before it becomes useful, and that is what happens with ourcrevele. The water, so to speak, is absorbed by a fertile body, and what is left is the clay useful for creation. The clay becomes the shell of the egg we hatch from.”
I stare at him in awe of his species. “That’s amazing.”
He rinses the shampoo out of my hair before he pulls me in for another one of those strange and exciting split tongue kisses. A boy could get used to this kind of aftercare.
When he pulls back, he grabs the conditioner, squeezing some into his hand. “Our species believes every successful hatching is a miracle. When our people go through droughts and ourcreveleis dry, our shells are brittle and the egg fails, but during the wet season, the shells are thick and strong and our spawn hatch in great numbers. A fertile gargoyle can lay an egg every month, and every child spawned is a miracle.”
He tips my head back and rinses out the conditioner as I imagine what gargoyle families must look like. “You must have a lot of siblings. How do you, uh, provide for such large families?” That question might be insensitive to his culture.
“I don’t know how many biological siblings I have. Reeves is the son of my mother from the same sire, but we don’t talk about siblings who are born of the same parents like humans do. All of the gargoyles in this house are my brothers. We have bonded. We have experienced battle together. We are the Trustworthy. We have sworn our loyalty to each other. We arefeun, brothers until death.”
He pours body wash into his palm, and somehow when he touches me, it feels like he’s washing me with a soft stone. I guess that’s one way to exfoliate. It doesn’t hurt, and I am not going to complain about soft skin. “So, you don’t form connections with your mother’s other kids?”
He chuckles softly and shrugs. “We’re raised in large group conditions and not by our mothers. Aunts and uncles raise us. Uncle Maxime raised all of us together. We all hatched during the same hour out of the same nest, and he took us into his care. The ones who raise the young do not provide thecreveleor lay the eggs. The responsibility for the children is on all of our people together. Every gargoyle takes part in the continuation of our species. Someday I will go to the hatching grounds and gather the children that I will raise with my brothers.”
It surprises me that he wants to raise children. “I’m surprised you’re not going to, um, donate thecrevele?” Is that how to say that?
He laughs as he sinks to one knee, looking at me like I’m an adorable kitten, and shakes his head. “There is no fertile gargoyle that would accept mycrevele.”
“Why not?” I ask as he starts scrubbing my legs.
“It may come as a shock to you, but I’m not the ideal gargoyle. All of us here at Chez Gargouille are considered so ugly we’re known for having great personalities. Our eggs were deformed.” He laughs again, pressing a kiss to my groin as he scrubs my legs.
“That’s bullshit,” I snap, completely shocked. “You’re gorgeous!”
He looks up my body with a soft smile, pulling up one foot and gently massaging it. “Thank you. I’m glad you think so. That doesn’t change the fact that in my culture the beauty standards are different and I am unbreedable.”
I put my foot down, frame his utterly beautiful face with my hands, and bend in close. “You can breed me anytime you want, baby, and in my culture, you’re hot as fuck and very, very breedable.” I pause at the image of sticking my dick in him and shudder. “Well, not by me, but I’m sure there are plenty of men out there that would stick their dicks in you if you wanted—no, no you’re not going to go find someone’s dick to ride. No. That’s a big no. Full caps, underlined, and bold. In fact, just up the font size for emphasis too.”
Thoren chuckles. “I do not have a hole they can stick a dick into, so you don’t have to worry about that. I can’t take a dick; I can only give mine.”
My eyebrows climb up my forehead in disbelief. “You don’t have an asshole? How do you expel waste?”
Thoren stands, pushing me into the water to rinse my body. “I have a means of expelling waste; it just doesn’t function the same way yours does. You have a sphincter, and I have a pouch. I empty the pouch when it gets full, but my waste comes out as refined gravel or sand, sometimes a smooth stone if I’m unwell, but I don’t have the need for something as soft and squishy as your human system requires.”
“Soft and squishy does describe humans well, but I’m not sure how I feel about someone who looks like he eats humans for breakfast calling me that,” I hum thoughtfully as Thoren pulls me out of the shower and hits the button to turn the water off. “What about you?” I question, offended that he wouldn’t let me return the pampering in kind.
Thoren looks down his body and back up to my face. “It wrecks my body chemistry to use soap. I just water myself and use a sand scrub once a day.”
“Why do you always smell like an orange grove?” I demand as he wraps me up in a soft towel.
Ok, for real, I love getting pampered by this man.
“Because that’s how your nose interprets my natural scent.” He shrugs, dips in close and smells me at the base of my neck. “To me, you smell like snow melting off the Grouvis Mountains when the clouds finally leave and the sun blisters the stone.”
“That is quite the description.” I have no idea what the Grouvis Mountains are, but I can picture the dawning of the season melting the snow off the mountains. That’s a nice picture, but I wonder what it means to him and if I smell like one of his favorite memories too.
“I doubt one of my brothers would say the same. Not that you will let any of them get that close.”
