For a long moment, I simply exist. My body hums, loose and liquid, the aftershocks still rippling through me in slow, fadingwaves. Cody presses a lazy kiss to my hip, then my stomach, then rests his chin upon my belly and looks up at me. He does not say a word. He does not need to. The smug satisfaction on his face is insufferable and entirely earned.
I should be sated. I should be boneless and content and ready for sleep. But the heat of his skin on mine and the weight of him between my thighs is already stirring a fresh hunger.
"More," I gasp, tugging on his shoulders, pulling him up the length of my body until his mouth finds mine.
"Greedy," he chides with a grin. "I like it."
He laughs, crawling up my body to cover me, my back pressing flat to the mattress.
His mouth meets mine, and I taste myself on his lips. A wave of possession surges through me at that, fierce and raw, and I am kissing him back with an urgency that borders on desperation. My hands rake across his shoulders, nails dragging down his skin, trying to get him impossibly closer. The groan he makes into my mouth only makes me wilder.
"A'Vanti," he murmurs between kisses. "I've got you."
And somehow those words steady me, the way his hand on the controls steadies a ship in rough air. The frantic energy doesn't disappear, but it deepens into something with a rhythm. His kisses slow mine. His hands frame my face, anchoring me, and I match his pace. I'm still hungry, still burning, but no longer falling.
I slide my hand down his chest, my fingers catching in the fine hair that scatters across his skin. It is soft and strange beneath my fingertips. Cerastean males have nothing like it. I like the texture of it, the way it feels under my palm when I press my hand flat against him. His heart pounds beneath my fingers, racing as fast as my own. I trace the trail of it downward, over the flat plane of his stomach where the muscles tighten under my touch, and lower still.
When my hand wraps around him, we both go still.
He is different from a Cerastean. Smooth, with no ridges or texture. Just hot, silky skin stretched taut over a hardness as thick and unyielding as stone. I explore the length of him with curious fingers and feel his breath stutter on my neck, his entire body trembling with the effort of holding still.
It's different, but I like the feel of him in my hand. The weight of him. I like the way his jaw clenches and his eyes fall shut when I tighten my grip. Cody's hand joins mine, wrapping around us both, and we find a rhythm together. After a moment, Cody begins to roll his hips, thrusting into our joined grasp. But he pulls away too soon, his fingers moving back between my thighs instead while I continue to stroke him. He rubs his thumb over my clit, sending renewed waves of pleasure through my body.
"Please," I say, unable to find any other words.
Finally, giving in to my pleading, Cody lets me pull him forward. I guide him between my thighs and notch him to my entrance. He holds himself there, arms braced on either side of my head, his blue eyes searching mine in the dim light.
"You're sure?" he asks, and his voice is wrecked.
I answer by tilting my hips and taking the first inch of him inside me.
His breath leaves him in a rush, his forehead dropping to mine. "Oh," he manages, and the single syllable holds more reverence than any word I have ever heard in any language.
He drags his hips forward, inch by agonizing inch, my body adjusting to his as he fills me. When he is fully seated, his base pressed flush against my clit, the added pressure pulls a moan from deep in my chest.
For a moment, neither of us moves. We just breathe together, foreheads touching, letting the feeling of being joined settle into our bones.
Then he begins to move.
Slow at first. Long, deliberate strokes that draw him nearly out of me before pressing deep again. Each thrust sends a wave of pleasure rolling up through my body, building on the one before it. I grip his shoulders, feeling the muscles bunch and shift beneath my hands as he rocks into me. His back is taut, his arms solid where they bracket me, and there is a controlled power in his movements that reminds me of the way he flies – precise, steady, and utterly focused.
He finds a rhythm that has me gasping, and my hips rise to meet his. The friction between us builds with every stroke, filling me with a mounting pleasure that coils tighter and tighter at the base of my spine. I drag my nails down the length of his back, and his rhythm falters for a moment before he drives deeper.
My body and my soul claim a connection to his. I look up, and our gazes collide.
"Cody. Vel'shar," I gasp. "Mate."
I can't look away from his eyes, watching as his pupils dilate at my words.
"Yes.Yes. Mate. A'Vanti, my mate," Cody chants.
A flush works its way down his throat and spreads across his chest.
He reaches between us and presses a thumb against my clit. Pleasure, electric and pulsing, arcs through my body.
An orgasm builds inside me, thrust by thrust. Cody drives deeper, harder, his thumb never losing contact, circling in time with his strokes. I wrap my legs around him and pull him closer, needing more, needing all of him.
When I shatter, it takes me completely. Sparks fly behind my eyes, and my body explodes into points of pleasure that spread across every inch of skin and scale. I cry out, my back bowing off the blankets, my nails digging into his shoulders.
