I should agree, I should wiggle away, I should go take a cold shower.
But I drop the hand from my face and whisper, “Please don’t.” Because I can’t remember the last time I had control over something I wanted. Even if that was as small as an orgasm.
The water flits away, if only for half a second, then finds purchase where I need it most once more. My breath breaks on a soft, humiliating sound that I know I can’t take back.
I look down to that perfect little stream hitting me in exactly the right spot. The folds of my pussy flutter gently in its wake. Then I look up, to those goddamn eyes—those hungry, possessive eyes—and I shatter.
I brace myself, and the warmth spreads fast across my sex. My body lights up in places I haven’t felt in years, the buzzing of my nerves reaches a peak until it’s nearly too much. Too close to stop now.
My grip slips on the stone, and my breath does too as I try to hold on just a little longer.
But I don’t.
The pressure builds, drawing everything inward until it makes way for the most jubilant of releases as my spine bows and muscles snap.
My pussy weeps and my body buzzes in the pleasure's wake.
My orgasm fueled only by heat, water, and an alien warlord’s restraint. I can’t help it when I reach out my hand, no longer thinking rationally.
I grip his forearm, still riding out the lingering pulses.
The water cuts off almost immediately as I touch him.
He steps back—as far as the tub allows—as if my proximity is something dangerous.
Mekkra’s breathing is ragged, and his spines stand at full attention.
“I—” He stops himself for a moment, as if needing to find his composure. “I shouldn’t have let that happen again.”
Again?I cock my head.
I quickly realize that he’s referring to our first meeting, the one I blocked from my mind. The time I had no control over what was happening to me.
I pull my legs together and cover my chest. “I never asked you to stop.”
“I know,” he tells me through his gritted teeth, as if every word he speaks to me pays some unspoken price. “And I didn’t touch you.”
“No,” I say faintly. “You kept your word.”
He winces.
“I misjudged myself. Your reactions… affected my control.”
The admission is obvious but feels like a secret he wishes he could keep.
“You should know that I allowed it to happen—I wanted to feel good,” I softly murmur.
For a moment he doesn’t move at all. But then he pulls a breath into his chest a little too deeply. His shoulders loosen and his broad frame shifts only slightly. His head turns away from me, and he drags himself out of the pool.
Water drips from his hide, sticking to his heavily muscled body. The liquid slicks down the dense brown fur so that it clings to every hard line beneath. Darkened by the water, his build is brutally clear. Droplets cling to his spines and scatter like rain as he straightens, somehow larger without his armor.
“I know,” he says at last, voice stripped of the ceremony we began with. “Regardless, I feel like I have no control when I’m with you. That’s what troubles me most.” He knocks at his skull with his fist, as if he’s punishing himself. “Starcroft will bring you your meal. Our mating ceremony will begin in the morning.”
Mekkra leaves me there in my afterglow, slowly letting the chill of his absence creep into my bones.
If he’s unsettled—if his control fractured while mine did—I let that behis problem.I won’t be punished for making the best of a shit situation.
And, fuck, if it didn't feel good.
