"Fuck," I hissed, and I had to look up at the ceiling and suck in a hard breath, because if I looked at what he was doing – currently, he'd loosened his hand, licking the length of my cock and getting it slick with his slippery saliva, his fingers curling back into place as he started stroking – I was going to come immediately.I was –
Fuck, I might anyway."Araxis –" I panted as his hand worked me, his tongue laving the top of my cock, lips then closing to suckle gently."I – You should –"
Araxis's mouth fell away, and his fingers shifted to clamp down just beneath my cockhead, effectively cutting off the orgasm that had been building, stroke by stroke, each swipe of his tongue adding fire to my blood.His grip was firm, unrelenting, and perfectly still."Does this help?"he asked mildly.
"Uh," I said, blinking down at him.
"Something else from my study materials," he said, quite pleased, his tongue swiping his own lips, as if he wanted to savour the taste of my cock in his mouth.He released me, rocking back a little."I must say, the educational materials offered by humans are of greater variety and… depth of instruction than anything from my own culture.We only have vague poems and a few suggestive woodcuts."
I wheezed out a startled laugh as Araxis stood, grinning."Yeah, let's take a break and talk about horny art," I suggested and he trilled, shaking his head, before he caught my face with his hands and kissed me firmly, resolutely.It took him no time to have me squirming against him again, but this time, I kicked off my pants and he shrugged out of his own clothes before pushing me into the shower.
There, he pressed me against the tiles, warmed now from the steam although I felt like I had a star's worth of warmth and light in me already.He kissed me, devouring me as one hand cradled my jaw while the other grasped the length of my cock, his hand tightening and twisting, pumping me to a mewling, gasping state.He worked me with confidence and certainty, sliding his mouth to my ear where he bit the lobe, gently, as my hips bucked against him.
"Tell me when you're about to come," he murmured, breath warm in the curve of my ear, and I sucked in a hard breath.Water was beading across my skin,ourskin, and his crest was an undulating cascade.Droplets glinted off his quills, flicking in the distance as they rippled, each one catching in the sunlight like a jewel suspended in the air.
"Can I touch you?"I said against his warm skin."Please?"
His hand stilled for a moment on my cock, though his thumb pressed into the slit of my cockhead, which made my hips jerk against him anyway.Araxis's head tilted as he drew back to look at me."It brings you pleasure to touch me," he said."It is arousing for you."
"One of the first times we had sex," I said in a rush, "I came basically just from going down on you.Ilovegetting you off."
Araxis's skin, beaded with moisture, was flushed pink, and at this, the iridescent patterngleamed.His eyelids fluttered before drooping slightly, half-lidded with pleasure.His palm gave a little twist as he started working my cock again."Then of course you may touch me, beloved," he said against the skin of my throat.
My trembling fingers sought the wet slide of his slit, which was as drenched as he'd promised.He stuttered against me at the touch as I traced the length of him, my fingers rubbing at him, exploring the entrance to his body.Araxis's mouth settled in the juncture of my neck and shoulder, his teeth again mouthing the place where he'd bitten me before.
My eyes squeezed shut as his hand stuttered over my cock, his rhythm growing unsteady as I touched him, his chest heaving against mine, his breaths coming in hard barely-smothered gasps."Tisqen, Sashen," he hissed into my skin, his teeth still imprinting my throat."What youdoto me."
A jolt of pleasure, radiant, twisted in my abdomen."Araxis," I panted, "I'm – I'm going to –"
He licked my skin, tightened his grip on my cock, and then bit down, and I came in a surge of heat and pleasure and pure white light.The explosion of a star.The shockwaves that followed.The radiant aftermath.My come spattered the skin of his stomach, my fingers curling against his slit as his teeth bit into me, his tongue swiping over the mark, and then Araxis's body curled hard against mine and, with a shudder, he came as well in a gush of heat over my hand.
My mind felt slow and hazy, like burnt sugar, as his hand slowly drifted from my cock to press divots into the skin at my hipbone.He kissed the mark on my skin again and again, nuzzling into the column of my throat, and I could feel the moment his cock released from his body, nudging against my stomach.
I grasped him, rolling him into position against the wall as I dropped down in front of him and swallowed his glistening member down whole.His fingers threaded through my wet hair, grasping hard while I sucked his cock down, tongue tracing the ridges that I had been thinking about for weeks.My head bobbed, drinking down the sweet taste of his come, his cock slick against my tongue.
I felt his hand drift from my hair and down to the mark on my skin.He pressed a long finger into it, and I moaned around his cock as he thrust gently into my mouth.
It took no time at all: he came in a hard spasm, clear come flooding my mouth, as a sound likerelieftore from his throat.And I felt it too, like we'd been two stellar bodies drifting through space and now, finally,finally, we had drifted together and into alignment.Like our orbits had found a perfect equilibrium.Like we were meant for each other, like our closeness was written in the cosmos somewhere and we had finally found the right starchart to bring us together.
Later, after we'd cleaned up, Araxis settled me in bed and fucked me again, slowly, reverently.When I told him that no one had ever had sex with me in daylight, he had gotten the strangest look on his face, and then set to pressing kisses to every part of my body.My palms.The inside of my elbows.The hollow of my throat.My hipbones.The crease of my knee.Each rib, lingering over the ones that had been hurt.We'd come apart again, together, his mouth and hands falling again and again to thecaldathess, as if he couldn't believe it was real.
As if he, too, wanted something tangible.And after we'd both come, our bodies moving together as if made for one another, he had pressed his mouth to mine and breathed, in English, "I love you."
Whether or not that made me cry is really beside the point.The point is that everything in the universe made sense when we were together, and everything felt right and good.I could have lived inside that golden day forever.Despite the wretchedness behind us and the wretchedness ahead, we had those hours and I knew, even then, that I could hold on to them whenever I needed to.That they would give me strength always.
Of course, nothing can last forever, and certainly not a perfect afternoon.But when we finally forced ourselves from bed and ventured out into the broader world to do all the things that needed doing, at least it was with the vivid memory of Araxis's body pressed against mine, his mouth breathing sacred words against my skin.No one could touch that, not ever.No one can.It's ours, eternally and perfectly.
Chapter21
Executive Realness
Iknew I had to talk to Elethenn, but when I asked Araxis if I should go and find him to apologize and check in when we were still tucked away in bed, he'd gotten a soft and sad look on his face and told me to save that for later.He is proud, Araxis had murmured against my skin, lips ghosting the curve of my bicep,and this has wounded him.And then he'd let his hand drift across the skin of my lower abdomen, and I'd shivered and rolled him onto his back and then I mostly forgot about feeling bad about anything.
But I knew it still had to be done.I'd been thinking a lot about apologies, and I certainly owed Elethenn one.And it was too late to apologize to Tam, so what else could I do with my guilt?How else could I hold myself accountable?Because if I didn't say anything, if I let the silence fester, maybe Elethenn would decide that coming to Creche Thiel had been a massive mistake – and I desperately wanted him to stay.I wanted it so badly that it was almost a physical ache.
I decided to make an attempt the next morning as the kids were scrambling to get packed for school."Want to walk with me?"I suggested as I picked up the trail of half-eaten fruit slices the children had left behind."Although I can't exactly blame you if you never want to go anywhere with me ever again."
I tried to play it off like a joke, and it fell entirely flat.Elethenn looked up from carefully wiping down the counter, although he didn't quite meet my gaze."I will walk with you," he murmured, and so we took the children to school together and then drifted back toward the creche, slow, while I tried to work up the nerve to apologize.I wasn't good at making amends yet, although I knew I needed to figure it out.
