Page 108 of Tempting Fate

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Aching Bones

Airida

AS THE DAYS went on, I craved kalidi, craved the times Imani would let me inside her hot, tight body. Though we’d grown so much closer since the lake attack, it was the only place she would truly let me in.

I should have been more concerned for my safety, for the safety of everyone who protected me from the heightened incursions every night, but Imani consumed my thoughts.

She’d told me what she had seen and heard; selfishly, for once, I was grateful I had to keep hidden. I’d compared the village’s defences to the enclave’s high walls, but now they were a welcome security. Last night I’d awoken to weaponsfire. It hadn’t hit me, hadn’t hit anyone I cared about, but I was hurt nevertheless. And I still woke alone, missing Imani’s soft warmth curled around me.

Kalidi had arrived early this morning. She’d sucked me into her mouth, moaning around me as she worked my shaft with her beautiful hand, until I flooded her mouth with my seed. She could never swallow it all, but she always tried.

I’d never get enough of the way she looked afterwards, face glistening, my cum all over her chin where it had spilled out of her mouth, her contented smile. The thought of cleaning her with my tongues drove me to distraction, but I never dared ask.

I stared at the bathroom door which hid her from me. True to her word, the only sexual liaisons we had were for kalidi.

She said she did not want a relationship, did not wish for a mate. She spoke with conviction, with truth. She believed it, but I knew more than she did: she was lying to herself.

Imani wanted me.

She wanted me for more than merely physical intimacy. This was truth. It sang in the life in her eyes when we spoke. The way she tucked her form against mine when we watched our show together. Her desire for me, the pleasure she took in my body just as I did hers. The tender touches that had nothing to do with sex, and the pain in her expression when she distanced herself. I may have been inexperienced, but this was simple logic: these were not the actions of someone undesiring of love.

And I had so much to give her.

She emerged from the bathroom and sat cross-legged on the end of my bed.

“Imani, may I ask you something?”

“Of course, kitten.”

It had taken time to work out, but time was something I had in abundance. Only deep pain could have brought her to this strange belief. I took her hands in mine. “Who made you feel you cannot dare to love?”

She stiffened and pulled away. “That’s… That’s not what this is.”

“Oh, my moonlight.” My bones ached for her. I did not wish to push her, but I could keep quiet no longer. “Trust me when I say I know what it is like to shut a part of you down to protect yourself.”

There. A flicker of recognition, of hurt, of fear. Her expression shuttered.

My Imani was all confidence, full of orders I would gladly follow, except in this. She wore her confidence as armour, placing the rules she made for herself around her heart in a defensive nest of staves. Step carefully. “It is a fearful thing. But sometimes life puts us in a new position, and the light is welcome.”

The light of a different sun. The colours of a strange planet in the sky. The moonlight of a human who brought me nothing but joy.

If only she could experience it for herself.

Imani’s comm chirped. She crossed to the window, checking her messages, then squealed in delight.

“Good news?” I tried to revel in her happiness. Like a gardener in early spring, I could only plant a seed and give it the conditions to grow.

“They’re nearly here!”

I stood with an easy fluidity I’d been missing all my life, rolling my shoulders and flexing my arms. “Your friends? Can I keep you company while you wait for them?”

“Yeah.” Her eyes darted over my torso, flitting, as if she was trying not to look at me but couldn’t resist.

I pushed down a smile. I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind at all.

As we headed to breakfast, my mind spun with too many things. Memories of Orith and how far away that life felt now, of how different I was in so many ways, my anger that I’d been robbed of my health for twenty seven cycles. I had so much energy now, so much vitality. I didn’t recognise my own body, my muscles becoming more defined, my stamina for physical activity increasing all the time, even with the occasional aches and dips of fatigue.