Page 85 of Tempting Fate

“About when you think of me inside you.”

“Kitten,” I said, trying to be stern—as if getting hold of my words would keep control of everything inside me trying to get out. “You can’t just say that.”

“But I did.”

I imagined ordering him to his knees, wiping that smirk off his face. “Airida… Be very careful what you say next.”

He took a step closer. His eyes glittered, teeth on display, reminding me without doubt which one of us was the apex predator. “Would you let me?”

My breath rushed out of me, sending me lightheaded, my blood throbbing with urgent need between my legs. Okay, this conversation was happening.

“It’s all I can think about. You’re all I can think about. You. Your smile. Your voice. Your wet cunt.” He leaned in, the hard bar of his cock brushing against me. “I want to be inside you.”

“Airi…” It took all my self control not to order him to the bed.

He stepped back, hand resting on his dick. “This feels different. Not like kalidi.”

“How so?” Practical conversation. Better.

“There’s only a pleasurable urgency to release, none of the pain or weakness.”

Aw, baby’s first real boner. “That’s good, right? It means your kalidi is passing?”

“But I want more of this. With you.”

So do I.

“Even though it doesn’t hurt, I still need release. Will you help me?”

I took a shuddering breath. He was only asking for a hand job, and what was one more when we already did two or three a day? “I want to, but…” But too many things, things that could change everything. “If it’s not kalidi, then…”

“I would be happy to be your lover, Imani.”

Images flashed in my mind unbidden. The two of us, tangled in my nest. Lazy mornings and late nights filled with desperate kisses, ecstatic pleasure, the sounds of flesh against flesh. And, more insidious, more seductive, were the tender touches and murmured words of affection that came so easily to mind, the intimate additions that were too tempting, too terrifying.

I ducked out from under his arms. “It’s not that simple. I’m someone who needs rules. I need to know what is expected of me. Of you. I need to understand the parameters of the relationship. Within kalidi… it is what it is. Look, I don’t do relationships, okay? At all. And even if I did…” He frowned, opened his mouth to speak, but I carried on. “I don’t know all the details of why or how kalidi happens, but it’s like catch-up sexual development, right?”

He nodded, brow still furrowed.

“So… And I’m making some assumptions here, but in humans, we reach physical sexual maturity a bit before adulthood, and we have years of navigating the social relationship side of things, and you’ve had none of that. You’re in a vulnerable position where you need someone to help you, you’re dealing with new physical responses, you’re discovering that people are attractive, heck, you’re navigating a whole new identity, culture, planet. And maybe you need to explore these things when you’re all better, and they’re not complicated by kalidi.” Yes. That was logical. Fair. Sensible.

“Just because I am inexperienced in these things does not mean…” He growled, sending heat flaring between my legs. “Fate, I know my own mind. I don’t want to do this with Orukem or Tokki or anyone else I’ve met. Only you.”

I tensed my thighs, pressing them together. Fuck. I could push him onto his back and ride his dick right now.

Oblivious to the way he affected me, he sank to the edge of the bed with a soft exhale. “Before I came here, I thought sexual liaisons could only be between mates, and kri’ith should only mate with kri’ith—because who else was there? I was told I wasn’t worthy of a mate, which is why I never felt the urge. And now all I can feel is the urge, and I am not fully kri’ith, and…” He swung his head, then dragged a hand over his headspines. “Skikking Orith.”

I dropped into the chair.

Airida took my hand, sincerity shimmering in his eyes. And, oh. His amethyst crystals glimmered, shot through with veins of deepest sapphire and lit with pale lapis lazuli, so much detail I could lose myself in them.

I wanted to drown in them.

He traced my inner forearm with strong, sure fingers. Lightning arced through me—as if all my life I’d been waiting for his touch.

“Kalidi or not, I want you, Imani. That’s the only thing in all of this I’m not confused about.”

I took a long, slow breath. I want you, too.