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“Easy there,” he mumbled against my head.
For a moment we seemed to be suspended in time, not even noticing the rain anymore, my head leaned against his solid chest, so close that I heard the steady thump, thump, thump of his heart.
His hand reached underneath my chin, his fingers clasped it, lifted it, and my arms moved around his neck even before his lips crashed down on mine.
I opened my mouth and his tongue flicked inside, meeting mine, creating an electrical current that surged through me, from the roots of my hair all the way down to my toes. His tongue was as ridged as his skin as the tip of mine explored it. Every rim I found sent a shiver of desire through me. My arms around his neck tightened just like his grip against my back. One of his hands began to explore my spine, followed it up and down, leaving goose bumps of yearning for more behind.
He leaned forward as if trying to protect me from the rain, but it was coming down so hard, there was no escaping it. With a grunt, he picked me up.
“You are getting soaked,” he said, his lips leaving mine.
“I don’t care,” I said, snug against his chest, drinking in his warmth.
“You humans are so delicate, I don’t want to get you sick.” He carried me through the entrance that had brought us to the roof.
Inside, he set me down and my body realized the truth of his words as it began to assault me with various complaints of wet and cold. I was still laughing though as I wrung parts of my skirt out.
“It did come down pretty fast,” I admitted.
“You should return quickly to your quarters before you truly get sick,” he advised in a harsh-sounding tone that made me look up into an inscrutable face.
I’ll be fine, lay on the tip of my tongue, still in a laughing mood, but something in his darkening features warned me off. He wants me to return to my quarters, my mind supplied, as if I hadn’t heard his words. But what I had thought of as friendly advice turned into something more of an order.
My heart skipped a beat. Had I gone too far? He kissed you, I told myself. Still, maybe that wasn’t how Pandraxian women behaved. Or maybe he didn’t want to kiss a human, maybe he was just swept up in the moment and realized now how foolish that had been.
“I should.” I nodded in response, proud of myself for keeping the hurt that wanted to creep into my voice out of it. I even managed, “Thank you for a wonderful evening, Your Imperial Highness,” before I turned in a quick circle to run out of the entryway leading back into his quarters and out his door, where I startled the guards who made no attempt at stopping me. After all, they were there to prevent people from entering, not from escaping.
All the way down the hallway, I felt hot tears run down my face and couldn’t have even said why.
“You are soaking wet,” Lady Natoi reproached me the moment I burst through the door into our suite, inadvertently using the same words Daryus had.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered, halting in my wild run, “I got… caught in the rain.”
“Well, I hope you didn’t get our emperor caught in this nonsense as well,” she tsked. “Go on, dry off. Hurry.”
I fled into my room and adjoining bathroom to take a hot shower, hoping to combat the chills gripping my body from head to toe, knowing the wet and cold weren’t truly the cause of it.
She ran off so quickly, that my hand that reached out into nothing fell uselessly back to my hip. It’s better this way, my mind tried to reassure me, let her go.
But my heart protested and my eyes stayed on her until the door closed behind her. Spent, I leaned against the wall, closed my eyes, and wiped my hand over my face. My heart was still beating rapidly, heated by our kiss.
Great Staphor, that kiss!
For a long moment I had forgotten everything around me, my life, my responsibilities, my duties—everything but her. Her pliable body snuggled against my chest, the touch of her soft tongue, the way she tasted of arrilies—a sweet herb—her hand in my hair, her laughter. I took a deep inhale as the same emotions that had run through me as I held her ran through me once more.
Not to forget the peace she brought me. The incredible stillness and rest. I knew I could easily lay in her arms for years and forget everything but her. An alluring notion. A dangerous notion.
The food I had ordered stood cold and forgotten on the table, ready to be served to my departed guest. I gave it a cursory glance, not hungry in the least, and moved to the bathing chamber. A cold shower should waken enough of my ever-present angry fire to push thoughts of her out of me and bring back the familiar always-smoldering heat inside me. For the first time in my life I felt like I needed the constant anger to shield me from this tiny human merrily, even while I tried to plan how to see her again.
My words of, You should return quickly to your quarters before you truly get sick, returned unbidden to me. It wasn’t so much the words, as the tone. I remembered the hoarseness of my voice all too well, caused by a stirring desire inside me to make this tiny human mine. My cock had throbbed to be plunged into her depths, the very tips of my fingers had burned to touch her in all her forbidden places, to explore her. It had taken all my self-control to utter those words, and hadn’t left me with enough strength to soften the tone of my voice.
As it was, it had done the trick. One look at my face had convinced her that it was wiser to flee and I barely held myself back not to chase after her.
Chase!
My mind was turning blurry at the image of me chasing her through the hallway, like our ancestors used to do with their mekarries, to make their ultimate claim. A true conquest of one’s mekarry. It took all my willpower to stay where I was and enter the bathroom instead of chasing after her.
The cold shower did revive my spirits, brought me back to being more of my normal self again, but the moment my head hit the pillow and I closed my eyes I saw her face in front of me, felt her lips pressing against mine, smelled the sweet scent of her.
