Page 32 of The Monster at the End of This Courtship

He flipped around to face me. "Why is that?"

I tried to wipe the sticky mess off my chest, and he licked it up with two swipes of his tongue.

"Everything about you is perfect. How you sound, how you taste, the way you shake when you come." I sighed. "I don't mean to compare, but you're nothing like the women I've fucked. Theyalways made me feel like they were doing me a favor by fucking me, but you?—"

"Doing you a favor?" he asked. "They didn't enjoy it?"

"More like I was good enough to fuck once, but they were still looking for someone better to come along. Now I know Rosanna was cheating on me with her best friend, but I think I wondered subconsciously."

"I'm the one receiving all the favors," Tuft said. "You kiss like a god, you gave me two orgasms to your one, and you want me to be your first … my first …"

"I want you to feel comfortable around me," I said. "If fucking me would make you uncomfortable, we won't do it."

"No!" Tuft shook his head and pointed to his cock, which was already perking up for round three. "I want to fuck you, but not tonight. We're still taking things slow."

I laughed. "Sure we are, sugar."

"Just for that, I'm going to introduce you to my slick."

I was about to remind him I was quite familiar with the taste and feel of it on my tongue when all words left my brain. It short-circuited when he reached behind himself and shoved his fingers inside with a thick squelching sound.

"Gods, I'm so wet for you. We must be fated."

"You weren't …" I didn't want to speak Weld's name and ruin the moment, "before?"

"No. That's part of the reason our eggs didn't make it. I didn't have enough slick."

"I'm sorry."

He shook his head as he lined up our cocks together side-by-side and coated them. "It wasn't meant to be. This is. We are."

I'd played with myself plenty, and I'd had handjobs before, but his slick and the feel of his cock against mine as he gripped us both was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. I latched ontothe side of his neck, kissing and licking the scales there, just above where I would leave my mating mark.

He sent me soaring again. I almost bit down when I came, but we were taking it slow. The mating mark could wait until we were ready to mate. I had to fight hard to convince my body now was not the time.

Tuft's hand on our cocks started to stutter, so I pushed his hand away and took him in both of mine, scooping more slick from the backs of his balls before cupping them and rubbing all that hot slick over his silky cock. He moaned into my neck when he came, and I felt the hint of his teeth scrape against my scales, too.

"Gods, I want to mate you," he growled.

I didn't see a mating mark on either side of his neck, but I wanted to be sure. "You and Weld never marked each other?"

"He didn't believe in fated mates." Tuft sighed. "I didn't, either, but I'm glad they're real." He snuggled against my chest for a moment, and then scampered out of bed with a shriek. "Too much slick. Need to get cleaned up and put my shorts back on."

I wanted to argue I could clean him up with my tongue, but I helped by running to the bathroom for a warm washrag.

After we scrubbed ourselves down, we ended the night on the couch watching a romantic comedy I'd bookmarked for Rosanna. It was weird to watch humans dancing around each other the way Tuft and I had been for the last few weeks.

"Maybe sports are only the beginning of what we can do here on Ignitas," I said. "Wouldn't it be fun to have romantic comedies about kobold fated mates? Or two betas?"

"Or a beta and a dragon?" Tuft winked. "It would be fun for us to have our own shows, but it might be hard to get the priestesses and betas to agree, since they've never been to Earth."

"We have televisions in our classrooms." It had been one of the first things I'd noticed, though I was grateful Merritt preferred to teach us himself.

"We do." He thought about it for a moment, and then shook his head. "I should get home."

I walked Tuft home to the omega wing, pausing outside his door to kiss him and confirm he still wanted to visit the dragon with Weld and me the following day.

"I had a wonderful time tonight," he said after we kissed.

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