Page 130 of Shadows of Stardust

With a firm grip on his shaft and a decisive shift of my hips, I line him up at my entrance and sink down onto his cock. The stretch of him is good, so fucking good like this. The thick length of him pressed into me. The coiled power of him between my thighs. The thrill of watching the way his eyes slam shut and his expression contorts into what might almost be pain, if I didn’t know better.

Once, twice, again, I roll my hips over him. I watch the strain of the tendons in his neck, the delicious way his lips fall open on a breathless moan. I run my hands over his chest, his abs, knowing how much he likes to be touched there, seeing how much more pleasure I can wring out of him.

Like I should have expected, though, my Revexoran catches on to me almost immediately. He stills me with a firm grip on my ass, a low growl rumbling in his chest.

“I believe I told you to take, my warrior.” Eight claw-tips press down in warning, plus two softly rounded fingertips meant just for my pleasure.

“Who says this isn’t for me? Maybe I like seeing you fall apart.”

Zan’s heavy-lidded gaze skims over me, silver threads luminous in the moonlight.

“Then you’ll never be dissatisfied, Roslyn. Never with me.”

Zan bucks his hips, shifting his hands so he can stroke firmly over my clit. And as much as I’d like to remain the one who’s in control here, I can’t stop the helpless moan that slips from my lips. I can’t stop my own hips from chasing that touch, from seeking more. More pleasure. More touch. More of him.

“Perfect,” Zan rumbles. “Just like that, Ros.”

I move, and he moves, and although I did indeed want to make this about him, after a few long, lush minutes, I can’t help the orgasm that threatens. I can’t stop myself from taking it greedily, shamelessly, the coiled pleasure of it low in my belly too much to resist.

I peel my eyes open to look at Zan, to let him see me while I fall apart, and my breath catches in my throat.

There’s something stretching taut between us, but I can’t quite name it. Some wild, frenzied, desperate thing fluttering its wings against my ribcage and demanding to be free, demanding to be seen.

Nameless, formless, essential, I can’t grasp it for what it is, but I can see it shining back at me from Zan’s dark, galaxy-adorned gaze.

But, like a coward, I close my eyes.

I lean down, kiss him, breathe him in, and try to convince myself I only imagined it. With my hips moving over his, body angled so he hits that sweet, sweet spot that’s my undoing.

I focus on this, here, now, and ignore the tiny spider-webbing cracks spreading across my heart with each thrust.

He stokes me through every fracture, bringing me right to that edge until I tumble over and collapse into him. My anchor through every tempestuous wave of it.

Only when the last of my tremors have finally subsided does Zan move. He flips me under him, sinks back into me, pins my hips with his and grinds his pelvis over my clit in exactly the way he knows will make me wild.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he rasps, thrusting deep. “So fucking beautiful, Ros.”

I can’t find the words to answer him, can’t do anything but cling to him and be lost in the storm. To let myself go until my pleasure builds again and I shatter, Zan shatters, and we falltogether into a heap of breath and sweat and muscles gone lax with pleasure.

All the while, I try to ignore it.

I try not to see what I’m seeing, to feel what I’m feeling. I try not to let it in.

In the end, though, it doesn’t really matter.

Because that nameless, formless, fluttering thing won’t be silenced.

And it’s later, when we’ve both cleaned up and climbed back into bed, when the moons are high in the sky outside, casting silver light over us both, that I finally crack the bars of that cage open and let it gently free.

I’ve got my back against the headboard, and Zan’s laying stomach-down between my thighs, big body sprawled across the mattress. He’s got his head in my lap, hands stroking lazily over every bit of me he can reach, murmuring his pleasure as I comb my fingers through his hair and drag my nails lightly across his scalp.

There’s something so tender about the moment, so right, and a familiar cavern opens in my chest. It’s just like the one that threatened to swallow me whole when I said goodbye to Savvie. The same bleak, hopeless dread that comes from looking into a future I know won’t have an essential part of me in it.

Impossible.

My wires are all crossed. My emotions are in tatters and there’s no way this is what I think it is.

It’s just the upheaval. It’s just the uncertainty. It’s just me wanting to cling to one last known in the face of all the unknown I’ll be thrust into tomorrow.

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