Page 63 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
The walk back was a blur in Rake’s mind—he hardly remembered how they reached the Lionstooth Inn, or how they got upstairs to Mai’s room. She latched the door and turned to him, her face scarlet.
“I don’t want anyone to know about us yet,” she whispered.
“Because you are ashamed.” He nodded, understanding even as it made him sad.
“No!” she said fervently. “Not ashamed. Maybe I was a little, at first, only because I didn’t know why I would feel things for you that I never felt for men of my own species—but now I don’t care. I love that beautiful heart inside you. And this body of yours is rather gorgeous, too.”
Delicately Rake cupped her face, careful not to scratch her with his claws. He could not understand why pressing his mouth to hers over and over felt so amazing, but it did. Thrills pierced his chest, racing through his belly all the way down to his human penis, which stiffened in response.
Mai hummed with satisfaction, deepening the kiss and bringing her body against his. Then her whole form went rigid, and he knew she’d felt the evidence of his arousal through his pants.
She retreated, looking up at him warily. “Are you all right?”
Rake swallowed, checking himself mentally. At the back of his mind the memories of the Queens burned like acidic bile, but they were not overwhelming him yet. His gills were sealed, his jaw neatly hinged as usual, his secondary and tertiary rows of teeth tucked away in his gums. No feeding frenzy, no paralyzing mental torment.
“I am all right,” he said, and smiled with the wonder of it.
Cautiously Mai came to him again, and this time she unfastened his cloak and let it drop. Her fingers nudged the buttons of his shirt through their holes, one at a time, and she separated the edges of the shirt, baring his chest to her view. Rake looked down at her small, thin hand, lying against the pale, blue-tinted flesh of his breastbone, over the silvery scars that crisscrossed his skin.
“Is this all right?” Mai breathed.
“Yes.”
Slowly she laid the shirt back and slid it down, off his shoulders, along his arms, until it fell away. Her fingers quivered as she placed them on the ridges of his stomach and slid them downward. “And this?”
Rake had never been so aroused in human form. The shaft between his legs was almost painfully hard, and the balls behind it felt swollen and full.
“It is fine,” he said tersely.
“I can stop,” Mai offered.
In all his life of being battered, hated, used, and bred, Rake had never been caressed like this. Her small fingers were a balm, soothing and softening all he’d endured, wakening him to something entirely new, something he’d scarcely hoped for. The kind of tenderness between Flay and Kestra. The kind of tenderness his sore heart craved with every violent throb. She wasn’t touching him like a specimen, but like a loved thing. Like a cherished one.
“Please.” Rake couldn’t stop the tremor of his voice. “Please touch me.”
Mai met his eyes, and her own were bright and sympathetic and curious. “I will, if you touch me, too.”
She kicked off her shoes, then rucked up her dress and pulled it off, as if she wanted to do it quickly before she could change her mind.
And then she looked down at herself, entirely naked, no corset or chemise in sight.
She lifted her eyes to him in horror. “Rake, I left my underwear in the warehouse.”
He could not answer at first, because he was seeing her whole and bare for the first time, and the sight made him so hard he could not think beyond the blood pulsing through his cock, the haze of craving in his brain.
Finally he managed to say, in a monotone that didn’t sound like him, “Would you like me to go and get your underwear?”
“No, idiot,” Mai said, with a breathless giggle. “We haven’t finished our experiment yet.”
“Experiment,” he echoed.
“Yes. You see, I study everything, and this phenomenon seems especially worthy of study.” She slipped a finger between her legs, and it came out glistening wet. “This doesn’t happen for me very often, so I need to test it now. And you want to test your endurance for touch. So it’s perfect.”
He kept staring, until her smile faltered and she murmured, “You said Kestra was beautiful. Do you think…” Her voice trailed off, but Rake knew what she wanted to ask.
“Your worth goes far beyond beauty.” Rake paused, just long enough to watch her face fall as he’d known it would. Then he added, “And no one else could possibly be lovelier to me.”
She brightened and blushed again. “So, do you—do you want to try this?”
