Page 72 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
He chuckled. “I thought you were studying.”
“I was, but I wouldn’t have minded an interruption, even if it was just to talk. Even if you didn’t want to—you know.” She averted her gaze, blushing deeper.
“But I do.” He rose higher in the tank, bracing himself on the powerful muscles of his tail. “It was the most exquisite feeling of my life. I thought perhapsyoudid not want to.”
“You canask,” she said. “Ask me anytime. All I want is the freedom to say ‘no’ without guilt.”
“And you have it,” he said quickly. “I know I have the same freedom from you. That is what we agreed.”
“Yes, but—” Mai bit her lip, rolling the plump flesh between her teeth. “I think you should assume, for now, that my answer is going to be yes. No one else makes me feel like this, Rake. Just you. And a little bit with Feral, but he’s an asshole. When he kissed me I felt mostly angry, and sweaty.” She laughed, then sobered again. “So—you. I just want you. Yes,” she kissed his mouth again, “and yes, and yes.” Two more kisses.
Rake’s blood roared hotter, and he pressed hungrily into the third kiss, his chest swelling with warm affection and a deep, raw craving.
“Help me get out of this tank,” he said. “And then you shall have me.”
20
When Rake was out of the tank, and wearing the belt again, Mai took a moment to admire him—his long human legs, the tilt of his hip as he rested his weight on his right foot, the slant and flex of his abdomen, all the way up to the powerful pectorals and shoulders that helped him swim so skillfully through the sea.
She liked the angles of him, the symmetry of his hipbones and abs. And she liked the pattern of his scars. A strange thing to appreciate, but their silvery crisscross marks along his skin kept him from being too perfect. As much as she loved science and the laws it followed, nature was never perfect. To her, Rake was the ideal blend of everything she loved best—discovery, and risks, and things inhuman, and trust, and freedom.
Closer she moved, and touched his cheekbones, so sharply ridged they nearly pressed through his skin. Such lovely eyes he had, and thick, dark lashes to filter particles in the sea. Her fingertips traced the gills along his neck, then traveled back up to his wide mouth, which extended beyond his lips.
“You are so gorgeous,” she murmured, and she pulled off the simple dress she was wearing. Nothing under it, because she had come to the warehouse intending to seduce him. She had never seduced anyone before. So far it was going well.
She traced a finger along Rake’s erect length, and he sighed, tilting his head back. “I did not know it was possible to feel like this,” he murmured.
“That makes two of us.” She gave him a shy smile and slid the same finger between her legs. It felt good, and she was slippery there again, like the first time.
Rake gazed at her, and his tongue slid along his lips. “I love your body.”
Four simple words, yet they meant more to her than she could express.
She cupped her hands over his shoulders. “Come here,” she whispered. “Come in. I need you.”
“Not yet. I want to be sure you’re ready.”
He sank to his knees, clasped her thighs gently and moved them apart. Mai sank both hands into his silky dark-blue hair as his tongue slithered through her folds, nudging, questing. He worked his way deeper, then out again and lapped at the sensitive bit above her slit, the part that made her belly quiver and her thighs tremble. She was wetter than she could ever remember being. Her breathing sped up, changing into shrill panting sounds.
“Now,” said Rake, licking his lips with satisfaction. “Now you’re ready.”
He picked her up and carried her to the wall, pressing her back to it. She locked her legs around his torso and reached between them, tucking his tip into her opening. He slid into her slowly. A rippling warmth, a bright keen tension built in Mai’s belly.
She clung to him while he braced one hand on the wall and splayed the other under her bottom. One of his claws scratched her a little, but she didn’t care. She only cared about more of the exquisite friction, more of the rushing, sucking fullness of him inside her.
His hips rocked, pushing his length through her again, and again, and again. Rake flung his head back and groaned, and then he pressed his forehead to hers while he pumped harder. Mai wanted to know how and why her nerves, her glands, her skin, hereverythingreacted to him this way—just him. But she could not think clearly, her mind had softened into a haze of luminous dark eyes and sharp, pretty, monstrous features.
Rake angled his mouth to hers and kissed her—tiny sharp kisses while he thrust, while the rolling pleasure piled up higher and higher and thencrashedover her, through her.
She came with her mouth open against his, with their breaths mingling.
“Your body is squeezing me so hard,” Rake whispered. “It feels incredible—ah, Mai—” He cried out, and she felt a gush of heat inside her, the pulsing rhythm of his pleasure. He bowed his head over her shoulder, his chest heaving against hers, while he made sounds like sobbing—sweet, sweet sounds she wanted to capture somehow, so she could listen to them over and over.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you, I love you.”
Afterward they dressed, and she sat in his lap and kissed him for a long time, until Rake suggested that perhaps he should sleep, since he had to compete the next day.
“If I die in the Brawl tomorrow, at least we had this,” he said cheerfully.
