Page 28 of All or Nothing
Every time I passed Joss, directing the movers, it felt like every nerve in my body lit up, remembering the tender moment we’d shared this morning. I had come dangerously close to blurting out my feelings for her, telling her that I ached for her, that I felt like I was starving to death with every day that I wasn’t kissing her, holding her, breathing her deep into my lungs so that she sang through my blood. Once Derris had mentioned that she’d make a good mate it had been all I could think of, and I was a male obsessed. Which made it even more difficult for me to deal with the idea of her leaving. How would I survive without her smile, her sweet words, her boisterous laughter that lit up the whole room? How could I go back to my life knowing how much brighter it was with her in it? So if she wanted me to see a different emoreg then I would—I would do anything, I decided, to keep Joss.
I just had to not mess things up before then.
And avoid kissing her until I’d brought up entering into a courtship agreement and had gotten the correct permits. I’d had quite enough of hygiene fines.
It took the better part of the day to load everything up into the hover vehicle and get it to the new place, and by the end of it I was feeling very wrung out and tired, but the work was only half done. Joss was wearing loose, comfortable clothes, her hair thrown up into a messy knot on the top of her head that drew attention to her delicate little ears and displayed her lovely features to their full effect. The sweat dewing her skin made her glitter in the harsh indoor lights, and I kept finding myself distracted by how stunning she was as she unpacked boxes and put the things within away.
After a few more hours we had about half of the boxes unpacked, and we were both flagging hard and dragging our feet. Joss yawned hard enough to crack her jaw and I called it an evening. “We can finish tomorrow,” I told her. “We both need sleep.”
She nodded, smiling sleepily and stretching her arms up. “When you’re right, you’re right,” she agreed. “I just hate leaving things unfinished.”
“It’ll be here tomorrow. You’ve worked hard today, and you need to rest.” I stood from the crouch I’d been in, slotting holo recordings into their low shelf beneath the holoscreen. I strode up to her, putting my hands on her shoulders and squeezing. “You’ve done very well today, Joss,” I told her in a murmur. Her lovely round face turned up to look into mine, her warm brown eyes heavy with fatigue but also alive with something that I felt sparking in answer in my chest. Unconsciously, I took a step closer to her, closing the distance between us and bringing our bodies into the barest of contact. She was so warm, so soft against me, even if it was just the barest of presses, and I didn’t think I’d ever felt something so wonderful before in my life.
It had never been like this with Verilla. I had been such a fool to think that I’d actually cared for her. If I would have known that beings like Joss existed out in the wider universe I never would have stayed with Verilla for as long as I had.
Gulping, I swayed closer to her, more of our bodies coming into contact, and my hands slid from the tops of her shoulders down her back, stopping at the small of her back and tightening against her silky heat. Her own hands came up slowly, hesitantly, as if she was afraid of me, afraid of how I’d react, and a pulse of shame soured my stomach; of course she’d be afraid of my reactions when I’d spent so much of the last few weeks being an absolute bastard. But my Joss was brave, far braver than I would be in her position, and after a moment her little hands settled on my heaving chest, her palms right over my thundering hearts.
I couldn’t tear my eyes from her, all signs of her fatigue vanished. Her full rosy lips were parted slightly, her face lightly flushed and her eyes bright and shining. Her pink little tongue darted out to lick at those lips, wetting them, and I couldn’t quite stifle the groan that ripped from my chest.
“Xollen,” she breathed, her fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt as if she wanted to yank me down closer to her. “Xollen, what is this?”
“I don’t know,” I answered just as quietly, my arms tightening around her, pressing her more firmly against my feverish body, my eyes no doubt swirling wildly. “What do you think it is?”
She licked her lips again, making me ache, and then her gaze settled on my lips, making my wakening cock spring fully to life in my pants. “It feels like you want to kiss me,” she responded after a moment, her face tilting further up towards me, as if she was encouraging me to do exactly that.
My head was ducking before I could think, my body screaming at me to finish closing the distance between us, to meet her lips with mine and devour her at last. She raised one of her hands and placed her trembling fingers to my lips, stopping me from getting closer. “What about the hygiene laws?” she whispered, her eyes still locked on my mouth.
I kissed the tips of her fingers, grabbing her hand and turning it so I could place a kiss on her palm, to the inside of her wrist, making her shiver. I’d just been vowing I’d do everything to avoid more fees, but with her pressed closed, looking at me with such heat…“I don’t care,” I promised her. “I know I should, but I just can’t. Joss…can I kiss you?”
She whimpered, biting her bottom lip. She pulled her arm out of my grip and looped her arms around my neck, yanking me down until I was finally, sinfully, kissing her.
There was nothing that could have prepared me for what it was like. I’d never kissed anyone before, not like this, not even Verilla, and it was the most incredible thing I’d ever experienced. I knew I was clumsy, having to pay attention to Joss and what she was doing in order to figure out my own moves, but it was still so…much. This close, her delicate scent was wrapped all around me, her flavor bursting into my mouth as our lips caressed. My arms wrapped around her tighter, hauling her up higher so that I didn’t have to hunch so low, her moan of pleasure licking down my spine and settling into my aching cock. She tilted her head, forcing our mouths to line up differently, deepening the kiss, and then her slick little tongue was swiping at the seam of my mouth, asking me to let her in, and I did so gladly, without any hesitation, and then her tongue was in my mouth, licking and sweeping over every inch of me, learning me, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
Sliding my hands to the round globes of her ass, I hauled her up even higher against my body, lifting her up off the ground. She squealed, breaking the kiss and wrapping her legs around my hips on instinct. “What are you doing?” she giggled, her mouth deliciously flushed and swollen.
“I’m bringing you to my bed so I don’t have to keep leaning over, tiny human,” I growled out, pressing another kiss to her hungry mouth. “We don’t do anything you’re not comfortable with,” I added after a moment, as the door of my room slid up at my approach.
“I appreciate that,” she told me as I dropped us on the mattress, her curves bouncing from the impact and making me groan and clench, precum seeping out of my achingly hard length. She was just soperfect, so sweet and soft and delicious in my arms. I pressed her back into the bed, following her down and doing my best to mimic what she had been doing earlier with my own tongue, trying to learn every inch of her that I could. One of my knees settled between her thighs, the other to the side of her leg, my tail flicking and twitching in the air behind me. Dimly, I realized that the knee between her legs was dangerously close to the juncture of her thighs, the blistering heat pouring off of her from there making my mouth water.
She moaned under me, her hands wrapped tight around my neck while her fingers dug into my scalp, cupping the nape of my neck, sliding forward to cup my face with a tenderness that made me throb with need. Her hands slid up again, cupping the base of my horns, and the sensation that rocketed through me made my hips buck, my pelvis dropping to press into hers. My cock gave a mighty jerk and I worried I’d spill in my pants, it felt sogood. I ripped my mouth away from hers, biting my lip.
“Sensitive,” I ground out, shuddering as I struggled to maintain my control over my body.
“Sorry!” Her hands went back to my shoulders, stroking soothingly. “You alright?”
I nodded, squeezing my eyes shut and concentrating on breathing. I wasnotgoing to embarrass myself. “Yes, I’m fine. You’re just…so incredible. It’s um—a lot.”
I opened my eyes, gazing down into the warm depths of hers, the black of her pupils nearly swallowing that beautiful brown that made me feel so safe and cared for. She smiled at me, her lip wobbling the littlest bit and her eyes going glassy. “Thank you,” she croaked, swallowing and blinking quickly. “That means a lot to me, to hear that.”
I huffed, plucking her hair tie from her ruined bun so that her pale gold locks could tumble free. “To hear that I’m untried and close to losing control?” My voice came out sounding harsher than I’d meant it to, my tone bitter, so I pressed kisses to her jaw to show her I wasn’t mad at her.
“No, not that, you dork,” she chuckled, swatting at me lightly. “Calling me that. Incredible. No one else…well, it’s not something I’ve ever heard before.”
I reared back, my ponytail sliding over my shoulder and tickling the side of my face. “How?” I asked incredulously, examining the flawless beauty of the female below me. How could anyone look upon her and see anything less than miraculous perfection?
She bit her lip again, her eyes growing even more hungry, before she pulled me down into another searing kiss. I lost myself in her then, the focus of my whole existence narrowing to Joss, to her taste, her scent, the feel of her against me, the sounds she made as I ran my hands all over her body and tasted her mouth over and over.
I readjusted my position over her, and when I did my knee between her thighs slid higher, pressing into the junction at the apex of her thighs, and she sucked in a breath beneath me, shivering and hips arching into my touch. I moved my leg again, rubbing at the place where she was hottest, and her pleasure noises intensified, a whimper ripping from her throat that I swallowed greedily. Wanting more of those sounds,needingthem, I kept doing it, surprise and pleasure mingling in my chest as her hips started moving with me, increasing the friction and making her moan and pant against me.
