Page 47 of All or Nothing
“You have something done already?” I raised my eyebrows and tilted my head. “I could never have gotten something together so quickly. You truly are a marvel, my Joss.”
She swatted at my arm. “Oh my god, stop. I found a tool that did most of the work for me.” She paused, biting her lip. “But…it does still look really good. And I worked hard on it.”
I beamed at her, kissing her flushed cheek. “I have no doubt.”
She cleared her throat and speared another bite to eat. “What have you managed to get done so far today?” she asked me.
“I’ve been working on the comic. I think this page is just about done. I’ll show you after you show me yours.”
“Wow, that’s awesome! We’re up to what, almost five pages now, right?”
“This will be six.” I paused in my eating. “When can we start posting the comic? Do we have to finish the whole thing first?”
Joss shook her head, making her pale gold hair sway. I noticed that her hair was changing color near the root, turning a deep brown that was almost black. “I don’t know how it works exactly, but all the artists I followed posted a page at a time, on whatever schedule they could manage, so you had to keep coming back to read it all.” Her brow furrowed as she thought. “I’m pretty sure they worked with a few pages already done and waiting to be posted so that if something came up they could keep to the schedule. So if we have six pages done we can probably start posting soon. We just have to figure out what speed you’re comfortable working at. Plus I gotta finish the nexpage. Is that how you shorten nexus page?”
I chuckled, shrugging. “It is now. I like it, it’s snappy.”
She bumped her shoulder into my arm. “Goof.”
“It is remarkable that you have managed to make this a reality so quickly,” I added, wanting to praise her hard work. A part of me was trying to make up for how I had treated her last night, still. “Only a week and we’re already about to begin putting our story out there for others to enjoy.”
She smiled softly at me. “Yeah, we really did pull it together fast. We make a pretty good team.”
“When I am not being an insufferablevrakaashaad, many things are possible,” I groused, stuffing the last bite of my food into my mouth.
Joss took my arm, wrapping both of hers around it and pulling it close against her body while she leaned into me. She rested her chin on the shoulder of the arm she was holding, looking at me closely. It felt too intense, the way she was looking at me. “That’s why I want you to try a new doctor, though. When we don’t work as a team we hurt each other and ourselves, you know?” She got to her feet, releasing my arm so she could pull me into a half-hug. “You’re not insufferable,” she murmured into my hair, making my throat feel tight. “You just have to work on some things that are super fucking frustrating to have to deal with.” I could hear the sly grin in her voice, that minx.
I squawked in fake indignation and stood up from my chair. I swept her up into my arms and carried her to my bedroom, her shrieking laughter filling my ears and making me tingle with delight.
“What are you doing?” she cried, clinging to me.
“Teaching you a lesson,” I growled, tossing her onto my bed. “You have been very sassy with me today and I cannot have that.”
Her eyes went wide, color flushing her neck. Her lips parted and I heard her breath speed up. “O-oh yeah?” she breathed, flustered and squeezing her legs together tight. I dropped down on my knees beside her and crawled over her, forcing her down onto her back beneath me. “What are you going to do to me?”
I lowered my head, licking a slow stripe up the side of her throat and making her whimper. “Whatever I have to to make you scream, my mate,” I promised her, nipping at the delicate golden skin of her throat. She shuddered, her legs falling open between mine.
“I-I’m your mate?” she asked breathlessly as I started to run my hands over her plush body. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
I eased her shirt up, exposing her soft belly. I slid down so I could kiss the skin I was exposing. “What do you think it means?” I asked her between kisses.
Her breathing was picking up speed now that I was close to her sensitive breasts. “In the books I’ve read, back on Earth, it…oh god, Xoll!” Her back arched as I licked up the valley between the soft mounds. “It means…together forever. Per-perfect for each other.”
I hummed, easing her shirt off of her body with her help. “I’d say that’s accurate,” I agreed as I eased the cups of her bra down so I could lap at the rosy brown peaks. She preferred having the entire breast squeezed and played with, rather than just the nipple, but I could never keep my mouth off the pebbled tips. While I licked and nibbled at one I kneaded the other gently, making her pant and squirm under me.
“You want me…forever?” she asked, the vulnerability in her voice making me pause. I lifted my head to look at her, alarmed to see the sheen of tears in her wide brown eyes. I released her and shot back up the bed to pull her close and cuddle her against my chest.
“Sweet Joss, what’s wrong?” I asked, panic gripping me by the throat. “My hearts, why are you crying?”
She laughed tearfully, burrowing into me and clinging. “It’s happy tears, Xoll,” she promised. “I’ve never been that important to someone before. Not even to my mom.”
My hearts clenched painfully in my chest. “And they are all fools for not knowing what a gift they had in you,” I told her fiercely, combing my fingers through her fluffy pale gold hair. “Ihave been a fool for not appreciating you more. But you have been brave enough to give me another chance, so I will be brave enough to change.”
She pulled back, looking at me with wonder and a hope so bright it burned, her eyes boring into mine. She surged up against me, our mouths crashing together, desperately trying to kiss with enough passion to encompass everything we were feeling. It was a rough, messy kiss, but it was exactly what I needed in that moment, my hands running all over her body, desperate to get closer to her, to consume her somehow so that we could melt together, become so deeply intertwined that I never had to be scared and alone ever again.
She pushed me onto my back and clambered on top of me, yanking her bra the rest of the way off and making quick work of the loose shorts she’d been wearing. That quickly, she was naked, her golden skin flushed and looking like an avatar of the Goddess Herself. She dove in to kiss me again, her smooth tongue lapping at my mouth and stealing my breath at the feel of her. Her small hands tore at the buttons of my own clothes, close to ripping the fine material, and for once in my life, I found that I couldn’t care less if she shredded every stitch of clothing I owned, if it meant she did it with this hunger.
Our hands were trembling and feverish as we both worked to get me naked. I couldn’t help but feel like something big was happening, something that would change things between us. Joss’s mouth on mine was insistent, demanding, telling me I would give up control to her and I would love it, and I thought I would. I didn’twantto be in control anymore, not when I so often made the wrong choices and felt the weight of it wearing me down. I wanted her to guide me, to let me shut off the loudness of my mind and justfeel.
