Page 27 of Collision!
His jaw flexed when he swallowed.“Ask.”
“When you kissed me…” She held the lumi-lace ball between her palms, closing her fingers around it to block its brightening light from his sensitive eyes.And maybe to stop him from noticing her skittering heartbeat.“Was it really just about the resonark?”
The silence stretched between them like an unspun roving—the strands barely aligned, caught between what it might become and on the verge of breaking.
“No.”The word seemed forced out of him, rough and reluctant.“I thought… But it was an excuse.”
Even with her fingers tight, beams of light escaped.“What if I kissed you?”
He went very still.But this time she understood it wasn’t rejection—it was recalibration.Like he was running calculations, checking variables, trying to predict outcomes.
“I might damage you,” he said finally.“You’ve already felt my quill-scales in your hand, and the rest of you is even…” His breath hitched.“Softer.”
Oh, that little catch in his voice told her what she desperately wanted to know.But she eased back to set the lumi-lace on the viewport ledge behind them.
“Quill-scales,” she repeated.“My translator is struggling with that a little too.But I think it works.And remember: I play with sharp points and difficult materials for fun.”
“I am not…fun.”
She bit her lip, debating.But if she wanted honesty from him, she needed to offer the same.“I need to tell you something about when your quill-spine poked me.I…” With a half-strangled laugh, she clamped a hand over her eyes.“I can’t look at you when I say this.I had…an orgasm.”
When he didn’t reply, she had to peek through her fingers.“Suvan,” she groaned.“Tell me your translator knows that word.Don’t make me explain.”
“I know that word,” he said indignantly.“I may not be fun, but I do orgasm.”
Slowly, she let her hand drift down.“It was the first one I ever shared with anyone else.”
“No wonder you left Earth.”Reaching out, he caught her hand, only their fingertips imperfectly aligned.“But I didn’t even know.I am sorry again for that.”
“Not your fault at all.I was just so stunned.”
With exquisite care, he turned her hand palm up.He stroked his thumb over the place his spine had pierced her.“Do you still feel it?”
“Not anymore.”
His pale eyes glinted at her disappointed sigh.“Szauralithyn venom, like the quill-scales, is defensive, part of our evolution against the larger reptiloids that roamed the primeval caves of Etavis Nor.But during close encounters with our own kind, the obstacles to intimacy can be formidable.”
“You evolved alongside dinosaurs.”She shook her head.“Thatisfun.”
“We essentiallyareyour dinosaurs.”
Was that a note of pride in his voice?She turned her hand within his, mirroring his care—and his caress.“Well, I swear I haven’t been stalking you only for that reason.”
His head jerked up, as if the thought hadn’t even occurred to him.“You would want…another orgasm?From me?”
She looked up at him through her lashes.“So fun,” she murmured.Just barely, she tightened her grasp on him.
Below the bristle of protective spines, his scales were satin-smooth and deliciously warm.She could touch him all night, losing herself in that simple tactile delight of the tessellated pattern.
How much of him was similarly satisfying?
When she let out a shaky little breath, his gaze dropped to her mouth, and something shifted in his expression—a crack in that stony façade she’d first glimpsed in an untouchable hologram.
“What if we started again,” she suggested, “with a kiss we both know is coming?You have no spines on your lips, and I have no expectations of more.”
“You told me you dreamed of me.”His gaze was unwavering.“Was it like this?”
“No.This is…not a dream.”She didn’t look away either.“This is real.”
