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He’s invited her to a special place on Aya, and Sara, standing at her desk in her room on the Tempest, thinks she might throw up. The wash of nerves—she’s never felt that kind of anxiety before—has left her shaky and cold. As much as she knows it’s utterly irrational, she can’t stop it.
“Sara.” SAM chimes softly in her mind.
It’s always struck her as fascinating that he seems to understand the difference between Sara and Pathfinder so easily. He treats her like a respected co-worker most of the time, but he’s so good at recognizing when she needs to be Sara.
Well. He’s in her head, hard-wired to her brain, so maybe it’s not so strange.
“SAM,” she says aloud. She still can’t quite get used to talking to him in her own head. At least not during the day. It’s stupid division, she knows, but it seems wrong to actually speak when she’s in bed at night. Just like it feels wrong to think at him when it’s “daytime” on the ship.
This train of thought, too, is utterly insipid, and she knows it, but there’s solace in dwelling on something so completely inconsequential, so absolutely inane, and—
“Sara, if you would like, I will mediate your neurotransmitter production to ease your anxieties.”
“Um,” she says, stymied by the offer.
It’s one thing to understand that SAM has full access to her physiological processes, and another thing entirely to casually let him mess around with them. Her anxiety spikes, which really isn’t SAM’s fault at all, except for the fact that he’s asked her to make a decision when she’s already dealing with something she doesn’t know how to deal with at all.
So instead of responding to his suggestion, she unloads.
“It’s just that Jaal’s asked me to go with him to a special place, and I’ve never actually gone with anyone to any special place, because I’ve never had anyone special enough to go to special places with—” She’s vaguely aware of the fact that she’s abusing the word special while being acutely aware of the fact that she doesn’t have the mental capacity to do anything about it. “—mostly because I’ve never had someone special to do, um, things with—” She’s a little furious with herself for discussing sex like she’s a kid in her first sex ed class, laughing at the word penis, but here she is, this is her life, this is how things are unfolding for her. “—not for lack of trying, but maybe for lack of trying, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve never actually done anything with anyone and know Jaal is telling me that I’m his one and only and, SAM, you know Jaal, he never does anything half way or in small measures, they’re all big measures and all of his effort, and—”
Sara finds herself in the middle of her room, her hands in the air, and she realizes that she’s been pacing as she rants.
SAM is obligingly silent for a moment. Then he prompts her to continue, in what might be either a learned behavior or a demonstration of humanity, she’s not sure which, and she’s not sure if they’re even different things. “And?”
It’s really quite nice of him to let her do all the talking. “And I really wish you’d just fill in the blanks,” she grumbles, deflating all the way to the ground. She sprawls on the floor, one leg stretched out and one bent at the knee. One arm is flung across her face. The other rests limp at her side.
She’s greeted with more mental silence.
With a groan, Sara drags her hand across her face. She opens her eyes, blinking at the bright white of the ceiling. “You’re not going to fill in the blanks for me.”
“There is value in putting names to the things that inspire fear.” SAM’s voice is toneless, it’s always toneless, but she thinks she hears a tiny bit of kindness in his words. Maybe she’s reading into it.
Sara sighs once. Then twice. She lets her bent leg fall straight. She bends the other. SAM remains silent.
“Fine!” Her hand slaps against the floor, and the sting of impact brings a sudden clarity. “I’ve never had sex and I’m scared and overwhelmed and frightened!”
“Why?”
SAM’s question should inspire ire. Instead, it invites contemplation.
Sprawled on the floor of her cabin, staring at a white ceiling that should probably be some literary metaphor for the blank canvas of her life, Sara gives that why serious consideration.
“Because it’s unknown,” she says slowly. “I know… everything that goes into it. It’s not like I don’t watch porn vids.”
SAM is kind enough not to point out that he knows. That he wrote, in his spare time, a predictive algorithm to sort through the zettabytes of porn that some brilliant asshole smuggled onto the Hyperion and find what she’d most like to watch next.
“It—sex isn’t something I’ve done myself. And knowing intellectually how to do something isn’t the same as actually doing it. But I’ve thrown myself into the unknown before. I guess that’s different because I had no choice, though. It’s not like I could just throw up my hands and say sorry, humanity, you’re on your own. I mean, I could, but Cora wouldn’t have you, SAM, and everyone would hate me.” She sighs. Lifts her hands. Scrubs her face. “I’m sighing a lot.”
“Every time you sigh, you calm your central nervous system,” SAM reminds her.
She sighs again.
“Another .01% decrease in anxiety.”
“SAM, you’re a shit.”
“You have expressed this sentiment before. And your analysis is correct: you have faced the unknown because you have had outside pressure that impedes your ability to turn away from uncertainty. You are experiencing anxiety here because you know Jaal will not put that pressure on you for sex.”
Sara pushes her thumbs against her closed eyes, breathing through her nose. Lights explode against her eyelids, flashing speckles of colors like drunk fireworks. “He won’t. And I’m scared that he’ll be hurt if I tell him no.”
For a moment, she lies still. Beneath her, the Tempest sings a song of strength and endurance as it cuts an even path through the space between Andromeda’s stars. She imagines she can feel Gil’s hands dancing over the consoles in engineering, that she can hear Liam muttering to himself as he tinkers with the Nomad. She pictures Cora paging through a book about flowers, trying to find plants that will thrive in the soil of a new galaxy. With a quiet chuckle, she hears Peebee swear at Poc and Drack growl at Lexi as Vetra scoffs at them both with a roll of her eyes.
They’re in a new galaxy. She’s tried angaran food and fired kett weapons. She’s stood on alien sands and marveled at alien sunsets. Rain that never kissed a human’s skin sluiced down her face on Havarl, and ice that never creaked or groaned under a human’s step sang when she ran across it for the sheer joy of sliding into Jaal’s arms.
Maybe she’s nervous to go all the way with him, but she’s done a million new things in Andromeda, and, well, she hasn’t died yet.
“That’s a grim view of what is a common organic experience.”
Sara bursts into laughter, pushing herself off the floor and onto her feet. She slides herself into her chair, spinning in a full revolution before setting her hands to reply to Jaal’s message.
“I’m going to do it, SAM.”
“It will be good for you. Intercourse is useful for relieving tension as well as—”
“SAM!” she shouts with what can only be described as good-natured horror. Shaking her head, she types up a simple reply.
There’s no time like the present.
“Because I’ll lose my nerve,” she tells SAM as she sends the message. “Can you tell Kallo to take us to Aya?”
SAM chimes an affirmative, and Sara feels the ship lurch just the slightest bit as Kallo changes the trajectory. It’s a strange thing. She knows the inertial dampeners are strong enough to make sure no one feels anything, but the Tempest is like an old friend. Sara probably can’t read her as well as Kallo or Gil, but she can read her well enough.
And then her terminal lights up. “Pathfinder, there is—”
“SAM, I’m literally right here,” she says dryly, and the silence that follows that statement feels almost abashed. She really needs to stop attributing human emotions to SAM.
Humming happily, Sara opens Jaal’s message.
Most desirable among women, I will be waiting for you as soon as we land on Aya.
And all that anxiety comes crashing back.
Hands shaking, Sara stares at the message. She regrets sending her note, regrets committing to a course of action, regrets agreeing to do anything, and she thinks that, maybe, she could tell him she doesn’t feel well, that she has a migraine, a tension headache, that she has to cancel, that they need to rain check.
“No,” she says aloud, curling her fingers around the edge of the desk. She hates that she didn’t tell Kallo to go to Aya before she sent her response to Jaal, but, well, that’s over. Can’t change the past. “No, you will not back out of this. You love him.”
She does. She really does. Maybe that’s why this is so frightening.
“I don’t suppose you’ll mess with those neurotransmitters now?” she asks SAM.
“I will prevent a panic attack,” he replies.
“But I should deal with these feelings on my own?” Her tone turns rueful.
“You are stronger than you give yourself credit for, Sara Ryder, and you know when to ask for help and when you are allowing help to become a crutch.”
He’ll give her only what she needs, and she appreciates that. SAM’s right: she wants to deal with this. She wants to confront it, but she’s scared of the confrontation. Which is laughable, really. Sara Ryder? Afraid of confrontation? She’s the woman who stepped into a pit with a bunch of fiends and two krogan who hated each other.
No, she’s going to do this. She’s just going to feel vaguely ill the whole time.
“Have you considered telling Jaal you’re nervous?”
Sara’s eyes bug out of her head. “SAM, you don’t just tell someone you’re nervous about having sex with them.”
“Why?”
She flounders for an explanation, and proceeds to spend the trip to Aya laying out exactly why having actual conversations with other organic beings is a terrible idea. She sums it up as she climbs the ladder just outside the door to her quarters with: “People misunderstand words all the time.”
“Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost,” SAM replies.
The doors to the bridge slide open at that moment, and though Sara can shoot off a mental reply, she doesn’t. Jaal is waiting for her, a smile on his face.
* * *
His hands curve around her eyes. “Is this alright?” he asks, and Sara’s blood pressure skyrockets.
Wondering if he can feel the pounding of her heart through the thin skin of her forehead and in the blood vessels in her eyelids, she nods. “Yeah,” she says, lying, because she’s going to do this, damn it. She loves him, and she’s going to goddamn do this.
“Walk forward,” he says, and they shuffle slowly out of the shuttle.
It takes maybe five steps for her to figure out a good cadence for walking, and he matches her pace effortlessly. Jaal is incredible, adapting to her with ease, meeting her wherever she is with exuberance and affection that should overwhelm her but instead buoys her up. They move seamlessly, without awkward stumbling or stop-and-go shambles.
A scent both sweet and sharp fills her nose, subtle and warm and bright. It’s a fleeting thing, there and gone again, like a field of flowers on a windy day. Sara inhales deeply, and she feels Jaal’s laughter rumble against her back. His mouth brushes over her hair.
“Wherever we are,” she breathes, “it smells like heaven.”
The wonder of it distracts her. All she can do is breathe in the sweetness of whatever place they’ve come to, as if enough deep draws of air will seal the scent into her lungs. She wants to carry it with her throughout the galaxy, a cloud of beauty and featherlight peace.
Rushing water fills her ears, a crescendo of persistent and liquid change in the form of a waterfall. Droplets spray across her cheeks, wetting her lips. Her tongue runs a course along her lower lip, tasting water cool and clear.
“Heaven?” he asks, another rumble of laughter in his voice. The sound curls her toes and settles, warm and heavy between her thighs. Pleasure radiates through her body, a lethargic wave of heat and need. “Maybe it is.” His thumbs stroke over her brow and along her temples, soothing, gentle, as he removes his hands. “Take a look.”
Sara blinks her eyes open, squinting against the bright light of Aya for a just a moment. Then her eyes adjust, and her breath catches as her heart stutters in her chest.
There are no words for wonders like this. Awe mixed with reverence seizes her. Her skin prickles in a wave rushing from her scalp to her toes. When she inhales, she takes the whole glade into herself, and something inside her shifts. A hard edge smooths. An ache she’s never been aware of before suddenly vanishes, and Sara knows, without a doubt, that she belongs here.
Suvi has her god, Vetra has her spirits, and Cora has her goddess, but Sara has this place, this moment, and the utter certainty that no matter what compels the universe, all things have brought her to Andromeda for this. She may spend the rest of her life fighting the Archon, and that may be as long as a few measly hours, but that doesn’t matter.
This is the place.
This is where she belongs.
She can’t understand why the entire planet isn’t trying to exist in this one place, in this one moment, and in her stunned reverence, she turns to Jaal with arms spread. “How is this whole place not packed with people right now?”
Even asking the question, she knows she doesn’t want to share this glen with anyone but Jaal. Whatever nerves she felt on the shuttle from the city to the glen, they’re gone now, eclipsed by the feeling of completion. Of rightness.
“I have my ways,” he says, stepping up to her and reaching for her hand.
This is easy, this is right. Sara hasn’t done much with anyone, and physical affection only comes easily with Scott, but this much? This slide of her soft pink skin against the fuchsia flush of Jaal’s hand? This she can give without thought, without reservation.
Electric tingles sing up her arm, and Sara turns to study a flower to hide the widening of her eyes. Passing arousal, the low, fleeting ache of want, is something familiar. This sharp, demanding need is foreign enough to send a jolt of panic through her—enough to knock that same arousal back, but not kill it.
The spike of anxiety fades, and the want lingers. The electric dance of awareness persists. This, she realizes, is normal. She settles into it the way one wraps a new blanket about their shoulders: with the certainty that it will be good.
“Trust me. We won’t be disturbed.”
And the anxiety rockets back.
Alone with Jaal means the opportunity for intimacy beyond her limited experience. Means she actually has to step into the unknown. Seeing, reading—that’s not doing. You can read about the recoil of a gun a million times and still be surprised when it smacks into your shoulder, sending your aim wildly off.
“This…” Sara breathes deep. Lets the scent of unfamiliar flowers filter into her lungs. “This is a wonderful gift.”
She immediately regrets the words. Her tone sounds stilted and even desperate, and she’s suddenly terrified he’s going to know she’s terrified. Part of her wants SAM to intervene, to tell her that she’s in a bad way, but he’s been silent since she left the Tempest, and she hates the way she feels like a stupid teenager who wants a parent to make all her decisions for her to spare her any responsibility.
She glances at Jaal and sees the brightness in his eyes, the smile on his face. It’s reserved for him, but there’s a profundity in that quiet joy.
Pausing at the edge of the water, Sara studies the magnificent waterfall. Jaal slips behind her, wrapping her in his arms and settling his chin on her head.
It’s not that she feels caged. Jaal’s grip on her is loose and easy. It’s just that this embrace has so much more weight than any other he’s given her. While she knows in her head that he’ll let her go at the slightest indication she wants to move away, while she understands he will never force her to do anything, she feels the weight of expectation. He’s brought her here. He expects this will be something more. Something special.
What’s worse is that she wants that, too. She wants the more, the special, the intimacy, but she doesn’t know what to do with it, and she’s pretty sure that her fumbling attempts are going to disappoint him. Or disappoint her.
It occurs to her that she’s actually worried about disappointing herself and her perceptions of what sex is supposed to be like. But that level of self-awareness is entirely too much.
Desperately, she gropes for conversation. “Real air.” As if she hasn’t breathed the air of at least five planets. “Real sun.” Because the other stars in Andromeda are fake, yes, that’s it. “Fresh water.” Okay, that’s fair. Eos doesn’t have much, and what is there is hot and gross, and everything on Kadara is sulfur.
“This is my favorite place in the universe.”
His cheek brushes against her hair, and a shiver runs down her spine. How can something so innocuous, so simple, feel so good? That flare of desire rushes through her again, leaving her momentarily breathless.
Against her, he shifts. His hands, once laced against her stomach, now fall to her hips.
She flinches. And she hates herself for it.
“Sara.” His voice is quiet, a soft whisper beneath the rumble of the waterfall. “You are tense.”
Yes. No. Well. Yes.
Heaving out a sigh, she turns in his arms and settles her hands on his chest. Meeting his gaze is one of the hardest things she’s ever done, but she’s glad to see him studying her face with great intensity.
He sees what she cannot put into words. “You are… frightened?” There’s no hurt in his voice, just confusion.
“No,” she says quickly and with a sharp shake of her head. “No, I’m not—I mean, I’m just—it’s—” She doesn’t want to tell him she has no idea what she’s doing, so she reaches up and tugs his head down to hers, her fingers curling around the soft ridges that frame his beautiful face.
Their kiss is awkward, fumbling, and so very obviously desperate. She’s mashing her lips against his mouth, and he’s just standing there. When she pulls back, he’s looking at her like she has two heads.
So she blurts it out. “I’ve never done this before and I’m scared that I won’t measure up to any experience you’ve ever had before, and I don’t want to let you down, but I’m also scared that this won’t measure up to my expectations, and maybe if it’s not good enough you’re never going to bother with me again and then I’ll be crushed, and you’ll be, I don’t know, you’ll be you, and you’ll still be wonderful and clever and smart and infuriating, but you’ll be all of those things out of my reach, and I’ll never find someone else as incredible as you, so I’ll get a million cats, fill a house with them, and die alone.”
She stares at him, eyes owl wide.
He stares back at her.
Half of her thinks he’ll laugh, but of course he won’t laugh. He’s angaran, and she was just so very angaran.
“Sara.” Her name is a caress, a song, a plea, a promise. He says his name like he touches her, his hand sliding up her side in a caress that makes her lips part and her breath sigh out of her. Eyes warm and soft, full of tenderness, he lowers his forehead to hers. Intimate. Intense. She feels naked and—
And safe.
“This is why I love you,” he says, and she loves that she never has to wonder where she stands with him. She doesn’t doubt the words, doesn’t question motives or ascribe hidden meanings. “You are so real. So honest. You are the brightest of suns, revealing truth wherever you shine.”
Heat floods her cheeks, and she glances away. “That’s… a bit much… don’t you think?”
“No. It doesn’t come close to describing you. But it will do.” He chuckles softly, and touches her cheek with one warm hand. “You have never lain with another?”
She closes her eyes to steel herself. “No,” she says, weakly. She forces her eyes open and meets his gaze. “No,” she says again, raw and strong and real. “And I… don’t want to let you down by being inexperienced.”
A shift of his stance brings their lips together. It’s not a kiss, it’s a touch, and it leaves her aching and wanting. Pleasure denied, but promised. With a soft sound, her lips part, and she leans toward him.
“Pleasure is a dialog,” he rumbles, his other hand sliding to the small of her back. She arches into the touch—and gasps when the hard line of his erection presses against her belly. “If we do not speak to each other, yes, we will be disappointed. But you talk so much.”
She does, it’s true. She has a million words, all of them screaming at the tip of her tongue.
“And I listen well.”
He does. She’ll go on and on for ten minutes, and he’ll ask her questions about things from the beginning, from the middle, from the end of her rants.
“How far do you want to take this? I am happy with whatever you will give me.”
Every word brushes his lips against hers. Warmth grows inside her, making her skin feel like a sweet fire. She feels his hand like a brand against her back, but, god, it’s wonderful. She wants him to write himself on her body.
“Sara?”
Her hands slide down the smooth ridges on his head, and his groan turns into a low purr. The sound washes through her, twisting her up inside and making her body shiver. Pleasure pulses between her legs, the muscles of her cunt rippling. The sensation is shocking. Delightful. Her hips rock against his, an insistent roll that speaks to desire.
“I want you,” she says, halting and slow, cheeks flaming. For someone with as many words as she, speaking this need is perhaps the most difficult thing she’s ever done. “I want… I want to breathe you in and bleed you out.”
It’s overwrought and saccharine, but it’s a sentiment she knows he’ll appreciate.
And he does.
He hugs her body to his and catches her mouth with his. Where her kiss had been an awkward attempt at distraction, his is a song of promise. It’s not as if she hasn’t kissed people before, but it’s never mattered. They didn’t matter. So she focuses on the how of it, and the focus, the intense scrutiny, makes her aware of every place their bodies touch.
Mimicking the way his lips drag over hers, she fits herself into the hollows and contours of his body until their clothes mean nearly nothing. Little sounds of desperate need fall from his mouth to hers, and she drinks them down like they’re the finest of wines.
Every swallow of sound spreads heat through her until she’s yanking at her jacket—why the hell did she wear a leather jacket to a jungle world?—and whatever it is that he’s wearing—is it a wet suit? She thinks it’s a wet suit. It’s weird. It’s irritating. She’d rather have his skin.
Laughing, he pulls away from their kiss to help her. His hands find clasps she had no idea existed, and he pushes aside fabric to reveal a mosaic of blues and purples that humans don’t even have words for.
She tears her scarf over her head—really? A scarf? What was she thinking? Tossing it aside, she shrugs out of the jacket and lets it hit the sand.
The sound shakes him, and the look he turns on her seers her through to her bones. Heat spears her. A sudden rush of arousal leaves her slick and achy.
Half naked, all strange protrusions that should seem frightening, or at least bizarre, to her but instead are alluring, he reaches for her. Cups her face. “I meant to ask. Do you have a favorite place? A place like this that—”
“This place,” she says, cutting him off and stepping into his body. She can’t quite fit herself to him like she could a human man, but that doesn’t matter. His height means her breasts aren’t crushed against his chest, and the narrow line of his hips means it’s easier to hold him. “This place, right now.”
With a chuckle, he nuzzles her cheek. “You flatter me, but surely you have some place from your home?”
“No.” The word is fierce and firm. Maybe the mountains, maybe that place of wind that combed through her hair like a lover. But the wind is fleeting and fickle, insubstantial and bound to the whims of a planet that turns and turns and turns.
This place, with this man? This is home, this is where she belongs. “No, it’s this place,” she says, and she kisses him, hard and fast and desperate. Her tongue tastes his skin, feeling the lines of his lips and drowning in him. His lips part, but before he can return the favor, she pulls back. “Jaal Ama Darav, I crossed the dark expanse of space, I slept like death for six hundred years, to stand on this beach, to stand in your arms, to be with you.” She knows this like she knows how to breathe. It is an unalterable fact.
His hands bury in her hair, and he kisses her like she just kissed him. Their tongues meet in a tangle of fiery, aching need. She can’t wonder if she’s doing this right because she’s too preoccupied with doing more. It doesn’t occur to her to critique her own performance when every sweep of her tongue along his pulls ragged moans from his chest.
One of his hands drops to her hip. He slides the tips of his fingers under her shirt, a light and fleeting caress that makes her keen. The weight of his hand increases, and he tugs her closer until their hips fit together and, oh, but it’s sweet in spite of the fact that it’s completely unfulfilling.
Now, he draws back, and she feels the loss like a strike across her barriers and her shields. It crashes into her, a wave of force that knocks her breathless.
“Beyond all reason,” he says, and then, like he can’t help himself, he’s kissing her again.
Good. She needs his kisses. Needs more, needs to drown in him and breathe him in at the same time.
They break. He speaks. “I’ve fallen in love with you.”
A thrill rushes through her, smoothing another rough edge that had never fit in the Milky Way. Home, home, home, this is home. Not just Andromeda, or Aya, or even this particular place, but all of those things and him.
“I really don’t know what I’m doing,” she breathes.
His smile is like the sun, like a cup of hot cocoa on a snowy night. “You’re doing alright.” He steps back, and there’s a spike of anxiety that vanishes when his hands go to his waist. He cocks his head, tilting it in that angara way that she’s come to realize is a challenge—and a boast. “Come into the water with me?”
She stares at him as he drops his pants, revealing the whole of his body. It’s nothing like a human man’s: there’s a place where his cock actually extends out of his body, and isn’t that just the most fascinating thing. It’s ridged and sleek and pure white in some places, and a fractured rainbow in others. She’s too entranced by the way his muscles pull under that soft skin to be even remotely embarrassed by her staring.
The water parts around him, singing a sweet song, and it’s then that she realizes he’s naked. In the water. Without her. And she’s still wearing her clothes.
“I—” She can’t strip in front of him, but something inside her wants to. Something slick and hot and wicked wants it, but not enough to overcome her insecurities.
Jaal studies her for a moment and then turns his back on her. He dips his hand into water that is clear as glass. Lifting a cupped hand to his shoulder, he spills rivulets down his skin. “Will you leave me here? Drowning?”
That low, purring voice puts into words precisely how she feels. No, no she won’t, and she yanks at her clothes, kicking off her shoes. It feels like another six hundred years before she’s naked, too, and she splashes into the water without grace or reservation.
At the last minute, he turns. One arm catches her about the waist, spinning her around as he holds her to his body. In the sunlight, he’s glowing and delightfully warm, and his eyes are incredible. They glitter, iridescent and beautiful, full of emotion.
Angara feel, and they feel deeply, without reservation, with such depth and breadth that there aren’t enough words to describe all those things.
“Sara,” he breathes, taking her in as if he’s seeing her for the first time.
She tries not to think about the fact that, in many ways, he is. The familiar uncertainty rises up in her, but she crushes it with a newfound power. Lightly, she caresses the muscle that runs down his chest, the line of bone that protects his heart. The touch makes him shiver, and it thrills her to know she can affect him so.
“As bright as the snow-capped peaks of Voeld shine in the noon-day sun, your spirit shines brighter.” He slips his hand over her thigh, curving it around her ass. With a soft sound, she parts her legs, hooking one over his hip as he turns them in the water.
That quiet moue turns into a keening moan as his cock brushes against her thigh and then settles against the heat between her legs. His eyes shut briefly, a look of fierce pleasure on his face.
“As strong as the ancient trees of Havarl, your will is yet more indomitable.” He settles her over him, both hands bracketing her waist. His thumbs brush over her hipbones, and it shouldn’t make her gasp, but it does.
Rolling her hips against him, she bites her lip to keep from crying out. His cock slides against her, hot and hard, unyielding against the soft flesh of her cunt. Pleasure spikes through her, and she shifts against him again, finding a rhythm that pleases her.
When he laughs, the sound echoes inside her. It makes her clit throb, makes her heart pound. “To touch you is to touch the soul of a star,” he croons, and one hand slides around her thigh. He strokes the soft skin of her ass, fingers sliding along her until he finds the lips of her cunt.
She feels like a fire, bright and unstoppable, and though she’s never been with another person, she knows how to touch herself. Wrapping her arms around him, she braces herself to push against his fingers.
It doesn’t occur to her that angaran women might be built differently, or that she should ask if he knows what he’s doing. It doesn’t matter. His forefinger slides along her cunt, stroking from back to front. The tip swirls around her entrance, sparking a brighter flame as she rocks against him, and then he’s pressing that finger against her clit.
Crying out, she presses her lips to his. If he speaks again, his words are lost in a kiss that’s wild and full of need. She pleads with him for more with that kiss, with the stroke of her tongue along his. He tastes as sweet as the glen smells, soft and warm like honey and cherries.
His finger flicks over her clit, circling, teasing. With quiet whimpers, she moves against him until every stroke is a bite of pleasure. His other fingers curl against her entrance, not pushing inside her, but teasing until she can’t bear it. She feels like a live wire, a nerve rubbed raw with pleasure that isn’t quite enough.
It eats at her, the aching burn of it, until her head falls back. The sun licks over her face as Jaal’s teeth drag down her neck. His finger slides against her clit as one other slips into her—and that’s enough to have her calling out his name.
Her cunt clenches, her orgasm pulling at her like a wave. It curls her toes and breaks the steady rhythm of her hips. The pleasure sings through her, lighting up one nerve after another with a sting of ecstasy that leaves her breathless and gasping in his arms.
“You are exquisite.”
With a soft moue, Sara opens her eyes and looks at him. She feels… like her body is still singing with pleasure, actually, still electric and wild, and not entirely satisfied.
“And I am not done with you. Will you…” Jaal slides his hand away from her cunt, running it up her back to press her close. “Will you allow me more?”
Her lips part, her brain scrambling for words. For any one word.
His brows draw together. “Is this too much?”
“No.” It seems a day for fierce denials, and the word bursts from her. Sara tightens her legs around him. His cock catches between them, the water licking at their bodies, and she drags her cunt along the length of him. Pleasure washes through her at the sight of him—eyes wide and wild, unfocused and filled with desire.
She’s done that. And it’s wonderful.
“No, not too much.” She can’t nibble on his neck, not like he did hers, so instead she bends forward and finds the line of his jaw.
The moan that breaks from his as she kisses the crease of neck and ridge is obscene, and his hips jerk against her, driving his cock against her cunt. “Love,” he breathes. “Sara,” he sighs, and it’s like the words are the same, like they’re synonyms. “Not—there’s so much more I want to do with you.”
“Dialog,” she purrs against his throat. Her fingers follow the ridges of his body, slipping under the rigid bone that guards his heart.
He shudders against her, making a noise that is utterly alien and delightfully satisfying. She’s never heard him make this particular sound before, and even though she has no frame of reference for it, she knows it’s a sound reserved only for moments like these.
“Tell me what you want. Talk to me, Jaal.” She means it to tease him just a little, to remind him of what he said earlier.
Except the minute he starts talking? She regrets baiting him. Oh, god, does she regret it. “I want to lay you down on our clothes,” he murmurs into her neck as she arches and keens. “I want to drink the water from your skin, growing thirstier for every drop. I want to taste the skin of your breasts, to see if this skin—” He strokes the swell of her breast before his finger curls around her nipple. “—tastes different from this.”
Heat flares inside her, her cunt aching and empty and clenching on nothing. The contraction is a pleasurable echo of the orgasm he just gave her, and she thinks, distantly, that it’s unfair she hasn’t even touched his cock yet.
As he speaks, they move out of the water. It slides down her body, cascading into the pool as he walks them onto the beach.
“And when your breath comes short, and your hands pull at my skin, I want to taste you here.” He rolls his hips, rubbing his cock in the slick arousal between her legs, and she whimpers. “I want to slake my thirst on your body, Sara, my love, my life. I want to drink you until I can’t remember what water tastes like.”
“Fuck.”
He laughs at that, laying her on the clothes they’ve discarded.
“Look at how beautiful you are.” His hand curves around her cheek, sweeps down her neck, strokes over one breast. She arches against him, her legs tightening around his hips to keep him locked to her. His hand continues tracing her body, meandering over the lines of her ribs. When he slides his hand over her knee, one finger traces behind it.
Laughter bubbles out of her, her legs falling wide, and he settles low against her with a wicked grin before she can realize what he’s done and how clever it was. A little tickle, and she’s spread herself open to him.
“Cheater!” she gasps indignantly, and then she’s just gasping as his mouth closes over the peak of her breast. He sucks deep, pulling her breast between lips that are firmer than a human man’s, dragging her nipple against a rasping tongue. The gasp turns into a moan, and she arches under him as his fingers strum her other nipple, coaxing it into a hard point.
Distantly, she thinks this should be harder for him. That he could at least struggle just a little. Instead, he plays her like he’s had hundreds of human lovers. Or, maybe, it’s that he’s reading her. That he’s listening to her. When she turns into his touch, he repeats the gesture, touch her again and again until she crying out his name.
His lips trace her sternum, her abdomen. His tongue flicks against her belly button, and she can’t stifle the laugh that bubbles out of her.
“You are a banquet,” he tells her as his hands gently spread her legs. He kisses her, just above the fine line of her pubic hair, and her hands clutch at him. She feels wrung out again, desperate and aching and so very wet. Another woman—hell, another virgin—might push a man away when he wants to go down on her, but Sara’s too viscerally fascinated by the sight of him between her legs. Denying him doesn’t even occur to her.
His tongue slips along her, and her head falls back. The wet heat of his tongue is completely different from the wet heat of her own body. It’s sharper, more focused, slick in a way her cunt isn’t. And his tongue has a texture completely unlike her own, strange but not unpleasant, stimulating in a way she lacks words for.
“Good?”
“Don’t stop,” she gasps, not even remotely concerned about disappointing him anymore. She manages to turn her eyes toward him as she speaks, and the look on his face banishes whatever remains of her uncertainty.
Eyes shining, expression fierce, gaze locked on hers, he licks her again. She’s never been more naked, never been rawer, and it’s exquisite.
His hands stroke her thighs as her head tips back. Her lips part as he tongues her clit. He tastes her like she’s a dessert, gliding his tongue over her flat and firm. Then he turns the tip of it to parting her lips and slipping between. He slides his tongue over her entrance, pushing into her, and she shudders beneath him.
Her hips find their own rhythm against him as he returns to teasing her clit. They work together, him making soft sounds of encouragement as he tastes her, and her gasping his name, wrecked with wonder and pleasure.
Something crackles against her thigh, a lick of electric fire that sets her off this time. She calls out for him, fingers clenching on his skin, holding him against her as her hips buck and roll against his tongue. It’s not enough, and it’s so strange—more.
She wants more.
When he slips up her body, smiling and pleased with himself, she pushes him to his back. Surprise flickers across his face before curious desire replaces it.
“What was that snap?” she asks him, pressing her lips to the notches of muscle and bone on his chest. “Like… like a shock.”
He trembles as her fingers dance down his abdomen and she settles over him, her cunt wet and spread over him. His cock grazes her as he shifts under her, as he groans, but she wants to touch him now, wants to give him the pleasure he gave her.
“When angarans are intimate,” he manages, voice quivering as her tongue maps the alien contours of his body, “their bioelectric fields… spark.” His hips jerk as her fingers slip lower, tracing his hips. “It coalesces as their pleasure builds.”
She pauses. “Are you going to electrocute me?” It’s a teasing quip, delivered as she shifts between his legs, as she runs her tongue along the divot in his abdomen.
“No. I asked Doctor T’Perro. It—Sara, you—”
Her fingers curl around his cock, and his hips thrust into her fist. A smile curves her lips. She’s not entirely sure how big he is, but she supposes it doesn’t matter all that much; it’s not like she needs a basis for comparison right now.
The skin of his cock is as soft as the flesh of her cunt, but like the rest of him, it’s ridged. Veins run down the length of it in strange patterns that she follows with her thumb, and she shivers, skin prickling, as her fingers run over those ridges. “Good?” she asks, like he did.
“Don’t stop,” he says, echoing her, thrusting against her fist a second time.
Here, uncertainty wells up within her again—but the aching moan that breaks from her banishes it a moment later. His fingers open and close at his side, his hands reaching for her. Taking pity on him, she guides one of his hands to her breast as she strokes him, fascinated by the way light snaps over his skin and against her palm.
Pleasure curls through her, hot and liquid, at the sight of him under her. He twists into her, against her, his palm dragging over her breast. More crackles of electricity burst against her skin, and now that she’s expecting it, it’s like a quick nip or a brusque kiss. The unpredictability of it makes every lick of it exciting, the fulfilment of building anticipation—just like him under her.
She can tell that he’s close to coming, too, when the rhythm of his hips falter. But instead of letting her finish him with her hand, he drops his hand from her breast to her wrist, stilling her.
“Sara.”
Knowing what he wants, she releases him. Swallows down her nerves. She slips up his body, stretching out over him.
“Rest your head on mine,” he murmurs, and she does. Their breath mingles between them, warm and damp, and his hands smooth down her back as she straddles him. “Is this position acceptable?”
She’s not really sure it matters, but she likes this. Likes that she isn’t trapped beneath him, a place where panic is more likely. “Yeah. Yeah, this is good.”
Carefully, she lowers herself against him. It takes little effort to slide his cock between the lips of her cunt. The head of it nudges against her clit, and she shivers as pleasure makes her cunt contract again.
Hands resting on the small of her back, applying no pressure to move her one way or another, Jaal tips back his head. Their lips meet in a gentle kiss. It’s sweet, it’s reassuring—at least until his teeth catch her lip. She thinks it’s probably an accident, but it makes her cry out with pleasure, her hips jerking against his.
He snarls softly against her lips, and the kiss turns fierce. Electricity crackles against her skin, a hundred kisses against every inch of her body. Her hips jerk again, and his cock slides against her, catching at her entrance.
Against her lips, he murmurs something. His hands shift on her back, his tongue flicks against hers, and she finds there’s a ridge above his cock that’s absolutely perfect for grinding against just as he slips his cock into her.
She has no frame of reference for what this should feel like—and he goes still beneath her as she lets out a long, low moan.
“I should have—”
“Shut up,” she gasps, eyes closing as her hair falls around them like a curtain. She rolls her hips, taking him deeper, and she moans. The stretch is enough to burn, but the pressure is exquisite. And when she rolls her hips again, when he slides deep enough into her that she can feel his thigh against her ass, she can finally grind herself against that ridge of muscle and flesh. “Jaal, Jaal.” She presses kisses to him as his electricity presses against her. “I love you, Jaal.”
Her fingers grasp his shoulders, and she rolls against him. His cock slides deep, rubbing against muscles that have never felt anything against them. It’s the most exquisite agony, a sweet slide of aching pressure pierced by the electricity that kisses her skin and the drag of his skin against hers.
He strokes her back with one hand, urging her on with soft groans and what she can only describe as a continuous purr from deep in his chest. She feels it against her body as he moves deeper into her, as he moves harder. Faster. His other hand rests on her ass, bracing her and urging her on in turn. He helps her find the right rhythm, head falling back when she sucks at his throat, when her tongue finds the seam of neck and ridge.
“You are perfection,” he manages, dipping his hand between her thighs. She feels his fingers on either side of her cunt, framing it and his cock as he drives into her.
With a moan, she pushes herself off his chest. Bracing against him, she rocks against him, finding a new rhythm. A better one. Her eyes drift shut, her head lolling forward as she chases her pleasure and his. Her hips roll against his, and every time they come together, his cock rubs against a place inside her that has her gasping, and her clit drags over his body.
Another rock of her hips, a better spike of pleasure. His hand finds her breast, covers it. The electric pressure around them builds.
And a sound like a snarl breaks from him. “My Sara,” he growls, and that possession, that belonging, shatters her.
Crying out his name, Sara comes for him. Her cunt clenches around his cock, holding him inside her, rippling around him. Her nails dig into his skin, leaving maroon crescents, and she leans over him. “My Jaal,” she keens, breaking under the ecstasy.
Beneath her, he continues driving into her, every thrust dragging out her pleasure until she’s almost numb from it. And then that building electricity bursts against her skin. It’s a sizzling wash of sensation that licks against her. He shouts her name, grasping her hips in strong hands as he drives into her a final time, coming undone with that wave of electric bliss.
Warmth floods her, and she drops against his chest. He cradles her there, stroking her hair and rumbling with satisfaction as his cock twitches and jerks inside her.
It takes her a long moment just to catch her breath, but once she does, she’s acutely aware of a growing cramp in her leg and a bit of him that isn’t his cock that’s digging into her. She laughs—both from the delight of it and the way it’s somehow so normal. Lifting herself off him, she flops down beside him, and he immediately turns toward her, shifting close and settling his hand on her cheek.
“Sara.” A whispered promise. A tender declaration.
Her fingers curl around his, a smile curving her lips. “Jaal.”
They study each other, and she wonders if she should feel any different. She’s spent over six hundred years as a virgin, and now it’s gone, and she feels just the same as she did an hour ago. Well. Sort of. She’s a little sore and a lot more loved. And maybe a little tired.
“Sara, I have a question.” Jaal watches her with a studious, intense expression, and she can’t help the laughter that bursts out of her.
This is going to be amazing. Whatever he’s about to ask, it’s going to be priceless, and she’s not going to be able to tell anyone about it, because she’s not going to be able to tell any of them that he asked after having sex with her.
“What is a cat?” He sounds so utterly confused. “And why would you have a million of them?”
Her laughter continues, singing through the glen bright and bold.