Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 68478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68478 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
It makes touching her have a forbidden feel to it, even more so given the captain’s longstanding ship orders. I know if we’re caught together, I’ll be dumped at the nearest port and given severance. That doesn’t mean I can stop stroking her soft skin or that I can push her away when she rubs up against me like a nilu cat seeking attention.
“Resonance?” she murmurs, her voice sweet and soft. Her hand glides over my arm and down my chest, and she presses her palm against the cartilage plates there. “It begins here. The khui sings a song to let me know when I have met my mate.”
“Singing?” I press my hand between her breasts, to the same place she’s touching me. “Here? When you purr?” Even now, I can feel the vibrations in her chest. It doesn’t sound like a song to me, more of a low-pitched, steady thrumming. It does sound a little musical, now that I think about it. “So what do you mean by mated?”
She chuckles, and I feel her tongue flick along my jaw, tracing the lines of it. Gods above, but she’s sensual. “What do you think it means?”
“Sex,” I say bluntly, and the stub of my tail tightens its obsessive grip around hers. “Lots and lots of sex. But I’m guessing there is more than that.”
“I will tell you if we can kiss again,” she teases, and nuzzles my nose again. Her hand moves up my shirt, fingers sneaking into my collar so she can touch my skin. I don’t think she can figure out the fastenings, because she tugs at the front of my clothing and then gives up. I should push her away, but everything in me wants more of her innocent touches, more exploring and caressing. I pull my shirt open, and she responds with a happy sigh, her hands moving over my chest, exploring me.
“You want kisses?” I ask, brushing my hand over her hair. I move my body slightly, until she’s under me and I’m over her, leaning on an elbow. The primal male in me wants her under me. Doesn’t matter how wrong it is. I want to claim her innocence, even if only for a moment. I take the lead on the kiss this time, tasting her luscious mouth, and when she opens for me, I drag my tongue against hers. She makes a soft mewling noise of pleasure, and I feel it all the way down to my cock.
Mine. She’s mine.
I can fight it all I want, but I know that she belongs to me. My kiss grows more possessive, my mouth more aggressive as she responds under me. She arches, pressing her breasts to my chest, and her hard little nipples scrape against my shirt. I nearly come at that smallest of touches. I keep my hands respectfully on her arm and in her hair, though I want nothing more than to slide my fingers over her pussy and see if it’s soaking wet for me. I bet it is.
I abandon her mouth with one final, suggestive lick, and she pants, dazed. “You are very good at that, Mardok.”
“I had a good teacher.”
“Who?”
I nip at her lower lip, drawing another shudder from her. “You.”
“Oh,” she says, shy. “Am I your first, too?”
My first? “First what?”
“First mating?”
Does she mean having sex? “I’ve had sex before. Uh, fornicated.” Damn, even the word sounds too filthy to use when it comes to her. Farli would never fornicate. She would make love. Hell, and now I sound like a lovesick poet. “Not in a long time, though. Haven’t wanted anyone to touch me.”
I feel her fingertips dance over my chest. “Is it all right if I touch you?”
I think I’d die if she stopped. I swallow hard. “Yeah.”
“You will be my first,” she tells me. “I have waited for my mate.”
Just like that, my heart stutters. “Your first…mate?” Is she a virgin? When she nods, I groan and press my forehead to hers. She’s more innocent than I thought, and I wonder if she’s going to regret being here with me, touching me. Doing lascivious things with her mouth. I’m craving her like Trakan craves his carcinogels, but I’m not an asshole. Very slowly, I detangle my tail from hers and pull her hands away from my chest. I press my mouth to one palm. “Maybe you should go back home and wait to resonate to another nice guy, the one you want to marry.”
She’s quiet, and then she gives another light giggle. “You only resonate to one person ever, silly.”
What? “Are we talking about the same thing? I’m talking about sex.”
“I am talking about resonating. When your khui chooses someone for you.”
Farli’s throwing me mixed signals here. “If it chooses for you, I don’t understand what you mean by ‘you waited.’”