Blind Date with a Paranormal Romance Bag Charm

Mark of the Icarus series: Ancient Greek-inspired romantasy about ancient curses, powerful gods, and the human women who become brides to these magical warriors. Feathers and suns/moons forced edges.

Lords of Atlantis series: Tattooed warriors are climbing out of the depths to claim their soul mates and save their race! An Amazon top 100 series. Mermaid scales forced edges.

Onyx Dragons series: 7 space dragon billionaires woo 7 virgin brides in this fun and dramatic series. Dragon scale forced edges.

Blades of Arris series: Alien commanders with unique shifting abilities are conquered by their human captives. 4 chilis, very hot! The first book won the best paranormal romance of 2023. Skull and plant forced edges.

FROM ONYX DRAGONS: MALACHITE

Mal rested his fists on the desk and leaned over her. “Are you currently married?”

She sat up straight and gripped her tablet in both hands. “No.”

“Are you capable of mating?”

Mating? Her hoodie suddenly felt too hot and tight. Every time she looked at him, she was extremely capable. “Uh…what do you mean?”

“Do you desire sex for the purpose of producing dragonlets?”

Sex. Dragonlets. That was what they called their babies.

Oh god.

He knew. All those times she’d been watching him. Eating him up. Stalking him in her mind. All those times she’d brushed against him and thought he would never notice. He had noticed.

Hard shivers ran down her sides. How had this happened? She was quiet, she dressed like she hated her body, and she slipped unnoticed from class to the internship and home again in an infinite, boring cycle of deadlines that didn’t even matter. Except, of course, her final portfolio that would determine whether she graduated with job offers or starved in the street.

He had looked into her mind and read her fantasies. Her whole body pulsed, hot, as though he had opened her innermost secret diary and begun reading the pages. What else did he know?

Mal waited for her answer.

She pinched the sleeves of her hoodie, worrying the soft fabric.

He was not asking her to make babies together. No. There was no way. This was a misunderstanding. He wanted her to design wedding invitations. With baby dragonlets. Yes, that was what it was.

“Um…” Her throat closed, and she cleared it. “You mean…uh, do I want, uh…”

“Sex,” he supplied.

Her heart thundered. His direct answer seemed clear. She squeezed the hoodie sleeve. “With, uh, me and you? Us?”

“Yes.”

No way. No way. No way.

“Er…”

“Yes or no,” he said. “Answer.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FROM CURSED

I fly down to her. “How in the world…?”
Ayanakalia squints at me. She reaches out a trembling hand and misses, falls forward into my arms, and I catch her hard.
Her rock ledge peels away from beneath her feet and disappears into clouds. An infinite time later, it clatters on the stone shore, the sharp noise echoing up the cliffs to us.
My heart thumps.
Truly, she is protected by the gods.
I fly her to the top of the cliff, over the manor, and land in the courtyard. Her feet touch the ground, and she sinks. I lower with her, catching her again, but she’s wriggling through my grasp on purpose to embrace the cracked tile, so I drop to my knees and pull her small body across my lap. She clings to me, shaking. I rest my back against my doorjamb. I have so many questions.
She’s soaked from the damp clouds, her hands are frozen into stiff claws, and her dark hair is plastered to her icy skin.
I enfold her with my wings and pull her slim form up against my chest, willing my warmth into her, and I make a hushing sound as I rock her. It’s the same instinctive noise I use to soothe Lifayis.
“You’re all right.” The heat of my breath is trapped by my wings, drying her. “You’re just fine.”
She whimpers through clenched teeth. “I didn’t move. I didn’t make a sound.”
“No.”
“I was there for hours.”
“I believe you.”
She makes a strangled sob and buries her face in my armpit. I rise, my wings retracting, and carry her inside. With her still nestled in my arms, I rekindle the fire and quickly warm a cup of water. The fish stew reheats. I pull off feather after feather, wrap her scraped hands and torn fingernails in fiery wishes. She sucks in a pained hiss as each white feather falls, but in the end, she stretches her hands out of the clawed shapes. My breath dries her hair, and her clothes steam beside the fire.
And then, finally, she releases me and inhales deeply, shuddering.
“Someone came,” I guess as I hand her the warmed water.
She nods, curls both hands around the mug without apparent pain, and sips.
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
I press a white feather into a long scratch across her cheek. She winces as it burns, but holds still as I carefully brush the scab away so her smooth skin won’t scar. “How did you get down there?”
“There were small footholds and handholds, but they broke off as I climbed down.”
“And then you couldn’t get back up.” Grimness overtakes me. This should have ended so differently. I see a vision of her broken on the shore, blood sprayed out, sightless eyes. I shake myself, banish the horrible vision. It’s not real. It’s not a prediction. “This person came early? Right when we left?”
“A bit after.”
“But before you could eat your meal.”
She looks at the pot of stew, then up at me. Her clear brown eyes are liquid, and the shimmer in them, for just this moment, reflects like stars. “Was that for me?”
A fist squeezes my heart. “Do we not feed you?”
“You do. Mostly Bafis does. I didn’t want to…I try to guess what you’re thinking because I don’t want to do something wrong, but it’s hard.” She swallows, looks away, into the fire, and her shoulders droop. “Everything I do displeases you.”
The fist squeezes tighter. “No.”
“Even now, you think I’m stupid and weak. I should’ve hidden somewhere else. The cliffs are fine for an icari, and I’m just a human.”
Our legs tangle. Her cheeks flush, and she skirts my eyes.
I have avoided this. I’ve avoided her.
But now her tendrils are seeking me, feminine and delicate, and I am only a man, after all.
My voice comes out low. “You are.”
“See? You’re so angry at me, and I don’t understand why.”
“I never asked for another creature to be totally dependent on me.”
“I’m doing you this favor.” She pulls her steaming cloak tighter. “It’s only for a little while.”
“I don’t want to care about another person.”
“Yes, well, you’re loud and clear that you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.” I capture her chin with my thumb and forefinger. “I hate everything about you.”
She turns those liquid pools on me, depthless, beautiful. “It’s the same thing.”
“No.” My voice descends to a whisper. “Because you keep invading, like a choking vine, digging your roots into cracks and tangling around my bones. You’ll own my soul if I let you. The only way I can keep you at a distance is if I drive you away.”
Her breath hitches.
Soft pink lips part.
She’s like an abyss calling me, hypnotic. The curse that will end me. End all of us. A promise of light in dark. That’s her.
I lean forward and cover her mouth with mine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FROM SACRIFICED TO THE SEA LORD

Elyssa snuck into the auditorium through an unguarded side door.
Clothes racks hid her entrance. Production assistants chatted into headsets as they crossed the dim, scratched wooden floor. Beyond them, purple velvet curtains showed sneak peeks to moving TV cameras, blinding stage lights, and a flurry of gorgeous women in stunning ball gowns.
She was firmly backstage at the Van Cartier Cosmetics Mermaid Queen Selection Pageant.
Hooray!
Elyssa let out a sigh as the door eased closed behind her. She didn’t know the auditorium well because she wasn’t exactly a Van Cartier Cosmetics superstar. Her daily work was filing and making phone calls in Human Resources. Occasionally, she passed out fliers and conducted internship interviews at college recruitment fairs.
Approximately three months ago, she adventurously invested her entire savings into an ex-employee’s expedition to retrieve Sea Opals, a mystical gem with healing properties. The expedition had turned up not only Sea Opals but also the shocking revelation of merman societies that cultivated the gems.
The all-male warriors normally traded the gems to women they called “brides” on secret, sacred islands. The brides became mermaids, lived under the ocean to bear a son, and then returned to the surface alone. In modern times, rising ocean levels and mainland conveniences had emptied the sacred islands and left the mermen with dangerously dwindling populations.
Despite the mounting pressure, most mermen tried to pretend the reveal hadn’t happened. Openly hanging out with humans went against a thousand years of secrecy and rules. The mermen and their cities remained hidden on the bottom of the ocean.
If the leader of that first expedition, Lucy, hadn’t married and started living with her merman husband Torun in Newport, Oregon, skeptics might have dismissed the whole thing as a hoax.
One city finally answered Van Cartier Cosmetics’ underwater broadcasts. Today, after talks and negotiations, five mermen from the city excitingly named “Atlantis” had come to Van Cartier Cosmetics. Their king, Kadir, was here to select a woman to transform into his mermaid queen.
Elyssa had been disinvited from attending by her aunt, CEO Chastity Angel.
Unfair as it was, Elyssa understood. She was kind of, maybe, sort-of accident-prone, and mermen were offended by casual touch. They would only touch the woman who was their bride. Lucy’s husband Torun was extremely careful whenever he was in public, although he’d relaxed quite a bit since their first meeting. The newly risen king of Atlantis probably wouldn’t be so well acclimated. Elyssa craved to meet more mermen, but the last thing she wanted to do was fall on top of one and cause an inter-species incident.
She had been resigned to staying home until yesterday at midnight, when Elyssa’s cousin, vice president Aya, had begged Elyssa to come.
“I need you. It’s critical,” Aya said over the phone. Her voice was scratchy from the sleepless nights and hours she’d put into the pageant. “My mother can’t know about this. You’re the only one I can trust.”
Elyssa’s heart shot into her throat. “Me?”
“You.” Aya spoke the words Elyssa longed to hear. “This is something only you can do.”
The mermen would be in the audience, Aya promised. Elyssa couldn’t possibly cause any incidents. And only Elyssa could do the secret thing Aya needed.
Well, Elyssa wanted to help more than anything. This was the first official merman-human meeting, and hopefully, it wouldn’t be the last. Someday, when their races were fully integrated and visiting Atlantis was as easy as flying to France, she planned to petition the mer to let her visit.
She took a few steps toward the stage.
Was Aya still posing in the shimmering red gown Elyssa had helped her pick out, along with all the other gorgeous, talented contestants? They had planned to flip the traditional “beauty pageant” format — evening gowns first, then swimsuits — and exchange the talent section with an actual swimming demonstration in a swim tank on stage. Elyssa had had trouble getting past security even with all of her company passes, so she was later than she’d meant to be. Were the gowns she’d glimpsed on the contestants or the charismatic emcees? What part of the program had she arrived during?
In between curtains, silhouetted by the blinding hot lights, two males blocked her view.
Or, she should say, they filled her view. In jeans and black trench coats, they were tall, broad, and built. And tattooed, too. Were they rock stars? A pageant like this was certain to be attended by celebrities.
One was beefy like a pro wrestler.
The other was thinner and definitely had the lead singer vibe. His muscles stood out in sharp relief. A young quarterback who drew everyone’s eye, or a star soccer player focusing on the winning kick.
Was he looking at her?
Crew members walked between them. She stepped out from behind the clothing racks. The beefy one spoke with a production assistant and moved onto the stage, disappearing behind the curtain.
The lead singer remained. He was definitely looking at her.
She stopped.
He turned and strode toward her.
Jeans hung low on his hips and his black trench coat flared, exposing a hard expanse of mouth-watering muscle. He was bare-chested. Silver tattoos slashed his torso in an intricate lightning-strike design.
He was intense. David Beckham-focusing-on-a-soccer ball intense. He must be a model. A movie star. Charisma oozed from his pores.
He was coming right at her.
Oh! She was in his way. Duh.
She stepped aside and stumbled into a young, clean-cut producer.
The producer’s coffee sloshed on his black turtleneck. “Hey!”
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” She backed away, hands up.
“Watch it.” The producer squinted at Elyssa. A backstage staff pass hung from the producer’s neck, but not from hers. “What are you doing back here?”
Crud. Elyssa didn’t think about the pass. She backed over a thick cord. “Nothing. I’m just—”
Her sandals slipped.
She stumbled and fought for balance. Cord, cord, another cord, ah! She landed on bare wood and caught her balance. Whew.
The producer was still looking at her suspiciously. An assistant ran up and provided a distraction.
Thank god. Elyssa straightened her loose peasant blouse and lifted her purse higher on her shoulder.
The lead singer was still bearing down on her.
Huh? She’d gotten out of his way. Oh, maybe he needed to tell her something. She turned to face him.
Her sandal string snapped.
Her foot lifted but her sandal caught on another cord. Aaah! She fell forward, hands out to brace—
— into his arms.
His strong forearm crossed her midsection. His bicep bulged into her ribs. Pure waves of masculinity flowed over her.
Her heart slammed into her chest. She gasped and tried to push free. Her hands slipped and she stumbled harder against him. “I’m so sor—”
“Wait.”
She obeyed.
He held her still and steady.
“I’m really very—”
“Calm.”
His deep voice rumbled with command. Here was a male who rippled with confidence. What was so she worried about? Panic faded. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in. Her heart calmed.
The shaking started.
Still, he held her.
His scent was smoky like expensive leather and cognac, and also soothing, like vanilla candles, long baths, and sensuous massages. A sliver of awareness curled in her center. Was he wearing Axe? A movie star brand not available to the public?
And Elyssa was just hanging out in his arms.
Calmer now, she gently extricated herself and looked up into the face of the man she had fallen on top of.
His profile was cut with high cheekbones and a noble chin. His eyes were dark but flecked with the same silver as his tattoos. Unusual and compelling.
His intense focus on her never wavered. He was waiting for something.
Oh! He had caught her. Of course he was waiting to be thanked.
“Thank you.” She sucked in a deep breath. “Like I was saying, I am so—”
“Come with me.”
If voices were like food, his would be seductive as dark chocolate and rich as cream. She could just eat that up and lick her fingers afterward.
Wait. What?
She reacted about two seconds late. “I’m sorry?”
“Now.” He took her hand and pulled her toward the stage.
She resisted. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not supposed to be back here, but I’m waiting for—”
Her broken sandal folded. She tripped and grabbed onto his arm. He stopped.
His bicep was so hard. She couldn’t help squeezing it. He must bench press city busses.
He tipped his head to the side to stare down at her. “Are you unable to walk?”
“No, I can. Sorry.” She straightened and unfastened the chunky white ankle strap. The toe part was broken. She really should have worn tennis shoes. “My strap broke.”
“Ah.” He turned and bent until his shoulder was level to her middle.
Oh. Had she dropped something?
His forearm snaked around the back of her knees. She crumpled against him. He tilted and lifted. Her butt flew up in the air and she hung off him on both sides like a limp piece of laundry.
“Hey! Wait!” She struggled. Her purse slid down her arm. She fumbled for it. “Just hold on. Whew.”
He strode through the curtains onto the center of the stage. The dazzling, bikini-clad bride contestants stared up at her in shock. The TV crews, all pointed at a big water-filled swimming tank, swung to follow her.
Lights blinded her about the same time the truth did.
He was the merman king. And she was causing a human-merman incident.
Right now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FROM SITHE
(Warning - this is SPICY!!!)
I feel like crap.
There’s no equivalent in Arrisan Standard. The language we learn in school, the one we use to communicate because it’s the language of the empire, is a formal and controlled language. They don’t have expletives or negatively charged words. You have to construct “crap” by using the building blocks to describe “unsanitized waste products that belong in a recycler,” which doesn’t have the same ring.
Crap is a word I learned in elementary school while following my father across the devastation of America and siting new bridges and great works. English is a delightfully flexible language, and so it has survived in crevices across the world.
I don’t think mainland America will ever flower into a land of a hundred languages like old Malaysia. But it’s hard to say. There were once eight million of us and over a hundred living languages, and now there are less than two million, and we can barely cling to our official Malay. My father used to sing me lullabies in my grandparents’ disappearing languages with great sadness. We weren’t even hit the hardest by the great floods.
I most often talk and dream in a pastiche of argot. But on Humana, we still have a lot of words that have no translation, and one of them is crap.
Why don’t the Arrisans have a specific word for unsanitized waste products that belong in a recycler? In school, teachers would say it’s because of their superior diet. And considering that Arrisan kibble tastes like pebbles and has the same crunch, I almost believe them.
Chewing hard food causes straight teeth and broad jaws, so maybe they know some secrets after all.
Regardless, I feel like I’ve been punched in the face. In the mouth, at least. I want to roll over until I feel better, but I can’t move.
Huh.
It’s because I’m snug beneath a…a tree? I’m wrapped completely up in some sort of bark-like gray shell. My face is shadowed by overhanging roots. I’ve been eaten by the earth.
This bed has a strange, immobilizing warmth. It’s really hard, but also kind of comfortable, like a body-sculpted chair. The room, visible in a narrow view, is tinted. This must be like their hood technology. In a sudden hull crack, this little bed would survive as an escape pod all by itself.
Because the Arrisans are super careful about space travel.
I bet the honeycomb bunks in the dorm I vaguely remember from yesterday…yesterday?…could seal with the same technology.
Yesterday is a planetside word, like today and tomorrow.
In space, ships set their chronometers to Arrisan Standard time, which counts out sets of ten. Ten instants equals one click. Ten clicks, one cleg. Ten clegs? One shift.
Two shifts equal a day, but days are not twenty-four hours like on Humana. Oh no. And clicks aren’t exactly minutes, and clegs aren’t exactly hours. But after ten clegs, you’re ready for a rest, that’s for sure.
So, yesterday-ish, a lot happened.
Things are really different now.
I wriggle to get my hands free.
Moving loosens the shell. The gap widens as the hood recedes. My shoulders, thighs, calves, and every muscle twinges with acid buildup. The boots pinch my ankles.
Maybe I’ve been in here longer than I think.
Tugging my dress free, I clamber out.
Sithe perches on a bar overhead. This is a vertical room, increasing the illusion that I was resting beneath the roots of a tree. He drops down and lands on the balls of his feet. The barest whisper of air flutters across my skin. He is soundless.
He rises and faces me. His hood falls back, revealing his strange silver eyes. They focus on my forehead, and his lips part.
I’m beginning to see more things in his expression that I couldn’t tell before. This parting of his lips is him focusing. And then his lips close and his brows slightly lift. He’s upset about my injury, but also accepts it. “You respond well to the ointment.”
“Yeah, I don’t even have a headache. You returned in the nick of time.”
He looks away, brow lowering, and his jaw flexes.
He’s upset.
Oh no.
I touch his arm. “Thank you.”
He looks down at my hand on his forearm, then flicks his gaze to my profile and turns away.
On the cruiser, I would have thought he was angry, but I don’t think he is. Or if he is, he isn’t angry at me.
Saving a lesser must be nothing to him. Like putting a crane fly outside instead of crushing it with an idle swat. My thanks makes him uncomfortable. Perhaps he feels awkward and doesn’t know what to say.
I sit in the same wall seat as last night.
He opens the hot sand brazier and pours a stimulant pack into a copper cup. It has a handle about as long as his forearm and rests on the cool ceramic cover. He dispenses kibble into a bowl that looks like a neatly sliced eggshell with a mottled outside and a pleasant blue interior. This is what he served the stimulant in last night.
It’s interesting watching him use traditional utensils I’ve only read about. It’s peaceful, these relics from the Arrisan home world that has ceased to be.
And totally different from the honeycomb dorms where the crew—and apparently he—usually sleeps.
Here is definitely better than the examination room in the science office.
But it opens up a whole new realm of questions. “What happens now?”
“I await my next assignment.” He hands me the stim-kibble soup, closes the brazier, and sits in the wall hollow across from me.
Raw stim grates on the palate with an almost choking bitter taste, and it barely softens the grist. Humans used to separate the chaff from the wheat, and I don’t care what the resource scientists say, kibble is the chaff.
I choke down a too-big mouthful. “And me?”
“You come.” The taut skin around his eyes very slightly softens. “Unless you prefer to stay.”
“Stay? Won’t I be taken back to the science office?”
He tips his head in confirmation.
“No, I’d prefer to go with you, thank you.”
His expression returns to neutral.
Oh. Was he making a joke?
I eat what I can, and again he finishes the extra food for me, drops hot sand over the bowl so it hisses to sanitize and cleanse it, and then seals up the brazier. My stomach isn’t completely sure I’ve eaten food, but resource officers at school assured us we would be healthier if we switched from noodles and curry over to nutrient cubes, so it must be fine.
Humana has a very small intergalactic export business with a few cool storage-stable fruits and spices. Our food isn’t very palatable to the rest of the empire.
Sithe resumes his seat and folds his hands.
We wait.
I’m okay with waiting. Especially considering the alternative.
My forehead itches.
The expression on that science officer’s face as we left—slightly maniacal grin, entirely confident in himself—plucks chilly fingers on my spine.
I’ll see you again.
The sooner we leave this dreadnought, the less opportunity he has to fulfill his dark promise. “When will you get your assignment?”
Sithe fixes on me. His breathes deeply for one full cycle. I saw him do this last night before I fell asleep. This and rub his blades against each other as if he’s training to murder the entire ship. “I don’t know.”
“They don’t have work for you?”
“After we changed rooms, my new assignment was deactivated.”
After he rescued me. “Is that normal?”
The muscle in his jaw flexes again.
Uh-oh. “Did you get in trouble?”
“Not yet.”
Not…yet?
So he’s going to get in trouble? “Are you going to have to give me back to the science officer?”
His blades twitch at his wrists. “He will never touch you.”
“What happens if they order you? Can you say no?”
He compresses his lips.
Does he have no answer? He’s so certain that Ukuri won’t take me, but if he can’t say no…
Maybe this is a much bigger deal than I realized.
I know how everyone looked at me on the way to the science office. I heard the crewman who approached us in the dorms for the short time we stayed there. Lurid curiosity colored his tone.
As a single blade, Sithe walks among alien races all the time, but maybe the average Arrisan doesn’t. And now I’ve come to them stinking of their aphrodisiac metal.
Sithe has gone to the group orgies before, but most of them probably haven’t, or they’re like the science officer, stricken from ever reproducing. The Arrisans are poster children for eugenics. They worship rules.
Sithe broke one to save me.
This room is very nice.
Maybe he broke more than one.
“Are you going to be okay?”
He flips his wrists upright and examines the chevron pattern where his blades emerge. “I will be fine.”
He can’t fight everyone on the ship. Does he really intend to try?
He honed his blades for a long, long time last night.
I can’t imagine going against the empire. Sithe has impossible weapons, but he’s still just one man. I walked the halls with him yesterday. He got on the hands-free elevator and flew up an air tube, and I saw just how big it is on the inside and how many Arrisans are in here. This dreadnought’s not even a small city. It’s a big one.
And the science officer has blades, too.
So does the engineer, Atana.
How many have Sithe’s same capabilities?
He’s stuck his neck out for me in the most literal sense. The Arrisan empire is terrible to its lessers and vassal planets, but it’s not a whole lot nicer to its own people.
I am less than nothing to him. A few clegs ago, we didn’t even know each other existed, and he’s just potentially doomed himself for me. “Why?”
One brow lifts. A question.
“Why did you stop Ukuri?”
His gaze unfocuses, and he nods as if he’s been asking himself this very question for some time. “Lessers invest in families, an inefficient distribution of genes, and so when a lesser family loses its child, they weaken their empire. You are the only child?”
I nod.
“Your father and mother gathered all their resources to train and perfect you?”
My throat tightens. “Yes.”
“Then your small empire must endure. There is no risk to the Arrisan empire. If you’re a singular case reacting to the lusteal, then there’s no reason to hurt you, and if you’re not a singular case, the empire can study another. Go back to Humana where you belong.”
He saved me because he saw the picture of my family?
Sithe looks convinced of his principles, but there’s no denying that he’s uncertain how it will play out. I don’t know how to honor the choice he’s made or express the gratitude I feel for what he’s done.
I stand and cross to him.
He turns his wrists down and rests his fists on his thighs. A gesture of surrender, of peaceful intentions. But the skin around his silver eyes tenses. Wondering if I’m going to berate him. Tell him he’s an idiot. I’m guessing that’s the source of his tension, because I can imagine those types of thoughts.
And so instead I loop my arms over his shoulders and press forward, between his parted knees, and rest my chin on his head.
He very gently leans against me. We are just two creatures in this vast universe. All I can give him is comfort. And I have to rely on him for literally everything else.
His arms settle around my waist. “Is this foreplay?”
“No, this is comfort.”
“Comfort?”
“To convey feelings that have no words. Like, ‘I thank you. I honor you. I gift you the softness of my arms and the steadiness of my heartbeat, and I promise to share my emotional strength. If you need someone to show you kindness, I will show it to you for a little while.’”
He takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Like a mantra for rest.”
The Arrisans don’t pray, but his actions last night did look like prayers. “It can be like that. We share this comfort with our families and others we want to help feel better.”
We stay another long moment. His breath tickles my bare collarbone. The earthy vanilla of his suit mixes with the bitter raw stim and the hot sands into a unique yet almost addictive scent. I inhale deeply. My breast brushes his cheek.
“I am not unwell,” he says.
“Sure.” I pull back. “I didn’t mean to imply you needed to feel better because you’re ill. It was the first one. To convey feelings without words.”
He catches my left wrist in his hand. His thumb strokes the soft inner skin.
Though I haven’t mindlessly craved sex since he cleared my head, I could just enjoy it with him. I could enjoy it very much.
“Is this foreplay?” he murmurs.
“Anything can be foreplay—any glance, any touch—between partners who have consented.”
“There is always an order.”
“We can follow any order that comes naturally.” But I’m describing nature to a man who takes a snifter of a mineral—I think—and then enters some crazed group orgy. What would he consider a natural order for sex? “Um, naturally, you become aware of shared feelings. A desire to explore and learn about your partner, find out what they enjoy, and then give them pleasure.”
He studies my face.
I’m not lying. I lift my free hand in initiation. “May I?”
“You may.”
I cup his jaw and, with my thumb, stroke his cheek. His skin feels smooth like mine, but rougher, more masculine. I have no plan right now. I just want to know this man who might have sacrificed everything for me. We are together in this beast, perhaps the jaws have already snapped shut, and all we know together is the darkness.
Who is this Arrisan Sithe?
He feels as human as me. I trace my fingertips along his even brows, down his ordinary nose, across his malleable mouth, over his firm chin, and back toward his hairline. All such normal features.
Except his ears. They look like mine up to the curve, and then he has four small spikes pointing behind him. I expect them to be hard, but like his nose or ear, they are warm cartilage.
When I reach his earlobe, he catches my wrist. Now he has both of my wrists trapped. “It feels strange.”
“Strange like…” There’s no proper word for what I’m asking. “Ticklish? You want to laugh?”
“Not laugh. Something…” His gaze drifts lower. To the hollow between my breasts. And back up. “And then?”
“You can continue exploring with your fingers, your hands…”
“Your mouth.” He remembers my description of foreplay from the cruiser, clearly.
“Yes, an early step of trust and intimacy is a kiss.”
He inclines his head.
Since he still holds both my wrists, I lean forward, rest one knee on the bench beside his hip, and lower my face to his.
His lashes flutter. He doesn’t understand what I’m about to do.
“A kiss means you touch lips.”
His gaze flicks down to my mouth and then back up. He pulls my wrists very gently, drawing me forward into him.
Our lips brush.
He doesn’t move at all. The press of my mouth to his is the same as my thumb to his cheek. Curiosity from him, but no reaction. And so I press again, more firmly, and a third time, with intent.
He no longer pulls my wrists. He’s gone slack.
I draw back.
His gaze centers on me. He parts his lips, rubs the lower one with his tongue and teeth. “I feel something.”
I do too. A shift in my center, the flooding of heat into my core, awakening, preparing, inviting. “There are more nerve endings in our lips than in our palms or our sex organs.”
“Kissing engorges the spongeflesh.”
I’m really not familiar with this terminology, but it’s hard not to make something into a euphemism for sex when that’s all that’s on your mind. “Yeah.”
“And then?”
“And then…you do what feels right.”
“Which is?”
“More kissing or touching or exploring. Whatever you want.” Oh, and in case it’s not obvious, “And your partner agrees too.”
The little divot appears between his brows. This concept—that there are no rules, that he’s allowed freedom—seems foreign to him, I guess. He releases my wrists and sits back. “Show me.”
I hold on to his shoulders and straddle him, pulling up my puffy dress so my knees rest on either side of his slim hips on the bench, my butt on his thighs. He is like rock, like iron. Like sitting backward on a chair. It’s easy to find my balance and settle in with several inches separating my breasts from his chest, more space between our bellies.
He makes no move, so I pick up his hands and curve them gently around my waist. Securing me. Then I cup his cheek again and find my way to his mouth. His lips are damp now, and he meets me more firmly. I will lead this dance, and he will follow.
It’s funny, but I don’t have a fraction of the experience with kissing that I have with penetration. Before my illness, I had boyfriends. One I even planned to marry someday. But that was over four years ago, and my feelings about intimacy are still jumbled up. This is a bit of trial and error for me too.
A simple push, pull, a little nibble with my lips followed by tugging with my teeth, and he parts for me, meshing and splitting, languorous and sweet. I must taste like bitter stim and kibble, but he tastes indescribably male. Heat pinches my breasts, and the hard rods of his legs stimulate my pussy.
I tease his lips with my tongue and meet his, testing him. He mirrors my actions, and when I sup from him, he steals the same penetrating taste from me.
His strokes feed my hunger. And he tilts his head the opposite direction, driving me back and then luring me forward. He makes me crave something within him that I can’t identify but also can’t live without.
And his breath gusts out. His arms slide around my waist. He pulls me forward so that I straddle his waist, a clinch that drags my taut nipples and heated pussy across his hard planes.
His suit is impenetrable, but I can feel what’s beneath. I hook my fingers at his collar. He leans back and rests his fingers beside mine, allows me to peel the suit apart to bare his chest.
This upper torso I have felt but never seen. He has some markings that I don’t understand on his right shoulder. Thin, black lines like scars, but not accidental.
His large hands knead my waist.
And I peel his suit down to expose his abdomen. No body hair, just smooth planes that ripple when he subtly shifts me, adjusts. The suit parts below his waist, revealing the points of his hips. His cock springs out, hard and ready.
I’ve seen this before. His cock is hard as a coil, thick and warm with his blood, and it pulses in my hands. His testes are smaller, flatter disks, tucked up against his skin despite his heat and arousal.
He stills. I suppose that’s normal when you cup a man by the balls, no matter how many blades he can impale you with.
And I’m finding this exploration fascinating myself. He’s not inhuman. If we met under a different circumstance, I would probably not think we were that different at all.
And yet there are some differences.
He pushes at my dress. “Do I bare you?”
“If you like.” I feel enough wetness between my throbbing lips that I could put him in me now and ride him hard. “There are no rules.”
He curls his fists in the fabric and tugs. The seams complain. “There are always rules.”
I move his hand to the fastener hidden beneath my arm and close his deft fingers around the tiny bit of metal. “The rule is that you both have to enjoy it. And ask for it and agree to it and want it.”
He parts my dress and explores my body just as I have explored him. His gaze flicks between what part he’s stimulating—my nipples, my clit, my whole pussy—and my face. Waiting for me to shout at him to stop, that he’s done something wrong, that he can’t just do as he wishes so long as I agree.
This is such a strange thing for him. This man who has always lived under strict rules.
And when I’m a limp, heaving mess of needs and hungers, he draws me against him and seats his cock deep inside me. We face each other, totally bared, but seeing each other for perhaps the first time.
His grip on my hips tightens. This part, he feels confident about.
Rocking in our own rhythm, he torques his cock into me, wringing another mess of little climaxes that well up into an unstoppable fountain of mind-altering, soul-shattering release.
And because we’re facing each other, I know when he comes. He goes totally still, except his elbows tremble. His expression doesn’t even change. In comparison, with all my arching and crying out and moaning, I must be like the wave crashing against the shoreline.
But given enough time, even the shoreline will completely change.
And sometimes the collapse happens in one single wave.