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Chapter Thirty-One

A ries

The cottage door closes behind us with a soft click, and suddenly the air between us crackles with electric tension. After lunars of careful distance, of stolen glances and whispered confessions during storms, we’re finally completely alone with no rules between us.

Callie stands before me, her chest rising and falling rapidly, those flame earrings catching the lamplight.

Her pupils are already dilated with want, and I can smell her arousal—sweet and intoxicating, the scent that’s tortured me through countless nights separated by that inadequate barrier pillow.

“No more counting inches,” she breathes, her voice husky with need.

“No more barriers,” I agree, my own voice rough as gravel. “No more pretending I don’t want to devour every inch of you.”

She takes a step toward me, deliberate and hungry. “During the storm,” she says, “when we could only use words… you promised me things, Aries. You painted pictures with your voice that kept me awake, aching for you. ”

My hands clench at my sides, fighting the urge to grab her. “I remember every word,” I growl. “Every fantasy I whispered to you while we lay there burning for each other.”

“Then stop talking,” she challenges, closing the remaining distance between us, “and show me.”

Something snaps inside me at her words. Lunars of careful control, of denied desire, of watching her body move within the confines of this small space while forbidden to touch—it all explodes into desperate need.

I’m on her in an instant, my hands fisting in her hair as I claim her mouth with five annums of suppressed hunger. She moans into the kiss, her body melting against mine as her hands claw at my ceremonial robes. The sound goes straight to my cock, already hard and aching for her.

“I’ve dreamed of your mouth,” I rasp against her lips between desperate kisses. “Of how you’d taste when I could finally have you properly. Of making you scream my name until your voice goes hoarse.”

“Then do it,” she pants, already working frantically at my robe fastenings. “I’m so tired of dreaming, Aries. I need you to make me feel everything you promised.”

Her fingers brush against my chest as she pushes the fabric away, and I nearly come undone from that simple contact. “Careful, sweet Callie,” I warn, my voice dropping to a dangerous rumble. “I’ve been holding back for so long, I might not be gentle.”

“I don’t want gentle,” she fires back, her nails scraping down my chest hard enough to leave marks. “I want everything . The passion you’ve been hiding. The dominance you showed when you ordered me to spread my thighs during that bath. I want the gladiator, not the saint.”

Her words unleash the predator I’ve kept leashed for lunars . With a growl that’s more animal than human, I lift her off her feet, carrying her to the bed as she wraps her legs around my waist. The friction of her core against my cock through our remaining clothes makes us both groan with need.

“You want the gladiator?” I ask, laying her down and looming over her, letting her see the raw hunger in my eyes. “Then you get all of me. No holding back. No careful consideration. Just pure, desperate need.”

I tear at her gown—not violently, but with urgent efficiency—baring all the skin I’ve been dying to worship. When the fabric finally gives way, revealing her naked body to my starving gaze, I have to pause just to breathe.

“Gods, Callie…” My eyes devour every curve, every freckle, every perfect imperfection. “You’re so much more beautiful than my pale memories.”

She arches beneath the intensity of my stare, her nipples hardening under my scrutiny. “Stop looking and start touching,” she demands, her voice breathless. “You promised you’d map every inch of me with your hands and tongue. I’m holding you to that.”

I don’t need to be told twice. My mouth crashes down on hers as my hands finally, finally get to explore freely. I palm her breasts, thumbs circling her nipples until she’s writhing beneath me. Her skin is silk and fire, exactly as I imagined during those torturous nights of separation.

“You taste like honey and sin,” I mouth against her throat, my tongue tracing the pulse point that’s been driving me mad during our morning rituals. “I want to taste every part of you until you’re shaking apart in my arms.”

“Yes,” she gasps, her back arching as I kiss my way down her body. “Please, Aries. I need your mouth on me, your cock in me. I’ve been aching for you for so long.”

I lavish attention on her breasts, sucking and biting until she’s making those breathy little sounds that feature in every fantasy I’ve had. Her hands tangle in my hair, holding me against her as if afraid I might pull away .

“I remember,” I growl against her skin, “how you painted your lips with your own cream that night during the storm. How you tortured me with that image while I couldn’t do anything but imagine tasting you myself.”

Her moan is pure sin. “I was thinking of your tongue,” she confesses breathlessly. “Imagining it was you making me that wet, you driving me out of my mind with need.”

“Now I can,” I promise, kissing my way down her trembling body. “Now I can taste every drop of you, make you come on my tongue until you forget every name but mine.”

When I reach the apex of her thighs, she’s already glistening with arousal, the scent of her desire making my mouth water. I look up to meet her eyes, seeing my own desperate hunger reflected there.

“Watch me,” I command, my breath hot against her most sensitive flesh. “Watch me feast on you like I’ve been starving for months.”

The first stroke of my tongue draws a cry from her lips that echoes through the cottage. She tastes even better than I imagined—sweet and musky and entirely addictive. I explore her thoroughly, finding every spot that makes her gasp, every technique that makes her hips buck against my mouth.

“Oh gods, Aries,” she pants, her hands fisting in the bedsheets. “Your tongue—it’s even better than you described. I’m already so close.”

“Not yet,” I growl against her wet flesh, pulling back just enough to make her whimper. “I want to hear you beg for it first. Tell me what you need.”

“I need you to make me come,” she pleads, her voice breaking with desperation. “I need to feel your mouth on me until I scream. Please, Aries. I’m burning alive.”

Her desperate honesty breaks my control. I dive back in with renewed hunger, my tongue and lips working her toward the edge with ruthless precision. When I feel her body beginning to tense, I slide two fingers inside her tight heat, curling them to hit that spot that makes her see stars.

She shatters with a scream loud enough to carry to the town square, her body convulsing around my fingers as waves of pleasure crash through her. I work her through it, gentling my touch as she comes down from her high.

“Beautiful,” I murmur, pressing soft kisses to her inner thighs as she trembles beneath me. “But we’re nowhere near done, sweet Callie.”

Before she can respond, I’m moving up her body, my cock hard and aching as it slides against her wet core. The sensation draws groans from both of us.

“I need to be inside you,” I confess, my voice rough with desperation. “I need to feel you wrapped around me, need to claim every inch of you.”

“Then take me,” she demands, her legs wrapping around my waist to pull me closer. “Show me what all those months of wanting felt like. Make me feel everything you couldn’t say.”

I position myself at her entrance, pausing for just a moment to savor this—the culmination of lunars of yearning, annums of denial. Then I’m pushing inside her tight heat, both of us crying out at the exquisite sensation of finally being joined.

“Fuck,” I groan, my head dropping to her shoulder as her body adjusts to my size. “You feel even better than I remembered. So tight, so perfect around me.”

“Move,” she gasps, her nails digging into my shoulders. “I need you to move, Aries. I need to feel all of you.”

After establishing a rhythm that’s anything but gentle—I give her deep, demanding thrusts that claim her completely.

This is annums of suppressed desire given form, lunars of careful restraint finally unleashed.

Her body meets mine thrust for thrust, taking everything I give her and demanding more .

“Harder,” she begs, her voice breaking on the word. “Make it harder. I need to feel you for days after this.”

I give her what she’s asking for, my hips snapping against hers with increasing intensity. The sound of skin against skin fills the cottage, mixing with our desperate moans and the whispered endearments that spill from our lips.

“I love you,” I growl against her throat, my pace becoming erratic as pleasure builds to impossible heights. “I love you so much it terrifies me. You’re everything , Callie.”

“I love you too,” she gasps, her inner walls beginning to flutter around me. “So much. For so long. I’ve been yours since that first night in the cell, even when I didn’t know what it was, and later, when I couldn’t admit it.”

Her confession pushes me over the edge. With a roar that shakes the cottage walls, I bury myself deep inside her as my climax crashes through me. The sensation of my release triggers hers, and she comes apart beneath me with a scream that’s pure ecstasy.

We collapse together, our bodies slick with sweat and trembling with aftershocks. I roll us to our sides, keeping her pressed against me as we struggle to catch our breath.

“That was…” she begins, then trails off with a breathless laugh.

“Everything,” I finish, pressing kisses to her damp forehead. “Everything I dreamed of and so much more.”

She tilts her head to look at me, her eyes soft with satisfaction and love. “No more barriers,” she murmurs.

“No more rules,” I agree, pulling her closer. “Just us. Finally, completely us.”

As we drift toward sleep in our little cottage—the place where we learned to love each other—I’m filled with profound gratitude. In a few days, we’ll return to our ships, to our crew, to the galaxy that awaits. But tonight, we’re exactly where we belong.

In each other’s arms, with no distance between us.