Page 13

THIRTEEN

Stavian

Stavian watched Cerani shift in her chair, draped in his oversized tunic, legs curled beneath her. Heat flared in her eyes. She chewed that last bite of food and slowly put her utensil down. It clinked on the plate like a decree. “I’m ready, Stavian.”

Stavian stood up and slowly walked around the table to stand in front of her. His hands were clenched. His chest rose and fell too fast. He was barely keeping it together.

Cerani looked up from her seat like she owned the room and had just decided to let him breathe in it. She didn’t move.

He reached down, slipped his hands around her, and lifted. Her arms wound around his neck. Her legs wrapped around his waist. She was locked to him, and all that warmth, all that skin, bare under one of his shirts—made him burn.

He carefully laid her on the bed. Everything in him screamed to move faster, to rip her shirt—his shirt—off and finally taste what he’d wanted from the first time she looked at him without fear. He didn’t. He sat beside her instead.

Neither of them spoke. Then her hand slid over his chest, fingers coasting the hem of his uniform. “Off,” she said.

He yanked it over his head without a word, tossing it aside.

She pushed up onto her elbows and helped him pull her shirt off her body. Her breasts were small, perfect, tipped with dark nipples already taut. His gaze dropped. He’d seen only a glimpse of the gold freckles that covered the apex of her thighs and lower belly. Now, he let his eyes feast.

She lay back, bare now.

Mine.

She stared at him like she could feel every possessive thought crashing through his head.

He positioned himself above her. His arms trembled with the strain of holding back as he lowered himself slowly, so slowly, until his mouth hovered over hers. He kissed her hard. Demanding. All of his intentions and promises and desire flowed into the kiss.

She opened to him—mouth, body, all of it—and he groaned against her lips. Her hands ran over his back like she was memorizing the shape of him with her fingertips. She tugged the edges of his wings and he jerked against her, almost lost balance.

Cerani looked up. Grinned. She was naked in his bed and still the fiercest thing he’d ever seen.

He kissed her neck next, then her collarbone, savoring the taste of her skin. It was tinged with a sweetness that hit his tongue like a drug he’d been denied too long. He traced the hollow of her throat, then dragged his lips lower, across the soft slope of her breast. When he finally reached her nipple, his tongue circled slowly—testing, coaxing—until she gasped and arched into him with a shiver like all her reservations had snapped.

Her hands tangled in his hair. She held him there with quiet desperation, and he complied, suckling that tight bud between his lips until she whimpered, hips shifting beneath him as her thighs fell open—an unspoken invitation.

The heated scent of her was maddening. Something primal flared beneath his skin, something old and feral. He’d spent cycles worshiping her with patience, restraining himself. Now he would learn the exact ways she liked to be held, the sounds she made when he kissed her throat or touched her cheek. He wanted every part of her.

He shifted downward, dragging his hand across her torso—palm open, reverent. Her skin was soft like velvet and stunningly warm. His fingers trailed lower, catching the curve of her hip, the flare that gave way to her inner thigh. He kissed down, past the soft swell of her stomach, to the golden freckles that beckoned his mouth. The freckles fanned over the smooth mound of her pussy, dusting the soft folds like stars draped over night.

Stavian slid lower, spreading her parted thighs wider. There was no hesitation in her gaze. No questioning. Just need. Raw and bright and lit with so much trust it made his chest ache.

“I need to taste you,” he rasped. His voice was frayed at the edges. Barely restrained. He had no idea what he was doing. Every move he made was raw instinct.

“Please,” she said, breathless and hoarse. “Don’t make me beg.”

His pulse thudded in his ears as he let out a soft growl. His hands splayed across her hips like he had every right. Maybe he did. They were well past pretending he didn’t ache for her in every way imaginable.

He lowered himself between her legs, inhaling the rich scent of arousal as he dipped his head and placed a broad, open-mouthed kiss across her slick folds.

She jolted, hands fisting in the blanket, heels digging into the mattress. He didn’t lift his head—just delved deeper, licking her with long, slow strokes. Again. Again. Until her thighs trembled and she whispered his name like it hurt to hold it in.

When his tongue flicked her clit, purposefully slow, she cried out, hips bucking up to meet the pressure of his mouth. He held her there with one arm braced below her hips as he pushed his tongue harder against her, lapping in firm, deliberate flicks until her breath caught and her chest arched off the bed.

“Stars,” she gasped, her voice gone, wrecked and needy. “You—you feel—”

He nipped her inner thigh and slid one finger inside her, slow and deep, feeling how she clenched around him, how her body trembled in response. She was soaked. Hot. Unbelievably tight.

“ Fekking perfect,” he muttered, more to himself than her.

He pumped slowly, working his tongue over her clit while his finger moved in and out. Her body twitched, every breath broken now, her hand clasped over her mouth to stifle the sounds that came too loudly.

But he didn’t want her quiet.

He wanted to hear every moan, every gasp, every needy whimper. He slid in a second finger, stretching her gently as he sucked her clit with the slow, wet hunger of a male unravelling at her taste. Her inner walls fluttered wildly around his fingers and when she cried his name again—broken, pleading—he went harder.

That did it.

She cried out as her control broke. Her whole body went rigid. Then she shattered around him, back bowed, pretty cries spilling from her lips as she came hard on his tongue, hips grinding into his face like she never wanted him to stop.

The sound of her moaning his name like it hurt to let go would be carved into his memory forever. He slowed, kissing her inner thigh, lingering there, memorizing the shape of her. Then the sharp curve of her hipbone, where golden freckles scattered over dusk-warmed skin. His mouth chased those freckles, reverent and aching. Every spot felt like a secret she’d hidden from the world, and now, she’d given those secrets to him.

His lips brushed her waist, then her abdomen, soft and slow. Each kiss was a vow. A prayer. His hands spanned her hips, firm but awed. He couldn’t quite believe she’d let him hold her this way.

When he finally looked up, her eyes were dark and glassy with want. He moved with patient purpose, crawling over her body, muscles tense with restraint. Sweat kissed his temple. His breath was heavy and uneven, not from exhaustion, but from emotion—raw and unfiltered. His heart pounded against her chest as if it wanted to sync itself to hers.

Cerani didn’t break eye contact. Her hand found his cock the second he leaned down, the movement smooth, confident, and slow. She curved her fingers around him, thick and hot in her grip. He hissed through his teeth and nearly dropped his weight on top of her.

“Stars, Cerani,” he breathed. “Is it…am I…?

He didn’t have a chance to finish his question as she guided him, aligning him with her entrance, and their eyes held for a suspended moment of truth.

“You are perfect,” she breathed. “Take me, Stavian. Make me yours.”

His vision went white for one mind-bending moment, as he absorbed her words. Her complete acceptance of him, then he thrust inside.

One stroke. All of him.

She gasped. Her body arched up in a ripple, drawing him deeper. He groaned, guttural and full-chested. His mouth opened in a sound that broke against her neck. The world narrowed to the slide of skin and the sudden, perfect fullness of connection. Him—inside her. Finally.

He stilled, buried to the hilt, arms locked on either side of her. Her legs lifted and wrapped around his waist, holding him hostage and home all at once. Her breath stuttered, and she reached for him without speaking, dragging her palms over his chest, his shoulders, then finally wrapping around the corded muscle where his wings met his back.

He moved first—shallow, tentative, like he was afraid too much of him would break her. She was tight, small, and he felt too big for her. But her sighs and gasps were not of pain. She met the thrust of his hips with the rise of her own, demanding more. He obeyed. His wings flared, trembling with restrained force, and curved around her like a barrier from the world—as if even the stars through the window above them couldn’t be allowed to see what belonged to only him.

The rhythm found them—deep, steady, hungry. He pumped into her, slow strokes at first, savoring the way her walls clutched him like she didn’t want him to leave. But need built fast between them, and control was no longer a luxury.

“ Fek ,” he murmured, his mouth hovering over hers. “You feel like…like I was made for you.”

His hand slid down between them, palm cradling her jaw again before it trailed down her throat, over the top of her chest. He cupped her breast, thumbing her nipple until she arched with a stammered cry, then he trailed lower, over her belly, down to where they were joined. He wanted to feel her there—slick, hot, trembling around him—and when he did, it stole the last of his breath.

“I love you,” she said softly, like it was the only truth left in the room.

“Say it again.”

“I love you.” It came out rough and low—confession and possession—and it shattered him.

He kissed her as he thrust into her, hips grinding deeper, harder, each stroke deliberate, like he was carving his name into her walls. Not just fucking—this was something molten, something primal, a collision of need and heat that surged through his blood like wildfire.

Every part of her was addictive. The way she gasped and whimpered his name, her sex fluttering around him when he hit the spot just right, the hitch in her breath when his teeth scraped her collarbone—he memorized it all like sacred scripture. She was slick and perfect, and every drag of his cock through her folds made his brain short-circuit.

This wasn’t claiming. It wasn’t possession. This was worship. Reverence. Her body didn’t just take him in—it took him apart. Showed him craving he didn’t know existed. This wasn’t about force or control—this was about surrender. Desperate, mutual surrender.

Her fingers clawed through his hair, down his back, nails scraping the sensitive skin between his wings and making him snarl low against her neck. “More,” she breathed. “Harder, Stavian.”

It broke something loose—something primal and wild and barely chained. He growled low in his chest as Cerani’s body arched and pulsed around him, and every last thread of control he’d clung to shredded like spun glass.

“Stavian—” she gasped, voice breaking as she shattered beneath him—hips jerking, thighs trembling, cunt pulsing hard around his cock. She let out a strangled cry. Not loud, but raw. Wild. Like the sound had clawed its way out from her lungs.

Her orgasm tore through her body like fire, clutching his length in greedy waves, squeezing him like she’d never let go. She was slick and perfect and it wrecked him.

His wings flared wide, shaking with raw tension as he let go. The slow, careful rhythm he’d kept, shattered under the demand of her climax. He slammed into her harder, deeper, each thrust a surge of molten need. No restraint now—none. His hips snapped forward with staggering intensity. His hand gripped her thigh. His muscles coiled with the force of his release building, then crashing.

“ Fek , Cerani—” he snarled against her skin, burying his face in her neck as he lost control. Blood roared in his ears. His vision blurred. All he could feel was the tight, wet clutch of her wrapped around his cock, milking him in hard, greedy pulses as she came apart beneath him.

He came with a full-body shudder, hips bucking as ropes of heat spilled deep inside her, each throb tearing another fractured groan from his throat. The pleasure ripped through him like a firestorm, white-hot and unrelenting. He groaned her name like it was a battle cry, a prayer, a defeat, as he emptied everything he had into her.

Cerani’s arms stayed locked around his shoulders. Her legs were cinched around his hips. Every breath she took shuddered through his body, echoing the aftershocks of what they’d just shared. Her skin glowed beneath the faint light pouring through the glass ceiling—freckles scattered like constellations over her forehead. She was a galaxy pressed against him, warm and wild, and so very alive.

They didn’t speak at first. He rested his forehead against hers. He could feel her heart pounding. Still racing. Like his.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” she whispered at last, voice frayed but grounded.

Neither was I, he didn’t say. Instead, he brushed her cheek with the back of two knuckles and kissed the tip of her nose.

Cerani tilted her head and traced his jaw with slow fingers. “I loved you before this.”

“I know,” Stavian said with barely a breath. He kissed her again, softer now. “But you knew that.”

She smiled, and it was everything. He pressed a hand to the center of her chest. Above her heart. “You’re mine,” he said quietly.

She reached up and placed her hand over his. “And you’re mine,” she answered, her voice rough with heat and something deeper.

Stavian exhaled like it was the first full breath he’d taken in cycles. Her fingers curled over his knuckles. The reality of what they’d become unfurled in his chest. Not prisoner and controller. Not survivor and savior. Just two people bound by something bigger than anything they understood.

He shifted to the side and pulled her into the curve of his body, his arm hooked around her waist. Their skin was slick with sweat where they touched, but neither moved to leave the bed. They lay tangled together beneath the faint wash of stars across the glass ceiling—both quiet in the aftermath, both buzzing under the silence.

Cerani was the first to speak. “That was…” She trailed off like no word would do.

“Yes,” he said against her temple. “It was.”

She chuckled, cheeks pressing against his chest as her breath warmed his skin. “Do all Zaruxian males bring their mates mindless pleasure, or is it just you?”

Mates. He liked that. He tipped her face back gently with one hand and looked into her eyes. They were glowing, not with adrenaline or need, but with the soft, dangerous gleam of something hard-won and deeper than either of them had possibly imagined. Love—terrible and full and real.

“I don’t know, but I plan to bring you mindless pleasure for the rest of our lives.” His voice still growled a thread of hunger that hadn’t fully cooled. “Every time you move beneath me…it’s burned into my bones.”

Cerani’s eyes searched his. There was no laughter now in her expression, just a quiet kind of awe. “Good,” she whispered. “Because what’s between us… That’s not going away.”

“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”

Her fingers traced the edge of his wing—so gently he almost didn’t feel it. When her fingers skimmed one of the sensitive seams along the joint, his chest stuttered. “You’re still holding back,” she murmured. “Why?”

He swallowed. “Because I don’t want to hurt you. Because this, what we just shared, it mattered.”

“It did.” Her voice went softer. “But I’m not fragile. Not with you.”

“I know.” He kissed her again, just a brush this time. If a ship hit them now, Stavian thought, it wouldn’t matter—because holding her like this was everything.

Cerani shifted against his side. She propped herself up on one elbow and gazed down at him. Her golden eyes had sharpened despite the haze of what they’d just done. “Stavian?”

He turned his head slightly, still curled around her, with one wing slung over them like a shield. He had a feeling the basking in afterglow part of the cycle was over. “Yes?”

She brushed damp hair off her face, her voice thoughtful. “You said you had a plan. To get us out of here. To get the miners out.” Her eyes fell to his chest and back again. “Tell me. All of it.”

Stavian looked up at the sky-glass above them and let out a slow breath. Then he looked back at her. “I began preparations for our escape two cycles ago,” he said quietly. Across the long, bloodstained stars above them, the countdown had already begun.

Cerani sat up fully, the blanket slipping down to her hips. “Tell me everything.”