Page 36

Ezra

Ezra was floating in a void. There was nothing but darkness from every direction—no stars, no planets…

nothing but the inky blackness of space.

He tried screaming out, but his vocal cords were locked in place, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not get them to work.

His body was no better off. It felt like he’d been dropped into a vat of molasses, his arms and legs slow and difficult to move if they moved at all.

Regardless, he kept fighting, struggling to escape.

Out here, no one would find him.

No help was coming.

He was alone.

So, so alone…

“Ezra?” Titan’s sleep-drunk voice cut through the silence, startling Ezra enough that his eyes flew open. Reality set in, and he realized with relief that his imprisonment in that dark, lonely place had only been a dream.

Try telling his body that, though.

His heart was beating triple-time, and he had broken out in a cold sweat. Beyond that, he was in a sorry emotional state. Even now that he was awake, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being utterly alone.

But he wasn’t alone.

Titan’s arm was slung over his waist, as though even in sleep he couldn’t stand to be apart from him.

He was still mostly asleep now, but was awake enough to look worried, his brow creasing as he searched Ezra’s face.

“Are you all right?” he asked, then pressed his hand against the small of Ezra’s back with purpose, increasing their skin-to-skin contact. “You are full of anxiety.”

Ezra couldn’t speak. Like in his dream, his voice was stolen from him, this time not from anatomical failure, but from an abundance of nerves.

He was anxious. So much so that he was now wide awake, wired, and in need of something he couldn’t quite describe despite the fact that it was still the middle of the night.

The only part of him that didn’t feel wrong was the part of him in contact with Titan.

The part of him that wasn’t alone.

In lieu of a spoken answer, he shuffled forward and pressed a soft kiss to Titan’s lips.

Titan reciprocated immediately, gripping him tighter around the waist and humming appreciatively, and it was like a balm for Ezra’s soul.

His anxiety didn’t disappear, but it quieted down enough that he started to feel like himself again.

Wanting—needing—more, he coaxed Titan’s mouth open and slipped his tongue inside.

Hips flush with each other, he felt Titan’s cock begin to rise.

If being held tight in Titan’s arms brought him such instant relief, how much better would he feel pinned beneath him with Titan’s whole body weighing him down?

He didn’t know, but he was eager to find out.

As seductively as he could, he ran his hand down Titan’s chest, past his stomach, to the waistline of his briefs.

He toyed with the elastic for a little, dipping his fingers beneath it only to withdraw them again, and kept the kiss going, letting his tongue run along Titan’s until his own cock began to stir, twitching with interest for the handsome man who’d staye d when Ezra had invited him into his bed.

“I need you,” he managed to get out, then slid his hand all the way beneath the elastic barrier of Titan’s briefs and took hold of his cock. He pumped it slowly, steadily, working Titan fully erect, until Titan could take it no more and grasped him by the shoulders, pushing Ezra onto his back.

He had Ezra’s underwear off in a flash.

His own followed not long after.

Once they were both nude, Titan pushed Ezra’s legs back and took up a position between his thighs, running the head of his cock down Ezra’s taint until it was butting up against his hole.

Old habits died hard, and Ezra opened his mouth, intending to remind Titan they needed lube, but stopped himself short as the tip of Titan’s cock slid into him.

He needed no preparation.

He was already soaking wet.

“I would ask if you desire me,” Titan breathed into his ear, “but you are already so wet for me that it would be a foolish question to ask.”

He pushed himself in, and Ezra cried out, the stretch beautiful and blinding. He clamped his eyes shut and gripped the nearest bunched-up mess of comforters in his hands as Titan began to make slow, measured movements that pushed him deeper and deeper inside of him.

“You are mine,” Titan told him, sounding breathless despite his unhurried pace. “Forever mine. I do not care what fate has to say. You were meant for me. My perfect mate. Mine. I only want to be with you.”

Titan flattened their bodies together, his body coming into full contact with Ezra’s, and the weight of him was so good—so real —that Ezra was left speechless.

Every snap of Titan’s hips, every word off his tongue, every point where they met skin to skin soothed the ache inside of him and quieted his anxiety until he barely remembered it was there .

He was not alone.

He was wanted.

And while it could be that Titan hadn’t meant what he’d said—that it had all been spoken in the heat of the moment—Ezra didn’t think that was true.

He could feel Titan’s sincerity, excitement, and adoration.

And sure, maybe it was all a figment of his imagination, but after what he’d learned about his lineage, it didn’t seem such an outlandish thing to believe.

There was a reason skin-to-skin contact with a Darvrokian was considered an intimate gesture, and now, nude in bed with Titan, he was beginning to understand why. It was an ultimate act of vulnerability, every secret feeling tramped down inside dredged up for another to see.

Like this, there was no way to lie.

Titan’s heart wasn’t just on his sleeve—it was being presented to Ezra on a golden platter, no part of it safe from scrutiny.

What the fuck did a True Mates bond matter when Darvrokians could love like this?

Overcome with the gravity of it all, Ezra grabbed Titan’s face and pulled him into a desperate kiss meant to urge him into action.

Titan got the message.

He matched Ezra’s intensity, quickly assuming control of the kiss, then reached between their bodies to take Ezra’s cock in hand.

He stroked firmly, confidently, almost possessively, but without losing sight of Ezra’s pleasure.

Almost like he wanted Ezra to know that pleasure like this could be his forever if only he agreed never to let Titan go.

“Come for me,” Titan panted into his mouth before seizing his lips in another fierce kiss.

His thick cock plunged deep into Ezra, stretching him out, filling him so entirely there was no break in contact between them.

Skin on skin, their emotions poured into each other, and Ezra could not hold him self back.

He came fast and hard, tightening around Titan’s cock and spilling over his hand.

Titan coaxed him through it with mindless, whispered reassurances, and only after Ezra had come down from his high did he let himself be greedy. The care he’d taken while focusing on Ezra’s pleasure waned, and he switched up his pacing, using Ezra in the way he needed to get off.

Ezra almost came a second time from the excitement of it.

And when Titan finally came inside him, almost became did .

They didn’t part right away after it was over.

Titan waited until he began to soften and could no longer maintain his position to pull out.

Exhausted and boneless, Ezra watched without comment as Titan plucked several tissues from the box on the bedside table and cleaned up their mess, taking extra care to make sure nothing was left on Ezra’s chest or belly—not all that easy a thing to do with all of Ezra’s body hair.

Tissues tossed aside—hopefully in the wastebasket, but that was a problem for the morning—Titan gathered Ezra up into his arms from behind and pressed a soft kiss behind his ear. “What did you dream during your nightly unconsciousness that brought you such fear and stress?”

Ezra shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t real.”

Titan hummed a little doubtfully. “Perhaps it was not real, but the emotions it evoked were. Are you all right?”

Ezra sighed. That was quite the question, wasn’t it?

“I dunno,” he said after a beat. “A lot has happened—like, a lot—and I don’t really know how to feel about any of it.

I mean, I was still working through the idea that you got me pregnant, but now on top of that I have to deal with the fact that I’m half alien?

That’s… it… it might be too much for me to handle. ”

“You have been dealt a significant number of life changes,” Titan agreed. “However, they are not too much for you to handle.”

Ezra looked at him over his shoulder with a frown. “How d o you know?”

“Because you are an incredible human being,” he said simply. “One of enviable strength and resilience.”

“Enviable, huh? The great Titan is envious of me? A silly little human whose only professional reference is his cat?”

He had said it as a joke, but Titan seemed to take it seriously. He kissed Ezra’s cheek and said in earnest, “Yes, Ezra. I am envious of you.”

This gave Ezra pause.

Quietly, after a moment of reflection, he admitted what was on his mind.

“I spent my whole life thinking my dad didn’t love me, and that’s why he left.

And that colored everything I did, you know?

When my boyfriend left me, when I had a string of rebounds who wanted nothing to do with me after we hooked up, I thought, well, yeah, obviously.

That’s just how these things go. I’m not the type of person people want to stay around.

“But now what the hell am I supposed to think? Not even taking into account the whole alien thing, it turns out that my dad didn’t leave because he didn’t love me.

He was arrested by the literal space police because he wanted to stay.

My entire belief system is built on a lie, and now he’s back saying he wants to be in my life, and you’re here telling me you want to stay with me, and I’ve got goddamn kids on the way who will need me to be committed to them, and I just…

what is there to envy about a guy who is too broken to know how to have an adult relationship? ”

“I am beginning to learn,” Titan said softly after a few moments of silence, “that there is value in recognizing one’s own shortcomings.

You know where your barriers lie, and because of this you will know how to overcome them.

I am still learning how to admit fault, and it is an arduous process.

But what you have taught me, Ezra, is that greatness is not something that is granted at birth.

Greatness is about what you do. You are a very wise, intelligent, endlessly kind being, and that makes you great.

And I am greater for having known you. That is what makes you enviable. ”

Ezra’s eyes burned. For someone who wasn’t much of a crier, he certainly seemed to be doing it a lot lately. He decided to chalk it up to hormones, and discreetly wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

It was late, he was exhausted, and he didn’t have enough left in him to keep dwelling on heavy topics. So instead of attempting a reply, he took a deep breath and asked, “Is my dad really an intergalactic slut?”

Titan laughed, his breath blowing the hairs on the back of Ezra’s neck.

“He has… a reputation,” he said, stroking Ezra’s arm.

“I guess that means I have a bunch of half-siblings out there in the universe somewhere, huh? Good to know the dad I always wished I knew is actually a space whore.”

“Perhaps,” Titan whispered. “But also it may be worth it to, what’s the phrase? ‘Give him a chance’?” He nuzzled his nose against Ezra. “Sometimes beings are not always what they seem upon first glance.”

Ezra took Titan’s hand in his and laced their fingers together. He smiled softly to himself.

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re right. Sometimes they aren’t.”