Page 38

Roslyn

Zan wins the bet.

All throughout the evening, couples have been crumbling. Some amicable, some with tears and dramatics, all of it entirely expected as the producers nudge and winnow down their contestants until only those who will make for the most dramatic Choosings are left.

Those who remain are gathered in and around the pavilion. Drinks flowing, torches burning, an undeniable sense of camaraderie in the air.

For all the squabbles and all the backstabbing, all the flirting and all the broken hearts, there’s also a deep, deep sense of how unserious this all is. How, at the end of the day, we’re all just here to be reality vidcomm stars, and maybe we’ve all done our fair share of acting.

Hatchets are buried, and I even get a brief nod from Ansalla. A silent good game as she disappears into the night with the Aventri she ended up with after all her own drama. I can’t say I have any warm and fuzzy feelings after what an ass she’s been to me, but I’m not petty enough to hold on to that grudge.

After tonight, I’ll never see her again.

More than likely, I’ll never see any of the contestants again, and maybe that’s making me feel a bit nostalgic, too. A little less inclined to let my generally salty feelings about Mate Match keep me from enjoying my last night here.

“Hey, you.”

Juni extends one of the two fizzy, fruity drinks she’s holding to me as she approaches. I take it with another little pang to the center of my chest. She’ll be off on her quest for stardom after she faces the Choosing with her paramours tomorrow, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again, either.

“Hey,” I say, trying to cover those thoughts with a smile. “Ready for tomorrow?”

“Absolutely. Although, is it weird of me to say I’ll miss this place?”

“A little,” I tell her with a laugh. “But I’m sure you guys will make a splash wherever you end up.”

“Oh, you know it.”

Juni, Tev, Serril and Nelle are all but guaranteed to leave here together tomorrow. They’ve already started making plans for launching their post-show endeavors, capitalizing on the fame they’ve more than earned as breakout stars on this season.

“Ready to begin your plan for Seventh Sector domination?”

Juni’s smile widens. “We’ll start there, then move on to the rest of the universe.”

“And you didn’t need my help at all,” I tease, wrapping an arm around her waist while she slings one around my shoulders. “I, on the other hand, would have been lost without you.”

Together, we walk to the side of the pavilion. Looking out on the night—the stars shining brilliantly above, two moons full and luminous, a few bioluminescent nightflies fluttering by—we’re some of the last still hanging around the beach.

All throughout the evening, the crowd of contestants has thinned.

Like a bar closing down at the end of the night, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here—as the old human saying goes.

Whether they’re headed to the shuttle that’ll be taking the broken up couples off-world tonight, or off to their bungalows for one last night of passion before the Choosing tomorrow, they drift away from the pavilion as the night grows later.

“I beg to differ.” She bumps her hip playfully against mine. “And you won’t be a stranger after this, yeah? Anytime you and Zan want to come join in the insanity and grab a little limelight, you’re more than welcome.”

My stomach plummets, but I make myself shrug. “Yeah, maybe. Things are a little… up in the air, you know?”

Juni freezes, gaze darting side to side as she makes sure there are no hovers close enough to pick up our conversation.

“No, I actually don’t know. What do you mean ‘up in the air?’ With the Choosing? The two of you aren’t going to—”

“Whoa,” I interrupt her very serious, very un-Juni-like interrogation. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“Ros.” She unwinds her arm from around my shoulders and rests both her hands on them instead, turning me to face her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

It’s my turn to dart a nervous gaze around the pavilion, stomach sinking even lower when I see a cam headed straight for us like a shark seeking prey.

“Hovercam,” I mutter, and she releases her hold and puts her jaunty Juni mask back in place, though it can’t quite cover the worry in her eyes. “I should get going. We’re still getting ready together tomorrow, right?”

She hesitates, like she’s not ready to let the conversation drop, but as the camera fixes its inhuman eyes on us, offers me a smile.

“Yeah, of course. Have a good night, Ros.”

I nod, then slip away, walking through the pavilion until I find the Revexoran I’m looking for.

The Revexoran I’ve always been looking for.

Since that very first day.

And sure, I wasn’t always looking for him for the reasons I am now, but the idea of looking and not finding, the idea that after tomorrow I might never see that stoic, handsome face of his again, hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest.

His eyes find mine, and that sledgehammer strikes again. A direct hit as those silver threads light up and a smile tugs at his lips like he’s just been waiting for me to find him.

He’s standing with Rhevar—his unlikely beach bestie—and a few other contestants, but steps away immediately when he sees me coming.

“Sorry,” I say to his companions, not feeling contrite in the slightest. “Can I steal him from you?”

They murmur their agreement, but Zan’s already moving, taking my outstretched hand and letting me lead him away from the pavilion.

Hovers follow us out into the night. Can they see the sparks between us? Is my skin glowing as bright and incandescent as it feels, just as luminous as those canopy flowers?

We barely make it two steps away from the pavilion before Zan tugs at my hand and pulls me into the shadows. Pushing me up against the side of the high wooden platform, he buries a hand in my hair and kisses me deep, tipping my head back and demanding an entry I do nothing at all to resist.

God, he tastes good. Like moonlit dew and crisp midnight air, like a hint of smoke and musk I want to devour, to take so deep I’ll be able to taste it even when I’m back in the hot, miserable Severin desert.

We’ve still got cams on us, but I don’t care.

It just makes it easier to sink into the fantasy.

The fantasy where, despite all odds, Zan and I will leave here tomorrow to face the whole wide universe together. The fantasy that we’ve actually fallen for each other in this insane set of circumstances, that what the audience will see when the show airs won’t just be smoke and mirrors.

The fantasy that all of this—everything, every last thing—has been real.

Without warning, Zan picks me up into a bridal-style carry and sets off through the sand, heading back toward the bungalow.

I can’t stop kissing him, can’t stop running my lips over his jaw, the strong line of his throat, using my teeth in teasing nips until a deep warning rumble echoes in his chest and I have to tip my head back and laugh up at the stars.

Back at the bungalow, he swings the door wide and steps us inside, dealing quickly with the locks before taking me all the way to the bedroom.

My back—exposed in the backless, flowing dress I wore tonight that puts my scars and tattoos on full display—hits the soft down of the comforter, and my front is immediately covered by Zan.

He presses me into the impossible softness, repays every bit of teasing I gave him on the way here with kisses and nips and sucking caresses of his own. He does away with the flimsy straps of my dress, baring me to the waist before rising to his knees and looking down at me with satisfaction and lust written all over his face.

My pulse jumps and my pussy throbs, body coming back to life in a way I’m surprised it still can.

We haven’t had sex since the night before we went to find Savvie.

To say I haven’t been in the mood would be the understatement of the millennium, but tonight is… different. And maybe it’s just the uncertainty and desperation of knowing that tomorrow everything changes, but… I don’t think that’s all it is. Not entirely.

Even if I’m nowhere near ready to admit what it really is.

“Roslyn,” Zan says, and I think I can hear it.

The frayed threads in the fantasy we’ve been weaving today. The doubt. The sharp, unwelcome reality demanding we talk about it.

“Not now,” I murmur. “Not yet.”

Zan leans down and presses a kiss to my forehead. “Alright. Not yet.”

It’s gentle, that kiss, so gentle it makes my eyes water.

But his kisses don’t stay that way, and I’m so damn grateful for that. I’m grateful for the urgent press of his lips against mine, for his hands on me, demanding I get out of my head and back into my body.

And holy hell, do I get into my body.

Every place Zan kisses me, touches me, bites me, hums and sparks with pleasure. My core aches with warm, liquid anticipation, and no matter where I kiss him, touch him, bite him back, it’s not enough.

He maps a path down my body with his lips, tongue, teeth, and I grab for his horns. Not to stop him, exactly, but because I want… I want…

“I believe I won our wager,” Zan murmurs into my skin.

“Did you?” I gasp when he reaches my breasts, drawing hard on one peaked nipple.

“Yes, I did.” He switches to the other, a rasp of fangs against my over-sensitive skin. “And you were the one who suggested we let the winner claim their spoils, weren’t you?”

While he speaks, he skates his hand up the inside of my thigh, higher, seeking the spoils he won.

I laugh, breathless. “Yeah, but the prize is supposed to be for you.”

“Who says this isn’t?”

Damn, well, I can’t really argue with that, can I?

My thighs part for him, pussy wet and aching and shameless as I grab for his horns again, pushing him lower. He growls his approval as he slides my underwear down, as he settles himself at my core and finds my clit, throbbing for him.

And then he unleashes himself.

There’s no slow build tonight, no leisurely exploration, nothing but the insistent suck of his lips around my clit, the deep press of his fingers inside me as he hits a spot so sweet it makes me see stars. He’s focused, determined, merciless, building me to a peak and then throwing me off it as a fast, consuming orgasm wracks my body.

Even then, he doesn’t relent. He’s still there with lips and tongue and seeking fingers, coaxing out more pleasure, demanding my surrender. When I let out a strangled, desperate moan, he looks up at me and I’m pinned in place by those familiar galaxies.

“Another,” he rumbles into me, pressing a damp kiss against my pussy. “I want one more from you, Roslyn.”

Who am I to resist that kind of command?

Back arching, hands clenched around his horns, I grind into him. I chase the pleasure until I shatter again on a long, keening cry, the universe around me coming apart at the seams.

While I’m coming down from that peak, he climbs back up the bed and settles beside me. Zan runs soothing strokes over my hair, my cheek, until my racing heart slows and I can finally peel my heavy eyelids open and look at him.

There’s a light shining in Zan’s eyes that I’ve never seen before.

Desperate silver, swirling with need and hunger and a sharp broken edge that makes my breath catch in the back of my throat.

“I want you on top,” he says roughly, rolling so he’s on his back on the mattress and lifting me by the hips, settling me over him. “Take everything you need from me, Roslyn.”

Take .

The word sounds wrong.

I want to give.

I want to give to Zan just as much as he’s given to me.

I want to repay him tenfold, a hundredfold, for being here with me, for being the steady wall of patience and understanding I needed, for making it so I didn’t fall apart completely.

I want to give him something he can hold on to when we leave here tomorrow.

Something we can both take with us. Something to remember.

Straddled over his thighs, I reach a hand between our bodies and find the split in his skin. Slowly, deliberately, I tease him. Not drawing him out, not yet, but playing with his cock where it’s tucked away in his body. Tracing damp fingers along the protective ridges there, watching the waves of pleasure break over his face.

“Ros,” he groans, hands gripping my hips, claw-tipped fingers pressing to a delicious prick of pain. “Please.”

Please.

Fuck. Fuck, that’s hot.

Having this warrior undone, beneath me, begging for the pleasure I can give him, is so undeniably fucking hot.

Sinking my fingers deeper within him, I draw out his length—hot and hard and slippery, already leaking precome from the tip—and shift my body over him. I tease myself with him, running the plated head of his cock up and down my slit, against my clit, until I’m just as desperate for it as he is.

“Roslyn,” he says, and it sounds like a warning this time. Tight, hoarse, on just this side of control.

With a firm grip on his shaft and a decisive shift of my hips, I line him up at my entrance and sink down onto his cock. The stretch of him is good, so fucking good like this. The thick length of him pressed into me. The coiled power of him between my thighs. The thrill of watching the way his eyes slam shut and his expression contorts into what might almost be pain, if I didn’t know better.

Once, twice, again, I roll my hips over him. I watch the strain of the tendons in his neck, the delicious way his lips fall open on a breathless moan. I run my hands over his chest, his abs, knowing how much he likes to be touched there, seeing how much more pleasure I can wring out of him.

Like I should have expected, though, my Revexoran catches on to me almost immediately. He stills me with a firm grip on my ass, a low growl rumbling in his chest.

“I believe I told you to take, my warrior.” Eight claw-tips press down in warning, plus two softly rounded fingertips meant just for my pleasure.

“Who says this isn’t for me? Maybe I like seeing you fall apart.”

Zan’s heavy-lidded gaze skims over me, silver threads luminous in the moonlight.

“Then you’ll never be dissatisfied, Roslyn. Never with me.”

Zan bucks his hips, shifting his hands so he can stroke firmly over my clit. And as much as I’d like to remain the one who’s in control here, I can’t stop the helpless moan that slips from my lips. I can’t stop my own hips from chasing that touch, from seeking more. More pleasure. More touch. More of him.

“Perfect,” Zan rumbles. “Just like that, Ros.”

I move, and he moves, and although I did indeed want to make this about him, after a few long, lush minutes, I can’t help the orgasm that threatens. I can’t stop myself from taking it greedily, shamelessly, the coiled pleasure of it low in my belly too much to resist.

I peel my eyes open to look at Zan, to let him see me while I fall apart, and my breath catches in my throat.

There’s something stretching taut between us, but I can’t quite name it. Some wild, frenzied, desperate thing fluttering its wings against my ribcage and demanding to be free, demanding to be seen.

Nameless, formless, essential, I can’t grasp it for what it is, but I can see it shining back at me from Zan’s dark, galaxy-adorned gaze.

But, like a coward, I close my eyes.

I lean down, kiss him, breathe him in, and try to convince myself I only imagined it. With my hips moving over his, body angled so he hits that sweet, sweet spot that’s my undoing.

I focus on this, here, now, and ignore the tiny spider-webbing cracks spreading across my heart with each thrust.

He stokes me through every fracture, bringing me right to that edge until I tumble over and collapse into him. My anchor through every tempestuous wave of it.

Only when the last of my tremors have finally subsided does Zan move. He flips me under him, sinks back into me, pins my hips with his and grinds his pelvis over my clit in exactly the way he knows will make me wild.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he rasps, thrusting deep. “So fucking beautiful, Ros.”

I can’t find the words to answer him, can’t do anything but cling to him and be lost in the storm. To let myself go until my pleasure builds again and I shatter, Zan shatters, and we fall together into a heap of breath and sweat and muscles gone lax with pleasure.

All the while, I try to ignore it.

I try not to see what I’m seeing, to feel what I’m feeling. I try not to let it in.

In the end, though, it doesn’t really matter.

Because that nameless, formless, fluttering thing won’t be silenced.

And it’s later, when we’ve both cleaned up and climbed back into bed, when the moons are high in the sky outside, casting silver light over us both, that I finally crack the bars of that cage open and let it gently free.

I’ve got my back against the headboard, and Zan’s laying stomach-down between my thighs, big body sprawled across the mattress. He’s got his head in my lap, hands stroking lazily over every bit of me he can reach, murmuring his pleasure as I comb my fingers through his hair and drag my nails lightly across his scalp.

There’s something so tender about the moment, so right, and a familiar cavern opens in my chest. It’s just like the one that threatened to swallow me whole when I said goodbye to Savvie. The same bleak, hopeless dread that comes from looking into a future I know won’t have an essential part of me in it.

Impossible.

My wires are all crossed. My emotions are in tatters and there’s no way this is what I think it is.

It’s just the upheaval. It’s just the uncertainty. It’s just me wanting to cling to one last known in the face of all the unknown I’ll be thrust into tomorrow.

That’s all it is.

That’s all it can be.

Over and over, I stroke my hands through Zan’s hair, until his breath grows deep and even and I wriggle out from under him. Settling on the bed beside him, I don’t fight it when he pulls me into his arms.

I don’t do anything but burrow right into him and let sleep claim me.

Dawn is only a few hours away, and it’ll bring the end of all this when it comes.

So I let myself savor for just a little longer.

The steady weight of Zan at my back, the deep, comforting rasp of his breath, the beating of his heart.

One more night.