Page 23 of She Who Devours the Stars (The Astral Mess #1)
Her hand cut a diagonal from my wrist to my shoulder, fingers trailing electric signatures across skin as they climbed.
She took her time with me, staking out territory instead of just passing through; I could feel her mapping every microflinch and shiver, rerouting her approach mid-move to exploit whatever new reaction she found.
For all her casual violence and mythic scorch, Fern’s touch was calibrated and careful, a predator’s mercy or a surgeon’s grace. Maybe both.
She cradled the back of my neck in her palm and pulled me forward, not fast, not rough, but slow and terrifyingly sure. The space between our faces went zero-G for a microsecond before gravity collapsed us together.
The first kiss was nothing like I expected.
I’d braced for devouring or domination or some melodramatic collision of wills, something fitting for a girl whose resonance had destroyed half a fleet and made history sweat.
But Fern kissed me soft: lips barely there at first, all suggestion and no demand.
Her mouth tasted like unripe fruit and old wine; her breath carried ozone from wildfires long since put out.
I tried not to react but failed so completely it almost looped around into success, a dull moan vibrated out of me before I realized what it was. On instinct, I tried to twist away, but Fern just moved with me, always one step ahead of any escape vector I plotted.
She deepened the kiss, slow escalation instead of blitzkrieg, until there was nothing left in my universe except sensation: teeth grazing lip (hers then mine), tongue tracing unfamiliar words against palate (mine then hers), my hands moving up without authorization to clutch at her biceps because suddenly I needed something solid or else I’d collapse through the couch and fall forever.
Somewhere in the static between brain and body, I tasted salt, blood, and the faint metallic edge of panic layered over the ghost of the steak I’d only tasted on Fern’s tongue. Stupid, but the thought surfaced anyway; I hope she likes dessert.
She broke contact just long enough to look at me through half-lidded eyes gone midnight blue in the containment shimmer. “Still think this is protocol?” she asked, or maybe accused, but didn’t wait for an answer before kissing me again, harder now.
The next minute or hour blurred: she nipped at my mouth until I gasped open-mouthed for air; she used it as an excuse to invade deeper.
Her hand slid down from my neck to hook inside my collar, Accord formalwear is supposed to be dignified, but no one told Fern, and with one practiced flick, she undid two buttons and exposed four times as much skin as any official function ever did.
There was negotiation happening here, but not in words. Every move Fern made said: I want you on my terms, but I want you strong enough to resist a little first.
So, when she pressed me back against the couch cushions and bracketed me between her knees, one on either side of mine, I fought just enough for it to be interesting.
My hands tried to direct hers; hers countered by pinning them flat against my sides or entangling fingers until we were locked in a standstill that only ended when she decided it would.
She broke off kissing long enough to say, “I heard Vaelith girls bite.” Her voice was laced with amusement over hunger.
“Only if bitten first,” I shot back with more bravado than sense.
Fern grinned like a wolf who’d just heard an invitation arrive by post. She bent down and bit gently at my earlobe, then less gently, and when I yelped more from shock than pain, she laughed into my neck before sealing her mouth there for several seconds that recalibrated all previous definitions of ‘pressure point.’
By then, I felt drunk on something more substantial than wine, full-body tremble running under my skin like static seeking ground, but also weirdly lucid? Like everything normal was falling away, but some core part of me was more awake than ever before.
She opened another two buttons on my shirt while keeping our hips pressed tight together; everything about Fern screamed improvisation, yet somehow she kept perfect control over how fast things escalated.
I finally managed to get one hand free (she allowed it) and threaded fingers into her hair, auburn, not the infamous Trivane black shot through with reckless cometary gold or peroxide blonde, and pulled her face level with mine again.
“I don’t lose control,” I warned, uncertain if it was a threat or confession.
“You don’t,” Fern agreed solemnly. Then: “But you want to.” She ran her thumb over my cheekbone like a promise written in Braille.
I could have thrown up another wall then, told her we should slow down or stop altogether, but lying seemed pointless because every atom in circulation between us crackled yes yes yes keep going!
She kissed down along my jawline toward where my pulse hammered loudest; with each stop along the way, she tasted skin like it might vanish if left too long untouched.
The room’s containment shimmer cycled higher until everything outside our hothouse bubble blurred out completely; even Vireleth’s silhouette faded into insignificance compared to Fern pinning me flat against ancient upholstery while systematically undoing every defense I’d ever bothered building.
When she reached for the hem of my undershirt, it felt less like seduction than invocation, a ritual act performed with near-religious care.
And when the fabric hit the floor, neither of us bothered tracking where it landed, because suddenly we were flush, chest-to-chest, and each heartbeat threatened to detonate something structural inside.
I let myself collapse back fully onto the couch cushions even though it put me at maximal disadvantage; Fern loomed above, but instead of pressing down immediately, she hovered there on hands and knees watching me squirm under scrutiny.
“Why do you hesitate?” she asked, like she already knew the answer but wanted to hear me say it.
“Because this is reckless,” I breathed.
Fern tilted her head, eyes gleaming. “And?”
“And I’m going to do it anyway.”
That earned another smile, this one softer around the edges, and then Fern kissed me again, open-mouthed and hungry as myth itself. It was everything I’d expected of a mythic liplock.
This time, when she moved against me, there was no pretense: all friction and heat and deliberate intention; where our hips met, she rolled slow circles that set every nerve ending pinging distress calls straight up spinal pathways.
She advanced on me, half-predator and half lover, until I was pressed into the yielding foam of the couch, my legs parted by her thigh, my breathing shallow and fast and painfully audible.
She moved with a confidence that felt older than the room, maybe older than either of us, like she’d once read every script ever written for moments like this, set them on fire, and used the ashes to dust her hands as she went about her own goddamned story.
She caught my jaw in one hand and turned my face up, tilting it so her mouth could find my throat.
Her teeth grazed my skin, not gently, not politely, leaving a trail of heat that mapped out some violent new territory.
She bit just below the hinge of my jaw and smiled when I shuddered, fingers digging deeper into my shoulder as if to anchor me to this reality.
Her other hand was bare against my ribs. I’d always thought of myself as impenetrable armor: all discipline, no chinks. Fern’s touch bypassed all of it, skipping the staged defenses entirely. She played me like an instrument she already knew how to break.
I made a noise that was supposed to be a protest, but came out more like a dare. She met my eyes, opened mere millimeters, and waited there, lips parted and breath deliciously sharp.
“I want you to remember this,” she said, voice low enough that only I would ever hear it. “Every time you try to play at being untouchable.” Her hand swept lower, nails raking along my side as she traced the edge of my waistband with infuriating patience. “You’re not.”
It stung because it was true.
She kissed me again, rougher now, her tongue in my mouth before I even had time to steel myself against it.
The taste was electric: copper and salt and adrenaline distilled into a single impossible flavor profile.
Beneath that, something else: an undertow of burnt ozone and smoke and mythic hunger that had nothing to do with chemistry or biology or any Accord-approved understanding of sex.
My body responded before I could stop it.
My hands found her hips; I pulled her closer instead of pushing her away.
She laughed against my lips and shifted her weight until she straddled me completely, pinning me in place with nothing but leverage and an unspoken certainty that resistance was pointless.
“Tell me to stop,” Fern whispered into the hollow below my ear.
And here’s where protocol failed entirely: I couldn’t speak. Not with words. Not without lying or betraying something I'd spent years pretending wasn’t real.
She didn’t wait for further permission. Her left hand slid between us, the zipper on my uniform pants giving way with humiliating ease, and wormed deftly beneath the last barrier between us.
Her hand was cold at first (because what part of Fern wouldn’t be), but the chill vanished as soon as she pressed her palm flat against me.
She didn’t rush it; she wanted every microexpression off my face, every tremor in muscle memory, every flicker of hesitation or panic or surrender.
Every time I tried to breathe, steady, or clamp down some embarrassing gasp, she did something new: dragged a nail along the inside of my thigh; pressed in slow circles until I thought I might explode from nothing but anticipation; gripped just tight enough to say “I could hurt you if I wanted” but “I won’t”. “Unless you ask nicely.”
“Say it,” she whispered again.