Page 30 of The Alien in the Archive (Galactic Librarians #1)

30

PAGE

I t’s finally happening.

The culmination of all our need, all the longing, all the nights yearning for him while he yearned for me. Our minds collide, become entangled, and I can feel everything.

How much he’s wanted me, how difficult it’s been to hold back. How he’s tried so desperately to say no when everything in us has been screaming to say yes.

I grab the lapels of his threadbare button-up, gasping for breath in the space between kisses. We’ve barely done a thing, all we’ve done is kiss…but I’m already shaking, my hands trembling. Thorne reaches up to take my hands in his, helping me calm down, meeting my eyes.

Then, wordlessly, he begins to unbutton his shirt, revealing the alabaster plane of his chest, his breastbone, hard, dark nipples surrounded by muscle. It’s like he’s carved from marble, and I’m a sunbeam—everywhere I touch him, he warms up nearly instantly. Subtle veins of silver pulse beneath his skin, his abdomen—oh God, his shirt is open now and I’m seeing him, touching him, spreading my hands wide across bare flesh.

“Page,” he groans, voice hoarse and cracking. His hands move back to my face, kissing my mouth, then my cheek, then down my neck and collarbone. I push his shirt from his shoulders, leaving it on the pristine frostglass floor. “Tell me to stop.”

“Don’t stop,” I gasp. “Don’t ever stop.”

He stoops to reach further, then his arms are around me and I’m wrapping my limbs around him, clinging to him. He carries me to one of the plush couches lining the circular room, still kissing me. I feel cold when I’m parted from him, but I think it helps him get some composure, because he pauses and looks down at me.

“You’re stunning,” I whisper. “Thorne…please?—”

He kneels before me and reaches for the hem of my shirt. I raise my arms over my head, lose sight of him for a moment; then he’s there again, looking me over. All I have on today is a lace bralette, my nipples hard and visible underneath it. He cups my breasts with his big hands, long fingers finding the peaks.

“You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he tells me, and it means even more when we’re in this place, this ancient reading room that I think is far more beautiful than I could ever be.

I reach behind me to unclasp my bra, wanting to touch him, skin to skin. I’ve had enough of hiding from him, waiting, teasing—this moment, right now, is for us to come together completely. He makes a deep, masculine noise as I toss the bra away, tangling my fingers in his hair and biting my lip.

“Will you…” I start.

I don’t have to finish my sentence; he already knows what I like .

Thorne extends his dusky pink tongue to lick one nipple, then the other, black and silver eyes fixed on me, hooded with lust. I watch as he moves slowly, savoring every taste of me, every shared sensation. I moan, breathing shallow, and I start to tremble again.

He doesn’t try to stop me this time.

“Have you ever come this way?” he murmurs. “Just from this…because I would like to explore that possibility.”

“Fuck, you are…so much better at this than I expected,” I gasp.

He smirks. “Was that a challenge?”

I bite my lip. “Maybe.”

He pushes me gently down to my back, climbing over me, boxing me in. He rolls his hips as he settles between my legs, and I feel that hard cock once again…and fuck, I know it’ll be inside me soon. My pussy clenches at the thought of that moment, eager for it.

“I don’t want to rush this,” he growls as he senses my anticipation, still teasing my breasts, tasting, sucking. “Patience, beloved…”

“We’ve taken this so slow,” I groan, twisting my fingers in his long hair. “Thorne, I want you…and we have plenty of time…plenty of time to explore.”

He kisses down my belly, over my hipbone, finds the button of my slacks. His dexterity is impressive; I’m shaking so much with need that I don’t think I could hold a glass of water, let alone undress him. “If we have plenty of time, why are you in such a rush?” he teases.

“Do you want me to beg?”

The words are out before I even realize I’m saying them, and his eyes meet mine. His long fingers are hooked in my waistband, but he stops in his tracks, his lips curving in a smirk.

“Yes,” he says. “I would. ”

Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, he’s a freak.

I lift myself to my elbows and lean against the arm of the couch, looking him in the eye.

“Please, Thorne,” I plead, swallowing hard. “I need you to fuck me. Please, please fuck me.”

He starts that inexorable drag of my pants and underwear down my thighs, over my knees. His eyes never leave mine as he lets the garments drop to the floor, then stands. My breath somehow gets even more ragged as I watch him undo his pants, my eyes darting to his waist.

He pauses.

“I need to see you,” I go on. “I need to see all of you or I’m going to lose my mind, Thorne, please?—”

He finally pulls his pants over his hips, down his thighs…and my mouth waters at the sight of him, my inner walls clenching. I don’t know what I expected, but he’s…more alien than I thought he would be, I suppose. The head is a faint pink, turning to white, then a dusk grey at the base. Mostly like a human, but then there are ridges—one, two, three, and I can imagine each one sliding inside me, pulling back, again. And at the base…a slight swelling, bigger than I’ve ever had.

“I…uh, wow,” I breathe. “I don’t…”

He sets his knees on the couch, then he crawls toward me. I spread my legs for him, welcoming him into the cradle of my thighs. Just the tip of him presses inside me and we both gasp, his hair falling in a curtain around me as he braces one hand against the arm of the couch, the other on my hip.

“You’ll take me,” he promises, voice low and rough. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not,” I rush out. I look from where his cock presses against my pussy, up to his eyes. “I know you would never hurt me.”

He takes a shuddering breath, then kisses me gently …

…and slides the head inside.

I cry out into his mouth, reaching up to grasp his shoulders. He moans with me, pulls away from my lips, sucks in a breath.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

I nod vigorously, gasping. “Keep going, please.”

Then I feel the alien texture of him—slightly harder and rougher on top, stimulating my g-spot and clit as he slides inside. I let out another breathy moan as one ridge pops in…then the next begins, pleasure flaring. He’s already so deep when he pushes the third ridge past my entrance that I have to shift to accommodate him, and it somehow enhances the pleasure, nearly making me come just from having him inside me. I clench around him over and over, unable to stop myself?—

“Page,” he groans. “This…is why I wanted to go slow.”

“What–?”

“I don’t want to come before you have,” he grits out. “Is this too much?”

“No, not too much,” I stammer. “I want that…I want the rest of you.”

He locks eyes with me, and somehow manages an amused, lust-hazed smile. “It’s called the knot.”

“The what?”

He thrusts slightly deeper, stretching me. The noises I’m making are inhuman, unintelligible. We both have to stop for a moment and steady ourselves at the new sensations as I close around him.

“Borean anatomy…” he trails off, groans as he continues, one centimeter at a time. “This will…swell. Lock me inside you. I won’t be able to pull out until well after I’ve finished.”

Some logical part of my brain, the part that works like an encyclopedia, reminds me there are other species with similar features. But in that moment, my instincts take over .

I hook my feet around his waist and, taking him by surprise, I pull him the rest of the way.

I bite my lip so hard I’m sure I’m bleeding. Thorne moans, deep and throaty, squeezing his eyes shut. When he opens them again, I can see the shocked desire in his gaze, and I relish the power I have over him in that moment. He cups my face and rests his forehead against mine, whispering, “My bold, beautiful beloved.”

And then we start to move.

I rock against him, slowly first, then building momentum. The motion makes him just barely move inside me. But the texture, the ridges, the knot; it makes it a full, agonizingly pleasurable experience. The euphoria is overwhelming, stimulating places inside me that no human man ever could.

“You are perfect,” he praises me, brushing his lips to mine. “You are everything.”

My fingers dig into Thorne’s shoulders as he grips my hip, guiding us both into the perfect rhythm. His thrusts are powerful, each one sending a vibration from my core to the tips of my fingers. I arch my back, reveling in the feeling of him inside me, every hard inch. I look into his eyes, our bodies intertwining like two halves of a whole, our minds twisting together.

And I know he feels it too.

Our hips begin to move in sync, filling the room with the obscene, divine sounds of our coupling. With each thrust, I feel his knot swell inside me, stretching me. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced, both strange and remarkable. I’m lost in bliss, my mind focused on nothing but him—and even if I wandered, he would be there, pulling me back, promising an eternity.

And before I can stop myself, I’m saying something I know I shouldn’t.

“I love you. ”

I open my eyes, suddenly anxious about how he’ll respond as he almost grinds to a halt.

…but then he’s kissing me, and he’s whispering, gasping, “Yes, beloved, beloved… ” And I know then that he’s been saying it for days—and even if this is too new to really know, I know .

I cling to him, my heart pounding hard against my chest as he continues to thrust, as I continue to rise to take him. The intensity of our emotions gives color and texture and heat to the joining of our bodies, and I feel like a watercolor painting, like we’re melding together. We’re wild and uncontrolled, but undeniably right.

He pulls back, black eyes shining, the silver more pronounced than ever. “I need you to say it again,” he rasps.

“I love you,” I offer, no hesitation. “I love you…”

His smile is triumphant, his eyes gleaming with desire as he leans in and claims my mouth in a desperate kiss. “I love you, too,” he says as he pulls back. “ Mine …”

Then we’re unable to speak, our bodies, our minds impossibly entangled. I can feel the end coming, the desperation of Thorne’s thrusts intensifying. He buries his face in my neck, breathes me in, plants messy kisses to my pulse.

We climax together, perfectly in sync, careening into oblivion. Thorne’s knot expands completely, locking him inside me, and the heat of his spend is like a drop of ink into water, changing me forever. My nails press divots into his back, time standing still as I struggle to suck in air.

The room goes quiet, save for our breathing.

Thorne is so warm against me.

He moves his face from my neck, gazing down at me, and we kiss…long and slow, lazy. We’re both spent, but he is—as promised—still locked inside me…and fuck, it somehow feels good. Normally I would be anxious to get out of bed, clean up, have a moment to myself .

But I don’t ever want to leave his side.

“Stay with me,” I ask him.

He knows I don’t mean here, not in this room, not even on M’mir. I mean stay …because I can’t imagine a life without him.

This is it.

I came here to study the past, and somehow, I found my future.

He doesn’t respond, but he curls his body around me, rolling us so that he’s beneath me, my legs straddling him as his cock softens. He strokes my hair and I rest against his chest, inhaling the scent of him—old books, turning pages, ink, and Thorne . I can tell there’s something lurking at the fringes of his mind, a thought he wants to share, but he keeps it locked away.

“I’m going to get you out of the Obscuary,” I tell him, keeping my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “I’m going to find a way.”

He doesn’t stop stroking my hair. “I know you will, beloved.”

I lift my eyes to his, brow furrowed. “So you…you’ll come with me?”

He cups my face in his hands, smiling. “Of course I will,” he murmurs. “I love you , Patience McRae. Where you lead, I go.”