Page 10 of The Interdimensional Lord's Earthly Delight

No,hewas lifting her, spinning her toward one of the benches tucked between two planters where trailing vines of the yellow blossoms created an intimate bower.

Wait… Had the topiary been so overgrown before? The wild roving vines were so unlike the bold geometric shapes the Thorkons favored.

And then she couldn’t care about alien theology or botany, only the most basic biology—andshe was an eager student—as he laid her down on the wide lip of concrete. The coolness through her gown should’ve shocked her, but the contrast to the hot need coursing through her only made her arch upward into his embrace with a moan.

The musky sweetness of the flowers drenched them, and he never stopped kissing her as he flipped up the hem of her skirts. His fingers trailed up the backsideof her leg from ankle to mid-calf in a not-quite tickle that made her bend her knee to him to relieve the unbearable sensation.

To wordlessly demand he give her more.

The brush of his touch on the inner curve of her bare thigh made her head tilt back into the crook of his other arm where he supported her sprawl across the bench. She found herself staring up at the black hole which, by the spinof the station, had centered itself at the peak of the skylight, though the long tangle of vines had partially obscured the panes.

For once she didn’t even care about that menacing eye. She wanted it to see her being alive and fearless when Blackworm had tried to steal both of those from her.

She splayed her knees wider—and said a blessing of her own for the Thorkon habit of leaving aside underwearwhen Tynan’s hand drifted higher while his mouth trailed from her lips down the column of her throat to lick at her raging pulse.

He made a rough, hungry sound in the back of his throat when his hand closed over her mound, as reverent as when he’d cupped the flower, and nestled one finger through the tight pubic curls to trace her slick folds. The scent of her arousal—sweeter and muskier thanthe flowers—reached her, and she let out a moan.

With a belated hint of shame, she tightened her thighs, about to close him out. She hadn’t come here (oh, how she wanted to come, right here, right now!) to hook up with an alien pastor on a park bench under the permanent night sky.

But when he eased his long finger inside her and crooked it into her G spot, her knees parted like the landingbay doors.C’mon in.

But he seemed in no hurry to unload. He stroked her trembling channel while managing to keep the heel of his palm snug against her clit. As if he already knew exactly what she wanted and how she liked it.

She couldn’t believe she was letting this happen, lying back in the curve of his arm as he found the deepest hidden secrets of her pleasure. He kissed at her pulse again,harder, sucking until she bowed up to him with a gasp. The movement strained the V neck of her gown, and with a groan of satisfaction, he nuzzled past the gaping décolletage and licked her nipple.

She shuddered and clung to him while he drew the swollen peak over the edge of his teeth, his tongue flicking the sensitized nub even as his thumb set a matching cadence against her clit.

Oh, the onlything more dangerous to her vigilant equilibrium than a poet was a drummer…

And how fucked up was it that the realization of the threat to her carefully curated prudence sent her over the edge?

She always tried to be a good, giving, game lover, but she came with a strangled scream and a selfish satisfaction as if she were doing it all herself, only for herself. And he urged her on, stoking eachwave of her orgasm to its peak before letting her down, finally, to rest in the crook of his arm.

“Your legs tremble,” he murmured against her mouth. “But that is only the first invocation of the beloved.”

He kissed her again, fiercely, three of his fingers buried inside her, and the perfume of her pleasure was eclipsed by the overwhelming fragrance of the flowers. The alien pollen was an unfamiliarflavor on his tongue—deeper than the flowers’ scent, like molasses was darker than honey; had it been on her breast?—and she spasmed one last time against his touch, with one last thought as she swooned…

What was the second prayer?