Page 42 of Fathom

There was only one solution.

It took every ounce of my willpower to even want to pull out of her, the tight sucking of her channel gripping me so hard it bordered on pain simply because of how much I wanted to thrust back into her, my every instinct demanding that I stay right where I was, keeping her in that position and thrusting into her until I spilled my seed again and again. I had to fight against the intense desire to keep going.

I focused on getting my knot to relax, to release.

I pulled out as gently as I could, and she let out a soft cry as I finally popped out.

She lay there on the kitchen counter, her entire body limp, my seed beginning to ooze out of her.

I grabbed a washcloth and wet it with warm water before returning to gently wipe her, softly caressing her. First, I had to take care of her. I had mounted her with all the viciousness of my bloodlust, taking her hard.

I needed to take care of her, to atone for how I had brutalized her.

"Eun," she murmured, putting her hands down on the counter as she wiggled back to drop off over the edge and put her feet on the floor. Even as she did, I scooped her up off her feet and carried her to the washroom adjoining her bedroom. I carried her to the shower, turned on the water to a comfortable temperature, and carried her into it. I let go of her legs, intending to set her down on her feet, but she gripped my shoulders and wrapped them around my waist instead. As her soft, wet mound brushed against my lower abdomen, I froze, my cock bobbing up to brush against her backside, waves of lust spilling over me as I thought of thrusting back into her, pushing my seed back inside her, and adding more to the mix.

I couldn't do that.

As desperately as I wanted her, as much as I thought of her as mine, she hadn't agreed to be mine. We weren't mated in the eyes of the law. My urge to breed her was unacceptable, a foul urge of a deviant predator trying to take and keep what didn't belong to him. I needed to help her clean my seed out of her and then do everything in my power to get her off this planet.

Then she clamped her knees against my side and lifted her hips up. She tilted her face up to mine, and then she pressed her lips against mine, the delicate softness of them a torment. I groaned as I leaned her back against the tile wall, following the pathways her mouth carved against mine, tasting her tongue as it slipped in between my lips and traced the edges of my fangs. She reached down between our bodies and gripped my shaft, angling it against her opening.

I was lost in her.

I slid back inside of her with a deep thrust that caused her to gasp against my lips even as my body curved, bending over tokiss her and fuck her at the same time. Then she pulled away, her face pressing against my chest, her arms gripping my shoulders like a lifeline as the wet slaps of our bodies filled the room, my frantic thrusting creating a staccato rhythm against the spray of the water that coursed over us as I pinned her back against the shower wall and took her. Her channel was clamping down again, and I was so deep inside her, my seed spilling from me again, my knot swelling to lock us together again as she screamed my name and clawed at my back with her blunt nails, her wrists tangling in the thick strands of my hair as I pinned her there and took her.

We panted in the stillness together before I slid slowly down to my knees, carrying her down with me. She sat in my lap, impaled on me, her arms trembling on my shoulder, her forehead against my chest, the water running over both of us, and I knew I couldn't pretend anymore that I could hold myself back from her. There was no stopping. I was going to have her over and over again until we were both exhausted and her body had no choice but to quicken.

"Leija," I murmured her name, and the sound of my voice caused her to look at me with her pleasure-clouded eyes.

She smiled at me, the expression so soft and gentle, a vision of fragile vulnerability, that it broke my heart.

"You're mine," I told her, unable to express the love and terror that filled me all at the same time.

"Yes," she said, her eyes a reflection of my own joy and fear.

Then I pushed her back down against the floor of the shower, my body shielding her face from the water as I mounted her again, completely lost in the urge to breed her.

And there was only one way I knew how to keep her safe.

Only one way to keep hermine.

FIFTEEN

LEIJA

We were in some kind of bureaucratic building, waiting.

Windowless, dimly lit, reminiscent of a basement, even though we were on the second floor of a very tall structure. The space felt intentionally drab, sterile in that government-issued sort of way. And yet… it was one of the largest buildings I’d seen. We’d taken a private hovercar to get to this part of town, what I would call a downtown section of a major metropolitan area, where towers stretched into the sky like stone trees. I'd woken up after what seemed like an endless session of primal fuckery, limp, relaxed, and warm in Eun's arms. Only for him to feed me, set out a beautiful new shimmering yellow dress I'd never seen before, and then whisk me off into the city. I didn't know where we were going, but Eun seemed downright nervous about it.

It was his first day out of the apartment in weeks, so I wouldn't have been surprised if he had given himself a mild caseof agoraphobia. That seemed even more likely since he relaxed once we were inside this drab example of how bureaucracy could have the same stale soul-sucking design even on an alien planet. We'd gone up to a window, and he told the person there our names, and now we were waiting to be called. I couldn't imagine anyone thinking that a color that couldn't decide whether it was grey or beige would be relaxing. There were some decorations in this windowless building.

A poster hung on the far wall.

Two aliens stood hand-in-hand, gazing into each other’s eyes beneath a painted sunset, the more feminine-looking of them wearing a soft yellow dress, in a different style but the exact same color as the one I was wearing. Eun had insisted I wear the outfit, and it had hung on my body strangely, draping over my curves. I couldn't wait to get my hands on more fabric like this, flowing and soft. I missed making my own clothing. I'd been so focused on learning that I had stepped away from my joy, but I knew I would get back to it, when my life settled down.

My heart thudded in my chest as I suddenly realized I knew exactly where we were.

I recognized the poster. I recognized the building.