great pride among our people; a courting tool and custom, what a male displays for his intended, with the flashing, lustrous scales of his ancestors carefully sewn onto the fabric. It’s his pedigree, laid out in cloth and scales and string, a thing of beauty fit for his future mate to wear when they join together.
That Matthew’s family has no scales to represent them is no matter. Locks of hair were sent for (a feat made feasible because his entire clan joined us on my home planet some months ago), and I’ve been incorporating them into the canvas, this symbol of our joined lives.
“Inara…” Matthew breathes, unintentionally causing my ear to flutter from his lips’ proximity and his warm, tickling breath. “This is for Kash?”
“It is,” I murmur, turning enough to kiss his jaw. His short-shorn hairs still register to my senses, but they no longer feel strange.
They feel… like Matthew. They feel exciting and comforting and right.
I’ve been lightly shimmying against him since his arms encircled me, and my efforts have not been in vain. At my kiss, he brings his hips harder against me, and at my lower back, I feel his hardness has taken shape.
His claw-less hands find my hips, his fingers biting into my scaled flesh as he steadies me, acting as if he must pin me in place in order to introduce me to his member.
My tail twitches to the side, the end of it curling around his ankle and sliding up his leg, tailblades tapping along his hard thigh while I ponder the merits of slicing his pants off of him for the sheer shock value before he takes me.
Because I do the mending in the house, I know I could repair any damage… but it’s too wasteful for me to act on. Instead, I reach back, placing my hand on his rump, digging my claws into his muscle, enjoying his growl at my ear as he hugs me to him, bringing his hips harder to my backside, pinning my front to the edge of the table.
With sure hands, he bunches my dress, yanking it up until he can shove it above my hips, baring me to his seeking touch.
“I’ve been thinking of you all daycycle,” I explain, as his questing finger sinks into me. “Of last night, the way you took me with your mouth.”
“Wet enough to drown in, fuck,” he says to me, voice rough and excited at the state I’m in. He straightens, but doesn’t drop my dress. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking of last night either.” He brings himself against me, the bite of his buckle exciting me like a nip, his hardness thrilling me as he displays for me what thoughts of us do to him.
“Are you going to take me here?” I ask, realizing how titillated the idea makes me feel. Now that we have a litter, we rarely get to ‘Christen the rest of our cave with lovemaking,’ to borrow my mate’s phrasing.
“There won’t be a better chance,” he says with a grin he makes sure I feel because he says it into my throat before he lays another kiss on me. “Hands on the table,” he orders.
“Wait,” I pant, turning in his arms, running my touch along his chest. “I want to undress you.”
With a pleased smirk, he backs up, giving me space to work his clothes off the way I like—hungrily, and with careful nips and eager kisses to his human skin.
He feels wonderful to me, everywhere I touch him. But when I’ve freed the length of his passion and he draws my thigh up, catching me behind the knee and pressing me to rest my hind on the table, it’s safe to say this part of him is currently the most wonderful of all as he drives himself inside me.
But then his mouth comes to mine, taking my lips, and his hands clutch my hip, my waist—and I love these touches from him just as much. “Inara,” he moans raggedly into my hairstrands as he thrusts deep.
Wrapping my arms around his shoulders, I hang onto him, kissing along the wide bones at his collar, showing him a little bit of my teeth before I lave away their pricks. “Fuck me harder, Matthew,” I order.
He does. But soon his kisses turn gentle, the action of his hips matching his loving mood.
Which is appreciated, of course, but here in our kitchen in this stolen moment together, I don’t want to be savored. I want