Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
“Oh.” She sounds dazed.
She also doesn’t get up from her spot on the edge of the bed, which tells me everything. We’re not there yet. We’re not at the carnal stage of our marriage, and I fight down the lick of impatience that curls up my spine. She’s gone through a lot in the last week. Hells, I’ve gone through a lot, too. It’s perfectly fine to wait. It’s only the moon—and the knot I’ll be forming—that’s making me addled with lust.
“How was your trip?” Aspeth asks in a bright voice as I scrub at my skin. “Was it a rescue mission?”
“Oh, it was.” My tone sounds bitter, even to myself. I try not to let guild politics get to me, but this season I can’t seem to get away from them. “It took us two days of hard tunneling to find a brand-new team laid out with three broken ankles. They weren’t even in a newer tunnel, or a deeper one. Just idiots doing idiotic things, I guess.”
“Did they find anything?”
I turn toward her, immediately suspicious. “Cave mushrooms, hence the broken ankles. They started hallucinating and ran off a ledge. Luckily it was a short drop. Unluckily for us, we had to carry them back.”
She makes a sympathetic sound. “So no artifacts? That’s a shame.”
“Why is it a shame?” I’m still prickly, thinking about Tiercel’s comments from earlier. About Aspeth being a spy…
Aspeth sighs heavily. “I’m vicariously dreaming through them, I suppose. I’ve always wanted to find an artifact. Not just any artifact, but something important. Something world-changing.” She chuckles, her expression wistful. “I suppose I should settle for ‘any artifact’ before I start going on about world-changing ones, right? It’s just…it must be so exciting. I can’t imagine wasting your time in the tunnels with getting high.”
I relax, because I understand what she means. There’s a rush you get when you first discover something of importance. It’s a heady feeling that’s only compounded when you turn it in to the guild and find out what it truly is…or you’re devastated to find out that it’s a dupe. Or broken. “This is a heartbreaking business,” I tell her. “It gives you the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.”
“More highs than lows, I hope.”
I think of Magpie, and how often she returns to the bottle despite swearing that she’ll quit. “That’s the hope, aye.”
“Mmm.” She’s quiet for a long moment. “May I ask you something, Hawk?”
“Of course.” I dunk the washcloth again, trying to focus on getting clean.
“Do Taurians kiss?”
And there goes my focus. My cock stiffens, surfacing through the water like some sort of hungry leviathan. Aspeth isn’t thinking about artifacts entirely. “Kissing is a human invention. It’s not as comfortable for Taurians. Our mouths don’t work quite like yours. We prefer tail play to show public affection.”
“I see.”
She’s quiet for another long moment, and it takes everything I have not to look over at her. If I do, I worry she’ll see the smolder in my gaze and get skittish. It’s too soon for my eyes to turn red with the Conquest Moon but five hells, I’m feeling its nearing presence in every throb of my cock.
Aspeth is oblivious to my internal turmoil, however. Her voice grows bemused. “I suppose I shouldn’t find it strange. My parents were a marriage of convenience and I don’t recall ever seeing them kiss. Lots of marriages are for convenience’s sake and I know I’m not the first human to marry a Taurian. I suppose I’m not missing out.”
Missing out?
Missing out? Because of marriage to a Taurian?
I stand fully upright, letting the water sluice off my form. My cock is fully hard and dripping water just like the rest of me, and I look over at her, making sure she sees every last bit of what is on display. “I’ll make sure you don’t feel things are lacking. Trust me.”
She’s comfortable on the bed, snuggled up with her cat. At the sight of me, her gaze goes to my cock and stays there, her eyes wide as if she’s just now realizing our size difference. She blinks. Squints. Blinks again. Bites her lip.
Doesn’t look away, though. Not even when I reach over to pick up a towel and dry my arms off, making sure my cock continues to swing free, stabbing at the air with hungry need.
Aspeth sits up slowly, setting the cat on the floor and hanging her legs over the side of the bed. Her expression has changed to thoughtfulness even as she continues to stare at my cock. It prickles with the heat of her gaze, and I can feel pre-cum sliding down the domed head.
“I—” she begins, her voice a croak.
I bite back a chuckle.
She clears her throat and tries again. “I cannot help but think about how you showed me your cock. Would you like to see my body, too?”