CHAPTER THREE—LORELEI VAUSS

I didn't think it would happen so quickly. It had only been a matter of hours since we sent the distress signal, and I imagined that it had to bounce from satellite to satellite before it finally found its home aboard the Atria.

“They’ve come already?” I asked, as Calder rose to his feet. He took several long strides, following Waelden out of the room, with me close at his heels.

“Not your people,” came his brusque reply, “the Keldeeri.”

The Keldeeri? No, not an official envoy—it couldn’t be. I gathered my skirts in my fists and lifted them just enough to pick up my pace, and the three of us made our way from the warmly glowing banquet hall, back out into the cold steel halls of the Spire.

“You will stay behind me at all times,” Calder barked over his shoulder as we marched down the hall. “Waelden,” he continued, “assemble a coterie of men and have them waiting outside.”

“Absolutely.”

“And then, come in and join us.” Waelden gave a sharp nod of his head, leaving us in front of a closed steel door. He turned on his heel to march back in the direction from which we’d come, and Calder peered down at me, his hand on the doorknob.

“No harm will come to you, Lorelei,” he murmured. “Our marriage vows may be dubious at best, but I swear this much to you.” I nodded mutely, and Calder pushed his way into the room.

The room itself looked rather like a dentist’s waiting room, strangely enough, with uncomfortable looking leather chairs upholstered in orange and yellow fabric turned at an angle toward a low table, upon which was a collection of little potted plants that looked like succulents. The lighting was bright, and I blinked as my eyes adjusted. And then my gaze fell upon three Keldeeri, in unmistakable burgundy uniforms with the Quarter Moon Crest on the lapel.

They were standing behind the chairs when we came in, their hands clasped lightly in front of them. They were situated almost in formation, with the smallest of the three in the front, and the larger two just behind him.

The smallest was dark green in hue, with shrewd yellow eyes. He looked almost as though he were a Human-Keldeeri hybrid, for the texture of his flesh seemed softer than that of his compatriots. He had the blunted mandibles of the Keldeeri, but he had lips like any human man’s, and black hair pulled into a ponytail. His companions were tall, in shades of grey and black respectively. The bulge of their carapaces made the fabric of their uniforms stretch tautly over their chests; they gripped rifles in their long-fingered hands.

“Please forgive the intrusion,” the man in front said, holding out a hand to Calder. “We did not mean to interrupt a wedding banquet.”

“I confess,” Calder said, casting a glance to the Keldeeri’s outstretched hand, but making no move to take it, “I am curious as to what business the Quarter Moon might have with us that is so urgent that we should be pulled away from our celebration.”

The man smiled a thin smile that did not reach his lizard’s eyes. “Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Garrick Thassian, leader of the Quarter Moon.”

“I am Calder Fev’rosk,” came his tepid reply, “King of—”

“I know who you are,” Garrick interrupted. “I have known you all your life. I used to do business with your mother, Ramari Roquare. I knew your father as well. They knew me, and they knew my business.”

“Ramari Roquare would not have done business with slavers,” Calder quipped, crossing his arms in front of him.

“Ah, you see, that is where you are wrong. You will learn, Calder Fev’rosk, that the role of leader of a people is one of constant compromise. And those compromises are often moral ones.”

I swallowed hard and glanced between the men. After a long stretch of silence, Garrick finally turned his eyes on me, and when he did, Calder’s followed. “I neglected to introduce my wife. This is—”

“I know who she is as well,” Garrick said, his tone sharpening. “She is why we are here. Which, of course, you know.” Garrick took a few steps toward me, and I backed up without consciously meaning to do so. I saw Calder tense, even as Waelden slipped silently into the room. A single nod from Waelden is all we needed to know that the men had been assembled. I prayed to any Gods that would hear me that we would not need them.

“What business have you with my wife?” Calder asserted as Garrick approached me.

“You have caused us quite a bit of trouble, Ms. Vauss,” he muttered in Keldeeri instead of Qeteshi so that only I could understand him, his tone sibilant as though he were a talking snake. “Escaping from our ship like that, when you had been promised to one of our best clients.”

“I was taken against my will,” I spat back in Qeteshi, “What did you expect?”

“I expect, that when I pay for five girls, I get the value of five girls. This is business, you understand.” He lifted a hand to tuck an errant lock of hair behind my ear, and I recoiled from his touch, as though he were an open flame. He scowled, and turned his attention then to Calder, who stood stock still, ready to pounce.

“This is a matter of business,” Garrick continued. “You understand business, I’m sure?” Condescending prick.

“I understand that this woman was kidnapped, but she was too clever for you, and you had to chase her across the solar system until her distress signal led you straight to her,” Calder said, smug. “That is what I understand.”

“Allow me to put it bluntly,” Garrick said, lifting his chin in an attempt to make himself seem taller. “I am here for the girl, or I am here for what she is worth, what we lost on her sale. Plus, of course, a small fee for our time and trouble. To say nothing of our damaged escape pod. You know what? As a show of good faith, I’ll waive the fee for the use and destruction of the pod.”

“This is absurd,” I shouted.

But Calder just stood tall and asked, “How much?”

“Excuse me?” I said, looking over at my so-called husband. “You will not pay for me.”

“Eight hundred thousand credits,” Garrick said. “Her sale was for six, but inflation being what it is…” I balked. Eight hundred thousand credits? It was an absurd price. “Someone was willing to pay quite a bit for a taste of your sweet human cunt.”

With Garrick, it was not an open-handed slap the way it had been with Calder. No, instead, I balled my hand into a fist and thrust it forward until it made contact with his nose. His head jerked back, and his hands went up to his face as he let out a startled yelp, and his guards were on me so quickly, I hadn’t even seen them move.

It all happened so fast: The guards threw me to the floor and wrenched my arms behind my back, even as Waelden called in the men he had assembled. Calder leapt into action and hooked an arm around Garrick’s neck, holding him against his body with such force that Garrick was struggling to suck in air through his damaged nose.

“Stop! Stop.” Garrick said, holding his hands out in front of him. He knew well enough that Calder could snap his neck in an instant, and I knew that he would, if the two guards didn’t let me up from where they had me pinned to the cold metal floor.

Calder growled something into Garrick’s ear, and I could not make out what it was from my position on the floor. But eventually, Garrick just said, “Let the girl up. Let her up, I say.” And the guards obliged, one of them withdrew his knee from my back, and the other reached out to give me a hand. I stood up on my own and brushed my hands over the skirt of my gown.

“Now unhand me,” Garrick hissed, but Calder hesitated.

“We have you out numbered,” Calder said. “Give me one reason why we shouldn’t kill you where you stand?”

“To begin, friend,” Garrick said, gripping Calder’s sizable forearm with his two small hands, “you appear to have brought fists to a gun fight.” It was true—the Keldeeri Quarter Moon guards had semiautomatic laser rifles in their hands. They could kill off the lot of us in moments.

“True. You would probably kill us, but not before I snapped your neck like a twig.”

I heaved a sigh, pressing my fingers to my temples as I spoke, “We cannot kill him,” I said, however begrudgingly. “We need to find my friends.”

I stepped up to Garrick with the guards close at my heels, and I locked my green eyes on his yellow ones, and I said their names: “Teldara Kinesse. Tierney Mafaren. Ciara Zehr. Sara Yve. I want them back.”

Garrick chuckled, a choked sort of laugh. “If you think I have committed to memory the name of every whore I ever picked up—” Calder tightened his grip. “All right, all right. Just tell your oafish brute of a husband to let me go, and we can discuss this like civilized individuals. Yes?”

I swallowed hard and gave a nod of my head; Calder let the creature go, and he sucked in a huge gulp of air when he was free. “All right,” Garrick said, straightening out his uniform as he staggered and regained his balance. “These women—I assume they were the ones who were taken with you?”

“They were,” I confirmed.

“I do not know where they are, presently—I was telling the truth! I have not committed the whereabouts of all my slaves to memory. But they may very well still be aboard the ship.”

“I will buy them,” Calder said. “All of them.”

“That, good King, will prove quite a hefty sum. You know many of them are for breeding purposes, and as you well know, certain species are willing to pay a pretty penny to spawn with my girls.”

“I understand that. Name your price.”

“Well, if you’re buying in bulk,” Garrick teased with a disgusting grin between his mandibles, “I don’t see why I couldn’t cut you a bit of a deal. Including your girl? We will call it an even three million.”

“Three million,” Waelden and I echoed lamely in unison, our faces painted with similarly dubious expressions.

“Done,” said Calder, finally extending that hand to seal the deal with Garrick, whose grin could only be described as shit-eating.

Garrick took his hand, and they shook on it. “A pleasure doing business with you,” the little Keldeeri hissed, “your majesty.”

The two men arranged for the transfer of credits, agreeing that the women were to be brought before us before any exchange of currency would take place. “You will come to our ship, won’t you, your highness?” Garrick asked. “You would be my honored guest. Chief among my illustrious clientele.”

“He would never willingly step foot aboard your goddamned slave ship,” I asserted, and I saw the feint of a smile play on Calder’s lips.

“The lady speaks truth,” Calder said, propping his hands up on his hips. “For the time being, our business has concluded. Bring me the girls, and you shall have your credits.”

Garrick gave a sharp nod of his head, indicating that he required a day or so to get his affairs in order, to contact the buyers to whom he’d sold the girls, and manage the so-called “business end of things” before he could bring us what we were owed.

“But you have my word,” he added at length, “I shall return.” With that, Garrick, the slimy little slaver, gave a shallow bow and brushed past us to leave the room, the Spire, and the planet altogether.

When he was gone, I hadn’t realized I had been holding my breath, and I heaved a sigh full of relief, even as the gathered men began to clamor about Calder, voicing their sudden and immediate concerns.

“You’ll bankrupt us, Fev’rosk!”

“That was not solely your money to spend!”

“All for some human pussy?”

“What will we do?”

But Calder held his hands aloft, immediately quieting the agitated crowd. “Gentlemen, please,” he said, and they brought their din down to a grumble. “I have no intention bankrupting us. The women I bought were abducted from their homes. They will surely have people who will want them back.”

“That’s right,” I said, adding my voice in support of the King. “The Echelon will not allow you to bankrupt yourselves, not when you have done them so great a service as return their loved ones to them. One of the abducted girls is a Mafaren, the daughter of one of the highest-ranking members of the Echelon. You will get your money back—I will see to it personally.”

“When?” Waelden demanded. “I am sorry, Calder, but I had not anticipated that you would put the needs of the humans, the needs of the Echelon, or the fleeting desires of your wife before what is best for your people.”

“I have already hailed the Atria,” I said. “When they arrive, as I know they will, I will speak to them on your behalf. Please,” I looked out over the dozen or so Qeteshi warriors in the room around me, trying to muster all of my courage, “please, you do not know what it was like aboard that ship. If those girls are anything like me, they are utterly terrified. They do not know where they’ll be sent, they do not know what manner of man they will be forced to bed. They deserve better than this—all of the women aboard that vessel do.”

And it dawned on me then that this should never have been about getting my friends back. This always should have been about putting a stop to the Quarter Moon slavers altogether. Calder, whose eyes were locked on me, saw the subtle change in my expression as I spoke and gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head before jumping in.

“Patience, friends, as we work this out, for the good of everyone.” And with that dismissive—and vague—comment, the men began to file back into the banquet hall. Calder and I followed them for a time, but after a few moments, he took my hand and led me down a different corridor.

“When we transfer the credits,” I said to Calder, “we will need to implant the data transfer with a set of code that will allow us to track the slave ship.”

“Is that…easy?”

“Easy enough. I’ll write up the code, and we’ll just tell Waelden to send it along with the credit transfer when the slavers return.” Calder bobbed his head in a nod, and we went back to the command room where he stood silently behind me as I cobbled together what little I understood of scripting into a very rudimentary programming.

“Coding is a language in and of itself,” I said to Calder as I worked. “And languages…well, they are just sort of my thing.” The program was designed to run silently in the background, and it would be in whatever computer they used to open the credit transfer. That could be a personal device attached to Thassian himself, or a ship-wide program that would allow us to track the movements of the vessel itself. Either way, we would have our man.

“There,” I said at length. “That is the best I can do. I think it will work, but it is inelegant—they might spot it before it can really do any good.”

“It is a start,” Calder said, and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

“Shall we return to the banquet?” I asked.

“I am through with the public for the night,” he said, and I allowed him to lead me by the hand out of the command room and through an unfamiliar hall. The hallway was dimly lit with incandescent light, and the hall gave way to a modest staircase that led down, down, three flights, until I found myself in a vestibule by a small door. Calder pushed through it, and held it open for me I was met with a blast of freezing air. “This way,” Calder said, and I dutifully followed.

He encircled my shoulders with one strong arm to shield me against the harsh cold of the Winternight, and we moved quickly over the packed dirt that surrounded the spire. The village was quiet, and when I glanced behind us, I could see a warm glow emitting from the Spire itself. That was where most of the town’s inhabitants were, and I wondered where he was taking us that would bring us further and further away from his people.

We jogged through the market—my teeth were rattling as I moved, the cold biting through my gown and burning my skin with frost—and found ourselves by a house near one of the middle rings. The houses were situated in a sort of half-moon around the Spire; this house was about halfway back, just at the edge of the market. The houses looked much the same: sturdy two-story homes made of stone and wood, with shuttered windows and small gardens in the front. And this house, Calder pushed into until the door creaked and gave way. “Inside,” he commanded, and I was all too happy to oblige.

It was slightly warmer inside, but only slightly, and Calder immediately set about building a fire in the pit by the door. This was how it was in Qeteshi households: You had to be careful to walk around the stone fire pit that was at the front of the house. There were no windows or doors at the back.

Calder lit the fire quickly, and with it came warmth, but also light. I looked around: it looked very much like the home he had been building for himself, alone in the wilderness. I could see immediately that this house had been the model he was trying to replicate. But there was a great deal more furniture in this house than there had been in his other place, all of which was covered in bolts of white fabric, and a healthy layer of dust. “Please, sit,” he said, and set a chair for me right next to the fire. The chair was a beautifully carved piece of craftsmanship, made of dark wood that had been oiled to a bright polish. It had stunning details, and I ran my fingers over them as Calder, a King, set about removing the fabric from the furniture. He did it slowly and carefully to make sure that the dust didn’t go flying into the air, and once he had collected everything, he set the fabric in a bit by the door. He lit candles in the far corners of the room until the entirety of the small space came alive with candlelight.

The house was lovely, cozy, and warming up with every passing moment. There was a ladder to my right, and I turned and looked up at the loft where the bed was. The shape of the roof and the position of the flue suggested that the most comfortable spot in the house would be that very loft. Warm, but not boiling hot as it would get in this kitchen space shortly. For now, I was content to boil, since I had come so close to freezing.

“This is your home,” I said quietly against the music of a crackling fire.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “This is my home. And yours now, too.”

I scoffed quietly but smiled all the same. It was beautiful: tapestries adorned the back wall, and everything was either made of hand woven or knit fabrics, or hand-carved wood. There was a table and chairs, armchairs with fitted pillows, ottomans for resting your feet, beautiful wooden trunks, and shelves carved into the walls themselves. It was straight out of a fairytale.

“I didn’t want to spend another moment in the Spire,” he said, gingerly plucking the crown from his noble brow. He held the thing in front of his face as though he did not recognize it, and then set it on the table with a sigh.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, rising and going over to him.

“My first act as king, and I nearly bankrupt my people.”

“You did a wonderful thing in there tonight, Calder,” I said, laying my hand on his arm, but he only jerked away.

“Did I?” He asked. “I gave up my people’s fortunes because I fell for some human girl with more problems than anyone else I’ve ever met.”

“I didn’t ask you to spend all of your people’s money on getting my friends back, Calder,” I shouted. “And don’t you dare behave like I did!”

“What would you have had me do instead? Let the slavers keep them? How might that have played out between us?”

Then it was my turn to sigh. “I’m not going to fight with you again,” I said, rubbing lightly at my eyes with my fingertips. “I’m too exhausted.”

“Fine,” he conceded. “Let’s go to bed.”

“Fine.”

Calder climbed up to the loft and relieved the furniture of its protective covers, and I joined him, finding that I was right about the upstairs space, that it was pleasant in terms of temperature. I tugged at the laces of my gown until it was loose enough to tug up over my head, but my sore hand—the one I’d used to punch Garrick in the nose—caught in the sleeve and I sucked in a sharp gasp of air between my teeth as I tugged it free.

“Are you hurt?” Calder said, advancing on me. I was naked in the dim glow of candlelight, modesty be damned, and I thought little of it. He was my husband, after all.

“I’ll be all right,” I insisted, cradling the hand near to my torso. Calder reached out to take my injured appendage gently in his overlarge hand, chuckling quietly as he examined it.

“What?” I asked, smiling somewhat in the dark at the sound of his laughter.

“The moment where you reeled back and punched a Keldeeri Quarter Moon Slaver,” he said, his tone low and full of mirth, “that is the moment where I knew I loved you.”

My heart did a full backflip in the hollow of my chest before swan-diving into the pit of my stomach. “You love me?” I whispered the question, as though I were afraid to break the spell if I had misheard.

“Of course,” he said plainly, letting go of my hand and unbuttoning his brocade doublet. “I think I loved you from the first moment I saw you. But when you hit that man, I was certain.”

“But,” I protested, my breasts rising and falling with the rapidity of my breathing, “you yell at me all the time, argue with me.”

“Yes,” he said, chuckling again, “I said I loved you, not that I did not also find you infuriating. Because I do, in fact, find you infuriating.”

“Well,” I snapped, “you are pretty infuriating yourself!”

He grinned. “I never once claimed otherwise.” He kicked off his boots and tugged down his breeches and was as bared to me was I was to him. I felt a twinge between my thighs and was made suddenly aware by how desperately I wanted him.

He looked at me appraisingly, as though he were considering coming over to me and taking me in his arms. I thought perhaps that I would let him, that I would drop all of my defenses and just let him have me, let myself have him. But after a small and breathless silence, he tugged back the patchwork quilt and climbed into bed.

I gave myself a silent admonishment and joined him, pleasantly surprised by the pillowy down mattress onto which I’d climbed. I laid my head down and turned onto my side, facing away from him, though I could feel the warmth of his body radiating beneath the blankets.

“Thank you,” I said at last to the empty air around us, “for helping me, and those women. You didn’t have to—in fact, I imagine your people would have been much happier if you hadn’t. But thank you, all the same.”

“You are welcome,” He said plainly, and allowed the silence to settle over us once more. Maybe he could sleep, but I couldn’t. He loved me? After, what, a handful of days together? He didn’t know me well enough to love me! How could you love someone when you’d only been around them for a week, under very bizarre circumstances? He didn’t know what I was really like, day to day.

I tossed myself over onto my other side so that I was facing him, and in the dim and dying light of our only candle, I could see that he’d thrown his arm over his eyes. I furrowed my brow, trying to determine whether or not he had actually gone to sleep that quickly.

He couldn’t possibly love me. Could he? I’d married him, but that had been because I needed his aid, so that I was not simply repossessed by the slavers that had taken me. That’s why I’d done it. Right?

I flipped myself onto my back and stared up at the ceiling, where tiny abstract shadows were dancing. I could hear the fire crackling downstairs; I could feel his warmth. And for the first time since this entire disaster began, I noticed that I was not clamoring to go home. In fact, the idea of going back to the Atria filled me with a sort of…sadness. I wanted to help the other women, and I turned their names over and over in my brain, reaffirming my promise to them with each repetition. But after I’d helped them, after I’d gone to the Atria to ask for the funds to give back to the Qeteshi village, then what? Would I simply stay there, forget about this place? Forget about Calder?

I turned my head and looked at him, watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest. No. I would never forget. But could I stay? And be a mate to a King? Be a Queen? No. I did not think I could do that either.

“Are you asleep?” I whispered.

“I am not,” he said in a normal tone, but he didn’t move his arm away from his eyes.

“I need to ask you something,” I said, and sat upright on the mattress, gathering the blanket up under my chin to keep myself warm and to preserve what little remained of my modesty.

“Very well,” he said, and drew his arm away, turning his gaze to take me in.

“How is it that you can love me when you don’t even really know me?” I asked, sort of stunned as I tried to work through it in my brain. “How can you know how you feel about me at all, in so short a time?”

He sighed quietly and sat up, leaning back against the carved wood of the headboard. “Love is not something you feel,” he said levelly, “it is something you do. I pull your body from the wreck of the escape pod; I care for you until you wake; I bring you to this village; I marry you to save you from the slavers; I buy your friends so that they may go home; I lead you to the center of the Spire so that you may send the signal that will ultimately take you away from me. In all of these actions, I love.”

“But—”

“And you do, too. Maybe not me, specifically, but you love. Every move you have made has been in service to the other women. That is a great act of courage; that is a great act of love.”

I adjusted myself to sit cross-legged and scooted slightly closer to Calder. “That isn’t how we humans talk about love,” I said. “Love is…romantic and sweeping. It’s about…feeling a deep connection with the person you love, and about being willing to sacrifice everything for that feeling.”

“I am willing to sacrifice precisely nothing for a feeling,” he said, veritably sneering when he said the word “feeling”. “But I am willing to lay down everything I have for you. For you, Lorelei.” He was staring at me, but after a moment he gave a slow shake of his head. “There is no need to make it so complicated. I am not asking you to love me, I am not asking for acts of love, and I am not performing my own acts because I hope that they will win you. Love is not something you fall into accidentally; love is a decision. I love you with no strings attached; I love you for free.”

Calder rubbed at his eyes, and I could do nothing but stare at him, slack-jawed. Could it really be as simple as that? And given so freely, so openly? I felt a lump rising in my throat, and I didn’t trust my voice not to crack over it, so I said nothing. “Now,” Calder went on, “can we please, please go to sleep?”

I shrugged off the blanket then and moved on all fours toward him, catlike and full of purpose. I climbed onto him, straddling him so that the only thing between us was the patchwork quilt, and slid my arms about his neck.

I kissed him, gently lapping at his tongue with my own like a cat drinking cream. I pressed my breasts against the smooth skin of his chest, and a thrill shot down my spine as I felt his hands travel up the length of my thighs and settle on my hips.

He slipped one of his hands between us, and his fingers found the already slick and ready entrance of my sex. He slipped two fingers inside of me and I undulated my hips, riding his fingers as though they were his cock. He grinned a roughish sort of grin, pleased that I was already so wet with my wanting. But when I reached back with one of my hands to tug the blanket away, I felt his hardness and grinned back as though to say, I am not the only one of us who is ready.

I gripped him in my fist and stroked the length of his shaft until he was at his full rigidity. His breath caught in his throat, and he allowed his eyes to come to a close. He withdrew his fingers then, and I sat up slightly on my knees so that I could direct him home.

“Lore,” he said, and I wasn’t sure if it was a plea or a protestation, but I felt him there and needed him inside me. I waited, and locked my eyes on his, and he gripped me by the hips and thrust himself inside of me. I let out a cry, never breaking eye contact, and began to move with an easy rise and fall, slow and rhythmic. I reveled in how totally he filled me; I kissed him to drive our connection home.

After a moment, he encircled my waist with one strong arm and lifted me up as he rose to his knees. He threw me down onto my back and turned me over, before tugging me onto all fours and thrusting into me once more. He bent himself fully over me, his hands next to mine on the nest of blankets beneath us, pressing kisses to neck and shoulders as he fucked me. He quickened his pace, his pelvis slapping against my bottom with each quick thrust.

“I want to feel your release,” he grunted, slowing somewhat with the oncoming threat of his own orgasm. He stood straight on his knees and stayed still as I rocked myself back and forth against him, moaning as the tip of his prick worked my G-spot.

“Here,” I said, and reached back to lead one of his hands between my thighs to just above where we were joined. I pressed his middle finger to my clitoris. “Rub me here,” I breathed, and he obliged.

“I want to watch you,” He all but growled, “I want to see your face.” And I pulled away and flipped over onto my back as he came to stand at the edge of the back. He hooked his elbows around my bent knees and tugged me forward so that my ass was on the very edge of the bed, and I reached forward between us to curl my fingers around his slippery shaft and directed it back into me.

He bucked his hips forward, making my tits bounce with every thrust, and pressed his thumb against my clit. But after a moment, he took my hand and directed my own fingers to the engorged kernel of my desire, and I began to rub myself as he fucked me. He gripped my breast with one hand and bent forward, peering into my face.

“Come for me,” he whispered, and I could do nothing but obey his command. I shuddered as my body tense and released, popping like an arrow shot from the taut string of a bow.

Urged by the sensations of my own orgasm, Calder grunted and gave one final thrust deep into me, orgasming with the full force of his considerable strength. He trembled, and collapsed atop me, panting as I felt his member quiver in my sheath. I caught his lips in a kiss and he kissed me back, brushing my hair back from my forehead.

When his breathing and mine had returned to normal, he pulled away, and I felt his hot come run down my thighs. I smiled. “Yes,” I said at length, and he quirked a brow at me as he propped his head up on his head, “Yes. We can finally, finally go to sleep.”