Kain didn’t talk on the drive home, but he did hold her hand. Valentina stared down at their hands clasped on her lap. He wasn’t tugging her somewhere, he wasn’t helping her down, he was just holding her hand. She couldn’t remember if anyone had ever done that before.

She was confused and off-kilter. She’d thought this bubbling in her chest would go away if they just fucked real quick, but they’d done that and no luck. Her heart was still all pat-pat-pat in her chest.

He’d said they weren’t done but she had no idea what that meant. They’d both come, right? She definitely had, and she had the evidence of his orgasm between her legs.

So why was he looking at her like that as he flipped the car off? She didn’t wait for him to come around and open her door. She pushed right out and stood there staring at him.

“So impatient,” he smiled down at her, taking her hand and adjusting his hat.

He led her into the house and shut the door behind them. Valentina couldn’t stop glancing at him. He was lazy and loose, his pace much slower than she might have thought.

Hadn’t he said they were coming back here to have sex again? So why the hell weren’t they having sex again?

Instead he was strolling into the house without a care in the world, flipping on a light or two.

He turned to face her and her heart skipped. Okay. Here’s where he pounced.

“Did you get enough to eat tonight?” he asked, running his hands from her shoulders to her wrists.

She cocked her head to one side. “Actually, I took Carmen to give Inka a break and I didn’t finish my dinner.”

“Okay, sunshine,” he smiled down at her. “Let’s fix that.”

Mystified, she let him lead her into the kitchen where he sat her right on the counter. Okay. That made more sense. He said last night that getting on the counter was a sure way to fuck. But… he just pressed a quick kiss onto her collarbone and paced away to peek into the fridge.

“Alright. I’ve got cold ravioli and I’ve got cold chicken soup.”

“Ravioli,” she answered immediately. After the lasagna that night at Ruby’s house, Valentina had discovered an epic, passionate romance with Italian food.

He chuckled. “I knew you were going to say that. Thirsty?”
She shook her head, just like he knew she would, but with just a little bit of thought, he filled a glass with two inches of some cabernet he had on top of the fridge.

“To share,” he told her. And then he stood in between her spread legs and fed her a ravioli. And then another. The third he took for himself. And so on. He handed her the wine, with little to no reverence for the drink.

“That’s kind of good,” she said.

He bobbed his head. “Like I said, I don’t really drink, but sometimes it tastes good with the right food.”

“Like cold ravioli?”

He chuckled. “Well, maybe it’s the right company that makes it taste good.” He waited until she’d had another sip before he leaned forward and took a sip right from her lip.

“What are you doing?” she asked, leaning back, just a hint of suspicion on her lips.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re feeding me. You took me to be alone. This fancy drink. You said you wanted to bring me home to have sex again but we’re not having sex. I don’t get it.”

Not for the first time, Kain resolved to backhand Williams the first chance he got. He knew there wasn’t a ton of opportunity for romance on Herta. But for the love of god, Valentina was acting like she was a booty call. Not like what she was. Which was… Well, he wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence, but it sure wasn’t a booty call.

“I said I wanted to bring you home to finish what we started. And that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“Oh.” He could see in her eyes that she didn’t understand yet. But that’s okay. She’d get it.

He put the Tupperware and the fork in the sink and then helped her off the counter. “Bath?”

“Sure.”

His bathroom wasn’t high luxury, but it was clean and had hot water. Good enough for him and, he was sure, definitely good enough for Valentina.

In fact, he was still getting undressed when she’d already jumped in, all the way to one side and scrunching her knees under her chin. She closed her eyes and groaned.

“Mmm. I’ll miss hot water. And ravioli.”
He ignored her reference to when she headed back to Herta, because it was the only way to stay sane at a moment like this. Instead, he just surveyed the seating arrangements. The only thing there was to do was get in at the opposite end of the bath and face her, knees up as well.

Fuck that. He climbed in and gave her his back, wiggling backwards so she had to open her legs against him and his head was against her breasts. He tipped his head back in time to see a slightly bemused expression on her face.

“You like putting your weight on me.”

“Hmm?”

“Last night. You slept on top of me.”

“Oh,” he looked up at her. “Sorry about that.”

She shrugged. “It felt nice. A little warm. But nice.”

“Val, what happened just now…”

“When we fucked?”

“Yeah. Well, that was actually the opposite of what I wanted to happen.”

She stiffened against him. “Oh. Well. If you weren’t attracted to me then why the hell did you put me in the bath?” She started to get up but he pinned her back with his weight.

“That’s not what I meant. Let me start over. What just happened was literally the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me. With the hottest woman I’ve ever been with.”

She stilled. Not relaxed, but not trying to get out of the tub yet.

“But I thought we might take things slower,” he continued. “I was prepared for slower.”

“Why?” She asked it like the very idea was ridiculous.

“Because I really like you. And sometimes sex fucks things up. And because Alec is my family and your family and we haven’t talked to him about this.” He leaned up to look at her. “As far as I know.”

She shook her head to show she hadn’t told him anything either. “You feel like you owe him an explanation of some kind?”

“I do. And I was thinking that we’d be taking things slow until I knew what kind of explanation to give him.”

“Just tell him we fucked. He’ll understand. He’s Hertian.”

Kain barked a laugh. “Yeah, maybe. But I’m an Earthling and that’s usually not the kind of thing we say to the brother of the girl we’re getting naked with.”

“This is our first time naked together.”

“You’re right. And what the hell am I doing, wasting it talking?” He leaned back again and she lowered her head to kiss him. It was misaligned and loose but damn. Kain figured that he was lucky if he ever got a kiss this hot in his life. With her hot wetness pressed into his back and her feet crossed over his lower stomach. She was holding him so tight. And it felt so damn good.

She was soft against his back and Kain had a flash of how skinny she was when she’d gotten here. He so much preferred her softer look. It gave her such a pretty shape. And it felt good as hell against him.

Kain slowly flipped himself over. Water sloshed over the side of the tub, making Valentina laugh. It sounded so nice, he decided to do it again. Holding his breath, Kain pushed his face under water and nuzzled one breast and then the other. He pressed his face into her belly. Pushing his stubble back and forth. She giggled and wriggled and when he came up for air her eyes had a girlish light in them that he’d never seen before.

He reared back on his knees, water pouring off his shoulders. Kain took the moment to just look at her. She was naked and slightly pink in the clear water. Her hips and ribs were slim but her breasts and ass had grown and softened over the last two weeks. She was a little hourglass. With a patchwork of silvery and pink scars. Her nipples were the same deep mauve of her lips. Glancing down, past her neat dark curls, Kain saw that her pussy was the same color.

“It’s a shame,” he growled, unable to keep from kissing at her lips for a moment.

“What is?”

“That I still know so little about this gorgeous body.”

He stepped out of the tub, water going everywhere and apparently caring not at all. He grabbed a fluffy towel and turned around. Kain was unsurprised that Valentina was already out of the water. She was still learning that he would help her up from anywhere, anytime.

He guided her back to the bedroom before taking the towel wrapped around her and reverently drying every part of her body.

She watched as he used the same towel to scrape the water off of himself before tossing it aside.

His eyes traveled all the way down her again and this time, Valentina got to watch them heat slowly, in stages.

Kain took a step toward her, then a quick step back. He shook his head and let out a breath. “God, you’re easy to look at.”

Valentina looked down at herself. Same old her. She was a little softer than usual but still, same old Valentina. She cast her eyes up to Kain’s body. All that long, wiry strength. His muscles defined at his shoulders and lower abs. But he was built like a runner. Except for that tank he had between his legs.

“Mmmph,” he groaned, swinging his arms back. “I’m trying to go slow here, but if you keep looking at me like that, you’re gonna get fucked on the floor.”

She cocked her head to one side. “Maybe I wanna get fucked on the floor.”

“Alright,” he agreed. “But first…”

He let the sentence hang in the air.

Kain shocked both of them when he charged her, took her at her knees and toppled her back to the bed.              

She didn’t so much as make a noise, she took the fall philosophically, with the complete and total certainty that the tables would turn.

And sure enough, as soon as Kain had her pressed to the bed, his head lifted back, crowing, “And they said it couldn’t be done! They said it was impossible to get the drop on Valentina—”

She had him flipped. On his back, on the floor, with the lamp damn near ripped out of the wall, pointy end poised at his throat in the perfect kill shot. “You’re lucky I like that thing between your legs,” she deadpanned. And then cast the lamp aside. “And the way you dance.”

His heart pounded in his chest, partly because Valentina was straddling his stomach right now, but mostly because she’d just admitted to liking him. Well. Parts of him.

He’d take it.

Kain lifted his head off the ground and sat up, shifted her down more into his lap. Her pussy landed on the base of his cock, and it felt good, of course it felt good, but he was lost in her mouth.

Just gone.

“Mmm,” she pulled back. “I like the way you kiss, too. Mm. Your tongue is very active.”

He laughed and warmed at her compliment. “I like the way you kiss. So pouty. Keeps making me think I have to work harder.”

He smiled, all white teeth that flashed against her lip before he lifted them. Walked her back to the bed and laid her right down.

“Valentina,” he murmured into her neck. “I really want a taste.”

He wanted to kiss her? Of course. Wasn’t that what they were doing?”

“Yes.”

He slid down her body lazily, with many distractions and detours along the way. The most notable of which being her nipples. She gasped and pressed her chest up against him and when the pleasure was so acute, so fierce, she took his head in her hands and forced it away from her.

Kain’s eyes went straight to hers, assessing. Slowly, eyes on eyes, he lowered again, took her nipple between his teeth and tugged. She moaned, a light sheen rising on her skin and her legs working and working. She moaned harder and then pushed his face away again, her eyes heating as she did so.

So it was part of the game, he discovered. She liked to push away. Well, that was perfect. Because he liked to push back. He kissed his way down her stomach, tasting every inch of her. He loved her soft skin, and he loved her scars too. They made her so unique. So perfect.

His.

It was a small voice in the back of his head and it intrigued Kain. Could Valentina really be his? He followed the roadmap of scars that pointed him down and sucked lightly at her hipbone. “This hipbone is a tease,” he murmured.

“What?” she asked breathlessly.

“The first time you showed it to me, you were injured. So I couldn’t do anything about how bad I wanted to put my mouth on it.”

She remembered that day in the mirror when she’d shown him her healing wounds. She hadn’t meant to tease him.

“And then in that pink babymaker that you called a swimsuit? Yeah. These were just talking to me all day.”

She laughed. “I’m told that was a very common swimsuit.”

“Yeah, well. It damn near gave me nightmares.” He grinned up at her. “The good kind.” He moved to the other hipbone and rubbed everything against it. His forehead, his cheek, his lips and teeth. And then, when he could stand it no more, he reared back and pressed his cock against that hipbone, a slow slide that made both of their eyes wide.

He pulled back though. Because he was dying for her. Kain slowly spread her legs and slid the backs of his hands up her thighs. He was going to dive in, but got distracted by that perfect silver scar across her shin bone. It looked like a heart and it called his name.

“Kain,” she whispered. There was something small in her voice. Fierce but small.

It was his name on her lips that called him back to the task at hand. He hitched her legs over his shoulders and dragged his tongue up the inside of her thigh. When he got to her pussy, her perfect, glistening little pussy, he used both hands to spread her wide. He wanted to see everything.

He leaned forward, his eyes on her pussy. Valentina’s brow drew down in sudden confusion. Her legs closed by a quarter of an inch.

Sensing the sudden tension, he looked up from between her legs. “No?”

“No, it’s okay,” she decided. She’d heard of this before. And his mouth was so handsome down there, all firm lips and white teeth and all that blond stubble on his chin. “I want it. I’ve just never…”

Kain groaned and dropped his forehead to her thigh. “Next time I see Williams I’m punching him straight in the dick.”

Her surprised laugh dissolved into a moan at his first long lick along her slit. Oh. This was new. This was unlike anything she’d felt before. This was… the most intimate thing she’d ever done.

Valentina was fierce. Confident about everything and always sure. But she couldn’t stop the tremor at this closeness. The intimacy of Kain between her legs, his mouth on her, his tongue inside. She could feel his grunts of pleasure inside her body. She got a flash of him feeding her dinner on the kitchen counter and it made her tremble even more. This was what he meant. He hadn’t meant he was going to bring her home and fuck her the way he had against the house. No. He’d meant he was going to bring her home and unravel her. Find the one loose thread and tug and tug until she was just a pile of nothing on the floor.

She might have been upset if it weren’t for the rising, tight-hot ecstasy between her legs. Her chest bounced as she let out a puff of air. And then another. She was sure she was digging her heels into his back much too hard, but she couldn’t stop tensing. She couldn’t stop rising and spooling and reaching.

“I want,” she moaned. And then the pleasure was too much. It was gonna drag her down with it. Explode her from the inside. She couldn’t accept a gift this large. It was suicide. She’d be in his debt for the rest of her life.

Valentina palmed his head and tossed it away from her. She got instant relief from the rising pleasure but it came with a tight need. Her hips worked against the air, her body calling for him.

“I want,” she tried again and knew that she had no idea what it was she was asking for.

Kain’s eyes flashed with heat. “I know, baby.”

And he burrowed in again. This time the strokes of his tongue inside her were long and greedy, like he was trying to work something free of her. When he circled up to her clit, sucking her in and suckling, Valentina arched, accepted it for only a second before she pushed him away again.

A white smile flashed across Kain’s face as he reached up and grabbed her hands, pinning them to the bed. “Tell me not to. But unless you do that, you can fight it all you want, because, sunshine? I’m making you come in my mouth.”

And then he was back on her. Fight it, Valentina did. Her hips bucked, her hands twisted free and tangled in his hair. One hand tried to wrench him away and the other hand forced him back down. She raised herself up to a full sitting position and Kain planted a hand on her chest and forced her back down.

He’d started out varying his technique, soft and slow for a bit, then rough and intense, but now he was just full on devouring her. There was no part of his face he didn’t use.

When he latched onto her clit again, Valentina rolled, and instead of fighting her, he just rolled with her. They laid on their sides and he lifted one of her legs toward the ceiling to get at her better.              

And he didn’t stop. Not when she stiffened. Not when she called his name. Not when she cursed him. Not when she trembled and arched and shook and shook and shook. When she fell back down to the bed, Kain rolled her to her back again and softly licked at her pussy, for his own enjoyment. She was so soft now. And open. It was like a different pussy than when he’d started. He lapped at her again and again. Her wetness was everywhere and it filled him with an indescribable yes to be the one there with her, at that moment.

She brushed something off her face and when Kain looked up she was glowering at him. He’d expected a little bit of a sex haze, but this was Valentina after all. Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised by the pouty scowl.

She pulled herself back from him. “What the hell was that?”

She was up on her knees on the bed, so Kain mirrored her pose, his dick stretching toward her, filling the space between them.

He didn’t get a chance to answer.

“Why did you do that to me? Make me feel like that? I can never repay you for that kind of pleasure.” She fluttered her fingers over her chest as she searched for the right words. “For that kind of ecstasy. That kind of… happiness.” She whispered the last word.

He gave up and dragged her into his arms, nuzzling into her neck and unable to completely control his chuckle of relief.

“Val, first of all, considering the way you fucked me this afternoon, I have little to no doubt that at some point you’re going to repay me in spades. Second of all, sex isn’t a one-to-one transaction. As long as we both show up, try our best, improve, chase happiness, I mean, there’s no such thing as debt in this situation.”

She leaned back, eyeing him for a second. Then, seeming to make up her mind about something, she reared back and reached for him in between them.

“What are you doing?” he found himself echoing her questions, and even stranger, he actually found himself batting a girl’s hands away from his dick.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked, one eyebrow raised. She pinned one of his hands back and gave him a tug that had breath hissing between his teeth. He was a little distracted so it took him a beat to realize that she’d dropped down.

Her tongue had just tasted the tip of his cock when he put his hand in her hair and gently pulled her off. “Val, darling,” he said, fluttering his eyelashes. “You wouldn’t, by chance, be attempting to even the score, would you?”

She glared up at him. “I don’t like debts.” Her tongue got him one more time. “Of any kind.”

“Well, maybe you live with this one.”

He snatched her up by the waist and dropped his legs over the foot of the bed, planting his feet on the floor. Her feet tangled around his calves and he opened his legs as wide as he could, pinning her open.

One of his arms automatically lanced across her chest in a diagonal, grasping her opposite shoulder and holding her against him. She squirmed and the movement in the mirror across from them caught her eye.

She was a lifetime warrior. A fierce fighter of the highest order. She could have gotten out of this hold with her eyes closed. But the look in Kain’s eye kept her from trying. He was devouring this image of her like this. His eyes were hooded and his mouth slack. She felt his cock grow another inch behind her back.

She realized that to fight out of this would be to deprive him of pleasure. When all she wanted to do was give it to him.

Her nature didn’t allow her to relax fully into the hold, but she did accept it. When his free hand traced over her stomach and drew a line down her pussy, Valentina threw her head back, her eyes still on the mirror.

“Just look at this pretty pussy,” Kain said in her ear. “All soft and ready to play.”

Her eyes dropped to where he petted her. Her thighs strained up off his lap for a second when he pushed his middle two fingers inside her.

“Oh fuck.” His lips landed on the back of her neck but his gaze stayed on the mirror.

Valentina gasped and jutted her hips forward. Kain rubbed the heel of his hand against her clit and started to pump his fingers into her. Those little sounds were coming out of her again. The ones she’d never made except with him.

And she barely recognized herself in the mirror. The loose hair, her lips so full and red, her curvy body. And she definitely didn’t recognize the way she rode his hand.

He stopped with the heel of his hand and instead curled his fingers inside her. He was petting something that felt very new to Valentina. She wasn’t sure if she was going to like it. She felt like she was going to burst, but not in the usual way.

“Fuck, look how gorgeous you are.” His hand was wet to the wrist and her pussy was still softening even more. He petted her and petted her and Valentina tried to squirm away from the rising tension within her. But he held her fast. “Give it to me. Oh God, you perfect woman. Look at that. Just give it to me. Don’t keep it from me.”

She fought it for only another few seconds before she tossed her head back, blocked out the entire world, save for Kain’s hand, and gave them both what they wanted.

She was exploding in reverse, caving in. The orgasm was from deep within her and it almost had nothing to do with her clit. It was like she was coming inside her womb and it was dull and viciously powerful at the same time. It was like her usual orgasms were a stab of pleasure and this one was a hammer. It was a full-bodied release. Nothing was practiced or controlled.

He released her, laying her gently onto the bed. She laid with one hand thrown above her and the other halfway covering her slack mouth. Her eyes were half open and blurry.

He was floored. Utterly floored by her. He laid on one side of her and gently pressed one hand to her belly. He knew she’d be too sensitive to be stroked right that second. Even though it was the only thing he wanted to do.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” he admitted.

She rolled her head to look at him. He loved that there was no self-consciousness in her eyes. That wasn’t his Val.

“That was, seriously, the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. You gave me everything,” he whispered against her lips.

“No,” she whispered back. “But I will.”

She threw a leg over his waist and rolled on top of him, chest to chest. He sought her heat with his cock, just to feel her there. But she was so wet that he was somehow already three inches deep.

They grappled with one another, soft and firm at the same time. She wanted to get on top, to ride him into ecstasy, to rule him. But at the last second, she gave him a different kind of perfect gift and rolled onto her back.

Her reward was the look on Kain’s face. His mouth was open and fierce, all teeth. Air huffed out of him in rough pants every time he thrust forward. And his eyes? His eyes were absolutely lost.

He looked like he barely understood what was happening to them as he fucked her slowly across the bed, each thrust deeper than the last.

“Kain,” she whispered, and he immediately dropped his eyes to her. He saw her then and his expression changed.

She thought it turned to determination. But she wasn’t sure because he dropped his mouth to hers. They didn’t kiss so much as fuse.

He hitched one of her legs over his hip and kept pushing, pushing, pushing into her.

When he’d worked them all the way across the bed, and Valentina’s head hung off the mattress, he feasted on her neck. She felt him losing his rhythm, his concentration. He whispered words that didn’t make sense. Words of revelry, of sex, of righteousness. And then he was tensing and spinning out and Valentina was determined to go with him.

She bore down on him, rubbing her clit against his pubic bone, and let him completely fill her up. Stretch her into another orgasm. And as it swept over her, curled her fingers, arched her back up off the bed, she wondered if it would ever stop.

She wondered if Kain would ever stop.