A/N: Greetings all. As you may have guessed and just as a warning to younger readers, this chapter explores adult themes of a rather intimate nature. Smut certainly wasn't what I was going for in writing it - that being something I've never felt quite suited my Shepard and Thane - but as I say, adult themes.
Do be mindful
Also, just a quick nod to the fact that the Citadel DLC has come out - many thanks to all involved in its creation, but I'll keep my head-canon. For all the closure it may have given (I haven't watched Thane's part in it and know myself too well to. I'd just cry and I don't play games and get emotionally invested in characters to see..Anyway) I simply prefer my own version of events, and may inject elements of the DLC into that at an appropriate juncture.
For now, please do enjoy the chapter.
Yours faithfully,
L.G.
Stamina
Thane and Shepard reunite as lovers
In the Captain's cabin aboard the Normandy, a distinctly feminine gasp joined soft, ambient music on the air; a gasp that was followed by a Drellish rumble of enjoyment and wispy, dry-throated words from she who caused both.
"Is it dry yet?"
The rumbling redoubled and shifted slightly in pitch, deepening to convey what any female Drell of adult years would recognise as the love of a most appreciative, most wanting mate. Words came then -
"..Let me check again, just to be sure.."
- and as he had seconds prior Thane lowered his head and brushed the softest of kisses to the skin of his Siha's lower back; investigating whether the cream he'd helped apply had properly dried.
Again, she gasped, shuddering pleasurably at the sensation.
Again, the rumble he had never been able to share with her redoubled through his exhalation.
And then…a pause to think. As he had when he'd come upon the gifts she had left for him earlier, Thane found himself torn between two equally enticing options. The truth - that the cream was dry and her skin quite safe from complaints that the natural oils upon his own might cause – or the not-quite truth that it wasn't, and would need checking again in a couple of minutes in his uniquely affectionate way.
Choices, choices…
His lips lingering close to her still, Thane smiled as he breathed a depthful, contemplative, "Hmmmmm..." before relaxing again by her side on their bed and gazing out, as he had been doing since she'd settled there, across her form. Stretched out on her stomach at his side, she was all pale, firm skin and inky hair; the former warmed by the room's raised ambient temperature and the latter laying in loose, band-caused curls about her shoulders. Her arms cuddled the pillow she had beneath her head, her long legs stretched out, one bent comfortably at the knee, and, but for one teasing little section of the blue-purple blanket she reclined upon that lapped at the back of her calf, she was gloriously, gloriously naked.
The choice was foregone, of course.
"Not quite yet" he mused, a flirtatious lilt to his tone, "I shall check again in a moment."
Shepard didn't know whether to groan with frustration or wriggle for joy at the prospect. She'd barely moved since laying down, her trip into the washroom lasting only as long as it took her to encounter both the shower and a razor - the former to aid the application of the latter and the latter to ensure that Mordin's ointment met skin in all the places it had to in order to work right - and had absolutely no intention of altering that state of affairs by doing anything more than shifting gleefully in place as her beau did his checking.
It was his right, all told.
He had, after she'd emerged from the washroom with ointment-pot and cloth in hand, taken it upon himself to rub the purposefully left smudges of slick and oily pinkish salve into her skin, so it was understandable that he'd want to ensure that he'd done a good job. And if doing that entailed driving her wild as she clutched at her pillow and tried her damnedest not to moan like a wanton, that was completely fine by her.
More than fine.
Hell, the only thing that could've made her situation any more fine would've been to return the favour, but Thane had been a particular kind of adamant that her skin be properly tended to before they allowed the evening to take its natural course, and teasing as that may have seemed to the outsider - his being allowed to enjoy her body and to kindle in it the beginnings of keen, keen pleasure while denying her the same freeness with his own - Shepard wasn't so sure.
She had a notion.
Her mate had always been a thoughtful, giving lover, and that thoughtfulness had redoubled in a very specific manner as his illness began to worsen. He used to wait, his own pleasure secondary to ensuring hers in ways that did not require his body to be in top working order, until he was sure whether or not it would betray him. Until he knew either way, he had been reticent to allow her to try and pleasure him...the embarrassment of not reacting to her doubling, she guessed, if it occurred when she was actually trying to rouse him…but once he was sure he would act accordingly - either going on to sate her regardless of the betrayal, her touch remaining banned for the duration, or making love with her if said betrayal didn't occur.
Now, she couldn't say with any kind of certainty that any of that was even half relevant to her present circumstances. She couldn't say that her love's adamance about her not touching him intimately at present was anything other than him being concerned about her skin. But equally she couldn't discount the possibility that his old wait-and-see tactic - even with his health returning steadily and his body having, but for occasional tiredness, regained its most intimate capacities - had remained in much the way her ways of dealing with stress had.
Tacitly.
Quietly.
And, by her, understood.
Not much liked, but always understood.
Though it still rattled in the back of her mind now, her caution regarding following his lead was now the only vestiges of anything even close to worry in her, and as she had earlier she heeded it without a second thought; allowing her mate to pace out the proceedings however he pleased, wait-and-see policy or not, and doing her best, impetuous libido be-damned, not to go with her gut (and her loins) and simply pounce for him. If his seeming focus on her was a product of that policy and not merely a mixture of prudence and honest enjoyment of having her at his mercy - which it could have been, no question - that would only end in discomfort, and discomfort was second only to the Reapers in her unwelcome stakes right now.
"Is it dry yet?" she asked again, handing her beau the metaphorical reins as best she could and glancing back over her shoulder, giving him an almost pleading look as she did so - eyes dancing with enjoyment and flirtatiousness; lips open slightly in a smile. He smiled back, and luckily for the impetuousness in her leant yet again across her body, selecting a spot between her shoulder blades for his next affection.
"Let us see..." he murmured, nuzzling gently and then kissing the area, delighting in how her muscles flexed beneath her skin as she fought to keep still. Her head dropped onto her pillow, and words were gasped as another was given just below the first -
"Oh my.."
- and again, a muffled -
"..God Thane.."
- as his lips lingered over her skin before gifting a third.
She'd never admit it aloud, but her back had always been her weakness and her mate knew it.
Fingers replaced the touch of his lips then, tracing the length of her spine before a hand, warm but not as so as her skin, settled against the small of her back - the place that, but for her lower-tummy, she knew her beau favoured most about her body. It was the confluence, he'd said once, of a number of parts of her that in Drellish terms translated as feminine - her back, her rear, and her hips - and she both had been and was now in no shape to doubt his assessment. What she was more than well equipped to do though was understand the meaning behind that touch. While waiting for the ointment to dry he hadn't been willing to touch her skin, outside of the softest of kisses, for fear of irritating it.
But now…
"Well?" she prompted in her best coy manner, arching her back quite purposefully and dropping a shoulder as she glanced around at him again. "Is it dry?"
Thane's eyes followed the dip of her spine all the way up to her shoulders before they met hers, the new and sonorous rumble he'd been making at intervals since she'd re-joined him with cloth and ointment-pot echoing up from his chest. He hadn't told her what it was meant to convey, but she didn't need him to. Drellish herself or not, she knew desire when she heard it, and knew it all the more when her love moved and knelt over her, his knees and hands either side of her a moment before he eased an arm beneath her, the other still beside her to take his weight, and drew her up against his body.
For a long, blissful moment she was flush against him - up on her hands and knees; hips low and cradled by his; weight partially taken by the arm about her; his nose and lips against the back of her neck and that rumble becoming like thunder, ebbing and flowing as he breathed - and much as her instincts howled for her to rock her hips up into his still damnably cloth-covered ones...to try and tease...to coax...she didn't. She pressed into him as firmly as he did her, certainly, but otherwise she listened to caution, calmed the fiery flutterbys in her belly as best she could and simply spoke her most personal truth -
"I love you"
- while again making sure that their pace remained his to control. His response at first came out staccato, so deep was that vocalisation of his, and the intelligible repetition of it, "I love you" was more a purr than anything else. It took six deep, slow breaths for him to settle his voice enough to add with even a modicum of normality -
"And to your question, yes. I believe it is"
- his words drawing from his mate a beat of delighted laughter.
"Good job too" she quipped, taking a long breath herself and arching slowly, gently into him; the gesture conveying the comparatively tender, inviting, I'm yours to do with as you wish over the presently to-be-approached-with-care You're mine to do with as I wish. "I was beginning to worry."
Thane chuckled, easing both himself and his Siha into a comfortable kneel; her back to his belly, his arms about her and knees either side of her right one so they might both have space enough to settle. "Oh?" he queried, resisting the urge to let his hands wander lower on her body than they already were. Although he knew that human customs regarding the lower-stomach were different to those of his people, he found it difficult not to think of her as a fellow Drell. Not because he wished she were one. Not at all. Rather, simply because of the familiarity they shared. The closeness of what he would call their souls. Thus, his fingers did not wander any lower than the daring stroke of a thumb to the indentation of her navel, the closest one could get to without actually encountering the beginnings of a Drell's most intimate reaches, and he tilted his head a fraction as she spoke words that almost shattered that resolve.
"This touch…" she mused softly, meeting his eyes as he caught them over her shoulder, her hands finding his and settling upon them welcomingly. "Your touch. I've missed it. Missed you." She gave his wrists a gentle squeeze, her fingertips lingering on their insides - another area upon the Drellish form that is reserved for flirtation, if not for lovers proper - as she impressed her point, "This-", and caught the kiss he gave her lips as if she'd known it was coming. They traded three like that, three careful little kisses that were chaste enough that there was no risk of her losing her head in the heat of the moment, and as they did Thane's once stationary right hand moved north, not south, to settle, after tender knuckles stroked in both request and greeting, upon the yielding softness of her left breast; his left remaining where it was upon her midriff, embracing her as she leant into him.
She hummed softly at the former touch, though more in welcome than pleasure of an overtly sexual kind. Intimate as it was and although his fingers moved, flexing gently, they made no move to squeeze or massage the flesh they were settled upon, and through the gentle pressure she could feel from the heel of his hand where it lay between breast and breastbone, she deduced his underlying intent in seeking to touch her where he did. The breast itself was of little consequence to him, much as he loved it for its being part of her. It simply wasn't naturally alluring to him, lacking in such things as female Drell are. But the heart he could feel beating beneath it? That allured. That was of consequence. That was what he truly wanted to feel, to memorise through his touch, and she smiled and gave a soft sigh against his lips as her mind went back to times past in which he had spent hours over numerous, restful evenings with an ear nestled precisely where his hand now lay; learning her and, in a sense, taking her into himself in ways she'd never thought possible before she knew him.
The memory of that moment, of him nuzzling into her and closing his eyes to listen, remained with her until their lips parted and he spoke, his voice made rich by their intimacy and the hum-buzz that marked his affection for her. "As I did you" he said, leaning then and guiding her head around and to the side with the gentle press of frill to cheekbone. The side of her neck now exposed to him, he brushed a kiss beside the spot where jaw and throat meet, speaking as she gasped - listing her virtues:
"Your skin..."
- between suckling kisses -
"Your scent..."
- that meandered -
"Your warmth...Gods your warmth..."
- as her breaths shortened and she leant into him more firmly, down towards her shoulder -
"The very sight of you..."
- and were accented -
"Your voice..."
- by a practiced squeeze of the hand that was cupped upon her breast. Unexpected as it was it drew a hitched breath and a half-muffled moan from Shepard, her lips pressing tightly together as she fought to keep the warmth that had long since begun to pool and collect within her from throwing her resolve to let him lead out the damn airlock, and he mimicked the sound, his ear for pitch near-perfect, before taking a breath and requesting, "Turn to me? I wish to embrace you properly" as she made to glance around at him.
The words, much as his touch had, made her breath catch in her throat; as did the sight, as she watched over her shoulder, of Thane shifting back and quite purposefully unhooking the top four of the five little pearl buttons that held his sleeping-trousers closed. Barely an inch of naked scale was exposed by the movement, that last button keeping him just about modest, but still it took the arrival of gentle fingers upon her chin to break Shepard's gaze from it regardless. She blinked, flushing faintly at the knowing smirk on Thane's face and easing herself around to face him front-on, as requested. His fingers lingered upon her jaw for a long moment, stroking it lovingly, and as they did she caught brief flickers of the carrying-on of an internal debate, the source of which she couldn't place, in his eyes. Her instinct was to ask about it - to ask if he was ok; if this, what could turn out to be a deeply intimate exchange, was ok - but it was gone and he was drawing her close before she could, and with every inch that disappeared between them his momentary pause mattered less.
It was a memory, she told herself. A memory of a time just like this, long ago. Let it be. Let it go.
And she did. She forgot his contemplative turn and instead focussed on the now; on how close he was; on how his gaze, his regard, made her feel like the most wanted woman alive; on how powerful he looked still, even after months and months of bed rest and all the hell he'd been through; on his scent, warm and clean and very Drellish, very Thane; and most especially on how his hands took hers and guided them onto the now loosened waist of all that kept him decent and her chancing for a glimpse of what lay so tantalisingly out of sight.
In that moment, and at nothing more than the thought of helping her mate undress, her throat went as dry as a Saharan lakebed. As before though, despite how she wanted him, she couldn't rush; couldn't just tear the boundary down and be done with it. The tease it presented, the demure flashes of naked scale it allowed her to see, titillated her, and so it was with great restraint…great slowness…great appreciation for the feeling of anticipation…that she began the task her beau had implied she was welcome to by slipping the very tips of her fingers between cloth and scale and drawing them in a slow circle from the front of his abdomen to the dip of his spine - revelling, as the inches were traversed and she eased herself all the closer to him, in how the slightly softer, larger scales on his upper-torso became smaller and less giving the further she travelled away from them.
As her hands flattened at the small of his back and began a slow ascent towards his shoulders, his own returned to her…one settling between her shoulder blades and the other upon the flare of her left hip...and he watched her face, watched want…wonder even…flicker through her expression as she explored him and he her. They spent a long moment like that…their hands moving with the appreciative slowness of newly reunited lovers, unwilling to push things forward before they'd had their fill of now...and then her hands reversed course, moving down over his rear to give an amorous squeeze and to tug gently in question at the loosened cloth covering it.
May I?
His answer came through the return of that new and sonorous rumble of his; a "Yes" that sounded more like 'Yehs' and that was followed by a kiss that sent her fingers scrambling for the modesty protecting button upon his garb. It was lower, this one, low enough that his breath hitched when her fingers found and manipulated it - their presence felt keenly by still covered skin that was starved for their touch - but it fell like the others had and then, her hands and breath quaking faintly with excitement, she reached for him.
Reached…but not for the areas protected by that last button.
Her aim was higher, her hands slipping beneath the cloth that lay about his waist before moving down and guiding it along with her. Loosening, shifting, coaxing, the material was eased away, but got no further than allowing her an unabridged view of her love's lower-stomach...the scales upon it getting up to about the size of an old Australian cent-piece and easing into, from two inches or so below his navel, the beginnings of the slowly widening vertical line of ruddy pleats that led down to and covered everything about him that that last little button existed to hide...before he was gathering her in and shifting on his knees so that she could slip between them, wrap her arms about him, and press every inch of naked skin she could against his form.
In that moment, her eyes closed and head tucked against his neck as they embraced and pressed into each other, she was all feeling. From how tightly he held her to him, to the softness of his cheeks and lips where they nuzzled against her neck, to how depthful his breathing was and how, perhaps most keenly, she could feel the beginnings of arousal...of muted firmness...in the pleating that was nestled against the comparatively soft skin on her lower-tummy.
Everything was tactile.
Everything was within reach, and she ached...ached to seek it out. To let her fingers run rampant and slip beneath the fabric still swathing her mate's hips. To find all that was beneath and cup and caress and love in all the ways she so wanted to. Needed to. And she would...but not without his unequivocal nod that that was the kind of further intimacy he was seeking. Thane was in charge, and would be until he decided otherwise.
Conveying the want for those things though...certainly wasn't off the table.
Pulling in a deep breath against her love's scales, she gave his torso a wanting though tender squeeze before raising her head and tilting it to his. His nose, eyes and lips were still well hidden between her shoulder and neck, but he was not so lost in the moment that he didn't respond when her hands began dipping lower along his back and then cupped his now more-or-less bared rear. It wasn't a gasp he gave in response...no...more like a long breath in through the mouth that she was sure carried a vocalisation her ears missed completely, and as she curled her fingers through an appreciative squeeze his hips canted forward and his embrace tightened. A word then...her word -
"Siha.."
- was purred as his head rose, his cheek drawn against hers as he sought her eyes. They were hooded, as his were, and she hummed in her throat with appreciation for him before replying with a breathy, "Whatever you need", and sharing with him the kiss they simply had to; one of greeting almost, of acknowledgement of the moment, in the midst of it as they were. It was a soft thing, lingering and gentle, and had only just ended when Thane, heeding her words, began a second. A third came after that, then a fourth, this one echoed by another of his low, wanting rumbles and a proclamation -
"I would show you. I would have you know"
- that carried said rumble's echo and was so ardent...so desirous and full of promise that the fact that he hadn't specified with words precisely what he wanted to express, to have her know, mattered for nothing. As she had come to be able to with the hum-buzz that conveyed his 'I love you', she knew now what he was telling her without needing to hear the words.
I would show you how I want you, he was saying.
I would have you know.
And with that, the flutterbys in her belly doubled their numbers. They made her breath short as she spoke the only response she rightly could -
"Show me"
- and then her mate's hands were cradling her jaw as he gave her another little kiss and guided her towards the head of the bed and the bank of pillows there. They sank down into it together, she onto her back and he, once his sleeping-trousers had been properly shucked off, atop her, and as she gathered him in with all four of her limbs - her arms about his shoulders, knees fencing around his hips - and a sigh, blissful and slow, escaped his lips, she had to wonder, truly wonder, if there was any better feeling in the galaxy than holding him thus. Than feeling him relax into her after so long, so much pain and so many trials. She thought not, and Thane, tucked snugly against his love's body, heartily agreed with her.
There was nothing else in his world in that moment.
Nothing but the softness of her skin…the warmth of her breath against his lips...his cheeks…the feeling of her thighs, powerful yet so giving as they shifted to accommodate him, adjusting as he curled against her...of her hands coming up and cradling his skull as they shared yet another kiss, and, perhaps most singularly, most distractingly of all, how he could feel upon his lower pleats the tell-tale heat of her arousal.
The sensation sent a spike of desire and pride through him - desire for the heat itself and pride for having caused it…having earned it - and as he gazed down upon her, her eyes dark with desire, lips moist from their kisses, that instinctive yearning for her redoubled and quickened him; his want…no…need…to show her how he wanted her…how he loved her…prompting movement that was met at first with a questioning word.
"Thane?"
Her hands caught his upper arms and clenched slightly as he began to rise, confused as she was by his seeming retreat from her, and he understood. Indeed, he would have felt the same himself had their positions been reversed - he laying supine beneath her while she, confusing she, sat up a hint from his embrace and put unwanted inches…and it was only, only inches…between them. As he leant to her though, his weight on his forearms, nose and lips lingering close to press a kiss upon her chin…then a second beside it on her jaw…and then a third beside that, this one given with a whisper.."Sshh…I would love you"…close to her ear…confusion became understanding and, her every speculation about his wait-and-see and its potential outcome dying away, she arched into him, tilting her head to bare her throat to him and invite him to continue.
This was nothing of retreat.
Nothing of leaving or moving away.
This was the antithesis, she knew; the preparatory step before love making.
A thready sigh escaped her as his kisses moved on, her eyes fluttering closed at that he suckled so gently, so carefully, to the pulse point beneath her jaw. Another two would follow it, one upon the very centre of her throat and the other at the hollow it made where it met her collarbones, and as she had moments prior she cradled his head in her hands, returning the affection as best she could by tracing gentle fingertips along and between the ridges decorating his skull.
Further still he moved then, shifting against her again and down another count of inches so that her breast bone and each breast might be given the same attention as her throat - wet, suckling kisses for the length of the former while the latter received, along with the return of gentle fingers upon each to caress and massage, a special, supremely tender kiss to their respective arousal-peaked tips. She made no move to stymie him this time, her focus riveted instead on keeping the oxygen flowing and making sure that she provided him with whatever it was he needed from her….safe passage along her body most assuredly included…and she gave him a beatific smile of affection and encouragement when, as his head rose from his devotions at her breast to nuzzle at and then kiss the insides of each of her arms, he met her eyes.
They remained thus for a long moment, still again despite their want for each other, and she reached, her beau's head leaning as she did, to trace the dark splotch of blackish-green upon his brow. He bowed his head into her fingers at the contact, a hum-buzz conveying the 'I love you' he didn't need to speak, and returned her smile as she replied with the now customary -
"I love you back"
- before his focus was again on her body.
Onto her ribs a hand was settled, fingertips feeling for and counting each they came across and then spanning out between them on her upper torso where bone gave way to muscle beneath firm skin. His kisses followed their path, each rib receiving its own affection before he was easing down another few inches so that the next could land, as his hands, both now, came to rest against and caress her waist, just below her navel. Another followed right below it, and Thane glanced up again to catch his love's eyes as a third came, yet again, below that.
The look was more a polite warning than a request…more a 'Watch me, I mean not to startle you' than a, 'May I carry on?'…and Shepard did watch…did see…as each new kiss he gave landed beneath the last. She heard too, over the gasping cadence of her breathing, the appreciative rumble he made when he touched his brow to her pubic bone and took a moment to simply breathe her in…and she felt…as his hands slipped down from her waist to stroke along her thighs and guide them apart as he settled…she felt…everything.
The soft, warm waft of his breath upon her skin that made her shudder as he leant for her..
The way one of his hands grasped her hip and the other flattened on her lower-stomach to steady her..
And most of all…the honest-to-goodness, literal, as if he was kissing her on the mouth kiss…complete with the careful suckle of full, wanting lips…that was pressed to the very apex of her thighs.
Her hands scrambled for purchase on something…anything…as he lingered there, kissing her twice more in that same spot before embarking on a slow, steady, southward journey. He gifted the delicate folds he encountered with kisses of their own as he made his way towards the true source of the heat he was so proud of lighting in her, and she…trembling, moaning she…found the blanket they reclined upon and grasped it in tight fists as she fought to keep still for him.
The fight though, really speaking, was one she couldn't help but lose.
With every kiss he gave she squirmed and shuddered. With every suckle, a moan escaped. Every flick of his tongue sent her head back into the pillows, her body arching, shifting against his hands. He knew it so well…a product of perfect memory as much as their penchant for practice…that he seemed able to read every flutter of muscle…every arch or twitch she made…and adjust according to what it told him she needed. It was maddening, beauteous, decadent as all hell and with every touch, every kiss, every ounce of pressure he pressed into her to keep her still and every one of her moans that he echoed with an encouraging rumble, she could feel herself slipping towards a sudden and inevitable end.
And that…that was something she knew she had to resist.
She knew for it had always been their preference in instances where they planned to make love (which, going on Thane's sultry 'I would love you', was the plan now) to experience their respective ends during the act itself and not before, and so to allow herself to go with the flow now so to speak…to let go and just…give in to his expertise…would be the farthest thing from following his lead she could do.
Thus, she held off. Fought herself and the flutterbys meandering through her system and focussed instead on what the near future would bring - on the fact that he would soon be making love to her in the fullest, most complete sense. The very thought was intoxicating. Intoxicating and, in a sense, matched by life for it was in that moment, right when she was distracted and needful, that she felt the very tips of her love's fingers follow the path his lips had taken and then forge deeper than he had before, curving upwards after about an inch and caressing her from within.
And with that purposeful, knowing curling of fingers…holding off went right out the airlock as a concept. There was no more of that she could do. No fighting herself into order or suppressing the need to roll her hips into the steady rhythm those caressing fingers began to take. No holding back when the sudden and inevitable engulfed her and sent her world to lights. And certainly no coherent thoughts as she quaked with its passing, her body nothing more than its postscript. Its accessory.
Minutes passed for her like this. Minutes with nothing but her beau's presence, his embrace about her waist, the gentle press of his brow into her tummy and the warm, tingling satiation that was left in his wake. Then, as she gathered herself enough to enquire if he'd allow her to love him as he had just loved her, Thane rose up from his spot at her stomach and crawled, the scales and pleats upon his brushed with great purpose against her inner thigh and lower-stomach, into her arms. And that movement…that crawl…that brush…was close on to being all the answer she needed.
She pressed into him when his brow touched hers and he gave a deep, slow sigh of utter and complete satisfaction; the feeling of his manhood - beginning to firm proper as it rested against the kiss and desire moistened skin he had been tending to - so absorbing of her attention that it took words, an adoring though distinctly bassy -
"My love"
- to snap her focus back front and centre.
Her reply, "I love you", was quick and entirely instinctual, Thane's Drellish repetition of precisely that sentiment rolling through him as they shared a kiss that drew her, even newly sated, to arch into him with the same want she knew he felt for her. The movement jarred a groan from him, and she matched it, gasping coaxingly against his lips as the want to seek out and caress all those areas upon him that were now pressed so intimately against her came back to the fore. As before though, she couldn't just grab. Couldn't just roll atop him and fondle. It was for her to ask; even if her request came out as statements.
"I want you" she said, turning his earlier words back on him. "And I would show you, just like you did me. Just like that, and then..."
"And then?"
"And then I want you to make love to me."
Ten words, and Thane's sensuous rumble dipped out of Shepard's range completely. She could still feel its echo though, against her torso and under the hands that spanned her beau's back as he took a moment to simply breathe; to enjoy being able to communicate in that way again even if his meaning didn't quite translate. When he answered her, there was the faintest lingering hitch in his voice that belied the unheard tone's presence.
"You have all of me, Siha. My heart…my soul…my body. Every fibre…every flaw…every part…but one."
"What's that?" Shepard asked, flat palms stroking up Thane's back as she gazed up at him. They found his shoulders and biceps on their travels - the lack of strain in them as he held his weight over her pleasing on a level so deep she couldn't rightly place it – then travelled up along the back of his neck as he leant down to murmur his answer against her ear.
"My stamina."
Had the words not carried a faint chuckle she'd have worried he was mortified; that she'd mortified him by taking his body's whims at face value in wanting all of him so soon after his illness had passed into memory. That sound though, and the easy smile and tender kiss he gave her when he rose again to meet her eyes, soothed her enough that her reply carried a lovingly teasing and openly flirtatious note.
"I'll be careful."
"I trust you will be" Thane said, droll and coy at once as he gifted his Siha another kiss and relaxed onto his side by her so they lay face to face amid the pillows that had begun to spill around them. With great purpose then, he gathered her right hand in his left, squeezing it affectionately before quite simply, quite easily guiding its fingers onto the ruddy pleating on his lower-stomach.
Inordinately touched by his trusting conferral, Shepard couldn't but oblige.
Firm and textured but not rough by any means, the pleating gave precious little as she caressed it - the pad of her thumb moving gently left to right as her fingers eased along in appreciative half-inches - but it was sensitive still, and she could feel her mate warring with himself at her attentions; fighting, as she had, with even breaths and tense muscles, to keep still and let her do as she pleased.
He did admirably.
Much better than she had all told.
But as she neared the very bottom, the area where his tummy-pleats and the base of his manhood met, he couldn't silence the wanting rumble that ebbed up on his exhalation any more than he could keep himself from firming further or flexing his hips towards her when he felt careful fingers encircle said base to take their first proper feel of him in too, too long. His breath hitched at the sensation, the lowest reaches of the manhood, particularly nearer the underside, being deeply erogenous for all male Drell, and he caught her in a kiss as her fingers gave a stroke from there to the tapered tip and back; relearning the lay of his most intimate pleats with the same gentle attention to detail he had shown her most tender places.
They spent long moments thus…Thane's knee coming to rest against his mate's hip as she caressed him, his hips arching forward when her fingers lingered and massaged the pleating nearest his body…before movement again took them; Shepard guiding him onto his back and settling, her hands and lips finding the firm scales and muscle below his ribs, between his thighs. And he could only stare, wide-eyed…only wonder if he had inspired her and try and keep the oxygen flowing…as kisses rained down upon his abdomen in a slowly descending, ragged line which saw each become more full, more wet, than the last. The ones gifted to the pleats on his lower-stomach were especially so, having taken on a soft suckling quality, and those to his manhood…
The feeling….
The sight of them being given…
Of the delicate tip disappearing for a brief, scorchingly erotic moment, between her lips…
It knocked his breath clean from him and sent his hands reaching for her; powerful though gentle fingers winding through her hair, clenching with great restraint as each kiss was given. The touch was not meant to guide...to push her further onto him or move her away. He could manage nothing so complex at present and had no wish to regardless. It was for contact only. To feel her moving, shifting as he did while she kissed him so thoroughly, and when her next affection came, after a slow stroke, just below the tip, he couldn't but rasp her name -
"Aaaaaami.."
- through a ragged exhalation as his head arched back into the pillows.
A breath was her reply, released through a smile and felt, warm and tempting, over his groin. Had their circumstances been different…had her beau not warned her of how easily he might be overwhelmed…she would have taken him properly into her mouth again, but she did not. The next of her kisses was instead placed below the one preceding it, and was accented with a gentle suckle of lips to pleats that earned her both the reflexive clench of the fingers in her hair and a guttural rumble of pleasure from its shuddering recipient.
Then, in place of a kiss, she gave another slow stroke, and glanced up, when the weight of his gaze returned from its brief absence among the pillows, to see her mate watching her. In that moment…that brief pause…his thumb moved to caress her cheek and she leant into the contact, turning slightly so that she could nuzzle her nose and lips against the heel of his hand. Giving that place her next kiss, and the one following that to the inside of his wrist, she slowed her more intimate ministrations consciously and took a moment to look upon him.
To look and see him, sleek and powerful…all painless breaths and relaxed (if trembling) comfort amid blanket and pillows and her…looking back at her with equal interest…equal want…equal affection.
The sight warmed her through, and she returned the smile he gave her before glancing down to watch as her hands, one moving from beside him where it had been taking her weight as she leant and the other from its place upon his manhood, came to rest on the scales either side of the pleating on his tummy. They left hardly a dent for their presence, muscular as he was, and roamed from there first down to his hips where they gave an appreciative though gentle squeeze, and then further, onto the insides of his thighs where open palms were allowed to rest and give a slow, upwards caress towards his groin.
A resonant, loving, "Siha.." escaped Thane as he watched her, his fingers moving to stroke her ear and then quickly finding their way back into her hair as hers marked both her abandonment of slow and their return to his manhood with a feathery caress upon each of its sides. Her focus was on the pleats on its upper half now, where she traced their very slightly ridged edges with gentle fingertips before another of those maddening, delicate suckles was given. With each he gasped…or groaned…or shuddered, his thighs twitching about her, and he allowed her this until…after a caress fell lower than he'd been expecting and sent his world, for a brief second, to lights…his stamina reached its limit and he moved to gently, carefully guide her away from her devotions and back, after their eyes met and he mouthed the word, "Please" in both question and request, into his arms.
They moved together then…Thane sitting up and leaning into the pillows, his hands coming up to steady his mate as she straddled his lap…and, after aiding with her fingers a teasing stroke of his tip against her opening and providing, from the bedside draw, the customary prophylactic (to spare her inner-skin potential irritation, not prevent biologically impossible pregnancies) she caught his eye and, with a smoothness and ease that belied how she truly wanted him, guided him into her body.
And the feeling…
Her eyes fell closed at it…the new-old fullness and the welcome, natural stretch of wanting skin around wanting skin…and she needed- Gods above how she needed him to move. To find a rhythm. But he didn't. The very moment her body was flush to his, he lurched up and wrapped his arms around her, clasping her so tightly against him that she could barely move. His brow pressed into her neck, his breath came short and choppy against it, and the tension in him was so great that she worried at first that she'd somehow hurt him. That she'd caught him wrong and bruised or chaffed somewhere that would appreciate neither of those happenings. When she embraced him though, shifting all she could and gentling the once-cling she'd taken about his shoulders to caress the back of his neck in what she hoped was a soothing manner, his breath hitched and an impassioned moan escaped…and with that not only did her worries ease but the desire that had been bubbling longingly within her since her fall to ecstasy flared with renewed vigour.
This was not pain she was seeing.
This was her beau, her Thane, fighting himself back from the very brink.
Across his shoulder, she pinched her eyes closed and grinned mightily. She couldn't help herself. For all his talk of lacking stamina, and all her worries about making sure all was well, here they were. Together, quite literally. And even though he was obviously close…obviously struggling with himself and therefore conclusively not up for drawing the experience out as they'd once loved to…she was frankly ecstatic.
The potential brevity of their union meant absolutely nothing to her.
The fact that it was even possible was more than enough.
Nuzzling her nose and lips as gently as she could to her love's frill while focussing on remaining as still as he seemed to need her to, she resolved, as he clung to her - every fibre of his being focused on keeping away from the tantalising brink his body was fixed on tumbling over - to do what he had so often done for her in times past and make this moment and all that followed about his pleasure, less her own. Doing that though, she knew, would require his attention, and she sought to earn it by whispering -
"Thane?"
- in her gentlest, most loving tone against his ear. When he barely twitched in response, she repeated herself and added a request -
"Thane, look at me"
- and then…then he moved, his head raising so that he could meet her gaze. Seeing his eyes fogged with desire and the constant, wrenching focus it took to keep from succumbing to it, she smiled and gave him a kiss of the utmost tenderness; her hands coming up to cup his jaw as he returned it in the hope of guiding him into a second. Before she could though, he spoke, his words strained and carrying a warning -
"I will not last"
- that did nothing to discourage her. Her kiss instead was given after he spoke, to the very edge of his lips, and was as soft and coaxing as her response.
"So don't last."
And that was the final nudge - but for the equally soft though soothing, "It's ok" she breathed when his gaze grew a hint unsure…a hint wary of his stamina failing him too quickly - her mate needed.
Before she'd fully realised what was happening, she felt their blanket at her back…Thane's speed and strength making their change in position so fluid that they lost not a half inch of contact between them...and she had a moment of simply revelling in his weight, his presence, before he was moving in earnest; short, sharp thrusts speaking of great need as clearly as the speed of his breath and the deep, thunder-like rumble that eased into and out of her range as his passion ebbed and flowed. And when it reached its zenith and he tensed, groaning his release against her neck, the fact that she did not follow him into bliss a second time, wanting and piqued as her body was, was the last thing on her mind.
It mattered less than the thought of brevity had moments prior.
What was important to her now was that she could hold him as completion made him as helpless as it had her. That she could feel his muscles flex and twitch as it rolled through him. That his breaths came short but smooth and easy and how, after their eyes met as he was coming down from his peak and they shared a loving, tremulous kiss, she, with three gentle words -
"Do it again"
- saw his face contort with ecstasy and felt his embrace about her renew as he heeded her.
Not literally of course.
There was no miraculous second release for him, but there was the memory of the first, recalled as he might at the behest of a Drellish partner who would do the same along with him. The practice, she'd learnt long back during one of their numerous talks about their respective peoples, was a way for lovers to bond during their intimate time together - the recollection redoubling the moment's impact as only perfect memory can allow for - and, her shortcomings in that department be-damned, the experience was one she would never deny Thane. It was something he found entirely natural after all, and even though she couldn't follow him into recollections and feel again the pleasure of the recent past, she could help him through his experience - hold him as he arched and shuddered; gasp as he did, as she had in the moment; kiss him when he sought her lips and gather him, as he came back to himself, dazed and doubly tired for the repetition, into her embrace to rest until he had calmed enough to return his focus outwards.
On this occasion, that lull was almost ten minutes long.
Exhausted as he was by the day and its trials, and then more so by the evening's course, Thane only managed movement when his body jolted itself awake from the light nap it had decided he needed. It irked him at first, the fact that he'd dropped off like that without even a by your leave for his Siha, but as he came aware of his surroundings he began to empathise with how he had just...let go.
He lay, his mate's arms and legs about him, his face burrowed into her neck, beneath, with her, a fold of their blanket that he could only assume she had managed to shuck over them while he slept. He was warm, completely relaxed, sated in a way he hadn't been in over a year, and he could feel, as well as the warmth of her breath and the cadence, slow and calm, of her heartbeat, the caress of the tips of her fingers against his upturned cheek and the welcome weight of her gaze.
It was that, in the end, that made him raise his head. To meet it. To respond to it. To let her see his face as he spoke the Drellish tonal 'I love you' and to kiss her after she spoke the words back with smiling lips and dancing eyes. And that - outside of a very brief sojourn to the washroom for them both and then, on their return to bed and blanket, gathering her body into the curve of his after she had EDI dim the lights, hush the music and lower the ambient temperature to aid rest - was his last proper, focused memory of the evening. Sleep came quickly after they settled, and claimed Thane without a whisker of resistance.
Shepard though?
She blinked it off, despite the fact that her eyes were muzzy and a stage two reaction to Drellish kisses was finally coming on, so that she could have as many minutes as she could keep herself awake for just looking at him.
Marvelling again at her Gods-begotten luck.
In the end, those minutes lasted for over an hour.
And she couldn't have been happier for that if she'd tried.
And now!
Coming in the next chapter
A wakeful moment at the beginning of a new day