A Place To Bloom

Second Captain

I was ready to give my virginity to her.

For the next fight, a thick, burly woman I recognized as one of the goatherds faced off against a sekɪwa I'd seen when I first came through, the same one who'd thrown her laundry at me.

But I needed a bath. Amid the heavy smell of sweat from the crowd around us, I still caught the coconut blossom in Miyani's hair. Amber light from lanterns throughout the back end of the castle grounds reflected off thick muscles in her legs, and I needed a bath right now.

I tapped Blue's neck. He'd lain across both our laps and acted like he was asleep even though his muscles twitched in response to every blow in the last fight. Miyani laughed. "tuzubo, pʊ baɣe!"

He squawked, raised his neck, and turned his head around to put one eye with a black, vertical slit on each of us.

She and I got up, and he stood on his hind legs, stretching out his tail.

Miyani brought his lizard face close to hers and cooed something.

He squawked and sat next to Bilal and Renou. Miyani and I escaped through sweaty bodies while men cheered the two women stretching out their arms. The sekɪwa in the stone circle raised her middle finger and sneered at someone in the audience while we were leaving.

My heart thundered and I couldn't breathe. This was the moment.

"pʊ xeŋise!" She took my hand and led me past stone buildings along the outer wall, away from the light and through shadows. We passed between two of the mud hut apartments towards the central area. Moonlight broke through a cloud overhead to cast faint blue over a ring of bricks and a small tree, and I could barely hear the crickets over my own heartbeat. The sensation of her hand in mine pulling me through the darkness, the giddy smile in her voice, this felt right.

This was right.

We crept through the common area to the side, between two mud walls and off to the left behind another mud building. A delicate amber glow filled the ground around the corner, and she brought me to a large, wooden wash basin filled with water that smelled clean beneath a paper lantern.

Her curvaceous silhouette in the flickering candlelight drove me insane.

She turned around and brought me closer to the lantern. Half her dark-green skin was cast in low amber and her face beamed up at me. I couldn't wait. I lifted my thumbs to her nipples and stroked gently across. She allowed it and shifted her yellow eyes back and forth between mine with her lips cracked open. I covered both her breasts in my hands and squeezed gently, wrapping my fingers over them. My mind shuddered over the sensation of her taut nipples in my palms. She smiled lightly and watched my eyes.

Miyani rested her hand over my heart and held still as if listening for something. She giggled lightly. "Your heart fast!"

I took a deep breath. I was racing. I'd never known excitement, not like this.

Her smile melted away. "You want that you are sure you this?"

Her arms were feminine power at its fullest. Strong, graceful and firm, wrapping my fingers over her muscles was like probing the greatest wilderness. I wanted her. I wanted her, and nothing else in the world mattered. "I'm sure."

My shirt was drenched in sweat. She peeled it away from me with a laugh while I dropped my trousers.

I was ready.

Her fingers crawled over my shaft, and her other hand pulled me down into her lips. And as we kissed, I rolled my fingers down her back until I could fit them beneath the silk belt of her yithi. From there, I sated my world in the sublime curvature of her body and knelt so my hands could trail down over her delicious legs to her adorable feet.