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It’s usually impossible to get Kiri alone in the lab. There are always scientists at work or another Sully sibling tagging along. But tonight, Spider takes a leaf out of Kiri’s book and slips away from the crowded Hunt Festival. He notes with satisfaction when he peers over his shoulder and sees her following him with a curious and concerned expression on her pretty face. She is worried about him. Spider just wants to take his exopack off for a bit, and he wants Kiri to be with him when he does.
Maybe she will touch his face again as she did so many months ago. Maybe she will trace her fingertips over his brow and down his nose to rest them on his lips, telling him she thinks he is beautiful. Ever since that day, Spider has felt a savage, kind of crazed desire for her. He wants her nimble blue fingers on his skin. He wants her attention directed at him and only him. He wants to make her laugh so he can see her smile.
He thinks Kiri likes him too. She blushes when he flirts with her. She stares at his body when she thinks he won’t notice. She sticks close by him whether they explore the forest or sit in the Sullys’ marui. And only the other day she tugged him down onto the forest floor to lie with her, then wrapped her long limbs around him and refused to let go.
Lo’ak stood beside them with his bow in hand and grumbled at her, telling his sister to stop messing around so they could keep hunting. But Kiri just held Spider against her chest and ignored her brother. Spider shrugged up at Lo’ak, who heaved a great sigh and turned to leave. Spider couldn’t even feel embarrassed about it, because then they were alone and Kiri hummed in pleasure, squeezing him so tightly he couldn’t even breathe his air. Her tail curled around his leg, and she nuzzled her face into his locs—then promptly fell asleep, leaving Spider to try and repress his very human, bodily reaction.
But Kiri is not one to admit what she is truly feeling, so Spider will have to get creative if he wants to know for sure whether she likes him.
He pretends he doesn’t notice her following him. He transits through the airlock and into the empty lab, removing his exopack and scrubbing a hand over his sticky face. He is wearing a beaded collar necklace and a feathered loincloth to represent the ikran for the Hunt Festival, and in addition to his usual blue stripes, he has painted his body in streaks of bright teal and amber. He hears the airlock hiss behind him and then Kiri steps through, bending slightly as she always does even though she can fit upright in the lab. She is wearing a delicate, iridescent shawl woven to look like the eight wings of a lortsyal when she spreads out her arms. Her face is decorated with shimmery paint and her eyes are accentuated with dark powder.
Spider stopped short when she walked up to him at the festival.
“I know,” she sighed, drawing her arms around herself. “I look stupid.”
He gaped at her until he got a hold of himself and told her she looked beautiful. Even an hour later, Spider still feels his pulse racing as he takes her in. “What are you doing here?”
Kiri puts her hands on her hips. “Me? I just followed you. What are you doing here?”
Spider hides a smile, tossing his exopack onto the nearest lab bench. “Needed to get this thing off for a while.”
Kiri walks over and ruffles his hair, bending down to meet his gaze. “Aw, are you complaining again, Monkey Boy?”
As kids, Spider used to slap her hand away when she touched him like this. It embarrassed him. Made him feel small and vulnerable in the shadow of her taller, lean body. But now he craves it. The feeling of her slim fingers in his hair, catching on the rough locs. Having to tilt his head back to meet her gaze. The sense that she could easily crowd him into a corner, and he would happily let her.
Before she can pull away, Spider catches her arm in his hands and tugs it down. He presses his mouth to the skin of her inner wrist. It is warm and soft on his lips.
When he pulls back Kiri is gaping at him. “What was that?”
Spider shrugs. “You touch me, I touch you.”
A startled laugh escapes her. “You kissed me.”
He pushes himself up onto a nearby lab bench, so he is sitting a foot higher, but Kiri still has several inches on him. “That wasn’t a kiss.”
“I think I know what a kiss is,” she says sassily, crossing her long arms.
“How would you?” Spider stirs her. “Have you ever kissed anyone before?”
Kiri blushes but she meets his gaze resolutely. “Yes.”
“Liar.”
“I am not!” she snaps. “I’ve kissed Tuk. And Grandmother.”
Spider laughs. “I mean a real kiss.”
She huffs angrily. “That’s none of your business.”
“So no,” he determines.
Kiri lashes out and punches him in the shoulder, so Spider snatches her arm again and pulls her toward him. She stumbles over her feet and collides with him, her hands landing on his chest to brace herself.
She glares at him in outrage. “You skxawng!”
Spider grins. She is standing between his knees, her tail lashing behind her in anger. She tries to shove him back with her hands, but he grabs her elbows, and she can’t shift them.
“You’re so dead,” she seethes, then pounces on him.
Spider falls back with a laugh as Kiri leaps onto the lab bench and climbs over him. They scatter equipment, and something hard digs into his hip but he doesn’t care. His heart is pounding from excitement. Kiri is growling softly at him, pinning his wrists to the bench above his head with her hands. Her tail has slowed its flexing and now it flicks from side to side in agitation. Her cheeks are dark with heat, which makes her tanhi glow bright.
“I know what a kiss is,” she says again, pressing his arms hard against the bench for emphasis.
A wave of arousal sweeps through Spider. Her body over his, her rough grip on his wrists, her angry eyes pinned on him, highlighted by the dark powder. This image of her is unexpectedly alluring.
He sucks in a breath. “I don’t believe you.”
There is a flash of rage and humiliation and possibly even insult, but Spider sees the moment Kiri finally realises he is provoking her. Her heated gaze clears.
“What are you—” she blinks. “You’re goading me! Why?”
Spider lies still. Kiri sinks lower on top of him, almost brushing his chest with hers, but her knees resting beside his thighs keep her up. “Why!”
“You’re pretty when you’re angry,” he says.
Her tail goes rigid. Her mouth parts. Kiri stares down at him, her big eyes unblinking.
“Cat got your tongue?” Spider asks. It’s a human expression from Earth, and neither of them gets it, but they hear Jake say it a lot when someone is quiet.
Kiri stares at him, and he feels her fingers shift over his skin. She cocks her head. “Have you ever kissed anyone?”
Spider gazes up at her. “Who would I have kissed?”
Her eyes dip to look at his lips. A curious expression comes across her face, and her tail swishes slowly from side to side. Spider feels his heart in his throat as she leans close to his face, her braids slipping over her shoulders to hang between them. The ends of her shawl brush his bare stomach. She gets that look in her eye like she has figured out the answer to a puzzle.
“You want to kiss me,” she murmurs.
Spider feels a thrill inside him.
“But you’re waiting for me to kiss you first.”
He is waiting for that. He continues to wait, letting her decide whether she wants to or not. Kiri is back to staring at his lips, and he sees a flash of tenacity in her yellow eyes before she closes the short distance between their mouths and presses her lips to his.
His blood sings. His entire body goes slack on the lab bench. He thinks he hears himself moan.
It’s a short, innocent kiss—completely controlled by Kiri—but when she pulls back Spider is breathing hard, as though he has just scaled a tree in the forest. He wants to rip his arms from her grip and pull her flat against him. He wants to thread his hands into her short hair and slant his mouth over hers. He wants to make her moan and hear the hums of pleasure she makes in her throat when she is happy.
Kiri stares down at him, her pupils dilated. “Are we still friends?”
The question startles him, and he laughs. “Yes. Why do you ask that?”
“We kissed,” she says. “A real kiss.”
Spider shifts one of his arms from her hold and Kiri lets him. He reaches up to touch her face, cradling her cheek in his palm. “We can kiss and still be friends.”
Kiri rubs her face against his hand. “For now.”
He raises an eyebrow. “For now?”
She nods. “Until we mate.”
Spider feels his stomach flip. A wave of heat sweeps through him at the simplicity of her words. The surety with which she said them.
“You want to be my mate?”
Desire darkens his voice. How long has he wished for the same thing?
Kiri shifts her head and kisses his palm, then his wrist. She finally settles herself fully on top of him, crushing his lungs in the process, and kisses his cheek. The hand she was using to pin his arm to the bench falls to his hip, her fingers tracing over the muscular grooves to splay on his stomach, dangerously close to where he is throbbing for her. Spider threads his free hand into her short hair, brushing his fingers over the braid of her queue which causes her to shiver against him. She nuzzles her face into his neck and speaks near his ear.
“Do you remember when we were young, and I dragged you around the village by the hand and told everyone that you were mine?”
He can only nod as he runs out of air.
“I meant it,” she says, kissing her way down his throat, brushing herself against him as she goes. His skin is aflame where it grazes hers. His stomach flexes beneath her roving fingers. Kiri is still pinning his other wrist to the bench, so Spider removes his free hand from her hair and takes her by the chin. He draws her up to look at him.
He manages to get down a breath. “You know I’ve been in love with you since the day we met, right?”
She kisses him softly on the lips. “That’s not true.”
“It is,” he says. “Maybe I was too young to realise it, but you drove me crazy. All I wanted was you.”
“And you still want me?” Kiri asks. She kisses him again before he can answer, but his mouth is already open, so she licks her tongue inside. When it brushes his they both moan. Kiri sinks back on top of him, squeezing the breath from his lungs. The kiss is warm and wet, and Spider has a sudden, feral urge to capture her tongue between his teeth and suck on it.
But he doesn’t do that. Not yet.
When Kiri pulls back, Spider is gasping for air. She lets him have it.
“You have no idea how much I want you,” he breathes.
She smiles and lets go of his other wrist. “Then have me.”