Xin leaned forward and pressed his face to the space between Sigrun's breasts.

  The scent consumed him. Salt and heat and the warm, wet smell of her snowy body. His lips touched her sternum and he felt her intake of breath, the expansion of her ribs against his cheeks. He turned his head, pressing his nose against the swell of her left breast, breathing deep.

  His mouth opened against her skin, tongue tracing the salt there, tasting the sweat that had pooled in the soft curve beneath her breast, and a sound left his throat, low and needy and stripped of every pretense he'd built around himself.

  Sigrun's hand came up. Her fingers threaded into his short hair.

  "That's it," she murmured. Her fingertips pressed against his scalp, guiding him closer. "Breathe."

  He did. And again. Each breath pulled more of her into him and the craving that had been clawing at the inside of his ribs for weeks finally sated.

  He trailed his lips up her chest, along the column of her throat, tasting the salt gathered in the hollow there. Her pulse jumped under his mouth. Fast. A resilient woman's heart rate shouldn't spike from something this gentle.

  "Are you nervous?" he said against her neck.

  "Shut up." But her fingers tightened in his hair, and when he pulled back to look at her face, her ivory cheeks were flushed.

  The moment stretched between them.

  Then her eyes…the icy blue was warming to something deeper. "It's been a while. You got time?"

  "I have all night," he said. "Nikki's got H?kon."

  Something flickered across Sigrun's face. "Then get over here."

  She pulled him up by his hoodie and kissed him.

  It was different from the motel. That kiss had been functional, a starting gate. This one was slow and searching and tasted like the protein shake she'd have before the workout. Her mouth was hot, her tongue confident, her hands fisting the fabric of his hoodie and dragging him closer until he was standing between her legs with her thighs clamped against his hips.

  Xin's hands found her waist. His thumbs traced the ridge of muscle along her obliques, slick with sweat, and he felt her shiver under his touch. A woman who could squat over 250 pounds and bench press right after, shivering at the brush of his thumbs. It made him braver.

  He kissed down her jaw, her throat, the slope of her shoulder. His hands slid up her ribcage and cupped her breasts, his palms wet with her sweat, and when his thumbs grazed her nipples she arched into the contact with a sharp breath.

  "Sensitive?" he managed.

  "Lactation." She said it bluntly, the way she addressed anything about her body. Like it was a field report. "Since the motel. Nikki says my Lunar attunement did something."

  "You've been…" He felt heat rising in his cheeks. Sigrun. Lactating.

  "Don't worry. I'm not pregnant."

  He looked up at her. "Okay, not worried. But I want to know what feels good."

  Her expression softened. "That feels good."

  He stroked his thumbs over her again, slower this time. She bit her bottom lip. A tiny bead of moisture appeared at the tip of her left breast, not sweat, something thinner and sweeter, and his craving surged with a hunger that made his hands tremble.

  "It's fine." she said, reading his face. "Drink it if you want."

  He lowered his mouth to her breast. His lips closed around her nipple and the first taste of her milk hit his tongue and the world narrowed to a single, luminous point. Sweet, faintly warm, carrying something in it that his psionic senses recognized as raw Aether, energy that slotted into the hollow places in his Void-attuned body like a key into a lock. He swallowed and the warmth spread through his chest, his limbs, filling.

  Sigrun's hand cradled the back of his head. Her breathing had changed. Deeper. Her thighs squeezed tighter against his hips.

  "That feels good for you too?" he asked, pulling back enough to speak.

  "Just do it." Her voice was lower now. Rougher at the edges. "Come on. Shorts off."

  She reached for his belt with a directness that was so thoroughly Sigrun he almost laughed. He caught her wrist, and she paused, blue eyes snapping to his with a flash of something cautious.

  "Not yet," he said. "Let me..."

  "Let you what?"

  "Take my time. I'll show you."

  For a heartbeat, her face was completely blank. Then she leaned back against the squat rack, resting her weight on her palms, and raised her chin. "Fine. Show me."

  He took off his Nucleus Watch and knelt again. Started at her ankle, his lips tracing up the inside of her calf, tasting the salt on her skin, feeling the hard muscle beneath. Behind her knee, where the skin was softer and her sweat had gathered in a warm slick. She flinched when he kissed there, her leg jumping, and then held still. Letting him.

  Up the inside of her thigh. The heat intensified. The scent of her lavender-flavored sweat grew stronger, richer, and his hands were shaking but his mouth was steady, pressing slow kisses against skin that grew softer as he moved higher. When he reached the edge of her shorts, he hooked his fingers in the waistband and paused.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "Yeahhh—" she muttered before he could ask.

  He pulled them down. She lifted her hips to help, and then they were around her ankles and off, and she was sitting on the safety bars of the squat rack in nothing but her socks, and Xin knelt between her legs looking up at her, thinking this was either the best moment of his life.

  He kissed the inside of her thigh again, close now, close enough that his breath ghosted across the wetness gathered at her center. She too was aroused, the evidence of it glistening.

  His mouth found her vulva.

  Sigrun gasped. Her hand shot to the squat rack's upright, gripping it hard enough that her knuckles went white. Her other hand found his hair again, fingers tangling in the short black strands, and she held on as his tongue moved against her, exploring with the same methodical attention he gave to code. Every reaction catalogued. The small, bitten-off sounds she made when he found a particular spot, the way her hips rocked forward when he used the flat of his tongue, the pull of his hair when he sucked gently at her sensitive clit, basking in her taste and smell.

  "Fuck—oh, fuck—" she breathed. Her thighs were trembling on either side of his face, the powerful muscles that could crush his ribcage twitching with a vulnerability that only aroused him more. "Xin, that's...don't stop."

  He didn't stop. Her taste was everything. Warm, slightly sweet, carrying that same Lunar resonance as her milk, and each suckling on her womanhood excited him like food after a fast.

  He groaned against her and the vibration made her hips jerk, and for a while the only sounds in the gym were the wet sounds of his mouth working her vagina, mixed with her breathing growing ragged.

  She came with her hand fisted in his hair, pulling hard enough to hurt, her back arching off the squat rack, thighs clamping against his ears. Her body shook in waves and he stayed with her, pressing soft kisses against her inner thigh as her grip in his hair loosened.

  "Fuck…" she whispered at the ceiling as liquid shot out from her core, wetting his cheeks.

  Xin sat back on his heels, breathing hard, a side of his face painted with her ejeculation, his glasses completely fogged. He pulled them off and wiped them on his hoodie, and when he put them back on, Sigrun was looking at him.

  Warmth. Simple, unguarded warmth.

  "Get up," she said. "Your turn."

  She pulled him to his feet and stripped his hoodie off, tossing it onto the bench press. His undershirt followed. Standing shirtless in front of her, his slender frame exposed, he felt the old reflex of shame: Power: 1, the man who could barely open jars, standing beside a Power: 7 woman carved from muscle and curves, meant for sex and violence.

  Sigrun ran her palm flat across his chest. Over the ribs she could count, the modest slope of his chest, the soft skin of his stomach. But her touch was careful.

  "Lie down," she said, nodding toward the rubber mats.

  He did. The mat was warm from her earlier stretching, and it smelled like her. When she straddled his hips, her weight settled against him and he moaned. "I want to be inside you so much…"

  She chuckled and reached down to free him from his pants with the ease of a woman who had undressed more men than Xin wanted to think about. But when she wrapped her hand around him, her grip was different from what he expected. Slower. Fingers exploring his slender shape. She watched his face as she stroked.

  "Tell me if it's too much, okay?" She purred. "I know your Resilience is..."

  "Terrible. Yeah." He managed a breathless half-laugh. "But for you, I'll last as long as I can."

  "You better." She challenged, biting her lower lip as she guided his manhood, stroking it, holding it like she did the grip of her Thermal Axe, her Psytum Sword—

  She claimed his shaft, sliding it into her canal.

  The sensation blanked his thoughts. Wet heat and pressure surging through him, every nerve in his body lighting up as her Lunar energy met his Void attunement. She sank down slowly, taking all of him, and the sound she made was lower than her usual mezzo-soprano, less like a lover and more like a lynx in season.

  She braced her hands on his chest and began to move, rolling her hips in long, grinding circles, finding the angle that worked for her.

  "I…want…I want it…" Xin's hands found her waist, then her hips, his thumbs tracing the grooves of muscle beside her pelvis. She was still slick with sweat, her skin hot against his palms, and every point of contact felt like a circuit, those invisible but real currents of energy flowing between them in a loop that intensified each time she rocked forward, her vagina clenching around him so tight he saw white.

  His hands slid up her stomach, over her ribs, and cupped her breasts. Full and heavy and damp with sweat, their weight filling his palms. He squeezed, gentle at first, thumbs finding her nipples, and Sigrun's rhythm stuttered.

  "Mmnh." Her chin tipped up, exposing the long line of her throat. "Harder…"

  "Yeah." He squeezed again before her hands left his chest and covered his, pressing his fingers deeper into the soft flesh, guiding him, showing him the pressure she wanted.

  "I said harder." Her fingers laced through his and together they kneaded her breasts in time with the roll of her hips, her grip teaching his grip, her tempo setting his. Thin warmth leaked between his fingers from both nipples, drips of her milk triggered by the stimulation and the Lunar attunement, and the scent of it mixed with her sweat and hit his Void craving like a match to dry grass.

  "Holy Buddha—Sigrun—"

  "Fuck...keep fucking…" She was breathing harder now, watching his face while he touched her, and the look in her eyes was just a woman feeling good and letting someone see it.

  "I will. I will…" he panted, fingers feeling her magnificent bosom, feeling how the sensation sent a jolt through his entire consciousness.

  "Like that. Just like that." She picked up the pace. Her hips snapped forward with controlled power that reminded him what a Psi Lynx's body could do.

  His glasses nearly fell off again.

  She caught them, took them from his face, and set them carefully on the mat beside his head.

  "Hi there, new guy," she said, looking down at him with her face close to his. Her Nordic eyes were so blue. Her blonde hair was coming loose from the clip, damp aureate strands falling against her temples, so much like golden waves of tides.

  "Hi," he managed.

  She shifted her angle, leaning forward.

  She kissed him on the lips. Different from before. Deeper but softer. He answered it by wrapping his arms around her back and pulling her flush against him, chest to chest, her ample breasts pressed against him, the slickness of her sweat merging with his as they moved together.

  Hands moving, he gripped her ass hard, his back arching off the mat.

  The pace built. Xin felt his body approaching its limit, the low Resilience reality catching up with his high Libido.

  He gritted his teeth because he wanted this to last, wanted her to feel good, wanted this moment to stretch beyond forever—

  But Sigrun read it in his face, a knowing smile forming on her snowy countenance. Of course she did. A woman who'd spent years reading men's bodies and fucking them knew exactly when one was close.

  She ground down hard, changed her angle, and her hands found his again, pulling one back to her left breast. She pressed his palm flat against her and held it there, fingers tight over his, and the new angle must have caught her right because her smile broke apart. Her mouth opened, blonde brows furrowing, that crease forming between them. She was past thinking.

  "Ahhn—Xin—"

  "Sigrun—Sig—"

  So good.

  Her walls clamped around him, her hips bucking, thighs squeezing his waist so tight his ribs creaked, and she moaned into it, so loud and raw it echoed off the gym's metal walls. The sound and the pressure and the rhythmic clenching of her body pulled him over the edge with her.

  He cummed hard, gasping against her collarbone, his shaft pulsing inside her as his hips drove up involuntarily, spilling everything he had while her body milked him.

  Perfect.