Reconciliation

Her flesh tasted slightly salty, despite being far less sweat-covered than his own. It was pleasant, though, and he enjoyed the flat, earthy smell of her body in his nostrils. Eagerly, he pressed his lips against the dark grey nipple and teased the tip with his tongue. Debem sighed as he began to suckle, running one hand through his hair and the other over his back. He liked the unusual length of the nipple in his mouth, the way that it felt as he twirled his tongue around it, but most of all he liked the way that the Cardassian woman whimpered as he did so, arching her back slightly to press herself against him.

Tynoc switched to the other side, but stayed there for less time before moving lower. He rained kisses down her belly, smooth and flat, his hands rubbing the line of scales on her flanks, which elicited much the same response as his previous efforts with her neck-ridges. He kissed her navel, and moved lower still, allowing her to move up a little on the bed to make it easier for him.

The scaled ridges down her side split into two at her hips - her long legs, as he had already seen, looking smooth and Bajoran-like, aside from the grey skin. Still kissing her lower belly, he moved his hands round her back, feeling where one branch of the ridges curved over the upper margin of her buttocks, meeting another that ran down the centre of her back. Like the inner slope of her breasts, the upper part of her buttocks were lightly scaled, rough like fine sandpaper.

Holding Debem's buttocks, he pushed her further up on the bed, and she responded by leaning forward on her elbows. He looked up at her again, at her rapt face, and the rise and fall of her chest, and then turned his attention back to his task.

The second line of scales ran over the top of her hips, and forward, down the slight crease where her legs joined her body. Together, they formed a V-shape, pointing downwards towards an apex where they didn't quite meet. Debem was, he saw, naturally hairless down there, soft and warm beneath his fingers and lips.

He kissed the inside of each of her soft thighs, then slid his tongue down one of the lines of narrow scales towards the gap between her legs. The Cardassian woman let out a louder groan as Tynoc licked the length of her grey and hairless slit - there were no scales there, he noted - then slid his tongue inside.

Debem gripped his head, holding him in position as her hips began to move involuntarily against his face. She gasped and panted as he pleased her, using his mouth as best he could. He glanced up, and saw her arching her body, throwing her head back, small breasts heaving. Her gasps became sharper and higher in tone as he located her clit, a narrow shape, unexpectedly grooved and a little longer than he had been expecting, but just as responsive to his tongue.

It was a long time before Debem pushed him away from his prize, sat up on the bed, and pulled him up towards her for another kiss on the mouth. Her hands roamed his body, concentrating, he thought, on those areas where the scales ran on her own. He didn't know whether she was savouring the difference, as he had been, or expected those regions to be erogenous zones, but he didn't really care.

They rolled over on the sweat-damp bed, and soon she was on top of him, still kissing as Tynoc once again ran his hands over the alien shape of her face, then through her hair, the tightly bound pigtails falling down over his chest.

Then she pushed herself away, sitting upright, but with her thighs still wrapped around his hips. His cock was pressed against her buttocks, and he could feel that sandpaper texture again, against the sensitive skin there, unfamiliar yet powerfully erotic. Yet he made no move, leaving it to her this time.

Debem slid herself over his cock, pressing her hands against his chest and letting out a loud moan of delight as he penetrated that tight slit once more. She moved against him slowly at first, letting her body accustom itself again to his alien girth, but he could see the rapturous look on her face as she did so.

Soon, her pace quickened, her cries becoming louder as her flesh slapped against his. Tynoc looked up at her, seeing the outline of her body as she mounted him. The wide cords of her neck, the almost angular shape of her head, all of it somehow inspired him as much as it had once repelled. He gripped her buttocks with one hand as they bounced against his body, fondling a breast with the other, as he kept gazing into her eyes.

She was almost there now, their bodies moving to a mutual rhythm. Tynoc knew that he could not last much longer, either... unless...

The Bajorans were a spiritual people, with religions going back thousands of years. Yet not all of those faiths were as ascetic as that which now dominated. In the distant past, some of his people had experimented with other paths using drugs, ecstatic dancing, and, yes, even sex, to approach what they thought of as the divine. These days, such beliefs were thought to be associated with the pah-wraiths , not the Prophets, but not every aspect of the old practices had died out entirely, even if the context had changed.

Tynoc focussed on his inner self, withdrawing from the sensations he was experiencing to watch them as an observer. He could still feel them, but they were no longer truly him, seen through his mind's eye, not directly felt through the flesh of his body. The near-trance state lessened the immediacy and the sensual rush, but that was the point. In this condition, he could still please Debem just as much, but...

The Cardassian pushed against him harder and faster still, her cries reaching a crescendo as...

...would not...

...she came, dark eyes locked on his, body shuddering with the sudden release.

...ejaculate.

She rolled off him once again, lying beside him, still stroking his body, pressing her head into the crook of his neck. Tynoc stroked her neck again, and she made a murmuring sound of appreciation. A little later, her wandering hand moved down to his cock - and found it still erect and ready for action.

She started, surprised at his apparently sudden recovery, and moved her head to look at him, a silent question on her lips. Tynoc grinned, rolling her over onto her back, positioning himself on top of her. They lay there like that for a moment, until Debem grinned as well, teeth white against the grey-brown of her lips, and then nodded in enthusiastic encouragement.

Tynoc pressed himself inside her for the third time, using the same gentle rhythm that she had when mounting him. Her hands were all over him, not knowing where to stop, and his were soon doing the same, caressing soft skin and scaled ridges alike.

They kissed again and again, the bed creaking as he gradually raised the tempo of his thrusts. Debem's body was arched against him, using every movement to press him further into her. Tynoc had never had such incredible sex in his life, not even the first time he took her. That has been pure passion, the satisfaction of an all-consuming need, but this was something more, something almost spiritual, that pleased his Bajoran soul as much, if not more, as it did his body.

His own cries of delight merged with hers as the two coupled. He pulled back whenever either of them got close, not wanting this to end, yet knowing that eventually it had to. He could not estimate how long it took, this third time, beyond the fact that it was longer than either of the previous two occasions, yet somehow he knew when the time had come.

This time there was no holding back, no retreating to a near trance. Tynoc was focussed fully on their mutual pleasure, no longer the raging beast of their first coupling, but attentive to every nuance of his partner's movement, every flicker on her face. They climaxed together, he experiencing an even greater bliss than the first time, and Debem giving every appearance of doing the same.

They cuddled after that, holding one another tight as they slid into a deep and much deserved sleep.

--***--

"You never did say what that conversation was about," said Sh'ree at breakfast as four of them were gathered for breakfast in the forward lounge.

Lugmilla looked up, puzzled. "What conversation?"

"The one with Ral Tynoc the evening before last. He didn't look very happy."

"I told you it was private," pointed out the Tellarite.

"To be honest, Ral has been a bit cranky over the last couple of days," pointed out Max, "something's got into him."

"Hmm. Well, it's still private."

"The reason I ask is because of this," the Andorian slid a plastic card across the table, "he just bumped into me in the corridor, and asked me to give it to you."

"Was he still looking angry?" asked Max, worried.

"No... looked like he'd had a rough night, but he seemed oddly happy, if anything."

"Huh," said the Tellarite, and picked up the card. It looked like one of those animated image things that humans sent to one another on their birthday. She pressed her thumb against the patch, and watched it for a moment.

"Well?" said Sh'ree, "You've got to tell us what it is!"

"It's... a thank you card. He says he owes me a big favour."

"For what?"

Lugmilla was silent for a while. She probably wasn't used to compliments, figured Sh'ree, at least not from those who weren't already her close friends. Eventually, the Tellarite spoke up, looking around the table at her companions with apparent sincerity.

"I have absolutely no clue," she said.