As she was exploring this new space, he crossed to the entertainment center. It wasn’t very hard to find what he was looking for on the subnet.
The hard drums weren’t ones he was familiar with hearing. But his heartbeat immediately fell into the rhythm as something primal and instinctive inside him roused. Like the drumbeat was speaking to his body. Instructing it in how to move. He never heard the traditional sounds of his people, played on ancient style wooden drums, but he still knew this song deep in his soul.
Turning, he looked back at Garnet to find that she was standing silently in the middle of the room, hands held behind her back, smiling at him. He hadn’t said a word, but she knew what was happening. It was there in the gleam in her eye.
Tanin knew that he wanted to dance for her. He hadn’t made a decision on where or when he was going to do it. Realistically, it didn’t matter. The dance was an intimate thing. Aside from that, he didn’t know anything else about what to do. Maybe there was a culture around it on Tella’za. There probably was, in fact, but he didn’t know it.
So, he could only follow his instincts. His desires. And after seeing her hold those flowers, the adoration that gleamed in her eyes as she appreciated them, he was suddenly impatient to claim her permanently. Properly. That flower held no meaning for her aside from the meaning it had for him, but that was enough to make it precious to her.
He was that important to her. And she meant this much to him.
Tanin pressed the seal on his jumpsuit, making it split down the front. He stepped out of it, kicking his shoes away. His shirt was lost just as easily. Tossed aside in the corner. Leaving him clad only in the dark gray shorts that he wore under the jumpsuit.
“Tanin,” Garnet called to him gently.
The sound of her voice made his quills start to rise. And he had no desire to lower them again. He wanted her to see him at his most natural. Everything he had to offer. The shorts should come off as well, he realized. His cock was starting to rise, anticipating what was coming, and his female needed to see what was hers.
But she sounded uncertain, making him hesitate.
“Yes?”
“I don’t… really know what to do,” she admitted, shifting her weight as she crossed her arm across her belly, holding herself. “I don’t want to mess it up.”
“You won’t mess it up,” he promised. “React how you like. Show me how you desire me. As I show you how I desire you.”
With that, he struck himself on the chest with the flat of his hand. The hard smack echoed along with the drum beats as his skin burst into light. In the dim room, the sparks seemed so much brighter. The burst of white fizzled out and down as he struck the other side of his chest. Another light did the same, bursting out and fading away.
Garnet’s eyes sparkled in the low light. A small smile widening as she watched him continue moving, swept away in the beats of the drums.
He stomped his foot. Without shoes, it could be seen that, even there, the lights in his skin burst as a result of the sudden pressure. Brighter there, because the skin was thicker. Stomp. Light. Stomp Light. Tanin struck his thigh. Light. He struck his arm. Light.
The drums moved him. The song was harsh, driving equally sharp and hard movements. A dance that emphasized his strength, his power, each strike pounding with the beats and creating the lights that sparkled in his female’s eyes.
Grabbing his shorts, he ripped them off. Tearing the fabric. Shredding it with his strength and his knuckle claws. They fell away, trash, revealing his fully hardened cock.
He roared, pounding his chest with both fists. More lights.
Garnet, panting through parted lips, took a step his way.
Chapter 38
Garnet
When Tanin told her he was going to dance for her, she imagined some kind of bird situation. Fancy moves. Dramatic poses. She couldn’t imagine Tanin shaking his ass like he was fluttering tail feathers, but that was really the only frame of reference she had for a mating dance.
This wasn’t like that at all. It was all raw masculine strength and power. The combination of low drumbeats and high-pitched smacks against his skin and the bursting lights all over his body wherever he struck was hypnotizing.
He roared and she jumped, her breath coming out in surprised pants. A fire burning in her belly that made her thighs rub together. Trying and failing to ease some of the empty ache only made it worse.
Her hips were rocking as she slowly took a step towards him. Then another.
There was something playing along with the drums. An instrument she didn’t understand. It hummed like a string, but didn’t reverberate like one. But it was such a smooth, gliding sound, it stood in direct contrast to the hard drumbeats. But they weren’t mismatched. The hum of the second instrument wove in and through the steady pounding of the first.
It was, Garnet realized, as her body swayed, the kind of song that demanded movement. That demanded respect in the form of physical worship. It controlled the body, it quieted the mind, it fed the fire already burning up from her core, spreading through to the tips of her fingers.
Tanin danced by striking his body. Creating the glowing fireworks that burst on his skin. Quills up and at attention. Body fully on display. They hadn’t made love in the dark before, but now that it was dim, she could see that his cock had the same lights. They shined through the bumps of his retracted barbs and swirled around the head, pulsing in time with the beat of his heart.
He was fully on display for her. It was only fair that she do the same.
