The Gender End

by Bella Forrest

  “Could that have been any more awkward?” I asked, my voice muffled by the thick fabric of his uniform. He turned, and as I looked up at him, I could see that Ms. Dale’s interference didn’t bother him one bit.

  “Quit stalling,” he grinned, his teeth flashing white as he held up the keychain in his hand. “Let’s go check out our room.”

  His voice was dark, heavy, and I felt something drop in my stomach, and a familiar ache begin below. I let out a shuddering breath as he gave me a hungry look, and I realized that this was it.

  This is happening.

  “Viggo?”

  “Bedroom. Now.”

  And then he grabbed me, hoisting me up in the air and cradling me against his chest as I kicked and screamed and laughed the whole time. His fingers began to tickle my ribs lightly, and I squirmed in his arms as he carried me past the staircase to the conference room, and to a smaller, narrower set of stairs, taking them two at a time as he carried me effortlessly. He had to duck to avoid knocking his head on the ceiling, and then turned left down the hall, heading to the door.

  He dropped the key on my belly and arched an eyebrow. “My hands are full, my love,” he said when I didn’t immediately understand what he wanted me to do. My hands trembled as I picked up the key, my breath coming a little short. I shifted in his arms, laughing loudly when he grunted and pretended to strain under my weight.

  Then, before I could even get the key in the lock, he started tickling me again, and my squirming brought us both down to the ground, laughing hard. We laughed for what felt like eternity—him lying on the floor, me using him as a pillow—until it slowed, then finally stopped. I shifted my head on his thigh and looked up at him, where he was half-lounging on his elbows, staring back at me.

  I bit my lip, inexplicably nervous in spite of everything. Viggo’s eyes shifted to my mouth, and his lips parted slightly, the hungry expression in his eyes gradually returning. I took a deep breath and then shifted up onto my hands, moving forward to press my lips to his, and he met me halfway.

  My mouth immediately opened, and his tongue pressed in slowly, filling me with subtle tremors that raced down my spine, leaving me breathless, craving something more—and this time, I knew that more was coming. Viggo pressed me back, guiding me up while we slowly stood, his mouth never leaving mine. His kiss grew hungrier, wilder, as his arms came around my waist and pulled me forward against the whole tall, hard length of him.

  I broke off the kiss, suddenly dizzy, and his mouth trailed down my neck, over my collarbone, his tongue tasting me. I gasped, the tremors increasing, a little surprised when Viggo pulled the key from my numb fingers, his mouth leaving my skin so he could look over my shoulder.

  The key scraped off the lock, and he bit back a curse. I smiled, and then he made a victorious noise as the door creaked open. Then his mouth was back on mine, catching me unawares. He pressed the advantage, pushing me forward while I walked backward blindly, trusting him to keep me safe from harm.

  I heard the door slam—he must’ve kicked it closed—and then his hands were on my waist, sliding up. I gasped as his thumb pressed into sensitive flesh underneath the thin fabric of my dress, my head lolling back as his mouth returned to my neck. I clung to him as his hand drew back down, then around. I heard and felt the zipper of my dress parting as Viggo slowly slid it down, and I quivered with anticipation as he began slipping the straps of the dress off my shoulders, his fingers skimming over my bare skin.

  He broke off from me, moving around to stand behind me, pressing against my back. He pushed the dress down, off my shoulders and down my sides, leaving it encircling my legs in a pool on the floor, like a trap holding me in place.

  But really it was him holding me in place. His breath touched the back of my neck, and I suddenly felt very much like the prey that the wolf wants to play with. Anticipation left me breathless and hopelessly weak as he pressed his lips against one of my earlobes, and even the softest touch was enough to make my eyes roll back into my head, my body wanting to fall backward, into him.

  Like always, Viggo caught me, holding me up and using his shoulder for my pillow. His mouth moved again to my ear.

  “Violet,” he breathed. I felt lost in the overwhelming sensations threatening to tear me apart. I was so vulnerable, and he held me like I was precious, like I was the only thing in the world worth living or dying for. My heart kept skipping beats, and I was powerless to control my breathing.

  “Are you certain?” I could barely discern his whisper over the rising tide of my hunger for him, but it broke through, grounding me in the moment.

  I turned, my body running on desperate need. “Yes,” I managed, my brain still reeling from everything, and I pulled his mouth down to mine. My hands fumbled in vain with the button on his dress uniform, but my fruitless efforts seemed to excite him, and he quickly replaced my fingers with his own, undoing the stiff buttons with practiced ease. He slipped it off, while my fingers worked on the new set of buttons of his shirt.

  Our mouths grew eager as we grew impatient, and then, finally, I heard buttons popping, and suddenly his skin was under my hands. I flexed my fingers over his raised pectoral muscles, digging into the solid length of him. I felt his hands on my back, and then my bra fell open, and he was sliding it around and off my body.

  I raised my hands to cover myself, suddenly self-conscious, and Viggo stared at me, his green eyes glittering in the moonlight.

  “Violet, you’re beautiful,” he assured me, his hands going to my arms and gently pushing them down. I let him—I trusted him—and I was rewarded with a growl that sent shivers down my spine, refreshing the fire that seemed to be coursing through my veins.

  His pants went next, and then he was pulling us both over to the bed—a double, probably a luxury in this setting—setting us down and lying back on the mattress, guiding me until I was straddling him. His hand went to my hip as he gently guided me down, until we were pressed together, only the fabric of our underwear separating us.

  I looked down at his face to see the hungriest look I’d ever seen on him. “I wanted to go slow—” he grated, and I saw him fighting for control, his desire for me warring with his desire to never cause me pain.

  I met his gaze and smiled, loving him more in that instant than I’d ever believed possible. I leaned down, resting myself against his chest, and pressed my lips to his.

  “Don’t,” I breathed into his ear a moment later.

  His response was immediate. The next thing I knew I was lying on my back, Viggo’s body over mine, our underwear gone. He hesitated, just for a moment, and as I was about to cry out for him to do something, please, he was suddenly there.

  The discomfort I felt was quickly lost in the overwhelming sensation of him. I grabbed his shoulders and held on as he made love to me, waves of slow and steady pleasure pulsing through me.

  Something began happening, something… incredible. I closed my eyes and clung tighter, trying to urge him to do… something… more… less… I didn’t know. Viggo did, however, and continued to take us both higher and higher…

  Until everything broke and I was shattering into a thousand pieces of prismatic light, my vision going white as I rode an unbelievable, earth-shattering wave of bliss. Viggo exhaled my name from above me, and I clung to him as I came apart around him, holding him tight as we broke apart on each other, comforted that as we broke, we were also growing back together, only this time inexplicably closer.

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  22

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  VIGGO

  It seemed as though we stayed there, wrapped around each other, for a long time—long enough that Violet’s breathing eased, and the incredible, intense look in her gray eyes softened into pleased exhaustion and she closed them, breaking our shared gaze for the first time. I eased off of Violet, wearied and spent, and so incredibly happy. She murmured something incoherent as I drew away, making a sound of protest, and I smiled as I tugged her closer to me,
tucking her in under my arm.

  She immediately nestled her head into my shoulder with a soft sigh, her breath coming slow and even as she drifted off to sleep in my arms. I watched her sleep, my hand rubbing soft circles on her shoulder.

  I was every bit as tired as she was, but I wasn’t ready to give myself over to unconsciousness yet. My heart was still pounding, and, even now, looking down at her as she settled into sleep, a hungry voice was urging me to wake her up gently so that we could begin again. I felt insatiable, still on fire from her hands and soft cries. My name breaking on her lips as she lay beneath me. The trust she placed in me when she gave herself to me completely, trusting me to take care of her.

  I pushed the hunger aside, and it went easily enough, the remaining desire I felt submitting to overwhelming exhaustion. I stretched and settled deeper into the bed. Violet made a little huffing sound, and her leg drifted up over my hips, her arms reaching farther across me, snuggling in tighter, almost possessively. I smiled and continued to watch her breathe, matching my breathing to hers. I’d just watch her for a few more minutes, to make sure she was well and truly asleep, and…

  A sharp rap on the door jolted me from my sleep, and I checked to make sure Violet was covered. But the sound had awakened her, and she was sitting up, a sheet between her hands, hiding her bare form. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she needn’t, that I would make whatever it was go away, when Amber’s voice came through the door, muffled by the wood.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you guys… but there’s a situation with Maxen. We need you down in the conference room.”

  I groaned and flopped back in bed, running a hand over my face and letting out a sigh of irritation. It felt like I’d only been asleep for moments, but the light outside the tiny window was subtly different, and I realized we must have slept at least a few hours.

  “We’ll be there in five minutes,” I announced, looking over at Violet. Amber’s footsteps moved away from the door, and I sighed. “I wonder what the hell Maxen has gotten into now.”

  “Knowing him?” scoffed Violet, standing up gracefully enough to keep the sheet wrapped around her—though I would have appreciated the view if she hadn’t bothered. My imagination immediately flashed to images of me moving up to her and kissing her so well that she dropped the sheet, and then taking her immediately back to bed so that I could have my way with her again. “Who knows? Probably threatened somebody or said something that made someone angry.”

  I watched her move, a possessive smile on my face. “Maybe we got lucky and somebody hit him. I’m more than happy to pass that job on to somebody else.”

  The look Violet shot me was half annoyance, half bemusement, and I grinned at her as she pulled some clothes out of her bag. I was surprised to see our things here—I had noticed pretty much nothing but Violet earlier in the night. Amber or Margot must have deposited the bags here before the ceremony so we wouldn’t have to worry about it later. It was a nice thought, and I made a mental note to thank them as I grudgingly got out of bed.

  Violet cast me another look, her cheeks flushing, and I smiled to myself, caught up in the memory of last night. It had been… so incredibly worth the wait, but it was adorable how shy she was being. I wanted to tease her. I also wanted to ignore whatever drama Maxen was bringing us and drag her back to bed.

  I wisely chose neither, and quickly got dressed. Violet was ready by the time I put my boots on, and I looked over and frowned at the pair of running sneakers she was wearing.

  “Where are your boots?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I traded them for my wedding dress.”

  “As much as I loved your wedding dress and how amazing you looked in it, you really need boots. You know you could’ve married me in anything and I would’ve loved it, right?”

  Violet put her hand on her hip and arched an eyebrow. “I know that, but the dress felt important. Besides, the woman I was trading with really needed them. I’ll find another pair. I’m sure there’s a Matrian warden prisoner who is the same size as I am.”

  I nodded, assuaged by her forethought, and finished tying mine. “I’m sorry,” I said, standing up and pulling her into my arms. “I just know that sneakers don’t stand up to the kind of stuff we do. Now let’s go tend to the errant, soon-to-be ex-king.”

  She nodded and slipped her hand into mine, pulling us toward the door. We moved in comfortable silence to the conference room—the halls were pretty empty and everything was quiet—and a quick check of my watch told me it was nearly five-thirty in the morning. As if looking at my watch triggered it, a yawn caught me by surprise.

  Violet looked over her shoulder at me, a knowing smile playing on her lips, and I resisted the urge to pull her off into one of the side closets and get us both thoroughly distracted. The effect she had on me was palpable—and it hadn’t gotten better since I’d actually gotten a taste of what loving her felt like. If anything, the urge was stronger than before.

  The conference room was empty, but the remnants of the party remained. Violet made for what had once been the food table, letting go of my hand in the process, and Henrik looked up from whatever soft conversation he was having with Ms. Dale to wave at us.

  “Get over here, you two. You’re who we’ve been waiting for.”

  “What’d Maxen do?” I asked as I moved up to the table, ignoring the grins on Amber and Owen’s faces as I yawned again. Thomas sat at the table a few seats down from them, his eyes focused on his modified handheld, his posture tense and threatened, not having even looked up at our entrance.

  “Well, for lack of a better word, he escaped,” Ms. Dale announced, her mouth tightening.

  Thomas didn’t look up from his handheld. “With a heloship, several cases of guns and ammo, and—”

  “Wait,” I said, interrupting him as the seriousness of the situation began to sink in. Amber and Owen seemed to be having a joke at our expense, but now that I noticed it, Ms. Dale and Henrik’s faces were grim, tight. They could have gotten even less sleep than Violet and I had. “He took all of that?”

  “He also stole several of my data chips with a few programs I was working on,” Thomas said, and I felt myself sliding into a chair at the table, too surprised to stand anymore.

  “How?” asked Violet around a mouthful of stale bread she’d picked up from the table, rage simmering in her voice. “That man is a complete twit! How did he pull this off?”

  There was a pause in which I could feel all the built-up resentment toward the man rising to a boiling point.

  “He had help,” Ms. Dale said.

  Ice flashed through my veins, quickly replaced by the rushing of a dangerous rage.

  “Was it one of our—”

  “No, not that,” Henrik said. “It was the Patrian wardens. One or more of them must have been gathering intelligence for him—studying our programs, the guard patterns, making a plan. From what I’ve seen, Maxen certainly couldn’t have thought this through on his own.”

  “Do we know which ones—” I began to ask, but Ms. Dale cut me off.

  “They all left with him,” she said, “so it hardly matters.”

  I thought of Mark Travers—who had been so glad to see me—and anger churned in my belly.

  “I was careless,” Thomas said, his voice low and dark, and I realized that the small man was also upset—he rarely showed so much emotion. “I carried on conversations about what I was developing with group members while some of the wardens were listening, instead of insisting they leave. I took a gamble. I thought it might increase their chances of trusting our command if it was clear we had superior technology.”

  My head was beginning to ache at how much thought Thomas put into almost every action. Henrik waved the man off, and I was glad when he said, “The blame is on all of us, Thomas. We were watching Maxen, but none of us kept as close an eye on the wardens. We assumed they would support us because of the king.”

  “It’s worse than just that,” Ms. Dale
said. “One of them might have been in contact with the Porteque gang, too.”

  “I’m scanning the records of our handhelds for unknown numbers right now,” Thomas said. “Another thing that I should have thought of—”

  “Thomas, nobody is perfect,” Violet chided him, sitting down at the table, her bread finished, her eyes sharp and alert with worry. “Why would we think they’re joining forces? This still doesn’t explain how he escaped.”

  “We had a patrol heading out at three this morning. They were going to do flybys in concert with a ground unit we’ve been sending out each night to make sure everyone’s safe and no one is trying to loot,” said Henrik, the look on his face positively glum. “It was a strong time to make a move—nearly all of our best fighters were taking a break from the last few days, and there was only a skeleton crew on guard.”

  Ms. Dale picked up the narrative without even seeming to notice that she was finishing Henrik’s sentence. “Just when the patrol was changing, members of the Porteque gang launched three separate attacks, at three separate locations, drawing the original ground crew into a firefight and separating them from our heloship team. Thomas summoned another heloship to help put out the fires, and the ship left, but… it didn’t get to its assigned destination. We found the original crew tied up and stuffed into a storage room after the ground unit reported their backup wasn’t arriving. By the time more of us had woken up to guess what had happened, the king and the wardens were long gone—and the gang members conveniently stopped their assault and retreated very soon after.”

  “This kind of coordination among factions of the Porteque gang is highly unusual, especially given current circumstances,” Thomas said. “The likelihood that their attack was a strategy meant to distract us at a moment when we had the fewest active troops is… Well, I’ll say it’s very, very high.”