by Elsa Jade
She’d always been insecure about her small breasts and big hips, and her long relationship with Brett hadn’t helped when he told her early on that she was “built for coding”. At the time, she’d thought it was some sort of in joke and she’d been part of the club; only later did she understand it for the insult it was. The body for coding was whoever decided they wanted to learn to code. The type of person who commented on that was the type of person who wanted to be a jerk.
Then Cross ducked his head to her breast, drawing the distended nipple between his lips, and she forgot she’d ever known someone named Brett. Exquisitely attuned to every gasp and twitch, he refined his technique, every lick and suck and bite spiraling around her preferences, like he was plotting a graph of her body on a gameboard: you sank my battleship and gave me the best orgasms of my life, and oh, she was so delighted to play.
She squirmed against him, angling the long, thick shaft of his erection between her labia, to give them a little preview of what was to come.
To be precise, both of them would be coming.
His hoarse growl rattled something within her—maybe the last shreds of uncertainty. She reached down between their bodies and cupped him closer, pressing him tight to her throbbing core. The anticipation of both her body and his slicked her fingers and the intimate caress of their bodies. She wanted to linger, to make this last, but the anticipatory beat in her clit spread out through her limbs, and she knew she wouldn’t last.
She guided him inside her, moaning in pleasure as he curved within her, igniting those hidden nerve endings made only for pleasure. Pressure and fiction and, yes, mood were a complex formula she’d found weren’t always a guarantee of results, even with B.O.B. but she had no doubts about Cross. How could he know her so well? The first touch was a question, the second was an answer, and the third opened up a universe of sensation she hadn’t known existed. On some level, she thought maybe she should be ashamed that he knew what she wanted and what she needed better than she did herself. But maybe this was a reminder of why there were so many dating apps in the universe, why the search for connection continued even after heartbreak, because there was more to experience outside of her own body and mind.
And Cross was right there with her.
Though the stone beneath him had to be grinding his spine to dust, his hips plunged into her at a steady, unfaltering pace, like an atomic clock counting down relentlessly to transcendence. She spread her hands across his pecs to brace herself against the coming coming, and he folded upright to suckle her again, his hips never losing rhythm even as his lips and tongue and teeth found previously uncharted connections across all the lonesome pathways in her body.
She rode him like this was her last chance to be crowned Big Sky Cowgirl Homecoming Queen, grinding her hips into his, finding that sweet spot that arced in unending fireworks across her senses, as if there’d been some receptor in her always waiting to connect to this experience with him. She might not believe in soulmates or One True Love™, but she had to admit that sometimes the whole point of her mathematical equations was to find the right answer.
And when he reached down between their bodies to find the throbbing, needy center of her bliss, his caress was a blinding epiphany that seemed to shatter the sky.
She arched, and only his hands, clasped around her waist, kept her from tumbling backward into the lake. She wouldn’t have even minded, sure she would float like the biggest bubble ever. He thrust into her three more times, triggering a sweet aftershock with each lunge against her clit until she collapsed over him just as he let out a hollow roar.
Even as her breathing eased and the reverberations slowed, the sparkles remained behind her half-closed eyes. Wait, not sparkles—snowflakes. Just as she realized she was about to get cold, he let out a long, satisfied sigh and slid them into the lake.
His big body was an ideal life raft as they floated, holding her half in the water, warm and soothing as the imagined massages she’d always told herself she deserved—but never actually got. His wide hands shielded her back from the drifting snow, but a few snowflakes landing on her butt were like cold little kisses that made her want to giggle. Obviously the late hour and bubbles had made her a little loopy. Along with his intoxicating touch.
“That was…” She searched for the right compliment.
“Out of this world,” he offered.
She chuckled, bouncing herself delightfully on his still swollen shaft. But after she thought about it a moment… “No,” she said thoughtfully. “Right here, right now.”
For a heartbeat, his arms closed around her. “You’re right. And I would choose no other.”
The gruff sentiment in his voice sent a little shiver through her that had nothing to do with the snowflakes on her ass.
His arms tightened another degree. “These conditions would probably not be recommended in Evens’ matchmating service.”
“Good thing we’re not waiting for that.” She hummed deep in her throat. “We just skipped ahead to the good part.”
He was silent for a long moment, floating so still that their combined heartbeat was the only thing sending ripples outward from their bodies. “All your parts are good parts,” he said at last.
Again his sincerity startled a chuckle out of her. “I like your parts too, Cross.” She tilted her head up to press a line of kisses along his jaw. “I can’t help but notice that some of your parts seem particularly, um, still good. Did you not…?”
He smiled at her, but a bit quizzically. “Not what?”
“Did you orgasm?” she asked bluntly. “I wouldn’t want to leave you hanging.”
“Ah. My physiological responses are different. I am not sapped by the act of release.”
“A thing with your kind, again,” she murmured. She’d told herself she wouldn’t ask questions, when he clearly had no intention of answering. But still…
“It offers some benefits,” he drawled.
“Really?” she purred back. “Do tell.”
“We’re not counting, remember?” With a powerful flip, he dragged her back to the stone.
Chapter 10
He couldn’t tell her the truth of who and what he was, but if his body was all he had, he’d share that. Especially when the conditioning he’d endured to control his beast could serve now for pleasure. Cross hauled his discarded clothes across the rock toward them to make at least some thin padding for her as he surged up over this Earther who might be innocent but wasn’t a fool.
She opened her eyes wide a moment before she did the same with her legs. And her wicked grin was wider yet. “Oh, now I definitely can’t add you to the database,” she murmured.
He stared down at her. “Why not?” The answer should matter to him considering that Evens had promised him a slot, and she was once again saying it might not be possible. Yet somehow he found himself unable to focus on that.
Unable to focus on anything besides the hot, sleek clasp of her intimate muscles around him.
“You’d shatter my spreadsheets.” She wrapped her heels behind him, hauling him deeper into her core.
Like she broke his tenuous hold on the intergalactic rules that had once bound him. But her touch soothed the beast, her body feeding the need that had been twisting within him for so long. In this, he and the beast were in perfect accord, intent upon her pleasure. Before, he’d only experienced such unity during combat; while pitched fighting was rare for a beast battalion—who would willingly take them on?—the occasional skirmish was enough to pacify the wyvryn. For a while.
How could this innocent Earther with her chocolate syrup and blissful sighs do the same?
His beast urged him to bite her, to leave the mark that would tell the universe she was a Xymiran’s mate. Once he had, or so it promised, once he’d claimed her, the beast could rest, its place in the universe forever marked out by the bonds of the connection between them.
Despite the hunger and desire coursing through him, sacrificing the momentar
y peace he’d found with the beast, he had to fight the urge. Tyler couldn’t know what he was, so she could never properly accept him. It was wrong to ask, or even hope. This was all she wanted, this was all they would share. He would make it enough. So he used every muscle and stroke and all his attentiveness to call the responses from her body and senses that would delight her, payback for the unknowing reminder she gave him to chain his beast.
And yeah, this time he was counting.
When she was wrung out and replete, her limbs splayed wide and her stormy eyes glazed to somnolence, he let himself go one more time. The beast made a lazy challenge to escape his hold, to mark her, but he fought it back until it too collapsed with a deep sigh that turned his quivering muscles to the structural consistency of chocolate syrup. Only then did he allow himself to curl around her. The beast’s furious fever—finally banked—curled off his body, melting the tiny flakes of frozen precipitation before they touched Tyler. He wouldn’t let anything touch her.
Ah, maybe he didn’t have quite the control he believed. But for now, it was enough.
Time felt suspended, as if the universe itself gave them this moment. But eventually, she stirred against him. “I’m gonna fall asleep,” she murmured.
He brushed his lips against the locks of her hair that had drifted loose from the glittery tie. “I don’t mind.”
“Then you’d have to carry me home.”
He didn’t have a home anymore and had been alone in the cabin until now. “I don’t mind.”
She cracked one eyelid to peer at him, a half smile curving her lips. “I gotta pee.”
“I…should get you back to the outhouse.”
After one more kiss—slow and sweet as chocolate syrup flowing across ice cream—he rose and levered her up behind him. They dressed—after a few more kisses but who was counting?—and followed the honeycomb link of steppingstones, but before she stepped onto the shore, she looked back at the lake. “So beautiful,” she murmured.
“It is, yes.” But he couldn’t take his gaze off her.
She turned to smile at him. “That was everything I have ever fantasized,” she told him in a secretive voice.
Unless she’d fantasized about having sex with an alien that wasn’t true. Guilt pricked him, sharper than the beast’s talons. But she hadn’t asked him to fill out any long list of qualifications or references, nothing that would be required to be part of her database and she’d made it very clear what she wanted from him, and he’d given her only that—if repeatedly.
So why did he have a prickling suspicion that somehow he’d given her more?
When they followed the path up to the dark trees, she reached over to thread her fingers through his. Of course she couldn’t see as well, with her Earther eyes. But as she walked easily along the narrow path, he realized she didn’t really need his help. She just…wanted to keep touching. He tightened his grip a little, not excessively, since he knew he could never claim her. But it was nice to have a link to someone to keep centered on the path through the night.
At the small clearing, she peeled away to the path toward the outhouse. When she ignited the little lantern, the light somehow made the night closer and darker—and lonelier.
He kept an unobtrusive surveillance until she emerged with the faint whiff of one of the pretty soaps that Zenith had gotten from one of the trade partners in Evens’ shop.
Fading back into the house lest she think he was watching her—even though he was—he puttered at the small table so it would look like he was doing…something. But he’d chosen this place for its seclusion, not for its diversions, and when he peeked up, she was standing in the doorway, watching him with a bemused expression.
“You aren’t like the other boys, are you?” She stepped inside, carrying the aromas of cold water and implausible florals.
And his own scent mixed with hers.
But the beast hadn’t claimed her with its bite, had it? It stirred once and then settled deeper, basking in her presence.
Bemused, Cross just stared at her until she flicked the gesture at the pastries and syrup he’d arranged and rearranged on the table with the limited serving implements available in the cabin. “Oh.” He looked at the offerings now and saw them for the sad selections they really were. “You never got anything to eat so I thought you’d be hungry.” He tucked his chin. “I’m sorry I don’t have more for you here.”
“You have plenty.” When he reached tentatively for the chocolate syrup, her grin widened into a leer. “Now that I’ve had a taste, I could do with another course or two.”
Finally catching on to her half-lidded, hungry gaze, he turned toward her fully. “Oh, are we counting again?”
“If I can, we’re doing it wrong.”
He stalked her toward the small bed. His beast gave an approving growl but was too sated to rise.
Luckily, the rest of him was happy to oblige.
***
They had a few hours of sleep before the sun rose. Though the heavy curtains blocked out the wan morning light, his beast was aware of the time. It was quiet but watchful, radiating a deep sense that all was well at the moment. That level of sensory awareness was all that a Xymiran was allowed to access. Anything more could lead to a beast running rogue, so he’d been taught.
But the beast seemed more than contained, right now; it was contented. No testing of the boundaries he’d learned to set for it, no simmering resentment of the limitations imposed on that part of himself in order to present as a civilized citizen of the intergalactic community.
He gazed down at the still slumbering Tyler. This oblivious Earther had given him that. Once she perfected the algorithm, the rest of his crew could find their mates, bound forever and finally exonerated from the cruel accusation that they had courted their beasts at the expense of their battalion. He must stay focused and do everything in his power to ensure she was able to complete her project. Even if that meant that this night of peace he’d found in her wicked, innocent caresses could not be repeated.
And though he’d just told himself there was work to be done, still he lay there with his arm under her head to serve as her pillow despite the cramping in his normally sturdy muscles. He couldn’t very well expect her to save his crew, all unknowing, if she wasn’t well rested.
When she finally stirred and her lashes fluttered open, he felt as if the sun had truly risen.
She blinked at him sleepily. “I thought it was a dream,” she murmured.
“A good one, I hope.” He understood enough of Earther idioms to understand the difference between dreams and nightmares. But Xymirans only dreamed when their beasts were trying to test their boundaries. And when those dreams came true, that was the nightmare.
Gaze still a little vague without her glasses, her sweet smile slayed him. “Very good.” She stretched, wincing a little. “Maybe too good. I think I found some muscles I hadn’t used in a while.”
He hadn’t claimed her, so none of those aches were permanent, but a pang of tenderness expanded through him—along with a less noble twinge of smug satisfaction that was the beast’s. “Shall we go down to the hot spring to soak away your aches?”
“Or indulge in a few more?”
She couldn’t know that his thoughts turned again to the claiming bite, even though the beast was quiescent.
He hesitated. He needed to check in with his crew, but maybe reinforcing the walls around his beast was a good use of this quiet morning.
“Shall we count again?”
Her eyes flared wide at the nudge of his swelling flesh. “Good morning,” she purred.
Outside, the morning was colder than the night before, and she skipped ahead of him on the path down to the lake shore. Her frequent glances back were all laughter and temptation. He had not thought that chaining his beast could be so delightful. He’d been made to understand it was a necessity for the battalion’s control but it would always rankle.
But if all he had to do was indulge with
Tyler Lang…
She was stripping off her clothes as she ran ahead, and with a joyful whoop she splashed into the water. Despite the hazy gray morning light, the rush of bubbles was all silver and glitter as bright as the tie in her hair.
Or maybe it was just some strange anomaly of vision in his beast’s dazzled eyes.
With a rush of anticipation, he reached over the back of his head to strip the shirt from his body—
“Cross, we’ve been looking for you.”
Tyler let out a short squawk and all but vanished beneath the waves she’d made. With only her nose and alarmed gaze above the water, she swiveled to face the newcomer.
To Earthers, Fynix Sol looked like “that actor in that one movie” as they’d heard several times. The unexpected attention when they’d thought their appearance was close enough to Earther averages had led Sol to take the watch during quieter hours and leave most of the public interactions to Cross whenever possible. The isolation also left him more exposed to the predations of his beast, although he was concealing it well; not that Cross didn’t see it when he’d been suffering the pains himself.
Now it was Sol watching him with assessing eyes, a guarded expression that bordered on accusation.
No, that wasn’t true. His crew trusted him implicitly, which was why they’d followed him from Xymir, hoping for redemption.
He was the one who didn’t trust himself.
Cross straightened his shirt, regret and sudden shame a toxic brew in his veins. “I’ve been right here for my off hours.”
Sol’s gaze twitched to the mostly submerged Earther. “Off hours.” His attention jerked back to Cross. “You didn’t answer your datpad.”
Reflexively, Cross clamped his hand over his other wrist where the datpad should be. Of course he always had it set so that it wouldn’t reveal any of its higher-tech capabilities where an unsuspecting Earther might see it. But last night, he’d actually taken off the device, not because it might accidentally reveal something to Tyler but because he wanted every atom of his skin naked to hers.