by H. E. Trent
Times had changed.
Trigrian and Murki had claimed her first, and Headron had thought that perhaps that was for the best. He’d never seen a trio with personalities like theirs. Murki was assertive. Trigrian was impulsive. Courtney was Terran and didn’t know that her men weren’t quite normal for Jekhans.
But why would she care about that?
They fit.
Headron had never held out hope for such a luxury. Jekhan men tended to take whatever woman they could get to stick.
But then he’d met Erin.
She was hardly a consolation prize. She was smart and intriguing, and she made him, for the first time in his life, ponder further into the future than a day. For the past twenty years, futures had been uncertain things for Jekhans.
“I like looking at you,” he said. “That odd hue of your eyes.”
“Gray’s not so odd.”
“Striking, with the warmth of your skin and the pink of your lips. And you’re…very soft,” he said.
She scoffed. The hot air of her breath was a minimally punishing warning shot against his pectoral. If she licked him there—or anywhere, probably—he’d come undone. Jekhan women didn’t play in that way. “Yeah, soft. That’s what a girl likes to hear. I’ll have you know I lost ten pounds since coming to this god-forsaken planet.”
“Mm. I’m glad you came.” He slipped his hands down her back and pondered risking a grope of her succulent rear end.
He thought he had most of Erin’s personality mapped out, but, like her sister, she was a wildcard. Murki kept counseling him that trying to predict the actions of a Terran woman was folly, but Headron needed to understand her. He needed to know what made her tick so she’d stick. He wasn’t going to risk losing another potential partner. Courtney had slipped through his fingers before he’d had his intermediary query on his behalf, but Erin was his. She was beautiful and soft and smelled like life. He never wanted to let go of her.
But…they had an arrangement. “I’m just here to cuddle,” she often reminded him. “Don’t let this get weird.”
What would happen if things did?
He thought he might die if he didn’t get his cock inside her soon and to thrust to completion. Her curves and the dark olive skin taunted and tortured, yet he couldn’t turn her away. The bed was hers. He was the extra party. She’d taken pity on him, above all other Jekhan refugees working on the farm, but he needed her to be more than just a bedfellow whose feminine hormones kept his immune system in check.
He rubbed small circles against the small of her back.
Her spine curved in response, and her smooth legs twined between his. “If you keep on like this every morning, your cock’s going to bruise my thighs so much that I’ll wonder if I’m having a good time at night and just not remembering it.”
She stretched her arms overhead and arched her back again, and her body went taut against his.
Her breasts were against his chest, nipples teasing through her thin shirt.
Torture. He’d never thought of taking a woman’s breast into his mouth until he’d lain with Erin and endured the torture of her proximity. Such an act was generally considered a perversion on Jekh, but he’d forgive himself quickly enough.
He wondered if her nipples would respond like his—if they’d bead even tighter with the touch of a fingertip, or of his tongue. He wondered what she’d do if he squeezed one between his teeth and drew it out in a suck—if she’d be repulsed, or if she’d ask for more.
His breath seized at his cock’s painful jerk. Too much stimulation, not enough relief.
She’ll kill me like this.
“I’d certainly tell you about any good time, I assure you,” he said through clenched teeth. “There’ve been no good times had in this bed, as far as I’m concerned.”
She lifted her head and batted her dark, curly hair out of her eyes.
Instinctively, he reached for the lock that had been skimming her chin and twirled the curl around his fingers. “Curly hair doesn’t occur much on Jekh. I’m told all Tyneali have straight hair.”
“I’ve finally screwed up the courage. I’m cutting it today.”
His reflex was to fist a pile of it, fearing he’d never be able to again, but he let go at her soft chuckle. “It’s so pretty. I wish you wouldn’t, but I understand why you would.”
He watched her wrestle with it every morning, spending even more time picking apart the curls than Courtney did her own, but Courtney had help. Trigrian aided her preparations. Erin would allow no such hindrance to her independence.
“I’ll miss your clouds of hair, but you must do what is practical.”
“You having all that luscious hair isn’t practical, either, but you keep yours anyway.”
“That is the Jekhan custom. We grow our hair for our mates.”
“Your mates…” she said in a haunting whisper.
“Yes?” He hoped she’d volunteer to be one, finally.
“I’m not preventing you from going out and chasing tail, am I?”
His brain stumbled over the words. Some context was missing. Instinctually, though, he knew he didn’t like what she was insinuating. She was saying she wasn’t his.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” he said.
“Right. Idioms go over you guys’ heads. I mean, the next time you go into town with Owen or whatever, you could see who’s around. I know there are a couple of unattached ladies of about the right age.”
He resumed tracing circles on her back, more for his own need of meditation than for her comfort. “I’m aware of them.”
He wasn’t interested in those women—those children of Terran military deserters who’d been hiding in and protecting Little Gitano for the Jekhan natives. They were bland and boring. When he looked at them, he saw blank faces and muted colors. They were inconsequential.
They weren’t Erin McGarry.
“Um. And, you know, Brenna’s around,” Erin said. “Maybe she’s a little bit young for you, though. She’s, like, twenty-four, twenty-five, I think.”
He didn’t want Brenna. She was kind, but too passive.
Almost like a Jekhan woman.
“Also, have you ever considered having a go of things with Amy? I mean, she’s Jekhan.”
Her speaking his friend’s name made his body clench. He’d absolutely never looked at Amy that way, in spite of her being a Jekhan woman of about the right age. For one thing, he’d known her since they were children and he saw her as something of a sister. For another thing, he’d never be able to set aside their class differences. Class perhaps didn’t mean what it once had given the near-complete obliteration of Jekhan society upon Terran arrival, but the ingrained differences would likely linger for generations to come. Amy was the daughter of a very important, dead politician. Headron had been born an unwanted child, and he made food for a living. Not even fancy food. Bread, mostly.
“I don’t want Amy,” he said simply.
Erin sighed. “What are you gonna do? Stay single forever?”
“I could ask you the same thing, Miss McGarry. Who are you holding yourself in store for? Or are you still hoping to return to Earth to the beau you left there?”
She wedged a hand up between their bodies and pressed her palm to his face, laughing as she pushed him away.
He suppressed a growl.
“Okay, first of all? There was no beau. Second of all, I haven’t decided if I’m even going back to Earth. As much as I miss my parents, and as much as I hate the reason I had to come here, I wouldn’t abandon Courtney to this place. No thank you, sir, I’m not leaving my sissy.”
“Even with all the uncertainty and riots?”
She sighed. “Look, no matter where I go, I’m going to get hassled. On Earth, I just have to tell people my last name is McGarry to make them treat me like shit. Here, I feel like shit all the time because of the mess Terrans made. I’d probably like even less the way I’d feel walking around in Buinet right now, though.
From what I heard on the last news feed, the apes there don’t even bother with consent anymore. See pussy, take pussy. It’s like they’ve devolved to some pre-human state.”
He clenched her harder as if she were going to leave at exactly that moment. “You wouldn’t go back there.” The city of Buinet had once been safe and beautiful.
Before.
Buinet had been a warzone for six months since he’d fled with so many other Jekhans, and it wasn’t just Terrans fighting the last few Jekhans there, but also Terrans fighting Terrans over property and deals gone bad because of the rioting as well.
She chuckled and found a piece of his unpinned hair. She twirled it.
He would let his hair down for her if she asked. Doing so would be most improper, but he’d do it, and damn the consequences. His hair was meant for his lovers to see. He had the invitation on his lips, but she preempted him with, “No, I wouldn’t go back to Buinet. Believe it or not, I do value my life. McGarrys may be a little more reckless on average than most human beings, but we do tend to have pretty good brains.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.” He didn’t even want her to leave the farm to go into nearby Little Gitano, but that wasn’t his decision to make. Even if she’d been his woman, he didn’t think she’d appreciate the suggestion of being fettered.
“That’s sweet of you,” she said.
“No, simply decent. I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t be concerned about your wellbeing.”
“Eh. You’d be surprised.”
“Perhaps you keep the wrong company.”
She sat up and pulled that devastating, crooked smile that always made him feel infinitely more stupid. She was so lovely.
We’d have beautiful children.
He tried not to think that when he looked at her, but the impulse was in his Tyneali genetics, and those beasts were driven, above all else, to procreate.
“You’re eighty percent of the company I’ve been keeping lately,” she said, “so what does me keeping the wrong company say about you?”
He cleared his throat and pulled her back into his embrace. “The other twenty percent is who you need to be concerned with.”
“One of these days, I won’t be able to resist you, Headron.”
His heart nearly stopped.
But he knew too well not to read much into her words. If he allowed himself to become too entranced, she could figuratively knock his feet from beneath him, leaving him flat on his back, and a lot angry with himself for being too fucking tentative yet again.
He had to ask, though. “Why do you insist on doing so, anyway?”
“I know how you guys are,” she said. “In almost every Jekhan trio I’ve encountered, the men met first and the woman was added later.”
“So?”
“I’m convinced there’s a reason for that, and it’s because your women aren’t biologically coded to stick around.”
Spurious.
He ground his teeth. She always had some new excuse. “You’re not Jekhan, Erin.”
She cringed. “But…you are.” The crooked smile that had vanished returned in its former, nut-tingling glory.
She shrugged. “I could be very wrong for you. I’d venture to guess that I’m wrong for the vast majority of men. I’m an acquired taste, and one that’s pretty hard to develop. There’s a very strong chance that even if you like me—”
“I do. That won’t change.” He craved her like cool water on a hot day. He thought that was a little more than “like.” What he felt was closer to “need” and “want.” It was things there were no English translations for. Even if there had been translations, he wasn’t trained to automatically speak them the way Murki was. Headron hoped to become similarly forthright with practice.
“Okay,” she said softly, perhaps pensively, fidgeting his hair some more. She closed her dark gray eyes and exhaled, long and softly. “Listen, at some point, you’ll have to find some Jekhan guy to partner with, or you won’t be able to have children. Is my understanding of that correct?”
“Yes. I…” He furrowed his brow and tried to remember the exact colloquial phrasing Courtney had used. “I…shoot blanks?”
Erin snorted and opened her eyes. “I wonder who you could have picked that language up from.”
“You know.”
“Probably. So, is that true?”
“Yes. I’m infertile without a secondary male’s influence. Pairing is supposed to keep the population robust because weak men don’t pair off. Perhaps that system works just fine with the other species the Tyneali experimented with, but I believe it’s the reason our population continues to flounder even with the race having lived on Jekh for thousands of years.”
“That seems to be the consensus with the Jekhans I talk to around the farm.” She rolled onto her belly and peered down at him. “But think. You’re gonna need to find a guy, and if that guy doesn’t like me, there are gonna be problems.”
“Really, Erin? Are you truly telling me that you won’t be with me unless I find a lover and he approves of you?”
“Mm-hmm. That’s the gist.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
She laughed, loud and gamine, and tweaked his nose. “You’ve been around Murki too much. He’s had a bad influence on your language. You were much more lyrical in your speech six months ago when you arrived here.”
“How can you be so cavalier about this? Do you know how long I could take finding a compatible male, even if I wanted one?”
“Not very long, if I had to guess, because you’re gorgeous and have a big dick, but hey—what do I know about Jekhan tastes? I only know human tastes, and I think most human women would find you very tasty indeed.”
“I’m not concerned with most human women.”
She cringed again.
He was clueless as to why she found anything he was saying to be news. He may not have had good instincts for flirting, but he’d thought he’d been transparent enough in broadcasting his desires.
“Fine,” she said. “What we’re talking about is men, anyway. Is there no one you’re interested in?”
“No.”
“Seriously?”
“Only you.”
“Jeez. You’ve got a more one-track mind than Herris, and he’s actually justified in being so preoccupied. He just wants to find his daughter.”
“He can afford to be single-minded. He’d been a member of a long-term trio, and his hormones are permanently stabilized.”
“God. There’s too much to keep track of.” Erin’s breath came out in a sputter.
Herris had arrived at the farm ahead of Headron, just after the riots in Buinet started. He’d lost his lovers to a virulent illness unleashed by city planners who’d wanted to clear out the Jekhan ghetto, and his daughter had gone missing during the chaotic surge from the city.
Headron’s uncle had disappeared during the surge, so Headron empathized for Herris’s plight, but in his opinion, Herris was still at an advantage. Headron’s body was a hormonal bomb that could go off at any time if he weren’t in a trio that could diffuse him.
“Is there, like, a Jekhan matchmaker in Little Gitano you can talk to?” she asked gently.
“Is that seriously what you want?” Headron sat up, and tugged her up with him so he could see her face better. “You’ll be with me if I pursue a match?”
“You’re really serious, aren’t you?”
“In my opinion, I’ve been very clear about wanting you.”
She cocked a brow. “Are you sure this isn’t just about the sex you’re not getting?”
“I’d very much like the sex, but I can be patient.”
Even if waiting made him physically hurt.
Even if every morning when she rolled her curvaceous body against him, his balls felt a little bit more like they’d shatter and fall off.
She narrowed her eyes in that suspicious way she always did and, before he could catch on to the action, snaked her hand d
own the front of his sleep pants and tightly gripped his shaft.
“Fuck,” he spat.
“Not about the sex, huh?”
“Why do you insist on torturing me this way?”
“Not torturing you. Gonna help you out. Least I can do, right? Maybe I’ll wake up without any new bruises tomorrow if I take care of you today.”
“Gods, Erin.”
“I can hardly get my hand around you,” came her whispered rasp against the side of his face.
She turned her body onto his slightly to ease the angle of her hand into his pants. Her breasts were crushed against his chest, her pussy insinuated against his hip, and he was about to explode just that quickly.
“How many women have you wrecked with this thing?”
He swallowed hard and bucked his hips as her palm pressed down on his cock head.
She knew what she was doing. There was no sense of experimentation in her touch, and though he wasn’t gleeful about where she might have gotten her experience, at the moment, he was pleased she had some.
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and tried not to buck into her hand again. “None.”
“None? You’re a virgin?”
“In that way, yes,” he said with exasperation. He didn’t see why his past exploits mattered.
“Tell me about those others.”
“What? I think I understand what you’re asking of me, but it always pays to be sure when dealing with a McGarry.”
“You make us sound like we’re purposefully difficult.”
“Aren’t you?” he asked in a rasp.
Her soft lips tracked up his jaw and paused at his ear. “What else have you done?” She pressed the tip of her thumb around the hood of his foreskin and forced a wordless, pleading sound of out of him.
She never touched him like that, and he’d been starting to think she saw him as some sort of eunuch. In truth, he’d likely raised more cocks in his thirty-two years than both McGarry women combined.