by H. E. Trent
The ordeal had the potential to turn messy fast, and there was someone she cared about who would be bruised if he learned Erin had entreated another man for the very thing he had been offering all along.
Cringing, she rubbed the tight knot at the base of the neck and looked once more toward the farmhouse. No one was watching, and no one would tell, but she still felt treacherous.
Jekh was so complicated. Court had said, jokingly that there was no such thing as a mercy fuck or a one-night-stand. Men didn’t relinquish their lovers, even if they weren’t ideal, simply because single women were so rare.
But Esteben will.
He had to, because he couldn’t have her any more than Headron could, and Headron actually suited her.
With a shaking hand, she rapped quietly on the door and killed the beam of the dim flashlight she carried. Her heart was pounding and her stomach was tied in knots of warning, but she honed her hearing toward the inside rather than running away.
Shuffling footsteps sounded—bare feet, closer and closer.
The last time she’d been so anxious about a sexual encounter, she’d driven all the way to her fetish club in Arlington only to realize she’d forgotten her mask. She’d gone in, anyway, and had agreed to do a scene, but had feared how she’d be treated with her anonymity stripped away. She needn’t have worried. Everyone at the club had been rigorously vetted, but she’d had enough frightening experiences with men during regular dates to know that some men got off on the idea of putting a McGarry in her place.
That was why she didn’t date anymore. Just fucked.
Esteben opened the door wearing a smug smile and pants that draped loosely over his hips.
He didn’t give her time to say anything before he pulled her in, locked the door behind them, and then began working her shirt buttons loose.
“Esteben?”
Silently, he gave her shirt plackets twin yanks.
“Usually, saying something to set the mood for these sorts of encounters is customary. Hello is usually a good start.”
“I think you and I both know the rules don’t apply to people like us. Take that off.”
“People…like us?” She pressed her hand over the edges of her shirt and watched him pad through the candlelit room toward the bed in the corner.
He lounged on his left side and gestured her forward. “I’d only meant to help you. You seem to be wearing more than your fair share of clothing.”
“Did you expect me to come to you in a negligee or a clingy nightgown?”
“I do not require that sort of stimulus.” He slid a hand slowly down from his belly and cradled the turgid shaft inside his pants. “Or foreplay, but I can concede that you may require some touch before intercourse.”
“Not as much as you’d think, but I’m certainly not typical.”
“Oh?”
“Mm-hmm. So much about foreplay is mental. It doesn’t always have to be about touching.”
For her, looking could be enough, and seeing that he was already ready for her made her nipples ache and thighs clench.
She worked her shirt buttons loose slowly, taking in the four corners of the small room as she did. She needed to control the pace so she remembered what she needed to say at the end. When she left, he had to understand that what they were doing wasn’t about possession. She had to be able to remind him.
The lady’s cottage was a single-room dwelling with everything a social-averse woman might need. Much like a dorm room, Erin imagined, but larger, with a door leading off to a small toilet space in the back, right corner of the structure.
In six months, Esteben hadn’t done much personalizing of the space. The stone walls were an unadorned gray and few possessions cluttered the flat surfaces, but Erin imagined he hadn’t thought he’d be sticking around.
She knew his type. Men like Esteben stayed only until they got their fix, and then they moved on to the next thing. She knew his type because she’d had to become the same.
Hell of a way to live.
She hated it.
“No offense.” She draped her shirt over the back of a chair at the foot of the bed and then unfastened her pants. “I brought condoms. Non-negotiable.”
He traced formless shapes with his fingertips atop the bed sheet, and she waited to see if he were going to give her a reason to bolt.
He said nothing. Kept tracing.
“Respond,” she spat.
“Very well.” He pushed himself upright and raked his hair back from his eyes.
She wished he hadn’t. When his hair was in his face, the potency of his stare decreased sevenfold. When he silently stared at her with his gaze unimpeded, she couldn’t help but to check her body language and to rehash the things she’d said in her brain to be certain they didn’t offend.
She was no one’s docile plaything, but that didn’t mean she didn’t like to comply sometimes. His dominance was natural, not practiced, just like her occasional submissiveness.
“I do indeed take offense,” he said.
“Why?”
“The Jekhan birth rate is exceptionally low, and obviously males can’t impregnate each other. We don’t generally take precautions.”
“You don’t need to take precautions as far as pregnancy goes because you’re not fertile. That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“What is it, then?”
“Do I really need to spell this out?”
He entwined his fingers and stared, but some of his hair had escaped his previous tuck and she was actually able to hold the eye contact. “I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t want a whole response,” he said.
“When’s the last time you got checked, Esteben?”
He traced more shapes on the bedspread, not bothering to look down.
“How long ago?”
“Should I ask you the same?”
“I don’t have anything to hide. I got checked a little more often than every three months on Earth. My last panel was clean.”
“Why so often?”
“Because I liked strange dick on occasion and condoms aren’t foolproof. Your turn.”
Go ahead and show me how repulsed you are.
She hadn’t taken her shoes off yet. She could still get back to the farmhouse with her scruples intact, if that was what she wanted.
He stopped tracing and looked at the ceiling. “I imagine the last time I had a full panel was when the asylum I was in changed hands for the third time. The Terran administrators didn’t care nearly as much about health and wellness as they did sourcing a cheap workforce, but I don’t recall fucking in the five years since. Does that suit you?”
She pulled the strip of condoms out of her pocket and tossed it to him. “You spent a year or more losing memory of things. You could have been walking around, aimlessly fucking anyone who would bend over long enough. Bag it or keep it in your pants. Those are your options.”
He made a quiet hissing sound that was more animal than not, and tore off one square.
“I’ve never heard that sound from one of you before. I don’t know if I like it.”
“You don’t have to like it.” He played with the corner of the condom packet and shrugged. “I don’t make that particular sound often, and I certainly don’t make it by choice.”
“Why do you make it?”
“Why do you like coffee? That’s probably just as hard to answer.”
She twined her fingers against her belly and regarded him, the same as he was doing to her.
She knew the dance—the way people established dominance in a pair with quips and posturing. With mild rejections and lies they wanted the other to be bold enough to call them on. She got tired of pretending to be the most assertive personality in a room. Sometimes she really wanted to trust someone else to take the lead. She hadn’t been able to trust very many people other than her family in longer than she cared to remember. She wasn’t sure if she could trust Esteben, either, but what they were doing wasn’t about trust. It
was about slaking physical cravings, and she wasn’t anywhere near pious enough to ignore hers.
“We have an agreement, then?” she asked.
“As I’m unable to propose an alternative remedy, your choice will have to suffice.”
“Doesn’t have to suffice. I can go home to my own bed and you can keep your dick to yourself.”
“So crude.”
“Yeah,” she said quietly.
He made that noise again.
“No reason to endear yourself to me, right?”
“Is that what you want?” he asked. “Do you want me to talk sweetly to you? Tenderly? I could certainly put on a good show if you’d like, but we’d both know the words would be disingenuous.”
“I don’t want you to pretend to be anything you aren’t. I’m not here for flattery, but you can be civil.”
“I can be civil, but to be clear, you’re here for one reason, are you not? That reason is what you expect me to put into one of these.” He held up the condom packet.
“Just needed to hear you say it.”
“Why?”
“So we’re clear on what happens after tonight.”
“Which will be?”
“Nothing, Esteben. Nothing will happen. This is just about sex, and I can get that from anyone.”
“I see.” He enclosed the condom between his palms and twirled his thumbs. “So, you’ll fuck anyone who’ll eat fruit off your palm, then?”
“Don’t even try to shame me. You’re not going to embarrass me for accepting an invitation. This is a mutually beneficial arrangement that we’re entering into. If you want to change the terms, let me know what they are now so can I decide whether or not I should put my shirt back on and go home. You have no right to get defensive.”
“You’re right.” He set the rubber down and sat up. I know the rules and I’ll follow them. You’ll go home with the understanding that this encounter means nothing, and I’ll not pursue you further. Please.” He gestured for her to approach. “Let’s dispense with the conversation and get into the thick of things.”
“So, we’re clear?”
“Crystal.”
She stepped forward between his spread legs and let him finish unzipping her pants. Erin stepped out of them and he made yet another of those hisses as he skimmed his hands up the back of her thighs.
“You are positively beastly,” she muttered. “You got fangs to go with that noise?”
“The sound is rude. I concede that. Generally, my kind is better at not making it.”
“Let me guess—it’s a Tyneali thing.”
“Yes.” He hooked his thumbs beneath the waistband of her panties and then wriggled them down inch by slow inch. She hoped he knew he wasn’t going to find the secrets of the universe in her underwear. As far as she knew, the equipment she was carrying looked exactly the same as what contemporary Jekhan women had in their panties.
He pressed his nose right against her snatch and inhaled deeply.
“Seriously?”
“Do what you’d like when my pants are off. Right now, I’m choosing to take a moment to simply enjoy your essence.”
“Left up to your own devices, all of you Jekhan males are freak-nasty bastards, aren’t you?”
That damned noise again.
She sighed and pushed her feet farther apart when he pressed his hands to her inner thighs. “You oughta get that checked out. That much hissing can’t be good for your teeth.”
“Generally, one’s mother would correct the behavior. I haven’t seen my mother in twenty years.” He pressed his hand to her slit and rubbed, much like someone trying to massage the last few streaks of cream out of a jar.
Bemusing for sure, and not what she was expecting.
“Esteben, what are you doing?”
He put all four of his slick fingers into his mouth, glared up at her, and then said in a droll voice, “Is that not what you’d expect from a so-called ‘freak-nasty bastard’?”
“Okay, look, if we’re gonna do show and tell, at least take off your pants. That way I don’t feel so much like a science experiment.”
He stood, loosened the drawstrings on his pants, and let the garment fall to the floor. “Suitable?”
She stood there staring and blinking. Blinking and staring.
Wondering if he were hard or just on the way there, because if his cock were a work in progress, she was in for an interesting evening.
Tentatively, she closed her fingers around him—as much as she could, anyway—and let out a fast breath. Hard. Thank God.
He couldn’t have been substantially larger than Headron, but Headron’s cock had become something of an institution in her mind. He’d been poking her with it in sleep for so many nights that she’d become somewhat immune to the size. There was just something so awe-inspiring about fresh dick that always seemed to make Erin feel a little batty.
“Are you going to put one of these…things on me?” He held up the condom. “Or should I resume the work I had in progress?”
She swallowed hard and let her hand fall away from his shaft. “I probably shouldn’t say no to a little prep work, but we don’t have a whole lot of time to do this. I sneaked out right after Courtney got up to change Kerry’s diaper, and I think we’re about three hours from dawn. I’d like to get a little sleep tonight, so—”
“So here.” He put the condom in her hand. “Show me how to wear one so I can equip myself on my own next time.”
“You assume there’ll be a next time.”
He didn’t hiss, but given her brain’s willful surrender at the quelling look he gave her, he may as well have.
It was almost as if that hiss had a purpose…like a cat clicker redirecting a new pet, and apparently she was the cat.
“This is pretty elementary.” She tore open the packet and nudged out the disc. “You always put them on after you’re already hard. For the most part, the latex will stretch to fit. Probably won’t go all the way to the base of you.”
It definitely didn’t go all the way to the base. Inches remained uncovered.
Her body unloosed a reflexive, tittering laugh. She hadn’t been so high-strung since the dungeon master back at her favorite club in Arlington had yanked back her latex bodysuit’s crotch zipper, grabbed her hair, and fucked her until her eyes crossed. He’d done that as a favor to her. He’d known she’d needed to be topped, and that she wouldn’t say yes to anyone.
Dewey had a magical way of knowing when to just take what a person couldn’t offer. He kept Erin from thinking too hard about what her place was and who was in control. Unfortunately, he had a girlfriend who hadn’t particularly wanted him to get attached to his toys, so his attention was a rare treat.
“What has you laughing so nervously?” Esteben asked.
“Just thinking about a guy I knew.”
“And you choose to think of him right now, of all times?”
There was no way in hell she was going to answer that. He couldn’t have understood.
She pressed out a couple of air pockets in the condom and gave the collection reservoir at the end a squeeze. “Leave some room for ejaculate, otherwise you end up with seepage, which’ll totally defeat the purpose of you wearing the rubber.”
He gave his cock a tentative squeeze and then, completely un-self-consciously, ran his thumb along the ridges of the condom. “Now what?”
“Now we…” She shrugged. “We do what I came here to do. I don’t know if you have a preferred—”
She was going to say “preferred position,” but he clasped his hand over her mouth, turned her around, and tossed her onto her belly.
“Shh.”
Oh.
He was behind her on the bed, tugging her up by the hips, and pushing her feet farther apart. “If you prefer to dispense with the pleasantries, than let’s get on with it.” He pulled his hand away and guided himself to her entrance. “You have more padding this way, yes?”
She parted his fingers and said be
tween them, “I have to say, your tactless candor is refreshing.”
“Again, do you want me to waste energy thinking up prettier ways to say the same things, or do you want to fuck?”
She notched her fingers into the cover and risked a look behind her at him.
Both, maybe.
Looking at him—so handsomely feral and assertive—she didn’t know what she wanted. He was a predator and she was prey, and she liked that sometimes, but she had a bad habit of wanting to fix people. She didn’t know if Esteben could be fixed, but she knew if he ever talked as sweetly to her as he did to Kerry, she’d be hopelessly ensnared.
Thinking too much. I need a Dewey.
“I’ll take your silence to mean that you’re ready?” he queried.
Letting out a breath, she faced forward and then said quietly, “Yes.”
He leaned heavily onto her back, and his fat cock head probed her entrance, but he made no overt movements to breach her yet. In fact, he toyed with the ends of her hair over her ear and bent his head to whisper, “I believe I owe you something from our time in Buinet.”
His lips traced down the side of her neck and hovered near the crook of her shoulder.
He was heavy, but that didn’t matter as his fingers curled around her neck. He didn’t squeeze, though. He couldn’t possibly know that she liked that, and she didn’t trust him enough yet to ask him for more.
“Do you remember biting me?” he asked.
She shook her head as much as she could. He had limited her range of movement.
“You did. You bit my arm and left marks.”
“What did you do to make me?”
“You assume I’m always in the wrong?” He rocked back and forward, teasing her slit with the very end of him, spreading her wetness as he went.
She parted her legs farther, inviting him in, but he seemed more interested in teasing than taking. She’d beg soon if he kept that up.
“Answer me,” he said.
“I don’t know. Obviously you remember better than I do.” She didn’t care if her spine was going to be hollering for days, but she arched as much as she could and backed without stopping onto the cock he’d been so cruelly withholding.