by Nikki Clarke
I fork the food into his mouth and he chews for a second, bobbing his head thoughtfully like he’s really considering the taste. All of a sudden, his mouth drops open and I cup my hand beneath his chin just before the glob of veggies hits his shirt.
“KJ! You almost messed up your shirt, kid.”
“K,” Bati gives a pretty convincing laying down the law look. “If you do not like something, you spit it discretely into your hand and give it to me or your amha, do you understand?”
KJ’s face shifts down in exaggerated shame, and you could knock me over with a feather. Well, I’ll be.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
“Good. Now you can have the sawa, but you must also eat some of the q’ish. I suspect it was not as bad as you pretend.”
KJ takes a deep breath and huffs it out. “It wasn’t that yucky. I just wanted banana fruit.” He takes the fruit Bati holds out. The moment it hits his hand, a big grin breaks out over his face, and he takes a bite, spraying juice all over his shirt, anyway.
Bati’s eyes slide back into his head in an exaggerated eye roll.
“Younglings,” he mumbles, shaking his head.
We continue eating. KJ moves back to his blocks as he eats his fruit, and I take another vegetable and plop it into my mouth. They really are quite good. They don’t look like carrots. More like yellow broccoli. Crunchy but soft. The glaze tastes almost like apricots and vinegar.
“You’re good with him,” I admit after a moment. Bati’s eye flick to me and then away.
“Amina has told me this. I have always had a way with children. Unlike Kwarq, I am not uncomfortable with being firm.”
I snort. He’s right. Kwarq might look like a tough guy, but he’s a big ol’ softie. Amina has him wrapped around every last one of her fingers. Even though they are twins, I kind of like that Bati is more of a hard ass, and yet, he’s still just as sweet, just as considerate and caring as his brother.
“I bet you’re excited to be an uncle.”
“I am. It is always exciting to have new life, new family to love and care for.” His expression is wistful.
I take another bite of food and chew slowly. This is the first time we’ve talked about ourselves. I find I want to know more.
“What about you? Do you think you’ll have kids of your own?”
The second the words leave my mouth, I know it’s a mistake. Bati stares at me for a long moment and my heart clenches at the sadness in his expression. After a moment, he smiles, but it’s forced and pained.
“I do not think that is part of my future, but I am happy to enjoy the children of my brothers—and KJ, while he is here.” He glances over to my son and his expression warms, making my throat tighten.
“I really appreciate how much you’ve cared for him.”
“Of course. My leht is not just to you. It is to every part of you, including KJ. I am as drawn to him as a son as I am to you as—” he pauses and looks away. “I care very much for him. I consider him my own, my dahni. My—son. I love him very much.” He looks back to me and his blue eyes shine with emotion before he blinks, neutralizing his expression. “I will clean up our dinner. Would you like to put KJ to bed, or shall I?”
I take the task of bed time just to end the conversation. I don’t need Lyqa senses to realize this is an awkward moment. I also don’t need Bati to tell me that if he wanted to have kids it would probably have to be with me. Surprisingly, the idea of being with him isn’t the worst thing I can think of. It’s actually the nicest thought I’ve had in a long time. Like always, I want to say this to him, but now isn’t the right time. Instead, I grab KJ’s pack and start looking through it for something for him to wear to bed.
Bati has thought of everything. Inside KJ’s little bag is a toothbrush, towels for washing, and several changes of clothes, including KJ’s favorite race car pajamas. The kid is tired. Not five minutes after I get him ready and settled for bed, he’s already asleep, huddled beneath a thermal blanket in his tent, a Lyqa block clutched in his hand.
When I come out of KJ’s tent, Bati is swishing something from a canteen around his mouth. He walks to the edge of the platform and spits, wiping his mouth as he turns.
“Would you like to clean your teeth?”
He walks back to me and holds out the container. I take it and bring it to my lips. It’s not a toothbrush, but I guess it’s better than nothing. I tilt it to my mouth, and instead of water, a thick liquid slides between my lips. I gag, clamping my mouth tight in an effort to keep from spitting, and turn wide eyes up at Bati.
He’s laughing slightly. “Do not worry. It is a bio-wash. Microorganisms will remove the particles of food from between your teeth and freshen your breath.”
Holy shit. Bio-wash? Organisms? Did this dude just tell me that I’m holding a bunch of bugs in my mouth? Rushing over to the edge of the platform, I spit the liquid out, gathering mouthfuls of saliva and spitting over and over.
“Dude, warn a girl before you give her a mouth full of bugs, okay?”
He chuckles again. “I apologize. I should have realized that would be strange for you. I packed this as well.” He holds out a toothbrush. I snatch it and start scrubbing at my teeth and tongue. Bati hands me another bottle and I hesitate to take it.
“It is just water,” he assures me.
It is. I swish it around my mouth and spit over the side. When I turn back to the camp, Bati is standing by our tent. He has removed his shirt. A pair of thin, sleeping shorts rest low on his hips. I swallow. His eyes flick down to the region of my throat. Yeah, I bet he heard that.
“Are you ready for bed, Tiani?”
BATI
“Uh, yeah. I’m ready.”
She smells nervous. I can hear the muscles of her throat work loudly as she swallows. I have been waiting for this moment all day. The opportunity for privacy. A moment to be close to her without reserve.
I hold open the flap to the tent and she crawls in, moving quickly to one side of the blanket I have laid out. I check KJ’s tent one final time before ducking inside and sealing the flap behind me.
“Will he be okay out there by himself?”
“He will be fine, Tiani.” I tap my earlobe. “Spidey-hearing, remember? If he even breathes uncomfortably, I will hear it. Also, our hearts are bound. If he is in danger, I will feel it.”
Her eyes widen on my face. “Your heart is bound to his, too? How?”
I settle down in front of her on the pallet and take her hands, bringing them to my mouth.
“I have told you that I am leht to you both. You are of my heart, but he is also. I am bound to you as a mate, and I am bound to him as a father. Do not question it. Despite our inability to be together, I am happy for it.”
“Damn, dude.” She extracts one of her hands from mine and brings it up to my face, cradling my jaw. The warmth of her skin goes straight through me, and my body reacts, sending a surge of desire to my cock. I start to rise beneath my sleeping shorts, and Tiani’s gaze lingers on my waist before she pulls back from me and lifts her layered top over her head.
“Come here,” she whispers. The anticipation rolling off of her is potent in the enclosed space. She wants me, and I want her. I want her more intensely than ever before.
She tosses her shirt to the side and I fix on the dark, straining peaks of her breasts. It has only been two days since I was last with her, but it feels like an eternity, and I need to be close to her, to feel her. Yet something within me hesitates.
“You do not have to join with me because I am bound to you. I did not bring a single tent to force you into my bed.” I reach out and run the back of one hand over the firm curve of her breast. She is so soft, so silky. Every bit of her is brown and even. The only variation in color is her nipples, her black, curly hair and the matching patch that covers her pussy.
“I don’t want to sleep with you because you are leht to me, Bati. I want to sleep with you because despite what an asshole I’ve been, I like you. I reall
y like you.”
She smiles shyly up at me, but I’m too stunned to move.
“Tiani?” Her name sticks in my throat. I try to swallow around it, but the knot does not want to move. I cannot believe it.
She rises to her knees before wrapping her arms around my shoulders and pulling me into the fragrant valley of her breasts. “I said, I like you.”
I rest my chin against her chest. She’s smiling. Her scent is light and sweet. The edge of resistance I can usually sense is gone. I dare to believe she has accepted the leht, that she has accepted me.
“Are you going to leave me hanging?”
I frown. “I do not know what that means.”
“Well, when someone says they like you, it’s kind of a thing to say it back.”
Lyqa fast, I spin us around and lower her to the pallet. I nuzzle the sweet skin of her chest and she moans beneath me.
“I am quite fond of you, my lehti, if I have not made it obvious. Had you never grown fond of me, I would have loved you until I returned to the stars.”
“And now that I do like you?” She smells nervous again. Does she think I will ever let her go?
“Now that you like me, I am the happiest being in the universe.”
Her fingers dance across my chest nervously. “But is it okay that I’m not really sure about the whole love thing? I mean I like you. I do. I think I’ve liked you since I first met you, but I just don’t know. It seems a little early to talk about love, you know?”
She smells guilty. I do not like it. “It is okay, my lehti. However you feel for me is enough. I do not expect more, and if in the future, your affection grows for me, I will he glad for it, but I do not expect it.”
“So it’s cool if we just kind of go with the flow?”
“It is cool.”
Her tension lifts away. “So, now that we officially like each other, what should we do?” Her finger trails along the side of my face. When it gets close to my mouth, I catch it gently with my teeth, flicking my tongue out to taste her.
“Now, at this very moment, I am going to make you scream.” I dive between her breasts, pressing kisses along every bit of flesh I can, making her shriek and giggle. When I swirl my tongue around one tight nipple, she moans and arches into my mouth.
“We have to be quiet,” she whispers around another moan. She tastes like the salty air of Qiton. I cover the straining peak and suck gently before releasing her with a wet plop. She gasps and pushes my head away.
“Do not worry. No one will hear us. When you come from a species with hearing as good as Lyqas’, you learn to perfect discretion technology,” I point to the wall of the tent.
“No one can hear us outside?”
I shake my head.
“Then how will you hear KJ?”
“Our tent is shielded from the outside, but not the inside. His is not at all. Do not worry.”
A slow smile spreads across her face as she looks up at me. “So I can be as loud as I want?”
I rise so that our noses touch and press a kiss to her soft lips.
“You may be as loud you wish, Tiani.”
I lower my mouth back to her breast and trace the tip with my tongue. Her soft gasps echo through my ears as I taste her. I lap at her smooth flesh. The firm mounds of her breasts bounce against my tongue.
“Bati!”
I have never heard a more pleasing sound than Tiani gasping my name in pleasure. I close my mouth over her nipple and she moans loudly, arching up from the blanket. I move to her other breast, pressing feather light kisses before suckling firmly against her.
“Bati, please! I can’t—”
“I understand.”
There is an urgency emanating from her that matches my own desperate desire. It has been too long since I’ve held her, and as much as I would like to take my time, to lick every inch of her, taste all of her sweet places, I want to be inside of her more.
I push my sleeping shorts down my hips and free my cock. It’s heavy and so hard that I ache. Tiani begins to pull at her complicated Qitoni skirt with little success. I help her, unwinding the strips of fabric until they lay in a pile around her soft, brown body.
“You are beautiful,” I whisper when she is finally bared for me. Her long, toned legs lay open, and the glistening petals of pussy call to me. I dip my head and drag my tongue through her folds, savoring her sweetness, the purity of her arousal.
“Oh my god!”
She sounds pained. I would have my lehti sound satisfied. I kiss her one last time and move up her body, allowing no space between us. She opens for me, spreading her thighs wide, and my cock meets the heat of her center, pressing into the tight sheath until I reach her womb, and every part of me is surrounded by her warmth.
“Hu’l!” The Lyqa word slips past my lips before I can stop it.
“Bati, you swore!”
My eyes are pressed tight from the sheer bliss of being joined with my lehti again. I open them to find Tiani looking up at me with a shocked expression.
“I do not know what this word ‘swore’ means,” I tell her as I ease from her body and press back in a firm, deep stroke.
“Ah—it means—mm, that you said a bad word. Oh my god!”
Her words are stunted as I increase the force of my thrusts. She feels too good. Better than before, and the first time in my lehti was the best feeling of my life. Her passage grips me tightly. I raise my hips and flex them down hard, pushing past her resistance again and again. Her little mewling moans get louder and louder until my ears ache from her screams.
“Do you like it, my lehti?”
“Yes!”
I lift away from the warmth of her breasts, needing to see her. The short, curly hairs around her forehead are slick with sweat. They form little half moons about her face that make her look celestial and fantastic. Her dark, nearly black eyes are bottomless pools beneath heavy lids. Her full lips part as she gasps out her pleasure, those tiny human teeth peek from between them. I flick out my tongue, swirling it through her mouth, and she moans lustily, catching my tongue and sucking gently.
“I love kissing you,” she murmurs when we part. Her scent is colored with awe.
“You do not find my tongue to be strange? Uncomfortable?”
“Hell no, I like everything about you.”
I slow my hips and press a soft kiss to her lush lips.
“Do you have a favorite part?”
She licks across my bottom lip, triggering a round of deep thrusts before I am able to calm myself again.
“Tell me, Tiani. What is your favorite part?”
She’s so wet. The sounds of her arousal makes it hard to think about anything but releasing. I hold her knees wide, sinking deeper. Her face lights in surprise as she stretches around me. Every nerve along my cock surges to life as her walls constrict and spasm along my length.
“Everything!” she finally yelps as I continue to work her in quick, deep thrusts.
“Everything is not one part. I would know. Tell me.” I hitch my hips up, striking along the underside of her passage and she screams.
“Bati!” Her body jerks and spasms beneath me as an orgasm rips through her. I work her through it, gliding into her pussy at an easy pace until the tension leaves her body. When she stills, her chest heaving, I slip from her inside of her.
“You didn’t finish.” Her head is raised from the floor. She looks at me with concern.
“I did not. Turn to your knees.”
My cock throbs in front of me. The tip is leaking a steady stream of semen. I am close to release, but I have not had enough of my lehti. I need more.
Tiani’s eyes flare, and she rolls over, presenting her curved behind to me. She eases up to her knees, and the slick slit of her pussy spreads before me.
I don’t wait. I raise to my knees behind her and press back in until every inch of me is pulsing through her.
“Mmm,” Tiani lowers her head and breathes deeply.
“Is it
too much?” I can sense the tension is her body. Her tissue swells tightly around my cock. She cannot take me for much longer.
“No, it feels good.” She dips her back, easing me in even deeper.
“Hu’l! Tiani, have mercy.” My release lingers at the edge of my pleasure. I begin to move, hammering into her, eager to get the that place. With each plunge of my cock into her tight depths, my balls tighten, until they are pressed so close to my body that they ache.
“Bati, come!”
I have been working her hard. Her upper body is pressed to the pallet. Her hands fist in the blanket, and her sharp cries ring out in the room with each flex of my hips. My movements are a blur. The pleasure rioting through me reaches a peak just as Tiani hisses a deep breath of air through her teeth and begins to shake with a second orgasm.
“Lehti!” I come with a fierce growl, pressing so far into her that we both collapse to the ground. For long moments, my cock pulses stream after stream of semen at her womb until I have nothing left.
I drop my weight to her back, unable to hold myself up anymore. I’m drained, while at the same time, the most exhilarating energy courses through every one of my cells.
We lay in silence for a moment. The only sound is that of our breath huffing out. Tiani shifts beneath me, and I lift to my elbows revealing her sweat slicked form beneath me.
“I did not mean to crush you, Tiani.”
“Mm, I’m good.”
I nuzzle the moist space between her back, flicking out my tongue to taste the beads of salty sweat.
“I would have you feeling well.”
She sighs contentedly and I catch the edges of her smile. “I am more than well. I am awesome.”
“Are you awesome enough for more?”
I do not know what is wrong with me, but I have not had enough. If anything, the strange energy has given me a renewed desire. My cock is still thick and rigid inside of her despite having released.
I press forward and she moans, leaning back against me as my hips start to move again.