by Amanda Milo
It’s comfort and life, that food.
That’s Jen for me.
Without thought, I inhale at the top of her head, which makes her shoulders twitch.
She carries my scent. It’s faint, but it makes my soul thrum with pleasure.
I can also detect Kaylee, Levi, Alley the Earthen qiizibeast, Jen’s perfume, and under it all, Jen herself.
She isn’t ordering me to stop, so I burrow my nose deeper into her mane.
“What are you doing?”
My tail rolls into a coil before tapping the bed, her thigh… “You smell strongly. Attractive.”
“I smell?”
“Attractive,” I remind her.
“Oh,” she pips, her voice pitched oddly.
I pull back to check her.
“Thank you,” she says, but her face is angled towards the bed, so I can’t read it.
I can’t see her eyes.
I’m tempted to tug up her chin but she already explained she’s ready to rest. She’s tired and I’m keeping her from sleep with my restlessness tonight.
I sigh—then smile as she absently, unconcernedly, brushes smoke away with her hand.
Gently, and with every care not to scratch her with my claws, I clasp the back of her neck.
Her breathing stops.
I drop my tongue to her mane for a lick goodnight.
I’ve never licked a mane before.
As I rise from the bed, I feel as if I’ve taken part of hers with me: I’ll have to collect the hairs from my tongue and add them to my collection of her treasures that I’m keeping.
I begin the process, stabbing myself in the tongue only a few times. I check on Levi.
Blessedly, his brow is no longer furrowed.
The desire to brush my claws reassuringly at his forelock is strong but the knowledge that anything that breaks him from oblivion will see him waking to pain is enough to help me curb the impulse.
Lastly, I step silently to Kaylee’s small bed—and I mutter a prayer of thanks once more that we’ve managed to wrestle her into bed another night.
Kaylee is the most difficult creature I’ve ever encountered when it comes to settling her to sleep, but once she manages to enter into unconsciousness, she sprawls like the dead.
Which is a relief because if she was difficult to bed down and constantly waked throughout the night, measures would have to be taken. I’ve no idea what, but measures.
Maybe we’d keep a hob. I silently snort to myself at the joke, since it’s always a Rakhii that’s kept, not a hob.
Dohrein helps every night he’s stays late in the laboratory, which is most of them, but if he’s already gone, Jen and I manage to bed the child down the human way: wishing for a child-safe temporary adhesive and a vocal muffler.
But tonight, she sleeps, and this makes for everyone resting peacefully. Everyone but me.
I pace next to my own bed, strangely unable to relax.
I open my drawer of Jen’s treasures, and carefully add her mane hairs next to the brush she was using for her teeth.
I would have placed them in the brush she uses for her mane but she only has the one: it’d be stealing to deprive her of it.
I’ll ask Gracie tomorrow if she can obtain a new one so that I may keep Jen’s old one, just as Gracie aided me so that I could collect Jen’s old brush for her teeth.
CHAPTER 12
JENNIFER
Alley is still purring.
I’m still staring up at my ceiling—just like I have ever since Hotahn left.
I can smell him on my sheets, and it’s such a draw, I ditched my pillow. I’m not even ashamed of how I scooted to the spot he’d been taking up and laid my face right down on the sheet, inhaling his scent.
Honestly—if an alien can lick my hair goodnight, I feel like this should barely rank on a scale of one to odd.
It was easy enough to tell myself that until I remembered that Dohrein’s recording everything, and he might see this if he decides to view my nocturnal activity.
Which up until this point, I’ve made sure to keep very, very boring.
Tonight is not one of those nights. Whenever I’ve had nocturnal needs, I’ve taken care of myself in the privacy of the bathroom and a spritz of perfume after because I’m not sure how much aliens can pick up, but I know both hobs and Rakhii have noses far, far more sensitive than a human’s.
And tonight is definitely another night I require no cameras and my perfume.
Leaving the lights off, I quietly pad to the bathroom. I pee. I wash my hands.
I feel swollen and aching—it started off the good kind of ache earlier, but I’ve waited so long to give myself relief I believe I’ve developed the female version of ‘blue balls.’
I slip my hand into my panties, close my eyes, and recall the feel of Hotahn’s breath on my face just before his nose pressed into my hair.
I use my imagination to make it his lips touching my hair instead. They trail down, down, down. They press to my lips.
Both the set above deck and the one below.
I have spent so much time in this bathroom some nights. This is the easiest session though: having Hotahn visit me right beforehand was a stroke of delightful genius where my release is concerned.
I’ve developed the orgasm skills of a ninja: I bite my lip and stop breathing so that I don’t so much as gasp, because I know that Hotahn will be able to hear it.
Tonight, I’m ready for him to hear it.
Of course, he’s probably in a fitful state of sleep, reliving Levi’s crash to the ground from the high branches of that tree.
Or maybe he’s awake, he’s checked on the kids, yet he can’t rest because he’s as desperate as I’m feeling. Maybe he could use an outlet for everything he had to bottle today.
The sight of his muscles standing out as he’d ripped the door open to hear about Levi...
The broadness of his back as he’d paced away and tried to contain the helplessness he was feeling when all we could do was wait for Levi to finish waking up.
The warmth of his shirt when I’d touched him to offer comfort.
I let out a silent sigh as relief replaces the tension that had consumed my body.
I open my eyes and stare into my reflection. I wash my hands again before planting them on the counter.
It’s a huge counter, and although there are child-sized toothbrushes and paste that tastes like apples—Kaylee’s favorite food in all of the world at the moment—it’s mostly my products.
There are a few alien-masculine touches: Hotahn has a buffing cloth for his scales. He keeps it neatly folded next to my facial wipes.
He also has an oilcloth that wraps a whetstone for his claws. He keeps that next to my nail polishes and supplies.
It’s all very domestic, for a human and an alien and two kids.
It’s done the strangest things to my insides every time I see this.
Just like now.
Quietly I groan. It’s as if I didn’t just bring myself to release. My thighs brush and my back arches and I brace myself, hands gripping the edge of the sink.
And knowing his ears can pick up the sound of a twig breaking from a hundred feet away, and knowing he’ll know what this word means when I say it, I whisper, “Goose.”
***
Even expecting him, I’m still startled when he’s behind me—a hulking black shadow in the mirror with horns and spines and monstrous proportions that somehow equate to humor, attractiveness, protection and gentleness. It sounds absurd but… Hotahn is all these things.
“You want me to give chase?”
“I just realized,” I whisper breathlessly, “You’ve had me caught from the beginning.”
His tongue is suddenly sliding up my neck and I feel him a thousand times more viscerally than I’ve ever felt any man—maybe it’s the dark, maybe it’s the fact that I’m feeling alive in a way I’ve never been—or maybe it’s Hotahn.
His hand brushes across my belly, and
I flinch.
Somewhere around my thirties, my stomach melted into a soft muffin pooch, and I’ve long hated it. It’s… it’s ugly.
I look into our reflection and find him watching me curiously.
Cautiously, ever so gently, he palpitates my deflated spare tire as if he’s checking for a physical injury. I sink my teeth into my lip to stifle my urge to laugh. Even though I’m limited in sight due to the dark, it’s clear he’s absolutely at a loss for why I reacted the way I did. He honestly can’t tell, and it’s a revelation.
It doesn’t bother him.
Why should I let it bother me?
When I relax, he nudges my hair aside with his nose, and licks the back of my neck.
I nearly yelp when my rear end is lifted into the air—without a word, Hotahn plops my knees onto the edge of the counter.
He pulls back on my hips to get me the way he wants—lined up just right over the edge.
I rest my chest on my hands, arching my back, and he fits a hand under me to get me to raise my back-half higher still.
The fastening of his pants makes almost no sound—and I angle myself to take advantage of the illumination from his eyes so that I can watch as he pulls himself free.
My mouth goes dry.
I strongly expect to hear the cheering of crowds, like you would when the champion appears.
Hotahn’s member deserves fanfare.
But there’s only the quiet of our slightly panted breaths, and when I face our reflection again, he meets my eyes as he runs his thumb along my slit.
My face burns with a ridiculous, misplaced embarrassment that I’m not wet.
Oh, for the days when I auto-lubricated.
Aside from my barely adequate saliva—which will prove downright inadequate trying to get Hotahn to fit inside me—I’m not certain what we can use here. It’s not like we have coconut oil or Astroglide—
Astro: the Latin word for stars and outer space, ha! I shudder with a silent laugh.
Hotahn pauses, eyes on mine when I make myself meet his again in the mirror. I shake my head, ducking to stifle a snort in the crook of my arm.
“Jen.”
I try to choke out the snickering because his voice is pitched low, this one word managing to sound half amused, half strained—and it’s entirely beautiful.
“I’ve got my aching cock in my hand and you’re laughing?”
My eyes catch on his horns as they drop—because he’s lowered his head. I don’t have more than a millisecond to wonder why: his fangs touch my bare butt cheek and I squeak and bang my head on the mirror.
Instantly, his hand is on my head, rubbing away a sting I don’t feel, because his front is pressed over my back, his weight is over mine, and I want nothing more in all the worlds than his aching cock to be inside me right now.
I reach back for him, but he catches my hand.
Stupidly, my face heats.
I want to have sex with Hotahn, yet the act of him merely holding my hand is enough to send my heart into palpitations; I’m not sure how I’m going to survive the next few minutes.
And that’s before he closes his mouth around my fingers, and sucks.
He licks. He nibbles gently with those big teeth. He’s got me shifting under him, his chest resting over my back, his heat melting my bones, his lovemaking of my hand setting my entire body on fire.
When he draws my digits out of his mouth, he laves them with a coating of hot saliva—it’s obscene! It’s the single most tantalizing act I feel like I’ve ever experienced.
That is, until he pivots my hips sideways, so that the mirror is at my side, and now I can watch him as he brings my hand behind me, and I feel him run my soaked fingers along my aching flesh.
He makes me tease myself.
I think I’m getting sunburn on my face from my internal temperature. My entire body certainly feels like it’s on fire.
For good measure, he drags his tongue where he just trailed my fingers.
“Hotahn,” I moan so softly into the crook of my elbow I’m not sure if I even hear it.
He must, because he looses a growl so low in decibel that I feel it more than my ears pick up the sound.
When I manage to lift my head, it’s to see he’s waiting for me to look at him.
His hulking body, his straining muscles, the way his chest expands as he inhales, the way his eyes devour me—how can he think I’m not seeing everything wonderful about him?
My breath is coming shaky, and my hips are shifting, swaying, desperate. “Please,” I whisper. “Hotahn, please, I need you…”
His eyes heat with a supernova blue—supernova: stars that experience catastrophic explosion, violently increasing their luminosity to even greater than before.
I have my own supernova experience as he licks his palm, slicks up his member, glides into me, and I go blind. My mouth forms, “Hotahn!” but I don’t make a sound.
My senses are so overwhelmed, I can’t.
My insides clench down around him, fluttering so tightly with my instantaneous orgasm that he stops moving. He expels a shocked gust of breath from his nostrils against my shoulders—and I feel twin fires along my skin.
I gasp—and his tongue is there, laving the sting away.
He pulls out.
“Nooo,” I moan, dropping my head to my crossed arms.
“Look at me,” he orders.
I turn to the mirror and meet his eyes.
I expect him to slam into me.
Instead, he nudges his way inside.
Bump, bump, sliiiiide—the silky heat of him forces my walls apart gloriously slow.
“I’m going to die,” I whimper.
His hot hand and strong fingers clamp the back of my neck. “No. You’re not allowed to die.”
I try to wriggle my hips and he drops on me, pinning me beneath his weight. “Not allowed?”
“If you’re dead, then what I’m doing to you will give me night terrors.”
I can’t help it: I cackle into my elbow. Hotahn freezes behind me, inside me—darn it all—as we listen like prick-eared dogs to see if the kids woke up.
When all is quiet, Hotahn breathes a sigh of relief and sinks into me alllll the way.
My sigh is not of relief.
His eyes lock with mine
He doesn’t say a word.
When a helpless whimper escapes, I watch his eyes go black.
When another helpless whimper escapes he clamps his hand over my mouth.
It’s so big, it covers the entire bottom half of my face and the pad of his finger—he’s very, very careful to keep his claw pointed waaay away from my skin—plays with my lips.
I give him the tip of my tongue.
He startles and jerks inside me.
I flick it over him and who would have thought it would be such a turn on? But he’s fascinated and he strokes and teases and rubs until my tongue is puffy from the stubble of his scales, my lips feel like they’ve been kissed swollen, and I’m nearly crying into his palm.
“Harder,” I moan.
His next thrust makes my molars clack together and my toes curl. One of my bottles of lotion tips over but doesn’t get a chance to clatter because Hotahn sweeps his tail out to catch and right it.
“Harder!” I whine softly, so close, so close. I brace my hands on the edge of the counter to shove back until he jerks my hips closer to himself and works me on his shaft.
I lose control of my limbs and collapse into a twitching, shaking, overstimulated heap.
His hand claps over my mouth again, but to stifle my orgasm-induced sobs this time.
“Jen?” he growls.
The sound of that growl and the concern in his voice makes my heart flutter and my insides shiver around him.
My skin squeaks against the countertop as I’m shoved forward and slide with his final thrust, his hips staying locked against mine.
I’m certain I’m going to melt into a puddle of satisfaction as splashes of hot liquid
bathe my insides. Each spurting jet sets off an answering aftershock of pleasure in my womb and I don’t think anything can feel better until Hotahn collapses over me.
He’s SO HEAVY—but he feels soooo gooood.
I’m busy coasting on a high of happy hormones when Hotahn rises above me, still breathing hard, and drags his face along the curve of my sweat-slicked back, his scales sticking a little.
I’ve observed a Rakhii with his human mate, and this face-rubbing is some sort of bonding display, though Hotahn’s is slower, more sensual, not frenzied.
My inner muscles are the only things that have it in them to jump when Hotahn presses a cloth between my legs to wash the mingling of our pleasure away.
I sigh happily. He’s amazing with kids, he’s got a good heart with animals, he’s the most exciting, dangerous, conscientious man I’ve ever known. He’s perfection.
I lazily watch him until he picks up my sixty-dollar bottle of perfume and uses it like common air freshener!
I squawk and he glances to me, his eyes lighting me up both externally and internally, so that my voice comes out sounding like some strange invitation more than a discussion. “One squeeze is good... ten squeezes might be too many.”
He sprays the cloth he used to clean us up before he sets the bottle down, and stalks to me.
For a long time, he cups my chin in his hand, never wavering his eye contact. I find I can’t look away.
I’ve been with quiet men but never have I been with a near-silent one like Hotahn. I’ve never been with anyone like Hotahn.
I’m convinced it’s because there’s no one else like him.
“You’ll take no other males,” he informs me.
“Of course I won’t—”
He tugs my chin so it angles higher, closer to his face, stretching my throat.
“I am yours.”
I blink at him. That hadn’t occurred to me—that he might want another. The idea of him sharing this with someone else—with anyone else… knowing this is between us alone has relief hitting me with the force of a blacksmith’s hammer.
“We belong to each other,” he gives the statement the weight of a wedding vow. I feel I should say something—repeat it maybe, or exchange rings, or—
He kisses the tip of my nose.