by Ruby Dixon
I ignore her fussing and sit upright, testing my body. It aches but nothing grates out of place in my chest. I lift one hand and flex it. There’s hot pain in it, but it is straight, a makeshift splint around it.
“I had to set the bones,” Liz explains, tucking blankets around my body. “Does it feel okay?”
“You did well,” I tell her thickly. Her nearness makes me ache with a different kind of hunger. My cock aches and my khui resonates as she leans in to press her small fingers to my forehead. I grab her hand and kiss the palm, wishing it was wrapped around my cock and stroking it. I remember that from before – the rawness of it is seared into my mind.
“Are you thirsty? Hungry?” she asks, her eyes wide and searching. She pulls her hand from my grip and gets up, moving toward the fire. “I made you some broth. You need to keep your strength up.”
When she brings the small cup of broth to me, the scent of her warm skin is more appealing than the drink. She lifts her arm to hold the cup to my mouth, and I caress her round, lovely breast through her clothing. Liz trembles and my khui resonates in time with hers. “I see you’re feeling better,” she says in a shaky voice, and pushes my hand away. “No hanky-panky right now.”
“Hankeepahnkee?” I ask. I do not know what this word is. Nor do I particularly care. Liz’s hair is braided back from her face, displaying her beautiful neck, and I want to bury my face there. I want her small body against mine, to feel her heart beating, to scent her arousal and touch her and claim her.
“That’s right,” she says, and her voice is breathless. I hear her khui resonating in her chest. “It’s not the time right now. You’re not really well yet.”
My fingers brush her cheek, touch her jaw, her throat. I touch her everywhere I can before she moves away, even as she puts the cup to my lips and forces me to drink. When she pulls it back, I lean my head against the cave wall, my eyes closed. I’m tired, but touching her is making me feel better.
She puts the cup aside and peels the blankets off my legs. I hear a muffled snort. “Well, it seems part of you is working just fine,” she says.
I open my eyes and glance down. My cock is at attention, thrusting up from my body. It aches and for a hopeful moment, I think she will take it in her soft human mouth again and tongue it. It is not to be, though. Liz is all business and checks my bandages, clucking at my wounds. “You’re on the mend, but still not better.”
“My khui does not care,” I tell her. She’s bent over and her face is close to my cock even as she fusses over my bandages. “It wants me to claim you.”
She makes a humming sound in her throat, but I can’t tell if it’s agreement or not. “Tell your khui now is not the time.”
I watch her as she gets up and moves about the cave. Her body is graceful and lean under the shapeless leathers, and her eyes are bright. She smells like the richest honey, and my senses are starved for her. I shift in my pallet. “I recall…a promise you made.”
Her face flushes and she moves toward the fire, tucking one of her braids behind an ear. “When you’re better, I intend to keep my promise. But for now you need to sleep.” She rubs one of her eyes and I realize that she’s got dark rings on her pale skin. She looks hollow and tired herself. Her clothing is dirty and ragged, and her hair has not been washed in many days. She’s thin, too, like when she was sick before.
“How long have you been caring for me?” I ask, humbled. While I have been lying here sleeping, letting my khui heal itself slowly, she has been hard at work.
She moves to the wall of the cave and touches it, and I see hash marks chalked onto the stone. “Nine days,” she counts, then picks up a chalky stone and adds another mark. “Ten, really.”
No wonder my body is reacting to her nearness. I’ve never heard of a couple avoiding a resonance mating for this long. I also wonder if this has to do with how long it is taking my body to heal. With the healer Maylak’s help, a break can be healed in a matter of days. If I have been mostly unconscious for nine, I worry that my khui is overtaxed and unsatisfied.
Soon, it will stop asking and start demanding. I wonder if Liz realizes this.
• • •
Now that I am conscious again, my khui has decided it must claim Liz, and must claim her now. It does not matter that my body is yet healing, or that Liz is exhausted. All that matters is the mating the khui demands. Liz resonates every time she gets near me, and sometimes when she returns to the cave, she smells of sex on her hands, as if she has pleasured herself. I know she is not unaffected by the need between us. She must be hiding her desires, thinking my body more fragile than it truly is.
The only thing that is fragile is my control.
Every night, she curls up against me, exhausted from a day of hunting and tending the fire, and then tending to me. She tenderly bathes me and feeds me chunks of dried meat from kills she has made. All the while, she is busy making weapons or melting more water or emptying out my piss-pot, since she insists I need to stay off my leg.
It is becoming impossible to resist her. When she moves past me, I reach for her automatically. When her body fits itself against mine in bed, it takes every ounce of strength I have not to push her to the ground and fuck her.
And when she comes back with her hands smelling like her sweet cunt? I must close my eyes and remind myself that control will win my human, not brute strength.
But control only goes so far, and I worry it will flow through my hands like water.
LIZ
It’s a lot of work to rough it and take care of Raahosh. The day seems like a never-ending list of chores. Clean cave, bathe Raahosh, shake out blankets, melt water for drinking, eat, check traps, smoke extra meat, melt more water, fix weapons, tend to Raahosh, melt even more water, and so on and so on. Raahosh is a terrible patient, too. He’s healing faster than anything I’ve ever seen, and I suspect that’s the cootie’s work. Too bad it’s not helping his mood any. He’s grabby despite his injuries, and cranky when I push his hands away. He’s healing, which means fooling around is a terrible idea, no matter how good it sounds to me.
Truth is, I’m indescribably horny.
I’ve never felt this way in my life — like I need to jump Raahosh’s bones or I’ll die. But Raahosh’s bones are newly mending, and I just can’t. He needs to save his strength. And truth is, I’m tired and I don’t feel very pretty. I’m grimy and sweaty from all the work I’ve been doing around camp, and my leather clothing is stained with Raahosh’s blood, mine, and the metlaks I killed, along with the game I’ve been hunting.
But this afternoon, it’s snowing fiercely and there’s plenty of fuel for the fire. There’s dried meat for dinner and Raahosh is napping in the blankets, his long legs sprawled in the furs. He watches me sometimes and then pretends to sleep. Right now, though, I think he’s truly asleep. I scratch at my itchy scalp, and my tightly-braided hair feels dirty. I look at the fire and wonder if I can have myself a quick hot sponge bath while he’s resting.
As soon as the idea enters my mind, I’m all for it. I fill the cooking skin with snow, and when it melts, add more handfuls of snow until there’s a good amount heating over the fire. I find the soapy berries that Raahosh explained to me were for cleaning and not eating, and smash a few of them between my fingers and add them to the water. While it heats up, I strip my leathers off and stretch near the fire.
I stay clothed around Raahosh, mostly because I don’t want to tempt him. It’s not that I don’t want to have sex with him anymore. Nearly losing him made me realize that, okay, yes, I do want to have hot, nasty sex with the man — er, alien. I was only torturing myself by denying it. I’m not sure I’m ready to deal with the ‘mates’ and ‘babies’ aspect, but one thing at a time, and right now I’m fixated on sex. Sex, sex, sex. Masturbating quietly outside the cave hasn’t been scratching the itch, and I can hardly wait for the man to start walking around so I can jump his ass.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
But whil
I bend over to swipe at my calves.
Warm hands grip my ass, startling me. “Raahosh?” I glance over my shoulder to see him press his mouth against my hip, the look on his face one of sheer and utter bliss. He’s naked – he’s been naked and in bed for days. And he’s completely aroused.
And my pulse goes wild, as does my cootie.
“You shouldn’t be up,” I tell him, sounding as breathless as I feel.
He presses kisses on my damp hip, and his hand slides up the inside of my thigh. “I can smell your arousal, mate. Can smell it on your hands when you return to the cave. Do you think I do not notice?”
A hot blush steals over my cheeks. “I was, um, keeping things under control.”
“I have no control where you are concerned,” he murmurs, nipping at my skin with those long, inhuman fangs. I have no idea why the sight of them gets me so hot, but it does. Damn, does it ever.
“You’re not feeling well—“
“My greatest ache has nothing to do with bones,” he says, and his fingers brush over the folds of my sex, insistent.
A whimper escapes me.
“Bend over.” His breath tickles my leg. “I would taste my mate.”
I clutch the bit of wet fur I’ve been using as a washcloth, and then toss it aside. My entire body is flushed with heat, and while part of my brain is screaming that I shouldn’t give in to what the alien wants, my cootie’s humming a delicious song in time with his, and I’m so full of need that I could crawl out of my own skin. So I slowly reach down and put my hands on the backs of my calves, like I’m in gym class and stretching. Except I’m naked, so naked, and turned on.
I feel Raahosh spread my cheeks and then his mouth is on my sex, tonguing with a ravenous ferocity that makes my knees weak. I cry out and immediately stumble forward, too close to the fire. Only his strong arm around my thighs keeps me from tumbling in. Instead, he swings me around until I’m facing the blankets, and then he pushes me forward, his arm still locked around my thighs. It forces me into the furs, my cheek moving to the floor, and my ass is in the air.
And still, he devours me with single-minded intensity. My toes curl and cries escape my throat as his tongue, bumpy and thick, spears me deep inside my core. Oh fuck. This is too much for me to handle. It feels too good.
He groans and pauses, and I catch my breath. “So sweet.” That’s the only warning I get before he dives in again, and my legs tense with the aching need of it all. Oh God. I am this close to coming already, and all he’s done is slam his face into my pussy and start licking. Of course, the visual of that makes me crazy, and I squirm against his mouth, bucking backward and trying to ride his face.
“Mine,” he growls into my flesh, and then thrusts his tongue into me again.
I scream and fist my hands in the furs as I come, my legs tight with the orgasm ripping through me. I feel my body spasm with the force of my orgasm, and wetness floods between my legs.
It makes Raahosh lose his mind. He snarls and then grabs my hips again. Before I can breathe, he has me flipped to my back, and my legs are in the air. He takes his cock in his hand and then he thrusts into me.
And I scream again. It feels as if I’ve been hollowed out from the inside, he’s so big. It feels downright amazing. I’ve had sex before but I’ve never felt every inch of a man as he was inside me. Normally it just feels vaguely full.
This feels like intensity. I can feel every ridge of his cock, every rough bump, every vein. And I for damn sure feel the spur above his cock. The moment he thrust inside me, it slid between my pussy lips and brushed against my clit, gliding like another finger.
I’m overwhelmed with sensation.
He freezes over me, his glowing eyes narrowing as he gazes down at me. He’s utterly still, not even breathing. I can’t read his expression.
“Liz?” He asks. “Did I…are you hurt?” His hand drags over his mouth, and I realize the carefully veiled expression on his face is hiding worry.
“I’m good,” I tell him, and lift my hips. “Please, don’t stop.”
He growls low in his throat and the feral look returns to his face. He leans forward and plants a hand on my hips, and then he slams deep into me again.
And I cry out once more because, God, how can I not? It feels like he’s fucking me inside out. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt. His hair is hanging close to my face and I grab it by the fistful, holding on to him as roughly as he’s holding on to me. “Don’t fucking stop,” I snarl back at him. “Don’t ever stop!”
His nostrils flare, and then Raahosh hammers into me harder than ever. I’m screaming as I come, yanking on his hair, and raising my hips to meet his eager thrusts. It’s like my orgasm that I had a few moments ago never went away. It just keeps rolling through me, and I scream and scream as it goes on and on. With every thrust, Raahosh’s spur drags against my clit, and I feel as if I’m coming apart at the seams. I can’t handle this much pleasure. I can’t.
Raahosh’s body jerks, and for a moment, I think he’s going to complain about his knee or a muscle cramp, the look on his face is so utterly surprised. But then his breath hisses from his tight lips, his body jerks, and I realize he’s come, too.
RAAHOSH
I am utterly reborn.
Every muscle in my body, every tendon, every organ – it no longer belongs to Raahosh. It is all Liz’s to dispose of. I am completely and utterly hers.
I collapse on top of my mate, spent from our furious coupling. It hasn’t been very long at all, and my cock is still twitching despite the fact that it’s buried deep inside her, and I’ve come. But the resonance isn’t going away. If anything, it’s growing stronger with each passing moment, our khuis united in a song.
Liz’s hands slide from my hair and she grimaces at the sight of the long strands on her fingers. “I…might have pulled out a handful or two. I’m sorry.” She offers it back to me.
I take the strands of hair and toss them aside. “I have more.” She can pull it all out if she likes. I care not. I just want to remain buried inside her. I roll on my side and tuck her against my body, pressing her face to my chest. I have never felt so…much.
She is mine. All mine. Even now, she is full of my seed. I can feel her cunt gripping me tight, hot spasms working through her body. She gives a little gasp with each one, and I suspect they are pleasurable for her. I stroke a hand over her pale braids, wet from her bath. “My mate,” I murmur. “My Liz.”
My human makes a little sound that is half moan, half sigh, all pleasure. She nuzzles against my chest and her hand strokes down my arm. I do the same to her, enjoying the difference in textures of our bodies. She does not have the soft fuzz that covers my people. Human skin is different, but…I enjoy it. It feels decadent to the touch, and it reminds me of licking inside her smooth cunt.
It is a good memory, and it’s something I want to do again, immediately. My fingers move to the base of my cock, still seated deep inside her, and I run my fingers along the edges of her opening, where she is gripping me tight deep inside her. Her folds are stretched taut.
She sucks in a breath. “What…”
“I like the feel of you when I’m inside you,” I tell her, and her face colors even brighter red under her warm flush. “You are stretched wide to accommodate me.”
“Braggart,” she says in a teasing tone, and her hand trails down my chest thoughtfully. “We probably did that all wrong, by the way.”
“We did?” I’m shocked that I’ve somehow displeased her. “Is there a human ritual that I have missed?”
She chuckles and her finger trails over one of my pectorals, then flicks my nipple. “Not exactly, unless you call foreplay a ritual.” She shifts, and I feel every muscle in her body against my cock. I inhale sharply, because I’m ready to claim my mate again but she’s talking, so I try to pay attention. “Most of the time,” she continues, “women want to be wooed into sex.”
Wooed into sex? I do not understand. She was screaming for me. I can still taste the wet arousal of her on my tongue. I study her for a moment, considering. Ah – maybe this is the time for the courting word. “Newwwp,” I tell her.
Her hand slams on my chest. “What do you mean, newwp?” She looks affronted. “I can want some fucking foreplay! I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
“Wait. Is this not a courting word?”
She makes an outraged noise. “I asked you for foreplay and you said no?”
“I said newwp,” I correct. “This is not right? You said it to me and it was clear you liked my touch.”
Liz gives me an incredulous look and pushes at my chest. “I have no idea what you are talking about, weirdo. Let me go—“
“Never,” I state, and fist my hand in her hair, like she did to me. She stills in my grip, and I study her, the pulse racing in her beautiful throat, the hot anger – and lust – flaring in her eyes. “Explain to me this ‘foreplay’.”
“You’re fucking kidding, right?”
I roll the words around in my head, but the translations do not sound right. “My cock does not claim you as a jest, no.”
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