I closed the door behind me.
He looked at me briefly and then said, “You need to eat. You’ve barely eaten. I ordered a pizza.”
“I don’t want pizza for breakfast,” I muttered, “It’s not a breakfast food. What’s wrong with you people? Pizza and wine in the morning? Are you frat boys or something?”
“I don’t know what any of that means.”
I made a growly sound.
“What do you want?” he asked, looking at the screen.
I folded my arms.
“Jetta.” He gave me a dirty look, “Choose something. Now.”
I gave him a bitchy ‘how dare you’ look and narrowed my eyes.
He glared back and I hated it. I hated the glare on his face and it made me feel like a scolded puppy.
I deflated.
“What do you guys eat here for breakfast?”
He moved to the machine and hit a few buttons, “Crepes. Breakfast meat. Fruit. That kind of thing.”
I wanted to ask what breakfast meat was. I wondered if they had bacon. I really didn’t want to live the rest of my life without bacon.
But I didn’t want to ask.
I folded my arms, “Whatever.”
He rolled his eyes and gave me a dirty look, “You’ll have to start talking to me eventually unless you want to figure everything out on your own. You’re being very stubborn and it’s starting to piss me off.”
We had a thirty second stare stand-off. I lost again.
“Whatever you’re having. I’ll have,” I answered softly, looking at my feet.
“Go ahead and ask your other questions. I’m guessing you’ve saved some up,” he said impatiently.
I narrowed my eyes. He narrowed his and then I snapped,
“Are you trying to pick a fucking fight with me?” I accused and then kicked off my shoes and sat down on the bed.
“Yes. Yes, I am. Maybe we’ll move forward if we have a fight. It can’t go on like this.”
“Oh, yes it can. How about an eternity of this? You have no idea what you signed up for with me, buddy. You really shoulda gotten to know me before shackling me to you.”
“I can handle it,” he told me.
“Oh, you think so?”
“Yeah I do. Know why?”
“Why?” I snapped.
He came at me then, like lightening and before I knew it, I was pressed up against the wall and he had my hands above my head, pinned against the wall.
“Because you acting like this is making me hard. I can handle a lifetime of this.”
I was lost for words.
He turned around, went back to the food machine, and started scrolling through screens again.
I was winded.
“What are your questions?” he demanded and I was answering before I had a chance to think about it.
“The toothbrush you gave me keeps shutting off. I think it’s broken.” I said softly. And then I stumbled to my gym bag and started looking for my own toothbrush from home.
“It shuts off automatically when it senses your mouth is clean,” he said without looking back at me.
“Oh.” I abandoned my task of searching through the bag and pulled my socks off and put them back on the bag and climbed into the bed.
“Any other questions?” His tone was razor sharp and his eyes were glittering with anger.
“Do you have bacon here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I said I didn’t. I’m not deceiving you, wife.”
“Stop calling me wife,” I grumbled.
“It’s what you are.”
My attitude made a triumphant return.
“Where I come from I would’ve said I do or I will. I don’t. I didn’t. And I’m not.”
“You’re not there anymore. You’re here. So, you are, whether you want to be or not. Wife.”
I glared.
He glared back.
I glared some more.
His glare got harder.
I caved. Fucking Daxx winning all of the stare downs. Damn him.
“Bacon. It’s pork. From a pig.” I wanted to add, “a pig like you” but I couldn’t. It just wouldn’t form on my tongue.
“I have to look up the animal and see. It doesn’t translate.”
“Oh.” How could bacon not translate? Who studied our languages and decided what deserved to be translated?
“I’ll order breakfast. If you have other questions, ask.”
I had other questions but he was right; I was being too stubborn to ask. And he was being snippy instead of sweet and it was making my heart hurt for some stupid fucking reason.
He ordered the food. I saw him order two servings the same and then he hit a few buttons on a screen with a picture of a pizza, and then he left. I sat on the end of the bed. Banshee put his head on my lap and then was snoring. I petted his adorable fluffy head. He smiled in his sleep.
A few minutes later, the food thing dinged and I looked over and the doors opened and there was breakfast for one. I guess Daxx was eating elsewhere. I extracted myself from the Banshee cuddle and went and lifted the plate and there was a perfect stack of tiny silver dollar crepes, as well as what looked and smelled like bacon but was in the same shape and size as the crepes. There were tiny dipping sauce bowls, four of them, on the plate with different flavors of jam in them.
I sat at the table and ate. Well, me and Banshee ate. He woke from his nap, laid on the floor beside me, and patiently waited for me to share. I shared. Whatever it was called, it was the best breakfast meat I’d ever eaten.
Shortly after, I ventured out of the room, thinking Banshee might need to go outside to go to the bathroom. Banshee wouldn’t follow me. He just looked at me when I tried to make him follow, so I left the door open thinking maybe he’d follow eventually.
I opened one door. Another bedroom like the one we were in but smaller. The other room was a media room that had a wall filled with screen but sunken seating areas and a large fireplace.
I went downstairs and behind the staircase was a hallway that led into a large living space. I didn’t know how far it went but I suspected Daxx might be in there so I barely peeked. I opened another door and it was a large room surrounded by shelves filled with things, a large prep-like area in the center and on the ceiling was a conveyor system with large robotic claws. I guess this was the brains of the house. I saw a wall of cooking equipment and what I suspected were cooking implements and another wall with what appeared to be machinery for washing things.
I heard something behind me. I turned around. Daxx was in the doorway. He leaned against the doorframe.
“I think Banshee might need to go out,” I said.
He put his middle finger and thumb in his mouth and made a whistle sound. Banshee was suddenly with us.
“C’mon,” Daxx said to him and they went out the front door. I peeked into that other room and it was a large cavernous room with an office area, which had three large wall screens on, one with a newscaster speaking, but the mute was on and closed captioning in that Phallyx hieroglyphics was scrolling across. There was a screen with graphs and scrolling numbers, and another with all sorts of hieroglyphic-like letters that reminded me of an airport list of flights coming and going.
The room also had a large seating area and a dining area. It was like a big open plan family room and had a big fire burning in the floor to ceiling marble-looking fireplace in the center of the room.
I sat down in front of it and stared at the flames. I loved sitting at a campfire and could do so for eons, mesmerized.
Daxx was back.
He was standing in front of me.
I looked up at him.
He opened his mouth as if to speak but then there was a horrible wailing sound. It jolted me. Daxx rolled his eyes.
“What is that? Is that a baby crying?” I jumped to my feet.
“It’s Banshee. I tried to send him home.”
“Oh, my lord. That’s
him?”
“He cries like a baby.”
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked.
“He wants you.”
“Is he your father’s?”
“He was my niece’s.”
“Oh.”
“Zane left him here. Banshee cried for days after she died and Zane couldn’t take it. He had a newborn to look after. The thing has moped around here for four and a half years.”
“He doesn’t seem very mopey.”
“No. He likes you. He’s getting attached. He’s happier than I’ve seen him since she died.”
“Oh. You don’t want him here?”
Daxx looked confused, “You do?”
I shrugged, “He’s sweet. He’s not bothering me.”
Daxx shook his head, looking annoyed, and left the room. I sat down on a sofa. It was red and plush and comfortable.
The polar bear dog galloped to me and jumped into my lap and buried his giant fluffy head under my chin.
I giggled and put my arms around him, “Awe. You’re a bit big to be a lap dog, you know? But you’re so much nicer to me than Tucky is.” I scratched behind his ear.
“Tucky?” Daxx asked, as he came back in, his face looked very guarded.
“My pet.”
Daxx’s head tilted.
“My cat. Tucky. I left him with my roommate and I’m afraid she’ll send him to the shelter.”
And then I let it all hang out while I stared into the fire, hugging Banshee.
“He’s a mean cat and she hates him so she’ll drop him at the shelter when I don’t come back in a week like I promised. No one will adopt him from the shelter. He’ll hiss at them and swat at them. He has no front claws so it doesn’t hurt but he’s a real asshole. So, no one will want him and then at the shelter if he isn’t adopted within a week they’ll probably euthanize him. And he’s mean but he’s my cat.” My chin quivered, “It feels like its been a week since I left but they tricked me so it has actually been 43 days and he might already be dead.”
He sat down on the sofa beside me, looking like he was filled with relief. It was an odd reaction.
But then he said, “I’m so sorry.” And he seemed like he was sincere.
“Thanks,” I sniffled and hugged Banshee. Tears were on my cheeks.
“You want to take Banshee home with us? Father just tolerates him. He growled at Treya for half an hour the first time he met her so I doubt he’ll be even allowed in the house now that she’s the lady of the house.”
“Okay,” I said in a soft voice. But my heart lifted.
He started pushing buttons on his phone, “I’ll tell him that Banshee’s coming with us then.”
“You don’t mind?” I asked.
Daxx shook his head, “No. You look like you want this. He’s yours.”
I nodded, hugging the purring bear close.
“Almost anything for you,” he said with a sad smile, “I said it before and I meant it. There’s only one thing I can’t give you. Anything else, if it’s in my power to do it, it’s yours. I have one rule about Banshee.”
I tried to hold back my emotion but I choked on it and started to sob. Banshee looked up at me and licked my chin.
I petted his head.
“Down,” Daxx told him and he hopped down but stayed close.
“Stand up,” Daxx said to me softly. I stood up. He shifted over to where I’d been sitting and pulled me into his lap. I went a little bit stiff but he pulled me close anyway.
“Banshee doesn’t sleep in bed with us. That’s the rule.”
I nodded.
“Do you know why I’ve made him get down and sat here with you instead?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“He’s giving you the comfort that you should be getting from me. Let me give it to you. Don’t make me be jealous of him.”
My heart squeezed. Tears streamed down my face.
I couldn’t hold them back. I made an ugly cry sound.
“Jetta, please.”
I sat curled in a ball in his lap, feeling small and helpless and with so many feelings coursing through me. So many feels.
He went to get up and his body language felt, I don’t know, defeated? I put my arms around his middle and my cheek against his chest, showing him what I couldn’t say with words by relaxing into him.
I felt his mouth touch my ear and his arms tightened around me and he relaxed. We watched the fire for a bit until I fell asleep in his lap.
I felt my body descend onto something soft. Daxx was putting me in bed. I felt my jeans going down.
“Hey…” I groaned.
“Just making you comfortable.”
“I can do it.”
“Is it nighttime?” I looked around, it wasn’t dark. I zipped my pants back up.
“No, it’s dinner time. You seemed tired. You slept on my lap for two hours. I was quite happy with you there but I have to make a call.”
“Oh.”
“Not sleepy any longer?
I shook my head.
“I’ll go do that and then do you want pizza?”
I nodded.
“Okay,” he smiled, leaned over and kissed me, “Across the way there’s a movie room. What if we have pizza and you show me some of your favorite movies from Earth?”
I nodded. As he left, Banshee galloped in and jumped into the bed with me.
“You’re not allowed up here,” I whispered to him as I scratched his neck. He purred.
“But I don’t care,” I told him in his ear, “I like you.” He purred louder and nuzzled me with his cute little black nose.
I got out of the bed and reached into my gym bag, which was again on the floor. I pulled out a pair of super soft grey track pants, changed into them and put a big black hoodie on, and headed across the hall to the big room.
It was a pretty cool media room, really. Giant recliner seats with snack holders. A huge wall-sized screen.
-15-
DAXX
He made one last call to deal with what was on his to-do list for that day and then met Jetta in the upstairs media room.
She was reclined, looking off into nothing, her mind clearly thinking on what she’d decided was a predicament. She was wearing clothing that looked three sizes too large on her, her feet bare with that little ring sparkling from her toe.
Her hair was in a knot on top of her head with a few pieces loose and wrapped around her ears. His eyes hit that little red gem. It sparkled, as if for him. His face betrayed what he was feeling and he couldn’t hide his smile. She was in love with him. She was in love with him but hadn’t admitted it to herself yet. When that little nugget of information had been revealed to him it’d taken everything to not shout for joy and twirl her around in his arms.
But she had clearly been determined to fight that truth. And that didn’t just hurt, it pissed him off. All he wanted was her and he felt like she was just outside of his grasp, like his fingertips could graze her but he couldn’t grab her. He was making progress, he could feel it. If she would just give herself permission to see what she could gain by letting that wall of hers down.
“So, tell me about what we’re watching,” he told her as he sat next to her.
Banshee burst into the room and planted himself at Jetta’s feet. What a transformation. He’d been a pup when Jaya had died and the surviving Blackstar family members had thought that the poor thing would die of a broken heart. His exuberance since meeting Jetta that day was astounding. He was a completely different animal.
Did her small size and dark hair remind Banshee of Jaya? Was he just finally ready to embrace happiness after such loss, much like Spar, like Zane, like Daxx?
Daxx was certainly ready to get on with life, with her, with showing her how life could be, with finding for himself how a relationship could be.
Daxx hadn’t been ready for marriage when the planet had an abundance of females. He was more than ready now and wanted to dedicate his life to giving her happin
ess.
The nourishment station in the room sounded and Daxx rose and fetched the large pizza that he’d had prepared earlier and brought it to where they were sitting. He went back and ordered the beverages.
“Choose something that will tell me about where you come from.”
He brought over a pitcher of dark sparkling liquid and two glasses and put it down.
“There’s no lime in it but it’s as close to Coke as I could figure. It’s from a plant extract and mixed with sparkling water. I hope you’ll enjoy it.”
“Sparkling beverages are a must with pizza. I can trust that this isn’t some sort of potion, though, right?”
He didn’t get a chance to be offended because she smiled a gorgeous bright smile at him.
And it made him want to grab her and devour her, bind her to the bed like he’d bound her to himself. On one side of the scale he wanted to wrap her around him and whisper sweet things in her ears and on the other side of the scale he wanted to yank her ridiculously large pants off, throw her over his knee, and spank her while fucking her with his fingers until she pleaded for mercy and promised to stop being so stubborn.
He kept his emotions in check and poured them each a glass and passed her one.
She sipped it.
“Mm.” She smiled, “This tastes almost exactly like root beer crossed with Dr. Pepper.”
“You like it?” he asked, not knowing what either of those things were. He’d already tried it while experimenting and thought it was good.
“I love it. It’s even better than Coke and it’s perfect for the movie. Do you have ice cream here?”
“Yeah, I’ve never tried it but I know my sisters used to enjoy it.”
“Can we have some? I’ll mix it in with this soda. Trust me. You’ll love floats.”
He went to the nourishment machine and checked the inventory, “Not here, the milkshake it made you yesterday used all that we had left in inventory, but there’s some at the kitchen in the building that hosts all the guest suites, where today’s competition participants are staying. I’ll go get it.”
“It’s okay, that’s a lot of trouble.”
“No. I’ll do it. Come for the walk? It’ll be good for the dog to run off some energy, too.”
She nodded and got to her feet but her eyes dropped to Banshee, “He’s a dog?”
Hot Alpha Alien Husbands: Book One: Daxx and Jetta Page 17