Stars Apart: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Celestial Mates)

by Trina Novak

  Finally, the last door; the final door. Zarak threw it open and pushed me in then slammed the door behind us, copper clanging against copper, echoing like a bell around us.

  I turned around, surveying my surroundings. Copper and wood, walls of bookshelves, a bed the size of a small swimming pool. A clear glass ceiling twelve feet high, above us nothing but cloudless blue sky.

  “Your bed...” I said. “It’s not hanging from the ceiling like the others.”

  “I prefer to make love on solid ground,” he said.

  I looked down at the bed and my heart surged with anticipation. Then I turned again to look at Zarak. I’d never wanted anyone so bad in my life. The feeling was so strong that it left me lightheaded, every millimeter of my skin alive and awake and desperate to be touched.

  “Come here,” he growled, but before I could take a step he came to me, crossing the distance between us in a split second and taking me in his arms.

  And I lost myself, like I always did, in his embrace.

  A small moan escaped from my lips as Zarak kissed me, his lips soft yet insistent, his hands in my hair. He grasped a handful of my locks and pulled my head back, exposing my neck to his eager mouth. I shuddered as he slid his lips away from my mouth and sought out the sensitive skin of my neck, peppering it with hungry kisses. His breath was heavy in my ear, his hard cock pushing against me, and I grasped his firm shoulders, trying to pull him even closer.

  “Cassandra...” he said, his voice deeper than I’d ever heard it, vibrating through me to the very core. “Cassandra...”

  And that was all he said. Just my name, my name on hips lips, repeated, like a chant. He took a step forward, which sent me a step backward, and then he kept walking, pushing me back, his body pressed against mine. His eyes were fixed on me, his lips barely touching mine, as he continued to push me back until I felt the wall behind me. Then, he grabbed the fabric of my gauzy peach-colored dress with his hands and he ripped it straight down the middle, the fabric tearing like paper.

  My body lurched forward, knocking against his, as my ripped dress fell to the floor at my feet. Again he kissed every inch of me, worshipped me, the way he’d done before. He stopped briefly to take off my bra, then his lips found me again, his tongue sweeping over my nipple. He took the gentle bud between his lips and I felt it harden, an ache of pleasure shooting through me, exploding in a swell of heat. As he coaxed my other nipple into a stiff, sensitive nub, he slid off my underwear, the fabric tickling my legs and making me shiver.

  Zarak’s lips explored me, his tongue inspiring new waves of expectant and insistent desire as he traveled over my body: the curve of my hip, the soft skin just under my breasts, the even more delicate skin around my sex. A pulsating warmth grew between my legs that threatened to consume me, and as Zarak slid his hand there, cupping me with his palm, I tipped my head back, my mouth open.

  “You’re so wet,” Zarak said in a low whisper as he slid a finger inside me. My body involuntarily shuddered, and another soft moan escaped from my mouth.

  “Take off your clothes,” I groaned, my knees weak. “I want you, Zarak.”

  “How much do you want me?” he teased, his finger still deep inside me.

  “I want you so bad I think I might scream,” I said, almost breathless with desire.

  “Do you want me to make you scream?” His lips brushed against mine as he spoke.

  “Yes,” I said, almost panting. He pushed the heel of his palm against my clitoris, and I gasped. “Yes.”

  “Come here,” he growled. He gripped me around the waist and pulled me across the room, like some sort of strange dance, his hand still pressed hard against his sex, his finger deep inside of me. With every step we took together, his hand moved, pushed and bounced against me, sending shockwaves of pleasure rocketing through me.

  We made it to the foot of the bed. Then, slowly, a millimeter at a time, he slid his finger out of me. My muscles clenched, and I lurched for him again. But instead of taking me, he pushed me back onto the bed and stood above me, surveying my naked body. Then he began to take off his clothes.

  I watched, transfixed, as he slid off his shirt, revealing at last the body I had touched but still never fully seen. And it was an unbelievable sight. Tight, firm muscles. A broad, hairless chest. He had a small pink scar, about three inches long, streaking down his left shoulder. Somehow, this one imperfection only heightened the utter perfection of his body.

  And his cock: thick, long, perfect. As perfect as everything else about Zarak. Seeing him standing naked in front of me made my body burn. I was sure my skin had to be hot to the touch. As for his skin...

  I sat at the foot of the bed and reached up, sliding my palms over his thighs, his chest, his abs. Then I leaned in and swept my tongue over his hip, feeling the tight muscle under the skin. He tasted slightly salty, yet sweet at the same time. I trailed my tongue lower, then ran it along the length of his cock, which was already thick and solid, ready for me.

  Now it was my turn: my turn to make Zarak shudder and shake, to writhe and beg for me. I slid the head of his cock between my lips and felt it pulse against my tongue, then I took it deeper, letting his warm member fill up my mouth. Zarak took in a sharp breath and I angled up my eyes to look at him, standing above me. God, he was beautiful. His brow was furrowed, his lips parted, his green eyes alive with desire. As my tongue swirled over his shaft, I felt the heat rise in my body once again, and with every moan and sigh that escaped from Zarak’s mouth, the heat within me only increased. I felt powerful, giving a man like Zarak such pleasure.

  “Cassandra,” he moaned. I slid his length out of my mouth and looked up at him. “I want you.”

  “How much do you want me?” I said, gripping his cock in my hand.

  “I want you...” he growled, pushing me forcefully back onto the bed, “so much that I might scream.” He covered me with his naked body, and I could feel his heart thrumming against my chest.

  “Take me,” I said, my voice quivering.

  He pushed my thighs apart and his cock found my entrance, and with his lips touching mine he slid himself into me.

  We both gasped, breathing into each other’s mouths. After all the waiting, the wanting, the secret glances, the stolen moments, our bodies had finally found each other. And it was exquisite, overwhelming, rapturous. Zarak kissed me as he pushed deeper inside of me, burying himself to the hilt, filling me completely. Over and over he pushed into me, lighting up my body with waves of electricity. Sweat pooled between us, sliding down my breasts as he thrust into me, mouth clamped against mine. I felt like I could come at any moment, but I didn’t want to – not yet. It was too good, too powerful, too perfect. We weren’t just two bodies fucking, fumbling around like so many do initially. No. It wasn’t like that. Right away, our bodies seemed to be in perfect rhythm, knowing instinctually exactly how to move together – when to bear down, when to pull back. Our bodies danced together, intertwined, until it felt like we were one being, moving in absolute harmony.

  The bed shook on the floor. The sheets became soaked with sweat. Zarak flipped me on my side and entered me again, hitting an entirely new place deep within me. I wrapped a leg around him and pulled him as close as possible, pushing against him as new swells of pleasure undulated through me. I tipped my head back; his mouth found my neck. I grasped his hair. I felt like an animal, wild and free. I’d been fucked before, but never, never like this.

  The light from the glass ceiling above us illuminated our bodies like a spotlight. For a moment I wondered how much time had passed. We were lost together, the two of us. Time didn’t matter.

  Then: a period of slow, languorous sex after the initial frenzied rush of lust. We took our time, enjoyed each other’s bodies, prolonging every moment. Rolling over, then over again. Trying new configurations, each pairing bringing new and different feelings of pleasure. Lips against an earlobe, fingertips over nipples. Long, slow scrapes of fingernails over sensitive skin, bringing up g
oosebumps. Quick thrusts became slow, sensuous pushes. Every inch of him made me shudder, brought out a continually rising swell of need in me that seemed almost unquenchable.

  “This is better than I ever thought it could be,” I said, wrapping my arms around him.

  “I never... want... to stop,” Zarak said, sliding his cock into me slowly with each word.

  Eventually, our soft slow sex quickened again, our desire turning a corner towards something insistent, something urgent. We both seemed to feel the need simultaneously – the need for more, faster, harder. I saw it in Zarak’s eyes, the way the tiny gold flecks in his irises almost sparked as he began to pound into me harder, the bed beginning to shake again with the force of his thrusts.

  “I want to make you come,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Harder,” I begged, digging my fingers into his strong back. Every muscle in me clenched, and I felt a wave building, a pressing need rising within me. Zarak, I knew, was close to the point of no return too. His jaw was clenched tight, his breath coming in sharp jags, his eyes alternating between shut tight and wide open.

  Then I felt it: the point of no return descending upon me. I looked at Zarak and nodded, and he nodded back. “Come,” he whispered. “Cassandra, come...”

  The orgasm seared though me like a volt of electricity, making my body seize as I let out a series of choked moans. Almost at the same time, I felt Zarak’s body tense as he found his release inside of me, his jaw unclenching, his body shuddering against me. We pressed our lips together, clutching tight to one another as we lost ourselves, hearts hammering, pulse pounding, blood pumping hard and fast.

  So exquisite, so all-consuming. How much time passed? How long did we clutch each other, relishing in that feeling? And when could we do it again?

  Then it hit me: We could do it again and again, any time we wanted. We had a whole lifetime. We had the rest of our lives.

  Afterward, Zarak tiptoed out and found us food and we laid in bed together, looking up at the sky through the glass ceiling, eating our lunch naked, our bodies too exhausted to do anything else.

  “You know,” he said, “none of this would have happened if it wasn’t for you, Cassandra.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean everything. You set off a chain of events that changed the history of an entire planet. Do you realize that?”

  “Oh, come on,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “I think that’s a pretty big exaggeration.”

  “No. Think about it: If I had never seen you that day on the holophone, if I had never fallen for you, convinced you to come here... where would we be? Rollox would probably still be lording over this planet like an evil dictator. Those children, maybe they would still be held prisoner. One moment changes everything, Cassandra. And I think the moment I saw you was the moment that made all this possible. I think you might be magic.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’re magic, Zarak,” I said. “I mean, you’re the one with the interdimensional telekinesis.”

  “No, it’s you, Cassandra.” Zarak slipped an arm around me and pulled me closer to him. “You wanted that crazy little man from the matchmaking agency to find love for you, but you found it yourself. You found me. And out of all the worlds, all of the planets in the universe, I can’t believe that you found me. I really feel like it’s fate. We were meant to be together, and here we are. It’s magic.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Maybe it is magic.”

  Everything had happened so fast: meeting Zarak, traveling to an alien planet, falling in love... When I thought back on how completely my life had changed in such a short amount of time, it made my head spin. Yet at the same time, it felt like it had taken us ages, a whole lifetime, to get to where we were.

  But finally, we made it. We found each other. And there was nowhere else I’d rather be than in Zarak’s arms.

  Epilogue

  Keptin walked into the Celestial Mates offices and was immediately greeted by an enthusiastic round of applause. Though he tried to stay humble, he had to admit, the praise felt pretty good.

  “Amazing work with the Azakian case, Keptin,” his supervisor said. “Really, we’re all in awe.”

  Keptin shrugged as a smile spread across his face. “Thank you. I don’t like to brag, but I really think this was one of my best matches,” he said.

  “Legendary,” his supervisor said. “Really, Keptin. The way you deviated from regular protocol, falsely matching the Earth woman with that Overlord... I mean, the whole thing was really a stroke of genius. It’s a lesson to all agents, I think, that sometimes you have to get creative with the matchmaking process. And to have the mining colony dismantled as well, and the children brought back to their families... The universe is a better place now. How many agents can say that?”

  Yes, Keptin thought, planting that folder in Zarak’s quarters really was the icing on the cake. The moment he had discovered the existence of Xylaxan-2, quite by accident, he realized that this matchmaking mission was even more important than he had realized.

  “That’s why Keptin is one of our best agents,” came a voice from the back of the room. Keptin saw that it was the being with golden wings who worked in dimension eleven. High praise, Keptin knew – the golden-winged being was certainly also one of the best.

  “Please, please, you’re going to make me become conceited,” Keptin joked. “I’m just glad I could bring those two kids together. I knew they were perfect for each other. It just took a little trickery on my part to cement the bond.”

  Trickery, of course, was one of Keptin’s favorite matchmaking tactics. He knew that some people – especially humans – were stubborn, and were often likely to resist the matchmaking process, to conjure up silly excuses for why they felt their match wasn’t good enough. He also knew that some people wanted to feel in control, and they needed to feel like they had to fight and struggle to attain true love. Cassandra, he realized immediately, was one of those people. And so was Zarak. It was one of the many reasons Keptin knew that the two belonged together.

  And so the plan had come to him: he would let Cassandra and Zarak meet, but he wouldn’t immediately match them together. He would just let them see each other, give them a few difficult obstacles to overcome, and let love do the rest. That was really all a Celestial Mates agent needed to do, after all.

  Of course, the lies and the trickery were also personally fun for Keptin. He liked exercising his acting skills, pretending to be incompetent, oblivious. It helped make the job interesting. There were, of course, a few tense moments that he didn’t quite plan for. As meticulously planned as Keptin’s operations were, sometimes things went haywire. Rollox taking Cassandra up to the pit on top of the mountain was a dicey moment, to be sure. Keptin was monitoring the scene, mere seconds away from banishing Rollox to a black hole in the far reaches of space, but then Zarak appeared, just in the nick of time. What a brilliantly timed moment! It was really more perfect than anything Keptin could’ve devised. And it once again reminded him that the hand of fate had a way of smoothing out even the most dangerous lumps.

  “Well, we all have a lot of questions for you about the specifics of this case,” Keptin’s supervisor said, “but we have plenty of time for that. I’m sure you’re tired. Write up the report when you feel up to it, and again Keptin – that was really a stellar match.”

  “Thank you, Sir,” Keptin replied. He said farewell to the group of Celestial Mates agents with an overly theatrical bow, and then retreated to his office.

  He flipped through his case files, looking at photos of beings from around the universe, wondering what client he would take on next. Barbarians, scientists, shapeshifters, time travelers... There were simply too many people to choose from. And he still couldn’t stop thinking about Cassandra and Zarak. What a great couple. True mates, indeed.

  It was always hard for Keptin to let clients go after he’d completed the matchmaking process. He really grew to love every set of
mates he had ever brought together, and delighted in hearing occasional updates on their lives together.

  Maybe... just one last time, he could check in on Cassandra and Zarak...

  He found them back in the field in front of Mount Azakia, lounging in the tall grass. “Hello!” he called out.

  “Keptin!” Cassandra exclaimed. “As usual, you scared the pants off me.”

  “I apologize. Just wanted to check in on you one last time,” he said. “I’m so pleased to see the two of you together. I think you make a lovely couple.”

  “Thank you Keptin, that’s very nice of you,” Cassandra said. She smiled at him – a genuine smile – and Keptin was immensely glad to see it. He knew he’d worn on her last nerve with his little act, pretending to be an idiot, matching her repeatedly with horrible men. It was nice to see her in a less frustrated state finally.

  “I’d also like to thank you for your part in this, Keptin,” she continued. “In some strange way, you helped bring us together. I mean, if you hadn’t made all the mistakes you’d made initially, maybe Zarak and I never would’ve found each other. So maybe, in a weird way, you’re not such a bad Celestial Mates agent after all.”

  Oh, Keptin thought, if only she knew.

  But of course he would never reveal his ruse to Cassandra and Zarak. They earned their love, they fought hard for it. They reached for something that they felt was unattainable, and they got it. That victory was theirs to enjoy, no matter whose invisible hand led them there.

  “It really did work out perfectly in the end, didn’t it?” Keptin said.