by Kit Tunstall
He lifted a hand and hovered near her cheek without quite touching. “What should we offer them, Jada?”
“You should offer to get to know her, and to take her out and become well acquainted with the woman you plan to mate.”
“And if the mating instinct burns brighter when you touch her?” He cupped her cheek as he asked the question, his fingers lightly grazing her skin. “If it feels like your hearts will pound out of your chest, and you will die if you don’t have her right that minute, will an Earth woman understand the frantic need and allow a Dazon male to bypass some of the courtship rites?”
She licked her lips as her heart raced even faster in her ears. “It depends on the woman, I guess. Some women are going to want a traditional approach, while other women are more likely to be influenced by a physical response.” As she uttered the last words, she swayed closer to him, until her beaded nipples pressed against the slippery cloth of his black bodysuit.
His entire body seem to hum with warmth, and it was making her body temperature rise as well. It also brought a slick wave of molten heat between her legs, and she whimpered as she lifted her hands to grasp his shoulders. “Sometimes, you’ll find a woman who’s surprisingly okay with a one-night stand, even if she’s not agreeing to be a mate for life.”
He frowned. “Under the influence of the mating instinct, I can’t imagine anything but mating for life.” As he spoke the last words, his head dipped, and his lips approached hers.
It was all her, and all her choice, when she stretched to close the distance between them and pressed her lips to his. The kiss was intense and explosive, hotter than anything she’d ever known, and her already-racing heart galloped into full speed as she wrapped her arms tightly around him, and he embraced her tightly.
His mouth devoured hers, first with extreme precision before becoming less coordinated and more frantic rather than thoughtful. She was aware of doing the same, of frenzied need beating through her, and the heat of desire pulsing between her legs that urged her to seek relief with the man in her arms.
Alien, whispered a dim voice of the back of her mind, but it barely registered and didn’t matter. She couldn’t imagine any circumstances under which she would lose all desire for him. Perhaps if his golden form melted away to reveal a gelatinous blob with multiple tentacles, she might tear herself away and ran out screaming, but that seemed unlikely.
Partially to reassure herself, and also because she suddenly needed to breathe, she pulled her mouth away from his. “Is this your real form?”
Ryland nodded. “This is my species’ natural appearance, though there are variations in skin tone, eye color, and shade of hair.”
“So there’re no surprises, like tentacles underneath, or anything else weird?”
He pressed his forehead to hers as he laughed. “No unpleasant surprises, though I am anatomically different from human males.”
Her stomach rippled with dread. “How? How different?”
He hesitated for a moment before stepping back from her. She felt bereft without his arms around her, but was curious enough to fight back the compulsion to follow and wrap her arms around him again.
He pressed something on the neck of his garment, and it flickered like the Mr. Bland illusion earlier, before disappearing. Once the black garment was gone, or rendered invisible, or teleported to the ninth quadrant of the Gamma galaxy for all she knew, he was completely naked and bare to her visual inspection.
His body was as toned and perfect as the tight-fitting suit had suggested, but it hadn’t revealed his genitalia before. She watched with surprise and awe as his shaft, which had lain dormant against his leg, thickened and sprouted upward.
He was larger than the average Earth man, but not so large as to be frightening or make her think there was no way she could physically accept him. Moved by her curiosity, she dropped to her knees to inspect him more closely. She peered up at him through the veil of her curls before blowing them out of the way with an upward gust of air through her lips. “Is it all right if I touch you?”
His face spasmed in what seemed like agony, but he nodded in an eager fashion. “Please.”
She brought a hand to his shaft, drawing her fingers lightly over the silken skin. He hissed at the first touch of her fingers against him, and she looked up, seeing more of that pleasure/pain expression on his face. She hesitated. “Am I hurting you?”
He shook his head. “No, it just feels amazing. Better than I ever dreamed it would.”
Tentatively, she wrapped her hand around him and stroked up and down, trying to find his most sensitive spots. On a human male, it would be on the underside of the head, but he didn’t have that kind of anatomy.
The shaft was smooth and long, perfectly cylindrical with a rounded tip, and there was a small slit at the end. He produced a clear fluid, though it had a hint of golden bioluminescence to it, and she couldn’t resist the urge to bend forward and extend her tongue, running it lightly over the tip of him to taste his arousal.
Ryland’s pre-cum was thinner than she remembered a human male’s being, but much sweeter. It wasn’t a fruity or a candy type of sweetness. It was simply indescribable, but syrupy and delicious. Drawing back, she looked up at him to tease gently, “Perhaps you won’t have to woo the Earth women after all. If they know how good you taste, they might come supplicating to you on their knees just to drain you dry.”
His skin seemed to flicker, going from light golden-brown to deep bronze for a moment. It was a whole-body effect, but it reminded her of a flush. Was he a little shy about such things? Remembering his comment about it being better than he’d expected, something clicked. “Um, Ryland?”
“Yes, Jada?” His expression was contorted, and his fists clenched tightly at his sides, as though he was barely hanging on to his last shred of control.
“Have you ever done this before?”
He shook his head, gnashing his teeth together for a moment as the chords in his neck tightened. “Females spend their fertile years procreating in breeding facilities, and none of them mate until their fertility has dwindled. At that point, the highest ranking officials are entitled to offer for them, to care for the females through retirement until death, but the average male doesn’t have a female partner.”
She paused to swirl her tongue around the tip of his penis again, unable to resist sucking for a moment to draw out his sweet fluid. His harsh groan of pleasure also increased her own, and it was difficult to tear herself away to continue the conversation. “What about with each other? Do Dazon men mate with each other?”
“It’s become more common from necessity, but many would still prefer a female mate.”
She hesitated. “Do you have a boyfriend or something?” She wasn’t going to be a cheater, even if it wasn’t considered cheating in his society.
He shook his head. “I experimented a bit as a youngling, but it always felt hollow. It wasn’t what I wanted, or what I craved. There was little difference between pleasuring myself or being pleasured by a partner. Without the mating flare and that intense emotional experience, it’s simply a different form of physical release, and it wasn’t enough for me, so I chose celibacy and self-pleasure.”
She nodded, understanding that. While she had never experimented with anyone from the same gender, she had certainly had her share of disappointing lovers, often reaching the conclusion it was simpler just to stay home with her vibrator than try to go out and meet another disappointment. Even Barry, whom she had planned to marry, had been only all right in bed, but nothing spectacular. He’d seemingly had so many other things going for him—stability, a grounded outlook, and readiness for a family—that she had considered the sex part unimportant.
Now she considered herself an idiot for ever thinking that way, and it wasn’t just because she’d discovered the truth about Barry. After going eight years without sex, she’d come to realize how much she’d missed it and how much she deserved really good sex.
She ha
d a strong feeling Ryland could certainly provide that. He just might need a little coaxing or coaching. She licked his smooth shaft again before asking, “How far did your experimentation go? Has anyone done this before?” Jada rolled her tongue around the tip of his shaft to punctuate the question.
He groaned and arched his hips forward before saying, “No,” in a choked voice.
It was a little intimidating to be his first, but also endearing and sweetly sexy. Determined to give him pleasure, she opened her mouth as wide as she could and slowly sucked his cock inside. He moaned, and his entire body spasmed as his hands gripped her hair tightly in what seemed to be an instinctive reaction.
She withdrew before sliding her mouth down again, taking as much of him as she could until he breached the back of her throat and reached her limits. She ran her hand up and down the exposed root of his erection, the part where her mouth wouldn’t reach, as she enthusiastically sucked and bobbed her head. His taste was addictive, but his responses were even more so. He looked like he was almost in pain from the amount of pleasure he was feeling.
With a guttural ground, his hand tightened in her hair, and he pushed her closer to him seconds before his shaft spasmed between her lips, and more of his sweet nectar flowed into her mouth and down her throat. She drank all of it down, sucking lightly to coax more from him until he sagged forward, clearly spent for the moment.
Carefully, she disengaged, making certain she didn’t scrape him with her teeth as she pulled back and sat on her calves, looking up at him. “Did you enjoy that?”
The hand holding her hair loosened, and now he started stroking her thick ringlets instead of holding them. “It was amazing. Thank you, Jada.”
She smiled him at him and took the hand he extended to help her to her feet. He was completely naked, and she was still fully dressed. It was a little unnerving, and she felt oddly vulnerable even though she was the one wearing her clothes. “How do your people mate?”
“Like yours.” His eyes had darkened to the shade of burnt honey, and his skin was definitely a darker golden than it had been before the blowjob.
He bent his head to kiss her again, and she offered up her mouth willingly, their tongues stroking each other. His hands roamed over her body, and she pressed closer to him in her eagerness to feel her skin against his. It might have been his first time with a woman, but he seemed to know what he was doing by the way he stripped her clothes with no fumbling, even mastering the hook on her bra his first try.
“I want to take you to your bedroom now. May I, Jada?”
With a nod, she took his hand to lead him there. She managed to take two steps before he picked her up and whisked her the rest of the way down the hallway and through her bedroom door, closing it behind him with his foot. He laid her on the bed, draping her so that her legs were splayed, and her arms were widely spaced and elbows tucked behind her.
He joined her on the bed a moment later, his fingers playing with the elastic band of her underwear, which was the only garment she still wore. She regretted they were plain white cotton, but he didn’t seem to care.
His head dipped lower, and his golden tongue slipped from his mouth to trace around her nut-brown nipple, savoring the succulent bud and tightening it almost to the point of pain. He flicked his tongue across the tip before taking it into his mouth and sucking firmly.
A new surge of moisture filled her folds, and she arched her hips restlessly in search of relief. His fingers dipped into the waistband of her panties, gliding over her soft skin and rounded tummy to find her mound. He stroked the thatch of curls before parting them to seek out her slit.
“Yes, just like that. Touch me please, Ryland.” She bit back a whimper as his fingers slipped inside her folds, tracing her interior anatomy with an air of experimentation, as though he was both aroused and curious. She had experienced something similar at the first sight of his cock, so she imagined it was the same for him.
She arched her hips and circled slightly, deliberately bringing his fingers against her clitoris. “Stroke me there please.”
He circled his fingers around the spasming bud, making her draw in a deep breath each time he made a rotation. His mouth moved to her other breast, worshiping it with equal attention, and she shut off her brain, surrendering to the sensations sweeping through her.
Her core contracted as she came, drenching his fingers with her slick release, and she moaned at the sight of Ryland dipping his head, his tongue flicking out before she lost sight of the appendage as it moved lower. All she could see then was his hair between her legs while he stripped off her panties, before his tongue slipped inside her, probing her depths and homing in on her clit.
She was still sensitive from the first orgasm, and his experimental suck of the taut bud caused another to overtake her, one so intense that she screamed out her release and wriggled backward from his questing mouth in an attempt to escape the almost-pain of his intimate kiss.
Ryland looked up at her uncertainly as she moved back from him a bit, his brow ridge furrowed. “Are you all right, Jada? Have I done something wrong?”
She shook her head, not able to answer for a moment while she gathered her composure with several deep breaths. “No, you did everything right. It was really good actually. I just got so sensitive, and it was starting to hurt a little bit.”
He nodded. “It’s the same for me. As I’m straining to climax, there’s some…pain almost, and then it’s completely obliterated when I release.”
She scooted down the bed again, bringing herself close to him as she grasped his erection in her palm, guiding him toward her aching slit. “It sounds like we have a lot in common then.”
He nodded, his expression a blend of interest, arousal, and perhaps a hint of uncertainty as she directed him to lie on his back and straddled him. “It makes sense, since we’re a close genetic match.”
She nodded, but didn’t pursue the line of conversation. The last thing she wanted to do was think about genetics and scientific probabilities at the moment, when she was far more interested in more visceral experiences.
Grasping his smooth shaft, she guided it toward her sheath, bracing herself for pain as he slowly breached her tightly closed channel. After seven years without so much as an orgasm, because she’d had no sex drive, and certainly no penetration, she anticipated his possession would be uncomfortable.
She let out a sharp exhalation when his cock stretched her, slowly pushing its way in as she sank down the length of him. Her body was resistant for a moment, but adjusted to the intrusion with surprising rapidity. Soon, she was able to withdraw and sink down on him again.
His fingers dug into her hips, and he was helping to lift her up and practically slamming her down on him as they fucked with enthusiasm. It was the enthusiasm of virgins, because he had never been with a woman before, and she was practically a virgin after her eight years of celibacy.
As her sheath contracted around him, and he twitched inside her, she vaguely realized they probably should have used some type of protection, since they were a close genetic match. Surely, it would require some sort of laboratory assistance for them to create a child, since they weren’t an exact genetic match?
If not, she was beyond caring. The idea of having his child didn’t scare her. It actually sent a surge of warmth through her, and as she attained physical release, emotional satisfaction filled her at the idea of being a mother, especially the mother of his children. It was a dream she had tried to let go of years ago, knowing it was impossible. Now, thanks to him, it was no longer an impossibility, and after their intense lovemaking, it might be far closer to a certainty.
Afterward, they laid together on her bed, her head on his chest, with her cheek pressed against his rib cage, and her ear nestled to his thumping heartbeat, which seemed twice as fast as hers. She had never felt so content, and she wanted to tell him that, but she was too lethargic from extreme pleasure to speak at the moment. Instead, sleep crept over her stealthily,
and she reminded herself to tell him what this had meant to her in the morning when they woke.
Chapter Four
She woke alone. After eight years of sleeping with no one else, perhaps it should have felt completely natural to her, but it didn’t. She was bereft even before she opened her eyes, and as she stretched out her hand to feel the cold bed beside her, she knew he was gone and had been for hours.
Reluctantly, she forced her eyes open and frowned at the ceiling as she wondered why he had left. She didn’t think he was gone for good, but she wished he had taken a moment to wake her and explain why he was leaving.
Her lips tightened, and she cursed aloud as she realized he had probably slipped away with the intention of investigating AmbaCorp alone, not wanting to endanger her.
Anger swept through her, and her first impulse was to jump from the bed and make her way to the medical research facility to investigate, as she had planned. However, a deep breath brought a return of logic, and she acknowledged that perhaps he had a point about her investigating. She wasn’t trained to do so, and she couldn’t really defend herself if it became physical.
Abruptly, she remembered Mary Catherine Jones had entered the facility five days ago, and no one had heard from her since. Her ambitious, but naïve, plan to have a look around and poke through things seemed shortsighted now, and she reluctantly admitted to herself Ryland had been right to reject the idea—though not right to arbitrarily make the decision for her and creep out early in the morning before she awoke.
When he returned, she intended to tell him strongly that she didn’t like him slipping away and completely taking the decision from her. Now that she was fully functioning once more, she wanted to be useful and actually live again.
That didn’t mean she wanted to throw herself back into an intense social life, or make small talk with a bunch of strangers. She simply wanted to find a balance between being stuck in the apartment and being forced to go out for every little thing. Now that she could choose again, she demanded she retain that ability. Most of all, she wanted to find a place for Ryland in her new life as she figured out the direction she was going to take.