by Tasha Black
“If you’re on the fence about this arrangement, I’m glad,” he told her. “Because then we can call the police and my brothers and I will just have to find another living arrangement.”
“No,” she said quickly. “No police. You can trail me like a duckling if it makes you feel better.”
She felt him smile against the top of her head.
“Yes, I will trail you,” he agreed.
12
Kirk
Kirk held Kate to his chest.
Though he was concerned about the man who had frightened her, it was hard to concentrate with his mate warm and soft in his arms.
Kate had removed nearly all of her clothing and he could feel her smooth skin under his hands, and the tickle of the frothy looking fabric that covered her breasts.
The delicate scent of her reminded him of the wild flowers near the pond back in Stargazer.
His body was responding to hers in spite of the circumstances. He hoped she would not be offended. This was new territory for him.
Kate moved slightly and he prepared for her to pull away.
Instead she nuzzled his chest, sending lightning bolts of need through him.
“Kate,” he murmured in warning.
But when she looked up at him all he could think of was how beautiful her brown eyes were. How sweet the curve of her cheek.
He slid a hand up her back to touch her face and she closed her eyes and leaned into his palm.
The temptation to brush her cheek with his lips hit him again.
This time, he didn’t resist it.
In the back of his mind a thousand warnings sounded, reminding him that she had just had a scare, that she had said she didn’t want a mate.
But none of them could compete with her sigh of pleasure as his lips caressed her skin.
“Kate,” he said again, wanting to warn her, but unable to remember any of the words of this language but her name.
She took it as an invitation instead, and opened her eyes, gazing up at him with some nameless emotion he hoped was the beginning of love, then pressed her lips to his.
Fireworks went off behind his lids and some ancient knowledge ingrained into his human form took over, thumbing her jaw open, pressing her against him possessively, tasting the honey sweetness of her tongue.
Kate whimpered against his mouth and pressed herself closer still, as if she couldn’t get close enough.
A storm was raging inside Kirk, a beast clawing to be set free.
He fought his impatience and kissed her slowly, carefully, like the men in the movies. She was precious to him, and so delicate.
She trembled in his arms, slid her hand up his arm and threaded her fingers in his hair.
The slight pain mixed with the pounding desire was almost too much for him.
He walked her backwards to the bed.
“Wait,” she whispered, pulling away.
He nearly screamed with frustration, but saw that she had let him go only to sweep the flowers off the bed.
When there were only a few petals remaining, she crawled in.
Kirk’s mouth watered as she tantalized him with the movements of her round posterior. His cock yearned with a mind of its own, craving her heat.
But when she lay back on the bed and opened her arms to him it was his heart that truly ached.
He waited an instant, wishing he could memorize her soft expression of need, the curve of her outstretched arms, the creaminess of her thighs. The way she looked at him as if he were the only man in the universe.
Then his need pressed down on him with a force he was powerless to lighten. He crawled on top of her, inhaling her scent, pressing himself against her heat.
Kate moaned and clawed at his t-shirt.
He sat up on his knees and pulled it off for her.
“Oh,” she whispered, looking at his chest as if he were a sparkling gift.
He grinned. He was glad she liked this body he had been given. It was meant to bring her pleasure and he saw now that its design was effective.
But Kirk wanted to bring her pleasure on his own merits.
He lowered himself over her again, praying for control over the screaming demands of his own body so that he could attend to hers.
Kate kissed him again, nipping and sucking on his lower lip in a way that he could feel in his groin.
He pulled away, afraid of how those attentions would end, and nuzzled her neck.
She gasped and arched her back, offering up her beautiful breasts, frustratingly encased in tickling swirls of lace.
He kissed his way down to them, sliding his finger between her breasts to find the clasp.
“Like this,” she whispered, sliding her hand between her own breasts, releasing it.
He peeled the garment away.
Her breasts were beautiful orbs, soft and pale with dark nipples crinkling and pouting.
He had been shown filmed copulations in the lab in Stargazer. These movies were supposed to help him satisfy his own member and possibly click into his human form without the aid of a mate. The films had been interesting, and he had stimulated himself to many culminations. But nothing in those films had prepared him for this.
Nothing could have readied him for the feel of her beneath him, the feast laid out for his senses, the responsibility of satisfying the need he knew she felt.
She clenched her thighs around his hips and his cock throbbed in sympathy.
He lowered his head and nuzzled one of her perfect breasts.
“Oh,” she whimpered.
He licked one ruby nipple into his mouth, worked it with his tongue, sucking lightly.
Kate bucked her hips up against him.
The pleasure was dizzying.
He lavished her other nipple with attention, licking and sucking, as he slid his hand over to the other one, to stroke and tease her.
“Oh,” she whimpered again.
“Hush, my love,” he whispered against her ribcage as he moved down her body. “I know what you need.”
He rubbed his rough jaw against the softness of her stomach.
She giggled and he smiled as he pressed kisses against her belly button.
When he reached the lace of her underthings he waited, not wanting to do anything she didn’t want.
But Kate slid her thumbs under the waistband and dragged them downward.
He was struck with the image of her pleasuring herself as he had done in the lab, those delicate fingers sliding into her own warmth, and he had to close his eyes and breathe deeply to avoid losing control.
Kate lifted her bottom and he slid her panties off, flung them to the floor.
Kate lay back, her golden hair spread on the pillow, her dark eyes filled with need.
Kirk drank in the sight of her, then lowered his head to press kisses against her inner thigh.
She allowed her legs to fall open slightly and he followed the curve of her thigh, hypnotized by her irresistible scent.
13
Kate
Kate clenched the sheets in her hands, feeling like she might actually die of anticipation.
It wasn’t that she was inexperienced. But this was something different. Kirk was focused, so focused on her, that she thought she might fly apart before he even touched her.
He pressed his lips to her sex and she saw stars.
She cried out shamelessly, and he rewarded her with a slow stroke of his tongue against her opening.
She whimpered and tried not to lift her hips up to his mouth for more.
“Mmm,” he hummed against her clit.
Her hips quivered and the room began to fade before her eyes. There was nothing, no apartment, no city, no universe - only the leisurely movements of his tongue against her sex.
He licked and stroked her slowly and carefully, seeming to refine his movement based on the whimpers and cries that he wrenched out of her with his teasing, but never giving her release.
When she thought she couldn’t bear any m
ore, he pressed a finger against her opening.
Kate moaned.
“Is that good, my love?” he asked her tenderly.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she whimpered.
He lowered his head again and licked her right on her throbbing clitoris.
Kate cried out helplessly.
She could feel him smile against her thigh.
He licked her again, moving his finger inside her gently.
Kate lifted her hips, pressing herself wantonly against his mouth, wordlessly begging for more, more, more. She had never felt so frantic, so desperate.
Kirk responded immediately, licking her clit into his mouth, sucking lightly and stroking it with his tongue, all the while moving his finger gently inside her.
Pleasure coiled inside her like a spring. Kate cried out and felt herself exploding with ecstasy.
Her body spasmed and she arched off the bed slightly, but Kirk held her down firmly, working her with his mouth and hands, extending her rapture until she couldn’t take any more.
When the last tremor had faded, he crawled up to lie beside her.
“That was… amazing,” Kate whispered to him.
“Yes, it was,” he whispered into her hair.
He stretched out on his back and pulled her on top of him.
She smiled and slid a hand down his upper arm. He was so muscular it defied reason.
She let her hand slide lower, against the ridges of his abs.
Kirk wrapped a hand around her wrist, pinned it to his chest instead.
“That’s enough for tonight,” he told her. “You should rest now.”
“But don’t you want—?” she began.
“Of course I want that,” he said, his voice tight. “But it’s not the right time.”
“Why not?”
“Kate,” he said, then paused. “Kate, I know you don’t want a mate right now. I’m afraid that if we make love, I will click with you. And there is no going back after that.”
“Oh,” she said, surprised.
“I have chosen you as my mate,” he told her casually.
“Wait, what?”
“That doesn’t require anything of you, darling,” he told her. “That’s about me. And it’s done. I didn’t have to say the words. It’s been true since the moment we met.”
She leaned her head against his chest, felt him brush his lips across her hair.
“If you don’t want me around, it will be difficult, but I’ll be able to leave. On the other hand,” he went on, “if I were to click with you, I might not be able to help myself.”
“Oh,” she said, again, trying to get her head around it.
“And you already have one stalker too many,” he joked.
“You would never be like him,” she told him earnestly.
“I would never put myself in that position, my love,” he told her. “Sleep now.”
She wanted to argue, to ask him questions.
But the slow beat of his heart under her ear and the movement of his hand across her shoulder blades lulled her into sleep.
14
Spencer
Spencer Carson sat on the edge of his seat. It was a nice office chair with a leather seat pad and an ergonomically adjustable base. His dad had bought it for him when he began to realize just how much time Spencer was spending in front of the computer.
Spencer never leaned back though. He always sat on the edge, the metal frame of the chair cutting slightly into the backs of his thighs.
On the screen in front of him, Katie Bly spoke to him in an endless loop.
“We’re friends, Prazgar. That means something special to me,” she told him, her voice slightly husky.
She was sylphlike in the video.
Katie had gotten heavier since then, but Spencer loved her anyway. Even though he himself had made every effort to be fit and attractive for her - more attractive than the reedy boy he had been on the show.
“Thank you, Katie,” young Spencer said on the screen.
“I don’t want to be alone. Walk with me, please,” Katie Bly begged. A close-up showed her large, frightened eyes.
At least those were the same.
He pictured her as she had been when they filmed the scene, his palms sweaty, her smile encouraging.
He pictured her the way she was when he’d seen her earlier that night, the same large frightened eyes as in the scene. She was asking him to go and to stay at the same time. Fucking Katie.
And then that guy she was with, that bodyguard, he had done something to Spencer.
Spencer had no idea what the hell had happened, but one minute he’d been ready to rumble, and the next his body was weighted to the ground, unable to move.
And it wasn’t any kind of sick martial arts move. Spencer knew about those, since he’d studied them all. Online, mostly.
No, it was something else, something suspicious. The guy must have had a weapon he’d somehow kept hidden. Maybe he’d zapped him with it on a pressure point or something, but there was no way he’d done what he did with just his bare hands.
To cheer himself up, Spencer pictured Katie after that, going home to find his gift.
He’d been tempted to bury himself in her sheets and wait there for her, surrounded by the flowers, but he knew better.
Not yet, Spencer, he told himself. Build her anticipation. Women love that shit.
“We’re friends, Prazgar. That means something special to me,” Katie told him from the screen.
“It means something special to me too, baby,” he told her.
The phone rang. It was the private eye he’d hired to keep an eye on Kate.
“Hey,” Spencer said.
“She’s home,” the man said.
“And?” Spencer hoped the guy didn’t want a fucking bonus for pointing out the obvious.
“It’s the bodyguard,” the man said. “He didn’t leave.”
“What?” Spencer asked.
“The bodyguard is still there,” the guy repeated.
Spencer hung up.
“Fuck,” he yelled.
He had known something was up with the bodyguard.
He hadn’t expected that Katie was sleeping with him.
“I don’t want to be alone. Walk with me, please,” Katie pleaded from the screen.
“Whore,” he replied, slamming his laptop closed.
It was time to get serious. The bodyguard did not belong in the equation. He was not supposed to spend time with Katie. He was going to ruin everything.
And there was something else… something weird about him that Spencer couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“Spencer, everything okay?” his mom called from the hallway, sounding tired.
“Fine,” he yelled back.
Everything was going to be fine.
Spencer was going to get to the bottom of it for sure.
15
Kate
Kate woke up loose-limbed and happy.
At first she thought the warmth in her chest was because of the sun dawning pink behind the city skyline, filling her room with soft light.
Then she remembered.
Oh, Kate, how could you? her inner critic scolded.
But she wasn’t really sorry.
She eased herself over slowly only to find that Kirk wasn’t in bed with her anymore.
But his side of the bed was still warm and sounds carried into the room from the hallway. She must have awoken when he shut the door.
She slipped out of bed like a ninja, freshened up in the attached powder room, slipped on a robe and went to find him.
She didn’t have to go far. The sound of singing came from the kitchen.
Kate padded down the hallway and turned the corner to see a surprisingly domestic sight.
Kirk, wearing nothing but pajama bottoms, was dancing around the kitchen, singing along to the radio. He held a frying pan in one hand and a kitchen towel in the other. His muscular torso was lightly dusted with what she hoped was fl
our.
The song on the radio was early Cyndi Lauper. The station must have been doing an eighties throw-back weekend. Kirk had a surprising command of the lyrics.
His dance moves weren’t exactly slick, but his body was hot enough to make up for it.
She watched, agog, as the pajama bottoms slid a little lower on his hips.
“Kate,” he exclaimed. “I am making pancakes.”
“I can see that,” she said, though she also saw that the ingredients that were mostly spilled on the countertop. “Can I help?”
“That would be wonderful,” he said, with feeling. “I have learned about pancakes from watching the movie Uncle Buck, but you do not have a snow shovel, so I am only making small pancakes.”
“I like to make small pancakes too,” Kate said, trying to hide her smile. “Let’s see if we can get everything organized.”
They worked together for a few minutes. Though they had been intensely physical last night, Kate found herself feeling self-conscious all over again about the spark that passed between them every time their fingers brushed.
At last the batter was ready and the pan was hot.
Kate poured a perfect circle of batter into the center of the pan and handed Kirk the spatula.
“When you see bubbles all the way to the middle, then it’s time to flip it over,” she told him.
“Thank you for helping me,” he said.
“Thank you for making breakfast for me,” she said. “That was very nice of you.”
“I want to learn to do all things done on Earth,” Kirk said dreamily.
“Like what?” Kate asked, wondering what he thought Earth people did all day.
“I want to prepare delicious food, of course,” he said. “I want to learn to drive a car - and to wash and maintain it too. I want to travel and explore this planet, read books, listen to music, and learn everything about my new culture.”
An idea began to take root in Kate’s imagination. It was a picture of this simple, quiet private life that Kirk wanted, a life that bore great resemblance to the life she herself wanted to live.