by H. E. Trent
“Crash?”
“Mmm.” He nodded.
“Sounds like you guys and carbohydrates aren’t the best of friends. The fruit was very good, I must say.”
“I imagine it was if they gave it to you.”
“Meaning what?”
“Every fruit here is a symbol. They all mean something. It’s possible you missed the overture.”
“Are you telling me someone could hand me a piece of fruit and really be subtly telling me to go fuck myself?” She laughed and turned back to the cutting board.
Trigrian was very quiet as she relocated everything into bowls.
He still hadn’t spoken by the time she pulled the steaks from the oven.
When she reached for more dishes, though, there he was behind her. Blocking her passage.
She turned slowly, being careful not to skim her body against his, which was difficult because he’d given her so very little room. Clutching the plates against her chest, she looked up.
The intensity of his violet gaze reminded her of earlier in the bedroom. Curious. Eager. Lustful.
A bit…possessive?
She scoffed inwardly. No, not possessive. Maybe concerned that someone else was horning in on his meal ticket.
“What did the fruit look like?” he asked. His voice was even, but tight with barely suppressed tension.
“Um. It was…oval. Red skin. Creamy purple flesh with yellowish seeds.”
Her gaze fell to his lips as he dragged his tongue across them. A tongue that had been intimately close for a short while that morning. A teasing tongue that had contributed to her falling apart and her brain turning into mush.
She closed her eyes and tried to expunge the erotic thoughts. She couldn’t let herself go there. “Is that a go fuck yourself fruit, Trigrian?”
“No, Courtney, the exact opposite.”
“What?” She whipped her head up and looked at him. “You’re joking.”
He wasn’t smiling. He put his hands on the counter on either side of her and narrowed his eyes. “That sounds a lot like a I’d like to fuck you fruit. Just who is giving you fruit?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“A Terran man? That might be excusable. He wouldn’t know the custom.”
“Excusable?” She sidled out from his proximity and set the plates on the counter. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“Don’t I? My concern is for Murk.”
“What does this have to do with Murk?”
“He would be offended if he knew.”
“You’re not making a whole lot of sense right now, so, next topic, okay? Why don’t you grab some utensils out of that drawer?” She pointed to the one nearest his right hip.
After a moment, he opened the drawer, but kept his gaze on her. “Was the man Terran?” he repeated.
She grabbed the steaks, bobbed her head toward the salads indicating that he should get them, and headed for the stairs.
“Was he?” he called after her.
“No.”
If he had a response for that, she didn’t hear it.
She nudged the bedroom door open with her shoulder and found Murk sitting at the foot of the bed holding his tablet. She set the plates on the dresser and went to him. He already had the tablet held out for her.
“You have a match. A man to marry.”
She could read nothing in his expression, but she could guess that just like his lover, he was in a shitty mood.
Awesome. We can all wear matching scowls tonight.
He nudged her, his meaning clear: Answer me.
“For fuck’s sake.” She smoothed her hand over her messy hair bun and sighed. “I let them put me in the database. I guess I didn’t expect them to match me so soon. Or at all, given my undesirable lineage. McGarrys might as well take the last name ‘Vader.’ More people might like us if we were just spawn of the Sith.”
He furrowed his brow—likely at the Terran reference she didn’t feel like explaining—then wrote, “You can remove yourself from the match?”
“I intend to. It’s on my to-do list. I would like to be at least a little discreet. Now that I’m here, I don’t want to make waves. Why do you ask?”
Trigrian joined them and swapped out Murk’s tablet with a salad bowl.
“He was talking to me,” Court said.
“His answer can wait. He needs to eat.”
Court opened her mouth to argue, but seeing the slight shake of Murk’s hand around his fork and his pallid skin reminded her that in spite of the fact he was sitting up, silently accusing her of something she couldn’t figure out, he was a very ill man.
He needed nourishment, and she needed space to think.
“I’m going to go downstairs for a bit,” she said, already halfway to the door. “I think the stars are aligned just right for a good enough satellite signal for me to check in with my family.”
“I’ll wash the dishes when you’re done,” Trigrian said.
“Just leave them. I’ll get them in the morning.”
Hopefully I won’t get another eyeful in the process.
___
“I’m not having very good luck, Owen,” Court said to the holographic image of her brother.
He looked like he was sitting on the other side of the desk in her office—real enough to reach out and touch, but he was just electrons and air.
He dragged a hand through his curly blond hair and leaned back in his chair. “You were searching the police databases using the user info I created for you, right?”
“Yes. No one would be able to track the searches back to me.”
He drummed his fingertips atop his desk and nodded. “Just checking. There is a way to crack the encryption on the rest of Granddad’s data, but you need to give me a little time to come up with a way to do it without anyone knowing it was done.”
“Just let me know.”
“Anything else to share?”
She shrugged. She could say so many things, but she didn’t want Owen to worry. If he started worrying, he’d pack up his dinky backpack and would stow away on the first shuttle he could find headed toward Jekh.
“Tell me,” he said.
“Well, there is one problem that’s giving me some stress. I need to get off the match registry. I don’t know the guy they paired me with, and though I can’t find anything damning on him, I can’t bring myself to go through with even meeting him.”
“What’s his name? I’ll see what I can find out on this end.”
“Reginald Devin.”
Owen scribbled something on the pad in front of him and leaned back in his seat again, crossing his arms over his ugly Christmas sweater. Erin had given him that thing as a gag gift, and Owen was nothing if not practical.
“Are you that cold?” Court asked.
He nodded grimly. “Need to go out and replenish the wood pile. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Do me a favor and don’t freeze to death.”
He waved a dismissive hand at her. “Can’t let that happen. Someone’s gotta be alive to rescue your ass soon, right?”
“Whatever, Owen.”
“Just sayin’.” He glanced toward the camera, likely at the clock mounted near it for the same reason Court kept looking at hers. Owen only communicated on secure channels and he couldn’t keep them open longer than five minutes. The call was going to fall apart soon. “Tell me about the people there, Court.”
“Which ones?”
“The red ones.”
She shrugged. “They’re just like us, more or less. Just like Granddad said. They have their own customs and culture, but they’re not so different from you or me. I heard a rumor that their women are being sold off-planet into sex slavery.”
Owen sat up a little more. “You got proof?”
“Trying to get some. There are very few of their women out and about. Something feels really off about the population balance in more ways than I initially thought.”
He glance
d toward the camera again. “I have a friend who works for Marquise. He has access to financial data from most of the larger cities on Jekh. He’s been feeding me info whenever he can find the time. I can have him look to see what commodities they’re listing as being exported and you can tell me if the lists are bogus. It’d be someplace to start.”
“Yes, but be careful.”
“Always. Love you.”
The connection closed.
Court pushed back her chair, turned off the holo-camera, and then climbed the stairs to her empty bed.
She was used to empty beds. She’d stopped looking forward to getting into them, though.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Murk woke to find the room dark and the space on the bed in front of him cold and empty.
She didn’t come to bed.
Trig’s soft snores tickled the back of his neck. He reached back to rub the other man’s thigh, and was rewarded with a sleepy moan.
“Where’s Courtney?” Murk asked, but as always, there was no sound because he had no voice.
Her specific whereabouts weren’t important, anyway. She wasn’t with him, and that was all Murk needed to know.
Closing his eyes, he drew on what strength he had and wriggled to the bed’s edge. He sat up and shuddered when his bare feet touched the cold floor. Girding himself, he stood slowly and let his feet, knees, and hips find balance—let his legs respond to his demand that they be used.
He moved in painstaking steps to the door, and opened it quietly.
Trig stirred, rolling onto his back, but his head lolled to the side and mouth hung open. Dead to the world.
Sleep, pretty boy.
Using the hallway wall for support, Murk lumbered toward the large bedroom at the end where she slept with her pet and not a husband.
Must remind her.
That list she was on—it bothered him. She couldn’t be some Terran’s mate—not when Jekhan men had already claimed her. Women were one of the very few things Jekhans fought over. They were just so rare, and fertile ones like Courtney were rarer still.
Her door was cracked, and he considered that all the welcome he needed.
Jerry lifted his head as Murk walked in. The dog canted his furry head, watched Murk move slowly across the rug, and lay back down. If he were meant to be a guard animal, he was being woefully remiss in his job.
Courtney slept on her belly in the middle of the bed, her dark curly hair spread across two pillows and the covers tangled up between her tanned legs.
He sat on the edge of her bed, and just gazed upon her in the near dark.
The stubborn chin. Her generous lips, parted in sleep. The smooth skin pulled across her cheek.
He stroked along her jaw, and her eyes opened.
She stared wide-eyed at him a moment, as if waiting for him to come into focus.
“Murk?”
Digging into his knotted hair to loosen its ties, he nodded. His hair fell down his back and over his shoulders, and she reached tentatively for him, but he wasn’t close enough.
He picked up the tops of the covers and eased himself beneath them. Next to her, where he should have been. She shouldn’t have been so distant in the first place.
Why didn’t Trig tell her?
“Where’s your keeper, Murk?” She grabbed a fistful of his hair and locked her gaze on his as he tangled his legs with hers.
He sleeps, as I will now.
He pulled her soft, warm body against him and she rubbed his hair idly.
Maybe Trig would scold him for letting it down, but it was hers to look at as much as it was Trig’s. Why not let her see?
She’d already seen everything else he had to offer.
That was all he had left to give her.
___
Gasping, Courtney opened her sleep-blinded eyes. Her toes curled reflexively.
The delirious tightening of her core, of her muscles in response to unexpected stimulus of her sex, made her want more.
Vaguely, she remembered Murk coming into her room—her bed—alone in the middle of the night. Eager for both warmth and touch, she’d welcomed him, expecting nothing to happen between them. After all, he was Trigrian’s.
Or is he?
He shifted so his lips were near her breasts as he grazed his knuckles over her mound. Kissing the crevice of her cleavage, he licked the seam, his gaze flitting up to her entreatingly until she urged him on.
She grabbed him by the back of his head and urged him closer.
His breath tickled her sensitive skin, a teasing kind of torture he seemed to enjoy inflicting a great deal judging by his silent chuckles.
She groaned as he pressed his thumb to her painfully turgid nipple and massaged her. He cupped the breast, pulled the tip into his mouth, and as the sting of his bite sent whip-like spasms down her spine, she wished she could see his face.
What is he thinking? Would he look so strangely curious and anticipatory like Trigrian, or was Murk a man with more ego—less in need of her feedback?
Comparing them, she remembered.
There were two of them, and the day before, she’d been on that very bed with the other.
No.
She tried to sit up, but Murk’s large hand pinned her waist and kept her still. He pulled her body against the dull protrusion of his as if in explanation. Proof of his attraction to her.
While she was flattered indeed, impropriety seeped into her thoughts. He was ill and indigent. She was in a place of authority, whether she’d intended for that to be the case or not.
Murk kissed the back of her wrist so tenderly that he very nearly broke her heart, and then he placed her fingers into his hair as he resumed suckling.
“Murki…” She could hardly draw breath.
His teeth set down in particularly tender flesh and she gripped his hair in her fist as she cried out.
He gasped, stilling his fingers momentarily at her cleft.
He likes that?
She gave another experimental tug, and sighing, he thrust his cock against her leg.
Better not do that again. She loosened her grip.
He rolled onto his back with some effort and scooted to the head of the bed. He drew her onto him, which should have been much more difficult if it weren’t for the fact she wasn’t exactly opposing him. She knew she should have been, but resisting was hard to do when he held her so possessively and insisted she kiss him.
And insist he did.
He pulled her head down and took her lips in a breath-stealing collision that had her body thrumming. His quick tongue darted in and out of her mouth simulating some other acts he had no business thinking about, much less doing.
And yet she ground her juncture against his thigh, urging him on.
He nudged her stretchy waistband down her hips, stopping when they could move no more, and she had to decide.
Help him? Put a stop to this thing?
He kissed that tender place at the back of wrist again.
“God.”
She got onto her knees and helped him by wriggling her shorts down and panties along with them.
What they were doing was just sex. She’d never thought of sex as being something she needed before now, but it was. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t want it—that she didn’t want him.
The problem was simply that she wanted both of them. And that simply wasn’t done.
One problem at a time.
She’d deal with the ramifications of her ethical malfeasance later.
Tossing his pants over the edge of the bed, she paused to lick the tip of his long, thick cock. To see if he tasted the same as others.
He grabbed her shoulders and let out a forceful hiss as her tongue lapped around his corona.
Certainly responds the same, but taste?
Loosening his fingers, she lapped at his slit.
Bitter. Salty. Manly.
The same.
He pulled her up by the armpits and settled her on top of him,
urgently seeking entrance, but she pulled her hips upward, impeding his access.
She laughed. “What’s the hurry? You woke me up. At least let me enjoy myself if I’m going to be useless all day at work.”
Murk made a frustrated sound that would have been a grunt if he’d any voice to put behind it.
“Caveman without a voice box?” Again, she laughed.
He brought a hand down on her ass, the sting both silencing her and urging her on.
She wanted more, or less, or…she didn’t know what she wanted. She wanted whatever he’d give to her in whatever form he saw fit to give it.
She arched her back, tilting her ass into his hand as he rubbed where she stung.
He sat her up and guided her knees to either side of his, trailing his fingertips up the insides of her thighs as she straddled him. Cock in hand, he guided her onto him.
She hesitated as the blunt head pressed against her slit, and the pause wasn’t because she feared pain. She had some control—she was the one on top, after all—but there were other considerations.
He couldn’t get her pregnant and she was immune to all known sexually transmitted diseases, but she couldn’t be sure that what they were doing was just two consenting adults scratching each other’s itches. And she couldn’t be sure if she minded if it wasn’t.
If I get attached, so what?
He squeezed her hips, jostling her from her mental meanderings and putting her focus back on his face. His intense wine gaze.
“Murki…”
He squeezed again. Impatient, probably, but she couldn’t get out of her head.
“What are we doing?”
He let out a breath and smoothed his hands up her sides. He might not have said anything even if he’d had the ability, but his opinion was clear enough: I’m ready if you are.
And she was ready. At least her body was. The part of her mind that was afraid of being used and left behind would just have to shut up.
Just sex.
She lowered herself onto him slowly, closing her eyes to savor each delectable inch as he filled her. Stretched her.
His hands on her waist urged her on, helping her slide down.