OUTCAST

by Cheryl Brooks

  Looking at her now filled him with the desire to move closer, to inhale her scent—especially knowing what it would do to him. The urge to take her was strong, and she affected him like no other woman on any world had ever done. She was his life: she had rescued him from slavery, and he, in turn, had rescued her from a lifetime of loneliness.

  Purring deep in his throat, Cat rested his hands on her shoulders, breathing in her scent, feeling his cock stir in response. They were bound together by an alien ritual; Jack could only tolerate being a short distance from him without becoming agitated and could follow his scent as though it were visible. Staying close to her was no hardship for Cat, however, since it was where he wanted to be anyway.

  “Is the course set?” he asked.

  Nodding in reply, she added, “It’ll be good to see everyone again, but that damn doctor—what's his name?—might not want to see me! I’ve got a bone to pick with him!”

  “You mean Vladen,” said Cat.

  “Yeah, well, he told me there was nothing stopping me from having more kids, and God knows we’ve done nothing to prevent it, but I’m getting tired of wondering when it's gonna happen.”

  “I am not tired of trying, though,” Cat purred. Max still sat at Jack's side, thumping his tail, but all it took was a raised eyebrow from Cat to have him on his feet, trotting out the door. It wasn’t the first time Max had been asked to leave.

  “They never let me watch,” Max grumbled to himself. He’d go talk to Tisana instead. It might not be as entertaining as Cat and Jack going at it, but it was better than nothing.

  “That's what I like about you, Cat,” Jack declared, not even noticing the dog had gone. “You’re an incurable optimist.”

  “No,” he said regretfully. “I enjoy mating with you— and will continue to do so, whether we ever have any more children or not.”

  Reaching over her shoulder to the console, he touched the control for the door and smiled as it sealed behind him.

  “Looks like I’m about to get nailed again,” Jack muttered, but couldn’t quite suppress her smile.

  “Yes, my lovely master, you are.”

  Jack sighed. “You know I can’t resist when you call me that, Kittycat.”

  Purring louder, he pulled her from her chair and into his arms. “You cannot resist me at all,” he said knowingly. “And I cannot stay away.”

  “You know, maybe that's why we haven’t had any more kids,” Jack said reflectively as Cat licked her ear, sending thrills racing down her spine. “We go at it so often your sperm count is probably too low.”

  “It is not,” he assured her. “Vladen checked that, too, if you will recall.”

  “Yeah, well, I still think he's a quack,” Jack argued. “Never did trust Levitians.”

  “Shh,” Cat whispered. “Let us not speak of him now.” The feel of her in his arms sent his mind drifting into a sexual haze. She was his mate for life, and he never tired of demonstrating his claim on her. She kept him laughing, could get a bargain out of the devil himself, and may have called herself by a man's name, but she still melted at his touch. He liked that.

  Jack's head fell back, exposing her slender throat for his kiss as her eyes blissfully closed. Cat felt a rush of blood to his groin as the flow of the orgasm-inducing fluid from the glands of his scalloped cockhead began. Knowing that she would scold him for letting it go to waste, he pushed off his loose-fitting pants, leaving them puddled on the floor at his feet. In the past, Jack had always worn a flightsuit and boots while on board the ship, but since she and Cat had been together, she’d taken to wearing only a tank top and shorts. It was easy for him to remove, which was just as well, because they never stayed dressed for long.

  Cat heard Jack's soft sigh as he kissed her parted lips, felt their warmth as he inhaled her essence. With a low growl, he deepened the kiss, his tongue diving past her lips to devour her. She ignited a fire in every cell of his body, driving him wild with a passionate desire to join with her.

  Pressing her back to the door, he got rid of her clothing as effortlessly as he had his own and pulled her legs up around his waist. His cock unerringly found its way into her soft warmth as with one swift stroke he sheathed himself in her. Her gasp of pleasure sent him further into the abyss where his only thought was to fill her with his seed and his love.

  “Ohhh,” Jack sighed. “I just love the way you do that.”

  Cat's voice was deep and rough when he replied. “And I love to make you moan, Jacinth.”

  “Always do,” she murmured. “Can’t help it.” Shuddering as her first orgasm had her body writhing in ecstasy, she pulled him closer. “Harder, Cat. Make me do more than just moan.”

  Cat laughed devilishly. “I always do that, as well.”

  “Cocky Cat!” she gasped. “Can’t let me alone for a minute, can you?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “No,” she replied truthfully. “Don’t stop. Ever.”

  He purred his appreciation for her reply. “Hold on,” he said, thinking it was a good thing the Jolly Roger was so well built; if it hadn’t been, they’d have broken through a bulkhead and spaced themselves long ago. He drilled his cock into her relentlessly, wishing he could get his whole body inside her. She was the one he loved beyond reason; he couldn’t help loving her any more than he could help feeling hunger or pain. She had accused him of being addicting, but he knew differently; he was the one who was addicted—to her. His body craved her touch; his senses craved her scent and the sound of her voice. And his eyes sought her face… the most beautiful vision his mind could conceive. Jack had never thought of herself as being even passably pretty—her younger sister had been the beauty of the family—but Cat disagreed wholeheartedly.

  “My lovely Jacinth,” he sighed, gazing into her deep brown eyes—eyes now blurred with passion. “I will never stop loving you.”

  Jack wrapped her arms around his neck, clutching at his long black curls as he thrust into her, wishing the same thing he had; that she could somehow wrap herself around him completely so that they became one being. It was a feeling she sought each time they were together.

  Cat leaned back, balancing her on his groin as his penis swirled deeply inside her. He would leave no place untouched, no chance that she might not feel the greatest possible pleasure. Grasping her hips, he pushed her down hard, driving himself in deeper.

  Jack gazed into her husband's dark, exotic eyes, her own widening in awe as he took her to new heights. The moans Cat had hoped for escaped her lips as her pleasure reached its peak again and again, sending him higher still until he felt his own imminent climax begin to swell inside him. Thrusting deeply inside her to plant his seed where it would not only grow, but give her the joy he wished for her to feel, he felt his balls tighten as he came with a growl.

  Jack waited breathlessly for the rush of pure delight that would soon follow, and when it came, it sent tendrils of “Ahhh…” throughout her body. Cat smiled, his fingers teasing the hair back from her face.

  “Joy, unlike any you have ever known?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she sighed. “How do you do it? It's always like that—even better than I remember.” And she didn’t have to think very far back, either.

  “That is because of you.” Cat kissed her deeply, lovingly, inhaling her scent and tasting her. She was like wine to him—sweet, delicious, and intoxicating.

  As Jack slid down to her feet, Max gave a cautious bark from the other side of the door. “Hold on, Max. I’ll be out in a minute,” Jack said, reluctantly breaking off the kiss. With a furtive glance at Cat, she asked, “Has Tisana been teaching you how to talk to him?”

  Cat smiled. “No, but we do understand one another—in some matters more than others.”

  One man to another, Jack decided. She was just glad that her man was a cat, rather than a dog.

  In a barroom well beyond the fringes of the Nimbaza district, Sylor Halen sat with a drink in front of him, listening to the discussion at a nearby
table.

  “You’ll never make it here,” a dark-visaged Plaotian man was saying quietly. “The rules are too strict. You’ll never get away with it.”

  Sylor's ears, though peculiarly slanted, were quite sharp, and as usual, the idea of “getting away with” anything piqued his interest.

  “If no one is around to report it?” the Plaotian's companion scoffed. “I don’t think so. Just don’t tell anyone where I’ve gone.” This man was Terran, though of a paler skin than Sylor had ever seen. Pale to the point of sickliness.

  “You’ll need money, Krall,” the Plaotian said. “And lots of it. How’re you going to get it?”

  “I’ve got a plan,” Krall said earnestly. “All I need is a little seed money.”

  Sylor's cache of credits was dwindling, and though he prided himself on taking advantage of every opportunity to expand it, since moving on from Bonnie he had been less than successful. The last woman he’d taken the time to romance had not been as well-heeled as he had hoped. He’d taken her for all he could, but even that wasn’t enough. Still, he had Bonnie's grandmother's engagement ring: a platinum setting with a flawless, two-carat stone. It had meant a lot to Bonnie for purely sentimental reasons, but the fact that it was very valuable was what had appealed to Sylor. He’d been contemplating how best to turn it into cash: perhaps it would be adequate “seed money.”

  “Gentlemen,” Sylor began, “I couldn’t help but overhear that you find yourselves on the horns of a dilemma. Perhaps I can be of assistance.”

  The two men looked at Sylor warily, but Sylor possessed all the charm that a man of his ilk needed. They would fall in with his plans and feel that it had been their own idea from the start. As Sylor held out his hand in friendship, the process began. “Krall, is it?” he said with a winning smile. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

  If it didn’t pan out and they became suspicious enough to report him, Sylor still had a few tricks up his sleeve. Anyone who crossed Sylor usually ended up dead… one way or another.

  Chapter 4

  LYNX HAD LEFT THE HOUSE, BUT HE HAD BARELY rounded the corner of the porch before his stomach got the better of him. Setting down the glass of juice on a nearby tree stump, he tore into his food like a wild dog. After the first few bites, he made himself slow down enough to taste it. It was so good it almost hurt to eat it, and there were actually tears in his eyes when he swallowed the last bite. Kipper sat nearby, looking up at him eagerly.

  “You have always been well fed,” he told the collie as he tipped up his glass to drink the sweet juice. “I have not been so fortunate.”

  Lynx left his empty dishes by the door—after which Kipper polished them to a high sheen—and went out to inspect his new quarters.

  The shed was spacious, and though it smelled of machinery and dust, to Lynx, it was a palace. The emptiness of it was an attraction for him, and he liked hearing the echo of his footsteps as he walked across the bare concrete floor. There were birds nesting in the rafters, and their chirping didn’t annoy him in the slightest, unlike the chirping voices of women. He blinked hard in an attempt to banish the memory. This woman, Bonnie, was a fool to risk her child for a chicken, but at least her voice wasn’t a chirp. He’d grown so tired of hearing women's voices! They whined, they pleaded, they screamed, or they chirped. Shuddering in revulsion at the memory, Lynx crossed over to the far corner. There, he would be hidden from anyone entering the shed, and it was the farthest place from the door. He would have plenty of warning should Bonnie ever enter there.

  What would he do if she ever came there seeking his company? He sincerely hoped she never would, but he also intended to make it quite plain that if she did, she would not be welcome. All he wanted was a place where he could be alone and think of absolutely nothing. When he had been with the women, he’d rarely been allowed a moment to himself, and even after the time spent among men, he still craved solitude. Sitting down in the corner, his hand resting on the pack that contained all he owned, he closed his eyes and drifted into nothingness.

  It wasn’t long before his worst fears were realized when he heard a tap on the door to his sanctuary and the sound of Bonnie calling his name. She could not leave me alone even for a moment, he thought as Bonnie slipped in with Kipper at her heels, carrying a stack of pillows and blankets.

  Threading her way between the tractor and various other implements, Bonnie couldn’t see clearly, but noticed a movement in the far corner behind the harvester droid. Thinking that she would have slept in the speeder herself, which was comfortable enough and wasn’t good for much else, she noted that he appeared to have simply been sitting—or lying—in the corner on the floor. There was a small pack next to him, and from the dent in it, she assumed he had been using it as a pillow.

  “I brought you some things,” she said. “You can use them to sleep on until I can get you a proper bed. You could probably stand a chair, too.”

  Glancing around, Bonnie remembered the empty crates she used for the eggs and figured they could stack them up and then put a board across them to make a table. That way he wouldn’t have to eat outside, though she wasn’t sure if that was what he preferred or not. So far, the only preference she knew about was that he wouldn’t eat in her house. Perhaps someday he would explain to her just why that was.

  Handing him the bedding, she pulled out two crates and went off to find a board. There was plenty of scrap material left over from building the house, and Bonnie soon found one the right size and put it on top of the crates. It wasn’t fancy, but it did have the virtue of being relatively sturdy. Lynx merely stood watching her, unable to understand what she was doing. Doing her best to ignore the blank stare she was receiving in return for her kind efforts, Bonnie then went back to the house and returned with a kitchen chair and a lamp. Her power source would run anything within thirty meters of the house, and the far end of the shed fell just within its range. There were overhead lights in the shed, but Bonnie thought a lamp would make it seem a little homier.

  “Got any clothes you need to have washed?” she asked. Lynx's pack was very small and couldn’t have held much of a wardrobe, but she thought she should ask anyway.

  “No,” he replied. “I only have these.”

  Lynx drew back slightly as he said this, hoping that she wouldn’t ask him to take them off so she could wash them. Being left naked and vulnerable in front of a woman was something he never wished to experience again. She would laugh at him, and he couldn’t stand that anymore. He’d have thought that after so many years, he’d have gotten used to it, but he never had. Women's laughter still cut through him like a knife.

  Laughing at Lynx was the very last thing on Bonnie's mind, however. She was thinking about getting something else for him to wear—after all, everyone needed a change of clothes! She had fabric and a sewing machine—both courtesy of her mother, who didn’t think a primitive place like Terra Minor would have ready-made clothes—so she could make him something. The shirt and pants he had on didn’t look as though they’d been made for him; they hung loosely on his thin frame, though it was possible that they’d fit him better at one time. The style was simple enough—a tunic that crossed over in front and tucked into trousers with a drawstring waist—and would be easy to duplicate. It was obvious that whoever had dressed him in the past hadn’t gone to much expense, and, unfortunately, neither could Bonnie. When she’d asked Drummond to find her a hired hand, it had never occurred to her that he wouldn’t have any clothes to speak of. Her only consolation was that he wasn’t barefoot, though his sturdy sandals were more serviceable than stylish.

  He was such a mystery to her! How did he get there, and where had he been? Why had he come to Terra Minor at all? With anyone else, a long talk over a pot of coffee and a batch of cookies would have filled her in nicely, but Lynx seemed so uncomfortable with her there that after a few awkward moments, she went back to the house, leaving him to make his own bed. She was almost glad to be away from him, for he seemed to exude
sadness, uncertainty, and even fear. He had been brusque with her earlier in the day, but now he seemed wary, as though he suspected that she might harm him in some way.

  Bonnie couldn’t help but wonder if he’d gone outside to eat only because he couldn’t stomach what she’d given him and had fed it to the dog instead. The plate had been licked clean, but that might only mean that Kipper had polished it off after Lynx was finished. It was possible that he was allergic to eggs—after all, many people were—and was too polite to refuse what she’d given him—though if his behavior constituted politeness, it was a different brand than she’d ever encountered before. If she hadn’t already known Cat and Leo, she might have said it was from having been a slave or was possibly a Zetithian trait, but since they acted nothing like Lynx, she doubted it.

  Entering the house, it seemed so empty to her now. There were only three months to go until her baby was born, and then she would have someone besides Kipper for company. She was looking forward to that. She was pretty sure she couldn’t count on Lynx.

  She told herself that it was probably better that Lynx didn’t want to stay in the house—after all, she knew very little about him and might be safer with him out in the shed—but for some reason, it felt wrong. He’d saved her life, and she felt she owed him more than just a corner of the shed to sleep in. He seemed to have a great deal of difficulty accepting things from her— perhaps from anyone. Surely someone had shown him kindness in the past; it couldn’t be so foreign to him that he didn’t even recognize it! Bonnie had a much softer heart than she cared to admit, and that same heart was what had gotten her into a plethora of man trouble in the past. Still, it was her nature to be kind, and she vowed to continue to show him kindness—whether he liked it or not. Reminding herself that she had only advertised for a hired hand, not a roommate—and certainly not a husband—she went to bed.