Beyond the Next Star

by Melody Johnson

  The bulge was swelling.

  She jerked her eyes up, then blushed so hard, she nearly passed out. His eyes were narrowed on her, two focused laser targets examining her face while she’d been examining his everything else.

  “Are you—”

  “I not—”

  They spoke over each other, then lapsed into simultaneous silence.

  “You were.” His gaze was relentless.

  Another throb echoed through her womb, but she shook her head.

  He stared at her for another hard moment, his eyes seeming to flay open her chest and bare her heart to open air.

  A moment later, he nodded, a clipped movement that broke more than just their gaze. Her heart ached more sharply than the ache between her legs, a crushing pressure that she couldn’t account for. He was Torek. He owned her. He was an alien. And he owned her.

  And he’d saved her. From the ice, from loneliness, from herself.

  He was Torek.

  He wrapped a towel around himself, under his armpits, and left the bathroom. He closed the door behind him.

  Delaney dropped her forehead to the cold metallic rim of the tub and groaned.

  That night after she’d exhausted all forms of procrastination—rinsing her hands, scrubbing out the fur-lined tub, cleaning the toilet and tile floor, and drying her own hair—she crawled into her cot on the floor instead of into his bed. He didn’t correct her. She took a deep breath, but she couldn’t breathe easy with her confusing and contradictory emotions, like a physical weight, constricting her chest. She hadn’t slept in her own cot since waking after the avalanche, and that hadn’t been her own doing. Before that, she hadn’t slept alone in weeks, but she couldn’t bear the thought of sharing a bed now, not with him looking more man than beast and knowing what was growing beneath his skin.

  Suspecting, she corrected herself. She didn’t know for certain what was growing under his skin, she only suspected, and the shocking desperation with which she longed to confirm her suspicions was enough to make her deliberately and determinedly avoid such feelings. And him.

  But that didn’t mean that her avoidance, and his acceptance of it, didn’t come at a cost.

  Minutes that felt like hours passed in heavy, painful silence. Well, silence between them. The room swelled with the sounds of their fitful attempts to sleep: the spring and groan of the mattress beneath his tossing and turning, the huffs and puffs of her pillow fluffing, his growls, her sighs.

  Delaney stared at the ceiling, the pillow still uncomfortable under her stiff neck, but she refused to fluff it a fourth time. Not that her movement would disturb Torek. He should have been in the unconscious throes of a heart-pounding nightmare by now, but no, there would be no dreams or nightmares or any form of sleep tonight for either of them, apparently.

  This was stupid. They’d slept next to one another, spooning in the curve of each other’s bodies, for nearly two months without issue. She didn’t have to make an issue of it now. Except that the body spooning hers had always felt like another fur blanket around her. A breathing, living, heated fur blanket, yes, but that was all the better because she was always so unbearably cold on this miserable ice planet. Now she’d be able to distinguish his body from the blanket.

  If they spooned now, they’d be skin to skin.

  Heat blossomed from the inside out, and for once, she found herself shivering from something other than the relentless cold.

  She sat up, forgetting her vow not to fluff what was obviously a determinedly flat pillow, and punched the pillow anyway.

  Torek groaned. “You’re punishing me, aren’t you?”

  “I not know your meaning.” She gave the pillow a final punch and collapsed face-first into it. It flattened instantly.

  “‘I not know your meaning,’” he mocked in falsetto. “You’re punishing me for battling the zorel.”

  “Why do I do that?” Her voice was muffled with pillow. Of course, he’s still focused on the zorel. I’m combusting on the memory of his naked body, and he’s thinking about the giant ice fish. Delaney turned her head to the side, so he could hear her sarcasm clearly. “You get Dorai Nikiok’s permission to battle. What more do you need?”

  He growled.

  “You need not warn me before leaving to risk your life. You need not wait on Shemara Kore’Onik’s permission. Who are we? How you say, lorienok who have no power to give commands or advice and must obey blindly?”

  A slapping sound. “I had a great victory today. I don’t deserve this.”

  “What good could come of talking to those with no power?”

  “I should have built your own room. Then I’d have peace!”

  “Yes, you should build my own room, as required by my manual!”

  “Yes, a requirement that claimed you would ‘wither and die’ without it. I don’t see you withering. If anyone is withering, it’s me! Perhaps the separate room was actually for my well-being, not yours.”

  “I want sleep too, you know,” Delaney snapped. “I not enjoy being tired and stressed and—”

  “The Dorai cleared me for battle!”

  “Oh, she a mind and behavior specialist? No, I forget, she a medical doctor. No, I mistaking, she a murderer, but that gives her the right to clear—”

  “Shut your mouth. Just shut it!”

  His upper body leaned over the side of the bed, his hands grabbed her shoulders, and in one swift, smooth lift, he hoisted her up on top of him. She straddled his waist, trying to steady herself on his chest before she toppled over, but he kept her upright. His finger pads dug painfully into her skin.

  “Torek! What—”

  He shook her. “You’re going to listen to me now and understand this time. I won’t say it again.”

  “You hurting me.”

  He shook her harder. “I’ll investigate Keil’s death. I’ll determine the truth and keep your secret. I’ll do everything in my considerable power to protect you, but I refuse to listen to lies.”

  “I am not lying,” she gritted out. “You say you believe me.”

  He sighed, relaxing his hold slightly but not letting go. “Poor word choice. I know you’re not lying. I refuse to listen to untruths.”

  She struggled against his hold, falling into English. “Stupid. Arrogant. Pompous. Ass—

  He tightened his hold again. “You’re not listening! If you’d just—” He grunted, inhaled a sharp, pain-filled gasp and then exhaled on a low growl.

  Something that hadn’t been there before, something large and hard and physically throbbing, thrust between them.

  Delaney froze.

  Torek was naked. Delaney was wrapped in a fur blanket, but from the waist down, the intimate parts of her were rubbing against the intimate parts of him. Skin on skin, just as she’d suspected, made her acutely aware of him as a man and her as a woman in a way that she hadn’t allowed herself to consider. In a way that could no longer be ignored.

  Torek’s expression mirrored the agony in his growl. His brow bunched together into a merciless scowl. His lips thinned into a hard line, and his eyes screwed shut. His breathing turned ragged.

  “Torek?” Delaney whispered.

  He didn’t release her. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t so much as move, except for the appendage which pulsed between them, the obvious source of his pain.

  His eyes did open then, and despite the differences in his bicolored gaze, the emotion spilling from them was identical. He wasn’t in pain. He was embarrassed. Mortified, even.

  She glanced down.

  “Delaney, don’t—”

  She stroked the smooth, tense muscles of his forearms. They flexed at first, but his fingers relaxed slightly under her gentle reassurance—his grip still firm but no longer bruising—and she looked.

  His cock was at least twelve inches long, in proportion with the rest of his massive body, she supposed, but unnecessarily aggressive nonetheless. It was pink. Its skin was thick and soft, almost like a tongue with a steel co
re, and just as slick. She couldn’t tell if the slippery substance was secreting from its pores or from within the sheath it had sprung from, but either way, considering its length and girth, having a self-producing lubricant was considerate of it.

  Delaney tried to school her expression. What was worse: looking shocked, considering she was an alien; looking interested, considering she was still technically his pet; or looking frightened, considering he knew she was a woman. Considering she was feeling all three things toward it, masking her reaction meant having no expression—which, perhaps, was the worst reaction of all.

  His arms flexed, and his grip tightened. “That’s enough. This is wrong. I can’t—”

  She reached forward and, with a tentative touch, brushed a rogue lock from his forehead. His brown hair was straight and soft. She combed her fingers through it, caressing her nails through his scalp, and rubbing his skull at the base of his horns.

  His cock swelled and throbbed. Dear God, it had the capability of growing larger?

  He let loose a low, vibrating moan. His hands released her shoulders to cover his eyes. “Dear Lorien. Lend me your steady—rak. Just skewer me.”

  Delaney glanced up from her inspection. His jaw was flexing, nearly in perfect rhythm with the throbbing of his body.

  “Are you?” She cleared her throat. “Are you feeling pain?”

  A bark of laughter escaped him. He lowered his hands and met her eyes. “Of sorts,” he said, but his tone seemed self-deprecating. “It’s a physical reaction that I can’t…” He groaned again. “And I accuse you of lies,” he murmured on a sigh. “I’m sorry.”

  Delaney bit her lip. “What if I not?”

  His head turned toward her at that, so her face was the entire focus of his regard. “What if you’re not what?”

  “What if I not sorry?”

  Twenty-Five

  She wasn’t serious. Or she didn’t know what she was saying. Or she’d lost her mind. Or he had, because her expression, although tentative, was very serious, and she seemed to know exactly what she’d said. And what that implied. And Lorien skewer him, he couldn’t look away. He couldn’t respond. His mind had gone blank with confusion and desire and panic, but most of all, he couldn’t look away.

  Her hair had dried in a wild tangle around her head. She hadn’t bothered to brush it after their bath, and now it was a rioting mess, sprouting from root to tip in untamed spirals. Her breath had caught, and her color was high. The patchy red stain brightening her cheeks spread down her neck and across her collarbones, disappearing under the blanket’s edge, where it likely warmed the plump mounds of her breasts.

  He was deviant and a lecher, two things he’d never associated with himself before. But his life had bifurcated into two simple but profound categories: life before Delaney and life after Delaney. Before, he’d been certain in his resolve. He’d never been dissatisfied by the longing for more, had, in fact, pitied people who constantly searched beyond the next star. Always striving for what they didn’t have, they never saw what was within their grasp.

  Now, he wasn’t certain of his resolve. What he longed for was so unfathomable, he couldn’t see the stars, let alone dare to reach for one. Dare he? Rak, he was trembling with indecision. Trembling.

  He sexually desired his animal companion.

  Such an amoral, abhorrent act was beyond comprehension, but she wasn’t an animal companion, or rather, she shouldn’t be. Her species was an advanced, reasoning, moral people, if Delaney was any representation of the whole. They were of the same mukar, according to her manual. They were of the same relative intelligence, based on his interaction with her. Fekok, she possessed a higher cunning if her successful deception was any indication. Had she been classified correctly, desiring her wouldn’t be any different than desiring a havenian or a frayon. Uncommon, yes, but not criminal.

  But the most elemental and possibly the most undeniable thought that passed through his confused, grasping brain was that she was Delaney. Just Delaney. And he cared for her more than any lor had a respectable right to care for any lorok.

  She didn’t look shocked by him and the thoughts she could undoubtedly interpret from his expression. As if she needed to interpret his expression to know his thoughts with his cock proudly exposed between them. Her eyes, so fathomless in their gray depths, stared right back. She didn’t look disgusted. She didn’t even look particularly surprised, which was a little startling. It made him consider whether he’d missed anything else about her—as if he hadn’t missed enough! She didn’t look nearly as lost and confused as he felt.

  Her tentative touch was shy but not uncertain. She caressed his scalp with a tender, caring inquisitiveness that constricted his throat. She didn’t mind him wanting her in this way, and if he was so bold as to make a leap of logic based on those wandering fingers through his hair—and the fact that she hadn’t bolted when he’d released himself—she wanted him as well.

  Or at the very least, she didn’t not want him.

  Her fingers found a particularly sensitive area behind the base of his ears. He closed his eyes and groaned, his already scattered thoughts completely obliterated by her touch. He felt himself swell and couldn’t even drum up the shame to care.

  “Do you—” Gah, those fingers were magic! “Do you understand what you’re saying? What that is?” he finished gruffly.

  “It not so different from the human male reproductive organ. Just bigger. With more lubricant and inside most of the time.” She bit her lip. “Except…”

  Torek forced himself to calm, to listen and understand that a “but” was coming, and he needed to brace himself for the possibility that they would be stopping this intimacy in the next few moments. As unforeseen as this moment was, now that it had begun, stopping seemed impossible.

  “Except?” he growled.

  “Except, I never sleep with someone I care about. Someone I really like.” She released that lip and licked it. “Someone I trust with more than my body.”

  Lorien skewer him, she didn’t understand. He was quivering with the effort to sheath himself. It was impossible. He was too far gone. “You’re mistaken.”

  She froze. “I am?”

  He nodded. “We wouldn’t be sleeping. I’ve been unpardonably rude. I’m sorry. I—”

  She placed a finger over his lips.

  Torek stared at her, silenced. Her lips still were not twisted in horror. They quirked slightly in abashed amusement. She was shaking her head.

  “‘Sleeping together’ is an English phrase that has two meanings. I mean sexual intercourse, but I not want to sound so medical.”

  Ah! A smile curved his lips, but before he could respond, she plunged ahead.

  “On Earth, ‘mating’ is for animals. We are, for me, anyway…” She cleared her throat. “Making love? Sexual intercourse with caring and respecting and…and warmth?” She glanced away, face flaming. “Jeesuskrystimfukingthisup.” She ended on a swift, ranting burst of her In-klish.

  Her phrases were unfamiliar, but her meaning was clear. And reciprocated. He raised his hand and caressed her flaming cheek until she met his gaze. “Our hearts would beat as one.”

  She blinked. Her lips formed the words silently, and then they curved into a soft smile to match his.

  He sat up to breathe into her neck.

  She placed a staying hand on his chest. “Do you have protection?”

  He lay back. “Protection?”

  “Maybe you can just pull out? Before ejaculation, I mean.”

  He blinked. Rapidly. He could not have heard her correctly. “Is that wise? We’re of the same mukar.”

  “Yes. Your point?”

  “It means we’re classified as having similar physical forms. We’re treated with the same medicines, eat the same foods…” He circled his hand in the air, then let it drop to his side. “And we have compatible reproductive systems.”

  “Compatible reproductive systems.”

  “It means we can reproduc
e to create children. My cock goes inside your—”

  “I know where it goes!” She swatted his chest. “And I know what mukar means. That is why you should pull out.”

  “Children are always a blessing. Always. But…” He must tread carefully here. “In this one instance, it may be wise to wait. At least until you’re no longer classified as an animal companion and more tests can be performed to predict the outcome of such a union. I’d want to know what to expect and prepare a birth plan for those expectations. Even so, there’s always some risk, being the first to spark life between two species.” He reached up and caressed her arms. “I’m not ashamed of you and would be honored to have you bear my children.” He swallowed. “After you’re reclassified.”

  “Right.” She stared at him. “So just pull out.”

  Really, he couldn’t stop blinking. “So, you want to risk having children? Even before being reclassified?”

  Delaney rubbed her frowning brow. “I know we speaking the same language, but it not seem like it. Explain, in very simple words, how we risk having children if you pull out?”

  “Pulling out prevents my genok from killing my seed, so you could conceive.”

  Her hand stopped rubbing. “Your genok?”

  He nodded, relieved. They were finally getting somewhere.

  “What is genok?”

  Or not. “When I finish at the end of sex. It’s a liquid that releases from my cock and prevents pregnancy.”

  “So you ejaculate genok at the end of sex, not seed?”

  He nodded.

  “When is your seed released?”

  “It’s not released, per se. My cock is slick with seed all the time from being inside its cock-sac.”

  Her mouth opened in silence for a moment. Her eyes glanced down. “Interesting.”

  His cock swelled anew at her attention, but Torek waited, hesitant to trust the hope that they might actually be in agreement.

  “So to prevent pregnancy, you ejaculate inside me?” she asked.