Ji’wa practically trilled with pleasure as his eyes drank in her movements. As she turned away from the mechanic, she leaned into him, her small body pressing against him enticingly.
“Thank you,” she whispered so quietly that he knew that her words were for him alone.
He allowed one raspy trill to rumble from him and smiled when he felt her silent laugh. She set a hand on his chest and rubbed the center gently as he curled his arm around her and they began to walk down the corridor. Ji’wa stepped in closer to his female, content to find some place private to rest for a while when Rafneal called out after them.
“Oh, what docking spot are you in?”
“West dock spot eighty-four!” Nerida shouted back.
“Excellent. I would stick to the corridors of the business district as much as you can. You’re free to exit out into the streets and travel to the other districts, but with this fog, I would invest in some protection first if I were you. The mogmas may still be lurking around, and then there is always the usual dangers of a city.”
“Thank you for the advice. I should be able to take care of most of our needs in the district, at least for now.”
“Very good. There are quite a few of you wavelanders around the city… unusual for this time of the year. If you happen to run into any of them, be sure to send them down my way. I would be delighted to give your people a good deal on my services.”
Nerida froze, her face paling in the harsh glare of the lights. Her lips stretched into a thin smile, however, though her voice quivered and sounded strained when she spoke.
“Oh? Other wavelanders are here? Are they wintering?”
The male shrugged as he moved around to what looked a like peculiar boxy machine. “Nah. They’re looking for someone. One of their own who got lost somewhere up north. They are hoping that their family found their way to the southern seas. The water is milder and the thought maybe their kin would have made their way here following the warm weather and calm seas. Nothing to worry about, of course, although I feel sympathy for them. If you’ve heard anything of a lone lost wavelander, perhaps stop and speak with them. I think they’re anchored at the opposite end of the island.”
“I haven’t heard or seen anything, but I’ll be sure to offer my condolences if we run into them… and of course recommend your exceptional shop,” she added.
The male nodded and waved at her absently as he resumed working on the hunk of machinery that he had apparently been distracted from by the commotion with the mogmas. Ji’wa frowned, not liking the way his female’s face was pinched with worry. He wanted nothing more than to get her to this Dark Pearl place where she might take some time to truly rest without her mind being beset with worries. He did not like the blank, wooden way she was staring at the male as he set to work. Turning her away from the mechanic, Ji’wa gently herded her down the corridor and she glanced up at him blankly for a moment before her face softened and she leaned into him, allowing him to really take control of the situation for the first time.
Elation filled him at the trust she was putting in him at that moment. His fingers stroked against her side affectionately. Even though he couldn’t feel the texture of her skin, and could barely feel the heat of her body through his gloves and the layers of clothing she wore covering her, he enjoyed the way she trembled beneath his touch and the way her expression gradually relaxed as her eyes heated with desire. His tail fin immediately expanded until a sharp tug alerted him to the horrible fact the spines of his fin were now lodged uncomfortably in the side of the tightly fastened coat.
A low frustrated snarl left him as he ineffectually tugged his tail. Nerida pulled back to look at him.
“What’s wrong?”
“My tail is stuck,” he growled quietly in reply.
She leaned forward, eyes fastening on the bulge in the coat where his tail was now resting at an awkward angle.
“How the hell did your tail get stuck?” she hissed.
“It was uncontrollable reaction,” he grumbled. “My fin expanded… and became stuck.”
“Must be a thing with alien tails,” she grumbled as she pushed at it with her hand.
He did not know what exactly she did—if it was the angle or just the fact that she was touching it between the material—but the action sent a surge of lust to his loins, and his cock pressed insistently against his genital slit. A rattling groan left him, and Nerida froze. Her eyes snapped to his face even though he knew that she could not see any of it.
“Your eyes are glowing,” she observed in a nervous whisper.
He snapped them shut and swallowed as he worked to push down the rising tide of his desire. He needed his mate. He had been ignoring his priming for far too many days, and now it seemed to be incapable of being ignored any further. Whether he liked it or not, he was going to extrude for the first time.
A shiver stole over him as he fought against it uselessly.
“I will be fine. Give me a moment to collect myself,” he murmured.
He felt the pressure of Nerida’s hand on his arm and a hard tug that made him open his eyes and look to her again. A sound of relief escaped her.
“Okay, I can’t see your eyes now. Good. Come on, I think we need to get somewhere we can rest for a little while. I can send messages from there to have the cargo removed from the cooling storage.”
Ji’wa rumbled his agreement. Yes, that would be good. He needed to be alone with his female, somewhere he could finish the maturation process uninterrupted and without intrusion. He just needed Nerida—only her. His body quaked again as his sex thickened behind his slit painfully. A loud groan escaped him as she pressed herself against him, her arm wrapping firmly around his. He knew that the gesture was intended to assist him, but the simple touch sent his desire through him with an unintended spark of electricity.
Nerida cursed, her hands recoiling from him. Worried, his eyes roamed over her face, but instead of finding pain, the dark, round pupils of her eyes were expanded through the currently greenish hue of her iris. With a flare of his nostrils, he could scent the richness of her arousal flowing from her.
“Fuck, you’re like some sort of erotic electric eel.”
The last words made no sense to him.
“A what?”
“An aquatic creature from Earth… it was the first thing that came to mind,” she muttered as a flush of heat warmed her cheeks.
“Ah,” he panted as he struggled to contain his desires. That she was working amorously to his energy pulses could potentially lead to a disaster if they did not find a private place soon. “My kind generates pulses of energy. It is both defensive and erotic depending on what sort of pulse surges through us,” he explained.
“Wow,” she whimpered as she leaned further into him. “I’ve never felt anything like that.”
“No, I imagine not.” He swallowed thickly. He had to stop this. He would hate himself if she engaged with him when it was not something that she really wanted. “And it is affecting you in a way you probably do not realize. Come. We will go rest at this Deep Pearl…”
“Dark Pearl,” she corrected with a chuckle.
He smiled despite himself.
“Yes, that. We will clean ourselves, and I will free my tail… and then we will rest. And only rest,” he said firmly when her lip pushed out in an expression of dismay.
“But what if I am curious?” she murmured. “If that could feel so good, I can’t even imagine what all of you would feel like.”
He swallowed a moan and tilted his head back silently as he begged all the gods for strength not to give in. “If you give yourself some space to recover and still wish it, then it will be my pleasure to give you all that you desire,” he whispered hoarsely.
Nerida’s eyebrows raised.
“You would… and for what? Would that automatically make us mates?”
He was tempted to lie, to say that yes, the moment he had her that she was his forever, but he would not lie to her. In the e
nd it was her choice no matter what happened.
“No,” he replied. “It would be a step in that direction, but the bond requires more.”
She silently regarded him, an impish smile playing on those lips. Sighing, she leaned in and drew his head down to press her lips gently against his covered cheek.
“You are really a good, honorable male. I’m certain I will feel the same… but you are right, we can wait. Just in case.” She sighed. Her reluctance was obvious but the smile she gave him was sweet as she pressed her lips to him again, this time on his coat, directly over the center of his chest.
It was going to be torture, but a small part of him was relieved that she capitulated so easily rather than test his resolve. No matter how much he wanted her, he wanted her for keeps. He did not want to steal her trust from her.
Pressing his lips against her forehead in mimicry of her gesture, he held her close as they continued together down the corridor in search of the boarding house of which Rafneal mentioned. His heart soared as he felt the gentle pressure of her face nuzzling against his chest.
Hope thrummed through him that in the end, even after they embraced, that eventually she would truly want him—more than just the desire he triggered within her.
Chapter 20
Nerida felt like she was floating on a warm cloud of desire. She had to use all her concentration to navigate along the corridor in the direction of the port boarding houses. When she finally saw the sign for the Dark Pearl, she wanted to weep with relief that they had finally arrived. She didn’t know how much longer she would have been able to walk pressed up against Ji’wa’s side without doing something about the lust curling in her belly.
That desire was both welcome and a relief. For one, she never thought she would feel true desire after being promised to Erik. To be able to feel real passion not only given to her but her own body responding in kind was a precious gift that made her want to shout out in celebration. It was also a relief because it distracted her from less pleasant things—things she didn’t want to think of.
Resolutely, she pushed that thought away as she pressed her nose against Ji’wa’s hard chest. There would be time enough later to deal with it. Right now, she just wanted to enjoy what she was feeling even if they weren’t going to act on it immediately. She understood his concerns, and it touched her that he was so considerate. Nerida had little doubt of how she would feel, not after the taste she had of what that passion might be like before when they were on the boat.
A tremor ran through her with hot pools of liquid heat as another pulse shot through her. She didn’t know what exactly had made her think of an electric eel. It had come unbidden into her mind when she first felt it, perhaps because with her obsession with old Earth fauna. Even the fact that he had two different kinds of charges just like an electric eel did served to reinforce that imagery in her mind, even though she knew that in truth they were nothing alike.
Still, it sent her mind in playful directions as her hand cupped over the spot between his legs where she had seen the slit that kept everything tucked and hidden away. Perhaps it wouldn’t take much effort to make his little electric eel come out and play.
Ji’wa grunted, his nose burying into her hair as he leaned into her touch.
“Nerida, you tempt me,” he growled into her ear, sending another delightful shiver through her.
She wondered what he would think if he knew what his growly voice did to her as she wiggled and clenched her thighs together. He nudged forward, and she restrained a giggle, turning her head just in time to be aware of a counter and a wide-eyed woman watching them with no little amusement. Her hair had touches of gray to it, and there were faint lines on her face, but her expression was so jovial and open that she might have easily been an older sister rather than a woman likely closer to her mother’s age.
“My! It is so nice to see couples in love,” the woman gushed. “My husband and I have been together for twenty years, and I’m still a hopeless romantic with such things.”
Get it together, Nerida scolded herself as she focused on the woman in front of her. She offered what she thought might be a bright, if not entirely lust-filled smile.
“Hello. Are you Danya, by chance?”
The woman’s eyebrows winged up, but she smiled kindly. “That I am. And who might you be?”
“I’m Nerida, and this is my husband Jiar,” she blithely introduced Ji’wa. She could practically sense his shudder at her butchery of his name, but it was as close as it was going to get to a passably sounding human name. “Your husband Rafneal sent us here with a message to put our room on your account. He’s doing some work for us.”
“Is he? And he asked to put the room on our accounts as well? You must be paying him very well,” Danya remarked, skepticism weighing in her voice as she fiddled with her data screen pen.
“Very well,” Nerida confirmed. She understood the skepticism since neither of them looked like they would have any sort of credits like that. “He said that you can send a message to him if you need to, but I think Jiar can produce a sample of our trade to show you,” she offered with a slight nudge to her companion.
Ji’wa didn’t make a sound, but he complied immediately, his hand diving into his coat before digging out another odd gold disc. The woman dropped the data screen pen she had been toying with and gasped.
“What in the world…”
“It’s a very precious metal, and we sacrificed quite a sum in trade for the work, but since your husband wanted it to fashion a birthday gift for your eldest daughter, we considered it a worthwhile trade,” Nerida explained, her face flushing as Ji’wa returned the disc, pressing himself intimately against her as he moved to do so.
“That certainly explains a lot then,” Danya chuckled.
She picked up her data screen and hummed to herself as she flicked a finger over it. Making a selection on the data screen, she reached over to the lockbox to her left and pressed her thumb against the lockscreen on the lid. It flashed green and popped open. She shuffled through the contents and picked up a disc before swiping it against a bar on her data screen. A light flashed on the screen and Danya slid it over with a smile.
“Fifth floor, room two-thirty-three.”
“Thank you,” Nerida murmured as she picked up the activated code key. “Can you send a message to the raw goods intake that I have fish and varil crabs to be unloaded from my boat on the west dock, at spot eighty-four? Once they’re finished, they can send an itemized credit to my room and transfer the credits on my account here. I will collect them before I leave, with a five percent holding fee to the house, of course.”
“Very good. I’ll make sure it’s taken care of,” Danya assured her as she waved them away.
Nerida gave the proprietress a grateful smile and tugged Ji’wa to follow her as she walked over to the lift. At their approach, a door slid open, admitting them into the stark metal interior. It wasn’t exactly welcoming, but it was typical of many components used by the cities on the sea that were brought in more for functionality rather than aesthetics or comfort. The door slid silently shut as she turned to face them. She barely felt the compartment move as it climbed to the fifth floor, the doors sliding open just moments later. Ji’wa hummed softly to himself as they stepped onto their designated floor and she cast a curious glance in his direction.
The male gave her a small smile. “This tech is very much like our own,” he remarked.
Nerida grinned. “I imagine designing something that carries passengers or items from floor to floor might end up functioning very similarly across worlds.”
“I imagine so, though I confess sometimes I would like to see truly unusual technology. So far, I have been disappointed on that end. On the whole, things operate very similarly once you get past the difference in style and commands. Naturally, in colonization phase, familiarity is a very good thing.”
Nerida lifted an eyebrow as she led him toward their room. Our room. A shiver of anticip
ation zipped through her. She could have insisted that they maintain separate rooms, but even though she was certain she could have come up with a plausible reasoning for it, she knew it would make their story appear weaker.
“Do your people plan on making contact with us then?”
Ji’wa’s mouth tightened. “I do not know. Right now, the High Council is insisting we maintain a zero-contact policy… one I am dangerously disregarding without their knowledge or approval.”
“Are they concerned about conflict? I’m not sure that the royal governor on the mainland will even bother with a species sharing a part of our world that humanity barely populates to any degree. In truth, trade with you would likely be seen as advantageous once they’re certain you do not mean to attack.” She narrowed her eyes. “Your people wouldn’t attack, right?”
“I do not see any reason for them to issue an order for attack if there is no hostile movement made toward us. I cannot promise what High Command might decide, however, if your people attempt to infringe on what territory we establish or violate our nesting grounds. Nor would we recognize the authority of or submit to your royal governor,” he said as he followed her inside, his eyes turning to scan their surroundings.
Following his lead, Nerida also took the opportunity to look around as she settled on the single bed that took up most of the living space. The room had more of the same impersonal metal walls. There was at least some attempt at personality with a couple of random seascape holo-pics on the walls, the crashing waves in the picture bringing a sense of the outer world’s beauty inside. A short distance away, a large window dominated most of one wall. All that could be seen now was fog, and the odd rooftop breaking through it, but it was easy to imagine merchants enjoying a room such as this during the fairer months when they brought their trade.
Ji’wa stopped in front of one of the holo-pics and cocked his head to the side.
“The water in this image is different.”
Sirein: A Dystopian World Alien Romance Page 17