by Alana Khan
He moves his hand from my knee to the nape of my neck and pushes more serenity at me. It flows through me like a gently-moving brook. My nerves relax.
“I’ll scrape our plates and get you back to your room, Grace. Give me a moment.”
Chapter Six
Tyree
I offered to carry her back to her room, but she shook her head no. We quickly made our way through the hallways and I helped her over the threshold of her cabin. I sit in the chair after I settle her on the bed.
“I don’t know what happened, Grace, but I know it was my fault. I’m sorry. I just wanted to help you see that you could be yourself here. You could say what you like and what you don’t. I realize I made a mistake.”
After a long pause, “Not really, Tyree. You didn’t make a mistake. I was taught at an early age not to say no. Not to ask for what I want. I need to realize I’m a different person now. I have other options.”
She kicks off her shoes and slides under the covers. “I tried to say no the other day. I didn’t think it would be well received.”
Zar. The concert. It couldn’t have been more clear that she didn’t want to do it.
“We pressured you, Grace. That wasn’t right.”
“Actually it was. I know I should be stronger. Six hours of my anxiety is a small price to protect the lives of everyone on board. I understand. I want to perform those concerts on Emirus with every bone in my body. And my mind, it’s on board, too. It’s just my stupid emotions, they’re stuck in the past.”
“Okay, but I still shouldn’t have pushed you like that in the dining room.”
“The sacru sheswah tasted like shit. It shouldn’t have taken an act of God for me to admit it.” She gives me a shy smile. I’m glad to see it.
I have no idea what to do now. We have several hours before bed. I’m so new at this. “Do you want me to stay with you tonight? Or take off?
“You’ve been so kind, Tyree. I know I’ll never get any sleep tonight without you. Would you mind sleeping with me tonight? I found a show about ice fishing on planet Tenrehu. Fascinating. The fish they catch have twelve-inch-long teeth. Want to binge-watch?”
“Binge-watch?”
“Watch back to back until we fall asleep.”
“The way you describe the program that will take about ten minimas.”
“Oh, we can find something else…”
“Sure,” I tell her.
Grace
Interestingly, after today’s work in the solarium, I know I’ll be fine for the technical part of my performance. I’ve already written down the program I want to play and put it in order. I think it will flow nicely from easy-breezy, to serious, to a big dramatic finish. If I was a robot, I’d be fine right now. But I’m a human, a very anxious human with a performance phobia, and my nerves are still on overdrive. Thank goodness for Tyree.
I glance over at him, grabbing my computer pad off the desk. He’d fit in great on Earth. A little plastic surgery on those sexy ears and he’d take Hollywood by storm. My stomach does a little flip as I look at him.
“You ready for me?” he asks. “If not, I’ll just sit here and read.”
“My program’s complete. I’ll just do some practicing tomorrow and I’ll be all set.” I try to look composed and upbeat as I attempt to calm my rising hormones.
Tyree moves the computer pad to the bed, then toes off his shoes and slides under the covers. Luckily, he’s wearing a blue jumpsuit and not a loincloth like the other males wear most of the time. Some part of my brain believes this will provide an extra barrier between my lust and the object of my fantasies.
We get comfortable and start searching through the channels. The Intergalactic Database is supposed to carry the best vids of the known galaxy. All I know is I’d kill for some Dexter reruns.
After the better part of an hour, we settle on a wildlife program with National Geographic production values. The animals are amazing. It’s fascinating, but I’m more interested in Tyree, whose big body commands my full attention.
For some reason, I’m not focusing on the upcoming performance—my nerves seem steady. I’m busy watching Tyree from the corner of my eye. He seems interested in the snow bear of planet Zath. I’m more engrossed in him.
I’ve never touched his ears. They’re about five inches long and point up and back. They’re alluringly sexy and look velvety soft.
“Can I feel your ear?” Did that actually pop out of my mouth? What possessed me to say that? What happened to my filter?
His head pivots my way, his eyes wide.
I hide my head in my hands and mutter under my breath, “Sooo politically incorrect.”
“Well, I believe not that long ago I was encouraging you to ask for what you want. Go ahead.”
“Really? That wasn’t over the top?”
“Over the top? Yes. But go ahead.”
The vid is forgotten as I turn, bending my knee and putting weight on my hip, so I can see him better. I reach up to touch the top edge, where ear meets head, then slide my fingers up the silky-soft skin to the tip of his ear. It doesn’t end in a sharp point but isn’t particularly rounded. My fingers explore behind, to the delicate skin that faces his head, then along the fascinating ridges inside the ear.
I take the time to study his face. His eyes are shuttered, his lips are slightly parted. His breathing is uneven, and his nostrils are flared. I’ve aroused him. I snatch my hand back as if it were on fire.
He startles back to the present, opens his mouth as if to say something, then snaps it shut again.
“Sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why?”
“Uh. It was forward. It was…” a lover’s touch.
He spears me with his glowing emerald gaze. I see an internal fight rage inside him and then, “My life has turned upside down, Grace. A slave for a quarter century—now free. Tiny and sexless—now tall and male. You’d think I’d need time to resolve things, to figure out who I am and what I want. But right now I know one thing with more certainty than anything I’ve ever known.
“I’m drawn to you, Grace. I want...I want to know you, to care for you, to protect you. The way you just touched me, Grace, I want that. And I want to touch you that way, too.” His voice is husky and full of passion.
He’s staring at me. I’m always beating around the bush, and here he is, holding nothing back. I feel like it’s that moment in the Wizard of Oz when everything goes from black and white to color. Nothing can ever be the same as it was a moment ago.
Every nerve and synapse in my body comes online. I’m fully alive in a way I’ve never been before. He told me to ask for what I want. I’m usually so focused on taking care of everyone around me I’m seldom aware of my own needs. I shut off those pesky things like wishes and desires years ago. And now they’re hurtling at me, like meteors bombarding a defenseless planet, crashing all around me.
What do I want? More.
“Yes.” I hope it’s all I have to say. It is. Because he reaches out in slow motion. His eyes pinning mine, making certain this is what I want. “Yes,” I repeat, to leave no doubt.
The smallest smile crosses his face, then his muscles tighten, he looks so serious, as his long, strong fingers land softly on my chin, then travel up my jawline to my ear. He traces the inner circles of my ear, causing me to shiver.
He lifts a questioning eyebrow, perhaps wondering if it was a good shiver or a bad one. I tilt my head toward him and press his hand closer. His fingers sift through my hair and land firmly on the back of my head. Leaning in, he pulls me gently toward him. We meet in the middle, our lips colliding sweetly.
I can barely breathe, my thoughts are spinning.
The press of his mouth is soft lips with a firm touch. He slides his lips back and forth against mine. This intimacy, just this, catapults me into a different place, a different self. It’s a rite of passage. I know my life will never, ever be the same from this moment forward. The gentle, almo
st restrained touch of his flesh on mine places me solidly into uncharted territory.
This isn’t friendship anymore. This is sexual. I’ve crossed the line and am now a sexual being.
I’m tired of thinking and worrying and second-guessing. This feels too fantastic. More. I want more.
I reach up and crook my arm around his neck, effectively linking us together. “Mmmm,” I say, and shiver again, the vibration tickling and arousing at the same time.
He leans back slightly, then bestows on me another kiss. Soft and brief and chaste. It ignites a fire in me. The heat flies along my synapses from lips to nipples to clit. Arousal.
I want more kisses.
And he complies—harder, just the slightest bit more pressure. Many kisses. Raining kisses. Full-on kisses. Side-of-the-mouth kisses. Now cheek and eyelid and nose kisses. And back to my lips where he nibbles their fullness. Almost as if he wants to pluck them with his own.
My breath is coming in little pants. My body is alive in ways I’ve never felt before. Some hidden, prehistoric instinct arrows a picture into my brain—me straddling his lap, riding him. Slow down, Grace. Allow this kiss to blossom.
Both my hands surround him now, hidden in his soft hair, pressing his mouth closer to mine. My hands roam down his back, touching material-clad shoulder blades, strong muscles, and the narrow inlet of his waist.
“Mmmm,” an inarticulate moan escapes me. Perhaps it’s this noise that spurs him to explore further. The tip of his tongue slips out and slides along the seam of my lips. I’m sure he feels my smile, the corners of my mouth curve up. He presses harder, and my sluggish brain finally comprehends his attempt to enter.
My tongue sneaks out to greet him. The tips of our tongues dance shyly for a moment, and then more confidently. I feel playful and deadly serious at the same time. I’ve talked and eaten with this tongue for twenty-six years, how is it I’ve never experienced this feeling? This warm, yearning, sensuality? My core is tight and hungry, with just these little kisses.
Then he deepens the kiss, pressing into me, breaching the threshold. There is a lovely yielding sensation. An exchange of power. The passing of the baton. He’s in charge.
And now I’m playing with him. Circling his tongue with mine. It’s a game of give and take. No winners, no losers. Just this exciting, sensual dance. He brushes my tongue with his. A burst of electrical energy floods my pelvis. I want pressure, stroking...penetration? So compelling. So this is how people get carried away. The urge feels so strong, and yet I know I’m completely in control of myself.
Tyree pulls away, causing me to drag my lids open to look at him. “So good,” he breathes, almost no sound to his words. “Takes my breath away.” He’s panting, his face more serious than I’ve ever seen it.
He jumps off the bed, turns his back, unzips his jumpsuit and fumbles under his clothes. I assume he’s rearranging himself. If I could, I’d be doing the same. It’s just that my desires aren’t so obvious—the painful yearning is internal.
“Best kiss I’ve ever had,” I laugh. “You too?”
“Absolutely,” he tosses me a molten look over his shoulder. “Incomparable.”
“This is one for the books. Thirty-five and twenty-six and we’ve never been kissed. It would be an oddity on Earth,” I tell him.
“I can’t imagine sharing that with anyone but you, Grace. That,” he glances at my lips and I see his muscles tighten with desire, “was worth waiting for.”
“I agree.” I take mental inventory of my thoughts and emotions and the interesting whirling energy slicing through my body. For the first time in days, I’m calm without Tyree’s psychic treatments. My body’s on fire, but I feel great. “No regrets,” I reassure both myself and him.
“I don’t know if I can do any more of that without...losing control and pushing you, Grace. Can we take a break?”
I nod. He’s right. Neither of us has enough experience to step on the breaks if things get even more incendiary.
“Hungry? I know this place that serves a great sacru sheswah,” he grins and winks.
“How did you know that’s what I was craving?” Practically jumping out of bed, I glance in the mirror and notice my too-bright eyes and just-kissed lips. I think of the other females’ reactions if they knew what went on in this bed. I decide I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone might think. All I know is Tyree was right, if we don’t get out of this room right now things are going to progress way too fast.
Tyree
We’re like two kids who’ve run away from home and don’t know where they’re going, just going “away.” I try not to let her see my delighted shock when she playfully grabs my hand and pulls me toward the dining area.
I never spent much time in a kitchen, but she seems competent enough as she stands in front of the open door of the food cooler and rummages around in there.
“You really liked the sack of shit, right?”
I don’t believe I’ve ever heard her cuss before—well, except for what she said to Gren—she was spectacular when she did that. I’ve also never seen her so relaxed. I decide I definitely like this new Grace.
“Sack of shit, Grace? Did that translate correctly?”
“Sacru sheswah, sack of shit...whatever.” She shrugs.
“Sacru sheswah? Yes, loved it. It was so delicious. Is there any left?”
“By the look on the Earth women’s faces, there’s bound to be a ton of it in here somewhere. Here it is.”
She lifts a container between thumb and forefinger as if she can barely tolerate touching the clear vessel.
“If it’s too disgusting, you don’t have to warm it for me.”
“For you, big boy, anything.”
Did she wink at me? Is this happening? There was an old children’s tale on Larian about monsters who came down from the mountains and stole children’s souls, exchanging them for another’s. The thought flies through my head that my kiss took Grace away and gave me someone else. But I like this new Grace. She’s even more dazzling with a smile on her face.
She dishes some of the “sack of shit” as she calls it, onto a plate. “Enough?”
“More.”
A few more spoonfuls. “Enough?”
“A little more.”
She’s almost emptied the container, so now she dumps the thing upside down and fills my plate until it’s almost overflowing. She places the plate in the heating machine and turns it on, then goes back to the cold box to rummage for something for herself.
“Kindapeanutbutter!” she exclaims as she holds aloft a container she found in the cupboard next to Maddie’s freshly-baked bread.
“Go get a chair from the other room,” she orders, pointing a knife covered with kindapeanutbutter at the dining area. I come back with two chairs, but she’s already sitting cross-legged on the huge metal prep table in the middle of the kitchen with her sandwich on a little plate on her lap. My heaping plate, with gravy dripping over the rim, is set at the edge, a knife and fork nearby.
She scoots to the far end of the square table, as far from me as possible. I blink several times. Is she having second thoughts? Did leaving her for a moment to get chairs from the other room change her mood?
“I can’t even stand the smell of that, Tyree. You enjoy yourself. You might have to take a shower before I allow you back in my bed.” Her eyes widen in surprise. “Whoops. Was that presumptuous of me? You are coming back to my room tonight, right?” She cocks her head in question.
“I’m eating every dracking bite of this sack of shit, and then I’d be happy to take a shower.” I realize I’ll need one to relieve myself—a couple of times—if I’m going to spend the night in her bed. The bed in which we just shared the most blazing kiss in the history of the universe. “Then I’d be happy to lie in bed with you, Grace. Maybe we’ll even sleep.” I smile and raise an eyebrow in innuendo.
To make sure she knows I didn’t mean to pressure her, I use my fork to fling a small, unidentified, food-l
ike object at her; I’d found it hidden in the gravy.
“Seriously? Are you starting a food fight? After midnight? In Maddie’s kitchen?”
She darts off the table and seems to be on the hunt for something to throw at me. I had no idea what I’d started.
“I hate to waste food.” She shrugs after not finding anything that fits her criteria. Just as I relax she comes up behind me and smashes something all over my face. I reach up to feel furrows of sticky stuff all over my cheek.
I’m up out of my seat and running after her before she could expect it. I smash my cheek against her face, squishing whatever it is all over her.