by Lydia Hope
He bent down, and the rasp of his tongue against her nipple made her whimper. Clutching handfuls of his angelic hair, Gemma threw her head back as he explored her breasts in every little detail. He laved her nipples with his tongue until she thought she was going to die in his arms. He then pushed her breasts together and paid close attention to the valley between them, and nipped the underside of each fleshy globe.
She wiggled, her body thoroughly wet and ready for the next step, but he remained flat under her rocking hips.
Emboldened, she reached down to touch his crotch. His glittering eyes told her he was aroused, yet there was no other physical evidence.
He allowed her access by spreading his legs wider, and her searching fingers made contact with the skin there.
“Do you like being touched here? Does it make you excited?”
“You make me excited.” His long fingers skimmed her buttocks under the thin underwear.
“I want to see you,” the words spilled out of her mouth. And once said, she couldn't, wouldn't take them back. She wanted to see that part of him that he kept so carefully hidden, by intent or through nature, she didn’t know. She wanted to know.
Simon’s brows rose, a gentle mockery she found she had gotten used to. “That part of me isn’t meant to come out before you’re ready.”
“I’m ready.”
One casual flick of his clawed hand, and he ripped her underwear off her. He pulled her hips forward, in position, her wet entrance smack over his shooting point. “Now you are ready.”
Her breath hitched again at the experience of being handled so easily by this large male. This close, where she could feel his muscles tightening as he moved, his power electrified her.
Still, Gemma resisted. “But I want to see you. Can’t you… you know, let out?”
He shook his head, the hair rippling. It, and his velvety skin, felt decadent.
“I have to feel you to release. Right here. I need your wetness and your heat. Or my body wouldn’t obey.”
“Why is everything so complicated with you?”
It amused him, she could tell by his voice. “Protective instincts. Unlike my teeth, my equipment can’t grow back.”
She wiggled, getting free of his hold, and he let her go. Without another word, she slid off his lap and pressed her face to his crotch. His breath caught and she heard him say something guttural, probably a curse. She licked him right on the skin that protected the resurging port of his member. The smell of him was stronger in this point, musky, alluring, and to her human side, strange. There was no comparison to it on Earth. He was all Rix there.
Rubbing him gently with her fingers, she said, “You can release now,” her eager mouth hovering right over, knowing he’d oblige. He’d be powerless not to.
Did he ever. The length of him filled her mouth, and she grasped the base as it emerged, holding him tight. Yeah, he was too full, she’d known that already. And shaped different, which she had not. Generally speaking, his shaft resembled that of a human male, only sharper, an arrow more than a mushroom. And like his body, it was solidly molded, one impressive piece of work with three horizontal slits decorating the top, already leaking light-blue of his semen.
She drew him into her mouth, making him gasp and his hips buck. His secretions hit her tongue, astringent and flavorsome. She sucked harder and felt him expand, as if he tried to hold off filling out all the way, and lost. A web of firm bluish veins popped all over his shaft, ribbing its entire surface, and Gemma let her tongue follow each one in detailed exploration. The veins made his member ridged, prominently so, and her core responded with a clench remembering the feel of all this rich texture rubbing against her inner walls.
She licked and sucked him, and fondled the funny skin that, too, filled out with his arousal, forming a pliant cushion around the base, decorated with short soft spikes, akin oversized bumps. Weird as fuck, but when rubbed against, they felt freakishly stimulating.
And that was what Gemma did, rubbed and kissed and licked every inch of him, and then she did it all over again, inhaling his smell, tasting his essence, and drowning in the absolute, all-consuming pleasure that the intimacy with no other creature in the Universe could bring her.
He finally dragged her up and took her to bed, flipping her on her back, legs spread. No words passed between them. They exchanged no sweet kisses. He pushed in, and he fucked her, his otherworldly eyes locked on her face, capturing every blush, every expression of ecstasy that contorted her features. She wanted to scream his name when she came, but she had no voice, and she forgot his name. She forgot her own, and the world ceased to exist for a brief intense moment when she bucked under him, convulsing, the pleasure rocketing through her, lighting up every nerve ending she possessed, obliterating higher reasoning and civilized behavior, and leaving behind only raw, unadulterated lust.
They hadn’t accomplished much that day. Instead, Simon chose to do some reconnaissance nearer to the docks. Hat pulled low to hide his oversized eyes, he and Gemma walked the streets around the junkyard. It was surreal to see familiar places while walking by his side. The high walls of the prison rising at a close distance gave Gemma the feeling of being watched despite sporting no windows.
“Aren’t you afraid of this place?” She shivered as she asked.
“The prison? No.”
“Not even the tiniest bit?”
“No. It’s just a place.”
She could see he didn’t quite get why she asked.
“You were locked up there, starved, and near killed by inmates. Makes for a lot of bad memories.”
“I don’t think about it.”
She chuckled. “Good for you. I think I have enough of the bad memories for both of us.”
With the ever-increasing number of migrants in the City, the junkyard was no longer the desolated area it had once been. People encroached, seeking shelter and something, anything they could scavenge and sell. It had become a challenge to get around during the day without being seen.
Simon was worried that Butan would be discovered for the gem it was.
“It looks painfully derelict from the outside,” Gemma assured him. “No one in their right mind would give it a second look.”
“It’s only a matter of time.”
“Time,” Gemma mused, “has become our enemy. We better hurry.”
“Yes and no. You can’t rush the preparations,” he cautioned. “The ship has to be ready. It’s not ready yet.”
“What’s there left to do?”
Simon enumerated tasks yet to be done, and Gemma deflated. How could the two of them prepare and launch a spaceship? It was crazy. Their plan was only a dream, a beautiful, shimmering fantasy created by two desperate and lonely people. Hope for a better future, never to be realized.
With a great effort, Gemma steered her thoughts away from the gloomy path. She had to believe Simon knew what he was doing even when she had no clue. She had to trust him, her Rix male who wasn’t prone to empty fantasies. He never dreamed. Human fancies, that’s what he called them. No, Simon operated strictly in doables.
He’d procured and already modified the main navigation system - the apparatus Gemma had seen him tinker with on her first day at the hideout - to replace Butan’s old one that missed parts. It had yet to be installed and tested for interfacing with the ship’s native infrastructure, but Simon wasn’t too worried about that.
Other items on their to-do list were a bit more monumental. For instance, Butan needed fuel to generate enough upward thrust to break out of Earth’s gravitational pull.
Gemma frowned. “I thought that the magic crystal powder was there for it.”
“That’s to propel us when we’re in space. To lift the craft off in this planet’s conditions, we need liquid nitrogen.”
Oh, really. She spread her arms wide, surrounded by decaying machinery and nothing else. “Where do you find liquid nitrogen around here?”
“At the docks,” he replied, like D
uh! it was totally obvious.
It wasn’t. “And take it away how?”
“I admit, we need a plan.”
A plan…
An idea formed in Gemma’s mind.
“Simon, I just thought of something.”
“What?” he sounded extremely wary.
“I will go to the docks. I will get myself hired for the day, and get us some liquid nitrogen.”
Simon tried very hard and failed to look like he thought her plan had merit.
“I hate to point it out, but you have a dismal track record of getting work at the docks.”
“I am positive I won’t fail this time.” Gemma was convinced of her success. She knew where her mistakes with the mushroom man had lain, and she wouldn't be repeating them.
“Suppose you get a job,” Simon said slowly, “but liquid nitrogen isn’t something you can pick up carry away in your pocket.”
She smiled. “No. But I can pour it in a jar and walk away very slowly. You said we only need a gallon, to force-spin the ionic rotors.”
He wasn’t convinced. “It’s dangerous. Inside the docks, you’ll be on your own.”
“We may not have a choice.” She may not be physically strong and combat-ready, but she was able to bluff her way through the dock gates like nobody’s business. She touched his hand. “You can’t get within a mile of the docks. The security’s been increased after Perali tried to steal a freighter. They shoot aliens on sight. Me - nobody will suspect.”
“I don’t like your plan, Gemma.”
“Do you have a better one?”
“I don’t,” he hesitated slightly before adding, “but I have a jar.”
The daylight was still lingering when they returned to the Tana-Tana’s prime piece of junkyard real estate they called home. They came up to the place from the back, careful to avoid the street view. Gemma never saw a living soul anywhere around, but Simon had cautioned her time and again that the ruins had eyes and ears where you least expected them.
It was because of the daylight that Gemma spotted something strange sticking from the crawlspace under the building: a pair of feet clad in thick-soled boots. She stopped in her tracks.
“What is this?”
The question hung unanswered between them, and she knew with a sinking feeling what Simon didn’t want to confirm.
“Is this a dead body?”
Hating what she was about to see, she reluctantly approached the dark hollow under the bottom of their shack.
She expected to see a corpse.
What she hadn’t expected was to find a stack of them, a good dozen neatly piled up under the house like split firewood.
Recoiling, she fell back a step.
“Please tell me you didn’t kill all these people.”
They were a mix of humans and aliens. There was crusted blood frozen onto some of the bodies. One’s head had been bashed in, like the Tana-Tana’s.
“I did.” He didn’t sound particularly contrite.
Gemma turned to look at his face, searching for guilt and remorse in his alien features, and finding neither.
“Who were they?”
“Customers.”
She had trouble forming words. “You mean, people who came to trade with you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” she whispered in utter dejection.
“They saw me.”
She cupped her hands over her mouth. Except for her, he had killed every single creature he’d come in contact with since making his escape from the prison.
Something broke inside Gemma. “But… you can’t!” she shrieked at him. “You can’t go around killing people because you feel like it! It’s wrong. You have to stop. You. Have. To. Stop.” Her voice had gone shrill, and she was losing it.
Simon, correctly reading the deteriorating situation, slapped a hand over her mouth and scooped her up, easily overpowering her puny resistance. He quickly wrestled her inside the house, shutting the door behind them to stifle her loud yells.
As soon as his hand left her mouth, she screamed at him, “Even wild animals don’t kill unless they’re hungry. Killing is wrong! Lives matter.”
“No, they don’t,” he countered calmly.
His careless attitude outraged Gemma. “Did these people threaten you? Harm you? No, they didn’t. You have no right to take lives.”
Something of her vehemence must’ve gotten past the impenetrable layer of indifference covering his emotions. He leaned down to be eye-to-eye with her and got into her face.
“How do you humans put it? Loose lips sink ships. It takes one casual comment made on the street to out this place. Believe me, you won’t be so self-righteous when Dr. Delano and his merry band of orderlies come knocking. I can’t risk my safety. I won’t risk yours.”
Gemma sucked in a deep breath, unnerved by his anger but also somewhat subdued by his mention of Dr. Delano.
“But killing, Simon? How could you?”
“Easy.”
He straightened up and left her, yanking the curtain with feeling as he passed, ripping it off the rail.
Great, now there was nothing between their bed and the dead Tana-Tana.
They didn’t talk for the rest of the day. Gemma went into the bathroom and took her time there, lingering under the spray. When she emerged from behind the partition, Simon was gone, and so was their dead landlord. She went to bed without waiting for Simon to return and fell asleep unhappy and uneasy.
She woke up suddenly, feeling a presence in the room. The night was almost over, the first light of dawn lightening the window behind the tattered drapes.
Simon was standing over her.
“Where have you been?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep.
“At the ship. I worked on the oxygen circulation system.”
“Oh.”
“What did you think I was doing?” His eyes were flat and challenging.
“I didn’t think anything.”
“Good.”
He was so big, towering over the bed. Massive. Cunningly smart and primitive at the same time. Looking up at him, Gemma stared at the underside of his mulish chin and the strong column of his throat with the tattoos. His different nose. The soft fuzz.
So many differences between them. Worlds apart.
“Are you going to rest?” she asked tentatively.
“I’m not tired.”
He moved restlessly but didn’t walk away.
“Is it almost time to… ah, bring back the landlord?”
Simon shook his head. “He isn’t coming back. I expect no more customers.”
Gemma exhaled with relief. “I’m glad. On both accounts.”
He said nothing.
She threw aside the covers, showing him that she was naked under them.
He regarded her at length.
“Tell me the truth, Gemma. Are you afraid of me?” his liquid voice caressed.
“Terrified,” she confessed.
He fell on her.
His hands were everywhere, shaping her body, memorizing it. His mouth did shameless things to her secret parts, and she cried out once, twice, losing count. She strained to get closer to him until their mouths were fused, until he covered her and she accepted him deep into his body, his arms around her, her legs wrapped tightly around his middle. His smell filled her lungs with each labored breath. His taste burst on her tongue, saturating her entire being with the essence of him. And she knew he felt the same.
They weren’t together; they were one.
Chapter 27
The next morning, Gemma found herself standing in the familiar line in front of the docks. Her neatly tucked-in work clothes were much more appropriate than her previous attire of a fitted girly coat with ruffled hem and big mismatched buttons. Her face under the tight-knit hat looked fresh and clean, with cheeks no longer sunken deep from hunger. Her eyes projected, she knew, a quiet self-assurance instead of the acute anxiety and desperation of the before.
I
n short, she looked like a different person. She was a different person.
The gate opened, and the man in the mushroom hat appeared. Gemma told herself not to fidget like Simon had instructed, and not to throw her arm up too high so as not to appear overeager. A lot hinged on her getting inside the docks’ walls.
“Two men for the assembly line, extra pay for chemical hazard,” the recruiter intoned.
Many shouted out that they were willing. Gemma kept still, knowing the competition for the extra pay would be too fierce for her to even try.
“Freight delivery loaders, four men needed. Strong only.”
Gemma tensed as this job would have been perfect, with easy access to the landing and takeoff area and all the fuel nearby. But strong only meant no girls, she’d learned from before that the mushroom man would only get annoyed at pesky false-starters.
She stayed put while a large number of burly males trampled over each other in their haste to get the coveted spot. It would have been comical to watch if it weren’t so sad. People were reduced to fighting their own kind for survival. Truly, Earth was coming to a pitiful end.
An hour later, after several swing-but-no-hits, Gemma was directed through the gates to a small platform where an open tram with metal benches stopped to pick up workers and deliver them to far-flung corners of the dock area.
I did it, went ‘round and ‘round Gemma’s mind.
She was in.
Her assigned job for the day was simple: using a small hand-held magnet, she was to crawl around the recharging bay and collect minuscule metal particles that got stuck in the pavement cracks. An explosion had thrown metals around during the Perali attack, and now the residue was messing up the sensitive equipment - badly enough to pay for the clean-up.
Gemma couldn't decide if she should be flattered or offended for being looked upon like someone who could handle the job.
The tram zoomed along the walled perimeter of the docks with astonishing speed and no safety precautions. You grabbed what you could get a hold of, and you held on. Likewise, protection from the elements had never entered the minds of tram engineers, and cold air blasted Gemma in the face, threatening to rip her hat right off her head as they flew terrifyingly close to heavy machinery in full operation.
