by Amanda Milo
It doesn’t seem like the translation could get clearer. Breslin’s not looking for an I’m-stranded-for-now, we-like-each-other, let’s-have-fun fling. He wants more. So do I.
But I’d have to give up everything.
That’s all. Just everything.
Breslin’s going to kill me and it’ll be accidental on his part but I’ll be dead all the same. Because I want it all: I want him, and I want my home—I want everything, I want it all so much it hurts.
We’re in bed, and I can feel warm patches on me where the sunlight is pouring in through the windows. Breslin’s slept late and I know this because he’s sprawled on top of me.
I love it.
I’d love it more if he wasn’t dead asleep.
I want to wiggle backward and find out if he’s hard this morning, but I don’t.
My self control is honestly astounding. It’s also draining, and this is what’s going to be the death of me. Every time Breslin hugs me tighter in his sleep, tugs me closer, tucks his chin harder against my neck or half-nuzzles into my hair…
I want to turn in his arms and attack him with my mouth, with my hands—with my starving vagina.
He’s really making the celibacy choice painful.
His breathing changes—his chest bows out with his inhale, shoving me deeper into the mattress and my back arches in response and YES he is hard and it’s sublime.
When he growls to clear his throat, my eyes roll back in my head.
“Good rising, Sanna.”
I can’t even talk to him. He has no idea that if I open my mouth, I will beg him for things. Mostly filthy, filthy things.
But I also want to beg him for things he can’t give me. Like him. Coming home with me. How can I even think to ask him to do the very thing I’m struggling with—walking away from everything he’s ever known? The kicker is, his people have been nothing but welcoming to me—warmly so, the alien in their midst.
Earth isn’t going to be like this.
Earth’s pretty much going to be the exact opposite of this.
To be together, I’d need to be the one to make the sacrifice because Breslin can’t do it for me.
I think he would. If Earth wouldn’t totally freak out about his arrival, exotic animals have a market and he could make a killing selling predator horses—who wouldn’t want to try them out? He’d be like a celebrity alien-equine trainer and we’d live happily ever after on some acreage far away from sheep and cattle farms. (Because yeah, okay—we’d have to find a place where animals won’t break into the Narwari’s fences and accidentally get themselves drawn in and eaten.)
It’s basically a Disney princess story in the making.
I sigh, and Breslin sleepily nuzzles right across my nape. For as heavy as thoughts are weighing on my mind, my body is aware of two things: it has needs, and the alien it wants to satisfy its needs with is, for all intents and purposes, pinning us to the bed.
My body has given all horizontal action from here on out a green light. Chemicals and hormones are being dumped throughout my system, threatening to shut down my thinking brain and just go wild doing the fun thing.
Unaware of my turmoil, Breslin peels himself off of my back, and I want to cry.
Here this alien just wants to get up and go about his busy work day. He’ll train his animals to ride and he’ll do it without breaking a sweat, while I on the other hand want to stay in bed and get very sweaty riding him all day.
His hand lands over my blanket-swaddled hip and I brace myself because he’s always sweet-touching me—cute little touches that for him seem to be nothing more than genuine displays of affection, but to me, they turn me into a raging lust beast with a voracious appetite for a Garthmaw.
Affectionately, (always affectionately—why does he have to be so nice? Why? This alien deserves affection in return and I want to be the one to slather it on him. How am I supposed to fight how I feel for him when he’s so dang appealing all the dang time?) he asks, “You coming with me today?”
I bite my cheeks until I can control myself. Breslin’s got his sexy-rough sleep voice on and he’s asking me if I want to come with him? Only in all the ways. “I’ll follow in a bit.”
His hand slides three and a half inches—I can tell you exactly because I’ve never been more attuned to a touch on my body in my entire life—and he pats me.
It’s like light taps to the cushioned parts of my backside.
Breslin’s basically spanking my ass.
He. Is. Killing! Me!
“I look forward to you coming—”
ME TOO: LET’S DO THIS! RIGHT NOW IS GOOD. SO GOOD.
“—along with me today. We could make a day of it after the trimming if you want. Have a meal in town. Sound good?”
“Sounds so good,” I manage.
Breslin spanks my ass again in his completely oblivious way and I bury my face into my pillow and bite it.
The sound of him dressing this morning is not nice: it’s pure torture and when he finally leaves for chores, he braces himself over me, and I feel the mattress depress on either side of my head and my imagination imagines a very different reason for this. I reach out and feel around until I confirm that he’s balancing on his knuckles as he hangs over me. There may or may not be a flutter happening on my insides as a direct result to this data. Ditto for the flutter when my thumbs brush his bulging arms.
His lips touch the top of my head.
The aching spot between my legs clenches so hard, I choke on a whimper.
He pulls back a little. “Are you alright?”
NOPE. I AM NOT. “Umm hmm. I’m great. I’ll follow you out in a bit.”
The moment the door shuts behind him, I don’t wait to politely make sure he didn’t forget anything. I roll to my stomach, shove my hand into my panties and come twice without any effort and not nearly as much relief as I need. I reach around for a pillow and cram it against my pelvis and hump out a third orgasm, and finally, I can think again. I desperately try to make that thinking be about something other than incredible sex with Breslin, though admittedly, I don’t manage my goals well.
A voice booms through the walls, startling me and making Kota clamber to her feet with a clatter of nails on wooden floor boards.
“LAZY SALK!” Breslin’s all cheery good nature. “COME, COME.”
There’s a command I fully endorse. My inner muscles still twitching, I’m unthinkingly making my way off the bed, fitting Kota’s harness on, and heading in the direction of Breslin’s voice before I’ve so much as gone to the bathroom or put on a fresh set of clothes.
This alien has me tied in knots and he’s not even trying.
I wasn’t sex starved when I left home. Breslin with his aliensiren self, all hotness and rock-like body, he’s melting my brain. Actually, he’s turning me into a zombie who isn’t moaning for brains—just sex. Lots and lots of sex.
And Breslin. I’m starting to mindlessly want Breslin.
CHAPTER 20
BRESLIN
I pull another hair from my mouth. This human female sheds terribly. I find them in my food, curled up in the sink drain, sticking in our bedding, and clinging to the wash basin even after I wipe it dry and hang it on the wall to keep it out of the way. So it should be no surprise when I raise the brush I’m using to gather Sanna’s hair for plaiting and find the bristles gummed up beyond reason. Nevermind that it’s been sent through only a handful of pulls of her lively mass. “Your shedding problem is rivaled only by your pet’s,” I say under the pretense of grousing.
With unerring ease, she snatches the brush from my hands and feigns indignation. “You’re just jealous because we have hair.”
I smirk down at her as I go back to weaving hers into the decorative little braids she taught me how to make. I find them fetching.
“Even your Narwari don’t have hair,” she continues, sounding less teasing and somewhat stymied by this.
“They do too,” I counter.
“Whe
re?”
“Their tails,” I say, even while I admit to myself that this claim is a bit of a stretch.
“I’ve owned brooms with softer bristles, you’re a liar—that’s not hair,” she finishes in one breath before her voice turns serious, “Sweeping will cut down on the loose hair floating everywhere.” Sanna’s fingers close over my forearm. “I can’t believe I didn’t think to ask you for one until now. I’ll absolutely sweep up if you have a broom.”
My gaze zeroes in on our connection. She finds it incredible that men will toss extra coins in the payment bag just because a pretty salk smiles at them. But Sanna has a way of making a man feel good. Here she is trying to talk about household chores and just this smallest contact of her hand on my arm makes me want to roll her to her back.
Instead, I growl, “Hold still,” and finish her last braid before I lose my sense and tackle her to the bed.
Unaware, she continues to argue with me because she loves to engage in battles of words, which is what all of our discussions seem to end in. “But let me guess: if you have a broom, it really is made of Narwari tails, isn’t it?” She raises her brows, and I watch as one out distances the other. “Is it made of Meesahrah? You’re always threatening that poor salk.”
I shake off the hunger for her that I sometimes wonder if she’s completely unaware of. I’d make my interest plain if I thought Sanna would consider me for her lifemate, but from the beginning, she’s made her intention to return home nothing but clear.
I respect that. Somehow, I have to accept that. There will come a day when I have to say goodbye. I can feel my dread for that day building every second I breathe her scent, feel her warm softness brush me at night, and every moment we spend apart. It shouldn’t be this difficult: after all, aren’t I used to being temporary?
I click my teeth, clearing my head and getting into the game. I have to clear my throat twice before I can manage it. “‘Poor salk? Poor salk?’ Bah. The contents of the broom’s bristles are—”
From a plant, actually.
“—nothing I’m going to confirm for you.”
“Ha! I knew it!” she caws.
Kota’s gaze roves from one of us to the other, assessing our moods and deciding I’m not about to attack and consume her mistress or any of the things this animal used to worry about when we first met.
I nod to her. Securing one’s trust is done in much the same fashion as one builds a steadfast rampart: brick by brick—and she’s really come far where I’m concerned.
Absently, I start to scoop up the odds and ends of human mane care things Sanna’s helped me collect for her. I’m caught up in Sanna’s scent and the happiness she makes me feel and my tense disquiet for the day she’ll be gone so that when her silk-skinned hand catches my arm, without thinking, I catch it back, and drop over her on the bed, pinning her body in place.
“I can put it all away,” she says a bit breathlessly. “You shouldn’t have to do all the chores around here. Especially when it’s my mess. And Breslin, I can do this.”
What she means is ‘let me do something.’
Oh San San. If you only knew what I wish you would do...
You can’t keep her. She wants to return home.
I struggle with myself but in the end, I let her up and offer a brisk, “Let’s have this dinner we keep threatening each other with.” I’ve been saying she’ll charm everyone in the place, and she jests that if that happens (and the men keep throwing money at her as they do) she’ll be able to afford to buy up all the alien realestate and she’ll roll around town in a ‘pihmmpwagon’ with wheels made of gold.
Which is outrageous. Gold is too soft to make a wheel you can rely on.
When I pointed that out, she just laughed and laughed, and I knew that if we’d been sitting in a restaurant just then, that her jest of becoming kritted rich could be halfway to a reality. Her laugh is addictive and awe-inducing. Perhaps it’s simply the effect of her being a human, and it’s an ability her race possesses.
Or perhaps it’s just my Sanna.
“I’d love to go to dinner with you,” she says softly, all trace of teasing gone.
And crite, the way she’s nibbles on her bottom lip is almost more dangerous than her smile and her laugh combined. I don’t know what she’s mulling over, but this look she’s wearing now—it has me wanting to draw her into my arms.
But I don’t. I turn away to get ready to take her out for a night of revelry.
I know our time together is on a backwards count according to whatever the Na’rith’s timetable is for their Earthen voyage. All of the moments I have left with Sanna, I want spent well. It doesn’t seem possible, but I’m terribly attached to her already, and I’m going to miss her fiercely when she leaves me.
CHAPTER 21
SANNA
Going to the restaurant is different. First off, Breslin examines Ekan’s clothes options with quiet deliberation, and then he spends quite a bit of time digging through a wooden box. He sets it just in front of my knees and when I put my hands inside with him, I feel all sorts of things—some of which feels like jewelry. I examine what I think might be a chunky-styled necklace. A pair of heavy rings.
Breslin murmurs in approval when I lift a slightly smaller necklace with oddly carved dangling pieces. “That was my grandmother’s. It’s made of Narwari bone.”
I’m ready to drop it but he laughs and closes my hand tighter over it instead. “The Narwari this ivory was harvested from had already passed away. It was her favorite mount, and she wanted something more to remember him by. A good number of the salks on this farm trace back to him.”
“That’s kind of cool,” I finally say, meaning it.
“May I put it on you?”
I guess an ivory necklace isn’t weird. At least this was humanely, legally harvested. “All right.”
I bend my neck and his slightly rough-skinned arms brush past my cheeks before I feel his touch at my nape, rolling the clasp tightly closed. “There,” he murmurs, and a shiver zips down my spine.
“Let me see,” he orders.
I straighten, collecting myself and deciding I like the weight and feel of the necklace. It sits high, but the pieces that trail down from the main chain get longer as they reach the middle strand, which ends just above my lace-edged top.
“Creator,” Breslin says with awe. “I never thought I’d see it worn again. You look a lovely thing, Sanna.”
My mouth tips up at this strange alien compliment that nevertheless makes me feel radiant. “Thank you.”
We’re uncharacteristically quiet on the ride to town. I’m mostly in my own head until we’ve rolled to a stop, and Breslin hops down to tie Meesahrah to the hitching post. He also has to muzzle and hobble her because he says he can’t trust her not to cause trouble in public.
I don’t point out that he can’t trust her to behave in private either. We all know—Meesahrah especially—that for the most part, he likes a little attitude. And she enjoys giving it. For the safety of innocent bystanders though, this is a necessary step. We could have taken one of his more placid, excellently trained animals—but Meesahrah would have had a tantrum if she’d been left behind.
She’s got this big alien wrapped around her stomping hooves.
When Breslin’s finished, he comes back for me. “Allow me to help you get off. Hands on my shoulders.”
He means nothing dirty by this command, so I wish I could follow his order without thinking bad things. But it’s impossible. I grab his wide, strong shoulders and getting off is exactly what I envision. I imagine getting off in all the ways. Even the wagon is included in my fantasies; it’s an accessory—like sex furniture made of wood and metal instead of foam and leather.
“Good salk,” he murmurs as he sets me on my feet, and the way he says it… not for the first time, I can see why he’s an excellent trainer. His praise is like verbal manna. His commands are gateways to more praise. I’m helpless to resist anything his pretty voice tells m
e to do.
Someone calls, “Sanna! It’s so good to see you!” and it takes me a second to place the person.
“Hi, Fellmoor,” I say with wave in his general direction. I hear boots moving rapidly towards us on what sounds like a boardwalk but when Breslin cups me to his side, the footsteps stop abruptly.
I’m delighted—and stunned. Sometimes I’ve wondered why the men here treat Breslin so friendly when he’s downright brusque to them. When he’s training, he uses his beautiful trainer voice, and with me he has a similar, carefree way of speaking but for anyone else—anyone else male—he’s got rotten customer service skills.
Perhaps his skills are fine and he’s been warning other guys away.
He’s Meesahrah keeping herdmates (competition) from getting too close.
I don’t have much experience with a male like Breslin; none really—back on Earth, guys had a tendency to make me feel suffocated. Coddling me to death like me being blind meant that I needed to be taken by the arm and be led around (i.e. dragged, tripping and stumbling to keep up and keep my balance). It was like they couldn’t fathom how someone without sight could manage the trials of each day without someone hovering.
Breslin’s hovering over me right here, right now, but it’s not smothering—it’s possessive. Not in a controlling way. Not in a bad way. It’s also decidedly not platonic. Breslin’s touch isn’t polite or remote. His arm is wrapped snugly around my back, his hand is gripping my hip, and the sound vibrating over me—through me—isn’t coming from Kota’s throat where it would be acceptable—it’s Breslin that’s growling.
Over me. And my stars in heaven is it sexy as all get out.
The way he’s holding me, the way he’s got himself squared in Fellmoor’s direction, the sound he’s making? This is nothing like the affectionately exasperated noise he makes at Meesahrah. This is less ‘you’re being a pest’ and more ‘I’ll pop your skull like a tick’s belly.’ His communication is clear warning: BACK AWAY FROM MY FEMALE.
