Amina’s smile drops and she looks away from me and down into her lap.
“It’s not that. I just don’t want you to feel obligated.”
This is important. I don’t want to be staring at the top of my lehti’s beautiful head when I say it. I reach beneath her chin and lift until her eyes meet mine. They are nervous and still so wary.
“Why does it matter if I have an obligation to you? That I feel honor and heart bound to you? Why do you think my desire to protect, provide for, and love you is a burden? Furthermore, why do you not expect this of me? I would understand.”
Her eyes shift away. I gently squeeze her chin, and she locks back onto me.
“You wouldn’t understand, Kwarq. It’s not like that with humans.”
“I am not human, and it is like that with me.”
“I know, but—,”
“If you know, why do you question it?”
Her scent starts to change. Her heart speeds up, and mine responds in kind. She looks away and then back to me and away again. Her voice, when she responds, is quiet.
“Because I’m scared I’m going to love you as much as I want to, and this is all going to end up breaking my heart.”
Amina
Kwarq is quiet for a long time. I don’t risk looking back at him, although I can feel him looking hard at me. My face is warm with embarrassment. I feel like my admission has left me open and vulnerable. I brace myself, and when Kwarq’s hand closes around my wrist, I flinch. He presses my hand flat against his chest and holds it there. Finally I raise my gaze back to his, and he’s smiling again. It’s a gentle curve of his mouth.
“What do you feel Amina?”
I feel his heart. It hammers against my hand, almost pushing against his breastbone. I hear it, too. It’s a strong, sure beat.
“Your heart.”
“What do you hear?”
“Your heart.”
“Is that all?”
No, that’s not all. I hear mine, too. Only this time, it’s just as loud and strong as his. My chest flinches with the force of the muscle’s contraction, and I press my free hand to the space between my breasts. We are in prefect sync. His heart thumps into one hand at the same moment as mine does into the other.
Something hits my hand and I look down to see little droplets of water. I didn’t even realize I was crying, but I feel it now. All of the anxiety and nervousness is being pushed out by a feeling of love so all-encompassing that I want to scream with the joy of it. I get it now. I can feel it. I can feel his love. I can feel it pulsing into me, it’s like a warm gust of wind throughout my body. I realize that what I’m feeling is that rightness that made me sit next to him in the movie theater. It is that thing that told me that I needed to know this man, but more than that, it’s the thing that’s telling me now that he loves me completely and without reserve. It’s not just words. It’s an instinct. It just is. I can’t believe I almost missed it.
“My lehti, do not be ashamed. If it would have taken you two-hundred years to realize it, I would have waited that long.”
He’s serious. These aren’t just pretty words. I know now that he would have waited as patiently as he is now for me to stop crying like an idiot. When I continue to blubber, he reaches over and pulls me into his lap. I settle against the warm, hard ridges of his thighs as he presses my head into his chest, shushing me and patting my back.
“Amina, it is okay. I understand.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”
“Do you believe me now?”
I nod against the solid budge of pectoral I’m cheek rests against.
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”
“You would have eventually. I would have had no problem stalking you until you came around.”
I angle my head back, and he’s smiling down at me. The yellow of his eyes is warm and bright in the dim pod. He lowers his head, and the moment his lips sink onto mine, I stop feeling guilty. I stop worrying about what could have been if I didn’t realize his love for me. I stop everything. Or rather, everything stops as I open for him and his smooth, creepy tongue slips inside, curling around mine and sending tingles through my body. God, I love this Lyqa dude.
Kwarq
Amina’s face is still puffy from her crying, but she’s smiling as we move around her little apartment, gathering things to take back to Lyqa.
“I don’t see the point in paying for an apartment if Lyqa’s gonna be my home now.”
She’s sorting through a surprisingly large collection of shoes. I can’t imagine what person would need so many shoes, but I take the ones she tosses to me and place them into the designated box.
“It is up to you, my lehti. I do not mind maintaining a residence for you here just in case.”
She turns from where she’s sitting cross-legged in front of her closet and frowns.
“In case of what? I’m not going to leave you, Kwarq, and you can’t get rid of me now, you butthead.”
I laugh at her strange insult because I’m sure it is meant in jest.
“You will never leave me, unless you want to.”
“I won't ever want to, unless—“
My heart ratchets up. “Unless what?”
“Unless you make me watch Love’s True Beat again.”
She throws her head back and hoots.
“My love, I do not even want to watch that film again. I do not know what made my mother watch it before we left. And when I came into the living room, she was crying! Can you believe that?”
“I mean, I guess it was sweet in a way.” She’s considering two pairs of shoes. She tosses one into the discard pile and the other to me, then she pauses before reaching for the first pair and tossing it to me as well. “I can see why that would be heartbreaking.”
I roll my eyes. “It is trash, Amina. I have accepted it. You should as well.”
“Oh, I accept it, babe. Trust me on that.”
Amina snorts and picks up another pair of black pointy, boomerang shaped shoes. Her mouth twists to the side as she turns them about in her hands. She reaches back and holds them over the discard pile before turning and tossing them to me. I sigh and walk over to her. I bend down and scoop up the remaining shoes, including the ones in the discard pile.
“We will take them all. You do not have to choose.”
“Oh, I don’t want to bring too much stuff to your house. I don’t mind downsizing a bit.”
I roll my eyes again as I dump the shoes into the box. I close the flaps and use the roll of tape Amina gave me to seal it.
“It is your house as well. You were never a guest. From the moment you stepped through our doors, you were daughter, sister and partner. If you wish to fill our entire apartments with shoes, you may.”
She smiles and wraps her arms around my waist. Her hair rests over her eyes and I push it up, holding it out of the way so I can see her beautiful, brown eyes. They are urgent and flare with passion.
“Oh, my love, I will always cherish our life and our love. I honor the day you came to me. My heart, my breath, my veins!”
Amina tosses her head back, one of her hands releasing me to press back against her forehead. She holds the position, her eyes closed in rapture. After a moment, one eye peeks open, and she gives me a squeeze with the arm still around my waist. I sigh and roll my eyes yet again. She asked for it.
I drop down to my knees, gripping the front of my shirt as if I would tear it from my body. One arms stretches to the ceiling, my hand clawed and grasping for some salvation that is just out of reach.
“Oh, Amina, my love, my heartbeat. The mother of my children, the keeper of my spirit. No one will ever replace you. You are my true heart’s beat. If you take your love away from me, I’ll go crazy. I’ll go insane!”
Her head falls back and a twinkling laugh erupts from her throat.
"Dude, did you just quote Blackstreet?"
"I did."
Chapter 28
Kwarq
I thrust deep into the tight sheath of Amina's pussy, and she clamps around me, squeezing me so tightly that my cock cramps.
"You are strangling me, my lehti. You’re so tight and so wet.”
The sound of me sliding through her dripping passage is a nuanced orchestra of arousal that only I can hear. It makes me harden even more inside of her, and she gasps, angling her hips up to receive my pounding thrusts.
“Kwarq, please, more. Harder.”
I shift my feet to get leverage so I can give her what she wants, but her short bed means my legs hang over the side, making it hard to brace myself. I ease myself from her warmth, and she moans at the loss.
"Get on top and take as much as you want."
I fall onto my back beside her, my cock jutting impressively in the air. The tip drips with my impatient release. The entire length pulses with the desire to be back inside of her.
Amina sits up and turns to face me, her eyes falling immediately to my straining, slick cock. She leans forward and flicks her pink, little tongue out, lapping at the dripping tip, and I have to fist my hands to keep from erupting into her mouth.
Tentatively, she lifts her leg and straddles my stomach, letting my cock come to rest between the lush cheeks of her ass. She seems to hesitate as she tries to figure out how to raise herself enough to place me at her entrance without her belly getting in the way. I take her around the hips and lift her just enough that she can nestle the head of my cock within her dripping folds. Slowly, she sinks down, and my hands fall away to grip desperately at the sheets.
"Ah, Amina. It feels too good."
I'm shaking and so is she as she presses another few inches onto me. Her full bottom lip is clamped between her teeth, and I fix my eyes on her tense face until I feel her ass come to rest on my thighs.
"Oh my god." Amina falls forward, only to be stopped by her belly pressing into mine. Her curls fluff around her head. Her tight, full breasts swell just above my face, the nipples begging me to taste them. Her areola have spread with her pregnancy. I flick my tongue out to its full length and swirl it around one dark tip before sucking the entire thing into my mouth. At the same time, I flex my hips up, pressing even deeper into her.
"Kwarq!" She says my name desperately.
"Yes, my lehti?"
“I fucking love you.”
I release a tense chuckle. “Do you love me, or do you love my cock buried inside of you?”
“I love you, Kwarq. Only you.” Her declaration is breathy and the feeling behind it is my undoing.
Amina raises on her knees, and drops down to meet my next thrust. She cries out when when my cock caresses her womb. We keep up this brutal pace. Her thick, muscular thighs tremble as she lifts and falls on my cock over and over. I can't seem to get deep enough inside of her, although I feel the end of her pussy with every thrust. Still she reaches for more as she grasps for the release we both need.
"Come for me, my love," I encourage her and pump my hips up in a series of quick, deep thrusts. I angle my cock at the sensitive underside of her pussy, the textured passage brushes my tip, pushing me over the edge just as she begins to flex around me. Her head tosses back on a strangled cry, and her hips buck up and down milking me of my release until it seeps from inside of her in a warm puddle between us.
When she's down to little twitches, she falls forward again, holding me inside of her as she rests her forehead on my chest.
"That was amazing."
I chuckle.
"You always say that."
She lifts her head, her round chin balancing on my sternum.
"Yeah, but now we've done it enough that I can say with scientific surety that you always give good dick."
"Amina, my love, my heart, my lehti…"
"Hm?" Her eyes are closed. Her breathing has slowed and blows out in fragrant little puffs into my face.
"That's not science."
Amina
"I don't know if this is a good idea. How am I going to explain this?" I hold my hands palm up alongside my belly, which if I didn't know any better, I would say has grown since I woke up from my post-sex nap. At first, I thought I had slipped into another resting period, but Kwarq assured me that I was only out for an hour or so. Still, that doesn't solve my problem of how to explain to my mother and two sisters how I'm showing up two seconds from giving birth to twins when I was rocking a two piece at the beach three months ago. As usual, Kwarq doesn't seem too concerned.
"What do you mean?"
We're driving, yes driving, to my mother's house in Bronzeville. I could have been knocked over with a feather when Kwarq led me back to the garage at his old apartment, thinking we were going to get back in the pod, only for him to open a second garage space to reveal a brand new fucking Mercedes. A Mercedes, because he didn't have a bed, but bought a luxury car. Of course he did.
Kwarq, handles a right turn like a pro, rotating the wheel with the heel of one hand. The other rests on my thigh in an attempt to reassure me. This is all officially weird again.
"How the hell do you know how to drive?" I ask, finally distracted from my worry.
He shrugs as he comes to a smooth break at a red light.
“The Internet.”
My chin drops to my chest.
"You watched the internet to learn how to drive?"
"I did."
"Is that also where you learned about Shaq and Blackstreet? What, did you only search the 90s?"
He smiles and chuckles, taking another turn like he's been driving his entire life. A space pod this is not. I'd be impressed if it wasn't so surreal.
"I searched generally for things that were practical, like driving and courtship rituals among humans. But I also searched specifically for things that would have been popular in your formative years. I was worried that our age difference would make it difficult to relate to one another."
I frown. Our age difference. Kwarq looks about my age. Not that I would know what that looks like on a Lyqa. He could be two hundred for all I could guess. Let me find out I'm dating a senior citizen.
"So, how much older are you than me, anyway?"
He turns briefly to look at me before his eyes go back to the road. His brows crowd low on his forehead in a confused frown.
"I am not."
"You’re not what?"
"Older than you."
Chapter 29
Kwarq
"Twenty-two!”
I nod.
"Twenty-two.”
"Oh my god. I'm a goddamn cougar."
I roll my eyes. How many times do I have to tell her. "Lehti, we are not wolves or dogs, and even if we were, you would not be called a cougar as that is a completely different animal."
She narrows her eyes and smirks in a funny way where her cheeks rise and fall quickly.
"Yeah, thanks for that zoology lesson, Mr. Linguist. A cougar is an slang term that refers to an older woman who seduces and sleeps with younger men."
"This is Ebonics?" Interesting, although I don't get the correlation to the animal and what she's saying. Are older women romantically involved with younger men seen as predators? If so, that's ridiculous.
Amina rolls her eyes and sighs in exasperation. "No, babe. It's just regular old American English slang. Anyway, you don't care?"
I flick my eyes over to her and see that she still looks shocked.
"About what?"
"That I'm so much older than you!" Her scent is embarrassed. She has nothing to be embarrassed about. Once again, my lehti is as she likes to say, 'doing the most.'
"Amina, you are only twenty-nine.”
"That’s a whole decade!" She's turns in her seat to face me, the safety belt twists against her belly. Her eyes are wide. She splays her hands in front of her as she presents her point.
"Technically, you are only about five Lyqa years older than I am. If we look at it that way, I am really twenty-five. Is that better?"
She puffs out a lun
gful of air and frowns, but the urgency leaves her body.
"I mean, I guess. I just can't believe you didn’t mention it before. How do you know I don't only date older men."
I shrug. "I would not have cared. I would have made you see the benefits of being with me."
One of her eyebrows raises, and she smirks. "What benefits?”
"Unfailing patience with your tendency to be entirely too dramatic."
"Seriously, that's a benefit? Coming from the star of the Oscar-worthy Love's True Beat?"
I cut my eyes to her, but ignore the mention of that dreadful film.
"I am strong and able to protect you from all of the psycho stalkers who would harm you. Did one thing try to snatch or eat you while you were on Lyqa? No. That was because of my superior ability to protect.”
She snorts. "That’s because I was asleep eighty percent of the time."
"What about the scientifically proven amazing sex?"
"Kwarq, my love, my heart, my lehti…" I glance over to see that she’s smirking. "You win, cause that is definitely science."
“It is.”
She straightens in her seat with a little huff and focuses on untwisting the safety belt.
"Yeah, well, you better be happy you give good D."
"D?"
"Dick."
"Ah, yes. If that is what keeps you with me, then I am happy for it."
She peers closely at me. Her little eyebrow raised. “You know I'm kidding right? I love your fucking guts."
"I do, and I also love you and our children, who reside in your guts."
Her nose scrunches up. ”Kwarq, ew."
Amina
Kwarq thinks he's distracted me, but I'm still worried about facing my family, so when we park outside of my mother’s narrow, yellow brick bungalow, I stop him when he reaches for the door to step out.
"Just give me a minute, will you?"
Kwarq (Lyqa Planet Lovers Book 1) Page 26
