by Maren Smith
Clutching his arm and her own left thigh, Brinley grit her teeth to manage every damned one of them as quickly and as quietly as she could.
“I think you’re lying,” Rowth decided.
“About what?” She was panting already. And sweating. When the hell had that started?
“About the pig. That would be like me calling you… I don’t know, a begga root, which also fries up most excellently at breakfast, eggs and toast notwithstanding. But as you are neither purple nor particularly lumpy in appearance—oh, I see. And therein lies the insult.” His frown deepened. “Except now the questions multiple. Are pigs truly well-mannered, or are you saying I am not even so well-mannered as breakfast food? Are they as intelligent as you claim, or do you think me an idiot?”
“Is everyone on your planet this literal when they talk?” Brinley asked, half groaning and half annoyed. “It was a figure of speech. It’s just something we say on Earth, okay? Does it have to be analyzed half to death?”
“Yes.” He didn’t even hesitate.
“I’m going back to bed.” At least she wouldn’t have to climb all those stairs.
Rowth caught her elbow before she could turn away. “Now that you’re done being stubborn, hold onto me.”
He bent, hooking one strong arm around her waist. Her arm went around his shoulders, her hand finding the back of his neck. Her fingers lost themselves in the soft wisps of his black hair and she felt the bunch and pull of his muscles as he secured his grip, lifting her off her feet. Her shins felt the relief as even sharper pain, through it receded almost immediately into a dull, aching throb.
“Don’t think for a second we’re done talking about the pig.” Rowth carried her up the stairs, and Brinley was too busy fighting not to let her head rest on his shoulder to argue.
Halfway to the upper level, she spotted Rog molasses-crawling over the topmost step.
“Race… you,” he said with a grin as Rowth stepped over him.
They won. Rog was still hauling his back leg up onto the landing when Rowth set Brinley in her seat.
“Stay put,” he told her as he tucked both her and the chair in closer to the table. The sudden exhaustion that swept through her made even the thought of getting up again beyond her abilities.
“I can… do it… I can do… it,” Rog said as Rowth headed back to him. “Stop it.”
But Rowth picked him up around the middle, holding Rog slightly out ahead of him. Long arms and squat legs extending like a little kid playing ‘airplane’, Rog hissed his displeasure all the way to his side of the table.
“Enough.” Rowth stopped the hissing with a censuring tap to the top of Rog’s bald head.
“I… hate it when he… does that,” Rog muttered, but only after Rowth was out of tapping reach and headed for the kitchen.
“You’re preaching to the choir,” Brinley told him.
Rog brightened. “We have… a choir?”
“No.” Rowth frowned at her over the steaming pot of stew he was ladling into bowls.
Rog wilted, half disappearing below the level of the table. “Oh.”
“Sorry,” she apologized, actually feeling bad. “I don’t know why I said that.”
“It’s all right.” Tiny flecks of white appeared on the dark wood of the table where Rog rested his clawed hands. It might have been the lighting, but he looked a little more speckled today than he had the last time she’d seen him. Even his eyes looked ringed in flakes of white. Had they always been that way? She couldn’t remember.
“How hungry are you?” Rowth asked, a cursory question since he was already headed back to the table with three bowls balanced in his hands.
“Not… very,” Rog admitted. Hiding his mouth behind his claws, he mock whispered to Brinley. “Nobody gets hungry… here. He… makes you eat… multiple times… every day.”
“I still have a half-eaten sandwich on my bedside table,” Brinley agreed. “How often does your people need to eat?”
“When we feel… good?” Rog moved his hand so Rowth could place a bowl before him. “I don’t… know. Every thirty… hours or so. How… often do… Humans like to eat?”
“Usually three times a day, but I’ve never really been a breakfast person.” Brinley leaned all the way back in her chair, tipping her nose out of wafting reach of the spicy steam emanating from the bits of meat and unidentifiable vegetables floating in the thick dark broth of her supper. Rowth seemed to have as big a thing for soups as he did for spices. “Whew,” she said, trying not to breathe it in. “Plus I’m used to being much more active, so lying about all day has probably affected my appetite too.”
She very diplomatically avoided saying anything about the tongue-burning, stomach-rolling effects of every bite she had thus far ingested on this planet. Even the sandwiches were spicy.
“As soon as you are mobile, we will begin an exercise routine,” Rowth promised, circling the back of her chair to seat himself beside her. Laying his napkin across his lap, he picked up his spoon. “Eat, both of you.”
The man had to have a cast-iron stomach. Holding her breath, Brinley picked up her spoon, gave the contents of her bowl a cautious stir, and braced herself for that first searing bite. Stirring it made fat lumps of broth-heavy grain drift up from the bottom, like barley with dark husks cracked open to reveal the creamy-white center inside. She spooned some into her mouth and instantly heat that had nothing to do with soup temperature blazed across her tongue. She swallowed after only a few gritty chews, squeezing her eyes shut to withstand the burn that scorched from her throat to her stomach.
“I need a drink, please,” she rasped, nose and eyes both watering.
Rowth went back to the kitchen.
“Good… for the… sinuses,” Rog teased.
“It’s not as hot as it usually is,” she edged, though saying that made her feel bad. It was one thing to gripe and snipe at Rowth for being an overbearing, too-literal, man-handling jerk, but he was taking care of her. He was attending to her needs as he thought best. And for some reason, attacking his cooking just because each bite took the skin off her tongue, struck her as being rude and a little ungrateful.
“I’ve been reducing the seasonings in an effort to find which ones you object to. Or rather, which ones object to you.” Rowth returned with two glass goblets and one made of some type of plastic, each half full of a red liquid that looked like wine, smelled like tart fruit, and had the consistency of honey.
She took the glass he handed her. “What is this?”
“Good for you,” he replied. “Drink it.”
Rog chuckled, reaching with both hands to take the plastic cup Rowth handed him. He winked at her. “You’re going to… like this.”
“It’ll help with the heat,” Rowth added, returning to his seat. “Don’t worry. It’s not alcoholic.” He took a sip, then set his glass aside and picked up his spoon again. “Unless, of course, you’re a Mekron. In which case, you will get ridiculously drunk on the first few sips.”
Rog burbled—a funny rumbling-purr from deep inside him—and pulled the glass down off the edge of the table. His claws drummed the plastic as he disappeared with it below what she could see.
“Get back on your chair,” Rowth ordered with a frown.
“No… thank you.”
“Rog,” he warned.
“Rowth,” the Mekron replied in a tone that would have matched if not for the chuckle at the end.
It was the closest to annoyed that she’d yet seen Rowth come to when he wasn’t looking at her.
Swiping his napkin, Rowth dropped it next to his bowl. Hands resting lightly on the edge of the table, he leaned far enough back in his chair to look underneath. His frown deepened. “We do our eating and drinking, where?”
“Under the… table,” Rog answered, then chuckled again. “So you can’t… take it… away… from us before… we’re done.”
A flex of muscle leapt along Rowth’s jawline. He tsked. He also gave up trying. “Five b
ites,” he ordered in the direction of the floor. “You will have a minimum of five bites before you leave this table—”
“Already… left.”
Brinley ducked down far enough to catch sight of Rog, lying on his back, the now empty glass still clutched between his hands. Already a rosy flush pinkened his face and chest. “I can’t believe it takes you fifteen minutes to climb the stairs, but two seconds to get under the table and no time flat to empty that glass.”
“Wine,” Rog chortled.
“That’s it,” Rowth decided. “You’ll have fifteen bites tomorrow, or I’m taking away your ropes.”
Rog burbled.
“Give it up.” Brinley straightened up, grinning. “He’s already flush.”
“A ridiculously small amount,” Rowth repeated with a shake of his head. He looked at her, and in that moment it became as if they were the only two people in the room. His usual reserve was gone, replaced by the slight crookedness of his smile and a knowing warmth in his black gaze that went straight to her belly, kindling a different kind of warmth down below. It circled through her, igniting that low throb of arousal in the tips of both nipples, which began to interpret the scratch of the lace that barely covered them in a new and welcome way. Brinley hadn’t yet touched her honey wine, but she could already feel the heat of her own languid blush stealing up through her.
She dropped her eyes first.
“Five bites,” Rowth told her too, but in a way that seemed less like an order and more like an invitation.
Shaking her head, Brinley let her fingertips play along the rim of her cup. “I’ll bet you have kids.”
“I have what?”
“Children,” she specified.
“Ah.” His crooked smile widened. “In fact, I have two.”
Under the table, Rog chuckled again. “I’m… older than… both of you… combined.”
“I’m not talking about us,” Brinley said. “I mean real children. We don’t count.”
“The law would disagree.”
“Humans cease to be children at eighteen.”
Reaching for his cup, Rowth turned around in his seat. He propped his shoulder against the back and swirled his wine as he smiled at her. “No one is an adult at eighteen.”
“See? You do parental very well.” She faced him now too, pulling her own drink into her lap. As if it were a shield, the only one she had to stave off any semblance this conversation might have toward intimacy. “But, you have to know… I’m not a child.”
Rowth grunted, a noncommittal sound.
From under the table, Rog slurred, “I’m… older combined… for both of you.”
Brinley rolled her lips to keep from laughing.
Ignoring Rog, Rowth kept his crooked smile and his eyes locked on her. “Would you like to know what I see when I look at you, Brinley?”
“Your biggest source of aggravation.”
Both corners of his mouth betrayed his amusement. “Not even close. My most intriguing perhaps, but not the largest.”
Needing something to do, she brushed hair out of her face that wasn’t really there. She was fidgeting, budding giddiness making it impossible to pretend his nearness wasn’t affecting her. It was affecting him too. Unable to keep his stare, she dropped hers only to find herself staring directly at the bulge already straining to be free of his confining trousers. Just as quickly she averted her eyes again.
“What then?” Face burning, she stared at her cup. It was safer. “What do you see when you look at me?”
“Let me ask you a question…”
Her laugh came out soft and somewhat breathless. “Pleading the Fifth?”
“I never plead.” Rowth cocked his head. “The fifth of what?”
“The Fifth Amendment.” She shook her head. “Never mind. It’s an Earth thing. It means we reserve the right not to answer on the grounds that whatever we say could be used against us in a court of law.”
“Silence is guilt. Guilt is condemning. Trust me, you should always answer.”
“This from the lawyer who told the judges at my trial that I was guilty.”
His head cocked further, naked amusement leaping and dancing with the curiosity in his eyes. “What else could I have said? Admit it, I also ensured you were neither imprisoned for the rest of your life nor killed. Should you not show me gratitude for that?”
“Is that your question? Show me gratitude or show me death?”
Under the table, Rog’s plastic cup clattered lightly against the floor.
“Not even close.” Rowth took a drink, looking at it rather than her as his thumb brushed a drop from the rim of his cup and he said, “I was wondering, were you aware of it when I came into your room last night?”
Her chest tightened, making it difficult to breathe. “Stalker.”
“One cannot stalk prey within one’s own home. That, by definition, is prey already caught.” He inclined his head. “Did you?”
Her heart quickened. She could feel the pulse of each beat grow demanding between her legs. “No. Why, what did you do?”
“I looked at you,” Rowth admitted, but only the briefest pause. “And I thought.”
Her throat began to tighten every bit as much as her chest. The throb was stealing into her nipples. “About what?”
“About things no one thinks about when they are looking at children.”
Her head was spinning, her thoughts muddled and, apart from holding her cup, she hadn’t even touched her wine. The most dangerous thing she could think to say was the one that came pouring out of her next. “Did you want me to wake up?”
He barely hesitated. “Yes and no.”
“Apart from being scared that I wo—”
“I am never scared.”
“Concerned, then,” she corrected. “Apart from being concerned I might wake up and tell you to get the hell out, why didn’t you?”
He started to drink, then changed his mind and set the glass back on the table. “Because if you had, if you had raised your head, twitched, moaned in your sleep, I would have been on you and in you before you could react. I would have taken you. I like that word. Taken. It denotes all the little things in life and sex I do so love to do. I’d have taken you, and I’d have made it hurt. And I’m not entirely sure you’re prepared for that.”
A tiny thrill shivered through her, tightening her nipples and emboldening that low and wanton throb. “Hurt me?”
“Yes, very much.” He said it like a promise, making her blush burn hotter. “I want to bind you to my bed.”
“The cuffs don’t fit,” she said, very much aware that Rog was lying under the table, mere feet away, listening—silently now—to every word being said. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this now.”
But Rowth kept talking anyway. “I want straddle your head and see how much of my cock you can swallow before you gag and choke. I want to see tears swimming in the ocean of your eyes.”
She squirmed, fighting to look anywhere but directly at him, but again and again his gaze pulled hers back to him. Her heart kept beating, her body kept pulsing. Her pussy spasmed, a shudder of abject emptiness when all she wanted was to feel herself being stretched to take the cock he wanted to choke her with.
“Will you swallow, or will you spit?” he mused, letting one hand rest upon his thigh and the other on the table. “I am so very curious.” His finger traced the tiniest circle over the dark grain of a well-polished knot and her nipples tightened even more, feeling that phantom caress in the tingling of both areole. Circling them the way he circled that knot. “Will you fight me every time I discipline you, all the while growing slick and wet between your thighs?”
Shoving her chair back from the table hurt like the devil. Vaulting to her feet hurt even more, but sitting there—her face burning, her pussy throbbing; so embarrassingly aware of Rob under the table, silently listening to every word—was impossible. “I-I’m going back to my room now.”
“No.” The softness of Row
th’s voice did not hide the iron of his command. When he stood, all she could see of him was his size, the towering height and the strength of him. An alien. A male in his absolute prime. “We’re not going to your room, Brinley. We are going to the cellar, and I am going to do to you there everything I have imagined doing almost from the moment I brought you home.”
Her stomach dropped. She could feel the weight of it on her toes and it tripped her, turning her awkward sideways step into a stumble that would have caused her to fall had he not caught her arm. His hold on her was not a capturing one. All he did was steady her, and if anything, that made her trembling worse. If she lied, she could say all her shaking was due to fear. Fear of him. Of what he was promising. But the truth was far more terrifying. She wasn’t afraid of Rowth anywhere near as much as she was terrified of herself. Deep down, she already knew she was going to like whatever he wanted to do.
More importantly, that dark war of calculation and desire in his eyes showed he knew it too.
“Rog,” Rowth quietly said. “Can you take yourself back to your room?”
No response.
All that sparking awareness of his closeness and maleness and raw sexual power, broke just a little bit when Rowth dropped his gaze from hers to look at the floor. “Rog?”
Brinley looked down when Rowth released her arm. He stepped back far enough not to bump the chairs as he hunkered down to address the Mekron beneath the table. Except that he didn’t say anything. What he did was almost knock her over in his scrambling haste to get underneath and the look of near panic she saw flash across his face before all she could see of him was the strain of muscles leaping across his back as he grabbed for Rog was enough to at last kill the throb.
“Rog!” Rowth pulled him out from under the table, cradled in one arm like a child. A still flushed but now also blue-tinted child, with eyes half open and glazed, a white-speckled chest that did not appear to be breathing, and a strange white-flecked foam oozing from the corners of his mouth.
