by Cora Blu
Which had he seen her as? An us or a them…alien or human?
“Don’t close your mind to the idea, Aroc. Sit on it for a while before you make a final decision.” She hesitated then said; “Anyway, the young lady expressed a sexual interest in Montage, which a lot of women do after seeing him on the shared beach.”
That tugged a smile to his lips. “Montage has tolerance for you, Sadie. That’s all.”
“That’s because you threatened to remove his brain from his skull if he ever hurt me.” She closed her hand around his, leading the big guy down the wide hallway toward his dining space.
“Sadie,” he said giving her a downward glance. “Have you ever been truly afraid of me?”
Her eyes widened on her upturned face, as they crossed into the dining alcove to the replicator. “I think scared was a better description of how I felt around you.”
Aroc placed Norese in her chair securing her strap across her lap as she had a tendency to want to crawl up on the table and sit in the center.
“Where’d that come from?” she asked, setting a plate of protein steak, peas, and rutabagas in front of him. She reached across the table handing Norese her little drinking cup, watching her enjoy the cold milk. Sadie tucked her hair behind her ear and let her eyes meet Aroc anticipating his answer. When he didn’t answer, she asked a question. “Would you rather I still flinched under your touch or shrink from your gruff surly tone when you’re sleepy?”
The tendon in his neck stood out taut under the burgundy flesh when he rested his temple on his palm to stare at her, his elbow propped on the table. “I’ve spoiled you,” he said. “You fear nothing, not even me, the head of the karuntee clan.”
She couldn’t suppress the laughter bubbling up into her throat. “That’s not true.” She licked her drying lips with the tip of her tongue in an effort not to croak out the words. “I’m terrified of the power you hold over me, just being you.”
The chair moved as Aroc released a tired breath, steepling his fingers over his dinner plate and piercing her with a serious stare. “Is that why you’re spending the weekend with me instead of Cantrell, because of our agreement?”
“Why would you ask that? There’s nothing outside of physical attraction between Commander Cantrell and me. And he’s white and I’m black and I don’t feel like dealing with prejudice glares anymore.”
His gaze falls to the pulse in her throat, making her incredibly uncomfortable. “If there were no taboos on the two of you becoming a couple, would you go to him?”
That’s the last thing she wanted to hear from his mouth.
She set her fork down and gave him a pointed stare. “Seeing as you’re trying to get rid of me, I’ll be honest. You’re the barrier holding me back, regardless of the views on Earth,” she confessed more to herself than him. Picking up the serving spoon, Sadie scooped out a serving of bright green peas. Piling them on Norese’s plate, she watched her manipulate the vegetables into her mouth with the little spoon. That made her smile.
“Me—” he refuted her words on a groan. “Explain your words, Ochi!”
She gestured a hand between them over the table touching his hand. “This here, our special arrangement makes life complicated and adding another relationship isn’t something I can handle.”
He sighed in deep concentration, eyeing her and making her squirm. What would he say to her comment? “I look forward to your weekly visits and no, I don’t want you adding a relationship to your life.” His focus became ardent. “Our situation has grown since we first met and I think it’s time we address it.”
That gave her a chill. He’d never made any serious advances toward her since their first and only time having sex. Even curled up in bed, he’d only held her insisting she wore a nightshirt.
She pushed away from the table to punch in an order for an aspirin from the replicator. Downing the capsules, she returned to the table to empty her glass of water.
“Forget about Oliver for now. I’m tired of talking about him.” She needed to burn off the lust riding her body and her mind, until even the scent of him made her feel full. Remembering the ache of him inside her body, stretching and opening her when he took her in the shower, moistened her mouth.
“I said I look forward to your visits, Sadie. I don’t think Oliver would appreciate the woman you are inside.”
She inhaled deeply squirming on her seat. “I don’t think Oliver wants the woman on the inside. He’s too caught up in the packaging.”
Aroc’s lids lowered, feeding her heat she hadn’t known he felt. “Both are worth admiring, Sadie. I live with them every week. It takes courage to see the woman past her beauty.”
“That’s a profound statement. I’ll have to remember that.” What was happening? “I was thinking, I’d like for you to teach me to fight.”
He sat up. “Why?”
“Why do I want to protect myself—you have to ask,” she challenged. “Afraid I’ll beat you, Captain?”
He didn’t crack a smile, while he studied her features, down her shoulders, to her hand where he lifted her fingers, turning them over before folding them into a fist. She felt small and delicate under his touch.
“You have a good strong grip. I can work with that… Okay, I’ll teach you myself.” He released her hand. “Now answer my question—why do you think our relationship complicated?”
His question was a challenge to reveal her feelings, or perhaps he’d revealed his true desire. Uncomfortable under his now intimate stare, she felt a hint of confusion tugging at her heartstrings by the intensity of his question. They’d shared their lives for so many months now; she felt a sense of loss thinking about never seeing him again. What would she do without her weekends with Aroc?
“Are you saying I’m free, Aroc?”
“If I release, you, would you continue visiting Norese?”
“Is that what you want…end our arrangement?” The edge of her glass bumped her teeth as she took a drink; uncertain she was ready to hear his answer. If he said yes, you’re free. That should make her happy…should. On the other hand, if he said no, she’d spend the next eternity pretending her heart didn’t burn every time she came within ten feet of him. Those sincere dark eyes shot through with hits of burgundy, bored into her, drinking her down. Two choices kept her on the edge of telling the truth or continuing living the lie.
“I haven’t decided,” he answered sincerely, by the expressionless face. “Norese loves her time with you. It’s the female connection I can’t provide.”
“I think we both should stop using that child as an excuse to be friends. My visits stopped being about the agreement a long time ago, Aroc.”
She didn’t move when his knuckle grazed her bottom lip, tracing the curve with the tip of his thumb, slowly seducing her boneless. “Have you ever been afraid of me other than when we had sex that one time?”
That stunned her thinking of how he’d set her body to blaze in the shower, leaving her limp and sated for days. “You thought it scared me?” she chuckled. “I guess I was overly emotional that month, but what we did was nothing short of beautiful.”
He drew in a breath, showing she’d shocked him. “You cried in the shower. I thought I’d hurt you, or turned you off by this alien body.”
She smacked her lips on a drawn out sigh. “Aroc, please, a blind woman would regain her sight if you stood before her naked. It’s why the females aren’t fully on board with me visiting you. They think we’re having sex. And that I get to spend time alone with you and Norese.” Sadie placed a palm to her heart. “I cried as an emotional release. Theresa and I had just buried our parents when you kidnapped me and I guess when you hugged me I fell apart.”
He made a sound in his throat. “I realized that later, when you opened up about your loss,” Aroc spoke quietly.
“When you took me from Earth to your vacation home, I had no idea any of this, you or the technology existed. That first day you introduced me to Norese—”
/> “You thought I was lying about my world.”
She had, until she saw the blackness of outer space outside of the viewing window, filled with nothing other than shuttles coming and going under the space station. She left that out.
“But woke up on your sofa, and found out I’d been examined by your doctor. However, meeting Norese was the only thing initially keeping me from running.”
“And me baffled by the female I’d watched sleep from across the room on the sofa, I remember,” he said looking more relaxed.
“I realized you wanted help with Norese. By the end of the second week I’d become familiar with things. You started coming to Norese’s room to bring me to your bed. I was shocked that all you wanted was to hold me.”
“That’s not all I wanted, it’s what I required of you so you would stay. I’d do anything for Norese’s happiness and if that meant not insisting we have sex so you’d return, then I’d live with it.”
Sadie burned under his stare. “When you undressed in front of me that first time, and I saw what the difference was, I won’t lie, it startled me.” The day flashed in her mind, the passion, fear, and desire, all of it clear as if it happened yesterday. Her core heated making her blush. “I wasn’t certain I could be with you.”
Aroc worked his callused fingers, massaging the sensitive skin between her shoulder blades, eliciting a string of moans from her mouth. “But you come back to visit us every week without fail.”
“I’ve developed a tolerance for your differences...spikes that emerge from your spine are new for me.”
“You impressed me wanting to stay with us having no experience with my kind.”
She enjoyed his company, and easy conversation.
“You’re body’s fascinating. The spikes, the color, tattoo, and learning the proper way to massage your back, I enjoyed and still do.”
“You liked that best, massaging my spikes,” he said in a low voice as if remembering. “You weren’t turned off or afraid.”
Their stares were becoming too intense. The fact that Norese kept handing Sadie peas off her plate reminded them they weren’t alone.
“I will admit, when it happened, in the shower, you were gentle and patient. Touching me, you prepared me before you just took what you wanted.”
“Do you remember what I said to you that day?”
How could she forget? “In the shower, when you put your face in my neck, you called me Katherine.”
His face closed down.
“Aroc, you used my body to sate your desire for Katherine. I wanted to shove you away. Curse you,” she said the lump returning to her throat slurring her words.
Aroc held his glass midair, his intense eyes trained on her mouth. “I mourned Katherine before I kidnapped you.”
She took the glass, returning it to the table. He threaded their fingers together, shocking her, bringing them to his heart where he pressed them tight to his hard chest. He pulled her closer and for the first time, Sadie caught the flecks of burgundy fragmenting out from his black irises like lightning strikes illuminating his feral stare. “What you heard me say that day was a karuntian phrase between lovers, Sadie.” He rested his lips on her ear, his breath warm and scented with the drink. “Ka-hon-tek-ron loosely refers to how good you feel in my arms.”
Sadie blushed from her toes up to her ears, stammering her next words, “In the shower, the passion, the urging, that was for me?”
Nudging her earlobe he nodded then leaned back to feed her a slice of the protein on his plate from his fingers. The remaining piece he popped into his mouth. He chewed, and then downed his drink, refilling both their glasses from the pitcher on the table.
She hadn’t taken notice of how much he took care of her before today. The men from her past were preoccupied looking for jobs or getting in her pants. They never showed the level of love Aroc was now. And that embarrassed her, she’d been so blind to the true reason he wanted her there. He liked her. “Thank you,” she said, indicating her full glass.
He nodded once.
“Is that why you come back every week, to help me mourn Katherine’s death?” He chewed the morsel before finishing.
“Aroc, most of my family’s moved up north for jobs in the manufacturing plants. So Theresa, myself, and a handful of cousins here and there live here in the south. I never see anyone until someone dies or has a baby. I came back because I liked your company. Not just to help you mourn.”
“My sexual advance wasn’t to sate my desire for Katherine.” His brows squeezed together. “I worked your body to exhaustion because of that damned bikini you wore on the first day at the beach and dreamt of you ever since.”
That surprised her.
“You replicated the tiny piece of nothing for me and made me wear it. But in bed all we do is cuddle. You don’t look beyond my waist, Aroc. What am I supposed to think?” Sadie had misjudged his actions horribly.
“You made it exceptionally clear that day, that sex with me was not something you wanted to repeat. Which I respected. Seldom had Norese accepted anyone the way she accepted you so I kept our relationship for Norese. Then you grew on me.”
Sadie missed his presence during the week. By Friday, once she stood in front of his door, she was anxious, almost giddy, to see him. “Norese is perfect and you grew on me too, Aroc.” She ran a hand through the fluffy red curls en mass on the toddler’s head. “We both misjudged the other’s reaction to what we’d done.”
“Sadie,” he said seductively, his hands steepled over his plate.
She held her fork aloft midway to her mouth. “Hmm.”
“Ka-hon-tek-ron.”
Her fork hit the table. Norese laughed at the splattered food dotting the surface.
They finished their dinner in swollen silence. What had they truly become to one another over the year? Were they friends, allies…or estranged lovers?
After a warm bath with Norese where Sadie washed the toddler’s hair and scrubbed her clean, Sadie crawled into her bed and swaddled the toddler, twining around her where she nearly drifted off herself. She heard the mechanism of the door churning. A shaft of light illuminated a strip over the pink and yellow bedspread.
Untangling her arms from around Norese she angled back to see Aroc sauntering across the floor to kneel beside the bed. His hands wedged beneath her hips, lifting her from the bed, then set her on her feet.
“Time for your first lesson.”
“My lesson?”
Chapter 13
He led her past his bed to the stairs at the back of his bedroom that led to his workout room. Going up the steps, she was reminded of the last time they’d been on them together, her knees out wide, and him deep inside her body, giving her orgasm four or five. She’d lost count after her legs had quivered uncontrollably like the surface of a puddle after having a rock skipped across the surface.
Inside, the walls were padded with black nubby fabric. The floors padded with thick cushions and his musky male scent permeated the cool air.
Dragging her hands along the walls, she absorbed the image of him using the myriad of weapons that appeared ancient. Hooked blades at least five feet long topped with worn handles decorated one section of the wall. Her fingers stroked across a vicious looking stick with metal balls on the ends of chains thick enough to tow a car.
Twisting at the waist, she looked back at him watching her closely. “I’ve never truly looked around in here before, not wanting to intrude on your private space,” she admitted, awed by his equipment and size of his weights on the floor. They had to be three hundred pounds each. She tossed him a wide-eyed look of surprise. “You train with all this equipment every day?” The blade of the knives gleamed under the overhead lights along with the glint in the corner of his wicked eyes.
Aroc got behind her, and she allowed him to position her legs out wide in a braced stance. “Hold your hands up to protect your face and mentally prepare yourself to be attacked.”
How do you prepare to b
e beat up by an alien…curl into a ball and cry violently? As her inner tomboy instincts kicked in, Sadie raised her fisted hands close to her face.
“Good,” Aroc murmured, coming around to study her checkered PJ bottoms and white T-shirt. Pretty lingerie had never been a concern. They were too expensive and she had more important bills to think about: rent, food, heat. His head raised, eyes settling on her face. “They’ll have to do for now. We’ll replicate fighting attire later.”
“Good because I like these to remain in one piece.”
His smile almost made it to his eyes. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He got into a fighting stance. “Come at me…a take down,” he commanded getting in a stance with his feet shoulder width apart.
Lunging forward, she ran at him, focused on ramming her body into his stomach, and realized that at the last second that was a bad idea. He tilted, broad shoulders blocking her, and caught her around the waist before grappling her to the floor. Under his hulking form pinning her to the weaved mat at her back, she felt every ripple and curve of his body.
Aroc cradled her head in his large hand, his parted lips inches from hers as he waited for her to get her bearings. “Do you know what you did wrong coming at me like that?”
“Presuming you’d give me this first take down to bolster my confidence would be my guess.” Irritated, she let her arms flop out wide to bounce off the mat.
Aroc hovered over her mouth, his hard chest barely touching hers as he held his weight by resting on his elbows. “Get to your feet. We’ll go again.”
Frustrated he bested her, Sadie pushed out from under him to get to her feet, then bounced on her heels. Tipping her chin back, she felt his fingers lift the hem of her top, his hand sliding around her waist.
“Never presume to know your opponent’s actions or motives. To remain in charge, you must become the spider, not the fly, by drawing them into your territory. Then and only then can you use your strengths, not your weaknesses.”
Empowered by his words, admittedly anxious to feel his hands on her again, Sadie inhaled, tightening her stomach muscles. Nothing would quiet her quickly building hunger to feel his mouth on hers again.
