by Sara Page
His teeth release me and even though it’s a relief, the throb continues to pulse.
Down, he kisses. My tummy tightens. I find myself holding my breath. He undoes my pants and then they’re gone.
Everything is happening so fast, it feels like I’m skipping seconds. His fingers dig into my hips. I feel him lifting me up, but I don’t know why. Why is he down there? He should be up here kissing me.
Then he kisses me there.
“Oh, my stars!” I scream out.
I want him to keep doing what he’s doing, but my hands start slapping at the top of his head as if they want him to stop. He ignores me and keeps kissing me. He only stops to slide his tongue through my folds. Not only does his tongue lick and lap at me, it vibrates as well. I think I’m going to completely unravel, he’s ripping all my seams out. Then his mouth covers and pulls back a hard suckle from my swollen clit.
“You’re a beast,” I cry out.
The sensation is just too much for me to contain. It’s so intense it hurts. My heart is going to explode, it’s trying so hard to keep up with all the blood pumping to my clit. There’s so much pressure now building inside me, I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t know how this is going to end.
Building and building, I’m so achy, I’m so needy, but I don’t know for what. I can’t stop moving, my thighs tense and relax around his head. Then my hands stop slapping, I grab him by the hair to trap him. To keep him right there, in that perfect spot.
Up, up, I’m climbing, I’m no longer of this world. The thread inside me is stretching, tightening. It’s so taut it hums. For a moment, at the top, I feel like I just might be okay. Then the thread snaps.
What goes up must come down, and oh, is the fall glorious.
I scream, I cry. My fingers tear at his hair as I buck off the floor. My sex convulses. My body spasms. He holds me through all of it.
His fingers dig into my hips while his tongue laps up my wetness. I’m melting, I’m gushing. He makes little noises in his throat. I feel like I’ve pleased him as he swallows me down.
When the last tremor passes and I feel like I can breathe again, his head pops up. His red eyes are glowing brighter than ever before.
“Mine,” he growls.
My heart skips a beat.
My legs are trembling with the aftershocks.
He climbs up my body and hovers above me.
I realize my fingers are still tangled in his hair.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I apologize as I pull my fingers from his hair.
His dark lips curl into a pleased smirk. I feel my cheeks flushing with embarrassment.
Something passes between us. We’re sharing a moment.
Beast strokes my cheek and growls.
I stare up at him. He stares down into my eyes as if expecting something.
He growls again and I almost think he’s asking me a question. I wish I could understand.
Suddenly, Beast’s face falls and I have the worse feeling that somehow I disappointed him.
Did I do something wrong?
He rolls off me, then like a true gentleman, he offers me a hand up.
* * *
What was that? How did I let that happen? How did I let him do those things to me?
My cheeks feel like they’re on fire. I know I’m blushing from top to bottom. Part of me is embarrassed by what happened. I feel like I’ve exposed myself. I feel like I let a piece of myself go, and I’ll never get that piece back. I lost all control of myself and he witnessed it. He did it.
Does this change everything between us now? Because I let him do that, will he think I’ve accepted his ownership of me? I don’t know. And I don’t know how I feel about what’s between us. In the heat of the moment, I relished in the release. I wanted to be his. I wanted him to be mine.
It frightens me more than if it were to suddenly start raining feral fuzzballs and nightmare piggies.
His hand tightens around my hand and Beast looks at me with such longing it steals my breath. I find myself thinking it would be so easy to lift up on my tiptoes and capture his lips in a kiss. It would be so easy to throw myself against him. To revel in the warmth and strength of him. It would be so natural to see what other heights I can reach in his arms.
His eyes flash as if he can see exactly what I’m thinking. Abruptly he drops my hand and turns away.
I feel confused like I’ve done something to displease him. Just the thought makes me sick to my stomach. What did I do wrong?
He has a power over me, and he can wield it again and again. In his arms, I could lose myself.
I’m all that I have left.
I stare hard at his back. Even here, he doesn’t look as if he belongs to this strange world. He’s all purple and dark, clad all in black. He clashes too much against the blue-green of the foliage. The suns bright yellow rays don’t bounce off his massive form, it’s as if he absorbs them, shrouding himself in his own personal darkness. He looks as if he belongs somewhere in the shadows. Or some kind of Hell.
I shiver and walk over to the backpack I left on the floor. I pick it up and suck tiny sips from its spout. I’m thirsty, it’s hard to not drink more. I know, though, that unless I pace myself, I’ll really have to relieve myself.
Since I’ve crashed, I’ve had to make decisions I never had to make back home. Survival is growing more and more tiresome.
So what if I let go? What if I were to give myself to him? Would it truly be that bad?
I already feel drawn to him, like he has his own gravitational pull I’m too weak to resist. The way he touches me, the way I long to feel my skin against his skin, it’s a slow kind of torture to keep denying myself. Life is already miserable enough as it is. Why should I make myself miserable?
Maybe I should just fall and get it over with. It would be so easy to let go.
But I can’t even understand him. If a rescue comes for me, I could and would take him back home. I couldn’t bear to leave him here, all alone. But unless he can learn to speak a language I can understand, I’m doomed to only guess at his intentions. Who is he? Where is he from? How did he get here? He could be a genocidal warlord for all I know. He sure looks the part.
Beast walks stiffly to the edge of the floor. Just watching him do it makes me as anxious as if I was doing it myself. I don’t know how he can stand on the edge like that without fear, without becoming overwhelmingly dizzy and lightheaded. He stands there, staring off in the distance for a long time. I half expect him to sprout a pair of leathery black wings from his back and fly off into the horizon.
Just when I think I should do something to get his attention before my wild imagination gets totally out of hand, he turns back to me. His brows are pulled down and his lips are forming a scowl. I offer him the backpack. He shakes his head then points to the ladder.
It’s time to descend.
My knees feel like they’re made of rubber and it’s a long climb down. The sun is high in the sky, daylight is burning. I don’t know what Beast has planned for the day, but I hope it’s to stop by my pod before we return to his ship.
We both straighten our clothes and get ourselves together. Physically, I feel relaxed, like something tight inside me has uncoiled. If anything, Beast seems even more wound up. I feel a little bad that it doesn’t seem like he got any relief from all of our kissing. If anything, the aura around him seems even more intense now.
Beast starts down first and I climb after him. Going down is so much worse than going up. I don’t know how many times I feel like the rung isn’t where it’s supposed to be. Every time my foot fails to connect, it feels like my stomach dropped out. More than once I feel like I’m about to splat against the ground.
When we finally reach the bottom, I find myself looking up of all things. I almost can’t believe I ever made it up all the way up there, that I stayed all night there. That Beast did those amazing things to me up there, in a tree.
Then I look back
down and see all the carnage that remains. The things that Beast killed still litter the ground. I don’t know what they are, some strange scaly creatures who look like they were cooked up in a freaky nightmare. Beast is impatient, so I don’t get to better examine them. He grabs me by the hand and we pick our way around the bodies, being careful not to step on them. When it’s all clear, when the guts and blood no longer soak the ground, he rushes me through the forest.
Chapter Eighteen
I’m so turned around after everything that happened, I have no clue where we’re going.
Mercifully, Beast gives me a moment to find a tree and take care of my business. Then we’re off again, rushing through the forest as if time itself is running out.
Once my bladder is empty, it’s like I have more room for thoughts. I start to imagine what it would be like to take Beast home with me. I can just picture the look on Vrillum’s face. I can just imagine the look on my father’s. It would almost make this entire ordeal worth it.
Almost.
I feel like shouting hallelujah when we reach the break in the trees and I can see my pod right where I left it.
I’m anxious to see if I have any messages. My paces picks up, I almost rush past him.
I don’t know why, after last night, that I have hope again that I’ll somehow be able to make contact with back home. I guess to me my escape pod represents hope.
Ever since I’ve hooked up with Beast, my situation just keeps getting better and better. He’s like the best thing that happened to me since I crashed. You know, besides all the wanting to own me stuff. He’s like my hunky purple lucky charm. If I hadn’t been so afraid of him in the beginning, this whole ordeal wouldn’t have sucked so bad. When I think about it, he’s done so much for me. He’s fed me, sheltered me, and protected me. I want to return the favor by getting us a rescue off of here. After all, two heads are better than one.
My pod is much the same as I left it. I try to rush in, but Beast holds me back. He insists on entering first.
The pod is so small, there’s nowhere to hide. If there was anything lurking inside, we would easily spot it. After Beast steps in, and does a quick inspection, there’s not much room left for me. The space feels so much smaller with him filling it. It didn’t feel nearly as small when it was just me. There’s also a smell I don’t remember, a distinct dirty princess funk I must have been accustomed to. I don’t know how I stayed cooped up inside of here for so long.
Beast bends over my dashboard, checking it out. I let him examine it while I squeeze past and check on what I left behind in my storage box.
Right away I can see that something got in the box. Whatever it was got to the meat stick I left and gnawed it up into tiny splintered pieces. None of the rations bars seem to have been touched, however. Even the local wildlife knows it’s not really food.
Beast pushes a button and the walls go up.
“Do you know how to work it?” I ask, turning to face him.
With the walls up, it feels even more cramped in here. His head nearly touches the ceiling, his shoulders span across the space between the seat and the dashboard. I’m trapped between the wall and the lock box.
Beast shrugs and pushes another button. The siren starts to blare. Ugh. Thankfully he quickly pushes that button again, turning it off. Unfortunately, my ears are ringing now.
Beast continues to experiment with the buttons. He learns how to turn the surveillance system on, even learns how to project his grunts and growls. He figures out how to raise and lower the small section of wall so that it functions like a door and he even manages to flash on and off the inside lights.
The only thing he manages to do that I never did is adjust the climate control.
“Beast?” I ask as he experiments with the climate control.
It gets sweltering hot and sweat breaks out on my brow.
I still get the feeling he’s upset with me. I still feel like somehow I’ve made him mad, and the way he’s ignoring me just reinforces it.
He holds the button down and the temperature becomes more manageable.
“Beast?” I have to repeat. “Will you turn around and look at me for a moment?”
He turns his face to look at me, though it seems like he’s slow and reluctant to do so.
“Do you think you could figure out how to send out a distress signal?”
His eyes harden and I feel like the weight of them are pushing me down. I almost back off. I almost say nevermind. I can see it. I can see it in his eyes that he’s telling me not to go there. I should back off now, but we’ve come so far. I know I can make him understand.
My mouth goes dry and I have to clear my throat. Then I lift my chin in the air and pull my shoulders back.
“If we can get a message to my father, asking for a rescue….”
I don’t get to finish. As if he’s possessed, as if he’s the very space demon I feared him to be, he growls and pounds the console with his fist. The panel of buttons cracks.
I recognized the warning just a moment ago, I knew he was telling me to back off. I just couldn’t have expected this reaction. He’s beyond mad.
I gasp in complete shock. Is this really happening? He didn’t just do that… he wouldn’t… But Beast isn’t done. He pounds the panel of buttons again, shattering it where his fist connects.
“What are you doing?!” I cry out.
He turns his back on me. I gasp again, this time in outrage. He starts to tear the buttons off. Bits of plastic go flying, bouncing off the walls, bouncing off Beast, and clattering to the floor.
“Stop!” I scream at him.
But he keeps on going.
He’s destroying it. He’s destroying my only hope of ever getting home. Even if there’s no way to send a distress signal, I know there’s a UPS hardwired in the system. If he destroys it unless someone is already en route to this location, I’ll never be rescued. I’ll never walk on my home planet again.
Beast ignores me. He grabs the side of the dashboard. I watch in horror as his alien strong hands crunch into it, his fingers just sinking into the edges. Then he yanks back, ripping the entire dashboard out.
The siren goes off, the lights flash, and half the walls fall down.
Beast starts beating the screen, starts beating all the parts that are jutting out and every little bit that is left of the dashboard.
I’m pelted with pieces of plastic, pieces of metal, and multicolored buttons. I have to crouch down and shield myself with my hands.
“Stop!” I cry out. When that doesn’t work, I try pleading nicely, “Please stop! Please!”
It goes on and on. Each crash, each crunch is like a punch to my soul.
Beast continues to beat my pod, continues to growl, tear, pummel, and punch until the siren chokes out.
I cower and protect myself. He’s so enraged, I have no idea if he’ll turn on me and start pummeling me as well.
When it’s all done, when I only hear him panting and huffing, I dare a peek up. His shoulders are bent forward, and he’s leaning against the wall, spent.
Shakily, I get to my feet. Through the blur of my tears, I take stock of the destruction. It’s all gone, all of it. He smashed it all to bits. My hopes and dreams are scattered everywhere. I’ll never be able to repair them.
I was foolish to believe that he would help me. I was so naïve and stupid to put any of my hope in him. How could I have thought he would help me get home?
How could I have believed he’s any more than the Beast I dubbed him?
“I hate you,” just pops out of my mouth and the next thing I know, I’m saying it again and again.
“I hate you!” I scream and bend over, grabbing up pieces. “I hate you!” I start throwing the broken remains of my console at his head.
“I’ll never forgive you for this!”
He pushes away from the wall and makes a grab for me. If I wasn’t trapped in such a small space, I might have been able to escape him.
He g
rabs my wrist and squeezes, the jagged piece of plastic I was holding falls from my hand.
“Mine,” he growls.
With my other hand, I reach up and slap him across his big purple face.
“Never!” I scream at him.
I’ll never be his. I’ll never forgive him. I’ll never forget this.
Beast doesn’t even flinch. His face darkens where I slapped him, so I know I hit him hard enough to leave a mark, but he appears to be completely unfazed by it.
He captures my other hand and holds me as if it was nothing to him. I’m just a puny human, what am I next to the strength of the mighty alien?
I do the only thing I can do. I drift closer to him. The space between his brows wrinkles with confusion.
I lift my knee and jam it as hard as I can into his big purple nuts.
Beast’s eyes glaze over and his grip relaxes around my wrists, but not enough to let me get away. There’s more than physical pain twisting his features. For a split second, I could swear he looks like some hurt, demon puppy dog, staring at me with its wide, vulnerable eyes, not understanding why I just kicked it.
So I knee him again.
This time he lets go. Clutching his groin, he doubles over in pain, coughing and gagging. I know I have only seconds, if that, before he recovers. I grab on to the half raised wall beside me then throw myself over it.
I land hard on my knees against the solid ground. The sting that bites my knees gives me pause. I waste precious seconds blinking back tears while I struggle to my feet. Once I have my feet beneath me, though, I run as if the Devil himself is on my heels.
Don’t look back.
Chapter Nineteen
There’s nowhere to run but to the trees. Thanks to Beast, my pod was rolled and positioned until it was completely surrounded by them. There isn’t even a path that I can follow.
I swerve through the forest, my body fueled only by sheer desperation. I’ve only covered a couple of spans when Beast’s roar blasts behind me.
