Jawbreaker (Four Point Universe Book 14)

by Max Ellendale

  I toted over the tray of food I prepared and set it on the nightstand beside her. She glanced at me, doing a double-take when she noticed breakfast and the single red rose I held out to her. A flash of astonishment washed across her face, and she hung there as if she never expected me. I chuckled and caressed her forearm with the petals.

  "Morning, sexy girl." I smiled and kissed her knee when she moved her laptop aside.

  "Hi, honey." The smile that broke out across her face warmed me from head to toe. "Is this for me?"

  "Yes." I offered her the flower and she accepted it.

  Harlow's cheeks burned red as her fingers wrapped around the stem and she brought it to her nose. Her eyes never left mine and she nibbled her bottom lip. "Thank you, baby."

  "I made you bashful." I stroked my knuckles over her cheek, and she nodded.

  "Surprised me." She giggled softly then leaned forward to kiss me.

  I pressed my finger under her chin and allowed my lips to lead her in a delicate dance. She relaxed into it at first, her body softening as she set her computer aside. The flower rested between her breasts until her fingers curled around the hem of my shorts. Her hand trembled, and the heat of her swelled to vibrant pulsations in front of me. I knew I held her a second too long when her tongue lashed against mine. A tiny moan left her against my mouth, and her nails raked my thigh. Shivers rushed through me when my body responded to her arousal with one of its own. I gripped her hip, holding her to me until she ended the kiss for a gasping breath.

  "Veyda." She ran her fingers through my hair, then held fistfuls of it while pressing her forehead to mine.

  "Harlow." I chuckled while doting on her, pecking her lips and chin wherever I could reach.

  "You're so good to me," she whispered, leaning back to look at me with half-lidded eyes.

  "You deserve goodness." I reached over to the tray beside us and plucked a firm, ripe grape from the bunch. "Hungry?" I brought it to her lips, watching as they wrapped around the fruit to take a juicy bite.

  She nodded, licking her lips after. "It's so sweet."

  "Just right." I crunched on the rest of it then nipped her lips again. "Like you."

  Her soft giggles continued while she caressed my face and continued to clutch the flower to her chest. "You make me so happy."

  "If it's the only thing I do every day, make you happy, I would be the happiest Hybridian on this planet." I chuckled and cupped her face to stroke my thumbs over her lips.

  She kissed each of them, then rolled forward to catch me in a hug. I lifted her, turning both of us around so that I sat with my back against the headboard and settled her in my lap. She straddled my thighs and squeezed me. I rubbed her back, unable to wipe the smile from my face.

  "Good like this?"

  She nodded, then leaned back to look at me. "So good." The flower found its way to her nose again and she smiled.

  My stomach flip-flopped while I watched her, and goosebumps raced over my flesh. I caressed her thighs, allowing myself to drown in her beauty this morning. We didn't feel rushed or pressured, just at ease with one another. Her presence in my lap felt like the most natural thing in the world.

  "Your eyes say a million things to me," I said, smoothing her hair down behind her ears. "When you look at me."

  "Yours, too. Nebulas flashing lightning just for me." Her brow furrowed and she reached under the pillow beside us to pull out the book I worked on last night from beside her knee. "Disrupting my comfort."

  "Wicked book." I chuckled and took it from her. "I was reading the Andromedan portion this morning."

  "What did it say?"

  "That Earth is our home. We are a part of this universe even if our Starseeds belong to another. It confirmed what Mahrulo said about Starseeds."

  "He knows some of the things. Other things he fills in the gaps based on his audience." She nudged me to open the book to where I used the dustjacket as a bookmark. "What's it like when you read it? Does it translate to English?"

  "Yes. In a way? Like I look at the symbols and my mind understands it as English. I don't think I could point to it and say, 'this symbol means grapes' or something. I just…understand it and can tell you about it. Like passing a story you heard to someone else."

  "Incredible. Innate language." She ran her finger over the spine of the book.

  "Yes. I think I would've remembered if my mother taught me to read Andromedan symbols."

  "Probably." She pointed to the top of the next chapter. "Is this a chapter break? It looks like a heading."

  "Yep. It's structured the same as the rest of the book. The title of it is Unspoken Gifts."

  Her brows flicked upward. "Before that it spoke about your element-bound gifts, right?"

  I nodded and flipped back a page or two. "And how Hybridians tend to not master all of the elements, but specialize in one or a few. Mine are clearly spirit and air focused. It makes sense to me and confirms what I already knew."

  "It does. Want to read this part together? Or…tell me what it comes across as to you?"

  "I'd like that." I rubbed her leg from knee to hip as she plucked a piece of avocado toast from the tray. She held it to me first, and I accepted the bite. "I hope you like this kind of seasoning, like an everything bagel."

  "It's my favorite." She smiled around her bite, and we settled into the book that turned itself into a story for me.

  "This is about Starmates." I sat up straighter when the notion struck me. "It calls them Starmates." I pointed to the symbol, blinking a few times. "Can you see this?"

  "Yes. Like a crescent moon with a vine snaking through it."

  "It sparkles for me. Like twinkles."

  "Really?" She glanced between me and the page.

  "Yeah." I brushed my finger over it, but the effect remained. "Starmate."

  "What does it tell you?"

  "Um…" I thought about it for a moment, allowing myself to experience the symbols before putting them together. "'The greatest unspoken gift to Andromedans is their connection to their mate. Not all planetary species are monogamous or singly-devoted life forms, but we have Starmates. While the author can't speak to all species, he will speak for Praxi people.'" I glanced at her, my eyes wide as my heart pounded in my chest. "It was right here all this time that we've been carrying around this book."

  "Keep going." She urged me forward, abandoning the rest of her breakfast on the tray.

  "'Praxi people are highly devoted and may have been the first to discover their Starseed connection to the universe. Praxi thrive in the depths of their bonds with each other, with the planet and its elements. Love, as humans call it, is a part of this bond.'" My eyes flew across the page, and I flipped it to the next one. "'Between two Praxi people, this bond is a star-bound connection. Our Starseeds make it so. It can become telepathic and empathic. They flow together like the waters of a fall, always in unison, always together.' But he says he's only known this love of family, not of a Praxi Starmate, because his Starmate is… Earthling human.'" I paused for a moment, allowing my thoughts to catch up to the story told to me. I couldn't stop my pounding heart, or the bit of perspiration the heat of the information brought.

  "Earthling human Starmates? But how if it's something between Starseeds?"

  "Not sure." I held my breath for a moment while continuing. "From what he's learned in his time on Earth, Starseeds matter only for the Praxi or the Hybridian. All Hybridians carry the Starseeds of both their universe of origin and of that of their parentage. Andromedan and Milky Way Starseeds in harmony, for example. Although some species of Offlanders can breed together, he will speak only of Andromedan-human Hybridians because it's what he knows, specifically Praxi-human." I raced through the page and on to the next. "'Starmates are as much innate as they are chosen. When a Praxi chooses their mate, it is a forever bond if the mate accepts it. For humans, it's not always a conscious process, but they call it falling in love.' From his experience, if a human falls in love with a Praxi person, t
he bond seals itself the same way if they are both open to it. Because we are of this Earth and Earth is now our home." I looked up to Harlow, my brow furrowed with waves of confusion I couldn't even begin to untangle.

  "It sounds…more spiritual than anything else," summed Harlow. "Like well-beyond our ability to unravel this notion."

  "He says that next. He says it is just how it is. It is how it's always been. This notion of whole love is whole love in return."

  "Not too foreign a concept though, right? We all talk about that here on Earth. Falling in love and being in love. Quantum consciousness, quantum entanglement, and all those theories of consciousnesses colliding and being changed by their experiences."

  "It sounds like that, yes." I smoothed down the book pages in an attempt to stop my fiddling. "He says he can't explain it, but he wants all Praxi people to understand why people will feel this warmth about them. Praxi is love, we are love, and his Starmate describes closeness with him as being engulfed in a love bubble when we are close, and he feels that way with his Starmate. 'I am soothed by you, my love.' Or something like that."

  "Do…you feel that?" Harlow's body tensed slightly in my lap.

  I nodded as I attempted to keep my cool. "All the time."

  "How?" Her voice softened and her brow wrinkled as if she fought the uprising of emotions of her own.

  "Um…" I leaned back, gulping down the nervousness that threatened to overtake me. "I'm always overwhelmed by sounds and smells and voices or touch. Always. When it gets too much, I have to do things to stop it. Wear noise cancelling headphones, stay away from people, go somewhere open. But…when you're close to me, I don't experience any of that. You…calm me down. Make my senses feel normal. Focus me."

  "Yeah." She chuckled as her eyes misted over. "I feel like that when we're close. Like everything is safe and we're secure and nothing could hurt me." Her breath hitched. "But that's because I love you, isn't it? Isn't that what being in love is?"

  "I think so… I think he's describing being in love, but in his way, maybe?" I surmised, but the information felt differently than just that for some reason.

  "Maybe, yes." She rubbed my shoulders, then brushed my hair away from my face. "You're overwhelmed, honey. You're turning beet-red."

  "I know, but I want to understand it." I leaned into her touch, and she shifted her position to sit beside me.

  "All right. Let's sit like this then, okay?" She wrapped her arm around my shoulders and the other around my middle. "So we can look on together."

  I snuggled into her, instantly soothed by the position, and so I propped the book on my knees. Even though she couldn't read it, she watched my finger move across the symbols as if she could.

  "I appreciate you, Harlow." I nuzzled her cheek with my nose.

  "I know you do." She pressed a gentle kiss to my temple. "I want to understand with you." She placed her hand on top of mine and rubbed my back. "Together."

  "Together." I nodded while blinking away the emotions that warred inside me. "The unspoken gifts isn't the Starmate or the bonds. Those are well-known and understood—except by me, apparently."

  "Stop that." She swatted my hand while chuckling. "Go on."

  "'The unspoken gifts are the core of the Praxi people. When we love and commune, it is with wholeness. Praxi people, before the war, rarely experienced emotional pain, and delighted in the states of pleasure gifted to them. This was the envy of the Jukara and many others who tried to learn their ways. Some attempted to study us to understand it, but they all failed.'" I paused for a moment, allowing myself to take it in slowly. "'Pleasure is the gift of the Praxi, one that they carry on to others. Emotionally and physically. Pleasure heightens our emotional connections, seals our bonds, and guides us toward self-acceptance. In the world we are in now, on this Earth, this gift enhances to balance the pain we now feel. Praxi people experience both pleasure and pain, but our evolution serves us, and pleasure remains.'" I paused for a moment to say, "He sounds like a philosopher."

  "Keep going," urged Harlow, her eyes wide as she stared at the book as if she could read it.

  "'Hybridians are no exception to this. They receive and share pleasure as their Starseed demands. It is bound in the physicality of our species, and the characteristic has never bred down as it is dominant. The science is easier to explain,'" I read, flopping my hand down on the book. "Yes, please science this already."

  "Veyda." Harlow laughed. "Is this how you treat your elders? He's telling you a story."

  "Slow and metaphysically! I need fast and concrete."

  "Oh my God." She cracked up and hugged me tighter. "Get to the science then."

  "Finally." I huffed and it took me a moment to breeze through the next portion. "'We will base this on Earth science and Earth words because this is now our home. All Praxi people and Praxi Hybridians have glands under the organ humans call a tongue. This gland secretes what humans call hormones or pheromones that enhance the oral lubricant called saliva. This is our source, our origin, our fountain to be shared with only our Starmate. Only our Starmate will experience in our source, and only with our Starmate will we experience its full power.'" Tingles raced up my spine when the threads of understanding began to weave itself together. "'Secretions are always present, but when willed forth, you will truly understand.'" I frowned when the chapter ended and looked to Harlow. "What happened to the science?"

  "I think…" Harlow stared at me, her eyes wider than before. "He means you have a gland under your tongue that secretes a sort of…aphrodisiac? I mean…I would agree…" Her cheeks turned pink then. "Let me see under your tongue."

  "It can't be that simple though…" I opened my mouth and lifted my tongue to show her. "Thith isth siyyee."

  "It's not silly." She swatted my hand away and her brows flicked upward. "You do have different anatomy. Veyda. Look. These two bumps on either side. They're purplish. I don't have that."

  "Let me see. Show me."

  She opened her mouth, and we repeated the bizarre cross-examination. Sure enough, under her tongue appeared flatter than I'd known mine to be.

  "I've literally never looked under someone else's tongue before. How was I supposed to know any of this?" The rush of anxiety interfered with the excitement of learning more about myself, however.

  "I don't know… I think that's what he was trying to say. It's the unspoken gift…isn't it?"

  More pieces began to connect for me, and I nodded. "Yes…but only a Starmate can experience it? Did he mean that?"

  "I think so…" Her pink cheeks turned bright red then.

  "Then why did Mahrulo say some people sold their saliva? Maybe it has a lower-key reaction for others…"

  "Maybe." Harlow drew in a slow breath. "I can't claim to know about Andromedan or Praxi bonds or Starseeds or Starmates, but I do know, Veyda, that you're my soulmate. In the language of Earthlings and humans, you've always felt that way to me…" She paused, shaking her head as emotions seemed to strangle her voice. "I think…you should know how I feel."

  My throat tightened with the feelings that accompanied her disclosure. My heart thrummed, tears brimmed, and I set the book aside to take both of her hands. "You're mine, too. I love you, Harlow. I've never loved anyone like you and you're my soulmate, too."

  "Am I your Starmate?" She sniffled when she asked, and tears streamed her cheeks. "How do we know?" Her body burned hot with mine, both of us caught in an energy-laden lock where both of us seemed to vibrate at frequencies meant to untether.

  "Do you want to be?" I kissed her knuckles, my eyes never leaving hers.

  "More than…I've ever wanted anything." She trembled in front of me, squeezing my hands tighter. "Ever. I can't even think about someone else being your Starmate. I can't even think about it. Or think about losing you. I can't." She fractured in front of me, breaking down into a heavy sob while shaking her head.

  "Harlow…" I pulled her to me, capturing her in a hug as I tempered my own tears. "No one else will. No one e
lse can be. It's only you. It's only ever been you."

  "How do you know?" She hid her face against my neck as I urged her back into my lap.

  "Because…" I gulped, drawing in a shaky breath. "Because of how it feels when we kiss. Because you can see me when I'm hiding in the shadows. Not even Nalea can do that. Because even from the first time I broke into that museum, you told me you could sense me there. You were able to sneak up on me. No one can do that. Not anyone. You make me feel safe and comfortable. When you touch me, it never hurts." Everything tumbled into place, like atoms bonding to form matter. "You're mine. I just know it. I just know."

  She sobbed harder, nodding as she raked her nails over my shoulder. I cupped the back of her head as heavy cries brought me to bury my face in her hair.

  "I love you so much," I croaked, sniffling as I attempted to get a hold of myself.

  "I love you, too." She leaned back then, cupping my face in her palms. "We're a mess."

  "We are." I caressed her waist then blew out a slow breath. "But together."

  She nodded, her eyes fixed on my mouth now that we both seemed to settle into our confessions. We wore them with ease, and the powerful, burning energy around us settled to a rhythmic pulse instead of a clanging drum.

  "Together."

  I chuckled and opened my mouth to show her under my tongue again. "Are you checking out my bits?"

  "Yes." She snickered then gnawed her bottom lip. "Can't believe I never noticed."

  ''It's my own mouth. I should've noticed."

  "Have you ever gone to the dentist?"

  I shook my head. "Never needed to. The healing thing and stuff protects my teeth I guess."

  "And magic saliva, apparently." She thumbed my lips and finally settled down in my lap again.

  "I've never kissed anyone like you…never felt this way with anyone else. I want you to know that, Harlow," I said, my grip firm on her waist. "Ever."