“Yes. What did you think he was?”
“Does dog translate between our languages as the same thing?”
He shrugged, “I think so. I have no idea.”
“Banshee doesn’t look like a dog. He looks like a little polar bear. But at home they’re not domestic. They’re very large and live in a frozen part of my world. They’re ferocious and about 900 pounds or so. But their tails are different.”
“I don’t know what that animal is. There are many types of dogs. Banshee is an exotic breed but they’ve been domesticated for generations. They’re excellent protectors and good companions if you don’t spoil them in an effort to avoid listening to their wailing.”
Daxx put the pizza and beverages into the nourishment station on hold while she fetched her shoes and they went, with Banshee, to the building near the main house.
He held Jetta’s hand the entire walk. She didn’t pull away.
The building was darkened when they entered and Banshee refused to go inside, likely thinking he was being tricked into being deposited there. Daxx led Jetta down a long hallway into the kitchen room and ordered a quart of ice cream from the control panel. It was promptly delivered to the counter by a robotic arm that pulled it from frozen inventory.
As they headed outside, a nude tiny but curvy mocha-skinned woman with long braided hair streaked across the lawn. Jetta jolted.
“Oh, my lord!” Jetta gasped
A nude fair-haired Phallyxian man ran after her and threw her over his shoulder.
“Oh no, Daxx. Help her,” Jetta’s nails dug into Daxx’s wrist.
And then the woman over the man’s shoulder squealed in delight as he blew his lips playfully on her right buttock.
He ran back indoors and she giggled melodically the entire way.
“Holy shit,” Jetta murmured.
There’d been an introduction reception that day and it had gone fairly well, according to the records Daxx had examined. With the recent troubles with the first and second group being bombarded as they left, this group was staying put for a few days and decoy vehicles were leaving with law enforcement who were waiting to be ambushed and then arresting the rebels. This was slowing down the progression of things but it was a necessity. Lacey and two other women, one other from Jetta’s group and another from a subsequent group, were still missing. Another woman had been mid-rescue but was discovered to already be pregnant so she and her kidnapper were taken in while the project council discussed what to do about that predicament.
Daxx and Jetta walked in silence back to the guest house and when they got back to the upstairs media room, Banshee, having been standing sentry by the front entrance to the guest house awaiting entry, Jetta proceeded to order straws and spoons and then scooped out a chunk of the creamy white frozen concoction and said,
“Open your mouth.”
“Hm?” he was watching her.
“Open.”
He hesitantly opened his mouth. She got up on her tiptoes and put the spoon in his mouth with a playful smile.
“Mm. That’s good,” he said as the cold creamy concoction touched his tongue.
She smiled brightly and his chest ached with the beauty of it. She plopped large spoonfuls of the stuff into the glasses of sparkling dark liquid and they immediately began fizzing.
Jetta popped straws and spoons in each glass and passed him one and quickly slurped the foam that threatened to overflow from the one glass.
“Try it.”
He sipped it and gave her a big smile, “This is good.”
“Isn’t it?” she licked the cream from her upper lip and he felt it in his groin.
Daxx fetched the waiting pizza and they sat down.
“What are we watching?”
“I’ve been thinking, since you first asked, and I’ve narrowed it down to a few movies. No one movie is going to give you the whole picture of where I come from but I’ve thought of four that are pretty darn good collectively.”
“Okay.”
“It’s a Wonderful Life. Forrest Gump. The Color Purple. The Wizard of Oz. It’s hard to narrow it down but those seem pretty good. I’ll let you know if I think of any others. There are a thousand movies I absolutely love but these four are kind of like a guide to movies for beginners.”
“Okay. Which one first?”
“In that order.”
“Okay. We’ll watch that first one now. Then we’ll watch the other three when we get home. Agreed?”
Jetta nodded hesitantly.
Daxx used his communication device to access the controls for the entertainment console and uploaded the movie database from his personal files and then watched It’s a Wonderful Life with Jetta.
The last twenty minutes or so of the movie, she cried tears of joy as she watched.
When it was over, she looked at him, “What did you think?”
Daxx smiled, “I liked it. We have a film a lot like that one.”
“You do?”
“Yes. Not the same but a similar story arc.”
“We love movies and television. Is it like that here?”
“For some, yes. Although everything slowed after the infection. We’ve been subsisting since then. Little effort has been spent on family entertainment in the past few years.”
Jetta nodded solemnly.
“I’d like to see some of your movies,” she said finally.
“We’ll watch your four first and then I’ll choose some. How’s that?”
She gave him a shy little smile, “But there’s something else we’ll need for tomorrow’s movie time.”
Daxx looked at her expectantly.
“Popcorn.”
“Popcorn?”
“Do you have corn?”
“It’s on a stalk and you chew it off a cylinder. Blue, small. Right?”
“Yellow.”
“Hm. We have something called corn but it’s blue. It isn’t common. It grows in another region but I should be able to get some.”
“There is blue corn where I’m from but yellow is the popular one. Anyway, the corn is taken off, dried, and then popped in oil. It makes it all fluffy and good. It’s served with salt and butter and it’s a movie must.”
“We’ll be traveling tomorrow and can watch a film on the flight but I won’t have time to arrange the popcorn. I’ll arrange to have some as soon as I can.”
“What kinds of stuff do you like to eat?” Jetta asked, with a smile.
“Our planet is rich in resources but food wise, much of what I typically eat is intricate and complicated, other than my breakfast favorite, which you had this morning.”
He went on to describe some of the dishes that were mainstays and Jetta made a face, “Sounds like French cuisine that’s stuffy and frou-frou.”
Daxx shrugged, “It’s what I grew up on. My family constantly had region dinners with other officials and while there was always abundant food it was pretentious, I suppose. I occasionally go out to eat at local establishments and have simple meat and vegetable meals. I liked them. But I like your food, too. The pizza is incredible and this beverage is delicious. I had friends whose homes I’d eat at sometimes and their food was simpler. I liked it. But you’ll really like the complicated desserts, I think. We have good desserts.”
She smiled, “I guess it’s easy to eat complicated food when a machine cooks it for you.”
“You cooked your food?”
“Well, when I had to, yeah. I’m not a bad cook but I often eat microwaved prepackaged meals or fast food. Too time consuming cooking from scratch for one every day so I save it for special occasions. We eat like crap where I’m from. It’s probably why we die young, obese, and are polluting our planet to the brink of self-destruction.”
“Your food is dangerous,” Daxx agreed.
“I wouldn’t go that far. A little bit of pizza never hurt anyone,” she shrugged, “It’s only when you put it away in copious volumes. Um. Like you just did.” She gestured to the decimated pizza
between them with a smile on her face.
“That’s where you’re wrong. Our planet began trading with Earth and four and a half years ago, Earth ran an experiment, began giving us some of your food without divulging that they’d modified the chemical composition. It’s what killed our women.”
The smile died on her face and then Jetta’s hand covered her mouth in shock.
“GMO?” she asked.
“Let’s not talk about this now,” Daxx felt remorse at bringing up the topic.
Jetta blinked.
She was processing the information given.
“How can you even stand to have women from Earth sent here?”
“You’re not all responsible for the decisions made by a select few.”
“Wow.”
She was quiet a moment and then shook her head, staring at him with accusation.
“What?” Daxx asked.
“I’m not responsible but I’m taking responsibility, whether I like it or not. Because of what they did, me and all those girls will be bearing the consequences.”
“I see your point. But I can’t say it thrills me that you think of a life with me as a consequence for mass genocide.”
She winced.
He got up and left the room, slapping his leg as he went, which made Banshee follow.
He went outside and took a few breaths while the animal roamed around, sniffing things.
Back inside, the animal took off running up the stairs, looking accusingly at Daxx as if to warn him he wouldn’t allow him to keep Jetta all for himself.
Daxx went back to the desk to close everything down for the night and then locked all the doors and climbed the stairs.
He found her in the bed. She was on her side, wearing a short clingy dress of a lightweight fabric with thin straps that circled her shoulders. Her hair was fanned out over the pillow.
Banshee jumped up on the bed. Daxx pointed at him and gave him a soundless command to get down. The animal made a whimper sound but then curled up on the armchair beside the entrance to the bed, giving Daxx big sad eyes.
Daxx was immune to that face. The only sad face he wasn’t immune to was the one on the woman in the bed right now.
Daxx got under the blanket and stared at the night sky above.
“I’m sorry,” Jetta whispered.
He turned onto his side to face her. She still had her back to him.
He ran the back of his fingers over her arm, leaned over and placed his lips on her shoulder, and then turned over and closed his eyes.
Space.
If he gave her a bit of space, maybe she’d reach for him.
She didn’t.
It took a long while before he found sleep.
***
He woke up in the night at some point and she was cuddled against him. But obviously, in sleep wasn’t the same as her voluntarily reaching for him.
“Jetta?” he called out softly.
She didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry I hurt your heart.” He kissed the top of her head, “I don’t know what I could do differently if we went backwards and began again. I needed to make sure no one else could take you. Three men were willing to fight to the death to have you. That’s how much they wanted you. I saw all they saw in you and I saw even more because I had access that they didn’t have.”
She lifted her head and looked at him. She wasn’t asleep after all.
“I know I’ve been hurtful, Daxx, that you’re only doing what you do here but this isn’t how things happen where I’m from. I don’t know how to say this without hurting you some more but I think maybe if we’d had a chance to date, we could have avoided this, and maybe we’d get to where you want to be, but without me feeling like I had no choice.”
He cupped her cheek.
“Can you understand that I felt like I had no choice but to do things this way?” he asked her.
Jetta was quiet, staring at him in the dark.
He wanted to pull her closer, kiss her, touch her, devour her. He stopped himself.
“What if we try that, though?” she asked.
“Try what?”
“Dating.”
“Dating? You ask me questions and assign points?”
She laughed and it was a beautiful sound in the dark, “No. We get to know one another. Maybe put a little bit of distance. I have a different bedroom. We spend time together, and…”
“No.”
“No?”
Daxx didn’t answer.
“No?” she repeated; she sounded angry.
“It sounds just like that dating game you described. You decide when to come back to bed with me based on points I earn? Whether you admit it or not, that’s what you’re asking me for. You’re already mine, little beauty. I’m not ending our marriage so that you can try me out to see if you want to keep me.”
“No. We don’t have to do that. We could just reboot it.”
He shook his head, “I don’t understand you.”
“On my planet, we date. We get to know one another. We go out and do things together, talk, learn about one another. Have fun together. And then from there things can get more serious. Physical. Intimacy. And so forth.”
He watched her.
She continued.
“Marriage happens after people know they’re compatible. It happens with a party and vows where you make promises to one another in front of everyone who is important to you both and then everyone celebrates. You get all dressed up and it’s a celebration of your love that others share with you. It’s more than a fuck and a jewelry color change.”
He sat up so quickly, slapping the light on the wall to illuminate the space as he did, doing it so aggressively that she jolted away from him in fear. He pinned her to the bed, his mouth an inch from hers.
“Do you think that the moment I first sank inside you wasn’t a celebration for me?”
Her mouth opened but he didn’t give her a chance to retort.
“I was elated that you were underneath me, open and waiting to receive my body. That you were becoming mine. It meant more to me than a party with others ever could. Why would I celebrate becoming your husband with others around? That’s a waste of time. All I’d be doing is wishing for the party to end so I could bury my cock so deep in you that you’d feel me in your soul.”
She swallowed hard, her eyes huge.
His hand moved up to her hip, taking the light fabric up above her belly.
“As your husband, I have the right to bury myself in you and stay forever if I want to. Do you know how difficult it’s been to stop myself from keeping you in this bed around the clock doing just that?”
“Get off me,” she demanded, looking angry.
“No,” Daxx told her, “You want me and I want you. I’m going to bury my cock in you and fuck you until the sun wakes.”
“No. I don’t want to.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I don’t, Daxx. And you’re making me really sad right now.”
He leaned back. Her eyes did look sad.
“Why are you sad? Because I’m speaking the truth that you don’t want to admit yet?
“Shut up.”
“Because you hate me?”
“No.” She swallowed.
“You don’t hate me?”
“No.”
“Do you love me?”
“No.” She shook her head vigorously.
“Yes, you do.” He touched her ear gem with his index finger.
She looked away.
He tipped her chin back to face him, “Talk to me.”
“I don’t want to.” She kept her gaze averted.
“Baby,” he said softly and ran his nose up her cheek.
“Turn the light out,” she demanded.
“Why?”
“I have something to say and I can’t say it unless it’s dark.”
He complied but didn’t move away.
After an eternity of listening to her breathe, feeling the tens
ion coming off her ratcheting up multiple levels, she finally spoke, “If I were marrying you of my own free will, I’d get to share in that moment. I’d get to tell you how I felt about you. I’d get to show you with my eyes and with my touch that it meant something. You showed me what that moment meant to you. I felt how important it was to you, even if I didn’t know that at the time. But you stole from me the ability to let something develop so that I could share that moment with you, too. If, big if, I developed those same feelings. Now it can never happen.”
Daxx laughed. God, she was beautiful. Inside and out. He turned the light back on.
She looked hurt. She turned her head away.
“Precious wife, look at me.”
“Fuck off.”
“Hey!” His voice was loud enough to frighten her. He hadn’t meant it to frighten her. He turned the light back on.
Her body was trembling under him.
He got his mouth to her ear, “I’m falling in love with you. I’ve been falling in love with you more and more each day since I first laid eyes on you. I love that your heart is so pure that your biggest issue is that you couldn’t give to me what you think a wife should give to her husband as they marry but you can give that to me.”
He felt her body relax.
“You can give that to me every single day once you decide that I deserve it. I vow that I will deserve it. Every smile you give me, every laugh, it’s all a gift in the meantime. I hope to receive the gift of love willingly from you. You already love me but it’s that willingness to show it that’s still developing in your heart and you’ve put it on hold because of how you came to be mine. I’m okay with that for now. I’ll enjoy the journey to where you feel that you don’t have to hold back. One day, when you decide it’s time, when you forgive me for claiming you the way I did, let’s have that celebration. If it means that much to you, we’ll have a big party and you can decide if you want everyone to know that you love me and that you want me, too. What about that? But I won’t be moving to another room. I get to do things my way and then, when you’re ready, we’ll do them your way as well.”
She was looking at him with an expression of wonder on her face.
He caressed her cheek.
She smiled hesitantly and he felt it right in the core of his heart.
He turned out the light, rolled to his back, taking her with him. She snuggled in.
Hot Alpha Alien Husbands: Book One: Daxx and Jetta Page 18
