by Lilly Cain
Her stomach rumbled again. It’s hard to concentrate on the good things when you’re starving.
She scanned the building. Very few people were in the medical facility, let alone awake and alert. She stepped across the room to the door and peeked outside. No one. Passing through the doorway, she silently crossed the hall to a set of lockers. She’d made note of them when the young medtech had showed her the cleansing facilities. The novelty of the water shower had been pure delight to her overloaded L’inar and had given her at least a little sensory relief. She’d been space-bound for over a year, and water for more than drinking seemed like an amazing luxury. Shipboard water could never be used in such a way, but the ultra-sonics on her ship were not without their comforts.
She flipped the door to the first locker open. Nothing. A second cabinet revealed only linens, but she grinned in relief as she opened the third. In a clear bag, she found her emergency pouch and her favorite wristlet, which until this moment she hadn’t even noticed was gone. There was simply too much happening, too much pressure. She hadn’t even tried to contact command to let them know she was alive and had assumed a human identity. A ten-second burst of verbal message might make it through without detection, but it was a huge risk. Alinna glanced up and down the hall. She quietly took out the bag with her belongings and shut the locker door. Stepping silently, she slipped back into her room and sat down on the bed with a sigh of relief.
She ran her finger over the tocuh seal on the pouch and quickly flipped through the contents until she found what she was looking for. Her stomach rumbled again. Gripping the plastic packet, she looked up at a small sound. Major David Brown leaned against the door frame in the entrance to her room. His muscular arms crossed over his chest, and he stared unsmiling at her, his dark blue eyes appearing black in the dim night-lights.
Alinna sucked in a breath, her heart seeming to skip its regular beat. Startled, she blurted the first thing she could think of. “Do you have any idea how bad the food is here?”
“Is that what you’ve got there, a little snack?” He stepped closer to the bed.
She gripped the emergency pouch a little tighter to her body as her mind raced through the list of its contents. Exactly what had she stuffed in there the last time she’d updated the boring Confederacy-issued contents? She couldn’t remember. She set the pouch aside, pretending disinterest, and peeled the wrapper off the nutria-bar she had located before the major’s unexpected arrival. “It isn’t much, but it’s a lot better than what they served for supper.”
Major Brown’s eyes never left hers, but as she took a bite of the dried snack, a small smile caught at the corners of his mouth. “I have to admit that the slop they serve here in the medlab is the worst I’ve ever experienced. No flavorings, and nothing to chew.”
Alinna shivered again. Her feet were cold from the touch of the bare floors, but it was his proximity that caused her reaction. She turned, swung her legs up onto the bed and moved the emergency pouch to the bedside table on the opposite side of the room from the curious officer. He watched her every move, and she noted with interest that his eyes lingered longer on her legs than on the emergency pouch. She pulled the cover up over her feet.
“Can I help you with something?”
“No.” He moved closer, reached for the pitcher of water the medtech had left on the suspended bedtable. He poured her a drink and offered it to her.
“Thank you.” She immediately took a sip, relieved at the distraction. It was clear he suspected her of something, or at the very least distrusted her. This could be a result of her cover position—her research had revealed that psychtechs were not always welcomed in the military forces.
“Unless there is something you’d like to tell me about your real mission here.”
Alinna choked on the water. He knows! “Excuse me?”
Major Brown reached out for her hands, steadying the glass of water threatening to spill in her shaking grip. His skin felt cool to the touch, much cooler than Inarrii skin, and rougher, the texture mesmerizing. Tiny golden hairs caught the light on the pale skin of his forearms. His glare softened as he looked into her eyes. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, Dr. MacPherson, but something isn’t right. I can’t risk the upcoming mission when I don’t have everyone using the same playbook.” He looked deeper into her eyes, looked straight into her Lin’thal. “I don’t know what you’ve got yourself involved in, but if you’ll tell me, I’ll help you as best I can.”
“I’m not involved in anything, but I am very tired.” She pulled away from his touch and set the glass of water down near her emergency pouch. Hardening the tone of her voice, she added a slight empathic push to her words. “I would like to rest now.”
A muscle jumped along the major’s jaw line. A wave of resentment rolled from his psyche, but he turned away and headed for the door. She sagged back against the raised mattress of her bed in relief, until he glanced back at her. A shadow from the doorway fell across his face, but she didn’t need to see him to recognize his intent.
“I’ll see you in the morning then, Doctor.”
She recognized his emotional focus. Like a wild game hunter on her homeworld he’d targeted her, and she knew he had no intention of letting her get away.
Chapter Three
Alinna tossed and turned on the narrow medlab bed. The hateful covers alternated their mindless form of torture: first binding her down, stifling her with their unfamiliar weight, only to have her shivering in the cool night air and grasping for them when she threw them off. She thought longingly about her wide mattress on board the ship she’d left hidden on the dark side of the moon, with its heated air covers and the soft recorded sounds of home.
Sleep eluded her. She shook her head at the impossibility of being able to rest after Major Brown had practically accused her of being an imposter and then offered to help. If he knew the truth of what she was and why she was here, there would be no offer of rescue. From what she had heard of his upcoming mission, the team being assembled on the base was to be the major defense force for a covey of settlers headed for Mars. What else would they be defending those people from, but aliens?
Alinna gritted her teeth. The stress was getting to her. There were lots of things the humans needed to protect themselves against in space, but neither the Inarrii, nor the Confederacy, were one of them. The Confederacy needed resource-rich planets, and people to work them, but unlike some, they didn’t believe in taking what wasn’t theirs.
Alinna rubbed her hands over her forearms, stroking the leading edge of her L’inar nerve lines. She wet her lips with her tongue. An ache was forming in her core, one that had gone unsatisfied for so long that it was unnatural. Inarrii were not meant to be alone. They needed companionship and sex to keep sane, especially in high-stress situations. She grimaced. I couldn’t be any more stressed unless I was under fire.
She closed her eyes and looked with her empathic senses, searching for a lover who could not exist among the humans. It was a fruitless search, and she knew it, but her body was crying out for release and her mind following suit.
The medlab lay quiet around her. As her psyche wandered, she encountered only a few alert minds. Her thoughts returned to the confusing offer made by David. The big male could not know what kind of help she would most like at this point. Finally, among the sleeping minds on the base, she found his presence—much brighter than she would have expected. She looked closer, her mind grazing across his, expecting to sense the flow of muted emotion that ruled a subconscious mind. Instead bright, focused passion flooded her. Immediately she was swept inside.
Alinna gasped as David’s lips found hers. She struggled to pull away, shocked at the intensity of the sensation. The major was experiencing a vivid dream, and she could sense every nuance. This had never happened before; her talents had always stopped at the empathic level, and she’d chosen partners with the same level of ability. But here, she could feel his touch, see every detail, even smell h
is spicy cologne. David’s mind held on to her psyche, his desire a leash that wound around her and held her tight. As if he realized he had caught her within his dream, his mind pulled hers into a close embrace. His dream body molded itself to hers. She could feel the outline of his hardened muscles through his uniform, and her heart leapt with desire.
“So, you want me to call you Alinna.”
Alinna stiffened, this shock even greater than the last. There was no indication on the species evaluation to indicate humans had any sort of psychic ability, but clearly they were wrong. The man had just spoken to her mentally, albeit in a dream.
“If I call you Alinna, what will you call me?”
His mental voice rubbed against her in the same way his deep-toned speech did in the physical world. It resonated with sexual promises, no matter what the words communicated. She relaxed against him and felt his grip loosen in kind. This was a dream to him, a sexual dream. She felt her own desire return with its familiar ache. She smiled. She wasn’t one to put aside an opportunity like this. She’d figure out how he came to have these abilities later, but for now she’d make this the best dream he’d ever had.
“David, of course,” she purred against him, leaning into his embrace to rest her lips against the pulse in his throat. Her empathic senses felt his desire leap at her response, and she stoked his fires, pouring heat into his emotional hearth. She dragged her fingers down his arms, tracing patterns on his naked skin where L’inar would be, were he Inarrii, with the edge of her fingernails.
“I wouldn’t call you Alinna. I’d call you sweetness, my sexy sweet thing.”
She felt her eyebrows climb. No one had ever given her a lover’s name. She rubbed against him, letting the image of her medlab gown that had followed her psyche into his dream fade away. Naked, she rubbed as much of her skin against his as she could, beginning a dance she prayed would last the rest of the night and soothe her stressed senses. Slowly she cupped the bulge in his pants with one hand and sighed in delight. He was Inarrii-sized everywhere.
“Naughty.” He gripped her hands within his and held them captive as he kissed her, probing the opening between her lips with his tongue.
Alinna moaned into his mouth, writhing against him. Her desire overwhelmed her, pushing her to rush into a deeper intimacy without savoring the slow burn he created within her.
“I want you! I need…”
“I know, sweetness, shhh.” Holding her wrists tight with one hand, he slid his other down to caress her skin, stroking the L’inar wrapping in curls around her breasts until she whimpered. He paused in his caresses, staring at the nerve lines that were sending waves of pleasure to her core. She felt the moisture in her sinaa well pooling, her heat growing. It was possible he would bring her to orgasm just staring at her. She needed this so badly.
“Your tattoos, your tattoos remind me…” He frowned.
“They remind you of how sexy I am, how different and desirable.” She broke in, pushing at him empathically to remember only how much he wanted her now, not how he suspected her in the conscious world. If he stopped now, she might die from sheer frustration.
He looked into her eyes.
“You are different. And hot. I want to fuck you so hard, you’ll feel it in the morning, even if this is just a dream.”
She gasped. He was aware of the dream. Before she could accept the ramifications of that, he was cupping her breast again, drawing his lips down to suck at her taut nipple. She shuddered, arching into him. Each touch brought a response, an increase in the urgency she was feeling to the point that she clung to him when he let her hands go to explore the curving L’inar across her belly.
David dropped to his knees to kneel in front of her, his shirt disappearing as her medtech shift had. Another example of his control over his dream, but one she didn’t care to reflect on at the moment. Instead she stroked his hair, marveled at his smooth skin. An Inarrii male would have been covered in ridges by now, his desire clearly visible as the reddish L’inar reacted to his arousal. Part of her desired to touch him and tease him in a vain effort to stimulate a reaction that wasn’t possible.
“Your skin is so soft. I think I love your tattoos. They point me in the right direction.”
David pulled her down to him, cradling her in his arms for a moment before he settled her on her back on the soft floor. He ran his fingers lightly over the curling nerves blatantly displayed on her skin. She arched and moaned in his hands. When he began to lick the lines, follow their coils with his tongue down the curve of her hip, she moaned louder and opened her knees for him. With each sweep of his fingers or tongue, she felt pleasure winding through her body, focusing her attention on the heat in her sex. He cupped her ass cheeks in his hands and squeezed, lifting her hips to display the L’inar on her inner thighs.
Alinna knew she should stop him. Stroking her L’inar this way, doing this meant something. But her mind buzzed with arousal she could no longer control. It had been too long since her last true release. Everything seemed a bit cloudy, fuzzy on the edges as he traced the twisting designs with his tongue. There is something he is doing…something he shouldn’t do…but her mind darkened as his mouth wound along the L’inar on her inner thigh until he grazed her sex—her sinaa—and his tongue flicked out to part the swollen lips there. She could only focus on the sensation as he delved into her core, licking and sucking, pulling her up to a pinnacle of pleasure so steep that she let out a short scream and toppled over.
Waves of pleasure swamped her psyche in a way she’d never before experienced. Her orgasm rocked within her, but he didn’t stop as he pushed her legs farther apart and knelt between them. His pants melted away in the dreamscape to expose his thick cock, its jutting length so different than the Inarrii males she was used to, perhaps not as long, but so smooth and very thick. He didn’t wait for her orgasm to subside but pushed within her, slowly, each stroke parting her further as he planted himself deeper within her sinaa.
“Ya’sai lenali!” she gasped.
“What?” He hesitated, but she grabbed his hips, pulling him down until the base of his cock pressed against her.
“More, lover! Just…more.”
David pulled back, and she moaned at the unfamiliar feeling. He was so much wider than an Inarrii, and it felt…good. The sensation was as though he was splitting her in two, but she wanted it, wanted it so badly she pulled at his hips, urging him to stroke faster.
He nipped her neck in return, growling at her. “Go easy, sweetness.” He tweaked one of her nipples, and she whimpered, the flash of sensation sizzling through her L’inar. Another orgasm was building; the warm glow from the last was not yet gone, and yet her body creamed against his invading cock, welcoming it and the pleasure he brought. She wrapped her arms and legs around him. As if he knew what she desired, he knelt up, pulling her with him until he stood. He held her weight easily, although she took some of it by clinging to his shoulders and rocked her hips against his.
David kissed her, his lips hot with passion, his tongue mating with hers. He cupped her ass again as they rocked, and she shuddered, feeling his fingers explore her tight opening there, wet now with her own juices. She wrapped her empathic senses around his as he worked one finger into her tight hole. His pleasure at the act flooded her, tinted with the darker emotions that accompanied the desire to possess. He encouraged her to accept this unusual penetration until his single digit thrust into her at the same pace as his cock plunged into her sinaa. He fucked her now in every orifice with his tongue and fingers and cock, and she returned her delight at the feeling and her acceptance to him in an empathic wave, flooding his senses with the same pleasure she felt.
The exchange of sensation and emotion rippled back and forth between them, growing as they experienced each other’s reactions. She sensed his orgasm. He pumped his seed within her, just as an Inarrii male would have done. She shuddered along with him, the sensations so intense she found blackness engulfing her.
*
* *
Panic seized David as he thrashed awake. His sheets were drenched with his sweat and come. With a groan, he disentangled himself and rubbed a hand across his eyes. What an idiot. He’d panicked because he’d lost her, a dream girl. Granted, it had definitely been the most vivid dream he’d ever had, but a man shouldn’t fall for a woman with one fuck, not even a perfect dream woman. The sense of loss he felt was completely unwarranted. Maybe he did need a psychtech, but it had better not be Dr. Janet MacPherson—Alinna. She would not understand his apparent need to fuck her in his dreams.
He slumped back on the bed, only to grumble and stand up. The mattress was soaked. He must have pumped a bucket of come in his sleep. For once, he blessed the base’s small staff. Because of the limited number of people on the large base, he had a good-sized room to himself with its own bathroom and could go directly to the shower, no matter what time, no questions asked. He ripped the sheets from the bed as he moved, tossing them in the recycle chute near the washroom door. He always slept naked now that he had the privilege of privacy. He stepped into the shower unit and flicked on the hot water. A pressure spray streamed down on him, rinsing him clean and washing the last of the adrenalin from his system.
He leaned his face into the flow of water. Hot streams of liquid poured over his face and down his chest. He’d enjoy this now, while he could. If all went well, he’d be living in space for an extended amount of time. Water would be limited and certainly not for use in bathing. He tilted his head down to allow the water to pour down the back of his neck and shoulders. Thinking about something trivial wasn’t helping. His mind drifted back to his dream, to how incredible Alinna looked nude, wearing only those mind-blowing tattoos. I wonder if they really do curve around her body like that. Hell, I wonder if she’s as hot as that. Even her skin had been hot to the touch. But all he had to go on was the shapeless medical gown and the edge of a cultural tat. No way to know if the marks really curled around her breast or decorated her thighs all the way to her pussy. His cock swelled at the thought. He snorted at himself. Get a grip. You’ll never know. Besides, only in a dream does a woman respond like that.
