by Ava Ross
“You don’t need to be. I…I like you. A lot, just the way you are.”
“Mila,” he groaned. Leaving his improvised stove, he crossed the tiny room and kissed her, cupping her face with his palms. “You undo me and then put me back together again.”
“I think that’s how it should be, because you do the same for me.”
“Good.”
Damn, he sounded cocky. But she liked it. It was pure Kral.
“We’ll need to celebrate your birthday,” she said. “Hold a big party. What else did your mother do for you to make your day special?” She hoped talking about this made him happy. That was how she’d processed her father’s death: by focusing on the good things and trying not to dwell on the bad.
“She would sing a song she’d made up for me, to wake me in the morning.”
Mila laughed. “I imagine that was fun when you were three but less so as you got older.”
His lips curved upward briefly, and she could tell he was lost in the past. “Yes. I would groan and complain, leading her to believe I was much too mature for something so silly.” His gaze met hers. “I wish…”
She wrapped her arms around his waist. “I get it. I wish, too. More than I should.”
“We’ve both been broken by what happened in our past but perhaps…” He gave her a sweet kiss. “Perhaps now we will be whole together.”
This guy made her come undone, but she loved it.
Hell, she was half in love with him already. Maybe more than half.
He eased away and returned to stir his meal.
“Do you have ketchup?” she asked.
He shot her a frown then, using a knife, poked cautiously at the chunks as if he worried they’d bite back. “What will we catch…?”
“Each other.” She gave him a soft smile, her emotions still hot and tumbling around inside her. “Ketchup is a condiment. It’s made from a vegetable, tomatoes, though I guess they’re not a vegetable. They’re a fruit.”
“And you enjoy this fruit-vegetable with your meals?”
“I dip everything in ketchup.” Her words came out mournful until she remembered she’d stuffed a few bottles into her bag. When they reached Crakair, she’d find it waiting, right?
She kept thinking of how fun it would be to try those edible undies from the bridal shower she and her friends were having when the Al’kieern boarded the ship and kidnapped her, Lily, and Taylor. The dildo would not be needed.
Kral pulled the pan off the heat with his bare hands. “There are no dishes to serve this, but we can eat it together off the pan.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Why don’t you go ahead of me to the dining area?” He nudged his head toward the hall. “I will bring the dish.”
“Cool.” She rubbed her aching belly, not quite sure when she’d last eaten.
“Please sit,” he said, waving to the area he’d cleared in the center of the room. He’d arranged pillows on the floor, and she dropped down onto one.
“A picnic?” she asked. “This looks nice.”
“Pick the nick?” he asked.
She held in her chuckle. “Hopefully not. A picnic is when people take a meal outside to the park or on a hillside. You set things up, sit on the ground, and enjoy the food.”
“Then, yes, this is a pic-nic.” He bared his fangs. “I was joking. I knew.”
She grinned. “I’d wondered. Your English has impressed me from the moment I met you. I know our translators do much of the work, but you hadn’t had much interaction with Earthlings, had you?”
“I had not.” He lowered the pan onto the floor in front of her, then sat on the cushion beside her. Lifting a jug, he waved it her way. “Drink?”
“What is it?”
“It is supposed to be quarklet, a watery fruit drink most Crakairians enjoy.”
“Supposed to be?”
His fangs flashed again. “I had to improvise.”
“I enjoy a male who can think fast.”
He leaned in close, and when he whispered near her ear, she shivered in a good way. “I think very fast.”
“Sometimes, being fast isn’t the best,” she said, not trying to hid she meant sexually.
His eyes sparkled. “In that, I take things slow. You will feel everything.”
Whoa. She fanned her face. She wasn’t sure how long she could hold back with only foreplay. She wanted the main course.
Focus on the meal. Once it is finished, a substitution emulsion was the only thing left.
“Fork?” she said brightly. The implement might make it easier to eat the green chunks.
“I will feed you.”
Okay, that could be fun. That’s what they did in rom-com movies, right? She loved the ones set in foreign locations, and there wasn’t anything more foreign than an alien ship and a hot alien guy sitting beside her.
“Aw, this is our first official date,” she said.
“If you were dating on Earth, what would you do with the male?”
“Go out to eat, so pretty much the same thing.”
He puffed his chest, and his eyes flashed. “But he would not emulse your feet afterward.”
“You’ve got that right.” What, exactly, went on during an emulsion? The manual she’d studied on the ship hadn’t outlined the process, and she hadn’t thought to ask her protocol droid. She’d figured she’d find out when it happened. It wasn’t as if she could avoid it. “I thought you said you don’t have a booger.”
“Boodler.”
“Oh, yeah. A boodler. Don’t you need one to emulse my…feet?” A part of her looked forward to it. This was one big adventure. If she cringed away from things, she’d miss out on the good parts.
Chee-chee bounded into the room and climbed up onto her lap. He turned and sat like she was a chair. Reaching out, he snatched up a piece of the meal.
“I hope you cooked enough for three,” she said with a laugh while Chee-chee gnawed on the food.
“There is plenty.” Kral lifted a chunk. “Would you like to try?”
“I would. What is it exactly?”
“Since there was no food on the ship, I had to improvise.”
“You cooked something. We’re calling it food. How is this possible if there was no food on the ship?”
“I went…” He frowned. “What are the words for the activity? I went floundering.”
She blanked. Floundering… “Maybe explain what you did, and I can give you the right word?”
“I stuffed myself into one of the puny Al’kieern suits and went outside the ship.”
She recoiled. “We’re traveling at warp speed, aren’t we?”
“I slowed the ship briefly.”
“Okay.” She blinked, unable to imagine him leaving the safety inside. In all the sci-fi movies she’d seen, horrible things happened to the person who went outside the ship. They were the expendable ones, the guys set up to sacrifice themselves for the rest of the crew. Or, they went out to battle the alien monster, and the two were sucked away into space. Again, the expendable person. This wasn’t Kral. “So you wore an Al’kieern spacesuit—not even asking what you did with the extra arm holes—and you went outside and…floundered?”
“Yes. I floundered for wae-lyns.”
“What’s a wae-lyn?” She watched Chee-chee finish off the hunk and take another.
“A creature that lives in space.”
Her gaze was drawn to the circular porthole high on the outer wall. “How does it survive?”
“They live among meteor clusters, hiding from view, eating dust filtered from the air, and foraged along the surface of the meteor.”
“So sort of a space lobster?” She could get into that. No butter or mayo, but a girl couldn’t be picky in outer space.
“I do not know what a lobster is, but wae-lyns are blue and have thick coats of fur.”
“They sound cute.”
He rose and strode over to a cabinet mounted on one wall and opened the door. Reaching in
, he pulled out a slug-like thing the size of a small pony and held it up. “Cute?” It dangled from his hand, its multiple-centipede-like legs flickering.
She reeled backward but curiosity and hunger overcame her squeamishness. “It looks like something you’d squish if you found it in your garden. Well, if it was smaller.” Ugh, not a good thought. She shoved it aside before she dwelled too long on it.
“You will not find wae-lyns on Crakair.”
“I’ll sleep better at night.” She flicked her hand to the creature, trying not to look at it too hard. A fish and she liked eating fish. Yes, she’d think of it as a fish. “Is that breakfast?”
“With the one I cooked and this one, we should have enough food until we reach Crakair, even with your little friend stuffing himself with my garlong-prepared meal.”
She glanced down. “Jeez, Chee, where did you put it?” He’d eaten almost half of the dish. Lounging on her lap, he burped. She couldn’t help it; she laughed and snuggled the top of his head. “Are you going to sleep now, baby?” Glancing up at Kral, who had returned the wae-lyn to the cabinet and was crossing the room to join her again, she grinned. “He’s heavy.”
He held out his arms. “Would you like me to take him? I can put him in the Commander’s chair. We can leave him in charge.”
“Sure, why not? We’re eating a space lobster. Why not let the space monkey drive the ship?”
He took Chee-chee from her and carried the drowsy monkey from the room, returning a few seconds later. “He appears content playing Commander.”
“Probably not play.” She tapped her temple. “He’s smart.”
Kral dropped down onto the cushion beside her. He lifted a piece of the meat toward her mouth.
She leaned back and eyed it. “Are they…I know I shouldn’t be squeamish. We need to eat. The space lobsters are out there, able to be floundered.” Her mouth formed a circle. “Oh! I know what you mean. You went fishing.”
“Yes, fishing. That is it. I did not flounder.”
“Hopefully not too much,” she said with a snicker, but her mood sobered. “I guess I’d prefer this was a bug and not a mom or a dad with little baby wae-lyns waiting on a meteor for Mama to bring home the bacon. Or dust, in the wae-lyn’s case.”
“They are simple organisms, much like plants.”
“Do they have feelings? I mean, I’m not a vegetarian. I love steak too much. But for some reason, I’m squeamish about this.”
“The wae-lyn is a moving plant. That is the best description. Many Crakairians are eaters of only vegetables.”
Her shoulders relaxed. “Then I’m in.” She opened her mouth, and he popped a piece inside, watching intently as she chewed.
It was gummy, almost like bread dough, and the texture was vaguely like a marshmallow with fibrous strands running through it. It had smelled fishy, and it tasted as it had smelled, though barely a hint of seafood. The sweeter taste burst on her tongue and made her belly rumble in anticipation.
“It’s good,” she said after swallowing.
Kral’s shoulders relaxed. “Yes. I am pleased.” He fed her another bite and ate some himself. They finished the plate, and he got up and returned it to the kitchen, coming back into the room with something the size of his chest that resembled a sponge.
“Dessert?” she asked, more hopeful than she should be. Was it wrong of her to miss ice cream?
He stared down the object. “This is my improvised boodler.”
“Ah, the emulsion. I’m…looking forward to it. What do I have to do?”
“You will lie on your back and let me handle everything.”
Sounded sexy, but she had a feeling it wasn’t.
Taking his pillow, she tossed it behind her and lay down, putting her head on the fluffy surface.
He crouched down by her feet.
“What’s the purpose of an emulsion?” she asked.
“I will tell you in a story. Long ago a queen of the Vikir promised to wed whoever could make her aching feet happy.”
“I can understand that,” Mila said with a slight smile on her face. “Without happy feet, you’re not going anywhere.”
Mila could swear Kral released a soft snort, but she couldn’t be certain as she’d closed her eyes.
“What did she do to make her feet unhappy?” Mila asked. “If I had my guess, she was on them all day, performing queenly duties.”
“This is true.”
“I assume someone used a boodler to make her feet happy.” There was a movie about feet being happy, but she couldn’t remember the name.
“You are ahead of me. If I may finish.” He said it in all seriousness, but humor lightened his voice.
“Oh, sorry.” She waved her hand grandly. No, queenly. “Please continue.”
“Males came from all over, eager to win the heart of the Vikir queen.”
“The way to a woman’s heart is through her feet.”
He chuckled. “It is so.” He removed her shoes. “The first to arrive had no imagination.”
“He wasn’t inventive like you.”
Kral placed a fist against his chest. “Unlike me.”
“If she’d seen you, her feet would’ve been singing.”
“I will make your feet sing.”
“Do it.” She closed her eyes again so she could fully sink into the story.
“This first male to arrive was also a Crakairian prince. More males arrived, and it was announced that each would be given one chance to please the Vikir queen. If they failed, they would be banished.”
“Seems drastic over unhappy feet.”
“It was the way of the Vikir.”
“What happened?”
Kral’s fingers teased the bottom of Mila’s foot, and her laughter burst out.
“The Crakairian prince chose to massage her feet with wildarn fat,” he said.
“Sounds…pleasant.” And stinky. She didn’t know what a wildarn was, but the idea of a creature’s fat being rubbed into her feet made her cringe.
Kral lifted Mila’s left foot and started rubbing. He was using some sort of cream, or…
“Is that wildarn fat?” The words burst out of her.
“I have had to improvise.”
Maybe not wildarn. “What kind of fat are you using?”
“An oil I found in the kitchen.”
So, that was okay. He was using vegetable oil, or so she told herself.
“That feels nice,” she said, wiggling her butt on the floor as he rubbed and stroked from her heel to her toes. He repeated the massage on her other foot. By then, all of her skin was tingling, and she was ready to drag him down the hall to the bed for another round.
“Unfortunately, the Crakairian prince’s massage did not make the queen’s feet happy, and he was banished. Each male who had presented himself at the castle did something similar, using tickling devices…” Kral glided something silky along the bottom of Mila’s right foot, and she jolted and squirmed.
“Stop!” she said, her voice full of laughter.
“See? You understand. It takes a special technique to make feet happy.”
“In comes the boodler,” she said with a smile. “Another prince?”
“This time, it was a simple Vikir warrior such as me.”
“You’re anything but simple, sweetheart.”
He bared his fangs. “You are also not simple, my heart’s sweetness.”
“You’re saying the Vikir warrior brought along a boodler. How did he know it would work?”
“He didn’t. The boodler came with him by accident. Boodlers are peculiar creatures. When they bond with a mate, it is for life.”
“I think I see where this is going.” She adjusted the pillow under her head and peeked at Kral through half-closed eyes. Kral had dragged the sponge closer to her feet, but it wasn’t a boodler as there were none to be had. How was he going to make this odd thing work?
“The boodler had locked onto the warrior,” Kral said. “It was in love,
and it wished to remain with the male always.”
“I feel bad for the boodler.”
“Never fear, the story has a happy ending.”
“That is the point. Happy feet. But what about the boodler?”
He grunted. “As I said, do not worry about the boodler.”
“This sounds like reverse harem.”
“What is this reverse harem?” Kral growled.
“One woman with multiple men.”
“There will be no reverse harems for us.”
Did he sound jealous? “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good.”
“How did all of them find their happy ending?” she asked.
“The warrior came prepared to use a special emollient he’d tapped from the rare cineberr tree found deep within the forest. But the boodler ate the emollient before our warrior could apply it to the queen’s feet.”
“And…?”
“Its belly full, the boodler fell asleep. Unsure what he could do, as it was his turn to be presented to the queen and he worried the boodler would wake and interrupt, the Vikir warrior carried the boodler into the queen’s parlor and over to where she reclined on a lounger.
Kral told a fascinating story, but Mila was worried about what the sponge was going to do to her feet.
As he spoke, Kral lifted one of her feet and then the other, and tucked them inside the sponge. At first, nothing happened.
“The warrior laid the boodler on the bed near the queen’s feet and, before he could scrape out the remains of his cineberr emollient from the jar, the boodler had shifted, tucking its elongating body around her feet.”
Mila hummed and sighed and…
Something was gliding across her feet like she’d placed them into a pool of very soft sand covered with water. The sand gave and swirled around her skin, a sensation that was vaguely sensual. Mila’s moan slipped out.
“That is exactly what the queen said.” Kral moved around beside her and braced himself over her while the sponge did its gliding-massaging thing with her feet.
Kral kissed her, slow and with plenty of heat. The feeling sunk through to her bones, and she moaned again.
He sat back on his heels. “And there you have it. My story—and my courtship—is finished. Now you must tell me, my mate, because I need to know. Are your feet happy?”
“All of me is happy.”
