“Or to other humans,” I acknowledge. “Humans encompass a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds,” I explain. “And many have to work for a living. Sometimes that work includes cooking for other people.”
“And your background is such that you are required to cook for others?”
I stifle a snort. “No. Until last week, I was a student. But I took a few gourmet cooking classes when I first moved out of my parents’ home, so I could learn to kind of fend for myself. I never really got beyond the ‘prep cook’ skill level, though. That’s mostly a bunch of chopping and measuring.”
“Why didn’t your parents teach you to cook?”
The very thought makes me laugh. “Because that is not among their skill sets. My parents are more…idea people. They think of things for other people to do.”
Lohr finishes washing vegetables, then he takes the cubes I’ve cut and begins dropping handfuls of them into his leather cooking…pot. “That is a viable way to provide for one’s family, in human society? Thinking of things for others to do?”
“It’s the single most profitable way to make a living.” While I finish the last tuber, he takes a couple of small pouches from a shelf and drops pinches of aromatic, dried herbs from them into the stew.
I throw the last of the cubed vegetables into the pot, then I rinse the knife in his bowl of water and return it to the shelf he took it from earlier. When I turn to ask what he wants me to do with the leaves and stalks, I find him holding a chunk of meat on a forked twig that has been stripped of its bark.
"Would you like to try some?"
It smells delicious. "Yes. Please." I open my mouth, and he uses the homemade utensil to place a chunk of meat between my teeth. I pull it free from the fork and a moan escapes my mouth as the roasted flavor explodes on my tongue. "Mmm,” I moan. "That's delicious. And not just because I haven't eaten in more than a day." And the really bizarre thing is that I don’t recognize any of the flavors. “When will it be finished?"
"When the vegetables are soft enough to eat.” He sets the homemade fork on the table next to the stalks and leaves I still haven't figured out what to do with, and when he turns, his gaze catches mine again, and this time he holds it. He's studying me, as if he's trying to understand something. As if I’m a puzzle he hasn't yet worked out.
When the intensity of his focus becomes too much, I force my gaze away from his eyes and find it drawn, through no fault of my own, over the golden, fuzzy span of his chest. My gaze catches there, and I remember what the soft down over his skin felt like beneath my fingers.
My mouth goes suddenly dry. I lick my lips, and when my gaze ventures even further south—when I find him still hard, and now throbbing—a soft growl escapes from his throat. It isn't an aggressive sound. It's almost an invitation, but more than anything it's an expression of need that transcends the language barrier. The culture barrier.
“I—”
Suddenly Lohr lurches toward me, a golden blur that fills up my entire range of vision. His hands find my waist and my back slams into the wall of his hut, hard enough to make the wood tremble. I can feel him pressed against me, hard as always, but before I can even catch my breath, his mouth is on mine.
His hands curl around my hips, squeezing, as he sucks my lower lip into his mouth. I gasp as his pointed incisors scrape my skin, but I don't taste blood. He’s being very careful.
I moan into his mouth, and his growl becomes a purr, rumbling through my body to settle into all the best places. Touching me in spots his hand and his mouth could never reach.
My fingers find his chest, playing in the soft and velvety feel of fur that isn't really fur at all. He isn't a cat—no more than he is a human anyway—but my associations with his features are all feline in nature, and I cannot help but feel like I’m being kissed by the king of the jungle.
Not that lions actually live in the jungle.
His hands slide up from my waist, moving up the sides of my rib cage, drawing a sound from me that I can't quite identify. It isn't a moan. It isn't a groan. It's as inarticulate a sound of need as I have ever made in my entire life.
In response to that sound, his purr rumbles faster, harder. His tongue plunges into my mouth, tasting me, and I greet it with my own, surprised by the rough texture and the…length.
The things that tongue could do…
I let my hands wander around his sides to his back, where that golden down grows thicker and softer. My fingers curl into it, but it isn't thick enough to tug, so I slide my hands back up his body and thrust them into his hair. His…mane.
He groans as I run my hands through the thick, stunningly soft strands.
Something soft brushes my ankle and I gasp. I tear away from his mouth and look down to find his tail softly skimming up my calf. Sliding toward my thigh.” Oh my god." I laugh. "That thing has a mind of its own."
His reply is a soft growl as he licks his way down my neck, his rough tongue scratching at the skin just firmly enough to awaken my nerve endings.
His hand slides beneath the hem of my pajama top, and though his claws are sheathed, I feel the tip of them scrape lightly over my skin. I've never been intimate with a man who wasn't human. Everything about Lohr is different. Everything is…more, somehow. His fur, his claws, his teeth… They’re awakening sensations I’ve never experienced in my life.
Moisture gathers between my thighs and I can feel heat pool there. My face flushes. It's been a long time since I was so—
This makes no sense. This is not smart. Lohr is not what I expected from a Fetoji man. Despite the misunderstanding this morning, he hasn’t been aggressive or violent. But that doesn't mean—
A deep growl rolls up from his throat and his grip on me tightens. Suddenly he pulls me away from the wall and spins me toward the table. He plants one hand between my shoulder blades and before I can form an articulate objection, he bends me over the worn-smooth surface and kicks my feet wide apart.
"Wait!" I plant my palms on the table and try to push myself upright, but his hand is still on my back and it does not budge. With his other hand, he tugs my pants and underwear down to my thighs, stretching them over the span. "No!" I shout. "Stop!"
His free hand slides over my backside and between my thighs almost gently, as if he is assessing. Testing the waters, while I tremble. "But you are aroused and…swollen,” he growls, removing his hand from my back. "You are ready to be mated."
"That's not up to you!" I stand and shove him backward, then I pull my pants up and back away from him until my spine hits the wall again. "You can't just throw a woman down on the table—” I don't even know how to finish that sentence. I don't know how to explain to him that what he did was wrong, if he doesn't already understand that.
"That is how it is done with my species," he says.
"Fetoji men rape their woman?"
His focus goes blank, and he rubs his forehead, again accessing a word he has no association for. "Rape," he says. “‘By force. Without permission.’” His frown deepens. “My understanding is that this is against your society’s law. As well it should be. But that is not what the men of my species do. It is not what I was doing. I apologize," he says. "I thought I had identified your signal. Your…request. The sign that you are ready to be mated."
“I don’t— I—” I shove one hand into my hair, compounding my frustration when it gets caught in tangles. “What did you think that sign was?"
"You seemed taken with my cock.”
Well, hell. “I can't stop looking at it, if that's what you mean. But that's because it's always there."
“Where else would it be?” Lohr seems genuinely puzzled.
“Covered. It would be covered, but since it isn’t, I can’t seem to stop looking at it.”
He growls, but the sound seems directed at himself. He’s clearly frustrated with my inability to understand his culture.
The feeling is mutual.
"In my culture, if you aren't sure whether someone i
s willing, you have to ask for permission, and even if you think you are sure, you have to stop when someone says stop."
"But your body was not saying stop,” he insists. “Your body is wet for me. I could smell that even before I could feel it. In my culture, that is the ultimate sign that a woman is ready to be mated."
"Well, for humans, it's just a sign that a woman is aroused. Aroused and willing are not the same thing."
“I—” He frowns. “Among Fetoji, a woman does not become aroused if she is not willing.”
“Yet your men do?”
“No,” he says. “It is the same for both genders.”
“But…I don’t understand. You’ve been hard since the moment I met you.”
“And I have been willing and eager to mate with you that entire time,” he says, and I groan as his admission makes my lady parts ache, despite the very confusing discussion we’re now mired in.
“But I have been waiting for a sign that you are ready. And I thought…” Lohr tilts his head to one side, clearly thinking. “In my culture, when both parties are aroused, there is little left to discuss.”
“Well, people in my culture like to talk.”
“So I am coming to understand.” He doesn’t sound entirely pleased about that. “If arousal is not the signal, how can a man know for sure that a woman of your species wants to mate with him?"
"How does a man know in your species?” I counter.
"When a woman wants a man, she will smell like you smell right now. Like desire. She will then turn up her skirt and bend over to present herself to him, with her tail to one side. When he tries to mount, she may snap at him a few times. Challenging him to give him an opportunity to prove himself worthy. But she will not present herself initially if she is not willing.”
I huff. "Well, that doesn't seem to leave much doubt," I admit. "But humans are a bit more… subtle. Usually, anyway.”
“That is why I didn’t wait for you to present yourself; I assumed you wouldn’t know or understand the custom. I thought I would need to identify your signal. And I thought, when you were clearly aroused and enamored of my cock, that I’d found it.”
“Okay. I can see where you’re coming from, with that,” I admit. “But what you and I were doing… That wasn't sex. That was just making out."
"Making out?"
"Yeah, you know? Kissing. Touching. Just enjoying each other's physical company. I mean, I literally met you a couple of days ago."
"And you are not sure yet if you want to mate with me? Most Fetoji women would already have made up their minds," he says.
"I um— I don't really know what to say to that. I mean, you've done a lot for me and you've mostly been kind. And I had fun kissing you. Touching you. That's new for me, and it felt really good. But I don't know when I'll want to sleep with you." His head cocks to the side again, and I realize the problem before he can speak. “‘Sleeping with’ is a euphemism for sex," I explain. "And I may not ever decide to do that with you."
Lohr frowns. "I don't understand. You said you wanted to return my kindness. Mating with me would be exceedingly kind."
I laugh. I can't help it. "Yes, I suppose it would be. But that would make me a prostitute,” I explain.
His eyes lose focus again as he searches for meaning for the new term. "Yes," he says finally. "I understand that there is a somewhat unfavorable view upon such an act in your culture. I assure you I meant no such insult. I just assumed that's what you were offering because, frankly, you seem to have little else to give."
"Fuck you!" My eyes narrow as I glare at him.
"But I thought—"
"Not literally," I snap again. "I'm just saying, I have much more than that to offer. I promise you will be repaid for helping me. But if you want sex, it will happen outside the parameters of that agreement. If it happens at all.”
"You seem angry."
"So that much you understand."
His frown deepens. "If you still object to expending your anger through sex, I would prefer that you return to your earlier state of benign arousal."
"You and me both, buddy.” I huff at him. “But it isn't that easy.”
Lohr’s frown deepens. “I find the women of your species frustrating and perplexing.”
I snort. “Well, that’s at least one thing Fetoji men and human men have in common.”
7
Lohr
Syrie has yet to decide she is ready to mate, despite her obvious desire for me, and my poor cock has suffered through her endless arousing presence like a champ. Four days of near-constant hardness. But my balls…
My balls grow less and less amused by her cruel indecision with every hour that they swell, demanding release.
Still, I can’t entirely blame her for that. Her body may be aroused by me, but her mind is very much elsewhere. No matter what task I assign her, to keep her occupied and ‘out of my hair,’ as she says, her gaze keeps wandering toward the sky, as if she expects a shuttle to arrive and rescue her. To pluck her from the “drudgery” that is my daily existence.
She means no offense by that description. She tells me that nearly hourly, and I believe it because she truly seems to enjoy my company. But she misses many things that I have definitions for but can’t truly picture. Like climate control, because she’s always cold. And refrigeration for her food. And clothing and dish sanitation. And her personal tech, which is evidently a device that would let her speak to people all over the galaxy. Which would, of course, get her rescued.
Yet despite her complaints, she tries hard to help in every possible instance. Which is its own challenge.
When I first met Syrie, I thought of her as a puzzle I looked forward to solving. But in the four days she’s been with me, I’ve come to realize that I was entirely wrong in that assessment.
Syrie isn’t a puzzle to be solved. She’s a sweet, soft, curvy torture device to be endured. She’s there all the time—how else can I protect her?—flitting about my hut while she opens windows and chops vegetables. She unseals covered jars and experiments with different herbs in the stew that is constantly cooking over the fire. Or, at least, the stew that is supposed to be constantly cooking over the fire.
Twice, I’ve to throw the whole thing out because she opened a jar and found the contents appealing, so she sprinkled a pinch into the leather cooking pouch while I was outside tanning a large portion of the ezaki hide. Once, I came inside to find her stirring the pot, dipping a small cup into it so she could sample the broth, while the tell-tale sickly sweet aroma of a deadly herb permeated the entire hut.
I slapped the cup out of her hand and removed the cooking pouch from the fire, to her utter astonishment, and I dumped the whole thing on the ground outside. Then I set a basket of vegetables in front of her, along with a bowl of water and my one cooking knife, silently commanding her to replace the meal she’d just ruined. And I forbade her to touch my jars, ever again.
As she set about her new assignment, dipping tubers and bulbs into the water to scrub them one by one, she mumbled words I’ve come to recognize as human expletives, blaming me for her latest disaster, because I had the nerve to keep poisonous herbs on the same shelf as food seasoning herbs.
“I know which jar is which,” I snapped at her. “You do not. So please stop acting upon ignorant impulses before you kill us both.”
Syrie stopped scrubbing vegetables long enough to wave her middle finger at me in a gesture that means she wants to mate with me, but is really nothing more than a cruel irony.
Today, however, by some miracle, she has not tried to poison me with my own stew or to cut into one of my finished hides in order to make “curtains” for my windows, only to discover that they block too much sunlight for her to be able to see.
In large part, today’s non-lethal peace is because I have finally found a chore that will keep her occupied for more than a few minutes at a time. As it turns out, Syrie loves the tarte taste of the fleshy seeds inside the kuuba fruit. Whic
h, as luck would have it, are very difficult to get to.
"These fuckers are some tough nuts to crack," Syrie says, and I look up to see her pounding on a fist-sized kuuba pod with a rock I've chipped an edge into. "They're like coconuts, only less convenient. Are you sure I can't use a knife?"
"You probably can, yet you may not," I inform her.
"When do I get my knife privileges back, again?" She looks up at me with an adorable pout.
"When you learn how to tan a hide, to replace the one you cut into pieces, or when the sun rises tomorrow morning. Whichever comes first."
Syrie grumbles another expletive and returns to smacking at her fruit with a sharpened rock. I chuckle as I turn back to my own work.
Mere minutes later, she stands, abandoning her still unopened fruit pod, and huffs at me with her hands propped on her hips. "I need a shower."
I pause in the middle of scraping my hide to search for a definition of the term. “I’m afraid I have no access to a system of pipes that will spray heated water at your head, to slide down your body.” Though the mental image of her standing naked beneath such a device adds a new layer of exquisite pain to the torture that is my desire to sink into her. To feel her soft, hot body clench around me.
I swallow a growl as my balls begin to ache anew.
“I know. So, a bath, maybe? And honestly, this request is in your honor. I know I must smell…ripe, by now.”
She smells amazing.
“How do you bathe, around here?”
“I bathe in the stream every morning, before you wake,” I inform her. “I find the cold water invigorating.” And it helps stave off my need to claim her. For a few minutes, anyway.
“That’s why you’re never in bed when I wake up.”
“I’m never in bed when you wake up because you have an inexplicable desire and ability to sleep past the arrival of the sun.”
“You’re calling me lazy?”
“That conclusion is not inaccurate.”
She huffs again. “Okay, then, I’m going to go bathe in this stream. It’s that way, right?” She points into the forest. “Where we get water?”
The Lion and the Mouse Page 7
