by Zoey Draven
His strokes were getting too rough and now he wasn’t even looking at her. It made Stella feel…
Well, not wanted. Like he was trying to forget it was her he was fucking. Like he was trying to block out everything about this situation. With her.
“Tavak,” she said, touching his arm, trying to get his attention.
That was when she felt it.
His cock was…his cock was softening inside her.
And she didn’t think he’d come. At least not yet.
He shook his head, a deep growl sliding from his lips. Stella froze when his cock hardened again inside her. He gave a few strokes, stoking that heat inside her again, even though she felt on the verge of tears.
And then he was losing it again. Losing his erection. Softening inside her.
Nothing about this felt right anymore. Even though her body was still into it…Stella finally listened to that warning voice in her head. This didn’t feel good anymore.
“Stop,” Stella whispered, pushing at his shoulder, tears flooding her vision. “Just stop, Tavak.”
Chapter Fourteen
Vauk, vauk, vauk.
Tavak’s chest was heaving, his limbs tight, his blood rushing hot and loud in his ears.
This had been a very bad vauking idea. And impulse, one he’d wanted to give in to for a long time.
But now, Stella was paying for it and Tavak froze when he saw the tears shimmering in her eyes, even though she tried to turn from him, to prevent him from seeing them.
What the vauk am I doing? he wondered, angry at himself, the self-hatred punishing.
He’d known.
He’d known this wouldn’t end well. He’d come here tonight in the state of mind he’d been in all day. Raw. Aching with memory. Grieving and worried for his brother. Furious at seeing Yikerza at port.
And he’d thought he could silence those emotions by burying himself in Stella? In the only female whose smiles he couldn’t go without, even for a single day? Who was kind and gentle and giving?
The female who was valiantly trying to hide her tears from him, who he could feel was mentally retreating from this moment?
Tavak pulled his softening cock from her body, loosening his grip on her thighs, and stepped back, stumbling back into her dresser. He reached out a hand to steady himself, to calm his rumbling thoughts, his shame.
The scent of her arousal was still perfuming the air but he knew that had more to do with his pre-cum than anything else. Stella sat up quickly, reaching for the thin sheet that lay neatly across her bed, and pulled it around her naked body, shielding her from his view.
Tavak tucked his cock back into his pants, his teeth gritted tight, and tied the laces. Then silence filled the small room. Tavak had turned his gaze out of one of her windows. He could see the main stretch of road from here, the one that ran all the way to port. A small glimpse of Dumera. The window reminded him of the small, circular one he’d had in his room back in Madame Allegria’s brothel.
Only ever offering a slice of a view. Tavak had often felt like a caged animal there, pacing restlessly. Waiting. But for what?
“I’m sorry, Stella,” came his soft words. He turned his gaze to her. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, however. She had her face turned to the wall and his gut tightened when he saw another tear drip down her exposed cheek. “I—I should not have come here tonight.”
Stella didn’t say anything. He thought of the way she’d responded to his touch, arching into it, like she loved the feel of his hands on her. Like she couldn’t get enough of it. He thought of the soft look in her eye when she asked him to kiss her. And he couldn’t even give her that.
Now, she wouldn’t look at him and Tavak deserved every bit of her ire. He was a whore who couldn’t even fuck properly anymore. He couldn’t even please her. And he knew he’d been too rough. He’d felt the way she’d tensed, the way her hand had squeezed on his arm.
But sex brought too many memories. Memories he’d been trying to keep at bay. Unfortunately, just the mere act of entering her body had unleashed a flood of them. It was the first time he’d had sex since leaving Everton. His celibacy had come to an end. A disastrous end. Tavak knew this was why he’d chosen to forgo. Because he’d been scared of what it might unearth within him.
He’d been right to fear it. He’d hurt Stella because of it. He wasn’t right for her. He might never be.
Finally, she spoke, her voice soft. “It’s fine, Tavak. It—it happens. But maybe you should go.”
Her words made him feel worse.
Tavak inclined his head. Words he didn’t even know how to voice bubbled up in his chest, words she deserved to hear, words he should’ve told her, long before this moment.
In the end, he said nothing. His boots were heavy on the scratched wooden floor of her small room as he made towards the door.
He paused at the threshold, looking back at her. She still had her face turned towards the wall, her shoulders hunched, the thin sheet wrapped around her nakedness in the darkness…because he hadn’t wanted her to turn on the glow light. Because in the dark, at least he could pretend that he was someone different.
In that moment, Tavak felt like he couldn’t breathe. His lungs squeezed tight. Because Stella looked as lonely and lost as he’d always felt.
Without another word, he left, his hearts heavy in his chest.
Tonight confirmed everything he’d already believed to be true.
That he was broken. Vauking broken.
And he might never be whole again.
Stella rose from her bed, keeping the sheet tight around her even though Tavak was gone. She went to her window and peered out, her vision blurry with tears. She spied Tavak’s figure in the distance, dark but unmistakably him, walking down Dumera’s main road, heading back towards town, his strides slow.
She let out a shaking breath, wiping at the tears that wouldn’t stop. She still felt the dull ache of him between her thighs, could still smell the scent of him in her room.
She went back to her bed, sinking down onto the thin, hard mattress, curled up in a ball with the sheet around her. How could tonight go so wrong when she’d been so excited?
It had all happened so fast. But Stella knew that she should’ve listened to that warning voice in her mind, the one that told her something was wrong from the very beginning. It shamed her that she hadn’t listened to it. She’d been so wrapped up in her own pleasure, at wanting Tavak for so long and finally having him, that she’d ignored her gut.
Tavak hadn’t been himself that night. Maybe he was lonely after his brother’s departure or maybe something had happened that day. But Stella had known that he hadn’t been himself and she’d still gone through with it.
He’d barely been able to look at her during sex. He hadn’t kissed her. He’d pushed her away when she’d tried to pleasure him.
And then he’d…flagged. While he’d been inside her. And he’d had to close his eyes to get hard again.
Was it…was it possible that he wasn’t attracted to her? Was it possible that she’d read him completely and utterly wrong? That she’d made up the sexual tension between them in her head?
He wasn’t human, after all. Maybe she’d been projecting human mating rituals onto a Keriv’i male.
And maybe he’d been out of sorts tonight and had gone looking for a distraction. And because she’d made it so obvious, he’d known that she would distract him gladly and willingly and easily.
A small sob rose from Stella’s throat and she buried her head into the cushion on her bed.
Had she really been so desperate and pathetic that she’d completely misread the signs?
She couldn’t be certain.
Stella drew in a deep breath, her face scrunched up with her tears. She flopped over, looking up at her ceiling, at the moonlight that streamed across it.
She continued to breathe, in and out, slowly, until the tears dried up. She touched her neck, felt the nibbles that Tavak had left there.
All she wanted was to find someone to love. All she wanted was to be loved in return. She wanted a future, the possibility of it. She wanted a family. Roots. A place she could always call home.
Was that too much to ask for?
Stella was beginning to believe it was.
Chapter Fifteen
In the fresh, glorious light of morning, Stella felt better.
Much, much better.
Sleep, uninterrupted and dreamless, had given her a sense of peace about the night before.
It was what she was best at. Rolling with the punches. Moving on. Not letting anything get her down. She was an optimist, through and through. Because if everything was always grey and dim and hopeless, what was the point?
Stella had always chosen to see the good. She’d been that way all her life, her mother’s influence no doubt rubbing off on her, that crazy, fearless woman.
As she walked down Dumera’s main road, on her way to the market stalls to get groceries for the week, not even the heat could dampen her mood—though it got perilously close.
And in the light of day, she decided that she’d been feeling sorry for herself last night. Stella figured she was owed a good cry every now and again. It was healthy even. A way to relieve stress.
With that realization, she also had another one.
She’d decided that she’d been wrong in her assumptions about Tavak.
The signs were there. They always had been. Obvious signs that led her to believe that Tavak liked her. Maybe he wasn’t attracted to her like she was attracted to him. And that was okay. Maybe he didn’t like her the way she liked him. And that was okay too. Hearts were fickle things.
At the very least, Stella knew for certain that he enjoyed her company. As a…friend.
Stella would take friendship. She wasn’t exactly in the position to turn it down on a small colony like Dumera.
But she should give herself some credit. She wasn’t a complete fool when it came to males—human or otherwise—and sex. Tavak wanted sex last night. He’d come to her for it. There had to be a reason why.
She deserved answers, didn’t she? Whatever had happened last night, she deserved to know why.
Stella wasn’t a coward. She never had been. Though it would be awkward as hell, she thought that Tavak owed her an explanation. Once and for all, she wanted to get to the bottom of what exactly they were doing. If he felt anything for her. Or not. If he was attracted to her. Or not.
She’d have the answers she needed, at the very least.
At the market stall, she purchased her food for the week. A slab of meat, a sack of an assortment of roots, nuts, and a fresh jar of merru leaves for her morning tea. Then she began to haul everything back to Reji’s.
On her way, she spied a familiar Laoti, setting up her own stall for the day.
“Good morning, Lubbina,” Stella called out when she reached her, setting her heavy sack of roots down on the ground beside it to give her arms a break. “How are you?”
“What’s so good about it?” Lubbina grumbled, setting out her dishware, flicking off some dust with a scowl.
Uh oh.
“Trouble with your Luxirian?” Stella guessed, glancing down the stretch of road to where his stall had been last time she’d been at the market.
Lubbina made a sound in the back of her throat. Frustrated and trilling.
“Not trouble exactly. I just left his jivera,” Lubbina said.
Stella blinked. “Then what’s the problem exactly?”
“He…he’s too…” Lubbina tried but couldn’t seem to find the words. Finally, she met Stella’s eyes and her look of distaste was almost comical. “He makes me happy.”
Stella’s brow rose and she bit out a sigh. One would think by Lubbina’s disposition that her Luxirian lover was a cheating crook with a penchant for making children cry.
But this was typical Lubbina.
“And that’s bad why?” Stella asked.
Lubbina grumbled out words under her breath.
“Too happy,” Lubbina amended. She pointed her thick finger at Stella. “Because there is such a thing.”
“Right,” Stella said slowly. “Well…that’s awful. I’m so sorry that he makes you too happy. How do you get out of bed in the morning to face the world?”
Lubbina gave her a withering look at her sarcasm, one Stella didn’t take to heart because she knew that Lubbina liked sarcasm.
Stella was surprised at the frustration building in her chest. Maybe it was the disastrous night she’d had with Tavak last night, but for once, Stella wasn’t in the mood to deal with Lubbina’s…melodrama.
Lubbina had had a string of lovers in the last two months ever since Stella had met her. The female went through males like Stella went through merru leaves. And always, Lubbina found a reason to end her relationships. Either she didn’t like the way he laughed, or she didn’t like his tone of voice during their arguments, or…hell, her last lover had walked funny.
Stella would give her left arm to have a male look at her the way Lubbina’s Luxirian had. The male was smitten…and he didn’t seem to realize the danger he was in.
Lubbina groaned, leaning over to lay her forehead on the steady slab of her vendor stall.
“You’re right,” she grumbled. “I…I hate that I do this.”
Stella blinked.
Lubbina looked up at her. The look on her face was miserable as she said, “But I like him. A lot. Too much. I don’t know what to do.”
“Then don’t do anything,” Stella said, reaching out to touch her friend’s arm. “Why do you have to do anything? Just enjoy it. Enjoy him.”
Lubbina exhaled a long breath.
Then she straightened. She reached out to adjust one of the dishes lining her stall, which she’d knocked out of place by accident.
“How have you been?” Lubbina queried, though her voice had lost some of its bite.
Talking about last night when everything was still so fresh didn’t seem right. And Stella knew that Tavak was a private male. He wouldn’t want to be gossiped about, even if it was with a female she considered her friend. One of her only friends here.
“Just…chugging along,” Stella said, though the Laoti’s face was confused at the expression. “Not much is new,” she added. “Although some friends visited a couple nights ago.”
“Friends from when you lived on that merchant ship?” Lubbina asked, nodding.
“Yes,” she said. Then Stella remembered something she’d been meaning to ask her. “Hey, do you remember that green silk I was looking at? From the Jetutian vendor?”
Suddenly, a sly, bright look crossed Lubbina’s expressive face. “Yes. Yes, I most certainly do.”
Stella’s eyes narrowed.
“You…you didn’t happen to buy it for me, did you?” she asked slowly, nibbling on her lip.
A sharp laugh barked out of Lubbina. “Are you insane? I couldn’t afford that silk. And if I could afford it, I’d buy it for myself. No offense meant to you, of course.”
Stella frowned. “Then who—”
“Your Keriv’i,” Lubbina said. “He bought it. But I assume, judging from that baffled, shocked look on your face, that he didn’t present it to you himself.”
Tavak had bought her the silk?
Stella swallowed, processing that information.
Of course, the thought had popped into her mind but it had been wishful thinking. Nothing more. She’d never thought in a million years that it would actually have been Tavak that had given her such a beautiful, expensive gift. That silk had been 250 credits.
“But…why?” Stella asked, bewildered.
“Sex. Probably,” Lubbina told her, shrugging one of her shoulders. “When males have presented me with gifts, they always want sex.”
Stella blew out a sharp breath. She knew that she probably shouldn’t be listening to Lubbina’s advice, especially given the exchange they’d just had about her Luxirian.
“But I
mentioned it to him,” Stella argued softly. “I mean, I told him that I had received a gift and that I was wondering who it was from. And he didn’t say anything. He didn’t tell me it was from him.”
Which meant…he hadn’t wanted her to know it was from him.
Lubbina frowned. “Hmm. Then I have no idea.”
So he’d just wanted her to have it? Because he’d seen her admiring it?
The thought made her heart pound but she ordered herself not to read too much into it. Especially after what she’d decided that morning. She didn’t want to see signs that might mean something else to him.
She would ask him directly. None of this overanalyzing bullshit anymore.
“Maybe he’s trying to court you then,” Lubbina suggested after a heavy silence. “Keriv’is give gifts to potential mates, like most races, during their courtships. Though, they have a little more to offer their mates than most.”
That last sentence came with a smile.
Stella’s brow furrowed, still reeling from the realization that Tavak had given her the silk.
“What do you mean? Like…they give more gifts or something?”
Lubbina paused. “You could say that.”
Then she scrutinized Stella more closely.
She continued with, “Wait, are you saying you don’t know about the Keriv’is’ teela?”
“Teela?” Stella asked slowly, shaking her head though her interest was piqued. She knew very little about Tavak’s race and culture, but she figured anything she could learn would be helpful. “No. What is that?”
“I’m talking about sex, Stella,” Lubbina said, tilting her head. “Sex with a Keriv’i. You don’t know what they can do?”
Stella stilled. She thought back to last night. To how strong and dominant Tavak had been. At least…before…
Was that what Lubbina was talking about?
“How are they during sex?” she asked quietly, wondering if Lubbina could answer some of her questions.
Lubbina blew out a long breath, her eyes wide.
“Oh, my naive, lovely human friend,” Lubbina said, going back to arranging her dishes. “I don’t want to spoil it for you, especially if he’s courting you now. I will let you experience that all on your own.”
