“You got to do something about that soft heart of yours,” Libby quipped.
“Not to mention my soft head,” he chuckled.
“Good grief.” Libby got a look at the situation by the front entrance. “Who is it out there, Elvis’ space ghost?”
The courthouse rotunda was standing room only. There were attorneys, cops, even judges. They were all staring in Libby’s direction, grinning. If she didn’t know better she’d think it was some weird surprise birthday party.
“Watch out,” said Vinny. “Clear the way.”
Several of the officers helped with crowd control, making a path for Libby to get to the front door. Of all days not to have called in sick, she sighed.
The sun shone brightly from a cloudless sky. She shielded her eyes, wishing she had rolled up the sleeves of her new white blouse. “Where is he?” she wanted to know.
“Down there,” Vinny said, pointing.
Libby saw a small crowd of policemen, mounted officers, some on horseback, others standing beside their mounts. They were talking all at once, quite animated to a man standing in the center. She couldn’t make out details but there was something rather familiar about the whole thing.
One of the mounted officers saw Libby coming from the building. He pointed, getting the attention of the man. The policemen moved aside, making way.
Libby squinted, trying to see. The man was walking toward her. He had long tawny hair, tied back behind his head. He was wearing a black and white tuxedo and he was…barefoot.
Libby’s heart leaped to her throat. It couldn’t be, could it?
She tried to run down the stairs but her shoes were getting in the way. She took them off, throwing them up to a laughing Vinny.
“Be careful,” he cried as she charged down to meet Markos.
Markos was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She wanted to leap into his arms, but he stopped her. “Wait, Libby, not yet, I have something to say.”
Libby watched as a burly, helmeted officer in jack boots came up holding a dozen roses and a huge box of candy. “These are for you,” he said gruffly. “From our friend Markos.”
Libby accepted them with a small smirk. “Are you trying to get me into bed again?” she asked.
Markos lowered himself onto one knee. “No, Libby, actually I am trying to get you to marry me.”
Libby’s mouth dropped. “Did you say…marry me?”
He must be using the wrong word, she thought. He was confused about Earth customs.
Markos paused, digging in his pocket. He produced a small wooden box, beautifully carved with inlaid stone. He opened it revealing the most incredible and amazing ring she had ever seen.
The gem was an opal, set in gold. The gold was a mix of white and yellow, though it was reflecting other colors, too.
“It’s your birthstone,” said Markos. “The Mother of the Librans herself provided it for me.”
Libby was breathless, she could hardly speak. “Markos…this is…too much.”
Markos raised a brow. “It is hardly for you to say what is too much. The whole of Constellia believes you are worth this and infinitely more. And so, by the way, do I.”
Libby put her hands to her mouth, drawing a deep breath. She needed a little space. “Could we have a little bit of privacy?” she asked Vinny.
Vinny raised his arms. “You heard the lady, back off, you mugs.”
They started moving back, the policemen, the horses and all the rest.
It was like some kind of bizarre chess game.
“Markos,” she said when they were reasonably out of earshot. “Can you tell me, please, what is going on? We agreed, you would stay in your world and I would stay in mine.”
He gave her that damnable Sagittarian leer, cockeyed, charming as hell. “I got bored.”
“No, Markos.” She pulled him to his feet. “I’m not letting you get away with that. Do you think this is a game? Do you think you can woo me until you get bored again and then leave me? What do you think you’ll do on this planet, anyway? Sell insurance?”
“If I have to.”
Libby threw up her hands. “You don’t even know what insurance is.”
“No,” he agreed. “But I do know one thing.”
“What?”
He took her in his arms, kissing her like he meant it, kissing her like he was here to stay. She tried to hold back but he gave her no choice but to melt into him, soul to soul, her smaller female form protected by the frame of his larger male one.
It all felt like a dream, the heat, the warmth, the synchronized beating of hearts. But could it ever be real?
“Markos, oh god, I missed that,” she exclaimed. “And I don’t want to lose you, I never meant what I said back on Constellia, you know that. I just didn’t want you to be bogged down with me, I wanted you to turn back into your centaur self and stay that way.”
“I know that, Libby, and I never meant to be cruel to you, either. From the moment you left I was miserable. I wandered the woods alone and each day I grew worse and worse until finally I got Argos to send me here, to you. Who I am only makes sense with you, Libby.” He took her by the shoulders. “You know my heart, you make me real.”
She shook her head. “I’ve seen you running, galloping, fighting, you aren’t a man.”
“I will become one, Libby. That will be the one challenge I could never find at home. I will have the adventure of a lifetime, here, with you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, it would be an adventure, all right. Fifteen bottles of shampoo and conditioner in the bathroom, stockings hanging everywhere. Kind of a comedown for the Scorpion Slayer.”
Markos took her hand. “Let me put this ring on you, fulfill me. I will take it all—the shampoo, the conditioners, the shockings—and consider myself the luckiest being in the universe as I do.”
“That’s stockings,” she corrected. “Although getting shocked might be less painful than a life with me.”
“Just tell me that you will be my woman, forever, Libby, and make me happy.”
“And the rest of the Metropolitan area, too,” she quipped, noting the huge audience. “No pressure on me, right?”
“Suppose I tell you we can have it all, Libby?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you sleep at night, don’t you?”
“Theoretically. Although I’m not sure how much sleep I would get with you around.”
“We would sleep fine and we would dream and be able to go to Constellia, to meet my friends, to go anywhere we want, by mind link.”
“And you would be able to be a centaur?”
“Absolutely.”
Libby nodded. “Okay, I’ll tell you what, I will agree to an engagement, just so everyone will go home. That will give us time to get to know each other, the right way. Assuming everything still feels right, we can marry when we are both ready.”
“Very well, how about tomorrow?”
“I was thinking more like a few months, actually.”
“Or next week.” He took her hand and put the ring on it.
It was a perfect fit.
“You see, Libby,” he said, smiling. “Nature always finds a way.”
She kissed him before he could say anything else. “I’m not letting you get the last word, not this time.”
“What’s the verdict?” called out the captain.
Libby held up her hand, her finger snugly clad in the opal ring.
A cheer went up from the assembled policemen and civilians.
“When is the date?” Vinny shouted.
“Never mind that,” called a security guard. “Where’s the honeymoon going to be?”
Libby flushed. “I think that is our cue to get out of here.”
“Damn straight it is,” said Frank, coming down the stairs behind him, his tie askew and his shirt rumpled as always.
Libby cleared her throat. “Frank, this is Markos. Markos, this is Frank, my boss.”
“We’ve m
et,” said Frank.
Libby raised an eyebrow. “Is there anyone in my acquaintance you don’t know?”
“I got here a couple of days ago.” He shrugged. “I’ve been working on things.”
“Everything but the shoes,” she teased his lack of footwear.
He noted her own bare feet. “You should talk.”
“Oh,” she laughed. “I forgot about that. I should get them.”
“No, you don’t,” said Frank gruffly. “You may consider yourself on immediate mandatory vacation.”
“Frank, I can’t,” she said. “I have so much to do.”
“You let us worry about that. You have accumulated leave coming, so use it. And if you’re smart you’ll elope while you’re gone. Planned weddings are for the birds. I’ve had three, I should know.”
“We haven’t made any plans, Frank.”
Markos swept her off her feet. “But we will, very soon.”
“Markos, put me down.”
He kissed her, this time getting the last word. “Stop thinking so much.” He nibbled at her earlobe. “It is time to go and make love.”
“Yes, Markos.” She sighed, touching his cheek, her eyes watering. “Oh, please, yes.”
* * * * *
Libby took him home, deciding the relationship warranted at least that much. Any intentions of showing him her apartment right away were squashed as he pressed her against the back of the door, deep kissing her.
Not that she minded having his attention on her as opposed to her furnishings.
“You look different,” he said, clasping her waist possessively. “No pants.”
“Do you like it?” she asked breathless.
“Does this answer your question?”
“Oh god, oh god, yes,” she gasped as he ran his hands up her thighs, under the hem of her skirt.
“This is very convenient.” He slipped his hand down the front panel of her panties. “I think I shall have you dress like this all the time.”
“You’re getting a little ahead of yourself.” She squirmed against his fingers. “Aren’t you?”
Markos turned her about, hoisted the skirt up her back and delivered a hard smack to her silk-covered ass. “Am I?”
“Ow,” she cried. “That hurts.”
Truthfully, it didn’t hurt that badly, but she was enjoying the game, the show of playful force. Just how much was Markos willing to do to sweetly dominate her?
“That is nothing,” he informed her, “in comparison to the pain I have felt in my heart and in my cock from having been denied you these past days.”
Her body went weak. This was exactly what she needed to hear. Still, she was greedy for more. “Markos, you’ll have to learn patience. I’m an Earth woman, we don’t come cheap or easy.”
“I don’t consider you to be either one,” he said. “But I do claim you as mine.”
Her heart thundered as she felt him grip at the waistband of her panties. The material tore like paper in his hands.
“This ass.” He grabbed her cheeks. “Is mine. This pussy, too.”
“Yes…yes…” she writhed as he masturbated her, slowly, decisively.
“I came from beyond the reaches of imagination, Libby, for you. To treasure you, honor you…ravish you.”
“Oh, yes, Markos, do that, ravish me, please…”
He lifted her up like a rag doll and turned her once more so her back was to the door. His fingers moved to unbutton her blouse but she stopped him. “Too slow, just rip it.”
Markos demolished her new blouse and the bra, too. So too, the skirt. She had on nothing but her shoes.
“You, too,” she cried, doing her best to strip him naked.
Markos shredded his jacket and shirt, proving that he had retained at least some of his superior centaur strength. The last thing to go was his pants and underwear. He took care of these as well, splitting them along the seams.
“I hope there wasn’t a deposit on the tux,” she quipped.
Markos lifted her up by the waist and onto his cock, his hands cupping her buttocks. “I paid for it in diamonds.”
She wrapped her legs about him, securing herself. “We really need to get you a credit card,” she moaned.
He pinned her once more against the door, flattening her breasts, turning her nipples to superheated points. “You are changing the subject.”
“What…subject?” she breathed.
“Your clothing and how you will wear these skirts from now on.”
“Oh, Markos, yes, if it pleases you.”
He pumped his cock in and out, decisively, masterfully. “It pleases me to see you displayed and to have it easily accessible.”
She kissed madly at his face. “You know I could never deny you. I am yours, yours alone.”
“We will do this often,” he told her, his shaft swelling and heating as he moved.
“Yesss,” she hissed. “Oh, yes.”
“Come for me, woman,” he commanded.
And Libby did, her entire body spasming against him, the volcanic outflow radiating from her pussy to the tips of her fingers and toes. She clutched at him, squeezing, holding for dear life.
When it was all over, when the last of the waves had passed through her she could feel that Markos was still hard. He hadn’t come yet. She sighed in happy anticipation.
This had only been the appetizer…
“Where is your bed?” he wanted to know.
She pointed toward the bedroom. “Back there.”
“Never mind, too far.” Markos took her to the living room couch instead, blue velour and quite posh. Her ass sank deep into the soft material as he lowered them both down, changing their position to horizontal. He came at her furiously, like a man possessed. His cock rocketed down into her over and over until her teeth were gritted with reemerging need.
Libby braced her palms underneath her, pushing up her pelvis toward him. She was coming again and she needed to be as merged as she could, their bodies as fused as their libidos.
This time she wasn’t the least bit quiet about it. Hopefully none of the neighbors were home from work.
“Markos, oh god, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.”
He arched his neck, letting out a sound of pure male triumph. “Yessss…”
Then he slammed himself home one final time, erupting into her. Libby came again with him, the sensation doubled, tripled as he took her breast into his mouth, biting down.
Just hard enough to make her body scream and fight and yield.
Over and over she felt it, waves of surrender and waves of ecstasy. She thought of the seashore at night, where first she had met Markos in her dreams. The centaur, cloaked in shadow beneath the moon of blue on crystal sands. The lover she desired but could not quite have. The wrong species, the wrong time and place…same old story.
And now they were one, coming together, sharing the bottomless pleasures of sex and love.
For what else could you call it when two being can’t keep their hands, or hooves, off each other even when they are worlds apart…literally?
Epilogue
Markos kept the pace at an easy canter, his hooves lightly crunching in the sands. It was a full moon, the phase of deepest azure, just before summer on Constellia. The waves were lulling, gently tickling the shore, occasionally rising to greet them.
The female on his back, his life mate, his one and only love, was clinging tightly, her head resting lazily against his shoulder. Occasionally she would administer tiny kisses, letting him know she was there, not just in body but in soul.
He worried about her these days, on account of the tiny life she held within. Numerous visits to the human doctors, as well as to the irrepressible Magician Argos through nightly mind link, had revealed the baby was safe and quite normal.
Whatever that was going to mean. According to the ultrasound, it was a tiny baby boy, with the equipment, miniature as it was, to prove it. Argos, however, had sensed deep magic within.
“I
believe he will have the power to transform himself at will. He may also be able to jump from one world to the other without means of mind link or magic.”
“That’s going to make life real interesting when he starts walking,” Libby had quipped.
Indeed, there might be many things little Markos Junior would have to learn, such as not to transform into a legendary horse creature whenever he wanted to run away or catch something.
Markos had promised to keep herd on the lad, though he made it clear all bets would be off when it came to females.
“When he wants a girl, I doubt we’ll stop him. He is my son, after all.”
“Yes.” She gave him that look. “That’s what worries me.”
Markos chuckled now as he had then. This was life. Adventure, unpredictability.
He could see the fire ahead. Argos and Dalion and Kalos must already have gotten there. This wasn’t the real beach, of course, but as far as their minds went it was just as good.
“Look there,” said Dalion, “It’s the old married man. You look like hell, Markos. What’s she feeding you these days?”
“He was fine until he saw you a minute ago,” the pregnant Libby retorted, having learned by now how to handle the stubborn ram.
Kalos guffawed. “She won that round, you old head butter.”
“Quiet,” grumbled Dalion. “Or I’ll butt you into someone else’s mind link.”
“As long as you won’t be there…”
“Enough, both of you,” exclaimed Argos. “Do you want to agitate Libby and the baby?”
Markos smiled, helping Libby down. Argos was going to make a good uncle. They all would in their own way. It wouldn’t be easy, of course. No one was quite sure what this baby would be able to do and just how it would work with him having the dual citizenship.
There was also the matter of Queen Aquaria’s new lover, Minoton the Bull, who had been showing of late some of the negative sides of his Taurean sign, including jealousy and greed. There were whispers of another Scorpos in the making.
All in all, Markos had a funny feeling he was not quite done with his battles on Constellia. For now, though, his job was to care for his wife and unborn son.
Closing his eyes, he willed himself into human form. This was easy enough in the mind link state. Libby smiled happily, tucking herself into his arms. They sat together by the fire, her head nestled against his chest as they listened to the energetic, good natured arguing of Dalion and Kalos, with occasional mediation by Argos.
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