My body reacted…interestingly.
Before I turn back to her, I flip my still hard cock up into the wrap’s waistband before I make my way over to sit by Leeenuh.
Grabbing the dried seaweed, I begin to work on her restraints. I open my mouth a few times, but the right words won’t come out. Leeenuh must notice my anxiety.
“Kitaico, doan worree abou eet,” she says, patting me on the back.
She holds up one of the purple torun sponges for just a moment as our fingers touch, and I show her the knots I planned on using.
Even though we’re from different worlds, Leeenuh is a quick study. I grapple with the impossibility of our situation as we work side by side. I can’t help but let my mind wander, to imagine what my life would be like if we weretrue mates.
I could love Leeenuh. I know there’s a connection beyond her mating mark between us. Is it possible that my role in her life could be more than that of just a protector? Could she even want me in that way?
A brief flash of her with a round belly lounging in my nest crosses my mind. I feed her the tenderest bits of my kill, and she lets me ornament her body with the jeweled body chains given to expectant mothers.
She presses our mouths together again and smiles at me.
But I scrub the imaginary life from my mind.
Leeenuh doesn’t want me as her mate, and I will keep her safe and respect her choices.
I snap back from my daydreams as one of the brothers slips around Leeenuh’s back and begins to creep up her thigh.
“Guud boi,” she tells him before stroking him softly. She doesn’t remove him, and a tingling sensation shoots from her hand on my foretentacle to my already aching cock. I can feel precum leaking from my tip and have to bite the inside of my cheek to stifle a moan.
I wonder if I’ve offended the Great Mother in a past life to be tortured like this. Maybe I haven’t given enough of myself to this great test. I am not the strongest hopeful in my division, or the cleverest. I am just Kitaico, a normal male of no great importance.
Is devoting myself to Leeenuh part of my Proving?
Is resisting her my ultimate test?
9
a caring gesture
I kissedhim because I needed to distract him,I remind myself. As much as the brothers aren’t under his control, they’re still part of his body. I figured a shock to the system might get them to release me.
I turn my head to him as we sit side by side, wrapping the cords meant to tie me down for my next heat. He flicks his tongue past the sharp point of his fang in some gesture of concentration. I remember being surprised at how gentle the kiss was with a mouth as intimidating as his.
I kissed him to calm things down, right?
His face was shocked when I finally pulled away. There was something else behind the shock that I had a harder time reading, too—maybe just confusion about what the hell I was even doing to him.
Most alien species don’t kiss, some even find it insulting or unsanitary. Before the war on the Deenz, they kept us in more centralized bunkhouse stations when we were off rotation. The other girls were at the same Deenz station as my group of bubble dancers that first night.
Trembling with fear, exhausted from endless tears in my cramped bunk, I cautiously eavesdropped on their hushed conversation. An older woman was giving one of the new brothel girls the ins and outs of the game. She was running over a list of the few species that kissed in space. It was short, and she had warned the girl that some aliens might even hurt her if she attempted it.
I remember being glad that I wasn’t in her position, that all I had to do was dance.
At least Kitaico didn’t look disgusted with my gesture.
And the kiss worked, didn’t it? The brothers released me, and I think they’re even listening to me now…as weird as it is to say. One of them, the left tentacle, sits on my thigh like a house cat. I slide my hand over him, thinking the occasional pet can’t hurt, can it?
My hand strokes up the appendage, feeling the texture of the skin that sits over the rippling muscular tube. It’s not as soft as my skin, but it feels like a well-worn piece of leather. Thick and pliable with lots of give. I absentmindedly let my hands trace a bit higher, wrapping my fingers around his tentacle. My fingers don’t touch as I attempt to close them around the girthy tube, and I slide a hand down its length.
As my palm moves against it, Kitaico stiffens.
“Leeenuh,” he whispers.
