Al was dimly aware that he was sobbing filthy sounds into the crook of Jude’s neck. Jude, the wondrous man that he was, petted Al’s hair and coached him through his feelings as Al impregnated him. Then it was over, and he all but collapsed on top of Jude, breathing hard and extremely grateful for the extra oxygen in the air as he tried to regain some of his composure.
“That was fucking incredible,” Jude said in awe, rubbing Al’s back soothingly. Al, too boneless and exhausted to even try and remember English, simply hummed his agreement. He slipped his hands around Jude in an embrace that was too hot and sweaty for both of them, but Jude let him do it anyway, and Al was grateful. He wasn’t ready to end this moment—wasn’t ready for them to be apart again.
But they weren’t apart, he remembered, and that fluttering feeling in his stomach he now recognized as love returned tenfold. Al was never going to be alone again. He didn’t need anyone else’s approval, didn’t need to try and measure up to people who never were going to respect him no matter what he did. He had found his True Mate, and they were going to have a family together, and that was all that mattered.
In that moment, Al knew that he loved Jude with his everything, and could only pray to the universe at large that Jude felt the same way.
6
Jude
Jude was hot—that was the first thing he noticed when he began to come back to consciousness after a deep, dreamless sleep. So very, incredibly hot. The second thing he noticed was that he was naked, and the sheets of his bed were sticking to his damp skin.
Neither of these things were particularly shocking, nor an unfamiliar occurrence. He lived in the desert and also went without clothes more often than the average person. What could he say? Sometimes it was nice to go au naturel… and also, nudity had been useful during his slut era, but that was neither here nor there. Whatwasshocking was thereasonwhy he was hot and naked.
If he was recalling correctly, he had gotten railed by an alien last night.
Right here, in his bed.
And it had been awesome. Maybe it was the taboo nature of it, or maybe it was that Al’s weird alien knowledge had given him insight into the human body, but whatever the reason, it had been some of the best sex of Jude’s life, and like, not for nothing, but Jude wasn’t exactly a stranger when it came to sex. His slut era hadnotbeen a lie. But that aside, the point was, he had been thoroughly wrecked by an alien last night and enjoyed it, and that, apparently, was where his life was at now. It was the ultimate test in his “welp, I guess this is happening” philosophy, and he appeared to be passing with flying colors.
At least one thing in his life was going right.
With a small, groggy chuckle, Jude uncurled his overheated body from its scrunched-up position on the bed and blinked his eyes open only to find Al lying inches away, staring directly at his face with wide, purple eyes that were slowly shifting toward blue.
“Jesus!” Jude yelped, jumping back so far, he smacked the wall his bed was pushed against. He put a hand to his chest and said, voice thick with sleep, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Observing,” Al said, not sounding drowsy in the slightest. He furrowed his brow and asked, a little nervously, “Should I not be observing? Did I upset you?”
“More like scared the shit out of me. I wasn’t expecting you to be like,right therewhen I opened my eyes.”
Al twisted his mouth, pondering something.
“Scared the shit—” he began.
“No, it isn’t literal,” Jude interjected before he could say it. “It’s just an expression.”
“Ah. Of course. I understand.” The look on Al’s face suggested that he did not, in fact, understand, but he didn’t bother to inquire further, opting instead to cheerfully ask, “How were your hours of unconsciousness?”
Jude chuckled lightly. “They were good. I always sleep like a rock after…” He trailed off, averting his gaze as memories of Al buried to the hilt inside of him flooded his mind. His cock, already half-hard with morning wood, twitched shamelessly.
“After mating?” Al asked, equally shameless. Jude resisted the urge to facepalm. He wasn’t sure if he was ever going to get used to Al’s bluntness about, well,everything.
Clearing his throat, he mumbled, “Yeah, that.”
“Understandable,” Al said, nodding sagely. “You yourself told me climactic release is good for making stress levels to become less high in humans, and this should make it easy to have relaxation time. The same is true for my species. Would you say rocklike unconsciousness is a common trait in other recently mated humans?”
“Mhm, I’d say so,” Jude said, biting back a smile. The speed at which Al had grasped the English language was objectively incredible, but Jude still couldn’t help but feel endeared by his strange manner of speaking as he continued to learn. It was, Jude realized with an embarrassed flush, extremely cute, even when Al was talking about things like “climactic releases.”
“Well, I suppose that is good, then, and I feel happiness that you were able to have quality unconscious time. I feel worry that maybe my sudden presence in your life caused your stress levels to become very elevated, but due to your ability to become unconscious for 24,037 Mississippis, I believe that our mating did in fact make relaxation time possible for you.”
“You counted the number of seconds I was asleep?” Jude asked with a frown. “Were you awake all night, then? Do you—does your species sleep? I should have asked last night, but I dozed off without even meaning to. I didn’t mean to leave you all alone like that.”
“Do not feel concern, I was also unconscious, although not for as many Mississippis as you. I believe my species may require less unconscious time than humans. But I did not need to be awake in order to know you were not. I can sense when your mind is active and when it is still.”
This was not the first time Al had alluded to being able to “sense” Jude’s thoughts and feelings, and Jude wasn’t sure if that was something he should be concerned about or not. Al wasn’t like, telepathic, right? He couldn’t be. He would have said so. Besides, unless Al was an extremely good liar, his fumbling through conversations and various misunderstandings were a pretty big indicator that he wasn’t reading any minds.
Right?
