Page 34 of Leviathan

The press of her soft body against me, the taste of subtle salt and musk of her skin, the way I could feel her heart beating, her pulse rapid and wild with excitement, even as she picked up the small container of cleaning supplies I had brought into the room and picked out a pad to wipe the spot clean. She rubbed against me, in every sense of the word, and I couldn't take it anymore.

I slid a filament out from the wall, slid it up against her inner thigh, and pressed the tip of it against her wet slit, tasting the fragrant flavor of her arousal.

"Lyrien," she moaned, her entire body melting as I shifted the wall to grab her so I could touch her all over, feel her. I tweaked the mounds of her chest, ran a filament over the space between her legs, playing with the swollen nub there, teasing all parts of her.

"I need to fuck you," I growled as I pressed the tip of my filament into her, parting the soft folds of her lower lips. "Come back and mate with me."

"But I could get pregnant," she said, a tremor of fear in her voice as she looked over at my erect member. She was flushed and aroused, her legs widening as she sank down into the press of my neurofilament. Every signal she was giving me was a yes, with the exception of that slight remor and the concern she voiced.

A concern that made complete sense given what had been done to her.

That small note of fear pulled me back from the edge.

I pulled my neurofilaments away from her opening, releasing her slowly so she could find her footing. I kept my neurofilaments in touch with her, stroking her back gently, one wrapped around her waist, wishing I could hold her with the arms I couldn't move. My neurofilaments had so much sensation, but it was different than the touch of my center. Each was delicious all on its own, but the warmth of her body against mine was one I relished.

"Do you not wish to have children?" I asked. "I would like them, but if it is a path forward in life that you do not wish to follow, I will be happy to go that way with you, though my preference would be to have them."

"I..." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, clearly dealing with a large emotion. "Thank you for being so honest, but I do want them. I've always wanted children."

"But not right now?" I asked.

"We're hiding from a hunter in an asteroid field," she said, her tone dry. "As much as I love you and want to be with you, I want to make sure that the world around us is safe to bring a child into before we take any risks at all in that regard."

"It will never be safe," I said. "Not completely. But we can live our lives in safer areas of space. I won't take on missions like this, not with a family on board."

"That is good to hear," she said. Then she nodded, as if she had made a decision. "Does your medical unit have any options for birth control for my species?"

I quickly looked through the files.

"Yes," I said, surprised. "But only for males of your species."

"What about your species?" she asked.

"With the exception of shell-locked individuals seeking professional help, my species doesn't prevent procreation," I said. "Taking care of offspring is considered an easy and fun thing to do. Much simpler than keeping an aviary or hosting crew."

She let out a sigh and rubbed the bridge of her nose for a moment.

"Cock blocked by alien breeding obsessions," she muttered. Then she dropped her hand away from her face. "Wait, you mentioned that you are shell locked, and that shell locked individuals will pay for mating to fix that condition. Does that mean if we mated, you wouldn't be shell locked anymore?"

"Yes," I said, keeping my answer simple even as a nervous shudder fluttered in me. I wanted to tell her everything, but it couldn't be just set out there, at least not by me. If she asked the right questions and came to the answer herself, then it wouldn't be me accidentally pressuring her. It would be her making the decision on her own without any input from me.

"What does it mean if you aren't shell locked?" she asked. "What is shell locked?"

"It is this," I said, using a filament to point at my restrained core. "When my kind focuses on the rapid growth of our neurofilaments, we get locked into place. Mating can provide enough stimulus to the root of the connections to free our core. If I weren't shell-locked, I would be able to move my core around the entire ship, making it nearly impossible for any hunter to capture me, given how large I am. I can reform and regrow my neuro filaments faster than they can cut through them without risking killing me, and without my core being trapped in one place, their efforts will always be in vain."

"Wait," she said, her tone turning sharp. "Are you telling me that if we..." she waved a hand at my still hard mating appendage, making the missing word clear. "Then the part of you that has eyes to see the contamination can move around and help me deal with it? That our safety will be dramatically increased because you won't be as vulnerable anymore?"

The end of her sentence rose up fast as a dagger, her brow furrowing as she glared at me.

"Yes," I said, not sure why she was demonstrating signs of being upset. I had done the right thing.

"Why wouldn't you tell me that?" she demanded, putting both her hands on her hips. They landed on top of the neurofilament I had wrapped there, and for a moment, I thought she was going to push it off of her, rejecting my touch, but she didn't.

"I didn't want you to choose to mate with me because it would improve our situation," I said.

"So you took that choice away from me by keeping information that was important for me to know away from me, again," she said.

"I didn't keep it away from you," I said. "I just told you."