Chapter Five
Elise
It had been two days since I’d brought Kodyn to Scarlet Heights. For all the time I’d spent watching him, pining for him from afar like an idiot, I still didn’t know that much about him.
He wasn’t very friendly, with me at least. But I did see him talking with Daxarus more and more, who claimed he was ‘an alright guy’ by the time I’d managed to rip any opinion out of him.
That was what he’d said to men, anyhow. The real scoop was what I’d gotten from Rebecca, who said Daxarus told her Kodyn was damaged: hesitant to trust us. But that with a little coaxing we could probably have him on our side.
Which as a good thing for me, considering I’d already blabbed to every higher-up who would listen how I’d manage to wrangle in another Vithohn.
Tonight I took a break from everyone, stealing a rare moment for myself. One of the things I loved to do the most when nobody was looking was sneak into the pool area of the hotel: slide in my member’s only key, and swim in the buff.
It was like a tepid bath all for me.
We didn’t swim much since we found this place. There was no sure way to clean the water since we’d run out of the chlorine. No way to fill it back up if we drained it. But it still smelled like chemicals to me. I couldn’t be any worse than swimming in a dirty river.
My jaw tightened when my member’s only door flung open, and the tall, handsome Vithohn walked in.
He was broad and rugged: something wild in him. I blinked back my surprise and let out a knowing laugh.
“Look who’s making friends already,” I teased and jogged through the middle of the pool.
I watched his eyes and could tell he was startled by my lack of clothing. It made me smile, and I unintentionally checked to see if he was hard.
He was.
“I suppose that would be me,” he said, never missing a beat as he walked the perimeter of the room. There were large bay windows at the left end of the pool, showing a vast view out the stars outside.
He circled the pool and looked down at me with studious interest.
“Is it weird seeing one of your own here?” I asked with a grin and spun around to see him.
“Yes,” he nodded.
“Ah, but here you are,” I breathed out flirtatiously, running a mocking hand through my slicked back wet hair: pretend sexy. “Seeking out my glorious company, once more.”
“Why didn’t you bring the mech back to camp?” he said as though he’d caught me in a lie.
I swallowed and tried to brush off getting caught with a laugh. “I’m flyin’ this coop, partner!”
He stared at me, crossing his arms as he took a fixed place at the north end of the pool. My eyes darted between him and the metal “POOL RULES” sign that hung behind him.
I waved him off before spinning on my heel, letting the water woosh me around to give him the perfect view of my backside.
“Just kidding, obviously,” I teased.
“Why didn’t you bring it back?” he asked again, annoyingly. “Your people would have benefited from it. It could protect you.”
“Yeah, but it’s also huge, if you didn’t notice.”
He cocked a brow at my comment. “I recall it’s ‘hugeness’ from when it fell on top of my due to its clumsy pilot, yes.”
I rolled my eyes and let out a snort that echoed through the sparse pool room.
“Not really interested in explaining myself right now, party boy,” I said.
“Is that so,” he said slowly.
I turned my profile to him and grinned. “That is so,” I enunciated and then waved him over. “Come on in.”
He watched me for minutes of agonizing, tension-filled silence. He seemed intrigued by my offer, but unsure how to respond. I widened my eyes playfully at him, and he finally began to take his clothes off.
I swallowed nervously as his heavy armor came tumbling to the ground. His body was cut and ripped, beautifully curved across his muscles. He had red tribal markings covering his whole body, down to his hard dick. The sight of him made my stomach flip.
A whole new brand of nerves overtook me when I saw three weapons come off his person and onto the pool deck.
He stepped down into the water, never hesitating even as the water hit his most sensitive of regions.
I grinned as he approached and could see calculation in his eyes, but to what end I didn’t know.
“I’ll do you one for one,” he said and gave me the first smirk I’d ever seen from him. “A secret.”
“You want to exchange secrets?” I clarified, chewing spearmint gum as I spoke. “K.” I chewed louder, thinking.
He approached my body, and I could feel waves rippling against my skin from his movements.
“Why were you out in the woods?” I asked, grinning like a teenager with a plan.
“I was attacked by a militia,” he said evenly, never changing his expression.
“Human?” I asked, blinking in surprise.
“No, rabbit,” he said. It was a joke, but he didn’t smile.
“Alright,” I said, embarrassed. “I will gather from that answer that they were in fact human. What happened?”
He thought about how to answer me, and I saw the calculation return.
“I took something from them,” he said.
“You stole something?” I laughed, and he speared me with a hard gaze.
“I said took, not stole,” he corrected.
“Fine, fine,” I said, raising both my palms to him.
“I took a sonar,” he explained without my prompting. “They came after it, and they killed someone I loved.”
“The girl,” I said.
“Hm,” he nodded in acknowledgment.
“Ah,” I nodded, setting my hands over my breasts. Suddenly, it didn’t feel right to be flirtatious. “I’m… I lost someone, too.”
“A mate?” he asked, his brows shooting up.
I shook my head. “No, my sister. A couple years back.”
“Then I’m sorry,” he said.
“Me too,” I said. “For you, I mean. That’s tough.”
I walked backward in the pool, and he followed facing me until we had walked the length of the pool several times. He seemed to be getting closer to me with every lap around the pool, his body nearly touching mine. I could see him, hard, through the water. I stopped walking and flicked my eyes up at his.
It was clear we had some kind of sexual chemistry, but I wasn’t sure what to do, considering what he had just told me.
“Were you together long?” I asked.
He shrugged. “A couple of months.”
“Why take the sonar?” I asked, tapping my lips. “What’s it for?”
“Ah, ah,” he tsked. “That was one.”
“How did you meet her?” I pestered with a grin.
He shook his head. “I said one for one. Now I get my question.”
I pouted my lips at him and swam towards him, splashing water on his face and eliciting my first smile from the man. It was just as sexy as I thought it would be.
“Fine,” he sighed with a roll of his eyes: regretting his smile. “I sought her out. I could feel her, like a calling. She said her base was coming for me: had been following me to a wrecking site for weeks.”
It was so strange to hear it from the other side: to hear him speak about his body craving someone. About the pull the Vithohn feel: the aggression focused on a single goal.
“She didn’t know I had sensed her for weeks,” he explained to me. “Before she ever had the chance to tranq me.”
I laughed. “She tried to shoot you with a tranquilizer?”
“Who said tried?” he rubbed his arm for emphasis and the smiled once more.
“Wow,” I mused. “She’s a brave one.”
He laughed: eyes elsewhere. “She was. Anyway,” he said with a large inhale. “We… uh.”
“Uh-huh,” I moved him along with a roll of my wrist. “You had sex,” I said, fascinated. “What was it like?”
He let a wry smile creep up the side of his lip and took a step closer, seeming intrigued by me for the first time. He reached his hands down into the warm water and intertwined his fingers through mine before raising both our hands above the water: looking into my eyes as a waterfall of raindrops came off our fingers on either side of us.
Kodyn raised a coy brow and teased, “You’ve never…”
“No, no,” I blushed, shaking my head, unsure if I should ask the question I wanted to now that he was holding my hands. I felt a rush of blood through my body as my heart sped up.
“I meant… how did it change you?” I clarified.
“All I wanted was to claim her,” he said, dipping our hands back down into the water and looping his fingers through mine continuously. “It was an obsession. When we… did, it was like a new fixation began. The love…” He went to say something but thought better of it, backtracking then with a long pause. “Well, anyway… I think I’ve done more than my fair share of answering. Now it’s your turn.”
“Oh, let me see,” I said, looking down into the water. “Why didn’t I bring the mech back?” I played with my gum some more, letting the loud chews echo through the room. If he was annoyed by it, he didn’t act like it. “See, your story was so deep that mine isn’t going to sound interesting in comparison.”
“I’ll take my chances,” he cooed.
“Alright, but you’ve been warned…”
I took a long breath but couldn’t seem to find the words to explain myself to him. Before I had the chance to try, he nodded toward me, taking another step closer so that our bodies were touching.
“You’re going to abandon them,” he said in a cocky tone.
I swallowed in surprise and burst out with, “What? Excuse me?”
“That’s the only reason I can think why you wouldn’t give your team an opportunity to defend themselves with it. It was fully loaded: we both saw as much.”
“Yeah, it’s also a huge target to have at our base. Could get us spotted.” I scoffed. “I told you that.”
He tilted his head to the side. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s my job to protect the base. I’m the watch guard,” I laughed defensively. “You think I wouldn’t bring whatever weapon I could I to make sure my people are safe?”
“You left it in the woods,” he teased. “You’re going to leave. Or, you want it to yourself for some other reason. A trade, maybe?”
“Hey!” I blurted out. “I answered you. That’s one for one. It’s a target.”
“Then why go after it in the first place?” he needled.
“I think I liked it better when we weren’t talking,” I joked. “How about we go back to that?”
“We can do that,” he said lowly as he drew a long finger down my navel.
I felt a tight swelling in my throat that made me feel like I was going to sneeze or cry as his finger trailed down under the water. The space between my legs grew hot and throbbed as he moved in. I watched in slow motion, one hand on his shoulder for balance, as his finger continued down into the water and made the warmth of the liquid pool toward his moving hand.
I ground against his hand, flattening his palm against my mound and using it to pleasure myself before he picked me up by my waist and took me to the edge of the water.
He pushed inside me, and I used the corner of the pool to steady myself. He took my hands off the poolside and put them on his shoulders, encouraging me to grab him. He held me by my backside and gripped me hard, thrusting into me.
The water came up around us as our bodies found a steady rhythm, me writhing against him with each deep thrust. It splashed our bodies, and I welcomed the cool touch, using the moisture against my nipples to make them hard.
He saw this as an open invitation, taking my small breast into his mouth and sucking on it greedily.
“Mmm,” I said and moaned loudly as he filled me up: my breath and guttural moans echoing through the room. The sound seemed to hit the ceiling and bounce back at us even louder.
My heart was pounding hard. If we weren’t splashing so loud, I knew I would be able to hear it echoing along with us. I grabbed onto the spire-like tentacles that came out from the horns on his forehead and gripped them hard.
I knew he was excited, ready to burst, but I could feel that I was close.
“Don’t stop,” I said in a whisper as I moved against his hard body.
“I won’t,” he said back to me, and it made my heart lilt.
That simple sentence was all it took to send me over the edge: make my body explode with ecstasy and ripples of body contractions.
Kodyn let out a low moan, and I could feel my body grow warm as he slowed his pace, finishing inside me.
When our bodies parted, I looked down in the pool and realized, with a grin, that nobody would ever want to swim here again.
It was only when he set me back down into the water that I realized we’d skipped kissing and went straight to sleeping together.
Then, as though he’d heard me somehow, he set both his wet hands on the side of my face and drew me into a sweet kiss. A simple pressing of lips against lips: soft and tired.
My heart fluttered.
Unsure what to do or say next, I walked up the cement stairs of the pool and walked over to the deck chairs that were set out in a row by the water. I pulled a blue striped towel off the plastic chair and pulled it around my body.
Kodyn followed suit, toweling off as he watched me. Then we both got dressed.