Stacy

Sunday afternoon came far too soon. Two days of sex and snuggles, of getting to know the man behind the bad attitude—it all left me feeling slightly raw. I liked being with Maverick, and the idea of sitting around alone once again after having that closeness almost killed something inside of me. But I left Maverick in the parking lot at the hotel after a long and hot kiss good-bye like I was supposed to. Because I was an adult.

And then I called my sister in tears as soon as I pulled onto the freeway heading home. She didn’t judge. Okay, she sighed and seemed a little patronizing when she told me things would work out, but she didn’t judge. Much.

And I didn’t mention the fact that I knew her soon-to-be husband was an alien. Some things needed to be spoken about in person, and I wasn’t ready to fully break my Maverick-and-me bubble just yet.

I spent Sunday evening on the couch thinking of Maverick and trying to find a way to snuggle with a pillow. Spoiler: it’s not nearly as awesome as snuggling a man like Maverick. Not even close. I went to bed itching for a set of arms to hold me, for the weight of a man on top of me, and for the quiet sounds of another person nearby. I was officially lonely.

Monday morning was back to the old grindstone, so I was up and rolling with the sun. And a text from Maverick.

Try not to miss me too much today.

Still a jackass, even though he made me grin like a middle schooler with a crush. But if he could banter, so could I. I sent back a text before heading into the shower.

Try not to be grumpy today. Impossible; I know.

When I grabbed my phone after getting ready, there was another text from Maverick.

Not as impossible as you not missing me, princess.

Arrogant, but true.

* * *

“Someone had a good weekend.”

My head spun away from the awful spreadsheets I’d spent my morning fixing—for the love of God, VLookup is not that hard—to find my coworker Patricia smiling at me from the entrance to my cube. She was a nice enough lady and a bit of a gossip. We got along just fine.

“I have no idea what you mean.”

She leaned a hip against the corner of my desk, looking very much like she was about to hear something juicy. “Oh, please. Either you got yourself a man, or Ben & Jerry’s bought back that chocolate-covered potato chip ice cream you liked so much.”

Ouch, that hurt. I really did miss that ice cream. “Now I want something sweet.”

Patricia tossed me a Milky Way. She knew the way to my heart. And to get me to unzip my lips.

“Spill.”

I waited a good five seconds—a fact that should be lauded, by the way—before I broke. And then I gushed. “He’s…amazing. A real cranky bastard, and he totally made my favorite food completely inedible to me forever, but I like him.”

She grinned. “You do like him.”

“I do.” And I did. A lot. Maybe too much considering the small amount of time I’d known him. Add in the fact that he wasn’t really human, and there were some serious red flags. But hell, who cared? I looked amazing in red.

Patricia, though, didn’t seem as overjoyed as I would have expected. In fact, she looked at the floor, purposely avoiding my eyes.

“What?” I asked, the weight of whatever she felt she needed to say hitting me hard.

“Has he met your sister yet?”

Stomach, meet your shoes. “Why?”

“Nothing really. Just…” She sighed and shrugged. “You two look so much alike. You’re both so personable and pretty, but she’s going to be a doctor. That sort of drive can be attractive, if you know what I mean.”

I did. I hated thinking about it, but I did. Still, Patricia was talking about Maverick, about him going after my sister. He’d given me the whole mating-to-just-one-person speech. He’d told me he was mine.

And then he’d left me in the parking lot and only sent me two texts in twenty-four hours.

“She’s dating his friend,” I said, my voice too soft. Too weak. Too full of doubt. “I’m sure that’s not going to be an issue.”

Sure…I was really, really sure.

Sort of.

* * *

My day totally sucked after that conversation. My phone remained silent—no calls or texts from the man I’d spent the entire weekend with. I couldn’t calm my nerves and ended up eating three Milky Ways just to keep functioning. And a couple of icy, sweet, coffee drinks. And a cake pop or two.

My hips didn’t lie—it was going to be a busy week at the gym for me.

I was so far gone, so anxious and edgy, that even a text from Maverick at the end of the day didn’t help. He wanted me to come over to his place. I was getting what I wanted—more time with him—so why couldn’t I breathe properly?

Still, I went. Driving across town and fighting traffic the whole way until I pulled up outside the old warehouse that had been converted into loft-style apartments. I trudged up the stairs to his place, trying hard to calm myself. Trying and failing.

“Hey,” Maverick said when he opened the door. There was a smile on his face, one meant just for me. One that said he was happy to see me, happy to be near me. That he was still mine. I fell into his arms, suddenly feeling so silly for spending my day stressing out.

“Hi,” I said, sighing when he squeezed me tighter. As if he knew. As if he’d missed me just as much.

“You okay?”

“I am now.” And I was. Patricia had thrown me for a loop, but Maverick straightened me back out. One look, one smile, one hug, and all was right with the world.

Well, maybe not all…

“Hey, you two,” Macy called from the doorway of the apartment she shared with Hudson. “Dinner’s just about ready. Come on down once you’ve said hello.”

I clung to Maverick even as the cold wall of doubt slipped between us once more. “We’re eating with them?”

“Yes,” he said, pulling away so he could see my face. Give me that intense stare he’d somehow mastered. “Why?”

I didn’t know how to answer that without sounding needy and clingy and…unattractive. How did I explain that I didn’t want to spend time with my sister? That I worried about the two of them in some crazy sort of way? That I needed time alone with him and just him?

I didn’t have any idea, so I ignored everything. “No reason.”

“Come on.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me behind him as he headed down the hall. “She promised no insects.”

My eye roll was huge.

* * *

Later that night, after dinner and chatting and making a ton of excuses on why we needed to leave so early, Maverick pulled me into his bed. Into his arms. Just the two of us, finally.

“I needed this today,” I whispered as he stripped me bare. He didn’t respond with words, though his hands were gentle as they touched me. Loving, almost. There was a sweetness to his touch that spoke to me, and a dirtiness to his kisses that drew me out.

“Maverick,” I hissed when he slid inside. My hands clutched at him, my fingernails pressing into his shoulders.

He grunted, kissing me, pulling me close as he began to move. As he filled me over and over again. “You missed me.”

“I did.” A whispered truth, a moment of pure and utter openness. Bared to him in more ways than one.

“Good.” He kissed me again, deeper this time, as his hands ran long, smooth trails over my body. As he lay on top of me, pressing me into the mattress, every inch of me covered by him.

And still, I doubted.

It hadn’t escaped my attention that he didn’t say “I missed you” back. That he didn’t say anything more than good. But instead of focusing on that, I paid attention to the feel of him. To the push and pull between us. To the need that only he seemed to ignite in me.

Sex wouldn’t cure all, but I could at least feel good for a little while before I dealt with the turmoil brewing between us. The one I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Maverick

Something felt off.

I’d been the pilot of our hunting party, which meant I led them into dangerous territories. And got them back out. Always. I’d developed an instinct for knowing when to set down and when to keep flying, had earned it after many rotations around the suns of flying, fixing, and risking my life.

Feeling that sense of dread, that impending doom looming over me, from my possible mate was unexpected. And unwanted. But some things were unavoidable.

Stacy had started to put her mask back on, spending far too much time seeking something I didn’t know how to give her. I wanted her to be open with me, to be herself, but she blocked me most of the time. She refused to open herself up to me, telling untruths and avoiding my eyes instead. That person was not my Stacy—that was the fake Stacy. The one who had to hide, who feared too much.

I didn’t like the fake Stacy.

And I missed her. The real her. Every second of every day that we spent apart was torture, but every moment in the presence of the not-real Stacy was agony. But I couldn’t avoid her, couldn’t miss a single second when the real Stacy might show up. So when she invited me over to her place the night after the tense dinner with Hudson and Macy, I went.

I would always come when she called for me.

“Hey,” Stacy said as she opened the door. Her long, dark hair was stacked on top of her head in some sort of messy pile. It revealed her neck to me, the bones of her shoulders, the delicateness of her structure. I loved when she wore her hair up. There was something so sensual about her neck, so decidedly feminine. It stole my focus every time.

I didn’t speak—couldn’t, really. Instead, I grabbed her around the hips and pulled her closer. Nuzzling into her neck and placing kisses along the length. Tasting her. Showing her how much she attracted me, how much I wanted her.

She smacked my chest and giggled. “Quit before we skip dinner and end up in bed all night.”

Perfect. “And the problem with that is?”

She pulled away from my hold and rolled her eyes, but the soft smile of my Stacy remained even as she moved into the kitchen.

“I grabbed steaks and potatoes, figuring we could make steak free-tes.”

“What are free-tzzz?”

She grinned at me over her shoulder. “Frites. One word. And they’re fries, basically, but frites sounds fancier. Plus, I have truffle oil for them. Truffle oil makes everything better.”

I didn’t know what truffle oil was, but it didn’t matter. Stacy was looking at me with pure joy on her face, no mask, no hiding. I would have eaten her insects if she’d asked me to at that moment.

“Okay.” There was raw meat resting on a board on the counter and small, white strips to the side. “What do I do?”

“Do you cook?”

“Not here, no. Your food is very different from my home.”

“Oh. Well, it’s okay.” She moved across the kitchen to the oven. “The broiler’s ready, so I can get the steaks on. The fries will only take a few minutes.”

“So I was right on time.”

“I was early.” She shook her head, a weird, almost sad look on her face. “I had a lot on my mind, and staying busy in the kitchen helps me focus.”

That was understandable. I often took on some small project when I needed time to work out a plan or strategy. That was the logical side of our brain working its way through the chaos we tended to put in front of it.

Stacy placed the meat into the oven. Then she moved the white strips to a tall, round vessel beside the stove. When she dropped the sticks inside the vessel, a roar unlike any I’d heard on this planet boomed through the space.

I was in front of her before I could breathe, ready to kill anything that could harm her.

“Uh, Mav?”

“What?” I leaned over the vessel, taking care not to put myself directly in harm’s way. If something came out and attacked, Stacy would be alone. I would not leave her undefended. “Why does this thing scream?”

“It’s the hot oil. It does that.”

I leaned farther over the pot, still keeping Stacy secured behind my back. The liquid inside was bubbling and obviously hot, but contained. Human cooking was something I didn’t understand.

“Oh.”

Stacy chuckled and bumped me with her hip so I’d move out of her way. “Go relax. I’ve got this.”

“Have you always cooked?” I asked as I left her to her odd cooking monsters and explored her apartment. There was so much of the real Stacy in this place.

“No. In fact, I hated it. But then I spent a year eating hospital food and another six months on a bland diet as my body recovered. After that, I learned to cook because my taste buds had changed. Which is weird, you know? No one tells you when you go through chemo that you’ll love strah-bah-reehs one day and hate them the next.”

“So you hate these strah-bah-reehs?”

“With the fire of a thousand suns.”

I would be sure never to have them in our home. Moving through the area where I deemed she spent a lot of time, I found small details about her life scattered on tables and shelves. I grabbed a picture in a jeweled frame, one of her and Macy as small children.

“You two really did look a lot alike.”

“Yeah, so?” Stacy said, her voice harder than before.

I held up the picture. “It’s easier to tell you apart now, I think.”

She shrugged. “Macy has bigger boobs.”

“Yes, she does.” Larger breasts, a different set to her eyes, smaller lips. The two were quite different, really. Macy was nowhere near as beautiful as my match.

But my response seemed to dim something inside of Stacy. Her face fell, her entire body practically sagging as if I’d said something wrong.

“Oh.”

“What is oh?” I asked, setting the picture down.

“Nothing.” She waved her hand and smiled once more, but it wasn’t my Stacy’s smile. It was fake Stacy’s. Smaller and less vibrant, not reaching her eyes.

I didn’t like that smile.

“Stacy, why—”

A loud buzz interrupted me and made her jump. “Oh, the steaks are done. Come sit, and I’ll get the plates ready.”

I did as she asked, but I wouldn’t let her get away with avoiding me. I would ask her about this all later.

* * *

But later never came. Not really. After dinner, Stacy dragged me to her bed, stripping my clothes off along the way. I was weak…I couldn’t resist her when she started whispering about all the things she wanted from me, what she wished for. So I followed, and I ignored the fact that I needed to know what I’d said to make her sad.

Later, I told myself. Later.

Naked and on top of her, I sighed and kissed her sweet lips. Running my hands along her skin to show her how I cherished her. How much I cared. How much she meant to me.

“Maverick,” she gasped. “I feel so connected to you.”

I grunted my agreement, squeezing her closer. Needing to touch every inch of my Stacy. Then I slid lower, running my lips along her chest and stomach. Along her hips until I could place her legs over my shoulders and focus on her sweet cunt.

“Mav,” she sighed, her hands rough on my shoulders. I licked her from top to bottom, spreading her open with my fingers so I could get to that little piece of flesh that made her shake. I loved that piece of flesh. Loved how she reacted when I sucked on it.

But Stacy was impatient. She pulled and tugged until I crawled back up the length of her, then she grabbed my cock and placed it at the entrance to her cunt. I did as she seemed to want, thrusting inside, my lips meeting hers in a frantic sort of kiss.

“Please,” she said when we broke apart. “Please tell me.”

“What?”

She shook her head.

“Stacy,” I said as I slowed my thrusts. “What do you need?”

“This. Just this.” But her eyes didn’t meet mine, and I knew she was lying. Still, if my cock was what she wanted, I would give it to her. I would give her anything.

I grabbed both her hands and held them over her head. Pinning her. And I thrust hard and full until she shook. Until she screamed. Until her mask broke and the real Stacy was back.

But later that night after our bedgames were over, she didn’t curl into my side. In fact, she kept a good amount of space between us. I hated that space, so I rolled toward her and pulled her into my arms. To show her I cared. To protect her. To make sure she knew how much she meant to me. Clinging to my Stacy as I fell asleep.