ANDERS

I took my hands away from my face to look at Gwen. She leaned back in her chair, fingers interlaced over her flat stomach. Wonder filled her bright blue eyes. I couldn’t have done it without Gwen. No one else was good enough. We were quite a team.

I stared at her lovely face, framed by the flaming red hair that I loved, and wished we were a permanent pair. I wanted her to be my wife so we could do things like this together for the rest of our lives.

“That was unbelievable, Anders.”

I felt a half-smile pull my lips up on one side. “It was, wasn’t it?”

Adrenaline pumped through my body, and I was on a natural high as my bloodstream flooded with feel-good chemicals. A near-death experience is the extreme sports enthusiast’s drug of choice.

I grabbed Gwen with one arm and pulled her into me. She gasped as she felt my cock between us. I felt her nipples against my chest.

“There is nothing that makes me harder than doing the impossible,” I whispered into her ear. I kissed the spot where her neck meets her shoulder, and she swallowed audibly.

“There’s nothing that makes me wetter than watching you do the impossible.”

I closed my eyes, sending a grateful prayer into the heavens. I dragged Gwen back to the only horizontal surface on the ship — a couch in the changing area. I ripped back the curtain and pushed us inside, leaving it fluttering open.

I quickly removed her shirt and sports bra. She tore my shirt off me, pulling my lips to hers and kissing me deeply. I didn’t notice where our clothes landed. I was too lost in her presence to pay attention to anything else. Soon we were both naked, and I pushed her down onto the couch, covering her with my body.

My desire was at a fever pitch already. I felt hard as a rock. I wanted to bury myself in her and thrust until we both came apart...but I couldn’t do that. Even through the haze of lust, my training restrained me. I had an idea for what might be the next best thing, remembering how she had woken me that morning in the hotel and how good it had felt.

I kissed her until I thought I might explode. She was pushing her hips up toward mine, silently pleading. When I touched her clit, her hips bucked. It only took a few minutes before she was ready to go.

I pushed her legs apart, spreading her open. “Anders, what are you doing?” She looked at me through half-open eyes.

“I’m not going all the way inside.” I slid myself between her folds, being careful not to penetrate her.

She drew in a deep, shaky breath as I thrust between her legs, rubbing against her clit and her sex. She was slick, and it took all my restraint not to push inside of her. But this felt pretty good too.

She moaned as I rubbed along all her sensitive parts. “Oh, Anders.” I bent my neck down to one of her pink nipples, taking it between my teeth and scoring it before I sucked hard. “Fuck. I’m close.”

“Touch yourself.”

Her eyes got wide.

“Do it.”

She shut her eyes and slid her hand between us, rubbing her clit. I sped up, hoping she would come soon because I didn’t know how much longer I could hold back. Her moans started to get loud, and I thrust faster. My hot skin rubbed with the sweetest friction against her soft, wet flesh.

She arched her back up toward me, muscles spasming involuntarily in bliss. I went even faster until the heat, wetness, and her soft body convulsing against me pushed me over. I came, groaning. How could it feel so damn good?

I couldn’t help wondering what it would feel like inside her. I would probably lose my mind.

* * *

A few minutes later, Gwen was playing with my hair. “Anders, I feel great. I need you to fuck me.” She sighed and laid her head on my arm. We were squeezed onto the couch, facing each other with our bodies arranged so we could fit together.

“Don’t talk like that.” I squeezed my eyes shut and felt myself getting hard again.

“But I do. I feel empty.”

I pressed my lips together, trying to control myself. “All I want to do right now is flip you on your back and fuck you until you can’t walk.”

She whimpered. “What’s stopping you?”

“I can’t. Do you know about Bond Rejection Syndrome?”

She shrugged, closing her eyes and laying her head back down again. “No, but it sounds stupid.”

“When an Auxem mates with a female, it creates a life bond, remember?”

She shivered when I used the word ‘mate’. I felt her nod against my skin.

“This is great if the two people are in love and married. It brings them together and makes it so they can’t lie to one another. The man will never mate with another woman.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid now.”

“The problems come when the couple is not in love and not married. It’s different when they only share an attraction.” My heart felt heavy at the thought. “If they fuck under those circumstances, the bond will be corrupted. Sometimes Bond Rejection Syndrome occurs, which can lead to madness or death for both people.”

“Okay, it’s stupid.”

“Sex without love is not advisable for someone from Auxem.”

“I guess I get it.” She sounded like she wanted to be okay with it, but wasn’t.

“I’m not sure that you do.” I lifted her chin and forced her to look at me. “I want to make love to you, Gwen, more than anything I have ever wanted. If it weren’t for Bond Rejection Syndrome, I would take you to bed and not let you out for a week.”

“Do you think you have that much stamina?”

“You have no idea, woman. I feel like I could go forever.”

“I wish I could be there to see it.”

I did too.

* * *

GWEN

I wondered how I had survived all the previous years of my life without Anders giving me an orgasm as I came again under his skillful hands. We had both been pretty worked up after all the stress and adrenaline that came from speeding through the asteroid field. Fooling around helped relieve the immediate tension, but I still felt tight. I craved the release I could only get by having Anders inside me.

But I would never get that because we weren’t in love. I had a vague understanding of Bond Rejection Syndrome. Mating was supposed to be dangerous to someone from Auxem if the two people didn’t love each other. It was a good thing I hadn’t had that problem with Jake.

The implication was that we weren’t in love. We weren’t, of course. At least, I wasn’t in love with him. But every time I climaxed from his expert touch, or when he kissed me tenderly and passionately, or when he looked at me intensely, I kind of thought that maybe we could be.

But that was silly. No matter how I felt about him, Anders didn’t care about me, no matter what his body did. He was in lust with me. When we were back on the ship, he would find someone else. I had seen the pattern repeated many times. It wouldn’t do to get my emotions entangled with this alien.

All I could do was enjoy the mind-blowingly good sex for as long as it lasted. Hopefully, we could go back to being friends and coworkers. I wondered if things would be awkward when he showed up for Friday night beers with his latest fuck buddy or, even worse, his new wife. My stomach clenched at the thought.

I didn’t want any woman but me having Anders inside of her. I felt like clawing out the imaginary woman’s eyes for daring to look at him. He was mine.

I blinked, taken aback by the ferocity of my thoughts. Anders wasn’t mine at all. He wasn’t my lover to keep, only to enjoy for a while. He wasn’t my friend either. We had crossed that line long ago. He wasn’t my man because he didn’t love me.

He wasn’t my anything. I would have to remember that. At least his body was mine for as long as he allowed.

* * *

ANDERS

We walked into the palace on Marka wearing our pilot’s uniforms, hoping that we didn’t look too scruffy to see the queen. A quick glance at the other supplicants made me feel better about our clothing immediately. The peasants in line to speak with the Markana were destitute. Some of the women had dirty faces and missing teeth, and were clothed in little more than rags.

I wondered if they were former sex slaves who had been freed and tossed out into the street. Without any marketable skills or ways to get jobs, many resorted to prostitution or begging. The Markana tried to help everyone, but rebuilding a world wasn’t an easy task. Many fell through the cracks.

I tried not show any discomfort at the body odor of unwashed flesh.

Gwen clung to me as we walked down the hallway to the end of the line. The floor was an off-white color, made from polished stone that showed our reflection. The walls were pure white, with adornments here and there that gave splashes of color. Blue and white figurines. A painting of a sunset — red, orange, and yellow. A single purple flower floating in a glass bowl.

There were a lot of people in line. I guessed we would be waiting for a couple of hours. I knew Lyzette was thorough. She would never rush anyone, instead preferring to give everyone as much time as necessary.

When we reached the end of the line, we slid down the wall and sat beside each other on the floor. Gwen pulled her knees up and wrapped an arm around them. I knew she felt out of her element. She never let go of my hand.

“I’m a middle-class girl.” She stared at a shelf across from us built especially for an expensive-looking vase. “My mother was a teacher. My father worked as a carpenter. We couldn’t afford expensive vacations, but we went camping, and we had enough. My brother and I always had everything we needed, if not everything we wanted.”

I waited patiently.

“I’ve never seen anything like this.” She waved a hand at the poverty before us. “Elle was the first person I’ve met from the projects on Earth.”

Her voice trailed off. I sensed she wasn’t finished.

“There’s no royalty on Earth anymore, but the rich are the new aristocracy. I never knew anyone with that kind of money.” She licked her lips and pressed them together. “Do you realize how far out of my comfort zone I am?”

I understood and knew what it must be like at an abstract level, but I didn’t know what to say or do to make her feel better. I chose honesty. “I can’t make it easier for you, but we’re here together.”

Gwen squeezed my hand. “Maybe that will be enough.”