Chapter Eleven

Thiago listened thoughtfully to the poignantly melodious tune wafting out of his spaceship. He tiptoed through the front door, treading lightly toward Eden as he watched her. Seemingly oblivious to his arrival, she had her back turned to him. She sat on a stool in front of a rectangular device. Her fingers wiggled gracefully in mid-air, plucking invisible strings from a vertical antenna. Thiago folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall, a floorboard creaking under the weight of his boots.

"Oh," said Eden, jumping back in her seat. The look of alarm on her face quickly changed to one of relief. "I didn't hear you come in."

"You don't have to stop," said Thiago softly, clearing his throat. "That is, if you don't want to."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to touch your stuff," Eden mumbled, an embarrassed flush of pink creeping into her cheeks. "I got bored. There's not much to do around here."

"It's fine," said Thiago earnestly, stroking his chin. "You're excellent. Did you compose that piece yourself?"

"I wish," snorted Eden.

Thiago found himself staring as she gathered her unruly mass of copper hair over one side of her neck, exposing a thin sliver of her porcelain flesh. She started up the song once more. This time, she kept her eyes closed, allowing her head to rock back and forth to the music.

"This is a Louis Armstrong classic called 'West End Blues.' It's one of only two songs I know how to play on a guitar," Eden explained. She stopped playing abruptly, smiling as she turned back to face him. "And that's all I know. What do you call this instrument?"

"It's a theremin. Ironically, it's a device from Earth. I believe a Russian physicist created it. I'm not sure how it made its way from Earth to space, but I retrieved it from an old junkyard and tinkered with it until I got it to work."

"Interesting," said Eden slowly, rising to help Thiago dismantle the device. She ran her tongue over her lips thoughtfully, clearing her throat as she handed him the pieces to stow away behind the arsenal. "Thanks for the food, by the way. It was tasty despite the appearance. I'm not sure if the burnt edges were intentional, but it was just like Dad used to make it."

"No problem. I followed a recipe I found from your home planet. It wasn't yellow, but I did what I could."

"It tasted fantastic," said Eden gently, playing with the wrinkled creases on her elbows. "It was sweet."

"I'm pretty sure it was meant to be a savory dish."

"I meant, what you did was sweet. You know, like all the 'garbage' sodas you bought for me in the fridge."

"I ordered everything in one sitting and had it delivered," Thiago said hastily. He had hardly ever received praise from those around him and he was growing increasingly uncomfortable. "Besides, you're too stubborn to drink anything other than that toxic swill. I didn't want to come home to find you starved to death and staining my floors."

"Oh, right. Sure," laughed Eden, punching him playfully on the arm. She fell back on a large cushioned armchair. Thousands of microscopic alien creatures in individual bean casings shifted under her weight. They swarmed together, massaging the tension out of her back through the fabric of the chair. "I think I'm growing on you."

"You're welcome to think whatever you'd like," said Thiago tonelessly. He grabbed a jug of Pasquin ale from the cabinet above him and poured a shot into a clean goblet.

As he guzzled down the bitter liquor, Eden looked up. She crossed the kitchen and moved to the kitchen countertop next to Thiago. He was facing away from her. Wordlessly, she inspected the aged scars on the side of his neck. One ragged scar appeared to stretch down his back, disappearing from the neckline of Thiago's hooded jumpsuit. Biting down on her tongue, she traced the mark with her fingertip.

Thiago shivered at the unexpected contact, turning back questioningly. "Hey!"

"Did you get this from the warehouse, or is it an old battle scar?"

"I guess you could say it was my first. It turns twenty-four this year," said Thiago glumly.

"Can I see it?" said Eden, her mossy-green eyes widening.

"What? What for?" Thiago asked. Noting the adamant expression on Eden's face, he grudgingly agreed. He unzipped his jumpsuit from the waist, shedding off the top half of his outfit and casting it aside. Eden was taken aback by the ripples of muscle in his naked upper body, sculpted naturally by years of strenuous bounty hunting. Her diverted eyes roamed back to his scar. The flesh-toned wound stopped halfway down his spine.

"Hang on a minute. Twenty-four years ago? You were just a kid."

"I was nine."

"The bombing from the Noxx territory wars was twenty years ago," Eden whispered. Her chest tightened. "What happened?"

"Like you said, it happened over twenty years ago. There's no sense in bringing it up now."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Fine, if you insist. We used to live out in the countryside, in an area called Myron Plains. There were a few hundred or so families, mostly similar to mine – husbands who'd fallen for their human mail-order brides and decided to start families of their own. Our unique family dynamic wasn't accepted or tolerated by society, which was why we were living in the country outskirts."

Eden listened intently. She watched as she saw a fleeting look of vulnerability cross Thiago's steely composure.

"My mother was making sweet bread in the kitchen. My father was out in the yard sharpening handmade tools he traded with other villagers in Myron. I'd just completed one of the passages my mother assigned to me, so I ran outside to play. I went to a creek I visited every day. I remember leaning over the bank of the river, playing with a couple of baby anuras. Out of nowhere, a blaring sound filled the air. All the anuras swam away from me for cover faster than I'd ever seen them move before."

"Oh no," Eden breathed, her stomach twisting as she braced herself.

"There was an explosion of course, but I barely remember it. The next thing I knew, I was washed up on the bank of a creek about thirty miles south from where I'd started. I still don't know how I managed to survive the blast. I wandered for days but eventually hiked back to my town. Everyone I knew was dead. They completely obliterated Myron. We made it into a graveyard shortly after."

"The Land of the Fallen," said Eden morosely, tugging at the sleeve of her robe.

"Right," said Thiago, averting his eyes. He cleared his throat, downing the rest of the ale and chucking his goblet into the sink.

Thiago hadn't thought about the incident for over two decades, but it was always lurking at the corner of his mind, waiting to take over his thoughts. The memory started a wave of dormant emotions flowing through his body. Like everything that discomforted him that wasn't a physical problem, he tried to flush it out of his system. Thiago took a deep, revitalizing breath, swallowing a tickle building up in his throat.

"I'm sorry," Eden murmured, her voice thick with emotion.

Her fingers gingerly scraped down the length of his scar, feeling his shoulders tensing up under her wandering touch. There were no more words to say, but her chest swelled with the burning desire to ravage his deliciously firm body and take away his pain. She resisted her urge. Instead, she closed in on his rigid back, planting a line of softly sensual kisses along the length of his scar.

Thiago spun around without warning, his hands smoothly circling her waist and pulling her close to him. Eden's surprised giggles trailed off timidly as the distance between his strikingly handsome face and hers dwindled. He cupped his hands around her chin and kissed her, delicately dragging down her bottom lip against his.

Eden moaned, sinking into the kiss. As their lips collided, her hands traveled up and over the back of his head. The patterns on his shaved head felt bristly against her palms. His groping hands slid down her back and found their way to her butt. He smirked, awarding himself a hearty grab as he hoisted Eden off the floor and wrapped her legs around his waist.

The pair continued to kiss as he carried her past a napping Hercules asleep in its nest. They teetered up the flight of steps, knocking sideways into the wall and railing before making it up the landing. Thiago gently placed her slender frame onto his bed. Eden's robe came undone as she toppled backward, the globes of her milky, bare breasts jiggling into view. She made a face, rubbing on her bandaged waist.

"Be gentle. I'm injured, remember?"

"Sorry." The impish grin on Thiago's face weakened Eden's legs. He climbed into bed and crawled on top of her. The back of his hands graced the supple bottom curves of her pear-shaped breasts. With his intense gaze steadily fixed on hers, his lips latched onto her nipple. She moaned, feeling herself hardening in his mouth as his tongue swirled around her.

"When I was bandaging you today, it took all the restraint I had to refrain from looking at your body."

Her appreciative whimpering was stifled while she chewed her lip. Squirming against the wrinkled sheets, she snatched his taunting hands and slapped them roughly onto her breasts. With her fingers interlaced through the gaps of his fervently kneading hands, she positioned her legs around him. The sole of her foot moved against his cock bulging through his jumpsuit. Her toes wriggled as she pressed down and began to move her foot in circular motions.

"You better do something about that before I do."

Eden flashed him a quick wink, deliberately licking the ruby red of her lips. Thiago stripped off the rest of his jumpsuit and flung it behind him, sending the pair of pants flying over the second-floor railing. As he stood at the foot of the bed, Eden crept toward him, her breasts swaying slightly from side to side. She wrapped her fingers around the thick girth of his cock and steered it into her mouth. As his tip touched the back of her throat, she gagged slightly, titillated tears springing to the corners of her eyes.

Eden pulled away from him, discarding her bathrobe and panties onto the floor. She climbed back into bed on all fours, turning away from him. With her fleshy, bubble-shaped ass ready and poised in midair, she shifted her legs further apart. As Thiago eyed the moist gleam of pink blinking at him from her shifting legs, his cock pulsed in her hands. Slathering a palmful of spit over his erection, he mounted her from behind, teasing the tip of his pole with the slickness of her invitingly warm crevice.

Slowly, Thiago eased himself through the tightness of her folds. Eden whipped back her head, her fiery hair cascading over her shoulders. Her pussy nursed him as he pumped in and out of her. She tightly gripped the sheets to keep herself standing upright and her knees from buckling underneath her. Thiago had his hand fastened to her waist, the other caressing the jumping spheres of her soft breasts.

Beads of sweat poured down the canvas of Thiago's back like raindrops racing to the bottom of a windowsill. As he reached around to tweak the delicate pearl above her folds, her back arched on the rocking bed, a look of turbulent delight unfolding across her face. She felt her toes curling as her juices gushed over Thiago, who was still drilling in and out of her.

Sensing the closeness of his release, Thiago dismounted. Eden's lanky, feminine physique crumbled across the bed, a sensation of numbness crawling up her legs. She watched as Thiago guided his creamy emissions onto a pile of his clothes on the floor. A golden glow flickered across the arrows intersecting the U-marking on his forehead. As quick as the light came, it vanished, disappearing at the end of his release.

Thiago rolled his head around his neck as he picked up his clothes and stuffed them into the congested hamper, which was in danger of exploding at any minute. As he moved to the steps, intending to fix himself another snack, Eden hemmed loudly behind him. He turned back to face Eden, her glistening, naked body nestling under the covers of the bed.

"Where are you going?"

"Downstairs, to get something to eat. Sorry. Are you hungry, too?"

"No." She patted the space next to her.

Thiago was baffled but decided to play along. In his previous sexual encounters, there had never been a need to stick around after the deed. He didn't understand how Earth girls would be any different, but he thought it wouldn't hurt to humor the touchy-feely human.

He lifted the sheets and climbed into bed next to her, laying perfectly, awkwardly still. Eden lay her head on his warm chest. His heartbeat intensified under her weight. Thiago could feel his tough exterior begin to soften. Slowly and carefully, he slipped his hand around her neck and held her close to him. He began petting the side of her head, threading her coppery curls through the spaces between his fingers.

Within moments, the pair was fast asleep and snoring in each other's arms.