IV: Pleasantly Unexpected

Mor’an hadn’t drugged her. That was the first question of hers answered when they walked into the dining area of the ship, sitting down with each other to talk. He called back to their conversation, how he had told her that sometimes people of other species had to have their compatibility with their intended Jundar mate ignited – have the attraction spark. Sometimes it was as simple as a touch making deep, instinctual feelings spark. Others, it was more physical – as with his kiss and… touching her.

He had assured her that he’d not intended to go quite so far without properly explaining things to her. He had merely wanted to show her that there had been more to what was between them that met the eye. Had she spoken to him after he navigated them out of the asteroid field, he would have explained it all to her – but when she had locked herself away within her room, he had thought that perhaps he had scared her more than enticed her, and hadn’t wanted to force that on her.

It had been an odd thought to her – not wanting to force it on her. He had kidnapped her, after all, hadn’t explained any of this to her before doing so, and had assumed that things would just fall into place for her. She had been annoyed – angry even. It was a lot to take in, and she quickly realized that the situation was not one that she would have as much control over as she had originally thought. It frustrated her, made her angry.

It had also led to another stint in her room, several days of not coming out.

Like the first time, Mor’an hadn’t bothered her. There was a part of her that wished he would. She could have easily distracted herself from her irritation with a few good rounds of sex. There was a larger part of her, however, that was grateful. She was at least able to clear her head, and think. She went back to her facts.

Fact one: There was something biologically within her and Mor’an that drew them to each other.

Fact two: She believed Mor’an in his explanation that it had to do a lot with mating; she couldn’t think about much other than having sex with him and oddly enough, all her fantasies involved needing to have him fill her with children.

Fact three: There was more to this connection than sex; when orgasms were over and her fantasies had subsided, what she wanted most was merely his company.

Fact four: She didn’t know if she was opposed or intrigued anymore.

Fact five: Fact four was a life; she was definitely intrigued. She just didn’t know if she should be or not.

That was the problem that faced her when she’d finally pulled herself from the confines of her room for the second time of her capture. And, once again, she had made her way to the other side of quarters’ corridor, knocked, and was greeted but Mor’an.

That time, she had been calm – far calmer than she thought she would be. She accepted this… compatibility was a thing. It was a thing that didn’t make a lot of sense to her, but facts didn’t necessarily make sense all of the time, and fact of the matter was, there was an undeniable draw to him.

However, she wasn’t interested in being a slave to her baser instincts. There was a fire in her belly that she wouldn’t deny, but there was also something deeper in the potential connection between the two of them.

“I want to get to know you before committing to mating you,” she had told him figuring that using the language he was familiar with would make the most sense to him. “I know little of you, as a person. I’m willing to explore this if you’re willing to indulge waiting on the physical part of this connection.”

To her surprise, he had agreed.

They found themselves, then, three weeks into their aimless journey through space, cohabitating. They didn’t have sex, didn’t even fool around – they learned each other.

Being a woman of science, it appealed to Adrien’s desire to collect information. She calculated she had to have asked dozens of questions a day, and answered just as many. Mor’an, despite his tight-lipped nature at the research facility, had the same kind of curiosity that she did, and she could appreciate that hers was reciprocated in such a way. They played their own elaborate game of twenty questions, learning what the other liked, what they disliked, what their family was like. Adrien, as she told Mor’an had no family. She had been adopted young, and her adoptive family hadn’t kept contact with her long after she’d turned eighteen and began to pursue her chosen higher education. Mor’an, however, had a large family – there were ten siblings of his alone, and all of his family performed various duties for the royalty on his planet.

When Adrien asked him, then if that’s where they were going, she had assumed the answer would be yes. It was a surprise to her, however, when he told her no. They would not be going to the planet Jundar – it wasn’t his intended destination. Where they were going was farther away, a place that he had cherished since childhood, a secret he wanted to surprise her with.

He called it a paradise.

It was, in honesty, a jarring thought to her. Adrien liked unknowns, only when they were in controlled, testable settings. This was hardly a controlled, testable setting. That being said, Mor’an’s honesty made her feel better, and she had let that one go. It had led into a conversation about traveling, however, and how much Mor’an had done in service of the Jundar royalty. He had apparently been all over the galaxy, visited a number of peoples. She had asked him why he wouldn’t want to return; he obviously enjoyed the work that he did for the Jundar crown. When she had, he had merely looked at her, head tilted.

“There are more important things, now.”

Adrien had known better than to ask what those more important things were. Her curiosity wasn’t so high that she was going to knowingly walk into a conversation quite that deep. Though there was persistent pull to Mor’an, she felt that she needed to let her mind catch up a little more with her body and her instincts so oddly awoken by Mor’an’s presence.

That didn’t mean, however, she wouldn’t admit, silently, to herself, that she was slowly falling.