CHAPTER 34

 

TARA

 

“Tac,” I breathe, watching the brilliant colors seep into his skin.

I think the spots are his version of a blush.

Iridescent emerald green splotches with a striking black outline start forming on his face before spreading like syrup on a sundae; random drip patterns begin to appear all over his skin.  Okay, so it’s his version of a blush all over.  It’s striking, it’s strange, it’s… his colors are so nice, his body is so nice, and he is so nice that Tac is… alien or not—he’s sexy.

Earlier, something had been bothering him.  He’d started to look sort of ashamed.  Then it was overridden by… what?  I don’t know.  But now it’s like the significance of this event happening—

I’M GOING HOME TO MY GIRLS!

...It’s like the two of us saying goodbye forever in just a few hours has clicked for him and now he’s starting to talk.  A lot.

I nod at all the moments I’m pretty sure are appropriate.  I accept his arm sliding around my back, gently urging me to flatten against his chest.

A chance to cuddle against this chest?  Okay!

I snuggle down and breathe him in.  Masculine, appealing—not like Brax’s sex-on-a-platter-hot-fudge-deliciousness’ scent draws me in—but in the way that an attractive man smells, the way that I can’t help but appreciate.

Appreciate a lot.

Of course, this isn’t the only thing I’m appreciating.  Up close like this?  Tac’s muscles… I have to force myself to glance away before I start drooling.  I’m a mother of two.  I have two babies who need me.  I will be with them again in a matter of hours.

Thanks to Tac.

In a matter of hours, I also have to say goodbye.  It’s time to pull myself together.

But I’m human, not dead.

So when Tac tentatively wraps his fingers around mine, and guides them to slide across his heated skin, I don’t stop him, but I meet his tender gaze and together, we ease the fabric of his suit open like he’s gift wrapped for me and we force it over his wide shoulders, revealing his incredibly built body…

I’m human, not dead!

I swallow and I have to marvel at the fact that I don’t even feel a curl of hesitation about what we’re leading to here.

There is nothing wrong with me enjoying this while I can have it.

While I can have it.  I have to leave behind sweet, funny, kind Tac.

I take a deep breath and blink until my eyes don’t burn.

I look back into the imperturbably patient, affectionate gaze that is no doubt watching every emotion play out on my face.  Adorable, affectionate Tac with his body built like an athlete’s: all sinew and muscle, and restrained power.

I want to express how I feel for him, what I feel for him.  I want to do it in a way he can share it with me, because I know he feels it for me too.  I’ve seen it in the way he smiles at me.  I feel it in his little touches.  In the way he holds me at night when he doesn’t have to.  This ship is huge: if he didn’t want to, I wouldn’t even share a room with him.  I’d wonder why he hadn’t forced me to show him some ‘gratitude’ this entire time—but I know why.

This is Tac.

I can’t see Tac forcing me to do anything I don’t want to do.

I want to do this.

Planting my free hand on his pectoral (he HAS a pectoral!  Not a cute little man-boob moob: a sculpted, hot, both literally-and-figuratively, honest-to-alien Pectoral.  Rawr.), I scoot my butt backwards until I’m sitting in the cradle of his hips.  Because of his body structure, this puts me between his knees, which rise up to my elbow’s height on either side of me.  It seems odd, but at the same time… it’s just Tac.  He effortlessly curls up (all that jumping around he does sure has done pretty, pretty things for his abdominals) so that he can keep ahold of my hand as I scooch backwards more, until the backs of my calves slide over the sinew of membrane that connects the top of his legs to his torso, then I carefully fold and drop my knees so I can tuck them on either side of his big muscled butt.

I’ve never been with a guy whose butt and hips are bigger than mine.  Of course, his is solid muscle but still.  It’s nice.  Not just his butt—that’s nice too but no, the way I’m feeling: it’s nice.  I don’t feel self-conscious at all.

This adds points to the scoreboard of whatever ridiculous mental field my psyche has apparently been playing in without my conscious knowledge, or permission for that matter.  I didn’t even know that was an issue for me, but here I am, grateful all of a sudden not to have a stupid, subconscious worry about it.

I wriggle my smaller-than-my-partner’s butt until I’m comfortably seated on Tac’s wide, thick tail.  But I start to lift my weight off of him when I think to ask, “Does this hurt?”

Tac pats my knee reassuringly.  Keeping eye contact, I settle my weight on him again, and am relieved when he smiles slightly, showing no strain at all.  Guess it’s fine.

Then he looks down.  He utters a long, low warble.

It’s rather flattering.

My skirt has ridden up to my upper thighs, but I’m gonna leave it because I’m enjoying the way Tac’s having trouble breathing as his gaze darts from my face to the barely-hidden area between my knees.

I turn my attention to his body.  For the first time, I really look at his lower half.

His suit is a fitted, dark material that accentuates the huge quadriceps in his thighs and, as I run my hand along one, I follow where his knee turns into his extra-long tibia, I guess.  Extending behind me, they taper into thick, strong heels which are firmly planted in the top cover of the bed.  His feet are actually very gracefully built, and are almost as long as I am tall I notice as I sit atop him like this.  I can also see that each one of his toes is tipped in a claw.  But they’re pointed, and sharp, unlike—I turn our connected hands over, peering at his nails—his dull, slightly rounded off fingernails.  He’s been trimming and buffing them then because I remember that they were pointy too, when we first met.

Tac is staring at them but in a shocked way that has me smiling.  “What is it?”

He brings our hands up closer to his face, like he can’t believe something.  Absently, his other hand moves to scratch at the rougher textured skin over his ribs.

He stops and looks at the claws on this hand too.

Then his eyes flick to me, and it’s a speculative look I have no way of decoding.  I settle back, petting his other leg, smoothing my hand down the length of his ‘shin’.  That’s when I notice that Tac seems to be growing decidedly uncomfortable as I examine him.  I smile sheepishly.  “Sorry.  I didn’t mean to make you feel self-conscious.”  I bend and pop a kiss to his knee.

I watch his throat bob before he rips off a bead from his brishker and thrusts it at me… before he seems to come to terms with the fact that his gift of this delicate, decorative brishker bead is wasted on me.  On account of me not having a set of dragon-fish eyebrow extensions.  Oh, what human women would do if we had to pluck these, yowch.  At my snicker, he sends me a huge smile—before he excitedly begins to unwind a leather wrap bracelet from his wrist.  The one he never takes off.

Right now?  Technically, he still doesn’t take it off.  Instead, he keeps one end on his wrist and with the other, he ties us together.

“Ummm…”  I look down, not sure if I should laugh or be worried.  It’s Tac.  He’s not going to hurt you, you idiot.  I settle on a grin.  “Ha.  Kinky,” I tell him.

“Kink-eeee!” he agrees with great enthusiasm.

Now I’m laughing.

He says more words, asks a question, points forcefully to a spot on his chest—I’m lost, but I peck a kiss on it.

He freezes.

Very softly, I also kiss his still-pointing finger.  “It’s fine,” I try to reassure him.  “I think your spots are cute,” I say and point to a few of my own.  “See?  I’d be such a hypocrite if I had a thing against spots, right?”

Tac hoots like he can’t believe how awesome the world is being to him right now.  This guy has a vocalization range somewhere between exotic bird and a tree frog.  It’s weird, but it’s also cute and he sounds so happy it makes my chest feel like it’s filling up.  I just like him.  Because you’ve got to enjoy a guy who pulls no punches and shows this level of zest for all the good things that happen to him.  And… as he stares down into my eyes, I know that he’s trying to show me that he considers me one of the good things.

I inhale slowly and try not to let the sadness overwhelm me. Just enjoy the time we’ve got left.

The foreign tug on my wrist makes me shake my head, but I still make my lips curve up at him, because he looks weirdly happy that our hands are tied together.  Whatever floats your boat, Tac.  “I’m going to miss you so much,” I tell him.  I can feel my voice catching when I say the words.  I can see the way his smile falters, because he hears it too.  He can’t speak my language, but he knows that I’m sad.

I have a connection with Tac, but I want more of a connection.  I want to show him what I feel, what I’ve been feeling, for a while now.

I examine the fastener on his pants.  I take my time, leaning down to get close, and I make sure to I aim my exhalations over his bulge, and yes, yes I do enjoy his tortured little moans and whimpers.

When I look back up at him, I say, “You want to take care of this part, or should I?”

He rips off his pants so fast.

He doesn’t dislodge me to do it; he’s literally pulled so hard all the snaps popped open.

I didn’t know this, but Tac is a commando sort of guy so it’s right here, popping up to say hi.  And wow, it’s um… it’s alien.  His equipment is almost completely covered by a mottling emerald pattern, like the color is pooling where his body wants the most attention, but that’s not even the strange(est) part:

He looks like he’s got five ‘heads,’ one fitting snugly on another.  The coronas, or… rims, or flanges are raised on them and are definitely eye catching.  Five.  Mushroom caps.

My thighs clench, and I squirm just a little—but because I’m sitting on his tail, he notices.

He makes an encouraging noise.

And he watches with fascination as, starting at the tip of my thumb, I lick a line down to the webbing and then up the inside of my pointer finger.

I think he’s starting to wheeze.

Experimentally, I circle just behind the first head—and Tac’s tail almost bucks me right off.

His teeth are showing as he gasps at the air, eyes wide and wild and hot, and his four ears are flicking and twitching like his nerves are uncontrollably firing on account of him being electrocuted.

I grin.

He sucks in a breath.

And I bring my tongue to the tip of his cock.  At least this time, I’m prepared for when his tail lifts off the bed again.  Knees planted, I lean forward more so I can bring my butt up enough for his tail to work itself out.  I don’t bother dropping back down.  Instead, I grab his base and bring my tongue along his very interesting shaft.

With a repressed growl, he loses the battle and collapses back—which yanks my hand off of him and he sounds like he’s cursing himself out while apologizing to me and begging me to continue all at the same time, all in the same breath.

I don’t know about him, but I’ve never had so much fun.  This is awfully gratifying, to reduce an alien to pleasure-drunk, mumbling, twitching goo.

When he lifts his head, his eyes glazed with a becoming sheen of lust, I wave my tied hand.  “Want to take it off now?”

He shakes his head, firm and sure.  ...Okay. 

He lays his tethered arm across his midsection so that I have slack to work, and the set of his jaw tells me he’s prepared to see this through.

He catches my eye and I smile at him.  I think we’re thinking the same thing: if he can see this through.

I bring my lips around his tip, then let the weight of his cock settle on my tongue, slowwwly extending my lick before I drag it back up the underside of his head.  I am thoroughly enjoying his croaking, cackling noises of mindless pleasure.  With my lips covering my teeth, I start to sink over him.

And run into a little bit of a problem.

Tac hisses and I am cringing and popping off immediately.  “Sorry!”

I study the length of his cock in consternation as he shifts restlessly under me.  “Hang on,” I say distractedly as I consider the problem.

And I have to call them something.  Shroom rims.  His shroom rims are so pronounced that they scrape against my molars.  Not a little.  A lot.

How do his people give blowjobs, exactly?

I chance a look at him, and see a wariness that wasn’t there before.  I squeeze his shroom-shaft firmly enough that he loses the wary look with a tortured groan.  I smile.  “Just the first head then.”