I’m on top of her before she can raise her dress.
I kiss the back of her neck, not caring that her hair is in the way. I’m using my nose to shove strands aside, my hands full of one of her breasts and one of the cheeks of her posterior.
Seeing inside her mind, I’m relieved that she doesn’t appear low in mood—she’s more surprised than anything. And one of her sections is heating up the harder I nuzzle at her nape.
So I continue to lick her neck until I’m driven to nip it. I stop when she cries out, managing to mutter, “Sorry,” before sitting up.
Body slow with seeming reluctance, Stella twists in my grip as much as she’s able, one eye meeting mine. “It’s fine. It felt… good.”
Inside of her head, I see that her pleasure center is shimmering.
“Oh! Well, then…”
I go back to licking and nipping her.
“Suck on the skin,” she directs, her breaths shallow and fast.
I do as she says, dazed when her brain’s reaction intensifies even more. Delightful; she’s absolutely delightful. “Stella,” I groan, humping at her affectionately as I move to lave my tongue over her shoulder.
She stiffens a little, and sadness creeps into her brain.
My voice, not Baron’s, I realize. Without her needing to ask, I begin to manipulate her brain’s centers.
I enter her greedily, gripping her hips and riding her like she’s here to teach me bronc busting. But soon the tempo of my body inside of hers slows, because I find myself addicted to rolling my hips in a way that makes Stella moan.
When she first makes the sound, I stop moving, watching her mind’s activity for pain.
But it’s pleasure she’s feeling.
I repeat the motion, again and again, until it’s both of us moaning and our vocalizations mingle.
Later, after I hold her until her brainwaves settle, after I rise off of her and cover her with the blanket, I move to my pile of clothes in front of the closet, getting dressed in them even though they scent a little ripely of the day before.
“You can wear Baron’s,” Stella says, her voice strained. “You’re… only a little bigger.”
She sounds so sad.
I glance at her, concerned. “No, that’s all right. I’ll go back to my house today to get my things if you don’t mind me moving some here.”
“That’s fine.”
And with that, I retrieve my pistol from high up in the closet. I take hers down too; I stored them together. I turn and cross to the bed, watching her watch me as I approach her. “I’m going to give this to you now.”
“Afraid I’ll retaliate?”
“A little,” I admit.
She doesn’t verbally reassure me. But one corner of her mouth quirks—and my heart experiences the oddest, tightest constriction.
“Stella?” I whisper, staring into her eyes as I hand over the pistol I gave to her late husband, my best friend. My best friend who, I’m starting to see for myself, had every reason to care as deeply as he did for this woman. “I think I could fall in love with you.”
CHAPTER 6
STELLA
I didn’t know what to say to C’vest’s statement.
He probably reads the cocktail of stunned guilt that hits me along with that early loop of new-relationship flutters.
And boy does it feel wrong that I have any flutters at all. But what’s an appropriate length of time for me to accept them? They’re bound to happen, despite the sheer speed with which my life has fallen apart and C’vest tore into it.
If this had been allowed to happen naturally, at my own pace…
Well, it probably would have never happened.
I don’t know when I would have been ready to consider another man after Baron. Maybe never—and I’m not being dramatic. I don’t want anyone else, C’vest included. But this is where we’re at. And although I could have poisoned him yesterday, C’vest is treating me with such consideration when he takes me that I’ve truly started to believe that he means me no harm.
Baron used to say that you don’t take a man at his word—you take him at his actions.
C’vest seems to be trying to engineer the absolute best situation he can for me, and I’m watching his actions like a mouse watches a hawk.
With his abilities, if he were a cruel man, he could torture me. He could torture me inside and out.
Instead, he’s gone to great lengths to… make things easier for me.
I’m starting to think that with C’vest’s logical mind, he prepared a pro-con list, decided marriage was the best option for us both, planned out what steps to take if I enthusiastically agreed, and then he planned out steps in case I didn’t. At no time did malice enter his thoughts. He’s just fixing problems the only way he knows how: a little alien, and completely unrefined. He’s a well-meaning bull in a china shop, a slightly clueless one, just like Baron used to shake his head and laugh about.
C’vest leaves the house with a murmured goodbye, and I uncurl from the bed and mince to the bathroom to clean myself up yet again. His out-of-this-world colored cum is extra gloopy and there’s an exceptional amount of it. I need to ask him if he knows if an interspecies child is possible. If I’m not pregnant already, we need to put some plans in place unless he wants children.
With Baron, I was always of the mind that if we had them, we’d have them. I secretly knew I’d welcome them, but I wasn’t starved to have children, not yet, we had time.
I got my period two weeks after he was gone. For those fourteen days before that, I desperately hoped like I’d never hoped for anything that I was carrying his baby inside of me. Some little piece of him.
Now, with Baron’s baby not an option, I’m back to not actively hoping for pregnancy. Yesterday when C’vest first finished in me, I wasn’t exactly in a position to refuse him. Let alone order him to use some form of protection. And last night and this morning… well? I didn’t care. I just wanted to feel better for one session, and the other two were more like experiencing a surprising street show. Like a tightrope walker or someone juggling fire, or sword swallowing. His stamina is more than a bit of a surprise and if I wanted him like I think he’s starting to want me, I’d be thrilled.
It’s noon when I hear the front door open. My heart jumpstarts itself as I peek around the living room door, a dust mop in one hand and the neck of a lamp in my other in case it’s not C’vest.
It is though. Dressed in a red shirt today, the rest of him in his usual dark colors otherwise, he looks clean and well pressed. But his face is hard and he almost brings the door shut behind him with enough force to make it slam into its frame.
Instantly worried, I ask, “What’s wrong?” I look at his empty hands. A pang hits me when I catch sight of his wedding band. Married. To me. Baron is gone. C’vest is here now. “Where are your clothes? Did something happen?”
“My things are in the carriage. They’ll keep,” he says. “And this is what’s wrong.”
He grabs the front of his trousers, where a massive erection is outlined to vivid perfection.
CHAPTER 7
C’VEST