When She's Wary (Risdaverse, #11)

by Ruby Dixon

I hunch over, hands on my thighs, because running with an erection is not happening. Bending over makes me want to gag, though, and I curse that keffing avian that sold me the null root. Maybe it’s not even null root. It might just be some root from his keffing, keffing backyard. With an angry growl at my own stupidity, I cup my cock in my hand and jog for the distant human house, determined to have sex or pass out on her doorstep. Right now, either one sounds keffing great.

He’s not asking for much, just a bit of water. I can let him drink a glass and send him on his way. I move to the kitchen and grab a glass, filling it from the tap. The water comes from a well-pump with a purification filter, and it’s cool and clean. I resist the urge to hoard it, remembering the days that I had to drink from puddles and runoff as a slave, but I have an entire well.

“Don’t try to get up. I won’t hesitate to stun you again.” “You…stunned me?” I stare up at her in surprise. Maybe that’s why my brain is fuzzy. She shocked me so hard she made me pass out. I should be furious. It has to be the noli that makes my dick stiffen at her casual violence. Or maybe it’s the authoritative way she says that she’s not afraid to take drastic action.

I can make this work, I decide. Sure, she’s angry now, but I can charm her. And then when she’s charmed, maybe she’ll straddle me and take her pleasure like I’m a tool to be used. Keffing noli. I like that idea way too much. She scowls down at me. “Why were you on my porch?” “Because I don’t have anywhere else to go.” I desperately want to jerk my hips and see if I can get the tip of my cock to touch her boot, but she hasn’t given me permission for that sort of thing.

The weapon isn’t activated, but I recognize the threat all the same, and it’s both arousing and terrifying. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you for this bullshit right now.” “Noli,” I wheeze.

I scowl. I should just kick him out. Send him back on his way. He did come over here with the hopes of getting laid. “So you were going to rape me.” He looks so appalled that I actually feel better. “I was going to woo you.” The thought is so ridiculous that I snort. “It might be hard to believe right now, given that I’ve puked like a soldier on his first bender, but it’s the truth. I’m not interested in forcing anyone.” The praxiian closes his eyes. “I’m Jrrru, by the way.”

“They should thank me,” Jrrru says proudly, as if he’s not a sweaty mess on my floor with bread crumbs in his whiskers. “If it wasn’t for me throwing his ident badge into the wild on some drunken bender, they would have never met.” “It sounds like an absolutely shitty thing to do. You shouldn’t be proud of that.” “I was drinking.” “So that gives you the right to be an absolute monster to everyone around you? I had no idea that was how alcohol worked. My bad.” He’s silent.

“Because you smell keffing amazing and you’re smart and resourceful, and I like you.”

Instead, I find the blanket is neatly folded on the couch atop the pillow, the ropes I used to tie his hands and legs together are now forming a bow, and there’s a sad-looking wildflower perched atop the blanket. Jrrru really does think highly of himself, I decide, even as I pick up the flower and sniff it.

Her chin angles up and she glares at me. “I…I go into town sometimes. Have to. I just don’t like to. It’s better to be here at home…with water.” That’s an odd thing to fixate on. I’m sure there’s a story behind that. “Wasn’t accusing you of being a coward, my fragrant Tabitha.

“They’re just very…small and vermin-y. And they squeak. And they hide in corners.”

“As vermin do, yes. So you don’t eat them?” “I eat meat. Noodles. And veg, if there’s nothing else. I’m civilized, thank you.” I lean in slightly and I consider it a win when she doesn’t flinch away from me. “And I have never shat in a box.”

“Why are you doing this?” “I just told you—in exchange for my secrets being kept.” But Tabitha shakes her head, and some of the wariness returns. “No, really. Why are you doing this? Why are you coming over here and offering to do things for me?” “Honestly?” I stroke my whiskers with my free hand, still waiting for the right moment to gift her with the smelly candle I’m now regretting purchasing. Some females are not smelly candle females, I don’t think. Chelsea might be a candle female. Tabitha is more of a “knives and garrotes” female. “It’s so I have an excuse to come by and see you. I like talking to you. We have real conversations and those seem to be in rare supply lately.” “You live with two others,” she points out. “Yes, and they’re madly in love and I feel like an intruder into their conversations at all times. And no human at Port wants to talk to me because I’m praxiian and an outsider. I don’t really blame them, but it still makes it difficult. You’re my only friend.”

“I’m not sucking your dick.” I…what? Humans do that? Suddenly I understand why Hrrrusek is so obsessed with Chelsea. I try to wrap my mind around that sort of thing and how it fits in with hygiene laws and teeth and, well…now I’ve got a new obsession. “I wasn’t asking for anything of the sort.”

“But I will absolutely be back, fragrant Tabitha.” “Are you saying I smell?” That’s the second time he’s called me “fragrant,” now that I think about it. “Oh yes,” he says, and he’s purring even louder. “You smell quite lovely.” And even though I hate myself for it, I blush a little.

“They’re barrels.” “Exactly. I told him if he wanted metal sculpting, he was going to have to pay a lot more.” I give a little bark of laughter. “Everything all right with you?” Jrrru asks. “How’s the farm? The weaponry? Knives still sharp?”

It’s my turn to pick up the conversation again, but my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I can’t think of anything to say to him. I want to keep this easy, casual conversation flowing and yet I don’t know how. Please, please be my friend. Please be someone that’s there for me.

“Why is it whenever you show up by surprise, your hand is in your pants?” I yell through the door. “An excellent question,” he retorts. “And it’s hard to explain.” “Try!” There’s a pause and then I see him slump against the door on the vid screen. I hear his heavy body lean against it, and then a sigh. “Because you’re having some strange male come over tomorrow and I don’t like it, because I haven’t claimed you as mine.”

Jrrru gives a little shake of his head. “Why wouldn’t he? You’re amazing.”

“You think I’m amazing?” “Kef, yes.” His shoulders straighten, as if he’s about to go to battle on my behalf. “Every keffing day I wake up and I’m thrilled to be on this planet, because it means I get to see you again. I thought my brother was just infatuated with his female when we moved here and he’d get bored of it, but I understand now. It doesn’t matter where you live when the best person on the planet is right next door.”

“You’re, ah, not wearing much.” I glance down. I tend to sleep hot, so my nightgown has no sleeves and is cut low. My tits are practically hanging out of the neck, and my nipples are prominent through the thin fabric. I should probably be embarrassed, but I still feel comfortable around him. If anything, I kind of want to tug the neckline lower, just to see his reaction. “It’s your fault for trying to break into my house.” “I wasn’t trying to break in. I was trying to jerk off on your door.”

“You’re worrying too much. I’m only going to be disappointed if we don’t kiss. It’s not as if I’m some great expert at it anyhow. The last person I kissed was a long time ago and back on Earth, and he was a terrible kisser. I can’t even remember his name, just that he had a really dry mouth.” “And now I have yet another thing to stress over,” Jrrru murmurs, gaze still locked on me. “Dry mouthing.”

“Because no matter what happened, no matter how angry or violent he was towards others, I knew I was safe with him. That he’d never harm a hair on my head. He’s my safe place.”

We drank from the same troughs. And when it didn’t rain—and it didn’t rain often, because it was a wasteland—the water was rationed. One year, the drought was so bad that the wells dried up and all the cattle on base died, and so did half the slaves. I lived by drinking puddles and licking condensation off of the moisture generators and ignoring how disgusting and scummy the water was. It was awful. Some days I was so thirsty that I wanted to die.

“Wrap your hand around me, love,” I whisper. “I’m yours to play with.”

“Okay, if you’re asking, then I need you to know that if you asked me to stay, I’d stay forever.”

The movement drags his cock through my pussy, and the tapered head nudges just against my clit. “You’re so wet, aren’t you?” He breathes, and rocks his hips in time with mine. “Your scent is everywhere. It’s amazing. Keep using me, Tabitha. Use me until you come. I want to feel you come apart in my arms.” I make another soft sound, and when he clasps my nipple and gives it a gentle pinch, I lose control. Like a wild woman, I rock against him as he drives me toward my orgasm, working my body even as I hold his cock in place and grind against it. The climax builds inside me, growing stronger and nearer until I cry out with my release, holding his cock in place as I shudder and rock against it.

“You think I’m going to assume that you’re crazy because you won’t kill your cattle?” At her nod, I can’t resist a bit of teasing. “You don’t think the weapons and pit traps made me question your sanity, but the cattle will?” She draws back and gives me a questioning look. “Tabitha,” I say gently. “You’ve been through things I can’t even imagine.

“But I thought about that,” Tabitha says, voice soft as she gazes down at me. “And I don’t want easy. I want you.” “Good, because I want you, too.” I grimace as the creature continues to nibble on my mane. “And I want this thing to stop eating me.” Tabitha giggles, the sound light and carefree. She leans in and kisses me, and there’s so much relief on her face that I pull her against me into a hug.

“Tonight, I’d like for you to wear nothing.” “Nothing?” I echo. “And I’ll wear your thighs over my shoulders.”

It’s so good. He’s so good. I love this. I love him. I’m so caught up in his tongue and the stroke of it that I jolt with surprise when he strokes a finger into my channel. God, even his fingers feel huge and thick. He presses one into me, teasing it into the slick well of my cunt, and rumbles with pleasure when my body makes a very wet sound in response. “So pretty. So wet. Are you sensitive here, I wonder?” And then he presses a finger inside me, skimming the pad of it against my inner wall as if searching for something. He finds it, all right. The moment he locates my G-spot, my legs clamp around him and I cry out, stunned at how intensely my body reacted. Okay, no one’s ever found that before. Jrrru rumble-chuckles again, and then he’s rubbing it as he tongues and sucks on my clit, and I’m drowning in a sea of pleasure. I rock my hips against his face, faster and faster, as I chase my release. When the orgasm hits, I cry out,

“I told you that you were my mate, right?” “You might have mentioned it,” I say, dazed. He chuckles. “You’re stuck with me now, I’m afraid. After that, there’s no way you’re leaving my sight again.” And he presses kisses on my neck. I smile in his embrace. I should tell him that he’s being bossy. That I never agreed to be his mate and he needs to ask first. But Jrrru is a cuddler after sex and it feels so good and so right that I decide I’ll let it slide for today. I mean, he is my mate. But I want to give him a hard time about it first.