So could he. He had never slept with a mate before, unless one counted Heat-seasons of the past when he had collapsed of pain and exhaustion atop a heap of sweat-soaked, faceless bodies. Recreationally, however, sex ended when it ended. He found the human habit of lying together afterwards a soothing one. Hot, but soothing.
“Do you want to get up?” she asked. “Scare up a little breakfast maybe? There’s a waffle house right next door.”
“My brave human,” Tagen growled, his eyes still shut.
“I could keep from freaking out too badly,” she protested. “Long enough to order, anyway. We couldn’t eat there, of course.”
“Of course.”
“It’s your hands I’m thinking of when I say that, you know, not my nerves.”
“You think of everything.”
“Want me to go?”
“No.” His arm tightened on her waist.
Her tone turned teasing. “Want me to load up the car?”
“No.”
“Want me to—”
“I want you to lie quiet.”
“—bite you on the chin?” she finished.
He thought about it. “I’m not certain,” he said finally. “Perhaps you should, and I will thus know for myself.”
She shifted around until she faced him fully, and then wrapped her arms around him and let her teeth graze lightly over his sensitive throat, nipping agreeably until she worked her way to her target. She bit slowly, sending a shiver down through his senses, a far more effective wake-up than even his neighbor’s leave-taking had been. She drew her teeth a little apart without removing them from his flesh and let her tongue flutter at him before biting again, just a little harder this time.
Tagen drew in a breath, released it in a growl, and said, “Do I kiss as well as you bite?”
“I don’t know. You’re an awfully good kisser.” She ran her teeth across the curve of his jaw, over his chin, to bite him on the other side. She did that thing with her tongue again, too, and even sucked briefly, bringing blood right to the fore before biting down.
Tagen groaned with pleasure, his hips arching up, and then drew back and smiled at her. Her hair was fetchingly mussed and her eyes were gleaming with good humor. He was struck all over again by her alien beauty, her delicate features, and that alluring half-mask of white lace. On impulse, he tucked his head and kissed her scars, tasting her, letting himself explore her with the same sense mystery and intensity of that first time. When he finally worked his way to her mouth, she received him eagerly.
As her hands scratched sensuously down his chest, it occurred to Tagen that when he got around to filing an official report, there were one or two details he might have to gloss over. Any of the admiration and respect he might garner for accepting this mission on a hostile world would diminish greatly as soon as his supporters learned he’d spent so much of his time sexing with this beautiful human.
But the threat to his career was, literally, light-years away. Daria was here now, her mouth was against his, her hands were winding their way down his body to his stiffening shaft, and her musk was a perfume of immediacy in the air he breathed. Not for all the medals in the Fleet would he unhand her now.
The pleasures of her slender body far outweighed her size, but in the coolness of early morning, he could exert the formidable control it required to test them fully. He forced himself to be content with just the touching of her, ignoring the strident demands of his own body to thoroughly engage hers. And he spoke to her, telling her all that he loved about the needful flesh of her-the swell of her breasts so perfectly filling his palms, the feel of her lips moving with his, the silken slide of her legs twining around him, the scent of her hair as it curtained them both. There was never enough to tell her; there was always something more that deserved to be said aloud. He whispered to her of the miracle she was, the seductress, the goddess, using his language when he did not know enough of hers, until finally she could not resist his words. Once she had accepted them, she became the essence and ideal; she opened to him as a goddess and he joined with her in that otherworldly bliss.
The sex could not have lasted as long as it seemed, but the sex was almost incidental. The passion eclipsed even sensation. He imagined he could feel her pleasure as much as his own, and what he gave her, he gave with increasing wonder until his thoughts were themselves wiped clean by the pure light of consuming fulfillment.
She lowered herself with that serene smile until she lay curled atop him, and her weight on him was a pleasure all its own. He did not have to ask if she had come to passion; he could still feel the hum of her release passing through her and into him. He held her, still joined to her, and dozed.
“Now do you want to eat?” Daria said drowsily, her breath puffing warm on his chest.
“Yes,” he said. “Now, I do.”
“Well, now I don’t feel much like moving, so you’re out of luck, spaceman.”
He chuckled and wrapped his arms around her back, feeling her hair like a cloak over his skin. Her heartbeat and his were aligned. He drifted, content, and finally slept.
*
They traded up the car at a piss-stop just out of town. It was easy enough. A single driver followed Kane into the male’s privy. Kane followed him out, nodding to his females to come close after. A claw to the human’s throat took whatever vocal complaint he may have made, and then Kane was pushing him into the backseat and sitting beside him. Raven had the wheel and Sue-Eye the front. No one else noticed.
Humans. They never noticed anything.
They drove for a while, Kane holding folds of the human’s shirt to its neck to keep the mess at a minimum, until it was time to pull over and finish the job. Kane paused then, with his hand on the back of the human’s head, to consider Raven. She needed to know better how to do this, but he supposed he could let it go for today. She’d done it for him before, but it had been a punishment then and it would be a punishment now. He didn’t want her to feel punished. Today was her day to have him. He wanted her in as good a mood as a human could possibly be.
Kane broke the bone himself and harvested the gland, idly wondering what use to put her to once she was crew. He found it a little remarkable that Urak had never tried to teach any of his slaves simple ship functions. For that matter, beyond a few simple commands such as ‘eat that’, ‘stop’, ‘be quiet’, and ‘fuck me’, Urak hadn’t even taught his humans Jotan. He’d been fascinated by them all right, but more for what their Earther habits were, not what they could be taught to do for a Jotan. But then, maybe Urak had simply never gotten his claws on the right sort of human. If his father had ever lit on Raven, it would be whole worlds of difference, Kane was sure.
Ferocious, far-thinking, fuckable Raven. Who had begged him so prettily for the privilege of mating with him in human fashion. Kane could see for the first time the attraction in indulging some of those Earther habits Urak had been so keen on. He had seen enough of the human’s mating programs on the tee-vee to know humans could be incredibly creative when the urge was on them. So could Jotan, for that matter, and there were things he knew of that he would greatly enjoy schooling his Raven in someday.
Ah, but this was Raven’s day. And for now Kane settled for telling Raven nothing but the right names for his instruments as he worked the harvester. Once they got back to space, he’d find out what her strengths—other than the purely sexual—were, and train her up for them. He noticed that Sue-Eye tried to repeat him as well, and he met her efforts with a faint smile.
“Not for you, ichuta’a,” he said, gesturing for her to join him in the backseat. “You already know everything you need to. Go, Raven.”