So that left him here, alone in his borrowed bed with the thought of her burning behind his closed eyes. Dark fantasies and frustration, and those alone until either Heat was done or E’Var found. He would not make a slave of her just to have flesh. To force a female was high among the most contemptible crimes Tagen could imagine, but it was more than morality that restrained him. Somewhere inside her, and not very deeply buried, Daria Cleavon believed he would attack her. Heat-ravaged though he was, he would not prove her right.
But it was her he had thought of when Heat first took him this morning. It was her musk he had remembered and her body he had imagined. It was her name that had burst incandescent in his mind as his true-cum emptied and Heat was relieved for a few more precious hours. It was her who had followed him into dreams, to mate with him again and again.
And it was her step in the hall right outside that he heard now, rousing him from his fitful doze. She went into the bathroom and rattled around, loudly sterilizing every surface until the acidic scent of disinfectant came through the cracks in Tagen’s door. He listened, knowing he would have to go into that room soon enough. He was getting a headache already.
She finished shortly and went back downstairs, but not without hesitating. The day was wearing on and he had not emerged from his room. Soon, she would come knocking, offering him food and drink he could not taste, infuriating him with her nearness, her desire, and her fear. He had to get up before she trapped him here, with pools of his seed still warm on his bedding.
Tagen rose, gathered fresh clothing from his sparse stores, and went to the newly-aseptic privy to clean himself and his sheets. He could not bear to fully dress afterwards; the human’s pants alone covered him, and if his bare chest bothered Daria, so be it. Let her be bothered for a change.
He hung his sheet out the window to dry and headed for the stairs. Daria came up them as he went down, carrying the device she called a ‘vacuum’. She looked at him and her cheeks colored. Then she ducked her head and passed him, leaving a trail of musk behind her to aggravate Tagen’s Heat-heightened senses.
He paused on the lowest step to look after her, indulging in a pleasant fantasy of pursuit. In her darkened room, with all the cool ocean colors around him, he would catch her. Now. Before Heat had a chance to sink down into his senses again, while he could still be gentle enough to ease her to passion in the slow way that humans required. He would sway her, and she would have him.
But she did not so much as glance behind her as she climbed. She disappeared into her room and soon the roar of the vacuum sounded. Grendel came spilling out a second later, all his fur on end.
Tagen commiserated with the cat’s pique. He picked the animal up and carried it into the kitchen to feed it. He knew Daria must have offered it a meal already, but damn it, Tagen needed to have something in this house fawn over him. Tagen assembled a line ration out of bread and meat, and shared it out with Grendel as he sat in the shade in the corner. The cat ate, and then leapt up on Tagen’s lap, clawing at his chest and butting its head into Tagen’s jaw, purring. If only bologna had the same effect on humans.
Tagen rubbed at the cat’s nose, neck, and tail, and then set it down on the tiles and stood up. He had little time before Heat returned. He had to use it wisely.
Tagen knew he should be watching the media feeds, but he lingered in the kitchen. Daria’s computer beckoned. Beside it, the loose fan of pages she’d made for him. She’d marked several listings.
Tagen traced his claw over her messy alien letters, wishing he could read them. She was working so hard. If E’Var was anywhere on this world, she would find him. He believed that. She had a keen intellect and an ability to deduce that Tagen genuinely admired. Hers was not a military mind, but it was a ready one, and it complemented his perfectly.
If he knew how to voice this, would it matter? One of the programs he had seen on the tee-vee had a female who had refused a mate because he wanted her body and not her mind. Tagen did want Daria’s body, he wouldn’t even try to think otherwise, but it had been his high regard of her mind that had allowed him to see her as desirable and not merely human. Perhaps—
He could not do this. It was pointless and it was depressing, and with Heat searing in his blood, it was also torturous.
Tagen poured himself a glass of water and added two handfuls of ice. He hesitated, hating the unprofessionalism of it, and then surrendered and took a last ice cube and rubbed it over the back of his neck.
Bliss.
As the ice melted under his palm, Tagen did his best to cool as much of his body as possible. His chest, his shoulders, his stomach—ice burned a path down and around him while he concentrated just on keeping his mind free of the female who obsessed him.
“Oh!”
Daria. Tagen flinched and the ice slipped between his fingers and broke on the floor. He backed up and Daria grabbed a towel and came to clean it. He hadn’t even heard her come to the doorway.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” She knelt at his feet, mopping at the shards of ice and drops of water as though it were unrefined oil.
On her knees.
Tagen swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on the rocking movements of her body. The itching of his tsesac became more insistent. He turned away, taking his glass to the table, where he could better hide the hardening of his shaft. If he retreated too suddenly, she might follow. He would wait, and she would eventually wander off to clean something, freeing him to withdraw to his room and lock the door.
“Have you got a minute?” Daria asked, rising and dropping her towel in the sink.
Would it be too suspicious a thing to say no? Before he could decide, Daria added, “I may have found some things.”
“Truly?”
Daria’s hesitance was a hopeful thing. The slow nod with which she finally answered was so heartening that even Heat was driven from Tagen’s mind. She had found something. She really thought she had.
“Tell me.”
She crossed the room, bringing with her the maddening perfume of her sweat, shot through with lingering traces of musk, and Tagen stared into his drink and thought disjointed thoughts of touching, of taking. She sat at her computer, not with him at the table, and he supposed that was for the best, but it tore at him anyway. He closed his eyes, thinking that it would be a natural enough thing to rise, to go and stand behind her as she looked into the screen of her computer, perhaps even to place his hand on her shoulder.
“Okay, so I went back to Deathwatch and picked through the archives for the last thirty days. That’s a little bit further back than even you told me to go, but I figure better safe than sorry.”
Indeed. Better safe than sorry. He stayed where he was.
She continued to talk, but the words blurred out of comprehension. Heat had him, and there was a female here. Seeing her, smelling her, was an agony all its own.
Tagen wanted to go back upstairs, back to the privacy of his room and his bed, to empty himself for another short span, enough time perhaps to see out the remains of this day. If there was any sympathy in the Divine Will that governed this universe, perhaps it would cool down enough not to re-stimulate his tsesac after it was drained. And perhaps it would stay cool throughout the next day.
And perhaps E’Var would let himself in through Daria’s front door, already in binders, and surrender himself to be taken home. As long as he was wishing, why not go big?
He focused again on the words coming out of Daria’s mouth. Everything she was doing, she did for him. She deserved more of his attention. He felt guilty, but it did not keep the sweat from rolling down his back or the itch from sinking deep into his tsesac as it churned, swollen with seed. His hand strayed beneath the table to press on his stiffening shaft. It hurt to touch himself, but the pain was better than the endless, mindless itch.