Chapter 13 #3
This was the point of no return. If I were going to clean him like I was offering, I would have to step into his reach.
He had claws. His tail could snap bone. He was bigger than me, stronger by a significant margin.
All it would take was for him to decide he wanted to, and he could easily grab me and overpower me in seconds.
That thought sent a heat flaring through me that had nothing to do with fear.
He had done what I asked and came forward to the spot I pointed at. He was listening to me.
I dipped the washcloth again, squeezed out the excess water, and stepped forward, closing the distance.
I moved carefully, with deliberate intention.
His eyes never left me, and I struggled to look at him, feeling the intense heat of his gaze against my skin like he was the sun on a warm day, brilliant and uncomfortable.
I focused on his bare chest instead, where his smooth, hairless skin pulled tight around his broad pectorals. I set the washcloth against his chest.
His tail slid around the back of my knee.
His hands clenched into fists.
His arms stayed down by his sides.
I began to wash him, slowly and methodically, not missing an inch of his chest. I focused on the task with every inch of gratitude I felt in my heart.
This was the man who saved me, protected me, and came to rescue me when my own fear and fury caused me to disregard his warnings.
Something had happened to him after he came for me, something that required him to be chained up and locked away, and he needed me.
Just like I needed him to come through this and get back to himself.
His tail drifted higher up my leg, caressing the inside of my thigh, brushing against the bottom edge of the shorts that billowed out from my sides like a skirt.
Heat clenched deep in me as I focused on what I was doing, ignoring the tail and my sudden awareness of how easy it would be for it to drift higher.
When I got to his hands, I realized his claws had been rounded, filed down so they were blunted.
I rinsed the washcloth several times in the water before deciding to change it.
He made a small growl when I walked out the door, but his tail released me, and he didn't move.
When I came back with clean water and a new washcloth, I saw rivulets of blood dripping down off the knuckles of his closed fists.
I hissed and rushed over to him, grabbing one of his hands and lifting it.
I gently tugged at his hand, and he unclenched it, revealing that he had dug his own claws into his palm.
He had hurt himself when I left.
"No," I said in his language, and used the clean cloth to wash the fresh punctures.
I went back out of the room and grabbed some small towels and a salve. This time, when I came back, his hands were relaxed, no new wounds.
I didn't know what else to do, so I wrapped both of his hands in the towels and folded his fingers over them gently to hold them closed.
He let me move him as if he were a posable doll, his eyes watching me in an unblinking stare.
I resumed cleaning him in every place I could reach, but I didn't go too low on his abs.
I could already see the line of his cock start to stiffen in his boxers, and though I really wanted to ask him to strip down all the way so I could clean there, he still wasn't speaking.
I couldn't go touching him there if he couldn't verbally consent, no matter how much he turned me on.
I didn't know anything about his species; it could be that he was locked away from me because he was in a vulnerable state, and if I sexually engaged with him, he could become mate-bonded to me or something like that.
Sex could be a much more serious thing for an alien species, or not.
Excitement at the thought caused me to focus back on his shoulders. This was not the time for that.
I focused on cleaning his tail instead, enjoying how it reacted to my touch, and then moved back up.
When I stood up on the balls of my feet to reach behind his neck, his eyes finally closed, the tension relaxing from his shoulders, his hair twining around my wrists and fingers even as I tried to wash the base of the strands.
There was old dried blood crusted on them.
I wanted to get all of them, to make sure each one was clean.
"I want to wash your hair," I said in my language, before switching to the few words I knew in his. "Wash hair."
I left the room to get one of the kitchen stools.
It was a bit big and much heavier than I expected, but I hauled it in through the door and set it on the other side of him, closer to the wall where the chain was attached.
I was now fully within the range of him, and he hadn't moved more than I had asked him to.
"Sit," I said, patting the stool.
He sat down.
I filled the bowl with fresh water and went to fetch the bottle I’d been using as shampoo from my own ensuite.
I still wasn’t certain that was its actual purpose...
I hadn’t yet learned the word for shampoo in their script...
but after trying a few of the bottles Eun had stocked in my bathroom, I’d settled on this one.
It lathered cleanly and left my hair light, not sticky.
There was another bottle too, thicker, almost creamy, that worked well enough as a conditioner.
Between the two, I’d carved out a routine that felt close to normal.
I brought in a small table to put the bowl on and then focused on Eun's back.
He had such strong muscles; I wanted to trace the curve of them, so I started with that, working my way down his back with the washcloth, tracing the edge of each strand of hair.
The thick, solid, snake-like strands ran the length of his spine, ending at the longer one I considered his tail.
The strands emerged from his spine as if they were strands that would plug him into the matrix.
I carefully washed each one of them, and they curled around me, playing with me, stroking my sides and my thighs as I cleaned them.
The touch was soft and distracting, like fingertips lightly stroking all over my body.
Eun himself held still, so I ignored it, even as my body heated further in response to the gentle caressing, a dampness growing between my legs.
This was ridiculous. I was here to help him not get turned on by him. He was chained up and nonverbal. I needed to focus on what I was doing.
I got to his head, where the strands were more densely clustered, and got the washcloth good and soapy before I began to work on them.
I got them clean and began the process again with water, rinsing the soap as I used another towel to dry up the drippings.
When I was close to done, the strands of his hair suddenly stopped cooperating.
My hands vanished into them, and they wrapped around my wrists and arms, massaging my forearms with strong palpating touches, tugging me closer.
His tail wrapped back around my thigh again, sliding up the soft inner skin.
I sucked in a breath, and the other strands along his spine reached out towards me, gripping me around the waist and chest.
Several of them slipped up under my shirt, trailing over my belly to cup the bottom of my breasts.
"Eun," I said, his name turning into a gasp as two of them met over the curve of my tit, twisting together to send a ricochet of sudden desire spiking through me.
His tail slipped up under the loose shorts, slowly, and I shifted my legs wider, lost in the sudden crippling desire for the unknown.
I wasn't wearing any underwear. The strand found my dripping wet slit and slid along it, stroking me as my legs quivered.
I leaned into it, shifting to increase the pressure, to press back against it, moving my hips with the touch.
My knees buckled suddenly at the onslaught of sensation, and the rest of his strands gripped me, holding me up as his tail wriggled through my lower lips, finding my clit.
I couldn't pull my hands free, but I didn't want to.
His tail slid back and forth, rubbing me, sliding through my wetness, and then his tip found my opening.
It pressed against it, and I let out a trembling cry, needing him, needing this so badly.
"Yes, Eun," I moaned, trying to rock my hips back against the pressure even as the rest of his strands rolled over my body.
It pushed into me, a little bit at first, then it slid into me, and I moaned as I felt it dive into my wet depths.
I let out a strangled gasp, the sudden escalation too much and not enough at the same time.
Another strand found my clit again, and then he was fucking me with his tail, holding my wrists trapped up above my head, the warm length of him slipping in and out of me at a rapid speed as I came apart, writhing against his back, unable to do anything but just stand there and take it and cry out and need more.
Oh fuck I needed all of him, I needed...
Then the world went topsy-turvy.
There was a crash; his tail was no longer inside me, and I was up in the air, Eun's arms around me, and the chain was clanking.
The whirling world settled, and I was on my feet, my back against the wall on the far side of the room, the anchor where the chain met the wall right next to me.
Eun's strands writhed in front of me as if they were trying to form a wall in front of me, his back still to me as he snarled viciously.
He had grabbed me and carried me across the room, pushing me behind him.
"Leija?" Eun's uncle said from the open bedroom door.
Oh.
Eun must have heard him come in the front door. His reaction was to carry me deeper into the room and hide me behind him, all tangled up in his strands.
"I'm okay," I called out. "Everything is fine."
But he wouldn't understand that, as I said it in the wrong language.