Chapter 14 IN FOR A PENNY, IN FOR A POUNDING #2
“You really shouldn’t,” she warned him.
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Xenoth was frantic.
He had lost his female and she’d barely even set foot off the transport!
“What do you MEAN you don’t know where she is?!” he hissed at Captain Gargilla, ready to throw the bear across the landing bay.
“I mean she got off the transport and went into the terminal and is therefore no longer my responsibility!”
Xenoth hissed, his kropek flooding out around him, the ends of every strand aiming themselves angrily in Gargilla’s direction and twitching like angry snakes. The bear was nonplussed and simply pulled a phaser from his pocket.
“Why don’t you take a walk and go find her?” the Captain said staunchly, his eyes narrowed at the incensed Z’arthaxian.
Truth be told, Gargilla was surprised to see a Z’arthaxian out in the open, much less there to pick up a human passenger. They were notoriously reclusive. He hadn’t even known there were any on the planet! Impressive tentacles, though.
Xenoth breathed deeply, his senses in overdrive. He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t. Nearly three weeks without contact while she traveled here had been horrific. If he hadn’t been able to hack the shuttle tracking system, he probably would have done something stupid.
Urzan carefully came up next to him.
“Xenoth, he’s right. Let’s go find her. She can’t be far.”
Xenoth’s hands opened and closed a few times before he accepted the change in direction.
“Fine.”
He turned abruptly away from the fleet captain, his kropek already doing a scan of the building and surrounding grounds. They picked up various passengers canoodling or gathering their containers. He sent out another pulse, looking for a pheromone trail as they entered the lobby for the terminal.
“There!” He pointed, leaving Urzan to follow in his wake.
They flowed rapidly through the hallways, camouflage activating as they moved. A few people felt their passing as an odd chill. A goat-horned woman jumped as the reports she was reading through suddenly went flying out of her hands from a strong burst of wind in the supposedly empty hallway.
Xenoth slammed through an exit door, pausing to look around and pick up the trail again.
A loud CRACK! sounded, off to his right. His head whipped in that direction and he took off around the corner at full speed, only to stop abruptly at the sight before him.
It was Z’Sally.
Surrounded by Vultarians.
On their knees.
Apologizing.
Xenoth twitched as he took in more of the details, his heart-rate starting to calm down now that his female was in view, and equally spiking again as he prepared to eviscerate the vultures. He paused as he realized it wasn’t necessary.
One of the Vultarians had a nasty cut across the entire front of his chest, bleeding freely. Another had a black eye, and the third just looked generally traumatized, his feathers sticking out in every direction.
“And one more time, with gusto!” Sally instructed the pathetic-looking trio.
They followed her instructions, parroting slowly, but firmly, “I am a naughty bird. I deserved to be roasted for Thanksgiving dinner. I will learn some manners and not be a misogynistic dickwad!”
“Very good! Well done!” Sally said, clapping like a proud parent, before pointing firmly to their bikes. “Now git the fuck out of my face, dickbags!”
The Vultarians scrambled to obey.
Xenoth must have made a noise because Sally jumped and spun, her face giving away her fear. Xenoth dropped his camouflage immediately and approached her slowly.
“Z’Sally?” he said her name reverently, his heart pounding in his throat as they came face to face for the first time. Well, face to chest. She was so…tiny.
Xenoth bowed gracefully, his kropek sweeping back behind himself, before saying, “Zaharash, Z’Sally. I am Zah Xenoth.”
As his eyes came up slowly and met hers, Sally flushed, her entire body tingling at the low growl of his voice.
“Um, hi,” she said, feeling completely unprepared and not a little bit like she just got caught doing something naughty. She looked up at him, and up some more, taking in his…everything. She swallowed. He was big.
“Yer awful tall,” she finally managed, fully checking out the extreme musculature beneath his barely-there dress.
And those tentacles! Dozens of them!
Theoretically she’d know about them. She’d even seen them in the pictures he sent. But seeing them in person was an entirely different experience.
She absolutely, positively, had to know what they felt like.
Sally was so drawn up with checking him out that she failed to notice that they’d come nearly face to chest until he began to reach for her, his hand pausing inches from her face.
“Does my height displease you?” he asked her softly, not quite daring to touch the feisty creature who had just tackled not one but three Vultarians with nothing more than a piece of braided cord.
She was truly everything he could have hoped for in a Queen.
Except for the lack of height, which Xenoth found he very much didn’t mind. He’d spent his entire life being called ‘little male’ by every female and half the males around him, and here she was calling him ‘tall’.
He wanted to rut her right there, up against the side of the building.
He wanted her to throw him down like she had those Vultarians and ride him until the stars collapsed in on themselves.
“Um, Xenoth?”
“Hm?”
“You’re staring.”
Her voice was soft, but it snapped him from his daze. He blinked heavily, holding himself just shy of snatching her up and living out all of his fantasies.
“Forgive me, My Lady,” he said, moving to step back and give her some space, only she came right along with him.
“No, no, it’s ok!” She placed a soft hand on his chest and he froze.
Absolutely became out of sync with reality as he looked down at where she touched him. On his bare skin. The tiniest of breaths left his mouth before he managed a whispered, “Z’Sally?”
“Yes?”
“May I touch you?”
She pulled back with a start, “Oh! Y-yes, you can. I’m so sorry, I should have asked first! I didn’t mean to—mmph!”
Sally’s apology was cut off as very tall lips bent down to capture her own in a very nice kiss. His arms went around her and he pulled her flush against his chest.
Sally had to stand on tiptoe a little to stay flush with his mouth, which was an unusual situation for her. She hadn’t realized, somehow, that he’d be quite this tall. Or big. Or tentacled…
Holy hell, those tentacles!
She gasped against his lips as said tentacles reached out and hoisted her up, spreading her legs to wrap around his hips and tucking under her ass comfortably as they continued to kiss.
Xenoth paused for a moment, breathing hard as he realized he had his female fully in his arms, wrapped entirely in his kropek, and pressed up against his needy slit. It was very intimate and more than a little presumptuous. Far more.
He hadn’t been able to keep himself from her.
“I hope this is what you meant when you gave me permission to touch you,” he murmured softly, meeting her eyes from behind the secret safety of his kropek curtain that cut them off from the world.
Sally bit her lip, grinning shyly.
“I’ll admit, I thought we were gonna say hello first, but this is very nice. No complaints.”
“We did say hello,” Xenoth informed her, his mouth twitching with amusement. “I would like to continue saying hello…to every inch of you…if you are agreeable, My Queen.”
“Oho, I’m a Queen, now, am I?” Sally looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“You most certainly are, Z’Sally. A rare and beautiful Queen who brought me to life from across the universe with nothing but a few words and a picture.”
“Well,” Sally considered, his words making her blush fiercely. “It was a very spicy picture.”
Xenoth smiled fully at her for the first time and she about melted at how beautiful he was. Turquoise skin, turquoise eyes. And his hair. Well, tentacles. Not tentacles?
“What do you call these again?” Sally asked softly, brushing her fingers through his kropek.
Xenoth’s eyes fluttered shut in ecstasy as he answered her. “My, um, my kropek.”
“Kropek?”
“Mhm.”
“Can you feel it when I touch them?”
“Mhm.”
Sally’s voice lowered to a whisper, “Do you like it?”
“Mmhmmm.”
Xenoth opened his eyes, their gaze hooded. “Z’Sally, my Queen. I am…very close to losing myself and mating you right here and now. You should tell me if you do not want this.”
Sally’s face flamed scarlet, but before she could answer, a polite cough sounded from outside the curtain of Xenoth’s kropek. Sally jumped, clinging to her beau, his grip on her tightening protectively as he identified the intruder.
“What, Urzan?” he growled heavily, his vocal vibrations causing Sally to close her eyes at the places they vibrated through.
Good gawd almighty, he was sexy!
“Zaharash, Z’Sally,” Urzan greeted from behind her. “Forgive my interruption, My Lady, but we should get you both back to the compound before you, er…”
“Before we ‘compound’?” Sally asked brightly, hoping the joke landed across dialects.
Xenoth snorted.
Urzan coughed, “Er, yes, exactly.”
“Sorry,” Sally murmured to Xenoth, running her fingers down his cheek. “Teacher says we’ve gotta get back to class. Put a pin in this till later?”
Xenoth looked at her blankly for a moment. “I am not certain that translated correctly. That is not ‘teacher’, but my brother, Urzan. What am I to stick a sharp metallic object used for sewing into?”
Sally guffawed, knocking her forehead against his muscular pectorals. “Oh mah gawd, never mind! You’re right, it didn’t translate. I was just tryin’ to say you should put me down for now.”
“Ah, I see.” Xenoth made a little grumble of protest, but set her down. He liked having her in his arms.
When she stepped out of the curtain of his kropek, Urzan decloaked nearly on top of her. She squeaked in shock. Urzan’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline at the adorable noise. He did his best not to smile.
“Well there’s just an acre of you fellas, ain’t there?” Sally said looking up at Urzan. And up. And up some more. He was even taller than Xenoth.
“My brother has always been the short one in the family, My Lady,” Urzan told her with a cheeky grin.
Urzan had been unsure of his brother’s plan to bring a human female into their colony, but after seeing Xenoth’s reaction to her, he knew it was the right call. He swallowed heavily, seeing how well the two of them meshed. He hoped Y’arza would make her own reappearance soon.
He looked over at Xenoth, “I have sent some of the males to pick up Z’Sally’s belongings and Arzog says everyone is waiting to meet her, so we should head back.”
“Fine,” Xenoth let out a huge sigh before trailing behind Sally like a grumpy puppy as she went to pick up her things. He quickly scooped up her bag, allowing her to take her hat and whip, then scooped her up as well, when something large behind the dumpster let out a sibilant hsssssssssss!
“Great, googly moogly! I forgot about that thang!” Sally said, smacking gently at Xenoth’s tentacles until he let go of her. She prevented him from hunting whatever it was immediately with a soft, “Don’t hurt it! That’s what the bird boys were pestering.”
She paused for a moment then asked, “What is it? I didn’t think there were any large animals here?”
“Not here, no,” Xenoth replied, scanning the beast in the shadows. His head cocked in confusion. “It seems to be one of the screaming Earth cats, only it is far too large.”
“Screaming Earth cats?” Sally snorted. “What…?”
She stepped forward, trying to get a better look, only to be waylaid by Xenoth’s kropek. She gave him an annoyed look over her shoulder. He let go with a sheepish look.
“Apologies, My Queen,” he muttered, kropek flexing anxiously as she investigated.
Sally pulled her now-useless cell out of her pocket and flicked on the flashlight. She was not prepared.
“Is that…an…opossum??” She was flabbergasted. “A huge opossum?? What in tarnation is it doing here?! And how’d it get so big?!”
The thing was easily the size of a miniature pony. Big enough for a child to ride, coming up to Sally’s knees, and long enough that their normally prehensile tail was definitely going to cause some problems. Which… Sally looked closer.
“Awww, the poor baby’s got his tail stuck!”
Sally walked around to the back side of the dumpster, away from the hissing face, where she could grab the dumpster and pull it out from where it kept the poor creature’s limb pinned. She tried moving the heavy container, grunting in exertion, only to fail miserably.
Xenoth put a hand to her shoulder, stepping in to do the heavy lifting. The heavy dumpster rolled out smoothly under the force of his kropek. Sally flushed with both embarrassment and pleasure at the ease with which he completed the task. Her new beau was obscenely strong.
The giant opossum stopped hissing as its tail came free, but stared at them balefully.
“I bet it’s hungry,” Sally muttered, biting her lip.
Xenoth wanted to be the one to bite her lip.
Sally went digging into her duffle bag and pulled out a pack of Oreos. She opened it and fished out a couple, tossing them in the direction of the ‘screaming Earth cat’. It sniffed and then dove for the cookies.
Sally nodded her head in satisfaction, smiling up at Xenoth.
“It’s not really enough food for it, and I probably shouldn’t be feeding it, but I feel like I’ve done my good deed fer the day.”
Xenoth took her duffle bag back from her and gestured in the direction of the waiting transport, all the way on the other side of the building. They’d been walking for a good 10 minutes before Sally had the bright idea to whisper up to Xenoth,
“You know, the faster you get me back to your colony and introduce me to everyone, the faster we can git to fuckin’.”
Xenoth scooped her up.
They made it to Domicile 88 in record time.
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