Chapter 9
NINE
Ethan
I had thought that after we ate, we’d collect the numba plant and leave, but instead Goldie led me down an entirely different hallway than the room we’d slept in. And this one took us deeper into the cliffside.
As we walked, the air grew more humid, and I could hear the distant trickling of water.
The hallway widened. Sunlight shone up ahead, and then we emerged from the tunnel to a massive cavern.
At the top, the rock was pockmarked with several holes in different sizes, ranging from the size of a basketball to a truck tire.
Sunlight streamed through, dappled with shade from vegetation that grew upside down and sideways all along the ceiling—a mixture of shrubs and vines.
Water trickled in small rivulets from the walls to collect in a steaming pool of milky water.
Still holding my hand, Goldie turned to me. “The vela has healing properties.” She grazed my side, where bruises still bloomed. “So you can soak for a while before we leave.”
Now that I looked closer, the water shimmed with an iridescent slick, almost like a layer of oil sat on top. The smell was incredible, a mix of florals and sweetness that instantly made me feel like a million bucks.
“You getting in too?” I asked her.
She nodded. Then smiled. “I guess I can answer with words now. Yes, Ee-than. I’ll get in too.”
I let go of her hand. “I’ll turn around so you can undress and get in.”
I gave her my back and waited patiently. I didn’t hear anything for a moment, so I spoke without turning around. “Is that okay?”
I could hear her breathing, before she answered in a soft voice. “Yes, thank you.”
Did I want to see Goldie naked? More than I wanted anything ever. But not unless she wanted it. She probably never would. I’d leave this planet and spend the rest of my life imagining a naked Goldie. Anything to ensure she was happy and felt safe with me.
I heard a quiet splash. Then she spoke again. “Okay.”
I turned to find her submerged in the water up to her chest. The tops of her full breasts bobbed on the surface. Her hair swirled around her, and the milky white of the water made her skin glow. I swallowed as my cock took notice and began to thicken.
Thank fuck the water wasn’t clear, or I’d likely scare Goldie forever. “Uh, can you—” I winced.
“Oh!” She exclaimed. Her scales rippled. “I’ll just…” She turned away from me. “Go ahead.”
I shucked the too-big pants and slid in the water before she saw my stupid dick that was only getting harder. As the water slid up to my chest, I groaned. Loudly. I couldn’t help it. The water was just so warm and had slightly thick consistency that I rubbed between my fingers.
Every bruise, cut, and ache in my body tingled. It reminded me of when my mom used to douse my scrapes from falling off my bike with hydrogen peroxide. It hurts, so you know it’s working, she’d say.
The water didn’t hurt, but it did feel like something.
It tickled. Burned somewhat. Nothing like the implant, though, so it was all manageable.
The pool was probably five feet deep, with deep seats curved all around the side.
I sat with my arms spread on the outer ledge as I let the water cure everything that ailed me.
At my groan, Goldie turned around, and she smiled as she waded toward me. She slid next to me, and I should have warned her it was dangerous to be this close when both of us were naked, but I trusted myself to behave. Goldie’s screams from yesterday rang in my ear.
“Can you feel it?” she asked.
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. If I couldn’t see her, maybe my dick would go down. “Yes,” I said. “It feels amazing. You have one of these where you live?”
“No,” she said. “They only have a vela pool here. It’s made from the sediment that the water collects as it runs down the stone.”
“Makes sense,” I grunted.
She was quiet for a long time, and I opened one eye. She was watching me and didn’t look away when I caught her. “You okay?” I asked.
“I’m sorry for yesterday.”
“Hey,” I angled my body to face her. “I need you to hear me. You have nothing to apologize for. I don’t know what happened in your past but…” I felt my jaw tense. “But I said it last night. And I’ll say it again. It’s not your fault.”
She rolled her lips between her teeth. Released them. Fidgeted under the water. Finally, she spoke. “After everything, no one ever said those words to me. No one but you.”
I reached for her, accidentally brushed her breast, and jerked my hand back like I’d been burned. “Sorry, I—”
She grabbed my hand. “It’s okay.”
“No, I don’t want to cause you another flashback. That’s what that was, right? You felt my cock hard and you went back there. To what happened to you. Right?”
I had told myself I wouldn’t ask, but she’d brought it up. Maybe she needed to talk about it. She shifted closer, until we were pressed together. Her eyes were so huge and sad. My heart clenched.
“Our former pardux, Varnex, he…” she didn’t meet my gaze, and I let her for now. But the moment I felt an ounce of shame from her, I would shut that shit down.
“He was obsessed with creating offspring. When his mate died, he took another. When she didn’t become pregnant, he took another, then another, and then another until…
” she blew out a breath. “Until he had claimed every Kaluma female of age. We wore his collar and we shared his furs. We were not allowed any other mate. None of us got pregnant because…”
“Because the problem was him,” I said.
“Yes,” she said softly. “But that didn’t stop him.”
I knew the answer but asked it anyway. “The other males?”
She met my gaze then, and I saw a flare of anger. “He threatened them if they didn’t comply with it.”
“Fuckers,” I muttered.
“Varnex had a son, Sherif, who was working to overthrow his father, but convincing the rest of the settlement was hard. The pardux always held the ultimate authority for us. Changing that mindset was hard.”
“I get that,” I grunted. “But they are all still fuckers.”
“Varnex was finally defeated, but not by one of us. He had tried to claim a female mate of a Drixonian. When they fought for her, the Drixonian killed Varnex. Sherif, and those he’d convinced to go against Varnex, helped the Drixonian, but I remained angry that the Kaluma males never stood up to him the way I wanted them to.
” She slipped her fingers in mine and rested them on my thigh.
“I sort of understand. Varnex went mad, but it as gradual. He just kept claiming females until there were none left. He had some convinced they were doing an important duty.”
“Hey,” I squeezed her hand. “He manipulated you all. Like a cult leader. But you can still be angry no one stood up to him.”
“The other females seem to have moved on, but I can’t seem to get over it. I have flashbacks of what he did.”
I tugged her against my body. She had begun to tremble. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be over it. You don’t have to forgive or forget.”
“But I want to,” her voice shook. “I want to let myself be touched. I want to touch. I want a mate, someone who’s all mine.”
I’m all yours, Goldie, I almost said. I rubbed her back, and I suddenly realized that our positions had changed as we talked.
She straddled me now, her knees on the seat on either side of my hips.
She sat back on my thighs, so she didn’t feel my cock, which had deflated somewhat as she told her story.
Her hands moved under the water until they rested on my chest. She swirled her fingers in my smattering of chest hair. My dick decided to perk up again, and I felt like this entire situation was dangerous. “Goldie, I—”
“Can I touch you?” she asked. “Without you touching me?”
I’d tie myself to a pole and let her do whatever she wanted to me. “Of course.” Fuck, my voice sounded hoarse. I cleared it. “Whatever you want.”
“But what if I can’t—” Her breathing stuttered, “finish you?”
My eyes bulged. “Finish me? There doesn’t have to be any finish. Ever. You can just touch to touch. Explore. I don’t care.”
“Varnex…” her chin shook, and she swallowed, “he needed to finish. Always. Because he wanted his seed to take, but he also said once he was hard that he had to, or he’d die.”
I felt like my brain was going to explode. “You said this guy is dead?”
She nodded.
“Good, because if not, I’d rip his dick off. You just do what you want to do, and I’ll sit here like a good boy. I’ll be just fine, and if I need to, I’ll go somewhere private and finish myself off.”
She blinked. “You can do that?”
Fucking hell, what had this male told these women about sex?
“Yeah, I—” I almost told her that was all I’d had for the last ten years in prison.
My own hand. But I was a coward, because Goldie was looking at me like I was the answer to all her prayers.
She couldn’t know that I was just a piece of human trash.
“I can,” I said instead. I held my hand up. “With this. Works great.” I didn’t even know what parts Goldie had. I couldn’t see below the surface of the milky water—thank fuck. But I imagined whatever her pussy looked like, it was damn perfect.
I placed my hand back on the ledge. “Go ahead. I won’t move my hands.”
She started by running her fingers from my forehead down my nose.
She pressed against my lips and watched as I opened my mouth.
She slid two fingers inside to glide over my tongue, and the feel of the slick scales made my breath quicken.
She ran her fingers along my cheeks, the roof of my mouth, and across the tops of my teeth.
This could have felt clinical, but instead this was…
erotic. Fucking hot. I’d never had a woman put her fingers in my mouth, and I probably wouldn’t have liked it if it was anyone but Goldie.
She leaned forward, and I dragged in a breath as she ran her nose along the side of my neck.
I felt a slight pressure at the hinge of my jaw and realized that she’d kissed me there.
Kissed me. Her tongue tasted the skin of my neck.
And then, something changed in her posture.
Her hands curled into my shoulders, and her claws dug in nearly to the point of pain as she alternated between kissing and licking all along my neck, across the top of my chest, over my ears, until she began to suck at various points on my face.
She was all mouth, all tongue, and occasional sharp nips of teeth, and it was so unexpected.
Her breasts pressed against me as she rose slightly in the water. I saw the peaks of two perfect, golden nipples, and all the blood in my body rushed south. My cock could probably fuck a boulder, I was so hard.
Her lips brushed mine. “Okay?” she asked.
“Perfect,” I managed to croak.
And then her lips were pressing insistently.
Her tongue slide into my mouth. And then all bets were off.
I didn’t touch her with my hands, but a herd of those grizzly alien creatures couldn’t stop me from kissing Goldie back in his moment.
She tasted like sweet sunshine, and I ran my tongue across hers.
I hadn’t kissed in… I didn’t want to think how long, but it didn’t matter because this kiss was different.
Her mouth wasn’t like a human’s. The ridged roof was lower, so my tongue touched it with every swipe…
Well, it felt ridged at first, but as I swept my tongue across it again, the ridges shifted.
A pocket seemed to open up on the roof of her mouth, and when I tongued it, I felt a soft nub surrounded by grooves, and when I tickled the nub with my tongue, Goldie let out the longest, sexiest moan I’d ever heard in my life.
Her claws dug in deeper, sharp pinpricks on my skin.
Her body began to shake. I tried to pull out of the kiss, terrified I’d hurt her, but she clung to me like I was a buoy in a storm, and her tongue seemed to drive mine up to the roof of her mouth.
And this nub… oh fuck, it seemed to secrete a slick fluid that tasted like spiced honey.
I couldn’t get enough. I couldn’t stop flicking it with the tip of my tongue to get more of the flavor and to feel the way Goldie’s body bucked against me.
It was almost like a clit in her mouth, which sounded insane but also…
not. She was alien. Anything was possible.
I hummed, letting my tongue vibrate the nub, and Goldie went wild. She let out a high-pitched, breathy moan straight down my throat as her nub flooded my mouth with a syrup that had to be better than any drug any human had ever made.
I might have been wrong, but I was pretty sure that Goldie was having an orgasm.