Chapter 6
Chapter six
T’ukka
“So, when do you fuck her?” Axel said, barging into my private sanctuary like he owned the place. He looked around for a minute then settled for lounging on the sofa, interrupting my meditative movements, the Ka’ail Mot. I ignored Axel and moved through a slow balance series.
Axel had no patience, and even waiting a moment for me to answer his question had him all twitchy. I liked him all twitchy. He grabbed some candy from the bowl on the table and munched on it while he watched. I glared at him.
“I thought humans had a custom of knocking before entering someone’s private quarters.”
“Do we?” Axel tapped his fingers on his chin and grinned, eyes twinkling.
He hadn’t been happy with his assignment as my personal observer, though I wasn’t sure why.
I would have considered it an honor for a lowly soldier like him to be positioned with a prince, but human social hierarchies differed from ours.
At first, the handsome soldier had decided that the best way to get reassigned was to irritate the hell out of me.
I knew that, because he had stupidly told me that was his plan.
So naturally I had taken great pleasure in extending Axel’s assignment and torturing him back.
Though it was unusual for me to take pleasure in anything, this man got under my skin more quickly than people I had known for years.
Over time, our dynamic had morphed into a kind of bond that I had never experienced before.
We pissed each other off, but really, deep down, there was more trust than I had ever had with another person of any species.
Perhaps even the emotion that humans would call love.
He was like a brother to me, or maybe something more, something intimate and close. I often wondered if Axel felt the same.
Recently, things had intensified, shifted into unknown territory.
And tipped over the edge the other day, when he had touched me intimately.
He had shown me the beauty of the human male orgasm, spraying his release across my chest. I had tasted him, but I had wanted to swallow him down, to take his body inside mine.
Within my own species, and especially within my caste, friendships like the one I had with Axel did not exist, even without this new sexual tension.
Aunga’ri were individuals and maintained a strict independence, aside from any chosen reproductive partners, and even that was nothing even close to how humans treated their reproductive partners.
Humans seemed to enjoy socializing, regardless of rank or social status.
I had grown accustomed to Axel’s idiosyncrasies. Hell, I enjoyed them. I craved his company, and I wanted him around me. Even if he was intentionally irritating me by loudly eating candy.
Axel cleared his throat. “You didn’t answer my question. How are you going to fuck Mia? Or did daydreaming about that luscious ass make you zone out?”
“How do I know if her ass is luscious?” I asked, giving up on my meditation and sprawling on the sofa next to Axel.
That was another thing I liked about the man.
The way he took up space, focused on comfort over formal upright posture.
It made me feel equally relaxed. Relaxation was not something that had ever been part of my life, and I found I enjoyed it.
My desire to touch him physically had been increasing over the days.
At first, I had been masking that need with mild violence.
Sparring was something he perversely seemed to enjoy.
Axel shook his head, smiling. “I’m not really that picky. I like all the shapes, but hers has a nice curve to it.” He made a shape with his hands that didn’t accurately reflect Mia’s buttocks at all.
I scrubbed my hands over his face and sighed.
“I don’t even know why I’ve been assigned to this stupid role,” I muttered.
“If they want to figure out what fucking feels like, shouldn’t they just do it?
” Or they should just let me fuck Axel. Except no one knew how close Axel and I had become, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to share that information.
I was too afraid that they’d take him away from me.
He reached over and rubbed a hand over my thigh, his touch soothing and intimate.
And when he spoke his voice had quieted, gotten more serious.
“You were there at the meeting. They need to know if your people can integrate further into human society without turning into psychotic sex monsters, or whatever it is you’re afraid of.
” He moved closer to me and I was aware of every single touch from him, but he seemed to do it without noticing his impact on me.
He enjoyed physical touch of all kinds, and this time he wrapped his arm around my waist and gave me a gentle squeeze. “Stop freaking out. It’ll be fine.”
“I’m not freaking out. Actually, I don’t even know what that means. But why me?”
“Dra’os said you were known for your impeccable control.”
I snorted. “That’s not true. He just wanted to pull rank without looking like a coward to the others.”
“Wait, are you scared that it will turn you into a psychopath?”
I glared at Axel. “No.”
“So since you’re scared that it will turn you into a psychopath, do I really want to be around for your first orgasm?
” How could Axel know so readily when I was lying?
Could he sense me the way I could sense him?
I shifted slightly closer to him, letting our thighs press together, settling into his hug, and he did nothing.
“Are you trying to cuddle me?” he asked.
I shifted back away. “No.”
Axel studied me. “Come on. I jerked off all over you three days ago. We can cuddle. We could go into your bed and spoon.”
“I was not trying to cuddle,” I lied. “And I do not know what spooning even is.”
“We stack together like a big spoon and a little spoon. I guess you’d be the big spoon, which I’ve never experienced before. Usually I’m the big spoon.” He frowned at me for a moment then straddled my lap, grinning with his eyes inches from mine.
“Axel,” I muttered. “Stop being an idiot human driven entirely by your sexual needs.”
He barked a laugh, his eyes crinkling around the corners in a way that I found adorable.
I hadn’t particularly liked his pinkish-tan skin and boring-colored hair when we’d first met, though he had a few markings that he called tattoos, artwork that was quite beautiful.
But the more I’d been around him the more I’d grown accustomed to his appearance, even beginning to understand how humans could be seen as lovely, in a way.
More cute than beautiful. Like little pets. I ran my hand down his back, like I’d stroked a pet, and he moaned, arching against me. Fuck. Fine, he was beautiful.
“I’ve never wanted dick before, but I want yours so much.” His lips were only inches from mine. “Explain it.”
“I can’t explain it.” There was ancient folklore, bullshit really, about a mythical bond that occurred between lovers.
It was called the Bhesai Ker’el, but I didn’t believe in that any more than I believed in the human myths of unicorns and Batman.
Axel had yet to explain Batman effectively to me.
Apparently, humans loved ridiculous costumes. Axel was studying me.
“I think you can explain it, and you’re just not sharing.” Axel was undeniably perceptive, and surely he was just picking up on cues that I was giving off. Surely, the way I could sense his thoughts was some sort of trick of the brain.
I shoved him off of my lap and this time he was so sidetracked by his desires that I caught him off guard, and he went flying, landing flat on his back. He lay there and laughed for a moment before leaping to his feet, a mischievous smile on his face. There would be hell to pay for that later.
“Focus, soldier. I trust you to keep Mia safe. That is precisely why I want you to be around.” I tried to steer the matter back to the subject at hand before things got any further outside my comfort zone. “Not because I want to fuck you.”
Axel frowned. “Does she need to be kept safe? She’ll be with you and me in the fortress.”
“I don’t know.”
“Fuck, you’re that afraid of the rumors? That explains the interest in bondage as well,” Axel muttered, shaking his head.
“I am not afraid of the rumors. I just want to take every precaution available to us.”
He rolled his eyes. “Right. So I have to watch you fuck her?”
“Is that a thing humans enjoy?” Moreover, was that a thing that humans who were lovers, or who wanted to be lovers, enjoyed?
“Watching your massive dick inside her? Yeah, I suppose it’d be entertaining.” He was being sarcastic now, and I wasn’t precisely sure why.
“It’s unclear if I will be aroused by her.
” I stood and walked to the window and looked out.
I enjoyed the colors of the landscape of Earth.
A pristine lake in a sparkling blue stretched out before the compound, and beyond that, mountains faded into the distance, covered in green vegetation that reminded me of another planet I had spent a lot of time on.
I shuddered at the thought of Theros and crossed my arms over my chest and glanced back at Axel. Earth would be different.
Axel came to stand next to me. “We know some things arouse you,” he murmured. “I can help.” His hand traced down over my ass, squeezing the muscle there, then trailing further, between my legs. This touch I very much liked.
“I’m not sure. I believe there is a connection that is required that takes time.”
Axel was quiet for a moment, his hand still there, close to where I really wanted him. “Is that the connection that makes it so I can sense when you’re in the area?”
This caught me off guard, because I had the same sense of Axel’s presence.
I wondered if Axel felt the same draw to be near me, the same urges.
“I don’t know, maybe. The connection between us grew before I felt aroused by you.
We do not arouse as easily as humans. You seem to be aroused by a passing breeze. ”
Axel burst out laughing and I felt a strange stirring inside me, a strange desire to be closer to my friend physically.
I ignored it and folded my arms over my chest as if I could prevent the stirring from happening.
Hold it in. Axel and I shouldn’t be friends.
He was sent here to spy on me. I was part of a forced occupation of his home world. We were enemies. And yet…
“And yet,” Axel murmured, and I looked at him, startled. His eyes met mine and widened. “You didn’t say that out loud.”
“You’re just very intuitive, and mistaking guessing what I’m thinking for actually hearing me.”
“Fuck that. I clearly heard you think about how much I should hate you. What is going on? It’s never been words before, just emotions. Your general cranky unrest.”
“Axel,” I murmured, lowering my voice. “Drop it. If something is happening between us, I need to understand it. We may need to keep it secret.”
“But you understand?”
I tried to think the words of the old Bhesai Ker’el story at him, and his eyes widened.
He shot back a quick string of human profanity that felt both excited and afraid.
And then, like the fucker he was, he somehow pushed visual imagery into my mind, a fantasy of his.
Mia between us, both of us inside her, brushing together as we both fucked her.
“It’s not a passing breeze that makes me hard,” he murmured. “But that makes me hard. You make me hard.”
And fuck if my cock didn’t respond in the same way.