CHAPTER 29
“What are you doing?” Hannah asks.
Stilling on top of her, I send a sheepish look into her face. Gently I roll off her delectable body. “I have,” I say, my voice straining as my right wing reaches behind my left wing as far as it is capable, and the talon flexes, dragging the claw’s edge along my skin, “an ever-itching spot under each of my wing bases. At the bachelor rookery, I have a small scratching stick that I—”
“Let me,” Hannah says, scooting off the bed to stand beside it. She pats the mattress near my shoulder, indicating that she wants me to lie down on my stomach.
I obey.
She gets atop me, straddling me… then she stills. After a measured moment, she asks in a bewildered tone, “Are you still breathing?”
“No,” I reply, the breath gone from me. “My phallus experienced such a hardening the moment you threw your leg over me and climbed atop me that I am also dizzy.”
She laughs. But even as she does, she leans forward and carefully runs her fingernails along my skin at my wings’ bases. Then she begins to scratch.
I grunt. My wings snap akimbo.
The llama lamp on the bedside table goes sailing to the floor.
She scratches harder.
I don’t even know how to classify the noises I begin to make. I also begin rattling a purr that holds enough danger to be a growl. But I’m not threatening Hannah—never. I’m merely being thrashed to within an increment of my life by her breathtaking skills.
When she’s scratched me to a moribund state, when my wings are limply draped over the sides of the bed and spilling onto the floor, she smugly leans over my prone nape and kisses it.
Then she inches her magnificent rump and strong thighs down my back until she can press a light kiss to the sensitive spot she discovered between my wings.
When this gets no reaction from me, she sets her teeth on the hypersensitive flesh.
Reaching back, I catch her. I drag her beside me, causing her to screech in delight. My blood afire, I roll atop her—and then I maul her.
***
We’re snuggling comfortably, nuzzling each other and dozing, when my stomach emits a ferocious growl.
Hannah pushes up and looks down at me, a fond smile taking over her face. “I should feed you.”
“I can make—”
“No, I want to. I want to feed you,” Hannah says. She pets my chest, grinning when I begin to purr. It isn’t a mating purr. It’s a contented one, not unlike one of Saphkarra’s. “Besides, Julie bought all the stuff to make chicken alfredo but never made it. It’ll go to waste if we don’t use it up. And you’ll love it. Chicken alfredo is amazing.”
“You’re amazing,” I tell her honestly, as her hand strokes lower along my chest.
She laughs and leaves the bed, all her flesh looking too delectable. She snickers when my wing attempts to snare her and bring her back. “Nope,” she says. “Prepare to be amazed. I’m going to make you a homecooked meal.” Then her eyes brighten even more. “But oh! First I have a surprise for you!”
“You can give it to me here,” I tell her, and gesture down at my phallus, which sprang to full mast as I watched her wiggle out of my hold before she escaped the bed.
Her cheeks flush and she spends a flatteringly long moment considering my length before she steps back, covering her breasts with her arm. “I have something else in mind. One sec.”
She returns to the bed with a wrapped gift, the one she left Antiquarian Books with. I know this by the smell of the tome, not visually, because she covered it in a layer of decorative paper directly after our shopping trip to the mall. “Here,” she says, shyly holding it out to me. “It’s for you.”
I sit up.
Hannah climbs back into bed, covering herself with the blanket. One of my wing talons sneakily catches the edge of it where she has it clutched over her chest and lightly draws it down. Or attempts to. She pushes my talon away, smiling and looking less self-conscious, which was one of my goals.
The other was to behold her nakedness because she’s breathtaking.
I carefully take hold of the corner of the paper covering my gift and begin pulling it, working up the adhesive tab until it is freed on one corner. I follow it, gently pulling up until I’ve freed the length of it.
“I’ve never seen anyone open a present so carefully,” Hannah comments.
I hum to let her know I’ve heard her and proceed to work free all the adhesive strips from the paper. When I lay back the panels of wrapping paper at last, a book is revealed.
An old book, well worn and long aged. An Exhaustive Dictionary of Rare and Strange Words, the alien characters of the title read.
I caress the cover, my jaw slack.
“Open it,” Hannah says.
I do.
“I didn’t mean to order—” Hannah starts, stricken.
“I know,” I tell her, and brush my wing talon over her shoulder. Then down the back of her arm. It pushes at the length of blanket she has wrapped around her here.
She twists and catches my talon, bringing it into her lap. It goes very still as she pets the back of my wing.
It’s a struggle, but I refocus, my brain engaging and deciphering the fortune of uncommon words. Or recherché words, as one entry helpfully informs me, a word that means a thing is rare, exotic, or obscure.
“Do you like it?” Hannah asks.
I look up at her and memorize her face. “I adore words. I take great gratification from learning them and this,” I hold up the tome she has so thoughtfully gifted me, “will give me incredible enjoyment.”
She attempts to restrain her smile so that it isn’t a full, thrilled grin. “I’m glad.”
“Thank you for this,” I tell her, giving a few more of the pages a fascinated glance, uttering a disbelieving grunt at the wealth of words it contains. Movements heedful of the book’s worth, I close it and wrap it back in its wrapping.
“The wrapping paper can be thrown away,” Hannah points out.
“Preposterous,” I tell her, sealing the adhesive strips with firm presses of my fingers. Then I set the book in the lamp’s vacated spot on the bedside table (the lamp that I no longer feel guilty for knocking from Hannah’s bedside—it has proven itself thankfully very sturdy) and I turn to Hannah and leap on her, causing her to shriek in surprise.
Ripping the blanket away from her body, I wrap my arms around her, squeezing her against me. “Thank you,” I tell her again. But as much as I appreciate words, actions speak even louder. Thus I slide down her body and demonstrate my appreciation with my mouth. And my fingers. And my tongue. Lots and lots of tongue.
***
Hannah, dressed in a white T-shirt and blue jeans because she insisted she must wear clothes in order to cook, glares at the off-white sauce that clumps over our Earthen avian dish. “Why did the sauce turn out grainy? I followed the recipe exactly.”
Sitting beside her at the island, her foot on top of my foot on the rung of her chair, I take another bite of this culinary delight she has made for me, chew, and flare my wings in a relaxed shrug. “It tastes like a perfectly alien dish.”
Hannah grimaces. “I don’t want it to taste alien. I wanted it to taste good.” She cuts a piece of chicken and drops it on the floor for Saphkarra.
Saphkarra lunges over it, growling.
“It’s good, Hannah,” I tell her. “Even if it weren’t, I would eat it. It could be burned to charcoal and I would happily consume it because you made it for me.”
Hannah expels a soft laugh, then shakes her head and stabs her tined utensil into her meat. “That’s sweet.” She sighs. “But I wanted to wow you. I wanted to make the best meal you’ve ever tasted.”
With the hand not holding my utensil, I take her hand. “Hannah. I have had approximately thirty thousand rations in my lifetime. And out of all of them, this one is my very favorite.”
“I love you,” Hannah replies simply. Her eyes are large and limpid.
“I love you too,” I declare. And I move in and cover her mouth with mine.
She tastes like the cookie she furtively ate while she was cooking. She doesn’t taste like our meal yet because she has been too distressed to bite into it. I kiss her harder and squeeze her rump cheek, hoping to lighten her mood.
Laughing, Hannah pulls back, her facial cheeks heating. To my relief, she takes a bite of her meal, and if she’s not entirely thrilled with the mouth feel of the sauce she labored over, it no longer saddens her or prevents her from consuming it.
After our meal, we do dishes together. Hannah asks questions about what our life together will be like once we reach my homeland. She wants to know what to expect.
“What will I do for work?”
“There are many jobs for humans in the colony.”
Drying her hands on one of the towels she has at the ready for drying dishes once she’s rinsed my washed pieces, she threads her arm under my tightly held wings, hugging my back. And then she slides her hand into my rear pocket.
I jump when she squeezes my rear cheek.
Hannah snickers.
I stare down at her, enamored. “I love washing dishes together,” I declare.
She tips her head back, smiling up at me. “Me too.”
With a sigh, I restrain the urge to lay her back on the island and breed her into next week. I tamely wash another dish.
Smiling, she lays her head against the muscle of my arm. Creator, she smells good. And now that we’ve eaten, we might have the stamina to mate for days. There is only one way to find out.
“What about Mick?” Hannah asks, dispelling my fantasies.
I blink rapidly. Then take a deep breath. “Would you…” I swallow. “Like to take him?”
Hannah frowns, pulling her hand out of my pocket and taking up one of her towels, twisting it. I hand her a cleaned but soapy bowl, and she sets her towel aside and begins to rinse it. “I can’t steal Mick. He belongs to the store. But he’s going to miss me.”
“He’d miss you if someone bought him,” I point out. Then I brush a tendril of hair back behind her ear. “My fortune is for you. You can buy him if you want.”
She searches me. “Would you hate it if I bought him?”
“No. If he made you happy, I would accept him.”
“He does make me happy.” Her lips press together.
I nod. “Then I endeavor to accept him.”
Her browfurs rise. “Really?”
“Truly,” I assure her. I turn back to our task. “How old is Mick?” I ask idly, drawing the scrubbing block over a plate.
“Two years,” Hannah replies.
I swallow. “How long do cockatoos live?” I ask with dread. Because I’m afraid I remember reading something about the lifespans of avians being considerable.
“Sixty years isn’t uncommon for captive Molouccan cockatoos, and the pet store’s care guide says owners should be aware that there is a potential for ‘toos to live a hundred years,” Hannah says.
“I… see,” I say feebly.
“Speaking of Mick,” Hannah says, her mind not caught up in imagining an unending centennium of Mick—and who he will be residing with for the entirety of that time. “Even though you’re so rich that we don”t technically have to work anymore while we’re here, we need to keep working at the pet store at least for a while because we can’t leave our boss—and the animals—in a lurch.”
“We shall faithfully feed and water the pets, and work at the stores,” I promise. “But we must inform our employer that we are leaving the area soon so that she can make arrangements to replace us.”
Hannah sighs. “Oh, she is just going to love that.”
Wiping my soapy hands on the towel slung over my shoulder, I take her by the jaw and kiss her forehead. “She likely won’t. But I am adept at being at the receiving end of a temper. I will tell her.”
Still caught between my hands, Hannah stares into my eyes, a small smile playing over her face. “I think I need to learn to take some heat. I’ll never get better at standing up for myself if I don’t actually start standing up for myself. But thank you.”
I tip her face up to better reach her nose and kiss it. “I will be at your side and prepared to neutralize her if necessary.”
“With a purr that puts her to sleep?” Hannah guesses.
“It has proven most effective,” I confirm, releasing her face.
Hannah shrugs. “Sounds good to me. I’ll try bravery on for size in the Poly-Fil isle. That way, if you have to drop her, she’ll land on a cloud of polyester fiber.”
When dishes are done, Hannah asks if she can search in the book of unusual words she gifted me with and ask me to define random selections. It is perhaps the first time I’ve ever enjoyed being given a test without prior warning. I feel no anxiety at all and she is thrilled at my ability to recall definitions. We have a wonderful, comfortable evening, and I feel such contentment, I can’t imagine how life could improve.