Chapter 6
YIRI
“You didn’t tell me about your whole family, though,” I reminded Cora. “Tell me about your son.”
“My son?” Her eyes rounded with surprise. Many mothers in the Bion system weren’t close with their children, but I’d never met one who forgot they had a son.
“Mr. Darcy,” I reminded her.
Cora’s face relaxed. “Oh, Mr. Darcy! He’s not my son. He’s my cat.”
She grabbed what I assumed was the Earth equivalent of a nexus frame, and the view swung around and focused on a small furry ball of a creature that glared at me through the call.
Cora’s small pink pink-tipped fingers scratched behind the thing’s ears, and he gave a big, toothy yawn before laying his head back down to sleep.
“A pet?” I asked. “You listed a pet as a dependent?”
I could see her in my frame again, positioning her device, and wiggling into her bed before pulling up the covers. She didn’t cover up to her neck like she did the first time, and my eyes lingered over her collarbones and bare shoulders. Had she worn this thin, tiny garment when Qhev called her?
“I love him. I would never leave him behind,” Cora said.
She could bring a brood of these cats with her if she wanted. It made no difference to me. “It’s much cheaper to transport a pet,” I told her. “You cut out a lot of less affluent suitors listing him that way.”
“Oh, did I?” My little mate’s smile turned coy. “Maybe I should fix that and broaden my search for a husband.”
“I don’t think so, Aneah. You wouldn’t be happy with anyone else.
” No one else could see to her happiness like I could.
I could give my pretty little pinup girl whatever she wanted with no expense spared, and give her any pleasure she needed with my capable hands.
I was lucky to find her, but she was lucky too. She’d come to see it soon enough.
“Are all daernir males so confident?” she asked.
“No.”
“You’re kind of monosyllabic,” she said, her small nose scrunching.
“Would you like to hear more of my voice?”
“Yes, I would,” she said. “I wish I could turn off the translation thing. Qhev explained that I’m not actually hearing your voice, but like… an AI version of it?”
“You can turn it off,” I said. “The translation would be written for you instead.”
Her face lit up. “Seriously? I’ll try that.” She poked at her device for a moment and then set it close to her face. “There, I think I did it. Say something.”
“What would you like me to say, Aneah?”
Her lips parted, her breath catching. “Your voice is deeper than I thought,” she said.
“Do you like it?” I didn’t need to ask. I could tell by the way her eyes dilated and her chest rose with quickened breaths. I wanted to hear her say it, though.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s as sexy as the rest of you.”
I smirked, feeling smug. “You haven’t seen the rest of me yet.”
Her pale cheeks tinged pink at my words. “Keep your clothes on, Tiger. As tempting as the rest of you probably is, I think we should save that for later.”
I chuckled, digging some of Evik’s sellah out of my pocket and settling down on the edge of the bed. “What things do you do for fun?”
“I’m kind of boring,” she said, tracking the motion of my hands as I tapped some sellah into a slim, silver cartridge.
“I watch TV, read. That’s about it. Sometimes I have brunch or dinner with people, but I’ve moved around so much my whole life that I don’t have any good friends.
So unless I’m working with someone cool, I don’t hang out with people much. ”
“That’s very solitary,” I said, depressing the button on the cartridge to get the sellah burning. The first thin stream of smoke curled upwards and I bent forward to suck it into my lungs. The warm tingle it gave me spread slowly as we watched each other through the nexus.
“It is,” she agreed.
“No human male in your life?” I asked.
“Not lately,” she said, sighing. “I was with someone for a few years, but he cheated, and the handful of guys I’ve dated since haven’t made any kind of impression. At least not good impressions.”
I leaned back, my nexus core mod following me. “I don’t understand,” I said. “There should be males lining up for the pleasure of your company.”
She gave a little snort, her mouth curling into a grin. “Yeah, well, the daernir males certainly lined up quickly. Guys here might show more interest if I did. Like I said, I don’t go out much. What are they supposed to do, break into my apartment?”
“Is that something that happens?”
She blinked. “Home invasions? Sure. People break in, rob you. I was thinking about it today, actually. Now that I’m spending more time at home, if something like that did happen, I’m more likely to be here for it. It’s a little scary.”
I grunted and took another hit of sellah. “I don’t like that.”
“You’re a little far away to do anything about it,” she said.
“That’s why you have to come here,” I told her. “No one would ever break into my home.”
“No one would?” My perceptive little pinup tilted her head, eyes shrewdly narrowed. “They could, but they wouldn’t?”
“It would be very difficult,” I said. “But even if I lived in the least defensible shack on the Eissoi coast, no one would dare.”
“I take it you’re somebody important, then,” she mused.
“I’m someone of consequence,” I said.
Several clicks of silence followed as I debated how much to tell her about myself. If I convinced her to come here and be my mate, she would learn quickly what a dangerous life I led. If I told her now, would she end our call and refuse my messages? Probably.
“What do you do for work?” she asked.
The corner of my mouth tugged upward. “My family is the first name in imports and exports in Eissoi. I’m in charge of personnel.”
“Yiri,” Cora said my name slowly, my cock filling with blood at the sweet sound of it in her accented voice. “You don’t strike me as an HR guy.”
I paused for the translation and inhaled a little more sellah. “Mm. Yes. You’re the only human resource I’m interested in,” I agreed. “But I have very effective methods of managing the daernir who work for us.”
She laughed nervously. “That sounds like something a mobster would say.”
Again, I waited a click for the translation, and when it came, I didn’t break our eye contact. Instead, I waved my sellah cartridge and pressed the button again.
“Do you have any vices, Cora?”
Her lips parted, and she drew in a breath. “Um. Vices?”
I waited, sure that her answer would be better if I didn’t give her any further guidance.
“I…” Biting that juicy bottom lip again, she buried her face in her blankets for a moment before she looked back at me and held my gaze. “Right now, you feel like a vice. Does that count?”
Fixated on her mouth, I shifted. If I were alone, unobserved at that moment, I would have had my hand down my pants, squeezing my cock. With Cora’s eyes on me, the temptation was almost too great to weather.
Slow down, Tiger.
“Oh, I definitely count as a vice, Cora.”
Her eyes brightened. “It’s so strange to hear you say my name. To pick it out of your other words and understand it.”
“Say mine again,” I said, the sellah starting to settle into my head. I gestured for the nexus mod to start a rec, and a click later, I was glad I did.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Yiri.”
I grunted. She’d said that before. Yes, sir. Something I heard from my soldiers all the time, but never from a female.
“Cora, beautiful,” I said, heavy-lidded as I sank into the sellah’s hold, “those words are my newest vice.”
“You mean, yes, sir?”
I inclined my head slowly.
“Of course you like that,” she said. “You’re obviously a dom.”
A lengthy translation with a great deal of possible nuance filled my head, all of it making my cock stand and tent my pants. I did a quick check to make sure that wasn’t in her field of view. It wasn’t, but there wasn’t much room to move without risking it.
“That’s how you see me?” I asked. The concept wasn’t new to me.
I’d seen enough human porn recs, and interacted with other less compatible species off world that engaged in that sort of sexual power play behavior.
But among daernir, it was taboo. Heretical, even.
Females expected reverence. Addressing a male with an honorific above their own was unheard of, and a female submitting to a male during intercourse simply wasn’t done.
Most males were satisfied simply to be invited to a female’s bed.
And yet, my blood thrummed in my veins at the thought of Cora staring up at me from her knees, eyes wide and innocent.
“You’re joking, right?” she laughed. “All you’ve done is boss me around. You’ll be my mate. Show me your makeup. Say my name.”
She was right. In my haste, I was treating her like one of my soldiers. “Forgive me, Aneah. I’m not used to asking for anything.”
“Wow,” she said. “Even that. You didn’t ask me to forgive you. You commanded it.”
“I think you like it,” I said. “You always do what I tell you to. Do you like pleasing me, Cora?”Maybe it was the sellah loosening my tongue, because I would have never said it to a daernir female.
But even high, I knew better than to let her call my bluff.
And fuck me, but for the first time I could remember, a small part of me was bluffing with this female.
But she sucked her lip into her mouth and let it out again, wet and glistening. Hesitantly, she nodded, and tension built low along my spine. Out of her view, I took myself in hand and squeezed.“Tell me.”
“Yes, sir.” Her voice was soft and breathy, and my cock twitched in my hand at the sound.
I stifled a groan.
“What my female wants, she’ll have,” I said. “If you want to please me, I’ll let you.”
Her eyes flashed with a mix of defiance and desire that had pearls of my cum leaking from my tip and wetting the material of my loose pants.
“It’s late,” I said. “You’re tired.” And I need to drain my cock, now. “Will you sleep as soon as we end our call?”
She hesitated, and I arched a brow at her. She shook her head.
“What will you do?” I prompted.
“Um…” she swallowed, her eyes darting over all she could see of me. “I’m probably going to… um. Use a vibrator.”
“Good,” I said, because I wanted to know her cunt was full while I imagined being the one to fill it. “Send me an image of your toy before you use it. And save a rec of yourself when you come.”
Her eyes went wide, her cheeks flushing nearly as dark as my own.
“Just save it, Aneah,” I said. “You aren’t ready to send that to me, yet. Just save it for now, and send it when you feel brave and want to please me.”
She shifted under the covers, eyes dilated, and her lips parted. I picked the right one. I knew it in my bones. This pretty little human wasn’t scared of me. Ibar knew she would be mine.