CHAPTER 22 #3
Eleri tried to hide her shiver of laughter. He was learning. Somehow, she would have to keep learning too. “You can stay at the clinic tonight.”
“I’ll bring whatever you need from your nest,” S’kasia volunteered. S’samph rattled off a list of items, and S’kasia nodded before hurrying off to retrieve them. Eleri’s eyes felt dry as the dust underfoot as she stared up at S’samph. His tail reached out to her, coiling around her waist.
“Don’t leak, Eleri. I will make sure no one harms you at the clinic or anywhere else ever again.”
“That’s a big promise.”
“You’re my mate. It is more than a promise; it is my responsibility.
” His tail remained secure around her waist as she picked her way back to the clinic.
The pharmaceutical cabinet was smashed. More medicines would have to be ordered from Abwele, but treatment would be difficult until they could get in a new shipment of the essentials.
“How much longer is Aglao in hibernation?” S’samph asked as they picked their way around the broken glass.
Eleri pressed the button on the far wall which brought down a contamination quarantine bubble on top of the smashed glass.
It would keep things contained until the morning when she could bring herself to clean the mess.
The automated cleaning bots were not always the most reliable for cleaning up without oversight.
“Until the flooding season starts, they said.”
“A few more weeks then.” He kept his pace slow at her side, and she knew his arm was mostly healed at this point, even if he humored her by playing patient. Eleri pressed another button, and a cot folded out from a nearby wall.
“For you,” she gestured. S’samph cocked his head, but if he was disappointed, he didn’t make it known. “I’m going to go shower and figure out what to do about this.” Eleri gestured to the missing patch of hair on her head.
“I will wait for you here.” S’samph’s tail uncurled from her waist, and she found herself saddened by its absence.
Alone in the shower stall, Eleri scrubbed away the dirt and grit from under her fingernails.
Her head throbbed as she scrubbed shampoo across her scalp, but the soap would help prevent infection.
After the shower, she stared down her wet hair in the washroom mirror.
Long hair was always a hazard when working with agitated patients.
She’d known it. Even when she was training as a nurse in the colonies, her instructors had warned her of the dangers of keeping long hair in reach of patients.
Of course, she’d stubbornly ignored them, and now she felt the consequences.
It was her own pride getting in the way again.
She braided her hair tightly and then lopped it off just below her chin.
The result was a bit uneven, but it would do until she could figure out something more elegant.
At least with it loose, she was able to comb it over the bald spot.
Eleri dressed quickly, remembering S’samph was just outside the door in the clinic.
Stars and stones, she was in trouble. These feelings that left her feeling warm in all the wrong places weren’t going to be ignorable for much longer.
Steeling herself, she left the shower room with her newly shortened hair and a stiff upper lip. S’samph had been busy. In the interim, he’d managed to find a pair of gloves and was busy picking up the final glass remnants of the smashed pharmaceutical cabinet.
“You didn’t have to do that!” Eleri exclaimed. “I hope you were careful. Some of those medications are caustic.”
S’samph made a soft huffing noise as he wiggled the gloved fingers on his right hand.
“I am always careful. This is something small I can do to help. One less thing for you to worry about.” He finished collecting the final remnants of glass bottle shards and syringes and disposed of them in the waste atomizer. “What happened to your hair?”
“What?” Eleri asked. “Oh! I cut it off. It’s a liability working with patients.”
“It pleases me that you are taking your safety more seriously.” He removed the gloves and tossed them into the waste atomizer.
Eleri nodded, not sure what to say. If S’samph were a human male, she’d assume he was flirting with her, but with S’samph, it was impossible to tell whether or not he intended half of the subtext in his words.
Silence hung between them for a long moment, long enough to make Eleri ready to retreat.
“Well, I should get some sleep. You can use the shower if you like hot water. Otherwise, there’s a hygiene unit behind that curtain over there.”
“Sleep well, Eleri. I will be here.” S’samph’s tail brushed down the side of her arm, and Eleri took that as her cue to flee.
Alone in her room, she pressed the button to drop down the darkness screen over her window and then burrowed under the thin blankets.
Eleri closed her eyes but found herself replaying the afternoon again and again behind her eyes.
Minio’s claw catching in her hair. The way he loomed over her.
Scrabbling for help against the pharmaceutical cabinet.
Her heart cartwheeled through her chest, leaving her sweating against her sheets.
Water. She’d get herself water and then try again. Work didn’t stop just because she was having a hard time. There would still be patients who needed care in the morning, regardless of how much sleep she’d gotten. Eleri slipped downstairs to the small kitchen, hoping she wouldn’t disturb S’samph.
She poured herself a small glass of water, hands trembling from the stress of everything.
Eleri took several tentative sips and regulated her breathing.
She just needed to calm down and get to sleep.
Things would be brighter in the morning after she’d rested.
Eleri turned to set the mostly empty glass on the counter and ran smack into a solid form behind her.
The water splashed up her face and his bare chest.
“S’samph?” she sputtered.
“You should be sleeping.”
“So should you,” she retorted.
“I was sleeping until you came down the stairs.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I am a very light sleeper. It is a habit I have never been able to shake.” He paused to take the cup from her. “Why are you still awake?”
“I can’t sleep. Some nights I have insomnia. It’s especially hard to be alone on nights like this.” Eleri realized what she had said, and the tips of her ears burned with regret.
“S’kasia told me of this sleep infliction you have. Then don’t be alone. I’ll come share your bed. The cot down here is too small for both of us.”
“I…” she trailed off, not sure how to finish her sentence.
“You will feel safer with me in your bed.” He said it as a statement rather than a question, and try as she might, Eleri couldn’t deny that he spoke the truth.
“I might,” she admitted.
“Then it is settled.” His tail curled around her waist again as it had earlier, and Eleri felt the back of her neck catch fire.
“Show me to your sleeping nest.” He prodded her forward with his good arm.
A shiver danced across her shoulder blades.
S’samph came closer and draped a heavy arm around her.
“Humans shake like that when they’re cold, according to the IA manual. ”
“Not always because we’re cold,” Eleri corrected as she started the torturous path back up to her bedroom with S’samph’s presence increasingly difficult to ignore.
They were at the door now, and she pushed it open, taking in the sparseness of the space.
Since moving in, she hadn’t taken the time to apply any personal touches.
“It’s like a military barracks.” S’samph urged her forward. “Does the emptiness not sadden you? I lived in places like this for many years.”
“I don’t spend much time here. Most of the time I’m down in the clinic and busy with work. Besides, your nest isn’t much better.”
“We’ll decorate our nest together once you finally join me there.
” S’samph urged her toward the bed. “But this is a conversation for another time. Now we should sleep.” For the second time in the span of a few hours, S’samph swooped her off her feet and into his arms. He carried her over to the bed, settling her among the pillows before sliding in beside her.
Eleri had been wrong. Whatever trouble she had with sleeping before, this was going to be even worse.
S'samph’s scales were cool and smooth to the touch.
His pale eyes were warm even in the darkness of the room.
This close, she couldn’t deny the physical attraction between them.
Eleri turned away from him, far too aware of the flush coursing across her skin.
It didn’t shame her, but she’d spent so much of her life buried in training or dealing with her family’s chaos that all her romantic encounters were fleeting and never went anywhere.
This left her unsure how to proceed. But if the IA manual was accurate, sexual activity was strictly initiated by latil’e females.
“Why are you not sleeping?” S’samph asked. “Are you still distressed from this afternoon?” His hand soothed over her hair.
“Yes.” She said and shivered again against his touch as her body betrayed her true intentions. S’samph moved closer until only a hairsbreadth separated their bodies on the narrow bed.
“If you’re still cold, I will warm you. Your scent has changed as well. Are you sure you are not unwell?”
Mortified, Eleri shook her head. Latil’e had particularly sensitive scent glands throughout their tongues. They could smell things well beyond the capacity of any human nose. “It’s just the stress, I think,” she managed to squeak out.
“I know what your stress hormones taste like. This is different.” S’samph shifted closer again. Now he was flush against her back. “The smell is stronger now.”
“Are you doing this on purpose?” She asked.
“Tell me what it is, Eleri. It will be impossible to sleep without a truthful answer.” There was a tone in his voice she could have sworn was teasing.
It was possible. She’d heard him tease before when they were test-driving his levibike together.
Even K’kaen had warned her not to always take S’samph’s words so literally.
If she hadn’t heard him do so then, she would have thought the expression impossible from such a serious male.
Her whole body was deep in scarlet. She could tell him the medical answer.
He smelled her rise in testosterone, oestradiol, oxytocin, and beta-endorphins, but she knew as well as he did the answer he was looking for.
Besides, there was nothing less sexy than bringing technical medicine into the bedroom.
Reluctantly, or perhaps eagerly, she couldn’t tell anymore, Eleri turned back toward S’samph.
“I’m attracted to you, S’samph. That’s what you’re smelling. My arousal.”
“I know.” His frill flared high in a gesture she could only interpret as him being pleased with himself. Eleri rolled her eyes. She felt the end of his tail curl around her left ankle.
“You knew?”
“I guessed. But I required confirmation.” He ran a cautious hand down the side of her face. “You are injured, so I would not expect any sexual performance from you, but I would offer you pleasure if you desire me.”
“You’re also still injured,” she pointed out.
“You cleared me for work. Or did you forget?” The tip of his tail moved higher, snaking around her bare thigh.
“I should never have said anything,” she let out the ridiculous laugh she’d been stifling.
“But you did.”
Eleri’s mirth turned to something warmer, something that stirred deep in her belly as she pressed herself forward against his firm body.
S’samph drew her closer still, grazing a hand down her spine.
The tip of his tail crept higher up still, and Eleri drew in a sharp breath.
Emboldened by the race of her heartbeat, she reached downwards, not entirely sure what she might find under the clasp of his pants.
Not that she was a stranger to anyone’s anatomy, but it felt entirely different outside a clinical context.
The two nodes of his erection were impossible to miss.
“It is different than human male anatomy.” S’samph’s voice was low. “I apologize if it does not please you.”
Eleri swallowed hard, not entirely sure how to verbalize that her feelings were the exact opposite of displeased.
But where words failed, she would have to rely on action.
“I’m not. Displeased I mean.” She let her fingers explore downward, and S’samph shifted to slide out of his pants.
The skin of his hemipenis was warm under her hands.
“Eleri, if you continue with that I won’t be able to restrain myself,” he rasped.
“I did clear you for work, didn’t I?” she murmured back. S’samph let out a sound like a hiss, and she felt his grip on her tighten.
“Then this will need to come off,” he pulled the long shirt she wore for sleeping up over her head, careful to avoid her injured scalp, then leaned in closer to her, the tip of his tongue inhaling the scent near her collar bones.
“This too.” His tail closed the final juncture between her thigh and her entrance, sliding past the thin barrier of her panties and hooking them downward.
With nothing but air between them, S’samph pulled Eleri closer still tracing the wetness between her legs until she gasped.
Eleri’s hands grasped high around his broad shoulders as he brought her to swift orgasm. With unexpected precision, he flipped her over, placing her flat on the bed. “We will have to join twice,” he gestured to each one of his nodes. “Your anatomy can’t accommodate both at once."
She laughed and propped herself up on her elbows. “It sounds like you did your research.”
“It was important research.” He pushed her back with a firm hand and ran the tip of one of his claws down the curve of her neck.
Then he pressed himself forward, positioning his left side first. Eleri sucked in a sharp breath as he filled her with his girth.
She reached to clasp her hands around his neck, and he lifted her off the bed to move deeper inside.
Another orgasm rippled into her as he came, sending a shockwave of vibration through them both.
Breathing hard, he pulled back from her.
"You are well enough to go again?” he asked, voice low.
“Just as long as there isn’t a third you’re hiding somewhere.”
S’samph regarded her with mock seriousness, and his frill rippled with amusement. “My tail does not require recovery time. I can give you pleasure as many times as you wish.”
“Some of us have to work in the morning.”
“You took the morning off.”
“You’re right. I almost forgot,” Eleri sighed contentedly as the realities of the world fell away around them, leaving only them and the atmosphere between.