Bound to the Alien Engineer (Alien Brides Book 2), page 15
"You guys have been planning this for a while, haven't you?" Min-dee said, her voice quiet.
"In a way, yes," Alvola told her. "But in a very real sense, no. We were very motivated to get things working as quickly as possible."
"Motivated?" Min-dee asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Very," he said, moving his hand down her back.
Chapter 23
Mindy followed Alvola down the corridor, stopping to gape at things she hadn't noticed on their trip to the Cargo Bay, then rushing to catch up. He wasn't stopping to wait for her, moving fast enough that he barely seemed to notice the weight of the bags he was carrying. They were her bags and she knew just how heavy the suitcase was in particular. The heat in the pit of her stomach wasn't all from the anxiety of being on the ship.
The door he stopped at slid open and he put her suitcase down in the corridor beside it.
"Is this my room?" she asked, irritated at the breathy tone in her voice.
"It can be," Alvola told her. "If you want it to be."
"Is it yours?" she asked, certain of the answer.
"Yes," he answered.
"I'm guessing you're not offering to sleep on the couch?"
He grinned at her. "Only if that's where you are."
She smiled. "And if I agree to stay here, with you, and do the things we both want to do, what am I agreeing to?"
"You are agreeing to share my bed and the pleasure that will accompany that with me and to consider my suit when the time comes."
"That's it?" Mindy said, skeptical. "I was under the impression there would be other expectations. Other requirements that went with being physically intimate with someone you've shared recognition with."
"My people have different traditions than most of the others on this ship," he told her. "It's a concession to the casual nature of the physical relationships among your people that I don't have all of this in writing."
"You don't do casual," she said, nodding. "I understood that part. It- I don't really do casual, either, but the nature of my relationships in the past has necessitated a written understanding of what both parties wanted and expected. I didn't really do the whole casual dating thing except in the sense that I wasn't formally attached to any of my previous partners."
"Did I misunderstand the nature of human relationships?" he asked with a frown.
"I think you might have missed the scope of the possibilities in human relationships," she told him. "Do you want to go inside and talk about it?"
The look in his eyes turned calculating and Mindy smiled at him.
He gestured for her to precede him and he brought her bags in, setting them next to the door, and waited for her to look around. It looked like Molly and Mintonar's place, with furniture in roughly the same place but things shifted around on the walls that she didn't realize were decorative until she found them in different places and colors in Alvola's rooms.
"Do you approve?" he asked when she turned back to him.
"It'll work," she said and he grimaced.
"There is a limit on what can be changed on the ship," he started and she waved him off.
"Compared to some of the places I've lived, including where I was living when I met Molly, it's the height of luxury. I suspect most of the quarters on the ship are going to look similar," she said. "I have one thing I want to do before we start our negotiations, however."
"I'll be happy to do anything within reason," he told her. "What can I do to make you more comfortable?"
Slowly, Mindy crossed the room to stand directly in front of him. "In the past, " she said. "I've wanted to start these kinds of conversations with as clear a head as possible. It's always seemed like the best idea is to talk things out when the hormones aren't running at full speed."
"That seems reasonable," he told her.
"We have amazing chemistry," she told him. "And if the way I feel when you touch my bare skin is any indication, I won't have anything to worry about when negotiating what I get out of any physical relationship. This time, though, I want a kiss."
"A kiss?" Alvola asked, licking his lips as he stared down at her.
"You know what a kiss is, right?" she asked, her lips quirked up in a smile. "You've certainly been demonstrating them on very chaste parts of my anatomy."
"They don't feel chaste when I kiss them," he said with a grin. "Do you have a particular place you'd like to be kissed or should I explore the various places I'd like to kiss?"
Her smile widened. "On my lips is enough for now. Everything else will be open for negotiation momentarily."
Alvola leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss against her lips, holding it until she started leaning into him. She put her hands on his chest for balance and he pulled back to look down into her face.
"Is that what you wanted?" he asked, his voice husky.
Mindy licked her lips, a hint of his taste lingering on them, and nodded. "It was a nice start," she said.
"Would you like another one before we get started?"
Her breath shook. "Clothes stay on until we have an understanding in writing."
"Agreed," he said then took her mouth the way she'd been craving since the first time he'd touched her. Her arms wrapped around his neck and he lifted her against him, his hands sliding under her backside when she wrapped her legs around his waist.
The kiss was everything she'd known a kiss could be; by turns soft and sweet and hard and demanding. She wrapped her legs hard around him and squirmed when that put her core directly against the very hard proof of his desire for her. His hands on her backside flexed and she gasped, his lips and tongue catching the sound and answering her with a growl that sent a thrill down her spine.
She squirmed against him, desire singing through every nerve, her need for him building with every brush of their lips. He turned and held her against the wall, his fingers digging into her ass as he ground against her, his tongue plundering her mouth while he swallowed every gasp of pleasure.
"More," she whined when he pulled away to kiss her cheek and work his way down her neck. He licked her collarbone and she nearly cried with need. "I need more."
He growled and pulled her against him, taking her mouth again as he stepped away from the wall. She dug her heels into his ass and ground herself against him and he dropped to his knees, the sudden movement creating almost enough friction to send her over.
His fingers dipped between her thighs and pressed against the growing dampness between her legs. Her back was on the floor, his hands holding her hips still while he worked himself over her, when she felt herself come apart in his arms.
It was the most powerful orgasm she'd ever experienced and the urge to tear his shirt to ribbons so she could run her mouth over his skin had her curling her fingers in the fabric. His mouth was still working its way over her neck and along the exposed skin on her shoulders and chest. In that moment, she was grateful that she favored v-neck t-shirts to sleep in and kicked herself for wearing pajama pants.
As she felt her nerves calm from the maelstrom of pleasure, the baseline desire that continued to arc across her skin notwithstanding, he pulled away enough to kiss his way to her elbow, where he licked then sucked gently at the soft skin at the bend of her arm. Her back arched off the floor as she squealed and tried to pull him into her.
He grinned against her skin and ran his teeth over the delicate skin. His kisses resumed until they reached her wrist and he did the same thing to the soft skin just below her palm. This time, he was watching her face while he did it and she allowed herself to show every emotion, every desire she felt. It was the most vulnerable she'd felt in a very long time and her heart pounded in her chest while she did it.
With a long, lingering lick against her pulse, Alvola gave her a wicked grin. Then he flipped her hand over in his and pressed a kiss against her knuckles. The brief gesture made her squirm again and her heels dug into his ass.
"Did that answer your question?" he asked her, his lips still moving across her skin.
It took her two tries before she could manage a weak "Yes."
He bit her palm gently and, when it made her squirm, put more pressure until it was just on the right side of pain.
"Oh, Mindy, I think we need to put that understanding in writing as quickly as possible, don't you?"
"Yes," she said, her voice still breathy. "Yes, I do. As quickly as possible."
The reluctance in his face mirrored her own when he pulled away, the lack of pressure between her thighs created a distinct ache she was almost desperate to assuage.
She'd never been this hungry for physical contact. No, not just physical contact, Alvola's touch. His hand on her arm soothed her and she fought the urge to crawl into his lap and rub herself against him like a cat. The kiss had answered one of her most pressing questions, anyway, and that was whether the spark she felt with him was unanswered attraction or a more promising physical need.
She already knew she liked him despite the limited amount of time they'd known each other. Every interaction they'd had showed her his respect for her and her space, tempered by his species need and reactions. Even then, she had the feeling he'd been controlling every movement to keep from interfering with her decision more than biology already was.
He'd given her time to think, to get to know some of the members of his crew, to spend some time in a space that was familiar to her where she could get her bearings for what would come next. It was obvious he respected Aidan, as well, and had some affection for the boy. The tall teenager was close to her heart and it would have bothered her if he'd treated him badly.
When he'd lead her to the table and pulled out a chair, he produced a slim piece of dark glass about the size and shape of a spiral notebook. He held a thumb down on one of the corners and the screen sprang to life.
"Neat," Mindy said, her mind momentarily diverted by the technology. "What's it called?"
"It translates to Personal ADministrative Device," he told her. "Molly dubbed it a padd, which is close enough to what we call it."
"Does it have the ability to connect to the human internet?"
"Not yet," Alvola said. "That is one of the things Aidan will be working on while he's here."
Mindy frowned slightly. "I see. I was hoping to be able to bring up pictures as references. It makes this part easier and slightly faster."
Alvola nodded. "I can see how that would be helpful but I suggest a different method until we're able to access your references. Hard limits and requirements from each party, things that we're willing to negotiate over at a future date and expectations of behaviors."
"That seems like a reasonable place to start," Mindy said, her voice betraying her trepidation.
Moving his fingers quickly across the padd, Alvola brought up what looked like the beginnings of a fill-in-the-blank contract. "Since you are the one most likely to be injured should things get out of control, why don't we start with your hard limits."
"Do you do this kind of thing often?" she asked him, looking at the padd.
"This kind of-" he looked down at the padd and shook his head. "No, not this specifically. This is a generic partnership contract that my people have developed over the last hundred or so years. As the laws governing our planet have gotten more complicated, we decided it was easier to set out expectations before starting any kind of joint venture to keep it from running afoul of bureaucrats and auditors."
"Um, that's a rather unique way of solving that kind of problem," Mindy said, her lips twisted in a bemused smile.
"How do your people handle it?" he asked.
"Humans have a variety of different responses," she told him. "But my clan tends to shoot the revenuers until they decide it's not worth coming to investigate. Works for a few decades, usually, then someone else comes chasing moonshiners and we start shooting again."
"Well, that has the benefit of being direct," Alvola said with a smile.
"Works well when not everybody can claim the benefit of enough schooling to read the legal paperwork. Which, as Molly might have mentioned, is rather more complicated than your average paperwork."
"She did and I promise that there is none of that with this kind of contract. It's very direct and the only things on it are what we both agree to put on it. We can even agree on penalties and damages if one of us breaks our part."
"Alright," Mindy said. "You want to start with hard limits?"
"That would be the easiest, don't you think? And you will go first," he said, fingers poised over the padd.
With a deep breath, Mindy gave the start of her list. "No blood, no permanent damage, no sharing."
"Sharing?" Alvola asked, not looking up from the padd.
"Monogamy," she said, holding her breath. "If we're doing this, neither of us will have sex with anybody else."
His lips tightened and he nodded. "Agreed."
"No isolating me from friends or family, no involving me in something illegal without my knowledge or consent. No drugs or chemical persuasion that's not caused by our own hormones."
He stopped writing on the screen and looked up at her.
"Are you going to argue with any of those?" she asked, her tone defiant.
"No, but I am going to include a requirement for my part," he said.
"And what's that?"
"You will tell me what happened for each of these," he said. "In as much detail as you're comfortable with but you will tell me about all of them."
Chapter 24
Min-dee's mouth set and she nodded. He added his requirement to the contract and they continued. All of her hard limits were things it wouldn't have occurred to him would even be an issue. He couldn't imagine what had happened to cause her to specify bruise size and placement and limits on heart rate and breathing restriction.
"If, in the course of any of this, I feel that my life is in danger, I will stab you," Min-dee told him.
Alvola nodded and added stabbing as a penalty for taking things too far and endangering her then stared at the screen. She'd said it so calmly, so matter-of-fact, it sent a pleasant shiver down his spine.
"What do you want out of our time together?" he asked and could feel his nerves trembling while he waited for her answer.
"I-" she said, then stopped. Her eyebrows drew down into a 'v' and her lips hardened. "I want to be treated with respect and I want an orgasm from each penetrative session."
He nodded, added her requirements, then looked up to meet her eyes. "That's very specific."
"Yes," she said with a nod. "In truth, I want to be satisfied but at least half of my satisfaction has to come from me and my own mental space and attitude. Those are the external factors that will help me achieve that satisfaction."
"Reasonable," he said. "Well, I will add my requirements, then. You will be fully present when we are intimate, will respond respectfully when addressed so, and I will attempt to give you a minimum of three orgasms with each penetrative session."
"Three?" she said, her mouth open. "Why three?"
Alvola shrugged. "Why not? It seems like a good start. There will be no upper limit unless it impacts the physical requirements we've already stated."
She grinned at him. "You're awfully sure of yourself," she told him.
"If you follow my requirements, I'm fairly certain that three will be a nice way to start the day when we don't have time to indulge ourselves," Alvola told her, keeping the eye contact.
Her breath hitched and the skin on her neck flushed red. He smiled, certain she wouldn't argue with him. Her mouth snapped shut and she looked down at her hands folded on the table.
"Do you have anything else you want?" she asked, her voice breathy.
"We're already trying it but I want to state this explicitly," he said. "We will communicate and assume the other person is approaching any point of conflict or disagreement with the best intentions. We are working around a language barrier and several layers of different societies with behavioral expectations. I suspect, based on some of the things Molly has said, that we have more in common than would be expected of people from marginalized societies on different planets."
"Agreed," Min-dee said. "And I haven't gotten any stories about you yet."
"We have time," he said gently. "I will tell you my stories and we will make some together."
Her cheeks flushed and she nodded. "I don't want this to only be about sex," she told him. "I'm not ready to make any kind of commitment but I really do want to get to know you better."
"I want to know all of you," he told her. "To know every inch of your skin, every pathway your thoughts take, every story of every joy and sorrow and frustration that made you who you are today. I want to know who you become in the future."
He paused and she looked up at him.
"And I want to know why Maw-lee says you look like a Pixie."
She laughed and it made her whole face shine. "That's a bit of a long story," she said. "And it involves a lot of our early relationship. There's pictures, though, and I can show you when we eventually get a connection to the Earth's communication network."
"I will make it a priority, then," he said. "But after something else."
"What's a higher priority?" she asked.
Pressing his thumb next to his name on the padd, he turned it to Min-dee and watched while she looked it over.
"There's translations?" she asked, then looked closer at it. "Your translation software needs work."
Alvola sighed. "That is also a priority but we will be updating that while we're attempting to connect to the Earth's communications network. I suspect that the connection will help fix the software which is currently working from very limited data."
"That's fair," she said and put her thumb next to the line where she’d typed her name on the padd.
He took the padd and slid it into a slot on the side of the table. It would charge the device while uploading the contract to his personal files. It would remain privileged information until one or both of them gave someone else permission to view it. His shoulders relaxed and he took a breath, feeling a weight lift off of him that he hadn't realized was there.
