Page 369 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Jenny

I eyed the little hatch with trepidation. Arki’s face was barely lit in the darkness of the cargo bay as he looked out at me from it at a cute, upside-down angle. He wanted me to climb in there with him; I hadn’t expected that to mean I’d have to climb over his face. That was extremely intimate.

With anyone else, I would have said it was deliberate so they could feel me up.

With Akri… I was certain that he had no clue what he was asking me to do or what the implications were.

I didn’t even think he understood his own body’s responses when he touched me.

Like that blurted-out surprise about an erection that first evening.

It was a pretty safe bet that he was a virgin, which was baffling considering how sexy I thought he was.

Sounds coming from behind me were what convinced me I just had to do it.

I couldn’t let us get caught at the very last moment; it would be idiotic to let something like embarrassment stop me.

It was the most awkward climb into a tight space I’d ever performed, balancing on my hands so I could lift my legs inside, over Akri’s head, one after the other.

Then I felt the solid warmth of his tentacles as they glided up my legs, their path leading straight to the center between my legs.

I froze in place, my face flushing red, my body coming alive with desire.

Oh, what would it be like to let him do that unhindered?

I was suddenly dying to find out—which was the most inappropriate moment to get horny.

Akri! Damn it! What were you doing to me?

I couldn’t even blame him; he would just say it was his tentacles malfunctioning, all apologetic.

When I moved my hips over his face, he tilted his damn nose straight into the seam of my pants.

I swear to God, I heard him inhale, followed by a deep groan.

I should be cursing him for being a pervert, but I knew this was just curiosity and instinct for him, and it was cute and flattering how unfiltered his responses to me were.

By the time I managed to align my body properly with his, the hatch closing us into this cramped hiding space, my panties were soaked.

Worse, I was lying belly-down on top of his throbbing cock, and there was no denying that he was huge and thick.

I needed a moment to gather my damn wits if I wanted to prevent myself from doing something wholly insane, something that was bound to get us caught.

I babbled to him to distract myself, but my words just led me to the attraction simmering between us.

I wanted to reach up and touch his tentacles, reach down and touch his massive cock.

I wanted to grind myself against it until I came apart in his arms. I wanted to blow his damn mind.

I knew I could, because he responded so powerfully to everything I did; it was amazing for my ego.

Kissing him was a mistake, but not one I could regret.

His mouth was soft beneath my own; his shocked breath and eager response sent arousal tingling down my spine.

I loved his taste—uniquely him and rich with flavor.

I was surrounded by him, my senses overwhelmed by his scent, taste, and warmth.

He had his arms around me, one hand kneading my ass, his tentacles stroking down along my spine and dipping under my arm to rub the sides of my breasts.

Akri might never have done this before, but his instincts were spot on.

Despite the warning bells in my head telling me to slow down, to talk about this first, I ground my mons against his erection, seeking the friction I needed.

There—just like that—I exploded in a powerful, thrill-filled orgasm.

Akri’s chest was the only thing that muffled the pleasure-filled moan coming from deep in my belly.

His body was tight as a bowstring beneath mine, heels pressed into the floor, hips arched up as he shuddered in his own release.

He made a strangled “ungh” kind of noise that I found sexy as fuck.

I jerked my head up just in time to see his face as his orgasm passed through him.

He hadn’t closed his eyes, and they were sparkling red and orange stars along the black velvet of his irises.

I’d caused that. I was willing to bet that, for some bizarre reason, it was the first time he’d ever orgasmed too. Maybe there was some truth to his story of only recently possessing this body he was in. After all, it was just so strange.

We lay together, panting, our ears directed at the noises coming from beyond the metal panel.

Had anyone heard us? It didn’t seem like it.

There were just the noises of crates thudding to the deck, machinery humming, and voices yelling at each other.

Had we somehow just gone through that Earth-shattering moment and nobody had even noticed?

I felt like my entire world had tilted on its axis, changing everything I wanted from my life out here in space.

“Jenny?” Akri murmured against the crown of my head. “What was that?” he asked. It was the tremble in his rough, husky voice that did me in, that made me melt for him completely. I hadn’t been the only one whose whole world had just changed with a few impulsive, instinctual touches.

“That,” I whispered, my own voice shaking, “was amazing sex without the actual sex part… At least,” I hesitated, “it was definitely amazing for me.” I didn’t think I had imagined any of his responses—his eagerness to delve into that physical contact—but I’d been wrong before.

“Oh… No wonder my friends keep telling me that it’s private.

Now I understand that I shouldn’t have watched them,” he answered, and the strange, quirky response surprised a giggle out of me, one that I had to smother against his chest. What now?

What was he talking about this time? I honestly adored it when he said stuff like that.

I knew this made him come off as a peeping Tom, but he didn’t have those vibes—I knew he meant it in a different way. I just had no clue what.

“But Jenny,” he said quietly against my hair, “how can it be sex but not sex? That does not compute.” He was touching me in many places, his arms tight around my middle, his tentacles stroking gently along my shoulders and the back of my head, where I was tucked into his chest. One hand was definitely still cupping my butt, and it didn’t appear that he had any plans to move it.

“We both came, but there was no undressing and no… joining of bodies?” I tried to explain, dragging my fingers along the soft weave of his shirt.

He made a good pillow, and now I was getting drowsy.

This was not a bad place to go to sleep for a while: we were safe, and Akri was finally holding me in his arms again.

I’d been craving that ever since that first night.

“Ah, I see,” he murmured. “Rest. This is an optimal time for it.” With those final words, I surrendered myself to settling in for a nap.

We probably both would have liked to clean ourselves up a little, but, since our supplies were at our feet, there was just no way to reach them. It would have to wait.

Under the noise of the last crates being loaded onto the ship, I surrendered myself to sleep—only to wake what felt like seconds later to Akri gently squeezing my shoulder. “We have arrived, Jenny,” he said quietly. “And we need to hurry before they start unloading.”

I was still groggy and a little out of it, but I hurriedly wiped my face and checked his chest to see if I hadn’t drooled all over him in my sleep.

Akri was already busy getting the hatch open, which was much harder now that cargo was stacked almost entirely against the wall.

We had to contort ourselves pretty far to crawl out of the tiny gap left to us, and Akri had to help pull me up to get my pack of supplies free.

I only knew the plan in rough strokes: Akri needed to get on this base to make use of their supercomputer.

He had shown me the green gemstone amulet he wore, indicating that it was the storage device he wanted to crack.

Beyond that, I had no clue, but Akri was sure of where we should be going, so I followed his lead.

He disabled some alarms on a small emergency hatch, and then the two of us slipped outside into the cold desert night.

We were beneath the belly of the short-range supply ship, which squatted like a giant toad on the landing pad.

The cold air raised goosebumps on my skin, but there was no time to grab my thick coat from my bag.

The two of us had to jog across the small landing area to take cover behind a rock formation before anyone came out onto the landing pad to unload the ship.

If it was anything like how deliveries were often timed down to the minute back on Earth, it wouldn’t be long before they came to empty the ship.

What took my breath away was the shimmering white facility that lay beyond the landing pad.

It was a bit like a mirage in the desert, made of quartz stone that reflected heat back into the desert during the day.

It was much bigger than I expected it to be, and far prettier, too.

I’d been imagining a gray lab with antennas on the roof and a big dome somewhere—or maybe some kind of evil supervillain lair.

This just looked like a sprawled-out office complex made of the purest white stone.

Green plants dangled over the edges of the roof and down the walls, and the clatter of a fountain could even be heard in the distance.

This was built not just to be functional, but beautiful.

We ducked behind a pile of rocks just as the noise of the cargo hatch opening disturbed the silence of the desert.

“We wait. Once all this has settled down and the sun is up, we will breach the facility.” I didn’t like the sound of waiting till sunrise; it would get unbearably hot out here almost as soon as the light started hitting the sand.

I’d burn to a crisp if we didn’t have adequate cover and water.

A pile of rocks didn’t count as cover, since it only kept us out of sight of the people on the landing pad…

“This way. If my information is correct, this area is abandoned right now.” Akri’s tentacle on my shoulder tugged me away from the rocks, and I followed his low, crouched run across the sands to an outbuilding in the distance—some kind of garage by the looks of it.

The sudden hand on my arm stopped me in my tracks.

“On my mark, run as fast as you can. Hit the wall there and stay in place until I say otherwise,” Akri instructed me, his tentacle pointing at a specific spot along the wall.

I felt extremely exposed without the cover of the rocks, just sitting there on the sand while I waited for his signal.

When it came, it felt like my arms were clumps of ice, though it had only been half a minute at most. The two of us sped across the remaining stretch to the building as fast as we could run in the loose sand.

I did as he said, thudding my body up against the freezing stone wall, and then I didn’t move until he told me otherwise.

My teeth chattering, my body trembling from the cold, I was not the best statue, but I sure tried.

He was timing our movements to avoid camera detection; that was the only explanation, though I had no clue how he could possibly know all that.

Akri was right next to me, not even winded from our run in the difficult terrain.

His shoulder against mine, one tentacle curling around my neck, they were the only points of heat on my body.

At his mark, we scuttled along the wall to a metal side door next to the much bigger garage doors.

Akri already had a little gadget in hand, and it made short work of the lock, allowing us inside the building in a matter of seconds.

I froze in place once inside—the complete darkness was blinding—but at least the air in here was much warmer than outside, and my body stopped shaking.

When the lights came on, I was blinded again, my eyes aching from the sudden transition.

Akri didn’t seem to have any such problems, taking my backpack from my shoulders, pulling out my coat, and draping it around me with care.

“My apologies, Jenny; I should have taken into account the temperature regulation of your body.” And then he added, much less stiffly, “I can’t believe your teeth clack together like that when you’re cold.

It seems so inefficient.” There was a teasing note in his voice that invited me to laugh with him.

Now that I no longer felt like a frozen Popsicle, that was easy.

“Come on, we’ll hide here before we make our way into the base,” Akri urged, pulling me away from the workbench-lined wall just off the garage bay filled with various all-terrain vehicles.

Several doors led away from the garage area, and he chose the nearest one, ushering me into what had to be some kind of break room.

I was very grateful when the place proved to be air-conditioned to just the right temperature for me.

As far as hiding places went, this was definitely a step up from the last one, space-wise.

I convinced Akri to eat, and then the two of us hunkered down for the next few hours, waiting for our window of opportunity.

We filled the time talking and planning our next moves, or rather, Akri explaining what was ahead of us.

Then he told me little stories about each of his friends back on “home,” as he called the ship he used to live on.