Page 12 of Monsters in Love: Lost in the Stars

Mary

“I wish there were windows.” The woman who says it—Roisin, twenty-five, from Dublin, a nurse—looks down at her hands as she scrapes at one thumbnail with the other.

“I heard a rumor that the first women who came over were so sick from the views in-transit that the whole ship was full of vomit.” Nancy—thirty-seven, from Akron, homemaker and comedienne. “If that’s true, I’m glad we’ve got the proverbial blinds closed.”

“Mary?” Tiffany asks, looking at me with expectation.

She’s twenty-six, from Portland—like me—and she was a barista before and wants to open a zurgle cafe…

When it takes me a half second too long to respond, she asks, “Is that true?”

All of the women sitting in the ship’s passenger compartment turn and look at me.

There are seven of us. It’s a standard delivery number for the IBA’s current mail-order bride operations.

“Well, we’ve passed through at least two wormholes and I’ve been told their event horizons are really harmful to human eyes… but the lack of windows is actually for radiation protection.”

There’s a murmur of concern from the group.

“The compartment we’re in is completely shielded from it,” I tell them as Sasha—thirty-two, from LA, a dancer—exhales with relief.

“They could give us windows,” I say, “But then we’d have to spend two to four weeks in quarantine, and I think we’d all be very sad to have to wait even longer.”

There’s a round of giggles and some whispering titters.

“How do you know all of that?” Nancy asks.

“She works for the Agency,” Tiffany says before I can answer.

“Already?” Nancy looks at me like she doesn’t believe it.

“Either that or I’m clairvoyant.” I wink at her, but she looks even more uneasy now. “I’m kidding. Tiff’s right. I was hired to be a new arrival liaison. In a few weeks, I’ll be the one waiting for women like us to arrive, so I can give the spiel someone else is going to give us shortly.”

“She’s who we’ll call if we have any problems,” Tiffany says.

“What kind of problems will we have?” Roisin asks.

“Hopefully none, but there might be some transitional things that come up. It’s a whole new world, after all.”

Ashley and Jen—silent up to this point—break into song and then immediately apologize.

They’re not the first sisters to come over, but the records I’ve seen tell me they are the first sisters to make this journey together.

I feel the shift in gravity. It’s infinitesimal, and I see when the others sense it, even though they don’t know exactly what it means.

“We’re landing, I tell them as I get up and grab a ginger ale for Tiffany and one for Nancy, too.

Nancy takes it with a suspicious “Thank you?”

Tiffany smiles at me sheepishly as she takes hers. “You’d think they’d have figured out motion sickness before they learned how to jump galaxies.”

“They’re working on it now,” I tell her, even though it probably won’t be an issue once she’s set foot on the planet. “But Sians don’t get motion sickness, so they didn’t consider it.”

“And I’m not in the majority,” she grimaces and takes another long drink, closing her eyes. “Once I get my feet back on solid… ground? God, it’s so weird that ‘Earth’ doesn’t apply anymore.”

“No it does not.” There’s no going back.

Roisin and Nancy scoot closer to the exit, making plans to get together “after” the honeymoon.

We’re all aware of the probable events of the next two weeks.

The others keep glancing at the other side of the room with excited and nervous smiles.

Any minute now, we’ll officially be on our new homeworld.

The IBA—The Isia Bondmate Agency, or just “the Agency”—has been ferrying women across two galaxies for years. Giving up Earth is a calculated risk and more than a few of my friends have told me the equation adds up. That’s not what has my stomach fluttering as we touch down and a heavy feeling settles over me.

They all feel it too.

They all look at the wall that will eventually fold out and drop like a ramp.

I look in the other direction.

Months of planning, mountains of paperwork and dozens of interviews and behind-the-scenes algorithms have gotten all seven of us to this point.

And when the first crack of light shows as the ramp opens onto Isia… I’m the only one who doesn’t stand up.

Even Tiffany’s weak stomach is overridden by anticipation.

An Agency employee comes to instruct them and she spares me a quick smile. I know what she’s telling them, so I follow those instructions, even though I can’t hear them.

Deep breaths.

We’ve slowly been breathing more and more of Isia’s atmospheric mix on the way across the galaxy, but the air is different here and that affects people differently.

While she motions them toward the ramp, I finally stand and look out to the new world beyond them.

They don’t even notice when I hang back. No one glances behind them. Everything they want is waiting at the bottom of that ramp.

The line of Sian men waiting makes me smile, because I know they’ve been waiting even longer for these women to come to them.

Nancy is the first one who’s taken out to her new mate, and he catches her up immediately, lifting her to compensate for the difference in their height and kisses her like he’d devour her if he could.

Everyone has different levels of prior communication with their prospective mates… I wonder how many times they’ve talked before this, because she is giving as good as she gets.

The other women have similar introductions. Half of them are dragged away, nearly running after their match to get their allowed luggage and get back to whatever bed or flat surface he’s prepared to seal their promised bond.

That very public introduction isn’t a part of the ritual I have to take part in. I’m very happy not to be put on display.

Kade isn’t waiting on the tarmac for me.

I clutch my bag and turn toward the dark hallway. It has bathrooms, and a door marked “crew only.”

That’s where my mate is.

The entire flight, they’ve been waiting to get to their Sian match. Mine delivered us.

And now that I’m alone… I exhale, finally letting myself feel my nerves completely. Shaking my arms to get the fidgets out, I remind myself not to chew on the inside of my cheek.

I know so much about this new life I’ve chosen, but so little about Kade’s side of things.

I will know it, though.

I want to know everything.

That door opens more quickly than I expected it to and Kade comes to me like a shadow. The lights overhead are too dim to show the true color of his skin, but like one third of the Sian population, he’s blue.

I had chuckled to myself when I’d gotten to his file. A ship pilot who was navy blue . It tickled me enough that I ignored one of my immediate nos and set him in the maybe pile… and here we are.

And I catch glimpses of that color on his hands, the sharp ridges of his brow spikes, as well as the ones on his ears.

Ignoring everything but shape, he might pass for human for a half a nanosecond. His brown eyes—fourth most common—trace over me and I wonder if he’s cataloging me the way I am him.

I know a whole lot about Sian physiology. It’s part of my job.

He’s six feet nine inches by imperial measurements—that’s a rule among their kind, with very few exceptions—but I don’t step back when he gets close enough to me that I have to tip my head all the way back.

“Hi,” I say, my voice a little breathier than I want it to be.

“Mary,” he takes my hand and, lifting it to his lips, he kisses my palm. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Me too.”

We stay there, unmoving, for a heartbeat longer than I expect.

And then two.

My nerves come back, but they have a different flavor when I swallow back that uncertainty.

I’ve heard rumors that some Sian men are insatiable at the first scent of their mate. But Kade is all rigid politeness.

Would I have preferred being shoved to the thin carpet and getting a quick bond with a side of rug burn? Probably not… but I can’t tell if he’s happy I’m here or not.

I’ve also heard rumors that sometimes a woman gets to Isia and the man waiting for her changes his mind…

Everything is so quiet, I start to question my choices and the walls start to creep a little closer.

“If I’m not what you?—”

He shakes his head at me. “I don’t know what you’re about to say, but I don’t want to hear it.

“You are,” he says, and it could mean anything.

When he leans down, hooking an arm around my waist and lifts me up to kiss me… it means everything.

The kiss is hungry. His mouth threatens to devour me, even though he is so still. The desire in this kiss is exactly what the Agency promises women signing up to leave Earth behind.

It makes me feel like I’m floating… even more than the fact that my feet are dangling off the floor.

And when he draws back, I have to take a deep breath to recenter myself.

“Do you have anything else you need to do before we get out of here?”

“No.” He lets me slide back down to the floor and I feel every inch of him, like my body wants to make a map of his.

“Then I think it’s time you take me home, isn’t it?”

He shakes his head. “Not yet. I have something else in mind.”

I know he can’t feel it yet, so I say, “As long as there’s a bed wherever you want to go, lead the way.”

Because I want to make him mine and, even though I know it would be smarter to go slow, I’m not here to hold hands and go out for ice cream first. That can come later.

“Make me yours, Kade.

His eyes flare, but he’s still so still… I’m not sure he’s taken a breath since he came to me.

Hand clasping mine, he pulls me deeper into the ship, through the crew only section and—I hope—to the start of our future together.

Kade

Whoever changed the Agency landing pad between when I left and now is on my permanent hate list.

Helping Mary down the side stairs out of the behemoth I just piloted across galaxies, I curse the walk ahead of us.

The hangar we need to get to is only three pads away, but that means dodging around a dozen other men—some of whom might try to talk to us—and automated machinery that will run over her toes if I let it. I can’t carry her without switching off my almost depleted oxygen regulator.

I need to get us to my personal craft, and I need to get us there now .

The regulator chirps and faintly vibrates inside my chest.

I switched it on before I left the ship’s bridge and I don’t trust myself to breathe her in yet.

Seeing her in person had been a relief.

Touching her had been a torture.

One look was all it took to know she is the best and worst decision I’ve ever made.

Holding her hand more tightly, I dodge around machinery, lifting her over some of the steps that are just a little too high for a human of her height.

Several ground crew workers start to say hello or call out, and then they see her. Their eyes go wide and their mouths clamp shut as they turn to watch us go.

I don’t blame them.

I’d be stunned too.

Even though they know —we all know why men hurry away from the ship with their mates—I don’t let myself quicken my pace.

All the way across the tarmac, her attention snaps this way and that. She looks at the ships, the distant mountains, the sky… She’s trying to take it all in, I know, but I can’t take the risk of pausing to answer the questions I know are filling her head.

Not here.

Not now.

I’ll show her everything she wants to see once we’re back on Isia. I’ll satisfy her every curiosity once this primal urge releases me.

I grimace because I can’t laugh. I promised to protect her when we spoke before, but the only one she needs protection from right now is me.

The door to the private hangar opens beneath the gentle press of my palm—the lock knows it’s me—and once we’re inside, Mary lets out a low whistle.

“That is a fun little space ship,” she says.

I open my mouth to tell her it’s the fastest commercially available, but before I can even think about the specs, my chest chirps again and Mary looks down at it with pinched brows.

“What was that?”

“A reminder,” I tell her, pulling the boarding stairs down and helping her up the first few. “It’s going to get more insistent if we don’t get inside.”

She looks at me quizzically, but she doesn’t argue. She hurries up and inside and I follow after.

I watch the stairs pull back up into the ship, sealing us off from the outside world, and then turn to Mary. She’s taking it all in again, eyes wide, looking at every dial and detail, just like she looked at me…

With the hangar dome still secured and the visors dark, I finally switch the regulator off.

Thank the Saints I had that. Zeran or Frenk might have gotten an eyeful when I lost control of my senses and made her mine on the transport floor.

Now, alone with her, fully enveloped in her scent, that part of me I knew I wouldn’t be able to control breaks free. I drag her against me and her small squawk of alarmed surprise makes my cock twitch.

Her lips are so soft when I kiss her again. Her tongue toying with mine, she grips my uniform front tight, as if she wants to pull me even closer… as if I’m not already gripping her so tight, I’m worried I’ll crush her.

I turn the pilot’s chair with my knee and lift her legs up so I don’t crush them as I sit.

With her legs slung over the arms like this, her heat soaks through the fabric and my cock aches, pressing toward her.

It was never my intention to let need and impatience override my other plans, but every inhale of her is like a hit of a drug.

“Do you want me to wait until we’re somewhere with sheets that clean themselves?” Threading my fingers into her hair, I tighten my grip to keep her from leaning in to kiss me again. “Or can I fuck you right here and we’ll deal with the consequences later?”

Mary’s smile is all the answer I get before she shakes my hand free of her hair and pulls her shirt off over her head, tossing it into the copilot’s chair.

Hot pink lace cups her breasts and I brush my palm across it.

“Did you wear this for me?” I ask, turning my hand and slipping one finger between the lace and her skin to brush her nipple. Her body rolls and her hips rock, and I have to grit my teeth.

“I wore it for me,” she says with a wicked little smile. “But if you like it too…”

Dipping my head down, I suck at her nipple through that lace. I almost bite, but I don’t want to snag the delicate fabric.

Her hands wrap around my head and she rocks her hips more, grinding against me torturously.

“It felt like we walked a mile to get here. I spent the whole time trying to distract myself.” She presses my head back and looks at me with lust-hooded eyes. “I don’t want to wait any longer, Kade. If it means I have to deep clean this ship myself, I want what you promised me before I left Earth. I want you to fuck me everyway you know how and then do it again.”

Her hands clutch my face when she kisses me and I melt with her… until my mind catches up and I realize the error of my ways.

My flight suit is going to be a battle to get off.

Mary

Leave Earth—and all your cares—behind and get a sexy alien mate.

That had been the promise, and Kade delivers on the sexy part.

I’m going to enjoy kissing him every chance I get. His lips are oh, so soft, but that’s the only part of him that is.

The ridges on his face are hard, the spines on his ears are stiff… Right now, there’s only one thing I want. There’s only one thing my body demands. And it’s hard too.

But it’s trapped inside his uniform, and I don’t know how to get that off.

Kade’s fingers hook in my pants’ waistband and he gets them down, over my ass and half way up my thighs before he abandons them and his fingers delve between my legs.

His exploring fingers push my underwear aside and sink into me. We both moan into each other’s mouths as my body tightens around him.

My body accepts his explorations so easily. I’m already dripping wet.

That’s the vitamin S.

The supplements we have to start taking the moment we secure our match with the Agency make the “juices” flow more freely. They make our tissues stretchier, and… they definitely dial up whatever our normal horniness levels were to start.

There’s a toy in my bag that has put in its fair share of work in the last few months. I’m honestly surprised I haven’t broken it. But I won’t break Kade.

And thanks to those supplements—and the cumulative hours of “practice”—I’m fairly certain he won’t break me either.

“ Saints, ” he curses. “The scent of you is enough to make me ravenous.”

A gasp steals my breath for a moment as his fingers curl inside of me, but I manage to say, “Then maybe you should eat.”

His grin is wicked, one side of his lips pulling up at the corner, exposing his sharp teeth.

He looks to one side, then toward the back, and curses in Sianese.

Holding me so awkwardly against him, he shifts forward, going to his knees. He puts me in the other, swiveling seat and lifts my legs up, pulling me forward until my ass hangs off the edge.. He slings the gusset of my pants behind his head, hooking me in place over his shoulders and I quickly unhook the little silver clasps on the sides of my underwear and fling them to the back… just in time.

The first touch of Kade’s forked tongue to my pussy makes me squirm.

My back bows in the seat and I clasp my hands on the top of his head.

The Agency trains them for this. And if Kade is any indication, they train them well.

He kisses my thigh with a low sound that I could mistake for a growl. “I want to know the taste of your orgasm.

Kissing my other thigh, he says, “I want to see it and hear it. I want to know that pleasure is ours .”

His lips and tongue return to my pussy and my eyes cross when they latch onto my clit.

He eats my pussy like it’s his favorite meal, even though this is his first taste.

One more Agency promise delivered on.

Attentive lovers, check.

“Oh God,” I whisper as his tongue shifts, the two tips toying with me, as his fingers grip my legs tighter. “Yes.”

Yes please. More. Don’t stop… A dozen pleas slip from my lips as Kade eats me out like it’s his only reason for existence.

When he finds that perfect rhythm, he doesn’t stop until I’m squirming. He doesn’t stop until I’m gasping, crying out his name, nearly crushing his head between my thighs as my orgasm rips through me.

It echoes off the domed window above me and Kade doesn’t let up until my thighs release their death grip on him.

“I’m going to enjoy hearing you scream my name like that every chance I get.”

I don’t tell him I don’t remember half the things I said.

“Promise?”

He smiles at me and I would swear the sound is a growl this time. But his hands go to the front of his uniform, and that’s all that matters.

He struggles with his clothing and if I wasn’t so frustrated with need, I might laugh. I don’t even have the ability to appreciate the wide, dark planes of his body, the way he deserves.

There are three red lights beneath the skin on his chest…

I’ll ask about them later.

I bend in a ridiculous way to get my shoes off and then drag my pants off over his head too.

Holding onto the armrests so I don’t reach for him, I watch him fight with his clothes. When he finally gets them off, I grip the armrests tighter.

But I can’t stop myself from reaching for him.

I want to drag him to me, but I don’t.

Even though I’ve seen Sian cocks before—they feature heavily in the second stage of the Agency’s marketing material—Kade’s is special… it’s mine.

Trailing my fingers along the hard ridges that run along the underside of him, I bite my tongue when they move. Flaring, the way they will inside me, I stroke once to be certain they aren’t going to hurt.

A dark bead of cum glitters at the tip of him. There are three thick tubes under his skin, just waiting to fill me up.

“Mary?” My name is a question, soft, and under his breath.

When I meet his eyes, he says, “How much longer do you want to wait?”

I don’t.

Releasing him, I say, “Curiosity can come later… It’s your turn.”

Going back to his knees, Kade presses my legs wider, and his pupils dilate when he looks at me… at the sloppy mess his tongue left behind.

“Are you still sure you want this, Mary?” I hear the words and know he’s really asking, “Are you still sure you want me?”

“Yes.” I want him even more now than I did before, and as soon as the bond clicks into place, he’ll know just how much I want him.

It can happen as soon as his cock notches into me. It might not take until he comes… No one’s figured out exactly why Sian and humans bond the way we do.

I don’t care how or why, I just want him, however the universe decides to give him to me.

“You’re mine Mary. As soon as I saw you, I knew you were the one. As soon as we spoke, I knew there could never be anyone else.”

“Please,” I whimper, watching him line himself up with me.

If I thought I could manage it, I’d push him back. I’d get him on the floor and I’d pounce.

I would ride my Sian mate so hard the ship fell off its landing gear.

“I’ll give you what you need, dajzha. I promise.”

He whispers the words of a prayer as his cock parts me, as he slips inside my waiting body. My pussy grips him greedily, and I angle my hips, trying to get closer, to get more. I want all of him.

I want everything he’s promised, and more

His cock fits inside of me so perfectly, it triggers a strange sort of relief.

This is exactly where I’m supposed to be. It’s exactly where I want to be and from the look on Kade’s face, it’s exactly where he wants to be, too.

I drag his face down so I can kiss him and as our lips touch—almost as if we’re completing an electrical circuit—the bond clicks into place.

“Oh,” I breathe the word and clench even more tightly around him as he curses, head bowing, lips going to my shoulder.

The lusty need that floods into me from him is so strong, so bright and sharp, I move on him without fully intending to. My body takes over and—thank god—he moves too.

We devolve into panting breaths and writhing bodies, racing for completion and the relief that has to come with it.

Muttering my name against my skin, Kade’s hands grip me so tightly. In the next moment he goes still, holding me down onto him as pleasure and relief pulse into me with a warmth that drags me into my own orgasm.

Muscles locked and twitching, I hold him closer to me, nails biting into his skin as we shudder through the end of our orgasms.

I don’t let him go when the intensity ebbs, and he doesn’t release me, either.

But I have to eventually, and when I do, he eases back, releasing the proverbial flood gates.

There’s so much cum.

Dark and glistening, it drips from me, from the seat… from his still hard cock.

“Let me get the spill kit,” he says, standing and nearly tripping over the pants still bunched around his legs.

I watch him lazily, wondering… what’s the point? Sian men come twice, every time.

It’s one of the rules.

They’re all six-foot nine, they’re all sexy as hell, and they all come twice.

He groans as he looks at me, still blissfully naked and basking in the afterglow. “Now I know why they gave me a month off.”

“Just enough time so you don’t get sick of me,” I tease him.

“I’m not going to get sick of you, dajzha.” He brushes a wet cloth over me and we both shiver. He can feel it now.

“Save the clean up for a few more minutes?”

He goes to the floor on his back when I push him and I exhale a long and contented sigh of relief as I line his cock up and sink back onto him.

My fingers press against the hard plate under his skin and I ignore the questions floating in my head, letting the swirl of pleasure flowing back and forth between us consume me until I clench down on him again, my body demanding its due and his paying in thick warm streams of cum that fill me up and ooze out of us every time I rise to sink back down on him.

When he finally starts to soften, I say. “Okay, now we can clean up.”

We dress in a soft silence, feeling each other in the bond that will be ever present now, and he makes me sit in the pilot’s chair while he cleans up the mess.

“I can help,” I tell him.

“I know.”

But he doesn’t let me.

And when he’s done, he kisses me again and together, we linger in the feeling that flutters between us. It’s soft, like moth wings on my skin.

“Let me take you somewhere that has a self-cleaning bed and food and water.” He brushes my hair out of my face. “I’m supposed to take care of you now. Let me.”

“Okay.” Why would I ever say no to that?