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Page 26 of The Royal’s Bumblebee (Operation Colonise #2)

A week later

Izule

It has been a week since my father passed.

Billie couldn’t come with me to the departing call, as having the festival hall full of Ucfeni ululating with grief as a chorus of farewell would have been too loud for even her ear defenders.

Across Thelia, Kings and their families would have observed silence at that time.

My brothers who couldn’t come in time for the departing call in person would call out from where they nested.

It was strange to think of Szelor ululating with grief in the thick of the jungle with the Rapali tribe.

He would do it, though.

He may be a mean shucker, but he loved our father as well.

It was cathartic, getting it all off my chest, and I held Jajana as she wept for an hour afterwards.

Vrujac was coronated as our King and Saxci our Queen. The moment Halas was able to take Jajana from me, and I was content to do this, I returned to Billie.

For the last week she has been taking care of me.

I haven’t needed her to dote on me, but I have enjoyed letting her.

She has taken great pride and pleasure in doing so.

I have not run out of glasses of water all week, and she gives me spontaneous hugs that make my chest puff out with joy.

I’m here, she’d say, because that’s what I told her I needed.

For her to be with me.

My grief will never truly disappear, but it’s getting easier to smile and Billie is a big part of that.

On the fourth day, she said she needs to get back to work.

There was an issue with the position of one of the satellites they are using to look at another planet.

I expected that she meant she was returning to her normal routine.

She was, for the most part, but took me by the hand and brought me into her office with her.

“I have to work.

Alaric keeps messaging me and saying it’s urgent.

You coil up here behind my chair and be nice and quiet, and whenever I need to wait for an algorithm or diagnostic program to finish processing, I will come and sit with you.”

I smile with fond memory, as she has taken very literally what I told her about being with me as a form of comfort.

Even as I coil behind her obediently as she works, she instructs me to place my tail over her lap so we are still touching.

Billie is working relentlessly to reposition the satellite and restore control over it.

I am working desperately not to take advantage of all the ways she touches me.

Even now, she’s absently stroking my tail on her lap and I am…struggling.

I want to coil my tail around her, bring her out of her chair and place her in my coil.

Not to cuddle.

We do that as easy as breathing now.

A well earned and precious gift, from a woman who flinches and cowers from anyone else’s touch.

No, I want to tangle with her.

I want to kiss her breathless.

I want to hold her close, line her slit with mine and unsheathe my cock inside her.

Billie has openly declared me as hers to my family, to her sister, and to her boss.

Yet, she hasn’t actually claimed me yet.

On Gcorket, I planned to bring her back to the nest to present myself to her…but then my father was killed.

Understandably, my mating drive was not at the forefront of my mind.

I smile, thinking of my father.

I am pleased that he got to hear how much Billie means to me, and how she feels about me as well. A most welcome and advantageous addition, he called her. He wanted to proudly tell our gathered subjects that Billie had claimed me. He approved. It…means a lot to me that my father approved of my choice of mate. He passed knowing I’ve found love. This limbo I’ve found myself in is torture. Claimed in word, but not in deed.

“Billie?”

I ask cautiously from my coiled position behind her in her office.

Her hands dance across the keyboard and normally I wouldn’t interrupt her.

I frown when she doesn’t answer and resound myself to waiting for 5pm when she signs off, when she turns in her swivel chair to face me.

“Do you need physical contact?”

She raises both hands towards me, palm up, and I greedily nod and interlock my fingers with hers.

I guide her out of her chair and walk her to step over my coiled tail.

She stands in the middle of my bulk.

I release her hands so she can wrap her arms around my waist.

I hold her back with both hands and smile down at her as she raises her chin.

She’s looking at my mouth, of course, so I make sure to smile for her.

“Thank you.

How is your work going? Have you taken control of the satellite now? Can you see AU…4..”

“AU 418.”

She nods and smiles at me.

“Yes, and it’s viable for potential colonisation.

Very similar to Thelia in many ways.”

“I see.”

I clear my throat and decide I can’t wait in the in between state any longer.

I have thought about how to suggest we move things along, and proceed with my plan. “Billie?”

“Yes?”

“I have something I would like to ask you.”

“Okay.”

She waits patiently and I lick the dry roof of my mouth.

Billie doesn’t deal well with subtleties or insinuations.

It’s better to be direct with her, or I’ll end up frustrating her.

“You have claimed me as yours.”

She nods.

“I wish for us to be intimate. To mate.”

My throat scales are probably dark brown right now, I’m blushing so hard.

“Would you like to mate with me?”

She stares at me for a moment and I can see her moving her thoughts around in her honey brown eyes before she replies.

“You mean sex? You want us to have sex?”

“I want us to be intimate in every way.”

I lick my lips and lean closer to her.

It’s my turn to stare at her pretty pink lips.

“I would like to kiss you and take you to our nest to tangle together.

To make love to you and share physical pleasure with you.

I-I have desired you for a long time and with your consent, I want us to mate.”

I speak closer to her mouth, tasting her breath with my tongue and ghosting the forked tip at her bottom lip.

“I am yours Billie.

Have me, please.”

I lean in to kiss her, but she turns away from me.

My hood flattens with worry.

Have I been too direct? She holds the coil of my tail and swings her legs over my coil to return to her chair.

I remain frozen in time as she resumes typing her fingers at speed over the keyboard.

I frown, feeling rejected in my failure to seduce her.

If she isn’t ready for intimacy yet, at least I know where I stand.

I’ll wait for her, of course, though it’s hard not to feel disappointed.

“I will leave you to work.”

I uncoil my tail from beneath me and silently head for the exit.

“Yes that’s right.

My shift finishes at 5pm.”

I stop in the doorway and peer over my shoulder at her curiously.

“Then I will relieve myself and have a shower.”

I nod absently.

That is her usual routine.

“Then we can have sex.”

She nods at her screen like she does when she’s solved a particularly difficult coding issue, and my hood snaps wide open.

I blink and push my chest out, my tail tip flicking with anticipation.

“Is it true that Ucfeni produce natural lubricant?”

“Yes. We do.”

I grip the doorway to stop myself from sliding back over there to show her.

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve been researching the mechanics of how we would have sex since I realised I’m sexually attracted to you.”

I nearly lost my grip on the doorway.

“The Ucfeni anatomy books you gave me when I arrived has an interesting passage about Ucfeni pouch secretions.”

She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and continues speaking with the same focus as she does when explaining her work to me.

“The primary purpose being its antimicrobial properties and lubricant within the pouch for ease of movement.”

She didn’t even blink away from her screen.

“I reasoned if Ucfeni males produce enough of this secretion, it may have useful applications during sex.”

She continues typing and I see no change to her expression or her tone.

“I’m a virgin and don’t want to be more sore than necessary with it being my first time.

If you have natural lubricant, that will help.”

I swallow thickly and feel my slit start to bulge against my rebellious dick.

I start to ululate with carnal desire and finally, Billie looks away from the screen.

“No, I’m working until 5pm.

I have to concentrate on this.”

“…but after 5, you can concentrate on mating with me?”

She nods and I grin.

I am more than happy to wait an hour and a half for her to finish what she’s doing, so I can have her full attention when I finally make love to her.

Oh yes.

“Then I will leave you to work.”

“Good.”

She continues typing away and I lean back on my tail to slither out of sight.

I have an hour and a half to turn our nest into a mating den.

I ignore the swell of my cock and bide my time patiently.

5pm can’t arrive quickly enough.

Tonight has to be perfect.

If Billie were Ucfeni, I would fill our nest room with tokens of affection and ordain myself in feathers or fur to put on an erotic display of my prowess.

To dance for her and ululate with desire.

However, Billie would find all those things either distracting or off-putting, so instead, I empty the nest of anything that doesn’t need to be there.

I plump the cushions in the bowl that holds our nest together. I bathe to clean my scales, but I don’t use any oils to make my scales shine. She likes the smooth dull colours of my scales, so I do nothing to change my appearance. Time drags so I tend to the nest in general, and I make sure that by 5pm I am in our upper nest waiting for her. I listen with anticipation watering my mouth as I hear her in the hygiene level below us. Any moment now, Billie would join me in our nest and we will finally mate.