Page 27 of No Strings Attached

Abruptly, she pulled away from him, bent down, and took her sandals off. Then she went over to the door, pushed it all the way open and against the wall, then jammed her sandals into the gap above the floor. She let go of the door and held her breath. It stayed in place. She exhaled and her shoulders slumped.

When she turned back around to look at Bobby, she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that was going to happen. It was like a panic attack, or something.”

He gave her a compassionate look and said, “I understand, Vi. I’m also not very fond of the idea of closing myself into one of these rooms alone. Why don’t I sleep in here with you?”

Vi was bombarded with a vivid image of Bobby rubbing his fur across her nipples from her dream, before he said, “That sofa looks plenty comfortable to me.”

She smiled at him and said, “That sounds…really good, actually. Although, even with you in here, I’m not sure I can stand to have that door closed.”

He shook his head. “It won’t bother me at all to leave it open.”

As one, they turned and left the space entirely, both seeming to feel a little relief when they were back in the main cavern space and surveying the beautiful garden below. All of a sudden, Bobby gave an excited bounce and pointed towards the far end of the garden, “Look, Vi, a big pond! That’s way better than a shower!”

It looked more like a small lake than a big pond to Vi, it was huge. She laughed, placing a hand on his bicep, and said, “Go for it, Bobby! I’ll see you downstairs for the feast.”

He turned back, placing his warm hand over hers, and looked at her seriously, “Are you sure? I can stand guard here while you shower.”

She shook her head, “No, I’ll be fine. I’m sure of it. Go, enjoy.”

To her surprise, he took off—not back down the stairs behind them that they had just climbed—but down to the far end of the catwalk, where there were no descending stairs. He peeled off his coverall, then in one smooth motion he grabbed the railing, vaulted over it, and swung his feet back to it to push himself off of the walkway and arc his body into a dive. It was a truly impressive display of athleticism, and Vi found herself thinking about the hard muscles she had felt in his chest and arms theseveraltimes he had held her or when he had carried her.Don’t forget about the big rock-hard thigh you were grinding against in your sleep, her mind whispered.

Vi shut that shit down hard as Bobby fluidly parted the water with hardly a ripple, dove deep under the surface for an impressive distance, then came up and rolled onto his back. He spread his legs, thick tail floating between them, and let his arms float out to his sides. Vi thought she could see his blissful smile from where she stood, and she lingered just a little too long taking in the sight of him.

But in the shower, having left the bathroom, bedroom,andhatch doors open, she let thoughts of Bobby return and handedthem over to her analytical mind instead of her lustful lizard brain.

All of her physical contact for the last month, no—more than a month—had come from either Bobby or Mister Beastly. Mister Beastly’s touch was decidedly protective only. But her mind countered, so was Bobby’s. He’d given her no indication that he might be looking at her sexually, and his touch certainly hadn’t ever been sexual. On the contrary, he had used touch to care for her, comfort her, and reassure her of his support. He had cleaned her body and pressed his back against hers in a fight. He had hugged her, held her, and run to her side. He had been…wonderful.

Was she so starved of those things at this point that her brain just naturally escalated them into something sexual? An hour ago, she would have saidand believedthat she wasn’t physically attracted to the Trallian race. They were just so different from human males. If anything, she should be lusting after Acken and The Destroyer; they were human-ish, at least, if not super-sized. And she knew that some extremely dark, dirty, and repressed part of her mind ran continuous footage of her swinging around his giant, erect cock like a stripper pole. Human evolution had simply not come far enough along for women to not respond, on some level, to the sight of giant, muscle-bound warriors with enormous…um…weapons. But that response was driven by her biology; it wasn’ther.

Then there was Caussus, who looked like an extremely beautiful version of an average human male, so much so that she was itching to inquire about whether there had been a good dollop of human in his genetic recipe when they cloned him. With his piercing blue eyes and white hair, he was simply lovely. He was also generously equipped, if sadly castrated, so there was ample material there for sexual fantasies and damp dreams. But she did not feel any pull toward Caussus.

Nor did she toward Trallians in general, she realized, as she shut off the shower and started drying off with a criminally luxurious towel. It was just…Bobby. She felt something for him, and she was going to have to analyze and compartmentalize it quick. This was not the time or the place to be distracted by those types of things. They were dealing with issues like freedom and survival, so interpersonal relationships of all varieties did not have priority.

She pulled her clothes back on,sansdamp panties, making a mental note to find more clothes and discover how to clean the ones she had other than by just rinsing them out in the bathroom sink. Then she looked down at her feet, thinking about her sandals wedged under the door. But she stopped short in the sitting room, where her sandals were neatly presented on a side table by the sofa, having been replaced as a doorstop by a good-sized boulder from the garden. There was a beautiful, violet-colored, orchid-like bloom lying on top of them.

Bobby, she thought, and smiled.

Thirteen: A Little No-Strings-Attached Alien Sex

Bahbi looked for thethousandth time at the violet flower Vi had tied into her hair.Theflower, the one he had left for her. He sat across from her at the low, makeshift feasting table that had been set up in the garden and found it hard to look at anyone else, even as Acken boomed out another improbable story of his adventures through the galaxy and Vi laughed uncontrollably.

She had given him the sweetest smile when she came down the stairs, freshly showered, and wearing the flower in her hair. But then, the flurry of feast preparation activity had caught her attention and she had moved toward the noise and bustle. Acken had promptly called her over, and she had followed him into a side room. She had emerged a few minutes later and walkedover to the huge, main blast door; Bahbi watched as she pulled it closed, waited for it to latch, then tested the security scanner. It had promptly unlatched and she had pulled it back open with a satisfied look on her face. Acken had then come back out and called to Mister Beastly, who was lounging against a rock. Eventually, he had gotten around to Bahbi and had proclaimed Bahbi to have full security access after his scan. The three Trallians managing the security controls were busy swiping and assigning.

The five kitchen Trallians had been continuously busy, setting up the table, low seats, dishes, drinkware, floating lanterns, and the like. There had been an incredible aroma of the comingled smells of delicious foods wafting out from the kitchen area for some time, and Bahbi’s stomach rumbled with anticipation. Even with that distraction, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of Vi as she happily wandered through the chaos, checking on everyone, flower in her hair.

She had stood by Malachite for a while, speaking to him while he pulsed back responses in the brightest light Bahbi had seen from him, yet. Then she had sat down on the ground next to Friend and Caussus, pulled Friend over between her legs, and rubbed and scratched him all over his head, neck, and back while talking to Caussus. Vi and Caussus had chatted and laughed, while Friend had looked like he was going to fall over dead from the pleasure. Bahbi had imagined Vi’s hands doing that to him, and he had developed unusual sensations in unusual places throughout his body.

After that, she had wandered deep into the garden. Bahbi had waited for a while and had been almost resolved to go look for her when she had emerged, holding hands with Kompi and snake guy trailing them both.

Next, she had sought out Mister Beastly, standing before him while taking his hand in both of hers and speaking veryearnestly to him. A few times, she had even placed her hand over her heart. Bahbi had watched with fascination as she finished speaking, then wrapped her arms around his huge body, her head barely coming to the bottom of his chest. Mister Beastly had looked down at her with the most beautiful expression of affection and warmth, and Bahbi had felt his own heart expand at the sight of it.

When Vi had approached Trak, he had looked alarmed and brought his hands up in front of them, shaking them side-to-side as if to say, “no need.” Vi had caught one of them, turned it palm up, and kissed it. Then she had said something that made his head lower in embarrassment. She had been smiling deviously when she turned away, leaving Trak to look down in wonder at his palm.

Vi had scanned the room then until her eyes met his, then walked straight for him. He had smiled at her as she came. She had taken both of his hands in hers and looked into his eyes for a long moment, green eyes shining, then said in a low voice not entirely under her control, “You offered to stay with me no matter what, even to fight and die alongside me. Saying ‘thank you’ now doesn’t seem like enough to recognize that type of gesture.”

Before Bahbi had been able to speak and tell her that it wasn’t necessary to thank him, she had raised up on her toes, leaned forward, and kissed his mouth. It was only the gentlest, lingering brush of her lips, but his pulse had exploded, his eyes had widened, and his body had thrummed. Then she had pressed her body into his, cheek on his shoulder, and arms around his back, and whispered, “Thank you, Bahbi. You made me feel that I wasn’t alone then. You still do.”

To anyone else, that might not have felt like a profound statement. But it had to Bahbi. He knewalone; he knew it very well, very personally. In fact, he knew it even better since he hadencountered Vi, because she was increasingly causing him to experience the feeling ofnot alone, withtogetherjust in reach, and it had lent perspective to him on just how goddamn muchalonehe had had in life so far. The worst kind of alone—the kind where you’re still always surrounded by people.

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