Page 9 of The Emerald Boa's Lover
“Charlie?” I lean over him to flick my tongue at his nose. He’s still asleep. “Charlie? You’ll be late for work if you don’t get up.” I blinked down at him and put my hands on my hips. He is still snoring. “Charlie?” I speak a little louder and reach down to gently pat his left cheek. “Charlie you need to wake up.”
“Mmmm.” He mumbles cutely, finally stirring, but not enough. He turns onto his side, trapping my hand between his cheek and the pillow.
“Charlie?” I chuckle when he smiles and nuzzles at my palm and wrist. I roll my green eyes and lower my right hand to pat his right cheek. “Charlie you’re going to be late for work.” I laugh again when he pouts and finally opens his eyes. “Well good morning. You took a long time to—” His eyes widened with shock and he did a double-take of my hands, before shuffling back in a hurry. “For the record? I said your name half a dozen times and you wouldn’t wake up. You turned onto my hand. I was being perfectly respectable.” Other than when I watched him sleep for a while first. “Now, how late are you?”
“…I’m not.” Charlie cleared his throat, blushing wonderfully, as he sat up and fisted more of the bedsheet over his lap. “I’m not working today.”
“Oh.Oh.”I groaned and palmed my scaly face. “It’s your day off and I’ve woken you up. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you weren’t working today.” Guilt stabbed me right in the chest. He’s worked so hard all week and always looks half asleep when I collect him in the dark from the clinic to return to our nest. “I’m so sorry.” I wave my hands at him and back up. “Please, go back to sleep. I’ll leave you to rest.”
I could not retreat fast enough down the access hole. Great. Now he’s going to be cross with me for ruining his chance to catch up on sleep and get some rest. Damn it. I have to make it up to him somehow. I lowered to the hygiene layer and clicked my fingers together. I’ll run him a nice relaxing path. He hasn’t had one since he arrived. Just quick showers in my bath. I slithered quickly over to his corner bath and pulled on the cord of the water dispenser to pull it over his bathtub, before tugging it to start the water running. My long spine tensed as I heard the squeak of the pulley system as Charlie lowered himself from the upper nest.
“Are you running me a bath?”
“Anapologybath.” I clarified with a weak chuckle. “And I’ve watched you make toast often enough. It seems straightforward. I’ll make you some breakfast, since you’ve not returned to sleep.” I groaned, feeling more guilty. OfcourseCharlie is the kind of person who once awake can’t just roll over and go back to sleep.
“You don’t have to do that?” He raised a blonde brow at me and walked over to the toilet. He pulled the privacy curtain around himself and made use of it.
“I want to.” My fingers drummed on the side of the raised corner bathtub as it filled. The scent pits in my face also detected temperature change, so I knew it was the ideal temperature for him. Charlie liked his water hotter than I did. “So…not working today?”
“No, it’s my day off.” Charlie pushed the curtain aside and brushed his teeth at the sink beside it. He didn’tseemcross with me, so I started to relax.
“Do you have any plans?”
“I’ve been on your planet a week, and in that time I’ve spent most of that time sterilising wounds, stitching them back up, and administering antibiotics.” Charlie gave me that devilish grin over his shoulder that made my tail go weak beneath me. “So, no. I don’t have any plans, outside of resting and reading more of the Ucfeni anatomy journals and medical articles Allico Inc sent over.” He walked across the bathroom, around my sunken bathtub, and stood beside me.
“Is that how you’d spend your days off on your homeworld?” I tugged the cord twice more to stop the water before the bath could overfill. Charlie cast it an appreciative glance and took hold of the waistband of his sleeping shorts.
“No.” His chuckle was intriguing as he jerked his head at me. “Turn around.”
“Oh, yeah.” As much as I wanted to see his human genitals, I wouldn’t look without permission. He didn’t contain his within a pouch when not in use, so he couldn’t control who could and couldn’t see him intimately when undressed, as I can. I swivelled on my pelvis to look the other way as Charlie shoved his shorts down and stepped into the bath with a pleasant sigh.
“Alright, I’m in.” I lowered to rest on my coil so I was level with Charlie in the bath and smiled at him. “Oh, am I having company then?” He regarded my presence with a raised brow and the usual level of sarcasm.
“It would seem so.” I grinned and he rolled his eyes.I’m wearing him down, slowly.“How do you usually spend your days off?” Charlie’s green eyes widened and he chuckled with a shake of his head. My tongue flicked at the air towards him and there was something odd in his scent. Too mild to detect. I liked its fruity undertones. “Charlie?”
“With pleasurable company.” He answered me, unabashed, and lowered more into the bathtub. He spread his arms along the rim and lookedmagnificentlike that. I turned to rest on my right side within the nest of my coiled tail. I hoped I looked cool as I posed for him.
“Oh? Do tell?” Charlie narrowed his eyes sceptically at me. “What?”
“If we’re two friends having a conversation, I’d happily answer you. But? I think you’ll get a little tooexcitedand make yet another pass at me if I do.”
“I’m going to make a pass at you if you tell me or not, so what do you have to lose?” I grinned and he predictably groaned and looked up at the ceiling. My gaze dropped to his neck and I gulped. I saw myself wrapping my jaws around it and tasting him. Oh I wanted to. “Tell me?” I moved my chin to rest on the edge of the bath near his shoulder and grinned when he looked down at my clear advance. “Please?”
“There isn’t much to tell.” Charlie shrugged. “If I had a boyfriend, I’d spend the day in bed with him—” Oh sweet spirits I want to spend the day in bed with Charlie. “—and if I didn’t? I’d get dressed up and go to a bar. To find company for the evening.”
“I thought you don’t fuck strangers?” I lifted my head up and pouted at him. He smirked and folded his arms over his bare chest…
“Oh, well actually I do if the mood takes me and I like the guy, but you’re not a stranger now anyway so it doesn’t matter.” Oh his smarmy grin…I grumbled and folded my arms over my coil to sulk at him. “Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it. You’renotfucking me Dalahan.”
“But—” I lifted my head up and tried to reassure him, but Charlie was on a roll and even waved a finger at me like I was a naughty hatchling.
“One, you’re my sponsor, and if it does south and goessouth,then that’s going to make my lifereallydifficult. Two, I let a guy fuck me once and I didn’t like it, so no one fucks me. End of.” I gripped the rim of the bathtub and ululated with a sad whine. Charlie scowled at me and he sat upright to go on the attack. “Seriously dude, this is harassment and I’m going to—”
“But I don’twantto fuck you!” I shook my head vigorously and the bulk of my tail flexed and shifted in the coil beneath me. Charlie looked at me like he didn’t believe me.
“You outright told me that you’re going to enjoy hunting me down and rocking my world.”
“Yes.” I nodded firmly. “But that doesn’t mean I want to fuckyou.”The green scales at my neck darkened and I struggled to maintain eye contact with him. Charlie stared at me and slowly his eyes widened with shock.
