STARCROSSED Part:4

4.

         A ship was coming.

         For us.

         The command and control system was excited, its processor matrix frenetic as it executed this scenario's  contingency protocols.  Retrieval, it was a survivor's-- and an escape pod's-- dream come true.

         But I--we--weren't out of the woods yet.  Avoiding the ultimatum I envisioned hanging over me, I sat with my back to Shysaanah and my eyes on all the new data being displayed.  Squinting, I noticed something absent in our rescuers' telemetry.

         "Computer, show registry verification for the inbound vessel."

         "Registry data is unavailable."

         "Distance to vessel?"

         "Nineteen point four million kilometers and closing."

         Close enough to detect but running without its transponder engaged.  That was...odd.  Could be accidental, malfunctions happened, but it might also be deliberate.  Since we were no threat, who would they be hiding their identity from?

         "Computer--"

         Shysaanah stepped up behind me, her pale green hand settling on my shoulder, the touch an immediate distraction.  "Harassing the computer with questions only slows it down; the ship will get here when it gets here."

         "Watched pots boil sometimes."

         "Watched pots...?  I don't understand."

         "Variation of an old saying about impatience.  It goes: a watched pot never boils, but-- in my experience-- unchangeable things can be changed."

         "That is a denial of the orchestration of existence. "

         "Is that a fact?"

         "A flower cannot decide when it will rain, it can only drink all it can when it does."

         "What happened to the optimist...?"

         Fingers tightening on my shoulder, she tugged me around to face her.

         "What happened to the man who wanted and took me?  Who set me on fire until all I wanted was to take him?  Where is that man?"

         I looked to the floor and said nothing, my mouth a tight line.  Her other hand smoothed backward through my short hair, pushing until I looked up.  Our eyes met.  I had stared down hundreds of enemies without blinking, endured brutal interrogations without cracking, but this woman, this exotic, impossibly beautiful woman from Nystari,  her gaze made me weak.  The anger was gone but under that calm, behind the pools of jade that were her eyes, I think she was still hurting.

         Still...hoping.

         I slid my hands along her thighs, over the flare of her hips to the narrow taper of her waist.  "Shysaanah, I am that man but how could I be a  father?"

         "You believe it was too soon to suggest, too soon even to consider, but--"

         "But it has only been nine days."

         "Eleven," she corrected, smiling.  "My people...we are not like you, we are not misled by your confusing ideas of courtship.  In the continuation of our race, the Nystari evolved a very specialized reproductive process.  I did not surrender to you on a whim, my body...it, it recognized you; your genetics, your essence, your--"

         "My compatibility."

         "That is the simplest definition, but in your language there is no way to express what every moment of every day since our first...connection has been like for me.  And then fighting...having you so very close yet set apart by a misunderstanding.  I was conflicted, it was torture."

         Shysaanah reached back and undid the cord holding her hair in a ponytail.  Shaking it loose, the mass of hair tumbled down around her face and over her shoulders in soft waves.  She brushed some errant strands away from her eyes and out of her face, tucking them behind her left ear as she watched me stand.

         "So, I'm just an impulse?" I asked, unsure how I felt.

         On tiptoe she leaned in, one hand at the nape of my neck, the other against my chest.

         "No," she whispered.  "You are a force of nature."

         So was her kiss.  Tentative, then stronger, she covered my mouth with hers and sent her tongue to find mine.  We clung together fiercely, that embrace both an apology and a welcome back.  Clumsy as virgins on a first date, we bumped and banged against every bulkhead and console, struggling to peel each other out of our suits.  We laughed and pulled until the material was gone and we were skin to skin.
 
         God, she smelled so good...

         Biting and kissing her way down the side of my neck, she migrated lower until she was kneeling between my legs.  My cock hung exposed, heavy and hard, waiting.  She licked her dark lips and curved it upward, nuzzling the underside.

         ”Mmmnnh,” she purred.  “Azyana, sihmaas drelaandi!”

         ”Oh, fuck,” I grunted, feeling Shysaanah chase her last syllable with a mouthful of me.

         Her tongue felt like a velvet snake slithering along my agonizingly stiff shaft.  Head bobbing and twisting, her oral artistry pushed me to delirium, to a place beyond reason and restraint.  I leaned against a panel for support, not trusting my legs to hold me.  When I came it was almost violent; muscles tensed as I emptied, filling her mouth to overflowing.  Rivulets of white spilled over her lips and dripped from her chin, splatters of milky cum pooling on the swells of her breasts.

         Her hands were massaging my spent sac when she leaned away and looked up again.  "Solomon, that is what a father should taste like."

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