Monsters Under Mistletoe

5. Gwen

Chapter 5

Gwen

I ’m going to die.

Some of the trees in the oxygen forest are a couple hundred feet tall and we’re nowhere close to worrying about getting snagged on them, but Tasi is floating on his back like the open sky is a lazy river.

The open sky is not a lazy river. Physics may not be my strongest suit, but I have a hard time believing that Tasi can actually float on air. He’s also not paying attention. He’s going to sink, we’re going to crash, I’m going to die.

The crazy thing is I’m struggling to remember that or the fact that I hate him and he’s ruining my life. I keep telling myself to force him to land and get away from him. I also need to figure out what the heck happened at the club. I’m friends with a bunch of those ladies. I know that wasn’t normal. I need to go help them. Or alert security or something.

Instead, I’m sliding my hands all over Tasi, obsessed with the sensation of his slippery flesh. I taste a hint of blood on the inside of my lip where I got nicked on one of his teeth, and instead of grabbing his pants and hauling myself upright, I slide my tongue against his, inviting more cuts.

He lifts me back by my hair, separating us only so he can nibble along my jaw and down my throat, stopping at the neckline of my sweater.

“Wait, stop!” I gasp, but the words don’t even feel right anymore.

He blinks at me, not in confusion but in awe. He’s already told me he loves me and I’m beautiful a dozen times. It doesn’t make sense, but I know he’s believed it every time. I’ve believed it. And fuck if he’s not the hottest thing ever. His pupils are blown, making his eyes look like galaxies within diamonds. Hell, they look edible , like I’d lick them if I was any more feral.

I’ve been grinding on his cock for long enough I’m swimming in my panties. He’s cool to the touch, but he smells like paradise, and rubbing his skin creates warm patches that are nearly as inviting to my tongue as his eyes.

So fucking weird, oh my god.

And why did he stop? I’m never going to come if he doesn’t move.

“I love you,” he whispers.

“Do you always feel like this?” I ask, sliding over that baffling texture that’s neither oil nor gel nor anything else that should transfer to my skin and yet definitely damp. Silky, but damp.

I lick his chest, and my pussy clamps desperately at nothing.

His head tips back, but we’re in the air. There’s no pillow to land on. It just vanishes away for a long, hot moment before he looks back up. “It’s for you. For…for my mate. To help the mating.”

“It’s…lubricant?”

His eyes bore into mine with an intensity to make me melt as he nods and slides his hands up under my sweater. Even his hands are lightly slicked, and I moan softly as they glide over my flesh. “For you,” he says, relieving me of my sweater, tossing it aside to flutter down to the oxygen forest for one of the arborists to find and laugh about. Weird stuff happens all the time on Verlain.

I take my bra off, which feels essential and insane at the same time. His hands go to my breasts, not unexpected, but I’m unmoored by how gentle he is, how reverent. How he could be so enamored by me the moment we meet, the most chaotic of moments.

“Because I’m your mate,” he explains with a twirl of his thumb around my nipple, leaving my head heavy.

“Can you read my thoughts?”

“No, but I see it in your eyes. You’re my mate, Gwen, and I’m yours.”

“Humans don’t have mates,” I argue, ignoring the fact that I’m not just grinding on him, I’m about to come. Everywhere he’s touched feels alive. My whole face is tingling like I’ve just used a menthol face mask. If tongues could orgasm, mine would have all over his chest.

I may have drooled.

“Is that true, though?” he asks, and for the first time, his words don’t sound like they come from unbreakable self-confidence. He’s wondering that himself.

There have been rumors. Tales of aliens arriving on Verlain for business or pleasure, only to leave with a woman and the claim of love at first sight—a mate bond, I guess. In general, there’s a policy of humans being forbidden from leaving for any reason, the penalty severe for those who take us, but there are also certain jobs that require it. The women are typically returned but not always, instead sending missives that they’ve so well bonded with their aliens that they’re willing to be fugitives rather than separated. To me, it’s always sounded like tall tales passed around by hopeless romantics at best, Stockholm Syndrome at worst.

But what if it’s all true?

I test the feel of his faintly purple lips under my fingertips, finding them to be firmer than my own but responsive. His feathery eyelashes tremble and his core muscles clench at the simple exploration.

I brace my arm to keep from sliding as I lean down and brush my lips over his. He breathes evenly, watching me with attentive eyes and flexing his bicep to help support me, as I test his cheek, his jaw, his earlobe. The flesh there is not so different from my own, but there’s the gentlest texture to it, like frost on a window. “This is what I thought you’d feel like.”

The sound he makes is unexpectedly satisfied. My words have soothed him somewhat. “You’ve thought about touching me.”

I swallow. “You’re very handsome. I bet most women in the department have.”

“Did you think about me when you had sex with other men?”

He says it like it’s no big deal, and it shouldn’t be, not here. But it bothers me because now I’m thinking of him having sex with other women, and I don’t like it.

“Are you mad that I asked that?”

I shake my head, refusing to admit that I am. “I haven’t…I don’t have sex with other men. Not since I got to Verlain.”

His eyelids droop and his throat bobs. He grabs one of my hands in his, guides it through the space between us that lessens with every shift, brings it to the seam of my pants and uses my finger to press the seam against my clit.

“Do you think of me when you touch yourself, then?”

I drop my lips back to his and claim his mouth once more. He swallows my moans and tilts himself just enough that our chests finally meet, the slickness refusing any passage for air between us as the barest motion makes my body light up. The cold frosts my nipples and draws my breath from my lungs. A sudden shock like an actual ice cube in my panties freezes over my clit.

I come then and there, flooding my panties uncontrollably.

I don’t even have the wherewithal to scream or beg Tasi to stop when he peels me off his chest and tosses me in the air.

In freefall.