Trapped with the Alien Transporter (Ragrim Explorations #1)

Chapter 8

With his penchant for transporting humans, although never quite like this, Hsinth had plenty of human-safe foods and human media stored in the ship’s databanks. And yet somehow he doubted any of it would get Ophelia to relax.

His room was what he would have considered a chilly temperature, but he didn’t dare turn up the heat. What he hadn’t told Ophelia was that the ship was running on a backup battery, and they wouldn’t have a lot of heat for very long. Maybe a few weeks at most, even with the insulating snow slowly packing itself around the ship.

What was plentiful was food. Human food, commonly edible food that could be consumed by most species in the Republic, even Geshallan treats that he’d meant to trade the next time he was on a colony with a Geshal-specific shop. Now he’d just eat the protein bars himself.

The wrapper opened with a barely audible crinkle. He’d rather have been greeted by the fresh smell of the fruit called gornaas and freshly sautéed musc-bugs, but instead he’d eat the mashed and dried bars now. If they could bring a taste of home to even the most distant colony planets and satellite stations, they would do well enough here.

He surveyed the clear floor and boxes along the walls as he chewed the tough, thin meal. There was a pile of obviously empty containers by Ophelia’s door.

Hsinth knew he wasn’t one for carrying around empty boxes; they had no value and took up space. Had she emptied them?

The labels told him that they were mostly jerky bars and things for children, though the educational toys gave him pause. He knew he didn’t have another box of those, so if she’d been combining boxes, what had she put them in with? The only other thing he had oriented towards children was the Krengar cleaning modules, and he sincerely hoped she hadn’t just dumped all of them in together. If the play-sand from the Geshallan scale demonstration toys got into the slits in the Krengar ones, they would likely be unsellable.

He wanted to knock on her door and ask why she’d thrown together what she had.

He wanted to knock on her door and thank her for saving his life.

He wanted to knock on her door and ask her to share his bed, because two people in it would no doubt be warmer than one.

The idea of her shivering the night away was unacceptable. Despite the fond feelings associated with the protein bar he was eating, thinking of Ophelia tucked away under a thin blanket after coming out into that icy hell to drag him back to the ship made him angry.

Being stuck in that tiny crevice while the two furry non-sentients chipped away at the rock around the entrance had given him a lot to think about, like how cold he was and how stupid he’d been. Not bringing the las-rifle had been at the top of his list, but not being more open minded had also been up there. Recalling fighting with his only companion based on twenty-year-old crimes while there had been true animals trying to kill him had been a sobering experience. Realizing that if he died, Ophelia would be alone in the ship with no help coming had chilled him nearly as much as the icy walls.

He would learn to be more accepting of people instead of judging them based on who their parents had been, though he knew he would need help on that. There had been no primers on forgiving Lukrimians or how to not treat a world of former slavers as exactly that.

The single serving of dinner was gone, so he helped himself to another. It wasn’t like food was in short supply, but when the wrappers were empty, Hsinth found himself still contending with a gnawing feeling in his stomach. The room out here was cold, so that little room of Ophelia’s must be freezing.

Wrapping himself in blankets that he normally didn’t use only brought a little relief. The slide of the fabric against his scales was mildly unpleasant, and even with the lights out, he could only focus on the dim noise of the ship’s systems and the fact that he was still damnably cold, even with the excess heat from the engines shunting into the room.

“Stars,” he muttered to himself, staring up into the black ceiling, playing back over their interaction.

Ophelia had thought he’d meant to give her the room, not share it. He wasn’t sure why her assumption was nagging at him now, but he knew it wasn’t normal for humans to share rooms with people they’d just met.

This was not a normal situation.

He sat up from the bed with a sigh and decided that, along with trying to be more open minded, he was also going to need to be more direct.

He layered the blankets back over the bed to try to hold in what little body heat he’d managed to give off and padded off into the darkened ship.

Her door was still closed.

Tapping on it got him nowhere, so he opened the door to find it still dimly lit. There was none of the chaos he’d half-expected. The room was just as neatly organized as the galley, if not more so.

Ophelia was huddled on the bed with her back against a box, wrapped around the bag she’d been so desperate to check on earlier.

“Ophelia,” he hissed, worried about scaring her.

Her eyes opened. The sudden scowl on her lips might have been more imposing if it hadn’t been accompanied by her teeth chattering.

“What?” she asked. “I just got to sleep.”

“You need to come with me,” he said. Be direct. Be direct. “I meant for us to huddle up together. Sleeping apart like this isn’t going to keep anyone warm.”

Ophelia’s nose crinkled. “You want to sleep together?”

“ For warmth ,” he said, emphasizing the words. “I’m freezing, I’m sure you’re cold. My room is better than this. Come on.”

Red blood stained her cheeks and Hsinth couldn’t help but stare in fascination. Was her face hot now? He wanted to press the pads of his fingers against it and chase the warmth but getting her out of this icebox of a room needed to be his priority.

“Ophelia,” he said again. “Come on.”

Without giving her time to argue, he scooped her up, bag and all.

“Hsinth!” she exclaimed. “Put me down!”

“I don’t know how you’re still warmer than me,” he said. If he’d had extra hands like a Tremallin did, they would be winding into the thin blanket wrapped around her, seeking to throw off the chill.

He left the cold room behind and crossed the galley in a few long steps. His room was still warmer than the galley or her own, and he put Ophelia down onto the bed. The scowl had never left her face.

“I’m not staying here,” she said as she started to struggle out of the thin blanket.

“Yes, you are,” he said. “The temperature out there is one hundred eight plavs .”

A new, unrecognizable frustration crossed her face. “I don’t even know what that is,” Ophelia said. “Learning Celsius along with Fahrenheit was hard enough.”

“I believe you call it fucking cold ,” Hsinth told her. “Too cold for a human, too cold for me. We can survive this together in a modicum of comfort, Ophelia. We just have to work together to do it.”

That red was covering her face again. “Not like this,” she said, waving her hand around. Not with—”

She trailed off, and that blush deepened.

“With me,” he finished for her. His scales itched at the realization. “Ophelia, I’m not your enemy.”

“Maybe not, but you sure haven’t been my ally, either,” she said. “How am I supposed to trust you with this when it feels like you’ve just been trying to use me since we left Colorado?”

If Hsinth could have flushed like a human, he would have. The only signal he could offer was the thinner skin beneath his eyes turning a darker gold. The spines at the back of his neck lifted a little, but they were vestigial at best. There was no way Ophelia would know that in past iterations of the Geshallan species, they would have held a colorful frill that helped with signaling other Geshallans. Another Geshallan might have recognized it now, but since Ophelia couldn’t, he had to be more direct.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. I’ve been bothering you right and left for human insights while forgetting that you’re trying to learn the cultural norms of a new world, and I’ve been a little brutish about it.”

Her eyebrows rose. “I didn’t think you’d be that insightful,” she said.

Hsinth snorted. “I can be when I want to be.”

He sat on the bed. Instead of getting up, Ophelia moved over, making room for him.

“So why weren’t you then?” she asked.

Hsinth shrugged. “Too eager? I didn’t think we’d be spending that much time together, and I figured I should probably get my questions in while I could? I could think up a million excuses.”

“Is that what this is?” she asked.

“I’m actually trying,” he said. “I was insensitive and trying to pump you for information I had no right to.”

“I’m actually impressed,” Ophelia said. “I thought you were a little shallower than recognizing that.”

“Ouch,” he said. So much for dancing around subjects. She just went in for the kill when she was angry or tired. Probably a little of both right now.

“Are you going to stay?” he asked.

“Are you ?” she asked.

“I’m starting to realize that direct is the best option with you,” Hsinth said. “We need to stay together to stay warm. This is not optimal, but the room already feels warmer. I have plans for what we can do to make it better tomorrow with more sleep. Will you try tonight, at least?”

Ophelia sighed. It was a soft noise that nonetheless brushed against his bare hand where he was bracing himself against the mattress.

Hsinth shouldn’t have felt it shiver down to his bones, but it did, and he was glad of the warmth.

“Fine,” she said at last. “But this is for survival only. No funny business.”

“None at all,” he agreed solemnly.

Funny business , he thought as he climbed under the covers and watched as she did the same on the other side. As if he was even experienced with that kind of ‘business’. He knew what to do, of course, but getting down to things was another matter. Even if he did want her, initiating would be a whole other ball game, as the humans put it.

Besides, he was covered from neck to ankles. How would they even start?

* * *

It was a curse that he’d even thought about it. It had to be. Waking up with Ophelia half draped over him was a torture that he’d long gone out of his way to avoid, purely because of the physical awkwardness that it caused in his body.

Her soft fingers stroking the ridges that ran along his collarbones wasn’t helping, and no matter how much he thought of the cold of the cave, there was an answering ridge growing in his pants. One that he could do nothing about , given Ophelia’s proximity here and his own unwillingness to get out of bed and handle things himself.

Stars, she wasn’t even touching him and he was harder than he’d ever been in his life.

Hsinth opened his eyes to see tangled blonde hair pressed up against his shoulder and realized with some dismay that the zip on his shirt had come down during the night, letting Ophelia snake her hand in there to drag her fingers over his chest ridges.

Bump bump bump .

Over and over they rubbed, making him stay entirely too still in the warmth of the bed lest his cock brush against the fabric of his pants more and make things worse.

Despite yesterday’s crash, then the tangle with the monsters that lurked outside, his brush with the cold, and all the arguing that had preceded it all, his body had decided that now was the time to react positively towards the presence of a woman.

Now was the point where he was getting an uncomfortable biological reaction that he was normally able to handle himself, and of course it had to be when there was no privacy to be had.

The lights hidden in the seams of the room were just starting to brighten, simulating daylight to keep him on a schedule appropriate to Geshal’s normal rotation. It was something that he only really followed on long hops between systems, but he supposed here, on a planet with what felt like permanent daylight, it would come in handy.

If he turned them off, maybe he could keep the room dark and the human would sleep until his problem went away on its own. He reached over her inconveniently placed hand to touch the chrono on his opposite wrist, but the slight movement turned out to be a mistake.

Ophelia’s eyes scrunched shut and she made a small whimper, and then her knee moved up and over his groin.

Hsinth gritted his teeth against a groan and hoped she was still asleep.

She wasn’t. Her shoulders stiffened, and a noise that sounded like Nyeh came out of her mouth.

“You have an erection!” she exclaimed, jumping out of the bed. “What the hell?”

“Me what the hell?” Hsinth asked, clutching the covers over him. “You what the hell?” Watching as her nipples peaked from the cold, even through the multiple layered shirts, was an experience he’d never have gotten with a Geshallan woman, and he couldn’t help but stare.

“Eyes! Up here!” Ophelia snapped. “Why is it so cold?”

“We’re trying to conserve heat,” he said. “The backup battery only lasts so long.”

“Backup battery? What happened to the regular battery?”

“It broke,” Hsinth said flatly, shifting in the bed. He was uncomfortably aware that his cock was tenting the blanket up, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. “So we’re on the backup battery, which I don’t want to waste. And I’m sorry about that, but I can’t exactly cut it off.”

“Fuck,” the human exclaimed. Her arms were wrapped around herself, and despite the glare focused entirely on his crotch, she climbed back into the bed. “Can’t you do something about that?”

“I would,” he said. “But I’m not about to put on a show and I’m also not going to shiver my scales off in the bathroom trying to fix it.”

“Oh my gods,” she said. She handed him a pillow. “Here. Put this over it until it goes away.”

“Gladly,” Hsinth said, snatching it from her.

She laid back down against the mattress with a huff and tucked the edges of the blanket under herself. “Please tell me I’m crazy for thinking it’s colder in here than it was last night.”

“You’re not,” Hsinth said. He checked his wristchrono. “It is, a bit. I’m sure getting out of the bed like you did didn’t help.”

He pushed the pillow down harder, willing his erection to go down. Ophelia seemed determined to ignore it, so maybe he should do the same.

Hsinth wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or insulted. It wasn’t like he’d wanted her to help or anything, had he? The unbidden thought of her small, smooth hand reaching over and tracing him from root to club sent a spark of heat straight to his groin that had nothing to do with the blanket.

“I’m a little surprised,” she said aloud.

Hsinth clung to the words, desperate for anything that would distract him from the thought of her sand-colored human skin against the orange hues of his cock.

“At what?”

“This,” Ophelia said, snaking one hand out from the covers and waving it around his room. “It’s, um, cleaner than I thought it was going to be. No boxes and stuff.”

She wasn’t wrong. Hsinth had always prided himself on keeping tradestuff out of his personal room. It only had a narrow, plassed-in shelf full of small gifts he’d purchased for himself on his journeys and he’d painted the walls a soothing beige that let the light, round bed look more like one of the traditional sand-cradles that were a luxury expense for him in Geshallan-oriented hostels.

“I made a point that if the rest of the ship had to carry wares, at least my room would be clean,” he said.

Her jaw dropped a little. “But the rest of the ship is—”

“A trade ship,” he said. “I know where everything is. Well. I did.”

He pushed the pillow down a little more. Genuine curiosity was slowly pushing away his need for release. “Tell me, what boxes did you consolidate and what was your reasoning?”