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I immediately feel a bit embarrassed at having just gone off on that tangent, so I force a rueful smile. “Ask a simple question, get a long-winded answer.”
“I understand,” he says. “I have a large family. I am the oldest and the strongest, but my status remains contested until I am able to find a mate. This is a nice ship, but it is not truly mine. As your farm belongs to your family, so this ship belongs to mine. It is the alpha’s vessel.”
“Oh,” I say. “So you’re the alpha of your family.”
“I am.”
“That must be a lot of responsibility.”
“It is.”
His answers are short, but I don’t get the sense he’s being terse. I think he’s just a simple sort of communicator. He says what is necessary and not a lot more. I guess that’s nice. Means I might have a decent chance of knowing where I stand with him.
“Come with me,” he says, striding toward the bridge. I follow, ignoring the little automatic pang of rebellion that makes me want to refuse just because he told me to do something.
I have been on my own for quite some time and am not used to answering to anybody. Farm life makes for an independent and resourceful woman, so my father used to tell me. He wasn’t wrong. I’ve never considered being anybody’s mate, at least not recently. The idea of taking a husband has floated through my head a few times, but the practicalities of finding one never panned out. Men like you to be available for dating and recreational eating. They don’t understand that you have to feed the animals at six and then again at eight, and that mucking out takes hours, not to mention the myriad of other chores that make stopping everything and turning a man into the center of your universe basically impossible.
I did even think about skipping the man thing altogether and adopting, but I can’t adopt a child of any kind until my farm isn’t overrun by furry, scaly, long tail-ey, murderous, arsonist bandits.
My thoughts on such matters are abruptly halted as Azlan starts to ascend the stairs in front of me, and I am treated to a sudden tightening of his pants around his hips and ass, muscularity in motion. He really is very well put together. I can only imagine how much elegant power he must have to bring to bear in certain hip-thrusting situations.
Unfortunately, he reaches the top of the stairs and while his ass is still very nice, I lose my angle and my view entirely as he sits down in the captain’s chair and beckons me over with one large, clawed digit. He sees me looking at the gleaming claw and hastily retracts it. I will give Azlan credit, he is trying quite hard not to frighten me.
“You want me?” I ask the question while pointing at myself super awkwardly.
“Yes,” he says. “Come over here.”
Azlan has a naturally dominant timbre to his tone that makes internal parts of me shiver deliciously. He is sitting with his legs parted slightly, muscular thighs on display. I know he’s not really trying to show off, the guy is just trying to sit down, but suddenly my every thought is thirsty.
I do as he asks and walk over to him. I’m auto-piloting, I think, which is the only rational excuse I can come up with for what I do when I get to him.I sit down on his knee.
There’s a brief moment in which we both realize he didn’t ask for that. I try to bounce back up again, all apologies, but he wraps a big leonine arm around my midsection and pulls me promptly back down, my ass making firm contact with his hard thigh.
“I like that,” he says. “You’re very obedient. So obedient you do things I haven’t even asked for yet. My little human mind-reader.”
I blush furiously, even as I inwardly disagree. I’m not obedient. I’m just… frazzled. He makes me nervous and flustered, he disrupts the signals of sanity that are supposed to flow from my brain to my body.
I try my best not to squirm on his lap, but I can’t help myself. Being this close to a perfect predator sends a storm of chemical reactions rushing through me. I can smell him differently now, and I can feel the furred brush of his limbs on my bare arms. He smells like masculinity and power. He smells like raw freedom and like the wild. There are some parts of the asteroid, parts my farm does not extend to and has not tamed, those parts smell like Azlan.
I feel him lean in, and his muzzle brushes lightly against the back of my neck in a gentle, almost casual nuzzle. It is a touch of kindness and intimacy and for reasons that would take a therapist at least six months and several thousand dollars to work out, it makes me want to cry. They’re not tears of fear, pain, or sadness. They’re more like the tears you cry when you just can’t even anymore. They’re tears of release, or they would be if I wasn’t holding them in like my life depended on them.
He pulls a screen on an articulated arm around in front of us. I recognize a map interface.
“Input the coordinates of your asteroid,” he says.
“You’re really going to help me?” My voice is a little shaky with all the emotion I’m trying to withhold. I feel very silly to be so wound up so quickly. He hasn’t even done anything to me. Why am I reacting so skittishly?
“A deal is a deal,” he murmurs.
I put my coordinates in, and watch, somewhat astonished as Azlan sets the course heading directly to them.
“I really appreciate this, you have no idea.” I am starting to babble, still stuck on his lap, still not sure if he really ever wanted me or not. He must think I am such a weird little human.
“I am sure your farmhands are dealing with the matter in our absence.”
“There’re no farmhands. There’s only Buttface.”
“Buttface is the name of your…” He does not deign to guess.
