Teasing Tilly (7 page)

The woman looked surprised.  “Actually, I did.”

Tilly couldn’t help but smile.  “Ah!  The bravado is working then!” she said wryly.

The woman motioned for her to join her and the women with her.  “I don’t believe it’s bravado,” she disputed when Tilly sat down.  “And it’s definitely not stupidity.  I don’t think I would’ve gone into a place like that even to look for my sister—not that I have one.”

Tilly smiled. “I love my little sister.  If you had one and she went missing, I suspect you would have done just what I did—if the dang police refused to look for her.”

“I damn sure wouldn’t!” one of the other women argued.  “I don’t even
like
my sister!”

The other women were horrified.

Well, Tilly was.  “But … she’s your sister!”

The woman shrugged.  “Not my fault—and the feeling is mutual, believe me.  I can tell you right now she isn’t back home crying her eyes out because I’ve disappeared.”

“That’s ….”

“Sad,” Tilly finished for the other woman.  “Personality clash?”

The woman laughed bitterly.  “You could say that—oil and water!  Sibling rivalry at its worst.”

“I know what you mean,” Tilly said sympathetically.  “Me and my brother are that way.  But at least I always got along with Emily.”  For a few moments, memories played through her mind of her and her sister as children. They’d always been great memories, she thought, but now they only made her sad. “She’s my little sister.  I’m supposed to take care of her.”

Chapter Nine

The one thing Tilly hadn’t experienced aboard the alien ship was boredom.  She’d experienced more terror than ever before in her life, more misery, more pain, but she’d been in no shape to experience boredom—until that day.

They spent hours gathered in the lounge area—ate two meals—and spent the rest of the time either speculating about their fate or sharing personal stories. 

Tilly was actually surprised to discover that none of the women had children—even though she distinctly recalled one had
claimed
to have children when they were taken.  Was that by design?  Had the aliens determined which women had children and which didn’t before they took them?

She dismissed that notion.

That would be attributing ‘good’ to beings she didn’t believe had much in the way of emotions—good or bad. 

They didn’t seem particularly evil—just unmoved by the plight of the women they captured and sold.

Which she supposed most people would see as evil, but it required intent to do harm as far as she was concerned to be evil.  Wild animals weren’t evil because they killed to eat and ate to survive.  These aliens were humanoid, but they darn sure weren’t human and had no real reason to care about humans—or to feel any emotion toward humans.

As far as she could tell, they were simply merchandise.  They had been picked up and they were being prepared for the market where they would be sold.

Which meant this was life as she would know it for the remainder of her life.  She was going to be sold to someone as a toy and what she made of it might boil down to how well she behaved.  She might manage to become some male alien’s pet and be pampered and treated as well as a favored lapdog—which wouldn’t be bad.  It certainly wasn’t something she would’ve chosen for herself.  She’d had ambitions of being a success in her life, having things, having money to pay bills and then some.  She’d planned to have some of the finer things money could buy, hoped, one day, to have children and a husband that cared about her.

That was a lost cause, though.

She hadn’t tried to dwell on it.

But they’d left Earth and with that all hope she might have had to escape and return to the life she’d had.

No, she had to make the best of what she was facing.

Weeping over it wasn’t going to help—at all—although there’d been plenty of times she’d
felt
like crying since she’d been taken.

And to her mind, making the best of her situation was doing her utmost to make her master happy so he wouldn’t mistreat her.

She thought that was going to be a heck of a challenge considering she was to be sold to aliens—hopefully humanoid, but she couldn’t count on that, she realized in dismay.  And really, humanoid wasn’t much to look forward to.  Apes walked on two legs.  It was sobering to consider she might be bought by something even more horrible.

An hour or so after the second meal, the sound of boots on the metal plates of the floor silenced the fitful conversations and all of the women looked toward the entrance just as the alien men arrived.

The commander was in the forefront.  He looked directly at Tilly.  “Come.”

Feeling an uncomfortable flutter in her belly, Tilly rose and moved toward him as the other men entered the lounge and selected a ‘toy’ to entertain them.

It wasn’t until they passed her cell that Tilly realized she hadn’t seen the second among the men.  She wondered at it, but she wasn’t stupid enough to ask where he was or what had happened.

The commander took her to a cabin she hadn’t seen before—a combination living/sleeping/work space that was clearly his and just as clearly, she thought, emphasized his status among the others.  It was nearly as sparsely furnished as her cell, but it had a wider, more comfortable bunk with bed clothes and there were things scattered about that appeared to be personal items.

She saw several photos—or at least images in frames—although she didn’t actually get the chance to examine anything.

The commander didn’t in point of fact get right down to business either, to her surprise.

He sent her to sit on the bunk while he headed toward a locker of some sort that she saw contained glasses and bottles.

She assumed it was a liquor cabinet.  It certainly looked like one even though the vessels looked alien and the liquids inside were strangely colored.

Although she supposed that might be the color of the vessel rather than the liquid.

She wasn’t actually allowed to sit as she pleased she discovered when she reached the bunk.  The nano-suit seized control and although the position was comfortable enough, it was blatantly sexual and that discomfited Tilly even while it aroused her.

She was settled with her back against the wall but her knees bent and her legs cocked wide enough to give him a good view of her genitals.

He handed her a glass of something.

She didn’t think she would be allowed to decline so she took it and then watched him as he stripped his jacket and shirt and boots off.  He settled in a chair much like the one he used on the command deck and leaned back, propping his feet on the bunk between her legs.

“Drink,” he ordered when he saw she hadn’t so much as tasted the glass of liquid he’d given her.

Since he lifted his own glass, muttered some salute, she supposed, in his own language and then downed the contents, she sniffed the contents of her glass, decided it didn’t smell horrible and tried to toss her shot back. 

It felt as if it was burning a hole in her esophagus and then her stomach.  She choked and coughed, trying to catch her breath.

She thought he looked amused when she finally managed to stop coughing, but her eyes were watering so she could’ve been mistaken.

He took her glass, refilled it and his own and handed the glass back to her.  “Drink.”

Dismay flickered through her.  She really didn’t want more.

She’d been ordered to drink by her master, however.  She didn’t have the option of refusing.  She downed the second as she had the first.  The coughing fit didn’t seem to last nearly as long the second time.

He distracted her by sticking his big toe into her open cleft and wiggling it.

She giggled and just barely resisted the impulse to slap his foot away.

Then sobered abruptly and stared at him owl eyed.

That time she was more certain she saw a flicker of amusement, but she was still glad she hadn’t given in to the impulse.

He refilled her glass a third time.

She didn’t know why he seemed to want her to drink herself into a coma, but she decided she was entirely willing if he thought she might have reason to be stupefied before he got started.  The third drink barely burned at all, but she thought her head might fall off.

Handing him the glass with an effort, she sprawled on the bed in the ‘ready’ position.

He stood, removed his trousers and shorts and joined her.

To her surprise, he settled in the cradle of her thighs—but aligned himself with her head to head rather than genital to genital.  Supporting his upper body on his elbows, he lowered himself until he was almost nose to nose with her. 
“You are a strong, brave woman,”
he murmured. 
“If you were not so very tiny, I could almost close my eyes and imagine that you were a good Merkdar woman.”

Tilly discovered she was either too drunk to assimilate what he meant—or the heat of his breath and the nearness of his lips to hers had completed her descent into a mental vacuum. 

Or he wasn’t speaking English at all.

She held her breath as he dipped lower and began to pluck at her lips with his—either experimentally to see what he thought of it, or what she thought of it, or maybe because that was the way they started things?

Heat rolled through her—whatever his motive, the effect was to melt down her internal wiring system.  She sucked in a shaky breath when he lifted his head, opening her eyes with a strenuous effort to the discovery that he was studying her face.

Slowly a frown formed between his brows. 
“My world is gone and most of our people with it.  The few of us left deserve to survive as a species. For that reason, I rarely allow myself any regrets about what must be done for the sake of survival.  But … that was … more than I allow
,” he murmured.  She didn’t understand any of that, he knew, and, after a brief struggle, he tried to explain it in her tongue.  “No mean you be harm-ed.  Regret.”

What, Tilly thought blankly?

He didn’t explain further and he didn’t allow her time to pick it apart in her mind and understand.  He lowered his mouth to hers again and this time covered it, breached the fragile barrier of her lips and delved inside the warm, wet cavern to explore and possess.  The drink he’d given her didn’t intoxicate her as much—and
that
had pretty well wiped out a million years of evolution and reduced her mind to basic animal instincts.

She became as substantial as marsh-mellow—everything inside was hot and melted and gooey.  She didn’t think she could’ve moved if her life had depended upon it and she hadn’t been staked down for the taking by the nano-suit. 

She didn’t
want
to escape, to evade.  She would never have dreamed his kiss would so completely captivate her, but she was so enthralled with his taste and the feel of his mouth on hers that she scaled the ladder from zero to eager in five seconds flat.

She was already desperate for penetration when he broke the kiss and began a leisurely exploration of her throat and ear, her upper chest, her breasts.  Bolts of heated lightning streamed through her as he tugged and sucked at her breasts, one and then the other and back again until she was moaning, gasping for breath, skating the edge of crisis.

And afraid that he would withhold the rapture his touch promised.

He shifted upward finally, aligning only the main cock with the mouth of her sex.  She was so wet by that time that he managed to embed the enormous head with the minimum of effort.

He paused and she felt tremors run through him that made her quake inside.

And then slowly, so slowly she wanted to scream, he pushed inside of her until he was as deep as he could go and Tilly felt like a bug pinned to a display board.

She needed release so desperately!  “Please,” she whispered.

To her dismay, he shifted downward, pulling free of her so that he could look at her face. 

She stared back at him, swallowing with an effort.

“What you say?”

She bit her lip, but he knew she’d said something.  She licked her dried lips.  “Please.”

His kiss was fierce that time, wild with hunger, almost punishing.

And she felt like weeping when he broke from her lips.

But he shifted upward and impaled her once more on his massive spear, driving deeply, and then set a pace that brought her to the brink in moments and, to her great relief, pitched her over the precipice and into glory.  She gasped, cried out sharply at the rapture that engulfed her as if she was being consumed by a fireball, forced to ride the climax to its limit by his unrelenting, punishing thrusts, experiencing a boosting thrill at the feel of his release as he followed her into ecstasy.

It was exhilarating, humbling—a pleasure that went beyond the physical to feel his arms tighten around her possessively when he came. 

That was the very best, she thought as she drifted blissfully in the aftermath of her release and finally passed beyond the veil of consciousness.

Chapter Ten