Chapter Five

Graven

I don’t understand what’s happening. They’ve been speaking Fellamana, but Niva’s “May I touch you?” sends a wave of heat beneath my skin. My blood pulses through me, and my cock goes hopelessly hard.

I now have a hard-on the size of a blaster gun, and beneath my tight uniform, it’s obvious for everyone to see. I haven’t fed the desidre yet today—code for, I haven’t jerked off. I should’ve. Why didn’t I think of that? As if I wasn’t already obsessed with this female; now I’m ready to blow it like a teenager just from the sound of her voice.

Niva glances down and notices, and a mischievous smile graces her mouth. “You want me, yes?” Her voice is low and quiet so only I can hear. Everyone can see us, but at least they’re all too far away to hear us speak.

I swallow, trying to force my voice to work. “Yes but… there’s something I have to tell you. I want you to touch me, but it’s complicated, because I’m broken…”

Her eyes glaze over with a confused expression. She has no idea what I’m saying. Damn it.

Her brow furrows, and she tries again. “You want not…what?”

I try to think about what I could say that she would understand.

She misunderstands my confusion. “I get translate.” She waves at a person on the sidelines who’s been serving as an interpreter between the human and Fellamana contestants all night.

I’ll be damned if I let a stranger into this very intimate conversation. Not to mention if another human finds out my problems with touch, they’ll be one step closer to figuring out I was my father’s experiment. “No.”

I graze my fingers down her arm, asking her with a gentle touch to lower it, to not ask for help. I can’t feel her skin, but I’m exceptionally careful how I touch other people. I’ve had to learn intimate awareness of my strength, or I could crush a bone with my fingertip.

She gasps and stares at where my fingers have touched her arm.

I jerk my hand back, afraid I’ve miscalculated, afraid I’ve hurt her somehow.

But she shakes her head and reaches for my hand. She laces my fingers with hers. I can’t feel it. I have no sensation of her hand, except pressure. I have no idea whether her skin is warm or cool, rough or smooth, soft or hard. But I can see her touching me, and the sight of her small hand in mine with her blue undulating swirls across the back, and her little fingers between my inhumanly large ones, awakens a small emotion in my chest.

It’s tiny, like a pinprick, but it’s as though on the inside, there’s a small part of me that notices something good where I’ve only ever had sadness. It’s the closest to happy I’ve ever felt in my life.

I glance at her face to see if she likes holding my hand, too, and there’s a delicate look in her eyes, as though she’s watching me, waiting to see my reaction. I don’t know what to do. I stand, staring, losing myself in her deep green eyes.

When I finally tear my gaze away and glance back at our hands, I see that she’s started stroking my hand, and I didn’t even notice it. I watch as her fingers move over mine and…and…

She’s feeling me.

I glance at her face, perplexed. “You’re touching me.”

She nods and smiles. “I touch you.”

I let her keep stroking my hand and trace the fingers of my other hand over the back of hers. She shivers, and goosebumps sprout over her skin.

“You feel that…” I breathe in wonder. “You like it when I touch you.”

She tilts her head and bubbles a laugh. “I like it.”

I trace higher on her arm, and her reaction is clear; everywhere I move my fingers, she responds and bends into my touch, encouraging me to do more. “So sensitive…”

She hums and closes her eyes. I run my hands up her shoulder and trace her perfectly arched collarbone above her glorious breasts. I wonder if her nipples are as sensitive as her skin.

Gods, I can’t believe I’m touching her.

She steps closer to me, encouraging me, and my calling is clear. I may not be able to sense her touch, but she can feel mine. I can make her feel good.

I run my hands to the nape of her neck and massage my fingers into the base of her neck. She gives a full-throated groan of pleasure. I’ve heard her make that sound enough with other partners tonight, and now she’s making it for me. I massage deeper.

“Yessss,” she sighs.

I remember some of the handstands she was doing earlier in some of her extraordinary, prize-winning sex poses. “Your shoulders must be sore.”

She says something in Fellamana I don’t understand, but continues to lean in to me, making it clear she loves me pressing her muscles.

“No hulda?” I tease.

“No hulda.” She smiles and puts her palms on my chest.

I jerk and stare at her hands. There’s a…a sensation. Almost like, I feel something. Her fingers start to glow, and an energy or something moves from them into my chest. “What are you doing?”

“Help you,” she whispers, and her light drifts inside me. And a heat follows. I don’t feel it on my skin exactly; that’s still numb, but deeper down, I know she’s doing something to me. “Good?” she asks.

“Y-yeah.” It’s my turn to groan and move closer. I lower my face into her hair and smell her. “So good.” She smells so much like sex—her own hot sweat and female musk. Fuck.

The light warmth she’s filling me with prods at the desidre heat unsatisfied within me. Desperate for relief, for something, I lean in to her and press my cock, hard and pulsing from inside my uniform, against her.

“Mmm, yes.” She lowers one of her hands. I sense her pressure—not the sensation, but the press of her palm on my cock. She murmurs some words of pleasure that I can’t understand, though the throaty sexiness in her voice is obvious. She likes what she’s touching.

I grit my teeth, trying to not be consumed by the desidre charging inside me, demanding that I come. I don’t want this to be over. I’ve hardly begun to touch her.

My hands wander on her, and I catch myself before I cup her breasts on instinct.

She chuckles and presses her chest against mine. “Touch me.” Her eyes are round with excitement. She really wants me to touch her.

I cup each breast and lift, testing the weight of them in my grasp. They are an exquisite marvel. What I wouldn’t give to be able to actually feel them with my skin…

I gently massage and wrap my hands around her breasts. They overflow my big palms; my abnormally long fingers can hardly grasp them. She leans into my hands, moaning and encouraging me, so I press and knead them, testing for how much pressure she likes and where.

But my concentration is stolen. Her hand on my cock lights up, and I’m frozen with shock. Heat floods me in a tide of sensation, not on my skin but inside me. I feel…pleasure.

I stare at her and gasp for breath, unsure how to cope with what she’s doing to me. “Niva…”

She squints at me, concerned. “Hulda?”

“No.” I grit my teeth. “Don’t stop. Gods, I’ve never felt…” I lose the will to speak, I go weak and fall to my knees in front of her. “Niva…,” I beg, not knowing what it is I’m begging for.

She’s so petite that, on my knees, I’m at her eye level. She keeps her hand on my cock and murmurs sweet, comforting things in my ear.

I writhe and cling to her. Hot sparks searing my spine… Gods, is this what I’ve been missing?

Orgasms for me are a utilitarian thing. This…this is not utilitarian. There are not words for the thrilling sensations inside me. They climb and reach the deepest places within me where I’ve never felt anything before. It’s still not the same type of sensation I had before the genetic engineering, but it’s more than I’ve felt in a very long time. Higher and higher, and it’s all her. My face buried in her neck, and the scent of her filling my senses. Her voice coaxing me through this startling ecstasy that aches and strains inside me so, I fear I will fly apart.

And I do.

I leave the world. Stars fill me, a fire bursts inside me, and I cry unintelligible things, but mostly her name. “Niva!”

It ends; I come back to myself. I remember how to breathe again and that I exist on this plane, and I realize I’ve been squeezing Niva harder than I ever should anyone.

I let her go. “I’m so sorry.” I pat her round, full hips and her narrow shoulders, making sure I haven’t broken her. “Are you all right?”

She puts her hands on my cheeks and says something gentle I don’t understand, then drops her mouth to mine.

I wish with every fiber of my heart and soul I could feel the press of her lips. I can’t. But it’s enough to know she’s kissed me, to see the compassionate look in her eyes when she lifts her head and smooths back my short hair despite the dots of sweat that have sprouted on my brow.

A Fellamana voice calls behind her, and the crowd erupts in applause.

I jerk to my feet and stare around me. I’d forgotten there were thousands of people watching me fall apart in Niva’s arms, watching me feel an orgasm for the first time in my adult life.

But I realize too late what the applause and the announcers’ voices mean: we’re done.

My heart roars in my chest. “No, we can’t stop. I haven’t even started. Niva…” I turn to her, grasping her hand. “I touch you. It’s your turn now.”

Her mouth turns down and her eyes, her wide lovely eyes, dim with sadness. “No.”

This isn’t fair at all. She helped me, but I didn’t give her anything in return. “There has to be some way we can…”

But the Fellamana are there, taking her away, taking me away. Six males urge me backward, but that’s the thing about being my size. I don’t have to go anywhere I don’t want to. I’m impossible to restrain.

I don’t hurt anyone, but I push between them and run to Niva. I crash to my knees at her feet and lift her hands. I lay kisses across her palms and caress her wrists in the way I noticed she likes. “Don’t go.”

She brushes a hand over my face but pulls away. Everything about her expression says she doesn’t want to, but they take her away once more, and a Fellamana says to me, “It’s time for you to go, sir. Your time with her is over.” Their tone is level. They’ve said this multiple times tonight.

Everyone wants more of her. No one can let her go. I’m just another one of the dozen lovers she’s had today, ones who could actually feel her full touch, ones who made her come, too. I’m as desperate for her as everyone else is. I’m no one to her.

I watch her walk away.

She’s already forgotten me.

I let the Fellamana lead me away. I’m no one to them. I’m no one to anyone.

Forgetting Niva will be impossible for me, but maybe if I tell myself enough times that this meant nothing to her, maybe tomorrow (or next year) I’ll stop thinking of her.