What was she doing?
Adeline knotted her fingers together, her jaw aching. And still, all that tension was nothing compared to the ache that went much deeper.
If only she could feel nothing as Teq claimed.
Loneliness. She’d survived on her own for so long because separating herself and Oliver from Robert, his crimes, and his family had been imperative. Being lonely hurt less than being with the wrong people.
Being with the orcs… Kindly old Amma, supportive Sil, even Mag making the most for the DeepWander.
But no, they were even more lost and desperate than she’d been. Though she’d been willing to work hard, to share what dubious skills she possessed to be a pretty date for an important party, she didn’t have the power to turn their lives around. She could only turn herself around and go home.
So… Why was she standing outside Teq’s door?
Even as she spun on her heel, his door chimed. “Your presence has been announced. Please enter.”
Oh, just great, he already knew she was here, and if then abruptly she wasn’t here, he’d know she’d run away. And yes, she was running away. That was the whole point of leaving the DeepWander, wasn’t it?
“Adeline? Is everything all right?”
Though they’d parted with asperity on both sides, the gentle caring in his query now echoed through her head, and she closed her eyes at the temptation of it. It wasn’t just the implanted translator, the same as Ollie hearing the rock wasn’t just a matter of alien technology.
This was special.
Teq was special. And she was going to leave him behind because… Because she didn’t want to risk her heart, not when she’d sacrificed everything else.
But here she was anyway.
Long, alien fingers brushed her shoulder. There’d been a time she might have recoiled instinctively, not so much because of the alien as because touching hadn’t always been good. But Teq had swept away that fear with hands and tongue and the vibrations.
“Where is Ollie? Is he missing again?”
She swiveled back to face him. “No. He’s in our quarters, with June. He played ghost in the graveyard with her during uroondu while I talked to Mag and Amma. But when I told him we were leaving the DeepWander…” Her voice cracked. “He was so upset. I knew he would be, but…” She drew in a shuddering breath, the tension even in her jaw slackening to utter weakness.
Teq wrapped two arms around her, drawing her into his room. “Let me give you some tea. It’s not as horrible as Earther coffee, but…”
She managed to get out a watery chuckle as he guided her to the couch cushions. It was much like her quarters, though sized with no consideration for an Earther, everything crusher big. But there were other touches were uniquely Teq: a looping pattern of dark purple threads in his pillows, a collection of rocks—nothing special to her human eyes—displayed on a shallow dish, words carved over the simulated viewport that her translator read as ‘Hold tight.’ She shouldn’t be so nosy, not when she was sniveling on him.
He returned, bearing two mugs, both ridiculously large, one of which he handed to her as he knelt on the floor beside her cushion. “Tell me,” he said simply.
She hadn’t been able to explain everything to June, not when her emotions were in such turmoil. But Teq’s calm attention took the edge off her distraught panic. She let out another unsteady breath and took a drink. “On Earth, we went to therapy for everything, for the divorce and the abuse he witnessed before, and then later when Robert’s family tried to take him with a court order. But even their psychiatrist said Ollie was fine with me, better than fine.” She gave her head hard shake. “But tonight… He yelled at me. My sweet little boy. He never yells. And then he… He hit me.”
Teq set aside their mugs to clasp both her hands in all of his, a big, gentle cradle of strength. “That must’ve been some hard memories for you,” he murmured.
She looked down at their hands, his so large and powerful, hence the crusher. And yet he held her so gently. “He didn’t intend to hurt me. He didn’t hurt me. At least not with his little fists. Worse, I saw the moment he realized what he’d done. I saw it in his eyes. He doesn’t look anything like his father, really. He gets everything from me. And he’s too young to have to understand why those big feelings can hurt.” Her eyes stung, and she blinked away the tears, not wanting to be weaker than she already was.
“You also were too young to have to experience violence from someone who swore to care for you,” he said quietly. “There is no age in all the lightyears of the universe where anyone should have to know such things. There is violence and hardship and need in the universe, and it’s good that you have given Oliver the tools to understand and to heal. He will be able to use that for himself and for others.”
She gazed at him. How could he know this, this alien who claimed he could not feel? “He cried so hard, Teq,” she whispered brokenly. “And I couldn’t stop it. He was crying for everything we lost, and now I’m taking something else away from him.”
Slow and oh so gentle, Teq extended his upper arm and it wasn’t a soft nest like the cushions or a distracting sweetness like the dewdrops, but somehow it was exactly what she needed.
She let herself fall into that sheltering embrace and she sobbed until her throat felt full of cosmic rubble and her eyes gritty with barren dust.
When she had nothing left inside her to sob out, a knight in shining armor would have one of his colorful pennants or a gentleman in a historical drama would have a monogrammed handkerchief, but a mostly naked orc—despite all those pockets—had only his fingers, lots of them, to methodically brush the tears from her cheeks until her face was clear and his hands were damp. “The IDA handbook describes tears,” he said. “I didn’t understand, it seems so painful. Although I realize you do not ask it of me, I wish I could protect you from this pain. But I am in awe of your strength and boldness, that you would take on a universe for your hatchling, where he can grow up protected, and yet you still make space for him to feel what he needs to feel.”
She shook her head, rubbing her cheek against the carving on his chest that meant he was a powerful crusher. “I feel very small and weak and silly,” she whispered. “It’s how Ollie feels, like everyone else has all the power and no one will listen, and I just want to…to smash everything.”
He brushed one finger down her cheek, though all the tears were long gone. “I can show you where I keep the det cord and explosives. Just count down a warning so I can run and hide.”
Her reflexive laugh faded as she gazed up at him and saw he was serious—and realized she wouldn’t necessarily mind learning something like that.
But when she gazed at him, the countdown echoing in her head was more intimate—and somehow more dangerous. She could run and hide, or…
She reached up to touch his face, his tusk pressing into her inner wrist. They might look different, feel different, but in this moment they were enough the same.
“I shouldn’t ask,” she whispered, “not when I’m not brave enough to stay. But will you kiss me again?”
He seemed to require nothing more from her than that request, which almost made her cry again, as he swept her up against his hard torso, his arms gathering her so close to carry her to his bed. He framed her face, kissing her deep, so deep, and she wanted to thank god or evolution or anyone else who wanted to take credit for the way his tongue matched hers in delicious, tea-flavored caresses; how his hands were as frantic and fumbling as hers, times two; the way his antennae and his pulse thrummed a wild, syncopated cadence matching hers, not the melancholic dirge of wanderings in alien exile but an exultant pulse of desire shared. In one heartbeat, she was naked, in the next so was he, the orc kilt and the utility sash across his chest requiring only a one-two snap of her fingers, literally, to remove.
In their kissing, she had ended up on top, and now she gazed down the length of his body to his bared loins. “Oh, she said faintly. “For some reason I thought…” She shook her head. “This is what I get for not reading through all the homework.” She’d thought she’d have more time to get to the good parts.
From now on, she’d always start with the good parts.
As if reading her mind, like he was some sort of psychic space rock, he lay back, folding all his arms behind him, a wicked curve to his mouth that she suspected might be universal to certain male-identifying types across the galaxies. “Just because we usually keep it retracted doesn’t mean it can’t be unearthed on demand.”
“Demand,” she murmured. “I would never be so rude.”
“Be so,” he urged. “With me. Command or beg, whisper or growl, whatever you need, ask and it’s yours.”
Her whole body felt rocked, not in orgasm, not quite yet, anyway, but to be given such a gift, freely. To have someone at her side, on her side…not to mention inside.
She remembered how he’d kissed his way down her body last time—god, she’d likely never forget—so she echoed that curious, wandering path until she reached the middle of his body. Okay, she might’ve stopped reading the handbook when she got to “claspers and spermatophores”, but the configuration wasn’t that different from an Earther.
His skin was softer, sleeker around his rampant sex, the blue-bronze shinier, without the toughness of his exposed hide. Even as her pulse accelerated, her heart seemed to melt too. Vulnerable, like her.
Compatible in all the ways that mattered.
Not just because the alien orcs had become familiar, but because of Teq and the way he cared for her. The way she’d care for him.
At least until she left.
Now her heart wanted to break. Was she really so scared that she couldn’t stay and work with the orcs, work for more of this? But she wouldn’t risk Ollie.
If this moment was all she could take for herself, at least she’d give something back to this crusher who swore he couldn’t feel.
She spiraled a teasing trail of kisses around his rampant sex until his breath was a growling groan, then wrapped her lips around him. He tasted like their first kiss with its mineral tang, filling her senses. She took him all in one mouthful, and she was no expert but from the way he gasped out her name, she was rather proud of herself. In her enthusiasm, perhaps she sucked a little too hard, because he stroked the underside of her jaw and crooked one finger into the corner of her mouth, breaking the seal.
“Save the vacuum for space,” he murmured. “I’m delicate.”
When she choke-giggled, he groaned again, his lower hands gripping her shoulders. With his words and his body, he gave her all the power.
She found the pressure and the rhythm he liked, playing him like a synthetar. And the noises he made were music to her, the vibrations from him echoing deep inside her until the harmonic throbbing in her clit threatened to overcome her, the yearning ache in her breasts tightening to laser points of need in her nipples. And he wasn’t even touching her.
And then he was touching her. He rolled her across the huge cushion of his bed, pressing her downward with the heavy weight of his hard body, his erection nudging between her thighs. He cupped her breasts with his big hands, so many fingers dialing up her need to an all-klaxons emergency fuckmenowdammit.
When he stared down at her, the luminescence in his black eyes made her world spin. No, she didn’t have a world right now.
She had him.
In a low rumble like a coming avalanche, he said, “Before, you asked about penetration.”
Her clit wasn’t just throbbing, it was commanding and begging. And since the IDA initiation had included inoculations that prevented pregnancy and other infections, she could be free as she never had before. “I want you inside me. I want to feel…everything.” Angling her hips, she caught her breath on a keening moan as he eased his body into hers.
While his upper arms braced in the cushions, his two lower arms anchored under her backside, suspending her as if she were flying. And his lower-lower hands…
Wait, what? Oh. Oh! The claspers she’d not quite read about squeezed her labia with a pulsing pressure that sank into her flesh, triggering a rhythm even deeper as he rocked against her.
“Too much,” she whimpered, but when he started to withdraw, she clamped her heels behind his backside, wishing she had a hundred arms to keep him close. “More,” she demanded. “I want to feel you all.”
And there was so much of him.
He took her to the edge, and she felt as if she were peering into an abyss from which there would be no return. She would remember this always, want him always.
She’d take that risk.
The orgasm seized her from within, belling outward in a rapturous rush. When Teq cried out, the sound was nothing the alien device in her head could translate—and everything her body knew by heart.
Closing her eyes, she clasped her two arms tight around him, feeling the rush of their release echoing in the infinitesimal space between them.
When she left, it would become lightyears. It would be forever.
He held her even closer but rolled to his side so they were equals, even if his big body dented the cushions a little more than hers. The brush of his fingers over her hair was achingly gentle, and yet that touch somehow wrung another tear past her quivering lashes.
His lips pressed against her crown in place of his hand, and she felt the gust of his exhalation.
“Mag told me he’ll summon an IDA transport for you during the next work cycle,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact, as if they weren’t still lying naked together. But maybe she understood the need to shore up some defenses. “Kinsley will be going with you.”
Letting out a sigh of her own, she finally opened her eyes. “Did she decide to leave, or is he kicking her out?”
“Per the IDA contract, this was a chance to get to know each other. But that meant there was also a chance it wouldn’t work out for some.”
For her, not a chance, but a choice. But what else could she do?
She started to sit up, and Teq helped her straighten. He only needed one of his arms to lift her from the bed.
They dressed in silence. Easier for him, both the dressing and the silence. She was the one who’d come all this way, into space and to his bed.
When she cleared her throat, before she could speak, he said, “I’ll walk you back to your quarters.”
As if she’d get lost on the way?
At her own door, they stood awkwardly. Was it too much to hope for a catastrophic hull breach to suck her out into oblivion?
“Teq,” she murmured.
The door to her quarters opened. “Mommy?”
She gulped back whatever she was going to say—and it wasn’t going to be any more useful than the silence of a vacuum—and turned to see Oliver gazing up at her miserably.
“Hey, owlet,” she said softly. “You’re supposed to be in bed.”
“I couldn’t sleep until…until you came back.” He rushed to her, throwing his arms around her hips.
Such small arms and yet they broke her. There might be pain in the love, but he had always been her choice.
Refusing to let tears fall again, she glanced over at June. “Thanks for watching him. You’ve been a good friend.” One she might never see again.
June gave her a sideways hug as she squeezed by. “Any time. You know that.” She grinned up at Teq. “Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the space bugs bite.” She flitted down the corridor to her own quarters.
Adeline would’ve taken Ollie back inside, but he was clinging like the tightest space bug ever.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled into her belly. “I didn’t mean…mean to be bad.”
“Oh, owlet.” She stroked his mussed hair. “I don’t think you’re bad. You were mad and scared. I was mad and scared too, which is why we ran away from Earth. But the IDA ship is coming to take us home.”
“But this is home now.” He peered up at her then past her. “Right, Teq?”
Teq was still standing there, even though he’d had time to run away from all this messy feeling. “Home…” He sank to one knee and then a little lower yet, almost on a level with Ollie. “Home is wherever you are with the people who care about you.”
“Amma says I’m smart and kind,” Ollie said. “And June watches over me. And Sil let me play his Quantumstrum 2000X even though it’s really valuable. They care about me. And…and you care about me too, right?”
Adeline sucked in a breath. “Oliver.”
He released his grip on her, his little hands clenching. “Because I care about you, Teq. And Roxy cares about me too. That’s why we can’t leave. Because nobody else knows how to care about a rock.” He spun back. “Mom, I’m not mad and scared anymore. And you shouldn’t be either. We have to stay so nobody gets lonely.”
If Robert’s family lawyer could add this to the deposition. Her jaw ached almost as much as her heart. “Oliver. I know this is hard to understand, but you’ll see—”
“I’m not a baby anymore,” he told her. “Why won’t you listen to me?”
“Oliver.” Teq’s low voice silenced them both. “You know that orcs have another sense that Earthers don’t, yes?”
After a hesitation, Ollie nodded. “Echolocation, like bats and dolphins.”
“It’s there for us when our other senses aren’t much use, when we are in the deep and silent dark.” Teq tapped the glyph etched on his torso. “As a crusher, I have another sense. Sometimes I can tell where to dig—and when to stop digging.”
After another little moment, Ollie sighed and threw his arms around the huge orc, burying his face. Whatever he whispered made Teq close his eyes.
“Always.”
She couldn’t reach down to join the hug. She felt frozen in place, as if any movement would break her. So when Ollie looked up, she could only force a few words out. “Time for bed.”
He went without another word.
Teq gazed at her. “Good night.”
She nodded. But even if it was always night somewhere in space, she wasn’t sure how it could ever be good again.