Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

HALABY

T hank you for coming with me," I said as I opened the college building's door for Ghosha and myself. It was a lovely day with bright sunshine peeking through fast-moving clouds. A brisk breeze was coming up from the port, bringing with it a faint scent of sea and…something I couldn't quite pinpoint. A good smell. Something wonderful, in fact.

"Of course," Ghosha said as he walked beside me down the corridor. "I wouldn't miss this."

He had been full of cryptic statements like that ever since yesterday afternoon when he'd suggested this Icelandic language class to me. Several Norlons were going to be there, though I doubted I would know any by name. I really was quite isolated on the medical level of the ship. And I supposed my leave might be a good way to remedy that.

We found the room where our class was meant to be and discovered six Norlons—a Cero, two Khess, and three Yook—as well as two humans. Because the humans were sitting in chairs behind long tables, I assumed our instructor wasn't there yet. Ghosha and I sat together in the back, near the door.

Ghosha seemed to know a few of the Norlons, and I kept to myself as he chatted with them. I'd brought my tablet with me, of course, so called up a few patient records to see how they were doing to pass the time. Rampon's arm had fully healed after his self-amputation a few weeks ago, but I had a new Cero patient suffering from burns. She'd been in engineering when a trajectory coil had exploded, burning her abdomen. My team was using a new procedure from a doctor on Nor who had seen success by removing a portion of the body around the burn damage. Basically, we were treating it much the same as we would a brush fire—if there was nothing to burn, the fire would put itself out. I was very hopeful it would work in this case.

I probably shouldn't even be looking in on the cases I'd left behind to come down here. No doubt Captain Langarus would remove my access if he found out I was still monitoring any patient, let alone the one that had had him calling my mental health into question. I'd been obsessed about her care, stayed awake for three days watching over her, and erupted on the poor captain when he'd asked me to rest. After a week confined to my quarters with regular visits from a range of professionals assigned to watch over me, I was now here on Earth under orders to get myself right.

Or else go back to Nor.

I closed the patient information portal and sent a quick message to one of my admins, asking him to lock my direct access until further notice.

I didn't want to be like this. I'd thought joining the delegation would be a quiet mission to bring solutions to a people who could benefit from them as we had. I would be educating and demonstrating our medical advancements. But I should've known better. I'd served on several ships during the war and knew that, even without a conflict, there were always risks. Potentially devastating risks. And here I was terrified of losing another member of the crew all over again, just like at the end of the war.

Well, I'd recovered then and I would do so again .

The door opened and a human man rushed in, bringing with him that intriguing scent I'd caught outside. I refocused myself on the present and the fact that I wanted to learn to speak the native tongue, but I had to wonder what that smell was. A food item? Like a nearby vendor trying to entice customers through the doors? I licked my lips and shifted in my seat.

"Something wrong?" Ghosha asked. I looked over to find him smiling.

"No, nothing's wrong, but… Do you smell that?"

His grin grew wider. "Smell what exactly?"

Goddess, sometimes he was exhausting. I didn't answer when the man who had come in stopped at the lectern at the front of the room. He spoke, but I couldn't hear a word he said as I realized he was the man from the boat yesterday. The one who'd sung so mournfully, who I'd given a net full of fish to, and whose woman I'd knocked into the sea and only halfway rescued. He was to be our teacher?

"Halaby."

I flinched and looked to Ghosha.

"Tobias asked us to introduce ourselves," he said with a gesture toward our instructor.

"Oh." I looked around and realized everyone was looking at me. "Oh! Um, I'm Doctor Halaby Revazi, head of the medical team with the delegation."

"Doctor Revazi," the teacher—Tobias—said with a grin, "I forgot to thank you yesterday, so… Thank you."

I swallowed hard, not sure why him thanking me should have me experiencing such a sudden and sexual response. He'd touched me yesterday, delved his fingers into the fur of my chest, and I hadn't reacted like this with quickened breath and feeling flushed.

Ghosha bumped me, and I realized I should say, "You're welcome."

More people introduced themselves, and I would be hard pressed to repeat anything they said as I watched Tobias smile and talk with them. His eyes were the icy blue of a glacier, his shoulder-length blond hair windswept and tucked behind his ears, with a darker beard framing his lips and jaw. Goddess, his lips… Berry red with a perfect bow in the upper, the lower full as though pouting. I licked mine, but I wanted to lick his.

I took a deep breath and looked down at the tabletop, but that didn't help at all. The scent I'd caught whiffs of before was so much stronger now and— Oh, goddess, it was coming from him! I'd smelled him coming up from the port, the wind bringing him to me. I hadn't even gotten a tiny breath of him on the ship because the wind had been at my back the entire time, but now… He smelled so good that I could feel my cock filling in want of him.

Springing from my chair, I stumbled for the door and into the hall. His scent was less strong out here, but still present, and I suddenly knew what this really was. I was reacting as though I'd found my mate! My desperation to inhale every molecule of his scent, my visceral and carnal reaction to it, and how I wanted to go back in there and make sure he was well and happy. I'd only just learned his name and yet he was everything to me!

"Are you alright?"

I'd had my forehead against the wall, arms crossed in front of me, and now rolled my head to look at Tobias standing beside me. His expression was so sweetly concerned as he reached over and touched my arm. Even through my tunic I could feel the heat of his hand.

It was wrong to grab him and haul him in between my body and the wall, but I did it anyway. He gasped, parting his perfect lips, and I dove down to kiss him. He made a surprised noise that quickly morphed into a moan as I licked into his mouth and devoured his lips. I gripped the back of his shirt, pushing his body into mine only to realize he was too short to line up with me properly. Adjusting my stance, I pushed a leg between his and moaned with him as I felt his cock firming against my thigh.

Tobias wanted me, too.

A door opening and closing farther down the hall had us popping apart. Tobias rapped his head on the wall before I could put a hand behind him, but then we were both rubbing at the spot. I stared down at him staring up at me. Was he upset? Should I apologize? I probably should regardless.

"Tobias, I?—"

"In here," he said before he slipped out from under me and walked quickly toward a door across the hall. He opened the door and went inside before it clicked shut behind him.

I hesitated, but perhaps he wanted to talk more privately than in a college corridor. Striding over, I went in after him and immediately said, "I should have asked for permission to do that."

"I disagree," he said a second before he hopped up and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I caught him, of course, and happily opened up when he kissed me.

His cock hard against my belly, I stumbled forward until I could press him against the wall. I didn't know what sort of room we were in, but it seemed small and was lit only by the dim sunlight filtering in from a narrow window beside us. Trusting that he knew this was a safe space for such activities, I let the wall hold him up and massaged the firm muscles of his ass while we kissed.

But we had too much clothing on between us and I couldn't feel him. Going to my knees, I set him on his feet and abandoned his mouth so that I might fill mine with what I needed. Since I hadn't needed permission to kiss him, I didn't ask for permission to suck his cock. I simply opened his jeans, shoved everything out of my way, and savored the slide of his velvety cock against my lips.

Tobias wailed beautifully as he buried his fingers in the fur on top of my head. He petted me while I filled my senses with the taste, scent, and feel of him. While caressing the back of his flexing thighs and his delectable ass, I bobbed on his cock as it leaked on my tongue. Above me, Tobias started speaking, but I couldn't understand his words. I nearly laughed as I realized that listening to him talk while I sucked his cock was my first lesson in Icelandic.

My own body aching for attention, I ignored it and focused entirely on Tobias. I could take his entire cock into my mouth, the tip just easing into my throat and making me hold my breath. I could hang on him like this for nearly an hour, but I wouldn't torture him like that. I needed his release, too.

Bobbing again, I noticed his hips jerking a tiny bit, as though he was fighting back his instinct to thrust. I grasped his ass in both hands and held still, mouth ready, before rocking him forward. I could feel him hesitating, so looked up to find him staring down at me with a hopeful expression as he bit his bottom lip. I rocked him again, and he made a throaty sound of surrender as he started thrusting into my mouth.

Even though my back was beginning to protest being hunched over so I could reach him, and my own cock was throbbing with the need to come, I watched Tobias lose himself to the pleasure I was providing for him. This was me servicing my mate, claiming him as he claimed me, and it filled me with such joy, I found myself crying. I'd been looking for him for so very long.

Tobias came with a holler, shoving his cock deep and pressing his pelvis against my lips. I couldn't taste his release and so made him let me go. He did, and I backed off enough to suck the saltiness from him and roll it around on my tongue. He shivered hard in my hands, twitching and gasping, so I eased back slowly. I buried my nose in his springy golden brown hairs and breathed in his scent, basking in a different sort of bliss.

"Do you…need me?" he asked breathlessly as he gently petted me .

"Always." I kissed his belly and looked up at him.

The sweetest little smile lifted his bitten lips as he gazed down at me. Running the pad of his thumb across my sensitized bottom lip, he said, "Do you need me to get you off?"

"Oh. Would you?" Honestly, I could come just from staring at him too long, but if he wanted to touch me in any way, I would never refuse him.

He helped me stand and— Goddess, we'd have to do this differently next time because my knees and back were nearly painful enough to make me limp. But when Tobias got down on his knees and giggled because he couldn't quite reach my cock with his mouth, I knew I'd suffer in any number of ways for his pleasure. And as he helped me open my tunic and shove my pants down out of the way, the look of eager fascination on his animated face was also worth the discomfort of having to bend my knees so he could reach me.

Holding onto the wall with one hand, I couldn't stop petting his hair as he licked along my cock, exploring. His tongue found the series of slight ridges on the bottom third of my cock, and he made a curious sound as he laved them. Was he trying to imagine how my cock would feel inside him? I moaned as I fantasized about that, too.

And that was it for me. I'd been too far gone on him to last and came for him with a sudden rush of intense pleasure. Tobias sucked every single drop from me and seemed to wish for more because he was reluctant to release me when I gently eased him back.

Blinking up at me, lips red and swollen, he said, "You taste sweet."

"I eat a lot of fruit."

I chuckled at that inane bit of post-coital conversation and finally stood up straight, my back cracking as I did. That he immediately stood to cuddle against me, the top of his head resting against my collarbone, made all the discomfort worth it and then some. I wrapped my arms around him and kissed his tousled hair.

After a while, Tobias sighed. "I should get back."

"Oh, dear. I completely forgot about—" I pulled away, shame washing through me. "I'm so sorry."

"No, don't apologize! I'm not at all sorry. I might even go in there and tell them all exactly what happened here." He grinned wickedly up at me, and I believed him.

And remembered Ghosha was still across the hall. "Oh, goddess. I may not be able to go back in there."

"Because they'll know?"

"I— No, I…I want them to know." I stared down into his eyes, curious and anxious to know what he thought about that. I knew humans didn't have nearly the instant and instinctual reaction to finding a mate that we did. Did Tobias even wish to be so claimed?

"Yeah," he said with a bashful peek up at me, "I want them to know, too."

I kissed him for that. He might not understand why or have any concept of what was happening between us, but that he was interested eased my worries a great deal.

"There's a Khess in there who will tease me mercilessly, though. He is a friend," I amended so Tobias wouldn't think it was a problem.

"Mmm, yeah, I have friends like that." He pressed his face against my fur and took a deep breath. "You know what? I think I'm going to cancel the class. Let me just go tell them."

Tobias skirted around me, tucking himself away and zipping up by the time he reached the door.

I stood there grinning, my mind abuzz with the all the things I wanted to do to him, while my heart thumped a happy tune for being accepted by my mate.