Page 18 of Loaned to the Leonid Knight

“No! No, I do not mean that, because you’ve already said you don’t like sexual encounters. But you are soft and warm, and you feel like satin and smell like honey and wine. So, yes, I would curl myself around you and be soft for a few more hours.”

“Come to bed.” She gripped his wrist and held on tight.

A second’s pause. “All right. For a little while.”

SHE SNUGGLED BACK INTOhim, so unaware of the impact she was having on him. He cursed the ever-carnal urge that was making him hard, that was making him restless. Sleep wouldn’t come.

Sasha moaned in her sleep, shuffled herself around against him, and then muttered into her pillow. “I don’t think I’d mind with you.”

He waited, unsure if she was speaking in her sleep. At last, he risked it. “I’d like that very much. If you wanted to be intimate, when it was time. I’d like you to enjoy it.”

“Maybe I would. Are you... Are you good at those things?”

All the cursed euphemisms, trying to treat what should be a sacred act as a business... He tightened his arms around her waist and let his tail creep across one of her bare calves. “I am excellent at serving others. Putting them before myself. Your pleasure would be my first goal. And your comfort.”

Sasha’s voice was slowly becoming alert. “Has anyone ever served you? Pleasured you like you please them?”

He could point out that he was a virgin right about now, and that would clear things up.

And maybe Sasha would feel that he’d be too clumsy, too rough. He didn’t want to lie, but he didn’t want to divulge his inexperience, either. He had time. He could learn about human Queens on the database computer in his room.

“No. No one has tried to provide such a service,” he answered.

“We could work on making each other feel good?”

“If you’d like. I know it’s not something that needs to happen until Dr. Marcus gives us the go-ahead.”

“Yeah, but,” Sasha let out a high, trailing yawn, “it’s probably good to practice.”

“Oh, Sasha. I would love to practice, but I— Sasha? Are you awake?”

She gave a sleepy nod against him and threw her arm over his chest.

His heart was going to give out. It wasn’t meant to beat like this. A telltale purr, a noise he so rarely made that it startled him, started its low, quiet rumble.

Happiness.

Her touch, her warmth, her nearness...It’s wonderful. Oh, I will study. I will learn all about the human pleasure zones, and I will serve her so that she begins to look forward to our required coupling. She’ll enjoy it, perhaps crave it. One day, she might even crave me.

His paw came to rest on her tiny hand, covering it completely. Sasha sighed in her last second of wakefulness, and then she slept.

SASHA WOKE UP WARMERand more comfortable than she had ever been in her life.Whatever this blanket is, I’m taking it home with me.

Wait. Home is... Well, I’m not paying the rent. I guess I’m homeless.

No, I have credits in my account. I’ll buy a home. Not on Sapien-Three. Not going back.

Staying here. With...

Her eyes peeled open, and she immediately smiled. Gideon was holding her hand across his chest. His tail was wrapped around her ankle as if making sure he didn’t float off in his sleep.

And he wasn’t snoring, but he was— Purring!

That’s genuinely the most adorable thing. Big, savage cat-dude alien purrs and holds my ankle in his sleep.

Holds all of me, Sasha realized, surveying their closeness, her shoulder pressed against his chest.

The cozy contentedness abruptly gave way to a stab of fear.