Page 12 of Mutiny

"What will work for you?" he asked.

I cleared my throat, not knowing how to say it. It was embarrassing to say it.

"I don't know," I said instead.

"The terminology I initially proposed focused on the truth, how I admired you, detailing how attractive you are to me, and how I intend our mating to result in a long-term bond," he said. "The opposite extreme of that would be for me to lie and say that I intend to use you for my pleasure and then mate with another woman; is that the adjustment you desire?"

"No!" I said. "I want both. Not the other woman stuff, but the using me and putting me down and the affection. I want you to alternate."

That sounded so strange when I said it out loud and didn't feel like it encompassed the full scope of what I wanted. Would he even understand?

"I will make that adjustment," he said. "Are there any other changes?"

Oh fuckity fucksticks was I really going to just do this?

"No," I said. "You may proceed with your plan."

SIX

BULWARK

The insertion modifier whined, following the instructions programmed into it to weave the complex circuitry into the prototype's mesh. Mei, focused on me, her breath shallow and fast, her eyes wide, the scent of her arousal in the air.

Positive agitation, my alien body language subroutine reported.

I moved closer, one slow and deliberate step, and reached out to touch her cheek.

A flush crept up her neck, staining the skin rose-gold.

I had run an in-depth scientific evaluation of every piece of media that depicted alien mating practices that displayed behaviors similar to what I observed in my mated brothers, or what INF-GRA 32811 had directly reported. He had gone into great detail about what his mate liked, and I had adjusted my media information-gathering parameters based on that and came up with a mating plan, the one she had just accepted.

I slid my hand lower, tracing a line down the side of her neck and along her arm, noting how her skin formed small raised bumps in the path of my touch. "Let me."

Her breath hitched. I shifted, angling her body with a gentle nudge, moving her away from the insertion modifier until her back was to the mixed matter printer. Another touch, this one brushing her hair from her face. She tilted her face up toward me. My hands drifted down to her hips, fingers circling them. I lifted her, the movement seamless.

The printer’s surface was cool against the sides of my hands as I settled her on top. A pulse throbbed in her throat. I shifted my fingers, circling the bottom edge of her shirt. The women were all still wearing the dross uniforms from storage, though some had taken to cutting them up in different manners to make new, inefficient shapes.

“Bulwark—”

Her voice was a low tremor. I didn't stop. Didn't speak. Just kissed the hollow of her throat as I lifted, listening for the quickening of her breath as my fingertips traced the bare flesh over her hipbones.

Her species had exceptional synaptic response times, one reason they were held for so long before processing so that the harvesting procedure could be adapted to their delicate but valuable nerve fibers. Those same response times meant the right touch in the right place would fire through her brain with remarkable speed. My thumb brushing against the inside of her hipbone, teasing at her soft vulnerability, would send her heart racing. My teeth, lightly closing in close to her artery, not hard enough, not even enough to pinch, but only to graze, would leave her gasping.

My touch was deliberate and focused as I undressed her.

Touch was communication within the body: mechanoreceptors beneath the skin's surface registering the faint gradient of pressure, bulbous corpuscles picking up the body's subtle stretch, firing action potentials along afferent nerve fibers. Those electrical impulses climbed through the dorsal root ganglion, raced up the spinal cord, crossed over, and projected to the thalamus before mapping onto the somatosensory cortex.

A single localized touch couldn't stay isolated because the nervous system's architecture refused to keep it contained. The signal didn't just end on a sensory cortical map; it bled into the autonomic system, triggering a subtle release of oxytocin and activating C-tactile afferents…those slow, unmyelinated fibers built specifically to register gentle, emotional touch. It was the science of resonance. A light pressure of my lips against the smooth skin under her breasts didn't just register at the site; it sent a sympathetic wave down through the spinal cord, causing her heart rate to shift, a faint tremor to ripple down the small of her back, and the breath in her lungs to catch. One point of contact, transforming into an entirely different sensation elsewhere in the body, bound together by nothing more than delicate electrical currents and chemistry.

I expanded the sensations moment by moment, touch by touch, until her entire body was reacting to me, her sensory system engaged throughout her full body, her thighs trembling as I spread them apart, the soft mound of her opening before me as I knelt, hooking her legs over my shoulders, as she perched naked and exposed at the edge of the printer.

I took a good, long look.

I stroked down the outside of her lower lips with my thumbs, parting them to reveal the inner petals, glistening with the evidence of her desire. This desire was both physical and mental, woven together by the actions I had shown over time to prove I was patient, dedicated, and here for her alone.

My instincts raged, demanding that I claim her.

"You are so beautiful," I said, and she looked away from me, her cheeks flushing as she twisted in place, like she wanted to run away from my words, but I didn't let her go.