Page 38 of Fathom

"Leija?" Eun's uncle said from the open bedroom door.

Oh.

Eun must have heard him come in the front door. His reaction was to carry me deeper into the room and hide me behind him, all tangled up in his strands.

"I'm okay," I called out. "Everything is fine."

But he wouldn't understand that, as I said it in the wrong language.

"I am well," I called out, but I wasn't sure if that was the right thing to say. "I am good. You should leave."

His presence was clearly causing a problem. Eun had been perfectly docile with me, letting me wash him and move him around. At least, docile if I didn't count his hair going absolutely wild and tendril finger fucking me to the edge of my peak. It was clear from the intense way he reacted to his uncle that he could have done a lot more for me, but hadn't.

This snarling, violent-sounding creature that stood betweenme and the doorway had only been triggered by his uncle's presence.

His uncle said something else, which included the words not and leave.

I wriggled, and Eun's strands let me go, setting me down on the ground. I stepped out from behind Eun and tried to make a shooing gesture towards the door.

"Go," I said as I walked towards him. "Go, go- agh!"

Eun's arms wrapped around my waist, and he pulled me against him, my back flush against his front, my backside nestled against him. The growls that radiated through his form rumbled against my skin, vibrations that teased my tenses. The tone deepened, and I felt myself relax against him. His grip was tight, but it didn't hurt. His arms were iron bars keeping me safe, his claws close but never cutting. The towels that I had wrapped around his hands had fallen to the floor in the movement, but there was no sign of blood on me where he had gripped me.

Eun pushed my hips back against his, his hardness poking against my backside as he let out a snarl over my head.

"Mate?" Eun's uncle asked, the words prefaced by others I didn't understand.

I had heard that word before. It wasn't a verb, more like a label, but it was a label that only applied to two aliens of the same species who went through what I had guessed was a marriage ceremony, though I couldn't be quite sure, as there were multiple versions of it, even if the label was the same. Though I wasn't sure if I should call all the different creatures on this planet different species. It was clear from the shows that cross-breeding between different prey species pairings and different predator species pairings was possible. I wasn't a scientist. Maybe the dramatic variations were just visual differences, but all the aliens were the same. Except, Eun was really different.Out of all the aliens I had seen on this planet, Eun was the only one I'd seen with a single pair of eyes and arms, as well as skin instead of fur, feathers, or scales.

"Mate!" Eun snarled back, saying an actual word for the first time in a long time.

"Leija?" his uncle asked.

"Go away!" I told him. "Leave!"

Eun's uncle dropped the bag of food he had brought on the floor at the threshold of the room, then turned abruptly and walked away. I heard the soft sound of the front door opening and shutting, and then he was gone.

Eun stood there, half hunched over me, his arms around me, his breath hot against the top of my head as he breathed heavily. His claws flexed in and out. He let me go, just a little bit.

Then his tail wrapped around my hips, pulling me back against his hard length.

Fuck I needed him inside me.

But there was a problem.

"Um... Eun..." I said, my voice soft and small in the silent spaces between his breath. I didn't know how to say it fully, so I said the words in a mixture of my language and his. "Let me go."

I pushed gently against his arms and tail that held me close to emphasize the meaning of my words.

I didn't want him to let me go. I wanted to melt against him, to feel his teeth against my neck, to feel his hands running up and down my body. I wanted to turn in his arms and press my lips against him and see just how far this wildness would take us.

But his dick was dirty, and I couldn't stand that.

In this moment, I was desperate, wet, and needy for him. My thoughts of being worried about taking advantage of himvanished in the face of the fact that he was stronger than me, and I couldn't force him to do anything he didn't want to do.

But I didn't want a yeast infection.

Dirty dicks were how you got bacteria in the wrong place.