Page 39 of Fathom

I'd made that mistake with the first guy I dated in Paris, who only showered every few days instead of every day. After calling my friends back home and complaining about my latest discomfort, one of them asked how much he showered, and it was like a light went off. I ended up breaking up with him because he complained when I pointed out the issue, rather than apologizing and washing up more.

So I needed to get him clean and get a better look at what I was getting myself into.

I'd felt him before, but I needed to see it and make sure. There was always the chance that his biology included spikes or something else equally incompatible. I'd already gotten some of his spunk on my skin, so I knew that wasn't going to cause blisters or skin irritation, but I hadn't gotten a good look at the equipment yet. No dirty dicks and no unexplored frontiers of anatomy. I needed an up-close inspection.

There was just one major problem.

Eun didn't let me go.

His arms tightened around me, pressing my rear against the hard length of him. I sucked in a breath as heat rushed through me, my hips canting back towards him. Wetness dribbled down between my legs. I wanted him so bad. In that moment, my horniness made all of my reasons to wait feel like excuses to me, ones that I could bat to the side without a moment's thought if he decided to pull down my clothes and take me right then and there. He could do it. It would be a few brief movements, and he could bend me over, hunching over my back as he took me standing. He could push me down into thatbare mattress, that pile of rags, and mount me. I was completely at the mercy of his overpowering strength.

"Let go," I whispered again. "Eun, no."

My voice was soft, quiet, a protest that could be brushed away as not being heard. My resistance was as soft as my words, as I recognized that I couldn't expect an alien in the throes of a state I didn't understand to hear my no and respond to it, not when his own family member chained him to a wall to restrain him.

But even so, something in him heard me say no.

He let me go.

His arms loosened a little at first, then he pulled away from me like he was fighting against himself just to let go.

I hesitated, taking a good five seconds to fight my own urge to shove my butt back up at him, but desire for cleanliness won, and instead I stepped forward into the open space between his outstretched arms. His hands clenched reflexively on either side of me, closing on open air. His tail was still around my waist, but there was some slack in its hold. I didn't walk out of the circle of his arms. Instead, I turned around and put my fingers on his chest. He looked down where I touched him, and back at me.

"You're not all clean," I said in my language. I trailed my fingers to the side, tracing my touch over his deltoids, biceps, and forearms, until I found his hand where the wounds had already stopped bleeding. I gently took his hand and led him back to the stool. Then I stepped in close to him and put my hands on his boxers.

I yanked them down, then quickly rose up and put my hands on his shoulders, pushing him down to sit on the stool.

He sat down, his knees wide as he rested his hands on his thighs.

It was such a simple thing, him following my lead, holdinghimself back even when all the evidence said he was so out of control that he needed to be chained to a wall.

I frowned at the chain.

I didn't like it, but I wasn't about to rip the chain free from the wall, even if the cracks around the wall anchor suggested that Eun would eventually.

I grabbed the washcloth, got it good and ready, then finally got a good look.

It was long, thick, phallic, with small bumps evenly spaced along the shaft that oozed a clear, slippery substance. My mouth watered as I looked at it, and I slowly dropped to my knees in front of him as I set the washcloth down on his base. I ran it up and down the length as his fingers dug into his thighs, and his eyes never left my face, making sure he was good and clean. I got under his balls too, enjoying the way his whole body tensed when I touched them.

I loved that he was a little bit afraid of me.

That thought brought back the worry. Yes, he was stronger than me, but he was an alien. I didn't know what kind of mental state he was in. What if I got it wrong? If I moved forward with him now, taking what I wanted because of the urges of my own lust, how would I know he was actually okay with it.

He took the washcloth from me and stood, his eyes intent on me. I rose with him, stepping back out of reach. He turned away from me, his entire body tense with the effort as he walked into the adjacent washroom. The shower clicked on, and I heard a low growl. I moved so I could see him through the open doorway, and that he was furiously scrubbing himself, washing his entire body with soap. I stood there in the doorway as he gripped himself in his hands, sliding his soapy hand along his length as he rinsed it fully clean under the stream of steaming water.

My own hand drifted down, slipping inside my own shorts as I watched him.

He watched my hand and stepped out of the shower, coming towards me.

He strode towards me, heat intent in his eyes, only to be pulled short by the chains. Something in the look in his eye, an intensity like he had something to prove, made me stay where I was. He never took his eyes off me. The muscles in his body bulged, straining with the effort as he leaned towards me, pulling against the thick metal that kept him from reaching me.

Then the strands that I had been calling his hair reached down, and his tail came up, and they wrapped around the metal.

There was a squealing, crunching sound as the solid metal shredded like it was as flimsy as paper, tearing his bonds from him as if they were nothing.

He could have gotten free this whole time.

He stayed restrained because he chose to.