Stolen By the Alien by Ashlyn Hawkes

9

Hannah

It’s amazing. A vibrating cock. Oh my God. It’s the best thing that ever could’ve happened to me.

Except, not really. Omur did his very best to make me forget about Luca and Brea, and I did while we fucked, but now that the aftermath of the glow is fading away, I can’t help growing a bit unnerved again.

I think Omur’s gone to sleep, and I ease out of his embrace. I try to sit up without disturbing him, but his eyes immediately open.

“Do you need something?” he asks, sitting up too. “Something to drink? Eat?”

“I… I could go for something to eat, yes,” I murmur in a bit of a daze. I’m more wired than exhausted, but I’m not sure I can walk right now. My legs feel like jelly.

Omur puts his clothes back on. It’s crazy how it just glides over him like that. I’ve never seen clothes like his before.

He stands, bends down and kisses my forehead, and then walks to the door and leaves.

Just that simple kiss has my eyes filling with tears again. Luca hadn't been that sweet, but then again, maybe he thought I wouldn't want that. What was wrong with a little bit of affection? When had Luca started to pull away from me? When did I start to fail him? Had everything been my fault after all? I mean, it takes two to tango. I must not have danced hard enough.

But who cares? Luca’s a fucking asshole. He shouldn’t have any control over me. Why am I still giving him headspace?

Maybe because I don’t know if I can handle this current space I’m occupying. None of this here with Omur seems to be real. It’s crazy, right? A super hot alien claims I’m his mate. We’ve had amazing sex twice, and he has a vibrating cock. What more can I want?

That’s just it. I don’t know what I want.

Omur returns with two plates. One has a heap of orange food on it, the other a mixture of colors. I recognize none of it.

I accept the plate with the orange food. “Do you have any forks?”

“Forks?”

“Any utensils?” I ask.

“We eat with our fingers. Or if you prefer…” He picks up some of the orange food. It looks a bit leafy. Omur holds it up to my lips, and I let him feed me. “What do you think?”

It tastes a bit tangy, like zesty lettuce, actually. "Not bad," I tell him.

He alternates feeding me and himself, and I let him pamper me, which honestly is something I never let Luca do. Why am I willing to be subservient to Omur but not to Luca who I knew for years? My independence meant so very much to me for so very long, but now, I don't feel independent at all. I feel trapped, as if I'm in a cage.

And yet, a part of me wants to remain in this cage.

But that damn maestro…

“Why are you frowning?” Omur asks. By now, we’ve eaten about half of the food.

I shake my head.

“Hannah, please, talk to me,” he begs.

“I don’t want to.”

“Fine.”

“Fine? That’s it? You aren’t going to press me?” I ask skeptically.

“If you do not wish to talk to me, we do not have to talk,” he says simply.

I appreciate that, I do, and I don’t want to talk.

But I also do want to.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me,” I murmur.

“As far as…”

“Tomorrow. The next day. Next week. Where I’ll be ten years from now.”

“You can be with me for as long as you want to be,” he says.

"Does that mean I can return to Earth when I want to?"

“I… Yes.”

“With my mind wiped?”

He hesitates and glances away.

“Can you pick and choose what’s wiped away?” I ask.

He says nothing, eyeing me silently.

“Could you take away the memories of Luca and Brea? All of them.”

“You don’t want to remember them at all?” Omur asks.

“Not at all,” I say firmly.

“How long did you know both of them?” he asks.

“For years and years,” I inform him.

“Well, then, you would have huge gaps in your memory for years and years. Massive gaps. You’ll try to remember something, and you won’t be able to, even if it’s not related to them directly, and it would make you go mad. Please, trust me when I say this, but that is not what you want.”

“You don’t know me,” I spit out angrily. “I can handle it.”

“I don’t know you,” he says honestly. “But I want to. And I wish I could believe that you could handle it, but it sounds to me that you’re wanting to erase them from your life would be a lot like my trying to erase my brother Rumus from my life, and that would drive me positively mad.”

“You have a brother?”

He nods. “Do you?”

“No. I don’t.” I hesitate. “What would your brother think of me?”

“He is happy that I found my mate.”

“He already knows?” I ask, shocked.

He nods. “I spoke with him about you.”

“You did?” I bite my lower lip. “He’s not… Your brother isn’t…”

“My brother is not the maestro.”

“Just who is the maestro anyway?”

“The leader of the Garrux.”

“And you have to do what he says.”

“I should do what he says,” he says, again seeming to pick his words carefully.

“But you don’t want to.”

“What I want is immaterial.”

“Because what the maestro wants, the maestro gets.” I roll my eyes. “He sounds more like a dictator than a leader.”

“What you want is all that matters to me,” he clarifies with a shake of his head.

I hold up my hand. “What I want?” I huff a sigh. “Omur, you really need to…”

“Need to what?” he asks innocently.

“Dude.” I run a hand through my hair. I feel as if I’m coming unglued.

There’s a long moment of silence. It’s not awkward and uncomfortable. I actually feel at peace enough to be silently sitting with him, and gradually, he resumes feeding us. All of it is delicious, although none of it tastes exactly like the food back on Earth.

Interesting. Am I already not thinking of Earth as home?

“I don’t have a whole lot to return back to,” I blurt out.

“Because Brea took everything from you when she stole away Luca?” he asks.

“Basically,” I murmur. “I’ve been trying to ignore the fact that I’ve been passed over for a promotion at work for three years in a row. I work in a massive corporation, and I work harder than anyone else. I put in more hours than anyone else. Even Luca doesn’t understand why I kept getting passed over.”

“Why were you not promoted?”

“Because of two reasons,” I spit out. “One, because I’m not male. Two guys were picked over me the first two years.”

“And this year?” he asks.

I blow out a breath. “I ignored the advances of the CEO of the company. Instead, he picked a blonde who no doubt wrapped her purple-painted lips around his cock to get the promotion.”

Omur blinks a few times. “She used sex to get the job?”

“Yes. It’s called sleeping your way to the top. I won’t do it. I’ll never do it.”

“A boss would do that? Pick a lesser qualified woman because she sucked his cock?”

I nod.

“But why? It shouldn’t be based on that, and it’s rather disgusting to think that he might have made that woman feel as if she had no choice but to suck on his cock if she wished for the position.”

“Yes, well, I considered myself lucky that he didn’t fire me.” I bite my lower lip and pick at my nails, avoiding looking at Omur. “He didn’t ask for me to suck his cock. He asked if he could bend me over his desk and let him shove his cock into my ass. He knew I was engaged… so I guess that’s why he didn’t want my pussy although he could’ve gloved up.”

“Gloved up?” Omur repeats, his confusion evident in his raised eyebrows.

“We… Earthling males can roll a bit of latex over their cock. It’s called a condom. It collects their cum so that the woman doesn’t get pregnant from sexual intercourse. It, ah, can help with preventing some STDs.”

“STDs?”

“Sexually transmitted diseases.” I eye him. “Are you clean?”

“Clean? I don’t know what you mean.”

"Do you have any sexually transmitted diseases?"

“Garrux don’t have any diseases.”

“None?”

He shakes his head. "Why would someone wish to have sex and not possibly produce a child? Although I have to admit that I don't know if you are ready for that possibility, which makes me wonder if we should not continue to have sex, but the thought of that terrifies me because that would mean I am doomed to a life without sex."

“So you are a virgin?” I ask, not certain I can believe that.

“I am not,” he says. “I have not had sex with my mate until meeting you, of course, but I have had sex a few times.”

“If you know you have a mate out in the universe, why would you not wait to have sex for the first time with her?” I ask, more curious than anything.

I'm not going to judge him. Why should I? One time, in college, I got seriously drunk. I didn't have a boyfriend at the time, and I was at a party. The couple next to me started to make out and have sex in front of me, and they invited me to join in. I don't remember all of the details, but I do recall that she licked me out while her boyfriend fucked me from behind. How I ended up in the middle of them instead of just playing a bit, I don't remember. I made it a point to never see either of them again. I was too embarrassed.

“Because I wanted to make sure I knew how to pleasure my mate once I did meet her,” he says simply. “It was to gain experience with you in mind.”

“And what about her?”

“It was just one other woman, a fellow Garrux. It was the same desire for her. She wanted to try to learn how to pleasure a man so that she could be better for her mate.”

“That’s…” I shrug. “That’s not how we do it.”

“No? I only had the one sexual experience before you.”

“That’s it?”

“No. I preferred to use my hand instead when I thought that I might never find my mate. It was never satisfying, though.”

“What about that woman?” I ask.

Omur blinks a few times. “It was not satisfying with her either. She made me orgasm, yes, but honestly, anyone, any species, could probably make me come if you rub hard and long enough.”

“And did you pleasure her satisfactorily?”

He flares his nostrils. “I doubt it. I do not think we are meant to have sex with anyone but our mates. I wish I had saved myself for you.”

I snort. “Not many can wait until marriage to have sex for the first time.” I hesitate. “Do Garrux marry?”

“That is what you call when two become one, yes?” he asks.

I nod. “And then divorce is the dissolution of the marriage.”

“With our mates, we join our hearts, our minds, our bodies, our souls. It is called a melding.”

“And what we’ve been doing…”

“Is just fucking,” he assures me. “The melding requires more, but you do not have to worry about that.”

Not unless I want to go through with it.

“You said that you don’t know if you have much to go back to on Earth. Your boss sounds like an asshole who should have his cock ripped off,” Omur says.

“Are all Garrux so violent?” I ask with a laugh.

"I was thinking far more violent thoughts," he says darkly. "His cock should be shoved up his ass, and his balls ripped off and shoved down his throat."

“That is rather violent,” I say dryly.

He shrugs. “I can’t stand to think that he wasn’t able to see you the way I do. You’re strong, beautiful, and capable.”

“Did you forget that you held me while I was blubbering about a nightmare?”

“You can be strong and vulnerable at the same time. You can be strong and still hurt. There is no connection between the two. Strength comes from conviction, from your will.”

“My will?” I repeat.

"What is it that you want out of life?" he asks.

“I… I don’t know. My job has no advancement for me. As much as I enjoy the work, I want to move up, you know? And I don’t have a fiancé anymore or a best friend. I don’t have a place to live. I… I have nothing back on Earth.”

“What about your parents?”

“They’re dead,” I murmur.

“I am so sorry,” he says.

“Your parents?”

“They are dead as well,” he says. “It is only my brother and me.”

“Does he… Does he have a mate?”

“He does.”

I blow out a breath. “And when you have a mate, you cling to her and forsake all others?”

“Not quite,” he says, “but that is not entirely wrong. My brother and I are close but not as close as we had once been.”

“Do you miss him?”

“I do, but I also know he is as happy as can be. His will has him being with his family.”

“You want a family.”

“All Garrux do.”

“None are bachelors? Bachelorettes?” I ask curiously.

He furrows his brow.

“None wish to remain single for the rest of their lives?”

“No. It is only that some have not found their mates yet.”

“Do all find their mates before they die?”

“Not all of them.”

I hesitate. “Have any had their mates reject them?”

His eyes bore into me. The orbs are almost entirely green, the black ring inside almost shrinking to nothingness.

“As far as I know, only one other mate has rejected her Garrux,” he says.

I glance away. He thinks I’ve already rejected him. He’s not even trying to win me over. He’s just talking to me, trying to get to know me. In a way, he’s courting me, but it’s not because he wants me to change my mind. I think he just wants to spend as much time with me as possible before I tell him to return me to Earth.

That’s what he’s waiting for. He thinks there will be a goodbye forever at the end of this.

And maybe that’s exactly the case. Maybe that’s how it should be. It’s clearly what the maestro wants.

But it's clearly not what Omur wants, even if he won't do anything to change my mind about it.

As for me, what is it I want? Can I really run away with a hot alien just because my life has been spiraling down the drain far more than I ever let myself even realize?

What about my independence?

Can my independence just mean I make my own decisions about what I want out of life?

Just what do I want?