Minute by Minute Ch. 03

I scooted away from him, immediately missing the furnace-like heat. I wrapped myself tightly in the bedcovers before asking quietly, "What did you call me before?"

He looked confused, so I specified. "You called me mekikira. I haven't read that in any of the papers I have."

"Ah. We need to talk about those papers, by the way. But it can wait. Mekikira means... It means... Why did you have to start with that?" He growled and stuffed his face into the mattress, peeking at me out of the corner of his eye.

I giggled and scooted a little bit closer to him. "So what does it mean?"

"It means 'My only desired one'. You've been in a coma for nearly a month, Noah. When I first saw you, I knew I wanted you. When I found out what had been happening in your home, I felt extremely protective. Now, after bringing you here and watching you heal, talking to you and telling you stories of my home, I feel much more."

I couldn't breathe. A month? I'd been asleep for that long?

"I... What's your name?"

He laughed, a low rumbling sound that washed over me. "Adrai K'loemach. Just Adrai is all right, for you."

Sitting up, I wrapped my arms around my knees. This was a shit ton of information, and I could feel a whole lot more coming.

"Okay, Adrai, I'm sorry, but I don't remember you talking to me, or telling me any stories. I do remember seeing you across the field and feeling something, and I admit I'm very attracted to you, but the last thing I remember is my father hurting me. I have no idea what happened after that. You'll have to be patient with me and wait for me to catch up. Before you say anything else about feelings, can you tell me where we are, and everything else that's happened?"

He nodded and reached for my hand, interlacing his fingers with mine. The gesture was surprisingly comfortable. I let him keep my hand, and even returned a squeeze.

"We're on Oalas. After your father finished beating you, your siblings tried to wake you up and couldn't so your brother Sam drove to the embassy and found me, upsetting a few police officers in the process. I came and took you to the hospital..."

******

I woke up the next morning still exhausted. We had stayed in bed all day, Adrai only leaving to get me food when my stomach suddenly burst into angry grumbles. He explained everything that had happened, and retold me some of the stories that he'd told while I was asleep. By the time we had fallen asleep, the holo-clock had read four a.m.

Now though, I really needed to pee. I carefully extracted myself from the arms that had wound around me again as we slept and brought my legs over the side of the bed.

I pushed to my feet, and promptly fell on my ass.

My legs had given out. I poked and examined them, making a face at how skinny they'd gotten, even in comparison to my previous near skeletal physique. I groaned and leaned back against the bed, considering crawling to the door.

A chuckle sounded behind me and two thick, very tan legs set foot next to me. Adrai crouched down and smirked at me, " You've been bed ridden for a month, Noah. Your muscles are atrophied. Do you need the restroom?"

When I pouted and nodded, he laughed again and made to pick me up, princess style.

'No! Turn around; you can give me a piggy-back ride. Just no threshold-crossing-damsel-saving stuff, okay?"

He just stared at me. "Piggy-back ride?"

"Oh, uhm, it's where you carry me on your back, with my arms around your neck, and my legs around your waist."

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but he came over and lifted me back onto the bed before crouching down in front of me, his forehead scrunching as if asking if he was doing it right.

I was too distracted to assure him. Adrai's muscles seemed to be in constant motion, flexing and squeezing across the wide expanse of his back. I ran a hand over the two thick cords shielding his spine. I kept at it, feeling all of his beautiful contours, until he growled hotly and jerked forward onto his hands.

"Noah, get on my back now, before I do something you're not ready for."

Blood rushed to my face and I hurriedly jumped on his back, wrapping my weakened limbs around him. He moaned and his breathing turned unsteady. When he finally stood, we were both extremely aroused. I could smell the pheromones practically dripping off him, and it didn't help the fact that I was desperately trying not to dry hump his back.

Luckily, my urge to pee was much more prevalent at the moment, and I managed to keep my hormones under control as he carried me into the bathroom and set me on the toilet. He turned towards the shower and stripped off his sleeping shorts.

"Eh, what are you doing?"

"Getting clean. I haven't showered in three days." He turned the water on and started to step in.

"Wait! I have to pee!"

Looking at me like I was ridiculous, Adrai nodded slowly.

"You can't be in here! And- And you're naked. I can't pee if you're standing there like that!" I swallowed convulsively and tried to keep my eyes on his face. He was still very obviously aroused.

Instead of doing what I wanted and leaving, he stood in front of me, not trying to cover up in the least. "Do you need help?" He squatted down and looked up at me, "I can help." His eyes seemed to burn brighter, his mouth opening slightly, giving me a glimpse of fang.

He was so terrifyingly beautiful.

A hand squeezed my leg lightly and traveled upwards.

I couldn't do this. I wasn't ready. No way in hell. My heart started a thundering beat, so loud it rang in my ears. My breath came and left in short, shuddering gasps. With every inch that his hand traveled up my leg, I became more frantic.

His fingers brushed my shorts.

"No!" I shoved his shoulders as hard as I could and threw myself backwards. I crashed against the shelves on the wall and fell with them. I curled around my weak legs, sobbing.

******

Stupid, stupid stupid stupid.

How could I have done that? I knew that it was way too fast. He had just woken up from being raped by his father, for Kahl's sake.

I watched Noah cry into his knees, feeling sick with myself. He was lying in a pile of towels and lotions, looking broken. I had caused this. I had hurt him. Forcing bile back down my throat, I crawled towards him.

"Noah?"

He whimpered and cringed away from my voice.

"Oh Kahl, I am so sorry. I shouldn't have done that." Feeling tears prick my eyes, I bent forward and pressed my forehead to the floor by his trembling legs. "I'm so sorry, Mekikira. I wasn't thinking, you just looked so beautiful and I couldn't help but want you, and I'm so, so sorry. I'll never touch you again, if that's what you want, just please, rokhi, don't be scared. Mekikira, maska geerkad. Maska geerkad. Kahl tritima."

I stayed there, head pressed to the floor, condemning myself to every religious perdition that I could think of. I was too caught up in berating myself to notice when Noah stopped crying and sat up.

When a hesitant hand touched my hair, I jerked up, flinching when I saw his red eyes and tear stained face. I opened my mouth to apologize again, but he shook his head.

To my astonishment, he crawled towards me and laid his head on my shoulder, sniffling a little.

"I still need to pee." His voice was almost too quiet for me to hear. The words forced a choked laugh out of me, and I carefully wrapped my arms around him and hefted us both to our feet. I situated him in front of the toilet and made to move away, but his hands locked around my forearms, holding them in place around his waist.

"Stay, please. I really don't think my legs will hold me up. Just, please don't look, okay?" His voice was still quiet, but his eyes held something that hadn't been there before.

I did as he asked and supported him as he peed, burrowing my head into his neck. He still smelled like lavender. I sniffed heavily and he giggled.

"Are you sniffing me?" He leaned his head back against my chest and looked up at me.

I swallowed the lump in my throat before replying. "You smell like lavender. I was trying to figure out how, as you haven't had a real shower for a month and should stink to high heaven."

Instead of answering me, he just smiled and turned back to the toilet and finished up.

"Will you help me shower? You didn't get to take yours, so want to take it with me? I'll need help anyways." His face flushed red as he said it, and he refused to look at me, but I didn't care. I smiled into his neck and nodded.

I sat him securely on the toilet and turned to the still running shower, making sure it wouldn't freeze our man parts off if we stepped in. I adjusted the temperature a bit, and turned back to Noah, who flinched and stared up at me with wide eyes, cheeks bright red.

He'd been checking me out. Triumphant lust rushed through me, but I tamped it down before the evidence got a little too visible. Now was the worst possible time to go all primitive lusty alien on him.

Instead, I held my hand out to him, not commenting on the way his fingers trembled as they folded into mine.

We slowly walked to the shower, my arm around his thin waist. Once inside, I gently shampooed his hair. He stared up at me through the suds with those viciously green eyes. I made my way down his pale body, ignoring the scars that the ritual hadn't been able to heal and scrubbing over his skin with the soapcloth. I skipped over his genitals and soaped up his lightly haired legs. He giggled when I scrubbed behind his knees. When I finished with his toes, I handed the cloth to him silently, letting him finish with the rest.

Before I could reach for the shampoo to do my own hair, Noah dropped the cloth and stuck his hand under the pump.

"Let me do it."

I nodded and bowed my head so that he could reach. I held him lightly around the waist, supporting him so that he wouldn't tip over.

Noah's nimble fingers massaged my scalp, making me shiver. I forced myself to keep still, determined not to do anything stupid again. He explored the shape of my hairline, rubbing the bald strips on each side of my head.

"Why is your hair like that?"

I shrugged, "That's just the way it grows."

"There were two other Caochians with you when you came to the farm. The older one had hair longer than yours, and the others was cut really short."

"That a question or a statement?" I stood up straight and tipped my head into the water, rinsing off. When he didn't answer and just looked at me expectantly, I sighed. "Okay, ah, hair length is a sign of class in our culture. Servants and military personnel all keep their hair shorn, while people with more money can afford the soaps and styling stuff that hair requires. My father, the older man you saw, is Kohar of Adannen. The other man was a servant of ours, Dermaiach."

After a few moments of silence, I stopped soaping myself up and glanced at him. He was standing there, just staring at me.

His mouth moved but no sound came out.

"What? Are you okay?" I touched a hand to his forehead and it seemed to shock him out of it.

"Ad- Adannen? That's Acaoch's largest port! I thought that one of you was a Kohar, but I wasn't sure. Adannen, wow. Will I get to see it? And the creatures you told me about? What about your father, will I have to meet him too? Will you be with me? Wait, I'm human. Your father'll hate me. Oh my god you're practically a prince!" He hardly took a breath, waving his hands around and steadily growing redder. Finally he slapped a hand over his mouth and stared up at me.

"Sorry," He whispered around his fingers.

I laughed and grabbed it away from his mouth, placing it on my chest, over my heart. "Yes, Adannen. That's why we were chosen to make the deals with your people. Not many of our race speaks your language, and even fewer of yours speaks ours. You are the only one that we know of who can speak or understand more than a few words." I gave him a look that told him we'd be talking more about that particular subject later.

"I have spent quite a bit of time on Earth, exploring and learning your culture. Father has to deal with all sorts of languages and people on the port, and together, we were the best choice that Kirahl could make, when he was trying to find ambassadors to go to Earth."

Noah nodded and leaned his head into my chest. I shut the water off and pulled him out of the shower. As I dried him off, I answered the rest of his questions.

"You will be coming with me to Adannen once you're fully healed, so yes you will see everything." I smiled at the look of boyish excitement on his face. "Technically you've already met my father, but you will again. He's coming here in a few days to talk to me, and to see how you're doing. He doesn't hate you, I promise. And I'm not a prince. Kirahl is like our king, while my father is much like a duke, or something, if I have your terminology right."

Noah took the towel from me and started to dry everything he could reach. I had to stoop when he reached for my hair, and he giggled.

"You're so big. Does everyone on Acaoch look like you?" He asked.

I thought for a moment. "Everyone is taller, yes, but we have all different shades of hair, and our skin is usually around the same shade. Some people, depending on the area where they live, have patterns in their fur. There is one tribe whose skin and fur is all black, like the black panthers of your planet."

When I mentioned fur, he smiled shyly at me and rubbed his hand through the short fur surrounding my hips. The movement surprised me, considering what had happened previous to the shower. I stilled his hand and looked down at him. As if knowing what I was thinking, he looked away.

He murmured, "No one's ever apologized to me before."

"What do you mean? For what?"

He took a deep breath and grasped my hand in both of his, turning it over and studying the lines in my palm. He traced his fingers over my calluses.

"No one's ever apologized for hurting me." He looked up and took a step closer, pulling my arms around his waist and nestling against my chest. I rested my chin on his head, holding him securely. I waited for Noah to pull away once he realized what his closeness was doing to me, but he just snuggled in closer until I could feel his own hardness against my thigh.

He whispered something against my chest, but I was too distracted to hear.

"What did you say?"

His face flushed, "Nothing."

"Tell me, what was it?" I gripped his chin and tilted his chin up, forcing those green eyes to meet mine.

"Nothing! I just... Nothing, really." He tried to look down, but I held him firm. Instead he glared defiantly at me through his long eyelashes.

"Would you let me go?" He jerked against me, so I tilted us back so Noah was against the wall. I lifted him by the waist so that he was the same height as me. He squeaked cutely, his eyes wide.

He clutched at my shoulders frantically and instinctively lifted his legs, wrapping them tightly around my waist.

"Wh-what are you doing!"

I grinned, "Holding you hostage until you tell me what you said."

"That's not fair!" He said indignantly.

"Oh, it's what it is. You're staying right here until you say it. Come on, out with it."

Noah scowled at me and took his hands from my shoulders, leaning as far back against the wall as he could and crossing him arms with a huff. I noticed, though, that he kept his legs wrapped around my waist.

We stared at each other for several minutes until he finally rolled his eyes and looked away. He grumbled something and scrunched his nose at me in distaste.

"You are going to be extremely frustrating." His voice lowered, "I said that no one's ever given me a boner before, either."

I almost dropped him. "What? Never?"

He laughed softly and nodded, "Yeah. I've looked at my brother's porn stash, but he's straight, and that's kinda how I figured I wasn't into women. I got a stiffy from the guys in the pictures, but no actual breathing person has ever turned me on like you do. I see you, and it's just like, 'Pop! Goes the weasel!"

I had no idea what he had just said. "What's a stiffy?"

Noah threw his head back and burst into loud laughter. He shook in my arms and fell forward onto my shoulder, still cackling. When he calmed down, he wrapped a hand around my neck and wiped his eyes with the other. "It means the same thing as boner. Just another juvenile term for hard on." He smiled at me, the happiest I had seen him since he'd woken up.

His eyes turned thoughtful, and he searched my face, then looked down at how I was holding him.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," He said playfully, practically daring me to throw him back up against the wall. Instead I dropped him to his feet and leaned away, smiling in a way that set my fangs off to their best advantage. I withdrew my hands from him and sat, leaving him wobbly and unsure.

He pouted at me and wavered for second before hobbling over. I took pity on him once was in reaching distance and pulled him into my lap. He snuggled close and wrapped his arms tightly around my neck.

I rubbed his slender back, feeling the protruding vertebrae. "Are you going to tell me?" I asked into his hair.

He burrowed further into me before saying, "I've never been this comfortable with anybody before. Not even Sam. At home I was quiet all the time, and never talked back. Now here I am with you, making fun and joking around. It feels so strange. I've only really known you for one night, and yet I never want to stop touching you." He leaned back and looked up at me with big, sad eyes. "I mean, look at us, we're still naked from the shower, just sitting in the bathroom. With anyone else, I would still be crying in the corner, waiting for them to hurt me."

I stroked over a particularly thick scar on his chest.

"I'm sorry for earlier, Noah. I never should have moved so fast.

He shook his head and pulled my hand to his lips, "I said its fine. You did something no one's ever done for me before, and showed me that not all people are horrid evil fathers who rape their sons."

"Still, I won't push you for anything sexual. And I don't know why we have this connection, or why you feel different around me, but I'm not complaining. I like how you are with me. Do you?"

Noah bobbed his head, grinning. "Of course I do. I like being able to talk and speak my mind. I like knowing that you're listening, no matter what I say. I even like cuddling with you, obviously. I think you are right though, I'm not ready to do anything more. I don't know when I will be. Are you okay with that?"

I just smiled and leaned forward to kiss his forehead.

"We should get some food in you, fatten you up. Also, I want to show you around the center, maybe take you on the cross-trams, if you feel up to it."

"Yeah, that sounds great."

******

We were sitting on a cushy bench in the cross-tram, eating the sandwiches we had picked up at the communal eating center.

Adrai was relaxed next to me, sitting close enough that our sides were brushing. He initiated no other contact, hadn't really since the day in the bathroom. He piggy-backed me wherever I needed to go, helped out with my physical therapy, and even slept in the same bed. But there had been no more naked cuddling, for which I was thankful.

The comfortableness I had exhibited in the bathroom had been brought on by needing him and the way he had reacted when I freaked out on him. He'd knelt there, apologizing over and over, damning himself to hell. No one had ever been sorry for hurting me before.

It struck something within me, making me realize what he had been talking about when I first woke up. He felt some kind of connection to me that he couldn't describe.

And he caused me to be someone I couldn't begin to recognize, but liked very much. I was smiling all the time now, joking around, hell, I even made fun of him.