An Office Alien Christmas Collection (Office Aliens Book 5) Read online

  “Ro…” she moaned, dropping her hand to let her fingertips rest on his hand where he thrust the vibrator into her.

  “Touch yourself, Maggie,” he growled. “Stroke your cunt for me.”

  She moaned again and he watched her move her fingertips to circle her clit instead. He kept his eyes there, his tongue flicking out briefly as if he could capture the taste off the air. He knew certain words had more impact for her, that she liked what she called ‘dirty talk’, and he was happy to oblige. He liked being able to say whatever he wanted, and ask for whatever he wanted, knowing that Maggie would just moan and do it, that it turned her on when he told her what to do when they mated.

  “Are you going to come, beautiful? Hmm?” he purred and she gasped again, then nodded, turning her eyes up to find his, and he cranked the setting on the vibrator higher.

  “Ro! Ah! Ah!”

  He felt her cunt seize in the way the vibrator stuck inside her and almost fought free from his hand, but he kept it working, and Maggie thrashed and contorted with a squeal, flicking her hair in his face and her spine bowing. He pulled her to him and kissed her cheek, her ear, her neck, crooning soft encouragements and praises to her until she relaxed, her body collapsing on his, and he knew to pull the vibrator out and turn it off.

  She panted in the sudden quiet, catching her breath. Ro waited for his opening to start again. Perhaps she noticed, because she patted his hip and said “That’s it for today.”

  Hmph. Ro didn’t remember agreeing to that. Only two climaxes? That was hardly enough to keep her from looking at other males. He was sure he could convince her to let him give her at least one more, and made no move to put the toy away. He worked his other arm around her waist, clutching her to him petulantly.

  Maggie reached up to tease his crest and looked over her shoulder, pulling him to her for a chaste kiss. “We have to go shopping for the party, remember?” she prompted him, a glint in her eye and a slight crook at the corner of her mouth suggesting she knew what he was thinking.

  Oh. That. Yes, he remembered now, and the prospect of getting to spend the afternoon watching her excitedly pile packs of coloured paper into a shopping cart was enough to convince him to let her go, his arm reluctantly dropping from across her stomach. She rolled off him, snuggling briefly into the bunched covers. He would just content himself with making her breakfast, he thought, and rolled out of bed. He cleaned the vibrator with the special wipes they kept in the drawer, and shut it away.

  Ro had to get up first so he could get his shaded contact lenses in before Maggie turned on the lights. His claws clicked against the floor as he walked to the stairs, the silken Balin shorts he wore to bed settling on his hips, the slits up the sides flashing his thighs as he walked, showing his colours if Maggie cared to look.

  Upstairs on the ground floor of their little house, all the black-out curtains were drawn, but it was still late enough in the day that Ro winced and shielded his eyes as he made his way to the small cupboard-like bathroom where he kept his contact lenses. This bathroom was the only one without windows, so when he shut the door behind him, it was blissfully dark, and he could get his lenses in without discomfort. He washed his hands, got them in, a brown filter blinding him to the colour and light of the world around him, and fumbled for the door handle to let himself out again. He drew the curtains and rolled up the blinds in the kitchen, then he pulled out the pans he would need and set to work, sucking on cubes of choba as the coffee maker hissed and dribbled on the counter beside him.

  When the bacon was sizzling, Maggie came out of the basement, dressed again in her flannel pyjamas. She walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, humming happily.

  “And breakfast too! What did I do to deserve you?” she said, one hand rubbing up his stomach to his chest while she stood on her tiptoes to brush her nose against the back of his neck before slinking away to sit at the table.

  Ro chuckled briefly, giving her the response he knew she wanted, but he couldn’t stop the secret lurch in his chest that said he didn’t deserve her. He knew not to say that, though. They’d had that conversation many times. He tried to believe Maggie when she listed the good things about him, everything she loved about him, and see things her way, but… It was difficult. Some things he had just known to be true for so long, such as that any female with half a brain would choose another male over him. He pushed that thought away. Maggie was human, he reminded himself. She didn’t care about crests. So even if it was true that he was not as much a male as other- Stop it. He was a good male, a good mate, he told himself. He cared about her. Certainly no one cared about her more. And he cared for her. He made sure she was satisfied outside of his heats, others of his species might not do that, no matter how impressive their crests. And he made breakfast. He made her laugh. He dazzled her with his eyes. And compared to human males, he could easily rip them to shreds in a matter of moments.

  Well, maybe not easily since he’d started filing his claws down for work, but-

  And not that he would, of course. Then he would be sent to prison for the rest of his life. But he could. And that was enough. On some level, Maggie would appreciate that, whether she consciously realised it or not.

  He dished up bacon and eggs for her, and a cup of coffee, and put them on the table in front of her. He left his bacon in the pan to crisp some more. Maggie said he liked it like jerky, but he had had jerky and he liked bacon better. He pulled some cheobi leaf from the fridge and cut a slice to eat while he waited, the juice bursting on his tongue before he was left with the rind to chew idly. He had got used to the abundance of food on Earth and being able to afford it, all except for choba, which he still rationed for himself. It had always been so precious on Teiss. Even now, when he could have had more, he stuck to plain green choba, and only ate black or pink when he noticed his colours fading.

  When his bacon was dark and breaking apart, he switched off the cooker and put the pan down on a heat mat, sitting beside Maggie. It saved on washing up to eat from the pan, and the heat didn’t burn him the way it would Maggie. She watched him pick the bacon from the hot metal with his claws from the corner of her eye, smiling at it though she didn’t say anything. He turned to her and chewed defiantly, then lifted the pan with his bare hand, ignoring the handle. Maggie flinched and looked away, laughing, shaking her head.

  “You’re crazy,” she said.

  The burning heat was just warm through his scales. He shrugged and smiled, gladly taking the opportunity to show off.

  Maggie scooped the last of her breakfast into her mouth then stood. She pressed a kiss to his head, collecting her plate with one hand, and reaching under his chin to scratch his cheek with the other. The vibrations made him curl his hand into a fist as he forced down a shiver.

  “I’m going to shower. Leave the dishes for me and I’ll do them later,” she said.

  Ro hummed a non-commital response, watching her hips swing as she walked away. He’d finish his bacon, then do the dishes himself. Maybe he’d leave a mug, just so she wouldn’t think he’d disobeyed her.

  2

  Ro pushed the shopping cart while Maggie steered from the front, one hand on the thin metal frame while she looked at the shelves around her. She had a list, of course, and had done this shop every year, and Ro suspected she actually had a lot of the necessary supplies left over from the last party, but he stayed silent, content just to watch her. She tossed coloured card and vials of glitter into the cart seemingly at random, yet with an air of deep concentration and precision.

  The super-store of craft supplies was just a little bit too cold. Not dangerously so, Ro wasn’t going to pass out, but it was fresh and he yawned as he leaned on the cart’s handle and his claws slid a little on the lino tiling. Some inoffensive muzak tinkled a vaguely Christmassy tune over the speakers, driving him a little mad. He had learned that humans could ignore this kind of background noise, but as a Balin, he instinctively searched out the beat and found it infuri
atingly absent. It would play ten seconds of a song he knew and then it would disappear. The song never ended or crescendoed. It just went on and on. Still, it wasn’t so intrusive that he couldn’t bear it for Maggie’s sake.

  “Has Kez decided if he’s coming or not yet?” Maggie asked, looking over her shoulder at him.

  “I don’t know what Kez has decided,” Ro said. Maggie seemed to think they were telepathically linked.

  “Well, has he said anything?”

  Ro yawned into his hand again. “The last he said to me, he didn’t want to, but he might, because of Bia.”

  If it was up to Kez, he would never set foot in the DETI building again, especially not to attend an event he knew his former colleagues would be at, but Bia worked there and she liked parties and socialising, so it was really a matter of whether Kez would go so as not to be sat at home, imagining Bia surrounded by other males. Either Bia would beg and beg and convince him to go for her sake, or he would refuse and refuse, and Bia would relent because she wanted him to be happy.

  “It would be nice if he came,” Maggie continued.

  “Would it?” Ro didn’t see why. He had no hard feelings for Kez, and was even a little grateful for his help earlier in the year when he supplied the stimulant that ultimately put Ro in the hospital. Ro didn’t blame Kez for his illness, he appreciated that Kez had given him what he’d asked for when he’d asked for it, against his better judgement. Not that Ro told Maggie that. He knew not to do it again, so it was best not to bring it up. Maggie was adamant that he was to look after his health above all things now, so that is what he did, even when he would rather not.

  But Kez was not exactly a cheerful male, and far from the life of any party.

  “Yeah,” Maggie insisted, smiling at him. “It would be nice for everyone to see him again.”

  “He was almost fired for stealing.”

  “But he wasn’t,” Maggie said, holding up a finger as if this was an important point.

  “Because he quit first.”

  “Exactly. And I’m sure he has friends there.”

  “I’m not.” He was rather sure of the opposite. For as long as Ro had known him, he had been Kez’s only friend, both of them outcasts in Balin society, Ro for his missing crest and Kez for his Balor father.

  “Well… It’s the holidays! I’m sure everyone will be nice.”

  Ro agreed with that at least. Humans had rules about conflict in the office, and even outside of it, they tied themselves in knots to avoid voicing their true opinion sometimes. Ro could relate.

  “And it will be nice for you to see him,” Maggie offered with another smile.

  Ro scoffed. “I see him all the time.”

  “Not as much as you used to.”

  No, not as much as he used to. Kez used to be practically welded to his side. Ro remembered how difficult Kez had made Ro’s initial courtship of Maggie, openly disliking her whenever they were together, and arguing her faults to Ro for what felt like hours a day in private. But now Kez was mated… Maybe Ro felt a twinge of nostalgia for having Kez’s undivided attention. Maybe.

  “And I like to see Bia, you know.”

  “I know.” Why this party was going to be any different from their almost weekly double-dates, Ro didn’t know. But if it made Maggie happy, he would try to get Kez to go. “I’ll ask him again, try to talk him into it.”

  Maggie grinned and pulled out her Gadjit. “I’ll message Bia, see if she’s making any progress. Between us, we’ll get him there.”

  Even in the cold store, Ro felt a little bloom of warmth as he watched his mate. She was kind in a way Ro wasn’t, in a way Ro hadn’t seen before. She wanted to make people happy. She was easy with her friendship. Even though Ro knew she and Kez still didn’t know quite how to approach each other, she wanted him to be happy. Kez had blamed her for Ro’s hospitalisation, as he had taken the stimulant in order to mate outside of his heats, and Maggie blamed Kez, as he had supplied it. Even before that, they had struggled to navigate their changing relationships with Ro, but Maggie considered Kez Ro’s friend and did her best to make room for him. Ro sometimes found it frustrating, being pushed to spend time with Kez when he would rather be spending it with Maggie, maybe in bed, but he was usually glad she had done it by the time he got home after a night out with Kez. He still wasn’t close with any other Balin, after all, and it was good for both of them to indulge in speaking their mother tongue and remember where they came from.

  Maggie put her Gadjit back in her pocket and pulled the cart forward again.

  “What else do we need?”

  Maggie looked at her list and read it off. “Glue, staples, more fake snow, and I don’t know, I just want to see what they have!” she said, shrugging, and grinning excitedly.

  Ro smiled back. He did truly love her. He pushed the cart.

  ****

  Work was still work on Monday. Since Ro had started, all the other members of the Incoming Enquiries team had moved on to other teams and positions. They had been replaced one by one by new people he had watched Maggie train, entertained to see the process from the outside. She hadn’t enjoyed training one of the young men, Ro had been able to tell from her face, though she hesitated to tell him about it when they got home. She said it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t professional to bad-mouth someone they both worked with, she didn’t want to colour Ro’s perception of him… Ro had told her that he might be her colleague, but he was her mate first, and his perception was already coloured, so Maggie had relented, venting her frustration at how wilfully uncooperative the new hire was.

  Ro had listened, secretly a little comforted that she didn’t like him, given how much time she had to spend with him. He liked to share this secret with her as well, even if it wasn’t professional.

  Things were calm at the moment though. No new hires, no one working out their notice. Ro had been there long enough that he understood why the others left. It was repetitive work, taking calls and assigning problems to the relevant teams rather than seeing them through himself. He could see the attraction of having more control over the cases, but he would stay with Incomings as long as Maggie did, because no other team let him sit opposite her and ‘play footsie’ whenever he wanted. As it was, he had the best view in the building: his mate, who smiled at him whenever she noticed him staring, which was often. And if he got bored, he could always search out her feet with his claws.

  Thankfully, all was quiet in the Teissian community as well. He had joined the team right after the destruction of the transporter ship Tyberius, and the loss of a million lives. His first few months had been chaotic as the immigrant community had been thrown into confusion regarding their status and future on Earth, but nothing too dramatic had happened since then. An inter-species couple had caused a media storm by kissing in public, but that hadn’t translated into too much work for Ro personally. He knew the male, if only by sight. Khy, from Security. They had had their picture taken and the photos sold to a magazine after they had been seen kissing after the last office winter party. As a result, protesters had congregated outside the DETI building.

  Ro had hated what it did to Maggie. She wasn’t afraid to hold his hand as they walked in, but she did it with her head down, and Ro could tell the hate made her sad, and she was afraid for them both. Ro had felt powerless. Emails had come through almost daily from the Secretary’s office reminding them not to engage. If it had been up to him, he would have rounded up the Teissians he knew who were or had been in relationships with humans, and gone across the street to the protesters and shown them what Teissian claws could do to human flesh. But he’d known Maggie wouldn’t have liked that. It wouldn’t have made her less afraid for Ro to make himself into a target, maybe getting himself injured. It would only have made her yell at him.

  Still, it had rankled, which in itself was odd. If he hadn’t met Maggie, he probably would have ducked his head without even thinking of arguing. He was used to people telling him he couldn’t have a mat
e, he had grown up that way. Now though, he would never let anyone take Maggie from him, or him from her. Anyone who wanted to try wouldn’t be seen again.

  But he would probably have to keep that from Maggie.

  After five, when everyone else had gone home, they stayed behind to put decorations together, just as they had a year ago. It made Ro feel… sentimental. Their year had gone by quickly, except for the period when he had been stuck in his carefully temperature-controlled apartment, recovering from poisoning himself with the stimulant, and banned from going outside. That had dragged, especially when Maggie was at work. But this annual marker made him really think about how much had changed in a year. The last time they had done this, he and Maggie hadn’t been ‘official’. He hadn’t won her yet, though he had wanted her. He had still felt awkward in so many things, like speaking English and wearing human clothes. He had felt on edge so much of the time, terrified of making a mistake and being cast out from this life as well. And now…

  Now he had Maggie. He lived with her, mated with her, pleasured her. They cooked together and watched TV cuddled on the sofa, and she stroked his head and his colours and told him his eyes were beautiful. They laughed about the same things, spoke honestly with each other. He had met her family, walked her parents’ dog. He wasn’t afraid anymore. He had found his place, and he couldn’t imagine his life any other way, but preparing for this party reminded him that it hadn’t always been that way, and in fact, it hadn’t been that way for very long.

  “Remember last year when we were doing this, and you were teaching me Balin?” Maggie prompted him, and he smiled at the evidence that, once again, their thoughts had aligned.

  “I remember,” he said. He was sat almost exactly as he had been then, his chair turned away from his desk so he could stretch his legs out, flexing his long toe claws. He had slowly eased into wearing the clothes other Teissians wore to meet the human dress code, but he still wore a jacket or a tie sometimes. Now when he wore human clothes, it was because he wanted to, not because he felt he had to, as he had reassured Maggie a dozen times.