Six Hours

(AN: Don't know why, but I think this came out more depressing than romantic. Sigh).

“Three point two hours left,” he said, helping her down into the clearing. “One point six eight until astronomical sunrise.”

“Would you stop doing that?” Jennifer said.

“Doing what?”

“Giving the countdown? It’s depressing.”

“Why is it depressing?”

“It just is.” She twisted her hands in the skirt of her dress.

“Jennifer human, do you enjoy spending time with me?” His voice took on a sly tone. Fishing for compliments. “Will you be sad when the night is over?” Oh yeah, definitely fishing.

Still, he deserved it. She thought of the last time they were together: his earnestness and concern. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to stroke his ego a bit. “Yes,” she said. “I like spending time with you.”

“Why?” He leaned over her. “What is it precisely that you like spending time with me?”

Oh, this might have been a mistake. “Well, I like your…voice, for one thing.” She grasped for the first thing she could think of.

“My voice?” he blinked. “It is merely a modulator run through a translation protocol. It is nothing impressive.”

She shrugged. “Am I not allowed to like it, then?”

“No,” his eyes flared with concern. “You may like my voice, if you wish.” He blinked again. “Is—is that all?”

Oh, he was shameless. Part of her wanted to say yes, just to see his reaction. He really had a terribly uptight sense of humor at times. But that would be cruel. And he’d been so nice to her. Tonight, and the other time. And really, at Diego Garcia as well. In his way, he’d been as sweet as he would allow himself to be. She exhaled, deeply. “I like you.”

The red irises of his eyes spiraled wide, gratified. “What part of me, in particular,” he pressed.

It was just about even wickedness and desire to avoid answering (and hearing for herself how freakin’ weird her attraction was to a three-story-tall robot) that made her touch his arm. “Well, I like this, for one,” she ran her fingers into the elbow joint, and up a narrow gap between two armor plates up to his shoulder. “And here.” The wires and hoses and cables under the plating seemed to vibrate under her fingers. She felt him shiver.

“Is—is that all?”

She bit down on a laugh. Oh, she’d show him. “This too,” she said, her hands tracing what he’d told her was his interface access hatch. “This is nice.”

He sucked in a breath. “Is it?” he said, tightly.

“It is,” she said, teasingly echoing his strange diction, stressing the verb.

“And?” He rolled onto his side, lowering himself closer to her. She felt his free hand curl around her, one thumb teasing at her dress’s neckline.

“And what?”

“What else?”

“What else do you want to know?” She drew a line down the seam of the interface hatch. His turn to look nervous.

“I.” His talons flirted with the hem of her dress. “I would like to know if you like this.” He bent forward, kissing her gently. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Ah. And then there is this. Do you like this as well, Jennifer human?” his delicate glossa drew a slow, wandering line up one leg, under her skirt. He pushed the fabric aside, enjoying the tremor that ran through her body almost as much as the feel of her skin.

“Do I have to answer that?” Her voice was shaky.

He looked up. “Yes.” He teased at the seam where her leg and body joined. She lost her balance, tilting into his hand. “Yes,” she answered, unsteadily.

“What is this irritating garment?” he asked, drawing one long talon along the waistband of her underwear.

“It’s called underwear.”

“It serves no useful function. Please omit it in the future.”

What? No way. She was a good girl. Wearing underwear was a must happen. He was lucky it wasn’t the cotton ones with the butterflies on them. “It serves a plenty useful function,” she retorted. “It frustrates you.”

“Is that its purpose? It works well then.” He pinched it with his labial plate, ripping it off her body in a swift jerk. “Do you desire to frustrate me?”

“Why not?” She squirmed in his grasp, pushing the skirt back down. He firmly lifted it back up.

“You are not as successful as your garment,” he observed. “But perhaps I should try this as well. Perhaps I should endeavor to frustrate you. Shall I?”

“Uh, you don’t have to,” she squeaked, as his glossa drew a complex shape across her inner thighs.

“I do not. I want.” He teased her thighs with his talons, their coolness making her squirm. “Have I succeeded already, Jennifer human? Are you frustrated?”

Which was better—to give in or not? Before she could decide, he prodded his glossa between her thighs. She gasped.

“Barricade told me that if the xeno’s access port was wet, she was feeling desire. Is that true, Jennifer human?” His eyes winked.

“Who—who is Barricade?” She groaned as he probed her again with his glossa, teasing the edges.

The jet grunted. “He is someone who does not matter now. But you are evading the question.” Another lick, this time, exploring the top of the pleat.

She cried out, her hands clutching at whatever they could find. One caught on one of the bars of his eye cages. “Are you feeling desire, Jennifer human?” he repeated, his voice, husky.

“God, yes!” She could barely get her breath under control as he prodded again.

“That is not my name, Jennifer human,” he reproached her, mockingly. “But I shall accept the promotion.” He licked her again, long and slow up the folds of her labia. She squealed, twisting against him. “If Barricade is right, you must desire me very much,” he observed.

Whoever this Barricade was, she was going to punch him in the face. When, and if, she ever got control of herself. Right now, all she could manage was some incoherent cry. Every touch of his sent shivers through her. His gentle teasing was driving her crazy. She was used to the other two times, when he’d been the one trembling with desire. Not that she was any more used to having that kind of power over anyone else. Much less a jet.

He shifted forward, kissing her gently. She could taste the salty thin taste of her own lust on him, while he continued to tease her with a talon, tracing the folds of her labia, hesitantly, curiously inside her. She gasped around his kiss.

“Do you desire me? Me above all others?” She heard a strange intensity in his voice. As if this was the question that really mattered.

One talon probed further inside her, while another slid up the folds to circle that little node of sensitive flesh he’d found earlier with his glossa. She shrieked, her hands clawing at him, her entire body wracked with ecstasy. He waited, holding her, frozen, until her breath calmed down and her eyes opened.

“Was that an affirmative?”

She punched him in the face. “Yes,” she said, hotly, sitting up, carefully. Obediently, he withdrew his talon from inside her. He sat back for a moment, licking at his wet talon.

“Good,” he said, absently. “Because I desire you.” He pushed her back down, opening his hatch and grabbing his module. It was green lit and had been pinging him for most of the night, especially since feeling Jennifer’s warm body in the pilot’s seat. It had made him reckless, showing her stupid things that probably bored her, making him say stupid things. He’d forced it down, concentrating on Jennifer’s response, halfway between an experiment and a self-torment. He wanted to know what pleased her, but there was only so much of that kind of experiment he could take.

He pushed her thighs apart—she fell obediently backward against his hand as he thrust the module into her. This. This was what he had wanted, why he had flown missions for so many consecutive days, so that he could get an entire mission window to himself. He trembled as his datastream pulsed inside her heat, her wetness, the delicious and sensitive pressure of her access port against him. He ran his hands down her legs, marveling at the swell of her calves, flowing to the impossibly thin ankles, the curved sweep of the arch of her foot. His desire built through his datastream, pulsing faster. Without another connection to try to come to synchrony with—it was so different. Normally two datastreams had to come to some common rhythm. This was just his. Just him, and her reacting to his pulses.

Her body twisted on his hand, rising and falling with his datastream, twisting the fabric of her dress. Her hair slipped from its bun and tumbled across his hand like a silky net. She desired him. Not just for this. But this…oh he wanted it, too. He…wanted…this.

The overload skittered along his sensor net, firing most of his systems as it passed—his turbine ignition, his coolant system, his flight controls. Even his weapons systems self-checked, his chain guns clicking to new chambers. It was as if something ripped him out of himself, leaving him expanded, wider than the world. He almost didn’t want to go back into that frame, into those too familiar systems, into all of the problems and pettiness that that body entailed. He just wanted…her. Here. Now.

He faded back from his overload with something like regret. But she was still there. Warm and desiring. Pure, somehow. Unlike last time, she’d laid against him, her hands stroking his fingers, exploring the edges of his finger barbs. “You okay?” she asked.

“I am functional,” he answered absently. “We have very little time remaining to us tonight.” He indicated the horizon, already starting to turn from black to purple to orange-pink. He suddenly realized why the countdown had made her sad.