Star Catcher (5 page)

As Stella lay on the bed, he tentatively palmed one of her full breasts. It was beyond soft, so warm, with a hard pink nipple pointing into his hand. Female Artanians had none of this soft tissue any longer. Even when they were childbearing, they did not use their mammary glands for nourishing offspring. A chemical substitute was developed many
grelf
ago to free the females for other more important work. The soft tissue of the Artanian females’ breasts had shrunken over generations, until they were nearly as flat as the males.

This was something new and appealing. Noth bent his head to flick his tongue-tip over the tight peak of her left breast. She inhaled sharply in response. He cupped the creamy white flesh and pulled the nipple into his mouth, sucking on her as she had him. The human writhed under his body and moaned while he continued to examine her with his tongue and lips.

“Yes. Squeeze my tits,” she directed him, her head thrown back and eyes closed as she arched toward him.

Tits? Interesting.

“You like when I do this to your … tits?” He moved his tongue to her other breast, licking and swirling, before he gave her nipple a gentle bite.

“Oh!” Her breath hissed in between her teeth before she answered. “Yes.” Stella clawed at his shoulders and pressed her body toward him while he kissed his way down her stomach. Noth sat up and unbuttoned her pants, curious to see what she looked like down below. Stella wiggled out of the jeans with his help.

Her skimpy undergarment was barely more than a wisp of lace. He ran his finger underneath the material, along the curve of her hip, across her belly, and then down her thigh toward the inside of her leg. Her abdominal muscles quivered, and his cock stiffened in response. She lifted her hips for him to pull the flimsy material off.

“I am glad you do not wear boxer briefs.” He spoke sincerely. Stella grinned up at him.

Her pubic area had hair on it. Short blonde curls covered the mound between her legs in a trim triangle. He reached for the soft fur, testing it by combing his fingers through the waves. Noth slid his hand over the slit experimentally. There was no hair underneath, but he guessed she had removed it somehow. The photos in his book showed much more hair than this. His finger probed inside the sultry cleft.
Sweet moons of the seven planets, she is so wet!
This could mean nothing but ovulation where he came from. She groaned at his touch and thrust her hips.

Noth placed himself between her legs, lifting one calf over his shoulder to get a better look.

He teased her slick folds with his fingers while he asked, “What name do you call this?”

Stella breathed a heavy sigh before whispering, “Pussy,” through clenched teeth.

“And this is the clitoris?” He flicked it with his finger, remembering the tiny bit of skin from his study books. She nearly shot off the bed.

“I am sorry. Did I hurt you? I will not touch it again.”

“Oh my God!
Please
touch it! I wanna feel you touch it with your tongue.”

Noth did not need any more encouragement. He lowered his mouth to her glistening skin, ready and willing to obey her every command for the remainder of the night. Tomorrow he would return his focus to his assignment, but tonight he vowed to study nothing but Stella.

It was the best night of his life.

Chapter 5

Stella couldn’t concentrate. Noth had spent the night. She was sleep-deprived and walking like a gnarly old cowpoke. Never had she felt so physically satisfied. The god who’d had his beautiful body against hers all night had left to go to the library. Noth said he had “enormous studying” to do today. Honestly, she had a paper to write, but every time she sat down in front of her keyboard, her still swollen undercarriage reminded her of the erotic roller-coaster she had ridden for hours straight. She couldn’t keep her mind off the guy.

She plugged along all weekend and eventually managed to finish a mediocre paper. Dutifully, she sat in front of her computer, not because she was dedicated to completing her assignment, but because she didn’t want to leave her phone. She hadn’t thought to give Noth her number, but there had to be a student directory somewhere. If he wanted to contact her, he could find a way.

But no calls came. At least, not the one she was waiting for.

On Saturday night, Rayna tried again to convince her to go out, but Stella claimed she didn’t feel well. Eventually, after a ton of eye rolling, her friend gave up.

Stella didn’t tell her about Noth. It wasn’t because Rayna would disapprove of sex on a first—sort-of—date. Hell, it was practically a rule for her. It wasn’t Stella’s norm, though, and if Noth never spoke to her again she didn’t want to broadcast how easy and idiotic she had been.

He had to call. Stella thought he was one of the good ones. Crap, she had dragged him home and instigated the sex, so how could he have only been after her for that?

He will call. He’d better!

By Monday morning, she was starting to lose it. In retrospect, she should have given him her number, but he knew where she lived. Even if he didn’t know her last name—and he didn’t; somehow that detail had never come up—it wouldn’t be hard to find her.

It was far more difficult for her to try to track him down.

Noth had left his borrowed English textbook in her room. He said he needed to get extra lab time in for anatomy and physiology, and therefore had to drop the language class. The guy spoke better English than most Americans by now, anyway. Stella decided to follow her only lead.

During a break between classes, she walked to the main office to ask about times and room numbers for A&P courses. There wasn’t an actual class until Wednesday, and her heart sank, but on the off chance he was putting in overtime, she breezed past the lab on her way to lunch.

Noth’s big body was slumped over something on the bar-height table. Shaggy hair hid his face. He tried to push it back with his forearm, and a glinting scalpel rose above his head in his clenched fist.

Yikes.

“You really need a haircut, you know.” She came up behind him, trying for casual and seductive at the same time. If he was worried about her being the stalker type, now was the time for the run-like-hell bells to start clanging in his head.
Damn it.
She should have kept walking.

He spun around in surprise, scalpel still in his gloved hand. He was dissecting a pig. A lab book was open to a page depicting the various blood vessels of a flayed animal. The gory real deal was stretched out in a pan beside the picture.

“Careful with that thing. I don’t know what the pig did to piss you off, but I promise I’ll be good.” She held her hands up in mock surrender.

A hint of a smile pulled up his luscious lips. Could this be the first real one she’d seen? Not induced by climax, that was.

“It is you,” he said, staring at her with a hard-to-read expression.

“Yup. I just happened to be in the neighborhood and figured I’d stop by. I wanted to give you my number in case you want to call me sometime.”

Hey, that didn’t sound too desperate or pushy, did it?
She even shrugged indifferently.

“Yes. I would like that.” He still gazed at her strangely, his dark eyes falling to her lips as if he was reliving their kisses in his mind.

“Alrighty.” She smiled and leaned over to scribble her number in a margin of his open notebook. His handwriting was atrocious. She couldn’t make out anything he had written, but recognized his sketch of the top half of a pig, the neck arteries and veins expertly drawn. Just like a doctor.

“Well, I’ll see you later, then.” She turned when the silence became unbearable and stepped toward the door.

“When? When will you see me?”

She turned back, grinning.

“Well, I don’t know. You haven’t called me to make a date.”

“Do I have to?”

Stella’s jaw tightened and the curve of her mouth sunk into a hard line.

“If you don’t want to go out, then no, you don’t
have
to call me. Who says I would even say yes?” She could feel her face burning up. So what if that didn’t make much sense? She had just left her number. Like she
wouldn’t
say yes? But his question pissed her off because it didn’t sound like a flirty joke.

It sounded more like panic.

She walked toward the hallway, anxious to escape before tears betrayed her. A chair scraped jarringly against the tile floor. Noth’s hand was fortunately free of the scalpel and no longer covered in latex when he wrapped his long fingers around her wrist. He turned her to face him.

She was still angry, even if his touch caused her nipples to try to pop out of her shirt in search of his hands. His mouth. She was mesmerized by his lips and getting wetter and warmer by the second simply from his proximity. Oh man, she already had it bad, and he didn’t want anything to do with her.

Hold onto your anger, Stell. You’re going to need it to get over this one.

“No one says you have to hang out with me again, okay? I was under the impression you had a good time the other night. But, hey, if all you wanted was a no-strings fuck, just be a man and say so!”

She pointed to his chest accusingly as she spoke. The least she could do was make him feel like a lowlife before she left. It might make her pain marginally better.

“I want to see you.” He spoke quietly, taking her jabbing finger into his hand and caressing her palm with his thumb. “Even when I do not see you, I still do. You are in my head when I am trying to work. I dream about your smile.” He moved his other thumb to smooth her lower lip. “And your beautiful eyes.” His caress moved up to her temple and then into her unbound hair.

He seemed to like her hair, which was why she had left it down today.

“I see your soft hair falling over me. I dream about touching your pussy and putting myself inside of you like we did.”

Holy hot, in a weird sort of way! Most guys don’t try to smooth talk you by saying they can’t get your pussy out of their mind, but damn if it isn’t working!
Stella’s damp underwear clung to her lower lips in response. Truth be told, she hadn’t been able to get his massive cock out of her head either.

“Well, if we’re ever going to go out in public, we need to do something about your crazy hair.”

“I cut it, but my scalpel makes it different lengths,” he said as he ran a hand through the mass of uneven black.

“You cut it with a scalpel? Who
are
you?” Stella laughed and saw his serious face cracking into a grin once more. She loved it. His eyes crinkled at the corners and somehow made it hard for her to breathe.

“Listen, stick to medicine, because you’ll never make it as a barber, buddy.” She rose up and planted a quick kiss on his lips. He leaned into her for more as she broke away.

“No laboratory lovin’. I do have some standards—I never make out within twenty feet of a pickled pig.”

He looked chagrined.

“I have my preschool class this afternoon. Student teaching. It’s at Little Learners, that green and white stucco on Plano Street.” He looked confused. “It’s just off campus, two blocks past University Ave. Number one fifty-eight. Do you know where that is?”

His dark eyebrows pinched in concentration, and then he nodded slowly.

“I will find it.”

“Good. I’m done at three thirty, and then we can go back to my room.”

He licked his lips as if eyeing up a dessert. A thrill of anticipation shot through her.

“For a haircut.” She arched a brow and frowned in feigned annoyance before she turned and walked out.

All in all, Stella figured she had done remarkably well.

Chapter 6

Noth nearly collided with a group of females on his way to Stella’s preschool. He could not focus on the path ahead of him. The Earth girl had stolen his mind. He relived their evening together every sleeping and waking moment since. But one question haunted him. Did she realize he was not human? The inflection of her voice when she had spoken about visiting his planet had sounded like it was only jest. Yet she had been highly accurate. Should he send a message to the Artanian Embassy that his identity had been discovered?

Stella sounded like she was willing to come with him, and even to gather more females, but he had already decided she would never be abducted. She would be no more than a bright memory for him to take home and cherish. There could be no future for them.

He liked her too much to have her enslaved for childbearing. Something told him she would never forgive him for such deceit.

Noth reached the classroom without injuring himself or others, and he stood at the door, peeking through the glass panel at the scene within. Stella had her hair up in a band with the long tail trailing down her back. She sat on the floor in the middle of a circle of small humans.
Children.
They appeared to be quite young, old enough not to
schglub
in their pants but still significantly dependent upon adults.

They played a game in which one child walked around the outside of the circle and tapped the heads of the others. The female who was patting heads said something inaudible with each touch, until finally a seated male child jumped up and chased her around the circle. The girl sat back down in his empty spot before he could catch her, and it began again. They were all laughing and smiling, including Stella. She seemed to genuinely enjoy spending time with the small ones.

“She will make a capable mother,” he spoke aloud, not intending to be heard by ears other than his own.

“Stella?”

He whipped around to see an older female standing behind him. The short woman wore black, thick-rimmed eyeglasses perched low on her nose, and her hair was an interesting shade of silver.

“Sorry to eavesdrop.” She held out a hand. Noth looked down at it in consternation. “I’m Amber Talbot. I’m the teacher here for the three-year-old class.”

“I am Noth.” He mimicked her extended hand. She grasped his firmly and pumped it up and down.

“Are you here for Stella? She’s such a smart girl, and so wonderful with the kids. I know she’s studying language instruction, but she would make a superb early education teacher. Hopefully, someone will give her lots of babies someday, at least.” She winked at him and slid past to open the door.