Learning to Blush (27 page)

“Oh, shh, shh…” He helped her off of his knees and then put his arms around her until she was sitting on his lap; her skin pressing uncomfortably against his uniform pants. He pressed her head against his chest and she grabbed onto his coat and sobbed into it as he petted her hair.

She had no idea why she was accepting his comfort. It made absolutely no sense. She should be angry at him. She should have been… informing the Swarii police or something. This was spousal abuse, wasn’t it?

Then why did she just want him to put his arms around her, then carry her off to the bed and make love to her?
My strong male… So dominant. He’ll give me perfect, perfect babies…

She gave a shuddering moan as she sobbed. She didn’t know what was wrong with her brain lately!

He kissed her forehead several times as he comforted her, calling her his baby, his beautiful little mate. He rocked her back and forth slightly.

He didn’t comfort her for a short amount of time; he seemed to rock her like that forever. She wondered at the end if she had fallen asleep or not, even, but eventually he stood up and let her settle to her feet. He led her into the bathroom and helped her clean the tears off of her face with a wet washcloth.

He put his hands on her shoulders and rubbed with his thumb. “Alright, Penny,” he said gently. “I want you to listen to me. I love you. I loved you before I even touched you, but now that I’m connected to you in that way, I feel absolutely obsessed with you. And so when I realized that you haven’t ever been properly looked at,
ever
, let alone after what you went through, I obsess over the fact that I’m a pathetic leader for you because I didn’t take you down there myself when we first arrived. Will you please, for my sanity, be a good girl for me today?”

Her heart fluttered. He…
loved
her?

Since when? When he wouldn’t touch her on the ship? Or when he was belting her ass before screwing her in public? She thought he was barely putting up with her and that he only did even that because of the union. She didn’t know how to react to the L-word. Did she love him, too?

She shifted. She really wanted to, but she didn’t yet. She didn't want to; once she loved someone in her life, they tended to find a way to let her down or abandon her.

She didn’t know what to say in return, so she merely nodded.

That seemed like it was enough for him. “Thank you,” he stroked a loose lock of hair behind her ear, and then kissed her mouth. “You may pull up your pants now.”

Realizing that she was still half-naked, which had been forgotten for a very amazing fifteen minutes, she swept down and pulled her panties up over her hot, throbbing bottom. She hissed uncomfortably.

“I know, it will sting for a while,” Thorton admitted, watching her closely. “I’ve been on that side of it a lot of times myself, Penny. It’s all about learning from your mistakes. Now, why don’t we go see Fie and then we’ll have a great evening?”

She found her skirt still in the corner and did her best not to look around. She didn’t know if she could cope if she saw a ship pass by her window, witnessing any part of her shame or her red bottom.

She took a deep breath and let Thorton lead her by her hand towards the medical ward on his own docked ship where a very pregnant, blonde, fully human girl showed the giant doctor, Fie, something on her tablet. She had met the girl before in the first day there when Ellie thrust her in the girl's direction. This was the infamous Mary, the same woman who tried to strangle Ellie as soon as she’d arrived on ship, claiming that she was so sad from Ellie's supposed death that she’d been sick for months.

Apparently, Mary was Ellie’s best friend. They’d been slaves together under the Frians. There, Mary had been a seamstress, even though on Earth she had her M.D. The Swarii had her looking more in her true form with a clip board in one hand and a vial of a liquid in another, clad in a white lab coat.

Mary caught Penny in her peripheral vision and her eyes lit up. “Penny!” she said, as if she had met Penny more than once in her life. “How ya doin’, girl? I thought we would never see you in these parts!”

“I'm sure if it was up to her, you never would,” Thorton teased, letting go of Penny's hand and putting his arms around Mary's pregnant body. “You look beautiful, by the way,” he told her, causing the girl to blush.

Penny frowned as Mary giggled, then rubbed her swollen stomach. “Thanks—I'm training Peyton to say stuff like that! But I don't feel beautiful; I'm definitely feeling fat. And my feet are killing me…”

Thorton raised an eyebrow. “Then why
work
?”

“Who are you,
Peyton
?” Mary suddenly asked him with a very curt tone, even glaring at him. As if realizing that her personality had just changed on a dime, she added, “Don't mind me, I'm all hormonal. I promised Peyton that next week was my last week of working for a while,” she admitted. “Fie's happy to see me go; I think I have him on his toes more than he likes.”

She looked over at Penny again and her eyebrows raised nearly to her hairline with surprise. “Are you
trembling
?” Mary asked.

Penny looked down, surprised as well. She hadn't realized it.

“Sweetie, it'll feel just like your normal gyno exam. No biggie,” Mary assured, waving her hands.

Penny made a wobbly smile, trying to put on a not-terrified-as-hell look. “Yeah?”

Mary seemed to read perfectly into the new layer of worry Penny was emitting. “You've never had one of those, either, have you?” She rolled her eyes. “You Jonases!” she lectured with frustration. “What's wrong with you all? The only one of you who've ever had a decent physical is
Mike
, and that's surely only because he was smart enough to get the hell away from the rest of your family and be normal.”

Penny frowned and flushed.

Mary walked over to a door and opened it. “Don't worry, Kiddo. This is going to be over before you know it,” she gestured, with a wave, to the room where she was pulling pedals up to the end of a padded table.

They stepped into it. “Undress completely and put your feet in the stirrups. I'll make sure Fie'll be with you in no time. Don't let him terrify you.” With that happy word of advice, she left the room.

Penny slowly turned to Thorton, and then eyed the 'stirrups'. “I wanna go home
now
.”

“Penny, I'll be here with you, holding your hand, the entire time,” Thorton promised gently, and began to pluck at the buttons on her jacket.

“Thorton,” she said in the same tone, only with an edge of desperation, “if you stop obsessing over the doctor and this whole visit, and you take me home right now, I promise that I will rock your world in ways that you've yet to even fathom.”

“I don't know,” he teased. “With you, I think I've fathomed every scenario imaginable.”

“You know your race isn't very creative, though!” she tried again. “C'mon, Thorton! You and me, not in here, but naked, on the bed, worshipping each other's bodies….” He was ignoring her and pulled off her jacket. “Thorton, I'm not getting naked.”

“You seemed pretty easy with the idea of Jio touching your breasts not an hour ago,” Thorton reminded, unable to keep from sounding crisp.

“Yeah, well, offering a feel is one thing. But naked? No way!” She slapped his hand away from her skirt's fastening. “No!” she chided.

“Fie's a pretty well-recognized physician, and the only one who knows anything about half-breeds,” Thorton reminded, sounding extremely exasperated already. “He'll keep it professional.”

“He'll see stuff I don't want him to see,” she said, knowing how obvious it sounded.

“He'll see stuff that
I
don't want him to see, either, but he's a doctor, Penny,” Thorton said, then reached for her skirt again. She pulled back again, and he said firmly, “I'm gonna count to three before I decide that you need another round over my knee,” he warned. “One—”

Tears immediately welled into Penny's eyes with embarrassment. “You're such a jerk,” she hissed at the threat, but then unfastened her skirt and let it drop to the floor. Her leggings and panties came next, and she didn't stop glaring at Thorton the entire time.

As soon as she stepped out of her clothing, the door opened and Fie whistled in a way that was far from professional. She spun around, then put her hands in front of her, thinking that he was cat-calling her. Her anger melted quickly into sickening embarrassment when he clarified to Thorton, “Nice reddening job. Was that in regards to our discussion today, or what?”

So Fie knew she was spanked, and knew it was because he'd told Thorton earlier that day that she hadn't been to see him. Perfect. Now, she just wanted to go get sucked out into space. It would be the perfect end to a perfect day…

“Penny is still… getting used to authority,” Thorton put mildly as she watched Fie snap on gloves—white, rubbery ones, very similar to what doctors would use on Earth.

“That makes two of you,” Fie laughed and then he pointed to the table. “Up you get.”

Penny, still covering her front with her hands, looked at the table in a way that she hoped illustrated just how excited she was to be there. It didn't matter, Fie didn't wait. He just scooped up Penny by the underarms like she didn't weigh anything at all and sat her down at the edge of the table.

Fie immediately started poking and pinching her before shining a light in her eyes. “Are you feeling alright?” he asked her, then added, “Besides the fact that you obviously aren't excited to be here?”

“That's an understatement,” she assured crisply. She frowned. “I feel fine.”

“You've been eating well?”

She shrugged. “How could I? Swaraan food sucks. Your eggs are blue, your milk is yellow, and your greens aren't particularly green.”

“Your brothers put on ten pounds since they got here three weeks ago,” Fie argued.

She shrugged. “They'll eat anything.”

“Are you sure you just haven't been hungry?”

“I've been far from hungry,” she assured, not understanding the look of concern in his eye that flashed at her. She was less than concerned; Swarii food was both salty and bitter at the same time. The boys didn't have any taste-buds left from a lifetime of putting hot-sauce on
everything
; they were probably excited that the strong flavors of all this 'foreign food' was actually registering with them. Penny's tongue, however, still
worked
. Ellie assured her that eventually she'd get so used to Swarii food that she'd miss it if she ever went back to Earth, but Penny remained skeptical of that theory.

“Hm,” Fie hummed and then shown his light back into her eyes.

“Can you stop doing that?” she asked, annoyed at the uncomfortable brightness.

“Any discomfort during sex?”

Penny turned away from Fie and looked accusingly at Thorton. “I think it's time we go.”

Thorton only sighed. “Penny… I don't like being here, either. Sooner you answer his questions and get checked out, the sooner we can go.”

“He's asking a bunch of perv questions!” she accused. “And you're
letting
him—? Owe!” She looked down at her finger, which had just been pricked by a small needle which Fie was now placing into a slot in a little machine and reading something off of it. “Do you always sneak-attack, or is it just something you do with me?”

“I try to always do it when I can manage,” was Fie's unapologetic and oh-so-truthful response, though he was clearly distracted by reading whatever was on the screen of his small machine. “Lay down for me put your feet up in the stirrups,” he finally told her, sounding quite distracted.

Penny's mouth quickly became a firm line. “You've got to be kidding me.” Judging from Fie's expression, she could tell that a 'kid' was not on the table. She turned to Thorton again. “You got all uptight two seconds ago about—”

Thorton quickly interrupted her before any name, place, or complaint could be fully submitted. “Fie's a doctor. He's not doing this for
kicks
, Penny. Lay down.”

She closed her thighs shut as tight as possible and crossed her arms stubbornly.

“I thought we talked about you being a good girl?” Thorton asked, sounding disappointed and embarrassed.

“Apparently, it's easier said than done,” she retorted.

“Lay down or I'll tie you down,” Fie said, both distant and impatient at the same time. “I'm a busy man.”

“Well, don't let me get in the way of doing what you need to do,” Penny said, and waved her fingers towards the door to illustrate where Fie should begin leaving towards.

“I'll hold her down,” Thorton volunteered, and hastened to betray her. “Strap in her feet before she breaks your nose.” He nodded towards her feet as he pressed her shoulders down towards the table. Just as she was beginning to pull away from Thorton, which was impossible, Fie quickly was strapping her feet into the stirrups—she tried to kick her feet out of his gasp, but she began to be insulted by how little he reacted. He didn't even seem to be inconvenienced by her struggle!

On their way back to the mothership, she and Ellie had gotten to talking about Fie. Ellie said only this, ‘
You can’t come close to matching Fie’s strength. So when you see him, just do what I do and haul-ass in the other direction.
’

She probably should have listened. Fie didn't even flex a muscle or grind his teeth as he strapped her feet to the stirrups. Afterwards, she discovered that she had been
forced
to be splayed. He took out a chair and moved the table higher and then got her to splay her thighs farther apart so that she couldn’t touch her thighs together at all.

“Let me go!” she shrieked. “Thorton! Let me go! Don’t let him touch me like this, what’s wrong with you?”

“Penny, shush. I mean it,” Thorton demanded. “If you think your bottom’s sore now, then you really won’t like what will happen if you don't knock it off!”

She felt Fie’s gloved fingers trace along her folds, exploring them in a scientific way, maybe because he hadn’t seen red pubic hair before. Eventually, his eyes snapped up towards Thorton, his eyes finally dark with annoyance. “Can't you stop her from shaking?”