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Author's Note: Originally posted to st_ix_kink (which is your cue to run away if explicit sex is not what you're looking for).

Safe and Sound
by LJC

Gaila doesn't understand human women.

Seriously.

She'd been at the bar for two hours, and watched four Life Sciences girls from the Hood fall all over themselves trying to get the attention of one Security meathead from the Reliant. And not a single one of them had even noticed the seriously fine specimen of manhood in the corner booth, watching the whole circus like the ringmaster.

All because there was an age gap of roughly one human generation. That was just ridiculous. That could not stand.

Unfortunately, neither could Gaila, due to getting involved in a drinking game inexplicably called "quarters" with two gorgeous-yet-celibate Deltans. One of whom, gods bless her, caught her before she could fall to the barroom floor.

"Heya there," Pai said as she hooked an arm beneath Gaila's. "Horizontal is bad here. Vertical is better."

The good thing about Deltans in the 'fleet is that the pheromone suppressants that were developed to keep people from trying to go down on them in the middle of a Red Alert were easily adapted for Orions. Which meant Gaila could actually pull double-shifts in the Engineering lab actually recalibrating the warp engine coolant control system without either her instructors nor her fellow cadets trying to get a hand down her pants when she asked them for the sonic spanner.

The bad thing about hanging out with the Deltans in the bars just outside the Marseilles Academy Campus was that invariably some townie became convinced that the pheromone suppressants were a myth and really what he wanted most in life was to be the meat filling in that Alien Babe sandwich. Which normally Gaila would be all over, except she liked being the one to choose her partners. Also, French people smelled weird. She thought it was all that cheese.

She got her feet under her, smoothing her cadet reds down primly. "I'll be back."

Shaurei just smiled at her, while Pai tugged on a stray red curl. "Surely you will," meaning they would see her most likely after morning meal.

The human just smiled at Gaila when she slid into the booth next to him.

"Cadet."

"Sir."

"Can I help you?"

"You're drinking alone, sir."

"Yes, I am."

"That seems wrong to me, sir."

She snuggled closer up against him, pressing her length of her thigh against his. He smiled wryly at her.

"How much have you had to drink, cadet?"

"More than them," she waved to the off-duty crewmen, "and less than them," she pointed to the Deltans, who waved back.

"Is that so?"

"Their physiology is special," she tripped over the first word but stuck the landing on the last word. "They retain manual dexterity way better than Orions after a few drinks. And we were playing this game that kinda relies on manual dexterity."

"I'm guessing you lost."

"Oh, big time." It was one of her favourite human expressions, 'big time', as if time had mass and volume. "But it makes me sad, to see you here alone."

"I assure you, Cadet, I'm doing just fine."

"You are fine. Distinguished." She cupped her chin in her hand, and stared into his blue eyes, which crinkled at the corners as he took a sip of his beverage. It smelled like hops and honey. She wondered what he would taste like. That thought got a little away from her, as she watched his throat as he swallowed.

"Thank you, Cadet..."

"Gaila. I'm Orion."

"I guessed that."

"It's because I'm green, isn't it."

"In so many ways. And while I appreciate the gesture—"

"Oh, but I haven't gestured yet," she said, and dropped her hand to his thigh.

"Cadet Gaila—"

"You can just call me Gaila."

"Well then, you can call me Captain." He reached down and plucked her hand from his lap with a rueful smile. "And I think, cadet, that maybe it's time for you to head back to campus. Before any of these nice... beings get any ideas."

"You're a gentleman, aren't you."

"I try."

She leaned forward, nuzzling his ear. "Then a gentleman would walk me home, to make sure I got there safe and loud."

"I believe the expression is 'safe and sound'."

"That, too."

With a sigh, he dropped a few credits on the table. The bartender nodded, and Pike offered her his arm, just like in the holovids. The Deltans looked sad as Gaila left on his arm, but she'd make it up to them later.

The night was balmy, the breeze carrying the smell of the sea. Gaila wasn't quite as drunk as she pretended to be, but it gave her an excuse to lean heavily on his arm as the wound their way through the narrow streets back toward Starfleet campus. She knew he was humouring her. She also knew that he wasn't completely immune to the way her hip bumped his with every step, the way her breast "accidentally" pressed up against his arm as he helped her navigate the gutters and cracked pavement. By Orion standards, this world was still shiny and new. But she knew she was in an old city, in Terran terms. Charmingly quaint, to keep up the tourist trade, no doubt.

Gaila understood humans. It was one of the reasons she choose to attend Starfleet Academy here on Earth, instead of one of the campuses closer to her home near the Beta Quadrant. She liked the way humans laughed. Vulcans didn't laugh. She liked the way humans fucked. Better than Andorians or even Risans, who were renowned sensualists to rival even the Deltans and Orions. Because humans didn't think before the acted. Not really. As a people, Gaila liked them for their spontaneity. And also for the fact that even taking her weekly pheromone suppressants, she knew that the longer a human was exposed to even the reduced levels, the harder it was to resist her charms.

Like, for example, the handsome, distinguished captain, whose neck above his stuff grey wool collar was just that little bit exotic pink. It made her want to lick that spot where his ear curved into his jaw.

So she did.

"Cadet," his voice was a rumble against her side, and she pulled back. "None of that, now."

She laughed. They were still half a mile from campus, walking down one of the tree-lined streets where single tribe (Families, they called them. She kept forgetting.) homes were crowded next to each other like drunken party goers at a wedding. Low garden walls separated the houses from the street, and she skipped away to sit atop one, her boot-heels clicking against the stones and mortar as she swung her feet.

"It's a beautiful night."

He stopped in front of her, back-lit by the moon. "And you're going to miss curfew."

"We've got ages. And anyway, so I get a few demerits. Pfaaa. No big deal."

"You say that now—"

"I say that always." He was close enough and she could reach out with both feet and hook her toes behind his thighs and tug him forward to the edge of the wall. "What's the point, if you're not having a good time? I'm having a very good time. Aren't you?"

He pushed a single red curl behind her ear.

"How old are you, cadet?"

"Gaila," she repeated, winding her arms around his neck. "In Standard years? Old enough to drink." She shrugged, and smiled as his hands came to rest on her waist. "Old enough to fuck."

She liked that word, too. She liked the onomatopoetic sound of it.

"This is a very bad idea."

"I actually think it's one of the best ideas I've ever had." She licked his bottom lip, and pressed her breasts against his chest. "Are you telling me you've never fantasised about having an Orion woman?"

She knew she had him now, from the way he sucked in a breath and the flush crept higher, the nearly translucent cartilage of his ears burning with it.

"Imagined what it would be like," she continued, her voice breathy and her mouth next to one pink ear, "to live on a colony as a trader with a house full of beautiful sisters who would dance for you? Only for you, and no-one else?"

She reached down between them, her coral-painted lips curving in a lazy smile as she ran her fingers down the length of him, and felt him twitch. "It doesn't have to be a fantasy. You can have everything you desire. You can have—"

She didn't get to finish that thought, as he pressed her up against the garden wall, his mouth slanting wet and hot and needy against hers. He tasted like hops, and beneath that, the sour twist of whiskey as her legs fell open (Gaila thanked the gods daily for the option of the uniform skirt which made this sort of thing so much easier) and she could feel him swelling against her thigh. She was bent back far enough that the thorny stems of the roses on the other side of the wall caught the ends of her hair and his large, square hands moulded themselves to her ass, pulling her tightly against him. She made a low humming sound in the back of her throat, her nipples hardening to nubs inside her sheer lace bra. She could hear the distant sounded of voices, and the high-pitched scream of tyres from ground vehicles two streets over, and above all that, his voice rasping in his chest as he tried to touch every inch of skin her cadet uniform exposed.

Aware of their precarious position, Gaila took his hands, and hopped off the wall, her lips still fastened to his. Stepped sideways, she drew him into the gap between two houses, an alley barely wide enough for a single ground car. Walking backwards, she found the high wall of an enclosed garden, the recessed wooden gate creating a perfect spot hidden from both the street, and the high windows of the narrow houses. It was maybe half a meter wide, and the same deep, and shrouded in purple shadows.

Needing no encouragement, he pushed her back up against the stone wall, impatiently tugging at the closure of her red jacket. Between fevered kisses, she slid the closure down and he slid the palm of his hand under her thin white tee-shirt, pulling it up over her breasts and revealing the lace of her bra beneath. Instead of dropping her jacket to the pavement, he wadded it up, tucking it behind her head. Her eyes grew wide as he lifted her up so her legs wrapped around his waist to keep from falling. Bracing her hands on his shoulders, she ground her hips against his cock through two layers of fabric.

Humans. Gods, she loved them.

While he kneaded one breast in his left hand, firm and steady despite their increasingly frenzied movements, he sucked the nipple of the other through the lace, the friction almost painful as he swirled his tongue around the hardened nub. She gasped as he took it between his teeth, and she was glad of the make-shift cushion as she threw her head back involuntarily. Otherwise she probably would have cracked her head against the stone wall. That would have been possibly a mood-killer, even for her.

He released her breast, and reached down between them. She could hear him undoing the fastening of his trousers, and she bit her bottom lip in sweet anticipation. He didn't even bother to pull down her pants—just tugged the thin material aside with impatient fingers before pushing the hot, hard length of him into her. She was slick with want and need and she grabbed handfuls of his jacket as he began fucking her against the wall, his breath coming in short pants against her neck. His strokes were quick at first, before he caught a rhythm, the sound of flesh slapping against flesh warring with her sharp keening cries. Then he slowed, gripping her hips so he could push up into her with long, deep strokes.

This was why she preferred humans with a few years and miles on them. Any Academy cadet she would have lured into an alley for a quick fuck, and that's all it would have been. Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Sexually-Compatible-Sentient-Alien-Comrade-In-Arms. But as he bent his knees and changed the angle of his thrusts, she began babbling incoherently. Strings of words, most of them affirmations, encouragement, and the occasional direction fell from her lips but if he heard them he wasn't heading them. Which was just as well as whatever he was doing, he was clearly doing it correctly as not only was he hitting the cluster of nerves Orions called 'the centre' (and humans called the Gräfenberg spot, which wasn't nearly so poetic) but the tilt of his pelvis was grinding her clitoris (which the Universal translator called 'button' and yes, that made sense) against him with each stroke.

And it went on, in human terms, forever. At least ten minutes. She wanted to bag this one and bring him home with her, if it weren't for the part where she was pretty sure once the rush wore off he'd bring her up on assault and kidnapping charges, and also, her roommate would be pretty pissed. Particularly as it was the third room assignment she'd received in her 11 months thus far in Federation Starfleet.

But he was just so focussed, and even through the haze of desire, was pacing himself. She found that incredibly sweet. So sweet that she clenched around him, digging her fingers into his shoulders. Stretching out one leg, she braced it against the opposite wall, dropping the other leg so she gaped wider. He surged up into her, slamming her hips against the wall with renewed force. She would have bruises from his hands on her hips and that was exactly what she wanted. She wanted to look in the mirror tomorrow and see the marks he was leaving on her. Gaila sank her teeth into his shoulder to muffle her cries as he quickened his pace.

He came first, groaning into her neck, and continued pumping his hips even as he softened inside her. She was so close that when he reached down between them to stroke her button with rough fingertips, pressing harder with each stroke, she followed him, a string of Orion endearments laced with profanities panted out against his mouth as her chest heaved.

A cat ran across the alley, stopping to peer at them with golden eyes before it vanished into the gloom. He tucked himself back inside his trousers, hands shaking, and she leaned heavily against the wall, laughing delightedly.

"That was—" he began, and she kissed him before he could finish whatever he was going to say.

"Yes. It was."

"So," she asked, as they resumed their half-mile walk towards the campus, "what ship?"

"Enterprise," he replied, still looking a bit dazed. "Eventually."

"Enterprise." She clicked her tongue against her teeth. "I like the sound of that."