DISCLAIMER: I Don't Own Star Trek. And I'm not making any money from this.

Rough language. But you'd swear too!
Italics used for emotion and for Vulcan...have them switching between standard and Vulcan a lot here.

Anonymous comments still on. I'm always open to constructive criticism (ask bluehorse and Phantos!). Thanks for keeping it civil everyone!

Lost in Translation

Nyota rolled off the bed and was on her feet at the other side of the room faster than Spock would have thought possible for a human female. Her face displayed so many emotions Spock couldn't begin to identify them. Shock, anger, surprise?

Spock did not move. He remained seated cross legged on the edge of the bed, hands on his knees. He suddenly felt the sensation Nyota had identified as 'uh oh.' It was best to stay calm in these sorts of situations. He suspected so anyways. His father remained calm when his mother became extremely emotional.

"Holy mother of.....what the fuck was that!" Nyota shouted.

Spock had thought long and hard on this and thought he had an excellent answer. "I believe it is an obsessive compulsive Vulcan marking behavior." Hmmm....he was talking in his native language. That was odd.

She answered him in kind. "An obsessive compulsive Vulcan....Spock you bit me! While I was sleeping!" Her hand went to her shoulder. Switching to lingua franca she shouted "A kink I can understand....But how would you like it if I bit you in your sleep?"

Still sitting cross legged on the bed, he tilted his head. He had to consider that. If it was meant in love...

"God damn it, you can't empathize..." She said in standard. Then she swore in Klingon and with a look he thought was anger lunged over to the bed. Picking up his arm and pushing up his sleeve in one smooth motion she bit the tender bend opposite his elbow. She didn't let go right away, she chewed and even tugged back and forth.

Spock was overjoyed. Perhaps she wasn't angry after all -- he did have trouble with facial cues. Maybe she was just surprised and passionate. It seemed like she actually understood.

When Nyota finally let go he pulled her onto his lap with his free arm, all the while staring fixedly at the arm she had just marked so thoughtfully for him. Little green welts were already forming in the shape that was unique to her jaw. Those small teeth marks could only be hers and hers alone. Hers.

For a moment Nyota seemed to be pulling to get up, and then she stopped abruptly. "Spock are you purring?" She asked in Vulcan.

Was he purring? "No, a purr would imply a noise made on inhalation and exhalation, I am merely rumbling on exhalation but as I have a greater lung capacity than..."

"You are purring,"

She started laughing...but not in her normal light way. Why was she laughing?

She took a deep breath. "Somehow this is a custom they failed to mention in all the Vulcan cultural awareness classes and seminars I've attended."

Spock was silent. He kept staring fixedly at his arm -- he felt completely filled with the new emotion without a name. She was sitting sideways on his lap and he knew she could feel how much he wanted her. They had passed thirty days...

"Spock. Link. Now."

That sounded like a wonderful idea. It would be so nice to be closer to her at that moment. Lifting the hand that held her he put it on the temple opposite him. It allowed him to press the side of her head to his forehead.

Immediately he felt...

Shock...anger...betrayal...hurt...

His heart sank and he experienced a wave of pure panic.

And then he felt Nyota reaching across the link.

"Spock, I don't want you to transmit what you feel now, I want you to transmit what you felt when you bit me...when I bit you."

He tried, but couldn't. Her feelings had startled him into rational thought. If he looked at what he did objectively...He had let go of his control at the worst possible moment. She was smaller and weaker than he was, she trusted him to protect her while she slept. He had failed her.

"Nyota, I cannot. I apologize for..."

She sighed.

Across the link he suddenly felt...

Determination...

Pulling up his free arm she bit him again. Hard. Over and over again, right on the underside of his wrist. The new emotion came flooding back. Love. Lust. Protectiveness. His...and Hers. He didn't even need to try and broadcast it to her.

Her biting stopped. And suddenly from across the link he felt...

Arousal...

She shook in his arms. "Well that is...different..." Then she switched to his language, "This is...is a Vulcan emotion?"

He told her what he knew. "I do not know. It is new."

He was not sure if it was purely Vulcan, it could be human too he supposed. He would reflect on it later.

"It is..." She took a breath and switched to the common vernacular, "beautiful and sexy as all Hell."

That sounded promising. Tilting his head he asked, "You approve?"

"The emotion is sexy...the obsessive compulsive Vulcan marking behavior is...intimidating, Spock. But you need this don't you?"

He could not respond. When he wanted to say 'I love you' or 'I miss you' the words sat within his mind but when he wanted to speak them it was as though they fell off a cliff.

To say 'I need' for something that was definitely not necessary for survival...it was too close to 'I love you' or 'I miss you'.

At last he said, "I cannot put you under any obligation that might hurt you. I apologize for my previous actions." He suddenly realized he switched back to standard.

Across the link he felt desire mixed with apprehension. He wished he could transmit calm, but the bite marks on his arm and wrist still stung too much, and her question 'You need this, don't you?' echoed in his mind. It was too much for him to process adequately. He was not calm. He was not serene. And he could not transmit a physiological state he was so far from himself.

She replied to him in Vulcan. "Spock, can you follow one rule, and one rule only?"

Could he follow a rule? Logically, it would depend on what the rule was. Putting his forehead back to rest against the side of her head he whispered, "What is it you wish, my Nyota."

Saying My Nyota sent the new emotion coursing through him and Nyota absolutely quaked. They were linked, but Spock did not need the help of an empathic bond to sense her physiological state.

Turning her head so her forehead was now pressed against his she began in the lingua franca, "I want you..."

His hands tightened instinctively at those words.

Nyota swallow and finished in Vulcan. "But we must remain linked. Can you do that?"

It was odd, but when she gave him a question to ponder, one that required an intellectual, not emotional response, his mind could work. Remaining linked during the act they were considering presented a logistical challenge, but it was not impossible. If only he could do a mind meld. He pushed that thought away. If staying linked was the new rule..."We may remain linked if you wish."

"My Spock." She whispered.

At those words it was his turn to shake. Through the link he felt...

Arousal...anticipation...love and a whole host of other emotions laced with a tiny bit of apprehension.

Bringing his other hand up to her face he stroked her temples on either side, so the link existed briefly through both hands, and she felt the full force of this feeling she called a Vulcan emotion. She gasped...and it was most satisfying.

X X X X

Spock awoke lying on his stomach. His back felt raw. There was a definite spot of soreness on his left jaw and random aches and pains. He felt...satisfied. Content. At peace with the world.

But why did his bed feel so hard?

He blinked. He was lying on his duvet which was currently on the floor of his bedroom, a corner of it wrapped around his shoulders.

The events of last night came rushing back. He was laying on the floor because the bed was a wet, sweaty nest of ripped sheets...things had gotten perhaps a little extreme.

From Terran movies he had gathered that the first time with a new partner was supposed to be tender event...this had not. He knew that Nyota had found the night to be emotional and erotic but it had also been shocking to her. For him it had definitely been…different.

He felt a twinge of panic. Where was Nyota?

He stopped. Listened. Heard her breathing, she didn't sound like she was sleeping. He glanced side ways. There she was, laying on her side on the duvet just inches away from him. She was already awake and was watching him with wide eyes.

He reached out to touch her temple, to let her feel his relief and happiness at seeing her...and stopped halfway through the motion. The skin across his back went from feeling raw to burning.

Nyota winced, and bit her bottom lip.

"I'm sorry about that." She gingerly reached out with a hand and touched his shoulder. "I've never done that before...I was just trying to hold on..."

Ah, yes. Her nails. His skin. How wonderful. He completed the link and sent her a feeling of deep contentment.

She was still tense. Through the link he felt...

Uncertainty...

"I'm so sorry. I didn't know that blunt nails could actually break skin....but you said...and then through the link I could see how much you liked it...and then I couldn't stop." Nyota said.

Gritting his teeth he rolled onto his side and shifted closer to her.

"There is no need to apologize." He said stroking her temple and trying to send calm and peace and the deep pleasure he had remembering how his back came to burn.

"Maybe you shouldn't move too much until we get a dermakit...we have one more professional engagement tomorrow, remember?"

"But is a dermakit really necessary?" Spock asked. He wanted mementos. He did not want to think about professional engagements.

"Well, maybe not for the nail marks...unless you're planning to wear a white shirt. But the bite on the bottom of your jaw...I guess I didn't know what I'm doing. You were purring so loudly though, and it was so sweet...and so sexy..."

His chest started to rumble at the memory. She smiled and she touched his cheek. "Mmmmm....yes....like that. Also, I'll need the dermakit for the love bite at the back of my neck."

He blinked. There was the large red welt on her shoulder and a necklace of tiny marks on her clavicles -- and he remembered the bite on the back of her neck as well, he was almost afraid to look at it. The marks both pleased him and made him shudder.

She touched the bites on her clavicles and ran her hand behind her neck. "It didn't even really hurt when you gave me these...or not in a bad away." Then she lifted her hand to her shoulder. "I wish you had told me..."

When she touched her shoulder he felt just a tiny bit of...

Betrayal...through the link.

He remembered the final ultimatum she had delivered the night before when he was about to collapse into unconsciousness. "Mark me in my sleep, Spock, and I will never bite you again." He certainly would not let that happen.

He sent her his regret and added...

"Nyota, I apologize. This behavior is new to me, I had not experienced it before. I thought I could control it."

Her eyes got wide and through their link he felt...

Surprise...

"This isn't a regular thing with you?"

He tilted his head and sent a tinge of vexation laced with the general happiness he was feeling through the link.

"Sorry." She smiled and he felt her happiness. "Vulcans never lie..."

Then he felt curiosity.

"So how much of last night was, you know, a regular thing?"

"Very little, Nyota."

Ripped sheets, occasionally, yes. The soaked bed, now and then, of course. Scratches on the back -- he'd received them, but the effect last night had been different. This is why he'd wanted more of them, and why his back burned so happily now. Taken together these things were different from the norm.

Biting? Purring? Linking through the entire act? Commanding her in Vulcan to keep tearing at his back...had that really happened? Pushing her to climax just by saying the word, 'Mine', and the effect on him when she said, 'Yours'. Definitely never before.

He looked over her shoulder at the wall. Did he see a faint shade of green?

Nyota said, "I think we may have gotten some of the blood from your back on the wall...I hope it does not stain." It was impossible for Nyota to read his mind through the empathic link they were sharing, wasn't it?

He tilted his head and considered, maintaining a link at all times had been logistically challenging. Blood on the wall -- thankfully only green... "That is new as well..."

And then there was just the fact that she was here, in the morning, next to him. They had actually slept together. They had not just engaged in a physical act of passion, they had actually slept.

Nyota pressed her forehead to his. "You know Spock, I feel like all month I've been fooling around with a human...and last night I made love to a Vulcan."

She took a breath and kissed him gently. "So you know, I love both men."

And he did know, he felt it through their link. He opened his mouth to answer her and sighed. The feeling he wanted to send got tangled with the regret he had at not being able to express it.

"Shhhhh....I know."

She giggled. "So, I was the first partner you did Vulcan-style."

He bumped his forehead against hers a little hard. She could be so uncouth.

"Oh, come on, don't you think it is a little romantic?"

Yes. Yes, he did. He sent her a warm glow of happiness and for a few minutes they slipped into their happiness link.

And then he began to realize he was lying naked. Next to his Nyota. And they seemed to have crossed just about every line already...

Ignoring the pain in his back he rolled her on top of him and kissed her, confident she would feel what was on his mind.

"I don't know...I'm sore...and when you pushed me up on the wall I think I bruised my back...I don't think I realized how strong you are..." She said

He relaxed his hold on her.

"I'm not saying no...I'm asking if you can be gentle..."

"I will not mark you." Both of his eyebrows went up at the realization that the need was gone, for the moment. "And I can be gentle." Normally it was his custom to overcompensate for his increased strength. He raised an eyebrow, she'd left him a perfect opening for teasing. "Perhaps we can do it human-style?"

"Very funny." She said without laughing. Then bending she nuzzled the tips of his ears. It suddenly occurred to him there was a favor from the night before he wished to repay.

A/N:
O.K., there is a definite reason Nyota wanted Spock to keep the link. Not sure if it comes through in one chapter. Would love to hear if people have guessed it.

For American readers (heck, I'm American) a duvet is a comforter.

And now gentle readers, they've done the deed. I've heard this is the point most of the readership will drop off. *sigh*. But there are other elements of their relationship I want to explore...although they will definitely stay ahem, 'affectionate' throughout the story...until, you know...and then after that I'll have to build up the suspense all over again. Bwa ha ha ha ha ha........

Cheers.