Author's Note: Here we go again. This one is a strong T for sexual themes. There is nothing explicit or "on screen", but there's a LOT of references and innuendo. Welcome back to Ovid Outpost, everybody! This takes place about a month before "Relationships 1" where we first met Jir and Nadeh. However, despite sitting down to write another Jir/Nadeh story, Kura decided to hijack my brain and insist upon something about her and Maki. So, this comes first….

Smile

Settle.

"I've come to have sex with you."

Kura said it with perfect calm and a small, sultry smile. She was good at those. Just the right curve of the lip, the right tilt of the head, the right angle of a hip, the right lift of an eyebrow – and speaking of eyebrows, Maki's were shooting up to his hairline.

The men here were so amusing. Except for when they were annoying. Seriously, an entire army where most of the men hadn't spoken to a woman for more than five minutes? Someone needed to make a romantic comedy holo about it – an entire army of buff, lonely men all needing lovers. Or maybe a porno. Either would likely be hilarious.

Anyway, Maki was one of the more amusing ones, and there was no way in hell she was going to be stationed here for stars knew how long without getting laid. It was nice to essentially have her pick of the entire outpost's compliment (excepting that one guy who kept following Nadeh around like a lost mooka puppy). Problem was, all jokes aside, being stationed with about a hundred lonely men who'd never talked to a woman before wasn't entirely the stuff of rom-coms and porn. Most of them had no idea how to actually form coherent sentences around her. It was like flipping a switch – soldier on (coherent sentences related to work and duty) and soldier off (idiocy, gawping, babbling, awkwardness, and she swore there was one idiot trying not to drool).

The good Captain, though, was blinking at her, as though her words weren't quite registering. Kura upped the size of her smile, then hefted the bottle of White Ambrosia in her hand, waggling it back and forth so that the citrine liquid sloshed around invitingly within. It'd taken nearly four weeks for the stuff to get here, from Zeltros. No alcohol anywhere on base. Ridiculous. Of course the outpost didn't have proper wine glasses either, so she'd had to make do with pilfering a couple of the mugs available in the mess. She resisted a sigh. The military obviously didn't understand the important things in life.

"Are you going to leave me standing in the hallway or is this a rejection?"

Maki blinked one more time, and his eyebrows lowered a fraction, only to rearrange themselves into an expression of deep amusement. He grinned and stepped aside, and she slipped through the doorway and into his quarters. The door swished to a shut behind them.

His room was neat. That was typical. Pretty much everything here was neat. His bunk was neat (grey banthawool blanket, standard issue), there a locker built into one white wall (closed), a durasteel desk with a computer console (on and displaying what appeared to be the staff rotation for the week). The desk was as good a place as any. She set the mugs and the liquor down and twisted off the top. A sharp tang of sweet, mulled alcohol hit the air, and she smiled down at the cool liquid for a moment before pouring.

"Mind if I ask what I did to earn the honor?" Maki asked, and she lifted her mug to her lips and took a long pull, rolling it around her mouth. Just right. Cool, sweet with a bit of a tang, and smooth as Lashaa silk. The flavor lingered, prickling her tongue pleasantly. She turned just a bit, looking over her shoulder. Maki was standing in what would have been parade rest, if his arms weren't folded over his chest. This late in the evening he was, fortunately, not in uniform (though the uniform was rather nice when on, admittedly). The grey soft clothes he was wearing were just tight enough to highlight the play of muscles on his arms – she'd always liked good arms on a man. They connected to hands, and hands – well, hands could do so many things.

He was, of course, looking at her – just the right way. She smiled and took another sip before curling her hands around the mug. "Because you look at my face."

His look of wry amusement turned puzzled, brows puckering as he frowned. He hadn't expected that; she could feel his confusion filling the back of her mind like a whisper, along with the slow, well controlled sense of attraction he usually exhibited. Nearly all the men in the outpost felt like that, but Maki didn't act on it. Oh, he didn't always look at her face (and really, after awhile she'd decided she didn't particularly want him to) but when he talked to her, he looked her in the eyes, and kept himself in that "soldier on" mode that kept him coherent. He talked to her like she was a fellow sentient being, not a Zeltron pinup girl in a doctor's uniform that had suddenly come to life. She'd have thought he was disinterested if it weren't for her empathic abilities – he was quite good at keeping himself under control, but he distinctly got several degrees warmer when he talked to her. He had this delightful juxtaposition of control and the urge to just grab her. It was entertaining.

Kura leaned back a bit on the desktop, not quite sitting on it, but taking advantage of its presence to stretch out her legs a bit – she'd dressed for the occasion as much as she could, in a form fitting (if modest length) pencil skirt and heels. As planned, Maki's eyes strayed down to her legs. He seemed to regard them thoughtfully for a long moment, then let his gaze meander slowly back up to her face.

"You have a nice face to look at," he said at length, his voice low and deep, and she smiled into her mug as she took another drink. She could feel his attraction curling warmly across her skin, his sense of puzzlement exchanging place with that burgeoning heatedness and sense of restraint rising to balance it. She almost laughed, but that wouldn't have been very nice, not in this case. Maybe in a week or two, when she'd gotten him broken in a bit, he'd realize he already had permission. It was sweet, though. He was human, after all, and didn't have her – advantage – in reading others. Humans needed to be blunt about consent.

"Drink?" she asked, setting her mug aside momentarily to pour him half a mug, and extend it. He accepted it, almost warily, a sudden flare of his suspicion needling her skin before it was quickly soothed. It was a fair enough suspicion. He probably didn't drink much, if at all. Shameful, what these men weren't allowed. Really, it was saddening how little they were allowed to live. Utterly unnatural. "It might be a bit strong for a human. Sip it."

He did as she said, but his face puckered, turned red, then purple, and he swallowed a bare second before gasping. Kura set her drink aside and touched his shoulder as he started to cough, liquor sloshing out of his cup as he tried not to double over. "What is that? Paint remover?"

She chuckled and took the drink from him before any more ended up on his nice, neat floor. "Sorry. This is one of the milder brews –"

"Mild!"

"From Zeltros. I thought it'd be suitable for sharing, but apparently not."

Maki wheezed at her disbelievingly a few times, and she gave him a small smile before reaching out and taking his face in her hands. His eyes widened. He had nice eyes, too. Brown. Kind of a nutty color, it was pleasant. This close she could see the fringe of his eyelashes. She ran her thumbs over his cheekbones (he had just enough stubble to be prickly), and he twitched, the echo of desire in him becoming a louder thrum that reverberated down through her palms and up her arms until it raced down her spine. Zeltrons weren't exclusive touch empaths, but physical contact heightened the empathic sense to exquisitely delicious levels. Her skin felt thin where it touched his, transparent as she soaked in the slow stoking of warmth in his belly through her palms and let it flow through her.

His hands flicked towards her before slowing, hovering in the small gap of space between them, and she smiled, restraining the flow of her pheromones. This wouldn't be much fun if he was half-coerced and not ready. A little longer, until he felt more comfortable. Soon.

Her friends on Zeltros thought her kink for human men rather bizarre. Couldn't she have picked a more exotic species, at least? Falleen pheromones mixed splendidly with Zeltron pheromones (the results being quite spectacular), and wouldn't that be more exciting than some boring human? They were everywhere and so…so…quaint. And uptight.

That was all part of the appeal, she supposed. Not the ubiquity of humans, but all the complicated rules they had around gender roles and sex and everything in between. She'd rather enjoyed her time at medical school on Coruscant; the Coruscanti were so different, not in terms of shape or race, but in terms of culture. They were horrendously backwards, sometimes, particularly in regards to sex (she'd had to teach a couple gossipy men exactly what it meant to call a Zeltron woman a slut - thank goodness for laser scalpels!) but there were moments when she found men like Maki who brought out some strange urge in her to simply hold them. Get them to relax. Smile. Feel sexy. And enjoy themselves, without worrying about some self-righteous asshole telling them what they should or shouldn't be doing with their body and why.

Maki had recovered himself a bit from his encounter with the White Ambrosia, and was taking the time to look at her – all of her. His eyes roamed, slowly, down from her face to her neck, to her breasts, then down to her waist and back up again. He looked at her curiously. "You're serious about this."

"You think I turned up on your doorstep at midnight with fancy Zeltron liquor to tease you?"

He blinked once, and that rakish grin she was beginning to like so much was back. His eyes (yes, definitely a nice nut brown) didn't quite lose their uncertainty – not entirely – but the wry amusement was back. "That would be some mean teasing."

Kura chuckled a bit, matching his grin with her own. "You're doing a fine job being a tease right now, Maki."

There was a ring of confusion in what was otherwise an equally flirtatious response. "And how am I being a tease?"

She laughed a bit, angling herself closer to him. He was doing his best to keep up, and managing quite well, but he genuinely didn't know what she was talking about. She kept the game going a bit longer, trying to pout a bit, but her lips kept twisting up into a smile as she ran her thumbs over his cheeks again. "You're mean, Maki. We're this close and you're not even touching me?"

He blinked again – and his grin spread. His hands, still hovering halfway between them, landed on her hips, slid up her sides to her waist, and there was an unfurling of something from him, a sigh that was more mental than physical. Then his arms were around her, pulling her flush against him, and Kura let herself exhale, long and low as he buried his face into her neck and breathed her in, and his hands wandered across her back, and one reached up into her hair and he drew his fingers through her long lavender tresses. Kura closed her eyes and memorized the feel of him against her – broad chest, big muscles, strong arms, warm and getting warmer, especially the lower he went. She pressed her hips against his and his breath hitched at the contact.

Tomorrow, of course, she'd have to drag his ass (hmm, pleasantly – but not unexpectedly – tight) down to the medical bay to make sure he was set with the standard contra-vac hypo requirements (Perhaps humans were surpassed in their backwardness by Kaminoans? No contraceptives or sexually related vaccinations? What neutered twit was heading their medical department? Did they not consider these men to be human enough to have sex?). Fortunately, she was entirely covered, and that would do for one evening. Tomorrow. Tomorrow there would be time for practicalities. Tonight….

"Maki?" Her toes curled as he found a very interesting spot on her neck and began experimenting.

"Hm?"

"Have you ever heard of the Tauntaun Topper?"

He paused in his explorations, thinking. He seemed vaguely embarrassed suddenly, his eyes slanting away from her as his lips pursed into a frown and he caressed her back with his hands. "I don't have much experience with this, Kura."

Of course he didn't. Damn Kaminoans. Damn military. Damn whoever thought using men as machines was a good idea. She pressed her lips closer to his ear, breathing gently as she brushed her lips against his skin. She slipped her hands just under the hem of his shirt, placing them at the small of his back and feeling all the want and uncertainty of him concentrated against her palms. She could fix both of those things, tonight, at least for awhile. She smiled into his neck and, ever so slowly, finally let her fingers trail thin lines of pheromones across his skin. "That's the good thing about experience. You can get it with lots of practice."

There was a pause, then a ripple of amusement up through her hands that made her grin. "Lots?"

"Mmm. I recommend we begin training immediately. Think you're fit enough?"

He snorted out a laugh, then brought his lips close to her ear, much as hers were close to his. "You going to give me a checkup, Doctor?"

Oh, was he going to be a fast learner.

"If you like," she murmured, and caught his lips with hers, and smiled.

Kura didn't have a real plan when she'd initiated a relationship with Maki. Either of them could be moved at any given time to another base or outpost, even though the odds were relatively low. If there was a plan, it mainly revolved around having some fun during the time they did have, then moving on, as usual. She certainly didn't have any plans on settling down with the man, entertaining as the relationship ended up being.

Weirdly, though, days turned into weeks, then into months, and despite some scandalized reminders of what she was missing from her friends back on Zeltros ("An entire outpost of lonely men and you're sticking with one? What have you done, turned human?") she felt oddly content with the situation ("You have no idea what kind of stamina this guy has – seriously, come visit, there's plenty of others just like him to go around.") and figured there wasn't any harm in doing what (and who) she damn well pleased, one man or several ("…Really? …How many men are we talking about, here?"). Besides, at this point, it'd do nothing but hurt him if she took other lovers on base. Possessiveness wasn't a virtue, but she doubted Maki – or any of the men – would see it in the same context. Taking a few of the men into her bed would just show that one of them was insufficient – they were just clones, after all.

Maki's chest was snugly pressed against her back, and his head was just close enough to hers that she could feel his breath sliding across the skin of her neck. One of his arms was flung over her waist, and he'd managed to kick half the covers off him (again). There was a steady stream of drowsy contentedness pressing against her back from where his skin met hers.

It wasn't so bad. There was also a nice regularity to it – no going out hunting in cantinas, no wondering if she'd have someone come home with her at night (though that was a rare problem indeed). He was funny, a horrible flirt, and smart. And he gave a mean massage when she was tired. She sighed and settled back into him, and he made a muffled noise and tightened his grip on her.

She'd just have to settle for having mind-blowing sex with one man. Oh well.

Thanks to laloga for the help, especially with naming the liquor! For anyone wondering, Zeltrons have some limited empathic abilities – they're not Jedi, but they can sense the emotions of others to a degree.

Aaaaaand...yes! Smile is back. For awhile. I currently have ten ficlets lined up for you all. Schedule is biweekly, so expect updates every other week for a few months, at least.

Enjoy!
~Queen