Bubblegum Pop

Every night, after Sunshine raided his fridge for his leftovers and finished them off, she would leave and he would dream about the things he couldn't have. About how he wanted to touch, lick, bite every inch of her body, and show her what he'd learned in his younger years on this planet.

He especially wanted her to touch him, but he knew it could never happen. His phobia of touching—caused by the horror of his childhood here—saw to that. Killian didn't know who to be angrier at either: Scott, for putting the idea into his head, or Sunshine.

Killian heaved a sigh when he heard the screen door on the side of his garage open and close. He reached for the blue paper towel and wiped the oil from his hands.

She was like clockwork.

As soon as she got off work she was there, talking and popping that foul, cavity causing atrocity. Asking him never ending questions about the cars he worked on and about the tattoos all over his back and arms. He had to start wearing wife beaters when he worked on cars because she almost touched him once.

"What language is this? Are these ravens?" she'd asked, with the tips of her fingers a whisper away from stroking the curve of his shoulder.

It wasn't that he couldn't tell her it was his native language from his home planet—well, he really couldn't tell her that—or that the crows down his arm represented dead family members, but rather it was her closeness that made him knock into his toolbox, scattering the pieces as it tipped over.

"Don't touch me!" His disgusted yell was followed by a curse as he bent down to pick up his tools.

She'd apologized, but his anger hadn't fazed her once as she asked her next question and blew another bubble. The sickeningly sweet smell of watermelon, even then, made his nose wrinkle. When she wasn't making him irate with her diarrhea of the mouth or freaked that she might touch him–sometimes she'd just sit quietly on top of his desk and watch him work—he would think of her in friendlier terms.

He would think of her slender, toned legs wrapping around his waist instead of swinging at his desk. Of her made-for-sucking lips wrapped around his dick, but that was the problem.

Why did he torture himself so much?

His phobia of touching was so severe that he visited Mary, a psychiatrist—one of Killian's kind who'd already integrated herself into society long before Killian came—on a weekly basis. Killian hadn't been touched by anyone, let alone a woman, since he was twenty-three. That was almost ten years ago. Yet no one, until Sunshine, had ever tempted him this way. Not ever. Not the men, not the women. None of them.

"I'm hungry," Sunshine grumbled as she swung the connecting door from his garage to his house open and trampled inside. "What'd you have for dinner?"

Another thing that bothered him about her, she was a horrible cook. Burning things, setting her curtains on fire... it wasn't a fluke that first day. She tried baking chicken in her oven and burned the hell out of her hand the next day. It baffled him why she even bothered. Yet, not even her clumsiness deterred his need, and when she'd found out that he could cook she'd made herself welcome more often.

His jaw clenched and he exhaled slowly. Damn but he wanted her.

"Leftovers are in the fridge," he said begrudgingly. More and more her visits made him feel something else—something more than sexual desire—something he hadn't felt since he'd left home. She made him feel like he belonged here, and he didn't like it.

"Well, what is it?" she demanded.

"How 'bout it's free food? Deal with whatever it is."

"Fine!" she said, coming back into the garage with the pint of rice and Mongolian beef. "So grouchy."

"How's your hand?" Killian asked.

"Doc says it healing nicely." She shoved a chopstick full of beef and onions into her mouth. A piece of white rice lingered above her lip as she quickly took another bite of the rice. "So—"

Here we go... he couldn't deal with this tonight, even if he had encouraged her. His eyes darkened as he glanced her way. There were so many better things she could do with her mouth. He wondered if she knew how many. He glanced down, his blue rag still in his hand, as he wiped grease off his fingers. The idea of showing her anyway was there and he gritted his teeth to ward off the thought.

"So can you? Killian? Hello?"

"Can you just—" he trailed off as he started to tell Sunshine he wasn't in the mood for chatting, but when he saw her, he nearly swallowed his tongue. He eyed her unbuttoned shirt and the pink laced bra beneath. Maybe she wasn't in the mood for chatting either. "What-" Killian paused, clearing his throat. "What did you want?"

Sunshine slurped the juice from the metal container of the Mongolian Beef dish before repeating her question. "Can you touch me? And maybe I can touch you? I know you don't like to be touched, but maybe we could do an experiment? I thought I'd made it obvious when I was unbuttoning my shirt," she said, glancing down at herself before frowning and looking back up at him. "Should I have taken it off all together?"

Killian blinked and waited to wake-up. It never happened.