“I’ll see you later!” she said, pecking me on the cheek and joining the impatient guards standing outside.
I watched her sexy ass as it rounded a corner and disappeared from view.
I had a smile on my face that must have made me look a fool. But I didn’t care.
I was the luckiest guy in the prison and nothing was going to change that.
Beating my opponent when I knew I had her to look forward to made the fights easy. The fighter could be a skilled attacker but they were in the way of being with Ivy, so I took them out within thirty seconds. Sometimes I approached the exit gate before the klaxon even sounded.
I hustled down the tunnel to the Prize Pool and was relieved to see her waiting for me at the other end. None of the other Prizes even bothered to pose or dress up. They knew who I was going to choose.
I scooped her up in my arms and spun her around on the spot. We kissed openly. I couldn’t help but squeeze her ass. She glared at me playfully before we headed down the hallways.
Today, Ivy wore a smart dress and a hat with lace that covered part of her face. She shot me shy glances as we approached my cell. She took my hand and although the other prisoners must have been watching us, I didn’t notice.
I held the door open for her and the moment we were inside, I removed the dress from her body like she was the best present I had ever received. She actually was. We got naked and, without a word, made love.
I’d been thinking about her all day, and once we were done, the two of us took a nap as we hadn’t slept the entire previous night.
She lay across my chest and we slumbered into the early evening hours.
Then she got to work on my painting and asked which were the right shades. She turned the painting so it faced the wall. She didn’t want me seeing it until she was done, she said.
These were the happiest days of my life. I couldn’t get enough of looking at her, I couldn’t get enough of smelling her, and yes, I couldn’t get enough of fucking her.
We did it soft, we did it hard, we did it in every imaginable position and others that were new to me that she introduced, and others still that I think we might have actually invented ourselves.
“Okay,” she finally said, adding a few more finishing touches to the canvas. “I think I’m done.”
She had paint on her cheeks and it had stained the T-shirt she borrowed from me. I moved over to her.
“Can I look at it now?”
“You can look.”
I rounded the canvas as Ivy watched my expression.
I prepared myself to be blown away by it. Even if it was the most hideous piece of art I had ever seen—not that I had much to compare it to—I would have been happy because she had been the one to paint it for me.
But when I saw that beautiful painting, my jaw hit the floor.
I didn’t think I’d seen anything so incredible my entire life. The sun burst through the clouds and illuminated the leaves the way I remembered. The leaves pulled back gently as the wind ran its fingers through them. And there, in the distance, the low rows of fruit I used to run and play with my friends.
It looked nothing like the drab and dreary image clipped to the corner of it that Ivy worked from. Maybe I drew it to be so drab because to remember that memory in its full splendor would be too painful, too hard to recall.
And it was.
Looking at it took me right back to that moment. I could feel the sun on my face and the crunch of leaves beneath my feet. I could hear my friends’ giggles and the taste of that luscious fruit on my tongue.
A powerful emotion overtook me. I was no longer the tough fighter I was now, I was a five-year-old boy who didn’t know he was about to lose his family, friends, and everyone he had ever known.
His species was wiped off the map for reasons he couldn’t understand. He was the last of his kind and had been held in a prison because he had nowhere else to go. And now he was full-grown, he was too afraid of what awaited him outside those walls.
Because out there, he would be absolutely and utterly alone. At least inside, he had fellow fighters. They might wish him dead but at least there was some camaraderie.
Now, he had the most beautiful woman in the entire galaxy on his arm.
I couldn’t look at that painting any longer. I just couldn’t.
“What’s wrong?” Ivy said. “Did I do it wrong? Whatever it is, I can fix it.”
She got up from her chair and followed me.
“Kren? I’m sorry. I’m sure I can do better—”
I turned and felt the sharp tears in my eyes. I was embarrassed and didn’t want her to see.
“Kren?” she said.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. You did a terrific job. An amazing job. It just looks so real…. You should be proud of yourself.”
“Then why are you upset?”
“I’m not upset. I’m happy. I can remember everything now. Because of you. It’s like I found a breadcrumb and it led to all these other memories that I forgot a long time ago. Maybe I forgot them on purpose, I don’t know. But I do know I’m happier now than I have ever been. Even back then in those fields and on that planet.”
Ivy ran her arm up mine. It tingled where she touched me.
“It must be so hard for you. To remember those things. Your family… Your species…”
“Don’t.”
She placed her hand on my cheek.
“I’m your family now. I’m yours. Nobody can ever take me away from you.”
They were the words I needed
