GalacticInferno Read online

  Leaning forward, he pressed his mouth against hers, sucking on her lower lip and running his tongue across the fleshy, too-kissable pad. He pulled back, his breathing ragged. “You’re perfect.”

  Her beautiful gray-green eyes widened. “You really mean that, don’t you.”

  It wasn’t a question, but somehow he felt compelled to answer. “We’re made for each other. Everything about you turns me on. Your face. Your body. Your heart. Your soul.”

  She grinned then. “The way my breasts fill your hands like your cock fills my—”

  He kissed her again then, and they broke into gasping-for-breath laughs as a weird hysteria gripped them both. A hysteria that was edged with fervor and need.

  Ally pulled back with a gasp at a sudden noise above their heads. Renate glanced up at the pair of birds—pigeons?—that had taken flight. A ginger cat peered over the eaves of the garage roof, staring at them with big, hungry yellow eyes.

  Bonnie strained against the leash and Renate said sternly, “No.”

  The dog sat back on her haunches, beseeching them with a whining noise that let them know she was willing and eager for a chase. But Ally was busy murmuring to the cat, which was pushing its broad orange head into Ally’s outstretched hand, purring loudly and ignoring the dog so far below.

  “Isn’t he a beautiful boy?” she praised. “And so friendly.”

  Renate felt a silly grin stretch his lips. If he was the cat he’d be begging for attention too. “The cat likes you.”

  Ally turned. Looking up at him, her smile lit up her sooty, dirty face like a high-wattage light bulb in a darkened room. “Dogs and cats don’t often get along. And cats are…well, they’re aloof but not stupid. This one is probably hoping for something to eat.” Her head tilted to the side as she considered him. “Does your planet have cats?”

  “No. Zadmets are probably the closest thing we have to them, except they’re bigger, about half the size of Bonnie. Their fur is coarser and a mottled red and brown—most of our animals are different shades of red to blend in with our deserts.”

  “Did you keep one as a pet?”

  He shook his head, smiling at the thought. “Only a fool would try.”

  “Oh?”

  “Zadmets have massive claws housing dozens of naturally occurring shock cells. When their claws retract they’re harmless, unsheathed they’re deadly.”

  “Wow. Your planet sounds amazing. Dangerous…but definitely amazing.”

  Nostalgia for his home world swept through him. Would he ever see his planet again? His apparent betrayal would likely see him become an outcast.

  Like father, like son.

  “Yes. In many ways it is.” He tamped down the mix of melancholy and pain, indicating the small house. “This looks as good as any place to rest for a few hours.”

  She nodded, but he sensed her reserve. At the screen door he asked, “Are you okay?”

  She gnawed her bottom lip. “I’m just afraid of what we might find inside.”

  “I’ll go first and take a look. If I find anything, we’ll go elsewhere.”

  Her relief was palpable. “Thank you.”

  He pressed a quick kiss to her brow. “Don’t go anywhere, hmm?” Then he was opening the squeaky screen door and turning the handle of the wooden door.

  A closed-up mustiness pervaded the place. Urine and worse. His nose wrinkled and he wished right then for the inferior scent ability of a human. Clearly small animals had moved in. A little brown shape scuttled across the floorboards then disappeared behind a glass cupboard.

  What did the humans call them? Mouse? Mice?

  There was no scent of rotting flesh, no human bodies decomposing. He glanced in the direction the mouse creature had disappeared. At least not anymore.

  He returned to front door, opening the screen. “It’s clear.”

  “Thank god,” she breathed.

  He brushed a hand down her cheek. What he’d do to be able to take her back to his planet and court her like real lovers did. He’d take such pleasure showing her the world he’d left behind. The great red-gold cliffs that reared high into a red-tinged sky, like earth’s sunset smeared thick across a canvas. The magnificent creatures, big and small. The beautiful but often deadly plants.

  And then when he’d made love to her, again and again, until her throat was dry from calling out his name, he’d leave her to sleep off the pleasant weariness of great sex while he prepared her dinner using his favorite Carèche delicacies.

  Perhaps the fragrant, melt-in-the-mouth caltronian meat, wrapped in the leaves of a shanash vine, where every bite released a different flavor. And to finish, the creamy, purple innards of the lekkle fruit with its odd, spicy aftertaste. Afterward, he’d pour her a lakroda, Carèche’s answer to liquor on a vine.

  They’d sip on the minty, spicy liquor, sharing long looks and yearning smiles…

  Ally brushed past him and headed toward the kitchen, Bonnie at her heels. With a heavy sigh, he stepped aside to close the door.

  The ginger cat shot up the footpath and squeezed through the narrowing gap, meowing as if he’d just come home. Perhaps he had. Renate crooked a brow and with exaggerated politeness said to the odd animal, “Do come in.”

  The door clicked shut behind him when the noise of running water sounded. Ally jumped up and down, clapping her hands and squealing. “It works! The water actually works!”

  He followed her into the kitchen, where she stood on tiptoes and leaned over the sink. She pressed her brow against the window pane that overlooked the back yard and exclaimed, “Oh, they have a water tank on a stand! No wonder. It’s gravity fed.” She turned around, straight into his arms. “I can have a shower—a cold shower—but still!”

  “Mind if I join you?” he asked huskily.

  She hit him playfully. “That’s such a man thing to say.”

  “It is?” He cupped her chin, holding her gaze to his. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  Her breath caught. “Neither, really. It’s just typical of a male—clearly from any planet.”

  “Mm.” he leaned down, taking her lips with his own and murmuring between long, luxurious kisses, “Is this typical of a male, too?”

  “Yes,” she breathed. Her lashes dropped. “But not here, not in the kitchen.”

  His grin felt all kinds of wicked when he teased, “I don’t see anyone watching, if that’s what worrying you.”

  She gestured helplessly behind him. “Bonnie and Leopold might be…”

  “Leopold?”

  She twined her arms around the back of his neck, lashes fluttered upward. “He deserves his own name, doesn’t he?”

  His hands cupped her ass and he lifted her up. She shrieked a little and then giggled helplessly. And as she wrapped her legs around his hips, his grin stretched even wider. “Leopold it is,” he agreed.

  Her head resting against his shoulder as he carried her into the bathroom, she clung to him as if she’d never let go. And something in his chest almost hurt at this unwitting trust she placed in him—without even one bit of mind control.

  He placed her on her feet on the dirty, off-white tiles with the matching colored walls. Right then he didn’t care about their surrounds and he knew Ally didn’t either. They could have been in a palace for all the notice they took, their eyes only for each other.

  He helped her take off her boots and socks, then her clothes. When she returned the favor and peeled off his pants, her hands were noticeably unsteady.

  They kissed again, tongues joining and lips urgently mashing together. His cock throbbed hard and insistent against her belly. But somehow he found restraint and said hoarsely, “Let’s get clean first.”

  “Mm. Fuck hard later,” she declared with deliberate coarseness.

  His cock leapt in response, the growl that ruptured from his throat low and loud.

  Her breath hissed, and she pulled away a little to fumble with the shower taps. Water spluttered sluggishly, then hissed out i
n a cold stream.

  She pointed to a bottle. “Would you mind passing the liquid soap from the vanity?”

  “Soap?” he murmured, retrieving it. “Ah. This is the stuff you clean yourself with. It’s the same that my queen uses.”

  Ally nodded absently, unable to think about the queen or anyone else. And as she closed her eyes all her thoughts centered on Renate and the feelings he created in the most secret places within. She was aware his hungry stare would be reflected in her own. Everything she felt was powerful, undeniable. Irrefutable.

  But are those feelings really my own?

  She trusted his word not to use mind control again, but her skeptical side couldn’t fathom that all the hatred she’d held for the aliens had been exonerated so effortlessly by this one alien.

  Hell, she’d had the chance to leave once the storm had cleared—and she hadn’t—she’d been too busy taking part in a fervent storm of their own making.

  When she stepped under the spray of icy cold water, the sharp gasp that left her lips had little to do with the temperature. All her doubts were washed away like the dirt on her skin as Renate’s large hands massaged soap over her shoulders, down her spine and along her buttocks.

  He worked a lather of shampoo through her hair and she leaned against him, her spine aligning to his chest, her buttocks to his strong thighs. She handed him the bottle of conditioner sitting in an alcove beside the shampoo, sighing bliss as he worked that through her short hair, massaging deep.

  And as the water rinsed her hair clean, he spun her around. She was a puppet to his command, a willing servant to the master. With the cold curtain of water pummeling them, he used a hand to part her labia. And without preliminary, one of his fingers sunk in deep.

  “Renate,” she breathed.

  Another finger slid in deep, joining the other. Then he was pressing in and out, deliberately grazing along her clit with every motion until her entire being was flooded with sensation, with sharp needs not quite fulfilled.

  “You like this?” he growled.

  “You. Know. I. Do.” Her words sounded more like a drawn-out whimper. But she didn’t care. She wanted more.

  She wanted everything.

  Another finger joined in with the first two. “Just say the word.”

  Oh. God.

  “Say it,” he groaned.

  “I want you,” she groaned. “Only. You.”

  He withdrew his hand. And with an effortless strength that was a turn-on all on its own, he lifted her high.

  The tiles were cold against her back as she tucked her legs around his hips. His cock was all blatant heat as he guided it with a hand to the entrance of her moist cunt. Their gazes locked. His stare drilled into hers, his eyes all possessive intent.

  Then he drove forward, filling her pussy with his hard shaft. Pushing into her until she wondered if she just might die from the sheer pleasure-pain of it all. He withdrew slowly, inch by torturous inch, pushing her right to the edge.

  “Renate—”

  He plunged back inside her and hit her with an electric charge, stimulating her nerve-endings into immediate gratification as she came with an abruptness that took away her breath. Her mind.

  She screamed his name, pitched heavenward into a pleasure that rocked her to the core. And then he followed, coming into her and hollering a pleasure that echoed her own, his liquid warm seed shooting deep.

  Her muscles felt as though they’d turned to mush when she at last untangled her legs from his hips and slumped against him, the water pouring over them like a benediction to their lovemaking.

  Lovemaking?

  She squeezed her eyes closed. Impossible. She’d known Renate for all of two days. And yet it feels as if I’ve known him my whole life.

  Renate’s breath was warm on her ear, startling her out of such intense thoughts as he murmured, “Are you all right, kitten?”

  Her eyelids flicked apart. He was watching her. Closely. He knows.

  “I…I’m not sure.”

  And as if aware she wasn’t ready just yet to face such a profound truth, he said, “Let’s see if we can find you some clean clothes, hmm.”

  She let out a slow breath. “Good idea.”

  A good ten minutes later they were clean, dry and dressed. He in his odd, alien long pants that never seemed to get dirty and she in a pair of too-big denim jeans and a white, oversized short-sleeved blouse.

  For the time being she left her feet bare, luxuriating in the blessed lightness as she moved through the house. She glanced at the round wall clock that ticked in the silence. 1.15 pm. Her stomach growled as she headed to the pantry.

  Relief coursed through her as she saw the contents. She turned to Renate. He was reclining on an overstuffed chair, the ginger cat curled up on his lap and undoubtedly purring like an engine, Bonnie at his feet.

  A smile stretched her face. If she didn’t know better she’d say Renate was the epitome of domesticity. She cleared her throat and announced, “There’s enough food here to make a decent lunch. And since this house has a gas stove and running water I’m going to cook us up a feast.”

  He smoothed a hand over the back of Leopold’s back, his eyes slumberous and possessive all at once. “You’re cooking for me?”

  “Don’t worry, you’re in safe hands. In fact, I can rustle up a mean meal when the mood takes me.”

  “On my world, when a woman cooks for a man, it’s a sign of her commitment.”

  “Really? Then I better make sure I don’t burn the water.”

  At his raised brow, she swung away with a repressed giggle, retrieving saucepans and putting them on the gas stove. She paused at the pantry doors. When was the last time she’d been so happy?

  She pressed a hand to her head. A memory surfaced, hitting hard.

  * * * * *

  She couldn’t hold back the grin plastered to her face as she pushed open the front door.

  Pregnant. At last. She could hardly believe it.

  She’d taken the afternoon off work to see the doctor, hoping against hope that the queasiness she’d experienced the last few weeks really was from what she’d suspected. They’d been trying for months now to conceive.

  She’d caught a taxi straight away and rode the dozen blocks to Luke’s firm, only to be told by his receptionist that he’d left work early too.

  Please be home.

  She didn’t want to tell him the good news over his cell phone. She wanted to see his joy, bask in his pleasure.

  He wasn’t anywhere downstairs, though she found his tailor-made jacket slung over the balustrade. She arched a brow, plucking it on the way upstairs to the second story. That was so unlike Luke. He was fastidious to a fault.

  He was probably in all kinds of hurry for a shower. No doubt he came home to get refreshed before leaving for another interminable meeting. It made sense he’d wear his jacket again.

  She cradled her still-flat belly, where butterflies danced and jived inside. What if he wasn’t happy with the news? What if he’d decided, after all this waiting, that two children were more than enough?

  Turning left at the stairs, she rounded the hallway and headed toward the main bedroom.

  She heard the shower running full tilt. Tossing his jacket over a nearby chair, she shrugged free of her fitted, charcoal coat and threw it beside Luke’s, then unbuttoned her silky, egg-shell colored blouse as she headed for the en suite.

  She licked her bottom lip. She felt inclined to share more than some good news.

  Toeing off her high heels, she walked on silent, stockinged feet into the bathroom. Beside the large, shiny white bathtub, she froze, hardly able to comprehend the scene before her.

  Luke’s buttocks were pressed against the clear Perspex of the shower stall, his spine arching out and arms above his head as he clasped the edging of the Perspex. Sharing the shower with him, on her knees, was blonde-headed Felicia. The CEO’s head bobbed up and down as she sucked his cock for all she was worth.

  �
��That’s it,” he grunted, hips surging back and forth against her mouth, “suck it, baby. Then I’ll go down on you before I fuck you hard, just the way you like it.”

  You don’t do oral sex!

  But no words formed. Nothing could get past her stone-dry throat as the room abruptly lurched around her.

  She came to on a hard bed, breathing in the dreaded antiseptic scent associated with a hospital. Luke’s physician waited by her side. And as her eyelids fluttered open he gently explained how her fainting had caused her to fall hard against the bathtub, causing a miscarriage.

  She turned away. She knew without a doubt what—no, who—had been the cause.

  * * * * *

  “Are you all right?”

  She drew in a shaky breath, brought back to the present by Renate’s concerned voice behind her. No. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

  “No you’re not.” Placing his hands on her shoulders, he gently turned her around. When she didn’t look at him, he clasped her chin and lifted her gaze to his. “Be honest with me, kitten.”

  One of his thumbs blotted the moisture beneath her eye.

  Tears?

  More emotions threatened to spill over and she sucked in a breath, choosing anger over pain. “Or what, you’ll manipulate my mind again?”

  His eyes darkened. “I made a promise I wouldn’t mess with your mind again and I meant it.”

  And you’ll keep your vow, unlike my husband.

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  Not all men were lying bastards.

  “Ally, I’m a good listener, if that helps?” he murmured wryly.

  She rubbed a splayed hand along her belly. She bit into her bottom lip, fighting back more tears. “I was pregnant. And I…I lost the baby.”

  He took her into his arms. “I’m sorry.”

  She added in a choked-up voice, “I…lost the baby after I found my husband with another woman.”

  His muscles bunched around her. “The bastard,” he breathed into her hair. “This man married you and yet still he lay with another?”