One of his hands trailed up her back, slid around and cupped her breast, squeezed.
Ami arched back against him.
“You like it?” he purred.
“Yes,” she panted.
“You want more?” His fingers teased her nipple.
“Yes,” she pleaded, then moaned when he withdrew.
Again his hands gripped her hips and turned her over onto her back. “I need to feel your arms around me,” he told her hoarsely.
And she needed to feel his weight, pressing down on her, surrounding her.
Marcus met Ami’s burning gaze as he propped himself on his hands and once more sank into her warmth. So tight.
“Closer,” she murmured, eyes glistening.
His own burned as he lowered himself until his chest brushed her breasts with every thrust. Until her arms could enfold him, her small hands holding him tight, then caressing a searing path down to grip his ass and urge him on.
He had come so close to losing her, had thought he had lost her. “Ami.”
She leaned up, pressed her lips to his.
Her legs, those long, luscious legs, wrapped around his hips.
He increased his tempo, moving faster and faster, angling his body to increase her pleasure and speed her toward another climax.
She fell back, breathing hard, emitting little moans of excitement.
Her muscles tensed. He heard the skip of her heart just before she screamed his name, her body pulsing as she came, clamping down around him and squeezing until he joined her with a shout.
Utter bliss.
Ami’s whole body tingled as Marcus sank down upon her. When he started to move away, she locked her arms around him and held him in place. “Not yet. Just a little longer.”
He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I’m too heavy for you.”
Rolling onto his side, he took her with him.
Ami draped a knee over his hip, wrapped an arm around his waist, and settled her face on the pillow, inches away from his.
His iridescent amber eyes held such love as they wandered over her features.
“You didn’t leave me,” she whispered, a tear spilling over her lashes.
Cupping her face, he brushed the moisture away with his thumb. “I’ll never leave you.”
Overwhelmed by the events of the past twenty-four hours, Ami buried her face in his chest and wept.
Chapter 15
Marcus stared up at the ceiling, toying with the silken strands of Ami’s hair. Darkness had fallen. They should both don their hunting gear and head out to find the damned vampire king and track down Richart, though Marcus had no idea where to begin doing the latter. Yet, they lingered in Ami’s rumpled, full-sized bed. Too small for Marcus’s height. His feet hung off the bottom, but he’d never felt more content.
Ami was curled up beside him, an arm and a leg draped across him. Her tears had long since dried. Tears that had made his chest ache. He never wanted her to need such catharsis again and intended to do his damnedest to see she wouldn’t.
It was odd. He had slept with many women during his long existence but, until now, had never wanted to linger afterward. That hollow sensation had always settled in as soon as the pleasure faded, driving him to leave as quickly as possible. But with Ami, it was different. She filled that hollow place within him and left him feeling as though he could spend the rest of his life like this, curled up in bed with her, talking quietly or just enjoying her presence.
“Where do you come from?” he asked.
Ami stirred against him beneath the sheets. “Your astronomers call my planet a jumble of numbers and letters, but—in our world, in our language—we call it Lasara.”
“So it isn’t in our solar system?”
“No. Our system is on the opposite side of what you call the Milky Way Galaxy.”
“So far,” he marveled.
She nodded.
“Are there others like you here on Earth?”
“No. I’m all alone.”
Marcus didn’t like the hint of melancholy that entered her voice and tightened his arms around her. “Not anymore.”
She hugged him back. “I wasn’t supposed to come here, you know. I defied our king to do so.”
“Your country is a monarchy?”
“Our planet is a monarchy, all people united and led by one ruler.” Tilting her chin up, she gave him a rueful smile. “My father, if you can believe it.”
Marcus stared at her. “Your father rules your entire planet?”
She grinned. “Yes. He’s very good, too, always placing the needs of the many above the needs of the few. There is no war or famine, very little crime.”
“It sounds like a Utopia.”
“It is.” Her smile faltered. “Or it was ... until a new ally outside our system alliance betrayed us.”
“System alliance? Don’t tell me there’s more than one populated planet in your solar system.” Weren’t life-sustaining planets supposed to be extremely rare?
“There are three planets and four moons that support life in our solar system, thanks to our advanced methods of terraforming.”
“You can do that?”
She nodded. “We’ve been doing it for more than a millennium.”
“I can’t even fathom that.” Damn. Her people sounded very advanced, which he supposed they would have to be for her to survive traveling such a long distance.
“How long did it take you to get here?” he asked.
She pursed her lips. “About thirteen months by your standards.”
His mouth fell open. “That’s all?”
“Wormholes shortened the travel time significantly.”
“This seems so unreal. But not in a bad way,” he hastened to add when her brow furrowed. “Does your father know you’re here?”
“I don’t think so. One of my brothers would have come for me by now if they knew what had happened.”
“What did happen? Why did you come here if your planet is such a Utopia and your father was against it?”
She hesitated. “Lasara is in trouble. Emissaries from another solar system approached us, wanting to join our alliance. They were our equals in technology and seemed a peace-loving society like our own. There was nothing about them that suggested deceit. Nothing in their thoughts. Nothing—”
“Wait. Lasarans are telepathic?”
“Yes, but not like Lisette and Étienne. Or David and Seth. We don’t automatically hear the thoughts of those around us and have to learn to tune them out. For us, telepathy is like ...” She shrugged. “It’s more like whistling, an acquired ability that we must concentrate to use.”
He thought back to the many times he had wished her gone those first few days of their acquaintance, the times he had stripped her bare and indulged in silent, lustful fantasies before he had even kissed her. “Have you read my thoughts?” he asked warily, wondering why she hadn’t cold-cocked him at least half a dozen times.
She frowned. “Of course not. We don’t just go around reading people’s thoughts at will.” He knew a number of immortals who did. “It’s an invasion of privacy. We only do it in critical situations that warrant such action, like to determine whether someone committed a crime.”
“Or double-checking a new ally’s intentions?”
“Yes.” She squinted her eyes at him. “Why? What would I have seen had I read your thoughts?”
He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “Things that would make you blush, little one. If you’d like a taste, read my thoughts right now.” He filled his mind with images of all the titillating things he wanted to do to her.
Color bloomed in her cheeks as she buried her face in his chest.
Chuckling, he kissed the top of her head. “This is all very new to you, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Intimate contact of any kind isn’t allowed between unmarried men and women on Lasara. Once they reach puberty, single males and females aren’t allowed to be alone together unchaperoned.�
�
“Really?” It didn’t seem as shocking to him as it might to men born in the past century because the same had been true amongst the nobility of his birth time. But he felt uneasy, knowing he might have inadvertently pushed her to do something she wasn’t ready for or that went against her beliefs.
She tilted her head back, cheeks still rosy. “I was ready, and I don’t regret it.”
Smiling, he gave her a featherlight kiss. “Just let me know if anything I do ever makes you uncomfortable.”
A twinkle entered her eye. “I’ve helped you kick dozens of vampire asses. Do you think I would remain quiet if you did something I didn’t like?”
He laughed. “No, I don’t.”
She smiled. “I like that you think I’m strong.”
“You are strong.”
She shook her head. “I lived such a sheltered life on Lasara.”
“What happened there? What did the new allies do?”
“They released a virus we had no defense against. And we have exceedingly strong immune systems. There is very little illness on Lasara. When some of our people sickened after coming into contact with the Gathendiens, we thought the Gathendiens were carriers and hadn’t realized they would infect us. It was airborne and extremely contagious, but really seemed no more dangerous than one of the mild strains of your influenza virus. No one died. Most recovered in two or three days. We thought little of it and went forward with a treaty.”
“And?”
“Over the next twenty years the Lasaran birthrate dropped to almost nothing.”
He frowned. “It left you all infertile?”
“Only the women. And most of the females born after the epidemic are, too. Of the few who are fertile, most have been unable to carry a baby to term even with assistance. If one of our other allies didn’t possess incredible medical knowledge and hadn’t come to our aid, no children would have been born in the years since.”
Ami’s people were dying, the victims of a slow genocide. If they couldn’t produce children ...
“How long ago did this happen?”
“Almost a century.”
So Ami wasn’t just a miracle to him, she was a miracle to her people. “How old are you?”
Uncertainty darkened her features. “Forty-nine.”
His jaw dropped. “You’re forty-nine? You look like you’re twenty!” Dismay leeched away the warm contentment Ami inspired. She was already half a century old?
“You think I’m weird, don’t you? Because I was still a virgin?”
“What? No. That didn’t even enter my mind. You said yourself that intimacy is forbidden outside of marriage. And I’m assuming you’ve never been married.”
“No, I haven’t. But you look upset.”
“Aren’t you still reading my mind?”
“No.”
“Ami, the only thing that upsets me about your age is the fact that we’ll have less time together. Unless ... Can you be transformed?”
“No. Seth said it would be too dangerous because we have no idea how the virus would affect me. That’s why he told you not to bite me.”
His spirits sank.
She smiled. “But you’re wrong about how much time we’ll have. Lasarans are very long-lived.”
“How long-lived?” he asked doubtfully.
“My father is 422. My mother is 367. And their hair is just beginning to turn gray.”
Marcus couldn’t believe it. It was too good to be true. “Are you saying you could live centuries?”
“Yes.”
An elated laugh burst from him. Tightening his hold, he rolled with Ami from one side of the bed to the other until helpless giggles tickled his ears and the covers tangled about their entwined legs like a cocoon. When they came to rest, Ami stretched atop him with a grin, her hair a tangle of sunset shades.
Marcus smoothed a hand over the soft curls. “I didn’t even ask if you intended to stay,” he said, voice hushed.
She nodded, but lost her smile.
“Because you want to or because you have no other choice?”
“Before I met you,” she whispered, “I would have said it was because I have no choice.”
But now she wanted to be with him? “I interrupted you. I’m sorry,” he apologized. “Tell me the rest. Tell me what happened on Lasara.”
She slid off him and curled up on her side. Marcus rolled toward her, once more settling his face on the pillow near hers.
“The fact that there is no war on Lasara doesn’t mean we lack the technology or knowledge to wage it. We, along with our allies, rid our system of the Gathendiens and succeeded in driving them from our corner of the galaxy.”
“Good.”
“But ...”
There was always a but.
“One of our allies—the Sectas—indicated that the Gathendiens were now working their way toward your solar system.”
Just what they needed. Vampires and Gathendiens.
“The alliance debated whether or not we should warn you.”
Marcus leaned up on an elbow. “What’s to debate? Why wouldn’t you warn us?”
She nibbled her lower lip. “The Sectas have been studying your planet for many of your millennia—It was actually through them that I learned several of Earth’s languages, including English—and ...” She sat up, tugged the covers over her breasts. “Their conclusion was that humans are a primitive species that thrives on greed and violence. You appear to our allies like locusts, plowing through your planet’s resources and destroying everything in your path with no real thought or plans for the future, constantly warring with each other, wanting to conquer each other and acquire more land and wealth. True peace has never reigned on your planet as it has on ours.”
Marcus instinctively wanted to object, but ... Well, Ami had been on Earth for a couple of years now. More than enough time to have seen that low opinion confirmed.
“Though reluctant, my father and his panel of advisors ultimately agreed with our allies and decided not to warn you because you would most likely react to our sudden appearance in your world not with welcome and acceptance, but with violence and fear.”
“Yet, you’re here.”
She nodded, forced a smile. “And your people met me with violence and fear.”
“Ami.”
She shook her head. “I was so naive, Marcus. I thought the alliance was wrong. I thought you should be warned, that you would welcome our aid. And I hoped ... I thought we could help each other. The population on your planet has reached a crisis point, far exceeding what the Earth can comfortably sustain. We could turn your deserts into lush, productive farmland and help you reduce hunger. We could solve your energy crisis, eliminating entirely your need of fossil fuels and eradicating the pollution, illness, and wars they spawn. We could eradicate disease, extend your life spans, help you cultivate peace.”
“Sounds good to me. But what would you get out of it that made you take the risk?”
“Women outnumber men on your planet. I thought if the comfortable, peaceful existence of Lasarans appealed to them, some might ...”
Understanding dawned. “Agree to serve as surrogate mothers?”
“Ideally, yes. Or some might come to live on Lasara and marry our men. The Sectas are more advanced than we are in medical research and said that because humans have never been exposed to the virus, which we have extinguished all traces of now on our planet, interbreeding might result in restored fertility to later generations.”
Marcus wasn’t sure about the surrogate motherhood thing, but thought there were probably quite a few women who would be willing to travel to another planet, marry a Lasaran, and live a Utopian existence.
“Our people are so long-lived that we would survive this crisis without the aid of Earth women. But children are so rare on my planet, Marcus. We miss them. Before I came to Earth, it had been years since I had seen a child.”
“They’re that rare?”
“Yes. And I had never s
een a pregnant woman,” she revealed shakily.
“Never?” he repeated, shocked.
“Pregnancy is so difficult for our women now that as soon as it is confirmed, the woman is taken to a special clinic run by the Sectas and resides there until she either miscarries or manages to deliver.”
Marcus couldn’t imagine it.
“I thought if there were even the most remote possibility that we could reach an agreement with your planet, it would be worth any risk. If nothing else, I believed the fact that we could protect you from the Gathendiens and prevent your species’ demise would ensure my presence would be welcomed. But I was wrong.”
Marcus took one of her hands, anger already rising within him in anticipation of what she would tell him next.
“I sent a signal to Earth, one I knew would be detected by the handful of your people who listened for such things. When I arrived, a meeting was arranged between myself and three of Earth’s representatives in an isolated location less likely to draw attention when my craft was uncloaked.”
“Did you come all this way alone?”
“No, I had a small crew with me, all of whom shared my hopes. They reluctantly agreed to remain on the ship while I made first contact.” She shook her head. “I thought my telepathy would ensure I wouldn’t be deceived. But, thanks to your Hollywood movies, the likelihood that I would possess such an ability had been taken into consideration.”
“What do you mean? By whom? Who agreed to meet you?”
“Seth still isn’t sure. He couldn’t tell whether the men who held me captive were military or mercenary. Darnell is the one who decrypted their files, and he suspects they were a secret branch of the government, so secret that even the president may not know about them.”
“Like in Independence Day?”
She nodded. “They chose three scientists—two men, one woman—to meet me, told them nothing of their vile intentions, so I read nothing but excitement, welcome, and curiosity in the emissaries’ minds.” She released a self-deprecating laugh. “The so-called primitive humans fooled me as easily as the advanced Gathendiens had the Lasarans. I thought the emissaries were taking me to parley with world leaders. So did they. Instead, as soon as we reached our destination, the emissaries were killed, I was captured, and, when my crew tried to withdraw at my command, my ship had to be destroyed, my friends with it.”
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