Nevertheless, he was wiry with muscle and he was a man, which meant he would be far stronger than her even if he wasn’t that much bigger.
He leaned forward and placed a hand on the bed, or rather her ankle beneath the comforter. Before his hand could tighten, Gaby leapt up as if she’d been catapulted from the mattress, uttering a mousy squeak. The sheets tangled around her like an anaconda as she attempted to leap from the bed. She slammed into the floor hard enough that it shook the floor, rattled the glass, and completely stunned her. Before she could scramble to her feet, he caught her, pulling her upright with unnerving ease.
“Let me go!” she snarled, launching an attack with fingers curled into claws the moment she was on her feet.
He caught her wrists, pulling her arms out to either side of her and using her own weight and the bones of her arms as leverage to hold her in place. Tilting his head, he studied her curiously. “I cannot help but notice you do not seem pleased to see me, little Moonflower,” he murmured, his deep voice laced with amusement.
“I don’t know you!” Gaby gasped. “I’ve never seen you before in my life!”
His amusement deepened, his lips curling. “Oh, but you do, Moonflower. Look into my eyes and you will know me.”
“Stop calling me Moonflower!”
“You are feisty! I believe I like that,” he added musingly.
“I don’t give a fuck what you like or don’t like! Get out before I call the cops!”
“Why would I be alarmed by that?” he asked, obviously amused.
“They’d put you in jail for breaking and entering and probably for assault, you asshole, that’s why!”
He nodded understanding but shrugged indifferently. “This body.”
Gaby’s fear inspired anger wilted. Coldness crept into her. The man was crazy.
“Simple,” the man corrected her. “Not crazy—a bit drunk, I might add.”
A bit? He reeked of beer!
It took Gaby several moments to realize she hadn’t voiced her suspicion aloud. She swallowed with an effort. “Who are you?” she gasped shakily.
He drew her closer. Slipping an arm around her, he jerked her tightly against his body, gripped her hair with his other hand, and dragged her head back so that she was staring up at his face. His eyes were dark, dilated with desire, but she saw emotion flickering there that seemed at odds with the situation, doubt, confusion. For a moment, though, that cleared and she saw something else … someone behind the man that physically restrained her. “I can feel what this body feels, Moonflower,” he murmured silkily, lowering his head until his hot breath caressed the sensitive shell of her ear. “You want what I desire, to share the carnal pleasures of the flesh denied both of us without a shell such as this.”
A mixture of revulsion and desire wafted through Gaby. “I don’t want this!” Gaby finally managed through gritted teeth, wriggling one arm free at last and shoving at the shoulder of the man.
He stared at her a long moment and finally, to her surprise, released her. “You are not pleased with this body,” he said, irritation threading his voice.
Gaby staggered back when he let her go, flopping weakly on the edge of the bed when her legs connected with the mattress and her weight overbalanced her.
She was staring straight at the man when Anka stepped out of him.
The man wilted, landing on one knee on the floor. Throwing his arms out to brace himself as he pitched forward, he knelt on all fours for several moments and finally shook his head and lifted it to stare around him, slack jawed with stunned surprise. Uttering a string of Spanish—profanity Gaby didn’t doubt—he lurched to his feet, staggered a little drunkenly while he looked around and finally charged toward the door.
She heard him slam into the outer door of her apartment, fumble for several moments with the locks and then the door opened and slammed closed again.
Dazed and confused, Gaby turned to stare at the apparition.
He looked displeased. He’d folded his arms over his chest and was studying her in frowning disapproval. “I had not expected you would be so hard to please,” he said irritably.
“What? I’m not your little Moonflower anymore?” Gaby demanded testily.
His eyes gleamed with both desire and amusement. Before Gaby could catch her breath or even attempt to banish the hallucination, she found herself swept backwards onto the bed, sprawled on her back with the ‘apparition’ planted firmly, and solidly, on top of her.
How could she feel his weight? Heat? Even the tensile strength of his muscles and the silkiness of his skin?
He shifted his ‘weight’ onto his elbows, levering himself slightly away from her to look down at her face. She felt the touch of his finger as he tapped the tip to her temple. “Because I make it so … here.”
Gaby closed her eyes. “I knew I was losing my fucking mind,” she muttered a little sickly.
His warm breath tickled her face as he chuckled huskily. “You do not truly believe that, my treasure, do you?”
Gaby swallowed. “I don’t know what to believe … not anymore. Are you like … a ghost?”
He studied her thoughtfully but finally shrugged. “No. I am a being … as you are, just … somewhat different.”
“Then why is it that I only see you the way the statue looked? And what body lies in that sarcophagus we brought back from South America? It is a body, isn’t it?”
He rose upward. He didn’t climb off of her and then the bed. He simply levered straight upright and settled on the floor. And then brushed his hands over himself as if brushing off dust. And then he was naked.
A breathless sense of awe filled her. He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. It took her breath just to look at him, stilled her heart in her chest and squeezed it painfully. As beautifully sculpted and perfectly proportioned as his body was, his face was … almost too handsome. He grinned at her, showing even white teeth and a pair of dimples in either cheek, a purely human expression that was cocky, sensual, seductive, and devastatingly effective.
In the blink of an eye, literally, he moved from the side of the bed to sprawl on top of her once more. Gaby had a split second to feel absolute disbelief before he threw her into complete disorder.
The feel of his mouth on hers was as real as anything she’d ever felt before, more real, more ravaging of her senses. She tasted him as he thrust his tongue into her mouth with possessiveness and hunger, and his taste sent a heady rush of pleasure through her. She felt his heated breath mingling with her own, stirring currents of fiery, exquisite need to life inside of her.
Uttering a sound of surrender, making no attempt to fight the rush of feverish need that swamped her senses, Gaby’s body, mind, and spirit surged upward to join with him. She’d missed this desperately, she realized, wanted it with a hunger that had left her feeling unwhole, lacking of strength, or will, or spirit.
Her body tingled at his touch, came to vibrant life beneath the stroking caress of his hands. Heat scorched her as she felt his mouth and tongue replace his hands. Her belly trembled with need, her passage clenching and unclenching rhythmically as her body sought the hardness of his flesh, wept for it.
“Anka,” she breathed when she could breathe at all, the whispered word a blessing, a prayer, a demand for fulfillment.
She sucked in her breath in a sharp gasp as she felt him penetrate her body, his cock surging and withdrawing along her passage as he rode her fiercely with his own need, thrusting into her almost savagely. Clutching at him, she began to moan as if she was dying.
She felt as if she would, could hardly catch her breath for the fire that scoured her, for the tension that coiled her tightly into herself. Her climax broke over her abruptly, wrenching a hoarse cry from her throat. Every muscle in her body, it seemed, convulsed so hard it snatched her from consciousness and she felt as if she was falling into a deep pit.
* * * *
He had his head in the refrigerator when Gaby halted in the kitchen doo
rway. For several moments her heart seemed to stand still in her chest, not because she was afraid, not even because she was startled. What struck her was the very ‘normalcy’ of the scene, when nothing about it should have seemed the least bit normal.
She’d woken feeling absolutely wonderful, satisfied, complete, and then discovered she was in her bed alone and she’d had to fight the urge to burst into tears and cry her heart out—because he was gone and she was alone and it hadn’t been anything but a dream.
Finding him standing naked in front of her opened refrigerator door was such a pleasant jolt of surprise that she could hardly believe she was actually looking at him for several moments.
“What purpose does this serve?” Anka asked curiously when he’d shut the door.
Swallowing against the tightness in her throat, Gaby folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the doorframe, content just to look at him and marvel over how absolutely gorgeous he was. “Refrigerator,” she responded absently. “It keeps food cold so that it lasts longer.”
He had his head in the freezer by that time. “And this?”
His voice sounded strangely hollow emerging from the interior. “Freezer compartment—freezes the food so that it lasts even longer.”
He closed the door and looked at her for the first time, frowning when he saw she’d pulled on her robe. “I prefer you naked.”
Gaby couldn’t help the smile that quirked her lips even though the imperious way he’d voiced his displeasure piqued her just a little. “Do you? Well, I’m used to wearing clothes. You should get used to it, too.”
He shrugged dismissively. “I have no need for clothing. The elements do not touch me. I could not sense the cold of the box. This is why I asked.”
Gaby frowned, digesting that as he moved to the stove, opened the oven, and shoved his head inside to examine it. He couldn’t feel?
Stupid! she chastised herself, distressed in a way she didn’t even want to examine. Nerves produced sensation and the brain interpreted it. Without nerve endings, no sensation.
“And this is for?”
“Cooking the food.”
He straightened from his inspection and looked around the kitchen. “This entire room is set aside for food storage and preparation?” he asked in surprise.
Gaby shrugged, examining the kitchen from an outsider’s perspective. It was a big kitchen for one person, granted, but it was the main reason she’d taken the apartment. “All homes have them,” she replied. “The chamber where I found you was pretty big,” she pointed out.
His eyes crinkled at the corners with amusement. “Where I found you,” he corrected her. “There was a purpose.”
“For the chamber?”
“Yes.”
“What did you mean, where you found me? Weren’t you in there before I got there?”
“Long before, centuries I suspect.”
“It’s 2006,” Gaby supplied.
He chuckled. “This number means nothing to me, Moonflower.”
Gaby reddened. “Of course not. That was stupid,” she muttered.
He moved toward her, reaching to cup her face in his hands. “Thoughtless,” he corrected her, caressing her cheek for a moment before he was drawn away again to explore further. He stopped to study the small appliances. Bending down, he extended one finger toward the button that controlled the blender.
“It’s not … plugged in,” Gaby said. Before she could finish the sentence, though, blue light shot from his finger tip and the blender started up, making them both jump at the sudden noise.
“That’s handy,” Gaby commented, feeling uneasy for the first time.
He glanced at her, but he didn’t respond to her remark. “Much has changed,” he said thoughtfully, “unless … this is a different land, no?”
“It’s changed where you’re from, as well.”
He studied her a long moment. “You do not know where I am from, Moonflower. You only know where I was when we met.”
* * * *
Gaby’s mind was a riot of conflicting thoughts and emotions as she stared down at the body on her examination table. Reluctance dominated, however.
This was the man she’d spent the night with, she reflected. She was totally losing her mind, obsessing over a man who’d been dead thousands of years, and she couldn’t figure out why for the life of her.
She had no idea how long she simply stood as if turned to stone, staring at the aged rags that covered him, but she didn’t emerge until someone in the room cleared their throat.
The sound made her head lift, her eyes seek, instinctively, without conscious thought. After staring at her assistant blankly for several moments, she glanced at the Hispanic representatives waiting expectantly around the table and finally returned her attention to the mummy.
What she was about to do was unthinkable and it had nothing to do with the fact that performing an autopsy on remains of this antiquity was rarely done because of the damage that could result. She wasn’t concerned about the possibility of losing what might be the greatest find of the century … or the one before, for that matter, maybe the greatest find of all time, she thought a little wildly.
Her hand shook as she poised the scalpel in her hand at long last over a segment of bandaging. There was no end that she could see. She would have to make a cut to begin unwinding it from the remains.
Something brushed lightly at the hair near ear. “This is interesting, Moonflower. I am not familiar with this particular ritual.”
A jolt traveled all the way through Gaby from her ear to the hand holding the shaking scalpel. Goosebumps followed like geese taking flight. Puppet-like, Gaby’s head jerked upright.
Everyone was staring at her tensely, but she couldn’t see that anyone looked the least shocked or disturbed in anyway.
“They cannot see me,” Anka murmured in a conspiratorial whisper.
“Because you’re not really here,” Gaby muttered under breath.
“Of course I am, my treasure, and like animals, they sense my presence even though I do not permit them to see me,” he said arrogantly. “Look at their faces, the tension in them.”
Gaby looked. They did look tense and uneasy, but she’d figured that was because they were as on edge about the procedure as she was, albeit for a different reason. “It’s the body,” she muttered under her breath.
“What about it?” Paul, her assistant demanded in a nervous whisper as he leaned closer.
Gaby stared at him blankly, trying to jog her mind into supplying her with something to say. “Nothing,” she said tersely and then glanced around at her audience. “Excuse me a moment. I’ll be right back.”
Without awaiting a response, ignoring the looks of shocked surprise and dawning outrage on their faces, Gaby dropped the scalpel, peeled off her gloves, whirled on her heel, and stalked from the room. She was shaking all over by the time she reached the ladies room.
Moving to the lavatory, she turned on the faucet, ran cold water over her palms, and finally cupped handfuls and splashed it over her face. When she lifted her head to look at her reflection, she saw him, sprawled negligently on the counter across from her on his side, his head propped in one hand as he studied her appraisingly. Uttering a squawk, Gaby whirled to face him.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded when she discovered he hadn’t disappeared as she’d more than half hoped he would.
“This is a strange place,” he said instead of answering her question. “What is it for?”
Gaby blinked at him. Slowly, heat flowed into her cheeks. “The restroom?” she asked cautiously.
He grinned. “This building.”
“Oh. It’s a museum.”
His dark brows rose questioningly.
“We preserve and display antiquities here so that everyone can learn about them.”
He looked amused. “Yesterday’s trash, today’s treasure?”
She wasn’t certain if it was his arrogance that irritated her or the
comment, which denigrated her work. “We learn from the past,” she said tightly.
He sat up and settled to the floor, moving toward her with the slinking grace of a prowling cat. Delicious shivers crawled up and down Gaby’s spine as she watched the play of muscles with his movements.
He was wearing the breechclout once more, and the leather gauntlets—not the mask, but he still looked like some dark, infinitely dangerous warrior who’d stepped out of the distant past. “Learn what, my pretty Moonflower?” he asked in a purring voice as he reached her and lifted a hand to brush his fingers lightly, caressingly along her cheek.
Gaby stared into his tumultuous green eyes feeling perfectly blank. “Things,” she finally managed to say. Her mouth felt desert dry. Gathering moisture with an effort, she moistened her lips with her tongue.
His gaze zeroed in on the movement, his eyes smoldering with heat. “I have given it a great deal of thought and I have decided that I am ready for procreation,” he announced calmly. “I am here because I have chosen you to bear my child.”
Chapter Six
Gaby felt her jaw slide to half mast. She decided after a moment, though, that she couldn’t have heard him correctly. “What?”
He frowned. Turning away, he began to pace the tiled floor thoughtfully. “Unfortunately, even I cannot manifest the seed that it would require to impregnate you without the … ah … use of one of your kind. I had not expected you would be so resistant to the use of the male I chose. You are certain he did not appeal?”
Despite the doubts that had been nagging at her, Gaby stared at him as if he was insane when he finally paused and turned to look at her questioningly. “Your … your … arrogance is not to be believed!” she managed to gasp out after several failed attempts at finding her voice.
His dark brows rose. “You believe I have an over inflated opinion of myself?” he demanded in disbelief. “I am Anka!”
Gaby blinked at the threatening growl of anger in his voice. “And?”
He planted his hands on his hips, glaring at her for several moments. Finally, he lifted one hand and waved it in the air as if imitating the flight of a chopper overhead. A crack of thunder rumbled over the building hard enough the sound vibrated through the floor.
Alien's Concubine, The Page 7
