by Tasha Black
Burton
Stargazer Alien Mail Order Brides (Book 14)
Tasha Black
Copyright © 2018 by 13th Story Press All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
13th Story Press PO Box 506 Swarthmore, PA 19081
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Contents
Tasha Black Starter Library
About Burton
Burton
Riggs (Sample)
Tasha Black Starter Library
Intergalactic Dating Agency
About the Author
One Percent Club
Tasha Black Starter Library
Packed with steamy shifters, mischievous magic, billionaire superheroes, and plenty of HEAT, the Tasha Black Starter Library is the perfect way to dive into Tasha's unique brand of Romance with Bite!
Get your FREE books now at tashablack.com!
About Burton
She’s hunting a gang of bee rustlers. But her sexy alien companion is on the hunt for her heart.
Tansy Martin’s dream is simple - to live out her life running the family farm in the sweet small town of Stargazer. But lately something sexy has been slipping into her dreams at night, and the tall dark and handsome fugitive alien seems determined to make his way into her daytimes too.
Burton is hypnotized by tall, tough, tantalizing Tansy. His only desire is to serve her in the fields by day and in her bed by night. But his exquisite intended is determined to focus on the farm no matter how he tries to tempt her into becoming his mate.
When bee rustlers threaten Tansy’s one chance to save the orchard, their madcap adventure begins. Tansy will need Burton’s help to hold onto the family farm. But will she be able to hold onto her heart?
About the Stargazer Alien Brides series:
Educated about humankind by the 1980s movies that came to them in an interstellar time capsule, these gorgeous gentlemen are eager to meet Earth girls...
Collection 1 focuses on three couples in a small Pennsylvania town, featuring Bond, Rocky and Magnum.
Collection 2 follows the story to a resort in the Catskills where three new couples meet and features Kitt, Remington and Indiana.
Collection 3 continues the adventure with three new couples in a small-town police academy, featuring Lobo, Conan and Hawkeye.
Collection 4 features Kirk, Buck and Solo, as they try to connect with their chosen mates at a comic convention.
Collection 5 comes back to Stargazer, and a small farm where love is in bloom for Drago, Burton and Riggs.
Burton
1
Tansy
Tansy was dreaming, but in the dream she wasn’t herself.
It was twilight, the last of the sun’s glow trailed pale fingers along the hillside, setting the blossoming peach trees alight.
The earth was cool against dream-Tansy’s feet. She turned from the trees and trotted down the hill into the berry bushes, her stride smooth and silent.
In the shadow of dusk, the bushes seemed much taller than usual and the leaves and berries larger, releasing the scent of sunlight with every step she took into the valley.
Something was very different.
The soil was so fragrant, and soft beneath her feet, as if she were walking on a trampoline. Her muscles tensed like a coiled spring.
She tried jumping and was amazed to find herself sailing sideways through the air.
She landed lightly and lowered herself instinctively to the ground, ready to pounce and pin.
She definitely wasn’t herself tonight. But she wasn’t sure what she was.
Before she could concern herself with it, an incredible scent caught her attention.
It wasn’t danger or milk or meat, but something just as heady and attractive.
Her feet were moving before she had made up her mind.
She stalked her way across the farm, sticking to the shadows, pulled like gravity to the force that called to her from across the acres.
She slipped under the split rail fence that separated Martin’s Bounty from Dolly Strickland’s farm just west of theirs.
Bright eyes gleamed from the shadow beneath the oak tree.
A shiver went through Tansy’s frame.
He slipped out of the shadows, sleek and sinuous. Yellow eyes, midnight black fur, muscular shoulders rolling under that sleek pelt as he approached.
Jett. Dolly Strickland’s cat.
But he was as huge as a panther.
No. He wasn’t bigger. Tansy was smaller somehow.
She froze in place as Jett reached her at last, thrusting his head into her neck and rolling his body against the length of hers.
The delicious scent of him enveloped her and she applied her own cheek to his haunch. A rumble warmed her chest as she realized who she was in this dream.
She was a cat. That much was clear.
But she wasn’t just any cat - she was Cleo, Jett’s paramour and companion.
Tansy was her own cat.
She’d never dreamed as another person before, let alone another species.
Jett abruptly ended their greeting and stalked into the trees at the edge of Strickland’s farm.
Tansy followed, fascinated.
They traveled between the trunks, the looming trees making her feel even smaller.
A bug skittered across Tansy’s path, its movements oddly jerky.
Her paw shot out automatically and she batted the air around the bug, testing.
But it continued on its anxious way into the shelter of the undergrowth.
Jett turned over his shoulder and fixed her with his amber gaze.
Follow.
Tansy pretended to be bathing her paw, as if to say she hadn’t been playing with the passing bug at all, just washing up.
Follow, his eyes repeated.
She relented and went to him.
He gave her an affectionate head butt, then continued on his way as her senses reeled again at his scent.
The dim of the trees gave way to soft green light ahead.
Jett hung close to the trees now, his dark fur nearly invisible as he cloaked himself in shadow.
Tansy’s tabby coloring camouflaged her well, she hoped. But she followed Jett’s lead, trying to make herself merge with the leaves and soil.
In the clearing ahead, Tansy saw a human figure. He was male - tall and muscular. And there was something familiar about him.
Then she saw another figure, seated on a stump. This one was also familiar.
Tansy froze, whiskers quivering.
The seated figure turned to look at her.
It’s me…
The world seemed to blur out of focus.
She blinked.
When she opened her eyes she was looking at Cleo, who stood frozen at the edge of the meadow.
She could feel the stump beneath her, the rough bark under her fingers.
The clearing was a brighter green than before, but its fragrance was more subtle.
Cleo blinked at her and she felt faint.
“Tansy,” a deep voice said.
She had forgotten there was another human in the clearing.
She turned to the voice.
It was Burton. Of course it was.
He moved toward her, the lean muscles under his t-shirt reminding her of Jett for a blinding second.
He knelt at her feet, luminous brown eyes searching hers
. An expression of concern made his unbearably handsome face somehow even more beautiful.
“Tansy,” Burton whispered, placing his big hands on the stump, caging her hips.
But now that she was in the thrall of his nearness, she couldn’t remember what had frightened her.
Warmth emanated from him and he smelled delicious, a combination of forest and spices and something so masculine…
She leaned in to him, a flower to the sun.
The concern in his eyes turned to hunger.
She twined her arms around his neck as he kissed her, one hand between her shoulder blades, pulling her closer.
Tansy’s pulse thundered in her ears, her body tingling with stimulation, hardly able to register each sensation. His warm mouth sought hers, demanding yet gentle. His strong arms felt so solid around her, and the beat of his heart thumped against her chest, not as frantic as hers, but resounding. It pounded out a rhythm of need that pulled at her until she hurt.
Something cried out in the distance.
Tansy tried to push the sound away, to lose herself in Burton’s embrace.
It cried out again, in a familiar cadence.
Meow, mmm-meow, meow, mmm-meow…
Cleo.
She tried to pull back from the kiss, but found she was no longer in Burton’s arms.
She opened her eyes.
The pink light of dawn filled her bedroom.
The dream was over.
She squeezed her eyes shut again, hoping she could bring it back for just a minute.
Meow, mmm-meow…
Well, that part hadn’t been a dream.
Tansy sat up and saw Cleo sitting outside on the windowsill, gazing at her with more than a little reproach in her yellow eyes.
“Sorry, your majesty,” Tansy said, hoping out of bed to open the window. “If you’d been having that dream you wouldn’t have wanted to wake up either.”
Cleo blinked at her and leapt inside and onto the floor, more flowing than actually landing on her feathery paws.
As Tansy watched, the fluffy tabby padded over to her bed, sailed effortlessly onto the pillows, turned around twice, curled herself into a furry ball, and went promptly to sleep.
“No snoozing for me today,” Tansy said, smiling at her feline friend.
Tansy wasn’t much of a snoozer anyway. She had way too much to do out here on the farm.
On the way to the bathroom she could hear Sage banging around in the kitchen and humming the theme song to Friends.
Tansy smiled. Her sister wasn’t usually the type to hum. She must be enjoying having Arden to pal around with.
In the kitchen Sage banged out the tat-tat-tat-tat-TAT drum part on the counter.
Tansy’s eyebrows went up in surprise.
That kind of abandon was downright out of character for Sage.
Maybe there was something more to her good mood than Tansy had suspected…
It was hard not to think of Riggs. The gentle giant seemed to be quite enamored of her sensible sister.
And it would have been impossible even for Sage not to notice how hot he was. Could something be going on between them?
“Breakfast in ten minutes,” Sage yelled up happily.
“Awesome,” Tansy yelled back.
She dashed into the bathroom, hoping a quick hot shower would clear the romance out of her head.
For all that she was dreaming of Burton, and even mentally matchmaking Sage and Riggs in her head, there really was no time for any of it. She had big problems to solve in the real world, namely saving the farm where she hoped to spend the rest of her life.
If they couldn’t get it together in time for the tourist farm to open for peach picking season, there would be no way they could avoid selling the place just to pay the taxes.
And Tansy was not going to sell Grandma Helen’s farm. The orchard and berry fields and the old farmhouse were the backdrop for all the happiest memories of her childhood.
She glanced in the bathroom mirror at her own twinkly blue eyes, so much like her grandmother’s. Whenever she missed Helen so much she couldn’t bear it, she had no further to look than the mirror to remember her.
Don’t worry, Grandma Helen, I won’t lose our farm.
2
Burton
Burton stood on the porch and looked out over the farm.
The air was sweet with the scent from the peach blossoms up on the hillside.
Just over the crest was Dr. Bhimani’s land, which included the observatory and the lab, where many of his brothers remained.
It seemed incredible that they had arrived on Earth from their home planet only a few months ago.
Burton had enjoyed his peaceful life at the lab before escaping to the farm with two of his brothers. Dr. Bhimani and her colleagues had been kind and his existence in the lab was a gentle one.
But now that he was in the real world, even if he was just over the hill from the lab, he was shocked at the stress and excitement his new friends at the farm experienced each day.
He was also deeply happy.
While life on Aerie and in the lab had been tranquil, it turned out that adventure agreed with Burton.
A buzzing sound caught his attention and he turned.
The winged insect hovered close to the porch railing. A Bee. Burton could see the distinctive yellow rings around its abdomen.
There were bees missing from the farm next door. Burton wondered if this could be one of them.
A thrill of excitement went through him at the idea that he might be uniquely equipped to help his new friends solve this mystery.
He wondered if he could risk using his gift, just for a moment.
He looked around, but no one else was outside.
Sage was banging pots and pans around in the kitchen. She had just called out to everyone that breakfast wouldn’t be ready for another ten minutes.
The shower was running, which meant Tansy wasn’t going to sneak up on him.
He tried not to picture Tansy in the shower, water caressing her bare form. He yearned for her with an agony he had not known was possible. This pull between the pure joy of adoring her and the pain of desiring her without relief was such that he questioned how humans could bear this condition their movies and literature called love.
He took a deep breath and forced his concentration back to the bee.
He observed the creature, trying to find common ground.
Burton could identify arms and legs, though in greater quantity than his own. There was a head.
He pictured himself hanging in the low gravity of a ship, the closest thing to the bee’s position he had ever known.
He reached out, trying to make his thoughts vibrate like the bee’s own voice.
At first nothing happened.
Then there was a flash of ultraviolet and the world went black, as if he had blinked. For an instant the wisteria blossoms hanging from the porch columns went a ghostly white, their centers glowing neon indigo.
Then the world returned to usual - lavender flowers, green farmland.
He tried again, but nothing happened. A breeze was coaxing the bee toward the berry fields and it followed the wind in lazy circles.
Burton knew that bees lived and worked in communities. Perhaps it would take more than one bee to approximate enough of a consciousness for his purposes.
He followed the lone bee, wondering if she might lead him to her hive.
The old pipes squealed upstairs as Tansy turned off the shower.
He pictured the plush towel against her even softer skin and prayed for the strength not to dash up the stairs and throw himself at her feet.
“I love her,” he had told Riggs firmly that first night in the barn after meeting her, as Drago kept a vigil in Arden’s room.
“Don’t frighten her,” Riggs told him solemnly. “Go slowly.”
The next day when he’d found a moment with Drago he’d gotten the same feedback.
“Women like laid-ba
ck guys,” Drago advised. “Just play it cool.”
No one was cooler than his brother Drago. It stood to reason he’d been the first one to bond with his mate, Arden.
But playing it cool wasn’t something Burton was good at. Back at the lab he’d been a favorite among the techs, who introduced him to hilarious jokes and riddles. Dr. Bhimani said he had an easygoing nature. He wasn’t entirely sure he knew what that meant but he was pretty sure it didn’t mean cool.
Tansy didn’t seem to mind though. She had an easygoing nature herself. He loved when she threw her head back and laughed. Not even the darkest circumstances could keep his intended mate down for long. Even when they had thought they would lose the farm she loved so much, there had only been determination in her eyes - never tears. Burton equally admired her fierceness and her sense of humor.
It made him think of the afternoon at the lab when Dr. Bhimani had allowed the men to study samples in her microscope. She had explained to them that with a powerful enough microscope they could see a whole universe of life in a single drop of water.
To Burton, it seemed that the entire spectrum of human strength and softness could be found in Tansy.
“Breakfast,” Sage called from the kitchen, snapping him out of his thoughts.
But breakfast would have to wait.
He had a bee to follow.
3
Tansy
Tansy took the steps two at a time.
The sun was shining, the birds were singing, her sister was making pancakes and Tansy had work to do.
And Burton will be there.
She tried to push the thought aside, but it was no use. The dream had given root to her crush. She was going to have a hard time ignoring their mutual attraction today.
