Anya shifted uncomfortably. “I think the Grinderians really do regret what happened.” She shrugged. “Arrogance. It isn’t like we humans haven’t been guilty of that.”
“No,” Myra agreed. “Or that we haven’t acted aggressively toward people that were technologically challenged. I’m not passing judgment. I’m actually excited that we’ve finally met people from another part of the universe and they didn’t come to wipe us out. Scared, but excited.” She paused. “You don’t want to tell me about Aidan?”
Anya smiled a little tremulously. “I really liked him.” She frowned thoughtfully. “I’ve been trying to convince myself that I just got dependent because I needed rescuing and he was kind enough to keep me alive ….”
“Not having much luck with that, though, huh?”
Anya sighed. “Not much. He was ….” She broke off and started laughing. “Not like anybody else I know.”
Myra laughed, too. “I can see that. I can totally see that.”
“But … Well, he is different and he comes from a completely different culture and, when you get down to it, he’s not even the same species that we are. And yet ….”
When she didn’t say anything else, just stared at the floor, Myra prompted her. “And yet?”
“I don’t think they’re that different from us in a lot of ways either. I mean, I suppose culturally it’s sort of like being with any foreigner from this planet—when you don’t really know their customs or the way they look at things.”
“He’s definitely a foreigner,” Myra responded wryly.
Anya sent her an irritated look. “I mean he … seemed to have a sense of humor I could completely relate to and ….” She released a deep sigh. “It was like fireworks! OMG!”
“Oooh!” Myra gasped excitedly. “Now, this is more like it! I want details!”
Anya felt her face redden. “Well, you aren’t getting them! Just saying he totally rocked my world.”
“In several ways, I imagine,” Myra said dryly.
Anya gave her a look. “Yeah. But I really like him and none of this was his doing. He’s the only one, apparently, who thought there was a good chance they were going to run across a planet inhabited by higher life forms, possibly intelligent, but he couldn’t get anybody to listen so he came for proof.”
Myra frowned. “Yeah, I read that in one of the interviews. You believe him?”
“I do.”
Myra set her glass down and moved to settle on the couch next to her sister, cuddling her sympathetically. “But it didn’t work out?”
Anya shrugged. “I don’t guess it really could.”
“But you wish it would?”
Anya considered it. “I’d love to have the chance to find out if it could work out. You know it’s hard to make a relationship work—even a typical one. It probably wouldn’t. But I really, really like him and I’d like to try it.”
“Then you need to tell him the next time you get a chance,” Myra said decisively. “I want you to be happy. I think you’re taking on a huge burden here and this would be the absolute ultimate no-no as far as a mixed relationship and the approval/disapproval of your peers, but you’re a free woman and you should get to make your own mistakes like everybody else.”
Anya felt a huge weight fall off her shoulders. She hadn’t realized that so much of her anxiety had to do with a fear that seeking a relationship with Aidan could mean destroying her relationship with the other people she loved.
That thought brought her to a mental halt.
Loved?
Did she love him?
Or was it just … like that captive syndrome thingy?
And, saying it wasn’t anything mental like that but she really did care for him, was she going to actually get the chance to discover if Aidan wanted to try to have a relationship with an Earth woman?
* * * *
Anya was tempted to simply ignore the tap on her bedroom window. The feeding frenzy of the media had died down considerably in the past couple of weeks, though, and curiosity got the best of her. She peered through the curtains warily to see if she should start screaming her head off or not.
Her heart jerked painfully when she saw who was standing outside her bedroom window.
She broke two nails unlocking the window and shoving it open. “Aidan!” she gasped in a thrilled whisper. “What are you doing here?”
He glanced around the darkened back yard. “Can I come in before your neighbors call the cops?”
Anya glanced around at that. “I’ll meet you at the back door,” she said, pointing. Rushing to the back door, she snatched it open, and flung herself into Aidan’s arms without waiting to see if she was welcome or not, hugging him tightly. He hugged her back with gratifying force, nearly squeezing the breath out of her and finally pulled away just enough to seek her mouth.
She met his quest eagerly, already warm, willing, excited from his presence, from the warmth and strength of the hard, unyielding form he’d held her against. He was just unfamiliar enough to her to add an edge of nerves to her excitement and just familiar enough to make the blood pump faster from memory alone. The scent of his skin—so alien, so uniquely his own—was an intoxicant. The taste of his mouth as he covered hers and breached the barrier of her lips was heavenly. She felt as if she was melting, felt warm and wet and pliant … and oh so ready!
Objections were the last thing that crossed her mind as he swept her up into his arms and began a search for a nest to mate in—beyond objecting that he broke the kiss to look around. “That way,” she murmured, nuzzling her face against his throat as soon as she’d pointed him in the right direction.
They crashed onto the top of her bed with a bounce, stroking one another, kissing any patch of skin uncovered as they wrestled with removing their clothing and caressing one another at the same time. They tangled—with each other, the binding clothes—fought their way free of sleeves and zippers and other closures and clutched at one another again.
A heated steam of their combined scents enveloped them as they explored one another thoroughly, returned repeatedly to share mating lips in kisses that wound the tension tighter and tighter. Their breaths mingled, intoxicating both of them.
Anya was in a rush to feel Aidan as a part of herself again and, at the same time, she wanted to explore him with her lips and hands and feel his touch on her. They seemed to reach a surfeit of what they could endure without becoming one with another at the same time. Without words, almost as if their thoughts were guiding them and nothing else, they moved to complement one another, moved together, angling their bodies for a smooth joining.
It was hardly that.
They had the logistics right. It was the difference in their sizes that created a blip in their bliss.
Anya had forgotten how very male Aidan was. Even as wet as she was, and slippery, his girth was enough to make penetration an ordeal—for both of them—to try their patience. Anya had gasped and groaned and pushed and shoved and clawed at him until she was about ready to pass out from dehydration and hyperventilation by the time he achieved the desired connection and surged inside of her.
It was well worth the struggle, however, deeply satisfying for both of them.
A tremor went through Anya as soon as he managed to delve her depths fully, filling her with a satisfying ache from the lovely friction as well as the strain his girth placed on the muscles along her channel. She clung to him tightly as he withdrew to plunge again. “Aidan! Oh god! Oh Aidan! Oh baby! It feels good! It feels so good. I’m going to come!”
He shuddered and silenced her with his mouth.
It was perfect—absolutely perfect and just what she needed! The kiss sent her rocketing over the edge. She moaned into his mouth as her body was wracked with the most excruciating pleasure she’d ever experienced and finally tore her mouth from his to suck in a sharp breath as she hit the zenith.
Aidan uttered a harsh growl of satisfaction as he reached his own peak, shuddering with her. The
sound as much as the shudders that told her he’d achieved climax, as well, made goose bumps rise all over her and sent a delicious shiver through her as she lay gasping for breath in the aftermath. She stroked his back lovingly as he collapsed weakly on top of her, still shuddering.
“Mmm. I’ve missed this.”
Aidan stiffened slightly and finally pushed himself up a little to look down at her. “You have?”
Anya lifted her brows. “That didn’t seem like I was happy to see you?”
His lips curled upward at one corner in a smile that seemed both shy and at the same time cocky. “It seemed that way, but I didn’t want to make assumptions …..”
Anya chuckled. “Your English is way better.”
He grimaced, but he made no attempt to move off of her. “I have had much practice … until I am nearly hoarse.”
“That bad, huh?” Anya asked sympathetically.
“Worse.”
He hesitated and finally sighed deeply and rolled off of her and on to his back beside her. Lifting one arm, he draped it across his eyes.
“Tired?” Anya asked hesitantly when he didn’t speak for several moments.
His lips curled faintly and he moved his arm, shifting so that he could draw her against his length. “Yes. Very tired. I hate politicians.”
“We have that much in common,” Anya responded with amusement.
“Is that all, Ah-na?”
She frowned. “We haven’t exactly had a lot of time to explore what we might or might not have in common.”
“And yet …” He studied her for many moments and finally seemed almost to shrug. “I desire you. I want, very much, to get the chance to discover if we could make a life together. But I know I shouldn’t ask. There is a great deal of animosity toward my people in spite of the efforts to make amends.”
Feeling her heart leap with gladness and excitement and relief, Anya shifted closer. “It would be hard to deal with, I know,” she murmured, tracing a circle on his chest with one fingertip. “But I’m old enough to know what I want. And besides that I’m old enough to have learned that it’s just plain stupid to throw away any chance for happiness. I’m willing to face the disapproval. I heard the treaty was signed allowing a Grinderian colony here. We could live in the colony if you aren’t comfortable with the idea of living here.”
Aidan cupped her chin with one hand and tilted her face up to study her expression. “You want me?”
Anya smiled. “I didn’t convince you?”
He grinned. “Not completely. But I’m open minded if you want to try again.”
The End.
Also available through New Concepts Publishing by Kaitlyn O’Connor:
Cyberevolution I: The Awakening
Cyberevolution II: Total Recall
Cyberevolution III: Abiogenesis
Cyberevolution IV: Cyborg
Cyberevolution V: Illumination
Cyberevolution VI: Cyborg Nation
Cyberevolution VII: Rules of Engagement
Enslaved One: Genesis
Enslaved Two: Spawning, The
Enslaved Three: Gladiators, The
Adaptation
Below
Chaos Forged
Dark Solstice
Discovery: The Forgotten
Dragon Lord
Lords of Mayhem
Night Raven
Ninth Orb, The
Portal, The
Sleeping with the Enemy
When Dawn Breaks
When Night Falls
Read an excerpt from an upcoming book by Kaitlyn O’Connor:
New Earth Colony One:
Barbarian Prince
By
Kaitlyn O’Connor
Chapter One
Every day was a struggle for Noel.
Truthfully, it had been a struggle to keep fear and hysteria at bay since she’d boarded the ship bound for the newly discovered worlds of the H32 system in the Clarion Galaxy.
Sometimes she thought she must have been insane when she’d agreed to go, signed up, fought for a place on the colony ship!
Her motives had seemed perfectly logical when she’d been working on her decision. The list of reasons to go had far outweighed reasons to stay where she was. And yet ….
Day by day—almost minute by minute—she was torn between terror and delirious excitement—and for the same reason—the alien world they’d landed on, the world that was destined to be her home world forever more. Officially, it had been named Gemini for the fact that the planet had a twin, Sparta, but most people referred to it as New Earth.
She thought it would’ve been easier if the other colonists weren’t determined to call it New Earth. That made it impossible for her to put ‘home’ from her mind, particularly since ‘new’ Earth looked nothing at all like old Earth. And every time she heard the word ‘Earth’ her mind instantly produced images for a comparison that only brought home how out of her element she was.
To each his own, she supposed. She could only think this must be their way of coping with being torn from everyone and everything they’d known and thrust into a terror filled situation of new everything.
It didn’t work for her, however. She could repeat the mantra all day long and it wasn’t going to change the view. The new world looked like Earth only in the sense that some of the terrain was vaguely familiar to places on earth. None of the flora or fauna was. Even the colors of the dirt and rocks weren’t entirely the same. The sky was blue, but not Earth blue, and they could see the world’s twin, Sparta in the sky for hours each day and a trio of moons at night.
The smells weren’t even the same! Nor the sounds. She couldn’t even have the comfort of closing her eyes and pretending she was home.
The indigenous people called it K’naiper—she’d yet to discover what that meant in their language. For even though they’d managed (or their computers had) to crack the ‘code’ of the alien language en route, naturally enough there were some words that simply defied translation because there was no word to associate them with in the English language—any Earth language.
It was a word that was nearly impossible to wrap her tongue around—because it included sounds beyond the limits of human vocal chords—but she still rather thought they should call the world what the natives did. Or as close to it as they could manage.
If the natives were anything like human beings beneath the skin, it seemed to her that they might resent the arrogance of humans taking over the place and renaming it.
Physically, they were certainly very much like human beings. Naturally, there were notable differences, too. They weren’t likely to ‘mistake’ one another when the stature and pigmentations alone differed drastically from humans. Their pigmentation ranged from blue to yellow. Like humans, the skin tones varied from light to medium to dark, but the blues were definitely blue. The yellows ranged from pure yellow to a very definite orange, but they hadn’t observed one that was actually close enough to the yellow skin toned races of Earth to confuse them.
And then there was the stature.
On average they were around a foot taller than a typical human male—the females were. They hadn’t seen a male and they’d begun to believe these people only had one gender.
Which was another factor that made mistaking them for human unlikely!
Beyond the color and height, though, they seemed to be proportioned much like humans and shaped much the same. Their features, not surprisingly, were definitely exotic next to humans, but they looked more like a different human race than a different species.
And that was the only point about the entire situation that made Noel’s decision palatable. She’d trained as a xeno-biologist specifically to make herself eligible for inclusion in the colony project—but also because she was extremely drawn to the field.
If she’d stayed on Earth it was doubtful she would ever have had alien biology to study!
And yet it was beginning to look like she might be old and gray
before she was allowed any contact at all with the natives!
Any indigenous life!
She didn’t know what the damned hold up was!
Unconsciously, she began to drum her fingers on the desk in front of her, staring at the window although she didn’t see any of the view beyond it. She was too focused inwardly to register the bustling little colony she had as a view.
It was a slice of Earth, their little colony. Naturally enough it was made from indigenous materials, but the design ….
Then again it had been pretty unanimously decided to program the builder droids to focus on functionality. They could give their new home ‘character’ when they got there. It would be therapeutic.
She didn’t think anyone had considered how damned depressing it was going to be to live in a … void until they had the time to ‘make their space reflect their personality’! As utilitarian as the ship had been, it wasn’t as bad! At least it hadn’t looked so … antiseptic!
But everything was so uniform in color—so generic—and so flawlessly, perfectly constructed that it made her think of a cardboard cutout of her home city—on Earth.
It was sterile!
Very deliberately so.
The warm hand that settled over her fingers and squeezed them almost painfully jerked Noel out of her abstraction. She blinked at the person standing beside her, slowly bringing the dark face into focus. Monica’s full lips were pulled back in a strained smile, displaying her bright white teeth, but there was a spark of irritation in her dark eyes. “Let’s take a walk.”
Noel glanced around but she didn’t see anyone else in the cubicle ‘lab/office’ she shared with her best friend, Monica.
It wasn’t exactly private, though. The walls surrounding their area did cut off a good bit of the noise of the lab, but privacy was mostly an illusion.
Deciding Monica must want to talk about something she didn’t want everyone to hear, Noel shrugged and got up. “Is it break time?”
“Lunch,” Monica responded with determined cheer.
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