Baby, it's Cold in Space: Eight Science Fiction Romances

by Margo Bond Collins

  “I can compensate.” He took a nipple between thumb and forefinger. The shower spray hit them, a warm note to their passion, making their slickness a sensual feast.

  “Oh, stars, yes, keep that up,” her voice softened.

  It was an order he’d be happy to take from her every day. He let one hand slip down between her legs as he crouched, leaning his back against the shower wall half sitting.

  One hand still caressed her breasts while he leaned over and kissed along her belly.

  He dipped his finger, slipping it in with ease aided by willingness. The moisture turned from slick to thick, deep in the delta between her labia. The honey fluid covered the tips of his fingers. He could have her right then, but he knew how to wait, bring her to the edge, and wait more until she shuddered and opened to him completely.

  Finally, he moved downward with a slow trail of kisses. His mouth took over for his fingers while his hands gripped her wide hips.

  Jody’s knee buckled and straightened with each tongue stroke.

  His pulse beat madly.

  “Oh, yes… yes!”

  Ewan’s felt her body stiffen, become rigid on the edge of the cliff of her climax, felt the blood fill her labia, engorging them beneath his tongue.

  “What… are you… waiting… for?” She whined.

  “Permission,” he whispered.

  “Yes. Oh, stars and planets, yes!” She groaned as he suckled at her clitoris flicking his teeth gently across until her body shuddered from the first release.

  Ewan stood, grazing his tongue along her belly until his mouth met with her breast. His hands gripped her thighs. Her arms wrapped around his neck as he lifted her up against the shower wall.

  The water made rivers around his neck, over hers, down between them until there was no separation.

  Ewan met her eyes, fire and fervency in one. “Now…” He moved his pelvis just so, her pelvis meeting his. He watched her eyes close as she cried out in ecstasy.

  Still, he held himself back from the need. The deep need to express his dominion just as she had marked him forever as hers. Mine. Closing his eyes, willing himself to wait, he began a slow and rhythmic pulse. Both hands now on Jody’s hips, he drove her back and forth over the length of his shaft.

  Her back arched as she cradled her own breasts. A long, tiny whine slipped from her lips. Pink tongue darting between her teeth, she shuddered. Her cervix clamped on him vibrating in pulsed time. “Please… Don’t…. Stop….”

  Ewan didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. “I … I can’t. Just…” He breathed and felt the tortured delight of depriving himself the final release. As each thrust he came closer, he slowed on the return and repeated this quick-slow torture, he bathed in her divine primal performance.

  “Do it!” she demanded. “Do it… harder!” Her arms wrapped around his neck, holding onto his shoulders as they came together in one final burst of pure energy and joy.

  Epilogue

  FIVE YEARS LATER

  Volcanic mountains exploded, exuding black ash and sulfur and carbon. Carbon that was pumping into the atmosphere being captured on the sensors of Ebudae II as it orbited Tapaogani XII.

  In the five years since meeting, Ewan Stewarts and Jody Benson had never returned to the planet where their love was born. Until now.

  Six’s voice buzzed the shipwide com. “Sir? We have achieved orbit.”

  “Coming!” Ewan hurried from where he was in the kitchen—brewing tea—to join Six. He skidded to a halt at the threshold and poked his head into the cockpit to get a glimpse of his planet. “Well!?”

  “Current scans are showing proto-life forming and the correct nucleotides are populating throughout the oceans.

  “Ma’am? Are you coming to see?” Six’s com met Jody in the corridor.

  She squeezed her way past Ewan and maneuvered her oversized belly around the console and finally plopped into the seat. “Best ship I ever stole.” She nodded and tapped the chair.

  “Because you like that seat,” Six said.

  “It’s comfy.” Jody nodded and looked up at Ewan who smiled down from where he stood behind the captain’s chair.

  “You happy?” he asked her.

  “Of course.”

  “I cannot think of a better place for us to have our child,” he said and reached for her hand.

  “Now that we can see where the planet stands. What do you think?” she asked.

  “I am glad we are here,” Six said, swiveling their chair.

  Ewan and Jody grinned at their amazing friend.

  “We couldn’t return until our compatriots located and neutralized the factions that were after you.” Ewan said to Six.

  “Thanks to the data on this ship,” Jody said, once again patting the console.

  “It is a good place. It is… it is where I was born,” Six said. “I don’t want to be called a drone anymore.”

  “What brings this on?” Jody asked, leaning over to touch the metallic fingers of Six. “You’ve always been more than a drone.”

  You’re not a drone to us,” Ewan said. You’re… you’re…”

  “I’m a robotic life form,” Six said. “I’m a person.”

  “Yes,” Jody nodded. “You may be metal, and composite and wires. But that isn’t who you are, it’s what you are. You’re as valid to protect as any other life form.”

  As the lone ship orbited. The blue planet floated, a translucent bubble of swirling clouds, and oceans and continents and new life.

  About the Author

  Jayne Fury writes pulpy serials about bodice ripping ninjas in space. But you knew that!

  Poor Jayne. Stuck between the 1920s and the “boldly go” future. But one never knows when one will fall into a time vortex. Look at Edgar Allen Poe. Totally a time traveler.

  One must always be prepared.

  Jayne was educated in New York by Polish nuns. Her father was a Boy Scout leader (see above preparedness motto). She moved to the West Coast as soon as she could because she’s left handed and claustrophobic. Seriously, it makes sense. Ever sit next to a lefty in a restaurant? Jayne went to university in Rome where she developed her lifelong love of shoes. She has walked across Spain. Twice. Shoes. Preparedness. It’s all related. Trust me.

  She lives on her urban farm in the Pacific Northwest with cats, chickens, ukulele, and extremely tolerant husband.

  Find her online:

  Website: http://www.jaynefury.com/

  Amazon Author Site: https://www.amazon.com/Jayne-Fury/e/B015V1P8R2/

  Saturday Night in Devils Holler

  Donna S. Frelick

  ABOARD THE INTERSTELLAR RESCUE SHIP SHADOWHAWK at the outer edge of the Sol system, Rescue agent Rayna Murphy and her starship captain husband celebrated a victory over their alien enemies.

  Sam Murphy raised his glass. “Spit in a Minertsan’s eye!”

  Rayna touched her glass to his. “Death to the little gray slaver bastards!”

  They drank, wincing at the taste of the synthohol. “Ugh. You’d think they’d get better at this.” Rayna set down the glass in disgust.

  “We’ll break out the good stuff when that son of a ptark Tavar Bix is in my brig.” Sam stared at the bottom of his glass.

  Rayna put a hand on his arm. “Hey, we did good work today. We stopped that Gray slaver with two hundred Earthers aboard. They’ll all be going home, safe and sound, instead of to a labor camp deep in Minertsan space.”

  He looked back at her, green eyes flashing. “And how many of those two hundred did Bix put on that ship? Fifty? A hundred? All of them? The Grays don’t move that many people on their own. They need help—humans on the ground to herd the Unlucky Ones like sheep to the slaughter.”

  Rayna knew Sam’s fight with the Grays and men like Tavar Bix was a lot more than a matter of doing the right thing. It was personal, visceral, a bitter brawl-to-the-death between good and evil. She had her own reasons for joining the Interstellar Council for Abolition and Rescue. However, Rescue
or not, Sam’s hatred of slavers was non-negotiable.

  She stroked his arm, now rock-hard with tension. “I discovered something today you might have missed while you were trading laze fire with that Minertsan ship.”

  Sam exhaled, took her hand and pulled her closer. “Tell me something good.”

  “I have Bix’s location,” Rayna said, excitement flushing her dark skin. “At least, I have a partial ping off his transponder.”

  “He hasn’t found a way to disable the transponder?” Sam wore an expression of skepticism, but leaned in to press for details. “After all this time?”

  Rayna shook her head. “They put that thing in his head at Hellsmouth Prison. He removes it and he’s dead. The techs on Paradon couldn’t take it out, much less anyone on Earth.”

  Sam sat back, a grin spreading over his face. “Then we have him!”

  “Not so fast,” Rayna said. “We might know where Bix is—roughly. And the records confirm other Rescue ships have been returning a high concentration of Lucky Ones back home to the same area recently. But we don’t have any agents on the ground there. It’s in someplace called West Virginia, on the east coast of North America—practically wilderness.”

  “That leaves us to find him and put a stop to his dirty work, then,” Sam said with a shrug. “When do we go?”

  No hesitation. Rayna wasn’t surprised.

  “We go in, stunners blasting, without a clue to where to focus our search, and we’ll scare him off,” she said. “If we want to catch this veer, we need to set a trap.”

  Sam considered. “Hmm. I see what you’re getting at. But the timing will be tricky.”

  “Tricky, yes, but not impossible.” Manipulating time within the jump between nodes in space was Rescue’s stock in trade. And they had an advantage. “You have the best jump navigator in the galaxy,” Rayna reminded him.

  Sam agreed. “Oh, yeah, she’ll love the challenge—all those calculations.” Then he frowned, throwing one more possible obstacle in their path. “We’ll need an anchor, a return to focus the plan on. If the timing’s right, we can be in place to nab Bix. Can we find someone before Bix moves on?”

  Rayna smiled, and finally saw him realize the plan would work. “Already on it. Her name is Lydia.”

  ***

  John Lee Davis shifted on the leather seat of his new Ford pickup and checked his phone again. Wasn’t no good to do that, since the reception in these hills was shit, but the man he was meeting was late, and that was never a good sign. He thought about going in for a beer while he waited, then he thought about what his contact might do to him if he had to come looking for him inside the roadside honky-tonk. He cursed and stayed put in the parking lot, cranking up the truck’s heat against the chill of the December night.

  There was a lot of traffic outside the 52 Bar and Grill tonight, so John Lee missed the car he was looking for. The first he knew his contact had arrived was when the man opened his passenger door and filled up the seat beside him. The guy was huge—well over six-five and packing more than 270 pounds of muscle—and John Lee well knew he was perfectly capable of tearing someone’s head off without breaking a sweat. John Lee just hoped it wouldn’t be his own melon that went rolling tonight.

  “Hey, man.” His hands were shaking, so he grabbed the steering wheel.

  The contact turned cold, black eyes in his direction. “You got anything for us this month, Davis?”

  “Yeah, well, okay, I’m working on that. Should be plenty of possibilities tonight.”

  “You mean here?” The man nodded toward the busy watering hole. “Are you an idiot?”

  John Lee’s heart tripped in his chest. “I . . . well, not . . . what do you mean?”

  “People will see, dumbass.” His contact glowered at him. “How many times do I have to say we’re keeping this discreet?”

  “Keeping this huh?” Not only did the giant have an accent that made him sound like he’d swallowed a shit-ton of gravel with his lunch, but he was always using words John Lee had never heard of.

  “We don’t want to attract attention. You get that?”

  John Lee chuffed out a relieved laugh. “Oh, hell. By closing time, ain’t nobody gonna be seeing straight anyhow. I’ll make sure no one sees me leave with the mark. It’ll take folks a while to figure out somebody didn’t make it home tonight.” He shrugged, a grin spreading across his face. That was the part of the job he enjoyed. Well, that and the money.

  “Make sure it’s somebody no one will miss.”

  “Yeah, yeah. This ain’t my first rodeo, you know.” Wasn’t like he didn’t know what he was doing. He’d been grabbing drunks and losers, drifters and good-time girls for a couple of years now in the roadhouses and towns over four counties of West Virginia, and nobody had missed a one. It was a mystery what the boys up in Cincinnati wanted with ’em, though. The girls he could understand, but they wanted “men capable of work,” too. John Lee didn’t want to think about that too hard.

  “Maybe, but you don’t know as much as you think you do,” the bear in the seat beside him growled. “We’ve got trouble.”

  John Lee swallowed on a throat suddenly gone dry. “What kind of trouble?”

  “You’ve never noticed some of the people you’ve taken didn’t stay gone? They’re back again as if they’d never left.”

  “What?” The people he took were not the kind anyone noticed, especially him. But, come to think of it, he may have seen that red-haired girl right back on her street corner in Matewan last week when he swore he took her two months ago. “How can that be? You mean they escaped? And why would they come all the way back here from Cincinnati?”

  “Cincinnati?” The man looked at him like he’d grown another head, then swore in a language John Lee didn’t know. “Never mind. Just know that someone exists who is not on our side, someone working against us. When you do your business tonight, be vigilant.” The man huffed in frustration and clarified. “Stay sharp. We don’t need an investigation by the National Enquirer.”

  Huh? Now what kind of thing was that to say? When you were running girls (or ’shine or oxy), you worried about the sheriff’s boys. Or the Feds, if you were really unlucky. Why should he worry about some stupid newspaper?

  “Do you hear, hillbilly?”

  John Lee clenched his jaw. “I get it. Watch my ass. Anything else?”

  The man held his gaze for a long minute, death in his black eyes. “We meet at the usual place, two hours before dawn. Don’t fuck up.”

  ***

  “Well, don’t you look like hell tonight, Jace McCoy. What can I get you?”

  The deputy sheriff of Mingo County looked up to see Rick grinning at him from behind the bar. Jace figured the bartender had plenty of reason to grin, since the place was full to the rafters with miners, truckers and day laborers looking to spend their Christmas cash bonuses as quick as they could.

  Jace, on the other hand, would have had to go out to his Jeep, dig around in the back seat for an hour, maybe even go back home in the next county to come up with a smile. “Gimme a shot of Jim Beam and a Bud.”

  Rick raised an eyebrow. “Something you wanna talk about?”

  “Looking for a drink, Rick, not free advice.” Jace wasn’t usually a kill-your-braincells kind of guy, but this was the first night he’d been out of his uniform in a week. He had an edge that needed blunting right now.

  The bartender shrugged and got him what he asked for. The liquor went down like fire to simmer in his belly. The beer washed sweetly over it. The twist of tension between Jace’s shoulder blades began to ease.

  “Your boss was in here earlier,” Rick said. “Got quite a buzz on.”

  “So what else is new?”

  Rick got to the point. “Paid off his tab, too.”

  Anger lit Jace up hotter than the JB he’d just tossed. “Oh, yeah? Glad to hear he’s spreading some of that shit around, then.” The sheriff had his fingers in more than one illicit pie. He had the big house and new
truck to show for it, too.

  Rick shook his head. “Figured it was something like that. Election’s just over, he’s got a lot of extra cash, I reckon.”

  The election. Yeah, that had sure been more important than the handful of ice-cold missing persons cases Jace had on his desk, the ones he couldn’t get his drunk-ass, glad-handing, bribe-taking boss to look at.

  He rubbed a hand across his forehead, as if that would erase the headache blooming there. “Forget it. Set me up again, would you?”

  The bartender did as he was asked, then left Jace alone.

  “Hey.” That warm, bright voice. Those brown eyes crinkling at the corners with a smile just for him. Sara Pressley stood at the bar with her tray and waved at Rick to let him know she had drink orders for him to fill, but all her attention was on Jace. That focus drew him closer, warming him from the inside. “Something wrong?”

  Damn it, was it that obvious? “Rough day. How you doing?”

  She blew out a breath. “You don’t even wanna know.” Rick made it over, and Sara gave the bartender a long list of orders. “I get a break in a few minutes. You gonna be here?”

  “I’m stuck to this seat.” He finally found that smile. Something about Sara made it easy. “Can I order you some food?”

  She looked like she was thinking about it. “I only have 15 minutes. How ’bout you order something, and I’ll help you eat it.” She grinned. “I think you’re gonna need it if you’re doing shots tonight.”

  Rick lined up four beers and a couple of mixed drinks on the bar for her to balance on her tray. Sara loaded up and took off, flashing a grin at him over her shoulder.