Chosen by the Alien Above Part 2: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance Serial (2 page)

My life for the last month felt like one, long space emergency.

Whatever. At least I'd be out of this closet that passed for a cockpit soon.

The docking procedure took forever. I sat locked in my chair, sweating through the cool air circulating in my suit. I couldn't wait to get out of this thing. I never thought I had a problem with small places. Never thought I was claustrophobic. But stuck in this suit, restrained to the seat, isolated in this tiny cockpit was making me rethink that notion.

The cabin moved.

CLANG
.

I slammed my eyes shut.

It was the eighth metallic crash to send my spine shivering. Every gong-like bong made me tremble, wonder if the cabin was about to split apart and jettison me into frozen space.

A rush of air hissed through the tight space. My hands gripped the arms of the chair, certain at least that if I was going to drift through space forever, I’d at least have this chair to sit comfortably in.

The cabin didn't tear apart. Thank God. The subtle motion stopped.

I risked peeking an eye open. The familiar chaotic array of gauges and readouts stood before me. Movement caught the corner of my eye. I looked over toward the hatch and the small circular window.

And there he was.

More gorgeous than was humanly possible. Thick, wavy brown hair, carelessly swept to the side. Hazel eyes smoldered like coals in a camp fire. Chiseled jaw and full lips.
 

I didn’t think I had a type, but the face I saw through the window made me ready to commit.

Grasshoppers popped around in my belly. I knew it usually felt like butterflies, but outer space changed things. A disconcerting heat blossomed between my legs. I was grateful for the heat given that I was freezing.
 

But it also scared me.

Suddenly I felt dizzy. Everything was too much. Not feeling the familiar push of gravity. This cramped suit squeezing the breath out of me. The angelic face in the window. The erupting sparks between my legs. My belly did a crocodile roll and crushed all those grasshoppers.

“I’ll have you out in a minute, Ms. Gabarro,” Noah's voice echoed. “Cosmo, verify pressure equalization and open the hatch.”

“Confirmed Noah. Pressure equalized. Disengaging the locking mechanism.”

Why did all AI have to sound like robots? Did they specially program them to have that choppy, staccato rhythm?
 

The ninth metallic clang hit my ears. At least I saw this one coming and generally knew it wasn't a sign that I was about to die.

Or was it?

The hatch swung open and Noah floated in the air beyond.

Oh my god.

He must've been seven feet tall. Huge. Maybe floating made you look bigger. He grabbed handles around the hatch and pulled himself forward, effortlessly gliding like a soaring eagle. His thick muscles flexed and rippled as he curled his legs forward and landed in front of me. He tucked his feet into straps on the floor.
 

He stood, looking down at me. Nope. It wasn't the floating. He was enormous. Made my five-five frame look like a a child. Even with all the curves.

He flashed a brilliant smile. It dazzled me into stunned silence. How was I ever going to conduct an interview looking into those eyes? How would I ever keep my mind on the questions? And keep it off the curve of his lips.
 

While his eyes held mine like magnets to the North Pole, I dimly realized that he wasn't wearing any clothes.

He was naked.

No, not naked.

But not wearing clothes in the normal sense.

A shiny gray fabric clung to him like a second skin. It accented his hard lines in all the right places. Less dimly, I realized it clung to him
there
too. And his size
there
was at least a match for the rest of him.

“Let's get you undressed,” he said.

My eyes flew open. Could he read my mind?

The crocodile in my belly switched directions.

He unsnapped the restraints across my chest. Even through the thick fabric of the suit, my skin was aware of his touch. Achingly aware.

No man had ever affected me like this. It was terrifying. Like I didn't have control of my own body.

Undress me?

Did he think he could just take me? Right here? Without so much as a handshake and a how-do-you-do?

What an arrogant ass!

“You overstep, Mr. Sinclair. You’ve made a grave mistake if you think I’m just going to jump into bed with you. If you think a smile is enough to open my legs.”

I said it. And it almost came out convincing.
 

His smile was
so
enough
to open my legs.

“Out of the suit, I meant,” he said with a grin. That gorgeous grin. The one that ignited on his lips and exploded on mine.

My pink ones.

Down there.

He unfastened the last restraint and immediately my body floated up off the seat. The crocodile in my belly went into overdrive.

Noah pushed me back into the seat and clicked the seal on my helmet. He rotated it a fraction and my ears popped as the pressure in the cabin leaked in. He lifted my helmet off and let it float off to the side.

I was catatonic. Rebuffing his crude—and wonderful!—suggestion took it all out of me. I had no more reserves.

He lifted me gently so our eyes were level. His sparked a low yellow fire.

“Welcome to Orbital One, Ms. Gabarro. I've been waiting to meet you for a long time.”

I tried to be normal. To say the normal thing you'd say in a situation like that. Like “Nice to meet you” or “Thanks for inviting me”.

But that didn't happen.

I opened my mouth and a geyser of vomit shot out.

All over his face.

Nice to meet you, Noah Sinclair.

The contents of my belly smacked him in the face and then splashed off, drifting through the air in ropey globs.
 

The horror.

A month seemed far too long to live. I could've died that second and been happy.

He swiped the gray shiny fabric of his arm across his face. It's soaked up the yuck better than a roll of Bounty paper towels. He finished cleaning his face and wiped my lips.

“Perhaps I've been gone too long,” he said, “but I expected a handshake or a hello.”

My skin blushed pink. My heart hammered in my ears.

This was not the professional introduction I’d imagined. Did TV reporters throw up on the president before they began an interview?

“I’m, uhh, sorry, Mr. Sinclair. This is all so disorienting.”

Of course half of that was this stunning Apollo figure in front of me, but I wasn't going to tell him that.

“I should've expected it,” he said. “I apologize. I should've been better prepared. Had a mop and bucket ready.”

He flashed a mocking smile and my heart almost exploded. The heat between my legs did.

The crocodile in my belly decided it had one last spin left in it. My stomach cramped and I fought to keep it down.

Noah grabbed my floating helmet out of the air and whipped it over just as another heave ripped through me. My twisting belly filled the helmet. Noah yanked a clipboard off the ceiling and sealed it before any of my yuk could escape. He strapped it in the corner.

“Astro!” he called.

A few seconds later, the strangest thing I'd ever seen floated through the hatch toward us. Which was really saying something at this point. It was a mishmash of gears and circuit boards and tubes. It whirred and clicked as it glided closer.

It looked like an evil robotic, Lego abomination. There was no question it wanted to probe and dissect me. And then probe me again.

I squealed.

Confident women didn't squeal. They may yell or scream or shriek. They didn't squeal. I wasn't happy that I did, but I wasn't feeling especially confident at the moment. I’d have to take that into account if I was going to forgive myself later.

I jumped on Noah and clung to him like a palm tree in a hurricane. His arm wrapped under me. I peeked over his shoulder as the thing drifted closer. Its eyes glowed red. It was definitely evil. And definitely out to do terrible things to my private parts.

It sailed into Noah's outstretched other hand.

“What is that horrific thing?” I asked.

The thing growled at me.

I ducked my head into Noah's broad shoulder.

He laughed and stroked the monster.

“Don’t be scared, Ms. Gabarro.”

Me? Scared? I wasn’t scared. I was apprehensively confident. I was negligibly assured. But I wasn’t scared.

Who did this billionaire, space playboy think he was?

I popped my head back out. The
 
thing’s eyes flashed red. It wanted to get me. First with the probing and then with the dissecting. I knew how these stories went. I squeezed into Noah’s body tighter. Partly from fear, and partly because it felt so good. The gray fabric melted away between us. His muscles molded shapes into me.

If it were up to me, I would’ve stayed there clinging to him forever. Until the day I died.
 

It wasn’t up to me because my butt was yelling that Noah’s large hand had a firm grip on it.
 

He was trying to land a home run and we’d just met. I was not that kind of girl!

I picked my head up, all thought of the metallic beast swept aside, and looked into the most gorgeous eyes that had ever been, since eyes came into being.

I needed to say something.

What?

Oh yea.

“Mr. Sinclair, your hand seems to be on my buttocks.”

He looked down, as if it was news to him. “So it is.”

“Could you do something about that?”

“Sure,” he said, “Want me to add the other?”

As much as I wanted nothing more than both his hands gripping my bottom, pulling me close—

“Mr. Sinclair, please remove your hand.”

He let go of the metal monster.

“Your
other
hand, Mr. Sinclair.”

He grinned. “Oh, of course.” He gave my rump a little squeeze and let go.”

With as much dignity as I could muster, which was next to none, I dismounted him and tried to put my feet on the floor.

Lord, he was huge. He didn't look this big in the broadcast I remembered from my youth. Or in all of the images I searched online.

Noah held me in place and grabbed the robot thing with his other hand. He held us apart, facing each other. It growled at me again.

“Ms. Gabarro, this is Astro.”

I nodded at the robotic scrapheap. “Is he like a dog?”

Astro growled again. This dogbot had a seriously bad attitude.

Noah laughed. “
She
is like a dog, only better.” He looked around the small cockpit, at the globs of my yuk floating by.

“She's a great cuddler and she keeps this station squeaky clean.”

Cuddle that beast? Not gonna happen. It would be like if you blasted a computer with a shotgun and then took all the pieces and glued them back together in any old, random order. Who in their right mind would cuddle that?

Maybe Noah wasn't in his right mind. Maybe ten years in space makes you want to cuddle a cactus.

“Astro,” Noah said, “this is Ms. Gabarro.”

She growled again. Talk about making a terrible first impression. I hadn’t said more than a handful of words and already this dogbot had it in for me.
 

The sound faded as she looked up and around the cockpit. She pushed off of Noah's arm toward the biggest glob wobbling in the upper corner. She drifted over and anchored to the wall. A tube extended from what I assumed was her mouth. A gurgling sucking sound accompanied a clean up job on aisle sicks.

She finished that wavering glob and pushed off toward another.

Maybe I’d have to give her another chance. My apartment back home desperately needed an Astro of its own. Keeping up with housework wasn't my thing.

“Thanks girl,” Noah said. He looked at me. “She's not used to meeting new people. Be nice to her and she'll warm up.”

I nodded. I didn't know what to think about having to act nice too that
thing
. To a moving computer program. Like it was judging me.

As long as it wasn't probing me, I’d try the olive branch.

“Astro will take care of that. Let’s get you out of this suit.”

The shock of the dogbot made me completely forget the acid taste in my mouth, which I now remembered. It was nasty. It takes years to forget what vomit tastes like.

“Yes please.”

He snapped off my gloves and let them drift away. Astro immediately broke away from cleaning and launched at a glove. She grabbed it in her mouth and shook it back and forth.

“No Astro!” Noah shouted.
 

Astro spit it out and hung her head, which was actually lifting it because she was drifting upside down above my head.

“She has a few bad habits. I’m not the best trainer.”

He rotated my torso piece and snapped it free. It drifted up over my hands. I looked down and panicked.

The undersuit wasn’t much more than a tight pair of hi-tech thermal underwear. They clung to me with embarrassing clarity.

He tugged my boots off. Thank god the thermals had footies attached. I hadn’t painted my nails in a week. They were a chipped, craggy mess.

He picked me up and flipped me around. His strength combined with the microgravity made me pliable as a sex doll.

“Bend over,” he said.

What?

He was just going to bang me? Take me rough and ready? Fuck me in the ass because all his bimbos back on Earth swore it was their favorite?
 

“In your dreams, Mr. Sinclair!”

“Spread your legs.”

“How dare you! I’m here to interview you, not be your personal sex slave.”

I
so
wanted to be his personal sex slave.

He chuckled. “I meant to get the suit legs off. It helps to bend over and wiggle out.”

He wanted me to wiggle? With my backside in clear view?

Fine.

I bent over, grabbed the chair, and wiggled my butt out of the last of the suit. I looked over my shoulder and happily noted Noah’s chest pumping air faster than it had been a moment ago. The bulge in his pants was noticeably bigger too.