Origin (26 page)

“Suppose your reasons are your own.” She knelt in the water again—this time to wash her knives. She stayed hunched.

He guessed she thought the position hid her breasts. It didn’t. The wet blouse slicked to her like a second skin. Damn, her body was fine. He had to work hard not to let his gaze lock onto her chest again. But he didn’t say anything, didn’t want to make her more uncomfortable than she already was. As it was, needs he’d kept rigidly suppressed his entire adult life suddenly raged through his bloodstream, making sweat pop up on his forehead.

She must have been able to see some of what he felt in his expression because fear crept back into her pretty, brown eyes.

He shut his briefly before opening them and offering her a rueful smile. “Look, I won’t hurt you. I promise. It’s just been a long, long time since I saw anyone as beautiful as you.” He hoped she wouldn’t look down and catch the very uncomfortable evidence of his desire, but she did. He groaned. “Ignore that. I can’t help it.”

Her chuckle was husky and it brushed over his skin like velvet. “I’d be flattered but when was the last time you saw a woman?”

“About five minutes ago…in the woods.” He cleared his throat, told his dick to settle down. “Are there more people where you come from?”

“Not anymore, though I probably shouldn’t tell you that.” Keeping her arms over her breasts, she walked out of the water.

He frowned at the rate her shivering was increasing and reached up to remove his jacket, hesitating when she lifted her knives.

“What are you doing?” Her voice had gone lower.

He instantly thought of that low, husky voice whispering things close to his ears and had to keep himself from shuddering. It took effort. “You’re cold. I’m going to toss you my jacket. It’ll help if you cover those up anyway.”

“From the looks of your clothes, you should keep that jacket. I’ll warm up fine once I’m on the move and it’s time to do that. Where’s your brother?”

“We have an RV parked a couple of miles or so from here.”

“An electric RV? How do you charge it on the road?”

“No. it’s solar, with panels along the top—some we found and installed ourselves. It’s why we park in the middle of the day when the sun is like this. So they can power up. You have an electric car?”

She nodded. “Don’t use it much—just to take the odd short trip into town to dig through the rubble. My house is solar powered.”

She looked healthy, too. He wondered if she had a garden. He and Tripp had broken into a freeze-dried food factory and hit pay dirt, but they were always on the lookout for any overgrown mass of green that looked like it might have a few surviving vegetables. They got lucky with wild asparagus once in a while, but it had been a long time since either had seen a green bean or a bell pepper. He’d hated peppers as a kid, then spent most of his adult life craving the taste of one so much he dreamed about them. The ones his mother had stuffed with sausage, rice and cheese—three other foods he hadn’t had in years.

Food and people. It was the reason he’d braved this trip with his brother. That and hoping a new place would snap Tripp out of his funk.

Chase had read handwritten notes left in several places about a new settlement in the south and he’d thought with the warmer climate, some farmers could have saved seeds, kept gardens going every year. He craved fresh food nearly as much as he craved a woman. Nearly.

Trapped on an alien ship full of sexy specimens. Whatever is a nurse to do?

Amorous Overnight

© 2014 Robin L. Rotham

After four months of orbiting Earth in a spaceship bursting with sex-starved aliens, nurse Shelley Bonham will do just about anything to get off. The ship, that is.

Not that the aliens aren’t hot enough to put her hormones on red alert. In fact, the more time she spends with the Garathani leader Cecine and his personal guard Hastion, the more she wants them. Knowing what Cecine and Hastion are doing to each other when nobody's looking only makes it harder to keep her hands to herself.

But she’s already been betrayed by one alien—her dead douchebag of a husband. Can she trust her future—and her children—to another?

Warning: Contains the usual Robin L. Rotham smorgasbord of m/m/f menage and D/s elements, plus a shipload of alien alphas in outer space.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Amorous Overnight:

“Can I do anything else for you before the council session, sir?” Milnon enquired.

Cecine drained the tumbler in two more swallows before slamming it down on his desk. To hell with the council—if he had less than two hours as an unmated male left to him, he intended to make the most of them.

Standing, he ordered, “Inform the high council with my regrets that I won’t be in attendance for the afternoon session, then extend my warmest regards to Portia Mitchell and ask her to flare to my quarters with all due haste.”

“Yes, sir.”

Milnon stood back so that Cecine could precede him but when the door slid open, another young male stood in his path, looking nonplussed. He must have expected Milnon to emerge.

“Ensign Hastion,” Cecine acknowledged with a short nod, expecting him to step aside.

Instead, the ensign squared his shoulders. “Excuse me, sir, but may I request a moment of your time?”

Cecine’s eyes narrowed. There could only be one reason Ensign Hastion was taking the notable risk of waylaying him. Hastion had been at the luncheon table when Empran announced Shelley Bonham’s labor, and Cecine had noted the way he frowned and retreated from the conversation as though contemplating weightier matters. Did he wish to claim her for himself? Surely not. He was as unsuitable for her as Milnon, in his own way, and was undoubtedly well aware of it.

“Make an appointment, Ensign. I’ve got another commitment now.”

“My apologies, Minister,” the ensign said, holding his ground with obvious trepidation, “but this is a matter of some urgency. I wouldn’t approach you otherwise.”

Cecine leveled his most penetrating stare on the young warrior. He’d picked a fine time to become aggressive. “You have five minutes.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Milnon, have Ms. Mitchell flared directly to my sleeping chamber when she’s ready,” he sent as he walked back into his office.

Milnon tipped his head discreetly. “Aye, sir.”

Once the door had closed, Cecine faced the ensign. “At ease.”

The ensign relaxed only marginally, focusing his gaze over Cecine’s shoulder. “Permission to address you regarding Shelley Bonham, sir.”

“You have permission to speak freely, Ensign. Ms. Bonham is one of the matters I must consider, and if you have thoughts, I might as well hear them.”

After a brief hesitation, the ensign looked him in the eye. “Sir, if Shelley delivers her young aboard the Heptoral, I would respectfully request to be named your second.”

Truly surprised, Cecine strolled over and stood directly in front of him, studying him critically. He’d always thought Hastion’s facial features rather too pretty, and now that his twin sister Jasmine had transitioned to full maturity, the resemblance between them was striking. Both possessed the same bounty of rich brown hair, elegant bone structure, intriguingly lush mouth and crystalline blue eyes framed by long, dark lashes. It was unfortunate for the ensign—his looks in combination with his marked lack of aggression made him a frequent target for males who had something to prove in the sparring arena.

“You know I’m under no obligation to take a second,” Cecine said neutrally. The high council had exempted him from all current mating requirements because of the demanding nature of his office. Even now, he could step into the highest position on the mating rolls, claim his choice of pureblood Garathani female and keep her entirely to himself—assuming he were inclined to benefit at the expense of younger males and to the detriment of their waning genetic pool, which he most definitely wasn’t.

“I do, sir.”

“And yet you expect me to take you on?”

“I expect nothing, sir. I merely hope.”

Cecine clasped his hands behind his back and walked a slow circle around the ensign. Overall Hastion acquitted himself well in the sparring arena and possessed the fighting skills of a seasoned warrior, which suggested that his failure to challenge for higher rank stemmed from a lack of ambition rather than ability. But any male who submitted himself for consideration as second to the minister of the Garathani high council—purely on speculation, before a pending claim was even announced—would have to be very ambitious indeed.

Or have ulterior motives.

Stopping beside him, Cecine wondered aloud, “What’s your interest in the matter?”

Hastion’s tongue darted out to wet his full lips and Cecine’s testicles tightened. He could dream up all sorts of perversion to wreak upon such a mouth, were it attached to anyone but a warrior.

“I like Shelley, sir, and I don’t wish to see her further traumatized by a forced mating with a male who clearly terrifies her.”

“It won’t be forced,” Cecine said impatiently. “She will have some choice in the matter.”

“With all due respect, sir, to mate with you or be parted from her children isn’t much of a choice.”

Cecine’s brow climbed upward. All due respect, indeed. “And you think mating with two males would make it less traumatizing?”

After another brief hesitation, the ensign said firmly, “I’m one of the few Garathani males she’s invited to call her Shelley, sir, and she seems more comfortable with me. I believe that will make the transition easier for her.”

A risky argument, Cecine thought as he continued his slow pacing. Ordinarily, being perceived as no threat by a female would be the deciding factor against any male. The ensign’s failure to challenge for rank, coupled with the fact that his sister had kicked him unconscious in an escape attempt while she was still in her small pretransition form, already made him an unimpressive candidate at best.

His tendency to participate in sexual demonstrations didn’t aid his cause. Bad enough he’d fucked a Terran female in front of the Alliance medical staff, but demonstrating the use of a masturbation probe for hundreds of Garathani warriors and actually ejaculating before their eyes…?

He might as well have tattooed DISRESPECT ME on his own forehead.

Not that he hadn’t done a mesmerizing job of demonstrating the probe, Cecine recalled with an uncomfortable surge of blood into his brief-restricted cock. He’d viewed the recording of the nude ensign’s enthusiastic orgasm more times than he cared to remember in the last ten days and grown hard as a pillar every time.

He went on the offensive again. “Were you intimate with her at the compound?”

Hastion’s eyes widened a fraction, then his jaw hardened and he turned to give Cecine an uncompromising look. “No. Sir.”

“You wouldn’t be the first. There were two other instances of unauthorized intercourse between warriors and married females.” Both males involved had been returned to the ship and permanently removed from the mating rolls, while the females had been offered the choice to return to their husbands or join the ranks of the recruits and be assigned mates. Both had elected to return to their husbands. Cecine didn’t know whom to pity most—the males who’d fallen prey to their own long-denied urges, the females who claimed to have fallen in love with them, or the husbands who’d been betrayed.

“I would never dishonor my father’s House by violating a council directive, sir,” Hastion said stiffly without looking away, “and I don’t believe Shelley would betray her mate, no matter how comfortable she might be with me or any other male.”

And the puzzle that was Ensign Hastion deepened. Cecine had never felt any interest in challenging the unassuming young male in the arena the way he did other warriors who needed taking down a notch or two, but he was definitely feeling some interest now. Perhaps too much interest.

“You realize she may never be able or willing to accommodate either of us in the mating bed, much less bear young,” he said. “Are you prepared to sacrifice your chance at a suitable mate for what may be a lifetime of using your probe?”

“I am, sir.”

“Even if she’s involved in the Narthani conspiracy?”

Still looking him in the eye, Hastion said flatly, “She isn’t, sir.”

“I hope for her sake that you’re right. Her life on Garathan would be infinitely more difficult if she were knowingly involved with Narthani spies.”

“Yes, sir.” Hastion gave a deferential nod, his gaze once more respectfully averted.

Cecine considered him for another moment. He hadn’t intended to inflict the unfortunate female on an ancillary mate, but the idea held merit. If he had thought to take a second, he would probably have named Milnon out of hand, but Hastion might be a better choice. He was a warrior, after all, and he clearly wasn’t the fool he made himself out to be. His reasoning was sound, he had the courage of his convictions and his boldness recommended him. Perhaps protecting the little Terran and her young was the impetus he needed to elevate himself as a warrior.

“All right, Ensign,” he said, “if Ms. Bonham does indeed deliver aboard ship, I’ll take your request into consideration.”