The Gigolo's Bride (The Necklace Chronicles) (12 page)

The scenery blurred past them as the car
drove itself from the densely populated city to grassy, rolling
hills dotted with trees and colorful flowers. The grass was a very
dark green with thick blades, and the flowers were brightly
colored, like a rainbow on steroids.

A floating sign over a cluster of dark purple
flowers announced the city of Polona, as the hovering car coasted
above the road as if running on invisible tires. "This is our
street, Daeny, which means 'hope'."

She liked the translation of the street name.
All the homes on the street were beige one-story domes with clear
rectangular windows. The lawns were the same thick, dark grass
she'd seen before, and a long flower bed filled with color ran
along the front of each home. A section of the dome opened in the
home at the end of the street, and the car pulled into the garage,
the wall closing behind them.

Eden leapt from the car with a grin, his face
alight with happiness. He rounded the vehicle as the door opened,
and he scooped her up in his arms and carried her towards a door
that opened against the wall. He stopped to kiss her before he
stepped over the threshold, and put her on her feet inside the
home.

"Welcome home, sweetheart." He hugged her,
sighing in happiness, and kissed her forehead. "Let me give you the
grand tour."

He gestured to the area around them. "This is
the kitchen. This cooker is the same as the one in the ship. The
refrigerated cabinet is not so small, so we'll have plenty of room
in there for your
ronii
." He talked animatedly about the
kitchen, pointing out the view from the window over the sink into
their small backyard.

The kitchen flowed into an eating area with a
table and four chairs set back in a windowed nook. The table had a
clear top, with an intricately woven base made of metallic strands.
The chairs were identical to the table, but with cherry colored
cushions on top of the seats. White, pearly tile gave way to thick
bright green carpet as he took her into the living room, which
contained an overstuffed couch in sage green, a coffee table of a
nearly white, highly-polished wood, and a large vid screen hanging
on the wall. Underneath the vid screen was a fireplace, but instead
of logs, clear, colorful rocks were piled in a pyramid shape.

He waved his hand over the stone mantel and
the rocks blazed to life, as if fire were caught inside them just
waiting to be free. The red, amber, blue, and green stones were as
large as cantaloupes and gave off no heat. She touched the walls as
they moved down a hallway, and they were cool like metal but felt
like plastic. They were a muted grayish-white, in contrast to the
bright green carpeting.

Of the three bedrooms, two were the same,
empty and bare of any decorations. Before he stepped into the
master bedroom, he swung her up into his arms again. She pressed
her lips against his, drinking in the sweet taste of her
husband.

He laid her gently on the bed and stretched
out over her, his eyes glowing with happiness, a teasing smile on
his lips.

"What happened to the tour?"

He pulled on the ribbon that laced up the
side of the bodice. "I have a different tour in mind."

She reached for his tunic and slid it up his
body, her palms rubbing up the length of his back. He helped her
pull it off his body and she trailed her fingers across his chest,
tracing the muscles as he worked the ribbon loose.

"You're married now, sweetheart, do you feel
different?"

"I'm happier than I've ever been before. How
about you?"

"Five years is a long time to want something
as badly as I wanted you, but you were worth the wait."

Their mouths met in a dance that was both so
familiar and still so exciting as he tugged the dress down her
body. His lips moved from hers, kissing across her jaw and laving
his tongue around the shell of her ear. She shivered as he freed
her breasts, her nipples puckering in anticipation.

He worked the dress down her body by slow
inches, pressing open-mouthed kisses as each bit of flesh was bared
for his hungry gaze. Dropping it to the floor, he undid her sandals
and removed his trousers and shoes.

He stroked down the center of her body with
his fingertips, a wicked, thoughtful look in his eyes. He kissed
her once, twice and then straightened up on his knees. He kissed
each fingertip before pulling her to her knees, tracing lazy
patterns up and down her arms as he teased her mouth with lips and
tongue. With gentle pressure, he turned her to face the headboard,
placing her hands on top.

The headboard was made of shiny, striped
black-on-black wood. The coverlet was thick like velvet and dark
amber. Eden eased her knees apart and gathered her hair off to one
shoulder, baring her body. Once more, his fingers wove a path down
her body, this time from her neck to her bottom, rounding across
the swells as he bent forward and kissed her shoulder.

One hand slipped around the curve of her hip
to the curls that covered her mound, rubbing lightly. The other
hand moved up the front of her body to cup one breast, squeezing
and kneading the lush orb.

Dipping a finger inside her, he found her
already wet and hot, and he circled his finger around her clit. He
kissed her neck, from the crux of her shoulder to the sensitive
patch of flesh behind her ear. Working her to the edge of climax
quickly, her body trembled as she grew closer and closer to
orgasm.

With one hard thrust, he buried himself
inside her so fast her eyes crossed as her climax thundered down on
her like a hot wave. Her fingers gripped the headboard as Eden rode
out her climax, his finger never leaving her clit as he drew her
pleasure out from one great height to the next. His hand left her
breast and cupped her chin, tilting her head until their mouths met
as he drove into her, holding her captive in his arms.

His hips slammed against her bottom as she
rocked hers back to meet his thrusts. The kiss ended when they both
moaned, and he dropped his head to her shoulder, kissing and biting
gently.

Heat spiraled in her core, expanding outwards
as she felt herself hurtling towards release. She reached back with
one hand and fisted Eden's hair, pulling him close as her vision
blurred and her heart pounded in her chest.

Eden groaned mindlessly, his pounding rhythm
all but lost to his pleasure. He tugged on her clit one last time,
sending her tumbling off the edge into intense pleasure, as he
followed, his cock spasming over and over inside her. She would
have collapsed against the headboard if Eden hadn't shifted them
quickly, laying back and tugging her body across his.

Sweat slicked their flesh and their chests
heaved as they gasped for breath, both of them shuddering as the
after-effects of their orgasms still rode through them. She
shivered, and he tugged a blanket to cover them both. They held
each other in sweet silence as they came down from the heavens.

"How long have you owned the house?" She lay
sprawled across him, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

"About a year. I set aside the money to free
myself first, and then to pay for your abduction and the trip, and
then saved enough money for us to live comfortably."

"What will you do now?" She lifted her head
and propped it on her upturned hand.

"Some of Sloan's patients have asked about me
teaching their children art. Now that I'm not a
brokah
, I
can finally use my talents. I have a workshop in the back big
enough to hold a class. What do you think?"

"I think you can do anything you set your
mind to."

"With you by my side, I feel like that is
really true."

They talked quietly for some time and then
dressed. Eden finished the tour of their home, showing her the
magnificent bathroom, which matched the one on the ship. He had
painted the walls in the ship's bathroom as well, and this one was
no less incredible. A forest of trees and flowers decorated the
walls, the limbs and petals dotted with birds and butterflies and
small winged animals like bees. In the corner where the bathing
pool was located, he painted a waterfall that looked so real she
had to touch it to make sure it was only painted on.

The backyard was edged with thick shrubs
almost as tall as Ashleigh. Their dense webbed leaves were
turquoise and lavender, with flowers that looked like strings of
purple, gray and white pearls. Eden said the brown-sugar scented
flowering shrub was called a
kerite
. The yard itself was
several hundred feet square, with unplanted, freshly tilled beds in
front of the
kerite
that fenced in the yard. Behind their
yard was a stand of thick trees with clusters of yellow fruit
hanging from the branches, and through the leaves she could see
another group of houses that was the same as theirs. Eden spoke
animatedly about her making the backyard her own, planting whatever
she liked and decorating it with outdoor seating. In the far corner
of the yard stood his workshop. Like the outside of the house, it
was made of the same beige material and shaped like a dome. The
door slid open and they walked inside. It had taken her a while to
figure out where the doors were, but she could see the outline of
them now.

Inside was a large open room, the outline of
several doors visible against the walls. The floor was plain white;
cabinets and shelves lined the walls, filled with everything from
fabric canvases to containers he said were packed with sculpting
clay. One of the doors led to a small bathroom, and two were large
storage rooms, one of them full and the other almost empty.

Without a word, Eden sat her down on a dark
wooden stool, arranged a lock of hair over her shoulder and placed
a kiss on her nose.

He grabbed a canvas, pulled an easel from
against the wall and set it up a few feet from her. "Don't move,
love," he said as he grabbed a container of brushes and a palette,
arranging them on a small side table, and then he opened a drawer
in the table and pulled out a pencil.

She couldn't help but smile. He sketched
furiously with the pencil and then turned to the palette and
paints, choosing a brush and beginning to work. "Tell me about the
soul-walk."

He smiled at her from around the canvas.
"What would you like to know?"

"Well, what was it like? How did it work?
What did you see?"

Turning thoughtfully back to the canvas, he
told her that Sloan had taken him to the soul-walk agency after he
had been released from the hospital. He was taken back into a small
cubicle where he sat down in a reclining chair. After a long wait,
a medical officer and two agency staff members came into the room.
He was first given a shot to relax his body. When it had taken
effect, straps were used to secure him to the chair to ensure he
didn't move too much during the process.

Electrodes were attached to his head with
long, twisted wires that carried the images he would see in his
soul-walk to a master computer which would sort through the data,
finding out the location of his bride as well as her name and
physical characteristics.

"When they gave me the drugs to induce the
soul-walk, I slipped down into darkness quickly, and saw nothing
for a long time. I felt completely relaxed, hopeful. And then
suddenly I felt like I was being pulled towards something, like I
was flying. Stars and planets shot by me so fast they were blurs.
Whole galaxies slipped by before a planet loomed large before me,
blue with streaks of green and white."

"Earth," she said.

"Yes. I was pulled downwards through the
atmosphere. It was night, but there were lights that illuminated
everything, and I'd never seen anything like what I soared by. The
buildings were square with many windows. The
hover-machen
s
moved on large, round objects. And the people! All the men had
different colored hair! And the clothing was unlike anything I'd
ever seen."

"I didn't realize you actually literally
traveled to Earth."

"It was just a manifestation of my mind. The
machines that are used during the soul-walk, combined with the
drugs, pinpoint the perfect mate no matter where she is. It was
very much like taking a fast trip. I wasn't actually there, but my
mind felt like I was."

"That's really incredible. So then what
happened?"

"I went from moving over the streets to
appearing inside a room. That's when I saw you. You were lying in
bed, asleep. Light from your moon came in through your open window
coverings, and I could see how beautiful you were. Peaceful. You
rolled over while I was watching, kicked your leg over the blanket,
and made the most adorable little humming sound. Then I was pulled
back to the agency and slowly I came out of the deep sleep. The
machine had gathered the data about you. When the recovery team
transported to Earth from the ship, they followed procedure to
deliver the necklace to you, and then when you were wearing it,
they abducted you."

"Sloan said that she was engaged to a male
who left her because she was sterile. Had he done the soul-walk for
her?"

"No. She and Talek grew up together and loved
each other. Even before the females became sterile, males and
females could mate for love, Ashleigh. The soul-walk was a way to
introduce males to their soul mates, but there were many who chose
out of love instead of letting the machines lead them."

"Did many women like Sloan get tossed aside
because they weren't able to bear children?"

He looked around the canvas. "Yes. When the
women became sterile and other females that could carry our
children were found on different planets, the agency stopped
searching for soul-mates on Norlan, changing the parameters."

She wondered how the unmated women on Norlan
felt about that. To be cast aside as useless when they were still
very valuable as people. Sloan was one of the nicest women she'd
ever known. She deserved happiness.