THE OFF WORLD COLLECTION (Short, Steamy Science Fiction Romances) (Off-World Series) (8 page)

“I promise.”

He kissed her tenderly, then drew back and deliberately began to open the fasteners down the front of her tunic, watching her face, ready to call a halt.

She said nothing, but he saw the edge of panic in her eyes.

“Does it worry you when I reach for you, with my hands?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll show you how much pleasure I can give you with just my mouth.”

Dipping his head, he kissed her neck, then the slender ridges of her collar bone, before edging toward the tops of her breasts.

Delicately he pushed the fabric of the tunic apart with his face, his kisses gliding over the soft warmth of her breasts until he captured one distended nipple between his lips.

She made a strangled sound, and her hands came up to cradle his head and hold him to her as he took his pleasure and gave it back to her in kind.

He kept the pace easy, demanding nothing of her. Between kisses, he talked to her quietly, ardently, as he stoked the fires of her arousal— first with his lips and then with only the lightest of fingertip strokes.

Her body was long and lithe and so beautiful. He could barely breathe as he watched arousal bring a warm flush to her pale skin.

Aroused or not, when his hand drifted over the soft curve of her abdomen, downward to the triangle of fiery hair that covered her mound, she stiffened.

“Okay?”

Her face was tense.

“It’s all right. We can stop any time you want,” he promised, his words denying the clamoring of his body.

“I’m scared, but I don’t want to stop.”

“Good. Because I’m just going to touch you,” he murmured. “Just my hand, stroking you, making you feel good.”

“Yes . . . I already feel . . .”

“How?”

“Like a
kriver flying too close to the sun.”

“I promise, I’m not going to let you get burned.”

“I know.” Still, the breath hissed out of her, and she squeezed her eyes shut as his fingers slid downward, parting her silky folds and stroking her soft, sensitive flesh.

She was hot and wet to his touch, and he made a low sound of appreciation as he dipped one finger into her, moving his hand to give her maximum pleasure.

“That’s good. So good,” she gasped.

“Yes, love. Yes.”

She was panting, rocking against him, and he whispered low, encouraging words while he pushed her higher, closer to climax, until all at once he felt her body go tense and ripples of sensation beat against his hand as she cried out his name.

He cradled her against him, feeling the aftershocks flicker through her. Gently he tipped her head up so that he could brush his lips against hers, seeing the wonder in her eyes.

“I didn’t think I could let you get that close to me,” she whispered.

“But you did. And it was . . .”

“A trip to the center of the sun—and back.”

He smiled down at her, glad that she had given him her trust. Yet it was impossible to completely hide the tension still gripping him.

She drew back, studying his face. Then, in a rush, she slid her hand down and found his erection. When she moved her palm against him, he couldn’t hold back a shuddering gasp.

“We need to do something about this thing that’s had me so worried,” she whispered.

He gave a short laugh. “If you keep your hand there, it’ll take care of itself.”

She raised her head and searched his eyes. “Is that what you want?”

He thought about lying. Instead, he shook his head. “Not if I have a choice.”

“Then what should I do?”

“Nothing complicated. Just let me kiss and touch you some more.”

“But . . . I think I’m having most of the fun.”

He chuckled. “I guess you don’t know what a man in love considers fun.” Leaning down, he nuzzled his lips against her breast. “The thing I want most,” he breathed against her skin, “is to give you as much pleasure as I can, because my pleasure is tied to yours.”

“Then we’ll fly to the sun together,” she whispered, her heartfelt tone making his throat ache.

Gently, he pulled the tunic off her shoulders, freed her arms from the sleeves.

“So beautiful,” he breathed, as he looked down at her slender body before kissing her bare shoulders and working his way slowly down her body.

He kindled her need once more with his lips and hands. And when he knew he would die if he didn’t feel her silky skin pressed to his, he dragged off his pants and eased her on top of him, his hands on her back, moving her against him as he rained kisses over her face. She was wet and slick for him again, and she made tiny noises in her throat as she moved against the swollen length of him.

“Raise your hips a little. Let me . . .”

A high sound escaped her throat as he eased himself halfway inside her. Going absolutely still, he watched her closely, steeling himself to stop. But she gave him a tremulous smile, and the smile turned to triumph as she tilted her hips and took him deep inside. For a trembling moment she looked overwhelmed. Then she began to move again, slowly at first, then driving in a frantic rhythm that captured him, sent him up and up toward the heavens, into the heat of the sun. His shout of satisfaction mingled with her cries as she followed him into the heart of the fire.

His arms went around her, clasping her tightly, holding her to him,
knowing that he would never let her go.

When she raised her head, her eyes were shimmering. “Thank you. Not just for the pleasure. For the healing.”

His throat was so tight that he could only answer with a nod.

She slipped down beside him, cuddled against him, and his arm came up to cradle her close.

“So now you can’t back out on the marriage part,” he said, more gruffly than he intended. “We can do it over the comm lines, with the records office in Spenserville.”

“Rushing me into a signed contract?”

“Before you have time for second thoughts.”

“You’ve already had my second thought—and third and fourth and countless others,” she murmured. “I remember when my father sat me down and explained why I had to stop following you around. Until then, I didn’t understand much about ‘proper relations’ between
Farlians and Dorre. But my father made it very clear.” She sighed. “Still, I couldn’t stay away from you. That night when you found me in the garden, I ached to tell you to wait for me, so we could go off and be alone. I ached to be with you—to do all the things my father told me I could never do until I was married to a man of the proper rank—and race. But I understood that being with you would only make things impossible for both of us if anyone found out. So I walked away. Now I know what I was giving up.”

“Oh,
Kasi.”

“After the soldiers—” Her voice hitched. “After the soldiers, I thought I could never let a man touch me again. But then, I started imagining someone holding me in his arms, comforting me, making me feel whole again—and the man was always you. Never anyone but you. So that’s your answer. Yes, I want to marry you. I want to know you belong to me.”

“Always,” he breathed before kissing her, a long, sweet kiss of longing and wishes fulfilled.

When it was over, he looked down at her and vowed, “From now on, this place belongs to both of us. It’s
our
home. And I’m going to keep you safe here.” Then his face contorted. “But I’ve got to figure out where to get the money to buy more defenses.”

She gave him an uncertain look. “Maybe we don’t need more money. Maybe we just need more people.”

His eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown as he watched her eyes take on an excited glow.

“When I saw the estate,” she said, “I started dreaming—about refugees living here. Orphans,
Dorre and Farlians who’ve lost their homes. And good people who could make a community where all of us would be safe.” She stopped, flushed as she anxiously studied his face. “Maybe it’s a bad idea.”

“No!” With the adrenaline of excitement flooding his veins and his mind suddenly alive with ideas, he said, “It’s a wonderful idea! You’re right—children will accept people for what they are. And maybe some of the men I met in the hospital will want to join us. Men who never want another war. I’ll send for a few of them first so we’ll have a defensive force.”

She gave him a tremulous smile that touched him to the depths of his soul.

“The war was a horrible thing,” he said thickly. “But it brought you to me.”

Wordlessly, she nodded.

He pulled her close. “I came here not caring whether I lived or died. Now, I’m going to thank
Atherdan for every day I have with you—and for every day we can make a difference, at least, in our little corner off this damned, screwed up planet.”

She stroked his damp hair back from his forehead. “Oh, Link, I know why I fell in love with you. You’ve always had vision and courage. You were a leader even when you were a boy.”

“I forgot who I was,” he muttered. “But you’ve made me remember.”

And he clasped her tightly, the most precious thing in a world that had turned, overnight, from dark to light.

The End

NIGHTFALL

Chapter One

“What are you afraid of?”

“Nothing,” Caleb Raider snapped.

“You’ve watched enough porn vids to know what you’re doing.”

Caleb slicked back his dark hair. He’d washed it when he’d taken a shower, but maybe he should have cut it before coming to the spaceport. He gave his friend Jed Stevens a hard look. “That’s all you think it’s about? The stuff they do in porn vids?”

Jed made a snorting noise. “What else is there?”

“Plenty.”

“Like what?”

“If I knew I wouldn’t be worried about it.”

“So you are worried.”

“And you’re not?”

Jed looked down at his scuffed
syntho boots. “Maybe a little.” He jerked his gaze back to Caleb. “You’re one of the most successful homesteaders of this generation on Palomar. When your dad discovered that catborn mine on your property, you were set for life. Any woman would give her eyeteeth to have you.”

“Listen, my dad died in one of those damn tunnels trying to scrape the stuff out of the ground.”

“You’re still working the mine.”

“Because the money’s good, but I could go in there one day and not come out.”

“Stop thinking of worst-case scenarios.”

“I have to,” Caleb answered, and he wasn’t necessarily referring to the tunnels in the
catborn mine.

When Jed scratched his crotch, Caleb made a disparaging sound. “Women don’t like to see a guy touching himself down there.”

“How do you know?”

“I . . . read the material they gave us. Didn’t you?”

“I thumbed through it.”

“Well it looks like you didn’t read the lists of don’ts. Don’t hawk and spit on the ground. Don’t whizz against a wall in town. Don’t fart.”

“If there’s a fart up your ass, it comes out.”

Caleb sighed. “Ease it out.”

He and Jed had known each other for twenty years, since before the plague of ‘83 on Centorus. They’d been ten years old when their mothers had both been taken away to die in one of the hospital tents set up in the fields around Souter City. The plague had hit women harder than men, but because they’d been in a household where someone had gone under, they were quarantined. And when three weeks passed and they were all still alive, their fathers had been given a choice. Stay on decimated Centorus or make a fresh start on Palomar, a planet the Federation had recently opened for colonization.

Although the atmosphere and gravity were Earth-like, the rough, unfinished place held a host of known and unknown dangers. Opting for caution, the authorities were sending only men. Both dads had decided to go and take their young sons.

The colonists who arrived at the new capital city of Listerville hadn’t known that they were part of an experiment. Send men, and see if they survived. And if they could tame the planet, the next step would be to let them enjoy normal man-woman relationships.

Which was now.

Well, one ship of brides had landed a couple of weeks earlier, and the previous lottery winners had whisked their gals off to their farmsteads.

Caleb’s hand unconsciously went to the beamer in the holster fixed to the utility belt at his waist. There had been some unfortunate incidents at the spaceport last time. Still, he was following the law. In town, your weapon was set to stun, not to kill.

Both Caleb and Jed had won brides on the second shipment coming in. They’d listed their preferences, and the Office of Planetary Management had made the selections. They’d gotten holios and brief descriptions of the women who’d been assigned to them. And either party could terminate the arrangement within the first year if they thought it wasn’t working out.

Caleb’s gal was named
Beka Gunnarsen. And as far as he could tell from the holio, she was blond and pretty, with a delicate nose and mouth and large blue eyes. But why did she want to live on a farmstead in the middle of nowhere on Palomar? And was she even equipped to do it? At least the place had running water now. With the profits from the mine and selling his prized horses to homesteaders around the planet, he’d had the money to drill a well and outfit a septic system. But what was she going to think when she found out that the house was heated with solar panels, supplemented by a wood stove, and that there were only a few battery-powered lights—in addition to the oil lamps.

That hadn’t been true back on
Centorus. They’d lived in a modern city with all the standard amenities. You could go into a grocery depot and buy small packages of various foods any time you wanted. And there were other stores stocked with clothing or entertainment units you didn’t have to order in advance. Kids went to school and came home every day instead of spending months at the central ed complex, then getting the rest of their lessons over the comms units when they were needed at home for planting and harvest.

Caleb was hoping he didn’t come across like an uneducated
outworlder living in an animal pen. When he’d been told he was one of the lucky lottery winners, he’d gone on a shopping rampage, paying speed delivery charges for stuff like rugs, soft sheets, premium-quality toilet tissue, soap that didn’t burn your skin, and other stuff he thought a woman would appreciate.

He stopped worrying about toilet tissue when an announcement came over the public-address system.

“Attention, men who are here to meet wives. The shuttle from the mother ship has landed. Proceed immediately to bay three.”

The two friends glanced at each other.

Caleb swallowed. “This is it.”

“Yeah, good luck buddy.”

“You, too.”

He and the other twenty-four lucky guys headed for the landing bay. As they walked, Caleb stifled the urge to cup his hand over his nose and mouth and smell his breath.

The little ship was already inside the bay area when they arrived, but the door was still closed.

As he and the other men jostled for a good view, Caleb tried to see them from the eyes of a bride just arriving on a strange planet.

The guys all wore rough clothing, long-sleeved shirts, jackets, baggy pants held up by suspenders. Some had beards. Others, like him, had shaved. But all of them looked pretty scruffy, compared to men he’d seen on vids shot on more civilized planets.

Betraying their jitters, some of the husbands-to-be were talking and joking. But a hush fell over the crowd as the door of the ship opened.

The first person out was a man, which earned a round of boos from the waiting Palomarians.

Then a woman followed him, walking slowly and gripping a carry bag slung over her shoulder.

She was dressed in standard-issue trousers, a short coat that hid her upper body, and boots. At least they’d issued her suitable clothing for the climate and conditions. As she walked slowly down the three steps, all eyes focused on her. Caleb felt his heart start to race. She was blond, but he didn’t think it was Beka.

More women followed, and he anxiously studied each face. What if she wasn’t here? What if she’d changed her mind?

And then he saw her, looking scared and determined and fragile.

Damn. He hadn’t been able to tell her size and physique from the
holio. Even dressed for the backcountry, she hardly looked like she was going to survive a night on the homestead.

oOo

Beka Gunnarsen stared out at the crowd of men, all of them focused on her and the other women coming down the ramp into a totally unfamiliar environment. They were a scruffy lot, like characters in one of the historical dramas called Westerns that she’d seen on the amusement system back home.

Stop thinking about home, she ordered herself. It didn’t exist for her, not any more. She’d been in a bad situation, one it had been impossible to escape on
Elmen. But when she’d heard about the bride program for some of the planets that had been settled by men only, she’d known it was her best shot at getting away.

She’d made her preparations in secret, including the medical exam where they’d made sure she was prime breeding material. And the travel permit where she got away with fudging her background.

Now she was wondering if she’d been crazy to sign up. But at least she’d grown up on a farm before she’d run away to Mitchell City. She knew something about raising plants and animals, and she gathered from reading about Palomar that this was SOP on the homesteads.

She’d spotted Caleb Raider at the same time he focused on her. As their eyes locked, she felt a jolt of fear. She was going off with him to the outlands, fate knew how many
klicks from the spaceport, where he could do any damn thing he wanted with her. She ordered herself not to think about stuff like that as she studied him. He was well built, tall and fit, with a shock of unruly dark hair, and she couldn’t stop her mind from zinging back to the disadvantages of those qualities. He could hurt her out there if he wanted. Had she jumped from the frying pan into the fire?

She hoped not, and as she stared at him, she decided he didn’t have that mean-around-the-eyes look that she’d grown to fear.

He’d been frozen in place as he spotted her. Suddenly he moved, pushing his way through the crowd toward her. He wore a sidearm like he buckled it on every morning when he got dressed, and he walked confidently, but she sensed that the self-assurance was for this familiar environment. Below the surface, he looked as nervous as she felt. Which was a relief.

When they were finally face to face, he swallowed hard before asking. “
Beka?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad to meet you.”

“Same.”

They stood less than a meter apart, two strangers who were going to get to know each other a whole lot better. Or not.

Movement around her caught her eye and she turned to see some of the men pulling their new brides into their arms like they’d known each other for years. Caleb stood stiffly, still three paces from her, eyeing the carry bag slung over her shoulder. “That’s not all your stuff, is it?”

“No. I have a small crate in the cargo hold. I think they’re unloading now.”

“I can bring the hauler around.”

“Or you could meet me outside the gate.”

“Not a good idea,” he said flatly.

“Why not?”

“There were some incidents when the first bride ship landed.”

She kept her gaze steady, waiting for him to explain.

“Some guys were angry that they didn’t come up at the top of the list. They tried to snatch themselves a wife.”

She shuddered. “Is there a lot of crime on Palomar?”

“Probably more than where you came from.”

Maybe not, she thought, but she saw no advantage in disagreeing.

He waited with her while she collected her crate, a pretty small storage container for everything she owned. Or what she’d been able to scoop up quickly on her way out the door. Nothing fancy. Mostly rough clothes and things that might be useful on a frontier planet.

“Stay inside the gate. I’ll be back to get you in a minute. My hauler’s red with a yellow stripe.”

She watched him stride off, focusing on his broad shoulders and his long arms swinging easily at his sides. She knew almost nothing about him except what he’d written on the groom application, and she couldn’t help being worried about the next few hours. Or the next few days, come to that. So far he’d been okay here in town, but what about when they got to his homestead?

Other women were also gathered near the gate. And some were still with their men, waiting for their luggage.

She’d gotten to know Kenna O’Brien on the month-long trip from the space station that was the collection point for colonists to the outer worlds. They’d talked about what they hoped for on Palomar, and now they drew together as they waited for their men to return.

“What’s your guy like?” Kenna murmured.

“I don’t know much yet. But a little rough around the edges.”

“Mine, too.”

“I wonder if they’d let us talk over the
comms units.”

“I hope so.”

Focused on each other, they didn’t see one of the baggage jockeys edging up on them, until Beka felt a large hand close around her arm.