Alien Fighter's Baby (Captured Science Fiction Romance) (7 page)

Embarrassment flushed her cheeks.

Bran pulled his mouth back from kissing the tops of Starling’s breasts. He had her lifted up, until her soft mound rode the taut ridge of his erection. He looked into her eyes, which had turned to black emerald, colored by passion. It lifted his hopes and desire to see her as affected as he was, but—

“I’m really not an expert either,” he said gruffly. Starling’s gaze searched his face, and he could see the signs of disbelief starting to show through the pinkish glow that covered her features. “Really, Starling, I’ve never been with a real woman.” Then, he thought to add through his embarrassment, which was managing to shrink his erection, while he fought not to allow his cheeks to redden, “Except for you. But you know that wasn’t really—”

He left it hanging.

Starling’s eyes widened with some amazement. “I, err. Wow.” She petted his shoulders, then played with the short strands of hair at the back of his neck. “Really?”

He nodded, not really wanting to explain further. It had all started with him wanting to make her feel better. Man, he sucked at interpersonal conversation. But his mouth wouldn’t stop.

“Just sex bots,” he muttered, and turned his gaze from hers, while he felt that he was losing more stiffness. When Starling had admitted her naivety, why the hell hadn’t he said,
Okay, babe, I can handle it, let me show you
?

“Are they good?” she asked, with a surprised tone.

Bran shrugged, as he hitched her up his body, from where she’d been slipping down. He felt her leg latch tighter over his butt. He was surprised at her question, because he’d expected disgust.

“They’re machines. It’s hard to forget that. But they’ve got the basic mechanics down of how to have intercourse or how to give a blow jo—”

Oops. Bran slammed his mouth shut, certain by then he was red.

Starling stroked his jaw, and then fiddled with the ends of his hair. Damn, he liked her touch. “Blow job, huh?” she murmured.

“I’m not expecting you to— I mean, I wasn’t saying—” Christ, he sounded like an ass.

“I’ve heard of them. I’ve just never thought about actually doing one,” she said.

But she wasn’t demanding to get down so she could stalk away because she was upset with him, which confused him.

“I don’t want one from you,” he blurted. Then he nearly bit his tongue off, trying to stop the words. He swore a long streak in his mind. Idiot. “Let’s just take that out of our discussion here. That is not where this is going.”

She looked relieved, and he felt better. A little disappointed, because a man didn’t want to think that he was never getting a blow job again. However, he passed that by quickly, because other stellar things were definitely on the horizon.

“Maybe we should just kiss some more,” she said, tilting her head with flirtation in her eyes. “I do better at all of this when I’m not thinking.”

He nibbled at her lips. “So you’re saying kissing me makes you not think?”

She nodded, nibbling him back. “It makes me feel dizzy with pleasure.”

He tried not to grin against her mouth, but it wasn’t working.

“Is that what I feel? Dizzy with pleasure?” he asked.

Her soft, tempting mouth spread in a smile across his lips, and he halted any further teasing with a sweep of his tongue. She eagerly accepted the stroke, and it filled him with unique satisfaction, as if he was slowly winning the conquest. Slowly making her his. That sounded good, as he tasted her mouth and lost himself in the sensations.

He wanted her laid down some place where he could caress her and feel all her luxurious curves, so he started to carry her toward the rear of the Zach. Anticipation throbbed through his shaft, hardening it again, as they heatedly kissed and he reached the hatch-gate.

Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep.

The shrill alarm on the recon-tablet sounded, instantly making Bran tense and break their kiss. His gaze jumped to the grids.

“Hell no,” he snapped, and he dropped Starling onto the hatch-gate so he could turn and grab the recon-tablet.

“What is it, Bran?” Starling asked, and her voice was anxious as she tried to see the scans.

“We have company out there. Again,” he answered tersely.

B
ran had calculated different strategies
. He always had plans A through D ready to go in most tactical situations. He usually ended up using F as in a mucked-up mesh of all of his pre-thought plans. So it was a muck-up plan, which had him driving the Zach straight into the cavern … instead of driving out of it.

Starling looked at him as if he was crazy, but she’d managed to keep from saying it. They’d packed up everything ASAP and haphazardly tossed it back into the Zach, then jumped in and taken off. That was when he’d explained his plan to Starling.

“What if it’s blocked?” Starling asked, while she gripped the side door bar, as the vehicle rolled over some large boulders.

Bran knew from sending a fly-scope through the cavern that it was open on the other side of the mountain. What he didn’t know, because of the pitch-blackness of the subterranean cavity, was if it was indeed blocked in a way the Zach couldn’t fit through.

“There isn’t much the Zach can’t move or implode. But I don’t want to have to use the implode weapon, because it could alert them to our position.”

He glanced at her, wondering when he should tell her the rest. For their escape to work, he had to go back and cover their tracks. He decided to wait a bit and allow her to get comfortable with the cavern part of his plan. He had the surveillance grids he’d placed outside the entrance linked into the Zach, and he could see on the display panel that the enemy had started searching at the top and bottom of the mountain, systematically going to each opening, then working their way inward. That gave them time.

“Oh good,” she said, sending him a small smile. “It’s really a brilliant plan.”

If it works
, he thought, but a warm feeling filled his chest at her confidence in him and her praise. He couldn’t say he’d been praised much in his life. It felt good. Especially coming from Starling, whom he increasingly wanted to impress. And he wanted to keep her alive and free from capture.

Yeah, he was going to do everything in his power to make certain she and their baby stayed free from the rancid Grubs.

After about a mile inside the mountain cavern, they hadn’t hit anything that the Zach couldn’t handle. If it worked, the Grubs would lose their trail completely, and he and Starling could find some place on the planet to hold up.

Until the baby arrived. Then what would he do?

He’d not been willing to think about it before. It had been too new and too much of a surprise to deal with. However, he’d better start putting it into his long-term plans. Strategies started with basic objectives, and while he had no long-term plan yet, he would have one by the time the baby arrived.

“Starling, I’m going to stop the Zach here.” She looked over at him, as he slowed the vehicle to a stop. After he shut it off, he turned in his seat to face her. “I have to cover our tracks.”

He watched her look behind them. “Back there?” she asked, with her small nose scrunched, as if she were trying to figure something out.

He nodded slowly, as understanding dawned on her delicate features. He saw instant fear and uncertainty in her soft green eyes, but then they settled into determination.

“Bran, be careful,” she said.

He watched her mouth and those lips he’d kissed so long and so slowly. Lips he intended to kiss again, and the fact that someone cared whether he made it back filled him.

“Oh, I’ll make it back,” he replied confidently. “You and I, we have some unfinished business.”

With each word he’d spoken, he moved closer to her, until their lips touched, and then they kissed deeply.

Fifteen minutes later, Starling sat in the dark inside the Zach, after Bran had left. It was unnerving to just wait. Bran had said he would be gone more than a couple hours. How could she sit, wait, and worry that long? But she’d not said anything to Bran about it before he’d left on his mission to try to keep them from being captured again.

He was always saving them, and she was continually sitting in the dark worrying. However, she wasn’t going to turn the inside lights on, because she didn’t want to put Bran’s mission to wipe their tracks in jeopardy.

A bright light? Someone might see that from a distance.

“Starling, you there?” She nearly jumped out of the seat at the sound of Bran’s voice coming from somewhere on the front dashboard. “Sweetheart, just talk normal and I’ll hear you.”

She could tell by the background noise that he was moving.

“Bran?” she called, then added, “Are you sure they won’t hear us?”

“They won’t. I’m scrambling the frequency.”

She frowned, because she had meant by the loudness of their voices. She didn’t know anything about frequencies, but she trusted Bran had it all covered. He was like that. Very dependable. The best thing to have in a crisis.

Actually, she was very glad they could talk a little, because sitting in the dark waiting was hard.

“So how will you cover the tracks?” she asked, while she moved around to get more comfortable in the seat.

“The floor of the cavern has something like a dusting of sand. I just need to blow it, and then let it settle. I have a little gadget that I can sweep it with.”

His breath sounded even, and she knew he had to have walked a mile already. She’d be puffing. Maybe she needed to get in better shape to keep up with Bran. Of course, she should have thought of that before she’d been impregnated. That was going to lose her shape completely, and she thought her breasts already felt bigger.

“So you have to go all the way back?” she asked, thinking that was a long way.

“Yeah,” he said in his smooth, deep voice. “Once we lose them, we’re going to find a permanent base to set up shop in. Maybe another cavern in a mountain far from this one, and one that has a water source.”

“A home,” she whispered, not really realizing she’d said it aloud.

Bran cleared his throat, then said, “Well, yes, you’re right. It will be our home for a while.”

She’d felt a little embarrassed letting that slip, but his agreement soothed her, and then his deep voice saying “our home” made her sigh with longing, while her hand absently rubbed her round belly.

“How long have you been in the military, Bran?”

“Me?” he asked, and he sounded as if he’d never expected a personal question. It made her smile. “Well, since twelve,” he finally said.

She wanted to gasp. How could he … so young?

“I didn’t know you could enlist that young,” she said.

“Once they identify a candidate for Alpha-Force talents, they conscript at any age.”

The answer brought a thousand more questions, but she didn’t want to try his patience, so she opted for more of a comment.

“Your parents must have been sad for you to go, but proud at the same time.”

She heard him clearing his throat.

“Yes,” he said, then there was a moment of silence, before his voice came across sounding gruff. “I’m not going to lie: I was in an orphanage, Starling. My parents were never in the picture, and I thought being picked was a good thing. Well, until later.”

“I was raised by my aunt,” she offered, amazed they had the lack of parents in common. “My dad was a deadbeat and he never claimed me. My mom tried for less than a year, but she was hooked on space-coke, and my aunt never saw her again after she just left me there, and then disappeared. I think she has been dead a long time.”

“I’m sorry, baby.” His voice melted years of pain, it was so warm. “My parents disappeared on space-coke too. My birth mother must have waited just long enough to drop me, then she left me off in a bundle at a hospital.”

“Bran?”

“Yes?”

“I’m not sure what they did to me or did to the baby,” she whispered, with tears in her eyes. “The Grubs.”

She heard a hiss of breath on his end. “Starling, I have a med-pack AI. We can check you out. It doesn’t make any sense if they wanted to bree— Damn. I don’t know what to call it.”

Starling stiffened her spine. “Breed us,” she offered clearly.

“Yes,” he answered, in a low voice. “If they wanted to breed us, they wouldn’t want a defective baby from it.”

“There were tests,” she said.

“Man, I wish I was there for this conversation,” he muttered.

But she was glad that he wasn’t there. “I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to tell you face to face.”

There was a long pause, and she could tell he was still moving, then he said, “I’m going to believe those tests were just for gathering information on humans, to use against us.”

Starling felt a little shocked. She’d never thought of that before. “Do you think?” she asked hopefully. Any testing was bad, but if it weren’t to pervert her baby, then she’d be relieved.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” he said with a firm voice.

She was going to believe Bran, because the alternative was that their baby would be part alien or something. Just the thought of that made her tremble.

“Starling? We will check. It’ll be all right.”

“Yes, Bran,” she murmured, never so glad she wasn’t alone with the burden. “I hope you will help pick a name.”

“Okay.” Bran didn’t sound very certain. “Yeah, of course, we need to.”

“I guess the med-pack AI you have can tell us if it is a boy or a girl,” she whispered, somehow needing to push the reality on Bran.

She could hear him clear his throat again.

“I’m nearly there.”

She waited, leaning toward where his voice emerged from the front dash on the Zach.

“Knowing that makes it pretty real,” he said lowly.

She nodded, then realized Bran couldn’t see her, so she said, “Yes.”

“Give me a few, babe, while I scout this out and start sweeping back.”

“Be careful,” she whispered.

Starling sat for nearly an hour with nothing from Bran. At first she didn’t worry, but the longer it took, the more she began to fret. Maybe it was the pitch-blackness gnawing on her nerves, but she kept looking back, hoping to see something.

Bran radioed, “I’m almost there.”

She was so anxious that she rushed out of the Zach and ran back toward him. Only she’d not taken into account how dark it was. Luckily, Bran carried a small light, and she raced toward that illumination in her bare feet.

She knew his special eyes had to see her, because his arms were out to catch her, as he demanded, “Is everything secure?”

He hitched her up as if she weighed nothing, and she naturally circled his waist with her legs, crushing her big breasts into his hard chest.

“It’s secure,” she cried breathlessly. “I just”—she searched for a reasonable reason—“missed you,” she finally blurted, hugging him tightly.

Suddenly, he chuckled. “I’ll take this every time I go away and come back,” he said, as he kept walking, while carrying her latched to him.

They could have sex just like this, if they had a wall to lean against.

The thought made her blush as she felt the hardness of Bran’s erection growing against her mound, which was tingling and snug over it. She was surprised at her sexual thought, but she also realized that she fiercely wanted him.

“Did you see anything?” she asked. “Will they find us?”

His hard mouth brushed hers. “I think we are covered, Starling. This just might work.”

What she really wanted to ask him was if they had time to go back to where they’d left off. As she actually rubbed her clit against his hardness, then she managed to hold back her sweet moan over it.

Bran rumbled a noise she thought sounded as if he liked that, and his big hand kneaded her behind deeply, while the tip of his tongue skimmed her lips. Her mouth opened for him and she felt her back pressing to the side of the vehicle. That excited her, because maybe her little fantasy could come true.

“Damn it, I’m not taking you on the side of the Zach,” Bran muttered.

All Starling’s horny hopes started to deflate.

“We can,” she urged, kissing around his mouth, while grinding against his hard erection.

“You’re so damn hard to resist,” he said. “But, sweetheart, I want it to be good for you too this time.”

Starling’s breath stalled, then in a very small voice, she said, “I climaxed, Bran.” It was too dark to see his face, because the light he had was pointed off to the side of the cavern, but she could see the pinpoints of his amazing irises. “That first time,” she added.

A big punch of air left his chest. “I thought I’d rap—I mean hurt you.”

She climbed down off him, and then she leaned against him, hugging him tight. “They forced us both, but you made it bearable, Bran.”

His hand fisted in her hair as his deep voice washed down on her. “So you understand why I want it to be better this time.”

She nodded against his chest as he rubbed her scalp with his knuckles.

“Soon,” he promised. “We need to get to the other side of this cavern first, and see if we see the alien enemy there.”

So there would be no having sex in the middle of their escape, huh?

Darn it.

She was finally becoming a sensual woman who wanted her hot man, instead of a frigid scaredy-cat, but the timing was all off.

“Okay, Bran,” she said, and then she kissed him chastely.