Amanda's Amorous Aliens (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (11 page)

“So that humans could travel to other planets faster,” she said with a confused smile. When he nodded for her to continue, the smile grew brighter. “The propulsion system I designed made the craft ten times faster than anything else we have on Earth. Eventually, if my theories are correct, I should be able to create a ship that can travel to planets within the solar system a thousand times faster than the ships that first carried man to the moon.”

It was a little frightening, in quite a selfish sort of way, to see her eyes light up as she spoke about her work. It was obvious that she was still very passionate about the work she’d been doing, but what truly scared him was what she was giving up to be with them. As much as he wanted her to stay, was it even fair of them to ask?

“To’huto, do you have any historical data for Earth between the years of 2018 and 2062?”

“I seem to have quite thorough accounts, actually.” Even the computer seemed surprised by that revelation. Perhaps Amanda had expected this very scenario when they learned where and when To’huto had come from.

“Is there a record of Amanda’s career?”

“Not really,” the computer said.

Sektannen rolled his eyes. “Define ‘not really,’ To’h.”

“Not really as in the 2018 test was a complete failure. Amanda lost her funding and The President’s support when it was
proven
that her theories were flawed.” Karriak tilted his head at the computers emphasis on the word “proven.”

“Explain,” Sektannen growled, perhaps noticing the same thing.

“Amanda Hasbro’s theories have since been proven correct, but she was never credited with the work, so she is not even mentioned in the planet’s history.”

“Well, that’s it, then,” Amanda said with an overly bright smile. “My career was a bust. Someone else took credit for my work. And I have four excellent reasons for staying here.”

She turned her face into Sektannen’s chest, obviously not as happy about the outcome as she claimed. Karriak moved to sandwich her between them, glancing at his brother. Sektannen nodded, and Karriak still knew his brother well enough to know what he was thinking.

They’d help her find a career that made her happy, and they would all love her for the rest of her life.

“Fuck,” Sektannen growled as he bumped his head on yet another doorway. “I seriously hate this part.”

Karriak nodded in agreement and carefully ducked the doorframe to avoid the same fate. “I’m actually looking forward to it this time. I feel like I haven’t made love to Amanda in years.”

In truth it had only been the last few weeks, but with both of them approaching their final telkobar they’d grown too large for intercourse to be comfortable for Amanda. For a while they’d found creative ways around the problem—and To’huto’s salve had been very handy for a time—but none of it really made up for the emotional closeness of being inside their woman.

“To’h,” Sektannen said as soon as they entered the surveillance room, “can you bring up yesterday’s video footage of Ardi and her family, please?”

Once they’d parked their ship over the right piece of Earth, finding Ardipithecus ramidus had been much easier. At the moment their research was mostly observation from a distance, but on rare instances when Ardi and her family stepped out of the shelter of the trees they’d been able to watch the interaction between them. So far the jury was still out on whether the Ardipithecus ramidus was related to Homo sapiens or not. Behaviorally speaking, Ardi could have belonged to either evolutionary line of ape or man or perhaps even one of her own. Not all species destined to be sentient survived the evolutionary process.

Unfortunately, the uncertainty meant they would need blood samples and further testing. They’d hoped to do this survey without having to bring one of them on board to do some quick medical tests, but it would seem the option was fast becoming their only choice.

“Anything new?” Amanda asked as she stepped into the survey room behind them. Apparently they weren’t the only ones scratching for work. Technically, Karriak-Sektannen should still have been the only person on the ship. With three of them pitching in it was getting done way quicker than they’d planned.

“We think Ardi might be pregnant,” Sektannen said as the female they’d named Ardi came into the camera view. “Compared to pictures taken several weeks ago, she certainly looks much thicker around the middle.”

“To’h?” Amanda asked the computer.

“On it,” To’huto said without waiting for her to actually ask her question. If there had ever been any doubt that Amanda had created the computer program, it had been wiped away every time To’huto correctly anticipated her wishes.

Several images of Ardi were placed side by side on the screen. It seemed quite obvious that the thickening around her middle indicated a pregnancy, and considering her relatively small frame, she was likely close to term.

“I hope she’s okay,” Amanda said with concern in her eyes. “I can’t imagine how frightening it would be to give birth without medical personnel and equipment all around me.”

“She should be fine,” Sektannen said reassuringly. “They seem to be a fairly healthy group, and she’s carrying enough body fat to survive for a while if they encounter some lean times.”

“That’s good,” Amanda said with a wistful smile. “It would have been nice to have children.”

She said it so quietly he almost missed it.

“Would have been?” Karriak asked, obviously having heard the same quiet words.

Amanda blushed. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m very happy, very,
very
happy, but with us being different species and all…”

“We’re compatible in a reproductive sense,” Sektannen said, trying to cut to the heart of the matter.

“We are?” she asked, sounding shocked. “We’ve been having unprotected sex for three months now. Don’t you think that maybe someone should have told me I could get pregnant?”

“So you don’t want to become pregnant?” Karriak asked, looking and sounding as confused as Sektannen felt.

“That’s not what I said!”

Sektannen stepped closer, trying to calm the potentially disastrous discussion down, but his woman took a step back. “Amanda,” he said quietly, praying for her to look him in the eye. He almost sagged in relief when she finally did. “Karriak and I aren’t able to impregnate you while we’re going through telkobar.”

Several emotions played over her face, but she finally asked, “You’ve been shooting blanks?”

He laughed at her choice of words. “Yes, beautiful, we’ve been shooting blanks the whole time we’ve known you. That will change, however, once we go through our final telkobar. We’ll need to discuss some sort of contraception before then, but I promise you we would have mentioned it long ago if it had been an issue.” He reached over and smiled when she let him touch her face with his fingertips. “We would never have made such a decision without you. We should decide together when to start a family.”

“I agree,” she said with a nod.

“So you do want to have our babies?”

“Of course,” she said simply. They must have both been staring at her with blank expressions because she finally looked at them both and then laughed softly. “I’m sorry. I just…well, I’d already convinced myself that life without offspring was okay, and now you’re telling me it’s possible and I suddenly want to jump up and down in celebration and run away screaming at the same time.” She took a deep breath and stepped closer to them both. Considering that they were nearly twice her height at the moment, she had a long way to look up. “I want children. I want children with you. I just want to make sure it’s planned properly…that we’re all in agreement on when is the right time.”

“Okay,” Sektannen said, lifting her up to press a kiss to her lips. Karriak moved behind her, balancing her tiny, fragile human body between their gigantic ones. “How about we start a family once we go through telkobar?”

She shook her head. “I was thinking maybe sooner,” she said with a mischievous grin. Considering that sex was pretty much out of the question at the moment and they were shooting blanks, he wasn’t sure exactly what she meant. He looked over her shoulder to see Karriak grinning.

Apparently, Sektannen was the only one missing the point.

“To’h,” Amanda said to the computer but with a wink in Sektannen’s direction, “please increase the oxygen levels in the bedroom.”

“Already done,” the computer said smugly as if it had anticipated Amanda’s request yet again. Sektannen shook his head slightly. It wasn’t really possible for a computer to be that intuitive, was it?

Although, considering that it was what the computer did without orders when she’d first come on board, and it was Amanda who’d programmed To’huto, then maybe it had been planned all along.

Amanda kissed his nose playfully. “Want to come make babies with me?” she asked with a wide grin.

He nodded, already moving toward the bedroom, his woman safely cradled in his arms.

Fuck, yeah.

* * * *

Karriak had only enough sense left to remember to strip off his clothes before they stepped into the bedroom. He’d never fit into them again, but he remembered well how irritating it had been to grow so rapidly and tear the super-tough, super-stretchy material with only his skin. Sektannen laughed when he noticed, but did exactly the same thing.

“Are you sure about this?” Karriak asked Amanda as she stood out of their way.

“I wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise.”

“But you only just found out that we’re compatible,” Sektannen added as he, too, managed to grab ahold of his sanity.

“Not being able to have babies with you was the one regret I had in choosing to stay,” she admitted with a sheepish smile. “Now that I know we can, well, I don’t want to spend another moment waiting. Unless…” She seemed to hesitate and Karriak finally realized she was worried that they were backing out.

“It’s what we want, too,” he said, leaning over to carefully press a kiss to her forehead. She slipped her hand into his, smiling widely when Sektannen reached for her other hand.

“It’s probably best if you go in first. Make sure you stay far enough away so we don’t hurt you,” Karriak said as memories of their first telkobar slipped into his mind.

She reached up, her hand barely touching his cheek as she smiled at him. “It really hurts, doesn’t it?”

“It kind of stings,” Sektannen said with a soft laugh, “but not for long.”

“Maybe you should go find that purple number you were wearing our first night together.”

“Or maybe I can just wait for you naked.”

“I like naked,” Karriak said with a broad grin. “Go. Do that.”

She laughed happily, stepped through the bedroom door, and let it close behind her.

“You ready for this?” Sektannen asked.

Karriak raised an eyebrow. He still knew his brother well enough to know he was referring to their rushed telkobar, not making babies with a woman they all loved. “Can you ever be ready for this?”

Sektannen clapped a hand on his shoulder, took a deep breath, and opened the door to the bedroom. “See you on the other side.”

* * * *

Amanda waited nervously for Karriak and Sektannen to come into the room. It was obvious that they’d wanted to speak without her there so she’d given them space. But of course, she was nosy enough to want to know what they were saying.

“To’huto, would it be possible to make me a robe…or something?”

“Relax, Amanda, third time’s the charm.”

“Huh?” She stared at the ceiling, unsure what the computer meant.
Third time?
It certainly hadn’t been the response she’d been expecting. When she’d asked for a robe she’d had a big, fluffy, cover-everything type of thing in mind, but she knew To’huto well enough to know she would have gotten something far sexier. But the “third time” comment really threw her.

“To’huto? What third time?”

“What?” the computer asked as if it had no idea what she was talking about. “Sorry, Amanda, Karriak and Sektannen don’t really like me monitoring this room. Good luck tonight.”

She wanted to ask more, but the door opened and Karriak and Sektannen walked into the room.

This time their telkobar split was a lot calmer—at least she knew what the hell was going on—but also far more emotional. Just like before, Karriak and Sektannen started to grow right before her eyes. They’d told her that their telkobar was still a month away, so it was quite humbling to see them go through so much pain just to be with her earlier. If she’d ever regretted staying, this alone wiped any doubts away.

This time she watched more closely as both men seemed to vibrate violently, their bodies dividing on a cellular level, the split far faster this time than it had seemed the first time. Within minutes she found herself face-to-face with four very handsome, very happy, very horny men.

And they were all hers.
Yumm-oh.

Kar and Riak were the first to get back on their feet. Sek and Tannen both grinned from their positions on the floor, but waved their brothers toward her good naturedly.