Bad Boy Romance: Nick (Romantic Suspense Alpha Male Romance) (New Adult Rock Star Contemporary Short Stories) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 2) (38 page)

“If you go really, really
slowly,” Adriana said, licking her lips. “I think I can do that again without
passing out.”

Joran smiled, leaning in to
kiss her on the lips. That was one aspect of human mating rituals that he
thought would definitely enrich the process of his own people’s mating; there
was something intimate about the act, even more so than the coupling itself, or
the tasting of each other’s sex organs.

“I enjoy kissing you,” Joran
told Adriana. “It is something I have never experienced.”

Adriana smiled against his
lips. “Just how long are you going to be here on the planet?” she asked him.
Joran, remembering something he had seen in one of the research videos he had
watched about human sexuality, turned onto his back, lifting Adriana on top of
him. He felt his penis beginning to harden, remembering how good she had
felt—how good she had tasted—the first time. He was more than eager to
experience her body again.

“Indefinitely,” Joran
explained. “If we are able to cross your genetics with ours, the hope is to
develop that new strain. We will have to stay here to continue research.”

Adriana shook her head. “And no
one knows who you are or what you are?”

Joran nodded. “We all have
human identities. It is important to our work.” He moved Adriana on top of him,
shifting underneath her until the tip of his cock brushed against her
already-soaking labia. “No more questions now,” he told her firmly, smiling.
“We need to repeat our experiment.” Adriana chuckled, looking down at him with
a mixture of amusement and desire.

Joran felt a wave of heat as
she sank down onto him achingly slowly, taking his member inside of her by
inches. She was every bit as tight as before, and as her inner muscles flexed
around him, Joran gripped her hips, fighting back the urge to fill her up in
one fast, hard thrust. She was so tight, her slickness the only thing making it
possible for him to push past the resistance of her body; as Adriana reached
out to steady herself, her hands on his shoulders, he felt her muscles tighten
around him convulsively.

They began to move together,
and Joran pulled Adriana down against his body, finding her lips with his own,
kissing her over and over again as he felt the pleasure coursing through him.
He let his hands wander over her enticing body, exploring and testing,
caressing her the way he had seen in videos, teasing her as she rocked her
hips, taking him deeper and deeper. “I want to do this every day,” Joran
murmured in her ear.

Adriana, moving a little bit
faster, moans leaving her lips, nodded. “I am—I agree. I think…I think that is
a wonderful idea.”

Joran felt his muscles
beginning to tense, his body tingling with the pleasure of higher and higher
arousal. He wrapped his arms around Adriana’s body, holding her close as he
thrust up into her over and over again. While he now knew that she did not have
to achieve orgasm to be impregnated, Joran couldn’t help but want to bring this
woman to climax—it felt so good to feel her pleasure, to hear her crying out.
He brought her breasts to his mouth one by one, worshiping the mounds of flesh
with lips and tongue, and when Adriana gasped and shuddered against him, Joran
knew that she was close.

He held back long enough to
feel the first convulsive spasms of her pleasure as Adriana reached her third
orgasm, and then let go of his own release, groaning and shouting in his native
language as he flooded her with his seed. He knew that there was no chance that
she could become pregnant—but he knew that this coupling, this mating, was
about much more than reproduction.

“Will you…help me research?”
Joran asked, smiling as they both collapsed against the bed together.

“Sure,” Adriana said
breathlessly. “As long as…you keep…doing
this
to me.”

****

He filed his initial report a
few weeks after he had met with his subject—the human woman that he was
compelled to mate with, again and again—for the first time. Joran was learning
more and more about the complexities of human sexual reproduction with every
meeting he had with Adriana. After they had satisfied their mutual needs, he
had collected genetic material from her and analyzed it; there would be many
barriers and obstacles to overcome in bringing human genetics into the
Khateen’s genetic material, but he was more than willing to spend the rest of
his indeterminate stay on the planet learning the nuances of Adriana’s
sexuality, and the contours of her body.

Joran glanced over at the bed
where Adriana was fast asleep, exhausted from their efforts at exploring each
other’s bodies. He smiled to himself. He had not thought when he had embarked
on the mission that he would meet a mate; he had never considered the
possibility that a human woman would suit him. He stood up from his console,
moving towards the bed. Perhaps in a few minutes, Adriana would awaken, and
they would be able to experiment some more. The idea sent a hot jolt through
him; Joran could barely wait.

THE
END

“Flight One eighteen now
boarding first class passengers at gate three B; would first class passengers
on flight One eighteen to Puerto Vallarta please begin boarding at gate three B
now?”

Charlie was standing next to
the terminal’s enormous conveyor belt, staring blankly at one spot and waiting
for his vermillion duffle bag to float before his unfocused eyes. He was
distantly aware that he hadn’t moved in a full minute—maybe more—but he was too
absorbed in the task of trying to monitor every change in his environment to
care about how strange he looked. Evan wasn’t around yet to remind him to be
“normal,” so he was happy to keep twitching his ears toward the sound of
rapidly moving feet even though the tiny human bones in his ear canal weren’t
nearly as sensitive as the ones in beast form. He wanted to be alert, but his
eyes were fatigued from the flight, and it was starting to make him jumpy.

Captain Roberts, please call
gate seven; your co-pilot is holding. Captain Roberts, please head to the
nearest courtesy phone to speak with your co-pilot who is holding at gate
seven.

The announcements were clashing
with his train of thought more solidly than usual, and he knew why;
automatically, his right hand moved to the pocket of his jeans, where Natalie’s
letter was folded into a compact rectangle already worn from being handled so
much. He’d memorized its contents, but he kept pressing it to the tip of his
nose to try to drag a few more particles of her scent into his lungs. Even
months into her pregnancy, she still retained the same base scent: warm honey
and sharp, sweet smoke, a heady aroma that warned of an intensity he knew could
be fatal. She was the strongest person he knew, and the brightest; she often
taught him something in her missives or phone calls without even meaning to,
and never backed down when she knew she was right.

I got into a fight with Ariel
while she was helping me pack up the basement because she wouldn’t believe that
bears don’t really hibernate. My mother called and complimented me on my
all-fruit dressing; she usually hates avocados, I was so surprised. Did you see
that news story about all those diners that got sick—can you believe that
waiter thought salt in coffee was a harmless prank? Grade school mistake.

This time, however, her letters
had been cheery but sparse; they lacked the bubbly detail that usually padded
out the thick envelopes she sent weekly, and sometimes even twice a week.
Natalie no longer spoke of her chance meetings with old high school friends, or
whose wife was having a hard time dealing with loneliness; now it was just
pregnancy symptoms and a series of oddly detached retellings of incidents
around their neighborhood. Their last phone call—right before the plane took
off—had been the worst.

“Nat, I know something isn’t
right.” His hand was sweaty so the slim black cell phone kept threatening to
squirt from his grip. Evan was buckling into the seat next to him and fixating
on the threads at the hem of his shirt, but Charlie knew he could hear every
word. “I can hear it in your voice. I see it in your letters. Evan says Ariel
isn’t acting right, either.”

“Charlie, everything is fine,”
Natalie said soothingly for the fifth time in as many minutes. “A few busted
windows, some kids jumping other kids…you know it happens.” The gentle rasp of
her voice was carefully avoiding taking on heavy undertones, but Charlie could
almost see her anxiously winding her dark brown hair around one finger as she
paced around the living room. “We’ll start the move again when you get here.
It’ll be fine.”

“Why did you have to stop the
move in the first place?” Charlie asked. “I don’t understand that. The boxes
were all finished five months ago. You said someone damaged the truck?” He
remembered when he was younger having his property stolen or smashed when
people found out he was a shifter. It was illegal, but it never stopped them,
and the cops were often in on the games, since the shifter population
intersected with the inner cities so often.

“The axle is bent,” Natalie
answered, interrupting his reverie. “I want you to take a look at it before I
get it messed with first. You know I’m useless with that sort of thing.”

Charlie closed his eyes, trying
to keep the panic from spilling into his voice. His broad chest was tight with
anxiety. “No, I don’t know that, Nat. Are you kidding me? I was with you when
you made our old mechanic cry.”

“And I never got to know the
new one!” Natalie retorted, her voice shrill. “I’m afraid of pissing this one
off, too. Charlie, I don’t get what the big deal is. You’ll be home soon, and
you’ll have all your answers then.” Her forced nonchalance snapped something
inside him, and suddenly he was shouting.

“The big deal is that something
crazy is happening and my wife is acting like it isn’t!”

A red-faced man twisted around
in his seat to look at Charlie after he finished, and Evan laid a hand on his
broad shoulder. The marine swallowed his anger with extreme difficulty and
lowered his voice.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured into
the phone. “But I’m scared. Evan is scared, because Ariel won’t talk to him
about their garage burning down— he had to hear it from Riley. You’re not
telling me what’s stopping us from moving, and I know it’s more than the truck,
because we have more than two friends with trucks and SUVs. And I’m hearing
about people—grown men and women, not just kids—getting beaten and left in the
streets. What’s going on, Natalie? And why won’t you tell me about it?”

The silence stretched on for so
long that Evan turned to look at Charlie, his brown face forming a question
when he didn’t hear Natalie speak. Charlie was about to ask if she’d hung up on
him when she drew a deep, shaky breath and slowly let it out.

“Charlie. I…just trust me,
okay? You’re right. You’re absolutely right, but I need to you trust me. Okay?”

It was the raw quality of her
voice that finally broke the shell of tension around his heart and allowed him
to relax. “Okay,” he answered. “Okay. I trust you.” Even though this is killing
me.

“Thank you,” Natalie said, and
there were tears in her voice. He realized then that the weight of holding this
back from him was killing her, too. Whatever this is had better be worth it.

His bag came crawling by him on
the carousel just as he snapped out of his memory, and he almost didn’t catch
it in time. Charlie thrust one long arm out and closed his fingers around the
bag’s thick strap just before it disappeared behind the curtain to be spun
around the carousel again.

“Nice catch, Flax,” Evan said
behind him. He’d already located his suitcase and was pulling it behind his
body as he strolled up to Charlie, his wiry frame far too relaxed given their
situation. “Got everything?”

“Yeah.” Charlie slung the bag
across his shoulders and playfully popped his friend on one of his narrow
shoulders. “How the hell are you so calm, Reynolds? You’re like a wind-up toy
whenever we’re on deployment, and you’re the one who told me about all the
attacks. Are you high?”

Evan grinned and fell in step
beside his taller friend as they headed for the exit. “Just on life, Flax.
Besides, we’re finally home. That means we can get to the bottom of this.”

Charlie looked sharply at Evan,
whose dark chocolate face was mostly hidden behind a pair of huge sunglasses,
but he could still see the grim determination on his face. “You sounded…very
certain about that,” he said slowly, dragging his green eyes up and down his
best friend’s stoic expression. “Did you find out something more when you
called Ariel in the bathroom?”

Evan gave a single curt nod
that set Charlie’s heart racing.

“Well why didn’t you say so!”
Charlie yelped, and several people in the crowd ahead of them turned toward his
raised voice. He felt blood rush to his cheeks and he cursed himself for losing
control of his volume again.

A man caught his gaze in the
crowd, short and incredibly tanned, with dark blue eyes and a full mouth
pinched together in what seemed to be surprise. His sandy blonde hair was being
lovingly ruffled by a lovely copper-skinned woman with black curls who seemed
to be trying to style his wavy coif, but he was staring so intently at Charlie
that he was ignoring all of her muttered instructions. Charlie felt a curious
ripple of power pass between them, and it intensified as they got closer.
Eventually the charge was unbearable, and he broke their gaze and lowered his
head as they hurried past the couple. What was that about? Charlie thought, but
as soon as they were out of the doorway and under the blazing Southern
Californian sun, he grabbed Evan by his forearm and pulled him into the shade
of the parking garage to their right, the incident driven from his mind.

“Okay.” When they’d stopped,
Charlie pushed both of his hands through his short black hair excitedly,
willing his pulse to reign itself in. “Tell me. Tell me what you know.” It’s
the cops again, he thought. Trying to find a reason to stamp out the shifters,
like last time.

“It’s more stuff about the
abductions,” Evan said slowly, his voice cautious and deep. He slid the
sunglasses from his face, letting his brown eyes pierce Charlie’s as he spoke.
“And it does seem like they’re targeting younger people…but it’s not just
jumping, and it isn’t random.”

“What do you mean?”

Pain and anger flashed across
Evan’s dark brown eyes, and Charlie caught the scent of the feline beast
stirring beneath his skin. “The young men being attacked are sometimes being
taken, and they turn up weeks later across the country, or are found with their
memories gone, and part of a completely different pride. They can only be
identified by their fingerprints. And sometimes they’ve been…mutilated.” Evan
paused and swallowed hard.

Charlie shook his head slowly,
trying to understand his best friend’s implications. “Mutilated?”

“Like…eunuchs,” Evan finished.
“Only some of them, though. And the women…sometimes they’re raped, and if
not…they’re mutilated too.”

Charlie shuddered, and the icy
terror he’d banished from his blood only hours before came rushing back to fill
his veins and freeze his muscles in place. “So someone is trying to wipe us out
with a cull,” Charlie said vehemently. “It’s the lawmen again. They hate us,
Evan. They don’t under—“

“I don’t think it’s the cops,”
Evan cut in, and he dropped his eyes. “The targets don’t make sense.”

“Evan, they’re stopping us from
reproducing,” Charlie spat. “They’re killing us. They tried this a decade ago,
and I always knew they’d try again. Their targets make perfect sense. They’re
targeting lions, and making sure they can’t ever breed when they’re finished.
Setting us up and killing us indiscriminately didn’t work so well last time.”
Rage was pounding in his ears, and the heat of the afternoon was finally
starting to weigh down his body. “Who else could it be? Why would you think it
could be anyone else?”

Evan looked deeply unsettled by
his thoughts; he even put his shades back on before he spoke again. “Whoever
this is seems to be targeting young lionesses to impregnate them. Some of the
girls are four months pregnant. And the ones they’re mutilating are…Charlie,
they’re already pregnant.”

“Already pregnant?” Charlie
echoed numbly. “They’re…already…?”

Evan nodded. Charlie stared at
him, listening to the blood rushing around his ears as he processed what Evan
was telling him. Someone was beating and raping lions, and taking their young
right from the womb. This was strategic. This was a genocide.

“It isn’t cops,” Charlie
whispered. He turned on his heel and stalked away through the parking garage,
leaving Evan to trot behind him toward their shuttle.

“I told you it wasn’t cops,”
Evan said, annoyed, but Charlie wasn’t listening; he was too busy assembling
the growing puzzle in his mind and trying to formulate a plan.