I smiled, feeling pleased and ready to be pampered. He reached toward my feet and started to massage, all without my asking. That in itself was a miracle to behold. Zane never did that for me in the past, but I sure as hell did it for his gross feet.
Tenderly, he cleaned up my legs, pausing briefly to admire as the water drifted down and across my smooth skin. Lowering his mouth, he kissed the bottom of my thigh, tickling me. My stomach jumped with excitement. I wasn’t ready for more quite yet, but it was already so tempting. Moving his hands up my thighs, he caressed every delicate curve. He glided his palm slowly, tantalizing my nerves.
“What else is on your mind?” he asked as he put more soap into the tub.
“There are too many questions to ask,” I muttered, rolling my head back against the wet porcelain.
He smiled and stepped behind me, carefully lowering his face near my cheek. He kissed me, leaning his forehead against my temple. “Beautiful, I can see it in your eyes. We both are recalling the same memory.”
The one annoying thing about falling for a beastly alien was they apparently could read your mind at the drop of a hat. Steam rose around my shoulders, tracing my eyes. I fell into a memory of when I was a little girl. My father finally let me into his world. But I saw too much. Something happened. Something bad.
“When I was a young girl, we met,” I said.
His lips met the crook of my neck. His hands worked with such care. All of his movements were dedicated to me. “I remember,” he said. “We’ve been connected for some time.”
“I remember some of it. ‘Course most of it’s like a dream. When I think about it, it’s hard to put myself in my own shoes,” I said, shaking my head slightly with confusion.
“That moment was the start of your life,” he said, slow and soothing. “By sheer accident, you saw something not many others had.”
He used a gentle sponge across my stomach, shifting up and beneath my breasts. His movements led him back down to my quivering pussy. I bit my lip and hurriedly breathed in through my nose then issued a light whimper of pleasure. “It’s not that, though,” I whispered, mind still fixated that day with my father. “Something happened there. Something to do with this place.”
“Shh...” he whispered. “We can talk later, after you meet the others.”
I turned my head, and he traced his thumb across my cheek, eyes focused on the glow in mine. He looked at me as if we had known each other for a long time. I felt it, too, a deep and longing bond. He kissed me once more, tongue heavy against mine, sliding near the back of my throat before retreating to his own mouth again. His hand moved the soapy sponge between my thighs, falling directly onto my throbbing clit, and I closed my thighs to really feel it.
What happened so long ago, I wasn’t sure. Right now, that didn’t matter so much. I had somebody who swore to protect me, to be there for me when life felt too difficult to get through on my own. I never belonged at home. On Earth.
I rocked my hips forward and whispered, “Use the showerhead.”
A filthy grin formed across his handsome face.
I wasn’t going home. I was going to stay here and live the life I deserved.
9
Donovan
I searched into the stars for the thousandth time, weighing my conscience heavily. Whenever our eyes were forced open by the current of time, there was just too much at stake. The others felt it, too, I am sure. Mag, with his proclivity toward chaotic displays of force. Cadmar with his wanderlust sense of direction and strong heart. The one thing my counterparts could never fathom was that all of this was truly out of their control. Adeline was her own woman, and though it felt like our calling to find her, we had to let her decide what she wanted to do. And give up, for that matter.
That’s how I knew she was the one. When we slumbered, we dreamt of destiny. I saw her face, as did the others. We all connected to her on a deep level, but in a way, I felt as if we were the same. The only difference was how I was made to live. My instincts. My primitive ways...
We were made to be this way. Violent creatures. Monsters, beasts, aliens. Those were their words for us, not ours. We did not give ourselves a name. In all actuality, we weren’t that different.
They never understood us. But I could get over their contempt for us. There was one who kept searching for us. Throughout her entire life, she sought to find another way into our world. And somehow, she dug deep enough. She found a way in.
What a glorious day...
We didn’t have a home. Not anymore. We’d lived a lifetime trapped by our hallucinatory existence. Now, I wasn’t sure of another way. I still didn’t know how we existed here, but I didn’t care to know why anymore. The only place I wanted to know more about was the other side to our dimension: earth.
The types of humans and beastly creatures we had come across here were in the millions. I had seen things God himself might cower from. But there was never any answer as to why we existed. I looked through the travelers’ photographs and belongings. I found and saw all sorts of fancy and wonderful things. Still, I couldn’t make sense of their world. All I had were my instincts. She could tell me everything I wanted to know.
They would subdue, rut, and gore her. Mag would prop her on a spike, and Cadmar would cut off a tit as a souvenir. I was no better than them, and I would probably react the same. That instinct again. Unfortunately, I was given what I was given. Who knew how our makers behaved? I shivered to think about it.
A cool breeze wafted over my languid body. A yawn fell from my mouth, but I felt the air change around me, so subtle. Something was wrong.
Mag. Cadmar. Talk to me...
There was no sign of either of them anywhere. I circled, feeling the density of the forest weigh on me. Mag had found her. I felt it, could see fragments of their encounter every time I blinked. But he let himself get carried away. The other one. He let him go...