The Gate Jumpers Saga: Science Fiction Romance Collection

by Elin Wyn

  “Here,” Stephine said, sighing as she properly squirmed out of her panties and spread her naked legs around him. “Better?” she asked.

  “Oh,” he chuckled, shaking his head as he ran a hand up her thigh. “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

  If she found anything exceptional about his body, she wasn’t saying. Not that Dojan was worried – he’d always been told that he was an exceptionally good lay. Well, at least by Saros standards.

  “Verdomme,” Stephine hissed, twisting against the bed as Dojan slipped his hands under her shirt and firmly felt her out. “Stop teasing,” she demanded, her hands finding his wrists, stopping him.

  “Heh,” he grinned, licking his lips at the beauty beneath him. She wasn’t small, not the slender slight of a woman that so many Saros women brought up on the sea grew to be. Rather, Stephine’s body was a physical embodiment of the threat behind her glares and grimaces; she was toned, her muscles flexing as she stretched and curved under his pale hands. “You first,” he whispered, bending to kiss her hip.

  “Oh, I can tease,” she warned with a smirk, reaching out a hand to grip his dick. He hissed when she wrapped her fingers around it, pumping before he’d even had a chance to just enjoy her touch alone.

  “Fine,” he growled, dropping low to the bed as he shuffled backwards a bit. He went too far for Stephine, and though he regretted losing her hand, he was even more excited for her reaction to one of his best talents.

  Glancing up as he pressed a final kiss to her inner thigh, he bent between her legs.

  “Gah!” Stephine gasped. She hadn’t been expecting him to kiss her there, he could tell, and he wondered if this was uncommon among the people of Earth. Still, she was moaning and groaning, her back arching to every swipe of his tongue, and it only made Dojan want to pleasure her more.

  “D-Dojan,” she whimpered, her fingers scratching at the bed. He’d never heard her utter his name so desperately, and it made him throb against the blanket. “I-I’m not going to last,” she swallowed, panting. “Come up.”

  He pulled away with a final kiss, and grinned, “Who would I be to keep a lady waiting?”

  “Only the worst type of alien,” she rolled her eyes, grabbing his shoulders to force him up faster.

  “Well then,” he chuckled. But she wasn’t hearing it – the moment he was above her again, she pulled him into a kiss. Dojan only deepened it, grinding against her as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

  He entered her naturally, lining himself up while he distracted her with hungry kisses and a hand rubbing her breast. She only moaned when he pushed against her, and he had to turn his head to breathe as he pushed into her velvet heat.

  “That good?” she huffed sarcastically.

  “Better,” he growled, his eyes closed while he just felt.

  Stephine, though – she was insatiable.

  “Move,” she bucked against him, and he gasped at the spark that it sent up his dick. He couldn’t help it – he started thrusting.

  “Yes,” Stephine sighed, hanging on as Dojan finally let loose.

  “Fuck,” Dojan hissed, his eyes darting all over her as he scrambled to memorize Stephine in that moment. The way her breasts bounced with every pump of his hips, or how her short brown hair spread out around her head while she smiled wide.

  She was perfect.

  “Godverdomme,” Stephine muttered. Then, to Dojan, she said, “I’m close.”

  “Well,” he smirked, “Let’s get you all the way, then.”

  He sped up, but also took note to make his movements more disciplined, pushing in deep and fast rather than shallow and mindless. He was rewarded when Stephine seemed to tense up and dig her blunt nails into his back, gasping as she raised her hips against him once more.

  Dojan would’ve loved to have watched her face and soak in every detail, but in her climax she was clenching around him, and he found that he couldn’t hold out much longer himself.

  “Steph—!” he shuddered, pumping into her once, twice, and finally a third where he stayed, relishing the feel of that sweet heat as he came.

  He gave himself a moment before he rolled to Stephine’s side, throwing an arm under his head as he came down from his high. “This must be,” he panted, “What your captain experiences when you jump through one of your gates. That fire, in her bones,” he said.

  “M-maybe,” Stephine shrugged, her chest heaving as she caught her breath.

  “Maybe,” he agreed.

  Dojan awoke confused. He couldn’t remember having fallen asleep, and when he tried to sit up there was a weight on his chest. Blinking away the blurred edges of his vision, he glanced down. Stephine was resting on him, her mouth slightly open as she breathed deeply in her sleep.

  Dojan froze as the implications of what they’d done last night set in.

  He’d slept with her. Well, they’d slept together – it had been a very mutual engagement, and he certainly didn’t regret the act. It’d been fun, their dance, and holy fuck, it’d been the best that Dojan had ever had.

  But it was still an incredibly bad idea to mix business with pleasure, which was why he never did it. If his moral code was a list, it’d have two bullet points: one, listen to the captain, and two, don’t sleep with a comrade.

  So why had he given in last night?

  “Nnnh,” Stephine mumbled in her sleep, and she turned away, rolling off of his chest and onto his arm. Dojan moved to pull her back to him, but then he paused, panic running through his head.

  What was he doing?

  “Shit,” he muttered, ever so slowly pulling his arm out from under her. She groaned, but didn’t wake, and he sat up with a sigh of relief.

  He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to her.

  Rising as quietly as possible, he stepped over to the heap of clothes on the floor. He patted his shirt down, satisfied to feel the vial still safely stored within the seam. Pulling it on along with his pants, he glanced around for his shoes. He frowned when he found food instead – or, rather, the lack thereof. Apparently, they’d gone through all of the berries last night, and half of the juice jugs were empty.

  How many times had they gone at it?

  “Dojan?” Stephine called, her voice thick with sleep as she groggily sat up and rubbed her eyes.

  Hell, but wasn’t she a vision. Dojan stared at her, his hands empty as they clenched and unclenched at his sides. He was nervous, but over what he wasn’t quite sure.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked suddenly, moving to stand up.

  “You miss nothing,” he said softly, staring into her eyes as she moved closer. “Do you?”

  “Did something happen?” she asked, frowning.

  He wanted to tell her no. That everything was fine – that they should go back to bed together, and that she looked beautiful.

  That he loved her.

  “Oh, gods,” he choked, moving a hand to cover his mouth.

  “Dojan?” Stephine reached up to touch his arm, but he backed away, his eyes wide as he realized.

  “We bonded.”

  Stephine’s eyebrows furrowed as she scowled. “We what?” she asked.

  “You…” Dojan felt his heart sink. “You don’t even know what bonding is?” Hell, did they even bond on her planet?

  “Sorry to be so unfamiliar with how this galaxy does things,” she crossed her arms defensively.

  Dojan didn’t want that; didn’t want things to go back to how she had treated him before, like he was an obnoxious stranger who talked too much. And he didn’t want to fall back into the role of the idiot from Saros, not for her.

  “Bonded,” he repeated, his mouth dry as he tried to swallow. He moved slowly, and took a seat on the bed off to the right. It was perfect, untouched, while the other had blankets strewn all about and stains of calyder berries on the pillows.

  “And what is it?” she asked, suddenly filling his vision as she sat down on that messy bed opposite him.

  “It’
s,” he said shakily, running a hand through his blonde hair. The strands felt heavy on his neck, sticking to his skin from where he was sweating. “It’s a biological thing,” he finally sighed, his shoulders slumped as he tried to think of a way to explain it. On his planet – hell, on all of his crewmate’s planets, to boot – bonding was never explained because it was just an accepted part of life. “Like puberty, or birthing a child,” he said. “It’s just something that happens.”

  Stephine still hadn’t stopped frowning, and she asked slowly, “Is it a bad thing?”

  He couldn’t help it, he laughed. “No,” he waved her off, and a part of him felt weird for not having realized that he wasn’t wearing his gloves earlier. “It’s actually considered a very good thing.”

  That made her eyes flash. “Is it a sex thing?” she asked dryly.

  He opened his mouth to tell her no, but paused, thinking better of it. The sex did kind of seal the deal.

  “Dojan,” she growled, and fuck this was not the time for his dick to get interested. “You’d better explain yourself, and explain it well.”

  “Bonding is, well, bonding,” he said hopelessly. “It’s when a person bonds with another person, both mentally and physically.” Very, very physically.

  “So, this is because of last night?” she asked.

  “Yes. I mean no. It’s, it’s a mixture of it all,” he shrugged. “It begins if we’re compatible, and, if we progress, we, uh, bond.”

  Stephine cocked her head, looking at him with narrowed eyes. “This sounds suspiciously like dating,” she said.

  “Dating is different,” he shook his head. “Dating is…temporary,” he said, choosing his words carefully.

  “And a bond is permanent?”

  “I’ve never heard of one ending,” he admitted.

  “And you just thought that you’d bond with me,” she said. “Do this ‘permanent’ thing without my consent.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Steph—”

  “Like it wasn’t my choice,” she fumed, her shoulders back. “Like I don’t get a say.”

  “Of course you did. You do!”

  “Yes,” she said, standing up. “I do.” Snatching up her ship’s uniform, she didn’t even bother grabbing her work pants and flannel shirt as she ran for the door. “And it’s a no.”

  She slammed the door behind her, and Dojan found that he didn’t have the strength to stand and follow her.

  Stephine

  Stephine was a mess. She’d left the tavern in a hurry, yanking on her clothes before marching down the hallway to glare at the entrance fire and step outside. The immediate bustle and hustle of the vendors and patrons almost had her walking right back in, but her sense of pride had always outweighed her fear of safety, and she trudged on.

  She was swept up in the crowd almost instantly. She did her best to welcome it, to force herself to stay calm as she headed into the fray and use it as a momentary distraction from Dojan and his talk of bonding.

  Or, more likely, bondings.

  “Permanent my hufter,” she muttered to herself, elbowing the dozens of gawkers and traders in her way. She didn’t meet their eyes, but watched the ground instead, careful of where she stepped. “Compatible,” she repeated bitterly, remembering the night that they’d shared together. He’d been charming, oh yes, but certainly not her ideal of a man.

  Which was why it was definitely the stupidest thing that she’d ever done to date, spending the night with a crewmate – an alien. She could admit her own mistakes to herself, just as she could admit that she was in way over her head because of it. Whether the bond really was some life-long relationship or just a frivolous mating tactic, it didn’t change how every step further away from the tavern made her want to run right back to him, pride be damned.

  And the worst part was that it’d all been up to her. Dojan hadn’t raped her – hadn’t stolen her voice, or taken her freedom. He’d given her every opportunity to turn him down last night, to push him away and tell him to get out. There hadn’t been a moment when the choice had been out of her hands.

  Yet now, with an invisible force tugging her back to him, she felt like her opinion had been transformed by his bond, snapped away and ripped up.

  Was it too late to blame it all on him? His alien anatomy was nothing short of perfection by Earth standards, and paired with his amiable Saros ideals? She’d never really stood a chance.

  “Gerrough!” a red-faced man suddenly shoved her, snarling as he glared with his four beady eyes.

  “Opzouten,” she muttered, ducking underneath his outstretched arm as she ran further away. She scowled as she rubbed her forehead with her hand, unsurprised to find that she was sweating again. Crowds did that to her – made her feel small and helpless. Weak.

  Stephine stepped off to the side to calm down, her heart jumping in her throat as she tried to swallow. Blinking a few times, she forced herself to watch the people passing by, to look and convince herself that they were just people. Oddly colored, weirdly shaped alien people.

  Huffing out a sigh, she took a deep breath back in, calming her heart rate. She couldn’t lose it out here, not after she’d stood just outside of the room back at the tavern and struggled into her pants, waiting for Dojan to convince her to come back inside. But he hadn’t even opened the door.

  In that moment, he’d made himself clear.

  He wasn’t coming after her.

  “Verdomme,” she breathed, rolling her eyes. She hadn’t run away for him to chase her; she’d left to clear her head. To get him out of her system.

  Running a hand through her short hair, she glanced out at the crowd and froze. Hand half-raised and knees bent against a vendor’s stall, she found her distraction.

  A small, furry blue something that looked like the miniature product of a monkey and a badger, was watching her.

  For a moment she just stood there, staring back at it. Then it swerved, a smooth but unnatural movement, and Stephine realized that the small creature was nothing more than a robot.

  “Hello?” she asked, looking into its unblinking set of eyes. She wondered if there was a camera installed and the inventor was nearby, seeing through its creation, but then the robot purred out an odd noise and flicked its small tail.

  It was an AI.

  “Hey, little friend,” she tried again, kneeling as she reached out a hand. The creature seemed interested and scurried closer, allowing Stephine to make out the shiny slivers of copper hidden beneath its fur.

  Suddenly, the robot stopped, its pointed ears flattening against its small head. It hissed at her, apparently recoiling from her scent, and skirted backwards.

  “Wait!” she cried, scrambling to stand while the robot dashed away back into the crowd. She ran after it, squeezing through the throng of bodies as she desperately tried to keep it in sight.

  She’d never seen anything like it before. AI’s were a myth, a rumor that had never been properly achieved in the lab, placing the small robot years ahead of anything on Earth and even the advanced sub-colonies on Mars. She ran after it, captivated as it weaved itself in and out of the crowd, flexible and flawless.

  Stephine didn’t think much of it when the throng of people started to thin. She just ran faster, relieved that the crowd was finally ending because it gave her a better line of sight to keep up with the robot. She followed it left, right, and through another crowd, oblivious as she caught up to the creature.

  Finally, it stopped, jumping into a corner before folding itself up into a tiny copper cube. Fascinated, Stephine stooped down to pick it up, the metal cool to the touch as she brushed her fingers against it.

  “And who the fuck are you supposed to be?”

  Stephine jumped, clutching the square to her chest as she whirled around. A dozen men were seated around a fire just beyond the alley that the robot had led her into, their arms bare and tattoos exposed.

  With shock, she thought she recognized the symbols they wore. The boar mark on each of the
ir forearms was the mark of one of the worst gangs on Mars. She blinked – not the same symbol, but something close. And from the way it was marked on each man, this was obviously another gang.

  “She looks like a patrol guard,” an alien with orange eyes spoke up, pointing a webbed hand at her. Stephine glanced down at her own outfit, reminded – yet again – of the terrible morning she’d had that’d caused her to leave the tavern without grabbing her usual work pants and shirt. Instead, she was donned only in her flight suit, a snug bit of spandex that breathed great for hard labor but looked too much like a uniform for her own personal taste. Apparently, the alien gang thought so, too.

  “I don’t like guards,” another sneered. “They get in the way when I’m stealin’ stuff.”

  “Doesn’t look like a guard,” the largest of them grinned. He had sharp teeth and black eyes, and Stephine could only glare at the way that he was looking at her. He laughed as she did, and said, “Maybe some kinda officer.”

  “A what?” a blue man growled, jumping up to reach for something behind his back.

  “Bold little bitch, ain’t she?” the orange-eyed alien jeered, making the blue one laugh and put his arm back at his side. Still, the threat had been made.

  “You found our toy?” the large one smiled. “I’ll give it to you, for a price.”

  As the others roared with laughter, Stephine glanced around. Unlike the bustling marketplace, she was standing on a grimy street with broken holo-lights and shadowed doorways. It was with a sinking feeling that she realized she had no idea of where she was, and no clue of how to get back.

  “Would you like to pay it, little officer?” he leaned forward against the fire, the flames casting black shadows on his face.

  Stephine had never felt so exposed in all her life. All of her knives, all of her guns, were hidden back in her work pants pockets and shirt sleeves. All, except the short knife hidden in the sole of her boot.

  “Come on,” the blue man hissed. “We won’t bite.”

  Stephine resisted the urge to do a backwards glance and simply blinked, keeping her body relaxed and the enemy front and center. Then she bolted. She twisted around as she ran back down the alley that she’d just come from, the sudden crash of heavy footfalls behind her urging her forward.