ALIEN SHIFTER ROMANCE: Alien Tigers - The Complete Series (Alien Invasion Abduction Shapeshifter Romance) (Paranormal Science Fiction Fantasy Anthologies & Short reads)

by Tanya Jolie

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “You’ll see when we get there,” he said playfully. He was evading the question, something I’d witnessed him doing countless times. I wasn’t sure why he was doing it now. Surely, there couldn’t be many more secrets between us . . . besides what he was.

  It had been obvious early on in my friendship with Finn that he wasn’t a normal boy. A normal boy wouldn’t be able to sneak out in the middle of the night and climb up a to my second floor bedroom with ease. He wouldn’t be able to jump out my window without injury or walk at the speed that he was currently walking. This was all without the factor that I hadn’t laid eyes on him until tonight—though I had often tried to find him in the darkness of my room. Normal boys weren’t invisible, and they didn’t disappear at the blink of an eye.

  I kept calling him a boy, though I knew that wasn’t what he was. I knew he was twenty years old—two years older than I was. I also didn’t know if that’s what they called adolescents in whatever he was.

  With nothing else to do, I gazed at what I could make out around me. The trees this deep in the woods were wild. The roots of each tree tangled with its neighbors’, visible above ground. Because I couldn’t see very far ahead of me and because of the abundance of trees, our journey seemed endless. Pools of water littered our path, visible when the light from the moon bounced off the smooth, dark surface. I shivered, now cold since I wasn’t keeping my body warm from trying to keep up with Finn.

  “Cold? I nodded. He kissed me on the forehead. “We’ll be there soon.”

  “I still don’t know where we’re going.”

  “Isn’t it more fun this way?”

  “Yeah,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Tons of fun.”

  “We’re going to where I live,” he revealed.

  My heart quickened, thinking I was finally going to get some details. “Which is . . .?”

  “Still a wee way’s off.” I scowled. He laughed. Could he see my face clearly in the dark?

  I looked around me again, suddenly realizing that we were no longer under a canopy of trees. We were in an open clearing covered in rocky hills and more pools of water. It looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place where we were in the dark.

  I heard the gentle, steady rushing of water. We approached a very large body of water that had a U-shaped arch surrounding part of the perimeter. Parts of the water seemed to be glowing a luminous blueish-green color in the dark. In the middle of that arch was a large waterfall.

  “It’s beautiful,” I mused, looking up at Finn to gauge his reaction. He seemed unfazed—like a place like this was an everyday feature for him.

  He stopped at the edge of the water, I assumed to admire the view. “We’re going to have to get in.”

  I looked up at him in alarm. “In the water?”

  He nodded, and I tensed. “I’m sorry, it’s the only way to get there.”

  “I can’t swim,” I admitted, unsure.

  “It’s not deep.” He carried me across the pond, the water only going up as high as his knees. We neared the waterfall, and I could see that there was a small hole behind it. “I have to set you down, we have to crawl through the hole.” He gave me an apologetic half smile.

  I gaped at him in horror, and he squeezed my hand. “Trust me.” I nodded, and he gently set me down.

  I squealed as the frigid water drenched the bottom of my nightgown and flooded my slippers. “It’s-s s-so cold.”

  He grabbed my hand again, which caused me to warm right up. He led me behind the waterfall, the mist catching in my hair in little beads. I looked down in the hole we were supposed to go through. It was dark. “Watch your head when you go through. The top is very low and sharp.”

  My eyes widened. “Aren’t you going in first?”

  He shook his head. “I’m going in behind you, so I can keep an eye on you. You just have to go straight.”

  I hesitated. “It’s dark.”

  He pulled me forward and pressed his lips against mine again. “I’ll be right behind you. I’ll keep you safe,” he murmured against my mouth. The implications of his words covered more than this tiny cave.

  I sunk down to my knees, the moving water coming from the hole rushing down the front of my nightgown. It whapped me in the face and I sputtered, swallowing some. I coughed.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he whispered, ushering me forward.

  I began crawling through the tiny hole, which was too narrow to move anywhere but straight. I raised my head slightly, and I hit the rocky ceiling of the cave. “Ow,” I cried.

  “Keep your head down,” Finn warned from right behind me.

  I was sure the top of my head was bleeding, but I kept moving forward, the palms of my hands and my knees getting scrapped up from the bottom of the cave. I could feel parts of my gown ripping away from getting caught on rocks and from brushing up against the sides of the narrow cave. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, willing myself to move forward as quickly as I could. It would all be over soon.

  I snapped my eyes open when I felt something stringy and damp between my fingers. Grass. I looked up and was met with a brightly lit forest encapsulated inside the confines of a tall cavern. The light was coming from a large bonfire that stood about fifty feet away. I shimmied the rest of the way out of the cave onto the grassy knoll and stood up, still staring up. I felt Finn exit the cave behind me, but I didn’t look back. My eyes were experiencing a sensory overload.

  Dozens of people dressed in green attire were dancing, laughing, and running around the forest and fire. Looking up, I could see that in the rows of trees were little houses perched between the mighty branches. Wooden bridges crisscrossed from one tree to the other over each other like a roadway in the sky. Large, sparkling, gold fireflies swirled through the trees.

  “What is this place?” I asked, in awe. I looked over at Finn who was standing beside me with his jaw clenched, deep in thought. He seemed nervous. His hair looked bronze in the light, and his eyes were emerald.

  “It’s my home.”

  He grabbed my hand again and pulled me forward, garnering the attention of some of the revelers. They regarded me with equal parts curiosity and apprehension. I suddenly became very aware of my appearance. I was soaking wet, cut up, and my white chemise was ripped and covered in mud. I bowed my head, avoiding the gaze of these strangers.

  Finn seemed to have a destination in mind, because he was guiding me with a purpose. We approached a large home at the foot of the biggest, widest tree I had seen yet. A fairly young couple, ornately dressed in green garb, stood outside, looking confused.

  Finn stopped in front of them and stepped to the side like he was presenting me. I blushed. “Aunt Fenella, Uncle Alastair, this is Isla,” he beamed at me despite his previous apprehension a few moments ago.

  I shriveled at the horrified looks coming from Fin’s aunt and uncle. His uncle was turning bright red like he was getting ready to yell. His aunt was still shocked, her mouth hanging agape, looking ghostly white. “Finley,” she finally rasped out. “What have you done?”

  Finn squeezed my hand tightly, painfully. Looking up at him, he looked furious.

  Feeling overwhelmed and light-headed, I looked to my side just as a large firefly buzzed past me. It landed to the right of me on a tree stump. That’s when I saw that it wasn’t a firefly at all. It was a tiny woman, no larger than five inches tall. She had translucent wings sprouting from her back. Her hands were on her hips, and she seemed irritated. “Finn, who is this?”

  Everything went black from there.

  THE END

  The Big Reveal

  Rise of a Video Vixen

  African American Romance

  Chapter 1

  Every stripper says she’s paying for college.

  Either that, or she’s doing research for her documentary. In actuality, most strippers are just hard-working women who are making money to feed their families. I was an exception. I was, in fact,
dancing to pay my way through my Sociology degree. Outside of hooking, stripping was really the best money a woman like me—first in her family to go to college, single-parent household, below the poverty line—could make. On top of that, it gave me a lot of interesting material for various projects and reports I had related to my degree, especially since Third-Wave Feminism’s was such a hot topic these days.

  If I were honest with myself, money and research should be my top priorities, but they were a distant second and third to the rush I got from showing my body to strangers. If someone were to analyze me, if some old Austrian man with a cigar had me on a couch for a few hours (in a non-sexual way), I’m sure a line could be drawn from my exhibitionism to some childhood body-issues I had. Maybe I was an ugly duckling. Maybe having dark skin and “nappy” hair, along with maturing faster than the other girls, gave me a complex. I don’t put too much stock in that Freud stuff. The fact of the matter is, I was extraordinarily turned on by my own nakedness, especially when I knew others were watching.

  My club was called The Garden, and I was the only sister in the lineup of girls, unless I counted Stacy, who was mixed. This meant that every man with a taste for chocolate went for me. Being from a majority white neighborhood with its fair-share of closeted prejudice meant that I could be their naughty fantasy.

  That said, it took a while for me to get used to the fact that some of these guys would tell me they loved me and wanted to marry me while at the club and would totally avoid eye contact if they saw me on the street. Eventually, though, I realized that this was really a powerful position for me to be in. I could send so much blood to their dicks that these men wouldn’t have enough left to operate the judgmental portions of their brain. I liked being a fetish. I liked how stupid business owners and economists would become as soon as my ass was in their face.

  One particular incident involved a barista at my local coffee shop. I spent a lot of time doing homework in that particular shop before heading to The Garden for the night. One of the baristas, Jude, was a white guy who had caught my eye. I had never dated white, but he would be exactly my type if I did. He was artsy, intelligent, and I guess one could call him a hipster. In reflection, I suppose he was more or less the stereotypical barista one would expect to find in an indie coffee shop, but there was something that really excited me about him.

  On a Friday night, I had come directly to the club after working on homework for a few hours at the Hot Spot Café. I divided my café time between reporting on the importance of digital media for international community-building and imagining what Jude’s face would look like between my thighs.

  I changed into my outfit—that night it was a slinky nurse's uniform—and I removed my glasses and added a long, wavy black wig. For some reason, afro-puffs or cornrows were a no-no for my boss. The plus side was that no one recognized me. I got the chance to feel simultaneously voyeuristic and exhibitionistic, as people I knew, from grocery clerks to pastors, got their rocks off to my nude form. As soon as my music came on (“Work It” by Missy Elliott) and I pulled the curtain open, my gaze fell on Jude’s face, front row and center, by himself, looking nervous. I had never seen him here before, and he didn’t seem the type to frequent clubs. That didn’t deter me from directing my dance at him.

  Despite the fact that there were men and women on both sides of me tossing dollars down before I even took anything off, my eyes were locked on my innocent barista. It was clear that he didn’t recognize me, and that he liked what he saw. Good, I thought. Let’s see how far I can take this.

  The nurse outfit was quite snug. It was meant for a woman less curvy than I, but I liked the way it hugged my shape. It gave my body a feeling of urgency, a feeling that I needed to set it free from the restrictive clothing in front of this appreciative audience. On top of that, it left little to the imagination, so I didn’t even have to be naked before I had everyone’s attention. I pulled the zipper on my shirt down, revealing more of my already heaving cleavage. This prompted an enthusiastic burst of dollars from all parts of the stage, and if Jude hadn’t recognized me before, he wouldn’t now because he wasn’t even looking at my face anymore.

  I undid my zipper completely but held the sides of my shirt together for a moment before dramatically revealing my braless chest. This was one of my favorite parts: The Big Reveal. I knew my fat tits always got a healthy amount of applause, but I rarely noticed. I was too wrapped up in the feeling of arousal I got. It was as though I had blinders and earplugs in. It was as though I was in front of my mirror at home, or in this case, in front of Jude in my room. His face showed how much he approved of my buxomness. He licked his lips. Perhaps it was dryness, but I liked to think he was imagining how nice my lovely areolas would look with his mouth on them. The image got me excited too, and I looked forward to sharing my arousal with my front row patrons.

  My skirt was suddenly feeling like it wanted to be liberated from my ass. I put my hands against the wall, bending so that attentive members (ahem) of the audience got a sneak preview. I had seen in my own mirror how the curves of my thighs and ass made a perfect, diamond-shaped window to my pussy. I loved how it looked, and I knew the boys did too.

  It took just a little hike with my fingertips to free my healthy ass. I unzipped it and let it fall. Naked except for my red fishnets and my white heels, I returned my hands to the wall and shook my ample derriere, fueling the crowd’s generosity as they reached into their wallets for more singles.

  Officially, the dancers were supposed to share their attention and affection with the patrons who threw the money at them, but I had my sights set on my coffee man. Also officially, we were supposed to charge $20 for lap-dances, but I was willing to make an exception in this case. Jude didn’t seem to know much of what he was doing. He looked nervous and was clutching a wad of singles. The dollars looked like they were meant for me and just hadn’t made their way to the stage. That was good enough for me.

  I stood front-and-center. Looking up, Jude would have seen me towering over him, heavy chested and with a well-manicured bush. If he was really attentive, he would have seen that I was enjoying this too, as evidenced by the wetness that was accumulating on my pussy lips, threatening to drip on him if I shook my ass too enthusiastically.

  I fell to my knees, nearly forgetting that there was anyone in the room but the two of us. I turned to give him a better look at my best asset, which good eating and plenty of squats guaranteed was in top form that night. A quick glance between my thighs gave me a look at his transfixed face, and I could see the growing tent in his pants. That was better praise than applause, and I felt my pussy tingle with warmth. I flipped over to show my approval, and he wet his lips again as he looked at the wetness of mine. Lifting my ass from the stage floor to give him a real eyeful, I ran two fingers along the sides of my clit, parting those wet lips and sharing my tasty, pink center with this blushing young man. My pussy was throbbing.

  I rubbed my wet slit a few more times before lowering myself onto Jude’s unwitting lap, which was pitching a pretty impressive tent by that point. Grabbing the bills from his grip and pushing his hands to his side, I positioned my breasts on either side of his face. The scruff on his cheeks tickled my boobs, and I struggled to hide my grin, trying to maintain a seductive expression. Not that he or any of the other audience members, whom I’d almost forgotten about, were looking at my face at all.

  Against the rules and my better judgment, I lowered my aching clit. It brushed against his pronounced erection, which was stretching his pants to their limit. He gasped into my cleavage, and I took it to mean I should continue. Shocks of pleasure ran through my ass cheeks and up my spine as I rubbed my pussy lips against his hard cock. Though his pleasured whimpers were drowned out by the music, I could feel his panting.

  With everyone looking at our little performance, I picked up the pace, for my own pleasure and, I hoped, for his. I didn’t have to hope for too long, as his breath grew quicker and more intense. And though it h
adn’t been my intention to bring him that far, I could feel the familiar pulsations of his cock against my clit as his body seized up. I’m still not sure how obvious it was to everyone else in the audience, but I knew immediately that I had made the poor boy come in his pants. With that, and with the embarrassment Jude wore on his face the rest of the night, I lost my attraction to him. As flattering as it was to have that effect on him, I needed a man who could hold his own with me. I needed a man who could hold his own with anyone. Fortunately, it didn’t take long before I found that man. Or rather, before he found me.

  Chapter 2

  I shared an apartment with a fellow student named Susie. Her parents emigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan before she was born. She was studious—a biology major—but no more than I was. The major difference between the two of us was that, where I was sexually explorative and expressive, she was shy to the point of being totally stifled. What she did—or didn’t do—with her body was her business. But to the extent that she expressed an interest bordering on judgment in my lifestyle and livelihood, I chose to stick my nose in her bedroom life, latent as it was.

  For her birthday, I decided to get her a sex toy. I chose my favorite vibrator, a rabbit-type with a rotating-bead shaft and ears that cradled the clit just perfectly. If anything, it would help her loosen up a bit. Maybe she’d learn to give me a break about how I spent my evenings.

  “Kara! Are you home?” She knew I was home. I think she was just giving me a heads up so I could get decent, which was thoughtful because I wasn’t.

  “Yeah, Suze. I’m in my room,” I said, throwing a baggy Mickey Mouse shirt on but deciding that this was not a pants-on occasion.

  “Do you have your half of the electric bill? I posted the bill on the fridge. It’s higher than usual this month.”