The Virtual Man [The Virtual Reality 1] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Nikki Sinclaire

  Regaining the use of his arms, Derek grabbed her hips, lifted her weightless body and impaled it on his throbbing member. As he entered her for the first time, Tiana felt full and complete. Derek moved his beautiful bride up and down along his shaft, grazing her engorged and eager-for-attention clitoris with each passionate stroke. Tiana wrapped her legs around her husband’s waist, using the added leverage to help push him deeper and deeper, digging her nails into his shoulders with each thrust.

  Taking advantage of her weightless state, while impaled on his cock, Tiana arched her back. Big mistake. Doing so left her clitoris, exposed and at Derek’s mercy. He showed her none. Bringing his thumb down to her already sensitive button Derek began to lovingly caress it. Clenching her vaginal muscles, Tiana’s control was shattered for the second time, giving in to the start of an intense climax. Tiana’s release pushed Derek over the edge of the delectable precipice he had been walking on for some time. Husband and wife simultaneously erupted into an explosion of mutual pleasure that took them all the way to paradise with no return ticket.

  Chapter 21

  Tiana Gets Hurt

  A bit later, Tiana awoke, sated, floating with Derek’s muscular arms around her and his penis still in her. With her head on his chest, she could hear the steady beat of his heart. At that very moment, she felt complete. She required nothing else. She barely knew this man, yet she felt so right in his arms, and so right being his wife. When she was with him, nothing else mattered. In his embrace she felt secure in a way she never had before. Not with Tom and so different from her father, who had always cared for and protected her. In Derek’s arms it was quiet, it was peaceful, and she felt safe. She was light years away from where she was supposed to be, in an escape pod, heading for goodness knew where, yet she really didn’t care. For the first time in her life, she felt at home.

  “Good morning, princess.”

  “It’s not morning. We’re in space. There is no morning.”

  “Hey! No engineer speak while I am being romantic.” He chuckled softly. “If, in fact, we just woke up, then by my definition it is morning, and since I woke up with you, by any definition it is a good morning.”

  “You sure seem to have your ‘definitions’ down, don’t you. Well, in that case, good morning.”

  I wonder if this would be a good time to let him know that I am in ‘deep like’ with him. What to do? What to do?

  Tiana was bubbling over with feeling for her new husband and she wanted to tell him and find out how he felt about her, but the fear of rejection kept her from speaking. She wasn’t going to play the fool once more; after all, this was a marriage of convenience. Maybe the coming two years would change things. Yup, she would make sure things changed indeed!

  “I’m going to see what this pod is able to synthesize for lunch.” Derek unwrapped his arms from around her and floated to the scaled-down food synthesizer in the escape pod.

  Oh no! Holy loneliness! Hmm … my, but this man has a great butt!

  She stared at him, taking in every graceful move he made as well as every contraction of every muscle visible to her, which, in his currently naked state, was all of them. Gracious! She was feeling moisture between her legs once more. It wasn’t only sexual, though. Her heart just jumped for joy at being cocooned in the escape pod with him.

  “Wait a minute,” she started, “you can’t have it both ways. If it’s morning you have to have breakfast and you can’t have lunch without first having breakfast, after all —”

  Fate did not give her the courtesy of finishing her sentence. The shockwave from the matter/anti-matter reaction, which had been expanding ever since the ship’s explosion, had finally caught up with the escape pod. The small craft shook violently, throwing Derek and Tiana across the small space. Derek hit a flat part of the wall, and though his very breath was knocked out of him, the damage to his person was minimal. Tiana was not so lucky. As she flew across the escape pod, she managed to slice her bare leg on the edge of the bed. It all happened so quickly that the first hint she had that she was hurt was when she saw blood freely floating past her dazed eyes. Another ricochet of the shock wave slammed into the escape pod, wreaking havoc for its inhabitants and throwing Tiana at the opposite wall, while Derek, trying to get to her, held on for dear life. This time it smashed her, head-first, into the wall. Darkness and silence fell upon Tiana as she replaced consciousness and awareness with peaceful slumber.

  Chapter 22

  Derek takes care of her

  Derek’s worst fears were materializing before his eyes. Tiana was bleeding profusely and had taken a serious blow to the head. With the escape pod spinning out of control, he still managed to get to her. He struggled to secure a safety belt from one of the chairs to his thigh, getting the leverage he needed to reach Tiana. Derek dragged her weightless body to the other chair and buckled her in.

  Wasting no time he opened the pod’s medical kit and placed a temporary pressure bandage on her leg wound to stop the blood loss. The very fact that she was bleeding in a weightless environment meant that she was still alive and her heart was still pumping.

  His next priority was to get the pod under control. Buckling himself back into his own seat, he accessed the computer.

  “Computer, engine status!”

  “Stabilizers have sustained damage and are offline,” the computer responded in its usual calm monotone. “Recommend taking manual navigational control of the escape pod.”

  “Computer, materialize navigational controls.”

  A familiar set of controls materialized before Derek with a circular view panel, suspended at eye level, providing him a 360-degree picture of the space around the pod. He was lucky he had taken flying lessons during his teen years, on similar short-range vehicles such as this one. Quickly assuming control, Derek tried his best to manually do what the stabilizers were unable to — keep the pod from spinning. Their speed had tripled since the shockwave had hit, but slowing down would have to wait since they were rapidly drifting off course. Derek quickly recalculated and reset their course trajectory for Arcadia 10. From what he could see, the stabilizers were damaged beyond any repairs he could effect from inside the ship. He had to do his best to guide the spinning sphere of metal to some form of a landing on Arcadia 10, now looming large and directly in front of them.

  “Computer, slow down and achieve orbit.”

  “Orbit cannot be achieved. Recommend resetting a course away from Arcadia 10.”

  Yeah, right, I can barely steer this thing now and you want me to bypass the only planet in the vicinity that sustains life?

  “Computer, switch to complete manual control.”

  In the distance, Derek could see other escape pods burning up from entering the atmosphere too fast and at too sharp an angle. Clearly, theirs was not the only escape pod damaged by the shockwave. The only survivors would be those who knew how to pilot a craft.

  Like fighting a bucking bronco, Derek managed to correct the angle of entry and slow the pod down a bit. They were still going too fast. Flames engulfed the pod as it hit the atmosphere, but the little craft still managed to hold together. Once inside the atmosphere he should be able to control the pitch a little better.

  Rather quickly, the inside temperature rose well past safety levels as Derek fought to remain conscious and to maintain an entry angle that would provide the small craft with some breaking power without incinerating it.

  Just as he thought he would pass out and lose the battle, the pod, having hit the lower layers of the ionosphere, and seen its speed reduced to safer levels, began cooling off. Derek increased the entry angle so as to further reduce their speed and engaged the front thrusters, slowing even further, but not enough.

  The small craft had sustained enough damage that the best Derek could hope for would be a controlled crash landing. Skimming over the tops of what appeared to be trees hundreds of feet in height, Derek looked for the most suitable place to crash-land. The decision was taken from him a
s the wounded craft lost altitude, ripping a trail through the tree tops. Derek prayed that they wouldn’t hit a tree trunk head on. The pod, not mention himself and Tiana, would not survive.

  Just as quickly as it entered the trees, the faithful little craft zipped out of the forest and crashed into a large lake, skimming over its surface much the same as he and his dad used to skip rocks on the surface of a lake when he was a boy. He just prayed that Tiana would hold on until he could tend to her wound.

  Unpleasant as the bouncing was, it was what kept the ship from becoming a giant crater on the surface of this little explored world. Finally, beaching itself on the far side of the lake, the escape pod came to a stop.

  Derek unbuckled his seat belt and began tending to his wife’s injuries.

  Chapter 23

  Derek Tends to Her Wounds

  Tiana was still unconscious. In a way, Derek was glad. He would hate to see her in the kind of pain that accompanied a wound like the gaping gash on her leg. He retrieved the skin regenerator from the medical kit, but found that it was damaged and wouldn’t even cycle on. Derek recalled his days as a boy, when he had joined the Galactic Scouts. He’d earned his medical badge on a short excursion to Mare Ingenii on the far side of the Moon. One of the younger scouts had been hit by a tiny meteorite on the arm. The suit had held together, saving the boy’s life, but once back at the ship, the gash had needed to be repaired ‘the old-fashioned way’ with needle and thread. He still remembered the young boy crying as the pain increased with each stitch.

  Much as it distressed him, Derek, after thoroughly cleansing his own hands and removing the pressure bandage, applied disinfectant to the wound and began sewing it shut. Halfway through the procedure he heard Tiana moan. She opened her eyes and realized what he was doing. She grimaced from the pain and looked at him. Looking at her eyes, he expected to see shock, pain or even redhead anger at his infliction of pain. Instead, he saw an elemental trust, a glimpse that she was beginning to believe in him. He had never experienced this type of implicit belief. He felt humbled by this amazing woman.

  After the work was done and he had re-bandaged the wound, he addressed her.

  “I’m sorry I had to hurt you. How do you feel?”

  “I have a headache and it hurts right here.” She pointed to a swollen spot on the left side of her head.

  “I examined that before addressing your cut. The skin is not broken, but it is badly bruised. Relax, honey.”

  “Derek! I have a hole in my leg, I’ve lost at least a hundred quarts of blood, I’m stark naked and I have a lump on my head the size of a baseball. Don’t tell me to relax!”

  Derek grinned. His fiery little redhead was back.

  * * * *

  With a sniff and a sigh at the fact he was finding any humor in this situation, Tiana demanded, “Unbuckle me and get me my clothes. I’m getting dressed!”

  As Derek unbuckled her and she tried to stand up, she felt her wounded leg give out under the pain caused by the flexing of her muscles. Falling to the floor of the pod, she inhaled, trying to swallow her cursed pride.

  “Derek, I don’t think my body is quite ready for gravity yet. I’m not sure I can walk until this thing heals.”

  Derek picked her up as if they were still in zero gravity. His action caught her by surprise. He was still naked. She was still naked. Her soft breasts caressed the hardness of his chest. The reaction this chance contact evoked inside of her was unmistakable. She could feel her vaginal muscles clench and release, experiencing a delicious tingling from her breasts to her womb.

  How can I be getting turned on when my leg and head are throbbing?

  Derek laid her on the anti-gravity bed and helped her back into her clothes. She couldn’t quite decide if that was good or bad. Much to her frustration the bed didn’t work and she just lay there, under the influence of the planet’s gravity.

  “I’m afraid nothing on the escape pod that requires power is operational. Not the bed and definitely not the food synthesizer.”

  “What? How will we eat? Do you know how to fix it?” The mere thought of not having food or even chocolate gave her voice a note of alarmed panic.

  “The power circuits are all fried. I already checked. We’re lucky they lasted as long as they did considering the beating we took up there, not to mention the one we experienced as we crashed. Hey, what are you doing? Stop that, you’ll hurt yourself.”

  Tiana kept slapping the very spot on her head that she had bruised.

  “Dang it! My phone is not working either.” She sighed.

  “There probably aren’t any Galactic Alliance satellites orbiting this planet. Of course your phone won’t work.”

  “The communications chip is underneath the skin right where I got hit. It must be damaged. I can’t even get it to cycle on. I just hope we get rescued before we starve to death,” she said a bit petulantly, already experiencing pangs of hunger.

  “We won’t starve. Arcadia 10 is populated by a wide variety of animals. I’ll just have to go hunting for our food.”

  “Eeew! Yuk! Don’t be ridiculous. We can’t eat animals! Have you seen what they eat or smelled one at a menagerie?”

  “Tiana! What do you think you are synthesizing when you create a hamburger? You are synthesizing a piece of a dead cow that has been extruded, formed and cooked — you know, had heat applied to it. Didn’t you take Earth history in high school?”

  “Reading about what the human race ate back when we were still savages is totally different from actually eating what they ate! Have you ever eaten animals?”

  “Yes, when I was a Galactic Scout, but I can’t claim to have ever hunted.”

  “The hunting part should be easy, all you have to do is walk up to an animal and kill it, but eating one … I just don’t know about that. They pee and poop, Derek. What if you eat one of the parts that contain the poop before it has, you know, pooped?”

  “I suppose we’ll just have to make sure we select our … parts … carefully before we eat them,” he chuckled. “Tell you what, you lay down and try to get some rest while I go out and hunt us up some dinner.”

  “I’m not making any promises to eat whatever you catch, though. What about water?”

  “Tiana, we’re right next to a lake! We have all the water we need.”

  “But not for drinking! Have you already forgotten what I said? Animals pee and poop. They are probably dumb enough to pee and poop in the lake where they drink.”

  “I’m sure there is some survival gear in here somewhere, and, a water filter is the first thing such kits typically include. We’ll filter the water before we drink it. Does that sound okay, Princess Picky?”

  Tiana didn’t respond. She was not committing to anything. Thirst might be preferable to drinking lake water.

  * * * *

  Taking a knife with him, Derek set out to hunt. He wasn’t sure what he was hunting for, but how hard could it be? He had read a variety of books by an early-twentieth century author by the name of Edgar Rice Burroughs and he remembered how the central figure in some of the books, a fellow by the name of Tarzan, would hunt with his bare hands. He also remembered reading how Tarzan would fashion weapons out of tree branches with his knife. He could do that too.

  Derek looked for a game trail that might be used by the local animals to come to the lake and drink. Sure enough, he found one and followed it into the neighboring forest. Walking down the trail he soon found himself surrounded by a sea of green. He had never seen so much real plant life in one place before. The trail was bordered by large ferns next to wild flowers, next to tall grasses, next to a variety of other small plants and vines he didn’t even recognize enough to classify. Interspersed amongst the lush vegetation were trees like the ones they had crashed through, rising hundreds of feet into the air with majestic reddish brown trunks that, if hollowed out, could fit two escape pods at the base.

  Seeing a small bird with beautiful red and blue plumage fly by, his eyes followed it
until it landed on what appeared to be a patch of extremely large and very beautiful red roses. Each one of the flowers was a good twelve to fifteen inches in diameter. Perhaps he’d take back a dozen and surprise Tiana with them. He watched intently as the little bird stuck its beak inside one of the flowers, probably going after the nectar. His mind quickly turned to thoughts of Tiana and sampling her ‘nectar’ before the crash. He had it bad for the little redhead!

  Derek’s thoughts were quickly jerked from Tiana as he watched the flower open up and swallow the little bird in the blink of an eye. A single feather gently floated to the ground.

  Not only was he not taking any of those flowers back to Tiana, he would seriously need to watch where he peed in this jungle!

  Getting to a small clearing, Derek decided this would be the place from which he would hunt. Remembering some of Tarzan’s tricks, Derek checked to see which way the wind was blowing, went off the trail and found a place to hide downwind so that his scent would not be detected by any animals that might wander by. Quite pleased with himself thus far, Derek, after making sure there were no flowers larger than those he would consider normal by Earth standards nearby, settled in and waited for his prey.

  He must have waited for what felt like at least an hour before he heard the rustling of leaves and twigs underneath the paws of an animal. Not ten feet from him, he saw what appeared to be a small doe, no more than four feet in height, with only minor cosmetic differences from the ones he’d seen in zoos on Earth, carelessly looking around and leisurely strolling down the trail. With his heart beating rapidly, and his knife in hand, he prepared to pounce on it. This would be too easy. He almost felt sorry for the little animal. He would grab it from behind and either stab it in the heart or slice its throat like Tarzan did in the books he’d read.