The Hope Chest

by Jacquie D'Alessandro

  The urge to replace his fingers with his mouth was overpowering. He ached to taste her, run his tongue over the nexus where all her nerve endings centered. Yet, he hesitated, concerned that her bashfulness would prevent her pleasure.

  But as her body drew into sinuous tightness, her back arching, he sensed he’d pushed her beyond her normal boundaries. Parting her thighs wide, he placed his mouth over her sweet little bud. She tasted tangy and sweet, and he lapped her like cream, pleased by her soft coos of encouragement.

  In fact, she had difficulty holding still. Her hands reached between the crook of her bent thighs, and he captured her fingers, holding her exactly where he wanted her. Her breath came faster and faster, she pumped her hips, twisted with her female desires. But no matter which way she gyrated, he kept his mouth firmly in place, licking, laving, loving what he was doing.

  When she gurgled her pleasure and the spasms claimed her, his heart bubbled with happiness. He, Kendar, had given a real woman pleasure.

  “Ahh…oh…good. No…not…good. Great. Fantastic.”

  Proud that he had satisfied her, he was reluctant to stop. After all, women could have multiple orgasms, and he wanted his Sara to have only the best from him.

  So he kept his mouth in place, his tongue flicking.

  Her fingers clenched his. “What are…you…” Her head thrashed from side to side. “Don’t…stop. Please, don’t…stop.”

  She was tightening every muscle, her body arching, her fingers clenching his so tightly he was shocked by her strength, astounded at the power of her lust. It was almost as if electric jolts shot through her.

  “Yes. Yes. Ah…yes.” Again she spasmed, but this time she yelped. “Oh. Oh. Ooooh.”

  This orgasm, clearly more powerful, lasted longer than her first. She jerked, cried out, and he wondered how many times she could come. But unfortunately her taste, her scent, her uninhibited thrusting had him so hard and tight that he could no longer wait. As much as he adored licking her, shooting her over the edge, he couldn’t wait one more moment before thrusting into her and claiming his prize.

  Although he told himself to be gentle, at the first touch of her heat, her slick folds encasing his tip, he rammed into her. She didn’t seem to mind. Immediately winding her legs around his hips, she rocked her pelvis, meeting him halfway.

  Sara felt nothing like antiseptic holosex. She was tight and warm and her scent drove him wild with the need to pump into her.

  He held on by only the slimmest of margins. “Don’t move.”

  She shook her head, pumped her hips, reached for his balls, and he knew he had to take control once again, or lose the moment completely. Capturing her slender wrists in one of his hands, he pinned them over her head. Then he sat up and kept perfectly still, using the moment to regain control. And he took that time to renew his acquaintance with her wonderful breasts that seemed much more sensitive this time around.

  If her breasts were more sensitive, would other parts have an increased response as well? He couldn’t wait to find out. Creative, he used his beard, then his lips and finally swooped his tongue over her breasts until she opened her eyes and demanded, “Move, damn you.”

  She squeezed her slick folds and he couldn’t misunderstand her meaning. Yet, he shot her a wicked grin. “Not yet.”

  “What do you mean, not yet?”

  “I’m not done with you.”

  She chuckled. “Promises. Promises.”

  That’s when he reached between their bodies and found her slick center. Her mouth rounded into a surprised O. “Again?”

  “Again.” In almost no time at all, she seemed ravenous to move. Kendar couldn’t recall ever having so much fun. She was burning with feverish need. Her body slippery with sweat.

  And he held her still, his finger dancing, until he recognized that another of her explosions was near.

  He stopped.

  Her eyes popped open, her blue irises glazed with desire and melting confusion. “What…”

  “This time, you have to wait.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…” He released her hands, pumped his torso. “I can’t.”

  At his admission, she clasped his hips. And then he was pumping, thrusting. And when she screamed her delight, he went with her over the edge. Afterward, breathless, heart pumping so hard, he could barely think, it took several long moments for him to recover. Moments when he held her tight, pleased that she clung to him so fiercely.

  When he finally had the strength to pull back, she looked at him, her expression odd. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”

  SARA’S ORGASMS SEEMED to have cleared the last drugs from her system. Although she was once again thinking clearly and knew her low inhibitions had made her susceptible to Kendar’s charm, she had no regrets. Instead, words like awesome, wow, fantastic, zinged through her head. She’d come to Mars for new experiences and so far, the out-of-this-world pleasure had left her relaxed and satiated.

  “I’m as real as you,” Kendar answered in a voice that couldn’t have been sexier if she had dreamed him out of a secret fantasy.

  “The pod’s lock was supposed to have been keyed to open only to my DNA,” she repeated. Despite her languid limbs and her fully satisfied body, Sara couldn’t stop her natural curiosity. If he’d gotten past the lock to her pod, could he also open her heirloom box that she’d had keyed back on Earth to open only to her DNA? No, the locksmith had assured her not even the best thief could break a DNA lock. He must have found another way inside her sealed chamber. She looked around in search of another entrance besides the locked door. But aside from the one doorway, she saw only solid reddish walls, a stone floor and alien machinery—just as Dixon had promised. As much as the artifacts called to her on a professional level, she put off a comparison to the holovisuals she’d seen of the relic on Earth and forced her attention to Kendar’s puzzling appearance. She saw no way for him to have entered this chamber, unless he’d broken the lock.

  “When I came in, the door was open, and I didn’t shut it.” Kendar frowned, marring the lines of his smooth brow, his expression one of concentration and confusion. “One moment I was peering at the alien machine and then I saw you.”

  Sara had studied the diagrams of the Martian site before she’d left Earth. “Then who shut the door?”

  “Maybe the security guard.”

  “Security guard?” What was he talking about? There weren’t any guards on the dig.

  Kendar ignored his nudity and strode to the door. The sight of his muscular back and well-formed buttocks pleased her, but reminded her of her own state of undress. Despite their lovemaking, she didn’t feel comfortable walking about without clothing—though not because Kendar was ogling her, because he wasn’t. In fact he seemed just as puzzled by how he’d gotten here as she was.

  She pulled a shirt over her head, grateful for the length that stopped at midthigh. When Kendar tugged on the door and it failed to open, she approached, slid her arm past his and keyed the lock with her DNA. The door slid open to reveal several other archeological sites amid the Martian landscape of reddish sand dunes. The air, thin but breathable, reminded her of her one trip to Denver, except the Mile High City’s thin air had been clogged with carbon monoxide and this air smelled crisp and clean as the Sarinbium Mountains in the distance. Her first scenic view of Mars was as breathtaking as the man beside her and she drank it in like champagne.

  “Stars,” Kendar cursed, his reaction startling her. When he swung round to face her, his body tense, his eyes disclosing anger, his words revealed that he’d suffered a shock. “What year is this?”

  Sara backed away from him. She’d heard Martian men could be peculiar, some of them living in the Outback and mining their gemstones without much human contact. Others lost their manners and civilized ways, but she hadn’t thought a man who could have just made love to her so gently was one of them. She hadn’t missed how he’d put her pleasure before his own. How he’d taken such care to ens
ure that she’d enjoyed herself.

  However, while she could understand mixing up the days, even the week, how could he not know the year? “It’s 2405.”

  “Sure it is.” He let out a strangled chortle. “And now you’re going to tell me that I came here in a time machine and that you’re Dr. Sara Tolliver, right?”

  “I am Dr. Sara Tolliver.” She couldn’t mistake his sarcasm and kept her tone nonthreatening. “If you doubt me, you can check my identichip.”

  “Stars! The machine must have pulled me back in time.”

  At his startling proclamation, Sara took a step back, the hair on her arms standing on end. Something was very wrong and she didn’t think it was an alien time machine but a problem inside Kendar’s mind.

  Kendar stared at her, his serious expression conveying urgency. “I want you to think very carefully and tell me everything you’ve done since the moment you arrived.”

  She humored him. “I arrived in my pod—asleep. I didn’t regain consciousness until you awakened me.”

  “Think again. Maybe you sleepwalked and now believe it was a dream.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not prone to sleepwalking, and if I did so, I don’t remember.”

  “You’re sure?” His violet eyes tugged at her and she had to tamp down her compassion. She couldn’t allow his beautiful lovemaking to alter her impression that he didn’t seem balanced. Had he spent too long alone in the desert? Would his former gentleness turn wild? Had he sought her out in that chamber because he’d known that after her trip from Earth, her inhibitions would be lowered? She didn’t want to believe him capable of such duplicity, but she couldn’t ignore her doubts about his state of mind.

  She shrugged and pulled the neck of her collar together, revealing her nervousness. When Kendar noted her action, she forced her hand to her side and tried to stay calm. Just because the huge man standing before her vibrated with tension didn’t mean he would hurt her. “What’s wrong?”

  Kendar ran a hand through his hair. “I suspect you turned on the alien time machine and the old relic brought me here.”

  “I turned on the time machine… Me? How?” She turned to look at the machinery embedded into the rock-and-dirt wall. She had yet to touch it. Had barely glanced at it. But the relic was millions of years old. It couldn’t still work…could it?

  “When I entered this chamber, the year was 2705.”

  O…kay. Sara tried to remain open-minded. Perhaps people in the future had learned how to travel through time. Although Kendar had seemed shocked that he had done so, he easily accepted the concept—as if he believed time travel was possible and the alien machine was responsible. “Let me get this straight. You’re from three hundred years in the future?”

  “Yes.”

  She muffled a snort of disbelief. “Can you prove it?”

  “That’s not what’s important. What happens next is.”

  “You’re losing me.”

  “Sorry. It’s difficult to believe that I’m talking to Dr. Sara Tolliver. That you and I…” He gestured to the sleeping platform, then strode over to it.

  His story grew stranger by the minute, and he never did what she expected. She thought he would don his trousers, but instead, he ran his hands over the sleeping platform as if looking for a secret latch or a hidden compartment. “You have to figure this out.”

  “Me?” First he wanted her to believe in time travel and that an alien machine brought him here, and now he expected her to help him figure out the rest of his delusion?

  “You’re the archeological expert.”

  He wasn’t making sense, but she realized from the shock and urgency in his eyes that he was suffering. After what they’d shared, it seemed only fair to humor him. “What exactly am I supposed to figure out?”

  “First, you need to read the alien writing.” His tone was fierce, his eyes gleaming with intelligent determination.

  “I may be an archeologist, but I can’t read those pictographs—”

  “You will. The historical records say you were brilliant, insightful.”

  Using the past tense, he sounded so sure, so confident, and that made her feel worse for doubting him. But what sane person wouldn’t? Either the man was delusional, or…or…or he was telling the truth. And despite all known scientific data that stated time travel was impossible, his belief in his story matched his reactions, which all seemed to ring true. “If I succeed, wouldn’t your records mention how I learned to read the pictographs?”

  He shook his head. “Many records of this time were lost during the Martian Revolt, but since you learned to read the pictographs before, I’m sure you can do it again.”

  “You know, I actually understood what you just said, and that scares me.”

  “Nothing scares Dr. Sara Tolliver.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You were a legend. A city was named after you. A statue of you—never mind, we don’t have time. You need to get to work. Immediately.”

  Sara couldn’t miss the ring of command or the reverberation of sincerity in Kendar’s tone, but, even if she’d wanted to play along in his fantasy world, archeological discovery took years. No one did anything in a rush, or critical details could be overlooked. She tried to calm him, using common sense, still certain his time travel story was bunk, unwilling for his wonderful lovemaking to influence her logic. “The ruins have been here for eons. They aren’t going anywhere.” She reached for her slacks. “And I’m starved. First, we need to eat, then I must check in with Dixon.”

  And she wanted Dixon to look into Kendar’s background. She hated to think that the man who had made love to her so tenderly could be mentally unstable, but she couldn’t deny that his story had enough holes in it to drive a rocket ship through.

  Yet, it disturbed her that she also couldn’t explain his presence in the chamber. How had he sneaked past the DNA lock?

  Kendar seemed to understand her skepticism. “Look, I’m sorry. There’s much more you need to know. But I suppose it won’t hurt to eat while I explain,” he conceded.

  “Good.” She headed for the pod that came stocked with food pacs, hoping a little distance between them might ease her conscience. While the scientist in her wouldn’t allow her to believe him without proof, the woman she was needed to believe she couldn’t have had such a wonderful experience with a lunatic. Kendar had made love to her with the skill of a man who knew his lover well. He’d instinctively read what she desired, or been sensitive enough to take clues from her. Sara might not be the most sexually experienced woman on Earth, but she’d had enough partners to know that Kendar was an extraordinary lover. The man hadn’t just practically read her mind, he’d known what she’d wanted better than she had herself.

  That kind of skill took powers of perception beyond the norm. Could someone be so caring of another, so gentle, so skilled, so perceptive…and then be so unbalanced he had the date wrong by three hundred years?

  She glanced at Kendar. Most men would have taken the opportunity to dress, but he seemed disinclined to do so. Although she enjoyed looking at his powerful chest, his long limbs and sinewy muscles, she didn’t want the distraction. Didn’t want to think about how he’d worshipped her body, left her tingling with delicious tremors. Or that she wanted to get to know him better. She had to stay focused on his story, on helping him to see past his error.

  So as she pulled out the food, she gestured to his clothes. “Would you mind…?”

  He gave her an odd look, but complied, sliding into trousers and a loose-fitting shirt that reminded her of an ancient pirate’s while she also finished dressing. Unable to decide if he looked more delicious dressed or undressed, she then shoved a tray of food into his hands, hands that had strummed her body to perfection. Hands that had known when to apply pressure and when to stop. Hands that had driven her into a series of orgasms she’d never forget.

  If Kendar hadn’t started talking about time travel, she might have suggested a temporary, exclusive
union—perhaps six months. Then again six months of making love only to him might spoil her for any other man. But he had to go and ruin things. She wished he would take back his words. Blame alcohol or a drug.

  Now he seemed set on talking and that made her even more uncomfortable. She always kept things on the surface with her passion partners. She didn’t want to know their history, their likes and dislikes or even much about their lives. That way she could stay detached.

  They sat cross-legged on the sleeping platform, facing one another. She pulled the rip cord that would heat her food and he copied her action. But as she dug into her spaghetti and meatballs, he ignored his food, as if trying to gather his thoughts.

  “In 2705,” he began, “there are no women on Mars.” She wanted to tell him to stop. That she didn’t believe him and didn’t want to hear more. But rudeness was not in her nature, especially not after he had treated her body with such reverence. So she ate her spaghetti and let him speak. “We believe the alien technology—”

  “The time machine?”

  “Yes. It’s responsible for a corruption of the time continuum that alters the female chromosome, including humans and animals.”

  Whoa! Now that was some myth to swallow. First he expected her to believe he’d traveled through the alien machinery through time, now he was asking her to conclude that using the machine killed all females?

  She wiped her lips and carefully kept her tone even. “How do you know that it wasn’t a Martian virus that killed all the females?”

  “Women in your time lived here without a problem. But when your pod rested beside the time machine, the alien machinery activated, causing small, but measurable changes in the electromagnetic spectrum of the time continuum.”

  Sara stopped eating. His continual use of the past tense, combined with his insistence that she had something to do with the disaster made the food congeal in her mouth. For the first time, she wondered if what he was telling her could possibly be true, and it scared her right to her bones. A time machine seemed like something created by a science fiction writer. Farfetched. Impossible. Incredible. She’d come to Mars to make new breakthroughs, but not in her wildest imagination had she thought to discover that Dr. Dixon’s ancient alien machine could cause people to travel through time. “You’re saying my pod activated the alien time machine, brought you here and altered the time line?”