“How so?” he asked, intrigued by how serious she was.
“In these parts, marrying a doctor—even a veterinarian—is tantamount to winning the lottery. One jerk even suggested that if we got married, he should take my name instead of me taking his, so that our stationery could read ‘Dr. and Mr. Briggs.’ ”
Daniel couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Had she ever looked in the mirror? Or did she simply not realize that when a man looked at her, prestige would be the last thing on his mind.
It sure as hell was the last thing on his at the moment.
She was absolutely beautiful, with her disheveled blonde hair falling down around her green gold eyes and suntanned face. She exuded health and vitality, not to mention a hint of potentially explosive passion. And that was above the neck. When he let his gaze drop lower, she was better than flawless; she was perfect.
He wouldn’t mind helping her get over her last boyfriend by letting her get under him.
“Hey!” she suddenly cried, pouncing.
Daniel actually flinched, afraid she’d read his mind, but then sighed in relief when she grabbed the bandage that had been binding his left arm.
“You have to leave this on,” she scolded, trying to wrap it around him again, which caused her to lean close enough that tendrils of her hair tickled his neck. “If you don’t, you’re going to finish breaking that clavicle.”
Daniel captured her hand in his. “It’s already mended.”
“It can’t be,” she said, pulling his shirt aside. Her eyes widened in surprised and returned to his. “How is that possible?” she whispered. “I know it was only a hairline fracture, but the swelling is completely gone and even the bruising has faded.”
She tried to straighten away, but he held her leaning over him. “As you noted earlier, I have an unusually fast metabolism.” He reached up with his other hand, captured one of her escaping tendrils of hair, and rubbed it between his fingers. “It is as soft as it looks.” He returned his eyes to hers and smiled. “Moonlander women all have dark hair and must keep it short out of necessity.”
“M-moonlander women?”
He ran his thumb down the side of her cheek. “Your skin is also soft and carries the kiss of the sun.” He pressed his palm against her cheek. “Do that again.”
“D-do what again?” she whispered.
“Blush with that beautiful glow of passion. I wonder if your lips are as soft as they look? And as sweet,” he murmured, gently cupping her head and urging her closer.
Her fingers kneaded into his shirt as she at first resisted, before she suddenly softened, allowing him to lower her mouth to his. Mindful not to overwhelm her, Daniel carefully captured her lips in a gentle kiss. His restraint was rewarded when she softly moaned, and her delicate hands cupped his cheeks. She tasted even sweeter than he’d expected and exuded the sensual energy of an expanding pulsar.
Which made him wonder how she thought she could ever swear off men.
But just as he was about to deepen the kiss, she suddenly jerked upright with a yelp, shaking one of her hands violently. “Eww!” she cried, swiping at the pillow beside his head. “That is a monstrous spider!”
More than a little confounded by her antics, Daniel arched a brow at her.
“No, really,” she said, rubbing the back of her hand on her leg before pointing past his head. “There was an honest-to-God spider crawling on my hand. And then I saw it go scurrying up the bedpost.” Her eyes dropped to his slackened mouth, and her cheeks turned bright pink again. “That was . . . we shouldn’t have . . . you can’t do . . .”
She suddenly turned and strode to the stove, but just as suddenly stormed back. “What in hell is a Moonlander?” she asked rather aggressively.
The poor woman appeared more confounded than he was. Apparently Isobel didn’t have a clue how to handle the frustration of thwarted passion—something every male learned to deal with by the age of fourteen. “Me,” he told her calmly.
“I’m a Moonlander. And Chase and Micah and Noah. It’s the name that was given to those living on the moon, especially those of us born there.”
He saw her hands ball into fists at her sides. “Are you going to continue with that crazy story?” she growled. “Because I gotta tell you, it’s starting to give me the creeps.”
He arched a brow again. “How so?”
“People can’t live on the moon, much less be born there. It’s nothing but a dead rock. There’s no air to breathe and no water to drink. And if the gravity really is only one-sixth of ours, then you should have the bone density of a thirty-seven-pound person—which means you couldn’t be walking upright right now.”
“I believe I explained that we wear weight suits to compensate for the difference. Every Moonlander does—only the four of us wore suits that would replicate the weight of a three hundred-pound man here on Earth to make us even stronger.”
She crossed her arms under her breasts again and rested back on her hips. “Do you think I just crawled out from under a rock or something? A suit that heavy would have to be so bulky you wouldn’t be able to move in it.”
“Not if it’s made out of Tricarblyster.”
“What’s Tri . . . tri-whatever?”
“It’s a material that was developed early in the twenty-second century so the scientists living on the moon wouldn’t lose bone mass on extended stays.” He lifted the blanket at his waist. “It’s no bulkier than this material.”
She rolled her eyes with a snort and marched to the woodstove. “I made you some beef broth,” she said, lifting the cover off a steaming pot on the stove. She turned just enough to look at him. “Or will it upset your stomach because you’ve never had animal-based protein before? What with there not being any animals on the moon,” she drawled, looking rather smug again.
“I have no idea,” he said. He tossed back the blanket, gritted his teeth against the pain he knew was coming, then slid his legs over the side of the bed and pushed himself into a sitting position.
“Hey!” she cried, dropping the lid and rushing to him. “You have to stay in bed!”
He resisted her attempt to ease him back down. “What was that term you used earlier?” he asked. “Chill out? If it means to relax, then you must chill out, Isobel. If I don’t start moving around, I’ll grow weak.”
Her fingers flexed on his shoulders as she gave a small laugh. “Not in a month of Sundays, big guy. You have more muscle than a boa constrictor.” She let him go when she realized she had no hope of laying him back down. “Okay, then. Let’s see if we can get you on your feet,” she said, lifting his arm over her shoulder as she tucked herself into his side. “I don’t know why Chase had to kidnap me,” she muttered. “At the rate you’re healing, you’ll be swimming to shore in a couple of hours.”
She actually attempted to lift him, but Daniel didn’t budge. “I can get myself up,” he said, trying to pull his arm away—which she refused to let go of. “I don’t know how steady my legs are, Isobel. If I fall, I could crush you.”
She repositioned her grip on the back of his pants and gave another tug. “I’m stronger than I look. I handle large domestic animals for a living, remember? Don’t worry, I won’t let you fall.”
Daniel didn’t know whether to laugh or roar. He did know he’d like to meet a few of her old boyfriends and ask them if she was this stubborn and bossy in bed.
Bracing himself against the pain, he pushed off the bed to his feet. Only his knees buckled the moment he stood, and he ended up in a wrestling match with Isobel when she tried to support him and he tried to push her out of the way. They fell back on the bed together; Isobel giving a yelp that ended in a whoosh of expelled air, and Daniel giving a roar at the jarring pain.
“Ohmigod, your side!” she cried, holding him on top of her instead of pushing him away. “Dammit, I told you it was too soon to get up. But oh, no. Mr. Macho Moon Man had to prove how big and strong and—”
He covered her mouth with his hand
to keep himself from wrapping it around her neck. “Hush, woman,” he whispered through gritted teeth, closing his eyes against the fire raging in his side as he adjusted his weight slightly off her.
“Dnt-mve-r-ymyby.”
“Silence!”
She went perfectly still beneath him, her eyes widening in alarm.
Daniel dropped his forehead to hers. “Just lay quietly Isobel, and let me get my bearings.” He slackened his hand to see if she intended to comply, then took it away completely when she remained silent. A minute later, he lifted his head. “Did you get hurt when we fell?”
She gave a frantic—and utterly mute—quick shake of her head.
He took a steadying breath as the pain in his side finally eased to a dull throb, and brushed her hair away from her pale face with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Isobel. I would never hurt you.”
She said nothing. She did, however, hesitantly shift beneath him.
And every drop of testosterone in Daniel’s body roared to life.
Which set off a far more pleasant fire deep in his gut. After giving a quick scan of the bedposts for anything that might resemble a spider, he dipped his head and kissed her, fanning the flames of his desire even as he fought to keep them in check. Only instead of the soft, pliant woman he’d kissed just minutes ago, Isobel held herself perfectly stiff. He felt her hands slowly creep up to his chest, and she hesitantly tried to push him away.
Daniel broke the kiss to run his lips over her forehead before rising up enough to look her in the eyes. “I swear, Isobel, I would cut off my arm before I’d ever hurt you.”
She blinked up at him, then tried pushing him away again. He rolled off her with a groan, but when she tried to slide off the bed, he captured her arm and held her lying beside him. “Please, don’t run off. It’s important to me that you believe I won’t hurt you.” He laced his fingers through hers. “Let’s stare at the rafters together and . . . talk. Go on, ask me something about life on the moon in 2243.”
There were several heartbeats of silence, then Daniel heard her mutter something under her breath. He smiled, realizing he’d been right; Isobel’s apparent need to fill the silence was much stronger than her fright.
“Do the women of your colony allow men to shout at them?” she asked. “And if they were to shout back at you, what would happen?”
“Our women give as good as they get, if not better. However,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze, “they are wise enough not to test the limits of a warrior’s patience.”
He looked over to find her eyes had gone huge again. “Are you a warrior?”
He nodded. “Chase, Micah, Noah, and I were bred especially for this mission.”
“Bred? How do you mean?”
“We were designed to produce more testosterone than the average man, to give us the strength, endurance, and aggression it would take to succeed.”
“Designed? As in a lab? Is that how babies are made in the future?”
“No, it still requires a man and a woman and a good deal of privacy, and is one of the few pleasures left to us. In fact, you might say Moonlanders have perfected the art of lovemaking.”
When her jaw slackened, Daniel returned to looking at the rafters to hide his smile. He wouldn’t gain her cooperation if she was afraid of him, and apparently the subject of male-female relationships was of great interest to her. “But when certain traits are sought,” he continued, “then sometimes certain people are . . . encouraged to mate. The four of us are the results of several generations of selective breeding.”
She rolled toward him, her curiosity finally winning out completely. “Does that mean the four of you are brothers?”
“Yes.”
“And was your father a warrior?”
“No. Our parents are scientists, as are most Moonlanders.” She arched a brow. “Exactly how many Moonlanders are there?”
“One hundred and twenty three.
She blinked. “That’s it?”
“Our infrastructure was designed to support only a hundred, but we’ve managed to make room for more in the last generation, in preparation of repopulating Earth.”
Her eyes widened again. “Are those extra twenty-three people just like you?”
“No, there’s only ten of us warriors altogether. We have another brother who traveled from the moon to Earth with us, along with our mother and father. But Neil and our parents stayed in the year 2243 to maintain the energy supply supporting our links. The other five warriors from a different family remained on the moon . . . in case the seven of us failed.”
“That’s it?” she repeated. “You only have an army of ten protecting the moon?”
He arched a brow. “Exactly who would we be protecting ourselves from? There is no one left to war against, Isobel. The last men on Earth died in 2156.”
She rolled onto her back and stared up at the rafters again. “What about aliens?” she whispered. She looked over at him. “In over two hundred years, no other life form has ever been discovered in the universe?”
“We are it for our solar system.” He shrugged. “And if there is life elsewhere, we haven’t found it.”
“Or it hasn’t found us,” she drawled. She suddenly let out a yawn, immediately covering her mouth. “Oh God, this lumpy old bed feels good,” she murmured, her eyelashes dropping to her cheeks. “I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. So tell me more about the four of you,” she continued drowsily. “If there isn’t any need for an army on the moon, then who taught you guys how to be warriors?”
“Our mother.”
She opened her eyes in surprise. “A woman taught you about fighting and stuff?”
Daniel chuckled. “Mom is a historian and the keeper of our colony’s precious book collection. Using ancient texts, she taught the ten of us the art of war, educated us in the ways of twenty-first century Earth, and helped us grow strong by making sure we got extra portions of protein. In fact, it was her idea that we should wear heavier weight suits.” He chuckled. “She also helped get us excused whenever we got into trouble growing up, by explaining to the Elders that creative intelligence and aggression were an integral part of a warrior’s make up. And that the pranks we pulled were proof enough that we would eventually save the colony.”
Isobel’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re really saying the ten of you were spoiled rotten.” She snorted. “And your mama wouldn’t let anyone even shake a finger at her boys. You turned into a bunch of bullies, didn’t you, throwing your size and strength around like . . . like you did with me just now,” she said, pushing his hand holding hers away and sitting up. “Well, Mr. Moon Man, your women might get all ga-ga over a macho attitude and bulging muscles, but women in this century don’t particularly like intimidating brutes.”
She started to leave the bed, but Daniel wrapped his arm across the front of her shoulders and pushed her back onto the pillow, all the time wondering how their conversation had gone so terribly wrong so quickly.
“Hey!” she cried, struggling to sit up again—even as she was careful not to bump against his side. “Let me up!”
“Go to sleep, Isobel. You can’t nurse me to health if you’re falling-down tired.”
“You’re a bully,” she whispered, lying stiffly beneath his arm.
“No, I’m simply a man in pain who would like a few minutes of quiet.”
“You started the conversation.”
He gave her a squeeze. “Which we will continue after you’ve slept.”
She remained silent for all of sixty seconds. “I have to get Snuggles.”
“The rabbit sleeps with you?” He lifted his head. “Does she do so when your boyfriends are . . . visiting?”
Isobel returned to glaring up at the rafters. “She gets cold easily, and she’s scared and confused to be here. And rabbits are social creatures, and they get lonely.”
Just like you, he refrained from saying. “Then call your cold and frightened little friend and pick her up,” he o
ffered, freeing one of her arms. “And I will keep the both of you warm and safe while you sleep.”
Six
Isobel wound back her arm and threw the rock as far as she could, then watched it land in the ocean with a plop. Perfected the art of lovemaking, she thought with a snort, picking up another rock.
Yeah, well, he better not try any of his fancy moves on her!
She threw the next rock at a piece of exposed ledge, then watched in horror as it ricocheted off the granite and nearly hit a seagull floating on the swells. The bird rose into the air with a squawk of surprise, its scolding caws carried away on the breeze.
“Sorry! I didn’t see you swimming there!” Isobel called after it. She picked up another rock worn smooth by the surf and began searching for another target.
If Daniel tried to kiss her again, so help her God, she would . . . dammit, she was tempted to kiss him back! Just to prove that he didn’t intimidate her one itsy-bitsy bit, she decided, this time aiming at some floating seaweed.
It was bad enough Snuggles hadn’t left his arms all afternoon. Didn’t the little traitor know that his fawning over her soft fur and long ears was nothing but a veneer, hiding a don’t-test-me-or-I’ll-wring-your-neck liar just like his brother Chase?
About the only part of Daniel’s story Isobel believed was that he really did have an overabundance of testosterone. The guy had shown up with a branch sticking out of his side, for crying out loud; but not only was he already walking around on his own, he apparently felt well enough to kiss her. Twice! And when she’d awakened from her nap this afternoon, it had been to find him cupping her breast in his sleep!
Were horse tranquilizers aphrodisiacs for men, or what?
Isobel picked up another rock, this one the size of her fist. So what if she’d slept like a dead woman in his arms? She’d been up for almost two days. And getting kidnapped was stressful. So was being forced to perform surgery on a human, only to be kidnapped again, then stranded on this stupid island with a man who snapped at her one minute and turned into a horny-toad the next.
Ladies Prefer Rogues: Four Novellas of Time-Travel Passion Page 4