“You are not a glitch. You hear me? You’re not a mistake.”
A tear managed to escape her lashes and roll down her cheek. It was too much. He leaned forward and kissed her. He let the kiss build slowly, waiting till she relaxed—till she melted against him—to deepen it. He slid his tongue into her mouth, keeping his strokes gentle. When she pulled back, she sniffed and wiped her face dry.
“Thank you,” she said.
“There’s no need to thank me.” What the hell kind of society did she come from?
“All of my test scores are average at best. That’s why they installed a nanNet in me and assigned me to be an observer.” She pressed herself against his chest. “I didn’t really mind, though. I figured at least that way I could be useful.”
“What’s a nanNet?”
“It’s a network of nanites that live in my brain. They help me store and parse through the data I collect.”
“Hang on. They put a hard drive in your brain to make you more useful to society?”
Kira shrugged.
“That is so messed up,” he said.
The irony of it killed him. She had done this so that she would feel more a part of her society, but from what he could see it had only served to isolate her.
“If someone’s not born a rocket scientist or acrobat—that doesn’t mean they have nothing to contribute,” he said.
Kira was staring at him. He hoped he was getting through to her.
“We do things differently.” Her voice was just above a whisper.
“Yeah. I see that. What about the voices of dissent?”
“Dissent?”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. With everything she had told him—the drugs, the genetic engineering, making sure Earth didn’t find out aliens existed—her society seemed all about control.
“Voices of dissent. The people who disagree. Who want to change society.”
“There are no dissenters.”
“There are always dissenters. How many people did you say are in the Coalition?”
“Septillions.”
“And you think not one of them has a different idea of how things should be done?” When she didn’t respond, Brendan went on. “Those are the voices you should be listening for.”
Chapter Ten
“The only people I know of who oppose the Coalition are the Tau Ceti. And the last time I heard their voices, I blew up my listening station to avoid their interrogation tactics.”
Kira didn’t like much of what Brendan was saying. Primarily because it carried truth. But there was more going on than he was aware of.
“You have my complete attention,” he said.
“The Tau Ceti joined the Coalition a few hundred years ago, which isn’t long at all. It happened fast. Their homeworld is a swamp and has a peculiar electrical field that threw off our scanners. By the time we figured out that they were capable of extra-solar travel, it was too late to keep them pinned into their system.”
“Why would the Coalition even want to do that?”
“Among other reasons, the Tau Ceti are cannibals.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess that’s a good reason. No wonder my soylent green joke fell flat.”
He was trying to ease the tension of the conversation, but she couldn’t join him. She knew way too much about the Tau Ceti.
“Wait, they weren’t going to…” His smile faded. “They wouldn’t have—”
“They say they’ve stopped eating sentients, but there are still incidents. And after interrogating me, they would have needed some way to get rid of my body.”
“Okay. Not liking the Tau Ceti. Why were they after you?”
“The only thing they could have been after is information. That’s all the listening station had.”
“Couldn’t they have just grabbed it from the computers instead of interrogating you?”
“Possibly. My nanites were synched with the station, so they might have wanted to make sure all the data was destroyed. Whatever they were looking for, the only remaining copy is in my head.”
“No wonder you don’t want to be found. If tech is easier for them to find, won’t your nanites be a problem?”
“Don’t worry, they’re powered down currently.” Kira intended to keep them that way for as long as possible. “But you’re right—even their tech signature would make me easier to locate with scans. I was able to grab the medkit because the tech inside is off. The only other contents are a few doses of Balance.”
“That drug the Coalition uses to control people.”
“They’re not controlling citizens. It just helps people be happy.”
“Tomato, tomah-toh.”
“What?”
“Forget it.” He shook his head again. “Why doesn’t your super-friendly government use Balance on the Tau Ceti?”
“It doesn’t work on them. Well, it works too well. The Tau Ceti started out as amphibian humanoids. Balance is applied topically. The Tau Ceti’s skin somehow amplifies the chemicals and knocks them out.”
“Good to know.”
This would be a lot for anyone to absorb. He was handling it pretty well, so far. He shook his head, then leaned forward and kissed her. Slow, deep and wet.
When he pulled back, she asked, “What was that for?”
“You looked like you needed it. I know I sure did.”
She smiled and leaned against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
“At least we don’t have to worry about any space frogs running around on Earth,” he said. “I imagine they’d really stand out in a crowd.”
“Actually, one of the first things they did after joining the Coalition was to begin their own genetic engineering program to make them look more like us.”
“I’m over here reaching for peace of mind, and you’re just plucking it away.”
“Sorry.”
He was quiet for a long time. Then he asked the question she was dreading, that she hadn’t even let herself think.
“Are they a threat to Earth?”
She didn’t answer. He put his hands on her arms and shifted so he could look into her eyes.
“Kira, are they a threat?”
She couldn’t lie to him. She wouldn’t.
“I don’t know.”
“They want something on Earth,” he said. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here.”
She wanted to argue the point, but anything she said would be grasping at straws. He was right.
“What’s the Coalition doing to stop them?”
Another dreaded question.
“They don’t know the Tau Ceti are involved.”
He rose on his knees, pulling away from her.
“Yet,” she said. “They don’t know yet. I’m sure when they scan the debris field—”
“Kira, this is my planet we’re talking about. My home. Everyone I love is here.” He sighed and shook his head. “Do people in the Coalition even still do that? Love each other? Or is there a drug for that too?”
She understood where the hurt was coming from, but his words still stung.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I love you.”
His gaze shot to hers. She smiled and reached for his hand.
“We still know how to do that at least,” she said. “Love each other. We call it pair-bonding. It isn’t always about love, but we still feel the urge to partner with others.”
“This is hard to process. I mean, we could be having a translation issue. That word could mean something different to—”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, let her lips linger on his. Rising onto her knees, she deepened the kiss, shifted her hand to gently trace her fingertips across his cheek and down his chest.
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She paused long enough to say, “There’s no mistaking this. I love you.”
Kissing him again, she let her body talk for her. She trailed her fingers down his chest, then pushed him back onto the bed. He rested his hands on her hips. She could feel his tension.
Of course he was distracted. There was so much going on, so many new things he was processing. She felt it too. But they would sort everything out. Probably sooner than she wanted.
They needed to know what the Tau Ceti were after—what information was important enough to get her listening station boarded. To sift through the data in her final report, she would have to turn on her nanites. The danger that would put them in would be deadly and immediate. And if their time together was going to be that limited, she wanted to explore everything she could first.
She slid down his body, kissing his chest and stomach along the way. His cock had stiffened again. She wrapped her fingers around it and squeezed, simulating what her core had done earlier.
“Kira…”
She didn’t want to start talking again. Not before experiencing this.
She wrapped her lips around him.
Brendan gasped. She lightened her grip with her hand while tightening her mouth, taking him in deeper. She could feel so many things. His heart pulsing through his cock, his body tensing. She brushed her fingertips along his length, then down over his sac. His back arched. The change was subtle, but she felt it.
Movement, friction, pressure. Heat and wetness. She swirled her tongue around his crown before tightening her lips and sliding her mouth along his cock. As she gently ran her nails over his sac, she increased her pace.
“Kira…”
His hips started to move—rising to meet her, synchronizing their movements. It was incredibly intimate, witnessing his reaction so closely. A thrumming pulse was building in him. She could feel it.
“Stop!”
He pulled her head away. Why had he stopped her? Was she doing something wrong?
“Condom,” he said.
“What?”
He grabbed her arms and flipped her onto her back. For a moment, she thought he might just fall on top of her, but he held himself back. Instead, he scrambled for the drawer at their bedside and pulled out another of the metal packets. His hands were shaking.
She took it from him and smiled. He put his hands on his hips. His strong thighs were spread between her legs, his cock thrusting toward her. Maybe she’d never know what it was like to take him that way. But she’d had enough. And if this was their last chance to couple—to make love—she wanted to feel him inside her again.
She opened the wrapper, then placed the circle of transparent material on his crown. She rolled it down slowly, glancing at him as she did. He bit his lips. His control must be reaching a breaking point. When he was ready, she started to lie back, but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
“No, this time it’s all about you.”
Chapter Eleven
Brendan dropped to his back, gripping one of Kira’s thighs so he could pull her on top of him as he did. She was left straddling him, his cock resting against her slit. He wanted to thrust into her so bad he could hardly stand it. But if he did, he’d go off too fast, and she needed time to catch up.
She stared down at him with her eyes wide as if she didn’t know what to do. He gripped her hips and started to move her, sliding his cock against her. She was a quick study and took over fast.
She rocked against him, swirling her hips. Even this was going to be too much if she kept that up. Lucky for him, she was more worked up than he realized. She shifted so that his cock was lined up, then lowered herself over him.
Bliss shot along every nerve-ending as she wrapped her tight quim around him. She took him in so deep—deeper than he thought she could manage. Her dark hair fell forward across her chest, brushing her breasts as she moved. She lifted herself up onto her knees, then slowly sank back down, over and over.
Brendan lifted his hands to her, brushing her hair behind her back, then lightly dusting his fingertips along the sides of her breasts. He flicked his thumbs over her nipples, letting his touch become firmer.
Her pace increased. She reached down to his hands and pulled them away from her so she could lace their fingers together. He followed her lead as she positioned his arms on the bed so that she could brace her weight on them, letting him support her. It opened them up to a new array of possibilities.
She leaned into him, making a swirling motion with her hips as she lifted herself up and then eased back down. The stroke plus the way her sex was clenching him was pushing him too close to the edge again. The pleasure was pulsing through his hips, gathering together steadily, his cock so full and ready he wasn’t sure how he could last.
He thought about baseball, cold water, the stale bean burritos on the counter. Nothing helped.
Her pace increased, the frills left behind as she pumped him with her body, her hands gripping his so tight it almost hurt. He could feel her starting to pulse and let himself go, his hips rising up to meet her every time she crashed back onto him. She let out a loud cry as he felt her fall over the edge into her climax, her back arching and body pulling on him, urging him into his own.
The energy pooled in him flooded out as he came, his body spilling into her. His hips bucked and she rode him, thighs clenching him tight. His skin was on fire, a locus of energy radiating out from where they were joined.
She fell across his chest when the last waves of heat were settling in him. She made a soft contented sound as she let go of his hands. He wrapped his arms around her.
“I thought you said you came in peace,” he said.
He felt her laugh as much as heard it, her body vibrating on his, humming with contentment and happiness. He wished they could stay that way forever. But he knew they couldn’t. She must have felt the same.
“Kira…”
“I know.” Her voice was quiet “I’m parsing the data.”
“What, like now?”
“If we’re lucky, the Tau Ceti are still recovering from the station exploding.”
“And if we’re not lucky?”
She lifted her head and kissed him. He could tell her attention wasn’t entirely with him, though. He broke off the kiss and pushed them both up to a sitting position, shifting so that he could sit next to her.
“We can figure out another way. You don’t have to—”
“I do. There is no other way.”
He didn’t know what to do, so he sat next to her and held her hand. Moments ticked by. They hadn’t been vaporized, which he took as a good sign.
“I think I found something,” she said.
“What?”
“A plane crash over Louisiana.”
Brendan felt his stomach clench. “Yeah, I heard about that.”
“Scans picked up an unusual reading. An energy burst. It wasn’t long enough to run a full analysis. It could have been the Tau Ceti. But why would they take down a small passenger plane?”
“James Conroy was on that plane. He was a senator who just got elected. Is there anything in your data about him?”
“That name has come up several times. He was championing environmental issues.”
“I thought you were just watching us to make sure we didn’t realize aliens are real.”
She shook her head. “No, my job was to make sure you didn’t get proof.”
Senator Conroy was all about stopping climate change. According to Paige, his first priority was convincing people that climate change was real and having a detrimental impact on Earth’s ecosystems. Paige was helping him gather evidence for his reports.
“Why would an environmental activist show up in your reports at all?” It didn’t make sense.
“Because of the geographical areas he was concerned with. The wa
ter sample reports the station accessed showed shifts in alkaline balance, temperature, and salinity that…”
He did not like the look on Kira’s face. Her eyes snapped back into focus as her gaze met his.
“What is it?”
“They match the ecosystem on Tau Ceti-6. Their homeworld.”
His heart started to pound. Aliens were real—okay. They were watching Earth. He could handle that, even them walking among Earthlings. But making permanent bases there?
“Are you saying that the Tau Ceti have changed Earth’s environment to match their physiology?” He wanted to be crystal-clear on that point before he freaked out about it.
“I’m saying that they have destroyed indigenous ecosystems to make room for their own. This is worse than anything I’ve heard of them doing before. Raiding settlements is one thing, but this amounts to a full invasion of a preservation site. The sanctions they’re risking…”
“Why would they do it? You said Earth is rich in resources, but what could they possibly be after? Gold? Gemstones?”
“The Coalition can mine asteroids. Minerals are abundant in the galaxy, and precious stones can be replicated in labs.”
“What are we missing?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think of any reason the Tau Ceti would want to set up a permanent presence on Earth.”
“They’d have to be found out eventually, right?”
“Maybe, maybe not. The Coalition is aware of the damage Earthlings are doing to their own environment. If the Tau Ceti keep their operation small enough and try to match the damage they’re doing to what’s already going on, they might be able to get away with it for decades.”
“Shut down your nanites,” he said.
She closed her eyes for a moment, then said, “Done.”
The urgency he felt before at the thought of Earth being in danger coalesced into a chilling fear in his chest. Even if the Coalition figured out the Tau Ceti were involved in destroying the listening station, they had no idea what they were doing on Earth. And if the Tau Ceti managed to find Kira…
He shook his head, trying to avoid that thought. But he had to face it. If they removed her from the equation, who knew how long they could keep destroying Earth’s ecosystems before the Coalition caught on.
Resident Alien: Department of Homeworld Security, Book 2 Page 6