by Trisha Telep
“Finlay—” Carrollus said. He took my hand and placed it in the crook of his arm.
My heart nearly tripped over itself. Damn biology.
He ushered me through the doors of the command center, back to the elevators, waved one open, and escorted me inside.
When I attempted to draw away from him, he tightened his grip on my hand. He gave a verbal command I assumed equated to a floor number.
“You’ve put me in a difficult position,” he noted as the elevator began moving.
Guilt lurched through my chest, but I mentally strangled the emotion. I turned to face him.
“Funny,” I said when I could be sure my tone would remain neutral. “I could say the same of you.”
He met my eye with a direct gaze that unnerved me. “Yes.”
“Especially since your captain doesn’t intend ever to let me go home.” I refused to back down, even as my body heated.
His gaze shifted to my lips.
“I’ve been ordered to ensure that when your thirty days are up, you will not want to leave us.”
Liquid fire dumped straight to my lower belly. I clenched my teeth to keep from telling him that his job wouldn’t be so hard.
“I get the impression you’d put me back, if it were up to you,” I persisted, my breath suddenly in short supply, “even though you brought me here in the first place.”
As if unaware of what he did, he smoothed a strand of my hair where it fell over the collar of my jacket. He wound the curl around his finger.
I held my breath. The subtle electricity of his touch smashed into my senses.
Desire darkened his eyes, even as he frowned. “Yes.”
He didn’t like being attracted to me.
Despite his reluctant response, or maybe because of it, arousal slid hot and wet into my lower body. I gasped. Did I really want someone who didn’t want to want me?
“So put me back,” I forced myself to rasp. “You could pick any number of women who’d be less trouble than I am.”
He smiled, but lines that looked like pain creased his forehead. With a gentle tug, he freed himself from my hair. “Not possible. Not now.”
“Why not?”
The elevator stopped. The doors opened. He led me out.
“What you said to your friend on the phone,” he said, glancing at me, “‘I’m nobody’s present.’ What does that mean?”
“You heard her assessment,” I said, pressing my voice flat.
“You’re afraid to care? You have no one?”
I detected no sympathy or pity in his tone, just straightforward curiosity. “No.”
I felt the look he ran over me as a caress, and had to suppress a shiver despite the hurt gripping me. “Look. I buried my heart a long time ago. That makes me no use to you.”
“Heartless? Is that what you think you are?” Carrollus murmured.
Hot blood flooded my face.
“You aren’t. I’ll prove it,” he said, disengaging his hand from mine. “I’ll be right back.”
He ducked into a door that closed behind him.
Beneath my feet, the vibration of the engines eased to the point that they became undetectable. Orbit achieved, I gathered.
When Carrollus emerged, he carried a rumpled package in one hand. He held out his hand to me. “Fewer than thirty humans have seen the far side of the moon. If you can keep it a secret, I’ll make you one of them.”
I gasped at the unexpected thrill. I think I bounced as I tucked my hand into his. “Yes!”
Chuckling, he led me through a maze of corridors to a point low on the ship. He unlocked a door. It opened on what looked like a glass bubble.
The pockmarked lunar surface spread out before me, a slender crescent illuminated by the sun, the rest cast in shadow. It looked close enough to touch. For a split second, I hesitated, overwhelmed by the sheer wonder of seeing something only a handful of humans in the history of my world had seen.
Then, like a kid at the zoo, I plastered myself to whatever substance made up the see-thru hull and stared. My breath didn’t even fog the surface of the window.
The door closed. I heard Carrollus lock it, and he pressed in close behind me, trapping me between his heat and the cool hull.
I sucked in a sharp breath at the want twisting my gut. I’d met him not twenty-four hours ago. How could I want him so urgently?
“What I told you about the bio-agent?” His voice vibrated through his chest into mine. The sound and the warmth of his presence curled around the cold, dead space where my heart should have been. “There’s more.” He threaded one arm around me, as if he needed something to hold. “My parents were among the first to die.”
“Which one of them was your captain’s child?” I asked.
Carrollus stopped breathing for a moment, then his diaphragm kicked in a laugh I couldn’t hear. “How did you guess?”
“When you’re angry, you and Captain Grisham look remarkably alike.”
“My mother was his only child.”
“I’m sorry.” I felt awkward and inadequate saying the words, but they were all I had to offer.
He tugged my shirt tails out of my waistband, and threaded his hands under the fabric to caress my stomach.
The muscles jumped. I gasped at the firestorm his touch ignited in my body. Leaning into him, I breathed, “What are you doing?”
“Something I shouldn’t be doing,” he murmured at my ear. “I need the touch of your skin on mine. Do you mind?”
Sensation shot heat and moisture through me. I dropped my head back against his shoulder. It dawned on me – I could no more avoid him than the moon could escape Earth’s gravity.
“I don’t mind.” I had no idea how I got the words out.
His hand splayed against my ribs just below one breast. The other hand followed the contour of my hip bone.
I felt the hitch in his breathing as my own. With his touch as catalyst, want gathered like a storm in my blood. I’d never felt anything so overwhelming.
It sat right on the edge of scaring the life out of me. My heart couldn’t decide whether to tremble with longing or with terror.
“I—,” he began, and then cleared his throat. “I had a wife.”
“A wife?” I echoed, dread and horror freezing my blood.
“She was pregnant with our first child.”
I closed my eyes as if I could shut out the rest. My heart slid to my toes.
“Ikkari’s only wish was to save the baby. We tried. Nothing worked. I lost them both.”
He fell silent for a minute.
I opened damnably watery eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I choked again. “Why did you tell me this?”
“You deserve to know,” he said against my ear. “Most of this crew has been taught that everyone on board is their family. They were young enough to internalize the change.”
“You weren’t?”
“No. I haven’t taken a partner since Ikkari died.”
“How long?”
“I’ve lost count of the years.”
“She was a lucky woman,” I murmured.
“Finlay. You care,” he prodded. “You care. You care about the people on this ship, and you care about a dead woman and baby you never even met.”
Yes. I did. And I didn’t comprehend how that could have happened. My crumbling defenses scrambled to close the gaps against Trygg Carrollus. I didn’t know what to say.
“I’m not so selfish that I imagine I’m the only one who’s lost someone,” I finally spoke.
“Perhaps you haven’t lost as much as you think,” he said. He offered me the package he’d brought with him into the room.
I stared at the clumsy wrapping job and knew he’d done it himself. That warmed me.
When I glanced at him, he looked . . . lost.
A tendril of fear touched me. Hand trembling, I took the gift.
“Thank you,” I said. I tore paper.
It was a picture frame.
I’d opened it so the picture wasn’t facing me. I turned it over. I felt as if I’d been kicked in the gut. The breath left me. My mouth opened, but I couldn’t force air past the painful constriction in my throat. Tears burned my eyes. A sore place in the center of my chest tore open.
A picture from my parents’ wedding. I hadn’t seen the photo since before the flood that had destroyed the house we’d rented in rural Louisiana when I’d been ten years old.
“I’d forgotten.” I whispered because I couldn’t force my voice past the lump of unshed tears choking me.
Warm fingers touched my cheek. “They look so happy.” The wistful note in his voice raked my raw emotions. “Your mother is beautiful. You look very much like her. And your father looks so proud.”
I breathed a ghost of a laugh. “When he saw her walking down the aisle toward him, he was so overwhelmed, he nearly passed out.”
“He has my complete sympathy.”
“My God, Trygg.” I choked. “Thank you for the picture. Where did you—?”
“Newspaper archives from the town where they were married,” he said. “I’d had you under surveillance for several months before we brought you in. I contacted the paper and explained you’d lost both the pictures and your parents. They were happy to pull the negatives.”
I threw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, aware I didn’t care where, when or how. I only cared that a lost part of my family had been restored. My tears spilled over. Embarrassed, I realized he hadn’t returned the embrace. I ducked my head and tried to back away.
He caught me, eased the picture from my hands, and pulled me tight against his chest. He tucked my head beneath his chin and held me until the emotional storm passed. He didn’t try to quiet me with false assurances that everything would be all right. He simply held me and accepted my sadness. That felt oddly like another gift – one I’d never before been offered.
I’d gone from slugging my kidnapper in the stomach to taking comfort in his arms, all within a twenty-four-hour time frame.
When I finally straightened, he wiped moisture from my cheeks with shaking fingers. I registered the pressure of his erection, hot against me. Intrigued by the notion of stripping Trygg Carrollus out of his austere uniform, I flexed my fingers on his hard thighs, seeking to slide a hand between us to stroke him through the fabric.
“No,” he rasped. He caught my wrist. A sharp sliver of hurt lodged in my chest.
“Don’t,” he ordered, when he looked at me. “If I have you, I won’t be able to do what I know is right.”
“And what is that?”
“To take you home,” he said. “Isn’t that what you want?”
Pain expanded inside my chest. I could barely breathe around it.
Confusion rocked me. “I – yes. No.”
The skin between his brows puckered. “I don’t understand.”
“You’d be disobeying another direct order,” I said.
“Yes.”
“What happens to you then?”
He shook his head. “I don’t care.”
“I do. Come with me.” I said. Where the hell had that come from? “You were right. I care what happens to you. All of you. But you, specifically. When you look at me, I feel so much it’s—”
He drew closer with each breathless confession until I couldn’t eke any more words past my lips.
“I want you,” he said, “but I won’t rob you of your freedom.”
“I don’t want to lose – whatever this is—” The words stumbled out. I hated that I sounded like a love-struck teenager, and I loathed the waver in my voice.
He nodded.
I recognized the twist of pain in his eyes. Part of my heart tore.
“Why does this have to be an either or proposition?” I demanded.
“You come to Earth. I know you do. You know too much about the US military to not be involved regularly. Why couldn’t I stay here and still go to work every morning? You could stay with me when you’re on assignment infiltrating governments.”
He chuckled. “You don’t forget anything, do you?”
“Not if I can use it to get what I want.”
Hope lit in his eyes until it hurt to meet his gaze. “You’d do that? Live here and work on Earth?”
“You do.”
He picked up my parents’ wedding picture to run his fingers over the glass. “I do. Before she died, Ikkari urged me to be happy.”
“You haven’t been?”
“I hadn’t given it much thought,” he confessed. “It didn’t seem possible. Much less relevant.”
His observation touched off a sense of recognition within me. I’d felt something similar after my family had been killed.
“You’ve driven me mad with wanting from the moment I met you,” he said. “I think that was my grandfather’s plan all along when he sent me your file and ordered me to take up surveillance. He hasn’t given up hope that he’ll hold another Grisham descendant before he dies.”
Longing arced hot and sharp through my body. He’d planted the image of a dark-haired, blue-eyed infant in my brain and in my heart.
“I want what your parents had, and I want you, Finlay Selkirk. If I have to call in all my favors at the Pentagon to keep questions from being asked, I will,” he swore.
“Then help me get my things,” I ordered, grinning. “You can come with me to Jill’s party three days from now. Then we can take turns playing Santa.”
Interest sparked in his eyes as he looked me up and down. “I can hardly wait to unwrap my present. Are you going to make me wait for Christmas morning?”
“Of course,” I replied, thoroughly enjoying the buzz of arousal bolstering the easy teasing.
“Not if I have my way,” he promised, taking my hand and pressing a kiss to my palm. He chuckled when I gasped and squirmed.
I so hoped he did get his way. Soon.
“Ms Finlay Selkirk,” he said, mischief in his tone. “You’ve aced the interview. I’d like to offer you the job. Effective immediately.”
“Reporting to you?”
“Only to me.”
“When do we talk compensation?” I teased.
His dead sexy smile turned my insides to water. “When we’ve completed transport to your apartment. We’ll discuss it. In detail.”
Author Biographies
Regan Black
Regan crafts action-packed stories so paranormal fans can enjoy a fantastic escape from the daily grind. A recipient of a 2011 Paranormal Romance Guild Reviewer’s Choice Award, she is the author of the futuristic Shadows of Justice series, the lighthearted, contemporary Matchmaker series, and the Hobbitville young-adult series.
www.reganblack.com
Marcella Burnard
An award-winning author writing science fiction romance for Berkley Sensation, her first book, Enemy Within, was a national bestseller on its debut in November 2010. It won the RT Reviewer’s Choice Award that year and was a double RITA finalist. The second book in the series, Enemy Games, was published in May 2011. Enemy Storm, book three, is in the works. A short, erotic novella set in the Enemy universe was released by Berkley as an E-Special in April 2012.
www.marcellaburnard.com
Cathy Clamp
USA Today bestselling author of the Tales of the Sazi paranormal romance series, she also writes as Cat Adams for the Blood Singer urban fantasy series. Cathy is a recipient of the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award for Paranormal Romance.
www.catadams.net
Bianca D’Arc
Critically acclaimed author of paranormal, science fiction and fantasy romance, Bianca has twice won the coveted EPPIE Award. Her background includes degrees in biochemistry, library science and law.
www.biancadarc.com
Delilah Devlin Delilah is a national bestselling author of erotic romance, with a reputation for edgy stories and complex characters. She has published over one hundred stories in a variety of sub-genres and formats with publ
ishers like Avon, Berkley, Kensington, Cleis Press, Black Lace, Kindle, Running Press, Atria/Strebor, Ellora’s Cave, and Samhain Publishing.
www.delilahdevlin.com
Kiersten Fay
Kiersten combines paranormal and sci-fi elements in her romance – along with a healthy dose of humor – and is author of the steamy, paranormal/sci-fi series Shadow Quest. Often, she can be found guzzling coffee and lurking around Twitter @ Kierstenfay.
www.kierstenfay.com
Jess Granger
National bestselling author of dark and intense futuristic romance novels.
www.jessgranger.com
Jamie Leigh Hansen
Jamie builds engaging worlds filled with sexy vampires, werewolves and more.
www.jamieleighhansen.com
Leanna Renee Hieber
Trained as an actress and playwright, Leanna adores writing historical and futuristic fantasy with a focus in the Victorian era. Her debut novel, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, appeared on Barnes & Noble’s bestseller lists and won two 2010 Prism Awards (Best Fantasy, Best First Book). “Song of Saire” is part of her Dark Nest futuristic fantasy series published by Crescent Moon Press, which won the 2009 Prism Award in the novella category.
www.leannareneehieber.com
Jeannie Holmes
Jeannie fears spiders, large bodies of water, and bad weather. Therefore, she moved from rural Mississippi to the Alabama Gulf Coast where all three are in abundance. She’s a member of Romance Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and Horror Writers Association. When she isn’t spending time with her husband and four neurotic cats, she writes the Alexandra Sabian series.
www.jeannieholmes.com
Donna Kauffman
USA Today bestselling, award-winning author Donna Kauffman has seen her books reviewed everywhere from Kirkus to Library Journal, Entertainment Weekly to Cosmopolitan. With over fifty titles in print, her work has been translated into twenty-three languages worldwide. Her current Cupcake Club series has received starred reviews, and was named both Pick of the Week (Sugar Rush) and Top 12 Spring Romance 2012 (Sweet Stuff) from Publisher’s Weekly. Donna lives just outside Washington DC in the Virginia countryside with her family and a growing menagerie of animals.