by E. A. James
She wrapped her legs around his waist. He walked her over to the wall. She gasped when the cold wall pressed against her back, but then Bane was against her, pushing inside of her, and she forgot all about it.
He held her up, balancing her between the wall and his body, and moved in and out of her. She closed her eyes, opened her mouth, and let the sensations take her.
Their bodies were slick with sweat where their skins touch and the sounds of sex filled the bunker, moaning and gasping. A moment later an orgasm rocked through her, coming out of nothing and hitting her full force. Her body contracted and released and she curled around Bane, digging her nails into his shoulders.
Just as her orgasm faded his overtook him. She felt him spasm inside of her and then he pumped hot liquid into her, filling her up even more than he already did. She gasped again, feeling every tiny movement until it was all over. It all ended with a shudder that traveled from his body to hers.
“I love you,” she said. It was the first time she’d voiced it, but if they were going out there and something happened, she wanted him to know. His eyes were soft and gentle when he looked at her, the sex draining out of them.
“We don’t give emotions as strong as this a word for fear of toning it down, but I have learned that what I feel is called love here. And I feel it for you, too. I love you.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bane slipped into the coveralls and watched Hannah dress herself. It was like a dance, even when she was in a hurry. The way she took care of herself was fascinating and Bane felt like he could watch her all day.
When she was dressed she looked at him and her cheeks were flush. It wasn’t just because of the speed she’d used to get ready. Sex looked good on her.
“We have to see if we can get to my car,” Hannah said. “As soon as we’re away from the facility we can go to Virginia and we’ll be okay. I think it will be about three hours’ drive.”
Bane nodded. He was skilled as a soldier but he knew little of this world and even though he would be able to find it – his mind was powerful after all – it was easier when Hannah helped him. He was amazed that she was willing to do so even though he was alien to her. He was amazed that she’d developed feelings for him. He was amazed that he felt the same about her. He’d searched for a mate for years, and now he’d found one a foreign life form.
They climbed the stairs. Hannah paused at the door, listening. The war was over. Bane could feel it in his bones. There were many humans out there but none were fighting.
He nodded at Hannah who typed in a code and the door clicked open. They emerged in the same loading dock where they’d been when the war had broken loose, and they crept to the small door once again. Bane wasn’t nervous but his heart fluttered in his chest nevertheless. He was feeling Hannah’s emotions and her nervousness bordered on fear.
“We will be alright,” he said to reassure her. The nervousness lifted slightly. Not a lot but it was something.
She led the way around the side of the facility. Rubbish bins lined the wall and the stench was overpowering. A moment later they were in a parking lot and Hannah walked toward a black car that looked a lot like the machine that had nearly run Bane over when he’d arrived on the planet.
“Get in,” she ordered and Bane complied. He opened the door on the other side she got in and slid into the leather seat. The inside of the vehicle looked a little like a space ship. There were controls everywhere.
“Does this fly?” he asked.
Hannah shook her head, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “We’ll drive there, but we can make good time. A lot of it is open road.”
She started the car and turned into the road. There were people everywhere, bright lights flooding the war scene. Bodies were littered across the grounds, humans and his own people alike. Dragons were twisted in unnatural ways, and scorched patches of land showed where there had been fire from a dragon’s mouth.
Sorrow grabbed a hold of Bane when he saw his people slaughtered. The humans had reached a similar fate but somehow death was too final for the destruction and pain they had caused.
“We have lost so many,” he said. His voice sounded hoarse. Emotion flooded him and pricked his eyes. He felt the war inside Hannah, how she fought to find the right words. Eventually, she spoke.
“If there was any way I could make this right…”
Bane nodded. So pure of heart was his Hannah. She had lost as many of her race as Bane had lost of his, and still, justice was important to her. His affection for her only grew the more he got to know her.
“You already are.”
She looked at him and smiled. He reached to her hand on the stick she kept shifting and held it. She made her way through three gates, holding her breath every time, and then she turned into a road that seemed to stretch to the horizon both ways.
“We’re out,” she breathed and I felt the relief coursing through her veins. “Three hours and we’ll get you home.”
Bane looked out the window. The night was completely dark, pin pricks of light stretching across the vast span of darkness above them. This world was beautiful. It was difficult to see how the creatures that lived here could take it for granted. It was impossible to know how much cruelty existed here, side by side with the beauty and the harmony.
“I don’t understand your race,” he said after they’d driven in silence for a while, linked by their hands.
“To be honest with you, very few people understand. They’re always talking about peace and they’re always finding new ways to kill each other. We’re a walking contradiction.”
Bane nodded and looked back out of the window to his side. She was right. The fact that she agreed with him made him warm inside. They were of different species, but they spanned the universe by agreeing and he knew that if she came with him she would fit into his world. She wasn’t like the rest of them.
“Tell me about your life,” he said. He knew so little about her and her life, about the world that she grew up in. He was leaving soon, and he found he wished he knew more about what she was leaving behind. About what she was choosing to leave behind for him.
She took a deep breath and once again her emotions were conflicted. There was passion, nostalgia, but also pain and regret.
“My father is very strict. He has very high standards and it’s impossible to please him.”
“But still, you try?”
Hannah shrugged. “Being a disappointment seems so much worse. I lost my mother when I was very young and my father makes it clear that I will never be like her. The alternative is to be like him. Apparently, I failed at that as well.”
Bane frowned. She seemed to regret her inability to please her father.
“Being your own version of yourself is not an option?”
She chuckled but there was no humor, only sadness. “You make it seem so simple. It’s hard to be yourself when no one wants you to be.”
Bane thought for a moment.
“I want you to be yourself.”
He looked at her. She glanced at him before she turned her eyes back to the stretch of road they drove on and her mouth curled up in a smile. “It’s all I want you to bring with you when we leave. Yourself. Nothing else. No expectations.”
Hannah nodded. The thought of leaving brought on a spike of sadness, a touch of fear, and something else that felt a lot like excitement. Bane focused on the first two.
“Do you want to stay?”
He would respect her wishes to stay behind if he left. It would tear him apart to leave her behind and he doubted he would ever heal from such a wound, but if that was what she wanted she deserved it.
Hannah hesitated. “No, I don’t think so. This world is all I know but life here hasn’t exactly been fun. It’s been hell, actually, until I met you. How much worse can it really be?”
Her last sentence was meant to be humorous, but it sounded grave.
“If you’re unhappy I promise to return you to your home.”
Another side glance from her. She nodded.
When they were close Bane felt it.
“We’re here, aren’t we?” he asked. Hannah nodded and turned off the road. They were in the middle of nowhere, but his people were here. He felt alive again. She parked the car and got out. He followed. She turned in a circle, looking.
“There’s nothing here.”
“Wait.”
As he spoke the place lit up. A wind started blowing, whipping her hair, and then his ship appeared. It had been cloaked until his arrival.
Hannah gasped.
“That’s it?”
He looked at the ship as if it were strange, from another world. It was spectacular. Smooth metal, oval shaped and larger than the facilities where he’d been held.
“It’s amazing,” she breathed. It really was. The door opened with a swish and Mage stepped out. Her hair hung loose over her shoulders.
“Bane, it has been too long. We feared you were dead.”
“I’m alive.”
Her eyes slid to Hannah. She opened her mouth to say something, but she didn’t have a chance to speak. Light flashed and the roaring sound of a helicopter cut her off. There were spotlights on both of them. Lines and lines of trucks and cars pulled into the field.
“Oh, no,” Hannah said and there was genuine fear. It was like a cold rush. Bane followed her eyes and saw them trained on a man in the front vehicle. The man who had ordered them to stop in the cell when he was beaten. Her father, he realized. Her fear of him was painful. No one should feel that way about the person that raised you.
“He’s brought the entire army,” she said. Her voice was high pitched.
“We will make sure you are free,” Bane said. He looked at Mage who nodded. She was on his side, less suspicious than Hocus had been. Was his friend alive? He didn’t know yet.
“Stay behind me,” Bane said. Hannah stepped onto the ramp that led to the ship. Mage stepped forward so that she was in line with Bane.
“There are others around,” she said. “They will help.”
Bane nodded and believed her. He heard a pop and he knew Mage was changing. He looked at Hannah. She was wide-eyed and scared but there was determination coming from her, too.
Bane turned his attention to the army and brought his own dragon to the party. This was ending here and now.
It happened very fast. They all opened fire at the same time. A moment later more dragons appeared and the war was back where it had been at the facility. It was impossible to think that the humans were willing to do the same again after they had lost so many lives. Bane fought, spraying fire, trying to eliminate the weapons and not the people. Sometimes it failed.
At one point a sharp pain penetrated his chest. Bane checked his body but there was no sign of blood. He turned and looked toward the ship. He felt like he was dying, his body suddenly weak. He saw Hannah lying in a crumpled heap, blood pouring from a wound in her chest the same place he was hurting.
They’d hurt her. That bastard had hurt his own daughter. Bane turned back to them and saw red.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Hannah opened her eyes. She was surrounded by white. She couldn’t tell where she was or why she was there. A sharp pain in her chest made her wince. The rest of her body felt numb.
Where the hell was she?
A face moved into her line of vision.
“Where am I?” she asked. It was a woman and she wore white. Her skin was pale, her hair virtually colorless, so that she looked like her surroundings. She checked Hannah’s vitals without looking her in the eye once or speaking.
“I asked you a question,” Hannah said. Breathing made her chest hurt. “Where’s Bane?”
The mention of his name caused a flicker of recognition on the nurse’s face but she carried on ignoring Hannah.
Hannah tried to push herself up. The nurse didn’t try to stop her, but the pain did her work for her. Hannah fell back, whimpering. She remembered the shooting, the dragons, and her dad’s empty eyes. God, the way he’d stared at her it was like he’d disowned her as his daughter. It had been apparent what she’d done, whose side she’d chosen.
And he hated her for it now. If he came in here she was going to get it and bad.
“Please talk to me?” she asked in a polite voice. It didn’t help any more than demanding or pleading had.
She closed her eyes and tried to figure out if there was pain anywhere else. Other than her chest, though, she seemed okay. Her chest and her heart. Where was Bane? Where was her father?
The doors to the white room slid open and Bane walked in. His black hair and diamond eyes were in stark contrast to all the white.
“Thank you, Fern,” he said. The nurse nodded and moved away.
“You’re alive.” Bane looked like he’d been scared she wouldn’t be.
“I am,” Hannah said. “Hurting, but alive. What happened with the war?”
Bane shook his head. She wasn’t sure what that meant.
“We got away. We’re in the ship now, on our way to the next planet that might be habitable.”
Hannah looked around. “We’re in outer space.”
Bane smiled and nodded. “You’re in our medical facility. You were caught in the cross fire. I felt the bullet when it penetrated your chest.”
Hannah gasped.
They were silent for a while, Hannah taking it all in.
“Do you still want this?” Bane asked.
“Leaving with you?”
He nodded. Hannah didn’t have to think about it.
“I do. I saw my father on the front of that truck before they started shooting, and the truth is I didn’t recognize him. That man can’t be the person I aspire to be.”
Bane leaned forward and kissed her lightly before pushing his hands into her hair.
“It’s going to be uncertain from here on out. We don’t know what we’ll find. We’re still searching for a place to call home.”
Hannah nodded, her hand sliding up Bane’s until she reached his chest.
“It will be an adventure.”
***THE END***
The Billionaire Cowboy’s Baby
CHAPTER ONE
This is animal cruelty, Frankie thought to herself as she watched a cowboy wrestle a calf to the ground.
The audience cheered.
The announcer excitedly proclaimed how impressed he was by the sight—his voice cracking over the dented speakers.
Frankie crossed her arms and pouted. She had been sitting by her boyfriend over an hour ago, but ever since he left to get the two of them water, she hasn’t seen him. Alone, she was inhaling the scent of mud and dung while trying to daydream about her life back in New York. People were so close together—moving so fast—dreaming so big…the scent of rain and metal poignant in the air…shiny buildings looking like godly towers when the sun hit them at just the right angle…
The crowd cheered louder, making Frankie jolt and tense. The cowboy, standing in front of the tied up calf, took a bow.
Frankie sighed, her shoulders lowering. She scowled at the cowboy, even though it wasn’t his fault that she was here. It was her boyfriend Jack’s fault.
Okay, technically, he didn’t force her to go west with him. He had told her that he was restless and lost—that he was moving for his soul’s sake and not because of anything she had done—and because she had believed him, she offered to go with him.
They had only been dating a year. What was she thinking? She hated dirt. And she hated watching people attack baby animals for amusement. And she had been an accountant back home—making good money, living in a nice apartment.
But she loved Jack Moore. God help her, she really did. And if he could find peace from this setting, then maybe she could, too. Black people in the south weren’t victimized as much as they used to be, after all.
The thought made her stomach constrict. Placing a palm over her gut, Frankie stood and gently pushed herself past people.
As she walked in front of the bleachers—the announcer talking about the price of beverages or something—her eyes roamed about in search of Jack. What she found instead was a tall, attractive stranger, his cowboy hat askew on top of his short, messy hair.
He turned and, with the most gorgeous green eyes she had ever seen, looked back at her. Smirking, he winked.