“Listen. I need something from you.”
Moire nodded. “Anything.” She gulped, realizing too late how desperate that sounded.
“I have to get home.”
She nodded.
“To Kahara.”
She froze, her eyes stinging all over again. The thought of him leaving made her want to vomit. “No. You can’t leave.” She stepped away from him, her back pressed against the back wall.
Tarys huffed out a breath. “This is all my fault.”
“What is?”
He gestured loosely at her. “You, feeling this way.”
“Can’t you just stay for a moment? Why do you have to run off so fast?”
“I won’t be able to go anywhere unless I can contact them anyway. I need you to help me with that. I don’t have the energy, or the strength to do it on my own.”
“I’ll do anything for your good, but I won’t help you.”
Tarys’s chest went all big as he sucked in a huge breath. “Just come here.”
“Why?” Moire asked even though she was going to do it anyway. His pull reached her on a cellular level. He controlled the ebb and flow of the air in her lungs.
He took her face in both of his hands.
She gazed into his eyes, but he seemed to be looking right over her head. “What could I possibly do?”
“Shhhhhhhh…”
She winced. “What are you doing?”
“I miss the time when you couldn’t even find your own voice.”
“I learned how to speak to you.”
He pursed his lips. “You really must be quiet.”
“Why?”
But he had already begun to ignore her. He placed one of his hands on her forehead, the touch more comforting than ever.
“It really isn’t that hard, Tarys,” he said.
“Are you talking to yourself?”
He placed his other hand on her lips.
Moire glowered at him, begging for an explanation, but at the same time hoping he wouldn’t let her go.
He looked back down at her, and as he stared his eyes grew softer. His hand slipped away from her lips.
She didn’t waste a second. “Please. Don’t. Leave.”
But his gaze had shifted from her eyes to her lips. He lowered himself to her.
Moire’s eyes flickered shut as he kissed her. In that moment, she felt like more of a person than she had in a long time.
“I can’t do it,” he said as he broke away.
“Do what?”
He looked at her as if he hadn’t realized that she had heard. “If you could come with me, would you help me?”
“What? Come with you?”
“To Kahara.”
“You want me to leave Earth?” She didn’t believe him.
Tarys ducked his head. “What, exactly, do you have to leave? This tiny shop?”
Moire clenched her jaw, ignoring the pang in her stomach from his insulting words. “This tiny shop is my life’s work.” Her flowers were her life line. They had helped her through the worst parts of her childhood. The only things that seemed to listen to her. They depended on her for survival. With those flowers, she mattered. And yet, he wanted to take her away from them. She could already feel herself fading.
“But you have a gift. You’re capable of so much more than building decorations.”
Moire raised her hand. “Okay, first of all, I highly doubt that. And, second of all, maybe this is all I want.”
“I cannot stress to you how important it is that I find my way back home. I need to tell them what happened to my colony.”
“So…go.” Her voice broke. “But I can’t go with you. I have a… life here.” She hated the flimsy cover.
He huffed. “Okay. This is getting circular. You know you don’t want to see me go.”
Moire glared at him, determined to hold her own. “Don’t tell me what I want.”
He grabbed both of her arms. His energy was intoxicating. “Just because your mother died—”
Moire’s eyes went wide. An image of her sick, half-dead mother in a hospital bed rose to mind before she could construct a wall against it. “What?”
“She did have cancer, right?”
Moire ripped herself out of his grip. “Please stop talking.”
“You can’t let what happened tie you down.”
“You don’t know shit!” she screeched, feeling lightheaded from the outburst. How cocky of him. Her mother’s death was only the beginning, the bang that set off the avalanche.
“Fuck me!” His hands clenched into fists.
Moire glared at the sign above the door: Carol Brendan.
Tarys followed her gaze, just like she didn’t want him to. “Do you even want this shop? Or are you just here because it’s hers?”
Moire stepped back behind the counter. She hated her job, but she loved her flowers. So what did that mean?
Tarys leaned over the counter. “Moire.”
“Does it matter?”
He placed a hand on her cheek.
She hated the way it calmed her.
“You’re better than this.”
There was a ring as the door opened. A woman with a briefcase walked in, her high heels clicking noisily against the floor. Another wedding planner.
Moire cleared her throat.
“I’ll just…” Tarys stepped away.
Moire watched him leave.
Chapter Six
Moire came home that night completely frightened of what she might find. Her fight with Tarys had left her rattled and unsure of herself. A huge part of her didn’t want to think about letting the shop go… letting herself go.
She unlocked her front door and stepped inside, a strange smell assaulting her nose. She dropped her purse on the side table and made her way down the hall and into her living room. A gasp slipped past her lips when she saw that he had completely disassembled her television and was fiddling with some wires behind it.
He glanced up at her. “Oh thank the gods. Come here and bring your phone.”
“You destroyed my TV…”
He shrugged. “Can’t you just buy a new one?”
Moire sank down into her couch. “I don’t want to do this.”
Tarys spoke without looking at her. “You don’t have to. I figured out a way to handle it myself.”
Moire gazed at him, her eyes wide with horror. It was different when she could decide. “What?”
“I’ll harness the energy from this devise. That, along with the excess of organic matter in this room and my own strength, should be enough to throw a good signal. Anyone in a Kaharan observatory won’t be expecting it, so it will stand out.”
Moire sunk onto her knees on the carpet. “I wasn’t counting on it.”
Tarys glanced back at her, his head bowed. “I know.”
“I thought I would be able to choose.”
“We both know that wouldn’t have changed a thing.”
She let her hands rest in her lap. “Will you just stop for a second?”
He turned toward her. “I have to do this.”
“Doesn’t at least a little part of you want to stay?”
He chuckled once. “There is nothing in me that would even consider staying.”
Moire bowed her head, that sinking feeling seeping down through her entire body. Her thoughts swirled around in her head, becoming nothing more than nonsense. A lump the size of an orange lodged itself in her throat.
He crossed the room in three short strides and knelt down next to her. “But all of me needs you to come with me.”
“Are you afraid that I’ll run to the government and tell them about you? Is that why you want to rip me away from everything?”
“No. I trust you.”
“So stay.” Moire didn’t know how many other ways to say it. She pressed her head onto his shoulder, her tears wetting his tunic.
“Do you see what we’re doing? I can’t stay here and you can’t come with me. T
here’s something very wrong about that.”
Moire hated this with everything in her. Why couldn’t she just let this go? Why couldn’t she be anything other than the stupid florist her mother made her promise to be? “But you can stay,” she pleaded.
She felt him shake his head. “I have a duty to my people. I have to go home.”
A sloppy sob fell out of her mouth. She wrapped her hands around his neck as their lips found their way to each other. As he laid her onto her back, all Moire could think about was why.
Why. Why. Why.
He kissed her with a kind of desperation only a man in love with her could muster. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he pressed his body into hers, imagining that she could trap him there, that it could be just that simple.
He slipped his hand under her shirt, his fingers cupping her breast. A moan slipped from her lips as she pulled his tunic off. He pressed his hand in between her legs, rubbing her above her panties. Moire closed her eyes so that she could really feel him. Her head went limp, her eyes rolling and her neck arching.
The more he gave of himself, the more she wanted. His bulge pressed up against her thigh. Her own body pulsed at the touch. Thoughts swam around and around and around in her head until they turned to mush.
Her cunt throbbed, one spasm after another as he entered her. It was a rhythmic, dynamic hug between two lovers.
He slid his tongue across her cheek, the warm organ leaving an icy trace of himself. His grunts grew more pronounced as Moire slammed herself up against him. She wanted more and more and more of him and as the seconds became uncountable, as the hour became eternity.
It was the most dynamic sex she had ever had, that unique sensation of feeling a man inside you but also knowing exactly what he felt. As they climaxed, Moire wondered if there had ever, in all the history of all of the universe, been a man and a woman as connected to each other as she felt to him.
***
Tarys slipped his pants back on while he waited for Moire to return with the water. He shook his head as he eyed the contraption. His worse fear had been realized. When he awoke for the first time to Moire’s eyes, he had an intuition that she might be the one destined for him to bond with, but he ignored it because the statistical probability of that being true was extremely low. And yet somehow it had happened.
But could this have possibly come at a worst time? Moire said she didn’t want to leave. He had only offered to take her with him at first because he thought the enslavement drove her to act against separation. But if they were meant to bond, if they had bonded, the enslavement had no effect. Whatever he felt for her, whatever she felt for him that could not be helped. He could do nothing to eradicate it.
“Here.”
Tarys turned to find Moire wearing her terry cloth and extending a glass of water toward him.
He nodded. “Thank you.”
She huffed out a breath. “So, are we going to talk about this?”
Tarys raised an eyebrow. To admit to her that the Bonde existed between the two of them would be counter to the ongoing effort in the front of his mind to get home at all cost. “Yes. I need you to hold my hand and follow my lead.” He placed his hand on the exposed wire behind the defaced screen.
He did his best to ignore what would have most likely been an expression of pure horror on Moire’s part. “I meant about us.”
He let out a calm breath. “There isn’t much to discuss.” With that, he initiated the process. His grip grew tighter on Moire’s arm, because he could feel her squirming. As his body flooded with energy, he avoided her gaze and ignored her yelps of confusion.
His heart thudded as he became acutely aware of the flow of her blood, of the ebb of her emotions. Finally, he hit what felt like a wall. The signal beamed back at him at a force he could not stand. He let go of the wire and stepped away, dropping Moire’s hand. His skin smoked, slick sweat dripping down his back from the effort.
“You’re still leaving?” Moire stalked away from him.
“What is there to be said?” He kept his gaze down. “You told me you could never leave, and I will not make you sacrifice your mother’s memory to come with me. Now you don’t have to do anything.”
In the pause that followed, he dared to stare at her. Her body was tense, her fingers curled, and her lips folded into a frown. “I don’t understand. I don’t have the strength to leave you and I—”
Tarys would have gagged her if he could. He prided himself on being in control of his emotions, but watching her like that, knowing what she would say, he couldn’t trust himself to stay the course. “Don’t,” he pleaded. He disgusted himself.
“I love you.”
***
There. She said it. Moire was under the impression that those were the magic words, and that throwing them at him would fix anything. But it was like he got worse. Those beautiful silver eyes had grown red rings around them. His jaw was set rigid.
She didn’t know what else to do, but she knew she couldn’t go with him if he didn’t love her back. She was sure of her emotions, but to sacrifice everything, she needed confirmation. “You can’t just stand there,” she whispered as she stepped toward him.
But he raised his hand in protest. “Don’t ever say those words again.”
Moire’s heart crumpled, but she wouldn’t let it go that easy. She knew what she had seen. “No. Why are you doing this? I love you. Don’t you get it? Just…just say it back.”
“It isn’t real!”
His roar echoed through the house and nailed her to her spot. “What?”
“I did this. I manipulated your energy. I made it so that the next person who touched me would fall in love with me. I did it to protect myself. It could have been anyone. It doesn’t matter that it was you.”
Moire shook her head. No no no. This wasn’t the truth. She wouldn’t believe it. “No, you didn’t.”
“Think about it. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“It isn’t true.”
“So how do you explain being obsessed with me without even knowing me?”
Moire knew the truth. She could see through his arrogant misinformation even though she couldn’t figure out what he was trying to hide. “How do you explain falling in love with me?”
He froze.
Moire huffed out a breath. “Unbelievable. Just now when you had sex with me, when you didn’t have to, it was like I could hear your thoughts. It was like doing it with someone for the zillionth time. Someone you love. Maybe it is a charm, but maybe it’s between us and not on me. And…maybe…maybe you don’t want me to know that, because then I’d know that I have power over you.”
Tarys opened his mouth, but the sound of the door opening cut him short. “That must be them. That was fast…”
Moire peered around the wall of her living room. “They look like gangbangers…” Her eyes went wide when one of the two men drew a gun. Oh my God. Her body froze as her head flooded with fear. Reactionary tears streamed out of her eyes. She didn’t even get a chance to plead before the man pulled the trigger.
She heard the deafening sound about a millionth of a second before she felt something stab her from the outside and then the inside out.
“That’s for my Wilson.”
It was the last thing she heard.
Chapter Seven.
Tarys stood outside the operating amphitheater of the spaceship.
If only they had come a moment earlier.
If only he hadn’t killed that man’s brother.
If only he could have told her…
The door was yanked open, revealing a winded Kaharan with a bloodied lab coat.
The sight made his stomach churn. He opened his mouth to ask what had happened, but then he heard, “Tarys Brewer.” He turned to find a Kaharan standing at the end of the hall. His jacket, the medallion, and the sheer look on his face told Tarys that this was the commander.
“I was just anxious to learn the news on Moire.”
The Commander nodded as they continued down the hall together. “I’m afraid it doesn’t look bright for the poor woman. The bullet ripped right through her aorta…or so the doctors say. But thankfully we were able to get there before he got to you.”
Tarys bowed his head. They had stopped in front of a large window. There was nothing but stars as far as the eye could see. “He never meant to kill me. He went for her because I killed his brother in a conflict.”
The commander raised an eyebrow. “How could this happen? It is my understanding that you have been preserved for hundreds of years.”
Tarys didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
“Did you ever tell her about the Bonde?”
Tarys shook his head. “It was in my interest to get back to Kahara as soon as possible, and she didn’t want to leave her life on Earth.”
“If she had known of your unshakeable devotion to her, she would have.”
Tarys nodded. “Then where would we be? I have a life on Kahara. It was never in my plan to bond with her or with anyone.”
The commander let out a dry chuckle. “My friend, no one has a life on Kahara anymore. The planet has been wasted by a comet. The population of this is all that survived. Now everyone’s life is on Earth. I would have encouraged you to find a Kaharan and build our race. Tarys, you sacrificed your love for nothing.”
Tarys stepped away. His heart sunk down to the pit of his belly like an ossified corpse. He made his way back to Moire, not caring who stopped him. When he entered her room to find her in a coma, half dead, he knelt next to her. This was truly his everything. How could he have not seen it before…before it was too late?
And he wept.
Epilogue.
Moire’s eyes flicked open. Her jaw swung open, letting in a flood of air. The last thing she remembered was a man pointing a gun at her chest. Now she felt like a new person. She glanced around her at the small room she was in.
A hospital?
No. It looked too…luxurious.
She tried to sit up, but something obstructed her. She looked down to find Tarys’s arm. She looked over to see his face right next to hers, his eyes shut and the balls moving around below his lids as he slumbered. “Tarys,” she croaked. She winced. Her voice box was as weak as her arms.
MILITARY ROMANCE: The War Within Himself (Alpha Bad Boy Marine Army Seal) (Contemporary Military Suspense & Thriller Romance) Page 85