Blooming Desire: An Extraordinary Spring Romance Collection

by S. J. Sanders

  He gazed down at her intently, his eyes the same bright shade of blue as his bioluminescence and she noticed a ring of black encircled his slit-shaped pupils.

  “Miss. Reid,” he rumbled and, oh my goodness, that deep purr in his voice sent the butterflies fluttering in her tummy flying south. A gentle hint of arousal began to build between her legs and she squeezed her thighs together.

  “General Detlef,” she murmured as she inclined her head politely.

  His lips curved upwards in a smile that revealed a mouth full of sharp teeth.

  “You may call me, Amon, if you wish,” he said. “I would prefer it, if I am being brutally honest with you.”

  “Sir?”

  Twisting his body slightly, she watched the muscles flex in his lower abdomen and his biceps bulge as he reached for the teacup and saucer sitting on his desk behind him. She couldn’t help her small smile. His fingers curled around the delicate handle of the dainty cup and he lifted it to his lips.

  Turning towards her, she noticed that, sitting on the desk just to his left, casting a myriad of colours on the floor, was an exotic flower encased in clear glass.

  “Would you care for some tea?” he asked her politely and she blinked up at him in confusion before he smiled warmly at her and gestured to the cup and saucer he held. “I can offer you coffee, if you prefer.”

  Coffee!

  Her brain short-circuited at the thought, her mouth watering as she imagined the delicious, rich taste of dark coffee flowing over her tongue and down the back of her throat to warm her insides. During the war, coffee – and many other imported items – had become a luxury that she could not afford; it was only now, several months after its end, that coffee shops were beginning to open once more or you could purchase grounds at the grocery store. But they were expensive.

  “Coffee, please,” she said, trying to remain calm and collected in front of the decorated general when she wanted to leap for joy.

  “I will never understand what it is about coffee that you humans enjoy so much,” Amon said. He gestured for her to sit on the sofa just to the side of his desk where he then placed a tray on the coffee table in front of her. She stared down at the tray laden with a variety of pastries and cookies she had not had since before the war began.

  Biscuits. Chocolate-chip cookies. Croissants. Macaroons. Oh my God, I’ve died and gone to heaven!

  “How did you—?” she breathed, reaching for a chocolate-chip cookie. She bit into it and the sweet taste of chocolate melted on her tongue. Her lashes lowered in contentment and she struggled not to moan aloud.

  “I do have humans living aboard my ship,” Amon growled, the extra gruffness to his voice causing arousal to surge inside of her. He watched her with those exotic blue of his eyes, the bioluminescence adding a blue glow to his alien features.

  “But … this is … Chocolate!” she moaned.

  Laughter rumbled low in his chest and Aella quickly looked down, her cheeks growing a becoming shade of pink as the slow spark of arousal grew into small flames that licked her insides.

  She glanced up when Amon stood on the other side of the table, bent over slightly to pour her a cup of coffee and handed it to her. Steam curled up from the rim of her mug. She brought the cup close to her face and breathed in the delicious scent of freshly brewed coffee. Her mouth watered.

  I swear, there is nothing sexier than having a man – no, wait, a male – pour me coffee.

  He sat down in the chair opposite her, his long tail trailing down and curling around behind him. His dorsal fin was relaxed and lay flat upon his back, the spines pulsing with the gentle glow of his bioluminescence.

  “Do your spines produce venom?” she asked. Her eyes widened and she immediately pressed a hand to her lips. “I’m so sorry! That was very rude of me.”

  “It’s all right,” Amon soothed her. With a graceful pivot, he swung his tail over to her and flared his dorsal fin until she caught sight of the thin membrane that connected between each spine. “To answer your question,” he murmured, “yes, I do produce venom.” Reaching forward, he plucked one of the spines from his fin and offered it to her. “Be careful,” he advised her. “My spines do hold venom and are very sharp.”

  She took hold of the spine very carefully. Lifting it to her eyes, she noted how there appeared to be dozens of tiny notches along its length. Tilting it back, she also saw that the inside of the spine was full of a clear liquid that could only be Amon’s venom.

  “It’s like the barb on a stingray’s tail,” she muttered.

  “I am unfamiliar with what a stingray is,” Amon said as he curled his tail into loose coils underneath the chair he sat upon.

  “It’s an animal we have in our oceans and lakes,” she explained. “They defend themselves with barbed spines.” She held up his spine and ran a fingertip along the notched edges. “They produce venom like you, y’know.”

  She offered him the spine.

  “No,” Amon said, holding up a hand. “Keep it, if you wish, or dispose of it.”

  “You’ll let me keep this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you!”

  Smiling at Amon, she carefully placed the spine on the table beside her coffee cup.

  “It seems I’m thrice now indebted to you, Amon,” she murmured.

  He frowned at her.

  “Indebted to me,” he rumbled. “How?”

  “You fought for Earth in our hour of need and you saved me from drowning,” she explained. “And you’ve given me a means to defend myself.”

  Amon drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair for several long moments, his tongue flicking rapidly between his lips. His slit pupils contracted into thin slivers.

  “Defend yourself?” he questioned.

  “Mm-hmm.” She nodded. “It happened a lot during the first year of the Invasion and it doesn’t happen as often any more, thanks to the Alliance’s presence, but it’s still something I’m concerned about.”

  Amon’s eyes narrowed.

  “Are you afraid of being abducted by the Ir’eils or are you referring to the males of your species?” he asked her, a dangerous gleam entering his eyes. His lips pulled back to reveal his lethal fangs. “Answer me honestly.”

  “Both.”

  Amon surged upwards.

  “Have you been attacked recently?” he demanded.

  Aella held up both of her hands as the enormous serpent-like male towered over her, his tongue flicking between his lips rapidly and his dorsal fin flaring to its full height. Blue bioluminescence pulsed around his eyes and cheeks, along the spines and the tip of his tail.

  “No, Amon,” she soothed, climbing to her feet and pressing her palms flat against his bare chest.

  He glared down at her, his inhuman eyes blazing, his blue bioluminescence glowing incandescently, his lips pulled back to reveal his lethal fangs.

  “Your males attack you,” he snarled, the feral sound rattling in his throat.

  “Yes,” she said, nodding.

  “And you are not taught to defend yourself?”

  “Some of us are but most of us aren’t,” she agreed.

  Amon rested his hands on Aella’s shoulders, his fingers biting into her upper arms, his sharp claws leaving little prickles of pain where he held her. She winced. He immediately released her.

  “My apologies,” he muttered. “I did not mean grip you so tightly. I am … concerned for you.”

  She smiled up at him.

  “It’s okay.”

  Amon shook his head. “It really is not.”

  Reaching down, she gripped the spine he had gifted her.

  “I don’t need to worry so much anymore, Amon,” she said holding it up for him to see. “I can defend myself now. Hopefully, I’ll never have to use it.”

  “I hope not, Aella.”

  Chills blasted her. The way he spoke her name, as though it were a caress, caused her insides to light up like fireworks. The gentle pulse of pleasure faded a
s her clit now throbbed with the beat of her heart. She needed to leave before Amon scented her arousal; he may already know from the way he sampled the air a few minutes ago.

  “I should probably, um, go,” she said.

  Amon stared down at her with those inhuman eyes of his.

  “If you must.”

  She stepped outside and, once the door closed softly behind her, she leaned against the wall and covered her face with her hands. Her cheeks burned with the arousal that pulsed between her legs and her lips curled upwards in a small smile

  Would he be repulsed knowing that I’m a…? She couldn’t finish the thought, ducking her head down as an anxious little giggle bubbled up her throat. She knew that a woman like her was rare for this day and age when people started sleeping around in their mid-teens and continued to do so well into their twenties or even their thirties before settling down. She never experienced the sweet caress of a lover. General Amon awoke feelings in her she never thought that she would feel; his physical presence drew her in like a moth to a flame and it didn’t bother her that he was completely alien in every sense of the word. His voice alone ignited her body until her clit grew swollen, throbbing with need, and never before had she ever been so aware of the emptiness between her legs.

  Get a grip, Ella, she chided herself.

  “Oh!” a soft, sultry voice gasped and Aella lifted her head to stare in surprise at a female Songiell.

  She’s beautiful!

  White scales the colour of freshly fallen snow glittered with hints of red, crimson and rose, her body slender and delicate with two large breasts and ruby red nipples. Her dorsal fin appeared more streamlined than Amon’s, the fin itself smaller, and it encircled her head like a beautiful crown the colour of bright rubies. Her waist tapered in the middle and her hips flared, with delicate pectoral fins the colour of pale pink roses that sparkled. Her eyes were bright red with a circle of pink around her slit-shaped pupils.

  “Well, hello,” she greeted Aella. “I am Lady Calliope, the mate to General Amon.”

  M-mate? Her mind stuttered over the implications of what that meant.

  “You must be Aella Reid,” Lady Calliope continued, her voice gentle and her expression serene as she met the eyes of the human woman. “I was there when my mate rescued you from drowning.”

  “I’m very thankful for that,” Aella murmured, lowering her head in a polite incline toward her. While Amon – ahem, General Amon – did not seem to mind informalities, his mate clearly did; not wishing to offend the beautiful female, Aella respected her status and showed her the respect she deserved. “If it were not for General Amon, I would be dead.”

  Lady Calliope folded her hands delicately in front of her.

  “May I ask you a question, Miss. Reid?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why were you out that night?” Lady Calliope asked her. “I do believe that humans were informed of the severity of the storm and that leads me to wonder why you would risk traveling in such dangerous conditions?”

  Aella nervously twisted some of her loose curls around her fingers before she realized what she was doing and tucked the strands of hair behind her ear.

  “I was not welcome to spend the night and my hotel was over an hour away,” she said, downplaying the effect voicing those words left on her soul. Her sister didn’t want her there. “I had nowhere else to go except to sleep in my car and, that wasn’t an option at the time, so it was a risk I was willing to take.”

  Lady Calliope frowned, her delicate eye ridges lowering over her eyes as her lips pressed together thoughtfully.

  “You have piqued my curiosity, Miss. Reid, I must admit,” she said.

  “Please, call me, Aella.”

  “Aye-ell-uh?” Lady Calliope murmured, her name sounding foreign on the alien’s lips.

  She offered the other female a shy smile.

  “My mother had a thing for Greek names.”

  Lady Calliope blinked slowly.

  “Of course,” the Lady said. “Now, come, I shall return you to the medical wing.”

  4

  Amon

  He sank down upon the soft cushion of the sofa in his private chambers with a groan, stretching out the muscles in his coils until the tip of his tail quivered from the pleasurable burn. His dorsal fin remained flat on his back, relaxed, and his tongue flicked between his lips as his thoughts returned to the human female.

  Aella, he thought. A delicious shiver raced from his crest to the tip of his tail when he remembered the sweet taste of her arousal on his tongue. He wanted to sample her flavour then and there but the knowledge that Calliope was his mate stopped him.

  Closing his eyes, he lifted a hand to massage his left temple.

  After all this time, he thought, his lips drawing back in a snarl to reveal his lethal fangs.

  He and Calliope had been together for several years and never, not once, during that time had either of them produced the bioluminescence that indicated they were destined for one another. And, then, the moment he rescued Aella from drowning, her small, curvy body pressed against his chest, his bioluminescence ignited, sparkling around his cheeks and eyes, lighting up the tips of his spines and the very tip of his tail. The joy that infused his soul at the knowledge that he had found his mate could not be destroyed – until he looked downward to see Calliope blazing with her red bioluminescence and dancing for him in the ways of their people. His heart sank: Calliope was his mate. Not the curvy human female.

  Even now, only hours after she left his office, he remembered the anger that roared to life inside of him at the knowledge that his curvy human needed to defend herself from the males of her kind. His bioluminescence had flared, lighting up around his eyes and cheeks, his spines and the tip of his tail, before he could control himself. Only her hands upon his chest helped soothe him.

  Heat sizzled along his nerve endings, arousal burning low in his belly until his sheathe pulsed with the need to extrude and his tongue flicked between his lips, tasting his own desire. Blue bioluminescence blazed around his eyes and cheeks, his spines and the tip of his tail. His dorsal fin snapped upward. The muscles in his chest bulged. He wanted to find his curvy human, wrap her tight in his coils and sink into her warmth.

  A few moments with the female pressed close to his chest beneath the waves and he wanted to claim her.

  He had never desired Calliope the way that he now desired Aella.

  And yet …

  He could not ignore the fact that Calliope produced her own bioluminescence.

  Perhaps, he thought, perhaps, she and I were not ready to become mates until now.

  Even as he finished that thought, he did not believe it.

  He had wanted a mate for several years now, well before he arrived within Earth’s atmosphere to aid them during the Ir’eils Invasion, and it was after he met Malekith’s sweet-natured Clara that he yearned for a human mate of his own.

  He did not know much about humans or their courtship rituals but he remembered Malekith explaining that they were slow to form a pair and even that was not permanent. The thought that humans did not instinctively know who their mate was sent a shudder down the back of Amon’s spine. Humans were different from the other races of the Interstellar Alliance in that they preferred to rely on logic and reason for absolutely everything. This did not mean they lacked creativity or ingenuity – far from it, actually – because he had witnessed both those traits during the war. Not many planets could defend themselves from the Ir’eil Mothership yet the humans had done just that; with a united effort, they defended Earth for one whole solar cycle without the help of the Interstellar Alliance. Now that was impressive.

  His thoughts drifted to Aella.

  He wondered how she managed to survive during the Invasion of Earth and what surviving had cost her. What was her story? Why had she driven in the middle of a potentially dangerous storm when she knew it wasn’t safe?

  He wanted to know everything about her.

>   And…

  He wanted to know if she felt the same way about him as he did her.

  Not that you can act on your desires, Amon, he thought bitterly. Calliope is your mate. Not the alluring human female.

  He glanced up when the soft hiss of the electrical door sliding open announced a visitor.

  Annoyance darkened his handsome features when Calliope entered his private quarters, her scales gleaming, her dorsal fin relaxed, her large breasts swaying in movement with her body.

  “Calliope,” he growled.

  She smiled at him.

  “Hello, my love,” she greeted him warmly, sauntering over to join him where he lay sprawled on the couch but, before she could touch him, he surged upwards, his dorsal fin flaring slightly and a low snarl rattled his throat.

  “Do not,” he hissed, flashing his fangs at her.

  She drew back, her ruby eyes wide with surprise.

  “Amon,” she murmured, “what do you mean, ‘don’t’?”

  “Exactly what I said,” he returned coldly. “I don’t know how you’ve done this, Calliope but you and I are not mates.”

  “Oh.” She dragged out the sound in a lilting purr. “I know you don’t want a mate, Amon, but this is beyond either of us.”

  Oh, I want a mate, Calliope. I just don’t want you.

  The harshness of his thought surprised him.

  She ignored his bared teeth, closing the distance between the two of them to press her body flush against his. If she were truly his mate, her large breasts and hardened nipples should have aroused him. If she were his mate, he would not hesitate in claiming her the way that he wished to do so with Aella.