Thantose: Book Two in the Galaxy Pirates Alien Abduction Romance Series Read online

  “Don’t tell me the answer. Just tell me yes or no. Do you know what triggered you?”

  “Yes. It was—”

  “Stop!” I gently set her off my lap, stand, and pull her up. “Your homework tonight in bed is to figure out what you can do next time you have that trigger. You don’t have to make the male in closest proximity happy, right? You can react to the trigger in a different way. Fair enough? You okay with homework?”

  She throws her arms around me so tight it surprises me. I didn’t know she was so strong.

  “You’re the best male I’ve ever known, T. Maybe . . . maybe you're the best male in the galaxy. No matter what happens between us, you should know that.”

  She runs to her room and shuts the door.

  Brin

  I keep my mind on what I’m doing as I wash up and brush my teeth. I discovered this technique years ago. Thinking about brushing up and down and nothing else, as mindless as it is, calms me.

  I rummage through Valeria’s drawers and put on a thick pair of her socks. Somehow this soothes me, reminding me my feet are safe here on Kallion, in this cozy cabin with Thantose.

  After scrambling under the covers, though, my embarrassment crashes over me. I’m so fucked up. I just begged the nicest male in the galaxy to fuck me—out of nowhere—just to shut up my crazy mind.

  I take a deep breath. Okay, Brin, you have homework. If I’m ever going to be anything approaching normal, I need to figure this out. What triggered me? My feet, obviously.

  I breathe some more and slow my thoughts, pretending I’m back in school, working on a hard math problem. Step one is starting at the beginning. Thantose mentioned my feet, and I freaked.

  No, slow that down, what happened next? I pictured Amrus punishing me with the knotted cord he kept for the sole purpose of abusing me with this particular torture. It didn’t leave long-lasting marks, but was excruciating during the punishment. The pain lasted for days, reminding me of my transgression with every step I took.

  So the trigger was the memory and the pain and then shame. Then some deep part of me wanted to push all of that out of my head by switching gears completely and immersing myself in sex.

  T was right, my mind does a lot of things reflexively. I can cope differently now. My new motto? Sex doesn’t fix anything.

  I stay up for hours figuring out how to bypass the reflex and not fly into automatic mode. After hours of introspection, the only solution I can think of will be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

  ~.~

  Thantose is at the kitchen table, working on his computer.

  “Good morning,” I make an effort to sound bright and chipper. “I love sumra, but I’ve had it every morning for the last two months. How about I make you French toast?”

  “An exotic Earther breakfast? I vote yes.”

  “Not exactly exotic. It was one of the first dishes my mom taught me how to make. It’s easy and delish. I’m driving.” How about that? I ordered him around, made a demand, and the planet did not quit spinning on its axis.

  I don’t wait for permission to climb into the hover captain’s seat. See? I’m not a total wuss. This time, on the flight into town I feel so competent I take my eyes off the instruments to scan the horizon. The thick, green foliage reminds me of the summer woods in Northern Michigan. Beautiful.

  An hour later, I’m dishing thick slabs of French toast onto two plates. There’s something akin to butter on the table, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say the product in the jar I bought was huckleberry jam.

  “Delicious, B. You can cook for me any time.”

  “I was stolen at age twelve. My cooking repertoire isn’t extensive. I left Earth knowing how to make scrambled eggs, hot cocoa, French toast, and whomp biscuits.”

  “Whomp biscuits?”

  “They’re biscuits in a package. You have to whomp them on the countertop to open it so you can put them in the oven. I doubt they’re a thing on Kallion, or Primus for that matter.”

  “Well, these French toasts are a delicacy.”

  “Thanks.”

  He’s slathering butter and bright blue jam on his fourth piece of French toast as if it’s the most important thing in his life, but this has to be awkward for him, too.

  “In America, we had a saying, ‘the elephant in the room’. An elephant is a huge animal that doesn’t belong in any room. The elephant in this room is my embarrassing and inappropriate behavior last night.”

  “B, you—.”

  “Thantose, you don’t have to placate me. I’m doing well today. So well that I want to talk, really talk about what happened.”

  I’m glad we’re at the small wooden table in his kitchen. It’s safe and cozy. I’m wearing the thick woolen socks I slept in and my feet are perched on my chair rung. The smell of the hot cocoa is comforting. I can do this.

  “The fact that we’re here, on this lovely planet, and you’re even considering a relationship with someone as messed up as me . . . You are considering a relationship, right?”

  He nods and smiles. The tightness that has constricted his features all day today loosens as he spears me square in the eye with his caramel gaze.

  “Well, no matter how this ends, I have to give you a lot of credit to even consider it. I was up half the night thinking about how I can step up my game.”

  He cocks an eyebrow. As good as our subdural translators are, idioms sometimes fly right over our heads.

  “I’m bringing my best game, T. I’m letting out all the stops. I’ll play my A-game. Shoot the works. Bet the farm.”

  I doubled down on the idioms—none of them made a lick of sense to him, but he’s smiling, which is a good sign.

  “I’ve got an explanation and a mini-solution. Ready?”

  “Ready for the solution and the explanation if that’s what you want. I told you though, I don’t need any.”

  “Let’s see how you take this one,” I say. “If it’s too much, I don’t have to tell you anything in the future.”

  “Brin, I care about you. I want to hear what you have to share.”

  “I was a slave. Slaves get punished. There are big punishments that break bones and disfigure and kill. Smart slave owners use methods that don’t destroy the merchandise. Amrus was smart in that respect. He messed with my mind to keep me just this side of crazy, and he hurt my body in ways that didn’t leave lasting damage. The soles of my feet were one of his favorite targets.”

  I lean over my empty plate of food and inspect Thantose’s face. Slaves, for self-protection, need to be sneaky and observant. However, I don’t need supernatural spidey-senses to intuit how this information affected him, it’s written all over his face. The solid planes of his face have softened into compassion.

  “I’m sorry, Brin. I wish . . . I wish things would have been different.”

  “So do I. Thanks for that. But the good news is that some crazy, altruistic, handsome-as-hell pirate who should have been plundering and pillaging somewhere else in the galaxy was foolhardy enough to rescue me from planet Paradise just in the nick of time. And . . . possibly more insane than that? He seems to like me.

  “So we’ll be picking our way through a minefield while we negotiate this . . . thing happening between us. You were right about me having knee-jerk responses that are outmoded and don’t serve me. Here’s my mini-solution. When I have a reflex, whoever recognizes it first says a code word.

  “If you say it, it’s my cue to cool my jets, take a step back, and figure out what went wrong. To search for the trigger. If I say it . . . ” I shake my head, stumped. “I’m not sure what I want you to do.”

  “Hold you? Leave the room?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do a dance? Play some music? Sing?”

  This is one of the reasons T is so dear, it’s almost like he can’t be serious for too many minutes in a row. Which makes quite an interesting combination with a woman who hasn’t laughed more than ten times in a decade.

&
nbsp; He stands up, pushes his chair back, grabs our plates, and dances his way to the sink. He turns back to me with moves that would make a Chippendale dancer envious as he wiggles his hips. His arms are outstretched, wordlessly asking me to dance with him.

  Interesting choice-point for me. Sit here and wallow in sadness, or do the samba with a Primian sex god? I’ll take door number two, thank you.

  The tension of the moment evaporates. He’s humming a melody with a driving beat, swaying his hips, and urging me to match his rhythm. A memory of being forced to dance for Amrus’s friends flashes through my brain, but I push it aside and land squarely in this moment.

  Thantose. Big, sexy, gorgeous Thantose is alone in this cabin with me. His face is alight with a smile. His whiskey brown eyes are laser-focused on me. He’s a foot away; I can smell his clean, spicy scent.

  I can’t pull my gaze from him. I guess that gives him license to be licentious, because he’s acting as if he has x-ray vision. His eyes flick from my breasts to my hips. My hips respond with provocative gyrations.

  Clasping his fingers behind my neck, he moves us to the living room. He hips the rocking chair out of the way so the ‘dancefloor’ is cleared, then tells the computer to play Thrand. The driving beat of a moment ago is lost, replaced by soft, lilting sounds so lovely, so ethereal it takes my breath away.

  He presses one hand against the small of my back, the other is still at the nape of my neck. I can feel his erection against my belly, but he’s trying with all his might not to sexualize this. Someday I’ll have to find out how he does that because it certainly feels sexual to me.

  I feel light as a puff of dandelion in his muscular arms. We twirl around the room as if we’ve been dancing together for decades, moving to the sublime strains of the music.

  “Computer, stop music,” he says, then pulls me back to my seat in the kitchen. “What worked, B?” he asks as he sits across from me. “The dancing? The pounding music? The soft strings of Thrand playing the myre?”

  I leap out of my seat and wiggle into his lap. I smash my palms against those magenta cheeks with the white slashes that I’ve begun to treasure more than anything in my life.

  How could anyone be so amazing? So thoughtful? So dear? How could he know exactly what to do to handle me without me feeling handled?

  “Thantose,” my voice is low, throaty. “You’re the best male I’ve ever met.” Please, I beg him silently in my head, don’t make this into a joke, T. You’re better than that.

  He mirrors my pose, my face cradled by his palms. “You’re worth fighting for, BB. The more I know about your past, the deeper my understanding of how hard this fight will be. But you’re a fucking warrior, B. And I’ll be at your side every step of the way.”

  He pulls me close and gives me the kiss of a lifetime. His pillowy lips coax mine open with the softest of touches. He breaches the damp privacy of my mouth and learns every cranny with his tongue. He’s not trying to own me or claim me, or even turn me on. He’s getting acquainted, saying hello.

  It warms me and fills me and is the oddest combination of sexual and non-sexual. I want him. More than I’ve ever wanted him. He has but to ask and I would pull him to my bedroom and open every crevice of myself to him.

  But he’s too good to push me. I don’t even know if he wants it. He wants sex, that’s obvious, I can feel his erection pulsing against my hip. But what else is obvious? He wants me more. Me, Brin from Kalamazoo. And dear God, I want to learn him, get to know him, too.

  He stands as he sets my feet on the floor. “We need to leave, BB. Waterfall? Shooting range? Long-distance hover ride? Because if we don’t leave this house in the next minima I will drag you into the bedroom and what we will do together will scorch the sheets. I’m not ready for that.”

  He’s not ready? Is that his way of saying I’m not ready? Well, he’s right. But scorch the sheets? That was a sexy way to say it.

  “Shooting range? I can watch you shoot?”

  “Absolutely not, BB. I’ll teach you how. It’s fun. We’ll blow some drack up on the far side of the property.”

  “Blow shit up? What are we waiting for?” I slap his meaty ass and the bolt of fear of his retaliation only lasts half a second. It’s Thantose, not Amrus. I can slap his gorgeous ass if I want to.

  Chapter Eight

  Thantose

  “T, we can’t just circle your property forever. Tell me where to set her down.”

  “You’ve got plenty of fuel. Keep circling.”

  “Why?”

  “I love to watch you fly, BB.”

  She takes her eyes off the front window for half a modicum to glance at me, then pulls her gaze straight ahead.

  “Why?”

  “A, you’re fucking gorgeous. I used fuck correctly in that sentence, right?”

  “Fucking gorgeous is perfectly acceptable. If I recall my English classes, it’s a noun and a verb and an adjective, and frankly, I can’t remember what an adverb is, so I couldn’t tell you about that.”

  I just wait. I know her next question is coming and I’m dying to hear it.

  “What’s B?”

  Drack, I hoped she’d ask what her being gorgeous had to do with anything. Maybe in a week’s time, she’ll trust me enough to talk about that.

  “B is I’ve never seen anyone learn to fly as well and as swiftly as you. You were born to be a pilot. I like to watch you at the controls.”

  This time her eyes leave the windshield for a few modicums more. She’s figuring out if I’m teasing her. I’ll help her out. “I’m telling the truth.”

  “Really?”

  “I tease. I joke. I’m a thief. But I’m not a liar, BB. Well, I lie when we’re bilking someone out of their goods or money, but I don’t lie to people I’m in a relationship with. I’m going to teach you how to fly the Jewel of the Skies before we leave Kallion. You’re going to pilot us back to Primus.”

  This time she looks at me for long modicums before turning her attention to her flight. “You’re totally crazy, T.”

  “I never said I wasn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’ll be taking us home.”

  Ten minimas later, I take pity on her and have her set the hover down next to a hillock toward the back of the property.

  As soon as we’re out of the hover, she gives my cheek a flying leap of a kiss.

  “What was that for?” I ask as I pull her close.

  “I think you just said we were in a relationship. That made me feel good.”

  I playfully swat her bottom, then freeze, wondering if this will be a trigger. But she just keeps looking at me with a big smile on her face.

  “My ahma told me females were inscrutable, B, but you wear all your emotions right out in the open.”

  “Slaves know how to shut everything down, but I don’t need to do that with you. I trust you.” She gives me one last penetrating look, then orders, “Teach me to shoot.”

  “When we were at the amusement park, the explosions made you afraid. Can you handle this?”

  “It was the surprise of it. I’ll be fine.”

  “I brought a laser pistol and a laser rifle. I’ll teach you everything you need to know to clean, load, and shoot.”

  She takes this very seriously. At first, I wondered if she’d take me up on my offer, thinking maybe the idea of touching or shooting weapons would bring her to a dark place. But she’s focused on mastering these arms.

  “Thantose, this is the best day ever.” She says as she assembles the rifle for the fifth time in a row. “After being in those shootouts with Amrus, I thought this would scare the crap out of me, but I’m fine.”

  “That was your fastest time yet. Do you take to everything you learn so well? First piloting, then weapons?”

  “I was never a whiz at anything in my life, T, but this? This is empowering. So is flying.”

  She looks me dead in the eye and her voice grows low and serious, “No one will ever own me again. No one will snatch me. N
o one will hurt me. I will never . . . ” that last word came out with a husky vehemence that left no doubt as to its veracity, “never be at anyone’s mercy again.”

  “Nor should you be, beautiful Brin. You deserve the very best life from here on out.”

  We could go two ways from here. The intimate connection shimmering between us could become sexual in a heartbeat. No. I’m the only one here capable of putting on the brakes, and that is what I need to do. So the only other plan of action is, “Let’s blow some shit up, Miss Brin.”