Mindlink (19 page)

“Alien, alien, alienalienalien,” she repeated under her breath
as she slipped out of the uniform and into an inlet close enough to the camp to
keep away the Khota Marong, but far enough from Sam to give her a minute to rein
in the rampant need twisting through her abdomen. She could use some cold water
pronto.

Sex wasn’t a big deal. Normally. But this was Sam. He might not
be human. He had little—if any—experience, which was a huge turn-off. And he saw
her thoughts, all the time. How would she pretend indifference when he screwed
her over?

Worse, he might
be
human. What
would that mean?

She sucked in a breath. The water did exactly what she hoped.
As it flowed along her skin, everything inside cooled and settled.

And flipped over again as Sam whispered her name from the dark
shore. When had his accent become a teeny bit sexy?

“Stop it,” she hissed at her long-ignored hormones. Louder, she
said, “I’m here.”

Where had the moon gone? It was so dark, she couldn’t see her
hand in front of her face. Yet, she’d submerged her tasty limbs into a large
body of water with no clue what kind of weird creatures swam around in it.
Idiot.

A splash and a ripple in the surface told her Sam had joined
her in the water. Most likely naked as well. Funny how that hadn’t been an issue
back in the prison. When she’d suggested swimming, obviously she hadn’t thought
it through well enough. Or at all. For the sake of her sanity, she hoped he’d
stay over there, in the shallow part.

He did.

She bit back disappointment.

“Why did you leave so quickly?” he asked and swells of his
confusion lapped through her. “The river is not safe.”

“Because. I wanted to go swimming.” She chopped her arms
through the water in a poor imitation of the crawl. “Besides, nothing is safe
around here.”

Not only could he read her thoughts, he had no problem saying
exactly what was on his mind. People in her world didn’t do straightforward. Sam
had no angles, no agenda and wanted nothing from her except answers to questions
he didn’t understand. Things she had a unique ability to explain, but didn’t
want to because it might mean admitting an outrageous attraction to an alien
whom she should despise. But didn’t.

“The last image.” He struggled to get the words out. “You and I
were...touching. Touching—er, bodies. Citizens are above such base impulses. We
do not form personal relationships. It is what separates us from the Mora Tuwa
and allows us to function at a higher level.”

No wonder the aliens all walked around like they had sticks up
their butts. “Is that the lie you tell yourselves to make you feel better about
kidnapping us and murdering us? That we’re no better than animals?”

“Yes.” The quiet affirmation floated across the water and
wrapped around her, along with a sense of anguish. He regretted buying into the
lie and for his part in people’s deaths. “I am certain it is not true.”

“Why?” she whispered, though she knew what he was going to say.
An ache sprang up behind her ribs and traveled along her spine, arrowing
straight into her womb, stealing her breath.

“I am not above base impulses after all.”

A charge zipped through the water, as if lightning had struck
it. The link sizzled between them as he flooded her with his desire and it
melded with hers. It was wildly erotic. She barely noticed the headache.

Sam cleared his throat. “I am curious what it feels like to
kiss—”

“No,” she said, anticipating his request before he could form
it. “It’s not a good idea. I’m not the right person for this job. You go find
another citizen and kiss each other all you want.”

“I do not want to kiss anyone else. You are here now and you
are an expert.” His low voice buried itself in her skin and raised goose bumps
even though the water had stopped being cold about five minutes ago. “Think of
it as an opportunity to experiment on an alien.”

Better than that. It was an opportunity to instruct him exactly
how to do it. Was she really going to throw that away? She could handle one
little kiss. She’d kissed lots of people on the set with lights burning down,
engulfed in a character and a hundred crew members milling around. A
professional didn’t balk at performing a scene under any circumstances. “Fine
then. Come here.”

The closer he moved, the higher the water lapped against her
chest, and the less confidence she had about how similar kissing Sam might be
compared to a costar. Or for that matter, kissing Hugh Westgate—the darling of
top-fifty hottest guys lists—which had been worse than kissing a camel.

This would be different.

“Talk,” he said. “I cannot find you otherwise.”

“That’s funny. I know exactly where you are.” His presence
filled the darkness, throbbing through the still air and water.

A light touch on her arm signaled his arrival. It was
pitch-black but she could see his face perfectly in her mind. She reached out
for it and hit his chest instead. Yep. Naked. Her fingers spread and explored
his wet skin.

Indentations, in rows. His ribs. Then his almost hairless
muscular pectorals. “I thought you sat at a desk all day. This doesn’t feel like
the body of an office drone.” She stopped short of his stitches.

“I do. Did.” His breathing was ragged, as if he’d run to her
instead of sloshing through water. “I also participate in one hour of strength
training per daily cycle.” He swallowed. “The feel of your fingers is strange.
It tingles but is pleasant at the same time. Is this part of kissing?”

Thready laughter slipped out. Wow. Nerves. She hadn’t been
expecting that. “If you want it to be.”

His fingers sought her collarbone and slid up her neck. She
shuddered. She hadn’t meant if he wanted to touch
her
. But he was—her eyes fluttered closed as her body swayed toward
his, bobbing in the still water.

“I like to touch you.” His surprise sang through the link. “I
understand now why you do it so frequently.”

“Do I touch you a lot?” She forgot to care about the answer as
he trailed fingertips from her neck to her breast. A light caress on the
underside rocketed through her. She slapped his hand off, splashing it into the
water. “Ah, that part is off-limits.”

“Why? That is where you touched me.”

“Don’t be all logical. I’m the teacher. Do what I say, or
else.” She tried not to think of appropriate punishments for failing to follow
instructions. Her brain pretty much ignored her. She placed his hand on her
face, fanning the fingers out behind her ear with the thumb resting on her
cheekbone. “Here, touch me like this.”

“I have another hand.” And before she could blink, he slid it
along her arm, up to her shoulder, warming it.

God above, the man was too quick on the draw. She needed a
director around here, someone to tell her what to do next, how to act. What to
say. Sam had her turned completely around.

“Why do you not appear the same in reality as in the images you
send of yourself?” he asked, as his fingers tangled in her hair. “Your hair is
shinier and your face is different.”

“Uh, because it’s in color?” she guessed, then a moan fell out
as he traced the lines of her face with a fingertip.

“No. It is like you are two different people. Shiny and flat in
your mind but real here with me.”

Well, of course she didn’t want to think about how she must
actually look with black eyes and dirt-encrusted skin, not to mention the smell.
Imagining a red-carpet look and sending that image to Sam so he could see it,
since he never would otherwise, was atmospheric and necessary.

“I am feeling hot again. Tight inside. It is most—”

“You don’t have to give me a running commentary.” She closed
her eyes against the rush of images and pure lust—his and her own—burning
through her. “I’m familiar with how this works.”

“Yet still we have not touched mouths. Your images only
included the kissing part. Is there a requisite waiting period before
beginning?”

“Shut up for a minute. And you say
I
talk a lot. I’m getting there.” She grabbed the back of his head
and pulled, then pecked him on the lips. “There. Lesson over.”

“Hmmm.” The sound purred from his throat as he fumbled for her
arm to keep her in place when she tried to step away. “That was not like the
kiss in your thoughts. It did not feel the same, nor did it last as long. We did
not touch tongues. Perhaps you are correct and are not the right teacher. I do
not think you have actually done kissing before.”

He was baiting her and she cursed. It was working. “You think
you’re funny?”

An alien had insulted the kissing ability of Ashley V, the
siren of the screen, who’d been on the cover of
Vanity
Fair
twice, and last year, dated four of
Hot
Magazine’s
Fifty Most Eligible Bachelors.

No. He hadn’t. He’d questioned
her
kissing ability, not Ashley V’s. There’d been no Ashley V in that kiss and there
in the middle of a freezing river in no-man’s-land, it struck her. Sam was
right—she was two people. She had been so lost inside shiny, flat Ashley V for
so long she hadn’t realized a whole separate person lived inside.

Regular Ashley.
Real
Ashley, the
one Sam saw. Who had no idea what to do, what to say, when to say it, how to
act. Or, for that matter, how to kiss someone like Sam.

“Can I try again?” she asked and with a half step, drew close
until their torsos touched. Making it up as she went along, she wrapped her arms
around him and pressed her ear to the spot above his nipple.

Thump
.
Thump
.
Thump
. The beats sped up as his
arms slid around her in kind.

She held him for an eternity, listening to the lap of water,
his heart, and her conscience screaming at her to escape to the shore as fast as
she could. But curiosity overpowered the voice. What would it be like to kiss
Sam as Regular Ashley?

Anticipation uncurled in her womb.

She crouched in the open hatch of a plane, parachute strapped
tight, fingers wound through the ripcord. As her hands drifted to his shoulders
and she pulled herself up, the plane dipped. With a soft sigh, she eased her
lips onto his and flung them both into the deep blue sky.

It was awkward and sweet and as she searched for a rhythm, they
clacked teeth. She drew back instinctively. The water created buoyancy which
dragged her away once her feet weren’t planted on the riverbed. He pulled her
back. She clamped her legs around his waist and dove in again.

This time, it clicked. Like slipping on Italian hand-crafted
shoes, their mouths fit perfectly. As if they’d been custom made for each other.
She changed the angle, lifted his chin, and plunged her tongue forward to find
his. He met her halfway, guided by her images. As their tongues mated, her core
throbbed. His free hand raced along the curvature of her spine, the other
clamped on her rear.

She took flight, soaring and free-falling at the same time.
Geez, he was something else, feeding a blistering lick of lust right in her
center. So hot. Sam’s image of a cliff and a great black void rose up in her
head again as they kissed.

“That—” she gasped as she tore her mouth away, “—was an
improvement, right?”

He groaned in response and crushed her lips to his as he took
over. Masterfully, he experimented, nipping and swirling, learning at lightning
pace.

She wanted more, wanted him inside her now. Arching against
him, she opened herself, brazen with invitation, hands sliding along his muscled
back, then in his bristly hair, urging him closer.

What was she
doing
? He’d turned her
brain to mush. She was so crazy over him, she’d been about to lose the fragile
grip on her memories. Something might accidentally slip.

“Stop,” she said into his mouth and he did, instantly. She
unclamped her legs and floated away to a safer distance. “I can’t. We can’t.
This is insane. For the love of God, you’re like dynamite. Just a plain old
stick lying there all innocent like and with one little match, ka-blammo!”

“I have a good teacher,” he rasped and then cleared his throat.
“I would hardly call you a little match. Please explain why we must stop?”

“Because. I can’t breathe. I can’t think.”

“These are not the proper elements of kissing? You claimed
logic has no place here. What do you need to think about?”

Trust him to throw her own words back in her face. And be right
at the same time. “Yes, okay, so the goal of kissing is not to think, it’s to
feel. You get an A-plus. Happy?” she grumbled.

“Yes. It is like millions of colors live inside my body.”
Wonderment cracked his voice and bright rays of yellow sunshine filled her
mind.

Fantastic. “That was a rhetorical question.”

“Kissing did not make you happy. You are angry.” His
mystification billowed through the link. At least she thought it was his. Her
brain was being frapped too. “Did I do something wrong? Should we begin again? I
do not want to stop.”

She bit back a scream and settled for a hmpf. “You’re like a
puppy and Casanova all in one. No, kissing did not make me happy. It made me
frustrated, hot and bothered and mad at myself. I should never have started this
stupid lesson. I knew better. I even knew you were going to like it. But now
you’re going to want what comes next. Ask me all nice and polite to help you
experience the act of procreation, strictly for research purposes.” She mimicked
his accent and butchered it—a testament to her befuddled psyche—but plowed ahead
anyway because in his mind, he was imagining rounds two, three and four. “We’re
from different planets. With different germs and stuff. Sex is not a good idea.
Plus, you have no clue what you’re doing and I don’t want to be the one to teach
you.”