Tempt Me Eternally (23 page)

“Love, I think you'll only need five.”

That made her laugh. “Merry Christmas, Breean.”

“The sound of your laughter is the best present
I
have ever gotten. So yes. Merry Christmas, Aleaha.”

Aleaha. Yes, she was. Now and always. With him.

Two weeks later
 . . .

Okay. So. Aleaha'd had the best Christmas ever. She'd rung in the New Year properly, meaning she'd had an orgasm last the entire countdown. Dallas treated Breean more like a friend than someone to watch closely, Mia treated him like a pet, his men were happy with their situation, and now she was snuggled in her man's arms, naked—a common occurrence—and completely sated.

The Schön queen hadn't arrived yet, and no one knew when she would finally make her way here. But AIR was prepared, and so was Aleaha and Breean. Meanwhile, when they were off the clock, he was helping her look for Bride.

Being Aleaha Love, soon to be Aleaha Nu, was pretty damn awesome.

“I've been thinking,” Breean said, grip tightening around her waist.

She grinned. “You know I love it when you do
that.” Always ended the same way. In bed. Oh, wait. They were already here. Maybe they'd end up on the kitchen floor this time.

“I know it bothers you, not knowing if you are human or alien, and I do not like when you are bothered. As your warrior, it is my duty, no, my privilege, to give you everything that you want, meet all of your needs, and—”

“Be my slave,” she finished for him.

His lips twitched with his amusement. “Yes. So I have been thinking long and hard, and I do not think you are alien, after all. I think you are human.”

“Why do you think that?” she asked, brow furrowing.

“Aliens have been here for many years, yes?”

“Yes.” According to Bride, aliens had been visible for around eighty years but had snuck onto the planet long before that.

“Well, I think humans are evolving, developing abilities to help protect them from this new, possible threat.”

Now that made a lot of sense. Except— “I can be stunned,” she told him. “Stun never works on humans, yet it works on me.”

“Stun doesn't work on the average human, no, but you aren't average. Far from it.”

She rose on her elbow and peered down at him. The sight of him never failed to delight her. All that golden skin, those bedroom eyes, those plush lips. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” He reached up and traced
a fingertip along the curve of her jaw. “Either way, though, I love you.”

“As I love you.”

He jolted up, tossing her under him and pinning her to the mattress. She laughed, and his expression softened as it always did when she laughed. “Now, time to do what we always do when I am done thinking.”

“Insatiable,” she
tsk
ed as if such a thing were a curse.

“I know you are. I can barely keep up.”

Another laugh escaped her, and she wound her arms around his neck. “Try.”

“With pleasure.”

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Gena Showalter

Originally published in the anthology
Deep Kiss of Winter
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First Pocket Star Books ebook edition June 2014

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ISBN 978-1-4767-7802-0