Forbidden Love (2 page)

Then, an eerie stillness settled over the arid plane.

Maya lay quiet, attempting to calm her erratic heart. She dug herself out, brushed sand from her face and body and peered around.
Damn.
The storm turned her research area into a disaster. Tents, lab equipment, research tools, even her notebook computer and cell phone, were all gone, buried under mounds of sand.
Well
crap!
She doubted the project would ever recover.

After digging and dragging heaps of sand from around her steadfast old Jeep, thankful that she’d left the hardtop on and the windows up, she leaned back against the door.

That’s when she saw it, a massive, egg-shaped dune about 100 meters away. Desert sandstorms could establish odd sculptures but this one was especially unusual. She stared at it.
Hmm…why not?
The storm destroyed her work area, and she’d have to wait a couple of days for the team to return before they could consider what to do next. She hopped in her Jeep and headed toward the odd sand structure to explore it.

Once there, she treaded around the edifice taking in its strange shapes and angles. Something curious stirred at its edges and a low, humming vibration emitted from within. The dune opened. Her eyes grew wide as a tall figure clad head to toe in an odd, body-hugging, shimmery gray suit, staggered forth and fell at her feet. Maya gasped and scooted backward. She paced in a circle, keeping a safe distance from the fallen body.

It didn’t take long for the scientist in her to emerge. She deduced this probably was some sort of space experiment gone wrong. The Astro Space Association conducted numerous, stupid tests in the rural desert regions. She’d like to kick their pompous asses. They should have realized a research project was under way near here. They’d just destroyed the lizard creatures’ habitat, something she worked hard to preserve.

She scoffed. If the decision makers listened to her father’s advice and spent more time developing astro-technology instead of putting so much energy into fighting wars, their blundering attempts at space travel might succeed. Throwing her annoyance aside, she strode forward, deciding she should render aid to the injured Astro pilot. Once she got home, she’d put in a call to the ASA in case they were too dumb to realize where their latest experiment landed. After seeing that the pilot had no obvious injuries, she dragged the limp body to her Jeep and headed toward her Adobe style home.

Chapter Two

Thanks to her research grants, Maya had a fully equipped lab to conduct wildlife studies. She tugged and pulled until she’d hauled the unconscious pilot onto an exam table. Then, she started cutting away the spongy, tight material encasing his body.

Her heart pounded when she saw what lay beneath. She couldn’t believe it. Translucent, miniscule scales covered his russet and blue-tinged skin. A striking face boasted contoured features with a smooth, high forehead and gentle sloping nose. Shiny, ginger-black hair hung over his sinewy shoulders.

No way had
he’d
come from the ASA Space Program.

A chill rose inside her.
Where the hell did he come from?
Incredible. She stared at the handsome male with traces of what appeared to be reptilian DNA. Stumbling backward, she tried to quiet her stunned mind. Oddly enough, she wasn’t afraid. In fact, a curious sense of calm discovery pervaded her.

All her life, Colin primed her for it, pounded it in her head even though the scientific community, as well as those ASA bastards, shunned her father’s theories. He searched until the day he died. He believed intelligent life existed everywhere in the universe and that it had evolved from diverse species—primates here, reptiles there, even aquatics. It looked like her dad’s Reptilian Evolutionary Theory must be true after all. Damn it, she wished he could be here right now to witness this phenomenon. It would validate all he had lived for, even if only for his own satisfaction. And hers.

She stared at the unconscious alien. He was an alien; she knew it, though she didn’t know how he came to be here or why. A sexy alien from who knew where, right here, right now, lying on her exam table.

“He’s not from around here,” she mused. Nowhere near. He had to have come from some other planet.

Then, it donned on her. He’d caused the massive sand storm, or rather his spaceship had. A little closer with his descent and he would have landed smack on top of her. She bet that was exactly what hid beneath the strange, mammoth sand dune. How had he hid it? Stealth technology advanced beyond the capabilities of this world for sure she guessed. She wondered if he was a nonviolent alien. He had no weapons she could detect.

She decided to toss caution aside and go for peace, a lesson she’d learned well from her anti-establishment father. She wanted to believe in a non-aggressive universe, not in the old cliché of aliens enslaving cultures and taking over a world kind of stuff. She squelched any remaining trepidation and turned back to her patient. He hadn’t moved and his body looked lifeless. He needed her help.

After sucking in a large gulp of air, she went to work setting up heat lamps around him and checking his body for injuries. If he were anything like the reptilian species here, his cool blood had to have warmth. Excitement coursed through her as her fingers moved over his chameleon-like skin, hairless and silky under her touch. It felt like cool, wet velvet. Her hand grazed the slightly scaled surface of his muscled chest and a tingle entered her fingertips. She didn’t need a stethoscope. His heart beat a strong, slow cadence against her palm.

She touched one of his arms and then the other, examining his slick skin from his shoulder to the carpals and fingertips. What stunning hands, curved and webbed with retractable talons. She lifted one arm and studied it more closely. What would it feel like touching her? She pressed a sheathed claw to her face and let the slack talon skim her cheek. The sensation made her breath catch. Quickly, she returned the netted hand to his side.

She bent down and breathed in the heady scent of him. No man she knew smelled this good—clean and fragrant like the desert after a storm mixed with a hint of winter clover. His breath came calm and steady.
Nothing wrong there
.

A tight band of muscles crossed his stomach. What an incredible body. Damn, she’d never beheld the like. It didn’t shock her too much when unbidden heat rose inside her belly as she touched his reptilian physique, firm and lean. She had an odd affinity for both reptiles and aliens—thanks again to her father.

She slid her hands under his torso to check for injuries on his back. Her fingers rubbed along the spiked ridges of his spine, most likely a normal trait given his DNA. She moved further down. Oh my god, he even had a tail.
I wonder if he could...?
Her face flushed as she conjured up a bunch of things he could probably do with the likes of
that
. Perplexed, she let out a warm sigh. His presence stirred a fierce lust deep in her body. In all her twenty-eight years, she’d never encountered anything like it. Like him.

After taking a few calming breaths, she continued her exam. As she stroked his long, sleek legs, her fingers bumped something cool to the touch but warmer than the rest of him. It moved on its own when she touched it. Her eyes widened. It was his penis. She felt its elongated shape and texture. It pulsed against her hand and a sharp quiver shot through her.
Wonder how much alike we really are?

The warmth spread deeper. Heat swelled inside her and her nipples puckered against her shirt. She wanted a closer look. She bent down and miniscule scales puffed out as she blew across the slick coolness. His cock pulsated near her face. She needed more and felt compelled to take it. She rubbed her cheek against the foreskin, opened her mouth and licked the glossy head, tracing its pattern with her tongue.

Suddenly, his body squirmed and a low humming, a near sub-sonic hiss, escaped him. Startled, Maya scooted away and fanned herself with her hand.
What in the hell caused her to do that
? This was no ordinary male but an unknown alien species, an injured one at that.

Stepping away from the exam table, she went to the window trying to calm her heated body. The noon sun painted brilliant hues of saffron over the edge of the desert. Maya watched the heat rise in waves from the sands. It seemed to permeate her body, making her even hotter. She glanced at him. At least he had no apparent physical injuries, none she could detect anyway. The only thing she could do was monitor him, trust he would wake soon and not die on her.

A disturbing image surfaced. She’d be in deep crap if those ASA assholes detected his fall from the sky. It could be a real problem. She could just see some government official pounding on her door demanding she hand over the alien. No way she’d let that happen. Not if she could help it.

Maya sat down in a chair next to the table to watch him, carnal thoughts dominating her head. She didn’t even try to stop them. Maya let the scintillating, naughty notions edge into her mind. Soon, she grew sleepy, so sleepy. Then, the dream came…

She stood barefoot and naked under a muted, crimson-violet sky, which held two suns, one near one far. A foreign landscape? The sienna sand glistened beneath her feet soft and hot. Bending down, she ran her fingers through its fine textured smoothness. A sweltering breeze lifted the curls from her face, as a fragrance of balmy desert and fresh clover engulfed her.

His scent...

She inhaled the sweet smell of him and sensed him standing just behind her. He reached out and touched her shoulders, sending waves of warmed coolness through her. She turned around and stroked his taloned hands, tracing her fingers up the length of his arms. As she caressed his chest, heat climbed deeper into her body and a simmering need scorched her insides. Her nipples ached to feel his touch. She placed his webbed hands on her breasts and a craving like no other surged through her...

T’Kon raked his talons across the swell of the female’s bare breasts causing her nipples to pucker beneath the web of his hands. He rubbed the pinkness and marveled at the way it pebbled and responded to his touch. More, he wanted to explore more. What did it taste like? He lowered his mouth, curled his rolled tongue around one of the tips and licked. The node hardened. He licked again and rubbed the other one with his talon. Watching her body come alive fascinated and aroused him.