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Greetings, Visitors !

 

Welcome to

my Conflict Excerpt for
my Sci-Fi Romantic Adventure

Luminous Nights

 

 

I hope you enjoy it.

Available at:

http://www.SirenBookstrand.com/

Who is Jack?

This excerpt is rated PG-13 for sexual theme.

***

Dispassionately, Jack said, “Forget it.”

Appalled, Rachel snapped, “What do you mean forget it? You’d agreed to help me this morning.”

“I’m not sure I agreed to anything specific.”

She wished to kick him, put her hands around his neck and squeeze the life out of him. She’d just asked for his general help this morning, then he’d started drawing on her, and she’d forgotten her mind. He was such a cheater.

“Don’t you want some walking room? You have to admit, restriction to this library is the pits.”

“You forget, I’d once existed in a prison cell for five years. I’d rather stay here and drive you mad.”

Rachel stepped closer to him, but remained outside the cage since his gun was strapped to her leg. “Please, Jack. I need you. Help me or I’ll find a way to leave you on this planet.”

“I don’t care if you leave me here, Captain. So then I’ll do what I came here to do, kill Quattro and prevent the ticks from bleeding into the Draco system. Live my life out here on this wonderful little space ball.”

“Oh, no!” Rachel swore. “I’ll tell Quattro—”

“Where to find me? I doubt you’ll do that. Then he’ll hunt me and wipe out the natives. And then I’ll kill all of Quattro’s men. You, on the other hand, will make a cherished slave to Quattro. You’re probably the only one he won’t kill. He already sees value in you. Remember how he contemplated you were less fragile than the natives? Stars only know what rough acts he has in mind.”

Jack had her trapped, and he wallowed in the accomplishment.

“You snake.”

Disbelief soured his handsome and pale face. “Do you fantasize no one will die here? There’s no way out of it, Rachel. Someone’s going to die.”

Too many people had plans of their own. If each player did as they willed, many would die when only Quattro and his men deserved the lynching for the murders of the natives.

Rachel drilled her sight into his fake sky-blue eyes. “Good people might die, Jack. I just want to keep the proto-plutonium I’d brought to this planet out of Quattro’s hands, which I can do as long as I keep you away from Quattro. Jack, you have to help me.”

“I do?”

“Yes. Stop acting like you won’t. So give me your word.”

“Not without a reward.”

“Oh, yes.” Rachel smirked over his self-serving goals. “One must pay the mercenary, doesn’t one?”

“Absolutely. So ask me what I want.”

Rachel put her forehead in her hand to rub away the worry. No one could accuse her of owning a poker face. “Are you just pissed I took away your control?”

Stone-faced but gritting his teeth, he pointed to the floor, laying down cardinal rules. “You didn’t take away my control. I control every thing in this room.”

Was he blind? Should she hold a mirror for him so he could see the triad collar blinking at his neck, confining him to this room? Didn’t he see his gun strapped to her leg? Didn’t it dawn on him she would make him save the children, no matter what it cost her or him?

That he didn’t see it shook her confidence.

“I thought we’d made progress in our relationship last night.”

“Oh, we did. But not in the fight to recover the ticks.”

“What do you want, Luminous, to teach the kids how to hunt?”

Eyes belonging to a dead cop drew a coldness to their surface. “I want you here sleeping with me tonight and every night.”

Rachel took a sad breath. “Sex and death. They seem to be running themes for you.”

Jack shook his head. “Not death, Rachel. What’s between us has much more to do about living than dying. And it only faintly has to do about sex, really.”

 She crossed her arms over her bosom self-consciously while hating him. “What would a killer like you know about life?”

“Nothing. Not a single thing. I’m a government-programmed machine. You’re going to teach me about life and living, Rachel. You slept somewhere else last night, and I was lost without you. I want you to sleep here. With me. Having sex with me isn’t a part of any deal between us. You’ll have to trust me. That’s my offer in exchange for my help, no negotiations.”

“This morning you’d been willing to help me without a price.”

“Now I find I’m unhappy without you.”

Sleeping alone in the guest room last night had been lonely and cold without him. She hadn’t rested until she’d fallen asleep in his arms beside the fire this morning.

And his touch had changed her.

Now she needed his quick mind, skills, and uncanny luck to keep sick children alive. She needed his finely tuned senses. She needed him to stay warm at night. She didn’t want to need him, but she did.

“Rachel, you know I won’t harm you. Hurting you is not what I want to do.”

He was almost believable. He’d saved her life, had bypassed opportunities to molest her nightly. Only this morning had his touch turned intensely sexual, and he hadn’t followed through. After doing years in prison, he’d held himself in check to show her he did care for her feelings. His control was unhuman.

“Do you remember the chocolate, Rachel?” he asked her, his momentary anger gone and now beguiling her with the memory. Shadows danced at the fire’s prompt.

The urge to kiss him in chocolate again surged through her at his mere mention of the candy. He knew it would. The confection on his lips had made her swim with need for his closer contact. It made her weak on mention of it. He’d used alien chocolate as a weapon against her.

“I remember.” She loathed the admission, but loved the memory. “But hypnotic chocolate can’t make me trust you, Jack. You are the most untrustworthy person I have ever known.”

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