The Mammoth Book of Futuristic Romance

One

The ship emerged from the colossal stresses of the wormhole with all klaxons blaring warnings. Captain Althea Eudora hit the override to silence them. If the ship’s structural integrity failed, crushing them all or perhaps peeling away and exposing them to hard vacuum for another variation on sudden violent death, she didn’t want that cursed noise to be the last sound she heard.

But the controls responded to her frantic hands, moving faster than her mind could, and the red warning indicators gradually shifted to green. Death by any method became a less pressing concern, to be replaced with the next: where were they? And when?

Her navigator, Su Carst, spun her chair in a circle as she took in star charts overlaying the real-time display of their current position. “Captain, confirming we emerged from the wormhole following the same trajectory as the exiles.”

“Excellent. Comm, can you pick up their ship’s beacon?”

Nia Thule frowned in concentration, long slender fingers tapping her console. “I have the signature, but it’s degraded. Enough to indicate a significant lapse in time between their emergence and ours.”

Althea nodded. They’d all known the risk they were taking. The trip through the wormhole was one way, and although they’d only been a month behind when they’d seized this ship and gone in pursuit, they’d been prepared for significant time dilation on the opposite end. “How much?”

“Over five centuries.”

“So much.” Althea slumped back in her seat, as much as the harness allowed. “They’ll have forgotten everything, their descendants.”

“Which might make our mission easier,” Nia suggested hesitantly.

It might, at that. The leaders of the warrior caste their government had rightly identified as a threat had been deported without warning, shot to the far side of a newly discovered wormhole while on a manufactured training exercise. Those men, deprived of everything they had a right to, and trained to solve problems with overwhelming force, would hardly be predisposed to listen to a scientific delegation from their home world.

But their descendants wouldn’t have to be reasoned with. And they would carry the same precious genetic material that had been so abruptly purged from their race, lest any future generations rise to threaten the order genetic manipulation had made possible. The very order that doomed them all, according to every projection Althea and her team had run from the sanctity of their cloistered institute based on Pangaea’s third moon. The very traits that guaranteed a vibrant and adaptive race were also disruptive.

Life, Althea mused, had such a tendency to be messy. Biology disapproved of political expediency. So strongly that if her team proved correct, the world they’d left behind no longer existed. The will to fight ensured the will to survive. Without the very traits that threatened the status quo, their civilization had unwittingly sowed the seeds of its own destruction.

She’d tried to get their leaders to listen to reason. At first. And then she’d realized the willful ignorance that met her team’s results was the only reason she remained at liberty. Before somebody suddenly started listening and recognized her team as the next threat to the ruling body, she’d plotted grand larceny, treason, and a host of civil infractions from small to great. And somehow, together, they’d done it. They’d hijacked the supply ship on its biannual run to their moon, and plunged headlong in pursuit of their hope for survival.

They’d made it this far fueled by desperation and determination. The same motivation would carry them through the next steps. “Triangulate that signal, and then scan the nearest inhabited world for our genetic markers.”

Three months later, Althea paused outside a door and tugged at her clothes, trying to ease the unfamiliar sensation of tight denim encasing her from hip to heel. The boots she wore were made of soft-tooled leather, and a plain white cotton T-shirt completed her ensemble. She was appropriately garbed for the occasion, she assured herself, even as she frowned at the sheerness of her shirt’s fabric and the restriction of motion imposed by her pants. The outfit was wholly impractical, and she failed to find any esthetic value in it, either. But she’d seen dozens of similarly dressed women enter the establishment before her, and several of them had engaged the attention of her target; the bar’s proprietor.

The signal they’d followed after exiting the wormhole had led them to a small, blue-green world, third in its system from a golden G-type sun. Weeks spent researching Earth’s records confirmed that their warriors had wreaked havoc as the army of invaders known as Huns, a people who suddenly appeared with their own language and no prior known history. The line of descent from the man called Attila to the man known as Caleb Bronson was unmistakably Pangaean, according to the ship’s scanners.

It had taken time to locate the men they sought, and even more time to learn the dominant language, copy local styles and attain enough working knowledge of the world to enter it undetected by the current technology.

But at some point, it would be time to declare an end to research and act. Althea hoped she’d struck the right balance between preparation and procrastination. And she really hoped the dubious custom of mechanical bull-riding would prove an effective way to attract Caleb’s interest.

The full impact of the bar’s sights, sounds and smells hit her as she crossed the threshold. She paused to adjust for a moment as the door closed behind her. After years on a moon base followed by months aboard a ship breathing canned air, the sudden plunge into so much life was staggering. Raucous music and dozens of simultaneous conversations at all volume levels were distractions she forced herself to filter out. She scanned faces and body types until her eyes came to rest on the match she sought.

His tall broad-shouldered form looked more impressive in the flesh than it had via a computerized image. His green eyes glittered with clear intelligence beneath the camouflage of hooded lids that made him appear disinterested while he took in every detail around him. Sensual lips softened the severity of his sharp cheekbones and stubborn chin. The well-defined musculature his every movement revealed showed he’d honed the physical gifts he’d been born with.

Caleb stood out amid the terrestrial males like a wolf among sheep. Althea wondered if they were aware of that on some level, because the bubble of personal space around his body was larger than that surrounding his counterparts. The man inspired a sense of caution in her, too. He had bred true to type. He was strong, dangerous, unpredictable. Exactly what she needed.

“Got another taker,” Boyd Maxwell jerked his head to indicate the direction. Caleb finished pouring beers, and sent four of them sliding down the bar, where they stopped at the precise spots he intended – in rapid progression like targeted missiles of malted barley – and turned his attention to the slender redhead mounting the bar’s mechanical bull.

She was worth a look even without the high-heeled cowboy boots and skintight jeans that made the most of her legs and emphasized the heart-shaped swell of her backside. The blunt cut of her straight copper-hued hair made a flattering frame for her delicate features and porcelain skin, and the fabric of her T-shirt clung in a way that hinted at rather than displayed the curves beneath.

A sign overhead invited interested parties to “Take the Challenge”. Anybody who could stay on through Caleb’s programmed course of bucking got a free pitcher of beer. Which wasn’t usually the incentive for women to climb aboard. No, most of them were vying for masculine attention. Often, for reasons he didn’t analyze, his.

The redhead seemed to sense his gaze, or maybe she’d been subtly watching him, because she raised her head to let her gray eyes meet his across the crowded, smoky bar. She studied him in solemn silence for a long moment. And then her lips tilted in a smile. She dropped him a wink as if to say, Go ahead. I can take it.

Her choice. Caleb pressed the button that launched the bull into action, and the noise around him shifted from general uproar to shouts of encouragement, catcalls, and carnal invitations. When she fell off, she’d have no shortage of partners ready to soothe any bruises she had gained.

The redhead wrapped herself around the bull and clung like a burr, if burrs were long, lithe, coordinated, and had nipples that thrust up enticingly against a tantalizing layer of white cotton. Her spine arched and relaxed as she moved with the mechanical beast, seemingly anticipating each shift in direction and reacting effortlessly. The shifts became more abrupt, the bucks harder, steeper, grouped unpredictably. She held firm. Her hair fanned out around her shoulders as the bull went into a furious head-down extended spin that usually unseated anybody who could stay on that long.

The stranger showed no signs of coming off. Instead, she leaned back with arms extended above her head to maximize the centrifugal force, like some cross between a ballet dancer and a daredevil, staying connected to the machine between her legs with the pressure exerted by her thighs and absolutely perfect balance.

The beast at last plunged to a halt. The stranger rose up gracefully and swung a leg over, dropped to stand beside the defeated bull, face flushed, eyes sparkling, a picture of lush sensuality, gleeful triumph and something else he couldn’t define.

Caleb motioned her to him. “You win,” he stated, already pulling the tap to fill her pitcher. He slid it across to her, his hand brushing hers as she accepted it. That small contact sent a frisson up his spine and made his groin tighten.

“Only if you share it with me,” she responded, still grinning like a kid who’d gotten away with something. If she’d given him a sultry come-hither invitation, he could have resisted. But the impish glee resonated with him. And hell, if she could ride a bull like that, he knew what she could do with, for, and to him.

“Deal.” Caleb tossed his bar towel to Boyd to indicate he was going off-duty, and grabbed two frosted glasses. Then he led the way to a table in the corner, for relative levels of quiet. But her unexpected victory had dropped the normal level of volume in the place to a dull roar, low enough to allow her to say whatever she wanted to him.

Which turned out to be, “This is delicious.”

Two

She tasted the froth at the top of her glass as if sampling some unknown delicacy, then tilted her head back. The icy cold beverage filled her mouth before she took a leisurely swallow, eyes closing in appreciation. She set the glass back down carefully, as if she were used to handling delicate crystal and drinking something that cost significantly more than beer.

“It’s my own recipe,” Caleb stated, wondering where she was going with this.

“You’re a genius,” she assured him with apparent sincerity. She raised the glass for another long drink.

That wasn’t the line he usually got.

“No, really,” she stated, as if sensing his skepticism. “A wonderful balance of flavors, bitter and yet sweet. And the mechanical bull, that was your program, yes? Excellent tactics.”

His lack of response made her brows draw together. “I offend you?”

“Most women say something like,‘My place or yours.’”

She tilted her head to one side, considering. “It will have to be yours. Mine is . . . complicated.”

A mixture of amusement and arousal stirred inside him, along with a curious reluctance to let the conversation come to its natural end. When was the last time he’d found it so stimulating to talk to a woman? “Aren’t you going to introduce yourself first?”

“Is that a required part of the ritual?”

“Usually.”

“I am Althea. You are Caleb.” She beamed at him, and the suddenness of it gave him a curious shock.

“We are now introduced. May we proceed to your place?”

“Slow down and back up to ‘complicated’. Is sleeping with you going to get me shot?”

“Oh, no. I pose no danger to you at all.”

Caleb wondered why he wasn’t reassured. A complicated, sexy, obviously intelligent woman could pose all kinds of dangers to his peaceful existence. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

To his surprise, the offhand remark made her features still and her eyes widen, almost as if she were frightened. Then her face smoothed into calm. “No, but I thought I spoke your language well?”

“You do.” Just, oddly. But he kept that observation to himself.

“We don’t have to talk.” She leaned forward and touched the corner of his mouth with the tip of one finger. “I am sure you can think of other things we could do.”

Caleb gave in to temptation and nipped at the finger, lightly grazing the pad with the edge of his teeth.

“Many things.”

Her eyes darkened. “I would like to try them all.”

Ending up at his place seemed inevitable. So did the slide of his hands through the silk of her hair, the urgent meshing of tongues and mouths, the soft sounds Althea made as he backed her up against the wall and kicked the door closed behind them. She kissed him with a mix of wild abandon and hesitation, as if she weren’t sure what to do first. Or maybe she simply wasn’t sure. The thought made him halt and drag his lips from hers.

“You want this?” Caleb rasped out the question in a voice roughened by desire.

Her eyes held his. “Oh, yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“I rode a mechanical bull for you. Yes, I am sure.”

Her exasperation made him grin. So did her confession. “So you did do that to get my attention?”

Althea gave him that impish grin that did things to his insides. “It worked.”

“It did.” Caleb gave up talking for more direct communication now that his conscience was clear. They were both consenting adults, she wanted him, and he sure as hell wanted her.

Her T-shirt became a barrier he lost patience with, so he pulled it up over her head, exposing a satiny expanse of bare skin all the way down to the hip bones that showed above the low waist of her jeans. He made a sound of satisfaction at the sight and then proceeded to taste her from the line of her jaw to the hollows of her collarbones, the slant of her breasts, the valley between, the pebbled nipples that tightened as he curled his tongue around them, before moving down to the soft skin below her navel. His hands gripped the rounded swell of her buttocks, drawing a low gasp from her.

Caleb paused to look up at her. Her passion-darkened eyes stared down at him, lips swollen from kissing, breath coming in soft pants. She looked wild, wanton. Wanting. With a low growl, he pulled her down to the floor and rolled onto his back with her plastered to his chest, belly to belly, thigh to thigh, far too many layers separating the lower halves of their bodies. Before he could get her pants off, her boots would have to go.

“Boots off. Now.”

She struggled to comply, but the tight leather proved difficult. Caleb recognized the problem and sat up.

He turned her around and kept her in his lap, her backside snug against his groin. From his new position he could grasp her boots while she pulled her feet free, one at a time. He tossed the boots aside, not caring where they fell or what they hit.

“Pants next,” Caleb murmured, hands already working on her snap and zipper. “You okay with the floor, or should I leave these on you long enough to make our way to the bed?”

She gave him a confused look. “What?”

“My thoughts exactly.” He hooked his fingers into her belt loops and tugged the open jeans down, then off. He paused to note the lack of panties to match her lack of bra. She hadn’t worn socks, either. He put the oddity aside and decided to focus on being grateful that her choice sped up the undressing process while he stripped away the remains of his own clothes, pausing only to snag a foil square from his pocket.

Small, slender fingers plucked it from him and tossed it aside. “Not necessary.”

She was on the Pill, then. Or maybe she took shots. Whatever, the opportunity to ride this intoxicating redhead bareback had him hard as granite. He had presence of mind enough to be a gentleman and take the floor while his body provided a mattress for hers, instead of crushing her into the carpet.

That was the only gentlemanly impulse that escaped the vortex of heat and need swallowing them both whole. Her satin flesh slid against his while he captured her mouth again and again, hands fisted in her hair. Her thighs parted and slid over his, settling the moist heat of her against his penis. That member throbbed in response to the contact, and the tiny motion combined with the pressure of her body against his opened her slightly as if in welcome.

Caleb reached down to stroke her where their bodies nearly joined, finding her slick and ready. He didn’t waste any more time claiming her the way he’d wanted to since he’d watched her ride that wicked bull: parting her flesh, sheathing himself to the hilt again and again while she writhed and bucked against him, until they spent themselves and came to rest, panting, her small body shivering with aftershocks atop his.

“Bed next time,” Caleb rasped against her ear. She gave a nod and a half-laugh. But despite his intentions, they didn’t make it past the couch the second time, where her upper half rested on the leather as she knelt on the floor, legs wide apart while he thrust endlessly into her from behind. After that, the shower, where he braced her against the wall with her legs wrapped around his waist. And then the bed seemed redundant, so they made their way to the kitchen with a towel slung around his waist and one tucked neatly sarong-style between her breasts.

“Hungry?”

“Famished.” Althea settled into a chair while he put together a plate of cheese, crackers and grapes.

She tasted everything the way she had the beer, as if every flavor and sensation was something new to experience and savor. Come to think of it, she’d gone at him the same way.

“Drink?”

“Um.” She swallowed. “Yes, please. More of your own recipe?”

Since he always kept a few bottles cold, that was an easy request to grant. He twisted the cap off for her and handed her the chilled brew. She took it gingerly, then followed his example when he drank straight from his bottle. Once she started, she gulped thirstily, so he offered her another. She accepted with cheerful greed.

“So you’re some kind of illegal alien,” Caleb stated, not certain he was right about her status but dead sure she was from further away than another town or state.

A peal of laughter escaped her. She raised the bottle in a salute, grinning at him conspiratorially. “You have no idea. I broke so many laws and regulations. Possibly all of them.”

She was proud of her lack of visa, then. She didn’t seem the criminal type, either. Curiouser and curiouser.

“But how did you know I was an alien? I pass for human perfectly as long as nobody scans my genome.”

She couldn’t possibly be drunk. Not on fewer than two beers. Which meant she was joking.

“You look very human.”

She nodded. “So do you. That’s why you all got away with it.

You have for hundreds of years, so I knew we could get away with it for a few days.”

You? We? Caleb’s attention sharpened. “Who do you mean?”

“All of us.” The hand not holding the bottle made an encompassing wave. “You and all of your genetic prototype, you’ve been on Earth since Attila and his men landed in their escape pods and decided to topple the local government. Their own being inconveniently out of reach.”

“And who is we?” Caleb asked the question casually.

“Myself and my team,” she answered promptly, taking another long drink. She paused to wipe her mouth on the back of her hand and beamed at him again. “This is so good. We have nothing like it. May I sample the molecular composition for later reconstruction?”

“Be my guest.”

She removed a plain metal stud from her earlobe and waved it over the bottle. It emitted a beam of light. When the light cut off, she restored the earring to its former position.

Toy laser jewelry? Caleb decided to ignore that and stay on topic. “You were telling me about your team.”

“Oh, yes.” Althea turned solemn. “We’re scientists. All women. We work in teams that way, segregated by gender as well as area of study. We’ve lived a very sheltered existence. I always thought it was to encourage us to focus on our work, but now I realize it was to keep us isolated from the general population and prevent unlicensed cross-breeding. They had to enhance our curiosity and creativity, you see, or we’d have been no good, but those traits made us a danger to the status quo. Much like your genotype.”

“Mine?”

“Mm, the super-soldiers. Not just brawn, although you all have that, of course, but high intelligence, adaptability, leadership, outside-the-box thinking. Mavericks. Renegades. And that was why they realized they had to get rid of you. They were afraid you’d stop following orders and start giving them. Judging by what the Huns did, a valid concern.”

“And who is they?” Caleb asked, wondering if this was an elaborate fiction or evidence of mental illness.

“Pangaea’s ruling body. The ones who set up the genetic-manipulation program and designated every future person for their predestined role. They threw you away like garbage, jettisoned to the far reaches of space, but you aren’t trash. You’re treasure. You’re the hope and future of our race. That’s why we came to find you.”

“And have wild monkey sex.”

Althea blinked. “Well, yes. We hijacked a space ship with FTL drive but we couldn’t steal a genetics lab, too. That limited us to natural methods. We don’t have the equipment for anything else.”

“You’re telling me I’m an alien. And you’re part of a second wave of hot alien women looking to score.” It was the stuff of juvenile science-fiction fantasies, except that something about her kept him from dismissing her story entirely. Like the way she held a grape up to the light and squinted at it, studying it as if it were a specimen in a lab.

His words made her grin in delight. “You think I’m hot?”

“I did until you started talking aliens.”

Her smile faded, and then became a frown. She focused on the bottle in her hand. “This beverage. This is some sort of truth serum.” She let it go so abruptly that it nearly spilled the remains of its contents on the table. Her hand flew to cover her mouth, eyes wide in horror. “I have to go.”

Yes. Yes, she did. But she went faster than Caleb anticipated, and in a way he never could have. She twisted the stud in her ear. A rainbow of light encased her body. When the light went out, only an empty towel on her chair was left to dumbfound him.

“Hey. Hey! Althea!” He shouted at the empty chair. “Dammit, come back!”

But she didn’t. Even though he sat at the table until dawn broke outside the kitchen window. He would have been tempted to believe the entire episode was a hallucination, but when he got up and retraced their hurricane path through his condo, it ended in two sets of clothing on the floor. She’d left that much behind.

Caleb knelt and gathered up her shirt and jeans, folded them neatly, and collected her boots. In the process, something caught his eye. Something small, winking in the light of day.

A metal stud. Twin to the one she’d used to vanish, taking his genetic material with her. And it was at that moment he realized why she’d told him the condom wasn’t necessary.

Althea might already be carrying his child.

Three

“I jeopardized the mission,” Althea repeated. Her lips felt numb. Her stomach felt like lead. “I told him everything.”

“You didn’t,” Nia assured her. “I scanned your report. You never mentioned your favorite color, or that you slept with a stuffed koa until you reached your majority.”

Althea groaned and buried her face in her hands. “I have to abdicate as captain. I’ve failed. You’re next in seniority, you should take over.”

“You are behaving irrationally,” Nia said. “You’re the team leader. You organized the hijacking. You have more flight experience than any of the rest of us. I barely passed basic stellar navigation. I know just enough to pilot an in-system shuttle from moon base to moon base. And you didn’t fail, you engaged your target. You may have told him more than you intended, but what can he do? Report you to the local authorities? You’ve studied their culture. People who believe in UFOs are dismissed as crackpots.”

“I don’t know what he can do. That’s what worries me.” Caleb was dangerous and unpredictable.

Precisely why she’d wanted him. She knew better than to dismiss him. If he chose to complicate her mission, he was capable of finding a way. He’d been designed to innovate on the spot, under any conditions. And to never give up until he won.

“Worry in private,” Nia advised. “You’re the captain.”

For better or worse, it seemed she still was. She took advantage of captain’s privilege and retired to her quarters. The walls seemed to close in on her after the expanse of a planet, so she took the time to synthesize the beverage she’d sampled at Caleb’s. It tasted flat. False. She sighed and discarded it.

Another failure.

“You can’t make it like a photocopy,” a low masculine voice said from behind her. “You have to brew it. It’s a process. The magic happens over time.”

Althea turned slowly, not willing to believe the evidence of her ears until her eyes confirmed it. She took in the sight of Caleb, from his rumpled hair to his dark scowl, and something inside her breathed again. He was real. He was here.

Then she remembered that that was a very bad thing and backed up as far as her tiny shipboard quarters allowed. Which wasn’t far enough.

“Hello, Althea. Surprised to see me?”

She licked suddenly dry lips and swallowed hard around the obstruction in her throat before she could answer. “Yes.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“I didn’t underestimate you, if that’s what you mean,” Althea said.

“I’m glad to hear it. The mother of my future child should have some respect for her baby’s father.”

All her instincts had been right. Caleb was dangerous, and she’d given him reason to see her as a threat.

“You’re angry,” Althea said cautiously.

“No, I’m a little past that. You set out to seduce me in hopes of getting pregnant and then going on your merry way, taking my child with you.”

When he put it that way . . . “You weren’t to know. I never intended to tell you.”

“And you think that makes it better?” He stalked closer.

“You have sex with strange women all the time,” Althea protested. “It wasn’t like I was trying to make you do something against your will. And they didn’t need you like I did.”

His face abruptly closed, losing all expression. “But you didn’t, did you? You didn’t need me at all. I was just a convenient sperm donor.”

Althea lost all patience. “There is nothing convenient about you, Caleb Bronson. You were difficult to analyze, nearly impossible to make contact with. I had to go to ridiculous lengths to gain your attention and win your interest. If you knew the hours I spent in a simulator running mechanical bull programs until I could stay on no matter what the computer threw at me, you wouldn’t stand there calling yourself convenient.” She spoke the last word like a curse.

“If I was so inconvenient, why didn’t you pick on another man?”

The question caught her off guard. “I, well, you were the ideal candidate for me.”

“Really? Why? If I’m one of a batch of discarded genetic experiments, wouldn’t any other one do?”

Her lower lip caught between her teeth. She began to feel trapped by more than his body and the cold panel pressing against her spine. “Your blood and tissue type, um . . .” she broke off in confusion.

“What about them?” Caleb took a step closer, and into the tight confines of her cabin, bringing him within touching distance.

Althea waved her hands in surrender. “Fine! Okay! Any other would have done for the mission.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “But only you would do for me.”

“Oh, Althea.” He reached out to rub his thumb against her lower lip, tracing the line he’d kissed until the sensation made her head swim while she hungered for more. “You present me with a dilemma.”

“I didn’t mean to.” The raw honesty was no defense, she knew. Yet it was all she had to offer.

“I know.” Done with talking, at least for the time being, Caleb bent his head to hers. Their mouths met, clung, opened to taste each other more deeply. His hands captured hers, fingers tangling. When the kiss finally ended, Althea felt certain that whatever he demanded of her, she would be powerless to deny. The thought made threads of ice form in her veins, only to melt away under the onslaught of his body moving against hers.

He rasped out, “We never did make it to a bed. You have one hidden away somewhere?”

In answer, she pressed the button that made a folding bunk lower from the opposite wall panel. No matter what came next, she wasn’t about to rob herself of the chance to touch him and be touched by him one last time.

Caleb swung her up in his arms and carried her to it, placing her on her back before lowering himself on top of her. Urgent hands made short work of clothing. She yanked at his, he tore at hers, and in moments they were gloriously skin-to-skin. The heat of him burned into her like a brand as his weight pinned her in place.

Not that she had any intention of escaping at the moment. Althea was all too delighted to be caught by the press of his flesh into hers, the heady slide of his length inside her, the sensation of being surrounded by the heat and scent of him while he plundered her body like a warrior bent on conquest.

The dizzying pleasure ended in a molten burst, as Caleb spent himself in her depths while her flesh clenched around his as if trying to prolong the moment and prevent the inevitable withdrawal. But it had to come.

Althea bit her lip against the protest that she had no right to make as Caleb released her and rolled off to sit up facing away from her.

When he spoke, his voice was hard and implacable. “Two things. First, don’t think you can settle every fight we have with hot make-up sex. Second, I’m coming with you.”

Althea blinked. “What?”

Caleb turned to glare at her over his broad shoulder. “Which part didn’t you understand?”

She gave up struggling to make sense of the turn of events, and threw herself at the lifeline he offered.

“All of it.”

He rubbed his jaw as he looked down at her sprawled, naked form. “Okay, the first part. You can’t control me with sex. Well, maybe you could. But I’d know you were doing it and it wouldn’t end well.”

He thought she could control him with sex? Now there was a revelation. “I wasn’t sure I was doing it right,” Althea confessed. “I did tell you I lived alone, no men, no distractions. Just work.” The possibility that she’d bent his mind into the bewildering dimensions he’d bent hers into delighted her as much as it surprised her.

“You mean you’d never—?” he broke off. “Never mind. The next part. I’m coming with you. You want a child? You can have as many as you want. But I’m part of the package deal. The thought of you running loose in the galaxy makes my blood run cold.”

“It does?”

Caleb nodded. “Look what you’ve done since you broke out of your ivory tower. Stealing a space ship to hunt down dangerous renegades, riding mechanical bulls, going home with strange men. You could have been killed at least a dozen ways. If I go with you, your odds of staying alive long enough to give birth go way up.”

If he went with her, her odds of survival and success were exponentially increased. But that wasn’t what made the giddy bubble of hope rise inside her. “Caleb. Why would you do that? Leave the only world you’ve ever known?”

He shrugged. “According to you, and everything I’ve seen backs up your story, it isn’t even my world.

And it’ll be a hell of an adventure. Think of it. The chance to explore strange new worlds, seek out new civilizations.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. That sounded tantalizingly familiar, but she’d waded through so much background material learning about his culture that she couldn’t place the reference. “And is that all you want? Adventure?”

“Hell, no.” Caleb scooped her up into his lap and cradled her close. “I can find adventure on Earth.

And I have. What I can’t find there is you.”

This must be happiness, Althea thought, dazed and amazed. She curled into him and nuzzled his chest.

“Welcome aboard,” she said.

After that, there wasn’t any more talking for a long time.