Vintage Grace: Wet Dreams Part 1 FREE STORY

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WARNING! This story contains ADULT CONTENT!

Summer is almost over, but I like to keep the sizzle going as long as possible, keeping that in mind, I thought I’d make this a story sort of weekend and prime you for the next instalment of IN THE FLESH with something really filthy vintage K D Grace. Wet Dreams is one of the first stories I had published and, like a lot of my early stories, WET DREAMS is very filthy and not for the faint of heart. It is erotica … XXX all the way.  As some of you are aware of my attitude about condoms in erotica, especially when it’s very strictly fantasy, be warned, even without a condom, this story is safe sex because IT IS FICTION! Please enjoy it for what it is.

Part 2 will be up next week. 

 

 

Dr. Joe Nevins jerked to wakefulness nearly falling off the control room chair. He yawned, rubbed his burning eyes and returned his attention to the bank of monitors, which were attached to cameras designed for low light and placed strategically about the sleep room. Almost all of the test subjects under the camera’s watchful eye were in REM sleep. The stuff dreams are made of, he thought. He could tell by the EEG of their brain waves and by the rapid movement of their eyes beneath closed lids that they were dreaming. He wished he could join them. The early hours of the morning were always the hardest, the time when he was completely alone, the only waking soul in a world of dreamers, longing to share in their slumbers.

At six thirty in the morning, the alarm would go off; everyone would rise, write down what they remembered of their dreams and return to life in the waking world.

Life in the waking world — not something a sleep researcher saw an awful lot of, Joe thought morosely. Once his subjects left, he reviewed their dream journals, correlated his data and made notes. Then he tried to catch a few hours of REM sleep himself, though it was never enough. When he was working with a test group, he seldom left the facility. It had everything his apartment had, plus state of the art equipment. Hopefully these test subjects and one more batch would give him a large enough sample to prove the validity of his data.

He yawned again and his head fell to his chest. Somehow attempting to study dreams from the waking world seemed fundamentally wrong at this hour. Movement on one of the monitors caught his eye. Subject number three was sitting on the edge of her bed. It wasn’t unusual for subjects to wake in the night. Portable EEGs made it possible for them to visit the bathroom, get a drink of water, or even have a midnight snack in the canteen next door. The facility was designed to allow subjects to emulate their normal sleep patterns.

He blinked and rubbed his eyes again to make sure, but subject number three was definitely standing by the side of her bed unbuttoning her nightie. He nearly fell off his chair as the woman, who looked to be in her late twenties with short dark hair and lovely cheekbones, shoved the nightie off her shoulders and began to caress her breasts. They were small firm breasts with large dark nipples, growing larger as she rolled them between her thumbs and forefingers.

Her EEG seemed to be malfunctioning, but adjusting its monitor didn’t help. He switched on the microphone, allowing him to hear sounds coming from the sleep room. There was the usual mix of deep breathing and light snoring along with the soft moans of subject three. One hand left the caressing of her breasts and snaked down her belly to shove aside the nightie. With little grunts of frustration, she wriggled out of miniscule panties, and her hand went to work between her legs.

There were no sleep disorders among the test subjects, he’d made certain of that. Surely the woman was awake. But another glance at the EEG proved inconclusive. The front of Joe’s trousers pressed hard against his expanding cock. Damn it! He wasn’t a sex crazed teenager jacking off to women’s underwear ads. He was a scientist doing important research, research that could improve people’s lives, research that could…

Suddenly Subject Three slipped under the blankets with the woman in the next bed. Joe held his breath.

“What the? What’s going …,” subject four mumbled, waking up.

Three stopped her words with a deep kiss involving plenty of tongue. For a tense second, Joe feared the two women would wake up the rest of his subjects, but as Three pulled away, she placed a silencing finger to her lips. Four seemed happy to comply. Three’s EEG was completely off line now, yet everyone else’s was functioning perfectly.

She pushed up Four’s night shirt to reveal large breasts, expansive areole rising and falling with the woman’s accelerated breathing. Then she suckled and kneaded her way into Four’s deep cleavage, flicking a pink tongue over the contours like a cat licking a kitten.

Joe fumbled with the controls, zooming in on Three’s tongue, on Four’s heavy breasts, on Three’s hand slipping into Four’s panties.

“Come for me,” Three whispered as she pulled away from Four’s engorged nipple to kiss her ear. “Please come for me.” Then there was only the sound of heavy breathing and muffled moans. And the sound of a zipper.

dark moon image_xl_6338206It took Joe a second to realize the zipper was that of his own fly, which he had opened to give his expanding cock some relief. Easing his penis free, he stifled a groan as his fingers closed around his growing girth. My God, he really was like a teenager.

“Let me see you. Let me look at you down there.” Three pealed the panties over Four’s full hips and ample buttocks. This time, Joe got the zoom just right. Four’s vulva filled the monitor as she shifted, opening her legs to reveal a well trimmed pubis with thick, swollen lips, open and responsive to Three’s exploring fingers. Three whimpered softly, then lowered her head. And suddenly it was Three’s vulva and her whole heart-shaped bottom that filled the monitor as she positioned herself on hands and knees, nightie shoved high over her hips, ass raised like a bitch in heat. She licked Four’s cunt in long lingering slurps, pausing to suckle and nip at her clit.

Joe watched in fascination as Three wriggle two deft fingers into her own swollen slit, and the wet, slippery sounds of pleasure filled the sleep room. With each stroke of his cock, he imagined his erection replacing Three’s fingers, thrusting in and out of that exquisite grip. The weight of his engorged balls shifted heavily in the cupping caress of one hand. This was so wrong. But the thought of his bad behavior only served to make his cock stiffer, make him pump even harder, until his muscles ached and tensed, and his buttocks clenched tighter with each thrust.

Orgasm began as a ripple up Four’s body. The ripple erupted into a spasm, and Four gasped and bucked against Three’s insinuating tongue, struggling not to wake the other sleepers. Then Three gave a little sigh and collapsed on top of her, Four’s moisture still glistening on her mouth and chin. “You came?” She whispered, stroking Four’s nipples.

“Yes.”

“I’m glad.” She kissed the other woman’s breasts in turn then went to her own bed, stopping to slip into her panties, giving Joe one last glistening view of her cunt.

He awoke, cock in hand, with just enough time to pull out his handkerchief before he squirted it full. He thought he’d never stop coming, his cock convulsing again and again into soft white cotton. As the pheromonal tang of ejaculate and male sweat displaced the disinfectant smell of the control room, he collapsed in the chair feeling a strange combination of confusion and post coital drowsiness. What the hell happened?

A quick look at the monitor and the perfectly functioning EEG revealed that both women were in their own beds, both in REM sleep. A glance at the clock told him he had only just dozed briefly, and yet it had been enough for him to dream vividly, extricate his cock from his trousers and come. How could this be? He knew he was under slept, but even when he wasn’t, he seldom remembered his dreams. Strange that, considering he made his living studying dreams.

 

Dream Journal

Subject # 3

February 18

I’m with a woman I don’t know. We are admiring each other’s tits. Hers are big and heavy. She agrees to let me touch
hers if she can touch mine. Then we’re at my house, in my bed. We take off our tops. She’s wearing a black lace bra that caresses and cups her deep cleavage. She lets me take it off her. I’m astounded at how full she is, how swollen her nipples are. I’m sucking her like she’s somebody’s yummy mummy, whose engorged titties need to be nursed on. Her hand is in my panties fingering my fat, slippery cunt. Just when it’s getting good, we realize there’s a man watching us. He’s stroking his cock hard, about to ejaculate.

Then I’m in a park walking. I see a woman sitting on a bench masturbating. She has her skirt up. I can see her pussy. It’s such a beautiful pussy, it’s nice and hairy — I like hairy cunts — with big dark lips all wet and pouting. She’s crying. I ask her what’s wrong. She says she needs to come so badly that her pussy hurts. She asks me if I’ll help her. Then we’re lying on the grass and I’m licking her pussy. She’s sweet and salty and so turned on that her tight quinny kisses me back while I tongue her. She’s moaning and bucking against my mouth, telling me she’s about to come. My own pussy aches too, and I’m suddenly desperate to orgasm.

The man is watching us again. It’s like he’s everywhere. He sees everything. He has his cock out, and his balls are so full. I want to watch him, I want him to watch me, so I start playing with my own cunt, while I lick. He pumps his cock harder and harder until it erupts like a fountain, and he keeps coming and coming, like he’ll never stop.

I woke up feeling horny.

 

Breathing hard, Joe put down the journal and quick-stepped to the bathroom in the back of his office. Standing over the toilet, he fumbled with his fly, feeling a quiver down his spine at the freeing of his cock. In one hand he cupped balls that felt like they were loaded with lead and with the other, he stroked the thick length of his erection hard and fast, only a half a dozen strokes or so. That was all he needed after reading Three’s journal. There was no making it last. He came in great shuddering spasms, grunting hard with the intensity of his release.

When he could breathe again, when his balls were well emptied and his cock was more manageable, he tucked himself in and went back to work. Dream journals were confidential. The subjects were asked to write in present tense with no comments. At the end of each entry, they wrote a sentence or two about how they felt that morning. Before now none of the dreams had been blatantly sexual. There were the expected scenarios of being caught in the office naked, or being caught taking a dump in public. But Joe knew that people in general weren’t very good at telling the truth. Three was brave to be so honest.

A look at subject four’s journal revealed only a short ‘late for work’ dream.

Nothing had happened between the two women. The EEGs were proof. Yet how could Three’s dream be so similar to his?

From the files, he looked through the extensive questionnaire Three had filled out her first day. There was nothing out Sleeping woman reading181340322466666994_IswNAb85_bof the ordinary. In fact he had chosen subjects particularly for their normal sleep patterns. A look at Three’s EEGs revealed normal REM sleep cycles, as he would have expected. That meant the only person with unusual sleep patterns was him.

He half hoped that when he made it to bed mid afternoon, he’d dream about Three again. Normally he didn’t want to know his subjects’ names. The less he knew the better. Still he couldn’t help thinking it would be nice to call her name in his dreams just before he made her come, just before he came inside her. But he hadn’t managed to get to sleep that afternoon. There was too much to do.

Tune in for the conclusion of Wet Dreams next week!

The Antidote! New Release by Lisabet Sarai

 

TheAntidoteCover400Science Fiction Erotica (X rated)

Approximately 5000 words

 

What if the government stole your libido? What would you do to get it back?

 

Sixty years after the Plague, few remember the mass deaths, the riots and the massacres triggered by the sexually-transmitted disease. Still, most people accept the Council’s mysterious libido-suppression technology as necessary to prevent a resurgence of the deadly virus. Monthly procreative sex, government-supported and hormone-enhanced, is enough to satisfy them.

Lena’s different. Though she loves her husband Jeff, she yearns to experience the thrill of forbidden lust, to know what it feels like to couple with a stranger. Rumors speak of an antidote that liberates the libido from the Council’s thrall. Denied from birth, Lena is willing to risk everything—her marriage, her freedom, even her life—for one taste of unbridled desire.

 

Buy Links

Amazon US – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013ZS2678

Amazon UK – http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B013ZS2678

Smashwords – https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/569511

Coming soon to iTunes, Kobo, and B&N!

 

Excerpt

“Yeah, I can get it—well, I can tell you where to get it. But it’s expensive.”

Merle and I huddled together on the bench in the 52nd story roof garden of the New Sears Building where we worked. Even here, talking was risky. There were certainly cameras, but mikes were less likely out in the open.

“I’ve been saving. How much do you think it will cost?”

Merle named a figure four times what I had squirreled away.

“Gads, Merle! It’s not gold!”

“No, it’s more valuable than gold. What do you expect? People will pay almost anything for the forbidden.”

I blinked and looked away, not wanting her to see my incipient tears. After a few deep breaths, I thought I could continue the conversation without embarrassing myself. My friend wasn’t fooled.

“You really want this, don’t you, Lena?”

“More than anything.” It was true. I’d been experimenting on my own trying to reverse the effects of the government’s anti-sex interventions, with no success at all.

No one knew exactly how the drugs were delivered. I went two days eating nothing, drinking only rainwater gathered on our unit’s balcony. The fact that Jeff traveled so much for his job had made it easier. I just waited until he was away on one of his trips. Then, physically weak but determined, I hacked through the net filters to one of the most notorious underground porn sites, hosted, according to Merle, in Kazakhstan.

Nothing. I felt nothing. I watched the contortions of the naked bodies, the penetrations and the climaxes, and felt no desire, only a vague, painful sense of loss.

I was second generation post-Plague. I knew the history, but I didn’t remember the Troubles: the millions of deaths, the riots, the massacres of homosexuals and prostitutes. None of it seemed real to me.

When the Council had introduced its libido-suppression program to stem the spread of the virus, most people were enthusiastically in favor. Now it had become second nature. Society ran perfectly smoothly without the lubricant of lust. But I resented it. I wanted to know what I was missing.

 

 

About Lisabet

Long before she discovered erotica and erotic romance, Lisabet Sarai devoured science fiction. Heinlein, Bradbury and Asimov were her companions growing up. Later she explored the dark, seductive worlds of Neal Stephenson, Pat Cadigan and Bruce Sterling. M. Christian, C. Sanchez-Garcia and Cecilia Tan showed her how to combine visions of the future with visions of desire. Her M/M science fiction erotic romance Quarantine won a Rainbow Awards honorable mention, while alien ménage Bodies of Light was voted a Best Book of the Month at Whipped Cream Reviews. Speculative erotica remains one of her favorite genres, both to read and to write.

You’ll find information and excerpts from all Lisabet’s books on her website (http://www.lisabetsarai.com/books.html), along with more than fifty free stories and lots more. At her blog Beyond Romance (http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com), she shares her philosophy and her news and hosts lots of other great authors. She’s also on Goodreads and finally, on Twitter.

We Survived 3 Days Without Wi-Fi

2015-08-26 15.45.02I just got back from ten days in the Scottish highlands with the last three spent on the Isle of Skye with on Wi-Fi no cell
phone and the nearest neighbor a mile up a very rough gravel track.

I don’t mind telling you that it was rough, that moment when we discovered we were cut off from civilization!!! The first thing we did after we got unpacked was make the trek by foot to the top of the hill, cell phones held high in a desperate attempt to get at least a tiny whiff of a signal – just enough to check and send email … oh pleeeze dear Techno-god!!! But alas it was not to be …

We made our way back down the hill, twitching in withdrawal and growling unpleasantries beneath our breath while cursing the first born of the booking site we’d used that had promised the place had Wi-Fi. But we quickly forgot to be disgruntled when we saw the first intimations of the sunset above the sea. It was the beginning of the domino effect. As we descended the hill, for 2015-08-26 18.50.09 HDRthe first time we paid real attention to the tumble down ruin of a building next to our cottage, the ageing phone box next to it, the thistle in bloom, the hulking shapes of mountains under blankets of clouds. All the while the sunset just kept getting more glorious. Finally, a use for our iPhones! At least a hundred pics later and a nice glass of red wine in hand, we let the midges take over the great outdoors while we sat in the huge window seat in the front room and cheered on a pair of pipistrelle bats in their hunt of said midges in the court yard. By that time we’d nearly forgotten the lack of Wi-Fi.

We slept in total silence that night, something town folk rarely experience. There was no traffic noise, no people noise, not even any settling of the cottage, which I reckon was probably old enough to have been well-settled by now. Even the sea was just far enough away that we could see it well, but not hear it.

IMG_2875Long toward morning I awoke to find another view, something I couldn’t capture with my iPhone no matter how many photos I took — the clear night sky with no light pollution! None! I had no idea there were so many, many stars! The whole Milky Way was splashed across the heaven and, from the dormer window, I craned my neck to take as much in as I could for as long as I could. I stood shivering beneath the view certain I’d just experienced some seriously powerful magic. Everyone else slept and that moment, that glorious view was beautifully and intimately mine. That moment, one I could neither tweet nor capture on iPhone, was for me the highlight of a trip jam-packed full of jaw-dropping experiences. That moment, dark-night private and achingly beautiful, was mine to treasure.

In the morning we made breakfast together laughing and joking, planning and scheming with only the aid of maps and books. From the window we watched the swallows flit about and a charm of gold finches picking at the wild flowers and grasses gone to seed.

2015-08-26 15.29.45In the slow but magical disconnect from the internet umbilical cord, we saw things differently, shared things differently, spoke to each other more reverently, and everything felt more focused, more brightly colored, more three dimensional.

On our way back to the cottage at the end of day two, we punctured a tire. Up on a high cliff above the sea just as the rain was setting in and the wind was picking up, Raymond got out to change the tire, and my sister and I got out to cheer him on and offer what help we could. We had no way of calling for road service to take care of it for us, no way of doing anything but getting on with it. He had just barely got the spare and the jack out of the boot when a car pulled up behind us, and a young man hopped out to help. The older woman with him stood and talked to my sister and me.

We discovered they owned one of the farms in the valley below, and she had seen our hazard lights go on from there. Her nephew had been bailing silage in the field so she told him we were in trouble and they came to our aide. They had us all sorted and back on our way in just a few minutes. This was a very powerful reminder of how people live in community without Internet. They watch out for each 2015-08-26 15.43.57other. I’m not so young that I don’t remember a time when that was the case, and yet I’d forgotten what it felt like in practice.

When our third day in Skye dawned wet and rainy, we drove into Portree and, while Raymond dealt with the punctured tire, we connected briefly to the slow, overworked Wi-Fi in the Cafe Arriba, ensconced with our coffee amid a gaggle of other wet tourists doing exactly the same thing. The connection wasn’t great, and we honestly didn’t mind. Once the tire was sorted, we were off exploring the Trotternish Peninsula in the rain. That night back in our cottage, as the sky cleared to display a resplendent waxing moon, we cooked dinner together, we talked and laughed and schemed and relived our memories of a damn near perfect holiday. We all agreed that we weren’t even a little sorry for our time without Wi-Fi.

The next night, down in Carlisle on our way home, we were once again in our own little Internet worlds trying to catch up while we waited for the waitress to bring our meals. It was jarring and a bit sad 2015-08-27 13.23.46to feel that freeing experience slipping away. But here I am, writing this on my iPhone on the last leg it the trip home. I’ll email it to myself then put together my blog post once I’m home, and by Sunday noon, you’ll be reading it complete with pictures I’ve downloaded. I will have tweeted it and share it on Face Book and will be well and truly back to being my techno- dependent self. We all will. The truth is we’re the slave of our technological connectedness as much as it’s our servant. I’ll take me the better part of a week to catch up, but I’ll treasure those few days of intimate disconnection, and maybe I’ll be brave enough to disconnect on purpose from time to time now that I know that I can, now that I know that I won’t die from the lack of Wi-Fi, and especially now that I know the rewards are so worth the disconnect.

In The Flesh PART 15: Dark Paranormal Romance. Read & Enjoy!

In the Flesh 11880534_1463650103936599_545702979581425574_n
I’m just back from Scotland well and truly inspired to write like the wind. That being said, it’s time for Part 15 of In The Flesh in which Susan learns more of the truth than she wants to know, but not nearly enough to get her out of the mess she’s in.

Read! Enjoy! Spread the word!

In the Flesh  is very dark paranormal erotica. When Susan Innes comes to visit her friend, Annie Rivers, in Chapel House, the deconsecrated church that Annie is renovating into a home, she discovers her outgoing friend changed, reclusive, secretive, and completely enthralled by a mysterious lover, whose presence is always felt, but never seen, a lover whom she claims is god. As her holiday turns into a nightmare, Susan must come to grips with the fact that her friend’s lover is neither imaginary nor is he human, and even worse, he’s turned his wandering eye on Susan, and he won’t be denied his prize. If Susan is to fight an inhuman stalker intent on having her as his own, she’ll need a little inhuman help.

 

 

 

 

To read the story in its entirety up to this point, follow these links to  Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4 Part 5Part 6Part 7Part 8Part 9Part 10Part 11Part 12Part 13, Part 14.

 

In The Flesh Part 15

“Susan? Are you all right? You’re shivering and I don’t want you to catch a chill.”

When I came back to myself I still stood naked in front of the mirror. But He was right, I was shivering.

“Darling, you’re frightening me. Please, go to the bed Annie has made up for you and get beneath the duvet and make yourself warm.”

I did as He asked without thinking, though it was fully of my own volition. He was not compelling me in any way I could tell, but the next thing I knew, I was curled in a fetal position in the on the mattress on the floor, the duvet pulled up to my chin, and still I shivered, as I struggled to get my mind round what he’d just said.

He sat next to me. I could feel the weight of Him on the mattress, and I knew He watched me. “Shall I rouse Annie to make you more tea? Perhaps that would help.”

“No. Let her rest.” I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing her the way she was now, and I really wasn’t up to another knife confrontation with my best friend. Until I had some plan of action to help her, to get her out of here, it was best to let her sleep.

He made no reply, but lay down next to me and in a moment, I felt his body naked against mine. “Please don’t.” I whispered.

“I only wish to warm you, my darling. I promise I won’t take you until you are ready for me.”

How there could be body heat when there was no flesh to generate it, I didn’t know, but there was, and I couldn’t help snuggling back against Him, doing my best to ignore that He was ready for me, whether I was ready for Him or not. It hit me then, that He was exerting control over himself by not trying to control me. Whatever lust I had for Him was no more than I would have felt for any well-endowed man, who lay next to me when I was under such stress. I knew, He could easily change that. I knew He could make me want Him to the detriment of anything else that could possibly matter. I reminded myself that He hadn’t said if I was ready for Him, but when. I needed, above all else, to remember that. His strategy was to replace Annie with me, and He didn’t necessarily have to force the issue to make that happen. All of those things were in my mind, but the fact that I might have been the one to released a monster into the world just happened to take center stage in my brain, at least for the moment.

“What you said. That can’t possibly be,” I managed between chattering teeth. “How I could have removed the gate and the padlock? I mean I couldn’t have. It isn’t possible. I had no key, I couldn’t have even found my way back to the crypt through that tangle of a garden without Annie’s help, and besides, I … I didn’t know you were there. How could I have known you were there?”

He smoothed the hair away from my temple and kissed me in the spot where my pulse thundered. “Of course you solicited Annie’s help, my darling. She helped you find your way back, but only you could open the gate. Only you could set me free.”

“I didn’t know you were there,” I repeated, my words sounding more like a plea.

“Of course you did, my little Scribe. You sensed me there in the darkness waiting for you, longing for you, and your words breathed hope into me. Don’t you remember your dreams?”

“I … vaguely. But I was drunk and I was only telling stories. Often what I’m writing about or thinking about invades my dream world. I don’t remember you, though, and I don’t remember releasing you.”

“Don’t you?” His hand moved down then to cup my breast and the press of his penis became more urgent against my bottom. “You convinced Annie to help us. Ultimately I could see that your plan was for her to ultimately get us together, you and me.”

“No! That was not my plan! There was no plan. It was only a dream, and I would never use my friend that way. Ever!”

He only kissed my shoulder and spoke quietly as though He were telling me a story. “Of course it was your plan. Annie would be mine. She would stay with me, satisfy me until you could come to me, until you could be mind. That was always our plan, my darling. I always knew that in my heart of hearts.” I felt him shrug. “A figure of speech of course. I have no actual heart, of course.”

“Oh Christ,’ I whispered, fighting back panic. Had I not awakened in both terror and arousal? Hadn’t my last thoughts in the dream world and my first in the waking been that I had opened a door I could not close again?

“This is insane! It was just a dream.” With all the force I could muster, I shoved my way up off the mattress and fled to the bathroom, snatching up my clothes, still on the floor where I’d dropped them. “It was just a fucking dream!” I shouted, sensing His presence behind me as I scrambled into my jeans. “I’m not crazy. I know a dream when I have one.”

“The dreams of a Scribe carry more weight than those of an ordinary mortal, Susan, do you not know this? Has no one told you? I would have certainly thought Michael would have said something, after all that’s what the bitch who owns him wants.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mea? Why would Michael care? He has nothing to do it. I write stories! People pay me for them,” I said buttoning my shirt over my braless breasts while shoving the bra into my bag, “That’s what I do. I don’t live out my dreams! I don’t open doors into strange abysses, and I didn’t release a –”

Before I knew what was happening, He was on me, forcing me back against the sink. The mark on my breast suddenly burned like fire that spread down my torso, and I screamed at the press of him, still naked, still aroused and all hard invisible muscle that bore down on me like a suffocating weight. “What, Susan? You didn’t release a monster, is that what you were about to say? Do you think that you wouldn’t? Do you think that you couldn’t? Are you so naïve as to believe that what’s inside your head, what you put on the written page is any less monstrous, any less dangerous?”

“What else are you but a monster,” I shouted, “hurting me like this, hurting poor Annie who did nothing to deserve it! Nothing! If I’m the one to blame, leave her alone, let her go and –”

I swallowed back my words in a yelp as the floor tilted beneath my feet and the air around me crackled with static and ozone, and my head felt full and tight as though I were suddenly on a train passing through a tunnel at high speed. In my confusion, it took me a second to realize the roar that I thought was a sudden clap of thunder was the sound of His anger, followed by my scream as I found myself flying through the air and landing with a thud on the stone floor. A sharp shockwave raced down my spine and pinwheels of color exploded behind my eyes. For a split second I thought He’d broken my neck, but that was secondary to getting the breath back that he’d knocked out of me. Then, in an instant, the room righted itself and He was gone. I heard Annie scream, as he vanished.

I stumbled to my feet, still barely dressed, lost my footing in a wave of dizziness, and came down hard on one knee, yelling my friend’s name as I shoved through the door and down the hall. “Annie! Hold on, I’m coming. Hold –’ Then the kitchen door burst open, and the breath that I’d only just recovered was knocked out of me again as Michael scooped me up like I was a sack of grain, threw me over his shoulder and was nearly to the gate before I could do more than gasp. “Annie! Annie! I can’t leave, her,” I gasped as he shoved me into the passenger seat of my own car.

“Maggie’s got her! It’s all right! Maggie’s got her and they’re headed for–” I accidentally elbowed him in the chest and he sputtered. “Fuck! How many goddam times are we gonna have to do the great escape routine!” Then he slammed the door shut, cursing as he hopped into the driver’s seat and shoved the key home. I don’t know how the hell he got it, and I didn’t ask as we pulled away from Chapel House like we were being chased by all the demons from Hell, and God knew one of them was fucking bad enough!

I stiff-legged the floorboard and shoved both hands against the dashboard with a sense of deja vu I neither wanted no appreciated. Then, when we’d put a good few blocks between us and that horrible place, I turned on Michael. “He said I set Him free! He said I’m the one who let him loose on the world, let him loose to do this to Annie. He fucking said you knew!”

Michael cursed under his breath, the tension in his body evident still in his suicide grip on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry, Susan. I was going to tell you. I said all the time we should tell you right up front so there’d be no surprises, so you’d know what you were up against, but Maggie said not to, Maggie said to wait. She said she had a plan. Some fucking plan!” He ranted, cursing the first born this Maggie would supposedly never have and wished every plague and pestilence he could think of upon her – some I’d never heard of, but I didn’t hear anything after that except for the beating of wings against my ears and the desperate draw of breath into my lungs. It was true. I released Him. How the hell could it be true?

“Susan?” It was the sound of my own name that made me realize the rant was over and Michael was addressing me. “Did you hear me? I’ll explain everything once we’ve reached the rendezvous point, well, Maggie can explain better than I can, but we need to make sure you’re safe first.”

I forced a laugh that was decidedly on the hysterical side, and I really didn’t give a fuck. “Safe? How the hell can you even use that word when He’s out there? And why the hell do you think I’ll actually believe you when you lied to me? You fucking lied to me!” I punched him hard in the arm with my fist, and he responded by trapping my hand against his body, driving with one hand on the wheel and the other holding my wrist away from him, but at such an angle that my arm twisted making any movement uncomfortable. That done, he let me have my rant, the fucker barely breathing hard as I called him every name I could think of, and then threatened him with some seriously creative bodily damage, none of which did he seem concerned about even for one second.

At last he spoke. “Are you finished? Because I need my arm back. A safe driver keeps both hands on the wheel.”

“Safe driving is the least of my concerns at the moment,Michael, and believe me,” I growled, “we’re not anywhere near finished, and I have no intention of dying before I kick you seriously in the balls a few times.”

“Fair enough,” he said, and then he released me.

“Where are we going?” I asked once my temper had cooled enough to remind me that I was scared shitless, exhausted and physically damaged, and if I were going to survive whatever happened next, I would need Michael’s help, whether I liked the plan of action or not.

“There’s a place in Cumbria, up in the fells. Friend of Magda owns it. No one will find us there.”

“And Annie? She’s in really bad shape, and she … she’s not in her right mind.” I swallowed hard thinking that my best friend had tried to kill me, then delivered me right into the mouth of the dragon. But that was forgivable under the circumstances. What was unforgivable was the fact that it seems to have been my actions that put her at risk in the first place.

“She’s in good hands, I promise.” He patted my arm gently. “Maggie will know what to do, and at the moment, we need her safe and out of the equation so he can’t use her against you.”

We turned of the M6 onto the A66 heading toward Keswick with Michael questioning me about what had happened. When I told him of his boss’ visit in the crypt, he unleashed some seriously colorful language and slammed his hand against the steering wheel hard enough to rattle the whole car. “Damn her! We had you safe. We had you away from Him, away from Chapel House. If I’d been awake, I would have known you were walking into a trap. I would have stopped you. We’d have all been safely away by now.”

I gave him a sideways glance. “And what about Annie?”

The muscles along his jaw clenched tight and his shoulders stiffened. “We got her out, didn’t we?’

“But that wasn’t part of the plan, was it?”

“I don’t know what the hell the plan is,” he snapped. “Clearly Maggie’s keeping me as much in the dark as she is you. We’ll have … words, when I see her.”

Before I could respond with some things I’d rather have with this Maggie bitch that were much more physical than words, Michael continued. “You need to sleep now. Alonso … well Alonso is a bit neurotic, though I understand that’s pretty typical of his kind. He doesn’t like people to know where he lives. Took a page from Maggie’s book where that’s concerned. Anyway, I’ll put you to sleep, and when you wake up, we’ll be there.

“Magic? You’ll magic me to sleep?”

He shrugged and I thought I saw a blush crawling up his neck. “I suppose you could call it that. Don’t worry, it’s harmless, but useful at times. God! Only three days ago, I didn’t believe in magic or angels or monsters. Shows what the hell I knew.

When I woke up, the car had stopped. It was dark outside and some unknown man was carrying me like a child.

“I’m not keen on Maggie using High View for her little capers,” the man was saying, his voice a purr of a vibration deep in his chest. I shivered and snuggled close for warmth but felt none.

“I’m not too keen on it either, Alonso, I’d much rather be in my own place where I can pull up the drawbridge, but looks like you drew the short straw this time around.”

I was about to ask what was going on, not that I expected anyone to give me a straight answer, but I fell back to sleep in this Alonso’s arms before I could manage more than a moan.

Lost in Love (in Space) by Catherine Peace (@lexcade)

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It finally happened. You’ve fallen in love. He’s a great guy, she’s a great girl. You’ve got the whole universe at your feet.

Or so you think.

The universe is a dangerous place, especially for young love.

As Shadi and Uri learn in Gemini, there are a lot of dangers to face. From slavers to giant cat bounty hunters to having to come face-to-face with Shadi’s past, twists and turns threaten their relationship, and they’re not the only ones.

  • Han Solo and Princess Leia had quite a few bumps in their road to happiness. By the end scene in Return of the Jedi, they’d met, fallen in hate, fallen in some kind of lust, fallen in love. Han had been chased by bounty hunters and frozen in carbonite. Leia had been taken captive by Boba Fett, learned that she had a twin brother, and that her life with her adoptive family wasn’t what she thought it was. Throw in a war between the rebels and the Empire, and, well…. It’s a miracle those two made it at all.
  • Zoe and Wash from Firefly—“I am a leaf in the wind…” Let’s just leave it there, shall we?
  • Shepard and Steve Cortez/Thane Krios from Mass Effect—So there’s 80 billion ways a romance can play out in the Mass Effect series. Across all three games Shepard has somewhere around 16 love interests across both genders. I made the mistake of booting up ME3 without importing my ME2 game because I wanted to play it nao, dammit. Well. Then I romanced Steve Cortez with my MaleShep (whom I’d intended to romance Tali with, but Steve stole my heart). Cortez lost his husband in a colony attack, and I thought, Shepard is the protag, Shepard is the hero, he’ll be fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. Yeah, no. I was furious about the terrible ending I got, not because *SPOILER ALERT* Shepard bit it, but because of what that meant for Cortez. And I may have cried ugly tears.In the same vein, Thane Krios is a saaaaaaaaaaaad saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad romance for FemShep. When she meets him, he’s already dying, but his calm demeanor and quiet love bring her comfort during the suicide mission of ME2. Once ME3 rolls around, she learns that Thane is weak and living at Huerta Memorial hospital. The part where he dies is GUT WRENCHING. Even when you’ve not romanced Thane, it hurts. But damn, guys. My heart still hasn’t recovered.
  • Max and Logan from Dark Angel – Number One, Jessica Alba and Michael Weatherly. Number Two, this show was awesome and needs to come back. Number 3, young Michael Weatherly is glorious. *Ahem* Sorry. Got off on a tangent there. For me, Max and Logan were the best when it came to romance. Even as a pre-teen, I fell in love with Logan’s puppy dog eyed stares and the way he took care of Max. And Max? Is AWESOME. They’re never explicitly a couple, but like the others on this list, they have their share of ups and downs. On the run from a government facility, Max starts running errands for Logan. He ends up shot in the spine and paralyzed, and she has to deal with a loooooooot from her past. The show was cancelled before we really got the Max/Logan pairing we all wanted, but that’s what fanfiction is for, right?

Tell me about your favorite science fiction couples! I know I left a LOT of them off this list!

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Being one of the Embassy’s glorified treasure-seekers has its perks… 
Komandan Uriah Jacobs recovers ancient artifacts in exchange for more than just decent pay; he also receives guaranteed protection from his former owners, the nyx…until an emergency landing on a too-familiar colony brings him face-to-face with his past life and something more—a surprisingly priceless treasure in the form of a human woman.

A slave to the nyx since childhood… 
Shadi spends her waking hours in the forge, dreaming of rescuing her brother with the help of a man she once worshipped like a father. A crashed ship on the colony becomes her only hope to escape. But before she can steal the ship, the pilot abducts her. They may be the same species, but will he help her find her Shilah?

Their attraction is undeniable… 
Fighting it seems inconsequential as they evade the nyx’s bounty hunter and uncover a conspiracy that shines unwanted light on Shadi’s past and reveals the corruption in Uri’s beloved Embassy, placing their fledgling love in danger.

As the universe systematically falls apart, will Shadi and Uri’s newfound passion be enough to keep them alive?

 

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Author bio

Catherine Peace has been telling stories for as long as she could remember. She often blames two things for her forays into speculative fiction—Syfy (when it was SciFi) channel Sundays with her dad and The Island of Dr. Moreau by HG Wells. She graduated in 2008 from Northern Kentucky University with a degree in English and is still chasing the dream of being super rich and famous, mostly so she can sit around in her PJs all day and write stories. When not being a slave to the people in her head, she’s a slave to two adorable dogs.

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