Alien Fighter's Baby (Captured Science Fiction Romance) (4 page)

S
tarling wished
that she could move the seat restraints strapped across her belly. It was so uncomfortable. She clutched the arm supports, as the vehicle Bran drove crashed through the alien wilderness and it jarred her repeatedly, until she—

“You have to stop!” she cried.

She grabbed Bran’s forearm for emphasis. She was certain her face had to be a green color.

“No way, beautiful,” Bran growled.

She glared at him in surprise, and then grabbed her mouth to hold back an increasingly sick feeling. His gaze looked stubborn. But when he’d actually looked at her, it turned, as if realization had dawned on him.

“Oh yeah,” he muttered.

The vehicle stopped, and she frantically looked for a way to get out of it.

Bran popped Starling’s restraining belts at the same time he released the latch on her door. He couldn’t just let her tumble out into the unknown wilds on her own. Besides the fact she had no shoes on and was only wearing his tee shirt, the Zach was too high for her to step down from in a hurry.

But he knew sick green when he saw it, and Starling was going to let it go any second.

He scooted over and grabbed her, then carried her down out of the tactical vehicle. His boots hit springy, thick vines as he looked quickly for a spot to set her, while Starling moaned and wiggled in his arms, trying to get loose. He finally found a clear spot by the trunk of some upright vegetation that was of tree quality.

He’d just made it, setting her on her feet, when she crumbled down onto her knees to retch. His heart did a strange flip-flop, which had him kneeling beside her to hold her hair out of the way, while he curled an arm over her back for support.

It only lasted a few seconds, and when she’d finished, with nowhere else to go, he pulled her into his lap as he sat on the other side of the alien tree.

“Just catch your breath,” he said, as he stroked her hair.

“Sorry,” she muttered, shuddering against him, then lying limp.

Well, he knew as much about babies and pregnancy as he did about civilian women in general, but he did know about morning sickness. Damn, didn’t that bring everything into the glaring light? What in the hell was he going to do with her? His one glaring thought was that he was the wrong person to be taking care of her. He had no clue how to deal with pregnancy and nonmilitary women. And he hated being bad at anything.

“It’s all right,” he muttered.

What the hell else was he supposed to say? Don’t do it again? Yeah, right. Why was it too-damn-soft civilian women were always so polite by saying “sorry” all the time? And he really wished that she didn’t feel so damn good in his arms. How was he supposed to fight the temptation he felt, while being so polite, and becoming a whiz at pregnancy?

Man, he was screwed.

“Morning sickness,” she mumbled into his neck.

Yeah, he knew, but he was not touching that. No way.

In an effort to sidetrack the entire baby-slash-morning-sickness references, he casted around for something to say. He’d started to notice all the rich greenness around them. It reminded him of Starling’s eyes. He’d never seen vegetation like it before, because he’d lived in space nearly his entire life.

“Damn, there’s so much green here,” he muttered. It was amazing.

Starling felt the rumble of Bran’s voice against where she lay along his chest. He sounded somewhat awed. She peered out of one eye and saw a bunch of deep green vines twisted into heaps not far from them, as she tried to keep her bare feet from touching the ground.

Her stomach felt as if she was on a boat at sea and the waves were slowly getting softer. Bran stroked her back, and that felt very good. It made her want to cuddle into him, but she resisted. She knew she’d better not give him the wrong signals.

But she had to admit how awe-inspiring it had been when he’d simply carried her out of the vehicle. She wished she could pet all the muscles he had, and by doing it, that it wouldn’t mean they had to have sex. But instead, she settled for just feeling all their hard warmth against her.

Each little movement he made rippled them. Any men she’d known weren’t quite so healthy, and she couldn’t help being a little attracted to him. He had saved her several times. Then when he just held her, as he was doing—not expecting anything—it started to make her have a crush on him.

Bran wondered why Starling was petting his chest. It was as if she liked him or something. It made him think about how soft and pliable she’d become in his arms. What it had done was made him very aware of where his other hand was.

Cupped over one cheek of her plump ass.

Dare he squeeze? The sinew that layered his body rippled with the effort he used to not do it. Damn, he’d commanded men, ordered missions, and fought countless battles, but one small, curvy woman was killing him.

He squeezed.

“What are you doing?” Starling asked, and it was a high-pitched squeal into his ear. Just as she’d began to shove against him. “You had to go and ruin everything,” she accused.

Bran let Starling go, as he wondered what everything was, while she scrambled to her feet, where she glared down at him. Unfortunately for her, but fortunately for him, sitting as he was, he had a view right up the short tee shirt she was wearing.

With no panties on.

Seeing her perfect pinkness stalled any words he might have said. So he sneered, as he grew instantly hard. A never-ending condition around her.

Starling seemed to sense the direction of his leer, and a distressed sound emerged from her throat. She grabbed the bottom of the tee shirt and pulled with the effort to try to cover her femininity from his lusty gaze. Then she turned and faced away from him.

To further hide the prize, he guessed, only he nearly choked, because then he had a dangerous view of her bare ass. So tender, so sweet, and so naked. Dangerous, because he’d just caught himself in time from reaching up and tracing the soft, alluring crease.

“Screw it,” he cursed, and it made Starling flinch and then peek back at him. Abruptly, he realized what he’d said. Just like the alien had said when it had forced them together. Both regret and lust nailed him. Odd combination. “I didn’t mean screw
you
, Starling. I just meant screw it.” His voice sounded raw. “Just cuss words,” he finished, for clarification.

“Bran!”

Starling’s voice had sounded overly loud and accusatory to him, and when he turned his gaze to her, he saw the look of horror on her delicate face. Damn it, horror was a bit much, just because he appreciated looking at her. He was about to bellow at her to stop looking at him as if he was going to eat her … whole.

Then she screamed, “Move! Bran! Move! A snake thing!”

A snake thing? “Star—” he began.

“Behind you!” she cried, and then before he could register her words, she did the most incredible thing. She launched her body at him.

He caught her in mid-leap, just as he realized what it was that she’d screamed at him. He heard the alien sound behind his head, as he rolled their bodies away from the trunk of vegetation. Even though it was an alien sound, he knew the sound of an attack.

“Hold on to me,” he ordered, as he rolled them until he was facing the trunk again, with Starling plastered to the front of him.

He fumbled as he tried to get the tack-pistol out of his leg holster, while a python-looking head snapped toward Starling’s back. It was bloated and a sickly yellow color. He grabbed the back of Starling’s head with one hand and just managed to keep its jaws, full of four-inch fangs, from hitting her.

Then his pistol was loose and he fired.

Starling heard the strange sound like a suction pop behind her head, and then she heard Bran’s grunt of what sounded like satisfaction. She thought it meant that he’d shot the bloated yellow snake thing, which had been slithering toward his head when she screamed for him to move.

“You got it,” she cried, and the triumph nearly made her squeal, as she squeezed Bran tight.

Her bare legs were wrapped around his waist and her arms were around his big shoulders. Her gaze locked with his.

“You risked your life to save me,” he said, and his voice was so low she felt the rumble against her.

She looked at his firm mouth, then back up at his iridescent silver eyes. “I owed you,” she whispered.

Their mouths had ended up very close, and immediately she started to wonder what his kiss would be like. His strange and compelling eyes looked at her lips, and it made her think he might wonder the same thing. It was dreamy for one second.

But only one second, because then she began to realize how their bodies were cemented together. Or, more accurately, she could feel her slit pressed to a hard ridge beneath Bran’s pants. Her breath caught in her lungs.

“I don’t w-want—” Her voice trembled.

“I do want,” he muttered, but he stayed still. “Damn it, Starling, is there anything you want from me?”

She knew he hadn’t meant keeping her alive. He’d meant sexual. Her gaze trailed to the rugged slash of his lips.

“I’ve never been kissed,” she whispered, then immediately wondered why she’d revealed something so personal. “Never mind,” she mumbled, embarrassed, while she started to try to untangle her body from his.

He held on.

“I can do that.” His voice was low and intense.

“You wouldn’t stop at just a kiss,” she accused him, then she shoved on his chest.

He let her loose, and relief made her tremble. He could force her so easily.

Bran sat with one leg bent as he rubbed a rough hand over his face. He watched the display of Starling’s shapely legs and another peek of her naked ass as she climbed back into the Zach. He wanted to roar. It felt as if he’d never been so hard. Just the heat of Starling’s wet slit pressed over the impression of his hard shaft had sent him into lust overdrive. That heat of her had melted into his erection.

Suddenly, he stopped his thoughts, and then backed them up.

“Wet?” he muttered.

He knew jack about cute, busty babes with auburn curls down to their ass, and he knew even less about civilian women in general, but he did know what a wet slit meant. Abruptly, the tragedy that had become his life … lightened up. His continuous Starling-induced sneer turned into a half-smile.

He rubbed the back of his neck and willed his erection to ease back, and then he looked idly over at the yellow mass that had been some alien reptile, while he wondered if he could eat it.

Minutes later, Starling screeched as he tossed the body of the alien reptile onto the console between their two seats in the front of the Zach.

“You’re not going to keep it?” she exclaimed.

S
tarling glared
at the long lump of dead alien snake that jiggled on the console, as Bran drove the Zach. At least he had taken the head off, she thought, eying the globular mass. If it bounced her way and touched her, she was going to scream.

Tears burned her eyes as she looked away from it, and she hugged her body against the door. She rubbed her eyes, horrified that she’d been crying. Even a little. What was wrong with her? Crying over a dead piece of snake that might touch her.

Starling scrubbed her knuckles over her eyes; she couldn’t let Bran see that she was crying. Maybe it was because she was pregnant, but she felt like outright bawling. She hugged her knees closer into her body and laid her temple to the cool glass on the side door window, while she willed herself not to cry any more.

“Thanks for saving me.”

Bran’s deep voice was quiet, and Starling resisted the urge to look at him, which would give him evidence she’d been crying.

“I’d always try to, anytime you needed saving,” she muttered. It was too easy to just say, “You’re welcome.” Then she was worried that he might try to start talking about her comment on kissing, so she quickly added, “You’re driving slower.”

“You don’t know this about me, Starling, but I can learn and adjust.”

She peeked over at him, because she was pretty sure she’d gotten all her tears wiped away. He didn’t look upset at all, but probably for the first time since she’d known him, he looked relaxed.

“Thank you,” she said, and straightened away from the slump she’d been in. But she still took care not to inch any closer to the alien reptile.

He nodded at her offer of thanks.

“That bother you?” he asked, and he looked down at the gross yellow body.

“Yes,” she said, and saw it had moved toward her, so she crowded back against the door.

Bran’s large hand grabbed it and tugged it back up onto the middle of the console.

“Thing is, Starling, this could be food.” Starling gasped on the inside, as she tried to hold back her reaction. She wasn’t certain she’d covered the surprise in her eyes, though. “The Zach can provide us with maybe three months of rations, if we eat slim. But nowhere close to nine months.”

His silver eyes, spiked with darker gray, looked pointedly at her midriff, then they turned back to watch his slow driving.

Nine months.

That amount of time loomed before her, stranded on an enemy alien planet with a man she barely knew. All she could get out of her mouth was, “Okay.”

* * *

H
ours later
, they’d stopped for the night. It was still a grayish-purple dusk out, which filtered through the towering alien stick trees. Starling had been happy to see that Bran found a small clearing in the jungle to stop in, so they could get out and stretch their legs.

Once they’d stopped, she had a mission to find some clothes. She tiptoed on her bare toes around the Zach and moved toward the back of it. The ground was cold, but compact, and not horribly unappealing. Still, she didn’t like thinking what might be crawling on it.

When she reached the rear of the vehicle, she found Bran with the back hatch lifted open, and it showed the insides, which had so many gadgets, panels, and technical-looking things that it intimidated her. But Bran was crouched near the ground over a square container that had the dead reptile on top of it. Bran had an extraordinarily brutal-looking knife in his hand.

In her zeal to find clothes, she overlooked what he was doing.

“Are there some clothes?” she asked, as she shuffled from side to side, holding the hem of the big tee shirt she wore down as far as it would go.

Bran turned his gaze up to her with the lethal knife arced toward his upper arm, which was a hard mound of bulged muscle.

“Boots.”

It was all he said, and she huffed, while looking exasperated.

“Bran, there has to be something to wear in here.” She pointed inside the vehicle. “I can’t just go around in boots and a tee shirt.”

He took the knife away from his forearm and settled his wrists on his thighs. The knife looked less threatening angled downward. His eyes looked like polished steel in the purplish dusk.

“There isn’t anything else—just my pants, vest, boots, and your tee shirt.” He paused, and then shrugged a well-muscled shoulder. “I got you those boots there; they should fit.”

Starling glanced at the boots. She was happy to see them, but still…

“There has to be something, Bran,” she muttered. She scooted up to the end of the Zach so she could look inside. “Maybe there is something we can cut off. Like the back of those seats. I need a skirt at least.”

She only heard Bran make a grunting sound behind her, and she turned her gaze back toward him.

“Bran!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

He’d sliced the knife across his bicep, and it drew a bright red line of blood. She rushed to him and grabbed his wrist, as if she could stop him from doing more. He didn’t move; he just looked up at her with a strange expression.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “Don’t hurt yourself. We can talk.”

“Starling.” Her name was a whisper in his voice, as if he were confused. She applied pressure and moved his hand with the knife away from his forearm.

Starling couldn’t imagine why Bran wanted to hurt himself. But somehow, she felt guilty. It was as if because of her, he’d been pushed too far. He’d left the military, he was fighting for survival, and at the same time, he was being denied any sex.

That last one made her feel so hugely ungrateful. They were both young and healthy. It didn’t matter that they were forced in the beginning; she’d still felt something. And he’d made it obvious that he felt something. No man had ever looked at her with such hunger and desire fixed on his face.

“Please don’t hurt yourself,” she said softly.

He’d started to speak, but she pressed her finger to his lips. Then she dipped her head and followed behind her finger, until her lips were pressed to his, and she’d slid her finger out. She wasn’t expecting to mean the kiss. She’d just been helping him, in the same way he was saving her, and she was trying to ease his frustration.

But from the moment her mouth touched his mouth, it became something else.

It was about her too. Oh Jupiter, it was about her too, with his firm lips warm and moving over her mouth. She’d been around … seen people kiss, but she didn’t think anyone she’d seen kissing had been doing it like she and Bran were doing it. So hot, instantly intense, and oh so tempting. She murmured small moans, as their kiss deepened, and then she slowly fell forward into him.

But he was there with his mouth and his body’s support to catch her.

Bran kissed Starling’s sweet mouth over and over again. He had her pulled over the container, which he’d shoved out of the way, and on her knees between his thighs. His forearm latched across the small of her back and he held her tight against him as he angled his mouth over her lush lips. Her voluptuous body melted into him, and his mouth played with her lips and tongue, as he moved slowly deeper, the more she moaned and undulated against him.

Damn, kissing a hot babe was startling. It swamped him with hot, lust-driven arousal. Like instant ignition, and he struggled to keep control.
Just kiss, just kiss
. He repeatedly growled the mantra in his mind. Having a willing woman was too desirable to mess up. He had to keep control.

On the one hand, he couldn’t believe Starling was kissing him, and on the other, his arousal was soaring. Then, with the kind of determination he’d used only on the battlefield or perhaps under recent torture, he forced himself to break his mouth free from hers.

“I’m not trying to hurt myself, Starling.” His voice sounded deep and hoarse, while his chest tightened with the knowledge that she’d been trying to save him again.

“You’re not?” She sounded confused and looked dazed, with her green eyes glassy and her lips damp and red from his kisses.

He nearly sounded an arrogant “hoo-rah.” He had affected her.

“Yeah, baby. I’m just testing the alien meat for poisons.”

Man, he loved the feel of her against him. The knowledge she had nothing on underneath her tee shirt played wickedly with his intention of not taking advantage of her. Because he knew, with one swipe, he could have her naked body against him.

“Unwilling body,” he muttered.

“What?” Starling asked, seeming to come out of her daze. “Poison?”

Bran forced himself to disengage their bodies. The one thing he had begun to realize was that they were going to be together, trying to survive, for a long time. It was never going to be a one-night get-Bran-off-then-walk-away deal.

He cupped Starling’s chin and rubbed his thumb over her lips. “Yeah,” he muttered, sounding as brooding as he felt.

She blinked at him with her long lashes slowly lifting. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m going to rub some of that meat on the cut on my arm, and then we wait and see if there is a reaction. It’s not a fully accredited scientific clearance, but it is survival 101. If no bad skin reactions appear, then the next step is to eat a little. Unless I find a toxicity meter in the Zach, which I haven’t yet.”

It took Starling a little while to understand what Bran intended to do, because she was so confused by the fact that he’d stopped at only kissing her. Especially after she had so blatantly attacked him with her mouth, and then he’d stopped them at kissing. But she had to set that aside because—

“Isn’t that dangerous?” she asked, practically exclaiming the question. Her hands were still on his shoulders and she squeezed the sinewy muscle. She realized he could become ill and die from something like that. “You can’t,” she whispered.

Her gaze traded places from his lips to his eyes.

“I’m going to have to,” he muttered. His hands on her waist began the movements to set her away from him. She followed the urging of his hands and stood, while she glanced at the thin line of blood on his upper bicep.

“We need to talk about this,” she said. She swiped back her tangled hair as she felt the lingering pulse of Bran’s kisses on her lips. “You can’t just do that,” she said, pointing at the dead reptile. “I need—”

She tried to find the words as she looked at him anxiously.

“You need what, Starling?” he asked, with an intent expression.

“You,” she finally whispered, and stupid tears started at her vulnerable admission. Without thinking, her hand had cupped her abdomen. “I can’t survive without you.”

She watched his unique eyes lower to her hands, which cradled the bulge in her belly. She could see a decision had moved across his hard-angled face.

“For now,” he muttered, and he leaned toward her. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her again, but he grabbed the snake from the side of her and tossed it into the jungle with an impressive, muscular heave.

“Thank you,” she said, and she smiled as relief rushed through her.