Alien Captain's Bride - Scarlett Grove Page 0,42
hang between us. We have known each other for such a short time. Despite the hunger that radiates between us even now, our relationship is based largely on that primal heat. And when I tell him I will miss him, it isn’t the lust for his body that I’m speaking of. It’s my yearning for his heart.
His eyes brighten, and he smiles, an expression that lights up his face and gives him a boyish quality that I have not seen before.
“I’ll miss you too,” he says, offering me his arm. I take it, and he slides his fingers over my hand. The gesture is so warm and affectionate that my heart flutters like a million butterflies. In that moment, I don’t want to leave him. I want to crawl back into the bed, naked, and stay there with him all day, whispering and laughing and holding each other.
My life has been a search for knowledge. I always thought that I could find the meaning of life in books. That’s why I love the library so much. But now that Jaxxo is in my life, I know that the true meaning is something deeper than the knowledge in all the books in all the universe.
It is a quality that I cannot quite put my finger on because it defies rational definition. As we walk out of his house to the landing pad where his vehicle rests, I feel as if I can almost grasp it.
The meaning of life, the purpose of it, is this. To feel this kind of closeness and affection for another human being. Even if he is a giant, genetically altered Martian from the future. I have never felt this before meeting him. Now that I have, it doesn’t matter that millennia stand between us. I know that we were meant for each other, despite everything.
We lift off, and my stomach jumps into my chest. I glance down at the view below as we move swiftly through the air of this planet–a planet I’ve known only through the telescope or pictures from a NASA rover beamed back to Earth via satellite.
It is so inconceivable that I now live here. But what is even more inconceivable to my wounded heart is that I feel so much so soon for someone so different from everything I’ve ever known.
I cannot deny the fact that I’m falling for him. It isn’t just the tingle and tightness between my legs and the buzz of my nipples when I look at him. It’s who he is that draws me to him and makes me want to hold him close.
I am not so naïve that I don’t understand that men are always more accommodating in the beginning of a relationship. And women are, too, if I’m being honest. But this feels different, like it’s for keeps.
At the front door of the bridal house, we say our farewells. I wrap my arms around him, drawing him close. He returns my embrace, squeezing me tight to his chest.
He inhales the scent of my scalp and whispers softly in my ear. “I don’t want to let you go.”
“I know the feeling.” I sigh.
He stands back, his expression focused and intense. “I didn’t think this would be so difficult,” he mutters.
He kisses me deep and soft as my arms run up his back, feeling his body as if for the last time. He pulls away and strokes my cheek before planting one last kiss on my forehead. “I must go.”
He turns away without another word. It’s as if something is being torn away from me, as if the sensation of his body between my arms has become an extension of myself, and now that it’s gone, his absence is like an open wound. A tear forms in the corner of my eye, and I blink it back, shocked by the intensity of my emotions.
His vehicle flies away, and I step through the front door of the bridal house. There are other women walking about the front hall. They look at me inquisitively, as if I hold all the answers they so desperately want.
“You’ve already been matched with a Martian?” one of them asks. She is a petite woman with dark hair and long coiled braids. “What is it like?”
“It’s everything and more,” I breathe. All my feelings for Jaxxo seem to spill out from inside of me in that single sentence.
“Really? That was not what I was expecting,” she says, crossing her arms.
“What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know. Not