place," he said, smiling down at her, "almost as much as I missed you."
"Are you sure you'll be happy here?"
"Ah, Lainey, I've never been happy anywhere else." Swinging her into his arms, he sat down on the sofa, cradling her in his lap.
"What happened when you got to Xanthia?"
Micah grunted softly. "They stripped me of my rank and my flight status and told me, in subtle but certain terms, that I was not to leave Xanthia for a year."
"But... but you're here." She calculated quickly on her fingers. It had been eight months, Earth time, since she'd seen him last. "Did they change their minds?"
"No. I took a ship and left without telling anyone."
"Oh, Micah." She didn't know what the penalty for such a thing was on Xanthia, but she was certain it was serious. "Won't they come after you?"
He shrugged. "I don't know, but even if they do, there's no way for them to find me. No one knows where you live, although Pergith will know where he picked us up." He cupped her chin in his hand. "Don't worry about it, Lainey. Not now. Tell me what you've been doing. How are your parents? Are they pleased about the child?"
She wanted to know what he'd been doing, too, but she put her questions on hold and answered his, telling him how she'd found out she was pregnant only a few days after he left, how happy she'd been.
"But I was scared, too," she confessed. She took his hand, so big and brown and strong, and clasped it to her breast. "I'm still scared." What if the child was horribly deformed? What if it died? And even if it was strong and healthy, how would they explain that strange blue glow?
Of course she was scared, Micah thought sympathetically. She was carrying an alien child. To his knowledge, no Xanthian had ever joined with a human before. What sort of offspring would such a union produce?
"I saw a TV show once," Lainey said, "about an alien race that took over the earth. One of the girls had an alien baby..."
"And?"
"It was awful." She looked up at him, her eyes tormented. "And it died."
"When the doctor examined you, did he find anything abnormal?"
"No. At least, he didn't say so."
Lainey stared at Micah, seeing him again as if for the first time. Except for his ears and the webbing on his hands, he looked like any other man. Perhaps, genetically, they weren't so different, even though they came from different planets.
Micah covered her hand with his. "Did he find anything unusual in your blood?"
"I don't think so. Why?"
"On the ship, you needed blood, and I gave you some of mine."
"You did? Then why didn't it show up on the tests?"
Micah shrugged. "There must be an explanation, but I don't know what it could be." He paused a moment, his eyes searching hers. "Do you want this child? My child?"
"Yes." She took a deep breath and forced a smile. "Even if it's blue all over and has two heads."
No matter what the future held, Micah knew he would never love her more than he did at that moment. "Then let's hope for the best, and worry about the worst when it happens."
"All right." She could face anything, she thought, now that he was there with her. "Don't you think it's time you kissed me?"
She didn't have to ask him twice. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently, tenderly, wishing he could tell her how he had missed her, how deeply he loved her, but he lacked the words in her language to express what he truly felt, and to tell her in his native tongue would be pointless. And so he filled his mind with love and hoped that she would understand.
Micah's kiss deepened, and Lainey was suffused with warmth - not the blazing heat of passion, but the sweet, gentle warmth of love, of affection, of caring. She felt his thoughts, the emotion that was too deep, too strong, for mere words, and knew she was loved in ways few women would ever know.
Micah drew a deep breath and let it out in a long, slow sigh fraught with desire. "I wish..." He cut the thought off in mid-sentence.
"Wish what?"
He shook his head. "Nothing."
"Micah."
"I want to hold you, love you. To join with you."
"I know. I want it, too, but..."
"It isn't safe."
"No." She gazed into his eyes, a wistful expression on her face. "I wish you'd gotten here