“The injury had nothing to do with it. I was thinking about colonizing before that. It’s the reason I volunteered for the Mars project to start with. I’ve been ready for a change for a while. Not that I haven’t enjoyed the career, mind you, but I think, maybe, I’ve outgrown it.”

    “So… you’re planning to move to Mars?”

    She shrugged. “We’ll see.” She hesitated. “Command didn’t consider that I comported myself with the dignity they expect of an officer in what they refer to as the Venus ‘fiasco’. If I hadn’t already been considering moving on, that would’ve changed things, anyway. Now it’s just one more reason for a career change. It isn’t likely that I could look forward to any more promotions-certainly not any time soon.”

    He frowned. “Because of what happened on Venus? I’m sorry.”

    “I’m sorry that you’re sorry. I’m not.”

    Something flickered in his eyes. “In that case,” he murmured, smiling faintly, “I don’t regret it either.”

    “No? I got the impression you did.”

    He studied her a long moment and got up, moving around the table. When he settled beside her, he drew her down on the bunk with him. “It’s far more complicated than you seem to think,” he murmured. Reaching for her belt, he untied it and pushed the robe open, stroking his fingers lazily over her. He left a path of pebbling skin in the wake of his touch. A shiver of delight traveled through her. She watched his expression, studying the details that had faded in her mind in the weeks since she’d seen him.

    He looked thinner, she thought abruptly, wondering if he’d been ill. His color seemed healthy, though. Stress? Very likely, she decided, although it would’ve been nice to think he’d been pinning for her. He had a heavy load on his broad shoulders.

    The thought brought her gaze to them and she lifted her hands to rub them along his shoulders. “You’re overdressed,” she murmured a little hoarsely.

    “You’re impatient.”

    “I am.”

    He lifted his brows at her, but sat up and removed his boots. “You aren’t expecting any other callers?” he asked wryly as he reached for the closure of his suit.

    Sybil chuckled. Sitting up, she pulled her robe off and tossed it aside. “I’d forgotten that one,” she said. “I had other things on my mind.”

    When he settled beside her once more, they lay on their sides, face to face, simply staring at one another. “What’s going through your mind, I wonder?” he murmured.

    “Not much. I was just enjoying the view.”

    He studied her curiously. “You’re serious?”

    She smiled. “Why would you think otherwise?”

    He shook his head at her. “You should have your eyesight checked. You do realize you have an alien in your bed?”

    “A ril-yes. You may have noticed I hadn’t met a man that appealed to me enough to take him to my bed.”

    He shifted closer, stroking a hand slowly down her arm, almost thoughtfully. “So you’re saying rils appeal to you more?”

    “You know that isn’t what I’m suggesting.”

    He grinned knowingly as he lowered his head to brush his cheek along hers. “Just checking,” he murmured against her ear.

    Sybil sighed with a mixture of pleasure and disappointment. She’d hoped he would give her something, but she wasn’t really surprised that he hadn’t. She might very well not see him again. Tonight was an unexpected gift of fate, though, and she didn’t want to spoil a moment of it.

    She didn’t truly know why he seemed drawn to her anymore than he understood why and how she could find him attractive, she supposed, when he was so different from her and anything she’d ever known. For her, it was a matter of her senses-pure and simple. He excited them. As much as she appreciated his intelligence and his sense of humor and the other qualities she saw in him, he made her hot and that was why she wanted him.

    She couldn’t tell him why. She didn’t know why. She just knew he did, couldn’t deny it.

    He seemed to think she had other motives. It was so typical of the male of her own species she wondered just how different he actually was.

    Of course it had occurred to her to wonder why he found her attractive and if he actually did or he had some other reason for seducing her. She would’ve liked for him to dispel her fears, but could he truly do that with words even if he’d tried? Wouldn’t doubts linger in her mind because she knew she couldn’t possibly be his concept of beauty?

    She dismissed her doubts after a moment, determined to focus on the sheer delight of his attentiveness as he explored her slowly with his hands and his gaze until she’d become impatient for more and finally settled to exploring her with his mouth.

    She felt no discomfort or wariness when he shifted lower to caress her breasts as she had the first time, only eagerness to feel what she had before. He kneaded them gently with his hands until they were flushed with her pulse, lowering his head to pluck at the tips with his lips only after they’d become so distended his touch was almost as painful as it was delightful. The muscles low her belly clenched spasmodically when he took the first into his mouth and curled his tongue around it.

    Heat poured through her. She settled her hands on his head, stroking his hair and then his shoulders and back. Through slitted eyes, she watched his face, studied his mouth as he suckled, feeling the heat climb until she felt like she would go up in flames. By the time he’d decided he’d teased it enough, she felt fevered. She tilted her head back and gasped when he caught her other nipple in his mouth and sucked it, feeling the world go briefly black.

    She didn’t want to rush him. She wanted to enjoy every moment, but impatience began to ride her, a need to feel him inside of her. “Come inside of me, Anka,” she gasped finally.

    His head jerked upward. He stared at her face for a long moment and moved over her, adjusting her thighs to accommodate his narrow hips. She’d panted until she’d begun to feel dehydrated, vaguely ill with the dust dryness of her throat.

    He remedied that with the heated moisture of his own mouth on hers.

    She realized the moment the head of his cock connected with the mouth of her sex where her moisture had gone. She was slippery with need, almost embarrassingly so.

    He didn’t seem to think so. “You’re so wet,” he said, his voice a husky growl as he pushed deeper.

    It sounded like praise. She was too mindless to be certain of anything anymore… and unnerved. She began to feel as if she would climax even before he got inside of her. With the best will in the world, though, she couldn’t seem to hold it back. He’d barely sank deeply inside of her when it ripped through her. She caught her breath, trying to conceal it from him.

    He uttered a throaty chuckle, sawing slowly in and out while the convulsions rattled her. Anger and embarrassment flickered through her, but he dispelled both. “My nodia. The next will be better.”

    Next? She was nearly comatose!

    She discovered she wasn’t as close to it as she’d thought. He shifted the moment her body had stopped convulsing, rolling to one side and driving into her in long, deep strokes. Her g-spot quivered, reawakening. Uncertainty wafted through her, but there was no denying the steady rhythm was deeply satisfying and within a few moments she felt her body gathering itself again, felt the building tension she recognized.

    His muscles began to quiver. His breaths were ragged, harsh against her ear. It unnerved her. At the same time it seemed to reach something deep inside of her, to thrill her in a way that sent her racing upward to her peak again. She gasped, stiffening as the first convulsion hit her.

    He groaned, a long, low sound filled with passionate anguish. She shuddered, bucking against him as the next wave hit her harder, crying out. Rolling with her so that she was beneath him once more, he began to drive into her harder and faster, driving her climax until she’d begun to think it would shake her apart.