Tempted by Celestial Bodies

2

He stalks closer with a smirk playing across his beautiful face. His eyes glow red as a predator’s, one native to the shadows gathered close around her. They hold her rooted in place, helpless before his slow advance.

“How you tremble for me, little one.”

His voice rumbles low and deep, poised between a purr and a growl. It seems to stroke her very skin, raising chills along her spine. “How your heart races. You can’t hide that from me. Not your fear, and not how much you want this.”

“I don’t,”

she whispers. Lying. Every word, every step toward her stokes the ache in her core, even as she shrinks from him. Heat throbs between her legs as tendrils of shadow tighten at her calves, her wrists, and gently, inexorably, around her throat.

“Your body betrays you.”

He really growls this time, eyes flashing. His shadows twine around her thighs, an inexorable caress that spreads her open. They pull her down to her knees, and she tips her head back, rewarded by the faint curve of his mouth.

The proximity overwhelms her. She could beg him to stop, to leave her alone, and yet. She cannot bear it. “Please…”

He nudges himself against her lips—silky, hot, hard as steel. When she flicks her tongue over his tip, eagerly tasting the precum glistening there, his groan shakes them both. Gripping the back of her head, hands fisted in her hair, he pushes in deeper, fucking her mouth with abandon.

His shadows are more solid now. They slither between her legs, strumming her clit. She cries out around his cock as one thick, heavy tendril pushes into her pussy, while a second presses warm and insistent below it, gently working her open.

Then they pull back, and she moans with a sense of utter loss. She was lost the second she dreamed of belonging to him.

“Please,”

she whimpers, lips numb, jaw aching. “I want you everywhere. I want ? —”

Before she can finish, he’s there. Everywhere. Deep in her pussy, spearing her ass, invading her airway, growling in her ear.

“You…are…already…MINE.”

And she comes apart, lost in a sharp and shattering pleasure, a surrender so complete she could fall into it forever.

Kat wakes with a start, her own wordless cry still echoing in her ears.

The dream dissolves, already no more than shreds and flashes of half-remembered depravity, but heat still pulses through her body, and her panties cling damply to her skin. She reaches down to relieve the heavy desire suffusing her limbs?—

She can’t move. Her limbs are bound by something supple, strong, and oddly, warm. She’s lying on her back, the surface below her soft but not yielding. It too carries a strange current of warmth, like she’s held and supported by something living.

It takes a moment of trying to open her eyes before she realizes they already are, wide and staring into darkness so complete, she wonders if she’s gone blind.

“Where on earth am I?”

The words rasp from a dry mouth and aching throat. A flash of her dream returns—something thick and hard stretching her lips wide and pushing deep into her esophagus.

Was it only a thirsty dream?

She licks cracked lips. Thirsty indeed. “Hello?”

Her voice cracks. That’s embarrassing, assuming there is anyone here to listen. But someone must have brought her here, bound her here, left her in this lightless place.

The air here smells fresh, faintly sweet, almost heady. It’s not cold—it’s almost perfectly matched to her body temperature—but there’s no draft or movement across her exposed skin. None of that is much comfort, though.

The last hazy dregs of arousal drain away. Fear builds in its wake. Her heart hammers in her ears. She’s in the dark, bound hand and foot, with no idea where she is.

Before her dream of dark and endless pleasure, before the voice that thrilled and threatened her, she’d been at home, alone, with a filthy book and her favorite toy. The lights had all gone out, and then?—

She doesn’t believe in out-of-body experiences. The bright spotlight falling over her, how she floated up into it, limbs frozen and mind awake, the hum in the air—it’s all too much like something from that old show her mom has obsessed over for twenty years. The X-Files , or whatever.

That’s silly. Of course she hasn’t been abducted by aliens .

Maybe that was all part of the dream. Maybe whoever kidnapped her drugged her first. That makes more sense. She would have screamed her head off and fought back, otherwise. But she couldn’t kick anyone in the balls if they shot her full of sedatives and hallucinogens.

More likely, it has to do with the fusion lab. They don’t have a working reactor yet, but they might someday, if Kat’s wildest theories on quantum energy fields prove correct. If she can get her dissertation through the committee. If she can get her faculty mentor on board. She’d pitched the most hinged part of it at office hours the other day, while he stared at her as if she were speaking another language.

Focus, Kaitlyn . Now’s not the time to engage in postgraduate angst. Her universal resonance theorem can wait until she gets out of this fix. Whatever it is.

Who knows? Maybe her unknown kidnappers will accept her untested equations in exchange for getting back to her boring little lab rat life. It’s probably the best chance for her ideas to see the light of day, if she’s honest with herself.

She opens her mouth, then pauses at a soft sound in the dark, a furtive footstep. The faintest breeze brushes her skin. Her heart thumps unevenly.

“Who’s there?”

she calls, as loudly as her wrecked vocal cords will allow.

“You’re awake. Good.”

The voice that answers her is deep, velvet, resonant, and impossibly familiar. It makes her belly flip, but a chill creeps upward from the base of her spine and settles at the back of her neck.

“Do I know you?”

“Not yet. All in good time, my dear.”

A pause, as if thinking better of this. “I’ve waited for you for so long, you see. You must forgive my familiarity.”

“The hell I do,”

she spits, struggling against the bonds to no avail. “What is this place? Who are you? What do you want from me? Show yourself!”

“Of course, you have a lot of questions.”

A faint light flares in the darkness—no, two lights. Twin stars, glinting red, trained on her with a predator’s intensity. “We should talk, before?—”

Kat shrieks. “I’m not going to talk to you until you let me go, you FREAK!”

The two red lights in the distance switch off abruptly, leaving her in total darkness once more. When she lifts her head, something tugs at her hair and scalp—multiple points of contact with a sticky, tacky sensation that makes her shudder. Blood? Or worse?

“Please.”

The voice sounds taken aback.

“What the fuck did you do to me?”

“You must lie still. You’ll injure yourself.”

With that, real light creeps back in around the edges of her vision, a warm yellow glow that comes up slowly as if on a dimmer switch. Kat squints, eyes watering.

The light sources blooming in midair look for all the world like chandeliers. They hang from an unseen ceiling, but the space beyond the small circle of light remains lost in deep shadow. She’s lying on a table—an exam bed, maybe. The black, flexible restraints on her wrists and legs look like thick PVC tubing or rubber cords, but they reflect the soft lamplight with a faint oily sheen that seems to shift and flow when she doesn’t look at it directly.

There’s no sign of whoever had spoken. Maybe she scared him away. That deep voice was certainly a him , whatever else he might prove to be.

She blinks until her eyes adjust, hauling herself up on her elbows as far as the bonds will allow. Whatever had tugged at her scalp releases its hold abruptly, though the sticky sensation still makes her scalp crawl.

A thicker tube hangs from a hook at the side of the table near her head. It looks like the same material as the restraints, with what looks like an oddly shaped oxygen mask at the end. Its small attachments remind her of earbuds in their size and shape. It doesn’t look like any medical device she’s familiar with, but between her sore throat and the location of the tube, she can make an educated guess about its purpose.

Hell. They intubated me. She checks herself over as best as she can, but despite the unseen person’s warning, she doesn’t have any visible injuries. Rather than a hospital gown, she has on the same clothes she wore in her last waking memory, soft sleeping shorts and an old T-shirt several sizes too large. Her feet are bare.

It still doesn’t make sense, yet in the absence of any immediate danger, her heart rate slows. The air smells subtly different now: sweeter, softer, almost… comforting.

“That’s better,”

the voice says unexpectedly, from somewhere behind her head. She doesn’t even jump. Her heart keeps up its steady rhythm as she breathes in the strange, sweet air. It reminds her of cookies baking, of cinnamon and vanilla, laundry fresh from the dryer, the warmth of home.

Soft footsteps draw closer, still out of view, but she’s not afraid. She’s not angry anymore. She’s not numb. She simply is, while whoever or whatever captured her draws closer on stealthy feet.

“Don’t come any closer.”

She hears herself speak with impossible calm. “I know what you’re doing. Drugging me won’t get you what you want.”

His voice is soft and low, now, unthreatening. “I only want to keep you safe. Your biometrics spiked far past their recommended range.”

He must be monitoring her vitals somehow. Maybe the restraints have more function than simply holding her still. “Yeah, waking up in a strange place bound hand and foot tends to do that to a girl. You could just release me.”

“If I did so while your body was primed to flee, you might fall from the table in your haste to escape, or trip over something when you run into the dark. There are many ways you could come to harm before I could intervene. You’d likely fight me if I tried.”

“If you think I won’t fight back when I’m stone-cold calm, you have another think coming.”

“It seems likely,”

he admits with surprising readiness. “If you must fight me, however, I would prefer you do so with a clear head. But I can give you back your fear, if you wish.”

“I can’t help but notice you still haven’t released me. Or shown your face.”

A pause lengthens. Has he just…left her there? Alone in the dark or alone with my captor…which is worse? With the “clear head”

he’s granted her, she decides both are objectively terrible options.

Then he says, in an oddly tentative tone, “Would you like to see me, Kaitlyn?”

“I’d like you to stop lurking behind me, yes.”

He knows my name. Under the artificial calm, her panic beats against the bars of its chemical cage, desperate to kick off another round of adrenaline.

The worst part is that he’s right : all other factors remaining equal, she would rather face whatever this is, whoever he turns out to be, with dispassionate logic instead of raw instinct. If he bottled whatever he’s pumping into the air, he could make a killing marketing it to the military industrial complex. Her petty pack of infighting colleagues could use some cooler heads too.

A shadow falls over her, a quiet footfall her only warning as he circles into her field of view.

Even though her pulse holds rock-steady, she draws in a long breath. Words unexpectedly elude her, because the man standing before her is beautiful. Objectively. Aesthetically. Undeniably a physical specimen of a quality only reached by professional athletes or leading men with a team of nutritionists and trainers at their beck and call. Or the subjects of romance novel covers, but that was just a fantasy. This man is flesh and blood, standing close enough to touch if her hands were free.

He’s bare-chested, slender, abs taut and defined, his pants well-fitted enough to leave little to the imagination. Calm or not, heat rises in her cheeks and belly.

When she belatedly catches herself staring at the outline of the bulge between his legs, she tears her gaze up to his face with its strong jaw, high cheekbones, and full lips. Shadowed by a dark wave of hair falling over his forehead, his intense, hooded eyes meet hers. They’re a striking color, a deep hazel that almost looks red-gold in this light.

“Well?”

he says in that rich, low voice of his. “You’ve seen me, now.”

“Uh. Wow. Hi.”

Smart. I went to MIT, but I can’t talk to a hot guy like a normal person. Classic Kat.

“Hello.”

A trace of a smile flits over his gorgeous features. “If I loosen your restraints, will you run from me now?”

“I’m not making any promises. Would you chase me if I did?”

The words slip out before she can stop them, and her stomach flips again. For a moment she pictures this gorgeous man pursuing her, catching her, tackling her to the ground?—

What is wrong with me? He kidnapped me! Whatever chemical cocktail she’s breathing in doesn’t seem to have dialed down her libido.

He cocks his head, a long, assessing look. “Do you want me to?”

“ No .”

Her denial rings out too loud, too fast. “That’s not what I said. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“I was only asking,”

he says mildly. “I would prefer it if you don’t run. Personally.”

“Are you going to let me go, or what?”

She’s hardly finished saying it when the bindings on her ankles loosen and slip away, brushing over her skin with a silky, light touch that brings goosebumps up on her bare arms. She bends her knees, feet flat on the table, sighing with relief.

Her stiff joints and shaky muscles protest the movement. How long did I lie here, unconscious, at his mercy? The restraints on her wrists uncoil as she pushes herself to a seated position.

What are those restraints made of? They move with a sinuous grace that makes them look organic, alive for a split second before they go limp, hanging from the table’s edges like so much rubber tubing. They were warm …She shivers again, rubbing the goosebumps from her arms.

“Are you cold? I can make this space warmer if you like. Or perhaps—”

A moment later, he’s at her side, tucking a plush covering around her shoulders. “That’s better. You were not, hm, wearing much when we—when I found you.”

She pulls the exquisitely soft blanket over her bare arms and legs, feeling exposed but unable to find her way back to fear. At least she has her t-shirt on. It’s some small comfort. Besides, his balls are right there . She could easily reach out and?—

Taking refuge in the strange, unrelenting calm, she swings her legs over the edge of the table, deliberately putting her back to him. Her feet dangle a few inches off the floor as she takes stock of her surroundings again now that she has a wider field of view.

Nothing here looks unfamiliar, exactly. The shapes seem right, but she can’t identify any of the materials. The floor, which has the same subtle iridescence as the equipment. It’s not metal, wood, or stone, but a dark, almost springy texture with a rippling quality, as if some current moves beneath its surface. The intricate molding of the chandelier-like lamps branches into lighted tips with a subtle, organic asymmetry. They sway gently, glowing hypnotically, in an otherwise undetectable breeze.

“I think you better tell me what is going on,”

she says, with dreamlike serenity.

Her captor—or rescuer—clears his throat. “You’re not running, it seems.”

“Not yet,”

she agrees. “So don’t give me a reason. Tell me where we are and how you found me. Tell me why .”

“These are not easy questions to answer.”

His tone sounds almost apologetic, but he says nothing further.

Wearing the furry blanket like a cape, she lets her bare soles meet the smooth, unidentifiable surface of the floor. It has the slightest bit of springy give and exudes a gentle warmth.

“I don’t care how hard it is for you.”

Her legs hold her, and her knees prove only a little watery as she turns to face him across the table. “You’re the one who’s left me in the dark so far. Try. ”

“And if you don’t like the answers?”

His throat jumps. Is he nervous ? Does the air not grant him the same calm it does her?

She folds her arms, brows raised, waiting. “I promise you I won’t like them less than not knowing them.”

“Very well,”

he says, and sighs. “This is not—but no matter. You asked where we are, and what I’ve done to you. The simplest explanation is that you… We are very far away from home. We had limited resources and very little time, so I admit we took some—liberties.”

“ Liberties is one way of putting it.”

She really should be panicking. Her continued fearlessness doesn’t feel like a gift anymore. Suddenly, she misses the ability to understand in her body, as well as her mind, why all of this should alarm her. No way she’ll fess up to that now, though. “That doesn’t tell me much of anything, except that you’re admitting to kidnapping me. And who’s ‘we’?”

“I didn’t kidnap you.”

His brow knits, and he casts a glance toward the invisible, cavernous ceiling, as if seeking help from some unseen observer. “Not exactly. I’m here to help you. Care for you. All you must do is ask, and I can provide it. Anything. ”

Even without fear, a cold determination straightens her spine, slips into her voice. “I’m asking you for answers—real ones. Starting with where on Earth, specifically, you or whoever you’re working for has taken me.”

She’s circling toward him now. He steps hastily the other way, keeping the table between them. “I can’t.”

“You don’t know either. Is that it?”

He laughs, a little huff out of his perfect, Grecian nose. “No. Your request can’t be granted. Not the way you asked it.”

“I don’t see why that’s funny. Stop playing games with me.”

“I promise you, I’m not.”

The spark of amusement drains away as he faces her, eyes wide and pleading. “I believe the most culturally appropriate phrase is…Hm. We’re not in Kansas anymore. ”

“I live in California, ”

she says. “But fine, I’ll play along. Just how far away from Kansas are we?”

“Approximately five thousand of your astronomical units.”

He stands at the edge of the circle of light now, their combined path tracing an elliptical orbit from its center.

Blank, she stares at him. “I’m sorry.”

Nothing about this makes sense. I liked the last dream better. “I thought you said…”

He inclines his head, his gaze oddly melancholy. “Would you prefer I provide the conversion in a different unit of distance? It is a very great number of miles, but I could?—”

If her memory served, that would mean somewhere on the inner edge of the Oort Cloud. Past the current reach of any Earth missions, even past the Voyager probes with their half-century head start. Farther than any woman has ever gone before.

“I know what astronomical units are,”

she says, numb-lipped and frozen. No kidding. The temperature at that distance would be 50 Kelvin. Negative 360 Fahrenheit. This must be a dream.

“Then you did hear me.”

“That means we’re in space. Interstellar space.”

“True, in a sense, though you could not survive in space.”

She glances around her, disbelieving, recontextualizing, rejecting the conclusions that follow. Impossible. Objectively. “So, this place is?—”

“I believe you would call it a starship.”

Play along. Maybe he’s a spy. Some foreign power wants our rocket science, and this is all a ruse to get the intel. That sounds more believable than a fucking starship. “What do you call it?”

“I call it home,”

he says softly. “And I hope that someday, so will you.”