Aehako drops on top of me, panting. He puts his weight on his elbows so he doesn’t crush me, and nuzzles me with kisses on my neck and jaw as we try to catch our breath.
When my entire body no longer feels like it’s about to splinter with sheer pleasure, I sigh heavily. “Wow.” I’m pretty sure the furs are shoved up under my butt. I’m also pretty sure that was probably only three minutes or so of sex. I can’t even be sorry about that, because I’m pretty sure I came harder than I ever have before.
He leans on his side and presses a hand between my breasts. “Your khui is pleased.”
“Is it?” I place my hand next to his. The humming has gone down a bit, but it’s still going strong. Even at those small touches, my nipples harden and my legs jerk, making me acutely aware that he’s still inside me…and still hard.
And I’m still aroused.
“Um,” I say, and stroke a hand down his arm. “How long does resonance last?”
“Until I plant a kit inside you.” He kisses my jaw. “It might take many, many days.”
Dear God. I will die of pleasure overdose. What a way to go. “But I’m ovulating right now, right? That’s why I resonated?”
“What is ovu-lay-“
“Never mind,” I say. That must be it. He wouldn’t be able to make me pregnant otherwise, and all the others seemed to make it through their resonance all right. Wrecked, happy, but still whole.
His hips move, and I feel his cock drag in and out of me again, the movement slow. I moan, arching up. “Oh God, are we going again?”
“We will go again many, many times,” he tells me with a nipping kiss. “And then you will carry my kit.” His hand goes to my belly. “This is mine,” he murmurs. His hand slides lower. “And this is mine,” he says, brushing a hand over where his spur grazes my clit. “Your cunt is mine and mine alone, sweet Kira.”
I moan, because it feels like I’m about to start coming again. “All yours, Aehako.”
“And then we will move back to the main cave so you can be near the healer—“
I shake my head even as he presses his thumb on the other side of my clit, sending ripples of pleasure through me. “I don’t want to.”
“No?” He sounds surprised.
“No,” I say, and I’m confident. For some reason, I trust my khui. “I won’t need the healer. Things will be fine. And this is where we’re meant to be.” I gaze up at the painted walls of my cave and feel a surge of joy. “We’re home.”
“My home is wherever you are,” Aehako tells me.
I touch his face gently. “I feel the same way.”
Note to Readers
Dear Readers,
Thank goodness for self-publishing!
I have wanted to write science fiction romance for the longest time. It’s a genre I adore, but I write for New York under another name, and contracts tend to keep me busy. Still, back in 2010 or so, I started a manuscript called ‘The Symbiont’ about a race of people that had crash-landed on a planet and had to have a native parasite to live. It sounds terribly romantic, right? Nothing says sexy quite like a parasite. The book never really got off the ground, because I had to keep putting it aside. In between contracts, however, I kept returning to the story and poking at it, hoping for a miracle.
Then, earlier this year, I felt burned out by writing. It was a job, and one that I love, but my creative fuel gauge was on ‘empty’。 A friend dared me to write something new and exciting just for myself. All right, then. I immediately picked up my symbiont story. I’d left off with my heroine Georgie deciding to stage a break-out from the alien ship. I made it crash, I introduced Vektal, and I fell in love with the story – and writing – all over again.
And I discovered that I love my big blue aliens.
Ice Planet Barbarians was an utter labor of love from start to finish. I was sure that it was weird and out of the box, but it was the kind of story I’d been wanting to read – and write – for so long that I loved every moment of it. I’d also wanted to try a serial, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. It was a creative stretching of the mind, and I was shocked （and pleased!） when it took off. I didn’t expect to write a sequel.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I already had Raahosh and Liz paired up in my mind, along with Aehako and Kira, but as a writer, you hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I’ve killed a series mid-stream before, and it hurts, so I prepared myself for this to fail. If it was one book, it’d just be one book. Reviewers asked if there would be a series, and I answered honestly: only if there was demand for it.