Page 37 of Tempted by Celestial Bodies

“What the hell?”

The door opens before she can shove at it. She almost stumbles into the larger room, dripping water onto the floor, ready to scream at whatever beautiful, unearthly man or monster waits for her. But no one’s there, just that same watchful feeling—and an envelope lying on the bedside table.

She snatches it up. The paper has a unique aesthetic, thin, flexible, but crackling with a finely ribbed texture, and single sheet inside bears a message in flowing script.

My dear Kaitlyn,

You’ve come a very long way in a very short time. I fear I’ve proven myself a poor host who has failed to adequately consider the needs of your mind or body.

If you allow me, I’ll endeavor to remedy these failures to your satisfaction. Please join me for a meal when you’re ready.

Cassiel.

A quiet creak startles her as the wardrobe door swings open. It doesn’t look big enough to contain everything inside: silky, slinky gowns, billowing princess skirts, shimmery cocktail dresses, a confection of black lace and chenille with a bodice to match.

Running her hand over the soft fabric, she lands on a flowy, leaf-green satin jumpsuit with long sleeves and a plunged neckline. She’s not about to pick something she can’t run in. Nothing here resembles a bra or panties, so she goes without. The sensation of the satin between her thighs, sliding across her bare nipples, sends a shiver up her spine.

She’s trillions of miles from home, in a starship of unknown origin, captive of a man with unknown intent, and yet every new detail she encounters seem to offer a frisson of pleasure, as though charged with latent eroticism. If she ruins this satin romper because he didn’t leave her any underwear and his mothership is unreasonably sexy, that’shisfault, not hers.

For all the room’s luxury, it lacks a mirror. She settles for finger-combing her hair as it dries, twisting the bulk of it into a knot at her neck. Strands fall around her face in messy tendrils, but it will have to do.

Outside, the lights now curve around and somehowup, an unwinding spiral inviting her to an unseen higher level. When she looks down, only thick shadows lie beneath. She doesn’t look down again.

Where the slope levels out, a bone-pale, intricately carved archway rises high above her head, laced with unintelligible patterns. Beyond it, more shadows await. The sense of unseen watchfulness redoubles. Meanwhile, the lights that led her safely to this threshold wink out, all but the last one.

No going back now. She holds her head high and steps through the archway.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

A breeze from nowhere swirls around her, stirring the loose hair around her face and setting off a flurry of echoes. They build into a storm of far-off whispers, almost musical, then dissonant, like wind in pine boughs or the ghost of an orchestra tuning. The air carries a rich, sweet scent with it, and her mouth waters despite itself.

“Cassiel?”

“I’m here.” He must be closer than she would have guessed, yet that mysterious calm settles over her again. A flood of golden light illuminates him all at once, standing above her on a dais. Behind him waits a long table, laden with a feast.

He, too, dressed for this occasion, in a sweeping, dark red coat embroidered with curls of silver, slim black trousers, a scalloped frill of white shirt escaping from his lapels. For a split second, she catches an odd expression on his handsome face, gone before she can interpret it. His lips curve when his gaze meets hers, like her stunned reaction pleases him.

He’s a stranger. An alien kidnapper. A dangerous unknown.

He’smagnificent, and she’s in so much trouble.

* * *

Her sharp gaspcuts through him—has he miscalculated, frightened her further? Then his higher processing kicks in. Data gleaned during his brief orbit of her world and the pheromone spike in her salt-sweet biochemistry provide context for her parted lips, her wide, startled eyes, the slide of her long, graceful throat.

She’s hungry in more ways than one, drinking the sight of him like he’s a wellspring on a dust-dry moon.

He didn’t expect her to choose the garment she did. It suits her, a splash of green in his empty halls. It belongs to the world he stole her from, the color of photosynthesis, life that builds kingdoms out of air and light.

“This is…” she says. “You’re…”

He waits for additional morphemes that will make sense of her speech. With none apparently forthcoming, he chooses an appropriate response at random. “I wasn’t certain you would come.”

This seems to jolt her out of her daze. Her posture closes, brow creasing and mouth pressed into a thin line. “Did I really have a choice?”

“Of course. I would have sent sustenance to your chamber, had you asked it of me.”

“Right,” she says. “Like a prisoner.”

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