Chapter Eight
A soft beeping roused me from what had obviously been a light doze. I opened my eyes to see Jordan lever himself away from me. Cool air instantly replaced his heat, and I drew the sheet back up again, curling up against his broad back as he reached out to stop the irritating noise.
A voice emerged from an intercom; “We were wondering if the newlywed’s would like their breakfast brought up to them?” a deep male voice inquired with a slight snigger.
“Take a hike, Logan,” Jordan retorted, just as my stomach gave a long leonine growl. Jordan heard it and turned to regard me. “On the other hand, yes, perhaps that would be a good idea. What would you like, my love?” he asked me with a grin.
I shrugged. Everything they had served so far had been absolutely delicious. I had no idea why food tasted so good on Terron, but I wasn’t about to question why, not unless it caused me to pile on the kilos now I had a man to look good for.
“Whatever comes,” I murmured in response, shocked at myself for the direction my thoughts had taken. I could be spirited away in an instant, so Jordan was no more my man than he was Anita’s, whoever she was, wherever she was. I realized I really had to do some digging to find out more about her. Perhaps the tablet in my luggage would reveal more. When I got time to study it I’d do some more research.
Jordan returned his attention to the intercom and recited a long detailed list of what sounded like everything on the menu. When he finished, he rolled back to face me, and said; “I’m absolutely starving.”
“Must have been all that wild sex which did it,” I teased him. I was already aware that he liked to laugh, and I also wanted to try and banish my wayward thoughts of earlier. Here I was, having mind-blowing sex with this Greek God of a man, and I was worried about the past. But then I’d always been a worrier. I blamed my mother for that. She had given me more than enough to fret about over the years. It would take some time to get her and all her negativity out of my system.
“No, I was too keyed up last night for dinner. Your appearance in my life kind of put a damper on my appetite, but–" He didn’t get to finish his sentence as his own stomach rumbled like that tiger was absolutely famished.
“Now it’s back with a vengeance, and you still sound like a great big cat!”
“How about we take a shower before breakfast comes?” Jordan threw the sheet back, and slid out of bed. He extended a hand to me.
“Now?” I asked. “Together?”
He nodded. “Yes now and yes together.”
Suddenly I couldn’t think of anything better. He looked so damn sexy standing there in the buff with his long blonde hair tumbling untidily about his powerful shoulders. As I placed my hand in his and watched it virtually disappear, I simply had to ask; “What the heck do you Terron men do to get so damn muscular?”
He hauled me easily out of the bed so that I came to my feet directly in front of him. “We just grow up this way, probably one of the reasons why your men dislike us so much. No Earth man has ever beaten a Terron male in hand-to-hand combat. And believe me, many have tried, usually jealous exes who’ve lost their women to the mating.”
“Just as well I don’t have a jealous ex then,” I remarked as he pulled me up against his smooth hairless chest. Heavens, he felt good as my breasts flattened against his hard body. Once again I realized I was talking about Ruth. I had no idea who or what Anita had been forced to leave behind. I guess I should be glad that Jordan was such a strong, powerful hunk of a man. I really didn’t fancy seeing him get roughed up by someone from Anita’s past. “That’s one-on-one, I presume. Most Human men like to attack when they’ve got strength of numbers behind them, so how would you fare if you had half a dozen Humans facing you?”
Jordan smiled down at me. “Trying to determine my worth, are you, little one? Don’t worry, I’ll always protect you…" Then he let his head drop back, before returning his attention to me. “Five, I would say. Anymore and I’d be pushing it.”
“You could take on five Earth men in one go?” I gasped in awe.
“I’ve taken on groups before, usually when they’re too drunk to know any better. But yes, I’ve knocked out at least five Humans in a single fight.”
I gave an awed sigh. “My hero!” I smiled, sliding my arms around his waist to lean my forehead against his broad chest.
Jordan laughed, the deep rumble reverberating through his large frame as I hugged him.
“Shower time,” he announced a moment later. He disentangled himself form me and headed for the bathroom, pulling me along in his wake.
“I want to use that bath.” I pointed at the huge spa sprouting from a raised dais in the centre of the room.
“And I don’t want cold breakfast. We can use it later. We’ll be here for at least a week. Plenty of time for that,” he reassured me as he stepped into an enormous shower cubicle with clear glass sides. Actually I doubted it was glass, probably something more like Perspex, I mused as I followed him inside. I doubted they would have anything as brittle as glass in the future. Neither did this particular shower have taps. I had grown used to the cubicles in this hotel after ending up resembling a drowned rat the first few times.
One merely had to press a button and beautiful warm jets of steam came at you from whatever side you turned to, or lifted your head to. Shampooing was something of the past too. Another switch released a lovely apple-scented cleanser for the hair and body, and a third switch controlled foot massagers that ran across the floor.
Towels weren’t necessary either, as warm blasts of air shot out of vents at various intervals. The warm, fluffy sheets I’d seen supplied were for use after bathing. After my first few mishaps, I grew to enjoy it, and spent more than my fair share in there, much to the consternation of my former roommate.
Now I shared the shower with Jordan, who pulled me against him, and glided his big hands over my slippery wet skin. Still feeling shy and uncertain by all this touching and nakedness, it took me a moment to reciprocate. Besides I was beginning to enjoy his hands on me entirely too much. Neither did I know how he liked to be touched, although I’d gotten the hang of massaging a certain part of him quickly enough. I felt that part of him against me now, once again hard and insistent as it pressed against my now virtually non-existent stomach.
If only he knew, I thought for a sad little moment. He wouldn’t be so aroused it he was holding the real me in his arms.
His huge palms cupped my rear, rocking me against him as water sluiced over our faces, and we gazed back at one another.
“I think I could stay like this for hours,” he murmured as he bent his head to capture my mouth with his. Once again I was lost in the passion of his kiss. I didn’t think I could ever get enough of tasting that beautiful mouth, but a voice in the next room, calling out that breakfast had arrived, reluctantly drew us apart. Our stomachs rumbled simultaneously.
We spent the rest of the day like this, laughing and eating, and then climbing back into bed to mate some more. When I asked Jordan why we weren’t going out, he told me it was expected that newly mated couples stayed in bed for most of their honeymoon. I didn’t complain again, particularly when he insisted on feeding me the evening meal that was brought to us at twilight. We went outside and sat on the terrace where a cool evening breeze washed over us, and watched the red sunset dip over Terron’s thrashing deep blue ocean.
I had never felt so pampered in my life, and the fact that it was coming from such a drop-dead gorgeous male made it even more awesome. All he had on was a pair of loose green tie-up pants that hung low on his lean hips. He looked good enough to eat as he sat beside me and popped small portions of food into my mouth. Jordan looked relaxed, almost happy, as he attended to me like a servant. For someone who had been treated like one for as long as I could remember, it made me feel a tad uncomfortable.
“This is part of our custom,” he explained as he fed me a ripe, plump strawberry. Well, it looked like a strawberry, but it tasted more li
ke a juicy lolly.
“So when is it my turn to feed you?” I asked as I licked my lips, conscious of Jordan watching me intently, despite the dim light. The sun had just set, and stars were starting to speckle the sky like a child’s paint dot picture, and the first of the planet’s three moons was rising in the eastern sky. The other two, when they appeared, reminded me of that Dr Who episode when Earth had been dragged from its orbit and repositioned in a sky bristling with planets and moons. It was an eerie sight to someone who had looked up at the same night sky all their lives.
“You don’t. I feed you, even when we are back at the farm, I will cook for you and serve your meals, and whenever possible, feed you from my own hand… Yes I know your world does it the other way round, but you are in my world now, and that is one custom I will not have it altered no matter how much you protest.”
“Was I protesting?” I asked, knowing full well he’d seen my startled expression. But I’d never heard of men doing the cooking in any culture, or any period of time. The only men I knew who cooked got paid handsomely for it.
Jordan nodded as he picked up another slice of fruit that looked like mango, but tasted even better when he slid it into my mouth. Leaning closer, he followed it with his tongue, licking the excess juices from my lips. I shivered, not from cold, but delight. It was probably the sweetest most sensitive thing I had ever experienced. Just why was this beautiful man I barely knew being so nice to me?
I shifted in my chair, and sat back, so that he was compelled to break what had been very quickly turning into a very passionate kiss.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, still with his face close to mine. “Do I not please you?”
“You please me way too much…" I trailed off, rubbing my hands over my face.
“Then what’s the problem? You keep drawing back. Am I moving too fast for you?”
“I think we’ve already done just about everything imaginable, haven’t we?” I said with a shaky laugh.
Jordan shook his head. ‘We haven’t even begun. We start by exploring each other’s bodies. Then explore one another’s minds. We learn to live together–"
“Oh, dear Jordan, if only I could,” I said sadly, the whole scenario was so appealing, I really wished it would go on forever. I really did, but I still had no idea when Professor Jackson would get his act together and pull me out of Anita’s mind!
Jordan placed both his hands against my thighs, forcing me to meet his silvery-blue eyes. They looked so beautiful in the half light. Due to the three moons, night time on Terron rarely grew darker than a badly overcast day on Earth. The second moon had risen and was casting Jordan’s handsome face into stark relief. He looked even more gorgeous in the double light. I could fall in love with this man in an instant, I realized. I would return back to my cumbersome, middle-aged body with a broken heart if I didn’t put some distance between us. And to do this I had to tell him who I really was.
“Look Jordan, I tried to explain this to you once before, but can you please hear me out now?” I tried to pry his big hands free of my legs.
Sensing that I needed some space, he withdrew them, and sat back in his own chair, crossing his arms over his brawny chest. “All right, tell me what you must.”
“I’m not really Anita. My real name is Ruth Clarke, and I’m forty-nine years old.” Of course he had to raise his brows at that, but I soldiered on regardless. “I’m from the year 2012, and I answered an ad in a science magazine to catch a glimpse of the future. I took part in an experiment which went wrong, because I was only meant to see the future, not end up in it. The professor put tinted goggles on me, and told he’d upped the power on his machine, or some such thing.” I took a breath, well aware that Jordan still wore that disbelieving look on his face. “Well, I caught a glimpse of a space port, only I didn’t know what it was then, not until I ended up sprawled on my back in said space port, with all those other young women staring around me, looking worried.
“I think Anita must have tripped and hit her head. That was when I somehow ended up with my whole mind catapulted into her body, instead of just seeing what was going on through the goggles. I’m sure the professor is trying to work out how to get me back right now… because I don’t belong here.” I spread my hands. “I’ve taken over someone else’s body, and I have no idea what’s happened to the poor girl’s mind, if she’s somehow stuck in here with me, trying to get out, or if–“
“Good Lord, that must be the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” Jordan exclaimed. “Taking over someone’s mind! Time traveling from the past! Such things simply aren’t possible.”
“I didn’t think so either, until it actually happened. Why won’t you believe me, Jordan? I would love nothing more than to stay here with you forever. You’re probably the nicest person I’ve ever met, but I don’t belong here, and any day now I might have to leave you, and I just don’t want to–“
“What are you hiding, Anita? Who are you protecting?” he demanded, suddenly back in my face, his hands gripping mine tightly.
“Nothing. No-one,” I protested. Why wouldn’t he believe me? He was an alien from the future, damn it! His race had invented space ships and wormhole travel! Why should time-travel be so much of a further stretch? Hell, I’d heard somewhere that wormholes could be used for time-travel!
Suddenly he sprung to his feet, taking me with him. “Where’s your com-tab? I want to know who your family is - who you associate with. Who would have come up with such an insane story?”
“I-in my bag… but all you’ll find out is who Anita is, not who I am,” I mumbled as he pulled me back into the sitting room.
“Go, get it,” he ordered, once again looking grim and tough, the gentle sweet man vanishing in an eye-blink. Well, I only had myself to blame for that. I’d cooled his ardor with my stupid blabbermouth, hadn’t I? Heavens, if all this hadn’t actually happened to me, I would have thought it crazy too. Well, he’d know for sure once I disappeared and Anita had her body back, both of them wondering what the heck had happened.
I simply couldn’t cling to the hope that this was permanent. Somewhere in the bowels of the university in 2012 my body lay minus a brain, and if Professor Jackson didn’t want to try and explain that to the authorities, he’d be trying his darnedest to get me back, wouldn’t he?
Even darker thoughts of ending up without a body because he’d tried to hide the evidence did register briefly, but I pushed them aside. The Prof had been too keen to get somewhere with his invention. He’d be wanting to fix what had gone wrong, and trying to make it right. Right?
I found the tablet, along with Anita's passport and returned to the sitting room with it, where Jordan was sitting on the lounge, one ankle crossed over his knee, both brawny arms draped along the back of the seat. God, he looked magnificent. So much muscle and power writhed beneath that flawless tanned skin. If he wanted to, he really could break my neck with those strong hands. He had said he’d bested five guys in a fight. Riling him any further probably wasn’t a good idea. But what did I know about the young woman whose body I wore? Pity little. What would Jordan unearth once he fired up the tablet? That Anita was a serial killer? I hardly thought so.
Swallowing, I held both items out to him, Dropping one arm he patted the seat beside him, which I took and perched on the very edge of. Jordan frowned at my action, but took the tablet from my hands. He shook his head at the passport.
“Don’t you need a password?” I asked as his brow furrowed in concentration and his big fingers brushed over the device, activating different windows of information.
“I used to help design things like this,” he muttered under his breath. “I don’t need a… what did you call it? Password? That’s a rather old-fashioned expression.”
“Well, that’s what we call it in my time.”
Jordan glanced up briefly with narrowed eyes, before returning his attention to the tablet. Of course he still didn’t believe me. “Besides, this is a public network.” He t
apped the device with a long dexterous index finger. “If you want to communicate privately I’m certain there are a whole host of other devices at your disposal on Earth. That’s why we do such rigorous luggage and body searches at the spaceports.”
I shuddered, recalling the rather undignified patting down I’d received on arrival. Even my ears and the inside of my mouth had been closely examined. Luckily the official had been a fellow female Human. The officials had used detecting wands to search for hidden devices, fortunately eliminating the need for that most humiliating of procedures, the full cavity search.
I watched Jordan studying the device, a frown steadily deepening on his patrician brow. After what he’d said about designing the tablets, I realized he was more than just a pretty face. Last night, when he’d been at the mercy of his body, I’d wrongly assumed he was just some lusty Neanderthal with only one thing on his mind. He was obviously more intelligent than I had given him credit for, probably even smarter than I was. So why couldn’t I get him to believe the truth of what had happened to me?
“Well, well, well, Miss DeBugh,” Jordan snorted, his tone growing hard. “Your father is a Liberal minister in the Senate, and you were engaged to be married to Oliver Rembrandt, son of Ian Rembrandt, pioneer of Rembrandt Industries, the biggest damn Hytana refinery in the southern hemisphere! Judging by this, I wouldn’t hazard a guess your father tried very hard to get you out of your tour of duty.”
“What?” I sidled closer, but Jordan held the tablet further away from me so I still couldn’t see anything on it.
“I think you just might have started a God-damned diplomatic incident, Anita DeBurgh,” Jordan declared grimly. I stared at him in shock. Not only did he look angry, but a sliver of fear flashed in his eyes. Slowly, disbelievingly, he shook his head.
“Wh – what do you mean?” I asked in a small tight voice.
“In coming here, you’ve turned your back on what was probably the biggest oil cartel merger in Australia’s history. Your father just announced an increase in oil production by sending Earthlings to open up new farms in the northern districts of Terron-Tentonia… But of course you already know all this.” He raked his fingers through his long bangs in frustration. “Oh yes, I can understand why you wouldn’t want to be tied down to the likes of Rembrandt,” he continued, more to himself than me. “He’s a nasty piece of work, and I would hazard a guess his son is just as mean…” He looked at me. “But Hell, Anita! They’re going to come here guns blazing, tearing the place apart looking for you so that Rembrandt and your father can get what they want… I should hand you over to the Administration right now and accept The Aging.”
“But I thought we arrested The Aging?” I asked helplessly.
Jordan scowled at me. “Only as long as you remain by my side. Leave me for any length of time and it happens. If you die, it happens. If I die, you will age, although it wouldn’t make any difference to you right now since our mating only just took place. We’re linked, Anita, for better or worse, remember?”
“Then you can’t hand me over to Anita’s father!” I shuddered as Jordan at last laid the tablet down and I caught sight of a sleazy-looking middle-aged man with slicked back hair. I didn’t know if he was Rembrandt or Anita’s father, but he had evil slits for eyes, and a hard slash of a mouth, with receding black hair that had been combed to one side Adolf Hitler style. He had a dark bushy mono-brow and ruddy, fleshy jowls, seeming to suggest he wasn’t a small or slender man.
A younger version of this unpleasant-looking individual appeared on the screen as I studied it - obviously Rembrandt Junior. He looked just as sleazy, but more muscular; a tough thug. On him, the mean, narrow eyes and mono-brow looked even more intimidating. He was wearing a leather jacket and his black hair buzz-cut short. His face was long and lean, but I could see that he’d probably end up looking very much like his father as he grew older.
“Good God, I have no idea what I’m going to do.” Jordan tore at his hair again. Suddenly he sprung to his feet. “I need to get out of here for a while.”
I watched him go, my heart knotted tight with anxiety and confusion. Suddenly I longed for the safety of my dark silent house, now more convinced than ever it would be a long time, if ever, before I saw it again.