KEK: An Alien Romance (Pleasure Invaders Book 2) Page 2

  Alicia squeezed her hand and smiled. “Say you’ll consider it, please. I’ve got to get back home, but the house keys are on the table with the alarm code. Please, make sure you lock up well and set it every time. This neighborhood isn’t great and—” Alicia shook her head. “I know you’ll take care of it. Thank you, again, for your kindness.”

  And with that, Alicia gathered her purse and stepped out of the house a little less worse for wear than she’d entered. That was the best part for Julia, taking a small portion of the heavy weight death leaves off the shoulders of the family to let them grieve in peace. Dying was big business, and a lot of people treated it with much less respect than it deserved.

  Left alone to get started, Julia went upstairs to the heart of the home—Mrs. Johnson’s bedroom. Pen in hand, she began gently removing Ruth’s clothes and laying them out to be tagged and priced.

  It was her ritual, and a way to get to know the people whose belongings she was hired to sell. As she finished with the closet, her eyes were drawn to a beautiful patterned prayer quilt spread over the bed. Like many mature adults in this part of the country, Ruth had died at home. Although her friends thought it was creepy, Julia found it beautiful and endlessly romantic. Passing in a place surrounded with memories of the man you spent your life loving felt like the perfect way to spend your last moments on Earth. If only she could find a man worth that kind of reverence.

  She smoothed the rumpled comforter, straightening the edges like Ruth had no doubt done a thousand times before, and when the tips of her fingers brushed against something soft, she froze.

  It was a heart-shaped pillow, hand sewn and embroidered with the letters Kek. It was heavier than she expected, almost as if it were weighed down with her love for her late husband. There was something about it that felt so warm and comforting.

  Julia let out a giggle, thinking that maybe if she chose to take this it would give her some luck in her own love life. The item was terribly personal. Could she really take it? William had assured her in their first conversation that they had already looked through everything and were ready to move forward and the item itself wasn’t likely to sell…

  Grabbing it before she could change her mind, Julia placed the pillow in her purse and continued on with the bedroom inventory before leaving for the night. By the time she finished, it was well past nine, and she needed to get home in time to feed her lovebirds. If she didn’t, they’d squawk all hours of the night and wake up her neighbors, and she really couldn’t afford another complaint.

  The seats in her ancient Subaru were cold against her skin, and the chill in the air made her shiver. Her heater took forever to work, when it even did, and she’d forgotten to grab a jacket when she’d run out of the house to meet Alicia.

  Placing the pillow on her lap, she cuddled it close on her way home. The winter had been particularly cold, and the worn streets were prone to accumulating black ice. She had to drive slowly and carefully down the country roads that separated her house from the Johnsons’. Their farm was a bit out of her normal range and in the middle of nowhere, but she couldn’t refuse William after hearing their experience.

  No one deserved to be treated like that.

  An hour into the drive, Julia’s lids grew heavy, drooping with the comfortable lull of her engine and the rhythmic motion of her tires on the road. She always kept an energy drink on hand for times like this. She often pushed herself too hard and slept far too little.

  Leaning down to grab the drink from her purse, Julia never saw the deer coming. At least, not until it was too late. Bone and blood exploded across her windshield, and she screamed as her car hit a patch of ice, spun, and started down an embankment. She’d been told her whole life not to hit the brakes, but, in that moment she couldn’t help it. Sheer panic squeezed her lungs as her head smashed into her window and the car rolled over and over again

  Pain sung across her skin with each broken bone and she clutched Ruth’s pillow, scared for her life. Once the car settled, and she hung upside down, the pillow was the last thing she released, falling to the roof of her car and cradling her head. The comforting scent of Ruth’s house surrounded her as everything went black.

  Kek

  A feminine scream pulled him from his semi-conscious state, and a rush of pure energy infused every part of his vessel. Movement. An impact. Spinning. Falling. The most horrendous noises he’d heard since his ship had broken apart.

  The most perfect, beautiful scent surrounded him. Along with one he did not like. Blood. Human blood. Channeling the newfound energy, Kek pushed against the confines of his vessel. The metal shell started to crack, and cold air helped rouse him from his stasis.

  As his body regenerated, his arms and legs slammed into metal, and he found himself folded over, total darkness surrounding him. He ached for his sight, but healing Ruth had taken so much from him.

  Kek explored with his hands. Something hard under him. Slightly curved. Above him, padding. Some sort of seat? Further, he reached out, and found a warm being. Well, a semi-warm being. A female. His female. Kek got to his knees so he could touch more of her. She was...upside down. A harness of some sort bound her to the chair.

  He reached out and ripped the strap away, and his female fell into his arms. “Can you hear me, my mate?”

  She made no sound. Kek placed his hand where he thought her heart would be. Too weak. Too slow. She was injured. He slid his hand lower and found a wet stickiness covering her belly. Blood.

  A piece of metal had been driven through her abdomen, and Kek pulled it free. The female whimpered, and Kek made a soft, comforting sound. At least he hoped it was comforting. “My mate, I will heal you. But it will leave me weakened, and I fear I will have to return to my vessel. If I do, please...remember me.”

  Kek pressed a gentle kiss to his mate’s lips, and he thought...she might have kissed him back. With his hand over the wound in her belly, he focused all of his power on her. On her life.

  Pain consumed him, but he felt her skin knitting back together. Bones realigned themselves, her neck, which had been bent at an odd angle, straightened, and she took an easy breath. Then another. And another.

  The pure and complete exhaustion of healing overtook him, but he managed to keep his female cradled in his arms as he let his body relax. “I will stay as long as I am able, my heart. My soul. My mate. You will survive now.”

  He hoped they both would.

  Julia

  Julia gasped and jerked up. Pain zinged across her scalp as she hit her head against… her crumpled steering wheel? But how? What happened?

  Twisted metal surrounded her. And blood. Oh, no. There was so much of it coating the jagged remains of her car she almost vomited from the smell. How was she alive? And how had she not frozen to death in the cold?

  Her breath puffed in white clouds in the icy morning air, but her skin felt…warm. Like she’d been wrapped in a thousand blankets and held intimately through the night. But how was that possible?

  Brief snatches flitted through her memory. The terror of flipping, the excruciating pain of her spine cracking in half, and then a voice. Deep and soothing, it had eased her fears, and as its warmth had surrounded her, nothing had hurt anymore.

  She had been saved by an angel. What else could explain her surviving such a horrific crash? Though she couldn’t remember his face, the ghost of a kiss on her lips would be cemented in her soul forever.

  The clank of an old truck hummed in the distance, and Julia struggled to crawl across the twisted metal and frozen blood to get through what used to be her window. She was almost to her feet when she spied the remains of Ruth’s pillow in the rubble. It was ruined, torn to shreds like her body should have been, and she was overwhelmed with guilt.

  She’d tarnished something Ruth had treasured, and she felt as if she had let Alicia and her family down. The truck rumbled closer, its engine growing louder with every passing second. It might have been divine intervention that had kept her aliv
e, but her celestial luck wouldn’t keep her from succumbing to the elements forever. She needed help.

  Something silver peeked through the tattered cloth, but Julia didn’t have time to find out what it was. A truck door slammed and footsteps pounded against the gravel road as a man barreled toward her. Gathering the remains of the shredded pillow in her hands, she shoved it into her blood-soaked purse and dragged herself through the window.

  “Ma’am, are you all right?” the older man asked, helping her to her feet. He pulled off his thick jacket and placed it over her shoulders. She swayed, probably from the loss of blood, and he steadied her.

  “I... I think so.”

  The man’s blue eyes widened and he looked between her and what was left of her car. “You were inside that all night? You’re a miracle, lady.” The kind stranger slid an arm under hers, and together they hobbled to his truck where he helped her in. As soon as the truck roared to life and they were headed toward the hospital, Julia pressed her fingers to her lips.

  Her heart raged inside of her—the shock of waking in such a horrendous way finally hitting her. And the only thing that helped her keep it together was the light tingle still clinging to her lips. She treasured it, but also mourned the possibility of never feeling it again. Even worse, of the fear that that perhaps, it was all a dream.

  Chapter 2

  Julia

  Julia fussed with the paunchy blue hospital gown, trying to wrap it every which way, but no matter how she tried, it always showed something. Her clothes had been destroyed. What hadn’t been ripped to shreds by the wreck had been cut off on her arrival when she was bared to the entire emergency medicine team.

  Her physician was the second person to declare her a miracle. The police that showed up, however, didn’t appear to feel the same way. Or at least not the detective in charge, anyway.

  “I just don’t understand, Mrs. Rusic. You don’t have a single scratch on you, but you were covered in blood. You’re sure you were alone…”

  The cool air in her hospital room prickled her skin, and she pulled her gown tighter. “It’s Ms. and yes, I’m sure. I already told you three times. I went to see a client, then fell asleep on the way home.”

  “But how else do you explain all the blood?”

  “I can’t. Maybe it all belonged to the deer.”

  The overweight detective straightened his belt, then flipped his toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “You mean the little doe you hit? No way all of that came from her.”

  “Look, I understand this might be unusual, but I’ve done nothing wrong—”

  “Why would you say that? I didn’t mention there being any wrongdoing. Is there something you’re not telling us, ma’am?”

  “All right, gentleman. That’s enough. Ms. Rusic needs to rest now,” Julia’s nurse said after scurrying in the room. Julia looked at her, confused, but the middle-aged brunette just shook her head, then slapped on a fake smile as she herded the detectives out.

  “I’m staying? I thought the doctor said I was ready to go home?”

  “Oh, no, honey. I was just trying to save you. They’re writing up your discharge now. But that man’s got nothing better to do than harass the citizens he’s supposed to protect. Just last week he tried to arrest a nurse for refusing to give him his ex-wife’s medical records.”

  “Thank you. He’s been badgering me for the past hour, convinced I somehow smuggled a dead body inside the car and then made it magically disappear while unconscious.”

  “I swear, Brady McStan is the most obtuse man I’ve ever met. Questioning you like that? What was he thinking?” she muttered under her breath while pulling out Julia’s IV. “You should launch a formal complaint. Him treating you like you’re a criminal when it’s obvious you’ve been through a terrible ordeal is just another example of why they need to remove him from the force.”

  The thought had flitted through her mind—reporting the man for being so rude and forceful when she’d done nothing wrong. After spending a good portion of her life quietly accepting verbal abuse from her father, several ex-boyfriends, and the occasional coworker, the thought of living another day of her life letting a man in authority verbally toss her around felt suffocating. She’d been given a new shot at life, and she wasn’t going to waste it.

  “Do you by chance have the number? To report him, I mean?” Julia asked while the nurse wrapped a bandage around her hand.

  The brunette in green scrubs smiled at her. “Girl, yes. We’ve had it taped to the nurses’ station fridge in case he harasses anyone else for medical records without a warrant. Give me a few, and I’ll grab it with your discharge papers.”

  Free of the IV, Julia stretched her arms fully, then wrapped the hospital blanket around her shoulders. The nurse gathered her things, pressed a Post-it into her hand, wheeled her to the curb, and put her in a cab.

  “Now listen, make sure you rest. The big man upstairs might have been looking out for you tonight but you’re going to be sore as hell tomorrow. Drink lots of water and call if you need us.”

  The ride home felt like a blur. With so many things on her mind, Julia couldn’t really focus on anything. After taking five minutes to unlock her front door—something that took her seconds on a normal day—she numbly fed Ginger and Captain, her love birds, then sank into the bath.

  She’d almost died. One second she was just driving along, and the next… Tears stung her eyes. There were so many things she’d always wanted to do, but had waited. Whenever inspiration hit and she got the travel bug, it was always not yet, or maybe next year when she was more financially secure, and now? There literally could be no tomorrow. There almost hadn’t been.

  The bubbles floating on the water's surface slowly fizzled out, and a cold reality sank in. She was completely and utterly alone. She had no family, no kids, and even her love birds were getting up in age. The kiss she’d experienced the night before, imagined or not, was the closest thing to intimacy she'd felt in half a decade.

  She was still young at twenty-eight. There was no traumatic reason she'd stayed away from the dating scene, but after a string of unfaithful boyfriends her first year of college, she just gave up looking and waited for the right man to find her.

  Maybe she'd waited too long.

  Grabbing a towel, she trudged to her closet for something cozy to wear and spotted her purse on the floor. Ruth's pillow peeked out from the top, stuffed in a clear patient bag from the hospital, and her sadness multiplied.

  It was much lighter now. Most of the stuffing had fallen out, and the gleam of silver underneath called to her. At least the small part of the pillow with embroidered initials was intact. Maybe if she could make a new one, she wouldn't feel so awful about destroying it.

  Julia let out a light snort that twisted its way to a full-bodied laugh when she realized what had been hidden in the pillow.

  "Surely, this isn't…" she muttered between deep drags of air. "Ruth, you old temptress. I see you."

  Long, thick, and shaped like an adult toy, the silver object was heavy in her hand. Maybe it was something else? Some odd kind of urn, perhaps?

  On the off chance it was something other than what it appeared to be, Julia removed it and began to wash off the blood—her blood—that coated it.

  The object warmed as she scrubbed, and when she went to grab a towel from the cabinet, the water suddenly shut off.

  What the…?

  Oh, dear angels in Heaven. There was a giant naked blue man standing in her bathroom. His eyes were white, and before she could scream, he called to her.

  "Mate? My mate. I can sense you. By the ancient gods, it worked. I healed you. And now, you have freed me."

  Chapter 3

  Julia

  The words echoed in her ears what felt like a hundred times before their meaning registered. Healed. Her angel…the one who had saved her the previous night...

  Could it really be him?

  Julia closed her eyes and shook her head, ho
ping to dispel whatever cloudiness lingered in her mind from the accident. When she opened them and the blue angel’s scent reached her nose, something shifted in her soul. Fresh rain and sunshine. Even through the blood and engine smoke, the scent had wrapped around her, easing her terror.

  It was him. She couldn’t explain it but she knew without a doubt, he was the only reason she was alive.

  He didn’t really look angelic. I mean after all, he was naked and definitely doing something very close to breaking and entering, but his magnetism was undeniable. Thick ropes of muscles covered his body, giving him the look of a being made for war, not one capable of the soft kiss still weighing heavily on her lips.

  Her skin tingled, like a thousand tiny little pinpricks, and the hair on her arms rose.

  Julia struggled to speak. “Hel...hello.”

  The word sounded completely contrived in her head, but how else do you greet a celestial being who showed up in your house—oh, no. Ruth’s dildo!

  Fire bloomed on Julia’s cheeks, and her gaze roamed around the room, searching for whatever the thing was, but she came up empty. The angel’s eyes did not shine with human clarity, but she had no way of knowing if he could actually see, and the last thing she wanted to do was explain the presence of a big, silvery dildo in the center of her bathroom.

  Leave it to her to be cleaning what was most likely an old woman’s sex toy when the Heavens themselves flew down to greet her.

  And then...the divine spoke.

  “Our separation has been unbearable, Mate. I feared the strength of my gifts would not be enough, and you would be lost to me forever. Come here.” He opened his arms, and Julia had to grab the closet door to keep from drifting into them. “I wish to feel your heart beating and revel in the life that still flows through your veins.”