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Blurb:
Be careful what you wish for—it just might come true. While Emily may
have wished to be taken away, waking up on an alien cruiser, naked and
intensely turned-on wasn’t what she’d had in mind.
*This title has
previously been published*
Genre/Theme:
Sci-Fi, BDSM, alien romance, submission, space travel romance
Copyright © Nicole Austin, 2016
Excerpt:
Chapter One
Bells
tinkled a merry greeting as the door of the Moonlight Diner swung open. Emily
Baxter finished refilling the last salt shaker and glanced at the clock. Ten
minutes until closing time and a new customer shows up. Great, she’d have to
work late again.
Story of my freakin’ life.
With his brown
hair sticking up in all different directions, white shirt buttoned haphazardly
and one pant leg partially tucked into a sock, the man who’d walked in had a
wild gleam in his glassy eyes. He had the lean, athletic body of a runner and
when cleaned up was probably rather attractive.
“Aliens!”
He pointed toward the back of the diner. “I was abducted!”
Okay, cleaned up and dried out, she amended.
Hank’s
bald head appeared in the pass-through. “Aliens? Hey, did you get probed?”
“How’d you
know?” The customer stumbled as he made his way toward the counter and dropped
down onto a stool with a sharp hiss. “Did Calgon get you too?”
She glanced
back at Hank, owner of the diner and her boss. One corner of his mouth drew
upward into an evil grin Emily knew well. She’d been a victim of Hank’s
bullying and her heart went out to the customer who thought he’d found a
sympathetic listener.
“Calgon
the alien took you away, huh?” Hank sputtered, barely getting the words out.
“You’ve been watching too much TV, dude. Hey, Em. Better call the guys with the
white coats. He needs a padded cell and one of those jackets with the really
long sleeves.”
While Hank
laughed and cracked jokes at the man’s expense, Emily set a cup of coffee in
front of the customer and patted his arm. “Ignore Hank. Everyone else does.”
The second
she went through the swinging door into the kitchen, Hank grabbed her arm and
dragged her over to the grill, where he kept a close eye on the man who sat
hunched over the steaming mug.
“That
guy’s a total crackpot, Em. Don’t get close to him. Might rub off on you.”
“Insanity
isn’t catching.” Jerking free of his hold, she punched Hank’s beefy tattooed
arm. “But stupidity is,” she mumbled under her breath.
She
understood Hank’s bully mentality—how making other people feel small gave him
the false sense of being a big man. Still, understanding didn’t make dealing
with him any easier. “You are such an ass! That man is obviously down on his
luck and could use a little compassion.”
“Compassion?”
Hank gave her a slack-jawed stare. “You’re crazier than he is.”
Emily
sighed and shook her head. She preferred to believe everyone had some goodness
in them, but Hank had proven himself rotten to the core, lacking any depth or
virtue. A true lost cause.
The grill
had been shut down and cleaned for the night but there was still a pot of soup
simmering. She filled a bowl, put a couple of rolls on a plate and headed for
the door, not surprised when Hank moved to block her path.
“That bum
didn’t order anything and sure as hell won’t have the money to pay.”
“I’m not
sending him back out on the street without a meal.” She couldn’t afford to lose
her job but would make a stand on the issue if necessary.
“Okay,
Sister Teresa, but you’re not giving my profits away.”
Emily
shook her head. “You mean Mother
Teresa, moron, and I’ll pay for the meal.”
Hank’s
brow furrowed with confusion and disbelief shone in his dark eyes. “Must be
paying you too much if you’ve got money to throw away on bums.”
Grinding
her back teeth, Emily battled the urge to throw the soup in Hank’s cruel face.
“The way you treat people is going to come back and bite you in the ass, Hank.
It’s called karma. Because I’m kind and help others in need, one day when I’m
down low, someone will offer me a hand.”
Hank’s
riotous laughter had her hoping she’d be around to witness the day karma tore
him a new one. Why did she continue to try to get through that thick skull of
his? He would never see acts of kindness as anything other than signs of
weakness. And having shown that
weakness would make her a prime target for Hank’s brutality in the days to
come.
So be it.
“Grow up,
Hank. You’re not in grade school anymore.”
Emily not
only fed the man, she listened to his tale about the aliens and their high-tech
spacecraft. She mentally went over her mounting bills and declining budget as
he detailed the aliens probing his rectum. She gave him bus fare to get home
before showing him out and locking up the diner.
Her own
commute was brief—out the back way and up a rickety flight of stairs to her
rented room above the diner.
Stepping
into the alley, Emily gazed up at the stars. As a child she’d dreamed of
blasting away on the space shuttle to visit distant mysterious places. Her
customer had insisted there were other forms of life out there, and as crazy as
it may seem, she agreed. Considering all the planets in existence, so many more
than humans were aware of, surely some of them were inhabited. To believe Earth
harbored the only intelligent life would be rather arrogant and naïve.
The whole
idea of being abducted and taken away in a spaceship actually sounded pretty
damn good to Emily. No more working her fingers to the bone or fending off
idiots like Hank. She’d travel to exotic locations and settle down when she
found a culture where women were not only cherished but treated with respect as
equals.
While the
night sky was full of beautiful stars, one in particular captured Emily’s
attention. It shined a bit brighter than the others, twinkled faster and
appeared closer.
With the
customer’s story still fresh in her mind, Emily held out her arms, reached
toward the beacon of light and yelled, “Calgon, take me away!”
Between
one heartbeat and the next, darkness shut out the stars, her body became
weightless and rose into the air, and she drifted off into nothingness.
