Distant Desires
by Cambria Hebert
Sophie Perez has never believed the stuff she reads online about possible life in space. Aliens are for the movies, for the weirdoes, and they most definitely are not real.
One night on the way home from a late shift at work, her car breaks down. Stranded on the side of a country road, with a dead cell phone, doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.
Until strange neon lights appear in the sky. She thinks it is her imagination.
When an inexplicable circular ship appears overhead, she can’t deny what’s clearly right in front of her. Especially when moments later, she’s taken onto the ship, a human hostage among those who are most definitely not human.
About to become a human guinea pig, possibly worse, the last thing she ever expects is to like the things these otherworldly beings subject her to. In fact, it is unlike anything she’s ever experienced.
Will Sophie find her way back to her planet, or will she beg to stay where her pleasure is literally out of this world?
Distant Desires Excerpt #1
The heat from his fingers seared through the back of my shirt. I wondered if his handprint would permanently scar my skin. He used his body almost like a shield, guiding me back down onto the couch, this time sitting much closer to me."I know this is a lot, but try not to overreact."
I laughed.
His hand lay between us. I could feel his fingers against my thigh. Without thought, I reached forward, linking our fingers together and drawing his hand into my lap. "Don't you think I should at least be allowed to see your face?"
I sensed his hesitation. But instead of trying to convince him, I waited for a reply.
"I don't look like you."
"No one else looks like me either," I said.
"That's true," Tarek agreed, but it didn't sound like he was speaking to me. Then he spoke out, "I mean the people of your planet. I don't look like your version of humans."
"Then what do you look like?" I asked.
"Like a Sapien." He shrugged his shoulders as he said the words.
"Show me," I said.
Tarek untangled our fingers and withdrew his hand. Slowly, he reached up and grasped the edges of the hood. Then he paused.
I groaned out loud.
This guy was going to kill me!
"I'm afraid I won't please you," he said softly.
The words pierced my heart. He thought I was going to think he was ugly. He didn't realize how those words made him so very similar to me and every human I knew.
He was vulnerable and self-conscious, just like the rest of us.
The fact he even cared at all what I thought of him took away some of my shock and panic.
"Try me," I said equally as soft.
You could have heard a pin drop through the silence that encompassed the room.
The silver silky hood fell back, lying against his neck, the folds of the fabric bunched in a way that created a loose frame for everything above his neck.
He was right. He looked nothing like the human's here on Earth.
Tarek was better.
Distant Desires Excerpt #2My fingers spider-climbed up the front of his robe, slowly, as if I were moving unintentionally. He didn't act like he noticed so I kept moving, creeping upward toward that damned hood that shielded his face.
He stood utterly still, almost as if he wasn't even breathing, as my fingers curled around the edge of the hood. The fabric was silky and cool against my fingers as I bunched it in my grip. I hesitated one second before going forward, ready to pull it back and reveal his face.
He jerked away, turning his head and pulling the material from my fingertips just out of reach, denying me the sight I so desperately wanted to see.
"You said you wouldn't hurt me," I whispered. He hadn't kept that promise and he knew it. It seemed the very least he could do was let me look at him.
Slowly, he turned his head toward me once more, tipping his chin down so he still was completely in the shadows of his clothing. Without hesitation, I grasped the fabric again and tugged it back, anxious.
The entire hood didn't slide away as I hoped, but I kept peeling it back anyway. My breath caught when the sight of the smoothest, palest skin I'd ever seen caught my eye. It was absolutely flawless. It appeared as if he didn't have any pores at all. I kept tugging, desperate now to see more.
My fingers dipped farther beneath the fabric and came into contact with his cheekbone, brushing against it and making me gasp out loud. Both of us stilled. He felt like the smoothest stone that sat for days in the summer sun. The heat that radiated from him and into me was unlike anything I'd felt before.
There were just no words to describe it. I could say it was like getting a hot stone massage, but from the inside out. I could say I imagined this was the feeling cats got when they lay in the rays of the sun in front of a window.
But I wouldn't say that.
Because this felt better.
One touch (especially an accidental one) just wasn't enough.
About the Author
Cambria Hebert is the author of the young adult paranormal Heven and Hell series, the new adult Death Escorts series, and the new adult Take it Off series. She loves a caramel latte, hates math and is afraid of chickens (yes, chickens). She went to college for a bachelor’s degree, couldn’t pick a major, and ended up with a degree in cosmetology. So rest assured her characters will always have good hair. She currently lives in North Carolina with her husband and children (both human and furry) where she is plotting her next book. You can find out more about Cambria and her work by visiting http://www.cambriahebert.com
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