Recruiting Measures (Terran Reset Book 2) Read online

  She stroked herself as he thrust into her, and a low shivering orgasm rippled through her and had her inner muscles clasping slowly around his cock. He paused and shuddered. Daku lifted off her, withdrew, and moved her to her stomach with a pillow tucked under her hips. He removed her robes, and she shivered as he stroked his hands down her spine. He slid into her again, and she mewled, her hands clawing at the bedding.

  He slammed his hands next to hers and stroked his erection into her with long, slow motions that rubbed inside her. She moaned and tried to rock her hips against him, but the pillow had her stuck like a high-centred car.

  He moved against her, nipping at her shoulders while he continued to slide over spots that she hadn’t considered particularly sensitive before.

  She twisted against him and shook as her body tried to go over the edge. He slowed down.

  Kyna looked back at him in horror. “You are kidding.”

  He kissed her softly. “I want things memorable.”

  She shuddered and twisted against him. “I have had my turns; this one is all you.”

  He chuckled and kissed her softly. “Then, I will have it the way I want it.”

  While they talked, he slid in and out like the tide. She suddenly had a thought, and she brought a hand up and extended two fingers to him. “Lick.”

  He sucked her fingertips into his mouth, and when she clenched around him, his eyebrows rose. She chuckled and reclaimed her hand, then slid it between them and drew on her clit with the symbols she had just learned. Love. She shivered and groaned. Passion. Her body clenched hard around his. Daku. She screamed and bucked against him, her body on fire.

  She heard a roar, and it came to her from a distance. Her mind was on a happy, warm cloud, and her senses were gradually returning to her body.

  Daku had her curled against him, her thighs were throbbing, her butt muscles ached, and the rest of her was tingling. So, that was what happened when there was someone else in the room.

  He brushed his lips across her closed eyes. He chuckled. “Don’t tell me that I killed you.”

  She snorted and pressed her hands to his chest. “Don’t tell me that it has put you off trying again.”

  He held her chin and lifted her head to his. “You are a fun, little creature. I can understand a bit more about Akutan and Amethyst now. The wit is sharp, but it is part of the charm.”

  She snorted. “Yes, that is right, Daku. Every woman loves being compared to another after her first time. Please. Continue.”

  He was surprised. “Your first? You mean on Rai.”

  “No, I mean ever. My body was not a fun place to be back on Terra, so I never had a moment with a peer of this nature. You get used to being alone after a while. You don’t have to like it, but you get used to it.”

  He lifted her fingers to his lips, licking them again. “What did you write? You were spelling something.”

  “Oh. That. Yeah. Well, it worked that one time, but I don’t know if it would again, but if it is how I am going to learn to spell, things are going to get awkward around apples.”

  She frowned. “How did you know I was spelling anyway?”

  He took her hand and pressed it against his cock, which was rigid again if it had ever gone down. “I could feel it.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want to tell you. It is embarrassing.”

  He smiled. “I wonder if I can get it out of you.”

  She blinked. “What, by putting something into me?”

  He chuckled and raised her leg to ride his hip while he slid into her. “I do enjoy a good idea when I hear one.”

  She arched back in his grasp as he slid deep. She had nothing witty to say, so she moaned and gave him what he wanted to hear.

  Chapter Twelve

  Getting him to help scrub her before a soak was a lot different than having Larada do it. Her fingers were never so... thorough.

  She shivered, and he washed her hair for her.

  “Was your hair this long on Terra?” He was careful with it as he poured warm and cool water over it to rinse it.

  “No. It was long, but this was added because I was being placed here, and since noblewomen have ridiculously long hair, it was something that they added to help me present a certain hint that would resonate.”

  “What about your body?”

  “It is slightly taller but similar to what it was in my youth. The eye colour was just fun.” She chuckled, and she got up to stand under the shower and get all the soap out of all the places that he had so carefully cleaned.

  He grinned and soaped up. She took the scrub from him and worked on his back, under his arms, and down his spine. “You can get the other stuff.”

  He laughed. “Fine. Clean my hair?”

  She nodded. “Of course.” She carefully wet his hair, and then, she poured the cleaner on her palms and ran her fingers through his hair. She worked a heavy froth while massaging his scalp, and he hummed happily. She smiled and murmured, “Head back.”

  She poured cupful after cupful of water to make sure that none of the soap got in his eyes.

  He looked at her. “You have done this before.”

  “I have a nephew. I used to care for him a lot. When he was a toddler, we had a ritual just like this.”

  She glanced at the aroused naked alien in front of her. “Well, not exactly like this.”

  He grinned.

  She got the soap off his head and had him sit straight while she lifted the bucket and rinsed him off before using the spray head to take out every remaining bit.

  “So, you get hit by stuff a lot, huh?” She knelt next to him, and she scrubbed his chest and the ridges of his abdomen.

  “Now and then. Folks are very good at firing through shadows. I can’t keep the defenses up around me and my charge at all times.”

  “So, you pick them to get the protection.” She sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, it is an admirable idea, but then, you get things like this.” She stroked her fingers over one of his scars. She was going to kiss it, but she washed it instead. When he was squeaky clean, she put the soap stuff aside and made sure that the drying cloths were in place for when they were done, and then, she wrangled her hair into a thick cable and tied three knots in it. “Don’t tell Larada.”

  He laughed and helped her into the tub and settled next to her. She looked around, and while he was keeping the barrier between tubs up, the door around his bedroom was now clear. Housekeeping would be scuttling in in minutes.

  He pulled her to him and wrapped his arm around her. “So, Lady Kyna. Where do you want to live on Rai?”

  She sighed. “Wherever I go on Rai is going to have a lot of paperwork. So, anywhere as long as I can get to the retreat. Folks show up here for assessment all the time, and as long as I can still use the shuttle, I should be okay.”

  “They show up for assessment? I thought you were a recruiter.”

  “I am, but some folks have a dream inside or a talent that they are used to hiding, and they need someone else to tell them that it is okay to pursue that passion. When they do, they bloom. Even if they don’t succeed, the wish is out in the open. It satisfies something in them.”

  He sighed. “You are certainly attuned to the local community. Taking you away would be cruel.”

  “To me? I can find myself anywhere.”

  “To the community. They love having you here. It shows on their faces when they talk to you.”

  “I am a mascot for the retreat. That is all.”

  “What did they do for your last birthday?”

  She frowned. “What? I don’t even know what it is.”

  He looked shocked. “Lady Ageka didn’t...”

  “No. The first year, we were really busy, and the second year, we started having staff parties and special cakes for events like that, but I don’t have a birthday by Rai standards, so...” she shrugged and settled against him.

  “Even the guardian
teams celebrate birthdays. Akutan’s is in the middle of winter.”

  She chuckled. “Is yours in the hot summer rains?”

  He blinked. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “I cheated. I read your file.” She kept her head down.

  “You can read guardian files?”

  “Sure. I also get a lot of reviews from guardians who have attended the retreat and enjoy being urged to find a hobby.”

  He made a small sound. “Well, I honestly did enjoy giving you a massage the other day. The noises you make are just a quieter version of the ones you make while I am inside you.”

  She swallowed and ignored the throb inside her of her libido rising for another round.

  He murmured, “You do realize that I am going to look up your intake file as you are a member of the guardian project.”

  “I look older than Lady Ageka, but I am one quarter the age. My hair was white, my joints were swollen, I walked with a stoop because my joints were fusing. Oh, and my skin was wrinkly. And I moved super slow.” She chuckled. “Just so you know what you are looking at.”

  He frowned. “So, you are another reset like Amber Huffner?”

  “Yeah. She is one of my kind. There are three more of us out there. Since it was a genetic reset, we are temporally stable. They just tinkered with our samples and made us the best that we could have been, and in my case, they threw in some Rai into the mix.”

  “May I go research this?”

  “Right now?” She nodded and realized that the truth was going to either slam her or set her free. Either option felt awkward.

  He kissed her forehead. “Back in a minute, Kyna.”

  He left the water with a whoosh, and he wrapped a drying cloth around his waist while he entered his room.

  She sat back and tried to breathe in to keep herself calm. The curtain of shadow was still next to her, so she boosted herself out of the tub and sat there with her knees pulled to her chin. It was a highly defensive posture, but she was feeling a little nervous. She was a meatball dressed up as a fancy pastry. Anyone could be angry about the bait-and-switch element.

  To her surprise, he came back and paused when he saw her sitting there. He sat next to her and put an arm around her, showing her the tablet he carried with him. “Have you seen this?”

  She saw Harry and shook her head.

  Minerva’s voice came from the other side of the camera. “So, why do you think Miss Meadow is a good candidate?”

  “She’s smart. Scary smart. She can see things that I don’t even understand when she looks at people, but she is never wrong. She picked my bosses, and there hasn’t been a bad one in my entire career. It sounds like a small thing, but for me, it was huge.”

  Minerva asked, “Why didn’t she follow up on her initial application?”

  He sighed. “I found a copy of a rejection not from the Volunteer Project in my grandma’s paperwork. It sounded like she had dictated it. I knew that my aunt had believed it. Kyna is really strong in a lot of ways, but she has no social confidence. If a guy flatters her, she smiles vaguely and ignores him. If you offer to carry something for her, she refuses. My gran told her she was a burden, and after a while, she started to believe it.”

  Her voice was soft. “What is your aunt’s condition? How does it affect her?”

  He took a deep breath, and his voice cracked. “Why do you need to know? You have the medical report.”

  “Please. Just tell me what her medical condition does to her.”

  “She hurts—every part of her, every joint hurt. There is inflammation at every part that bends or flexes. Her spine barely bends anymore. The arthritis has begun fusing things together. She walks with a cane, but she can barely scoot around her own home. She spends every day looking at the world outside because she can’t get out and enjoy it. I recently found out that she used to play the violin, and she was good! Really good. I saw the videos. My grandma was saying that she was going to be a professional violinist, and then, she started getting sick, and that was over.”

  “So, Harry, you brought a violin with you. What did you want us to do with it?”

  “Send it with her. If this works, she will be able to see where her passions lie. She might be able to make music somewhere else.”

  Minerva smiled. “Can we see the video of her playing?”

  Harry wiped his cheeks, and he pulled up the video on his phone. The small figure on the huge stage stood and played Amy Beach’s violin sonata.

  Minerva’s voice was wobbly when the music was over. “So, what do you hope this will offer to your aunt?”

  “A chance to actually live a life without fear. A life of her own choosing. She’s helped so many people to find themselves over her lifetime. Now, she needs the boost, so, please. Give it to her.”

  Kyna watched the images of her body being lowered into the tank, her white hair floating freely. The images skipped along in a time-lapse that showed the alterations taking place.

  “Oh. Cool.” She sniffed and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I don’t have access to my file, so I haven’t seen this before.”

  She watched the strands of dark hair start growing, and every now and then, her eyes would open, and the acid green would flash. Her skin firmed up, and her body got taller, and then she was the same person sitting next to Daku.

  “So, that was the toddler you bathed?” He smiled.

  “That was him. When I left, I gave him everything I owned, and I know that he is going to be careful with it.”

  “How much was it?”

  She frowned. “Based on what I know about the monetary system here, it could build this retreat and two more next to it.”

  “So, you were rich.”

  “Nope. I accumulated money. I didn’t need it, and I gave a lot of it away as it came in, but I always meant to give him enough to make sure that his life with his family wasn’t a struggle.”

  “So, for your species, you are an old woman.”

  She chuckled. “I still had twenty-five percent of my life left if I lived to my entire average lifespan.”

  He cocked his head. “I am still older than you.”

  “I know. Rai have Admaryn genes, and you guys can live hundreds and thousands of years under the right conditions. I have no idea what my hybrid self is going to do age-wise, but Amethyst is looking pretty good, so there is hope for me yet.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Amethyst is around ten years younger than I was when that image of me in the tank was taken. She only looks about five years older than I physically appear now.”

  She looked at the screen, a closeup of her reset face with the pointed ear clearly visible in the tank. “I looked so peaceful and polite.”

  He chuckled. “You are polite. You apologize when you cry, when you are injured, when you are furious. I am a little embarrassed to say that I am the source of most of those emotions.”

  She snorted. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how creeped out are you?”

  He smiled. “A four. Why do you look disappointed?”

  She blinked and laughed. “I have absolutely no idea. Well, I guess this was the Truth that the charm was for. I thought it would be sexier.” She stuck out her hand. “It was nice while it lasted.”

  He looked at her hand and set the tablet down. “You are dismissing me?”

  “I am just attempting to make it easier for you to cut association with me.” She swallowed as the shadows in his eyes streaked out and grabbed her. She was dumped into the soaking tub, and she sank herself to the bottom, looking up toward the light.

  The splash of his legs hitting the water made her stay out of his way. He reached down and pulled her up and set her on the bench that surrounded the tub. She wiped the water from her eyes and blinked. “I don’t know why the Rai think that bathing is relaxing.”

  He paused and crouched in front of her. “I want you—the you that you are, and the you
that you were. I am glad that your body no longer tortures you and that you have had people in your life to love you. Are we clear?”

  She brushed more water away and nodded. “Clear.”

  “I want to be one of those people who can love you, but you are making it deliberately tricky.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I am not good with social stuff.”

  He pressed his forehead against hers. “You will get better. We will practice frequently.”

  “Practice what?”

  He smiled. “All social stuff.”

  She shivered. “I think I need an itemized list of what is combined in there.”

  “Dealing with my family.” He kissed her.

  She whispered, “Right.”

  “Dealing with my friends.” Another kiss.

  “Mhmm.”

  “Working with me.” He rubbed his cheek along hers before he kissed her. He surged forward and spun her, setting her on his lap facing him.

  “Working with you, how?”

  He smiled. “As I am retiring, I need to settle down and find a hobby. I believe that you are inspiring when it comes to finding guardians things to do with their hands.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You know very well that—”

  He gave her an innocent look, and he smiled. “I meant your allowing me to practice therapeutic massage on you. What did you think I meant?”

  She wrinkled her nose and huffed. Kyna cuddled against him and draped her arms around his neck. “Why did you not want folks to know about the healing?”

  He murmured softly as if afraid folks would hear. “My mother was a healer, and the demands on her drained her and made her half the woman she used to be. She told me that if it rose early in me to fight it. She wanted me to wait and see if anything else came to the surface. The shadows rose eighteen months later. The healing and the shadows became one because I waited.”

  “Your means of healing is a little... intimate.”

  He chuckled. “I have not tried to use it in years, but seeking rising heat has always been a stable means of locating injury. You put out a lot of heat.”