Six on Sunday - THE GIFTED

Six paragraphs from The Gifted
An erotic sci-fi romance novel
Available from New Concepts Publishing
http://newconceptspublishing.com/linda-mooney/

1. It was a woman dressed in a tattered brown-colored dress. There was barely a visible rise and fall at her chest, but what held them in rapt horror were the all-too-real bloody bruises and marks on her body. Someone had brutalized her before sending her off to her death. The knowledge of such inhumanity sent a cold wave of anger through him. Grabbing the tank and mask, Robin pivoted it closer to the head of the capsule. For a second he paused, looking down at the face of the woman lying there. Her face was gray, thin, her skin almost flaccid in death. Her hair, what little he could see lying over her shoulders, was a flat whitish-gray. Despite her appearance, she was young. Inwardly, Robin groaned. It wouldn’t be an old woman who’d already lived out a long life before being sent into space to die with dignity.

2. She closed her eyes, allowing him to cradle her face against his shoulder. Robin took his time to tease her and deliberately build her anticipation ... and his. He indulged in his own fantasies by brushing his lips near her temples, across her cheeks, and up the bridge of her nose with little tickling kisses. He touched her eyelids with the softest contact, then found the creamy skin beneath her ear. He followed an imaginary trail to her throat until she quivered in his embrace. This time when he kissed her, he felt her begin to respond. He touched her lightly, tenderly, teasing her mouth with his lips without encroaching upon its softness. The delicate juice of the apple was still on her mouth. A shiver went through him like an invisible hand shaking him from the inside out. Her lips were as incredible as he’d dreamed they’d be. And when he claimed them fully, they clung to his, molded to his, and sent showers of delight through every part of him.

3. In a daze, Robin stepped toward her, taking her hand and finding it reaching for his face. Silently she rose to stand. She struggled to make her legs obey. For a few seconds Robin believed she would be able to remain on her feet until she started to collapse. He grabbed her, pulling her next to him, holding onto her tightly as her arms encircled his neck for support. She leaned into him and buried her face in his neck. He was not as surprised to learn she was as tall as he was as he was stunned by the feel of her body against his.

4. “I just hope to God you do,” Peter said. “Something else, too, I wish you’d think about tonight. Think about your life. Think about how much it’s gonna change if you stay on this course. Do you think the Center will want to keep you on if you’re found to be responsible for exposing her? Do you honestly believe things will remain the same? Are you willing to risk everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve, your position here, and all you ever cared about in this world? Are you willing to risk them just so you can have a few unguarded moments with a space girl?” He stared for a long moment into a pair of clear green eyes and saw there was no hesitation in Robin’s response.

5. Several scientists and technicians screamed as they watched the star girl suddenly began to glow like the core of a miniature sun, a halo of intensified heat pulsating around her entire body. As she lifted her arms straight out to her sides, her hands flashed open, fingers spread, and her entire body seemed to push forward. It was as if the entire plexiglass chamber, inner room, airlock, and console were covered in twinkling lights—lights which swirled, coalesced, solidified, and with her second breath vanished instantaneously in a blinding flash and a hiss of sound. They stampeded for the exit in mindless terror from the room which no longer contained anything other than themselves and the creature advancing toward them. The woman walking out of the disintegrated lab was truly a being from another world. She had changed. Her skin had turned a bright pink. Her eyes were wide, transfixed, almost hypnotic. She held her hands out to her sides, palms out, and she walked with a defiance born of her station and power. She was chaos and destruction personified.

6. Two guns belched fire. Less than a second later, two more guns behind him roared. The jetcopter exploded in a fireball as cameras continued to roll. As the people watching called out, sobbing and screaming at what they were witnessing. As a dozen security officers from the space center finally reached the landing field and took General Overmeyer into custody. The man had a smile of satisfaction on his face. Hands grabbed at him as Robin tried to push through the press of bodies to get to the man being handcuffed. There was no longer anything in his mind or in his body that gave him that connection to the woman he’d given his heart to. No sense of her, no thread of life. He was an empty void of darkness—a void that was quickly filling up with diamond-hard anger and sharp hate. He continued to push and bully his way through the growing crowd. He was going to punish the man responsible for such a brazen, inhumane act. He would kill today. Somehow, someway, Overmeyer was a walking corpse.
*****
Blurb:
THE GIFTED
Erotic Sci-Fi Romance
(ebook) ISBN# 978-1-60394-104-4
Word Count: 116K

After being banished from her own world because her people deeply feared the scope of her powers, an anomaly shoots Sah'Reena toward Earth and the one man in the universe meant to be her mate.

No one, least of all Dr. Robin Dickenson, expected what they discovered when they opened the alien craft captured by the space shuttle Liberty while on a routine space mission. But from the moment he first sees the star girl, Sah'Reena, Robin is captivated.

Near death, and never expecting to see anything again beyond the endless void of space, Sah'Reena isn't certain, at first, that her mind isn't playing tricks on her. But the handsome face of the stranger she sees gives her hope for life when she'd thought all hope was gone.

Warning! Contains carbon dioxide poisoning, severe sleep depravation, challenging authority, kosher cooking, dissolving aircraft, and an ability that could wipe out an entire planet.