Rescued By the Alien Dad (Single Alien Dads in Space #6)

Chapter 1

JUNIPER (JUNE)

I’d give my left arm for a cup of coffee.

No, both arms. I’d let someone hack off my upper limbs in exchange for a single, piping hot mug.

I’d have to figure out a new way to masturbate, but it might be worth the trade-off.

It’s been twelve years since I’ve had a cup, but I can still taste the bold, smoky flavor of my morning French roast with just a touch of sweetness from the lone pack of sugar.

Fasuun isn’t exactly like coffee, in that it’s pale pink and tastes like a liquified cantaloupe, but it has something in it that gives me a jolt of energy, which is essential since I’m not a morning person.

And luckily, on Di ur Qinya, aka the Isle of Many, there’s a brew shop that serves it on every corner.

I’ve been a resident of the island, and planet Ceevip II for a little over a month, and I have to say, it might be my favorite place since Earth.

The bar isn’t exactly high since I was kidnapped from Earth and sold as a slave to various political leaders and royalty on backwater planets, but still.

The Isle of Many on Ceevip II has a mild, mostly warm climate, and more importantly, now that I’m here, I belong only to myself.

My freedom wasn’t cheap. It took a year of careful planning, several wounds on my arms that have scarred over, and some unfortunate bloodshed, but overall, it was worth the cost of my sanity to get me here. It even––

“Blech.” My tongue is flooded with a sour taste I don’t recognize. I look down at the words on the cup. “This isn’t my order.”

As I turn back toward the barista, I slam into a hard wall of muscle that wasn’t there a moment ago.

The cup gets squished between our bodies, sending the flimsy top flying and the drink spilling all over the other person’s chest. By some miracle, not even a drop lands on me.

As for the unfortunate victim of my clumsiness?

Well, his expensive-looking white shirt is now the color of bubblegum.

At least it was an iced drink, and there’s no chance of it scalding him.

I lift my chin up, up, up, craning my neck to where his head sits about a mile above me. “I’m so sorry,” I say in the native tongue of this solar system. “Please forgive me.”

The shape of my mouth goes from a horrified oval to a gaping circle because holy shit, it’s my hot neighbor.

I’ve seen him a handful of times since I moved into my tiny bungalow along the shore, and resisting the urge to ogle him has always been difficult, but this is worse.

The previous sightings were from afar. Passing glances at best.

I’m so close to him now that I can study the sharp line of his jaw, the thick column of his throat, the shape of his muscular chest as the spilled drink seeps into his shirt, making it cling to his body.

The sleeves of said shirt are straining against his biceps, of which he has four.

Four! He’s a four-armed Adonis. His skin is purple, which I knew, but up close, I can see that it’s more of a dark amethyst, complex and radiant, especially when a beam of sunlight hits his cheek.

My hand reaches up toward his face as I admire the silvery white curls of his hair, and his neatly trimmed white beard.

At the last minute, I realize what I’m about to do and brush my bangs to the sides of my forehead in an attempt to play it cool.

I have no idea what his name is, what species he is, or if the rest of his kind are also born with four arms, but what I do know, is that this man is too fucking pretty to be out in public.

How many traffic jams does he cause in a single day? Too many, I’m guessing. He’s a menace.

“What did you say?” he asks as his teal eyes travel across my face.

Shit, did I just call him a menace out loud?

“Uh, I’m a menace,” I amend. “Sorry, about this.”

His soiled shirt is dripping onto the floor, and here I’ve been staring at him and doing nothing else. I toss the cup in the trash can and grab a stack of napkins, dropping some haphazardly onto the floor where the mess is and pressing the rest into the carved abs I can feel through his shirt.

The air between us crackles with tension, but I break it by bending down and focusing on the spill.

He crouches down a moment after I do and helps clean it up with his four hands.

Four strong, capable-looking hands with matching triangle tattoos that encircle his wrists and forearms. The same black triangles appear on either side of his face, in the hollow of his cheekbones.

How far up his arms do these tattoos go?

Are they tattoos? Birthmarks, maybe? I feel myself biting my lip as I let my mind wander.

The spill is gone lickety-split.

Mm, that many hands would be a lot of fun.

“You’re forgiven,” he mutters without looking at me.

His expression has been stony this entire time and his posture rigid.

I haven’t made a new friend today, that much is clear, but hopefully after some time passes, we’ll have the kind of neighborly relationship where we can exchange awkward waves and knowing grins, silently acknowledging that one time we spoke and what a chaotic encounter it was.

We don’t speak again as we collect the drink orders we came in for. When we part ways just outside the brew shop, I say, “Well, I guess I’ll see you around.”

His response is a single grunt as his long legs and impressively thick thighs take him away.

Whatever, I tell myself, shrugging it off. There are plenty of people I haven’t met yet on the island, some of whom are sure to find me delightful. Or, more realistically, moderately tolerable. His loss.

I savor each sip of my fasuun as I walk back to my place and change into the new bikini I bought.

Thank god this planet has so many human refugees; otherwise, the only thing I’d have to wear is the ratty standard issue jumpsuit my previous owner supplied.

The online store I ordered from on the mainland is filled with options for not only humans, but humans with meat on their bones.

And amazingly, the selection isn’t comprised of cheaply made, floral-printed sacks like on Earth.

There are actually items that were made for women with big breasts, wide shoulders, and squishy tummies.

I tie the sheer fuchsia sarong around my waist and admire myself in the mirror.

Wearing a bikini is a new experience for me.

I’ve been chubby since I was a child, so for most of my life, I’ve been conditioned to cover all the parts deemed offensive by society regardless of the temperature.

The good part about being kidnapped from Earth and immediately surrounded by aliens of varying shapes and sizes is that I’ve learned to ignore the asshole voice in my head that wants me to expend energy worrying about how I look.

My focus became about survival, and also, no one cares how I look, especially here on the Isle of Many.

As far as I can tell, I’m the only human, and no two beings look the same here.

As such, physical comparisons seem all the more ridiculous.

My fingers trace the silver lines along my lower stomach, and I smile at the different shapes I can create between them and at how many of them look like little bolts of lightning. Each white trail etched in my skin is a chapter or a scene in my story. It’s nice to finally feel proud of them.

I’ve drained about half of my fasuun by the time I step onto the beach in front of my house, but that’s okay because it’s just enough to sip on as I walk along the sand from one end of the beach to the other.

I have no idea why the local government set up free housing for refugees along the beach or why the wealthy locals bought their homes inland.

It seems backwards to me, but I’m not about to complain about free beachfront property.

The sand is a light gray, and not as powder-soft as the Florida beaches from my youth, but at least it doesn’t burn my feet.

I edge a little closer to the water to test the temperature.

The ocean here is the color of merlot. It freaked me out at first, staring out at the blood-red sea without even a glimmer of the mainland on the horizon, but the more I look at it, the more I’ve gotten used to it.

At sunset, it’s quite beautiful. A shiver races up my spine when the water runs over my toes, but it’s actually not that cold the deeper I wade into it.

It’s not bathwater warm by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s not about to stop my heart either.

A contented sigh escapes me as I continue my stroll, water cool around my ankles and sun warm on my face. I close my eyes, soaking it all in, wondering how I got this lucky.

I think of Nacarya and Rivarry, the wives of the king on Etirinu, who I served, and I hope they’re okay…

wherever they ended up. My memories of them take me back to that horrible time, trying to survive in that giant, miserable castle.

Trying to avoid him and his wrath. I’m so lost in thought that I don’t notice I’ve waded deeper, into the water and it’s now up to my knees, or the unexpectedly large wave that knocks me sideways.