Trouble in Utopia (Planet Double Dick #16)

PART SIXTEEN

Mel

I stare at Tammy in horror. Her shocking words are clanging around my head.

Gay!

El-Frankin…gay!

“I…no, he isn’t. It’s not that. It can’t be,” I stammer. “We were never told anything about that. These men aren’t gay. None of them. They are in desperate need of women, that’s what this is all about.” I pause. “Isn’t it?”

She shrugs. “We weren’t told that our ears would go pointy in the new atmosphere or that we wouldn’t cook it would all be done for us and delivered to the cooler pods. Clearly things were left out of the information lecture. Planet Hade was painted as a perfect utopia. The males loyal, attentive,

honest, caring, and sexy as fuck, but that isn’t quite true either is it.”

She pouts the way we both do when truly pissed off.

“At least not for me. You’re positively glowing, Mel. You got the right brother. Ar-Hagan is perfect.”

“He’s not perfect.” I pause. “He’s got an ego that only just fits through the door, he’s super confident in himself, and he’s…”

“That’s hardly a problem, confidence.”

I sigh. I can’t find fault with my new mate. He’s handsome and sexy and makes me feel like I am the only woman in his world. And all the men here are confident, intelligent, and totally unapologetic in the things they and their planet have achieved.

“What else haven’t they told us?” she asks.

I decide to keep the information about the Jakarty to myself for now. Tammy has enough on her plate without learning there are a bunch of piratical rebels on the other side of the mountains who are without women yet would very much like some.

“Do you want me to talk to Ar-Hagan?” I ask.

“You tried that.”

“But I didn’t push it. It was the wrong moment on the way to the palace. But I will try again, happily, for you.”

She squeezes the bridge of her nose. “If you think it will help, then yes, please, speak to Ar-Hagan and see if you can glean any information about his brother’s relationship with In-Sar.”

“In-Sar.” I repeat. “You think it’s him…that El-Frankin really wants?” I feel slightly sick just saying it, this turn of events, if true, would be so huge and affect us all so much.

“I don’t know, but I can’t think who else it would be. There are no other visitors. These males don’t exactly socialize the way humans do. They are head down, work, sleep, eat, breed…or at least that’s the other thing they are supposed to want to do.”

“We will fix this, I promise.” I hug her again, and then stand. “And sooner rather than later.”

“You are going to speak to him now?”

“No time like the present.”

I glance at the window. The stars are in full bloom in the darkened sky and the pink moon glows like a gentle, perfectly round rosebud. A light flashes on the horizon.

I peer a little closer. What is it? A vehicle perhaps?

It disappears.

Tammy flops onto the bed again and pulls a pillow close. “I’m so miserable.”

My heart squeezes for her disappointment and loneliness and I know that I will not rest until I fix this for her. We are a team, more than a team, we are twins and if one of us is not happy, how can the other be?

I walk from the room, my gown swishing behind me, and cross the white bridge, encircled with glass, to the area of the bala reserved for our bedchamber and en suite.

When the door slides open, Ar-Hagan’s silhouette is revealed to me. He is seated beside the vast window looking out at the same beautiful night sky I just admired. His dark hair skims his naked wide shoulders and he sits rod straight.

The door closes behind me.

“How is she?” he asks without turning.

“Upset.”

“We will find a solution to this.”

“I know.” I walk up to him and place my hand on his shoulder absorbing his body heat and his strength. “We have to work together, though, not take sides.” I bite on my bottom lip. I’d always be on Tammy’s side but I wanted this conversation to go smoothly.

“We can do that.” He rests his warm palm over my hand. “I know we can.”

I step in front of him and study the pink moon again. The craters are swirling curves and so very pretty.

“Tammy thinks El-Frankin isn’t interested in getting to know her,” I say hesitantly.

“Why does she think that?” His voice is a little stiff.

“Because he doesn’t spend time with her, the way we do.”

“I told you he’s busy.”

“Ar-Hagan.” I turn to him. “It’s more than that. All the males on Planet Hade are busy, if not with farming, then with science, or running the military, or governing the Civilized Tundra as the king is doing, but they have all spent quality time with their Earth women.”

He sighs and tugs his beard. “You are right.”

I resist the urge to say ‘I know’.

“It was hard for him,” Ar-Hagan says quietly. “He lost three daughters and his mate, and his two sons have been away on the militarized border at Balak Canyon for many years. He lost his entire family almost overnight.”

“Didn’t most of you?”

“Yes, it’s true.” Sadness flashes over his eyes. “They did.”

“You lost too,” I say. Ar-Hagan and his mate hadn’t had children. The medics were investigating their lack of conception when the virus struck. But he still lost her.

“But I didn’t lose as much as some.” He sets his hands in his lap, fingers intertwined. “El-Frankin was silent for over three years, his grief so consuming he couldn’t even bring himself to speak.”

This is news to me. Poor soul must have been utterly crushed. “What changed that?”

“The farm, working, putting his entire energy store into physical labor so that he didn’t eat himself alive with sadness.”

I nod. “And when he did finally speak, what did he say?”

“It wasn’t to me. The first time he spoke it was to In-Sar. I don’t know what he said.”

I swallow a little tightly. I am reluctant to probe about In-Sar because that was when our earlier conversation hit a wall…the mention of his name.

“In-Sar has worked on the farm for many years,” Ar-Hagan goes on, “he is excellent at managing the crops, pests, and the harvest. They have been firm friends for all of that time.”

“Did In-Sar lose a mate?”

“No, he was yet to choose one. He is younger than us.”

“I understand.”

“He is patient, and kind and didn’t push El-Frankin to shake his grief, he accepted it was something he needed to work through in his own time, learn to bear its weight. Perhaps I wasn’t so patient, I wanted him to talk to me. It was hard living out here with a mute.”

“You are very patient,” I say, “from what I’ve seen, and you were grieving too.”

“I could have done better for my brother.” He sighs. “But at least the farm ran well, we had bumper crops and the king was pleased.”

I nod. Pleasing the king is always important it seems.

“Do you think In-Sar might be able to explain El-Frankin’s recent behavior?”

“I don’t know what you mean?”

“Yes, you do, the fact that Tammy and El-Frankin are not close. Look what we just walked into in the kitchen. They were fighting. Is it something to do with In-Sar?”

“Fighting?”

“Arguing, disagreeing?” I keep my tone as neutral as possible.

“About him not knowing you liked to go to an Earth wine house called Gibby’s.”

“Yes, you know so much more about me than he does Tammy. They’ve not progressed from the first few days. We need to know why, don’t you think?”

“I agree.” He clicks his tongue. “Maybe I should speak to him.”

At last! “I think that would be helpful, for everyone. Because if they are not happy, how can we be?”

His attention snaps to me. “You are not happy?”

“With you, being here, of course, it’s wonderful, magical, but I want Tammy to feel the same…and right now she doesn’t.”

“I understand. And I will speak to El-Frankin tomorrow, early, we will bring them together.”

“Thank you.” I let my gaze flow down his body. How wonderful he is for learning my language, and for bending over backwards to make my life comfortable and special. He thinks of everything.

I am grateful to him, and I admire him for it too. And on top of it all he is so damn sexy. I lick my lips, remembering the taste of his cocks, the feel of him in my mouth. He sounds so raw and masculine when he comes, a deep guttural groan that’s infused with extreme satisfaction.

I want to hear that noise again. I want to come too, with him.

Perhaps now is the time to move this up a level.

Make our own progress toward the breeding program.

I flick my hair over my shoulders and take hold of the bow that holds the front of my dress up. As I pull at the knot on my nape it I realize how ridiculously flimsy it is and I was lucky it didn’t undo while I was sitting at dinner with the king and queen.