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Olickies could have given her these marks, just as much as any other alien. They weren’t in the clear.

Nell turned back to her failed attempt at writing alien erotica. She wanted to give her readers what they begged for. She hadn’t written a successful thing in years.

If she could get it right and get over her fears of being intimate with an alien, Nell could write stories so hot they’d blow the roof off this place. She could get her readers salivating for more.

But first, she needed to salivate over an alien herself. If Nell wasn’t turned on by the aliens she wrote about, her readers would know she was faking it.

That wasn’t going to happen. Not now, not tomorrow, maybe not until next year. Maybe never. Maybe this was it. She’d done her best writing and had to admit she was part of a retro age. People didn’t want the kind of romance she wrote about. Nell couldn’t write what people demanded. She didn’t have alien erotica in her.

Her heart ached as she felt her dream slip through her fingers. Writing brought her pleasure, and the extra money was a bonus. There had to be a way to get over her fear.

She wasn’t giving up on the meditating, or her calming stones, or her therapy sessions with Doctor Kingsbury who’d help shift things in the last couple of months. Maybe she’d have a breakthrough anytime now.

Nell also had her belly dancing. She loved to dance and found it a great way to release her frustrations.

She pulled up the sleeve of her jumpsuit and stared at the puncture marks on the inside of her wrist. This was something she would beat, no matter what it took.

Nell’s wrist device pinged, signaling a message. She opened it to find a voice note from Vegas.

Nell, I need you in the office at five this morning. Sorry to crack the whip, but we’ve had an emergency request that Diadora approved. We have a dozen new matches to make by the end of the day. I promise you a huge cake and a bonus if you help me.

Nell groaned. It was already one o’clock in the morning. She’d be crabby and exhausted at work all because of those dumb aliens and her inability to force out an orgasm over them.

She grabbed a cushion and screamed into it before tossing it across the room. “I hate aliens.”

Chapter 4

Rane stifled a yawn behind his hand. His gaze shifted to the view out of the window, to the hundreds of bright specks of starlight outside. He’d much rather be out there, spacewalking and taking in the majesty of everything around him. Being out there inspired him.

Being in here, stuck in a boardroom with a dozen tedious diplomats, did nothing but make him want to take a long nap.

He discreetly tugged at the neck of the shirt he wore. All diplomatic support advisors wore the same uniform, a black fitted suit and a white collarless shirt underneath. The clothing made him feel stifled and restless, more like a servant than an advisor. Sometimes that was what he felt like when a particularly angst-filled diplomat gave inappropriate orders or acted like an entitled idiot. It happened more often than he liked.

“We have another dozen points to negotiate.” The Tolong diplomat, Councillor Agrave, tapped a finger on the desk in front of him.

“Those points are not negotiable.” The Monomar opposite him, General Dakat, waggled a tentacle in the air. “There is nothing to discuss.”

Rane agreed with him. If they could stop nit-picking on pointless details, they could get out of here. He could grab a beer in the Enchanted Captain and head to his studio for a couple of hours of undisturbed painting.

He had an idea for a painting that wouldn’t leave his thoughts, and it revolved around that intense, troubled human who had appeared in his studio late last night.

Rane still hadn’t finished the last three paintings he’d started, but this one would be it. It would capture Nell’s essence on canvas.

He glanced down at his hands and noticed a small amount of dried red paint under one nail. He grinned to himself and tucked his hands behind his back. His boss, Cowes, was also in the room and hated it if any of his support advisers were seen looking untidy.

Rane’s family had served as support advisers for generations, attending boring, long-winded meetings in the hope of stopping enemies from coming to blows and giant egos from exploding and starting the next blood bath.

Although Olickies were great at this, no one was perfect, as the intergalactic war that raged on the other side of the wormhole showed.

Rane knew the effect his voice had on others. He could calm most situations. He sometimes considered it wrong to prevent someone from acting out their urges. What was the harm in people trading blows if they had a genuine grievance with each other?

He’d also seen his boss use his voice to twist others to his will on several occasions. It left a bad taste in his mouth. He wouldn’t do that, not to anyone. He’d rather walk away and be considered a coward or a failure than manipulate someone because he had a talent for it, especially if it involved making them do something they didn’t want to do.

His attention shifted from the boring meeting, and Rane went back to stargazing. The Milky Way was so beautiful. Where he came from, the stars were closer and more dazzling. Here, there was so much beauty and so many areas yet to be discovered and explored.

The thought of all the unknown visual delights made his stomach clench with excitement. He could live here for the rest of his life and touch a fraction of what was out there. Rane had an almost uncontrollable desire to draw beautiful things.

It wasn’t the typical beauty some admired. Rane could see beauty in rocks, stars, and ice. There were fascinating qualities in everything if you looked for it.