Alien Romance: Fall for a Cyborg (Sci-Fi Futuristic Alien Abduction Fantasy Space Warrior Romance) (Science Fiction Mystery Paranormal Urban Short Stories) by Emma Taylor Page A

was in a humorous rather than sarcastic way. As she looked into his deep brown eyes she could feel her resolve weaken. Maybe this was one game she wasn’t planning to win?
    “Let’s start again shall we?” James practically purred into her ear. “James Miller; pleased to meet you Miss Jackson.”
    Relaxing her shoulders, Anita held out her hand. “You can call me Anita.”
    From the first touch she was completely lost to his charms. As well as being devilishly handsome, he was charming, witty and a great conversationalist. As the wine flowed easily her defences weakened, and she started to tell James about her life, about George. It seemed easy talking to him, and he seemed to listen too, bending his head towards her face to catch her words above the music.
    “Would you like to dance?”
    Anita’s heart skipped a beat. Woozy with alcohol she attempted to stand, swaying slightly on her feet.
    “Here, let me help you,” said James. He offered his arm, and Anita clasped her hand around him, feeling the strong muscles in his forearm straining beneath his jacket. On the dance floor his arm circled her waist. The band had just started playing an old-fashioned waltz, and they set off around the ballroom. Anita wasn’t a dancer but James was the perfect partner, twirling her around the other couples like a pro.
    “I didn’t know you could dance,” said Anita.
    “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” James growled in her ear, his low gravelly voice making the hairs on her neck stand on end. She nuzzled her face into his shoulder, breathing deeply a sweet manly smell, a mixture of expensive cologne and something else; something more basic, earthy and musky, almost animal like. She had not felt this happy for a long time. Maybe she had never felt this way. She was bewitched and beguiled and didn’t want the dance to end. She was lost in the moment.
    A loud crash ended her reverie and suddenly the atmosphere changed in the room. Two masked men had broken in through the large plate glass doors and were standing in the middle of the dance floor wielding automatic machine guns. The music stopped abruptly and the dancers froze. Anita felt James’s body tighten, a coiled spring ready for action before he released her and moved away.
    “James?” she whispered his name under her breath, already sensing that he had moved away. Moving her hand out to the side she reached for him but he had gone.
    “You, stay still, stop moving,” he said quietly. Anita looked forward as one of the masked men moved towards her, roughly taking her by the arm. Waving his rifle in the air he fired a warning shot into the ceiling before dragging her towards the centre of the room. A bullet hit the magnificent glass chandelier sending shards of splintered glass onto the crowd. The women screamed and the men tried to shield them from danger. Another shot was fired and the room fell silent.
    The man pushed Anita in front of him and she felt something cold, something metal pushed against her temple. She had quickly sobered but now felt sick with alarm, her heart hammering strangely in her breast. This was something that happened on the news, in war zones, not to ordinary people. Her captor reeked of evil, rancid and bitter, the acrid sweat leaching from every pore. He spoke with a thick accent.
    “Don’t move, lady, or I shoot you,” he said. His hand moved from across her middle up to her breast and squeezed the soft flesh hard, causing her to flinch.
    Anita looked around the room at the other guests, all wide-eyed with fear, glad at least that they weren’t in her shoes. Where was James? When the going got tough he had disappeared like a coward and abandoned her. Where were all his words of bravado now, all that macho talk and arrogance?
    The other raider had started haranguing the other guests, stripping the ladies of their jewels and the men of their expensive watches and cufflinks.
    A noise from outside the ballroom caught