Alien Terrain by Iris Astres Page A

remains of a few cuts and bruises lingered, but it was
unreal how much improvement there had been.
    She skimmed her fingers over the trace of his wound. He
grabbed her hand and kissed the palm.
    “Do you always heal that quickly?”
    “With proper treatment.” His gaze
slid languidly over her chest.
    “What’s that mean?” Jane could guess, but she was dubious.
“I saved you with my orgasm?”
    “You did.”
    That was ridiculous. And nice.
    “What are you doing?” She looked at the familiar batter in
the bowl. The yellow box with its tempting picture, the egg
shells in the sink. “Are you trying to make pancakes?”
    “Trying?” he objected. “I take it you have little faith in
my abilities.”
    “Au contraire.” There was a smirk
on her face before she’d even finished the lame joke. What was she doing? Breakfast repartee? Easy, girlfriend. One
orgasm does not a vixen make . “I thought you said you couldn’t read my
mind,” she said over her mug.
    “I didn’t read your mind; I read your pantry. Six bags of
coffee, four boxes of pancakes, not much of a puzzle really.”
    Jane had to give him that one.
    He turned back to his bowl. She frowned at the cheap pan
over the burner. These weren’t her things. Her things were gone. She’d never
see her mother’s ancient skillet with the burn mark on the handle again.
    “What is it?”
    “Nothing.” Jane shook it off. “I’ve
never watched a naked man make pancakes before. It doesn’t look completely
safe. Hang on a second.” She went into her room, returning with a pair of black
sweatpants, the trousers he’d been wearing, and her sewing kit.
    “Try these.”
    He slid the sweatpants on. They fit over his hips just fine.
The legs, however, gathered awkwardly midcalf, which made the look a little
less than a success. “Give them back a second.” Jane dug her scissors from the
kit and cut the sweatpants just below the knees. Raj stepped back into them,
pulled them up, and looked…well… He looked a little like a king caught in a
failed attempt to pass himself off as a servant. But for the moment, they would
do the trick.
    “Do I need clothes?” he idly asked, returning to the bowl.
    “It’s a little less distracting.”
    “I don’t mind distracting you.”
    “Forget sex for a second.”
    “Why?” Again that smooth delivery
of his.
    “So you’ll have something to look forward to.”
    “That’s not a bad reason.” He turned toward her with a look
that made her squirmy. Did any of his looks not make her squirmy? “Now what are you doing?”
    “There are two rips in these trousers I think I can mend.
You don’t mind my trying, do you?”
    “I’d rather you not have to work.”
    “It’s not exactly breaking rocks.” Her gaze rose to the
muscles in his stomach, imagining him wielding a great hammer in a dusty
quarry. She made herself go back to mending. The pants would look okay once
they’d been washed and pressed out with a little steam. Raj turned the flame on
underneath the pan, and her attention strayed again.
    “Do you cook at the Body House?”
    “Not there,” he said. “I did cook on the Diam Da and at the temple.”
    “The Diam …what?” She made a few quick stitches over the first tear.
    “The Diam
Da . That’s what they called the spacetraveler that brought us all to
Earth.”
    “I see. How long did that take?”
    Raj grunted, and she raised her eyes in time to see his head
snap quickly to the window. He shifted like a stallion in a pen and cleared his
throat. “Two years.”
    “Two years,” she repeated, watching him. “That sounds
awful.”
    “In fact, it was much worse than awful.”
    Why’d he do it? Who is
he really? “Will you ever go back home?”
    “Not if I have any choice.” Another
stallion step. Another grunt. “I spent two
years in space to get here. Two long years surrounded by gray walls and bad
smells. I’m not putting myself through that again.”
    Jane thought about two years trapped