Page 2 of Two Aliens Are Better Than One (Bodyguards in Space #1)

Chapter 1

Lucky

F our Months Later

That was it. I had the loudest neighbor on this entire space station. I covered my head with a pillow, but still the loud gasps and moans filtered through the fluffy fabric. You’d think a space station built by one of the wealthiest and most technologically advanced species in the galaxy would have decent walls, but it was loud enough that it felt like my neighbor and his partner were in the bed with me. I pounded on the wall then cursed, because walls were hard and my hands were not built for punching things.

In response, something on the other side of it slammed into it in a rhythmic tempo that could only mean one thing. Especially when combined with that much moaning.

“Shut up!” I yelled. “Don’t you people ever rest? Some of us have jobs!”

Actually, I’d thought everyone on this part of the space station had a job. The tourists were in a different pod. And my neighbor definitely lived on the space station — he’d been there since before I moved in, though I had yet to meet him. The sex hadn’t started until a few weeks ago, though. Or maybe that was when the sound insulation failed.

I didn’t understand how one dude could have the stamina to… well, let’s just say that the women of this space station were very well satisfied. Every night it was a different woman’s voice, different words. Hell, sometimes I was pretty sure there was a man in there. Or more than one person. I’d tried earplugs and noise-cancelling headphones, but nothing let me sleep through the loud sex happening next door.

I’d always considered the Chokreini to be an uptight, passionless race, but this guy made me question that. He definitely wasn’t lacking for passion.

“How is it possible that it’s getting louder?” I muttered, slipping into my fuzzy unicorn slippers to protect my feet from the icy-cold metal floors and stomping across the room to open the door, determined to confront my sex-obsessed neighbor once and for all. It was quiet hours on the space station, so the long, curving corridor outside was empty and the lights were dimmed. I blinked for a moment, staring at the sleek electric sliding door to apartment 1032.

The door was steel, but was painted a warm red color like all the other doors in the hall, with geometric symbols on it that made it oddly inviting. The Chokreini had an old superstition about red doors, and it carried through even into their space stations. I knocked, but my knuckles only made a gentle thudding sound. I pressed the doorbell and a little viewscreen beneath it prompted me to enter a password. Who password-protected their doorbell? What if there was an emergency?

This was turning out to be a wholly unsatisfying outlet for my sleep-deprivation-induced rage. I pounded on the door with the side of my fist, and still no sound. Then finally I kicked it, forgetting about the fluffy unicorn slippers — so still no sound, and I might have broken my toe. I hissed out a curse or twelve, hopping up and down the hallway. That had hurt.

A Chokreini woman walked by, her eyes darting at me like we were in a dark alley and I was a mugger. Were there muggers on the space station after lights out? Wait, was she a mugger? The only people who were supposed to be out at this hour were essential workers, and she didn’t look like a janitor. The woman was beautiful, as they all were. She was dressed in a sparkly gown and had silver hair, silvery iridescent skin, and a tall, slim form that made me feel a little dumpy. I wasn’t dumpy, not really — on Earth I was on the curvy side of average — but among the excessively tall and svelte Chokreini, where I already stood out, I felt on the verge of developing body image issues.

She hurried past me, looking more frightened than I was, and I realized I probably looked a little crazy.

My invitation to work on the space station had been warm and welcoming, and the Chokreini seemed hospitable, but once I moved here I’d discovered the hidden xenophobia in their culture. They feared or dismissed anyone else who wasn’t Chokreini as a lesser race. So even though I was there as part of an elite post-doctorate research fellowship in their astrobiology lab, people either ignored what I had to say or told me my golden hair was pretty and tried to pet me like a puppy. It wasn’t fun, but the research and career opportunities were worth it so I was trying to stick it out for the full nine-month commitment.

Or at least I had been sticking it out. Until the sex noises started about five months in. Now I just wanted to go somewhere quiet and sleep.

I waited for the woman to disappear around a bend in the corridor, then went back to glaring at the red door to apartment 1032. In the hallway you could no longer hear the sex sounds, so there must have been something faulty in the soundproofing between our rooms. Right as I went to knock again, his door slid open and a lovely Chokreini woman stepped out. She shot me a frightened look when I dove for the door and slipped past her and into the apartment.

“You can’t go in there, he’s an—” The door slipped closed and cut her off. Not that I would have listened anyway.

The first thing I noticed about his room was that it was much bigger than mine. I didn’t know rooms on the Chokri Station could be this big, but now that I saw the curving window and expansive views of the garden pod at the center of the station to one side and space to the other, I realized we were in a corner apartment and that those funky walls that stuck out at the corners of the residential pod were massive apartments.

The second thing I noticed was the half-naked man standing with his back to me. I wasn’t sure if he noticed me, though. He appeared to be staring out the window. Like all Chokreini men, his skin was a pale, silver-lavender color that almost glowed. The iridescent bits along his shoulders and forearms would shift in tone with his mood, but right now they were a calm purple. And those were some shoulders. My gaze took in his narrow waist. His soft pants barely concealed a thickly rounded ass and powerful thighs. It was the body of a warrior, while the Chokreini were mostly scholarly. Perhaps they put in their hours in the gym anyway.

This was the first one I’d seen partly naked, but his beautiful body made me think about including more naked Chokreini in my daily routine. He still hadn’t acknowledged me, though, and it was becoming awkward.

I cleared my throat.

“I know you’re there. I was hoping you’d realize what an imposition this is and leave,” he said, leaning down to pick up a black robe. He shrugged it on and I watched with moderate lust as it draped softly over his shoulders, accentuating all of his muscles. He turned, smiling a little as his gaze scanned over my body. From the front side, he had the body of a sex god and the face of a… okay, also a sex god. His face was angular and symmetrical in a way that was almost severe, but he had these lush lips that could probably do some very naughty things to a woman.

Through the walls I’d heard some women shouting positive feedback, and what once was annoying suddenly became kind of a turn-on. Also, the sheer quantity of sex he had was now fully explained.

My fingers itched to touch the fabric, or maybe to tear the fabric away and just drape myself over him like a robe so I could slide over his body the way it was doing. It was unlike any fabric I’d ever seen, so silky and soft.

He raised an eyebrow at me, and that simple movement startled me out of my leering. Had I been obvious? I’d probably been obvious. Shit.

“I need to talk to you about what I came here to talk to you about,” I said.

His hair was silver-white, long on the top and a little messy, which made me feel like I was seeing an intimate side of him. The Chokreini culture had a strong emphasis on perfection of outward appearance, one I was struggling to come to terms with. “You’re human?” he realized.

“I’m your neighbor.”

“I know.”

I huffed. “How can you know I’m your neighbor but not know I’m human?”

He shot me a cool, assessing look, then shrugged and stalked across the room. “Since you’re not going anywhere, would you like some aekie ?” he asked, pouring himself a glass of the preferred Chokreini hot drink. It tasted like lemon-scented dirty socks, so I did my best to avoid it. Sadly, they used it the way the British use tea, as an answer to any kind of unsettling, happy, sad, or awkward situation.

“You’re inviting me for aekie ?” I asked. “I’m here to yell at you.”

“I know. No, then?” He calmly poured himself a cup, then took a sip before turning back to look at me. Fuck, he was irritating. “I thought a drink might calm you. You seem agitated.”

“Agitated is an understatement. I’m glad you’re relaxed after your epically loud orgasm, but I have a mentally exhausting daytime job and I need my sleep,” I said, planting my hands on my hips. “Could you please be quieter? Especially after lights-out.”

He took another sip of his drink, his strange golden eyes gliding over me. “What makes you think I had an orgasm?”

Without my permission, my eyes flicked down to his crotch. Thankfully, the tie on the robe hid that part of him, and when I looked back up I couldn’t tell if he’d noticed, though it seemed like his left eyebrow had moved up about a centimeter. I cleared my throat. “Well, you were pretty loud. There was so much dramatic moaning.”

“Was there?” He set his cup down and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Yes! I can hear everything, and I mean everything, through the walls!” I hissed, pointing at the wall for emphasis.

His communicator pinged and he glanced down at it, his entire expression changing. “You can’t be in here. Laisi called security and they’re on their way.”

“Can’t you just tell them you invited me here for a drink?”

He shook his head curtly. “That would not do. You must leave before they arrive.” He took my arm firmly, leading me towards the door.

“But…”

“I’ll see what I can do about the noise issue. I have no desire to keep you awake at night.” And with a light shove, I was back out in the hallway and a little confused about why I’d let him manhandle me. Should have kicked him in the balls or something.

Defeated, I trudged back towards my room, picking up the pace when I heard the rhythmic thump of footsteps further down the hall. I had just slipped inside, and was watching through the viewscreen camera when they pounded on his door, flopping back in my bed. I wasn’t sure what he said to security, but they left in a rush and I finally had my peace and quiet. So I supposed standing up for myself was worth something.

And for a minute I’d almost forgotten about the text I’d gotten from my Relzo, the one that had let me know he was leaving on another dangerous deep cover assignment and wasn’t sure when he’d be back in touch.

The one that was eating away at my sleep even more than the noise, because with each passing week the chance that he had gotten killed while undercover grew. Out of habit, I pulled out my communicator and did a quick search for his name, looking for a news article or obituary, and sighed in relief when, as usual, the search came up blank.