Siren (Genetically Altered Humans) Read online

Dear Goddess, his girl just noticed the enjoyment of self-pleasure.

  Lily arched her back, her nipple cutting through the water’s edge and she moaned softly as if she enjoyed the small sting of water that slapped against her breast.

  He needed to look away. This was so invasive, but yet...so enthralling.

  Instead, he noticed his throbbing cock, caught in his too-tight charcoal cargo pants, harder than he ever thought possible.

  This was a kid, he tried to tell himself. But she looked nothing like a kid—not now. Not with those deliciously perfect breasts, the curvy hips, and rounded ass.

  He was going to die if she lifted a leg to see how the stream of water felt between her thighs.

  He was sick. This was Lily. No matter what the outer package, this was Lily. Slowly he backed away...but his still-hard dick was a reminder of his shame.

  In the kitchen, as far away from Lily as he was able to get, he was able to focus on making breakfast and not on the thought of a naked female pleasuring herself with water just a few feet away. He’d slid the last omelet onto the plate when the sound of soft footsteps padded down the hallway. She’d found another of his shirts and some soft shorts with a drawstring that pulled taut around that flat belly and hitched on the curve of her hips.

  His favorite shorts.

  “You raided my drawers.” He was glad his voice sounded normal.

  “Yup.”

  “Amanda brought you some of your own.” She’d brought the basics, sweats and stuff, knowing the womanly body wouldn’t fit into the same teenage trends.

  “I know.”

  “I’ll take you shopping,” he offered.

  “How?”

  “A bit of makeup to cover those freckles”—he tweaked her nose—“and a dark wig. Do you want to be Goth? I can probably find a black one.” As long as she didn’t do the glow thing, they could cover up her differences.

  “They may notice my fingers and toes,” she said, spreading her fingers to show the slight webbing between them.

  “They’ll be too busy staring at the zit on your nose,” he teased.

  Lily narrowed her eyes at him, the same way she used to, but now with her plumper, rounder features it looked sexy—flirtatious, instead of annoyed. “Do I need to buy a bigger diamond so it won’t be confused with a zit?”

  His bark of laughter filled the kitchen. Goddess, he’d missed this kid. As messed up as he was with the uncomfortable feelings being around her strange new body. Hell, if he had these weird feelings around her, there was no way in hell he’d take her around the other men.

  “Anything bigger than that and it’ll have to go on a finger instead,” he said. For a brief second, he panicked. Any other woman—like his ex-wife—would take him up on the flirt that slipped out so naturally.

  But Lily calmly forked a piece of her omelet past her shapely lips. “Mmm, good,” she said.

  The meaning of a diamond on a finger went right over her head. The Xeno Sapiens weren’t always aware of human traditions. Perhaps that was why he was so comfortable around the new people.

  “Jason?” Lily asked. “Can I try yours to see which one I like better?”

  “Sure,” he said, trying not to imagine her lips on his fork as she tasted his omelet. “Girls usually like vegetables more. Men like the meats.”

  She rolled her eyes. “What a thing a man would say. My species comes from the sea. We were predators.” She said it calmly, without any inflection in her tone.

  “You remember your ancestors then?”

  “I remembered them the day we went shopping for more rings.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “In prehistoric times, we weren’t telepathic. But it didn’t matter that we couldn’t communicate. Later, as we evolved we began to sense each others’ emotions. We developed language as we swam to shore to communicate with the people of the land. They told us their stories, and we realized we had photographic memories. That was when our own telepathic abilities developed and we shared those stories with each other. We became the librarians of the world.”

  “It doesn’t hurt to recall your memories?”

  She forked another bite of omelet into her mouth. “No. Should it?”

  He shrugged. She suddenly seemed wise beyond her years. It was eerie.

  “You’re a very good cook, Jason.”

  “Thank you. I can teach you if you like.”

  “That would be wonderful. There aren’t enough humans to go around on Xenia, and we’re not allowed to cook without one present.”

  “We get tired of putting out fires.” He grinned, trying to get a rise out of her. But she looked at him with mature eyes and agreed.

  Agreed.

  Little Lily would never agree. She would argue the fact and then barter something out of him for allowing him the privilege of teaching her.

  “I recall the name Sherry,” she said suddenly. Her voice wavered. “The dungeon where I was. One of the doctors told the other, ‘Sherry says to keep in the lower level.’ The first doctor argued about the inconvenience. They didn’t have the power necessary in the lower elevation. The equipment constantly short-circuited. They couldn’t move forward with testing unless they had additional electricity.”

  “Did you get the last name?”

  “No.”

  He relaxed somewhat. “It could be anyone. It’s not necessarily my ex-wife.”

  Lily looked at him with her eerie, penetrating eyes. “They called her counselor.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Lily still stared at him, not answering. Not moving. Not blinking.

  “Lily?”

  Still, she stared, zoned out as if she communicated with other Xeno Sapiens. But this was beyond that.

  “Baby girl,” he said softly.

  She snapped to awareness. “Yes?” Reaching out, she slathered an unholy amount of fruit preserves on her toast, and then leisurely licked her fingers. “Mmm, I could live on jelly.” Her voice was lighter, carefree. Younger.

  Odd. It was like talking to two different people. She seemed to have grown up for a brief couple of minutes.

  “Can you still communicate telepathically with the other Xeno Sapiens?” he asked.

  “No. It’s a little bit...stuck.” She shrugged. “It’ll come back, probably. When we’re first awakened, the connections take a bit to strengthen.”

  If she hadn’t zoned out to communicate with other Xeno Sapiens, where the hell did she go?

  Chapter Three

  The vid-cam lit up, but the screen was dark.

  “Jason?” Robyn said. “It’s me and Steele.”

  “Robyn,” he said, trying to keep as much of the emotion from his voice as he could. “Lily’s sleeping now. But something isn’t normal. It’s like one minute she’s Lily the kid, and the next minute she’s someone else.”

  “I need to get to her. Is there any way she can leave the safe house?”

  “No. She’s too volatile. She seems to flip back and forth. She’s not sleeping fully. Sometimes her eyes are open, but she doesn’t respond, as if no one’s home.”

  “Okay, I’ll come to you. I’ll bring as much equipment as I can. With all the commotion though, I’ll have to create a diversion to keep from being followed.”

  “Commotion?”

  “Have you turned on the news?”

  “No.”

  “Jason, Sherry is all over the place. She’s causing trouble everywhere, stating that Lily was probably never kidnapped. That you were probably putting on a show for effect. We’ve got so much attention on the compound it’s ridiculous. People are picketing, demanding to see her, signs littered everywhere. Most of the messages are for us to stop playing with their emotions.”

  “That bitch was behind this somehow. I know it. Lily remembered them referring to Counselor Becker.”

  “That would be why she’s causing attention to herself. Trying to put herself as much in the public eye as possible. As if it makes her a favorite in the eyes of the public. But look, it’s going to take a few days, maybe a week, to sneak out of here. I’ll have to leave Steele here with Kaden and some pumped milk. In the meantime, call me if anything changes with her. If she sleeps more...or less. Amanda’s afraid something might trigger a spontaneous coma.”

  “I will.”

  He disconnected and opened the patio door to find Lily standing forlornly in the living room. Was she asleep or awake?

  “Lily?”

  She stared at him, coming to, biting her plump lower lip. “What’s on the agenda for today?”

  Goddess. It was tomorrow, actually. She had no sense of time measurement with her exhausted, worn-out brain.

  “I’d like to take you swimming.” He smiled easily.

  Lily smiled. “Okay.” Reaching for the hemline of his shirt—which she’d taken to wearing—she lifted it and flung it over her head.

  “Fuck,” he muttered. Naked, she was fucking perfect. So fucking, amazingly perfect. He felt his cock harden. “I told you to stop stripping naked.” His words had no anger because how could they? She was fucking beautiful, her stance perfectly natural and at ease being nude. “There’s a swimsuit in your dresser.”

  She smiled at him, and hell if it wasn’t a bewitchingly womanly smile. No way was this his teenage girl. No, right now, she was the other. The enticing witch she’d grown to be. That witch was trouble.

  She turned and headed into the bedroom, leaving the door open. He could hear dresser drawers bang around. Shifting his blazing erection, he groaned and headed into his own bedroom to shove it into swim trunks.

  As he emerged from the bedroom, he fought not to stare. Lily was a goddess in a swimsuit. He handed her a baseball cap and placed the other on his own head.

  “Here.
It’s bright up on the roof.”

  She tucked her hair up under hers.

  He led her to the small service elevator, located by their front door. Each apartment had one, the access leading to the roof only. From inside the elevator, a code had to be entered to shoot you back to the correct apartment. No one would see her. He’d reserved a three-hour block, and it was a half hour into his reserved time. He’d wanted to make sure everyone was cleared out of the way.

  The elevator doors opened. Lush greenery shaded the walkway, huge palm trees making it feel like a tropical paradise.

  “Wow,” she murmured. “It’s as pretty as Xenia.”

  “A bit more man-made. Trees and plants don’t grow on the rooftops of Earth-Ground. Things are more adaptable in the floating cities, where temperatures and humidity are regulated.”

  She left the elevator, walking toward the pool, hips swinging. She exuded sexuality. It poured from her pores, from every cell of her body. He turned and dove into the pool, hoping the cold water would diffuse the rising situation in his trunks.

  The cold sluiced through him, temporarily relieving heated issues below his belt.

  He broke the surface to see her sitting at the edge of the pool, her feet dangling into the water. “It’s cold.”

  “Your body adapts. It’s hotter up here on the roof, especially if you’re sitting in the sun. Come on in. You can hold onto me.” He braced his arms on the edge of the pool around her. Slowly she slid in, her eyes growing wide when she realized there was no bottom. Her hands clutched his shoulders and her legs curled trustingly around his waist.

  He held back his groan.

  “Relax, Lily. I’ve got you. We’re going over to the shallow end.” He liked her holding onto him. A bit too much. He tried to tell himself it reared his protective instincts. But right now, he wasn’t thinking of Lily as a kid. Not with those curves. Not with today’s personality.

  Not at all. He moved slowly, wading toward the other end.

  “I’ve never been in a pool,” Lily said. “It feels amazing that you can hold us both up without anything beneath your feet.”

  “We’re in the shallow end,” he said wryly. “I’m on my feet.”

  “Oh.” His Lily blushed. She actually blushed as she hurriedly untangled her legs from his waist to stand upright in the water with him. Teenage Lily would never have blushed. She’d have argued him to death over not telling her she wasn’t in deep water. At least he knew which one he was dealing with.

  “We’re going to start the lesson with teaching you how to float,” he said. “Let’s take you under the water. Take a deep breath, and when you go under, let tiny bits of bubbles blow out of your nose. When you’re out of air, come back up. Got all that?”

  She nodded, her eyes bright green and trusting.

  He lined his face up with hers, took an exaggerated breath to show her, and lowered himself slowly, watching as she did also.

  She expelled all of her breath on a swoosh and fought right back up. They hadn’t even submerged their heads completely.

  “Remember the slowly part?” he asked, amused.

  “I forgot that part.”

  “Practice makes it easier. Let’s try again.”

  They went down together again, up to the eyebrows, staying a bit longer before she pushed back up.

  “That was great, Lily. Just remember, for now exhale the air from your nostrils so the water doesn’t burn and you don’t choke.”

  “I don’t understand how I’ll ever be able to swim if I have to blow all my air out my nose.”

  “Eventually as you learn to swim faster, you’ll be able to hold your breath underwater without the water going up your nostrils. Right now, you’re not really swimming and moving. You’re just going under. Now let’s try a back float.”

  He showed her what it looked like.

  “Okay, your turn.”

  “It should be easier for me,” she said, in her new, husky—sexy—voice. She looked down pointedly at her breasts and then back up to him, a mischievous grin on her face.

  His bark of laughter rang out. “They’re not flotation devices. Sorry.”

  “A girl can dream,” she said demurely, leaning onto the hand that he’d extended to the middle of her back. She leaned back and with his other hand, he lifted her hips.

  “Okay, relax. Deep breaths. Lean back, that’s it.”

  She lurched slightly, startled, as the top of her head got wet.

  “It’s okay. I got you. All that should be up over the water surface is your face.”

  Goddess. And the beautiful, bountiful breasts he was trying so hard not to stare at like a kid in lust.

  He waited for her to relax and he slowly pulled one hand away, leaving the other one below her hips. A few more seconds and he pulled that one away.

  She immediately sank. She came up sputtering, glaring at him with drenched hair in her eyes.

  “You tensed up,” he said lamely.

  “You didn’t say it would burn!” She continued to cough.

  “Sorry. Let’s try it again.”

  She moved back into position, though standing a bit closer to him. He could feel the tension in her body this time. “I won’t let you sink, Lily. Relax into my hands.”

  That did it. She sank into him, but the relaxation for her sparked awareness in him. Her firm, gorgeous ass was in his hand.

  “Deep breaths,” he reminded her, then immediately felt guilty. She was already relaxed, but breathing deeper did what?

  Expanded her chest.

  Her eyes were closed, she’d never notice if he took a quick peek at the creamy skin of her mounds.

  He regretted it as soon as he did so. They moved gently, beckoning him, begging him to lave them.

  A sputter came from Lily. His eyes snapped up to her face. Her face had sunk ever so slightly, the water washing over her nose.

  Hell. His raging hard-on distracted him while he drowned his poor Lily.

  “Sorry. I’ll pay more attention.”

  She giggled, the sound sultry and sexy all at once. Giggled. His sweet Lily sounded flirtatious. “This sucks, Jason.”

  Goddess. He hoped she didn’t know about his raging cock that threatened to burst from his shorts. His hand slid down her spine, feeling the small bumps. Her giggles stopped, and he was never more aware of the swell of her buttocks, just a thin barrier between his hand and her bare skin. But a new tenseness filled her small form and she sat up.

  “Relax,” he murmured again, and his voice was short, irritated with his cock that just wouldn’t tamp down. Damn if he didn’t sound like an asshole. How did he expect her to relax when he’d just nearly drowned her three times?

  “You’re impatient,” she muttered. “Not the best teacher.”

  “Give it another try,” he said. She rounded back into the water, and held the float better this time. She seemed encouraged with his hand under her hips, holding her sweet, sweet ass in his hands.

  She floated a minute longer and as she began to sink, he caught her, sweeping her up toward the surface.

  “Much better.” His voice was proud.

  “It’s hard work. I’m exhausted.”

  Turning to face him, Lily stepped in close. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and her sex accidentally brushed up against his erection.

  She felt it. Her beautiful eyes stared into his and her lips quivered. “Jason?”

  “Ignore it.” His voice was short, disgust with himself evident.

  “I can’t.”

  She pressed closer, and her breath stopped when his traitorous arm—with a mind of its own—held her against him. Her gorgeous breasts mashed against the hardness of his chest, the tight beads of her nipples poking into him.

  “Jason?” Her voice was husky when she asked. “What are you thinking?”

  “How badly I want to kiss you.”

  He’d been about to say but I won’t. How could he? This was Lily. He was in charge of her safety, of protecting her. Not wanting her. He needed to set her away from him.

  The words never came out because Lily’s mouth came crashing down on his. For an instant he couldn’t think, couldn’t reason. Hot damn, Lily’s luscious lips were on his—clumsy, sweetly inexperienced. Unable to help himself, he took over. He licked the seam of her lips, took advantage of her surprise to slide right in, tasting between her shock-parted lips, coaxing her mouth to open further. A needy moan came from her as his tongue slicked over hers. He reached out with his other hand, supporting her neck as he angled her back for a deeper taste.