A Desconian Marriage of Convenience (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Read online

  A Desconian Marriage of Convenience

  Jenelle loves her life on Descon. For the first time in her life she has friends, a job she loves, and people she cares for and who care for her. Everything should be perfect.

  But the unexpected arrival of thousands of refugees not only overwhelms the services set up to deal with women banished from Earth, but prompts changes in the laws as well. Unexpectedly, Jenelle finds herself needing to get married or face being expelled from yet another planet. Her married friends Jax, Tosh, and Baylen step in to protect her.

  She insists their joining is a short-term marriage of convenience—she has her reasons—but the traditional mubella claiming ceremony is a chance for Jax, Tosh, and Baylen to convince Jenelle they want more than just a pretend marriage. It’s a very public, very naked, very intimate sexual performance.

  But first they’re going to need lots of practice…

  Genre: Futuristic, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Science Fiction

  Length: 30,661 words

  A DESCONIAN MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE

  Rachel Clark

  MENAGE AMOUR

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Amour

  A DESCONIAN MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE

  Copyright © 2012 by Rachel Clark

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62241-784-1

  First E-book Publication: November 2012

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A DESCONIAN MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE

  RACHEL CLARK

  Copyright © 2012

  Chapter One

  “Jen, wake up.”

  Jenelle moaned in her sleep. Somehow she understood she was dreaming, but it didn’t stop the nightmare from happening. Again and again, over and over, her mind replayed the images of that night so long ago, sometimes even worsening and expanding on what had actually happened.

  “Jen, honey, wake up.”

  She gripped her stomach, the remembered agony finally throwing her into wakefulness.

  Gasping for air, she sat up and shuffled her bottom so that she leaned against the headboard. She rubbed her face tiredly, trying desperately to dispel the images from her head.

  “Here,” a deep voice said as a glass of water was pressed into her hand. “Drink.”

  She lifted it to her mouth, her hands shaking so badly that she almost wore more of the cool liquid than made it into her mouth. She spluttered slightly, her raw throat and desperate thirst making it hard to swallow.

  Finally, she took a deep breath, running her free hand down her face in an effort to come back to the present. She was safe here. She was on Descon. She was surrounded by people who would protect her. She had friends, real friends, and she didn’t need to be frightened.

  “Thank you,” she managed to whisper to the man beside her as he took the empty glass.

  “Jen,” he said as he moved to sit on the chair on the other side of the room. It was obvious that he was giving her plenty of space, making certain she didn’t feel trapped. “Please, tell me how I can help you.”

  She smiled slightly and opened her eyes to look at the man who’d rescued her from her nightmares every night this week. “You are helping,” she said softly. “I just wish I could explain why the dreams are getting worse instead of better. I’ve been off Earth for nearly a year now.”

  “Yet you’re still living in the compound.”

  She gave him a small, halfhearted smile but didn’t elaborate. There was a very good reason she was still here. Explaining it wasn’t going to change anything.

  * * * *

  Tosh sat back in the chair and tried very hard to ignore his natural Desconian instinct to take the woman in his arms. He’d dealt with many traumatized human women since beginning his work at the compound, so he knew that physical touching, even the nonsexual variety, made most human women very uncomfortable. Instead, he took a deep breath and tried to think of something to say.

  As a doctor he was trained to deal with things like this, but somehow he found it especially difficult to keep a professional distance from Jenelle. They’d been friends for months before he’d known of her nightmares, and his inability to help her was frustrating.

  “Should I call Deanna?”

  “No!” Jenelle said more vehemently than he’d expected. She looked a little surprised herself by the outburst. “I just…” She took a deep breath. “Sorry, I just don’t want to worry her. With the babies on the way she doesn’t need to be dealing with my silly nightmares. They’ll stop soon. I’m sure of it.”

  Tosh gave her a look that probably conveyed his disbelief but tried to give Jenelle his support.

  “Okay, but you know there’s help available if you want it.” He moved closer and knelt down beside the bed. He desperately wanted to touch her, to comfort her, but he settled for lifting her small hand into his own and holding it lightly. “Jen, you’re not the only human having nightmares like these. Many of the others have found peace
simply by talking to someone they trust. If you don’t want to talk to me or worry your friends, I can get Katarnia to organize a female counselor for you.”

  He already knew Katarnia had offered, but he’d hoped that Jenelle might reconsider. It didn’t take a genius to know if the woman had suffered at the hands of men, that she might be more comfortable talking to a woman instead. Occasionally, the opposite was true, and Tosh worked especially hard to appear nonthreatening to the women he treated, but with Jenelle things seemed different again. He got the feeling she simply wanted to ignore whatever had happened, rather than deal with it. Perhaps she felt that there was no solution to the problem.

  “Thanks, but I don’t need counseling.” She gave him a sad smile but shook her head. “I’ll be all right,” she said again, this time a little less shakily.

  Tosh knew her well enough to know the lady had a stubborn streak a mile wide. If anyone could get through these nightmares on their own, he was certain it was the woman in front of him. He just wished she’d trust someone—well, preferably him—enough to talk the problem through.

  “Can you do me a favor?” he asked impulsively. It was probably the worst thing he could ask of her, but maybe, even if it backfired, it might help them both. Watching her go through this night after night and being helpless to stop it was hurting him more than he thought possible. She raised an eyebrow but didn’t commit one way or the other. “Will you let me hold you? Just for a moment,” he added quickly, worried that she might flat-out refuse.

  Her soft reply was actually a surprise. “I’d like that,” she said with a shy smile.

  Awkwardly he leaned forward, not quite sure where to put his arms or how to touch her. His lack of decisiveness was irritating, but he truly wanted to help, not make things worse. Fortunately, Jenelle took the initiative instead, slid off the bed, and curled into his embrace. He turned slightly, resting his back against the side of her bed, and held her in his lap. He forced himself to stay relaxed, to not make her feel like she was trapped, but after a moment of her snuggling close to his chest it finally occurred to him that whatever the nightmares were about it didn’t seem to be the same as many of the other human women he’d treated.

  He ran his hands gently through her hair, sliding down lower to caress her back, as she sighed a contented sound. For a long while they both just sat there quietly, her ear pressed against his chest, his hands caressing her softly. What his fingers seemed to find hiding under her clothes was disconcerting. His hypothesis on what might be causing her nightmares needed a whole lot more information. He didn’t want to ruin the peace they were both feeling, but as a doctor he felt an obligation to try and help. Maybe she’d be able to talk things through more easily like this.

  “When did the nightmares start up again?” His voice was soft, almost a whisper, but he regretted the question instantly when she stiffened in his embrace.

  * * * *

  Jenelle knew the exact trigger that had set off the current round of nightmares, but she really, really didn’t want to share. What she should do was climb off the man’s lap and go back to bed. Hell, she wasn’t even certain what had possessed her to accept his cuddle in the first place.

  If she understood anything at all, it was that this guy was happily married.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly as she tried to ease out of his embrace. For a moment his arms tightened in what seemed a reflexive movement, but he was quick to let her go. “I know you’re trying to help, but it’s not really anything that can be fixed.”

  “How so?” he asked in a casual voice. She knew him well enough to know that there was nothing casual about the question. Hell, when had that happened? She’d taken over most of the stuff Deanna used to do, so she worked closely with Katarnia and her staff, but when had she started thinking of Tosh as a close friend? “Come on, Jen, give me something to work with here. Why can’t it be fixed?”

  She bit her lips and wondered if she’d said too much accidentally-on-purpose. Maybe a part of her realized that sooner or later she would have to trust someone. Eventually someone was going to notice the distance Jenelle kept putting between herself and the Desconian couples the fertility council matched her up to.

  She’d done everything she could to make herself useful here. Jenelle had received very little formal education on Earth and had never been very good at schoolwork, but she’d studied her ass off to learn the written language of Descon so that she could take over the important work Deanna had been doing.

  But would it be enough to save her when the truth came out?

  Human women were highly valued for their ability to produce offspring. What would happen to her when the authorities learned it was the one thing she couldn’t do? And if she told Tosh, would he be required to report her condition to the people in charge?

  “Tosh,” she said, shaking her head, “you’re a good friend, and I really appreciate you trying to help, but…” Her words trailed off. Telling him she had something she didn’t want to tell him because she didn’t want the authorities to know was probably just as bad as telling him outright.

  “Does it have anything to do with the scars on your back?”

  * * * *

  Her panicked expression terrified him. She shook her head violently. She was already moving away from him, but this time he couldn’t let her go. Hell, he’d been the one to put that look of fear on her face this time, not some recurring nightmare. He reached for her, dragging her back into his embrace, forcing her to accept his comfort.

  With a loud sob she finally relaxed into the solace he offered, her back and shoulders trembling as she shook with grief. He let her cry, knowing she needed this release. To everyone else she was bright and happy, enthusiastic and competent. Only he knew of the nightmares disrupting her sleep, and that had only been learned by accident. Just over a week ago another ship from Earth had arrived unexpectedly. He’d come to collect her so that she could be an interpreter for the human women but had found her in the grip of a violent nightmare. The sounds through the door had convinced him she was being physically attacked. He’d forced his way into her single-room apartment and been almost surprised to find her alone.

  As her crying slowed and she lay against him, exhausted, he wanted desperately to ask for an explanation. Fortunately, this time she started talking without his prompting.

  “I was raised in a group home for girls,” she said quietly. “The woman who ran the place, Mrs. Doderson, was strict and unyielding, but we were well fed and for the most part taken care of. As childhoods on Earth go, it could have been a lot worse.”

  She sighed, and he wondered if she was perhaps remembering some of the happier times of her younger life. He didn’t want to interrupt her train of thought, so he continued to hold her close, running his hand up and down her spine, trying not to linger on the deep scars that seemed to crisscross her back.

  “I was about seventeen when I started work. It was the first time I’d even talked to boys. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be friends with Justin, but it didn’t feel like we were doing anything wrong.” She snuggled closer. “Sometimes he’d just hold me like this. Sometimes we did more.” She tilted her head back to look at Tosh. “I didn’t even know at the time that there was a word for what we were doing. When Mrs. Doderson found out, she went ballistic.”

  “The scars on your back?” he asked, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. She nodded against his chest. Fuck. She’d been an ignorant young woman, barely older than a child, and essentially just following the dictates of her body. Nothing she’d done would ever justify the ragged scars on her back. If he ever ran into Mrs. Doderson, the rotten woman might just learn what it felt like to be at the mercy of someone who really wanted to hurt her. Damn it. He was a doctor. Sworn to do no harm, but if he had the woman in his surgery, he’d be hard-pressed not to slice her into little pieces.

  “Is that why you’ve refused medical treatment since arriving at Descon?” It wasn’t unusual. Many huma
n women had been fearful of doctors and anyone in a position of authority, so Tosh and his medical teams performed only the least invasive procedures to ensure the human women weren’t ill and then let them get adjusted to life on Descon before offering further medical testing.

  “No,” Jenelle admitted in a very quiet voice. “I’ve refused because of what happened months later.”

  His arms spasmed, pulling her closer as a shudder went through him. What the hell could be worse than being whipped by a maniac? He didn’t dare open his mouth to ask for fear that his anger would be misinterpreted. No way in hell did he want Jenelle thinking his fury was directed at her.

  She hesitated. “Tosh, if I tell you something, do the authorities need to know?”

  “Like what?” he asked reflexively. He had a legal obligation to report if she was planning to kill someone, but almost everything else was considered confidential. He explained it to her in as few words as possible.

  “Okay,” she said on a deep exhale. Apparently whatever she had to tell him was something that she had feared would get her into trouble. “I didn’t understand why at the time, but now that I’ve seen the informational videos and know how things work…” As her words trailed away she took a deep, shuddering breath. “I…think that maybe I was pregnant. I’m not really sure, but whatever Mrs. Doderson saw or knew or thought she knew made her furious. She was with a man I’d never seen before. He was scary huge, bigger than anyone I’d ever seen before. He said something to her, and then she…um…” Her words were barely whispered, but her body shook violently. “She called the other girls, my friends, into her office, told them what to do, threatened to whip them if they refused, and then she and this big man just stood back and watched as a dozen young girls beat the hell out of me and then kicked me when I hit the ground.” Jenelle took a deep, faltering breath and seemed to drag her emotions back under control. He started rocking slightly, the movement meant to be comforting, but not just for her. He’d heard some awful stories of rape and abuse from other women from Earth, but forcing children to physically abuse another was horrifying.