Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 51404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 257(@200wpm)___ 206(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 257(@200wpm)___ 206(@250wpm)___ 171(@300wpm)
Sunny Craythorn has a problem.
Her Kindred bodyguard, Greer, does everything a man in love would do—ties her shoes, carries her over mud puddles, saves her from danger again and again. The only catch? He does it all with a scowl.
Greer knows he’s hopelessly gone for the curvy, sunshine-bright scientist he’s sworn to protect. But as a Pitch-Blood Kindred, his bite is painful to anyone but his Fated Mate—and since finding one is a billion-to-one shot, he’s resigned himself to wanting Sunny from afar.
Until their mission to Thropp’ic Sigma changes everything.
Here, the women choose their partners…topless. And when every male on the planet wants Sunny, Greer has no choice but to claim her as his. Even if it means proving his right in the most scandalous way possible—on the infamous Chair of Female Pleasure.
Now the grumpy protector is about to become the possessive alien lover—and Sunny’s about to learn just how sweet her scowling Kindred can be.
Perfect for fans of grumpy/sunshine romance, bodyguard protector heroes, forced proximity, only one bed, fated mates, and laugh-out-loud sci-fi spice
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
GREER
“Well, I understand this will be your final mission with us, Dr. Craythorn.” Commander Sylvan, head of the Kindred High Council, nodded formally at Dr. Soleil Craythorn—Sunny to her friends—who nodded back at him with a smile.
“Yes, I think I have enough research to write my paper now—or I will once we visit the Thropp’ians.” Her voice was light and sweet—exactly like her temperament. She even looked like a person whose name meant “sunshine,” Greer, her Kindred Protector thought, as he watched her from the corner of his eye.
Sunny Craythorn had a lovely heart shaped face framed with long, wavy hair that was the color of honey. She had big, meltingly brown eyes that were almost the same color as the Earth confection called “chocolate,” a pert little nose sprinkled with what the humans called “freckles”—though the Kindred called them “Goddess kisses”—and a pink, bow-shaped mouth that was almost always curved into a smile and looked entirely too kissable for Greer’s liking.
But it wasn’t just her adorable face or petite, curvy body that got under his skin—Sunny had a personality that matched her name. She was what the humans called an optimist—or, as Sunny herself put it—“I’m a glass is half full kind of person!” Which seemed to mean that she always looked on the bright side and saw the good in any situation—even when things went badly.
This was a good thing, because situations around Dr. Sunny Craythorn tended to go badly on a regular basis. And because her work required her to travel to other planets and meet alien people, the confusion that seemed to follow her everywhere she went was multiplied and compounded.
Sunny was a renowned academic on Earth and she was writing a paper entitled “Xeno-cultural Gender Roles and Societal Norms Contrasted and Compared in Five Separate Alien Societies.” She had let Greer read part of it but the fucking thing was full of academic language so dense it hurt his head.
It wasn’t that Greed was stupid—it was just that Sunny was extremely intelligent—brilliant even, he acknowledged to himself. But like many people who are intellectually gifted, she unfortunately wasn’t very practical. She lacked what the humans called “street smarts” which was what led to what Greer had privately dubbed “The Sunny Effect.”
For the past several solar months as the Kindred assisted with her research, Greer had been acting as her Protector and he had seen The Sunny Effect—the way things just seemed to go wrong around his Ward—over and over and over again.
It had started on the very first planet they had visited together—Rigel Four. The Rigellians worshipped a Sun Goddess and Sunny’s favorite color to wear just happened to be yellow—it brought out her golden skin tones and made her eyes look even more like pools of melted chocolate. Their final night on the planet, she had come to the Grand Banquet dressed in a long yellow gown with her hair fixed into a ceremonial gold corona that spiked around her head dramatically.
She explained to Greer later that she had seen what she thought was the local fashion at the Sun Goddess’s temple and had meant nothing by it. But the High Priest had accused her of impersonating the Goddess and attempting to get the entire Royal Court to worship her.
That had been a sticky situation and Greer had been forced to draw his blaster to get her out of there. To make matters worse, half of the Royal Court really did seem to want to worship her. They had gathered at Sunny’s feet, throwing cru’she blossoms—the little yellow flowers that represented the sun—and begging her to bless them and their first-born children and give them abundant crops and rich harvests.
“Release your breasts and bathe us with your Fertile Milk, oh Goddess!” they had been shouting and the whole time Sunny had been trying to explain that she didn’t have any “Fertile Milk” to give them because she didn’t have any children and she wasn’t lactating.
At the same time the High Priest had been shouting, “Imposter! Heretic!” and gesturing at her angrily.
Between the would-be worshipers and the angry High Priest and his guards, it had been extremely difficult to get away. But Greer was a professional—he had worked in the Kindred Elite Espionage Corps before becoming Sunny’s Protector and he had managed to get them out without a scratch—barely.
Sunny had apologized profusely but Greer hadn’t been mad at her—though he had been privately irritated at the huge mess. But it had been an accident, he told himself. Nothing to get too upset about. He was a stoic male—he could shake the incident off and move on.
But then, the accidents kept on happening…
On Prakus Prime, Sunny had fallen into the locals’ water reservoir after getting tipsy on a single sip of sweet Prakian gin. She’d been wearing clothing made of delicate pink and gold tissue-paper—as had Greer, since their hosts had made it clear they wouldn’t be welcome unless they dressed like the natives did.