Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 130947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
In Liv’s opinion, household objects should not be able to fondle you or decide that they wanted you to use them. But the Kindred, being genetic traders, had developed a distressingly large amount of appliances that were alive and all too aware of their surroundings. Like that Touch-U thing…ugh! Just remembering the way the black massage mat had molested her still made Liv shiver. Well, at least there are a few useful and easy to use things. The Take-me was relatively simple and now that I know how to make it bigger or smaller even mounting and dismounting should be no problem.
Stepping around the couch she saw a display of wall mounted holo frames, each displaying Jillian with two huge Kindred males. To Liv’s surprise, one of them had dark blond hair and green eyes while the other had brown hair and brown eyes.
“Those are my guys,” Jillian said from behind her, making Liv jump. “Aren’t they handsome?”
“Yes, they are,” she said honestly. “But, uh, I thought they were supposed to be twins.”
“Yes, but not identical—fraternal. Otherwise, how would you ever tell them apart?” Jillian giggled. “Now this one is Happy.” She pointed at the blonde warrior who was slightly shorter than his brother. Not that a few inches mattered one way or another since both of them were over six four.
“And you call him that because…?”
“He’s the cheerful one—the light twin,” Jillian explained. “They’re like two halves of a whole, you know. So you always have a light twin and a dark twin—they compliment each other. Now that one,” She pointed to the Kindred male with the dark brown hair. “Is Grumpy, the dark twin. It took me a little while to warm up to him. But once I did…let’s just say he’s very…intense in the bedroom.” She gave a little mock shiver and grinned at Liv. “What do you think?”
“I think you make a lovely couple…er, threesome,” Liv corrected herself hastily. “You look, uh, very happy together.”
“Oh, we are.” Jillian was positively beaming. “In fact, we’re already trying for a baby. But of course, that’s not exactly easy with the Twin Kindred. What with the way we have to…I mean, they both have to, you know, at the same time. You know?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess so.” Liv really didn’t want to go into the details. “I’m really looking forward to trying Twin Moon’s cuisine,” she said, hoping to change the subject. To her relief, it worked.
“Omigod, the food—I left it out by itself. Come on.” Jillian grabbed her by the hand and dragged her back to the food prep area.
Once they were settled at the massive table with a circular bench running all the way around it, she proceeded to serve Liv something that looked like a heaping plate of pale orange spaghetti.
“Pasta?” Liv poked at the noodles experimentally with her fork and then gasped when several of them reared up off the plate and poked back.
Jillian laughed. “It’s not exactly pasta although I know it looks like that.”
“But…it’s alive.” Liv laid down her fork and stared at her plate in horror.
“Well, of course it’s alive, silly. You can’t kill Grieza worms until you’re just about to eat them or you’ll lose their delicious fresh flavor.”
“Uh, I think I’ll pass, thanks.” Liv was in the act of pushing the plate away—very carefully because she didn’t want any of the pasta-worms coming after her—when Jillian stopped her.
“Come on now, Livvy—I know it takes some getting used to but believe me, they’re delicious. And look, the sauce that comes with them kills them on contact. See?” She picked up a blue metal rectangular pitcher with a long curling spout and poured a thin stream of pale bluish-green oil over the twitching strands on her plate. The pasta-worms shivered and turned a bright green color. When Jillian stirred them with her fork, not a single one so much at twitched. “Perfect!” Jillian sounded delighted and proceeded to dig in.
“This is some kind of a joke, right?” Liv asked uncertainly as Jillian poked a large forkful of the recently deceased worms into her mouth.
“Uh-uh.” Jillian swallowed and dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “C’mon, Livvy, live a little. Hasn’t your honey been cooking for you at all? My guys love to cook for me—sometimes they fight over the privilege.” She grinned. “Of course that’s only because I reward them so nicely afterwards.”
“Yes, Baird cooks,” Liv admitted. “And it’s not all Earth food. In fact, he’d made quite a lot of Kindred dishes for me. But I, uh, kind of asked him not to tell me everything he was cooking.”
“You did?” Jillian frowned. “But that means you’re missing out on half the experience. I mean, the whole point of being up here is to learn their culture so we can understand them. That and the amazingly hot sex, that is.” She giggled.