Tastes Like Chicken is not yet available for sale to the public, but it is for sale to publishers. Stay tuned for updates about this wild and fun futuristic romance, the first book of a planned trilogy.

Tastes Like Chicken
120,000 words
A Futuristic Romantic Comedy

Humans are on the menu!

Ravenous alien blobs plan to eat the entire universe. It is up to legendary space courier Annie Johnson and alien rogue Ruul to thwart their evil plans.

Annie takes a dangerous mission for the biggest paycheck of her life. Little does she know that she is at the center of a conspiracy that could destroy the entire universe.

Alien thief and rogue Ruul joins Annie on her quest. Passions ignite as they journey to the most dangerous planet in the galaxy. Will their forbidden love survive the battle to save the universe?

Excerpt

Chapter One

The Thorian Love Slave

A giant fire-breathing baby the size of an elephant crawled towards Annie; flames shooting from its mouth; a menacing look in its red eyes. It opened its mouth wider revealing row upon row of razor-sharp teeth and cried in a deafening shriek. Flames shot out of its mouth singeing Annie’s bright red Mohawk. A wave of heat hit her like she’d opened a door to a blast furnace. Her whole body shook with fear as she raced to come up with a defense. Club it over the head with a giant bottle of formula? Send it to the corner for a time out?

Proximity alarms sounded, Annie startled awake. Her main viewscreen flashed red with the words: Proximity Alert! Unidentified Ship Closing Fast!

Instantly, Annie was fully awake. She executed a series of orders into Hubert’s computer. As the results popped up on the screen, something hit her ship, hard, creating a loud clanging noise. She jerked forward in her captain’s chair. If she hadn’t been buckled in, she would have been thrown to the floor. Her vessel started to shake violently. Something or someone didn’t just smash into her, they’d grabbed her.

White hot fury powered through her veins; her senses came alive. Of all the bloody timing! This bastard was going down. She was already late delivering her message, she had no time for games.

While she bounced around, she turned on her main viewscreen. Out the front, nothing but stars and the Feifeid galaxy stretching out before her. Out the back, blackness. Damn it, what had hold of her? Someone or something must have used an Invisibility Shield to sneak up on her. Hubert’s sensors should have picked up the signal sooner.

The shaking stopped. A terrible clanking sound of metal on metal came from her hull, then a high-pitched squeal of metal being bent. Her ship lurched sideways. A loud rumbling sound was followed by a thunderous booming, like a huge door shutting.

Great. She had been captured. She was inside another ship. What a perfect turn of events.

Adrenaline juiced her system, preparing her for the fight. Her heart beat hard against her rib cage; only her hands remained steady. She’d been through this routine lots of times. She knew exactly what to do.

Annie fell prey to one or two robbery attempts a year as a matter of course. The thieves always regretted it. She hadn’t lost a dime in twenty years. Just like all the others, these jerks would pay.

After a bit more movement, all motion stopped. All sound stopped. Her communication system activated.

Annie thought about arming her exploders and answering the call with a nice, destructive bomb.

She took a deep breath. She should not be taking her anger out on her captors, even if they deserved it. She needed to keep her cool and not cause any damage to Hubert. She had to focus and deliver that package to Tex. An astounding amount of severed heads adorned the walls of Tex’s office—from all the people who’d disappointed him. She pictured her own head mounted there and a cold shiver of fear raced up her spine. Best to just get rid of these guys, fast, and not take them on. Damn it. Kicking some thief ass sounded really good.

Mature, Annie, must be mature.

Annie turned on her Monster Disguise Unit: a face-and- voice-changing device that transmitted an image of a Carrillian over the communicator. No one messed with the Carrillians. She answered the call.

A grinning green-skinned man with red eyes appeared on her viewscreen.

A new charge of anger flamed through her body; her fists balled, her jaw set. A Borillian pirate. God, she hated these guys. Entitled, self-important slime bags. She had a long history of incidences just like this one with these buttheads. The last Borillian to mess with her ended up glued to the outside of his ship. The story must not have made it back to Borill yet. Best to make an example out of this guy, too.

Damn it. She just didn’t have the time to dispose of the idiot properly. She hoped her Monster Disguise Unit worked.

“Why have you detained me?! I demand that you let me go!” Annie bellowed, doing her best Carrillian imitation.

The Borillian laughed. “Nice Carrillian disguise. But I know differently,” he teased in a singsong voice. “Why don’t you come out and play with me, Earther?”

Which was a weird thing for a Borillian pirate to say. Why wasn’t he demanding her cargo?

“You insult me, Borillian!” she thundered dramatically. “I am Brahge Malorn of His Imperial Army, you will release me immediately or prepare to die!”

The Borillian shook his head and laughed harder. “Earther, a Carrillian couldn’t even fit through the door of that Hummingbird.”

Undaunted by this piece of irrefutable logic, Annie continued her attack. “You have not heard of midget Carrillians? Your ignorance insults me, Borillian!”

The man convulsed with laughter. As he bent forward, holding his sides, his skin changed color, from green to a tanned white. His hairless scalp sprouted a huge unkempt mane of brown hair that fell across his brow. As he leaned back—guffawing—his features sharpened. Thick brown eyebrows appeared over his red eyes which shifted to an azure blue. His teeth whitened and dimples appeared in his cheeks.

Recognition clubbed her over the head like a wooden two-by-four. It was Ruul, that Thorian she’d accidentally slept with! While inwardly thrilled to see him, she had no time for his games.

She slammed off the Monster Disguise Unit. “Goddamn you, Ruul! I told you have no time for this! Now I even have less time! What the freakin’ hell are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that I missed my Annie,” he responded cheerfully, still chuckling.

“I’m not your Annie, I’m my Annie! I told you, I only wanted a one-night-stand, I didn’t know you were Thorian or I’d never have hit on you!”

“But I’m so glad you did, my Annie girl.”

“Ruul, really, you have to let me go.”

“No, I don’t.”

This was so annoying, the man was so darling. Ruul had boyish good looks, was quick-witted, absolutely marvelous company. From his sparkling blue eyes to his carved cheekbones to his dimpled grin, there wasn’t one part of the man that wasn’t enjoyable to look at. She loved the way his brown hair fell casually about his eyes and neck, even his rumpled brown coat suited him. So adorable, like all Thorian Roamers. Unfortunately, they were also complete pests. Nearly impossible to get rid of once you’d bedded them. Well, until their hormones urged them on to other females, usually right about the time you started liking them.

Annie sighed heavily. “Look, I told you, I like you, I just have a job and a life, I can’t spend another eight days in bed with you!”

His eyes twinkled.  “I have some nice brandy, I know you love brandywine.”

Annie was furious, but chuckled despite herself at the charming man’s offer. “Ruul, no, I told you no. Now, I’m not playing.”

“You like it when I chase you.”

“Not now I don’t. You have to let me go, I’m on a job!”

His dimpled grin widened, he got a mischievous look in his eye. “Either you come out or I’m coming in to get you. But I may end up damaging your ship in the process. And I don’t think you want Hubert damaged, do you? Come on, Annie, let’s have some fun.”

Her fury was quickly replaced by exasperation. This man was the worst temptation she’d ever faced. His skin was so soft—a delicious contrast to the steel-hard musculature underneath. His flat, ripped stomach, the V that led down to his amazing, hard tool. The taut, rounded buns of his superior ass. The feel of his granite-hard thighs under her touch. Her toes tingled; a charge went through her clit.

This was not helping!

“I am not coming out. Look, I have to deliver a package to Tex Montgomery. If I don’t get it there on time, he will cut off my head and mount it on his wall.”

“I’ll protect you, my Annie.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want your protection, all you need to do is to let me go.”

“You have three days to get there.”

She moved back away from the screen. “How do you know that? Oh, forget it. Look, Ruul, we’re right near Ro. Plenty of cute girls there. Why don’t you go pick on some cute twenty or thirty something and leave me alone? I’m too old for all this.”

“You’re...” He checked a small screen on a panel to the side of him and then turned back to her. “Fifty-one. That’s not old, Annie.”

“The hell it isn’t,” she retorted. “Wait,” she said, sitting up straighter in her chair. “Where did get that information? I never told you my age. I don’t tell anyone my age. That’s a closely guarded state secret.”

“It’s all right here,” he replied, gesturing towards the screen on his control panel. “You know Thorians. We are very resourceful. When you escaped from me yesterday, I decided to find you. I found out all kinds of information about you, my Annie. Everything I needed to find you. And here I am. Now why are you playing so hard to get? You weren’t this hard to get the other night.”

Annie gesticulated dramatically towards the screen. “I know, I practically threw myself at you because I had no idea you were a Thorian!”

His thick brown eyebrows lifted hopefully. “I have some beer.”

It was clear he wasn’t getting the message. Tapping her foot angrily, she looked him straight in the eye and hardened her expression. “No, Ruul. If you don’t let me go, I swear, I can and will cause you some serious damage.”

His eyes lit up, his grin widened. “Serious damage? Really? Oh, this is going to be fun. You’ve got a lot of fight in you today, Annie, I like it.”

She shrugged and shook her head to herself. “Okay, honey, I warned you. Sorry about this.”

She shut off her screen and tightened her seat belt. This was going to be a bumpy ride. She just hoped Hubert could withstand the pressure of the Repeller shield. Last time she used it, Hubert ended up in the shop for two weeks. And in no way did she have that kind of time.

Damn the stupid Thorian! She already couldn’t seem to get him off her mind (which was weird unto itself) no way was she spending any more time in his company. There was something spooky about the man. Something familiar and comforting. Which was crazy and irrational. Thorian Roamers were the least reliable men in the galaxy; they slept with legions of women and were incapable of commitment or fidelity.

Not that they were bad people. They were actually very nice, they just couldn’t help themselves; their libidinous nature was programmed into their DNA.

Which was why every woman she knew avoided Thorians like the plague. Not only were they heartbreakers, once you slept with a Thorian, something happened to your chemistry and you became vulnerable to their pheromones: a debilitating aphrodisiac to humanoid women—especially women from Earth. Since Thorian pheromones only work after the first mating, women had to be extra careful to avoid that first sexual encounter. Like the saying went, sleep with a Thorian Roamer once and sleep with them a hundred times.

Annie pressed the button for the view of the outside of her ship. As to be expected, she was in one of the vast cargo bays of Ruul’s enormous ship, locked into two docking clamps, facing a gargantuan cargo bay door.

Escaping should be no problem.