Neal James is a space station navigator whose lover, Dylan Teague, left him for a starmapping mission. But when Dylan radios in a distant signal one night, Neal discovers that he hasn't managed to put the relationship behind him in the two months they've been apart. When he's one of the crew members sent to investigate the signal, he finds that his ex-lover feels the same.<br><br>The source of the signal is a lost colony ship. Only a handful of the original colonists remain, survivors of a deadly disease that killed most of their fellow shipmates twenty years ago. To keep the threat of disease to a minimum, the colony adheres to strict laws, including the prohibition of same-sex relationships.<br><br>When the same fatal virus seems to appear again, Neal and Dylan find themselves in the midst of an irrational panic and hate that threatens to destroy everything the colonists have worked so hard to attain.

Operation Starseed

I wait until he cuddles up to me, relaxing,


his eyes already slipping shut again, before I sit up quick. He’s


not expecting it and I manage to slide from the bed and dance out


of his reach when he grabs for me. “Come back here,” he growls,


I laugh defiantly at him. “Come get me,” I


say, picking up my jumpsuit from the floor.


I manage to step into it and pull it over my


ass before he takes me up on my offer. He tumbles from the bed, the


sheets falling away from his nakedness, and wraps his arms around


my waist, pulls me to him. “I’m not letting you go,” he whispers


into my hair, and I laugh again, try to twist away, but it’s only a


halfhearted gesture, I don’t wanthim to let me go. I’m


thinking we can maybe steal another half hour—it isearly,


and maybe no one else is up yet. Even if they are, surely they can


run the damn ship without our help for a little while longer.


Dylan’s hands slip lower, cupping my budding erection through the


Chapter 18