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

When I lean back against the wall, he lies


down on his side, head in my lap, and looks up at me with those


dark eyes that eclipse the rest of the world. The way he stares up


at me, his thick eyebrows pulled together in consternation, his


chapped lips a thin, pink line— “Dylan,” I sigh. I have to remember


we’re not alone, Parker’s on the other bunk, we can’t do anything,


shifts his gaze to the slight bulge at my crotch, where the zipper


of my jumpsuit puckers out like an exaggerated erection. With one


long finger he traces the zipper’s path, pushing the fabric down


until I can feel his touch along hardening flesh. “Dylan, don’t,” I


tell him, catching his hand in mine. I don’t need him to turn me on


He sighs and props himself up on one elbow,


pouts up at me with that puppy-dog look he’s perfected because he


knows what it does to me. “Why not?” he wants to know, and before I


Chapter 53