Welcome to the Tolari stop on the blog hop! My offering comes from my upcoming book, The Fall, which will hopefully be out later this year. This tidbit comes toward the end of a scene in which the highly empathic Laura spends all night talking with the man she loves.

__________

Laura quirked a grin. “And to think I used to believe all
you Tolari were cold and emotionless.”

“You cannot ever have thought that of me,” the Paran
replied.

“Oh no, I knew better by the time I met you.” She pivoted in
his arms to face him. “But we all thought it, up on the Alexander. Tolari don’t have feelings, not like humans do. I still
believed it when I landed.”

The Paran snorted. She buried her face in his robe, and he
rested his chin in her hair, heart open. His barriers would have been no obstacle to her even had they been up, but she couldn’t identify, very much of the time, the more subtle shades of feeling she saw when she looked into another person. Standing in each other’s arms as they were, and trained as he was, he wouldn’t miss much of what passed through her heart–which hardly seemed fair. Love, however… his reached out and settled around her like a warm blanket.

A commitment the likes of which she’d never imagined stood before her. Or perhaps yawned at her feet. Her heart leapt into her throat. Seize the day, her
late husband would have said, only he would have said it with Latin words that
she could never remember. Carp… Carpie… something. Whatever. She took the Paran’s face in her hands and searched his
deep, dark eyes. His lips curved upward. He curled long fingers around her hands, placing a gentle kiss in each palm before pulling them away from his face to fold them over his heart.

“Laura Johnson Howard,” he said. “Be my beloved.”

{End of excerpt.}

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Tales
from the SFR Brigade, Heart of Stone, Her Cyborg Awakes, Anja’s Star, Silver
Strife, Corwint Series 4 Book Gift Pack, Earth’s Requiem, Alien Blood,
Starwoman’s Sanctuary, one book from Jessica E Subject’s SFR backlist (ONE ebook title out of the following: Alien Adoration,
Alien Admirer, Alien Lover, An Unexpected Return, Another Night Another Planet,
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Never Gonna Let You Go, Never Gonna Desert You, Never Gonna Say Goodbye, Satin
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Marann, Nightfall, Unrequited, Butterman Time Travel Inc., Legend Beyond the
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Tales from the SFR Brigade, Heart of Stone, Her
Cyborg Awakes, Anja’s Star, Silver Strife, Corwint Series 4 Book Gift Pack, Earth’s
Requiem, Alien Blood, Starwoman’s Sanctuary, Tangled In Time, Terms &
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trilogy (Wither, Clash, Shiver).

3rd  3
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Tales from the SFR Brigade, Heart of Stone, Her
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Go to the next stop on the hop!