by S. E. Smith
Later tonight he would worry about the Hunters. Before the sun faded this day he would locate the doctor and do what needed to be done. Until then, all he cared about was Zoey. She needed rest and more energy. He’d never dreamt that sharing his strength with her would create the kind of bond he felt humming between them, but he could not bring himself to regret it.
He hoped she would forgive him, because he couldn’t undo what he’d done.
He held her, tucked into his side like a precious gift, and he slept, not the forced sleep of a starving Immortal, but the soft sleep of a man who was exactly where he was meant to be.
*.*.*
Even before her eyes opened, Zoey knew something had changed. Her body hummed with life, with fire. Low, on her right hip bone, something burned and pulsed with heat like a hot water hose was hooked up to her hip and the damn thing was on full blast. The energy filled her up, toes to nose, and she could barely stay still.
It was him.
Zoey opened her eyes. He was asleep next to her, in her bed. He must have carried her from Jiselle’s room. Bright light shined in through her blinds. Noon or just after, based on the shadows marching across her hardwood floor. And here she was, draped over his naked chest like she owned him, leg thrown over his, hip to hip, his body burning her up everywhere they touched.
At least he wasn’t wearing that towel. He’d changed into Ryan’s sweats. The thought of him naked with nothing on but a layer of looped cotton had not helped her libido last night. She’d dreamt of him.
She looked up, eager to see his face in the natural light of day. Dark green eyes met her gaze.
Not a dream. Gorgeous. Real.
Half naked in her bed.
Was it wrong to want to seduce an alien? Wrong to want one in the first place?
Hell no. He was beautiful. And she deserved a break. He’d leave soon. Said he needed to find a human doctor and then go hunt more of the Triscani. But she could have him, right now. No strings attached.
She’d regret it if she didn’t. That she knew for certain. She wanted him, and she’d lusted after few men in her life. Make that one other. And he’d left her, too. She didn’t care about past history. And she still didn’t regret it.
Aron was staring at her mouth.
Oh, yes. She could have him. “Hi.”
He lifted his palm to her cheek and looked into her eyes without blinking. God, he was intense. “Good morning, Zoey. I hope you don’t mind that I carried you to bed.”
She shook her head, unable to stop herself from nuzzling his palm or from staring at his lips. “I don’t mind. But I’m pretty sure it’s afternoon.”
The right corner of his mouth lifted in a near grin. She wanted to kiss it. “Indeed. It’s one hour and seventeen minutes past the sun’s zenith in Denver.”
She grinned back. “So, telling time really is one of your superpowers?”
“One of them.” His eyes darkened and their focus moved from her eyes to her lips and back again.
“What else can you do?” She wanted to know almost as badly as she wanted him to kiss her.
“I don’t know. My gifts had not fully developed when I was taken. I do know that when I’m not shackled and starved, I can teleport through the Dark. I can read thoughts and steal memories from anyone I touch. I can take someone’s soul from their body and destroy it forever.” He whispered the last, as if he waited for her to damn him, but couldn’t stop the truth from escaping.
“Is that what you did to those two Hunters on the hill? Steal their souls?” She should be scared, she really should. But she didn’t care what strange power he possessed. He was like a titanium turtle, so hard on the outside no one could break him. Soft and warm beneath. Vulnerable. She felt it. Knew it. And had no idea how.
“Yes and no.” He pulled her hair forward and laid the multi-colored waves across his chest. “I destroyed their bodies, turned them to ash. And I will most likely have to do it again.”
“And their souls?”
“I carry them now. They are part of me. Their souls can only truly be destroyed by Angel’s Fire, the gift born by my mother.”
“The House of Judgment.”
“Yes.”
She watched his hands, those sexy man hands, run through her soft curls and waited.
“Aren’t you afraid of me, Zoey?” His petting stopped while he waited for her answer.
She pushed up onto her elbow so she could look down on his face. She was going to kiss him and damn the consequences. “No. I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be. How can you not be fearful of my touch?” He looked genuinely confused.
“Can’t you just read my mind?” If he did, he’d have her naked and pressed into the bed in moments.
“Yes, I could, but I don’t want to. I want to learn you, Zoey. Not invade your mind as I would an enemy’s.”
If he wanted to learn her, she was more than happy to help with that. She closed the distance between them slowly, like cold molasses poured from a jar. She wanted him to know what she was doing and have every opportunity to turn away.
He held himself so still she feared he would taste like a granite statue, immobile and cold.
He was hot. Soft. Lips like satin and a body of steel, the perfect combination of hard man and tender touch. She licked his bottom lip, tasted him, and wanted more, needed his hands all over her and his addictive flavor filling her mouth. Like tasting a lollipop, she ran the tip of her tongue along his full bottom lip. Her kiss asked for entry, savored him. She wanted to taste him everywhere, to feel his weight pressing into her and his hands on her breasts. Her stomach. Lower. She wanted him. Craved his touch. Felt empty and incomplete because he wasn’t buried deep inside her.
Still as stone, he didn’t move under her kiss. He didn’t respond at all.
Guess he wasn’t into Earth girls.
Damn. With effort and a stern lecture going on in her head about promiscuous sluts, she pulled back and tried to roll off the bed, and away from him, from her humiliation. “I’m sorry. I’ll just go make some breakfast.”
“No.” He grabbed her around the waist and lifted her off her feet to land on her back beside him. Their faces were even. The arm around her waist held her down as he pushed his erection against her left thigh. “No. I’m sorry, Zoey. I couldn’t process the memories fast enough. You surprised me.”
She couldn’t hold that intense stare, not after being so thoroughly rejected. Not just normal human men were assholes. Now she’d thrown herself at an alien and been rebuffed. He’d been talking a good game and she’d believed him. What a winner. Stupid.
Lips trembling, she lay passively on the bed, but turned her face away, unable to bear the scrutiny of his knowing gaze a moment longer. “Whatever. It’s fine. I’m sorry. Just let me go.”
Aron pulled her closer, the entire length of her body in contact with his. He dropped his forehead to her neck and placed a kiss just below her ear. “I can’t, Zoey. By the gods, I can’t. I want you too much.”
Shocked, she turned to face him but didn’t get a chance to look into his eyes, to see if he was sincere. He crushed her mouth beneath his, claiming her, changing her forever. She’d never been kissed like this, like she was his air, his life, his reason for being.
Everything faded in the world but his kiss, his touch, his hands on her face holding her still for his possession. She gave him everything and lifted her arms to hold him closer. The fire raged between them, an inferno so much hotter than she’d imagined. He kissed her and kissed her, like he’d die if forced to stop. His entire focus was on her mouth.
She loved every moment, but the rest of her protested his neglect. She wanted him everywhere, every single cell cried out for him. It was intense, exhilarating, and completely bizarre. Her body felt like a foreign entity, beyond her comprehension or control. The energy that had flowed into her like warm water was now a lightning storm for her senses, electrifying every nerve in her body. She writhed, c
ompletely out of control. An animal overtaken by instinct and lust.
It scared the hell out of her. “Stop.” She tore her mouth from his, panting, and turned away. “Just stop!” He’d undone her with a few kisses. What the hell had she been thinking? She couldn’t do this. She was a fool. He was too powerful, too strong for her. If she gave herself to him, she’d let go completely. Would she even be aware of who she was or what she was doing? And she’d thought she could get out of this with no strings attached. Hah!
With Aron there would be no holding back, no separation between them. She’d no longer belong to herself. She’d belong to him.
“Zoey.” He held her gently, as if she were a wounded bird in his hands. He nuzzled and kissed her cheek, her neck, but didn’t hold her down. If her legs had retained the smallest bit of strength, she could have stood and walked away. But they were wasted, completely gone. Like the rest of her. He’d unmade her. “Zoey, talk to me. Why are you so afraid? I won’t hurt you, I promise.”
A single tear fell from her eyes to slide down her cheek and into the bed. “You already have.”
“I don’t understand.” His forehead rested against her temple, his hot breath a sinful temptation in her ear.
She shrugged, unable to explain the depths of her fear. She’d never considered herself a coward before. But this? Totally spineless. And now she could add tease to her list of high-quality character traits. “I’m sorry.”
He sighed and moved nothing but his hand, which left her shoulder to reappear a moment later on her hip. The hip that burned. “Do you feel that, Zoey? That fire? The give and take? The connection and energy that moves between us?”
She nodded and turned back to look up into his beautiful eyes. “Yes.”
“I am yours now, Zoey. Yours. If you look, you will find a new Mark on your hip, a sign that you have claimed me. I share the Mark on my own body, in the same place. It is your Mark, not mine the ancient Mark of the Timewalkers from Earth. You have branded me. Claimed me. You think that I have all the power here, that I am the one making you lose yourself. But the opposite is true.” He lowered his lips to hers, slowly, reverently. The gentleness in the gesture calmed her fear but made her heart race. “My soul, my body, my breath, they are yours now, Zoey. Yours.”
Deep within, somewhere between her panicked heart and infinity, a crack opened and power crept through. She shifted around until she could expose the skin that burned above her hip bone. There was a Mark there that colored her skin like a dark birthmark. It looked like an Egyptian hieroglyphs, a Shen. She’d seen it on the conspiracy websites and thought the people posting about time-traveling women were crazy.
Who was crazy now? She was, and she welcomed the power of their bond as it unfurled inside her like a rose. Finally she understood why she’d always felt different. Her sister had been the same. Was this why the Triscani killed Jiselle? Zoey knew they wanted her dead that day as well. But a strange female had chased them off her driveway and out of her life, a woman she’d searched for on the internet for five long years. She’d been stunningly beautiful, dressed head-to-toe in black, and absolutely fearless. The woman had looked young, but she’d made the hair on Zoey’s arms stand up and every internal alarm she had screech a warning.
Was her savior that day one of the women Aron spoke of, a Timewalker? Or had she been something else? She’d run off the Triscani and then stared up at Zoey in the window, given her a small nod as if they were friends, and then disappeared.
The Mark changed everything. Did this mean she wasn’t human, either? Was this why she seemed to know things before they happened and why her sister had been able to communicate with animals? The power rising within her now was like an ocean of stars inside her soul, and she was connected to them all.
“What am I?” Awe and surprise made her whisper the question. Surely he would know. She didn’t feel like an alien. Earth was her home, and she loved every single blade of grass, whisper of wind, and mountain peak. But she didn’t feel completely normal either.
“You are what they call a Descendant. I believe you have Timewalker blood in your veins.”
“What is a Timewalker? Am I an alien?”
“No. You are wholly human, a Descendant of the most powerful evolution of humanity. The Timewalkers protect Earth and her timelines from interference from the other dimensions, and have done so, in secret, for centuries.”
“And that’s why we’re connected now?” She laid her hand over his where it now rested on her hip. “Because I’m related to these Timewalkers? That’s why I want you so badly I can’t breathe?”
“Yes.”
“So, it’s not you? Or me? Or love? Or lust? This thing between us isn’t the two of us, it’s just genetics?”
Aron sensed the inherent danger in the question and hesitated before answering. “No. Genetics make our connection possible, Zoey. But your D.N.A. is not the reason you want to kiss me right now.” He lowered his lips to hers for one more quick taste.
“It’s not the reason my blood is on fire and I’m hard as a rock inside these sweats.” He slipped his hand out from beneath hers to grab it and place her palm over the sweats where she would feel his erection. She gasped, but wrapped her fingers around him in soft exploration.
“It’s you and me, Zoey. Call it Fate, or Destiny, or just dumb luck that we found each other, but you were born to be mine.”
He kissed her again, softly, while he waited for her to process his words, and hoped she would understand what a gift she was to him.
A wave of heat washed through him, feminine heat, raw and untamed. It was her power flowing through him, and there was so much more there than he’d sensed before.
She lifted her free hand to trace his lip, then his jaw. Her eyes held something he’d never seen from a woman before, but he wanted to stare into them forever. “I can feel your soul, Aron. I can’t see your memories or read your mind, but I feel your soul.”
“Yes.” The word was rough, barely recognizable, because she’d slipped her hand inside his pants, wrapped it firmly around his cock and was playing with him.
“Okay.” She lifted her head until they were nose to nose, sharing breath. “Okay, Aron.”
He moaned when she stroked him again, but he didn’t make a move. He didn’t think he’d be able to stop again if she wasn’t sure. “I have memories, Zoey, of making love, of caressing a woman’s flesh and reveling in her cries of pleasure.”
She moaned and pressed her lips to his, but he continued. “I have memories of tasting a woman’s core and teasing her with my tongue until she whimpers and begs for release.”
Zoey was panting now, her hand on his cock paralyzed by her mind as it processed his words.
Aron lowered his lips to her ear and licked its edge. “I have memories, Zoey, but they are pale shadows to the heat of your body beside me, to the sound of your voice in my ear.”
She turned her head and lifted her chin to give him better access. “What do you want, Aron? What? I already said yes.”
He nibbled his way to her collarbone but refused to touch her. “No, you did not. But ‘yes’ is not enough for me now.”
She yanked on his head and kissed him again, rubbed her thumb around the head of his flesh as she moved her tongue around to explore his mouth. Still he waited. He would not play this game with her again. Finally she pulled back and ended his tormented test of self-control. “What? What do want me to say?”
“Tell me exactly what you want.”
“You.” She pulled him down for another kiss.
“I am here.”
She moaned in frustration but stopped tugging on him to look into his eyes. “I want you to touch me everywhere. I want your mouth on my body. I want your weight covering me, pressing me into the bed, and I want you inside me hard and fast, like you can’t stop, like you’ll never get enough of me.”
He smiled. “Ahh, now that’s what I call a ‘yes’. He lowered his head but came up short when she p
ressed one finger to his lips. It was his turn to moan with exasperation, but her energy had changed. It fizzled with nerves, with anxiety.
“I’ll get old and die, Aron. I’m not like you. If we’re together, I won’t live forever. I’m human.”
He kissed her forehead, her cheek, her eyelids as they drifted closed in pleasure. “I’d rather live one day with my heart in your care than another thousand years alone.”
“Okay.” She kissed his mouth. His jaw. “Okay.”
He pulled her yellow tank up over her head and lost his breath. Her perfect breasts rose to entice him, softer than rose petals in summer, they tempted him beyond the ability to think. He lowered his mouth to taste her, to tease her and she wrapped both hands in his black hair, arching her back and whimpering as he suckled and nibbled on first one, then the other.
Unwilling to give them up completely, he kneaded them with his hands as he lowered his lips to explore the sensitive skin over her stomach and hips. She lifted her bottom from the bed to remove her PJs and he pulled them off her legs and dropped them, forgotten, to the floor. She lay next to him, bare. Naked. Exposed in both body and soul.
“You’re so beautiful.” He ran his hands over every inch while his starved senses drank her in, the soft curves and colors of a woman’s body. Her trembling. The scent of wildflower soap and desire. He held her down with one hand splayed across her stomach while the other opened her core and massaged the soft petals there, rubbed her most sensitive spot and slid two fingers inside her wet heat. He played and pleasured her with his hands, his mouth, as his fingers speared her and spread her wide, rubbed the interior walls of her core with skilled hands.