Lethargy fell over her like a lead blanket. She had to sleep now. There was no other choice.
• • •
It had been a long time since Torr had needed to build a fire without matches. The one that burned now in the mouth of the shallow cave he’d found wasn’t his best work, but it was putting off plenty of heat, and that was all he needed.
He stripped Grace free of her wet clothes, doing his best to ignore how beautiful she was. The paleness of her skin and the bluish cast of her lips were more than enough to keep his head where it belonged. He laid her close to the fire, then shed his own wet jeans. The boxer briefs stayed on to remind him of boundaries in case the danger of the situation didn’t do the job.
He curled up behind her, wrapping his arms around her torso in an effort to give her as much of his body heat as possible. Her fingers still bled, but the damage didn’t seem to be too bad—certainly not worse than hypothermia.
Slowly, her skin began to warm. A pink flush bloomed in her cheeks, and she was no longer frigid to the touch. Once she started shivering, he knew she was going to be okay.
Relief would have laid him out if he hadn’t already been horizontal.
Grace shifted, turning in his arms until she faced him. Naked, fire-warmed breasts flattened against his chest, branding him in a way he was sure he’d never forget.
She lifted one leg over his, giving his thigh plenty of room to slide between hers. Damp, womanly heat seared him, making his whole body clench against the need to lay her back and fill her up with his cock. As hot as it was, he could almost justify the act as another way to warm her.
His erection flexed against the cotton of his underwear, leaving a damp spot he couldn’t control. Everything about her called to him, beckoning him to take, claim, possess.
Her shivering began to slow, evening out into waves of fitful restfulness. It was fully dark outside now, and about time for him to build a screen of brush to hide the light of their fire.
As he moved to peel himself away from her, she opened her eyes.
So pretty. All he could do was stare.
A haze of sleepiness still clouded her features, but it was soon burned away by confusion, then a harsh layer of fear.
Her body tensed, causing her thighs to clench around his and her mound to grind even closer.
Torr breathed through the blaze of lust, letting it trickle out until only a slow burn remained.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I broke you out of the ice, found some defensible shelter and warmed you up.”
“Defensible . . . ?” She looked around and saw their location.
It was a shallow opening in a rocky hillside, only a few feet deep, overlooking the forest floor below. He couldn’t stand up inside the space, but nothing could sneak up on them from behind either.
As shelters went, it was the best he could do on short notice.
He saw it in her face the second she realized she was naked. And that all of that nakedness was pressed firmly against his. It was a moment of wide-eyed shock, followed closely by her pupils flaring with awareness.
“Your clothes were wet,” he explained.
“I remember.” She didn’t try to move away or hide herself. Instead, she took a deep breath that pressed her breasts even more firmly against his chest.
Torr’s heart rate kicked up. “I’ll get them for you.”
“Are they dry?”
“I doubt it. They’re laid out, but I had no way to hang them without leaving your side.” Something he was not about to do while she was unconscious and vulnerable.
Her fingers slid over his shoulder. She could have done it just to get more comfortable, but it still felt like a caress. And his body responded accordingly.
He stifled a shiver and swallowed hard, struggling to think of the most unsexy thing he could.
His mind went blank, but his vision was filled with swaths of naked skin. Smooth curves, gently sloping lines, flickering shadows hiding feminine secrets he yearned to discover.
Her gaze flitted over his face, landing again and again on his mouth. Each time the tip of her tongue would glide just inside her top lip, tempting him with the need to taste what she did.
Would she welcome his kiss, or would she shove him away like the stranger she thought he was? And did he really want to know for sure when lingering within such delightful possibility was so much sweeter?
“I should get up,” he said. “Put out the fire so we’re not glowing like a beacon.”
She didn’t release him. If anything her fingers curled into his skin as if to hold him in place.
“Are you warm enough now without the fire?” he asked.
“I’m warm,” she said, but the way she said it made him think of the slick heat that waited between her thighs.
He wanted to feel that intimate warmth so much that he had trouble pulling in his next breath. Even if he couldn’t claim her the way he wanted, he still needed something. A touch, a taste. Anything he could get. He was dying for it.
His cock throbbed and lurched toward her. He couldn’t have done a thing to control the involuntary reaction, and with only his thin underwear to cover him, there was no way she hadn’t felt it.
Color stained her cheeks, but it wasn’t embarrassment he saw. Not even close. It was desire, pure and unrehearsed.
Grace stroked the side of his face with one finger. Her touch was light, gentle, but it sliced through him all the same.
How many times had he dreamed of her being with him like this? Naked, touching him. Wanting him.
And she did. The proof of that was gathering against his thigh, slick and hot and scented with her growing arousal.
“I should get up,” he said again, trying to convince himself.
She stared into his eyes, her expression so sweet and unguarded. She didn’t even try to hide what she felt—it was all there on her face for him to see. The innocent hunger, the open curiosity.
Maybe she didn’t know how to hide her feelings, or that she should. Maybe she had no way of knowing what her vulnerability did to him, how it inflamed him and made him want to protect and possess her that much more.
If he ever got inside her, she would hold nothing back. He’d know just what she liked, what drove her wild. She would be an open book—his open book.
“I really should get up,” he said yet again, wishing that saying the words aloud might make him move his ass.
Her finger traced over his chin, reminding him that he hadn’t shaved since he’d come here. Stubble roughened his jaw, and all he could think about was how badly he wanted to leave beard burn on the delicate skin of her neck, her breasts and her inner thighs.
There were no other men here for him to warn away from her, but the idea of marking her was compelling all the same. He’d make sure she felt too good to hold his lack of a razor against him.
Grace swallowed and wet her lips. In that instant, Torr knew he was too late. Moving away was impossible now. She was going to kiss him, and there wasn’t a being in the universe powerful enough to make him move away now and miss it.
His body clenched in anticipation. He remained completely still, letting her come to him. He desperately wanted to move in and take over, but he had to know this was her idea—what she really wanted. It was the only way he would be able to live with himself.
The first touch of her lips on his was butterfly soft, but potent enough to steal his breath. He couldn’t believe this was happening, that she was real, safe and in his arms. He hadn’t lived a good enough life to deserve this kind of reward, and he prayed that God wouldn’t figure that out before Grace was done with him.
She pressed her lips to his and let out a long, sweet sigh.
Torr drank it in, his body rejoicing at the contact. He wanted to let her go at her own pace, explore, but his good intentions burned away in the face of so much longing. He’d wanted this for too long not to take over and lead the way.
Grace was human.
Not his kind. He shouldn’t have been so drawn to her, but he couldn’t help it. She was so beautiful, both inside and out. Kind, selfless, brave. Human or not, she was everything he’d ever wanted in a mate, and if all he ever got with her was this one, single kiss, then he would still count himself lucky to have had that much of her.
Her hands tightened on his shoulders, her fingers grazing his luceria. His muscles clenched as his instincts roared at him to force her to take the necklace. He knew it wasn’t possible, but that didn’t change the need pounding inside him to claim her as he would his Theronai mate.
He couldn’t bind her soul to his, but he could claim her body as his own personal playground, taking her over and over until even the idea of touching another man was an impossible concept for her.
Torr rolled her onto her back, ready to take control of her tentative kiss. His knee spread her thighs wider to make room for him to settle between them. He was hard. She was wet. He’d spent forever imagining this, longing for it. He was done waiting.
He shifted his weight to angle their bodies together, and she let out a sharp cry of pain.
Torr pushed off of her, holding his weight up so he wouldn’t crush her. Tight lines creased her forehead, and the hot flush of pleasure evaporated, leaving her pale.
“What’s wrong?”
She arched her back and reached behind her. “The disk. Hard ground. Bad combo.”
Her words made sense, but any meaning was lost the second he caught sight of her breasts thrust toward him. Full, round, tipped with the most delectable nipples he’d ever seen. Had he known that such beauty had been pressed against his bare skin, he would have come without so much as touching her.
Torr shut his eyes and rolled away, giving her his back. Her wet clothes lay in a soggy heap near the fire. He tossed them toward her without looking. “You should get dressed.”
If he caught sight of her again before she was dressed, he knew he was going to finish what they’d started, rock-hard ground or not. He would put her astride him, riding his cock, and not think twice about the reasons why he shouldn’t.
Of which there were many.
She was human. She deserved a full, human life with a husband and children and a job that didn’t involve hunting monsters every night. She deserved a man who would grow old with her, who wouldn’t make her feel like her life was a fleeting blip of time. She deserved safety, and that was one thing he knew for sure she’d never have at his side.
So many good reasons to find a way to let her live her own life, and yet not one of them could compete with the one reason he had to hold on tight and never let go: he loved her.
Torr pulled on his wet jeans, glad of the chill he needed to get his dick to calm the hell down. The last thing he wanted was for her to see his erection and give him that hungry look again, like she wouldn’t be able to pull in her next breath if he didn’t give her what she wanted.
Because he knew that, in the end, he wouldn’t be able to deny her anything, even if he knew she’d regret it. That made him less of a man, but it was the truth and one he had to accept if he was going to protect her.
“I’m going to patrol the area,” he told her. “Stay here, and yell if you see anything you don’t like.”
“Um, okay. Sure.”
He didn’t look her way as he stalked off, but he didn’t need to see her face to hear in her tone that he’d done the very last thing he ever wanted to do.
He’d hurt her.
If anyone else had done that to her, he would have beat them to a bloody pulp, but since he couldn’t do that to himself and still keep her safe, he put as much distance between them as he dared and prayed he would find a way not to hurt her again. No matter how much she wanted him.
Chapter 16
Torr had been gone for hours when Grace finally gave up and let herself drift off to sleep. Nearly freezing to death left a layer of lethargy over her that she couldn’t seem to fight. It also gave her strange, sad dreams in which he was weak and helpless and she was his only hope.
She couldn’t imagine a man being less helpless than Torr. His body was so casually strong and solid. She’d felt that strength up close and on an intimate level she could only have dreamed about.
Even now, with the suns rising and the night animals growing quiet, she could still remember just how nice it had felt to have his sleek, hot strength caging her in.
He’d held her like he couldn’t stand the thought of letting her go, like he’d been dying to hold her for years. A feeling like that had a way of going to a girl’s head, making her forget what was real and what was fantasy.
As she opened her eyes, she saw that Torr was both. He crouched at the farthest edge of the opening away from her, watching her. He was real, solid and so intense it almost hurt her eyes to stare at him. Definitely the stuff of fantasy, with his good looks and that whole gentle-warrior vibe.
If it hadn’t been for the hard disk digging into her spine, she could have had him last night. She wasn’t sure exactly what she’d do with that much man once she got him, but it would have been fun to enjoy him as her own for as long as it lasted.
“Hungry?” he asked, his bright amber gaze unblinking.
She was, but not in the way he meant. She’d heard some of the women talk about men, after visiting Earth to make their babies. They’d talked about need and hunger, about desire and want, like they were living, breathing things that consumed a woman and made her lose control. The women had sighed and laughed, sharing stories of conquest over who’d found the best father for her progeny, or at least the best lover.
Grace had never really understood what they meant before, but she did now. She hadn’t even known that she could want something as much as she’d wanted Torr.
The slow burn was easier to bear this morning, but it was still there, one single breath away from igniting all over again.
She cleared her throat. When that didn’t loosen her words, she just nodded.
He untied a cloth that held some bread they’d brought with them and set it next to a small pile of fruit he’d gathered. “Eat up. We’ll leave as soon as you’re done.”
Within seconds, he was gone, slipping into the forest as silently as a predator.
That slow burn of desire sent out a few sparks, but she held herself together long enough to shove down some food and get moving. The sooner they found those crystals, the sooner they could be back around other people—people who would keep her from doing anything she might regret.
The only real question left was which she would regret more—taking what she wanted or denying herself something amazing.
That thought was the one that stuck with her as she led the way through the dense woods. She’d never gone this far before, but there was no question that she was headed in the right direction. The whole path was one long, familiar trail. Each step she took put the next one firmly in her mind, as if she’d come this way every day for years.
By the time both suns were halfway up the horizon, she’d found the spot she’d been searching for—a giant forked tree so old that its bark had taken on the same metallic shimmer as its leaves.
“Just over this next rise,” she told Torr.
She didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know he was there. She’d felt his silent presence all day, heating her back and making her spine tingle.
Grace started up the hill, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. “I’ll go first and scout. Stay here,” he whispered.
She instinctively mimicked his tone, keeping her words quiet. “I’ve led the whole way and got you this far. I think I know where I’m going.”
“I’m not worried about your sense of direction. I am, however, worried about the sounds I hear coming from the other side.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“You’re human,” he said, as if that explained it all.
“A human with ears.”
“Mine are better. Stay here and stay silent.”
Was he just being nice and pretending that she wasn’t lacking, the way someone might do with a child too small to reach up high?
The notion grated on her as the seconds ticked by in slow progression. If he ran into trouble on the other side of the hill, would she even be able to help him? Would she even know he needed help before it was too late?
Anxiety pushed her into action. She didn’t care if she wasn’t as strong as he was or if her hearing was worse. She wasn’t weak or stupid. If he needed help, she’d find some way to give it.
Grace tiptoed up the hill, lowering herself to belly-crawl as she neared the summit. She crawled, inching forward over scratchy leaves and sticks. The leather of her tunic protected her torso, but the skin above her sandal straps was bare and raw by the time she peeked over the top.
The air here was distinctly colder. The land sloped down into a shallow bowl about a half mile across. The ground was charred and burned to a crisp, with a shimmering sprinkle of rough black sand covering everything. Little pools of frozen water dotted the area, as if the last rainfall had been unable to soak through the hard crust on the ground before it froze.
It looked like something had slammed into the planet years ago and cauterized the ground so that nothing could grow again. Single, infant strands of new plant life crept over the edge of the sand but were frozen wherever they touched the charred earth.
The forest had tried to reclaim this land and failed.
Several large boulders of glossy black rock sat at the bottom of the crater. They varied in size and shape, but each one was made up of jagged angles and razor-thin obsidian blades. In the closest one, she could see a depression that had vaguely the same shape as one of those Hunters that had attacked her and Torr. Beneath that indent, deep within the center of the boulder, was a pulsing light.
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