by E. A. James
Hannah wiped her hair out of her face. There were no tears. Her face was an expressionless mask. If only she knew what a clear map her emotions were to what was really going on inside her head. Pain, anguish, fear, fury. It was a dangerous mix. She looked at Bane with eyes that flashed with something – the fury? She walked out of the cell, following her father.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hannah was a disappointment. Part of her had always known it – her father reminded her whenever he thought maybe she would be able to forget. But there were times when it was worse. She’d let the gorilla-creature escape and now it was destroyed.
Months of research – pointless. Money and time – gone. And it was all because of her. She wasn’t cut out for this job. She made him look bad. She did everything wrong. What would her mother say if she were alive?
Maybe her mother would have asked her if she was alright after she’d nearly been killed by an alien. Maybe her mother would have asked about the handsome man in cell four. Maybe her mother would have understood.
Hannah shook off the thoughts and focused on the microscope. She’d been assigned to testing only. Sampling had been taken away because it was obvious she’s been given too much responsibility too quickly. Not even Doyle had disagreed with Stirling. Whether that was because he agreed or because he was too scared to challenge the man was a different story. Either way, she was almost like an assistant now. Hannah wasn’t a true biologist.
The upside was that she could stay late now without there being any questions asked. Her work piled up during the day. She was expected to stay late most evenings, anyway. When the other employees left – some of them ignoring her, some shaking their head in pity, which was worse – Hannah had the lab to herself.
She didn’t take samples anymore which meant she didn’t have to hurt them anymore. And when she was the only one left she could spend time with Bane even if she didn’t go in there to take her samples. It was a win-win even if she’d lost her dignity.
“You’re late tonight,” he said when she opened the door to his cell with her keypad. He sat on his bed, blankets dragged over his lap to hide his nakedness. Hannah was relieved. He didn’t seem to think that being naked was a big deal, but it made her nervous around him and he seemed to understand that. Maybe he’d read her mind. With Bane, anything was possible.
“I had to finish work. There’s a reason I stay late, you know.” She couldn’t help but smile. The sexy alien with his pitch black hair and diamond eyes uplifted her mood the moment she saw him, no matter how bad her day was.
Bane patted the bed next to him, invited her to sit down. When she did she pulled a cloth and disinfectant from her pocket. When they’d beat him they’d caused damage – his skin was split in various places. Hannah had been taking care of him.
She couldn’t bandage him, which would make it obvious that she’d been with him, but she could make sure that there were no infections.
At first, the open wound had fascinated her. It was like he had silver scales just under his skin. The dragon, he’d explained, but it didn’t make sense. Very little about him did. It was part of what she liked about him. He was unpredictable, a breath of fresh air.
“What are you working on?” he asked.
“You, actually. I have to study the samples. Your blood. You tissue. That kind of thing.”
“And what did you find?”
He didn’t sound upset. He sounded curious like maybe something interesting would come up.
“I found out that even if you look like us you’re not like us at all.”
“Does that scare you?”
She looked at him. His eyes were the color of ice and dead serious. She shook her head. She was sure he would be able to tell if something scared her – he always seemed to know what she was thinking or feeling. But he wanted her to say it.
“It doesn’t.” And it really didn’t. In fact, being with him was wonderful because he was nothing like anything she knew. Which meant the chances that he would be as horrible as the rest of her life was slim. “In fact, I like it.”
He looked at her for a moment and then nodded.
“Your dragon scares me, though,” she said, her mouth tugging into a smile. She was joking, but deep down a small part of it was true. She knew that Bane would never do anything to hurt her, but the dragon had a feeling of dread that surrounded it. Long teeth, scales, fire, and those diamond eyes that had no humanity in them when Bane shifted – it wasn’t a party.
“It’s supposed to be scary. I’m a warrior. It would do no good if I looked like your kittens.”
Hannah chuckled and finished with the wounds. They were healing. Slower than she would have liked, but healing.
“What does it feel like to fear nothing?” she asked.
Bane leaned back on the bed, stretching. The muscles in his arms and shoulders rippled under his skin. Hannah stared. Heat washed through her body. She couldn’t help it. When he looked at her she forced her eyes back to his and blushed, caught in the act.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. His lips were slightly parted, eyes dilated, and he had a feeling he was thinking about something entirely different from what they were talking about. He breathed in as if he smelled something.
“I fear things, just as you do,” he said. His face still didn’t match the topic.
“Like what?”
“Losing loved ones. It’s a fear of anything with a life force.” He looked down at his lap, shifted the blankets. “And when they attack, I fear that I will lose you.”
Right. The pending war. Hannah still had made no progress warning her superiors about what Bane was telling her. She believed him with her heart and soul, but they all said that any prisoner would try to threaten to buy freedom. They weren’t falling for it. They told her it was her weak heart, her soft soul, which caused her downfall in the industry. More criticism.
“I try,” she said. “I’ll keep trying to warn them.”
“I know.”
His voice was husky when he said it. His mind was definitely not on the conversation. The blankets were bundled in his lap, hiding his body. The effort to conceal it made it that much more obvious.
Hannah felt more heat. It rushed through her body, pooled between her leg. She wanted Bane. She ached for Bane. She didn’t know why an alien was so attractive to her, but in the week after the attack, she’d come to feel that he was the only creature in the universe that understood her, the only one that actually cared.
Hannah swallowed. Her mouth was dry. Her breathing came in erratic bursts. She rubbed the palms of her hands on her jeans.
Bane looked at her and his eyes flashed. His eyes slid down to her lips. It made her look at his, too. Everything about him was strong and able. His face was masculine, a square jaw, a straight nose, and deep thoughtful eyes. He was a prime specimen for a GQ model.
He shifted closer to her so that they sat side by side. His shoulder lightly touched hers and a current flew through her body. Since he’d kissed her after the attack – almost a dream she’d been so out of it – they hadn’t touched again. She’d been scared he would regret it. She hadn’t known why he’d kept his distance.
He didn’t keep it now. He lifted his hand, put it on her cheek and turned her head toward him. He lowered his mouth onto hers and this time, she gave herself over to him. His lips were soft and supple, and raw and powerful, all at the same time. He parted her lips with his and slid his tongue into her mouth. It was hot and slick and she moaned into his mouth.
Her body was flushed with heat. Her nipples tightened in her bra and she scissored her thighs together, drying to get rid of the energy build up that would be the end of her.
Instead of letting go of her, letting her deal with what she was feeling, Bane slid his hand onto her leg and moved upward. When he touched her sex she shuddered. He didn’t waste time making it clear what he wanted, and God, Hannah wanted to give it to him.
Bane knew when sh
e knew. He might have read her mind. Maybe it was just the sexual charge in the cell. Either way, he made short work of getting her undressed. He peeled off the coat, pulled her shirt over her head and made work of her bra like he’d dealt with one before. He pulled down her pants and her underwear, and then she was as naked as he was.
The blankets had slipped down, revealing his lust and his hunger and it seemed to match hers.
He touched her again, his hands on her breasts this time, making her gasp. Her body melted into his hands and she lay back on the bed, unwilling to keep herself upright again.
Bane crawled over her. He was all muscle and raw sexuality and in his eyes she saw the promise of sex and pleasure and closeness like she hadn’t felt before. Her skin was alive with an electric current that could only be coming from him and no matter where he touched her, a jolt traveled through her.
He positioned himself between her legs and her thighs fell open as if they had a mind of their own. He was at her entrance, and the next moment he slid into her and erased everything that she could be thinking about but him. He was everywhere. In her mind, over her body, all around the cell, deep inside her. She gasped and moaned as he started moving, and she gave herself to him completely.
This was what she wanted. She wanted him to have every part of her. Not just her body, but her heart too. He pumped in and out of her, pushing her closer and closer to an orgasm. Her body was hot and the sexual heat filled her up like a cup being filled with hot water. Any moment now she was going to spill over.
She’d just thought it when Bane put his lips on hers and pushed her over the edge. The orgasm shattered through her in a white light and she cried out against his mouth.
When she came down again he was right there with her, and she had the strange sensation that she was falling.
He would catch her. She didn’t know where the thought had come from, but it was right there. She could fall, and he would catch her. Every time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
They were on their way. Bane could feel them, inching closer to this planet, bringing their wrath and their vengeance with them. Hocus and Mage, his travel partners, had seen him captured. They had seen him taken by this planet’s cruel race and they’d gone back to the others to rally a rescue team.
Bane knew because it was what he would have done. You don’t leave a soldier behind. That was how they were trained; it was how they cared for each other.
They were going to destroy this planet. Most of the humans deserved it. What he’d seen of them was heartless and merciless and they deserved to suffer for the pain they’d caused him. At least, that was what he’d thought until Hannah had come along.
She was different. She was the kind of person that made him believe that there could be life without war. There was hope for peace when he looked into her eyes. But not for people like her father, and Bane got the feeling that the earth consisted of more people like him than like her. There were the few that were worth saving, but they didn’t outweigh the bad that Earth had to offer. It was hard to believe they could coexist with such cruelty, that there were people out there who believed it was acceptable.
“What’s wrong?” Hannah asked. She’d gotten dressed again after he’d taken her. It was the most powerful emotional response he’d ever had with someone. He’d never felt like that with anyone, not even of his own race, and he hadn’t felt like that about someone, either. Hannah was different. It was almost impossible to think that they were worlds removed from each other. It felt like she was the missing piece to Bane’s life and it had only been a matter of time before he’d found her.
It was the sex that had opened his feelings to the pending doom. He was troubled because he knew that if they arrived and he didn’t do something about it, everything Hannah loved, everything that made up her life, would be destroyed. He didn’t want to be the one to cause her such pain. He could tell by how her father treated her, by the pain and the distance she created when he was around, that she had grown up in a home of abuse.
She looked at him now with eyes that felt like they looked right into her soul, even though Bane knew that she couldn’t sense emotions or read minds the way he could.
“The others. They’re close now. If we don’t do anything they will destroy the earth and everything in it. It will be for me, for how I have been treated.”
Hannah nodded, looking at her hands. The tension in the air, the loaded sexual atmosphere, had changed into something more serious and quiet.
“What can I do to help?” she asked, looking up at him. The question caught him off guard even though he could usually sense what was going on in her mind. This was something else. This was genuine – her heart speaking to his.
“What would really help is if I can escape this facility. I can meet the troops and stop them.”
He looked up at her. Her face was closed and her emotions were too. He’d learned that she switched herself off when she was in deep thought or when she retreated into herself.
“I’ll help you,” she said, emerging again from some deep place inside her. “Tomorrow night.”
Another unexpected response. Sometimes she managed to say something he couldn’t guess at. Those were the times when it meant so much more.
“Really?”
She nodded. “You’re not just a specimen, and if I have to be honest with you, to hell with my father and his testing. I have spent my whole life aspiring to be good enough for him, and to do that I’ve realized I have to become a monster. No more.”
Bane wanted to take her face between her hands and make love to her again. He wanted to make her his own the way he had almost an hour before. He wanted every inch of her for himself because she made his life complete in ways it had never been before.
“I have to go. The night guard will start his rounds soon. I will be back tomorrow night, and then you’ll get out of here. We’ll make sure everything works out.”
Hannah leaned forward and kissed Bane. It was the first time she made the move, and a first of warmth glowed in his chest, a feeling that slowly spread through his body and felt nothing like the consuming fire he’d felt while they were naked together. This was different. This was a kind of force that could sustain him through his lifetime.
He cared for her, he realized. Very much. She was someone he’d come to need in his life, and leaving her behind would create a hole that hadn’t been there before – a hole that only Hannah could fill. It was dangerous being that dependent upon someone’s existence, but that was the truth and it had happened without him being able to stop it.
Hannah got up, straightened out her clothes, checking that she looked decent in case she ran into someone out there. The last thing anyone here at the facilities needed to find out was that her relation with the specimens – with Bane – was much more than just an interest in species. That was much more than friendship, in fact.
She stopped at the door and turned to look at him. “Tomorrow night,” she said, and there was promise in her voice. She was going to be back for him, and he believed her. Hannah didn’t break her promises. She was pure and kind and true.
She turned and pulled the cell door shut behind her. Bane heard it click. He waited for the soft click of her shoes on the linoleum as her feet carried her away from him to a home he could only try and imagine. She was almost gone when something occurred to him.
He reached out, hoping it wasn’t too late. He found her, dim and fading as she moved further and further away, but he could still read some of her. He looked for something that resembled his own feelings, something that mirrored the shape of his heart. And he found it. It was the smallest flicker before she was out of range and it disappeared completely, but Bane hadn’t imagined it.
He felt complex feelings for her, and she felt the same for him. It wasn’t strong yet – uncertain – but it was there. Love was what she called it. Bane didn’t know how to describe it in his terms, but here there was a word for it. Love.
That was
definitely it. He closed his eyes and lay back. Hannah would come for him. He knew now without a sliver of a doubt.
CHAPTER NINE
Hannah waited until the other employees left. The day had never felt as long or dragged on as slowly as it had that day. Two of the employees who always left at five on the dot decided to work late. It was as if everyone was set on finding some way to ruin her plans. Bane had to get out that night if they were going to stop a war from happening, and nothing was going Hannah’s way.
She’d sat with a fist of nerves turning in her stomach every couple of minutes. She hadn’t been able to focus, hadn’t been able to eat. At least none of the employees spoke to her which meant that it wasn’t strange that she was keeping to herself. She produced less work than ever before and Doyle had to ask her to rewrite reports twice.