Firesnake

by Cassandra Kane

  “You keep saying that,” Meri said suddenly. “Why?”

  Delighted by the melodic timbre of her voice, it took Jon a while to register what she’d said. “Excuse me?”

  “You said I might be Firesnake.”

  He gave a long, slow blink. “How did you --” He shook his head, smiled slowly. “You read my mind.”

  “No, I heard you plain as day.” She stopped her pacing and crossed her arms defensively.

  Jon tried to dampen the excitement bubbling inside him. She could read his mind and didn’t know she was doing it. Only another Chan could do that.

  “What’s Chan?”

  Jon expelled a breath, then ran through the mental sequence that sent barriers shuttering over his mind. He stared at her, barely restraining his excitement, hoping the shutters would work. He hadn’t had to do it for the last three years he’d been on Earth.

  Firesnake! Firesnake! Firesnake! He shouted it in his mind, watching her.

  “Well?” She frowned at him. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  Jon’s hands trembled as he pushed himself away from his desk and turned his back on her. He needed to compose himself.

  Because he’d found her. Firesnake. And he could barely believe she’d actually come to him, after all this time. His exile on Earth was practically over.

  He turned back, ran a hand over his hair. “We need to talk.”

  “So talk.”

  God, she was belligerent. She scowled at him, annoyed. Not one of the sappy little secretaries who snuck around behind him hoping he’d notice them. This woman expected attention. And got it.

  “We should get out of here,” he said. Now he’d found her the Wednesday Project was over, and the Belzin Center and its denizens suddenly meant nothing to him. “Let’s go to my place.”

  “Right.” She laughed sarcastically. “And what’s wrong with here? We might as well screw here. I’m sure you’ve got some examination room handy.”

  He stared at her, startled. “What?”

  “I heard you before, buster. About how untamed and dangerous I am and how you’d like to get me into bed.” Meri’s lip curled scornfully. “Why don’t we see how far you get?”

  Jon did something he’d never done before. He blushed. Had he really thought that? He’d gone without sex for so long he’d barely recognized the thought as it flitted through his mind. All right, more than flitted. But now the desire came at him, hitting him full force, because she’d made him recognize it for what it was.

  She stood, arms akimbo, a challenging look on her face. Her breasts heaved with some sort of internal agitation that roused in him another pang of longing. Her lips, still curled in disgust, were nevertheless extremely enticing.

  And completely off-limits.

  “I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick,” he said stiffly, sounding pompous even to his own ears. “I’m not interested in you in that way.”

  It was her turn to flush, but with anger. “Prove it.”

  It had been the wrong thing to say, he realized. But why was she goading him if she didn’t want him? He was sure there was some sort of payback involved in her demand. He didn’t like it one bit.

  “Look, Miss Hancock, I think you’ve misunderstood…” His voice trailed off as she took off her jacket and threw it over a chair. The sight of her full breasts fairly spilling over her bikini top sent the blood rushing to his groin, stiffening his cock with a suddenness that left him breathless. She took a step toward him and he was overwhelmed by her intoxicating scent filling his nostrils.

  She looked up at him, only inches away, lifting her mouth to him. Take me, her lips demanded even as her eyes screamed, Fuck you!

  She might as well have said it aloud. Unaccountably furious at the sense of being manipulated, he decided to give her exactly what she was asking for.

  Meri gasped as Jon’s hands gripped her forearms and dragged her close. His mouth came down on hers forcefully, lips crushing hers. She was clamped tightly against him, her breasts pushed up against the hard plane of his chest. For a moment she was aware of the singeing of the material of his lab coat before that sensation was swallowed by the shock of being held.

  Oh God, he could touch her! His hands had moved over her shoulders to her neck and cupped her face. His touch had shocked her into absolute stillness while his eyes, bluer and deeper than the sky, watched her even as his mouth savored her lips.

  She let out a small strangled gasp as his tongue suddenly forced her lips apart and plunged deep into her mouth. His tongue was cool and firm, delving deep into the warm cavity, exploring it leisurely. A heady swirl of sensation sent dizzying signals of pleasure through her body, demanding her surrender, her submission.

  It was a war, she thought faintly. He wasn’t trying to please her but to prove a point. Yet he was pleasing her. His touch, literally unlike anything she’d ever felt before, drew from her a shuddering gasp of pleasure. And with that gasp came complete surrender.

  So she was nonplussed when he abruptly pulled away and held her out at arm’s length. “Is that what you wanted?” he growled.

  Her lips sizzled with the impression of his savage touch. Meri looked down at his strong hands clamped over her forearms and experienced a dizzying sensation of relief. He really was touching her. Nothing had burnt off, nothing needed bandaging, he wasn’t even on the ground moaning in pain and horror.

  Jesus, was he The One?

  A burning heat arrowed to her core as lust washed over her. Joyfully, she thanked her lucky stars that the only man who’d ever been able to touch her was absolutely gorgeous.

  No one was more surprised than Jon when Meri threw her arms around his neck and jumped up to wrap her long legs around his waist. Her luscious mouth pressed against his and devoured his face with kisses. He stumbled back with the weight of her, felt the desk against the back of his legs as her mouth left a trail of kisses over the strong column of his neck.

  “What -- what are you doing?” he gasped as she tore the buttons off his shirt in her eagerness to get it off him. This about-face from Meri -- from challenging scorn to unbridled lust -- was more than he knew how to handle.

  Her tongue trailed a path along the ridge of his collarbone. “You’re getting what you asked for,” she said, eyes burning.

  “I didn’t -- I don’t --” He cried out as she clamped her teeth over one of his nipples and sucked. She unwrapped her legs from his waist, her breasts gliding over his torso as she slid along his body to the ground. Then her mouth trailed over his smooth chest, over the curved muscles of his abdomen till her tongue delved into his bellybutton.

  Jon realized he was hyperventilating. The sensation of lust he’d effectively squashed since his sojourn on this planet came rushing back at him. He felt the blood drive to his cock, stiffening it with a power that overtook every other thought. But he barely had time to register its impact before Meri’s hands were fiddling with his belt.

  Meri made a frustrated sound as she fumbled. She stopped to yank off the gloves she still wore, throwing them aside before she whipped off his belt and undid his fly. A second later, his cock gave a stiff salute to the cool air of his office as his pants were pulled down over his hips.

  She finally paused, looking down at it with something like awe and admiration. Jon, leaning back on the desk, felt as though he was about to be ravished by marauding raiders and was at a loss as to how to stop it. Correction -- he didn’t want to stop it. Her expression as she stared at his cock would make any man feel proud.

  “It’s better than the glass one,” she said softly.

  He didn’t know what she meant and hadn’t a chance to find out before her hot, hot hands grasped him. He groaned as she stroked him, then blinked in shock when she dropped to her knees and took the cool, long length of his member in her mouth.

  The sensation was unbearably pleasurable. Her mouth was a vortex of heat, moving over the ridged, veined length of his cock with restless urgency. His bo
dy became rigid in his desperate attempt to keep himself from coming instantly. He stared down at the top of her head, watching the bobbing of her mouth over him, her lips red and burning hot. He could just see her glorious cleavage between his legs and ached to take her breasts in his hands, the peaks in his mouth. But that would stop the movement of her mouth over his cock and the mounting pleasure that threatened to engulf him.

  Then engulfed him completely as her heated hands cupped his balls and squeezed. He heard himself groan, long and low, and closed his eyes. His body took on a life of its own as his hips moved in unison with the pumping of her mouth, surrendering to her hot eagerness and ending his long sexless exile on Earth.

  He pushed himself deep into her throat as his release came, hard and fast, shooting its liquid load. He heard her give a gasp of shock and pull away, and the loss of her warm mouth left him feeling suddenly bereft.

  He stared down at her, saw her eyes huge with amazement, one hand held over her mouth as she swallowed.

  The door to his office suddenly opened. “Jon, I heard about this incident in the lobby --” Larry stopped, his mouth dropping open in shock. He stared at the scene before him. Then grinned and gently closed the door behind him.

  Meri still stared at him as though she hadn’t heard Larry at all. But to Jon, the surprise of being caught literally with his pants down, after having been accused of sexual harassment only that morning, brought a flush of embarrassment to his face.

  He straightened and pulled his underpants over his cock, which was now at half-mast. As he zipped up his trousers, he frowned at Meri. She remained on her knees, watching him, her eyes huge, her hand still covering her mouth.

  Maybe he’d hurt her. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, staring at him. “I didn’t think it would be like that.”

  He was clueless about what to say in this situation. His fingers trembled as he pulled the tattered remains of his shirt together and did up the few remaining buttons.

  God, what had he done? If she was Firesnake -- and he was pretty sure she was -- then he’d almost crossed a very clear line. His job was to find Firesnake and take her back to the Chan to fulfill her destiny on his home world of Calanir. That destiny could only be fulfilled with all her powers intact.

  That meant Firesnake had to remain a virgin.

  If Larry hadn’t interrupted, who knew how it would have ended? His body had turned traitor on him. He wasn’t sure how long she would remain intact if she kept staring at him like that: with wonder, awe and -- lust. A lust that neither of them had even begun to satisfy.

  He had to get her off his hands and back to the Chan. Fast.

  Chapter Four

  Meri gazed at Jon surreptitiously over the ceramic rim of her mug of iced tea. Jon was making coffee at his kitchen counter, his back turned toward her as he reached for milk and sugar. Her gaze wandered over the breadth of his shoulders, trailed down to the muscled waist beneath a black tee shirt and over his round bottom encased in jeans.

  The back side of him was just as good as the front. As he turned with coffee cup in hand, her eyes went to the bulge between his legs. She could hardly believe she’d had that smooth, silken cock in her mouth. Any cock would have been a surprise, but the perfection of that one and the man it belonged to made her jittery with anticipation. There were other places she wanted that cock, places that even now burned for him.

  His face was expressionless as he sat across the table. He’d taken her quickly away from the Belzin Center, practically dragged her out to his car. She’d stared at his chilly profile, rapt in the beauty of it, during the silent drive. Twenty minutes later he’d pulled into the driveway of a long, low house in a modern style, all chrome and glass, almost completely fireproof. Perfect for her.

  While he changed out of his ripped clothing, she wandered about the rooms and out to the back where she saw the Olympic-sized pool in the garden. She imagined he did laps every morning to keep that body in shape. He had the physique of a swimmer, lean and broad-shouldered.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” he began in a low voice, his blue eyes fixed on her. He looked way too serious.

  “Done what?” Dreamily, she watched his hands clasped around the coffee cup. Long, strong fingers with clean square-cut nails and sensitive tips that she couldn’t wait to feel on her breasts.

  “You know what.” He scowled at her. “In my office.”

  She stared at him in surprise. “Didn’t I do it properly?”

  “Of course you did it proper --” He cut himself off, made a sound of frustration as he pushed his hand through his hair. “That’s what I want to discuss. You can’t do that again.”

  Her eyes narrowed suspiciously as she looked him over. She sighed. “Just my luck. You’re gay, aren’t you? I knew you were too pretty --”

  “I’m not gay!”

  “Oh.” She grinned at the shocked look on his face. “Sorry. That makes things so much simpler.”

  Not in my book, Jon thought miserably. He needed to tell her who he was, and who he thought she was, though it was hard to concentrate when she sat across the table looking good enough to eat. He wondered what she tasted like, what her heated clit would feel like beneath his tongue. She had that look in her eye that said she was more than willing for him to find out.

  He pulled himself up sharply as his thoughts veered dangerously away from his objective. Shifting uncomfortably in his seat as his cock strained against his jeans, Jon took a sip of his coffee and decided it was best to just let her know. “You can’t do that again,” he said, setting the coffee cup down, “because you have to remain a virgin.”

  He winced as the words came out. That hadn’t been what he’d meant to say, at least not straight off, but it seemed to be the only thing he had on his mind.

  Meri stared at him for a moment and then started to laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She slapped her mug of iced tea on the table. “I finally find a guy I can actually fuck and he’s some sort of religious nut.”

  Jon frowned as she went into a gale of laughter. “I am not a religious nut.”

  She continued to laugh. Affronted, he reached across the table and caught her wrist tightly. She stopped and stared at him.

  “I am not gay and I am not a religious nut. My real name is not Jon Anderson, it is Ryen’La of the Kilkar. I was sent here from my home world, Calanir, to find Firesnake. And I think I’ve found her. I believe you to be her.”

  Meri firmly removed his hand from her wrist and scraped her chair back away from the table. “No offence but I think you’re a little psychotic, Ryan of Wherever-you’re-from. Cute, but completely delusional.” She frowned. “And it’s a real pity you couldn’t have told me this after we’d had sex.”

  She jumped up and ran. Jon caught her as she opened the front door. Dragging her back with an arm around the waist, he kicked the door shut and turned his attention to the angry, writhing woman in his arms. She lashed out at him, her nail catching him just under the eye, drawing blood. He swung her around as she elbowed him in the stomach. He loosened his hold at the sudden shooting pain and, caught off-balance, she fell sprawling over the slate floors of the entry lobby.

  She looked up as he towered over her, preparing to defend herself. But he only touched the long scratch across the top of his cheekbone and stared at the blood on his fingers. His icy blue eyes turned to her. “Whatever you believe, I’m not going to hurt you.” He turned and walked back into the kitchen.

  The fight left her like a deflating balloon. Feeling foolish at her bolt for freedom, Meri rose to her feet and brushed herself off. She looked about the house -- the expensive furnishings, the modern uncluttered look of the place. A big difference to the tiny mess of her trailer. Normally that would be enough to tempt her to stay, but she knew that wasn’t the real reason she stood hesitating.

  He was the only man who’d ever been able to touch her, and he said he was an alien.

  Did that mean she was an
alien too?

  All her life she’d known she hadn’t belonged and yearned for somewhere else, somewhere she’d be considered normal. She was a freak here, had always been, would always be, and she’d accepted her lot. But now Jon was holding out another possibility. He was saying that maybe, somewhere else, she wouldn’t be.

  She went to the kitchen and stopped awkwardly in the doorway. Jon stood at the sink with the tap running, a wet cloth over the scratch she’d made on his face. He glanced at her impassively and turned off the water.

  She took a deep breath. “I think you’d better tell me everything.”

  * * *

  If he was to be believed, Ryen’La of Kilkar was no ordinary man. He came from a long line of warriors, the Kilkar, one of the Chan. The Chan, as far as she could tell, were the dominant race of Calanir, though there were others who shared the planet with them. The details were sketchy as to why he’d been chosen to find her, but it seemed that finding Firesnake was top priority among the Chan.

  “What’s so important about her?” She didn’t believe for a minute that she was this so-called Firesnake.

  “We have to go back to the beginning,” Ryen explained patiently. “A thousand years ago, Calanir was not the civilized place it is now. It was a barbarous world ruled by the Kolkola, an alien race who had enslaved the Chan. They killed many of our people until there were too few to resist the Kolkola, and they resigned themselves to their fate. Until Firesnake came and freed them.”

  Meri considered this. “Hold on, you’re saying this Firesnake freed your people from the Kolkola a thousand years ago? I don’t get it. Why are you looking for her now?”

  Ryen leaned back in his chair. “The Chan are manipulators of time. Our readers of history have been noting shifts in the space-time continuum.” At her blank look, he said, “They have noticed that things in our reality are beginning to disintegrate. It’s usually caused by an event in the past that has failed to occur.”

  “What hasn’t happened that should have?”

  “The appearance of Firesnake.”