And that was how they ended up sitting side by side at the top of the flight of five timber steps, looking out over the white fence. The little street was deserted. The scent of some sweet blossoms drifted in, yet he could still smell Willow. He could feel the need to take her in his arms, comfort her then, yes, kiss her. Do more if his cock had any say in it.
One of the miracles of the universe was that every discovered intelligent race had been mammalian, humanoid, and sexually compatible. There was something to be said for the theory that all intelligence descended from some common stock.
He shook his head.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
Before exiting the car, he’d covertly rubbed some of the nano-chem on his lips and gums. He leaned his forearms on his knees and looked over at her. She seemed relaxed, as if being at home made her safer.
“You can take off your coat if you want. I mean… You don’t have to. It’s a hot summer night, is all. Wow. I sound like I’m about to break into song.”
He hesitated.
“I’m not trying to seduce you or anything, Mister… What is your name? Eh. I’ll shut up now. Tell me what all that, back there, was about.”
Then he took off his coat, revealing the guns, and watched her catalogue his weaponry.
“Holee shit. None of that is legal. Not even the body underneath, I think. Are you like SWAT team or something? I’m pretty sure I should be screaming and running away. You’re a mean-looking, mother of a fucking huge guy.”
He grunted. How was he a mother?
“You can’t deny that. But, somehow I trust you.” She shrugged. “Just don’t make me look stupid by killing me, please.”
“I won’t.” He smiled. “You want to know all about me.”
“Yes.”
He took a deep breath.
Chapter 3
She’d been babbling. Willow put her hands between her knees for a moment and squeezed in, trying to find rock steady ground in her head. Whoever this man was, he’d risked something helping her. Maybe not as much as she’d first thought, but something. Injury at least. Crap, he had enough weaponry to start a small war. Once upon a time, before work took over, Nicolai and her had talked about guns. Those were 357 Magnums.
And she still didn’t know why she felt okay, even safe, next to him.
In the minimal light from her new porch light, which had turned out the wrong wattage, his tattoos seemed too perfect. The black patterns on his exposed neck, forearms, and face looked natural and even ran up into his short, dark hair. A red curling tat, that looked done over a deeply scarred groove, peeked from under the sleeve of his dark T-shirt.
With the coat off, his build was even more awesome than she’d imagined. His arm and shoulder muscles slid powerfully whenever he shifted – heavy biceps, a neck that looked biteable but not thick. She didn’t even like superfit guys; they were pure narcissistic assholes most of the time and spent more time preening themselves than a cat.
And yet, next to him, she felt so like a woman. Like he might, any second, reach over, pull her close, and kiss her.
Fuck. Simmer down, hormones.
She let out a long breath and listened to the breeze playing with the gum tree foliage overhead, wondering when he was going to start explaining. This had to be some doozy of an explanation coming. She plucked at her bright pink top. Scherazade Bar and Dining ran in curly writing across the breast area.
From what Amy had said, he’d sat at the pub for hours. Seemingly waiting. Barely drinking.
“Cat got your tongue?”
“I’m thinking,” he said. “Where to begin.”
“Can you tell me your name to start with? I’m Will.”
“I thought it was Willow?”
“Uhh, those other two used that, didn’t they? They aren’t exactly friends. I go by Will. Left Willow behind years ago.” When she had to be tough. After her aunt died.
“Why?”
She frowned, unsure if she should tell this stranger. “Willow sounded fragile. That’s not me.”
He pursed his lips. They were nice manly lips. Kissable. Lickable. Note: Stop obsessing about this guy.
“I like Willow. It’s pretty. I’m going to call you that. I am Stom.”
“Uhh.” Her mouth stayed open. Was it rude if she told him not to? Maybe later. Wasn’t as if he’d be sticking around.
Stom was an unusual name. Solid though, like him.
Only a few minutes ago, she’d been assaulted. Her throat and face hurt, her wrists too. Maybe she’d have bruises, but…she sniffed…she’d not let it get to her. Bastards.
“Thank you, Stom. I never said thank you for saving me.”
“I was glad I could. In fact, if I hadn’t saved you…” He clasped his big hands at his front, looked over at her.
What gorgeous eyes he had, for a man. How in hell was she seeing them in the night? They almost glowed. The color entranced her. Aquamarine?
“Yes?” She raised her eyebrows. “If?” She needed to hear this. Hoped it would be something good, like maybe it would offset the evil already done to her tonight.
“If I hadn’t, I’d never have forgiven myself. You’re a beautiful creature.”
Creature?
He nodded as he spoke, as if to convince himself. “I’d have done the same if you’d had an army taking you away. You know you’re in danger?”
Oh shit. The warm glow he’d started froze. “What? Well, of course. But I’m hoping you scared them off.”
“This isn’t a one-off attack. This man, this law-breaker, Kasper, he wants to kill you and probably torture you badly first.”
After a few seconds, she managed to squeeze out some words. “What do you mean? How do you know this?” Fear was trying to shut her down. Not. Happening. She had Ally to look after.
“I know this because I’m an alien from another planet. You’ve been chosen as a special subject and have been watched and studied. It’s fact.”
His words went a long way away. She heard them but they were so nonsensical she didn’t comprehend for a few seconds after he said them.
“…and if you don’t do something, he will kill you. I have a choice. I’m telling you this so as to get you to run away from here. Go. Soon. Take whatever you can and run.”
“What?” She felt her forehead crease, let his last sentence run around in her head again. “Why are you trying to mess with me? Just tell me the truth. I don’t think joking is nice or, or anything! Not after what just happened to me.”
“Willow –”
“Will. Thank you.”
He blinked. “Run. Please. It isn’t a joke.”
Oh this was just ridiculous. She didn’t need this. Besides, she couldn’t see why he was doing it. Why help her then tell stupid stories? Was he nuts? Trying to mindfuck her? And with all those guns? Maybe they were toys? They must be.
An image of him stabbing a fork into Turf’s hand flashed into her mind but she shoved it away.
She stood. Anger tore her up. The next words blurted out before she could stop herself. “Fuck you.”
Ally might be wondering why she was out here. Forget this asshole.
“Wait. Willow.” He shot upright and grabbed her hands then added in his rumbly voice that shivered deep inside her, “You need to believe me.”
When she tugged and tugged, and couldn’t get free, her anger, stupidly, drained away.
He stared down at her like he could drive his words into her very soul. “Believe. You must believe me. Run away, fast. Go tomorrow.”
She swallowed, petrified, but not of him holding her. The fear was of what he meant, of how he was distorting her reality. Somewhere in what he said, she sensed truth and a world of horrendous and incalculable wrongness.
“I can’t.” Her words sounded so squeaky. “I have Ally. She needs me.” Tears wet her eyelids and she trembled. “I can’t leave.”
It would take her weeks to convince Ally. Months to sell the house. She
had no spare cash, nowhere else to go, and why was she even contemplating all this?
Then he leaned in and kissed her. He wrapped his big solid, man-heavy arms around her, fairly crushing her to him, and kissed.
A shudder of lust slammed into her every cell. A volcanic explosion might, barely, have had the same effect. She opened her mouth and found he was already taking advantage of that small concession – nipping, licking and pushing his tongue inward past her lips. His wide thigh had somehow nudged her legs apart. His male scent assaulted her as much as the feel of him taking of her what he wanted.
Goose bumps swept across her skin in a chill wave that seemed to sensitize every tiny hair on her body.
“Stop. Wait,” she protested, murmuring around his lips, breathing more of him in, feeling parts of him shift to accommodate her own moves, knowing he was touching her most intimate places.
God. Her clit was pulsing hot against his thigh. She’d wet through her panties for sure. As he pushed on her there, the cloth slid on the moisture.
While he kissed the corner of her lips, he curved her backward. She moaned and squirmed as he explored further down her neck, to the first swell of her breasts, wanting more of him, clutching at his back. His leg ground upward between her legs and she replied, pushing against him, dying to get more, more, more.
Fast, frantic, this was a tsunami of lustful impulses.
Some ecstatic and unmeasured time later, he lowered her to the porch timber and covered her body with his. Clothing was shoved and stretched. His mouth searched for and engulfed her nipple – a shock of wet heat that made her arch and groan. He sucked on her, tongue lapping, rasping at her. Then his hand slid, his fingers rubbed downward over her clit and along her slit. Probing her, pushing inward in the rhythm of sex. His thumb took over the task of massaging her clit. She made some odd choking noise, and pressed her hips upward, straining to get his fingers in her despite the shorts and her panties being in the way.
Should she protest? The idea arrived and was gone in the same instant.
Touch me.
He found a solution, must’ve pushed aside her underwear. Some part of him thrust into her pussy. Fingers. Fingers shoving in…out, thumb rubbing, circling, rubbing.
She clawed blindly at his hair and his shoulders.
This was insa –
“Oh god. God. Stop.” She panted, whimpered, writhed on his hand. “I’m going to…” A climax possessed her, echoing as he kept on playing his tongue over her nipple. She imagined that tongue, those lips, below and had a last exquisite tremor wrack her body.
Spent, gasping, she was vaguely aware of him shifting. She opened her eyes to see him over her, looking down at her with those translucent jewel-blue eyes.
“I think that qualifies as a kiss.”
The thickness in her throat made it hard to speak. “God, yes.”
What had just happened? Why… Her mind ran off in all directions. Why had she done that? Been so overcome?
“Mmm.” He stroked hair from her forehead. “Poor little female. I’m going to solve this problem of yours, somehow. I promise.”
For a while she let him caress her then she struggled up onto her elbows. Why had that felt so right? She’d reacted like an animal on heat – disengage brain and engage sex kitten.
And if there was one thing she wasn’t, it was a poor little female. Even if he wanted to help her, what a demeaning way to say it. Her eyes narrowed.
“You’re going to solve my problem?”
“Yes.”
“And if I say I don’t want your help?” And she wasn’t convinced she had a problem.
“Are you?” His hand stilled.
“Maybe.”
She shook her head, unsure what she was most disturbed about. He’d told her he was an alien only a few minutes ago. A few lust-crazed minutes ago. Either he was nuts, or not. If he was then her behavior became crazy too. He hadn’t drugged her. Though if he were an alien, maybe he had a sex ray or something… And maybe she needed to go swallow some of Ally’s pills.
“Did you do something to me, mister?” she asked suspiciously.
“Not yet.” He studied her. “Although I like that you ask questions, you need to ask them more…what’s the word? It’s a type of niceness…”
“Huh. You want more respect?” She arched an eyebrow, aware she was challenging him. Though if he truly was an alien, and not some Russian drug syndicate crim who’d sampled too much of his own smack, maybe he’d not get the subtlety?
Alert. Warning. Nut job in proximity. Why was she even vaguely, with more than half a brain cell, considering he might be an alien? Because he’d just made her melt? Because he acted so solid, down-to-earth and non-fantasy that Tinkerbell’s wings would fall off if she was here?
“Respect? Yes. That’s it.”
Ahh, she couldn’t resist. “Twat.”
He reached under, fisted her hair, and anchored her to the floor with it. “I know that’s an insult.”
Her gasped out indignant, “Ow, ow, ow,” and her wriggling against his hold, achieved nothing except to make him smile triumphantly.
He waited for her to stop wriggling. “I can see you’d be a constant challenge to any male who claimed you.”
“No one’s claiming me unless they want their balls on a plate.”
“First, I’d have to cut out that adventurous tongue.”
She snapped her mouth shut and ventured a frown.
Funny how she’d not told him to fuck off. She really should, except she was too wrapped up in watching him watch her, and seeing the changes on his face. There were differences in his cheek structure, and ears, and other little things like his eyebrow hair growing the wrong way…and did that have to mean he was an alien? Maybe if your eyebrow got shot off it could grow back wrong? Maybe he was just inbred with weird genes? If that were the case, inbred had some big pluses and she wanted to meet his brothers.
Whatever the cause, she figured she could read him. He seemed like a man who’d discovered something that both pleased him and saddened him.
She was also all too aware that this, being held down and examined, was turning her on, immensely so. She kept her legs together and ignored the pulse of blood in her temples and between her legs.
“I have to go.”
When he released her, she tried not to look disappointed. When he said a quiet goodbye and walked away from her, down her stairs, and perhaps out of her life, she had to dig her nails into her skin to stop herself calling him back.
Rescue a girl, tell her you’re her answer to all her problems then just waltz off without explaining? Didn’t the man know date etiquette? Hero etiquette?
She sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees, rustling up some dignity despite everything. One thought kept returning to her – it was good to know someone thought her worth rescuing. She looked out for Ally, tried to save some money for when they’d need it, to get ahead, but the house was in bad need of repairs and the medicine bills climbed over her head. On the days when life was serving up lemons, she wondered if she was worth more than spit.
Her nails were chewed down to nothing. She played with the ragged end of one. Didn’t help that she’d almost forever nursed an irrational fear that she’d somehow made her parents die.
Now her alien hunk had deserted her too.
His words came back to her: You’ve been watched and studied.
Creepy and yet strangely reassuring. Should she contact the cops or some alien worshipping society? At least he hadn’t probed her yet. Wait, he had. Willow laughed a little crazily.
Fuck this. She shoved back some straying curls and scrambled to her feet. The real world called.
Chapter 4
Mandy wriggled into a better position on the sofa as she knitted the last rows of the tiny green pullover. Then she held it out before her. Her fingers had gone a bit numb from her stupid carpal tunnel problem but this was so worth it. Who would’ve thought anyone would want pullovers for
little oil-slicked penguins? The darn things were such cuties she hadn’t been able to resist when she’d seen the link on Facebook for people to knit these to help save them.
Phoebe and Jamie were doing this too. They were racing each other.
She’d begun a second one when the front door opened and clicked shut. His footsteps on the tiles made her grin. What the hell would he think of this latest venture? Being a dentist, he was very practical and no-nonsense.
Her feet jiggled. Hugging and screaming was what she needed to do.
No. She wouldn’t get all excited, not yet. She’d pretend nonchalance, despite him being too busy with the conference to do more than text once or twice. Mean man.
His shadow eclipsed the opening to the hall. She flung aside the pullover, leaped up and ran to him, grinning. Fuck being calm, he’d been away days!
“Christopherrr! How was the flight? What was Adelaide like? Why didn’t you return calls? You’re –”
The blankness on his face chilled her. What was this?
She put a hand out and touched his arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Come here.”
She smiled, tension ebbing, and melted into his embrace. “I missed you so, so much.”
Then something stung her cheek and she slipped, senseless, into a white oblivion.
When she awoke she found herself tied, spread-eagled, ever so tightly to their big double bed. Naked, she was naked. Mandy licked her dry lips, stumbling inside her mind to make sense of this.
Had she been drinking and forgotten?
When Christopher appeared still dressed in his suit at the periphery of her vision, she turned her head and smiled shakily. He’d never been kinky.
Something metal and silvery glinted in his hand.
“Chris? Baby? What are you doing?”
Wordless, he approached and raised what she recognized as one of his dental implements to her wrist.
“Chris! Hey! Stop that!” She twisted her body, cringing away as the drill screamed into its little metal whine. She remembered him telling her once that the motor inside it could spin the end drill six bazillion times a second or something. Her throat clamped in tight enough to choke her into not breathing. But she couldn’t look away, couldn’t tear her eyes off the terrifying thing.
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