He kissed her eagerly, the hand that wasn’t caught in her hair moving confidently over her body, pausing to drag a thumb intentionally over a nipple. She could feel the hard length of him against her, and it nearly made her whimper out loud.
When he pulled away, it was with a growl. She was breathing hard, realizing how cool it was in the hallway without his body’s heat pressed to her.
“To your room.” He said it in the same way he might admonish a disobedient teenager, and Kara couldn’t seem to focus on anything else other than the want pooling between her thighs — and she realized in shame — thoughts about what she could let Arthos do to her body on that oversized bed.
He gave her another push away from him, until she was tottering down the hall and back to her room, her legs weak and her breathing rapid.
Arthos stormed back to his office. She was downright foolish to think he didn’t have security up and running. He’d been watching her all afternoon.
Which was, admittedly, a pretty significant part of the problem. He’d watched her as she had gathered her things and gone into the bathroom, as she’d dressed and brushed out her gorgeous hair, as she’d explored the room and worked up the courage to exit against his wishes.
It was damned annoying, but admirable as well. He would have been doing the same thing if he had been in her position.
And then when he’d seen her pressing up against the door to the room he slept in, he knew he had to stop her. He just hadn’t known how close he was going to come to pushing her through that door and taking her on his bed.
He adjusted the hard length of his arousal pressing against his pants and willed himself to stop reliving the sweet feel of her flesh beneath his fingertips, the way she smelled, the way she responded to his kisses. None of those things were going to help him keep his hands off of her.
And he needed to, if he wanted to have any bargaining chip with the Warlord at all. Keeping her at an arm’s length was crucial to the success of his plan.
He’d just have to keep reminding himself of that fact.
Chapter Three
He did his best to stay away from her, but it certainly wasn’t easy. The dull ache in his loins had been haunting him since he’d let his leg slide between hers, felt her heat and warmth.
He would be lying if he said he didn’t want to feel that again. He wanted that and so much more from her. He should have known better than to let himself get that close to her in the first place.
He had her food delivered to her — just one more way he could limit his interactions with her. He brought in a local woman who had no clan to claim as her own — a hybrid like himself.
She had delivered the food and reported that Kara seemed well, before disappearing back out into the outside world until returning for the next meal delivery.
It should have helped, but he still thought about going by her door almost constantly. Late in the night, when he should have been sleeping, he wondered what he would see if he pushed the door open and stood over her bed.
But really, that just led to more adjusting and swearing under his breath, so he’d been avoiding it altogether.
Unfortunately, it was no longer an option. He needed to tell her that their time together was coming to an end.
He knocked on the door, loudly, and waited for her to answer. When she did, she was wearing the same tunic she had been the last time he’d seen her, this time her slender legs bare, and he realized belatedly that there wasn’t much clothing for her to choose from in the room.
Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, the thick mass tousled, her green eyes clearly on display. He could see their color deepen, and imagined it had something to do with the desire he was stirring within her. Or, at least, he hoped that was happening. It could just have easily been that she was displeased to see him.
He tried to refocus, tearing his eyes away from her face, admonishing himself for wondering what that hair would feel like tangled in his fingers.
“I have informed the Warlord that I will release you back to him should he respond to my conditions. You should be prepared to leave whenever he has agreed to my terms.”
Kara crossed her arms over her chest, willing the sudden rush of panic that was screaming through her to disappear. “You do know you’re just like him, don’t you? Using my body to get whatever you want.” The words were angry, bitterness lacing her tone.
His eyes narrowed. There was nothing he and the Warlord shared in common. That was something she would learn, if she didn’t already know. He leaned in close to her, his breath warm on her cheek.
“Trust me, you would know if I was using your body to get what I want.” He gave her body a lingering appraisal, enjoying her discomfort, but quickly reminded that that sort of appraisal had ramifications for him as well.
Heat flamed her face. She wanted to say she was above thinking about what it might be like if he were using her body, but she wasn’t, and in the moment after he said the words, it was all she could think about.
His body on top of hers. His hands moving over her skin. If she’d had any will power, she would take a step away from him.
But she didn’t. Instead, she tipped her face to the side, as if inviting him into the space between her shoulder and ear. She couldn’t stop herself from remembering how his hands had felt on her body, how she had melted into him, his mouth searing on hers until she’d felt like she was going to explode in flames.
Whether it was an open invitation or not, he took it. It was all he needed. The breath that had been between them was gone, and his mouth was on her jawline and her hands were moving across the hard planes of his chest. She felt herself almost purr in contentment at his touch.
Arthos let his teeth come down gently on the swell of her lower lip and Kara tugged at his hair in return. He was hypnotizing to touch. She couldn’t seem to stop once she started.
One of his hands cupped the side of her face, and Kara was reminded again of how large he was. The other had reached down and was skimming over her exposed leg, pushing up the bottom of the tunic as he went.
“I should bring you something else to wear,” he said, as though it weighed heavily on him. His voice was rough and ragged, and Kara was thrilled to know she was making as much of an impression on him as he was on her. She could hardly think straight when he was touching her.
It was hard to say who was responsible for them traveling across the room and toward the bed. One moment, they were standing by the door and the next, he was lifting her hips up onto the edge of the bed and she was sliding them up around his waist, tipping her head back to expose her neck, and he was leaning into her, one hand on the mattress, the other cradling her back, his pelvis pressed intimately to her body.
He rocked against her just enough to make her gasp, and he realized from the wet heat of her that he had failed to provide her with any undergarments when she had arrived. He moved his hand to her breast, just to confirm that was the case, and groaned as her sweet, pliable flesh filled his palm.
She reached for his hips, drawing him more tightly to the juncture of her thighs, wanting to feel him against her. Kara was aching to have him inside of her.
In agreement, he moved over her, laying her back fully on the bed, filling the space above her.
“You are my captive,” he said hoarsely, and Kara wasn’t sure if that reminder was for her or for him, and in the next moment, he was off of her and across the room.
She was struggling to catch her breath and sit up and he was walking out the door, his body hard and angry.
“That will not happen again. You will be gone from here by tomorrow evening.” His words were heavy with displeasure and the feeling of good riddance, and then he turned on his heel and was out the door.
Kara waited for her breathing to return to normal. She hadn’t been prepared for any of that.
Worse, now there was the ticking of her time running out. Not to mention how he’d been able to pull her so close to the edge of
any sound reasoning, and so close to the edge of an orgasm while barely touching her.
She wasn’t just going to sit here and wait for her fate to come to her. She was going to go out there and do something about it. She just had to wait a minute or two until she had cooled off a little bit.
When she felt like she wasn’t going to dissipate into an exposed bundle of nerve endings, she found her abandoned leggings and pulled them on. The window in her bathroom was big enough for her to crawl through, and she was fairly certain the bathroom had no cameras.
It had taken her a while to recognize the one in her bedroom, but then she had started to see them everywhere. The hall. The stairwell. Certainly, Arthos must have enjoyed her display of reconnaissance. Laughing at her inability.
The bathroom might give her the extra time she needed. She knew she would need whatever she could get.
It was big enough. Barely. She opened it and shimmied up through it, using the back of the toilet as a platform. Her heart was thudding in her chest loudly, and for a moment she waited to see if she’d been found out.
But there was no time to waste. Outside, she was a story up, but the way the exterior material met at the corner gave her the footholds she needed to scale safely down the side.
She was simultaneously grateful that she had no shoes to get in her way, and irritated at the difficulty her bare feet were bound to cause her as she tried to get back to her ship. She had never missed her standard issue boots so much.
Back on the ground, she was moving before she had even finished her descent. She hadn’t wasted her time penned up in her room. She’d spent her time studying the way the light moved, the way the grounds seemed to fit together, and how the building was oriented.
She was certain they’d come from the front of the building when they’d first arrived, and that was where she was going to start. Hopefully she’d be able to make it to her shuttle without too much difficulty.
She wished she’d been able to keep her tablet. It had been loaded with all the information she would ever have needed. Terrain maps. Directional coordinates. The location of her spacecraft.
Unfortunately, she’d last seen that around the time the Warlord had flung it to the ground along with her helmet. If it hadn’t been destroyed then, it had probably been usurped by any one of the soldiers who’d first taken her prisoner, lost to her forever.
Slipping around the edge of the building, the dry grass and hard stones sharp and painful beneath her feet, biting into her tender skin, she made her escape.
Kara stayed as hidden as she could, thankful for the encroaching darkness of night, and then she was sliding through the main set of gates and out into the open.
She took a moment to inwardly celebrate, the first thing that had gone in her favor since she had arrived her on Ubi-7z.
With night falling and some space between her and Arthos, Kara began to relax. She knew she didn’t have an endless amount of time before she was discovered missing, but she had a good start.
Confident about her impending success and dreaming about how she would soon return to Earth, Kara was wondering how far she should go before she found a place to settle in for the night.
Which was right about the time she tripped into a camouflaged camp hiding several men.
“Looky, looky,” said one male, appearing out of nowhere, a wicked looking blade in his hand. His eyes gleamed in the near dark, his face hidden beneath unkempt hair.
He looked human, but Kara was beginning to wonder if that actually meant anything here on this planet. “Just what we were needing here.” His voice was hard, his eyes openly assessing her.
It was just her luck, she was beginning to think, that she would run into something even worse than what she was leaving behind. It had been her theme for the whole trip.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she snapped, resisting the very strong urge to push the man away from her. It probably wouldn’t have gotten her very far, but it would have felt pretty damn satisfying before it bit her in the ass.
She heard a tsking from behind her, and turned toward it, realizing there was another male and that there were still others on the outskirts of the camp.
They were converging on her, everything about the way they approached confirming she was their prey, and as far as they were concerned, she had already been captured.
A mixture of size and species, she was certain, she didn’t know if they were native to the space or bandits seeking refuge. Whatever the case, Kara knew they had one mission in mind, and it wasn’t looking good for her.
The knife the first male had brandished at her snaked forward, slicing through the soft material of her tunic and leaving her breasts exposed to the air and to their view.
She scrambled to grab the fabric and pull it tightly around her body, desperate for the coverage and knowing it wouldn’t do her any good in the long run.
It was hard not to think about how willing her body had been with Arthos when he had cupped the flesh of her breast just a short time ago. Now, this male reached out with eager hands as the male behind her stepped forward and grasped her by the upper arms, trapping her there. She squirmed against him, thinking desperately that she was running out of time.
“Oh, yes,” the male in front of her breathed, and his very breath was repulsing, her whole being shrivelling away from him. “This is just what we needed. I like a little fight in my women.”
His other hand was reaching for his crotch, probably intent on freeing himself so he could get on with whatever torture he had in mind for her.
Fortunately, he didn’t make it much further than that. Instead, he dropped like a stone to the ground at her feet, and Kara could see a long hilt protruding from between his shoulder blades.
And there, on the other side of the body, was Arthos, mouth twisted in anger, hate in his eyes.
She had barely begun to process what was happening when Arthos leapt toward her, his face a contorted mask of rage. In his hurry to release her and get into a defensive position, the male who had been clasping her threw her to the ground, where her shoulder connected with the hard dirt and a growing puddle of blood seeped toward her.
She hadn’t even righted herself yet when the second male’s body came crashing down beside her, and Arthos was standing over all three of them like an angry Hulk, the other males on the perimeter scattering at his attack.
“Dammit, Kara,” he bit out at her. “I told you it wasn’t safe beyond the compound. Do you think I just like to hear myself talk? This is prime bandit territory.”
She tried to keep her voice from shaking when she responded. “And I’m to know that how? It’s not like you provided me with any of this magical information ahead of time.”
She wanted to applaud herself for her brassy words, but the truth was she was still too shaken to do much else but sit in the dirt next to the dying men, staring up at Arthos, disgruntled and relieved all at the same time.
He reached for her and jerked her to her feet, his words snapping. “Pretty sure I did. When I told you not to go beyond the walls.”
She glared at him and fought the urge to cry. She supposed he had a point. But then again, why should she just go around taking what everyone said to her at face value? It wasn’t like there had been a lot of things happening lately that were legitimately in her best interest.
He yanked the rent in the tunic closed, covering her body, and she shivered again, her teeth beginning to chatter. Shock, she knew, as the tremors started to sweep through her body. There wasn’t much she could do about that now, though.
Arthos gathered her to him, his body solid and reassuring. “It’s alright, now. We’ll get you inside and warmed up.” His voice was gruff but she melted into his words, grateful for his touch, and let him lead her back to his home.
Arthos was still seething, everything in him set on edge. He’d seen Kara on the outdoor monitors and had resigned himself to following her.
He hadn’t been in a huge rush
. She wasn’t experienced and you could see her tracks a mile away. And then, she’d rounded the corner and right into that mess with the space pirates.
There was a reason he wasn’t bothered much in his location. He and the bandits had a tacit agreement. He would let them stay here and they would continue to make it difficult for other people to get to him. He was going to have to reconsider that strategy in the future. Especially, if he had any interest in keeping Kara safe.
He gripped her more tightly, reminding himself that he had gotten there in time, relishing in the feel of her. That she was still whole and his. That he hadn’t failed her.
Even so, he couldn’t shake his agitation. Seeing her there like that had made it painfully clear that he didn’t want anyone else to have her. To even look at her. And that included those two bodies back there in the woods. And the Warlord.
Well, hadn’t he made a mess of that then?
Chapter Four
Arthos had Kara safely tucked away in her room, wrapped beneath the quilt and with promises that he would be back to check on her later.
He moved restlessly across the room. Even though he knew she was safely tucked away and in no danger, he couldn’t seem to shake whatever was plaguing him.
He hadn’t been able to sit since their return. He’d paced his office, the hallway, and the perimeter. He’d kicked himself for not moving more quickly. For keeping her when it would have been just as easy to deposit her back at her shuttle in the first place.
Something about seeing her there, so close to being violated, had made everything abundantly clear.
He didn’t just want her. He wanted her. All the time. Not in the guest room. Not as a bargaining chip. Not as a cheap thrill. And definitely, not as the Warlord’s next heir-producer.
He felt the sinking certainty that he needed her to be his own mate.
Alien Romance: Hunted By The Alien: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Protectors Book 4) Page 3