by Marie Harte
But Jack wasn’t Lightswan, and she was no one’s pawn anymore. Especially now, with her own wants pressing hard.
“Do it.” She growled in a voice sounding nothing like her own, her body and mind ablaze with need.
His smile slowly left him, and his stare grew serious, thoughtful, as he measured her for something she didn’t understand. Her blood burned, her thighs trembled, and her lover knelt between her legs looking at her like some odd trophy he didn’t know how to handle.
Passionate fury seethed within her, and she threaded her hands through his golden hair, taken with the strands so like her own, yet so much softer. “Put your mouth on me and suck. Hard. Make me come, Jack. Do it.”
He narrowed his gaze, and his nostrils flared. The expression on his face became impossible to read, and then he returned to her sex, licking her from her ass to her clit, his tongue impossibly long.
“You asked for it,” he uttered in a guttural tone, one surprisingly more familiar than she might have expected.
Before she could question his abrupt change, his mouth covered her, and he sucked her clit into his mouth, worrying it with a suddenly rough tongue and astonishingly sharp teeth.
The small pinpricks of pain and the sudden intrusion of his finger in her ass took her into a whole new world of pleasure. She threw her head back, her impulse to grind down into him overriding her concern for anything else. Jack licked her and twisted his tongue in so many ways over her sex that she couldn’t help herself. Within seconds, Sierra’s juices gushed over his lips, her climax rocking her world into an explosion of fireworks.
She screamed, gripping his hair as she came again and again, quivering sensations pulsing through her body. And as she continued to shudder, he rose to an impressive height, seeming even taller than he’d been before. She caught a brief, puzzling glimpse of him covered in black from head to toe, his eyes a startling green, his lips curled in a frenzy of lust. And then he turned her to face the shower stall while he shoved her ankles wide, bent her at the waist, and pushed her head down.
“Brace yourself.” He growled low and thrust incredibly deep, touching the very heart of her womb. He fucked her, powerful thrusts that continued to shake her, making her climax linger, an impossible, never-ending spasm of pain and pleasure that wouldn’t stop.
Her sex clasped his cock, pulling him deeper into her body. And as he rode her harder and faster, she cried out for relief, for more and less in the same breath. When he finally gave an inhuman cry, relief mingled with alarm as he leaned close and bit the curve of her shoulder hard enough to draw blood while jetting into her.
* * *
Jack licked her wound clean and remained locked inside her body, his dick swelling to thrice its normal proportions. By rights, he should have been causing her some real pain, and amidst his euphoric stillness, he searched for some sign of injury. But he could only feel her sweet pussy milking him of his come. Such warmth, such acceptance of his alien frame inside her very human one made him wonder, for a moment, how such a thing could be possible.
He stared down at his black arms and torso in dismay, realizing he’d fully turned without meaning to. Before, even though the sex with had been incredible, he’d still been in careful control. Until she’d goaded him with the tricks any good Tergonian female had at her disposal. The Domvo—dominant voice, the Persha—clenching skull, the ultimate sensual power within her pussy, stimulating the nerve endings on his cock that shouldn’t have felt a thing inside a human woman’s sex.
But a Tergonian woman would have turned. Ci-Ci’s ivory skin, however, contrasted sharply with his black, alien flesh. And again he wondered how such a beautiful, fragile, human could get to him as she had.
For the first time in years, he felt something more for a woman than mere lust. And just days before his damned wedding. Ci-Ci shifted, and he shot again, his come wanting to seat within her body with a will of its own.
“Don’t move,” he rasped, petting her back with the cross-counter, soothing caresses normally used to calm a Tergonian female—a sweep from shoulder to shoulder, a stroke counter-clockwise and then diagonally in both directions across her back. To his surprise and suspicion, she began purring with contentment. Wanting to see her face, but not able to pull out until he’d released all of his turned seed, he pulsed for another minute, sighing at the sheer bliss she drew from his body.
When he finally felt “himself” again, he slowly withdrew and leaned against her back, breathing hard. He willed his skin to soften and turn that tanned gold so fitting with the humans of a society he worked to blend into. He blinked several times, and when he could again see in color, rather than in shades of luminescent white and black, he exhaled deeply.
“Ci-Ci, baby, are you okay?”
She turned in his arms to face him, her whiskey-brown eyes wide, her pulse visibly pounding, and burst into tears.
Shit. Oh shit.
“Baby, it’s okay. Shh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so rough. Do you need a med-tech? Let’s get you out of here and dressed and—”
She placed a finger over his lips and kissed him silent. “I’ve never in my life come so hard, for so long. My body feels like jelly, my mind is barely functioning, and I feel so incredibly, impossibly horny for you again that I think I must be out of my mind.”
She described the female Tergonian’s beginning of the mating ritual to a “T”— scaring the hell out of him. Tergonian law hadn’t allowed multiple spouses in over two hundred years. And apparently, he’d begun wedding one woman, while being promised to another only three more days from now.
“Jack?” She blinked at him, and he noted the odd striations of green appearing in her eyes.
“Hell.” His eye color, his marking, his…wife?
“I’m so sleepy. Do you think we could rest a bit before doing this all over again?” She gave a tired, heartwarming grin, and the walls he’d been carrying inside of him for so long slowly crumbled to dust. As would his future if he didn’t do some fast thinking.
“First things first,” he muttered and turned on the water to quickly wash them both off. When finished, he turned off the faucet and scooped Ci-Ci in his arms, out of the shower, and into a towel before hitting the bed. As soon as he laid her down, he felt a wave of exhaustion spread throughout his body. He slid toward sleep, curling her in his arms. But not until he felt her warm breath against his neck did he give way to slumber.
* * *
When Ci-Ci awoke, it was to deep green eyes studying her face as if committing her features to memory. She blinked and yawned, watching as Jack slowly smiled.
“Good morning, beautiful.” He leaned down to kiss her.
“Good morning, handsome.” She shifted, resting on her side. She stroked his hard chest with a soft hand, marveling at their contrasts. Memories of last night in the shower returned, and she knew she’d seen something of the Tergonian in him before he’d bitten her shoulder. She rubbed the bruise, and he frowned.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not much. My first real ‘love’ bite.”
His eyes glowed. “Mine as well. Talk about a good night had by all.” He groaned and stretched, and she couldn’t help noticing his impressive erection.
Hell. How can I be this horny for a guy I screwed seven ways from Sunday? Yet her body didn’t lie. Her nipples hardened, and moisture pooled between her thighs.
“You do something to me I can’t explain,” he murmured, leaning forward for another kiss.
Ci-Ci forced herself to keep it light. If they kept this up, she’d spend her next three days filled with Jack, having come no closer to the heart of him than his cock. Sighing, she pushed him back and smiled.
“I’m going to clean up. Why don’t you order us some room service?”
He groaned and laid back, his erection impossible to miss. “But I’m hurting, Ci-Ci. Have some pity on a poor man.”
She laughed and left him.
“Nice ass,” he called before sh
e shut the bathroom door behind her.
In the bathroom, she took care of her needs. She cleaned thoroughly and rubbed a finger of minty paste over her teeth, her thoughts as scattered as the droplets of water still on her face. She finished and dried off, yet swore she could still smell Jack on her, the sultry scent of male sex marked over her skin.
A Tergonian thing or her fanciful imagination at work? Either way, she was warmed by the possibility, and surprised at how much she wanted them to work through to their “I Do’s.”
She stared into the mirror above the marbled sink. I have to find out as much as I can about him. Surely someone so compatible physically will mesh in the other ways that matter. Won’t he?
A knock at the door startled her, and she realized she had nothing to change into. Jack had shredded her clothing last night, and even if he hadn’t, he’d made a mess on them. A delicious mess. She sighed and opened the door, the scent of hot pastries, coffee, and smoking suara meat making her mouth water.
“Ah, so that’s what it takes to get your attention.” Jack smiled, his gaze intense as it wandered over her naked body. She saw a flare of something inhuman in his eyes, a hunger that aroused rather than repelled.
He blinked suddenly and moved beyond her. “My turn.” Slamming the door between them, he muttered something about starting without him and turned on the water.
Shrugging, she let her belly take charge. She rummaged through one of his drawers and grabbed a soft, clean undershirt. Satisfaction filled her at wearing something of his, and the sensation of belonging jarred her desire anew.
As she started in on the suara and a full cup of coffee, she stared at the closed door of the lavatory. Mine, was all she could think as she chewed, her hunger two-fold.
Chapter Four
The first thing Jack saw as he left the lav made him instantly hard, and he had to force himself not to attack Ci-Ci and take her down, Tergonian style. She sat innocently by the table set for two, nibbling a piece of suara with even white teeth, covering the meat with her soft, ripe lips. One of his thin shirts hugged her body, molding to her full breasts and gently curving hips before stopping high on her luscious thighs.
He contained a groan and ordered his unruly body to relax. Damn, but the need for her continued to grow, as if he hadn’t fucked her several times last night. The woman had an unusual appeal, and he’d determined in the lav to find out as much about her as he possibly could.
With the Merritt “merger” looming like an ever-present nightmare, he needed a reprieve from worries about the future. Unfortunately, Ci-Ci had become an added stress, if a sexually intoxicating one. Damn it all if he hadn’t started to mate with her. The urge to bite her had taken him over, a primitive need to bind her to him, to mark her as his and his alone. He still couldn’t believe he’d turned while inside her. And the thought made his skin itch to turn again, to show her who she now belonged to.
Shaking his head to free his possessive thoughts, he joined her at the table and pulled up a chair. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, content to have her to himself. If he had his way, they’d stay in this garish hotel room until he was forced to wed Merritt Industrial.
“Feel better?” she asked innocently, sipping at her coffee.
“It would have been nicer if I’d had company. But I have to thank you for putting me off. Because even the thought of fucking you has me so hard I want to burst. And I have a feeling I could spend the next fifty years buried inside you, ignoring the real world and my responsibilities all too easily.”
She stared in surprise, her cheeks heating, and he thought her a contrary mix of innocence and raw sexuality. “Fifty years?”
“Or sixty, at least. I’m a pretty virile guy.”
She laughed and relaxed. “I know that. But that’s all I know. I’m curious about the Jack I know and…lust after.”
Did she just hesitate after “know and,” or was he imagining what he’d like to hear? If only Ci-Ci were the woman he’d be standing next to before an altar. But then, when the sex between them cooled, as it surely would between newlyweds, what then?
“Tell you what, Jack. Let’s play a game. I’ll pretend to be your friend’s fiancé, the one you can’t stand. And you pretend to be him. What would you want to know about her?”
He didn’t know where he’d start, but the vidphone buzzed, interrupting them.
“I’ll be a minute.” Jack jumped off the chair and caught the connection, assuring Mark his night had been fine. When his cousin pressed for details, Jack reminded him to steer clear of the room until otherwise notified. He disconnected to Mark’s knowing laughter.
Returning to Ci-Ci, he noted a look of discomfort on her face. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
“I think I’ve assumed a bit much. You might have things to do, and I’m encroaching—”
“Stop. Stop thinking that right now.” Jack closed the distance between them and leaned down for a better look into her honey-brown eyes. By the moons, she was breathtaking. “I have nothing better to do for the next few days than spend time with you.”
She smiled, an honest grin of happiness that caused his stomach to seize and his heart to flutter. What the hell?
“Then let’s talk…before we fall into that big bed of yours again.” Her lashes fluttered prettily. “I confess I don’t want to leave this room. Yesterday doesn’t feel quite real, does it?”
He kissed her softly, a tender sign of his affection, and fell deeper under her spell. “No, yesterday is more like a dream. And I’m more than up to the challenge of making today even better.”
“Good. Then begin by telling me about yourself.”
“No, no. Ci-Ci, you have to tell me about yourself. You work in administration, okay. But what do you do for fun?” He poured himself a cup of coffee and studied her, trying to envision her club hopping, laughing with friends, or shopping. But the images didn’t click.
“Fun?” She pursed her lips. “Ah, let’s see. Fun. On the weekends, I clean up the odds and ends from work I might have missed during the week. Oh, and I normally do a bit of food shopping, some errands. I guess that’s fun for me.”
“No shit? I mean, no kidding?” He laughed. “That sounds like my life. My parents are always on me to relax, live a little.”
She joined his laughter. “Mine, too. They’re constantly trying to shove me into the dating world. I think my mother has single-handedly asked every eligible bachelor in the greater Philadelphia area to date her daughter at least once.”
“I’m sorry.” But he wasn’t. Apparently, Ci-Ci was as particular about relationships as he was. “I have the same problem. And it’s not that I have anything against women.” He slid a glance over her body, lingering on her breasts. Pleased, he noted her nipples hardening under his stare. “I love sex. Hell, I love women in general, but I feel like I’m married to my work.”
She nodded. “Work’s a consistent partner. It’s safe, it’s easy, and sometimes it’s even fun.” She chuckled and fought him for the last piece of suara.
Sighing, he gave it to her. He liked her appetite, and the fact she refused to hide it. As if eating less would make her more feminine. The words she’d just said penetrated and he pondered her description of work.
“What do you mean it’s safe?” Interesting adjective to use. He would have said work was challenging. He’s never found it necessarily safe.
Ci-Ci’s face darkened. “I had a messy relationship once. The guy I thought I loved turned out to be a creep out to use me. And from what Cherry says, he seriously messed with my self-confidence.”
“Your self-confidence seems spot on to me.” He stared, hard. “Last night you had me under your thumb, Ci-Ci. You could have asked me to drop over the railing from three floors up, and I would have done it. You were a sexual dynamo, a confident seductress stealing my very will.”
“Seductress?” She flushed, her grin wide. “Don’t you have an imagination.”
She ate a pastry, and he w
atched her lick her lips free of the white frosting, thick and sweet. “You have no idea.”
She swallowed and set the food down. “I think I could venture a guess.” She shook her head. “You distract me so easily with sex. I was trying to learn a little about you before you forced me to jump your bones.”
“You’re killing me, here, Ci-Ci.” He groaned. “Just knowing you wear nothing under that shirt, that your tits and pussy are just waiting for me…”
Clearing her throat, Ci-Ci quickly changed the subject. But she didn’t do it fast enough to ease his throbbing cock.
“I ah, I do like reading, for fun. And I have the most outstanding garden on the patio of my condo.”
“What do you like to read?”
“I’m partial to romances, actually.” She blushed, and he stared, amused. He wouldn’t have pegged her as the romantic type. She seemed too grounded for that, too logical. Then again…he stared at her bare legs teased by the damned t-shirt blocking his view of her other valuable assets.
“Romances, hmm? I’m not much on reading because I do it all day long at the office. I’d rather run, box, or do something physical outdoors. You could say I’m a nut when it comes to keeping in shape. But looking the way you do, you have to spend some time training as well.”
“Some.” She continued, describing her busy life in the city, and how she loved the idea of being off world.
For the next few hours, they talked about anything and everything. Pleased they had so much in common; he found he liked their differences as well. She disliked contact sports—too violent—and he found driving through historically preserved neighborhoods the epitome of boring. She preferred vanilla to his chocolate, but they both considered family more important than anything else.
“What about the Tergonians?” she asked softly, taking him by surprise. “Are you anti-alien or pro-acceptance?”