by Presley Hall
“It wasn’t your fault,” Felicity insists. “Like you said, any of us could have stepped on it. But I agree. We’ll both keep a better watch.”
And with that, we continue on our trek up the mountain.
The terrain turns grueling as we walk, and the air seems to grow thinner by the minute. Worry churns in my mind, not just about the fate of the mission and whether or not we’ll succeed, but about Felicity.
I don’t want to worry, don’t want to be distracted, but I can’t seem to get my thoughts away from her—or keep my eyes off her, for that matter. We’re walking side by side now, and it makes it impossible not to be keenly aware of her.
It’s been a struggle to ignore her all along, and even now, with her cheeks and lips chapped from the wind and cold and the way she’s out of breath and panting, she’s still beautiful.
It’s more than just physical beauty, although she is undeniably lovely. It’s as if all the traits that irritated me at first—her stubbornness, her refusal to back down, her chatter—have changed into things I’m growing to grudgingly respect, even admire.
Things that make me want to know more about her.
Thing that keep her in my mind even when I try with all my might to focus on the mission. On my purpose. On the reason I came here.
The path narrows, the mountain growing even steeper and more treacherous. I tell myself that I’m just watching Felicity to be sure she doesn’t stumble or fall, that she’s not as sure-footed as I am, and that I want to be able to catch her if she starts to slip. That it’s purely me doing my job as a leader, and not because I want to get another glimpse of the line of her jaw, or the curve of her bottom lip, which makes me think of how perfectly it fit between mine.
The thought sends a ripple of desire through me, and I tighten my jaw, refocusing on the path ahead.
The mountain rises sharply in front of us, the way ahead turning from a path to a sheer rock face, so steep that it’s nearly vertical. Felicity’s teeth clench as she tilts her head up to take it in. Her face turns pale, other than the spots of red high on her cheeks from the cold air, but she pushes doggedly forward, looking for foot and handholds in the rock before we start to climb upward.
“Take it slow,” I tell her, my words almost torn away by the wind. I can see the force of the gusts starting to shift her, and her fingers dig in to the rock, clinging to the ridge that she’s hanging onto.
The way up is slow and treacherous, and with every foothold that we gain, I can feel my gut knotting tighter and tighter.
As Felicity reaches for her next handhold, her foot slips, and my heart lurches as her feet momentarily flail against the wall, her knuckles turning white as she hangs on.
I start to shift toward her, moving laterally across the rock face so that I can try to help her—brace her, boost her, anything to get her steady again. But the Terran woman clings to the rock, her face contorted with effort as she shakes her head.
“No, I’ve got it,” she says through gritted teeth. “I’m okay. Just… keep… going.”
It doesn’t ease my worry, but I force myself to let her readjust, finding her footing so that we can continue onward. We push forward, step by perilous step, until we finally reach the top of the rock face and can see over the edge.
As I push myself over, I hold out my hand to help her the last bit of the way. She shakes her head stubbornly, looking up at me with those resolute brown eyes, and I have to fight strongly to keep from growling out my frustration.
“Felicity, please. Let me help you.”
Something in my voice must get through to her, because she takes my hand at last. I pull her up, hauling her over the edge and onto the top of the cliff. As we fall backward, she tumbles into my arms. They tighten around her involuntarily, almost instinctively, my body craving her softness despite my logical mind’s protestations.
I’m lying on my back on the cold, uneven ground with Felicity on top of me, both of us sprawled where we fell.
I know I should let her go, but I don’t want to. Not yet.
“We’re in this together now,” I tell her, my voice gentler than usual as I stare into her eyes, so very close to my own. “We only have each other to rely on. We’re partners in this, just the two of us, so we need to look out for each other. You can rely on me to help you, and I’ll do the same with you. We’ll trust each other. All right?”
Felicity holds my gaze for a long moment, then finally nods. “All right,” she whispers. “Partners.”
My arms are still around her. I haven’t let go, and I don’t want to. I can feel that spark between us again, the heat flaring, warming my blood, my body, all the way down to my bones. It’s more than desire, more than the lust for physical pleasure. I feel a need deeper than that—a need to protect her, both her heart and her body, from anything that might try to hurt her. To keep her safe, whatever the cost.
I reach up without thinking, brushing back the sunlight colored hair that’s fallen into her face, tucking it behind her ear. My fingers linger against her skin, and I feel her shiver, her body arching against mine for a brief moment.
It feels so good, so sweet, that I forget about where we are, high up on a dangerous mountain, surrounded by snow and trees and wild things that want to kill us. I don’t even feel the cold.
All I feel is her.
She pulls back at the same moment that I force myself to, but it’s so much harder this time. My body is clamoring for her. The need I feel for her is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It urges me on and unsettles me all at once, and I don’t know what to do about it.
How to feel.
How to react.
What I do know is that we have to finish our mission. And so I pull Felicity to her feet, helping her adjust the pack on her shoulders before we set off again.
Still, the memory of her in my arms lingers, clinging to my skin like a phantom touch.
14
Felicity
My heart is still racing as I fall into step beside Ren to continue onward, but it’s not just from my near fall as we scaled that cliff face.
The way Ren was just looking at me… the expression on his face when his eyes met mine…
It felt like a hell of a lot more than just one teammate to another. More than just one partner to another, even. He was looking at me as if he cared about me, not just about the mission. As if what he felt went deeper than just needing me to survive so that he’d have an extra pair of hands and someone to watch his back on this quest.
I can feel the tension lingering as we keep pushing forward. We both watch our surroundings with an eagle eye, scanning every surface for more pitfalls or traps, but even that isn’t enough to totally distract me from the lingering heaviness in the air between us, a magnetism that feels impossible to shake off.
For the last day or so, I’ve been quieter. It’s hard to keep up a conversation when the climb up the mountain is so arduous, but now I want to talk. The nerves are creeping in again, the knowledge of how high up we are, how treacherous this all is, and the fact that there are still more dangers lying in wait for us when we get to the towers. I need something to distract myself.
I glance over at Ren, who’s staring at the trail ahead with a sort of angry determination that makes me wonder if he’d rather hike up the mountain or beat it into submission.
“When we get back to Vox, I want to join the rebellion,” I tell him. “I want to help.”
That breaks him out of his stone-faced concentration for a half second. He glanced at me with obvious surprise, his silver-streaked dark hair rippling in the wind.
“Why?”
That’s all he says before turning back to focus on the trail again.
I shrug, speeding up a little to keep pace with him. “The Voxerans really are my people now. I have no easy way to get back to Earth, and no real desire to try. There’s nothing there for me anymore. The Voxerans have done so much for me—for all the women—and I feel at home with them. More
at home than anywhere else I’ve been, anyway. I’m invested in their future now. Your future. I mean, hell, I’m risking my life on this mountain.”
“You’re doing that for your people as well,” he points out, although there’s no bite to his words like there might’ve once been.
“I’m doing it for both,” I insist stubbornly. “So that we can all have a home that isn’t this awful prison planet. I know what happened on Vox. How Droth’s uncle stole the throne after his father died. How his brother Kardax betrayed him and the rest of the rebels. It isn’t right. And I want to help fix it.”
Ren’s footsteps pause, and he makes a noise low in his throat. There are no words to accompany that noise, just the quiet sound that reverberates in his chest.
I can see that what I’ve said has affected him in some way, but I can’t quite pinpoint what it is. I can’t guess what he’s thinking. His expression is stoic and impassive, and he keeps his gaze focused on the trail ahead.
“We would be lucky to have you on our side,” he finally says, then puts his head down and resumes walking.
I blink, my breath hitching as I watch him stride up the mountainside ahead of me.
That wasn’t what I was expecting him to say. Far from it. But warmth blooms in my chest at his words, spreading through me and banishing some of the cold that clings to my skin.
We fall into silence as we continue on, and I can’t stop myself from replaying what he said over and over in my head. I can’t tell if I’m more confused by his response or my reaction to it. I’ve spent the whole trip up the mountain telling myself I don’t care what Ren thinks of me, but maybe that’s not true at all.
Maybe I do care.
And that scares me a little.
As night starts to fall, we finally stop to rest. We spot a small cave that will afford us some shelter, and Ren nods toward it, slowing as we approach. He goes inside first, making sure that nothing else has decided to make its home there already, and when he finally pronounces it safe, I join him.
My feet are sore and cold, and my limbs ache from the exertion of the day. I wish the exhaustion in my body was enough to banish the confusing thoughts from my head, but as tired as I am physically, my mind is still working overtime.
I can feel some kind of tension simmering between me and Ren as night closes in, the darkness cold and pressing around us. It seems to whisper that I should be closer to him, that Ren could be a haven from the cold and the danger of the night outside of the cave.
I try to ignore it, but it seems to hover in the air, filling my lungs with every inhale and building like an electric charge between us.
After that moment on the edge of the cliff, every look, every touch, feels fraught with meaning. It’s as if something has been growing since that first kiss, the tension between us winding tighter with every touch.
Growing closer and closer to snapping.
And those quiet words he spoke on the mountainside, the way he said they would be lucky to have me? It only makes the strange yearning in my chest that much harder to deny.
I’m careful to keep my distance from him as we make camp. I feel like I’m dancing at the edge of a cliff, as if every step could be the one that sends me hurtling off the edge into something terrifying and unknown.
Ren starts to build the fire, the flames growing from a few embers into a steadily leaping flame.
I move around him in the small space, settling our packs near the wall farthest from the cave’s entrance. The ceiling is just tall enough for Ren to stand up fully, and that only adds to the feeling that the walls are closing in around us, pressing us closer and closer together.
“Do you want—”
I start to ask him if he wants me to pull out the dried meat from my pack for dinner, turning toward him as I speak. But Ren must’ve been coming to do the same thing, because he’s right there as I turn around, and our bodies collide. He grips my arms to steady me—
—and there it is.
The spark that starts a wildfire.
My stomach clenches at the feel of his body heat seeping into mine, and Ren’s gaze locks onto my own. His full lips part as he sucks in a breath, and before I can think or even breathe, he lifts one hand to palm the back of my head, crushing me to him as his mouth comes crashing down on mine.
It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before—not even our first kiss in the woods.
Ren kissed me hungrily then, but now it’s like he’s devouring me. His hands hold tight to my arms, his tongue plunging into my mouth as if he wants to eat me alive.
To claim me.
To possess me.
His hands are broad and rough and strong, squeezing me in a way that sends a ripple of excitement through me at the reminder of his sheer brute power.
He smells like campfire smoke, and I have the sudden wild urge to bury my face in the crook of his neck and breathe him in, to run my tongue over his skin to taste him.
Releasing his tight hold on me, his hands slide from my arms to my waist, squeezing the curve there. For a moment, his fingertips sink into my soft flesh, and then they move up over my ribs to my breasts, contained in the makeshift loincloth wrapped over them.
His fingers delve beneath the thin leather, cupping me, groping me, feeling the shape of my breasts beneath his hands, and I do the same to him.
The markings on his skin are glowing like they did the first time we kissed, and they flicker even brighter as my hands roam shamelessly over his body.
There’s so much of him bare, so much to feel and explore, and I can’t stop running my palms over the broad planes of his chest, the rippling muscles of his abs, around to his back, and up to his shoulders as he kisses me fiercely. When my fingers slide up his back and over the nodes that run along his spine, I feel him stiffen, a deep groan vibrating against my lips as his hips jerk against mine.
I know from hearing the other women talk that the nodes on his spine are an erogenous zone, that touching them gives him pleasure. So I run my fingers along his spine purposefully this time, teasing them the way I might tease my fingers along his cock to get him hard.
He doesn’t need any help in that respect, though. His entire body is rigid, straining toward mine, his lips devouring me as he moans at my touch, and I can feel myself pulling him closer, the way I did during that first kiss in the forest.
I want him. So fucking much.
My body is screaming at me that it’s tired of being denied, tired of frustrated desire.
It’s dark and cold, and you’re on a deadly mission, a small voice in my head whispers to me. And the most gorgeous warrior you’ve ever laid eyes on wants to fuck you out in the wilderness, next to a campfire, almost under the stars. This is a freaking fantasy, so why would you say no?
To be honest, I can’t think of a single reason to say no in this moment. And I don’t want to.
I lean into him, my hands sliding up into his hair, until Ren pulls back suddenly, ripping his mouth away from mine with a force that startles me. He stares down at me with wild, intense eyes, his hands gripping my hips tightly as he studies my face.
He opens his mouth to say something, but I don’t want to hear it. I’m afraid of what he’s going to say, afraid that it’s going to be something so much more serious than I’m ready for, so much more permanent. Deep down, I’m terrified of that—of what it would feel like, of what it would mean.
But I still want him.
I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.
So rather than letting him speak, I grab the back of his head and drag his mouth down to mine once more, stopping the words that I don’t want to hear with my lips.
Throwing every ounce of caution to the wind, I kiss him like we’re the only two people alive on this godforsaken planet.
15
Ren
Felicity is like a wildfire made flesh, burning bright and passionate and hungry, and my body responds to her with a fierce desire. My mind and emotions are in a tu
mult, thoughts tangling together until I can hardly make sense of them. All I know is that my body wants hers with a need that feels too powerful to deny.
I’m feeling things I’ve never felt before. Craving things I’ve never craved. Aching to say words that have never before left my lips.
My hands and mouth can’t get enough of her, and my cock…
My cock is so desperate to get inside her that it’s painful.
I’ve never felt desire like this, never raged with a need to claim a woman that borders on madness. Her body is hot beneath my hands, yearning, straining toward mine as if she craves this as deeply as I do, and I can’t deny myself any longer.
I’ll go mad if I do.
My hands slide over her curves, wanting to touch every inch of her. Our cloaks fall to the floor, and I tug at the wrapped piece of leather covering her breasts, wanting to see them, to have her bare in front of me. My own loincloth feels like an annoyance, the leather tented and nearly pushed to one side by my rigid cock. My fingers feel clumsy and desperate as I finally manage to get her top off.
I groan as I toss it aside and see her bare breasts for the first time.
Felicity tips her chin up, her lips seeking mine again, but I want to look at her. I cup her breasts in my hands, relishing their plush fullness. I’m suddenly intensely curious, wanting to know how she’s made, and I run my fingers over her breasts, feeling the curve and swell of them. I brush my thumbs over her dusky pink nipples, watching them tighten and harden in the firelight.
She moans, a sweet, helpless sound of desire, and my cock throbs achingly. I bend my head, running my tongue over one of her stiff nipples, wondering if that will feel good to her too.
It clearly does. Felicity gasps, her hand going to the back of my skull, clutching my head as her nails scratch against my scalp. I smile against her skin, sucking more of her breast into my mouth and flicking my tongue over her nipple.