Alien Terrain (4 page)

She didn’t want him.

Raj would have found that fact a pity even if it didn’t
threaten his existence. She didn’t want him, but he wanted her. Had he a dozen
willing women all around him, Raj would long to fuck the lovely woman who’d
just saved his life. Her body was compelling, and her stark, budding scent
already had a taste for him. The moment she was near him, he could feel her
presence on his tongue.

But she didn’t want him.

It was his first rejection. And that fact endeared her to
him even more. He’d always been a popular man. In high demand at all the
brothels. Beyond that clientele, it seemed his charm could be resisted. What a
shock.

What a painfully arousing shock.

The fact that Jane could kill him with that charming no of
hers meant he was at her mercy. Not in play, in earnest. And being at that
woman’s mercy made him hard as hell. He almost hoped she’d remain heartless to
the end so he could burn for her with his last breath. Raj smiled at the
thought of such an operatic fate.

For the moment he was fine. Injured, but not seriously so.
Without sex, on the other hand, he wasn’t likely to recover.
Ever.

How long it would take him to die was uncertain. Like
exposure to the elements, death from want of sex could take hours, days, or
weeks, depending. Were he alone, he doubted he’d have long to wait. With Jane
beside him, willing or no, he could sustain himself for quite some time.
Although it brought a different kind of torture.

Perhaps he could seduce her. Win her over to the thought of
a hard cock between her thighs.

It was a pleasant notion and Raj let it linger. All it would
take was one small inroad, a single gesture that might please her. Once he
found it, he’d pursue it till she wanted more. He’d discover with her all the
things that she enjoyed. His hands on her body, his lips pressed to hers, his
head between her thighs, licking at her pussy, stroking her behind. He would
tend that dormant garden inside her until it burst into full bloom. Just the
thought would keep him hard and hot the way that he was now, until she’d had
her fill.

Imagining sex with Jane soothed Raj’s mind, but made
withdrawal gnaw along his nerves like teeth. Despite the bodily discomfort, he
let his consciousness have what it wanted, slipping into a sweet dream of her.

Where would her pleasure lie?
In domination.
In control.
In crude words?
Lofty gestures?
He didn’t know, and so he just imagined
fucking her. Fucking her and fucking her and fucking her again.

In the middle of the ebb and flow of dreams Raj heard Jane
scream.

Not imagined. Jane was screaming with real terror.

The first shriek had him up before he even knew that he was
moving. The choking sound that followed helped him outdistance the pain.
Killing for her would be quite a pleasure, but his scan of the surroundings
revealed nothing. No sign of any presence.
Just the sound of
water running and the woman, his brave and beautiful Jane, sobbing out a mix of
grief and horror.

The door into the bathroom was ajar. Raj pushed against it,
tensed and ready; his attention moved over the four walls, looking for a
threat.

She was standing naked, a white towel clutched with both
hands to her chest. Her head was bent, and she was gulping air, struggling to
beat down some hysteria.

“What is it?” Raj himself was deadly calm.

She sniffed and shook her head. “It’s all right. You can go.
I’ll be all right.” She raised the towel up to her face to dry her tears,
showing him unwittingly how lovely her nude body was. He took a moment to enjoy
her beauty. That supple fullness everywhere. The ample belly, breasts, and
thighs he loved most in a woman.

Raj took a step into the room and tried again to understand.
All he saw was a small white bathroom trimmed in silver. Functional and utterly
generic: shallow sink and mirror, metal cabinet, showerhead over a tub. Jane
gulped and raised her face out of the towel to cast a sickly glance toward the
curtain. Instantly, Raj swept it back.

“Wait,” she wailed. “Don’t kill it. Please!” She took a tiny
step toward him before shrinking back against the wall. Raj stooped, examining
the spider in the porcelain tub. It didn’t look particularly dangerous. A spot
about the size of his thumbnail with eight long legs attached.

Jane made another mournful sound and gulped for air like she
was drowning. “It’s harmless,” she managed. “Give me a second and I’ll find
something to take it outside with.”

Raj bent.

“Oh, please!” she begged.

He looked at her. “I’m not going to harm it.”

Gently, he coaxed the creature onto his palm and cupped it
there between his hands. The spider curled itself into a ball. Raj watched it
through his fingers as he opened the door out to the stoop and released the
creature into the night.

When he got back to Jane, she hadn’t moved. The air inside
the bathroom had grown steamy from the running shower. She was still clutching
her towel and gasping to draw breath.

Raj unfastened his trousers and stepped out of them. She
didn’t look at him, didn’t look at anything. He took her towel from her and
draped it over the sink before he clasped her hand and led her to the edge of
the tub. “Get in,” he said. She balked but not, it seemed, because of him. The
spot where there’d once been a small intruder drew her gaze and had her
twitching like an animal preflight.

“It’s gone,” he said. “There’s nothing else, so come. The
water will be good for you.
And for me too.
You’ll be
all right.”

“You’re coming with me?” She looked embarrassed and
relieved, climbing shakily into the tub. Raj stepped behind her into the wet,
steamy shower and said a silent thank-you to his spider friend.

JANE HAD NEVER been a weepy girl, not even as a child. When
she needed a good cry, she always got it done without risking an audience. Now
here she was, wet, naked, and beside herself in front of a stranger.

What had she looked like crying like a kid because she’d
seen a bug? Probably like an idiot, but it wasn’t like she’d had a choice. On a
good day spiders half that size gave her the screaming willies. And this had
not been a good day. She’d just discarded everyone she knew and everything she
had. Not just her clothes but things she truly cared about: her mother’s dishes
and her father’s books. The one or two mementos she’d risked sneaking out with
her didn’t seem like much. Everything was gone. And so her dignity had left her
too.

In her defense, it seemed a little cruel of life to put a
spider in her shower now.
After her escape.
The rescue of a half-dead alien.
It was a little much. The
water washed the constant stream of tears under her eyes, but she was still
whimpering, still balled up and shaking with her head down and her hands in
fists against her chest. Every part of her was trying to get past the awful
feeling things were crawling on her. There was a naked man behind her, and even
that noteworthy fact couldn’t get her functioning again.

He reached over her shoulder to check the water temperature.
Apparently it met with his approval because he nudged her forward, one hand on
her shoulder, the other on her hip. He had a very soothing touch—warm, firm,
gently coaxing.

“You’re all right,” he said. “There’s nothing to be
frightened of. Try to relax.”

“You’re not afraid of spiders?” Of course he wasn’t. He’d
just touched the thing with his bare hand. She took a brave step under the
stream. The man reached around her again, picking up the soap.

“Not spiders,” he said in answer to her question. The soap
went back into the dish, and she felt slippery hands on both her shoulders.
Really, he had an amazing touch.
Probably because he was a
prostitute.
He did this kind of thing for money. Jane let go of some
small portion of her stress and let him ease her knotted muscles.

“Are you afraid of anything?” she asked.

“Oh yes.”

That made her curious enough to turn around. Her breasts
bumped against his lower ribs. She drew her hands back up with a delayed
awareness of her nakedness.

Jane didn’t have a good body. She used to think her brain
had possibilities, but even that had let her down after her marriage.
Physically the kindest word for her was nondescript. Or “normal-looking” as
Rick liked to put it. If medium was normal, then she supposed she qualified in
spades. She was medium height and medium build with medium brown hair, basic
blue eyes, and a generic, midrange white-girl face. The only thing remarkable
about her was the twenty pounds of blubber she’d put on cooking for Rick and
his mechanics. Now her big tits had a big belly beneath them.
Thunder thighs and bonus booty too.
Generally speaking,
getting naked in front of anyone, let alone this man, should be painful. But
she was so tweaked she couldn’t muster so much as a blush. And what good was a
sexy body anyway when you weren’t interested in sex?

“Tip your head back.”

She obeyed, finding it nice to give in to that velvet voice
behind her. He found her shampoo on the caddy, snapped the cap. The steam took
on a floral fragrance as he poured some in his hand. She closed her eyes and
let him lather up her hair. In fact, she let him do it all.
Because
she was exhausted now.
Stoned with stress and grief.

Yes, grief.

That was the part she hadn’t been prepared for. Somehow
she’d thought she could put her life down like it was someone else’s ailing pet
and walk away unscathed. No such luck.

Something jerked her and Jane gasped, eyes popping open,
heart pounding in that crazy restart mode. He was holding her against him.
Staring down into her face.
She tried to get her weight
back, but he wouldn’t let her go. Again she got a sense of strength.
Tremendous strength.

“What happened? Did you faint, or did you fall asleep?”

She didn’t know. She’d just shut off somehow. “Asleep, I
think.” Carefully, Jane resettled her weight on both her feet and drew a few
slow breaths. She’d barely slept all week, churning with adrenaline that
apparently was crashing now, leaving her unsteady. “I should get out and go to
bed.” She stepped back, and an odd sensation pierced her consciousness.

“No,” she said, staring at the man’s erection pressed
against her belly.

“No, what?”

She frowned ferociously at his hard penis. Her eyes rose to
the damaged beauty of his face. “I can’t.”

“Can’t what? Is
this what
worries
you?” He ran one hand over the thick length of his cock. “You want it to go
down again?” She blinked and watched. The big rod shuddered, twitched, and then
deflated, slowly but visibly, like time-lapse photography. Perversely, when it
was completely gone, she missed it.

“When I’m aroused, I’m still myself and in control,” he
said. “There’s no reason to worry. Here.” He gave her the soap. She turned back
under the water and made quick work of soaping up her front and rinsing off.
When she turned back around, she looked at him again, remembering how she’d
found him—half-unconscious and strung up in Rick’s garage.

“Come on,” she said. “Get under here. I’ll wash your back.”
He complied with no complaint. Jane studied his nude body from behind.
Gorgeous.
He must have had them flocking to the brothel. If
she were into sex, she’d definitely hand over a paycheck or two for the right
to maul him for a while. His shoulders were extremely broad. It made him look a
bit triangular, which was odd because she’d previously thought of him as one
smooth, solid line. But he was very broad, then narrow,
then
rounded with a thick, appealing curve of ass cheek underneath his tapered
waist. She washed him with meticulous attention, pausing at the angry abrasions
down his right side. “Does this soap sting?”

“I don’t mind sting.” He chuckled, but Jane didn’t really
get those little jokes of his. She took great care examining him for dirt or
other foreign bodies. It seemed that he’d been lucky, protected by his clothes
and all that muscle. He flexed under her hands, and she thought again how nice
such a strong body was. Broad and thick, the line and shape like ancient
sculpture with the color of expensive wood. His head tilted back as she stroked
his shoulders. He moaned with pleasure in the water’s warm cascade.

With some regret, Jane handed him the soap and stepped away.
He washed quickly, expertly, without seeming to favor any part over the other.
It was becoming clear he was the stoic type where pain was concerned.

“I can’t believe macho posturing is interplanetary.”

“What?” He turned to her. She saw only the good side of his
face—the dark-rimmed eye above the chiseled cheekbone.

“Some of that must hurt.”

“Part of training as a lover is learning to absorb physical
pain.”

“Why?” she asked. “You don’t let women beat you, do you?”

“Of course.”
He turned the water
off and leaned out of the tub to grab her towel and hand it to her. She
motioned to another on a rack beside the door.

The rest she managed in a sort of stupor, trying not to
think too much of whips and chains and sex dungeons. Or
Rick,
and what she’d once called home. Jane dried off, blotted excess water from her
hair, pulled on a pair of boxers and a T-shirt, and crawled into her bed.

There wasn’t any other bed. Her alien companion soon got in
beside her. He was naked now. She stiffened slightly at the touch of his smooth
chest against her arm.

“I’m in control of myself.”