Assassin (7 page)

He chuckled, enjoying the fire in her spirit.

Reclaiming her mouth, he released her wrists and let her legs slip from his body. Her feet hit the floor and he went to step away, but she wouldn’t let him, her tongue and teeth feeding on his so thoroughly the idea of breaking contact would be like severing the very veins that kept him alive. Her hands dropped to his trousers and she yanked at his zip. His cock sprang from the restraints of his clothing, eager for her touch.

“Oh Gods, Zeric,” she murmured, eyes widening as she took his throbbing shaft in her hands. “You’re huge!”

A smile pulled at his mouth, but before he could respond, she was on her knees, closing her lips around his cock’s swollen head.

Ah, Jezu!

Her tongue lashed at his length as one of her hands found his balls, cupping and squeezing gently in rhythm with her mouth’s action. The fingers of her other hand raked over the flat plane of his belly before pulling his trousers down his thighs, exposing his fevered skin to the cold hanger air.

Hot blood roared through his veins. His heart hammered. His breath came in choked, ragged bursts.

He buried his hands in her copper-fire hair, holding her head still for a moment. He was so fucking close to shooting his load, all it would take was one more flick of her tongue. “Wait.” The word was breathless.

She did exactly as he asked, holding his cock in her hot, wet mouth. Motionless.

Zeric drew in a long breath and her subtle scent filled his lungs. His cock strained against her tongue and teeth, aching for release. He dropped his gaze to the top of her head. The sight of those full, luscious lips wrapped around his shaft was almost his undoing, but before his tenuous control deserted him utterly, he gave an urgent little tug on her hair, pulling her to her feet.

She looked at him, hunger and desire smoldering in her eyes. Her lips were slick with moisture and she ran the tip of her tongue over them. Heat stabbed at his gut and his cock twitched. “I want you inside me, Zeric,” Jaienna stated in a shaky voice.

Scooping her into his arms he felt her heart’s frantic beat against his chest. Not wanting to break the contact of his skin against hers, he lowered her onto the nearest equipment bench. The smooth metal was icy and Jaienna’s flesh rippled as it touched the cold surface, making her nipples harder still. She looked up at him through lidded eyes, fingers threaded in the hair at his nape. Her scent mingled in his breath, invaded his life force. He could taste her passion on the very air. He could feel her heart pounding as blood surged through her veins.

His body was no longer his to control.

He should stop. A distant part of his mind—the part that remembered the pain of Leyna—screamed at him to get away. Now. For his sanity. For Jaienna’s safety.

But then Jaienna’s fingertips slid from his neck to his chest, touching one tight nipple through his shirt, feather-light and sure, and all thought of walking away from her vanished.

With an animal growl, he covered her mouth with his, pushing her back onto the bench and straddling her hips. His cock rubbed briefly against the material of Jak’s trousers and, unable to wait any longer, he tore them open. She thrust her hips up and, in one swift move, Zeric stripped her bare.

Oh God.

She spread her thighs, opening herself to him.

Creamy wet heat—tight, firm and greedy—enveloped his eager fingers. His thumb found her clit, rolling over it in slow, tiny circles. The contact evoked a moan from Jaienna. Soft and raw. She raised her hips higher, inviting him to plunge deeper.

He did, fingers delving into her sweet channel, seeking that special spot he knew would fill her with explosive pleasure. Her back arched and she moaned again, rolling her head on the bench as his fingers and thumb teased her pussy and clit. “Oh Druentia wept, Zeric.” The cry tore from her throat, hoarse and choked with passion.

He smiled, raking his free hand over her stomach, ribs and breasts. One full curve of flesh filled his hand and he squeezed, watching her gasp and writhe as pleasure shot through her. Still pumping her wet sex with now slick fingers, he lowered his mouth to the rosy tip of the breast he held, drawing it past his lips slowly. Teasing her. He loved the sounds she made low in her throat; each primal growl and moan sent smoldering lust coursing through his veins. With every nip of his teeth on her nipple, with every wiggle of his fingers in her pussy Jaienna gasped and whimpered for more.

She wasn’t alone.

Sliding his hand from the sodden juncture of her thighs, he ran his fingers over her sweat-slicked flesh, up her stomach and neck to her mouth. Her teeth were pulling on her full bottom lip, but with the slight contact from the tips of his fingers, she opened her mouth, licking her own juices from his skin.

Her eyes locked with his. He knew she couldn’t wait any more.

In a fluid move, Zeric shifted his weight, cupping his palms around the back of her thighs, tugging her legs up past his hips. She instinctively placed her ankles on his shoulders. She gripped the edge of the bench, knuckles white. Biting once more on her bottom lip as she watched him rise up on his knees.

His swollen shaft was burning. Nothing could quench the fire in him now except the creamy lushness of her sex.

He nudged her satiny lips with the head of his cock. A silent question.

“Yes, Zeric,” she nodded, almost breathless. “Yes.”

He plunged into her. Deep, smooth and decisive.

Her heat engulfed him. Consumed him.

For a split second he couldn’t move. His senses were on overload. Pure unadulterated pleasure filled his body, his mind. Nothing existed except the sensation created solely by the union of their two bodies.

Her pussy contracted.
Oh, Jezu
. He thrust into her in long powerful strokes, feeling her wetness slide over his straining length from engorged tip to throbbing balls. Her nails dug into his forearms as a husky cry escaped her throat and filled the hanger. His own cry joined it.

She pushed her legs higher, driving his cock deeper as she locked her ankles behind his head. He was trapped, imprisoned by her legs and sex, totally at her mercy. He’d never been so vulnerable. And he didn’t care. Not one iota.

His climax was savage—a scorching surge of explosive tension that ripped through his body, through every limb and muscle. His seed pumped into her. Burst from him. Draining him. Fulfilling him.

He threw back his head and howled.

And as the primitive animalistic sound rent the air, he felt his body begin to change.

Shit. No. It can’t be
.

His blood turned thick, his senses heightened and the wild beast—the curse that lurked in the shadows of his life—began to take over.

Jaienna’s breath caught in her throat, shuddering as wave after crashing wave of exquisite squirming tension rolled through her. Gods, she’d never experienced an orgasm so powerful.

She gazed up at Zeric, stunned and amazed... and completely satisfied.

Burning golden eyes stared down at her, intense and hypnotic. And then they changed. Blurred. The whites disappearing. The golden iris and black pupil growing.

What
—
?

She gasped.

The sound cut between them like a blade. Zeric shot to his feet, chest heaving. Without saying a word, agony etching his face, he disappeared through the hanger door.

Gone.

Jaienna sat up, her body craving for the warm, satiating contact so abruptly denied it. She stared at the closed hanger door, heart hammering.

Did I really see
—
?

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I couldn’t have.”

She knew every character trait and anatomical behavior of every species in both the Inner and Outer Boundaries. None had morphing eyes. Not even the Insektoyds.

Then I’m going out of my mind. Sent crazy by the greatest sex I’ve ever experienced
.

Her heart stopped. For a beat.

She blinked as cold realization dawned. “Oh, shit.” She dropped her forehead into her hands, screwing up her face in self-disgust.

The greatest, hottest, horniest sex she’d ever experienced had blown her mind so completely, had rocked her body so thoroughly, she hadn’t planted any suggestion in Zeric’s mind. She hadn’t even thought about it. For the first time since Raq Tornado ripped out her heart, she’d had sex without imbedding any suggestion in her partner at all. Not even a “buy me flowers”.
And
, to make it even more humiliating, he’d fled the scene like a Keltarian drac-demon was on his tail.

She raked her fingers through her hair. Feeling angry and guilty and, for reasons she didn’t want to examine, empty. Not at all what she’d planned, but at least she could still jump in the Sprinter and—

Alarm sirens started screaming and
The Reaper
flashed with pulsing red warning lights. There was a sharp bang as the bay doors’ locking system activated. The sound slammed through the hanger. And her.

Jaienna banged her palm against her forehead. She was a prisoner. Again.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

* * *

Crortek looked at Lyso with cold white eyes, running one long, bony finger over the back of Bhelais’s neck. “I want him found, this Terran who turns into a beast.” His words slipped past needle-like teeth in a harsh hiss and the spines sprouting from his shoulder blades bristled. “I want him found, and I want his blood. Now.”

Zeric stared out the cockpit view screen at the inky-black expanse of space. Pellaxion Four was on the furthest reaches of the Outer Boundaries, which gave them at least another day-cycle of hyperflight before finding Hrung Crortek.

Another day with Jaienna Ti aboard his ship.

His broad chest swelled as he pulled in a deep, slow breath. At the mere thought of the Raavelian his body went into overdrive—blood roared through his veins like molten steel, his heartbeat tripled and his cock... well, his cock had been one aching, straining organ since the first moment their flesh made contact, so there was no change there.

A sigh of disgust flared his nostrils. If he didn’t wake up to himself things could get ugly. And deadly. The fact he’d lost control of his desire should have fired enough warning signs to keep his cock well and truly inside his trousers, but the
change
...? Since when did sexual ecstasy initiate the change?

He rubbed at his eyes. He’d only just come to terms with
fury
igniting the goddamn curse.

A dark image flashed through his tortured mind; Leyna. In the arms of another man. Naked and wet and screaming with ecstasy. A soft growl rumbled low in his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut tighter. Instantly the image of his wife changed. Now she lay bleeding on the floor of their bedroom. Mutilated.

Burning guilt and icy fury twisted in his chest and Zeric looked at his hands, expecting to see them stained with blood. Anticipating his Terran flesh to be replaced with coarse grey fur, short blunt nails replaced with sharp hooked ones. He shook his head, trying to rid it of the nightmarish image. For the last twelve months he’d tried to run from that memory, that terrible moment and the godforsaken curse that caused it. Who would have thought a single bite by a wild wolf on one of his ancestors more than a millennia ago, before all Earth was decimated by the Xeon virus, could fucking destroy his life now? He looked back out the view screen. The ancient Arctos curse had ruled his emotions since he was born. He was a perfectly normal human—until fury overwhelmed him, and then—like his blood kin from millennia ago—he would change.