Alien, Mine Page 5

  “Perhaps I should stop.”

  “No! Er, however, would you be so good as to avoid the . . . ” He cleared his throat. “Ridge area?”

  “Sure.”

  Why? Can’t be that sensitive. Not if it’s used in battle.

  She moved her hands to massage his scalp, enjoying the sensuous pleasure of touching and providing relief. Her fingertips skimmed the base of his cranial ridge. A blaze of molten fire stormed through her body. Her ears caught a smothered groan.

  “Sorry.” She pulled her hands back then centred her attention on his neck and probed her thumbs beneath the collar of his shirt. Electricity zapped up her arms. Her knees buckled. She desperately locked them and managed to remain upright.

  Dear Lord, the scales lining his spine spark with more vitality than those on his brow-ridges.

  She kneaded the joints of his neck with her thumbs. Erotic sensation fluttered through her belly then curled into her breasts. Her sex throbbed in time with the heat thrumming through her blood. She turned her attention to his broad shoulders and damn near collapsed in a puddle.

  Lord, he’s built!

  She longed to discover just how well. A scent, the freshness of pine underlain with the tang of lemon and something intrinsically male, entranced her. An image of his bulging, burnished-bronze chest seduced her mind.

  Not a good idea . . .

  But her hands were already smoothing across the line of his muscular shoulders. Her eager fingers speared over his collarbones and danced along the edge of his pectoral plates.

  Christ, Sandrea you’re grop— Oh-My-God!

  Sensual hunger jammed in her throat. Her eyes closed. Heat bloomed along every nerve and pooled at her thighs. Never had she felt anything so vibrant, so alive. She ran her fingers back and forth across warm solidity, drowning in the rapture torching her blood.

  Strong hands gripped her forearms and stilled them. Her eyes snapped open.

  Oh, crap!

  She’d leaned forward so far her bandaged breasts cradled his head. His ridges, swollen to an even greater extent, must feel her every breath. She jerked back, but the grip on her captured arms held her fast. Fear snaked through her gut, all the more powerful for she knew she was in the wrong.

  His head rocked from side-to-side then rolled a loose circle. His swollen ridges brushed slowly across the upper slopes of her breasts. The hurried breath she gasped to apologize caught in her throat. Exquisite fire speared to her nipples, and her body shuddered with need.

  She swallowed, closed her eyes, and did her damnedest to control the wild response of her body. Warm sensation danced over her flesh where his breath puffed against her neck.

  He must have turned toward her.

  She opened her eyes and stared into his. Slowly, awareness sank in. Her hands were still buried in his shirt, her fingers splayed over his warm chest.

  And she was no longer restrained.

  She whipped her hands from him like they’d been scorched. Trembling with trepidation and arousal, she stepped back, battling to bring her too-fast breathing under control. Mhartak turned away. The straight line of his spine screamed rigid self-control.

  His shoulders rose and fell to huge breaths.

  She stared at the back of his head and wondered if she should be running like hell. If the amount of swelling in those cranial ridges was any indication of his anger, he was furious. Hell and damnation, she’d get herself killed arousing him to that level of high emotion. Why did her mind and body respond like this to him, leading to a regrettable lack of control?

  Because he rescued me?

  Maybe, but that single action couldn’t possibly account for the complex feelings spinning in chaotic free-fall within her.

  He moved, facing her once more.

  Shit, here it comes.

  She balanced her body on the balls of her feet, ready for flight.

  “Won’t you sit for a while, tell me of Earth?” His usually smooth voice sounded as though it came from the depths of a blazing forge.

  Gaping at him, she stood there a shaking mess from arousal and fear, and he wanted to talk of her home?

  “Earth?” she squeaked.

  He nodded, the picture of relaxation. “Yes.”

  You’re not about to tear me limb from limb?

  His unruffled gaze continued to question her. She rallied her wits. Okay, she could do this—from a distance. Steady, controlled effort took her to a rock a few feet away. She perched on the edge and ran clammy hands up and down the material covering her thighs. She couldn’t meet his gaze and settled for focusing on the insignia emblazoned on his shirt. The clenched tightness of his interlaced hands, resting in his lap, caused a wave of unease through her tense body. She swallowed.

  He’s not so calm as he wishes to portray.

  “What do you want to know?”

  His wide shoulders lifted. “Everything.”

  Everything? “Right. Everything. Well, um, about seventy per cent of Earth is covered by water and approximately thirty per cent of the land mass by forest . . .”

  She spoke on for a while, surprising herself with the amount of knowledge she could recall of her home, especially of flora and fauna. Her body relaxed as the threat of imminent peril receded. Mhartak’s queries encouraged her to speak of family and her breath hitched in a rough knot in her chest.

  She admitted to struggling constantly with the depth of her loss, that the despair she fought everyday felt like a toxic douche in her stomach. She acknowledged how much it hurt to accept the knowledge that the likelihood of ever seeing her family again was less than zero and that she never ceased to convince herself they were alive and well. His sincere commiseration over the brutal parting from her family unaccountably comforted her.

  He turned their talk to siblings and she laughed with him on antics they both admitted to perpetrating on brothers. She told him of her brothers’ chagrin, after their father taught them all how to fire a rifle, that they could never beat her in a shooting competition. It seemed obvious to her that Mhartak missed his brother, yet some soulful undercurrent in his voice hinted that a reunion had about as much chance of success as a canary surviving a cat convention. She questioned him about it and when he dismissed her concern with some offhand comment regarding a misunderstanding and growing apart, she felt cheated. After all she’d bared her soul.

  She caught the quick glance he speared at his timepiece and stood, offering apologies for keeping him. He rose leisurely and, casting one last glance at the sky, assured her she had done no such thing. Professing how much he loved watching sunrise over the craggy mountains near his home, he gestured for her to precede him back to base.

  As she headed down hill with Eugen at her back, she realized the conversation they shared, stilted somewhat at the beginning by her embarrassment and anxiety and his anger, had nevertheless alleviated her feeling of being a very vast minority.

  The next day Sandrea sat crossed legged on the floor of her room, listening to the information Drengel had forwarded. She followed the links he suggested to further her understanding of Angrigan personal interaction and discovered that romantic liaisons across the three allied species were not uncommon. Though a Magran and Legolopanth association could produce offspring, a partnering with an Angrigan would not result in conception.

  Angrigan females had no requirement for breasts as their young were born with a full set of teeth ready to consume solid foods. It also seemed the Angrigan species were not much larger than humans. The soldiers here were on the big end of the scale and Eugen Mhartak was an exceptionally impressive example.

  Fine, I like my men well built.

  She stared at the brazenly honest thought, then with a mental shrug accepted it. Yes, she was attracted to a hot, sexy alien.

  Hell,
she’d never been one to judge another by their skin. Besides, Spock’s mother had fallen for an alien, and one with green blood at that. Humans had no right to stick their noses in the air when it came to antecedents.

  Anyway, the whole mental exercise was academic. Just because Eugen had been kind enough not to rip her head off when she’d groped him, didn’t mean the attraction ran both ways. Besides, as a general, he had enough to concern him without some refugee alien with the hots for him complicating his life.

  She sighed and returned to her research to hear that Angrigans did not share casual contact—especially on the cranial ridges. Nausea slid through her stomach. Now she discovers this? The only acceptable time for contact was during intimacy.

  Hell, she’d not only acted out of character by feeling the man up, she’d overstepped a major cultural boundary. Damn, she’d not just overstepped it, she’d pole vaulted the bloody thing. A cringe slithered over her skin.

  She owed Mhartak a huge apology. An image of his swollen head ridges came to mind. What had he said? They were products of high emotion. Yeah, right, he’d probably been fucking appalled by her behaviour when she’d caressed them.

  Why hadn’t he said anything?

  Well he had, hadn’t he? He’d asked her not to touch them. Oh, but she already had—and it felt like touching warm, living gold pulsing beneath an overlay of thick silk. Sweet heat twisted through her stomach and aimed a lick at her core.

  Go ahead, girl, you torture yourself.

  But why ask her to continue? And he’d been so charming afterwards. Why? Had he endured her molestation so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable? Cut her some slack because of her origins? Or because of the information he suspected she could provide?

  She slapped a palm to her head.

  Ugh! So not a good start towards integration. Right, note to self, no casual touching. And apologize to Mhartak. Pronto! And maybe I should start thinking of him as General Mhartak.

  No doubt he’d be glad to get her off his hands. In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to continue fact-finding.

  After three hours or so, her body begged for exercise and she threw in the towel to go in search of Drengel.

  “How deep is the lake?” she asked after tracking him down in the pristine main area of medical.

  “Hello to you, too,” he replied with a welcoming smile, glancing up from inspecting some instruments. “What lake? Oh, the sea. I don’t know. Why?”

  “I want to go swimming.”

  His eyes widened so far his eye ridges rose. “Oh. Well, I think it’s probably deep enough for that.”

  “Anything in there that might eat me?”

  “No, there is no indigenous life on Kintista.”

  “Great.” She turned and headed back to her quarters. “See ya.”

  “When were you planning on going?”

  “Now,” she threw back over her shoulder.

  Back in her room she discarded the cadet shirt and supporting bandage, dragged on a stretch top, grabbed a towel, jammed on the daggy hat she’d scrounged, and moved out.

  More than ready to get wet after the mile or so walk in the heat, she nevertheless took the time to study the water first. With a huge planet to cause tidal effects, her life could well depend on her surfside knowledge. Satisfied, she stripped off her trousers and boots, left them in a pile on the shingle beach, and waded in.

  “She’s gone swimming, sir.”

  Distaste tightened Mhartak’s eyes as he regarded Drengel.

  “Voluntarily?”

  Angrigans viewed swimming as an activity to participate in only at gunpoint—and not always then.

  “She appeared to be anticipating it with pleasure.”

  Disquiet stole over Mhartak at the thought of Sandrea alone in deep water. Though water covered most of her world, the subject of swimming had not entered their conversation. He didn’t doubt her ability, still . . . it would be best to check. Her safety was his responsibility.

  He headed for the sea. A smile hovered on his lips at the memory of yesterday’s encounter with her. He hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to seek her out after returning from a mission. Her seeming pleasure to see him after the dreadful shock of losing her home to insurmountable distance offered the tantalizing hope she had not forever withdrawn from him. That she would not spurn his presence. The relief that had swept through him at her welcoming smile had corded his body with longing.

  When she’d ordered him to sit, his compliant reaction spurred a wave of surprise. As a general, he took orders from only a handful of people. As a person, he took them from no one at all. Until now.

  He’d been sorely tempted to ask her insight and perspective on the Bluthen image concealer, but protocols were protocols, even for generals. And then she had touched him, and all thought had evaporated like kalen mist under the Mrilalan sun. His body had reacted with sharp pleasure to the delicate pressure of her hands on his head. All hells’ fiery pits, it reacted now to the mere memory, his semi-hard sex throbbing with a pleasurable ache to every step he took.

  When she’d massaged his brow-ridge scales and then those protecting his spine he thought he’d dissolve into a puddle of mindless, submissive lust—a first for him. If she’d touched the aroused swell of his cranial ridges again he’d have gone primal.

  His body tightened at the memory of her fingers brushing the upper slopes of his pectoral plates. The blast of sexual rapture had nearly driven him so far from restraint he’d had to still her hands before abandoning to the urge to do something completely unforgivable.

  Like throw her to the ground, rip the clothes from her warm, supple body, and bury himself so deep within her she’d be forced to admit she was a part of him.

  Thank g’Nel he hadn’t, for she’d withdrawn her hands as though repulsed. Had she offered the massage because she thought it owed? The seat she’d taken certainly indicated a desire for distance. Then confidences had flowed. They’d shared exploits and ordeals, and he thought a connection had been made.

  And now she was to move on. He glared at the landscape. The Alliance Council had ‘requested’ she be delivered to Mrilala for more interviews. This time by civilians. The frigate S’La would arrive in a few days’ time as transport.

  How am I to convince her to accept an offer for the freedom of my home in the mountains?

  He shook his head, unable to comprehend this deep-seated need to keep her in his life. Yes, he was attracted to her, but he’d never felt as passionately possessive about anything in his life.

  His environs seeped into his awareness and he stared with some surprise at the sea. Movement in the water focused his attention and, fascinated, he followed Sandrea’s form, her fluid grace more elegant than any Angrigan could achieve. With no spectators to observe, he allowed pleasure free reign over his senses. Sensual appreciation hummed along his veins.

  He craved.

  Eventually, she turned toward the shore and stood in the shallows. Rising like a sylph from the Lakes of Pleasure, her hands lifted to sluice water from her hair. As she waded ashore, a smile of welcome lured his eyes to her lips, then her body tugged his gaze lower.

  Water cascaded down the wet stretch shirt and moulded every curve, swell, and hollow. Unbridled hunger shafted from his feet to his cranial ridges, inflaming every nerve between. No woman had ever looked this . . . this . . . alluring. His dazed gaze roved the perfection of full breasts, a flat stomach, and curving hips. He hadn’t even realized this was what would attract him in a mate until now, when presented before him in such graphic detail. His mouth dried and he revised his doubts about Sandrea swimming.

  Beneath his cap, lust engorged his cranial ridges.

  Sandrea rose from the water, a soft breeze whispered over her body, beading her nipples to the sensual caress. Her gaze lifted
and she spied Mhartak. Every part of her, from breasts to thighs, begged her to rush over there, to plaster her body all over him and then wriggle. With a rueful, inward acknowledgement she accepted her body’s reaction to his presence and wondered what he would do if she did what her body yearned for. The thought made her smile.

  “General, I’d like to apologize for my behaviour yesterday. I honestly did not know I transgressed a social taboo.”

  “Taboo?”

  “The touching and . . .” She sketched a halo around her head with a hand. “Um, ridges.”

  “There is no need for you to apologize, Sandrea. And please call me Eugen.”

  Relief and a splash of confusion swept through her. Had she misunderstood the database? He didn’t seem that perturbed.

  “Thank you, Eugen.” She accepted the towel he offered. “Have you come for a swim?”

  A shudder rippled through him and she wondered at its cause.

  “No, I won’t swim. I came to tell you that in three days we will be leaving for Mrilala, the Angrigan home world.”

  “Oh?”

  “You may choose to make your life there, if you wish, but first the Alliance Council would like to know more of your planet.”

  Ah.

  She wrapped the towel around her body and sat on a rock to pull on her boots.

  “I see.” She slanted a glance up at him. “Are you okay? You seem . . . stiff.”

  His jaws flexed.

  Something is definitely bothering him.

  He offered a hand to help her stand and, pleased he did not apparently abhor her touch, she accepted.

  “So you came out here just to tell me we were leaving?” she asked.

  “Well, yes, and I needed a break from my desk,” he replied. “You were the perfect excuse.”