Page 13 of Alien Devil's Prey
The sound of tearing fabric filled the small space as he ripped my shirt open. I should have been angry, but instead I felt a savage satisfaction. This was what I wanted—this raw, desperate hunger that was devoid of protection or gentleness.
I clawed at his flight suit, trying to find the fastenings, and he helped me, his hands quick and sure as he stripped it away.
When the flight suit fell away, the full reality of him hit me. Not just the horns and the silver-streaked hair I'd seen before, but all of it. The cool grey skin, the intricate web of cobalt sigils that covered his left arm completely, spreading across the hard muscle of his chest and up his neck. He was... Vinduthi. Every line of him spoke of a predator built for a world I couldn't imagine. As my eyes drifted lower, my breath caught. The stories described their anatomy—larger, thicker, with a broad, triangular head and soft flanges along the shaft. Seeing it was another thing entirely. For a heartbeat, a cold spike of sanity tried to break through the haze of my anger and arousal.What am I doing?
We fell onto the narrow bunk in a tangle of limbs, and I fought him even as I pulled him closer. My nails raked down his back, and he hissed, his teeth finding the sensitive spot where my neck met my shoulder. The sensation made me gasp, made me arch beneath him.
"Is this what you wanted?" he asked, his voice rough against my ear.
"Yes," I breathed, and meant it.
He stripped away the rest of my clothes, and I helped him, desperate to feel skin against skin. When he settled between my thighs, I could feel the heat of him, the weight and size that made my breath catch.
The unfamiliar shape of him as he pressed against my entrance made me suddenly aware of what I was doing, what I was allowing.
"Relax," he murmured, his hands gentle on my hips despite the hunger in his eyes.
"I can't," I admitted, my voice small.
"Yes, you can." His thumb found the sensitive bundle of nerves at the apex of my thighs, circling with maddening precision. "Let me in, Tamsin."
The pleasure built slowly, inexorably, until I was writhing beneath him, my body opening despite my fears. When he finally pushed inside, the stretch was overwhelming—a sharp, burning sensation that made me cry out.
He stilled immediately, his whole body tense with the effort of holding back. "Are you hurt?"
"No," I gasped, though it wasn't entirely true. The non-human friction sent waves of a pleasure so sharp it bordered on pain, a feeling that bypassed thought and went straight to nerve and bone.
He began to move, slow and careful at first, and I felt the soft flanges along his shaft ripple against my inner walls. The sensation was unlike anything I'd ever felt—waves of pleasure that built and crested with each movement. My body adjusted, accommodated, and welcomed the Vinduthi intrusion.
"More," I demanded, my nails digging into his shoulders.
He gave me what I asked for, his thrusts becoming harder, deeper. The flanges seemed to pulse and flex, finding sensitive spots didn’t know existed. The pleasure was overwhelming, almost violent in its intensity.
I could feel my climax building, a tight coil of sensation that threatened to tear me apart. When it finally hit, it was like a breaking point—a violent, confusing release that felt more like destruction than pleasure. I cried out, my body convulsing around him, and he followed me over the edge with a growl that sounded more animal than sentient.
In the aftermath, we lay panting and bruised, a silence falling between us that wasn't quite cold but wasn't warm either. The act had changed nothing and everything. I was still his prisoner, still trapped on this ship with nowhere to go. But the air between us was a pane of glass, already shattered. We'd crossed a point of no return.
I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn't look at him. I couldn't. Because if I did, I might have to acknowledge what had just happened—not just the sex, but the way I'd responded to it. The way I'd wanted it. My skin still burned with the memory of his touch, and I could smell him on me—that dark, metallic scent that would remind me of this moment every time I caught it in the recycled air.
I didn't know what came next. All I knew was that everything had changed, and I wasn't sure I could find my way back to who I was before.
TALON
Ileft her there, tangled in the sheets in her cabin. The thought of what we had done clawed at my consciousness as I moved through the ship's corridors. I crushed it down, encasing it in ice. What had happened was a momentary lapse in judgment that would not be repeated.
The mission. Focus on the mission.
My hands remained steady as I made my way through theDrifter'scramped passages toward the cargo bay. I hadn't lost control like that in a decade. Damn it. The woman was a complication.
TheDrifter'scargo bay stretched before me. At the far end, built into the ship's superstructure, the high-security vault waited. During our repair work, I'd studied the ship's internal structure, analyzing every schematic and blueprint in the system. The hidden compartment was exactly where the technical drawings had suggested it would be.
This was my element. This was where I belonged.
I approached the vault, the clean lines of the lock mechanism a welcome relief from the chaos of the last few hours. The first layer yielded within minutes. The soft click of disengaging tumblers was music to my ears, a sound that spoke of orderrestored, of problems solved through skill and patience rather than the messy complications of emotion.
The second lock proved more challenging. A biometric scanner. I pulled out my portable scanner, its blue light casting eerie shadows across my hands as it analyzed the required parameters. Behind me, the ship hummed. No footsteps. No soft breathing. The silence should have been a relief. Instead, it felt like an accusation.
I forced my attention back to the task at hand. The scanner's light shifted from red to amber, then to green. Two down. Three to go.
