Page 95 of Rok's Captive
But the damage is done. The thought is there, firmly lodged in my mind—Rok, alone in the darkness, those strong hands wrapped around himself, those starlit eyes closing in pleasure…
I shuffle awkwardly back to my spot, keeping my eyes firmly on the ground. The heat that started in my face has migrated lower, settling in my core like a banked ember, ready to flare at the slightest provocation.
This is worse than those dreams.
A pulse goes through my core, and I clench my thighs. No. I can’t—not here, not like this, with him watching. But my body doesn’t care. Every breath I take drags his scent deeper into my lungs, my muscles clenching around nothing. I squeeze my eyes shut. Was it the air? The water? Or just him?
I swallow hard, my nails biting into my palms. I need to touch him. Need him to touch me. Need?—
No.
This is ridiculous. I’ve never been this sexually frustrated in my life. Not even during that four-year dry spell after breaking up with my ex. Not even during the pandemic lockdowns.
It has to be this planet. The air, maybe, or something in the water. Some alien aphrodisiac that’s affecting my normally very reasonable libido.
Because the alternative—that I’m genuinely, intensely attracted to Rok, who until recently didn’t even have the appropriate equipment—is too bizarre to contemplate.
I curl up on my side again, squeezing my eyes shut and willing myself to sleep. “Just rest,” I mutter. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day of not dying in the desert. Focus on that.”
Eventually, exhaustion wins out over my racing thoughts. I guess I fall asleep because in the next moment…
__
His hands are everywhere at once—toomuch, not enough. Calluses scrape my ribs as his mouth hits that spot under my ear that makes my hips jerk. I’m panting before we even really start, nails digging into his shoulders hard enough that I smell copper.
“Fuck, Rok—” The words get strangled when he growls against my throat. Not some romantic purr—a real fucking growl, all vibration and teeth that I feel inmyteeth.
His knee shoves my legs apart like he’s staking a claim. No sweet nothings, just ragged breathing and the slick sound of his mouth on my skin. When his fingers dig into my thighs, I know there’ll be bruises tomorrow.
I don’t care.
I can feel him, all of him, pressing where I’m already soaked through. No poetry here. Just sweat and spit and the animalistic need to get closer. My heel rams into the small of his back, pulling him in hard enough to knock the air from my lungs.
“Oh fu— You’re huge—” I’m not thinking in complete sentences anymore. Just heat and pressure and the single-minded drive to take everything this golden bastard can give me.
His claws catch the light as they trail down my stomach. He’s holding himself back by a thread and we both know it. I can see his control fraying in the twitch of his jaw, the way his hips stutter when I rock up against him.
“Stop being so fucking careful,” I snarl, biting his shoulder hard enough to taste him. Salt and something electric, like licking a battery.
His answering snarl shakes the cave walls.
__
I jolt awake,my body flushed and trembling, the echo of dream-pleasure still pulsing between my legs. For a moment, I’m disoriented, unsure where I am or what woke me.
Then reality crashes back—the cave, the pool, Rok…
Rok, who is watching me from across the chamber, his eyes gleaming in the darkness, his expression unreadable.
How long has he been staring? Did I make noise in my sleep? Did I say his name out loud?
The thought makes my face burn, and I quickly look away, pretending to stretch as if I’ve just woken from a perfectly normal, not-at-all-erotic dream about the alien sitting ten feet away.
“Morning,” I say, wincing at how rough my voice sounds. “Or…whatever time it is.”
The light filtering through the cracks in the ceiling has changed, growing brighter, suggesting it’s early morning. Time to leave, to venture back into the desert, to face whatever dangers lie between us and my sister.
To go back to a place where there are no pools for bathing, no privacy, no barrier between me and the object of my increasingly inappropriate dreams.
