Page 9 of Monstrous Heat
And yeah, about that. Just remembering the way it had looked at me. Ripped my shirt. Gripped me with those vicious claws.
If that was him… Somehow…
My teeth chattered and it was all I could do not to break into a dead run for the door.
“I’m not from your planet.” Ever so slowly, he lifted his hand toward my face. Huge palm, his forearm corded and veined with strength. I couldn’t help but remember the sharp claw tearing my shirt. Even though all he did was gently pluck a leaf out of my hair. “My squad was sent here nearly a year ago on a…” He hesitated, as if trying to decide how much to tell me. “Rescue mission. We were stranded. Someone betrayed us. We’ve been trying to figure out the best way to get back without violating the ordinances put on us.”
He paused, letting me think. “There are more of you? Like actual aliens? What planet are you from? How are you going to get back? What about that lizard thing?”
Laughing softly, he pulled another stray leaf out of my hair. “I’ll answer all your questions. I swear. But right now, I need you to understand the danger you’re in.”
My heart thudded heavily. “Youaregoing to eat me.”
His eyes narrowed into slits, his fingers tightening in my hair. Not to hurt me—but to hold me close. To keep me from backing away. I could feel the weight and strength in his fingers despite the small touch, and though he didn’t pull my hair or force me closer, my heart rate doubled.
“I will never hurt you. I know you don’t understand what’s going on yet, but know that above everything else. I’ll kill anyone and anything that threatens you. Do you understand?”
His scent washed over me as if he’d just doused himself in musky cologne. Dizzy, I swayed, trying to think. I had too many questions. Not human. The creature with glowing red eyes. Not from this planet. Alien.
Disjointed words and phrases that should mean something.
“You feel it too,” he whispered against my temple. “The heat.”
Such a small word to describe what I was feeling. Heat poured from him, as if I’d opened a pizza oven and hot air blasted me in the face. All the air sucked out of my lungs. His scent burned my eyes and nostrils. Numbing me. Or inflaming me like a drug. Because I caught myself touching him, this stranger, smoothing my palms over the wide expanse of his chest as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
Holy fuck. So much muscle. Hot velvet over granite.
My knees trembled, and I had to focus intently to keep my legs from folding beneath me and dumping me on the floor. I had a feeling that he’d catch me before I could fall on my ass but that was a bad idea. Right?
My nipples rubbed faintly against my bra. Liquid heat pooled in my groin. I tried not to think about his mouth. Biting his lip. Wrapping my fingers around his dick just to feel exactly how big it was. Oh fuck.
I’m in serious trouble.
“I’m trying really hard to give you a choice before it’s too late.”
His words barely penetrated the haze of need fogging my brain. “Choice?”
“I’ve been in heat for weeks. The pain—” His voice caught on a soft inhale, almost like someone had stabbed him. “I’m in control. Barely. But if you stay, I’m going to have you, Natalie. I’m going to spread you out beneath me and fuck you until you’re hoarse from screaming with pleasure. I won’t be able to let you go. Ever. Your scent will be imprinted on my mind. I’ll track you down anywhere. Back to your home. Off this planet. Another galaxy. I’ll find you. I’ll drag you kicking and screaming right back onto my dick until you’re filled with cum and you can’t smell or feel anything but me. You understand me, baby?”
My eyes fluttered, thoughts bouncing around in my head like random ping pong balls. Red flag. So hot. Lust. Red flag. Red flag! Oh fuck. That big, thick dick filling me up—
He gripped my chin, his fingers digging into my skin hard enough that all the bouncing balls crashed to the floor in silence. He leaned down, holding my gaze. I saw it now. Not human. His eyes burned like the monstrous red eyes of the creature.
“I’m in heat,” he repeated, each word a rasp of barely controlled violence. “I want tobreedyou. It’s all I can think about. If you don’t want no part of me, of this, I understand. But you gotta leave now. Better yet, put a couple of bullets in my skull on your way out. Though that won’t stop me once I shift.”
A hot one-night stand was one thing. Butbreeding? I’d never planned to have kids. Let alone with an alien soldier creature that I’d just met.
His words should have sloshed over my head like an icy bucket, breaking the haze numbing my brain. But my body still hummed with desire. My fingers roamed over the ridged bumps of his washboard abs. Rationally, I knew it was stupid, dangerous, even, to touch a stranger like this. Let alone consider more.
But I couldn’t stop.
My tongue felt like a wad of cotton, making me slur my words. “I can’t get pregnant. I’m on birth control. I got the shot before I left the States.”
Sweat trickled down his forehead, his breathing more labored. “I don’t fucking care about no motherfucking shot. I’m super-charged, primed and loaded, engineered to be indestructible. I’m trying to come clean here, Natalie. One time won’t be enough. I’ll have you again and again until you beg me to stop. No human-made shot is going to keep me from my goal. You can do anything you want to me, and I’ll love every second of it, but if you touch my dick, I’m going to come all over you.”
Uh… My brain hiccupped. Why would he say that?
Surely that wasn’t my fingers tracing the deep vee of muscle that pointed like an arrow to his cock. Intrigued. Intimidated. I couldn’t seem to make up my mind which. I wasn’t the kind of woman to ogle or objectify a man, but I couldn’t seem to take my gaze off his erection.
