by KC Klein
I assessed him for about the hundredth time, and he looked about as fit as any man could. My scenario didn’t have a chance in hell Khanh.<. So now, who was going to save me from him?
I fluttered my hand up to my throat suddenly nervous. Lie or die, sweetheart. I needed information. “Where is this place? What is this compound?”
His eyebrows arched.
Apparently I was wrong; his face wasn’t made from chiseled rock since it didn’t crumble from such an expressive gesture.
“How do you not know what the compound is?” Suspicion flowed off him. His gaze bore into mine seeming to measure every nuance of my expression.
I closed my eyes, then opened them. Exhaustion made my head heavy. “Please?” I didn’t sound quite like I was begging. Okay, yes I did.
Nothing. Silence. He stood, stared, and took in every detail as if he hadn’t seen a human in twenty years. Then, as if information was as valuable as water in a parched desert, he doled it out sparingly. “This compound is the last defense that stands between us and the annihilation of the entire human race.”
All right . . . a little melodramatic to me, but he didn’t seem to be the joking around type. “What are you talking about ‘the annihilation of the entire human race’? Sounds a lot like a bad sci-fi movie.” I laughed nervously.
His eyes widened, nostrils flared.
A nervous tingle spread in my belly. Apparently sarcasm wasn’t the crowd pleaser it once was.
“Who are you? Better yet WHAT are you?” He took hold of the huge hunter’s knife, crossed the table, and in a blink slammed me into the wall. The wooden chair clattered uselessly to one side. No defense, no barrier, just me against a violently strong man.
I couldn’t breathe. His muscled forearm pressed against my windpipe. I went for the knee to the crotch move, but he was too quick. He pushed both legs between mine. Pinned my arms with one hand above my head.
“Where did you come from? Who sent you?”
I saw spots. Strangled animal sounds came from my throat.
He let up ever so slightly. “Answer me or I swear I will slice your throat here and now just to make sure.”
He had whispered the words. A gentle caress to my ear, but I believed every one of them. “I don’t know . . . I just . . . I was running, and I think I must have passed out. And when I woke up, it was . . . it was . . . dark, I swear. No one sent me.”
PleaseGodpleaseGod, let him believe me.
My toes danced trying to gain purchase on the dirt floor. “My name is Kristina Davenport, and I am a surgical intern at the hospital and . . . that’s it, I swear.”
“See, I will make this easy for you.” His voice so husky I had to strain to hear him. “There are only two possibilities. One . . .” he took his forearm away from my throat, sheathed his knife, and held up a finger, “you are telling me the truth, and you really don’t know how you got to this planet. Or two,” second finger went up, “you are an alien life-form who has learned how to shape-shift into human form in order to penetrate our defenses.”
Alien life-forms. Shape-shifting. What was he talking about? But, out of those two choices, it didn’t take a genius to figure out which one to pick. “The first one,” I agreed, sucking in sweet air like an addict gone too long between fixes. I plastered myself against the wall, trying to make myself small, to take up less room, since he took up more than his fair share.
“Well, if that’s the case, then we will just have to subject you to a mind-invasion interrogation to see if you are telling us the truth.” His lips brushed my cheek, his breath tickled my neck as he spoke.
Ahh . . . I didn’t know what a mind-invasion was, but I didn’t want to find out.
“Nope,” I said, shaking my head as vigorously as I could. “No need. Since I’ve been telling you the truth, there’s nothing to find out. No mind-invasion, no alien life-forms, just plain old me.” I had to stick with my story. My BBD told me he’d kill me if he thought I was a spy. What she failed to mention—which was adding up to quite a lot—was he was freaking crazy.
“But, I think it’s the latter,” he continued like I hadn’t spoke, the lines around his ice blue eyes settling deeper into his chiseled face. If faces told stories, then his was one I didn’t want to know. An orphaned kitten wouldn’t find mercy at his hands. “I think the aliens have finally learned to shape-shift and you’re the result. What better decoy than a . . . woman?”
He said the word woman with a low growl deep in his throat. Never had I heard the word spoken quite like that before, almost possessive, like he had a claim on me. I shivered on the inside. My skin felt turned inside out, raw nerve endings exposed, pulsing in the breeze.
I’d never been more aware of being a woman than in this moment.
His woman.
I gasped, shocked at the thought. What was wrong with me? I couldn’t seem to think with my soft breasts pushing against his hard chest; my body flushed against the unmovable planes of his stomach and thighs.
His hand came back to my throat, stroking the underside of my jaw. Though the pressure was light, there was a strong undercurrent of menace. A calloused thumb scraped the sensitive skin, letting me know he could snap my neck.
Oh, I knew he could kill me, but I also knew something else. Something my brain couldn’t access. It wasn’t a memory exactly, but more of a gut reaction, an impression of familiarity. I clenched my jaw, pushing the uncomfortable feeling aside.
“Now,” he said, his voice barely a whisper, “there are a few ways to tell if you’re human or if you’re . . . not. One is the smell.” Deliberate, as if a connoisseur wine taster, he buried his face deep into the curve of my shoulder. His lips and nose skimmed my skin, leaving a small prickling of heat in his wake. He inhaled and captured the essence of me, in my hair, my ear, even my breath.
I trembled.
He relinquished his hold on my neck, grabbed a fistful of hair, pulled and exposed my throat. My body arched more fully against his. My breasts had no protection except two thin layers of cotton that chaffed my sensitive nipples. Rock-solid legs rested between mine. His hardened desire pressed against my own heating center. His face shifted back to my line of vision. Eyes scrutinized me as if memorizing every curve, every angle. “Too sweet to be alien.”
His voice called to my blood as it pumped the word—yes—through my veins, luring me to give up . . . to surrender. I panted—struggled against his iron-clad grip on hair. On tiptoes I strained to . . . what? Push away or to get closer? I was confused. All the signals screamed that he was a dangerous, knife-wielding, crazy man, and yet my body wept with relief as if I’d come home after a long, strenuous journey.
“The second is the taste.” He opened his mouth. A pink tongue peeked out and deliberately touched a tiny scar that boarded his upper lip. Then, slowly, he lowered his mouth and licked me, from the top of my shoulder to my neck, jaw, and swirled around my ear.
A warning trigged internally, too much, too . . . intimate. My heart flopped into my stomach and shook me from my trance.
“Mmm, you taste human. Like salt or more like . . . warm sunshine?” He pinned me with his gaze. His eyes spoke a primal language. Desire warred with anger; need against punishment.
I looked away. Embarrassed. Violated. His body crushed mine, suffocating in its nearness. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe without crushing my breasts against him. I always considered myself strong and physically fit, but he subdued me with barely any effort. Heart racing, I panicked.
When I was little, my two older brothers used to torment me. Pinned me down, sometimes for minutes, sometimes hours. The feeling of no control would break me—complete powerlessness always did. I used whatever weapon was available; whatever maneuvers would give me a fighting chance. This was no different. I turned my head, opened my mouth against his neck, and . . . sunk my teeth in.
He cursed. Grabbed hold of my shirt, picked me up, and slammed me back against the wall.
A painful wh
oosh came from my lungs. My vision rocked—brain swished inside my skull.
“You bit me.” He sounded shocked.
My head hurt so bad I had to blink hard to keep my eyes in their sockets. “You licked me,” I shouted back.
He assessed me, aqua blue eyes hooded with thick, long eyelashes, for what seemed like an eternity. “I will ask you one more time. Who are you?”
“I’ve told you everything.” My voice sounded desperate, tired, even to me. “I went running and fell into the dark . . . I’m a doctor at a hospital. If you don’t believe me, just call them. I’ve worked there for years.”
He stood still, his body hard against mine, creating an insurmountable barrier. His face so close I could see his pupils enlarge, almost hiding the hard blue of his irises. The rage in him lived and breathed. One hand ran along my scalp in a mock caress, grabbed hold of my hair and pulled.
face="Adobe Jenson Pro" color="#000000">“Liar,” his voice barely a whisper, the knife was back . . . shaking at my very exposed, very vulnerable artery. “There hasn’t been a hospital anywhere on Earth since the year 2075.” And in one efficient movement, he drew the knife across my throat.
Chapter Seven
Oh God, this is it!
A burn sliced across my neck. I wrapped my hands around my throat to stem the flow of blood.
A warm wetness trickled down my skin, my palm, in between my clamped fingers. I was afraid to swallow, afraid to feel my blood slip away as I died. I gasped at him, my breath rapid and shallow. This man had killed me, cut my throat like some animal left to choke on its own fluids.
Tears of self-pity blurred my vision. For some stupid reason I’d never thought he’d hurt me. Terrify me—yes. Manipulate me—yes, but never murder. I blinked to clear my sight, tears squeezed from the corners of my eyes. I was beyond caring that he would see me cry. What was pride when you only had seconds to live?
I clenched down on my hitching sob. I never thought I’d die like this, in some dank, gray room, wearing coarse, military clothing, my only companion a psychotic maniac.
ConRad eased back and released my hair. His hand curled around to the underside of my jaw. The course pad of his thumb dried the wet trail on my cheek. His glanced down at his thumb and forefinger as they rubbed together seemingly puzzled by the moisture. “My job is tough, and I offer no apologies or excuses, but I had to be sure. Aliens don’t bleed like us. I needed to know you were human.”
A murderer with a profound sense of responsibility. Wonderful.
“So you killed me!” I shouted. I placed two fingers against my carotid artery and took my pulse. Was the rhythm racing or . . . thready? Were those white lights in the distance? Had it become harder to breathe? The end, the final finale.
“What?” He stepped back and wiped the blade on his pant leg before sheathing the knife in its holster. A tsk sound came from between his closed lips. “Barely a scratch. You won’t even see the mark i Nensonobe Jen a few days.”
I pulled my hand away from my throat and glanced down, amazed at the thin smear of blood on my fingers. With hurried movements I palpated my trachea, then the cartilage around my larynx. I swallowed a few times. All seemed to be in normal working order. The cool breeze of relief swept through me, followed by a blister of hot rage that sprang forth and flamed my face.
“You complete jack—” The words I used to describe him wouldn’t have been fit for even a hard-core rapper to use. If my mother had heard me, she would have reached for a bar of soap. And I was just getting started.
The Commander must have thought so too. He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, was that all in English? There were names I don’t even think I know the meaning of.”
A small smile played across his face, crinkling the corners of his brilliant blue eyes. It had a way of making him appear younger, almost charming. But then again, the Devil is said to appear as an angel of light.
“Well, next time you think someone just killed you, let’s see how you react,” I snapped in my defense.
He nodded. He had justified himself once—he wouldn’t do it again.
My heart still thundered as I pulled in my first full breath. I rubbed my hand across my chest. Was I up to these life-or-death situations? Forget monsters or murders—I would die from a common old heart attack.
I needed space. Proximity to this man put me on edge. He seemed to drive me to my boundaries and then test my resistance. My hand raised and pushed on his chest. I needed room. I needed space to breathe without his scent—soap, metal, heat—flooding my nostrils.
ConRad didn’t budge. His chest was as unforgiving as any rock mass. Then he stepped closer. My arm, worthless against such power, bent and became trapped between our bodies. His gaze locked with mine, nostrils flared, eyes focused and heated. His larger frame hovered and crowded.
Something happened; something had changed. He was on the attack. My belly twisted and my throat dried. His face so close, lips within licking distance. His breath fanned my cheeks. His scent made my mouth water. Just a taste . . . just one taste.
“What if I’m wrong? What if the aliens are more advanced than even I thought? Or maybe . . .” his voice turned rich and deep, like a red wine, “I’m just lookin Sm j/p>
He spoke the last under his breath, almost as if he was being pulled along against his will. I could sympathize.
He was so tall I put a creak in my neck to watch his expression. I placed my palm flat against his broad chest, and I could feel his muscles shift as his arms came to either side of my head, pressing his hands against the wall.
Trapped again.
“A reason?” I swallowed. I couldn’t seem to follow a simple train of thought. Primal words diffused through my brain . . . open . . . more . . . yes.
His mouth parted, a tongue swept along his full upper lip leaving a shimmer of wet behind. “It’s been a long . . . long . . . long time since I’ve had a woman.”
His words rolled through me, seeping into my raw nerves like a rum punch. My mouth eased forward. The promise of his flavor . . . consuming.
His eyes burned, transfixed on my neck. He bent his knees, lowered, and rubbed his hips against mine. His hands slid to my scalp, massaging. Then he grasped my hair and tilted my head exposing my neck—stretching my wound.
My breath escaped in a pant. My mind warred with my body as my muscles unfurled, preparing for surrender. He looked at me as if I was dinner . . . no dessert. He was a man kept alive on bread and water for so long, pushed to the edge—on the brink of rushing the line.
He lowered his head.
Time lingered. Heartbeats ceased. Then a tongue, warm . . . wet . . . slow, licked my wound. A sting erupted as his tongue drew across leisurely from one end to the other. More suggestive than a caress, more intimate than a kiss. The gesture reeked of possessiveness, of ownership, of a . . . branding.
He lifted his head and rolled his tongue around his mouth. “You taste like human.” He said, and then ground his hips into mine. “You feel like human.”
My God, he’s crazy. But I couldn’t stop my legs from going weak. My arms clutched around his shoulders, afraid my knees would buckle if I let go.
“Silly little girl, found all alone in the dark.” His mouth was beside my ear.
Addicting chills spread at his seductive tone.
“You cost my men their lives all because you were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or were you? Maybe it’s all a trick, maybe they’ve found a way to make you look, feel, and taste like a human. But I wonder . . .” He whispered as he gently kissed the corners of my mouth. His tongue bathed my parted lips.
I licked the moisture; savoring the flavor of salt, metal . . . blood. My body went from hot to cold to . . . burning. A smoldering fire began in the pit of my stomach, scorching its way south.
“I wonder,” he began again. “I wonder if they made it possible for you to come like a human.”
An emotion of the purest form swept through me, an uncontrol
lable urge to weep. A low moan escaped from the back of my throat. Please ConRad, it’s been so long. I thought I lost you. Something cool and smooth dragged underneath my shirt, lightly past my ribs. His knife. The blade skimmed my skin down to my waist. With a small flick of his wrist, he cut the belt holding up my fatigues.
A shock of cold air hit my bare thighs, and my brain snapped awake. I didn’t know this man, and another realization following hard on the first—I wasn’t wearing underwear.
Warning bells triggered. Not just ordinary “hey, wait a minute” alarms, but all out Halt! Stop! Warning bells. “Wait!” I squeaked, but to no avail.
His hand clamped down on my bare behind. His breath came in gasps—body trembled.
“God, you’re so soft . . . so very . . . female.” His words . . . reverent. His mouth . . . everywhere. My temple, neck, and hair were bathed in prayerful administrations. His hands slid down my bare legs and hiked them around his waist—removing my pants with a decisive snap. One calloused palm rounded my hip and settled deep between my thighs. He groaned, bit my lip, and tugged. “You’re so wet. So ready for me.”
I wanted to deny the accusation, but couldn’t. Not when his fingers slid deep inside me—easy, willing, no resistance. My hips bucked against his hand. How could I be doing this? How could I have let this go this far?
Then his fingers moved . . . and I ceased thinking at all.
Hips rocked, forcing his hand deeper—drawing him closer.
Don’tcomedon’tcomedon’tcome.
My mind reared back from the loss of control. A roaring tidal wave of pleasure swept through my body, jolting me to the core. A moan slipped past my lips.
He covered my mouth with his hand and buried his face in my neck. He growled, animal-like, visceral.
And damn me to hell because I responded.
I shook, the spasms of my orgasm rippled through me. Reds and blues shot through the darkness behind my eyelids. My muscles, strained to the breaking point, finally shattered. Sweet relief rushed through my body. Tears threatened again, but this time from the feeling of safekeeping, of being in a place I never wanted to leave.
