Dark Side Of The Moon (BBW Paranormal Were-Bear Shifter Sci-Fi Romance)

by Catherine Vale

  It landed on Taso’s back, tearing at his shirt, the alien small enough to ride between Taso’s spikes. She saw claws now, tiny flailing pieces of some material that was obviously razor sharp. Pieces of fabric and mesh came away from Taso, and with those, she saw tufts of dark fur. At this rate, and with that many hands times that many sharp-clawed fingers, Taso would be de-furred and skinned in minutes.

  She scrambled through the sand, slipping, getting back to her feet. Taso spun around, snapping at the alien, who kept just out of reach. His growls and roars began taking on an edge of pain, and she could see blood staining the uniform where the fur had been torn away.

  With a roar of her own, she jumped onto the back of the alien. It reached back with one set of hands, grabbing her hair, pulling her braid. It hurt like hell, but she didn’t let go. She reached around its head, groping for eyes, any of them. She found one of them and drove her fingers upward, toward the back of the alien’s brain.

  It screamed, and even in an alien scream, she heard its pain. There was a nauseating little pop as one eye ruptured, and then her hand was covered with something sticky and hot. She adjusted her hold, searching for another eye. The second popped like a grape under her finger. Her skin started to burn where the liquid ran over them.

  But the thing was still holding onto Taso, although it had stopped pulling and ripping fur and cloth. And from her brief glimpse of the alien’s head, there were at least three more sets of eyes. She wasn’t sure she had the fortitude to poke all of them out. She needed to do something else, and do it fast.

  Letting go of the alien’s head, she wrapped an arm around its neck. It was the standard approach any mugger would take to attack someone. She’d learned how to defend herself from a choke hold; she had to hope the alien didn’t have access to a women’s defense class. She also hoped it had a trachea and carotid arteries. It was hard to tell. The thing had a neck, but it was covered in scales.

  She pulled her arm back, the alien’s neck caught in the crook of her elbow. She squeezed, grabbed her wrist with her other hand, putting pressure where she hoped the thing had some kind of circulatory system. She wanted to hold her breath, forced herself not to, took a deep breath, let it out. And squeezed with all her strength.

  For the longest time nothing happened, except that her arm began to burn from exertion. And then something changed. The alien’s hands tearing at Taso loosened, it started to relax, and then it suddenly went limp under her arm.

  Before she had a chance to adjust to this surprising event, Taso spun around, and she and the alien fell off his back, landing hard on the ground. Taso was there in an instant, all teeth and hot breath, pulling the alien out of her arms by its face. She let go, gladly. There was a sickening crunch, and then Taso shook his head, the alien’s limp body flailing back and forth.

  Taso dropped the body, then spit. She didn’t know bears could spit, but a big glob of saliva landed on the alien’s chest. She looked up at Taso from where she lay sprawled on the sand. He met her eyes, and she saw something like respect in the dark depths. Then he snorted, tossed his head, and turned away, spiky horns glinting in the sun. She got to her feet, brushing sand off her backside, and followed the bear.

  Chapter Seven

  By the time she got back to the wreckage Taso was back in human, alien—whatever—form. His clothes were torn, bloodied, and she could see ragged cuts on his arms and chest. She could only imagine what his back looked like.

  “Let me take a look…” She reached for him, but he stepped away. She let her hand drop. “Or not. But some of those look pretty bad. And how are you going to take care of the ones on your back?”

  He didn’t answer, but he didn’t move any further away.

  “Is there a reason you won’t let me look at you?”

  He frowned at her, something flashing in his eyes that looked a lot like what she’d seen when he thought she was laughing at him.

  “Do you think I’m not able to care for myself? That I am weak and need your help?” While he was talking he was gingerly peeling his shredded shirt away from his body. Beneath, he was covered in a welter of cuts and scratches, some of them deep, all of them dirty and caked with sand and fur.

  “No. I don’t think you’re weak at all. Just the opposite. But where I come from, we look out for each other. If someone’s hurt, we try to help them. Like now, I can…do something. Help somehow.”

  His frown deepened, and he looked away from her for a moment. When he looked back, something had changed in his gaze, some of the hardness dropping away, replaced by what might be something resembling a glimmer of trust. “Where I come from, it is considered a sign of weakness if a warrior asks for help, but you would not know that, and I’m sorry I’ve been so stubborn. I will accept your help.” He straightened his shoulders. “But I did not ask. You offered. Remember that.”

  “Okay.” She couldn’t help, but chuckle to herself. It was a start. She looked around the wreckage. “Do you have a first aid kit?” That got her a blank stare. “Water?”

  He nodded, pointed into the wreckage. They were in what looked like a storage room, boxes and bags strewn on the ground. Along one wall were shelves, some broken, a few still attached to the wall of the ship. She nodded and headed towards a square container with a screw top, while Taso pulled off his pants. From the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of well-muscled thighs—really nice thighs, not bear legs. Slim hips…and she drew a sharp breath and turned away. Even dirty and covered in sand and blood, he was a pretty perfect specimen of masculinity.

  Why the hell that thought came to her she didn’t understand. And she didn’t really want to understand. Something wild ranged through her, pent up energy, left over from the fight with the alien. It was familiar, achingly familiar. It was the feeling she had at the gym, when the guys who razzed her weren’t giving her a hard time. When she watched them working out, watched their muscles sheened with sweat, flex and move. Wished, for the thousandth time, that they’d look at her like they looked at the cute girls in the tight spandex and yoga pants. Instead, they looked at her as an adversary, someone who threatened them, or threatened their ego. Someone they needed to take down to make themselves feel more masculine. But every time, every single damn time, she still wanted them to look at her differently. Every single time.

  She fumbled the cap off the water container. As soon as the cover was off, her thirst came raging back. Lifting the container, she let the water fill her mouth. It was warm and tasted like metal and something completely foreign, but it was the best water she’d ever had in her life. For a minute, Taso and the wreck faded away and she drank greedily. Then her stomach clenched in a sickening way, and she put the container down. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she waited for her stomach to settle. It finally did, and she decided she’d had enough water for the time being.

  Shrugging out of her shirt, she got the corner of it wet. Behind her, she heard Taso’s soft footsteps and his shadow fell over her shoulder. Turning around, she looked up at him. Her eyes flickered over his chest, then lower, trying to figure out if any of the cuts had damaged anything vital. For the amount of blood, they all seemed superficial. Even so, there was so much damn blood.

  “I think the worst are on your back. Turn around.”

  He pivoted and she gasped. His back looked horrible, scratches and cuts crisscrossing his skin, pieces of flesh actually missing.

  “This might hurt.”

  She dabbed at the biggest of the cuts, wincing at the pain she imagined he was feeling. But Taso never moved, standing like a rock.

  “Do you think there are more out there? That they’ll come back?”

  “Yes, and yes.” He seemed less worried than she thought he should be.

  “But what if they come back?”

  “Then we will fight them again. And again. Until we no longer have a need to fight them.”

  Maybe in his world it was that simple, but it wasn’t that way in hers.

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nbsp; She wet the shirt again, over and over, cleaning the sand and bits of fur away from his injuries. Already they were looking better, some looking more like superficial scratches than she’d originally thought. She was relieved; obviously she’d over-reacted.

  “Turn around. Let me clean the front.”

  She turned away, found a clean corner of her shirt and got it wet. When she turned back Taso was facing her. She stepped closer, focusing on his chest. Or tried to focus on his chest.

  “Oh…”

  He was bloody and dirty and sweaty. Beneath all the debris of battle, he was smooth skinned and muscular, but she already knew that. Before, she’d wanted to avoid looking, avoid touching any part of him that would have…given him the wrong idea, made him think she was interested in the same thing he wanted. Now…she didn’t want to avoid looking. And she had a legitimate reason to touch him.

  She started with the big cut on his right shoulder. It was deep, the edges ragged, and she started working patiently to clean away sand and blood.

  “This should really have stitches.” She glanced up at him. He’d been staring stoically ahead, but now he looked down at her.

  “I don’t know what those are.”

  “Um…it’s when we sew the edges of the wounds together with needle and thread. Like your clothes are made, you know?”

  He shook his head, so she went back to cleaning his wound. Most of the dirt was gone and she looked closer. Now that it was clean, it looked much better. Maybe it would be okay after all.

  The shirt was pretty trashed, wet, covered in blood and sand. She stepped away, turned toward the water container. Taso reached out, his hand on her wrist. She turned back, looked up at him.

  “Enough.”

  “But…”

  The pressure on her wrist was gentle, and she could have easily pulled away, but she didn’t want to. The shirt fell to the ground and she took a step toward him. He still held her wrist, raising her hand so it rested flat against his chest. Against her palm, she could feel his heart, beating in a steady rhythm. In contrast to her heart, which was hammering away like a jackhammer beneath her tank top.

  He looked down at her, his face in the shadows. But she could read every intention in his eyes, every desire, every want. With her next breath, she realized those were the same wants and desires she had. It startled her, the realization that she was intently drawn to such a dangerous and unpredictable man…a man who was responsible for her being taken from her home planet, and who was probably responsible for many others, just like her.

  Except he made her feel somehow different…special. It pissed her off to no end, annoyed the hell out of her, that she could be so easily taken by a man that she knew she couldn’t trust. The chemistry between them, the burning desire to feel his arms wrapped around her, and the way he heated her skin, left her unable to ignore the power he had over her. Like it or not, she wanted him.

  Taso lifted his other hand, touching her cheek, tracing the edge of her hair where it ran behind her ear, down to the nape of her neck. His touch was slow. Until he grabbed her braid. He wound it around his hand and pulled, hard, her head snapping back. Her lips parted with a gasp, and before she could draw another breath, his mouth was down on hers, his tongue lashing against hers. It wasn’t right, but it didn’t feel quite that wrong either.

  She reached up, winding her fingers through his hair, pulling hard in return. She could give it as good as she could take it and she needed him to know this. She felt his smile against her mouth. With a gasp, she let her lips part further, let him pull her against him, let him plunder her mouth with his tongue. Between them, she felt the hardness of his erection. For a minute it bothered her that she couldn’t remember when he’d gotten hard. It seemed an important detail, somehow, but then desire and lust, and just plain animal sexuality rose insider her, and she forgot that she cared about the when.

  But melting against him wasn’t what she wanted. This wasn’t soft and gentle exploration, and it certainly wasn’t making love. She clenched the fingers of one hand into a fist, pounding against his chest, pushing him away, tearing away from his mouth. They were both breathing hard, their eyes locked onto one another. His other hand came up, fingering the bottom of her tank top. Then those fingers slipped underneath the cotton, sliding over her stomach, up between her breasts, teasing against the fullness of one. His eyes had followed the path of his hand, but now they rose to hers. The heat in them matched the fire that had started in her belly, the fire that sunk lower, now burning between her hips.

  “Do it…whatever it is, damn it. Do it.” Anticipation boiled inside her, made her breath go short and shallow. Made her want him even more than she ever thought possible.

  He held her gaze for another heartbeat, then let go of her hair, grabbed the bottom of her tank, pulling it up. She lifted her arms, ready for him to pull it over her head, but instead, he pulled the material, tearing it up the front. Before it really registered what he’d done, he had her breasts in his hands, fingers digging into her flesh. She tipped her head back, some sound she’d never made before coming from her lips.

  He lowered his head and she expected a touch, a kiss, something…but he roughly sucked one full breast into his mouth, teeth grazing over her hard nipple. She dug her fingers into his hair, hips rocking forward as a rush of arousal flooded through her. He pulled greedily, hungrily, and she pulled him closer, holding him against her.

  The sensations coursing through here were primal, harsh, thuds of arousal and desire physically rocking her body. Her knees went weak, her hips thrusting forward, aching for contact with something, anything. With Taso. She pulled his hair again and again, until he finally lifted his head.

  There was no need to say anything. She hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her shorts and pushed them down her legs, shaking them away into the sand. She reached for Taso as he reached for her, and they came together with the sound of flesh hitting flesh. Their mouths met brutally, and she felt blood again, knew she’d have a split lip, but the taste of blood only made her hotter, made her want him more.

  He tried to push her backward, but she hooked a foot behind his leg. He staggered; she’d caught him off guard. He stepped back and she pressed her advantage. His back hit the wall of the wreckage, and to her surprise he slid down. Breaking the kiss, she went with him, not willing to let go. She realized he’d come to rest on one of the metal shelves, sitting with his back against the wall. He looked up at her and tried to stand.

  Before he could get to his feet, she put her hands on his shoulders, threw one leg over his lap, her knee banging down onto the shelf. He started to say something, but she kissed him, swallowing his words.

  She wrapped one hand around his neck, moving the other between them, reaching down, wrapping her fingers around his cock. He jerked in her hand, his hips moving, thighs sliding apart beneath her ass. She hitched her other knee onto the bench, her breasts pressing against his hard chest.

  He broke the kiss with a rasping growl, and she pulled back, fingers of one hand tensed against the back of his neck, fingers of the other wrapped around his erection, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t tell her to stop. Or tell her he didn’t want it this way, didn’t want her in control. Instead his lips curled in a slow smile, one that she matched.

  “Yes.”

  That one word from him, barely audible, broke the silence between them. She brought her body down on him, felt him slide into her, fully, until her thighs were resting on his. He breathed out a deep moan, head tipped back, eyes half closed. Not completely closed; beneath his heavy lids she could see the passion burning in his eyes.

  His hands went to her waist, fingers digging into her skin. She put her hands against the wall behind his head, gaining leverage, and began to ride him, fast and hard. Her ass banged against his thighs as she came down, sliding him in and out, circling her hips around him. His breath went out in a whistling rush, lifting the hairs along her forehead that had escaped her braid.
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  Everything reached a crescendo in minutes, her breasts sliding against his sweat- slicked chest, her thighs burning with the beautiful feeling she got when she ran. She looked down as he slid his hands to her ass, fingers probing, pinching, squeezing…suddenly digging in hard.

  His rhythm changed, went erratic and fast beneath her and she lost it, unable to keep up with him. Some balance of power shifted, and he wrapped his one arm around her torso, the other splayed across her ass, pulling her against him, pinning her in place. She tapped out, gave up control, surrendered and let him decide on the when of all of this.

  The when came quickly, powerfully, shaking her to her very core. Something let loose inside of her, a wet heat that flooded down and up and through her body. She arched in the confines of Taso’s grip, head back, mouth open, but all sound swallowed by the rush inside her. Taso squeezed her, her ribs screaming in protest. Then he bucked up hard, over and over, and the heat inside her was joined by his.

  Finally, she let herself melt into his arms, against his chest, let herself go limp, breathing hard. His chest rose and fell against hers, and beneath her cheek she could feel the pounding of his heart. It made her smile, even though it hurt her lip, to know that she could get his heart beating faster.

  After a few minutes his arms relaxed and she pushed away from him. He looked up at her with a clear steady gaze, and pushed a strand of hair off her face.

  “Both.” His voice was just as steady as his gaze.

  “What?”

  “You said before, men want to either fight you or have sex with you. You asked…”

  “Right. And you said neither was a bad thing. But this wasn’t really fighting.”