by Kim Knox
“Ms. Tilman. It’s Palov Nevin, Senior Compliance Officer to Mr. Yeats’ office.”
Nevin? Shit. His calm voice filled the small washroom and Adela swore under her breath. Her face burned. He’d had his fingers in her ass yesterday morning. And Compliance Officer was the pleasing term for building security. A senior officer was in all likelihood a former trooper, versed in too many ways to kill.
Marcus Yeats had found her DNA on his fingers. That had to be the only explanation. Her stomach hollowed. It was amazing he hadn’t put the pieces together sooner.
Adela swallowed and found her voice. “Give me a minute.” She scrambled to pull up her crumpled skirt, the fasteners defying her fingers. Shit. The best sex of her life…and now, because of it, she’d find herself on some barren rock of a penal colony—
“You’re taking too long, Ms. Tilman.”
The door shot open and a meaty hand grabbed her bare arm, pulling her out into her cramped office.
Chapter Two
Heat and panic shot through her and she dragged what she could of her skirt to cover her breasts, all too aware that it then only just covered the tops of her thighs. “I spilled…tea on myself. I was changing.” The hand holding the skirt pointed back to the washroom. The action pushed against Nevin’s firm hold, Adela biting her lip as it caused her to yank the material farther up her body, exposing her. Words fled. “I—”
“Enough, Ms. Tilman.” Marcus Yeats sat in one of the thickly padded client chairs set near the door. Another Compliance Officer stood beside him, tall, muscled and bleak-faced. Her gaze flicked across his name tag. Boyd Swain. Swain. He’d had his hand up her shirt in the grav-lift. Fuck.
Marcus steepled his fingers under his chin, the stark ceiling lights picking out the ice in his blue eyes. “You’ve been on my fingers three days in a row.”
Adela pressed her lips together, her face burning. How could she deny it? But how could she explain about Idaeus? Sorry, my invisible alien lover forced you to slide your hands between my legs for his benefit? Not exactly a cogent argument. “If it’s any consolation it was nice while it lasted…?” She gave him a half-smile but met only a narrowed gaze.
Her smile dropped away completely as he uncoiled from the chair. He smoothed the front of his expensive, tailored jacket. Adela swallowed, fighting not to twist in the tight grip of Nevin’s hands. “I can explain—”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Can you?”
His smooth, dark voice, so measured and calm, pricked her skin. It was pure sin. He was pure sin. Adela wet her lips. Prison, or a psychiatric ward or an experiment for an overeager xenobiologist. Those were her options, no matter what she said. And she didn’t want to give Idaeus up. Whatever her new reality was, she didn’t want to lose them. “No. No, I can’t. The past three days I’ve stood beside you in the lift and you…” She wiggled the fingers not holding her skirt.
“Though today,” his gaze slid down her body and the hot flush to her skin deepened, “you came prepared.”
“You seemed to want to make it a regular thing.”
His mouth thinned and he stepped back. The fingers gripping her arms flexed and something involuntary skittered across her skin. It was as if the air…changed. A familiar pooling of need fluttered in her belly and she couldn’t help but rub her sticky thighs together. This was not the time for her new addiction to rise. Shit.
“You mistake me, Ms. Tilman.” Marcus’ gaze pinned her. “What I, what we want is to properly fuck you.”
Adela sucked in a sharp breath. “You?” Her gaze darted to Swain, already unclipping the ornate front of his black uniform. “They…?”
Marcus’ smile was dark. Wicked. And that did not turn her on. Not one bit. “A gift to them.”
She blinked. That wording was too familiar. Her pulse jumped and she tried and failed to ignore the sudden rush of want in her flesh. He wasn’t simply offering a bonus to the two officers. No, this was something else. She hoped. “Idaeus?”
Marcus glanced behind her, but she couldn’t follow his gaze, her craned neck and chance to view blocked by the solid bulk of Nevin. The smooth material of his uniform rubbed against her chin and the rising scent of skin and clean cloth mixed with another odor. One that tightened a fist in her belly. Was the “we” Marcus mentioned in fact Idaeus…wearing the flesh of all the men in her cramped office?
Adela bit at her lip to deny the sudden and sharp jolt of pleasure that thought brought her. This wasn’t her. But then letting almost-strangers grope her in a grav-lift or an invisible life-form fuck her six ways ’til Sunday wasn’t exactly her either. Idaeus had said she was theirs. Chosen. Special. Perfect flesh. Was fully possessing these men also possible?
“Idaeus has them.” Marcus reached behind Nevin and plucked something from her desk. It was a metal pyramid, inscribed with a design she’d never seen before. Silver light spilled from it in delicious, mesmeric waves. “But Idaeus does not have me.” His lips twitched as he stroked a long finger over one face of the pyramid and Adela shivered, the feel of his light touch stroking down between her breasts. “Not yet.”
Her stomach hollowed. He knew about the Yalene. “You…?”
“The simple answer is that Idaeus will bind us.” He teased another line of strange, tight script and his fingertip was a ghost over her mouth. “Perfect flesh.”
The echo of Idaeus’ phrase caught her breath. He was offering more than the delicious but still intangible touch of her lover. This was the promise, of skin and sweat, of lips and teeth and tongues. A hot ache pulsed low in her belly. “I’ll have…”
“Me.” He placed the pyramid back on the desk. “Us.”
“But…” He was Marcus Yeats. She didn’t get a man like him handed to her on a plate…with two side orders of alien-possessed Compliance muscle. “What do you get?”
“Power, longevity.” His gaze speared her and she forgot how to breathe. “You.”
“Why would you want me?”
Yes, he’d signed off on her starting work at his family’s firm. She’d traced his distinctive signature through the light-screen with her finger as the confirmation came in that she indeed had a job at his prestigious company. But that had been normal…hadn’t it? He put his name to everyone who worked there. He didn’t remember a moment’s indiscretion in a dark lecture hall.
He cupped her jaw, his skin warm and dry, his thumb tracing a real line across her bottom lip. The ice-blue of his eyes darkened and Adela couldn’t resist. She darted her tongue to lick his tempting skin. He hissed and drew closer.
“I searched for you.” His mouth dipped to hers, so close his breath heated her lips. His smooth voice licked her senses and her eyes closed, wanting the darkness of it to swallow her. Whole. “For your…perfection. One that complemented my own.”
His lips touched hers—brief, sweet, tantalizing—and Adela chased after his retreating mouth. Nevin’s fingers tightened, restraining her and Marcus’ smile was wicked. “Not yet. Idaeus wants you and through you—through his taking of you—he has the strength now to hold these men.” He glanced to Swain—now bare-chested—who worked loose his fly, a ribbon of silver light chasing over his knuckles. “For a while, at least.”
The aliens—and that word tasted rough, didn’t fit who they were becoming to her all too quickly—infused their flesh. Somehow. “Idaeus?”
“Do you want this man?” Swain’s voice was raw, synthetic, but there was a current to it, something that held the power, the surety of her invisible lovers. He stroked a heavy hand across the flatness of his exposed stomach, the push of callused fingers over taut, satin skin making her mouth dry. Her sex throbbed and she closed her eyes, hot and embarrassed. “Ah,” the sound was almost a growl, “you do.”
She did. Which wasn’t her. Involving herself with two—her gaze darted to Marcus’ unreadable face—possibly three men and simply aching for it. It was only something that happened in her darkest fantasies. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“We told you, the more we have you,” Nevin’s lighter voice burned against her temple and she shivered, “the more you will crave this, us. Our energy surges in you.” His large hands loosened from her arms and drew teasing patterns to her fingers, flickering trails of silver light coating his skin. He traced a line along the knuckles of the hand that held her skirt. His voice was little above a whisper. “Let Marcus see you.”
Without argument, Adela dropped her skirt. Nevin eased her hands from her body and with her heart in her throat, she fought to hold Marcus’ darkened gaze. His jaw had tightened, the stark light picking out the jump of a muscle in his jaw.
“We promised you perfection…”
Marcus tilted his head. “I know.” He looked to Swain, his gaze narrowing on the hand that stroked the officer’s erect dick. “That’s not having her.”
Adela pressed her lips together. “I am here.”
Nevin spluttered a laugh and he dropped a kiss onto her bare shoulder. The contact was a sweet sting. His hand curved around her hip, his fingers splayed. “You are so sweet. And to wear flesh to touch you,” his teeth and tongue traced her ear, “taste you. Bliss.”
He stopped and Swain moved, his heavy boots silent against the thick flooring. Adela’s chest lifted, her breath sudden and tight as he dropped to his knees before her. His fingers linked through Nevin’s and he nuzzled his face against her belly. The rasp of his bristles forced a shiver under her skin, the heat of his breath and the wet line of his tongue promising to continue the pleasure Idaeus had given her only moments before.
Swain’s mouth moved over her mons, the hum from his reconstructed larynx vibrating deliciously through her flesh. Her body tensed, waiting, aching for more than the simple burn of his lips. For his tongue to find her and satisfy the need twisting low in her belly.
“Marcus chose him for this…skill,” Nevin murmured. “You will be the last to benefit. Our energy will reconstruct his broken voice.” Nevin unlaced his hand from Swain’s and brushed against her ass. No. He was working his fly. And she sucked in a breath as the heat of his hard dick pressed against her backside. How was this happening to her? It was insanity. His mouth moved to her ear, his lips burning. “As he chose Swain, he also chose Nevin.”
“Suck his fingers, Adela.” Marcus’ hard command jolted her attention to him. Nevin’s voice, even with the power of Idaeus threading through it, was nothing compared to his. Red touched Marcus’ cheeks and his shoulders had tensed. “Now.”
She opened her mouth and curled her tongue around the two fingers Nevin pushed past her lips. Her heart drummed. The thought of his taking her ass twisted hot through her flesh and a sharp smile touched Marcus’ lips.
“Get them wet.” His voice was dark sin and mixed with the continuing hum of Swain against her mons. “Nevin has need of them.”
Adela trembled, only the officers’ biting fingers denying her the relief of pushing her sex—hard—against Swain’s skilled mouth. Instead, she sucked on Nevin’s thrusting fingers, wanting more. Needing them. Needing Marcus.
Nevin pulled his fingers from her mouth with an unexpected pop and his soft laughter stirred her skin. “Eager, Adela?”
“Yes.” She didn’t want to deny it, not with Marcus watching her with his quickened breath and desire dilating his eyes. He wanted her like this. “Fuck me.”
Nevin teased his wet fingers down the cleft of her ass and Adela sucked in a quick breath. His teeth teased her earlobe, the flash of pain as he bit her deflecting the first push of his fingers into her tight hole.
“We’ve corrupted you, Adela.”
Nevin’s words burned and a cry broke from her as Swain finally, finally pressed the hot tip of his tongue to her clit. Heat spiraled and the sweet wave of bliss shocked her flesh. But her eyes never left Marcus.
He stood, tensed, hands clenched and flexing at his sides. His mouth had parted and a red flush stained his cheeks. He made no move toward her. None. Yet, his body almost swayed. The ache to touch him, to yank him free of his immaculate suit and make him as wild, as corrupted as she, dried her mouth.
“She wants you, Marcus.”
Nevin eased his fingers deeper, pushing, curling, twisting and chasing fire along her spine. She arched against his touch, driving her pussy against Swain’s talented tongue. Fire rioted along her straining nerves. Marcus’ fierce eyes held her, his need, his want twisting with her own. She had to have his hands on her. Her dried mouth parted. Fuck. She was ready to beg.
Nevin’s laughter was soft and smug. “But you can’t have her yet. For now, she’s ours.”
“I know.” Marcus bit out the words.
Fuck. Denying him tore at her soul, the pleasure-pain stark and hot. “I am not—” Swain did something spectacular with his tongue as Nevin scissored his fingers and she gasped at the sudden bolt of raw joy rocketing her flesh. She fought to mutter the last word. “Chattel.”
Marcus moved to stand behind Swain, close, but still beyond the reach of her white-knuckled hands. “Idaeus must have you like this.” His gaze slid over her skin and it pricked at the path he took, as he focused on Swain who licked and sucked, his hands now tight on her open thighs. Marcus looked up and lifted an eyebrow. He wet his lips and her pulse ramped. Even his smallest reactions speared her. “And truly, can you deny you want to be fucked like this? And for me to see you taken?”
“I’m greedy.” She bit her lip—hard—to stop her half-cry as Nevin stretched her hole. And fuck, she ached for more. “I want all of you.”
Marcus’ eyelids flickered. “Do you?”
“Later.” And in a heartbeat, Nevin pulled his stretching fingers free of her flesh and with a growl, pushed the head of his dick into her ass.
Adela’s spine arched. Nevin gripped her hip, his other hand on his dick, his knuckles pressing into her ass as he stroked forward. The sharp pleasure was a wild rush. Swain, his fingers biting into her trembling thighs, thrust his tongue into her pussy, tightening the hot, coiling pleasure.
“More?” Idaeus’ strange, echoing voice ripped through her thoughts.
“Yes. All of it.”
Nevin slammed into her ass as Swain—the fierce hum from his modified voice box thrumming through her flesh—fucked her with his tongue. Adela grabbed Nevin’s arms. Her fingers clawed into the thick serge of his uniform as they took her, the power of it, the need she had to lose herself in their sharp strength whipped fire through her veins. They—Idaeus—were changing her. They were making her more. Making her ready for them.
She fought to focus on Marcus. Making her ready for him.
That final thought lashed a wild wave of golden heat up through her flesh, her body straining against the hard grip of both men. Nevin followed her, the last stroke of his dick forcing a cry and the burn of her release swept fierce and hot over her skin.
The wildness in her flesh faded and she almost sagged against them. Nevin teased his lips to her bare shoulder, the act reminding her that his hard body still pressed up against hers, his hands on her hips. His tongue drew a slow line and she shivered, the aftershocks of her release a small bliss through her flesh.
Swain eased away and half crawled to one of the chairs. He closed his eyes and she could almost feel Idaeus pulling away from his bones. The man slumped, unconscious.
“Adela.” Marcus put his hand to her cheek, his thumb wiping away wetness. Had she been crying? His deep voice caressed her, wrapped around her and eased the wild thrum of her heart. “You were beautiful.”
His finger drew slow circles against the hollow of her pelvis, before edging to her hip and pushing Nevin’s large hand away.
“She’s yours now,” Nevin murmured, the thrum of Idaeus thick in his voice.
Was it over? She thought they’d promised her always? “Idaeus?” But Nevin stepped back, almost staggered before he dropped down beside Swain in one of the client chairs.
“I don’t understand.”
Marcus tilted her chin up. His gaze pinned
her. Heat and want burned there, and something else. Not soft…but sure. He’d hardly touched her and yet she was totally his. And would be for a long time.
Her thoughts and emotions whirled, caught up in the sudden strange turn her life had taken. But her mind emptied as his mouth brushed hers.
Chapter Three
He tasted sweet and warm, his lips firm and a fresh flare of desire ignited low in her belly. A disbelieving smile broke against his mouth. This was not her. But now, apparently, it was. “What have you done to me?”
“Made you aware.” He ran light fingers down her arm, the touch delicate—so different from the wildness of moments before—but still it pulled a groan from her.
“You chose me.”
“Idaeus found me a long time ago.” He pressed a kiss to her jaw, his breath flowing across her skin and pushing a delicious shiver that curved her into his touch. “You took a little longer.”
Her eyes closed as she stepped closer, the press of his suit slick and cool against her sticky skin. “And you’re…comfortable doing this with a complete stranger.”
“Are you? A stranger.”
He didn’t remember that almost one time…did he? “You’re…you.” Heat rose in her face. He was Marcus Yeats, a man who could have anything and anyone. And yet he was settling for her—
“Not settling.”
She blinked, drawing back from him to hold his pale gaze. “How…?”
Marcus wet his lips. “I have a skill Idaeus enhances.” His finger brushed her temple. “It’s strong with you. It always has been.”
Heat bloomed in her chest, a rush of surprise, almost of shock. “You can read my mind?”
“From time to time.” His sudden and wicked smile made her heart beat hard. “And yes, your more salacious thoughts stand out.”
Adela swore and fought the quick, hot wave of embarrassment. Idaeus deep in her mind was one thing. But Marcus…
His soft laughter forced her to open her eyes. “You were just fucked in front of me by two men controlled by an alien entity.” His lips quirked upward. “My going down on you in a crowded lift? Inconsequential.”