by Sonia Nova
Oh, god…
She quickly averted her eyes, looking back to Arez’s face, but that wasn’t much better. His dark lips looked oh so kissable, and it didn’t help that his pitch-black eyes shone with barely controlled lust.
His nostrils flared and he moved an inch closer to her, inhaling her scent. He was like a predator sniffing out his prey – except that, in this case, the prey was her. And Naomi really wouldn’t have minded if he were to eat her up.
“Don’t, then,” she whispered before she even realized the words had actually left her mouth.
A little shocked by her own boldness, she looked down from his face. This wasn’t something she had ever done before – been this close to sleeping with someone she had only met just days before – but there was nothing typical about this entire situation.
And although the rational part of her brain told her she shouldn’t – that this was exactly what the Krezlians wanted, after all – another part just couldn’t help herself. She wanted to be close to Arez. Needed to be close to him. Touching.
“You don’t mean that,” Arez said, and she turned her gaze back to him. His dark eyes shone with desire, and despite his words, he made no move to back away from her.
He held onto her wrist, drawing little circles on the underside, and her skin started to prickle where he was touching her. He held her captive, slowly bending over her and burying his face in her neck. Naomi could feel his breath on the sensitive skin of her ear, and it sent a shiver along her body.
“I’m telling you,” he whispered into her ear in that sinfully deep voice of his that nearly made her quiver with need. “To get away from me now unless you are absolutely sure you want this.”
Naomi’s breath caught in her throat at his words, but she did not pull away. She couldn’t.
He grazed her neck with his sharp teeth and the sensation made goose bumps break out all over her skin. Liquid heat pooled between her legs. She rubbed her thighs together in need.
“Gods, you smell so sweet,” he growled against her neck. “The scent of your arousal is better than any drug I’ve ever had.”
He bit down gently on her neck, eliciting a moan from her that seemed to send him over the edge.
“That’s it,” he growled as he pushed her on the bed with one smooth thrust. “Game over.”
Before Naomi’s brain even registered the movement, he was on top of her, holding both of her hands trapped above her head. He looked down at her, his sparkling eyes completely crazed, and then he slammed his mouth down on hers, taking her lips in a ravenous kiss.
Her lips parted in surprise, and he took advantage of that, thrusting his tongue inside her mouth, but Naomi found that she didn’t care. She wanted this. Wanted him.
Pulling her hands from his grasp, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with just as much ferocity, rubbing her tongue along his rough one. It felt very different from a human tongue, almost like there were little nubs on it. The feeling made her crazy.
His tongue massaged hers, tangling together with hers and owning her mouth. His body was hard against hers and Naomi could feel the hard ridge of his cock against her thigh. He pushed it against her once, then twice, and Naomi couldn’t help the moan escaping her lips.
God, she wanted this man…
And although it seemed like they were about to give the Krezlians what they wanted, she found that she didn’t care. She was dripping wet between her legs already, and when Arez suddenly moved up on her and looked down at her with those deep black eyes, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. The cell around them disappeared and all she could see was Arez.
He started removing her shirt, nearly ripping it off her body before he moved onto her pants and pulled down the zipper, revealing her heated flesh to the cool air of the room, inch by torturous inch. Her breasts ached, and as he pulled her clothes off completely, leaving her naked on the soft sheets, she was positively panting.
He looked at her in admiration and brushed a finger down her body, from her collarbone to the tip of her breast, sending shivers along her skin with every touch.
“Beautiful,” he said, his voice hoarse with lust.
Immediately after he said that, he took her breasts into his hands and bent over her, taking a nipple into his mouth. His sharp teeth grazed her soft skin, sending shocks of pleasure throughout her body. He first licked her nipple with his coarse tongue, and then closed his lips around her breast and sucked, making Naomi moan in ecstasy.
Her whole body was on fire, burning everywhere he touched.
She arched her back, wanting to feel more of him on her skin. He lowered his body onto hers, his heavy weight feeling so amazing on top of her, and Naomi pushed her fingers into his shaggy mane of a hair.
While the short hairs on his skin were soft, the black, long hair on his head was rougher, like a horse’s mane. She held onto it as he kissed her breasts, his tongue coarse on her sensitized skin. He slowly started to move down lower on her body, pressing hungry kisses as he went.
Naomi rubbed her thighs together in pure need. Her whole body was throbbing under his ministrations, and she wanted more. When he reached her belly button and continued on even lower, Naomi eagerly spread her legs for him.
He grabbed hold of her thighs and thrust his face between her legs in a swift move that made her moan out loud. The little nubs on his tongue massaged her clit, sending shockwaves of pleasure through her whole being.
Naomi’s hands moved from his hair to his two large horns. She held onto them for dear life as he lapped at her juices, sending her closer and closer to the edge. She used the horns to guide his head and push him harder against her until she screamed as her release crashed through her like a tidal wave.
Her whole body shook, and before the orgasm had even yet passed, Arez moved over her, shoving his hard cock inside her with a smooth thrust.
Naomi moaned as his cock filled her to the core. The feeling was incredible. It was like she had never before been filled by a man, because Arez topped them all. Her arms draped around his warm, muscular body, and she hugged him close, trying to pull him closer, deeper inside her.
Arez growled quietly as he started thrusting in and out of her. His hands bore into her hips, and he once again took her mouth in a starving kiss, driving his tongue inside her in rhythm with his cock.
“Faster,” Naomi breathed, hardly even recognizing her own voice.
Arez snarled at her request and gave her just that. His expression was all teeth, completely savage, as he thrust harder and faster into her, making her gasp with every stroke.
“Mine.” His animalistic growl echoed in the cell, and Naomi couldn’t hold it together any more.
Pleasure built inside her, quickly rising to a crescendo. She gasped for breath as another orgasm hit her, even stronger than the last. Everything disappeared around her and she saw stars for a moment. All she could do was feel.
Arez grunted above her, clearly close to his own peak as he thrust into her like a wild beast. She could feel his cock pulsing inside her. It almost seemed like it was expanding, stretching her to the limit, and she sucked in a sharp breath at the sensation. After a moment, a warm wetness erupted inside her. He growled as he came, holding onto her tight.
For a long moment, Naomi simply lay where she was, utterly sated and catching her breath in the afterglow. Arez’s breath came out in heavy pants beside her and he soon flipped them over so that Naomi lay on top of him, on his hard, muscled chest. His skin was soft and warm, and Naomi closed her eyes in contentment. Arez started to stroke her hair and Naomi was just about ready for a nap, forgetting everything around them, when he spoke.
“Your hair is pretty,” he said quietly, so quietly that Naomi wasn’t quite certain she’d even heard him right. “Like the sun. That’s how I always recognized you. At the station… Here, on the ship. And your smell…”
He pressed his nose into her hair and inhaled deep. A distinct heat rose to Naomi’s cheeks an
d she was glad he wasn’t looking her way, because she was pretty sure her face was beet red. She had always been teased for her bright red hair when she was younger. And although the insults had stopped when she’d grown up, she wasn’t sure any man had ever called her hair pretty.
Silence fell between them until Arez shifted beneath her.
“I… wasn’t too rough, was I?” Arez’s voice was still quiet, and Naomi thought she heard a hint of concern in it.
She chuckled in response. Because while it had definitely been the roughest sex of her life, it had also been the best. There was just something about Arez that had made her feel more feminine – more alive – than ever in her life.
“No,” she answered truthfully, slowly starting to trace the tattoos on his chest again. “I loved it.”
She looked at the tattoos, thinking about their origin, and realizing just how little she knew about Arez’s past. A desire to know everything about him welled up in her, as if they had a lifetime of catching up to do.
“Do you like working in the military?” she asked after a moment of silence.
Arez raised an eyebrow, probably not expecting her subject change, but answered anyway.
“The military’s alright,” he said, his hand lazily stroking her lower back. “Keeps you busy.”
For a moment, it seemed like he wasn’t going to elaborate. His expression fell, and he stared into the distance, past her, deep in thought. But then, he continued.
“The feeling of flying in space in a speeder… It’s a thrill unlike anything. Coming to Agaria as a part of the Alliance troops was the best thing that could’ve happened to someone like me. I never believed in a thing like fate before. But now… Coming here, being in this place at this time… I believe it was fate. That I get to serve my role in the destruction of my makers. Kill them. Bleed them. Just as they killed and bled us.”
His voice had turned cold as he spoke, and he looked at her now, his eyes stormy pits of darkness.
“Sooner or later, we will get out of this cell,” he said. “And then… Then I will kill as many of the bastards as I can. I will bring them down. No matter what.”
His eyes were completely cold and emotionless as he said it, and an involuntary shiver traveled along Naomi’s spine.
Fate… He believed this was his fate. An odd sense of melancholy hit her at the thought. What kind of a life must he have had if he believed all this was a good thing? That it was his fate to die killing his makers? That there wasn’t anything better for him in store?
Naomi shook her head, her heart aching for him and the life he must’ve led. At least, he seemed to like the military. Or respect it in some sense.
She rolled off of him, snuggling into his side. It warmed her heart that she fit so perfectly against him.
“You’re not afraid, like the others,” he said. It was a statement, not a question. She didn’t know if he meant of him or of the Krezlians, but it didn’t matter either way.
Naomi laughed a little. The truth was, she was afraid, wasn’t she? Probably more than she allowed to show, but that was the key to being an Ambassador in the first place – learning not to show your fears. Learning to stay calm or at least to appear calm even if you weren’t.
“When you live on Inea for a year, nothing can faze you anymore,” she said, remembering her first year as an ambassadorial trainee in the Alliance – her first year in deep space, on a distant galaxy. Now that had shocked her to no end. With the various alien species, new technology, crimes she had never even imagined…
“Inea?” Arez asked, his voice sounding surprised. “The First Planet of the Alliance?”
“Yes, have you been?”
“No. They trained us off-site. Didn’t want to take us immediately to the heart of the Alliance. Too many new people or something. I think they just wanted to protect the people of Inea from us.”
“Probably both,” Naomi admitted. “The Alliance didn’t know what to expect of you at first when they freed you. They didn’t know whether you were so brainwashed by the Krezlians that you would try something, or whether you could actually be helped. Protecting the citizens of the Alliance would only be natural. But also, I imagine after a lifetime in a cage, entering a planet with dozens of different aliens and cultures could be a bit overwhelming.”
Arez grunted. “Probably.” Then, after a moment, he continued, “It was. Even after months of training. When we finally passed through an inhabited planet at the end of our training, it was… something else.”
Naomi propped herself up on her elbows at his side and looked at him carefully, digesting the information. She was surprised that he had actually agreed with her – and given her such an elaborate answer about his experiences. He really was more of a talker than most of his kind, although it definitely hadn’t seemed like it when they’d first met.
He must trust her, she realized, smiling a little.
Arez lifted his head to kiss her lips before settling down again. “So, how did you become an Ambassador? I want to know more about you,” he said. “You… intrigue me.”
“Well, it’s not as… interesting… as your past. I went to school to study intergalactic relations,” she started. “You know, what we on Earth call ‘college.’ I was the top of my class. And from there, I got a job at the Earth Agency of Intergalactic Affairs. And I worked on several teams. Trade, immigration… Until, eventually, I was chosen for Alliance training…”
Arez listened carefully as she told her story, stroking her hair in the meanwhile. Every once in a while, he picked up a strand of her hair and inhaled her scent, as if to assure himself that this moment was real, that she was here, with him.
Naomi knew that feeling. She needed just the same assurances, and that’s why she kept her eyes trained on his own, or his tattoos, brushing his skin with her fingers, keeping herself grounded in this moment, because she wasn’t ready for the world to move on yet.
She told him pretty much her whole life story. How she’d worked for the Alliance for some years, assisting the representatives of Earth in the heart of the Alliance, and then… being assigned her very own planet. Agaria.
“It was a dream come true. I was so happy to be given my own planet. It was everything I had worked for and I wanted to prove myself… Show everyone I could do this. That I was ready. And then… A human went missing… And from then on–”
Suddenly, Arez tensed beside her. He completely stopped even breathing and his hard muscles contracted. Alarm crawled up Naomi’s spine.
“Arez?” she asked quietly, looking at him in his eyes, trying to figure out what had happened that had caused his reaction.
Arez turned toward her. He lifted a finger up to his lips, silently telling her to stay quiet.
Cold dread filled her as she realized something was going on. She knew the senses of Ezak-X were far better than those of humans and it was clear Arez was listening onto something. He quickly got up from the floor and stared at the door.
A shiver ran down her spine when he finally spoke, his voice a cool mask of threat.
“They’re here.”
CHAPTER 21
AREZ
They were here.
Arez could hear footsteps in the corridor outside their cell. Four pairs of them.
They hadn’t stopped by the earlier cells, and Arez had a nagging feeling they weren’t going to stop. He didn’t know whether the other cells in the corridor were filled with prisoners too, but he just knew the men were coming for them.
He wondered whether it was because they had fulfilled their wishes or whether they would’ve come now anyway.
Not that it really mattered either way.
He looked down at Naomi, feeling a pang of regret in his chest. He had been rough and had hardly even gotten to hold her afterward. She’d opened up to him about her life, how she had come to be an Ambassador, and instead of extinguishing his strange desire to know more about her, his curiosity had only grown.
Not that an
y of it had even been real. If they ever got out of here – and they would – she would likely go her own way. As an Ambassador. And he would continue in his post. As a soldier.
A sudden emptiness filled him at the thought and he had to rub his chest to erase the feeling.
He didn’t want that. But he knew she was way out of his league, and under normal circumstances… Well, what would someone like her want with someone like him?
He had no chance. None at all.
The footsteps approached closer. They were now nearly behind their cell. Now was hardly the time for such thoughts. Because now… Now it was time for action.
Naomi scrambled up from the bed as well, picking up her clothing and pulling it over her body in a rush. Arez almost groaned at the sight of her petite body disappearing under the fabric. Her pale, smooth skin and light pink nipples were calling out to him… Begging him to taste them again…
He shook his head. Definitely not the time.
Pushing the thought to the back of his mind, he ignored the stirring of his cock – and the enticing scent of the female that floated around him even now. It was probably forever attached to his own body now too. The sweet, sugary fragrance that was all Naomi.
Naomi looked questioningly at him, her eyes uncertain, even slightly fearful, and Arez wanted nothing more than to take her back into his arms and tell her it would all be alright. To comfort her.
But he couldn’t. He had to stay sharp now. Be ready.
He wasn’t even sure whether it was safe to talk. He knew the Krezlians’ hearing was far worse than his own, but he didn’t know exactly how much worse. And if there was a recording device in this room, perhaps they could hear them as well.
That’s why he continued to resort to the Agari language, although his knowledge was limited at best. But at least he didn’t think the Krezlians could speak it, having been banished from the Alliance before Agaria had even joined.
“You… Corner…” he said to Naomi, nudging his head toward the back corner of the cell as he took his position by the door. “Any time… You run… Yes?”
