Hot Zone

by Cindy Dees

  Oh, my. This enhanced sensitivity thing was going to be very interesting, indeed.

  But then she had no more time to think, for he drew her down to his bedroll, on her knees before him.

  He murmured darkly, “And now for the part where you beg.”

  Ten

  Tessa’s gaze snapped up to his. She was startled as much by the tone in his voice as by the words he uttered. Gone was all humor. Left only was overwhelming and entirely masculine intensity as he matched her kneeling pose.

  “Spread your knees apart. Wider. And lean back.” He was all alpha male now, giving orders and expecting her to obey.

  A thrill of danger raced through her. Whatever she’d teased and flirted awake within him was fully in charge now. She got the distinct feeling that they’d already passed the point of no return.

  It was a strange sensation for a woman like her, used to giving orders and being in charge at all times—and over men, no less, in her capacity as a military officer. But this man, he took orders from no one. He expected her to surrender to him. And it thrilled her to imagine doing so.

  Still kneeling, she did as he ordered, arching her back and reaching backward to grab her ankles for support. The position was awkward, stretching her shoulders uncomfortably and putting pressure on her lower back. But it thrust her breasts up in blatant invitation, and opened the sensitive places between her legs for his exploration. Her breath hitched with the realization of how vulnerable she was to him in this position.

  He reached out with both thumbs and flicked her nipples, which were already swollen hard and so sensitive that she cried out. She lurched and would have snapped upright, but his hands stopped her, capturing her shoulders and pushing just hard enough to force her back into her original position.

  “I did not tell you to move. I am not done with you like this yet.”

  She might have made some retort, but he leaned down and captured her right breast with his mouth, sucking on her flesh until she gladly arched her back, moaning in pleasure, wordlessly offering up her other breast for his voracious attention. Her arms ached with the effort of supporting her weight, but oh, my, was holding the position ever worth it!

  When she was literally gasping in delight, he sat back on his heels, studying her intently, not touching her at all. Once again, he didn’t react as she expected. She’d thought to see rampaging lust in his gaze. But he still had the towel wrapped around his hips, and his expression was one of intense concentration. What was he up to?

  Finally, when she was all but chewing her lower lip to keep from groaning in anticipation, he reached between her legs. A single finger touched her feminine flesh, a long, light stroke of her insanely engorged flesh, drawing the dampness already gathering there forward to moisten the pearl of her desire into a slippery nubbin of pleasure. A jolt of electricity, so intense she nearly screamed, zinged through her.

  Another long, light stroke of his finger.

  Then a quick flick of his fingernail against that throbbing flesh. She did scream then, as a towering orgasm roared through her. She started to push up off her ankles, to throw herself at him, to kiss him and reach for his male parts, when a rough hand on her shoulder shoved her back.

  “Do I need to tie your wrists to your ankles, or will you stay there like I told you to?”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. You are not ready for me yet.”

  Not ready? She’d just had her first-ever screaming-caliber orgasm. How much more ready could she get?

  Then he proceeded to show her just how little she knew of the limits of pleasure her body could experience. Six, maybe seven orgasms later—she’d lost count—her arms trembled with fatigue. And yet she pressed her hips forward eagerly, offering her most private places to him with utter abandon. She danced beneath his magical fingers like a puppet, pleasured at first, embarrassed at some point by the excess of her lust, and then simply craving more. Without pride, without question, without restraint.

  Every muscle in her body had long ago turned to quivering jelly. Every nerve sobbed for more, and yet more, of what he did to her. Her core muscles clenched and unclenched spasmodically within her belly, desperately seeking the fullness of him within her, seeking ultimate completion in this journey of unbelievably erotic sensation.

  It didn’t even occur to her to swallow the words, to hold out against what he did to her. “Please,” she begged. “Please take me, Rustam. Finish this thing. Fly with me.”

  A small smile broke through his aggressive concentration, but he had the good grace not to gloat. He pressed a fingertip just within her opening. Her muscles clenched frantically around it, then responded in blatant invitation, showering his finger with the moist, slick rush of her desire.

  “Ahh. Now you are ready for me.”

  His arms went around her then, and he raised her gently, laying her back upon his bedroll. He knelt over her, bracing his hands on either side of her head and slowly lowering himself until he could kiss her. She sucked at his lips, his tongue, mad to drive him wild with as much lust as he’d aroused in her. He groaned, and she vaguely registered that the towel fell away from his hips.

  She made to reach for him, to pleasure him, but before she could, he leaned back on his heels, lifting her knees and positioning himself between them. Something hot and shockingly hard touched her where she most desired to be touched. She cried out, shuddering with yet another orgasm at the sensation. He waited patiently for the tremors to pass.

  He seemed to be taking inordinate care to make sure his aim and angle were exactly correct, and she nearly laughed aloud. Did he think she was a virgin?

  She murmured, “In my home, most girls become sexually active in their teens. You don’t need to worry about hurting me. I’ve done this before.”

  He replied in a low growl, “You haven’t done this with me. Trust me. I know what I’m about.”

  Who was she to argue, when that delicious shaft of molten fire was finally pressing exactly where she wanted it?

  He muttered, “Relax, or this will hurt.”

  She noted with satisfaction that his voice and his control sounded seriously strained. Maybe he wasn’t as immune to all of this as he’d acted so far. And then he began pushing ever so slowly into her, and all thought fled her stunned mind.

  A stretching fullness became almost but not quite painful as he filled her up. Then filled her more. And more. She was impaled on a staff, the hardness and size of which were unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

  His big hands reached beneath her. Grabbed her buttocks. Lifted her hips with shocking ease, drawing her up to him. And somehow, she took in even more of him. Finally, he was seated to the hilt within her. If she moved a single millimeter, she was going to split in half. But as it was, the sensation was absolutely incredible. Ripples of pleasure spread outward from her internal muscles to the farthest corners of her body.

  As if he knew her predicament, he held himself still, only the faintest pulsation of movement in his shaft letting her know it was living flesh within her and not hot steel. Her own body began to pulsate in response.

  Her hips didn’t move—they couldn’t, for he held her buttocks firmly in his hands. But her internal muscles began to clench and release, clasping him, drawing him into her, milking his flesh, coaxing him deeper into this unbearable pleasure with her.

  He groaned, and his fingers dug into her flesh, but still he did not move.

  And then, finally, she understood. He was waiting for her to move against him. For her to set the limits of what was pleasurable and what was painful for her. She withdrew slightly, then eased forward.

  He groaned again, the sound wrung from deep in his chest. Emboldened by it, she moved again, cautiously finding a rhythm, and then increasing its tempo. As her body gradually accommodated his size, she grew bolder and more athletic. His eyes closed and he tipped his head back, his neck and arm muscles straining, veins standing out in stark relief beneath his skin as she drove
him into oblivion.

  At some point, she levered herself upright as he knelt, looping her arms around his neck, sliding up and down on him like a wild thing. Without warning, he lunged forward and bit her neck. Hard. He didn’t draw blood, but pain shot through her, mingling with and somehow intensifying the latest orgasm ripping through her. He bit her again, marking her as his, and she quite simply exploded.

  His arms wrapped fiercely around her, and the two of them zoomed up and out of themselves into the night, so fast her eyes could hardly register planets and stars and entire solar systems flashing past.

  A planet with a red sky came into view, a brief glimpse of a half human, half horse people, and then she and Rustam were flying again, ever onward. How many alien planets and peoples she saw, how many nebulae, how many swirling spirals of gas and shooting rays of light, she could not say. The brilliance of it was breathtaking.

  And then, as soul-deep shudders started to build inside them both, the entire vastness collapsed back in on them, a billion rushing points of light imploding around them as a pleasure she’d had no concept of even imagining broke over them both.

  Rustam shouted against her neck, surging up beneath her. A keening cry tore from her throat to mingle with his as his seed spilled, hot and thick, so deep within her it filled her womb. For a moment, the entire galaxy whirled around them, fathomless and infinite.

  And then Rustam fell backward, pulling her down on top of him, their bodies still joined. And they were back on Earth once more. Lying on solid ground.

  He drew great, panting breaths beneath her, his chest heaving, while sweat poured from her trembling body to bathe them both. If someone had told her in that instant that the world was coming to an end and she had to move if she was going to live, she would not have been able to lift a single finger.

  How long they lay like that, she couldn’t say. It took her a while to recover—that being a relative thing after the performance he’d just put her body through. It took easily ten to fifteen minutes for the shuddering aftermath of her orgasms to finally stop racking her. She eventually regained the ability to move. A little.

  He finally slipped carefully out of her and she managed to roll to his side, where he tucked her head against his shoulder and drew her close to his warmth.

  Some pillow talk was probably appropriate. She should acknowledge his victory over her, should admit that she’d shamelessly begged him for sex and would happily do so again. But the only words that formed in her mind were things like Wow. Unbelievable. Earth-shattering. Epic.

  He surprised her by murmuring, “Thank you. And I agree.”

  “With what?”

  “With what you were just thinking. That was, indeed, epic.”

  “For you, too?”

  He lifted his head enough to look down at her, one eyebrow arched. “You need to ask?”

  “I would hate to think that the most mind-boggling sex I’ve ever experienced—by a lot—was just another day at the office for you.”

  He collapsed back against the ground, laughing quietly. “No. That was not…the usual.”

  Thank goodness. As her brain finally began to function again, albeit sluggishly, she frowned. “What were those images you sent me?”

  He tensed beside her. “What images?”

  “The places. The people. You said you were going to fly with me, but I swear, you just took me on a guided tour of the galaxy.”

  He went board-stiff beneath her, so tense it felt as if he might splinter into a million painfully sharp slivers.

  She sat up, startled. What had she said? She’d made the comment lightly, in jest. But he was reacting as if she’d just accused him of killing someone…and he was guilty as hell of the crime.

  “What?” she asked.

  He stared up at her in nothing less than total shock. “You remember all of that?”

  “Well, yes. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because I didn’t send you a damned thing. You took those images from my mind. You stole them!”

  “I did no such thing,” she blurted in alarm. “I would never steal anything, least of all your—”

  Without warning, he surged up over her with that blinding speed of his, flipping her onto her back, his hand encircling her neck. He growled down at her, “Who are you? And how did you do that?”

  “Do what?” she cried in frustration. “What in the world are you talking about? You’re the one who put those images into my head. I have no idea how to do what you’re accusing me of. And even if I could do it, I wouldn’t. It’s not ethical!”

  His fingers began to tighten. “Tell me this instant who you are or I swear, I will kill you here and now.”

  Eleven

  Rustam glared down at the woman on the ground beneath him. She was no ignorant barbarian, tragically shipwrecked upon the shores of Greece. No woman, of his own kind or foreign, had ever done anything remotely like that to him during sex—or not during sex, for that matter. Tessa had mind-raped him! Those images were private.

  She looked genuinely confused beneath him. A hint of fear glinted in her silvery eyes. He probed her mind with his, aggressively and without finesse. His truth sense was completely quiet. No doubt about it—she wasn’t telling him a lie.

  Why, of all the women he could’ve met, did he have to fall for the one monstrously powerful psychic who had no idea whatsoever how to control her skill?

  How could the magnificence they’d just shared have turned so quickly into his hand around her neck and enough rage to kill her?

  Even if she’d blatantly and intentionally stolen his thoughts, he’d already declared her his consort. He couldn’t kill her if he wanted to; tradition strictly forbade it. Disgusted, he released her neck and sat up, turning away from her.

  He’d known that if he could drive her far enough into the throes of passion, she might turn her power completely loose, accidentally or otherwise. And she had. Ye gods, had she ever. It had all but ripped his mind from his body permanently.

  He’d had to struggle to draw them back to Earth, to their bodies, at the end. His orgasm had been so overpowering, he’d almost lost them both in it.

  It would have been a hell of a great way to die, but he hadn’t fought this hard to say alive here for this long to throw it all away in a single moment of admittedly incredible pleasure.

  He swore under his breath. He’d had some amazing sex in his day, but what they’d just done had been in another class altogether.

  His people were frankly sexual, and males in particular took their pleasure freely and often. But in his not inconsiderable experience with sex, both here and at home, Rustam had never heard of anything like what had just happened to them.

  What he and Tessa had made between them—that had been the stuff of legends. Mystics among his people talked about bonded soul mates in epic terms of love that transcended the physical body. Of expansion of mental powers into realms most of his kind couldn’t fathom. Of awareness that encompassed vast reaches of the heavens and beyond.

  But…he and Tessa couldn’t possibly be soul mates! They were from totally different places. Their backgrounds and cultures were entirely dissimilar. She barely even knew she was psychic, let alone had begun to harness her abilities. They had nothing in common. Nothing at all!

  Nothing except that swirling indigo vortex that built around them anytime they got close to one another. And that impossible flight to the far side of the stars and back.

  They’d both let down all their mental barriers in that moment of orgasm. They’d both turned their power loose. Completely. Could it be? Was she more like him than he’d realized? In that way?

  Impossible.

  No female possessed his powers. Only the men of his kind did. And yet the incontrovertible evidence of her ability was staring him right in the face. Could she be a—

  “I’ve got it!” she cried out from beside him, startling him badly.

  He scowled down at her. “Got what?”

  “I fi
nd lost things. I told you that, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, I’ve been looking for something lost. And I just got another read on it. It’s that way.” She pointed eagerly to the southeast. “Ten or fifteen miles, maybe. What lies in that direction?”

  “How far is a mile?”

  “A little over five thousand lengths of your foot.”

  Rustam frowned and did some quick mental math. “That’s along the coast, or maybe even a little out into the sea.”

  She frowned. “Did Xerxes recently send any ships that way?”

  Rustam lurched. Only his status as a royal insider gave him the answer to that question. “Yes, in fact. He has ordered part of his personal fleet south to join his main fleet in chasing the Athenian navy.”

  Tessa frowned. “How much farther until we reach Thermopylae?”

  “In your miles, maybe seven or eight as a bird flies. But our route will be far from straight in this terrain. We should reach it tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Any guess as to how long it’ll take Xerxes’s army to get there?”

  “Maybe two more days. They’ll camp overnight to rest, and then attack the pass at dawn the following morn. Many Persians are sun worshippers, and it’s good luck to do things with the rising of the sun.”

  She nodded briskly. “We should have plenty of food and water to reach the pass, then.”

  Thank the gods. She’d turned her attention to bread and water skins and away from the strange images in his mind.

  But then she muttered, “How is it that I can see that stupid medallion when I’m with you, but not when I’m by myself?”

  He stared down at her as an awful suspicion planted itself in his head. Was she borrowing more than his thoughts? Was she stealing his actual power? There was only one way to tell.

  “Rest now. I have to go check on the horses.” He pushed himself to his feet and moved away from her, walking to the far side of the clearing, near the trees. Polaris chuffed quietly at him.