Toxic Desire Read online

  “How can your computer know it exists but not know its effects?”

  She ignores me, goes to a plant, and rips off a piece of leaf. “Shit.” Her hand comes away bloody, like the plant cut her, but she inserts a piece of it into her computer. It makes a processing noise then beeps. “It’s in the vegetation, too.” She sucks the cut on her finger.

  “Why did it cut you?”

  “I don’t know.” She stands and points in the direction where her ship landed. “What I do know is where I’m going.”

  “I will come, too.” My warriors will assume I died in the planet’s atmosphere. There is no rescue party coming for me. The only hope I have of getting off this rock will be from her human friends. Or any locals who might inhabit this place.

  That is the reason why I have resisted killing her, I tell myself.

  She does not look at me but shoves the pack at me. “Carry this. It’s survival supplies.” Then she ventures straight into the jungle.

  I shoulder her pack and follow, glad at least she now seems unaffected by the burn that is once more blazing through my veins like fire. Without her begging me for it, it should be easier to ignore it and keep my hands off her.

  We walk through the jungle, and I adjust to a perpetual state of arousal. My eyes fill with the sight of her ass in front of me. The well-muscled cheeks move beneath the fabric that molds to her like a second skin.

  My cock aches to the point of pain, and my fangs, no matter what mind games I play with myself, will not retract. I cannot bite her again. I will not. It is a betrayal of the rituals of my kind to share venom without Attachment.

  It is sacred. To give it to someone who is not one’s mate is sacrilege.

  To give it to a human…

  I am revolted by my inability to control myself in this place. I gave my venom to her. I have never given it to anyone. Not in all my life have I met a Ssedez who called my fangs and venom from me, and not for lack of trying.

  For it to happen now with this human is a cruel curse.

  We push through the overgrown jungle. Vines and vegetation crawl up the massive trees so densely I cannot see the trunks. The mist is ever present, like walking through fog. The smell of growing things is so potent in the air it floods my nostrils.

  The sounds of the animals are loud in our ears. Strange and ethereal chirps and squawks, most hidden and unseen, though very few I recognize from any other planet.

  The leaves in various shades of green, purple, and blue—which merely scratch my skin and leather pants—slice holes through her white suit. Boots protect our feet and ankles. But after her suit is torn, the leaves cut her skin until trails of blood drip down her legs.

  It stirs the Attachment in me.

  I cannot allow anything to hurt her.

  Chapter Five

  Nem

  I’m no stranger to pain. I’ve been wounded in battle countless times. I’ve been beaten. I’ve been scarred. I’ve been imprisoned. But I have never felt a burning like this.

  Each time a leaf cuts me, I grit my teeth. There is nothing I can do. We have to get to my ship. There are valuable things on board, priceless things. If there’s any chance they’re retrievable, I have to get them. Not to mention the small hope someone on my crew survived the crash. Though it’s unlikely. What’s more likely is another escape pod landed nearby. No alerts of other pods have shown on my computer, but it doesn’t mean they’re not there.

  Anyone else will head to the crash site.

  But the cuts—it’s not the tear of my skin so much as the fire that starts at each wound, a burn of intense pleasure. I have to glance down to be sure actual flames aren’t creeping up my legs.

  “Here. Take this.” The Ssedez puts his longest knife in my hand, and I don’t have to ask what it’s for. It’s not for killing him.

  It’s long enough to carve a path for myself. A machete. I slice at the leaves ahead of me, bushwhacking through the jungle. It’s too late though.

  My blood is already contaminated with the plants’ poison.

  I start to hallucinate. I start seeing him in front of me—naked—and I want to cut my teeth on him. I want to get on my knees and suck his cock, then bend over on all fours while he fucks me from behind.

  But that’s not even the best of the illusions.

  In the next one, he bites me and does it all over again—except this time it’s twice as good.

  I stumble, my body aflame, my nipples hard and scratching against the fabric of my body suit, my clit swollen and aching. Molten from fire scourging my veins, I’m dripping onto my thighs—soaking my clothes.

  I stop, drop his knife, and start to touch myself. I need to make it stop. I have to make this end. I will incinerate if I don’t quench it somehow.

  I fall to my knees. I’m urged backward against a strong chest, and masculine hands come around to replace mine. The broad fingers massage and caress my nipples.

  “Harder.” I arch into his touch. He obeys, squeezing and twisting the points of my breasts.

  It doesn’t ease me though. My clit throbs, and I tear one of his hands from my breasts and put it there. “Help me.”

  His long fingers press me, and I cry out. I have no patience for waiting—I’m in too much pain. I grasp his wrist and use his hand, circling his fingers the way I want them to.

  But it’s not enough; it still hurts. It blurs my thoughts, and I moan nonsensical things, unable to think except for what I need.

  He gropes to find the hidden zipper in my suit, opens it, and sneaks his hand inside. His hot hand slips between my soaked thighs, and a loud groan vibrates from his chest into my back.

  I don’t care about his reaction though; all I care is that he makes me come.

  I collapse back against him and spread my knees, opening, letting him deeper. He strokes through my folds, and his fingers slip inside me like butter. My inner walls cling to him, squeezing him, desperate to wring the orgasm from his hand.

  He slides his fingers in and out of me, their size and width the perfect size of a cock, and I’m so wet, I hear the sounds of him moving them in me. From this pose, I can watch, so I stare at his ethereally gold, shining hand, his palm so broad, his wrist so thick, the muscles of his knuckles flexing and tightening as he works me.

  “Faster, faster,” I breathe between shuddering breaths, and he obeys. I grip his forearms, digging my fingers as hard as I can into his corded muscle. I start to come, my hips pumping shamelessly onto his hand.

  The climax sets off in me like a bomb, wringing harsh shouts from my lungs and seizing my body. I lose it all—the battles, the will for control, the fight to stay alive. I don’t care.

  I am sex. And pleasure.

  The fire that was raging through my veins lessens, and I surrender against his chest. I lie back wasted, lungs heaving, and notice his breathing. It gusts against my ear, and he is as rigid as a statue behind me, his cock a steely, unmistakable force against my back.

  He moves like he wants to get away from me, so I crawl forward. I’m too weak to stand, but I rest on my knees. I manage to close the zipper at my waist, not that the clothes are doing me any good, they’re so soaked from me and sliced with cuts from the leaves.

  I turn to see him standing and staring at me—his cock at eye level.

  He looks at me with sensually dark eyes like he wants to fuck me, but at the same time, he’s cautious. My caution is gone. My rational restraint is disintegrated. I’m forced to admit that in all my years of curiosity about the Ssedez, I never dared hope I’d actually meet one. Much less have the opportunity to have sex with one. They’re supposed to be extinct.

  This whole mission of mine—the one he ruined—was all about leaving the Ten Systems and breaking away from their “Assimilate or Be Conquered” rule of law. My crew, our goal is one of discovering worlds and species unknown. Of finding things in common with intelligent life-forms—not dominating others in war.

  It is my life’s work. And this enemy of mine who brings me so much pleasure is a specimen of my heart’s desire.

  “What’s your name?” Nothing like getting orgasms from a male without knowing his name.

  “Oten.” The guttural sound to his voice, it fills me with new arousal. The first word I’ve heard him say in his own language. I don’t know how he knows my human language so well, but he’s obviously studied it intensively. His name, Oten, is harsh and gritty sounding, the stop on the “T” like a preparation for something ominous. And it is. I recognize it.

  “Oten?” I gasp. “As in…” My mind must be playing tricks on me.

  “Have you heard the stories of the Ssedez?”

  “Are you the Oten?” I catch my breath, remembering all I can of the story. “As in the warrior who created the stars of the universe with refracted light across his skin?”

  “That tale formed a thousand years ago and refers to my father.” He strokes my face, as though enamored with the feel of my skin. “And it is armor. Not merely skin.” His abdomen tightens, and he holds his breath—as I watch the surface of him change.

  His skin thickens, strengthens, into something like armor. I trace the emerging diamond pattern that shines like metallic gold in the sunshine. He’s so bright, it’s as though the sunlight isn’t glancing off of him, but rather, coming from inside him.

  It’s a good thing the sun is shining on him from the side, not head on, or I’d be blinded. “You’re made of gold.”

  He smiles, and it’s stunning, seeing the gleaming surface of his face bend with his curving lips. “A hundred Ssedez in the sun will blind an army on the battlefield. Alas, most of our battles are now in space, so it rarely helps.”

  Even his hair seems effervescent, as though laced with sunlight. It hangs in waves, brushing his sho
ulders, reflecting the sun the same way as his natural armor.

  There’s another myth that I’ve always wondered if it was true. The human history books deny it. “Are you the Oten who saved the Ssedez from certain genocide by piloting a star cruiser solo into the Ten Systems’ fleet, destroying them by blowing up your own ship?”

  His eyes go wide with surprise. “It was not solo. There were many warriors aboard. I didn’t know the humans told it as a genocide tale.”

  “They don’t. But that’s what it was. They feared your immortality.”

  He nods. “And our honor.”

  “How did you survive it?”

  He straightens his shoulders. “Why would I reveal such a secret to you? You are one of them.”

  I don’t correct him. It won’t matter to him that I left the Ten Systems’ fleet and commandeered a ship with a crew who believe the same as me: the conquer-or-be-conquered Ten Systems’ treatise is unethical. I am human. My ancestors sought to destroy his species and believe they succeeded. He has every right to hate me.

  He is not godlike—he is an immortal.

  Whose cock stands at attention, sheathed in leather, before my eyes.

  My military agenda becomes meaningless in the resurfacing of my lifelong fascination with Oten, the Sun God, and his son of the same name. The long repression of my sexuality is over. I have no reason left not to suck his cock.

  He tenses, and his armor recedes. The diamond pattern merges back into his skin, leaving it smooth again. Almost like human skin, still gold, just without the shiny metallic hue.

  I run my hands across his abs, feeling the texture of him.

  He’s hard to the touch.

  I pull at the laces of his leathers, and what’s exposed is as godlike as I’d hoped it would be.

  Long and thick—if I thought the rest of him was hard, his cock is marble. Except it’s not smooth like the rest of his skin without the armor. He’s ribbed. There’s a spiral pattern of ridges along his cock. They wrap around him and swirl from base to tip. The apex is a seam, the only one on his body.

  I rasp, in awe. “Does it feel?”

  He grunts an affirmative. “What are you going to do?”

  I grasp him with my hand, my fingers not able to meet around his impressive girth. He steals a hard breath through his teeth, and his hips buck. He braces his hands on my shoulders.

  “It burns, doesn’t it?” I ask him.

  He nods, his breath ragged. “Like a fire raging through my veins.”

  “I can help.” I slide my hand up and down him. His ridges tickle my palm. And I have to know what he feels like in my mouth.

  Chapter Six

  Oten

  Her little hand around my cock—the softness of her delicate human skin.

  Heat pours into my blood. The pain of it is taking over me. Either she helps me, or I help myself, but I am going to come soon whether I want to or not. She is licking her lips though, staring at me.

  “General Nem,” I say. “Are you going to worship an immortal Ssedez with your mouth?” I am not immortal, long-lifed yes, but killable. Our immortality is a myth we let the humans believe. She does not need to know the truth. Her ignorance and reverence are my advantage.

  “Worship, no,” she growls, her voice raked with an animal desire. “But I will suck you off.”

  I cannot think why she would want to do this. I do know that seeing her, I want nothing more. A possessiveness stiffens in my chest: She is mine, and she knows it.

  No. I know this is not true, no matter how much my body tells me. The physical drive within me that is confusing her for my mate is a lie. Fyrian is fucking with my system. She is as much my enemy as she was on her ship.

  Except I cannot kill her now, because I need her to survive, to ease the excruciating burn for sex this place floods into my veins. It is convenient that she does not repulse me in any way, that her attractive form and aggressive demeanor are inexplicable turn-ons for me.

  When she fell to her knees in sexual agony, I was helpless not to satisfy her. Feeling her coming around my fingers—her wetness—I have never felt that before. Ssedez females do not secrete.

  Perhaps it is only a symptom of this place, but it is utterly erotic. It made me ache to know what it would be like to slip my cock inside her—and slide in and out, hard and fast. The friction would be a divine pleasure.

  “You think to make amends for the human crimes against the Ssedez?” There is no other reason why she would do this.

  “No. You killed my crew. I make no amends.”

  “Then why?” The flames lick hot inside me. I do not know where I have found this restraint to ask her.

  Mischief streams hot from her eyes. “I want to know what a gold cock tastes like.”

  My brows go up. Surprise, the general has a sense of humor. “Then open and find out.” I run a finger down her jaw.

  She places me on her tongue, and the warmth of that small touch is stronger than any of the fire raging in me. Her lips wrap me, and a loud groan escapes me.

  I am gone.

  A chuckle from her throat vibrates into me, and she takes more of me into her mouth. My fangs ache. They are perma-extended, as unable to retract as my cock is to soften. The venom pools in my mouth, and the need to bite her is as strong as the one to lay her out and fuck her.

  She descends, and my cock disappears inside her mouth. Though not all. There’s too much of me for all.

  I cannot bite her again. Injecting my enemy with the venom meant only for a Ssedez mate is sacrilege—and it was a deplorable mistake. I have no idea what more of it will do to her. Once did nothing so far, but a second time…

  She does something with her tongue. I see it move behind her hollowed cheeks, and I grasp her head. I pause her movements. I cannot take it. I will spill in her mouth. Which is not an option. The Ssedez seed is only potent when the venom is flowing, and it does more than procreate with one’s mate.

  But she sucks on me, her throat working, and I can’t resist anymore. The need in me is too great to stop her, the fire too demanding.

  The ridges covering my cock rub over her lips and tongue as she moves me. The thick covering at the tip pulls back inside her mouth, exposing my most vulnerable place, my Achilles heel. That I am opening this up to her—a human who is out to kill me—is a sign of how far gone I am. It must be the Attachment, or maybe this place. Otherwise, I would never do this. I think.

  I come and pour into her what I should never give her, what no Ssedez has ever given a human. I have no idea what it will do to her.

  But the need to climax, the need to make her mine, overpowers any desire I have to pull out of her mouth. The orgasm rips through me, enflaming the burn, torching my nerves.

  She starts to shudder and moan around my cock in her mouth, like she’s about to climax.

  I see her hand between her legs. She is pleasuring herself.

  I like this very much.

  She cries out, barely audible, still sucking on my cock. The arousal doesn’t soften. In fact, I bend to grab her shoulders. I want to throw her down, spread her legs, and fuck her.

  But no. I stop myself.

  If I do that, I will bite her again. And that cannot happen.

  I pull my cock from her mouth and watch the covering of ridges curl back into place over the vulnerable tip.

  “It’s like foreskin,” she says in fascination.

  I lace up my leathers. I don’t need her dwelling on that particular part of me any more than she has to. She has no idea that she’s found the one and only weakness on my body, the only penetrable part of me. “It is like the Ssedez.”

  “I mean—”

  “Do not compare me to your species,” I snap. To be likened to her foul, loathsome kind, those murderers and torturers with no morality or honor, is the ultimate insult.

  She stands and gives me a hard look. I expect a retort, but none comes. I should kill her now, just for saying that. The anger seethes in my chest.

  But my hands do not tense. I am incapable of a violent attack toward her, not while my body believes she is destined to be my mate for life.

  She searches for her weapons belt, which one of us removed at some point, though I do not remember. She retrieves it and buckles it on. She checks the computer, finds my knife she dropped, and continues on her trek through the jungle.