Toxic Desire Page 7

  Her anger is like a force of nature, a twisting cyclone gathering speed, readying for destruction. A compassion stirs in me. Something I never thought to feel toward a human.

  “I am sorry,” I say. “I never would have touched you if I had known it was going to do this to you.”

  She stares at me, her lip curling, revealing once more her baby fangs. “You think that helps?”

  I should know: nothing I can say will make how I have violated her any better. “No.”

  “You are unaffected, and I may pay the price for the rest of my life. There is no amount of sorry that can help that.”

  She reholsters her blaster then turns away, continuing her slashing through the forest with my knife.

  Leaving me feeling like a hole has been carved in my chest.

  I scratch at it—willing it to stop hurting. I feel…strange things—things a human should never make me feel: guilt, regret, a desire to make amends.

  I stare at the ground, not understanding who I am becoming. She cannot be affecting my feelings. My body’s Attachment to her is purely physical. My emotions are not involved in anything pertaining to her.

  If I start to feel anything, I will lose myself to her. It is a good thing what I have done to her has made her hate me even more.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nem

  I can’t get him out of my head.

  The sight of him—those fangs extended—

  I carve through the jungle with his machete, hacking out a path for myself. I’m going faster than I thought I could. I don’t think about it. Like everything else about me that’s been changing. I focus on—

  How much I hate him.

  But that just has me thinking about him and that glorious gold cock hanging between his legs.

  No.

  I focus on—

  The work of moving through the jungle.

  But that just has me thinking about my body. And how it’s broiling with the desire to run back and fuck him.

  I should be hot. I should be sweating. But I’m not. My blood runs cooler. Like a reptile’s.

  I stop once an hour for a refill of my water bottle. I’ve drunk six liters of water already today. I’ll drink six more before nightfall. I don’t care how much I have to pee. At least that hasn’t changed.

  I’m going to wash that Ssedez out of my body.

  I refuse to accept that I’ve changed into another species. I’m human, damn it. It doesn’t matter that I’ve rebelled against the Ten Systems. I still want to be human. I still want to be myself.

  Oten toyed with me yesterday—saying my crew might not recognize me without my armor. Because I’m female.

  They really won’t recognize me now.

  I’ll find some way to convince them I’m their general.

  If my second and third-in-command, my lieutenant general…

  My brain fails me, and I almost stumble.

  I can’t remember their names. The heat raging through my veins is rampant, like it’s stealing my thoughts. I won’t let it.

  I clench my teeth harder. Force myself to think.

  Cut through the brush harder and…

  Assur and Jens!

  Those were their names. If they survived the crash, each of them know things that only I would know. Them, I’ll be able to convince I’m me.

  But…I can’t remember what those things are. Something about the mission and where we were going but…where were we going?

  My vision starts to blur.

  I must need more water. That’s what’s wrong. The heat. I can’t think clearly. My blood is too cool. My inability to sweat is causing me exhaustion.

  I refill my bottle, filter the water, and drink.

  I return to the trail, my slog through the jungle. My body starts to throb with my blood pulsing heat through my veins. I’ve become so accustomed to feeling swollen between my legs, so hot, so molten. A fire burns at the apex of my thighs; it spreads through my abdomen and down my legs. My core rages and burns, painfully empty.

  My crew… Where I’m going… The goal I’m trying to reach… I can’t remember. There is only endless jungle and the fire in me.

  Beneath my skin, flames rage. My body is crying out for touch, for sensation, for feeling. The need swells even my brain. My thoughts morph and disappear.

  The sun beats down on me, and the air thickens. A moisture fills the air, a fog clouding my vision and filling my lungs—hot, so hot.

  I stop.

  I need feeling, physical sensation.

  I brush my hands over my breasts, pinching my nipples, and it brings a burst of relief so fierce I cry out. But in its place, I’m filled with more longing.

  Need. I am it. It is me.

  I run my hands over my new, reinforced skin. The intricacies of the new texture—smooth yet hard—fascinates my sense of touch, the pads of my fingers hypnotized by the new sensations.

  And the way my skin feels. Being touched isn’t the same. I’m less sensitive, yet more so at the same time. Like my skin is thicker, more of a barrier from my regular nerve endings. But there are new nerve endings at the same time. A new kind of sensation.

  Like cotton brushing over feathers.

  I’m cool on the surface. That’s fascinating, too.

  Like my skin is cooler than I am on the inside.

  I realize, or don’t realize, because I don’t know what’s happening, that my weapons, my pack, my skin suit that was tied around my waist—are all on the ground.

  I kicked off my boots.

  I took it all off.

  I don’t want anything touching me. All of it hurts or feels like too much.

  I’m naked and running my hands up and down my body. I’ve stopped by the stream, and in the surface of the water, I see myself.

  I can’t see my face; it’s muddled in the ripples of the stream, but I see the outline of me. I watch my hands skim my hips and thighs, watch my gold hands move over me.

  That I’m seeing me is hard to believe. It’s like watching someone else. Except it’s not. This is me. It’s a surreal out-of-body experience. I’m shocked and horrified this other being is me. But I’m awed and excited at the same time.

  I like it. I like this me that is both a new me and not me at all.

  This armor that is me. I’m protected and yet wearing nothing.

  My fingers slip between my thighs, over the curls at the juncture. I seek into the folds surrounding my clit and almost crumble to the ground. Being touched there—I am so enflamed—it’s excruciating.

  But once I start touching myself there, I can’t stop.

  I widen my legs and sink my fingertips into the wetness that is me.

  I’m so slick and open, sliding my fingers inside is like slipping through cream. I crook my fingertips against the round spot inside, and it sends a pulse of pleasure through me. My legs weaken.

  I fall to my knees on the stream bank.

  I’m still visible in the water, but I’m not seeing myself anymore.

  I see him.

  Oten.

  The gleaming immortal.

  And his impressive gold cock.

  My mouth falls open.

  The last time I was on my knees touching myself, I had him in my mouth. The spirals of his cock brushing past my lips until the tip pealed back and revealed the soft flesh beneath.

  Then there was the thickness of his come spilling onto the back of my tongue, the rich taste and the satisfying feeling as I swallowed it down my throat, and it filled my stomach.

  I have to thrust my hand farther up inside me—to try and fill myself.

  I lie on my back and spread my legs. The climax builds, crawling up my spine, begging to be let out.

  Both my hands—rubbing across my clit—pumping inside me.

  I can see him in front of me. So clearly. Like he’s really there.

  He stares at me. The desire and the need in his eyes, watching me. Him desiring me, wishing he could have me, as I take care of myself.

  I relish in the power. I am what he wants. And he can’t have me.

  He pulls out his cock and grasps himself—stroking up and down. I stare at his hand. At the tip of his cock as it disappears and reappears in his palm. I watch for the gold ridges to peel back and reveal the velvety tip.

  It does, and my mouth works, wishing with every fiber of me that he was fucking my mouth.

  I come, climaxing.

  I cry out but cannot close my eyes. I have to watch him.

  He groans loud and long, an animal in the jungle, and I watch his orgasm stream from the tip of his cock. Bursts of come jet on the ground except…

  It’s not creamy and white like I expect it to be. It’s shiny and…

  Silver. It lands on the ground in gleaming bursts that twinkle in the sun.

  I have to stop myself from sticking my face in the dirt and licking it up—it looks so good. Like the richness of gemstones and the consistency of the thickest sugar. As though just tasting it would be a shot of sweet ecstasy.

  I moan in sadness at the waste. That should be in my mouth or between my legs.

  I hunger for it. To feel it on my skin. To touch it and run my fingers through it as I paint myself with it.

  My body hums with my orgasm, but I still need him.

  I get on my hands and knees and crawl to him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Oten

  She crawls toward me, and there is enough rationale left in my deluded mind to remember that is not good.

  I retreat from her.

  She moves, her body curving and flexing, her eyes stalking me. She is a fierce feline, and I am her prey.

  I back into a tree and hold up my hand. “Stop.” I try to say it, but it comes out a whisper.

  She
reaches me and grabs my legs. She walks her hands up my body and stands, rubbing herself against me like a cat in heat—a lethally dangerous cat.

  She caresses my abs and chest then fingers my knives. “Do you want me to stop?” she taunts.

  My mind is gone. If there is a world outside of her and this explosive, consuming desire I have for her, I do not know it. I have no care in the world except her.

  There is only this female.

  This woman.

  And my need for her.

  And her need for me.

  Or at least, her need for sex that has her coming to me.

  I want to meet her need. To give her everything she craves with her body and her soul.

  She seeks my lips with hers. I ache to kiss her.

  But there is a reason—I do not remember what is it—some life-and-death reason why I should not. I cannot kiss her and let her suck on my fangs the way they are throbbing and begging to be sucked.

  I grasp her shoulders and turn her before her mouth meets mine. I want to press my chest to her back, but I have to strip off my weapons first.

  Before I can unbuckle my holster though, she shakes herself and jumps away from me.

  “What…the…fu—” I think she means to swear but fails to finish the sentence and grasps her head like it hurts. She turns to look at me, and the expression on her face is pure horror.

  I know why she is afraid. Or I think I do.

  It is because we agreed not to do this. I should not be undressing or watching her make herself come. She should not be seducing me with her eyes or touching me.

  But…why?

  Why not?

  We want each other.

  Her body is crying out for sex with me as mine is for her.

  There is nothing to stop us. Nothing in all the cosmos could lessen the desire between us.

  But the fear in her eyes.

  And the barrier in me. Some reason why I cannot have her.

  I obey it.

  She backs away but seems to grow weak and sinks to the ground. I back away, too, but stay where I can see her. I cannot bring myself to leave her out of my sight. She stares at me.

  The horror on her face morphs to confusion. Like she is at a loss for what is happening.

  If her mind is drowning in the need to fuck, as mine is, we need to be as far away from each other as we can bear.

  I sit away from the stream, my back against a tree. My body seethes with the pain of needing to bury my cock inside her. To go make her come with me imbedded in her cunt, driving into her until she grips my cock like a fist with her orgasm.

  I dare not move. If I move, I will go to her.

  She sits immobile, leaning against a rock.

  The heat of the day swirls around us. A mist drifts over the leaves on its way to the trickling stream.

  I do not know how much time passes.

  Spots cloud my vision. I still see her but only her. I don’t know how long we sit staring at each other. Her nakedness is a thing of beauty I am incapable of looking away from. I watch her breasts rise and fall with her breath, her long muscled legs stretched in front of her.

  She opens them and stares at me while she strokes through her wet folds.

  She glistens, the flesh within so swollen, so dripping, it calls to me. To be inside her, to taste her would be a trip into an erotic heaven. To sink deep within her once would not be enough. I would do it again and again until I was so far up inside her, I’d pull the screams from her throat.

  I am hot, my skin oversensitive as though heat runs over me. I cannot stand the feel of my clothes or having my body confined, so I strip off my holsters and pants.

  She stares at my cock lying hard and thick against my thigh. Her lips part, and her slender tongue flicks out, like I wish it would over my cock.

  I palm my cock and stroke it. Her chest pumps faster, her breathing audible.

  If she likes to watch me make myself come, I will do it, but I despair of it relieving any of the burning in me. Each orgasm makes it worse. Like giving in to it only increases the depth of my thrall. And each time I see her come, it is like she is imprinting herself deeper and deeper into me.

  Soon, she will be so etched into the essence of who I am I will not be able to get her out of me. Physically.

  That this is the same female who only yesterday I believed a male—who yesterday had been encased in armor denying her femininity. She is now so feminine, so powerfully sensual, I am captivated.

  When she comes, her body writhes—her hips thrusting against her hand, her back arching and legs widening. Her face contorts with the climax, but she doesn’t take her eyes from me. She stares at my cock in my hand through her orgasm, as though watching me makes it better.

  I am filled with jealousy—envious of her hand feeling her clench around her fingers. Envious of her other palm, caressing and squeezing her breasts.

  Envious of the air filling her lungs. Envious of the leaves touching her legs, the rock supporting her back.

  I would be all those things to her and more—if I could.

  The hours pass, the heat of the day inexhaustible.

  The two suns arch across the sky, seeming to descend. One disappears behind the horizon, but the other takes longer, stretching the twilight. The day is endless.

  She fixes me with a come-fuck-me stare. She does not mean it. Or she does, but she does not really want me to do to her as her body is begging. She eases the ache of the burn by running her hands up and down her limbs. The sensation of touch making it easier to hold off orgasm again.

  I do not bother touching myself. There is no easing it for me.

  Only distracting myself by watching her.

  I let the longing to be fucking her lull me into a state of numbness.

  I can feel her—how it would be to crawl to her and run my hands up her thighs. To spread her legs and sink my face into her wet folds. To taste her again… To feel her come on my tongue again… Hear her crying my name like it is a litany. Like I am her god and savior.

  To rear over her and thrust into her.

  My cock so deep inside her, my whole self disappears into her. I drive into her, my hips slapping against her thighs. I have to hold her down, to keep her from moving away from the force of my thrusts.

  She clings to me, her fingers digging into my arms. “Oten! Yesss!” she cries, and it is a world-shattering sound.

  One that triggers my senses.

  One that makes me realize, I am not imagining this.

  My eyes open, as if they were not before.

  This is not happening merely in my mind. This is happening in actuality. I am actually fucking her with everything in me, and she is coming around me so hard, I have to grit my teeth to keep from following.

  Her head falls back, and she screams to the sky.

  Though her thighs hold me in her—I have to pull away.

  She grabs for me and protests, “No!”

  But I pull out, just in time, spilling my come across her belly. It jets onto her in rapid bursts, the silver liquid pooling then dripping across her. It streams into her navel and runs into the valley of her breasts, across the curves of her waist.

  I hang my head from exhaustion.

  I cannot believe… I do not understand…

  I cannot remember…

  “Why?” she thrashes her head, her eyes delirious. “Why didn’t you come in me?” She tries to sit up but can’t, her body too wasted with the burning, with the sex. With everything.

  I have to get it off her.

  Her Ssedez-strengthened skin should protect her from my come seeping into her pores, but I cannot risk it.

  She lies back on the ground, wasted with pleasure.

  I want to join her, but I search for water, for cloth. I find some of each. I wash her. I clean her belly until it is as though my come never touched her.

  Unclean—I feel as though I have committed some horrible sin that I do not understand.

  Water. I must clean her.

  I bathe her—wash her between her legs, her thighs, her breasts, to be sure I left nothing behind. I do not want to taint her. I worry my come will poison her somehow.

  I refill the bottle from the stream, screw back on the top. It filters the water, and I take it back to her. I hold the bottle to her mouth, and she drinks without question.

  She sleeps, and the sun goes down. My eyes are heavy, but I do not rest.

  I watch her sleep and filter more water.

  I urge her to drink.