Talan watched her work for a few more hours before he finally lost the battle between comforting Zoe and protecting her.
Even from across the room he could see she was beyond merely exhausted. Her hands shook as she fiddled with the data reader, trying to alter it to function in a way it wasn’t designed for. Dark smudges nestled under her eyes, giving her a fragile appearance. Even her hair looked tired, hanging limply around her shoulders without its usual gloss or bounce. There were signs of her grief still lingering in her face, even though the tears had stopped long ago.
Reading her father’s journal had been hard on her, but she’d attacked the job with a sense of urgency that told Talan she knew the stakes.
He wanted to hold her. Soothe her. His hands were those of a warrior, more suited for battle than tenderness, but with Zoe, it was no hardship at all to be gentle. And the couple of times he’d forgotten himself and let his harder side roam free, she’d seemed to like that too.
As he watched her hands move, he could see the keen intellect of her Builder’s mind in action. Her fingers were long and slender, and even shaking, they were more skilled than any of the Builders he’d known.
She paused in thought and slid a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
He knew what the skin there felt like—how slick her hair was between his fingertips. He could recall every vivid detail of their time together, and how easy it was to let his work fall away and simply be with her.
As memories wafted through his mind, the brightest ones were of her in his arms, the sounds she made as he claimed her. And just like that, the rest of the world dimmed in comparison to those stolen moments.
Talan wanted her again in a way that took him by surprise. He’d had plenty of casual affairs over the years, moving on without thought or effort. But Zoe was different. He couldn’t shed her, couldn’t stop longing for her. He was hard and aching, but wanted to protect her from everything—including himself.
The longer he was with her, the harder it was going to be to let her go. He knew that now, but it changed nothing. The job was still the same. His goal was still the same. His actions had to remain the same as well.
The house was closed up tight, allowing little natural light to filter in. The lantern she was using to work flickered as its power center failed. Talan went to her side and laid his hand across the top of the device, feeding it energy from his cells. The light flared bright in response to the fierce emotions roiling through him. He hadn’t meant to disturb her, but she startled and looked up at him with eyes red with weariness and grief.
Even so, she was so damn beautiful it made the breath lock in his lungs.
She blinked her brown eyes at him in surprise as if realizing for the first time that he was in the room with her.
“Are you ready to sleep yet?” he asked.
She frowned at him as if his words made no sense. “Sleep?”
“Yes, you know that thing people do when they’re about to fall over from exhaustion?”
She either ignored his question, or it didn’t process. “I can’t quite seem to get this thing to work right. I think there’s an electrical connection that can’t be made without the second half of the sphere.”
“Then you’ve done all you can. It’s time to rest.”
She shook her head. “Maybe if I find some wire and access the right ports on the open side…”
Talan physically removed her hands from the reader and pulled her from her chair. He caged her hands against his chest and bent his knees so he could look right into her eyes. “Enough, Zoe. Let it go. You’ve done what you could with what you have. Now you have to sleep.”
“But the riddle—”
“Can wait.” How much longer, he wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t keep going on like this.
She looked down at her hands. “I like it when you hold me. It makes me feel like I’m not so alone.”
“You’re not alone. I’m here with you.”
“You won’t be when I leave though, will you?”
“You know I can’t. My place is here, finding the other people like you who need to come home.”
She nodded slowly. “They’re lucky to have you come for them. Just like I was.”
Zoe went up on tiptoe and pressed a kiss against his lips. He was sure she hadn’t meant it as anything more than a simple act of thanks, but his body took it as so much more.
She started to pull away, but he couldn’t let her. Not when he had her right where he wanted her.
He tightened his grip on her hands, pinning her in place. There was a flicker of awareness in her eyes, and an instant later, her body melted against his, accepting his hold. Welcoming it.
That small act of surrender inflamed him, making his need flare and his more animalistic urges rise up.
He grabbed the back of her head with his free hand and held her still while he returned the kiss. Only instead of a chaste, swift peck on the lips, this was much, much more.
He forced her mouth open with his tongue and plunged inside, tasting the sweet fire she’d been depriving him of. Distantly, he heard his own groan of need ripple out in the quiet space. She quivered in his grip.
The only light here was the pinkish glow of the lantern. He’d done his best to heat the space, but it was still chilly. Not that he was feeling anything but the heat of his physical need for this woman. Still, he wondered whether the tremor that shook her was from cold or her own building desire.
She tried to pull back from his kiss, but he wasn’t ready for that yet. She was going to accept everything he had to give her, because the truth was, he had so very little time left to indulge in the fantasies he’d built around her. He knew that if he didn’t take what was right here in front of him, he’d regret it for the rest of his life. It would distract him, and even the smallest of distractions could be lethal for the next of the Taken he was sent to find.
Instead of letting Zoe go, he gripped her tighter, squeezing a soft sigh of surprise from her lips.
The harder he held her, the softer she became in his arms. The more he took from her, the more she gave. She was like some kind of secret weapon designed to rob him of all logic and sound reason.
With Zoe, all he could do was want. Need. Crave.
There were enemies out there searching for her. He shouldn’t have been slowing them down with his inconvenient lust. There was an entire world filled with people who were counting on her swift return. She belonged to them, not Talan, and yet everything in him was screaming at him to stake some kind of claim—take her in a way that she would never be able to forget.
And then what?
The little voice nagged him, stealing away some of the warmth she created in him.
It didn’t matter what happened next. He couldn’t let it matter. They were at war. There were no guarantees there was ever going to be anything beyond this single moment in time—this one chance to connect to a woman who made his body sing and his heart swell. If he got even a little more time with her, then that was enough.
It had to be.
Talan pulled away from her mouth long enough to look into her eyes. They were huge and dark with arousal. Her cheeks were stained, and her lips were swollen and wet from his kiss.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered.
It was all the encouragement Talan needed. He shoved his brain aside and let his instincts take over.
Her body quivered in his arms, though whether from fatigue or excitement he couldn’t tell. What he did know was that the feel of her in his grasp went to his head and made him anxious for more. He wanted her naked, open and eager for everything he had to give her.
He was used to taking his time with women—loving them with slow, methodical skill that ensured their satisfaction. And while he wanted nothing less for Zoe, she stole his patience and turned him into some kind of animal in rut.
He shoved her tools and devices to the far side of the work table, making room for him to perch her firm ass. He lifted her up and set her there, bringing her mouth up closer to his.
She opened her lips to say something, but he was beyond conversation. His blood was running hot, his cock aching, his hands itching for her bare skin to fill his palms. All he cared about now was getting her clothes off so he could smell her light scent and feel the soft flex of her body as it conformed to his.
He covered her mouth again, plunging his tongue inside the sweet space to keep her quiet. The only communication he needed was the sexy sighs and moans she gave him as his hands roamed her body.
“Too damn many clothes,” he muttered against her mouth.
She mumbled an incoherent agreement and started fixing the problem. Their hands worked together to get her naked in record time. The fabric fell to the chilly floor, forgotten before it landed. Her hands started in on his clothes, but he couldn’t be bothered with anything so mundane when all that sweet flesh was bare to him.
He slid his palms down her back, and felt the supple line of her spine flex and bend with the grace of a dancer. Smooth, warm skin filled his hands and taunted his fingers. She spread his shirt open and flattened her breasts against his naked chest. Her low groan of need echoed in the quiet room and filled him with a deep sense of satisfaction.
She kissed every inch of his skin she could reach, making him burn hotter. If she didn’t stop soon, he was going to lose control and finish before he’d even really started. Because that was unacceptable—because he wanted more than that for both of them—he gathered her hands and caged her wrists to stop their progress with undoing his belt.
The instant she was captive, she did that soft melting thing again, submitting to his hold.
A heady rush of power swept through him, making him feel like a king. No one had ever given him that kind of surrender before—trusting whatever he did. He knew without a doubt that he had to have more of that submission, the same way he had to take his next breath.
“You like that?” he found the brainpower to ask.
Her eyelids fluttered shut as she nodded. “It makes my head turn off. Everything feels… softer, fuzzy. Nothing can hurt me.”
He didn’t really understand what she meant, but they could chat about it later, when he could converse intelligently in the English language.
“I’m going to take,” he told her. “You’re going to give.”
There was a question in her eyes, but it went unanswered as he turned her around to face the workbench, pinned her wrists at the small of her back, then bent her forward so that her sexy ass was put on high display.
He nudged her feet apart, forcing her to widen her stance. Between her thighs he saw the soft pink lips of her sex pouting, flushed and dewy with her arousal.
There was no longer any question of what he wanted or needed. He craved the taste of her on his tongue, and the slick heat of her against his lips.
Talan held her bent over while he hooked the chair with his ankle and dragged it over to him. When he sat down, he was at the perfect height to feast on her.
“Stay there,” he growled, pressing her hands where he wanted them to remain.
His command evoked a shiver from her, telling him more accurately than words that she was on board.
He splayed his big hands on her ass and used his thumbs to spread her pussy open for his mouth. And then he took what he so desperately wanted.
The first taste of her shocked him, making him question his sanity. The second, deeper one made him believe in angels. She was so fucking sweet. So fucking hot and slick. That she couldn’t hide how turned on she was thrilled him. The proof of her desire was right here on display, filling his senses with the need to give her whatever she wanted—whatever she needed to be satisfied.
He pressed against the small of her back, wordlessly ordering her to deepen the arch of her spine. When she did, her sensitive little clit was within easy reach.
Talan wrapped his lips around it and flicked his tongue across the bundle of nerves. Zoe let out a soft, high-pitched cry of shocked pleasure. She tried to close her thighs so that she wasn’t so vulnerable to the intense sensations, but he wasn’t having any of that.
He scooted forward so that his feet held hers nice and wide, then he sucked on her clit until her legs were shaking with arousal.
“It’s too much,” she said, her words muffled by the table.
She was wrong. He had so much more to give her and so very little time to do so.
He let go of her clit long enough to tell her, “You’ll take much, much more, Zoe. Because I want you to.”
And to prove his words were true, he drew hard on her clit, sucking it into his mouth just enough that he could graze his teeth across the sensitive flesh.
Her response was immediate and dramatic. She tensed up, held her breath, and then let it out on a rough scream of completion.
Talan kept doing exactly what he was doing until her orgasm tapered off. While she was still panting, trying to catch her breath, he stood and opened his pants.
Her hot pink flesh gleamed in the light, tempting him to fill her. She was wet, ripe and ready. When the head of his cock parted the slippery flesh of her sex, she was soft and relaxed enough that he slid all the way in on one long stroke.
Perfection.
The heat of her body branded his erection as her own personal property. Her lube welcomed him to move within her as fast and deep as he pleased. Every part of her, from her sexy body to her flushed heat to the addicting sounds of her pleasure—it was all designed to drag him in and not let go. This was where he wanted to be. She was who he wanted.
Much, much more than he should have.
Before that kind of stray thought could ruin the moment he had with her now, he shoved it aside and set himself to the task of hearing her come for him again.
Her hands were still resting at the small of her back where he’d ordered them to stay. Something about that obedience thrilled him and made her feel more like she was truly his. The pale curve of her ass fit his palms perfectly, and he couldn’t help but dig his fingers in a little as he moved within her.
He filled her completely and held himself still, nice and deep. His thumb found the soft pucker of her anus and pressed lightly to trigger the nerve endings there as well.
She lurched up from the table and flung her torso back against his chest. “Oh my.”
Talan wrapped his arms around her and whispered in her ear. “I’m not done playing with you yet, love. You’re going to bend over again and stay that way until I’m done.”
“But I’ve never—”
“Shhh. I’m not going to hurt you. But if you don’t trust me enough to bend over and show me that pretty ass of yours, I’m not going to make you come again.” He reached between her thighs and made slow circles over her clit with his finger. It wasn’t enough pressure to bring her to climax and he knew it. But it was enough to remind her of the pleasure that awaited if she submitted.
After a few seconds her legs started to quiver. Her pulse and breathing sped. He knew her body well enough to see that she was still in need.
He dropped his tone to a coaxing murmur. “Bend over, Zoe. Relax and let me make you fly.” He punctuated the statement by pinching her clit lightly between two fingers.
She whimpered and melted over the table, giving him back all the control.
Talan let the rush of her surrender wash over him before he dared move. She was the kind of woman who went to a man’s head and made him think he was the absolute ruler of the universe. That much power tempted the darker parts of him, whispering of the thrill giving into it could bring.
But this was Zoe, not some woman hired for sex. It was his duty to remember that everything he did to her would leave a mark. His impact on her life had to be for the better. He couldn’t fuck her, use her, damage her and leave someone else to put her back together again so she could save their people.
She was precious.
Desire unfurled in his abdomen, stretching and swelling until he was aching with it. She was perfect for him in every way, and he had never felt anything quite so intense or consuming as what he felt for Zoe.
There were so many pleasures he could show her, give her. If only they had more time.
But they didn’t. The bulging need he had for her had to be sated now, before there were no more chances. He knew without a doubt from the way she responded to him, the way her body did everything in its power to draw him inside, that she wanted this—needed it—as much as he did.
He stared as the tight pink pucker of her ass, longing to claim her there too, but he couldn’t. She was too small. Even if she was on board with the idea, it would take plenty of time, patience and more than a few sex toys of incremental sizes to get her body to the point that she could take his cock there without pain. None of those things were available to him, so he was going to have to control his baser urges.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t show her the kind of pleasure that awaited her if she ever did give in to what this alien culture had taught her was forbidden.
Talan pushed his cock deeper, forcing her natural slick lube to well from her core. He gathered it on the tip of his finger and spread it gently around her anus. Over and over again he returned for more of that hot lube. She seemed to have an endless supply.
Only when she was gleaming and slippery did he pin her to the table with one hand between her shoulder blades while he eased just the tip of his finger inside the space he’d prepared.
Zoe tensed, but he whispered sweet words of reassurance and held her in place, telling her that she was his now, and he was going to pleasure her however he chose.
“Don’t fight me,” he told her. “I won’t hurt you, honey. Just relax and enjoy.”
After a few deep thrusts of his cock timed with the tiniest invasion of his fingertip, she began to relax and surrender to him.
Every stroke of his cock was wetter than the last. The soft groans of enjoyment she gave him were proof that she was completely on board now. She grabbed the edges of the table and thrust her ass back at him, urging him on.
Talan built her pleasure with slow, methodical strategy. He led her where he wanted her to go with gentle relentlessness. Soon she was panting and sweating, and little flutters of her vagina massaged his cock as her orgasm neared.
The sound of her body’s surrender went to his head. She was so wet, her juices were dripping down his balls.
“Please,” she breathed for the hundredth time.
He didn’t know what she was begging for, but he knew what he was going to give her.
“I’m going to make you come now,” he told her. “And when you do, I’m going to shoot my seed so deep inside of you that you’ll never forget what it feels like to be mine.”
The muscles along her spine tightened and her head arched back. She let out a loud whimper of arousal that made his cock twitch and swell inside of her. He had her right where he wanted her—aching for her orgasm as much as he was dying to give it to her. Neither one of them were going to last much longer.
He shifted the angle of his erection to hit the spot he knew made her lose her mind, and increased the pace. His thumb slid fractionally deeper into her ass, mimicking the motion of his cock.
A dark flush swept down her back. She sucked in a deep breath and let it out on a scream that sounded like the word, “Please.”
Talan felt the contractions of her orgasm grip him and knew he could no longer hold back. Raw, savage need rode him hard, demanding he let go of his own control.
His climax gripped him by the base of his spine and squeezed. His balls drew up tight and the first searing jet of semen erupted from his body.
He roared in pleasure and pinned her against the table while he filled her.
Zoe cried out with each thrust of his cock. Silken contractions milked him and kept him locked inside of her while the storm raged around them.
It lasted forever, dragging every scrap of pleasure from him. Every drop of semen was pulled from his balls—her body demanded no less. By the time he was spent and she was shivering beneath him, racked with small spasms in the aftermath, he knew he’d made a crucial mistake.
Zoe wasn’t the kind of woman he could fuck out of his system. She was the kind of woman who only worked her way deeper every time he got a taste. She was an impossible mix of passion and surrender—one designed to steal his soul and ruin him for all other women.
He pulled his cock from her body, needing to put a little space between them. His semen welled from her, spilling down the inside of her thighs.
Instantly, he wanted to fuck her all over again.
She started to stand, but he pressed her back down to the table, leaving her ass up in the air for him to enjoy.
“You are so fucking hot like this.”
“Like what?”
“Your pussy and ass are all puffy and pink. Come is dripping down your thighs. You’re open and ready for me to do it all over again. I’d keep you just like this if I could—completely and utterly fuckable.”
Chill bumps rose along her skin, making him wonder if they were from cold or some naughty thrill his words gave her.
She turned her head just enough that she could look at him over her shoulder. “I think that would make working a bit hard, don’t you?”
“To hell with work. You were meant for this.” He gripped her ass cheeks in his hands and gave them a loving squeeze. The motion caused more come to spill out of her.
How in the world was he ever going to survive without doing this to her again?
“Is there somewhere I can clean up?” she asked.
He nodded and grudgingly backed away so she could stand up. “There’s water in the bathroom—enough to wash and to flush the toilet—but no shower. Sorry.”
She went to mop up the mess he’d left on her—in her—giving him enough distance to realize how crazy he was acting.
Zoe wasn’t his. He couldn’t keep her. Couldn’t keep fucking her. She had to leave. Soon.
He cleaned up with some wet wipes, shoved his dick in his pants and went to check the perimeter alarms. That was what he was supposed to be doing, not bending Zoe over and shoving his cock into her. Sex was only going to complicate things that desperately needed to stay nice and clear.
She came out of the bathroom. Her skin was still flushed, and there was an uncertain expression on her face, like she no longer knew where she stood.
And why should she? He’d gone and screwed things up. Again. And if she stayed with him much longer, he knew he’d find some excuse to get her right back where he wanted her—legs spread and pussy wet and eager for his cock.
Shame rode him so hard he couldn’t even look at her. He knew that if he did, she’d see how guilty he felt.
“You’re going to sleep now,” he told her. “No arguments.”
She frowned and hugged herself. “Did I do something wrong? You sound angry.”
He did sound angry, damn it. His tone hadn’t been intentional, but then neither had he intended to fuck her on her work table. It seemed he was all over the place—out of control and still spinning.
“I’m not mad, but I’m not letting you risk your health anymore. So you’re going to go in the room I heated up for you, and you’re going to lie there until I come get you. I don’t care if you sleep or not, but you will get some rest.”
“Do you want to come with me?”
Only more than anything in the world. “No. I have work to do. You go ahead. We’ll stay here until morning.”
She shuffled off, her steps slow and uncertain.
He’d hurt her.
The urge to rush after her and reassure her pounded on him, but he knew better. If he got anywhere near a bed with her right now, he’d have her naked again in seconds. Only this time he’d take her so that he could look into her eyes when he made her come.
His cock twitched at the idea, urging him to pursue this line of action.
He shut it down hard and fast. What he’d shared with Zoe was the last time. No more. It was over.
It had to be, for his sake as much as hers.