“Your…alien mask isrejectingyou?” I stammer, stepping back. It’s hard to form words and sentences when all I’m thinking about is the way his fingers are slowly continuing to slip down my neck. There’s something magnetizing about his touch and I need to keep it off me.
“Kate, I’m just as human as you.” The words come out in a cracked whisper and his hand follows me as I move away, reaching my collarbone. His fingers splay across my skin, making me think of things I shouldn’t be thinking about. I can’t stop the images.Insatiable. Sensual. Erotic. His hands pressing into my skin, digging his fingertips into my flesh. Breathless voices and the sounds of his low moans close to my ear. My nipples swollen and hard against the tight muscles of his chest, sending that sweet ache straight between my thighs. Full wet lips covering mine, devouring every inch of me. His long, hard, thick…
I swallow hard.Is it some sort of magic?Having this armor on makes everything heightened. My skin feels alive. I feel alive. And all I can form in my head are thoughts of his body against mine, his hard flesh sinking deep into mine, and losing myself in his touch.
“Soldiers!” my father shouts loudly, sticking his head out of the tent. “You have less than twenty minutes before I take the enemy’s base.” My eyes dart in the direction of my father’s orders, my thoughts still lingering on the warm hand touching my skin and the pulsing ache between by legs.
“I didn’t come here to hurt you or your people,” Rune leans in and whispers into my ear. I swear I feel his lips softly graze over its shell. My shoulders tremble lightly.Hell, he’s doing this on purpose, isn’t he?
“But you did,” I say, trying to step away, but again unable to do so. His hands slide up and practically crush my shoulders. I like this feeling too. The savageness of it. The hard grasp binding me to his skin. I wonder how hard his thrusts would be, how big and thick he is.Shit, I feel like I’m losing my damn mind. I make another attempt to get away, but it’s no use.
Even without his stupid armor fully on, his strength is far greater than mine. He pulls me into his chest, even though I’m trying to push away. My mind and body are waging a war against each other. “Rune,” I whisper, my voice betraying my desire, “stop touching me.”
I push away hard, watching his nose flare out and his lip lift, baring his teeth. He nods, his face a blank expanse of shock. He looks down at his hands, blinking. “There must be some override to the system. Something that won’t make us feel this…strange…thing.”
I find myself nodding too. My head bobbing stupidly as I watch his hands, wishing he’d just put them back on me.
“What is it? This feeling?” he asks, looking up from his hands to my eyes.
I’m losing it; all the steady, straight thoughts in my head. “Lust?” I half sob out, forcing my hands to stay fisted at my sides and not grab on to him.
His chest is rising and falling quickly. “We could use thislust. You could go in there and get Pious.He wants you, the woman he made everyone think killed me. You could lure him out. Just act lusty for him.”
His words are an icy cold splash of water.
“What?” I stammer.He wants to use me as bait?
“Take off your armor there. Use your…flesh…control him with it,” he says, stepping closer to me once again. “Even I find it somewhat…alluring without my armor on.”
I quickly back up, anger rising like fire in my throat. “I’m only going in to get my sister. I can’t use anything to control anyone.” Evenhefinds itsomewhatalluring? What anasshole.
He looks at me and shakes his head. “Right. Sorry. I thought you were tougher than that. My mistake.” He looks past me like he’s through with the conversation. “You’re just a little girl. You probably wouldn’t be able to do it.”
My face heats instantly. “Go fuck off into one of your little lab cups, dickshit,” I snap, stepping up closer to him. “Why would you want me to go and save the bad guy anyway? Let that metalsucker die when these crazy people attack.”
He levels his face to mine, bringing us nose to nose. “This isn’t going to get better, Kate. No one is going to come and rescue this world. You think someone is going to swoop in and put everything back together for you? How? Who? You’re wondering when your saviors come, and I’m telling you there are none. There are people worse than Pious in there, and I need to know who they are.” His hands cup around my neck and he’s pressing me into the wall.
Where the hell did the wall come from?I look around frantically. It’s one of the bases of the bridge—not that it makes any difference. I just for some reason need to know where I’m about to die. Or have probably the most intense orgasm of my existence.Shut up, Kate!How the hell can that be a thought in your mind right now?
“I’m not a hero. I don’t want to be. The weight of the entire world is onyourshoulders, not mine. My sister is my priority,” I say, focusing my thoughts together, grasping and clawing at his hands.
“After you get her,” he whispers, leaning in and gently kissing the corner of my lips. His hands soften their hold and his fingers are like fire against my skin, trailing a blaze of need right through my body.
Focus on Claire.
Don’t think about his lips, or his hands, or his…
Focus.
Focus on what’s been destroyed because of them.
“I hate you,” I say, shoving him back.
“That’s not what your emotion status says,” he smirks, stepping back, but his hands fall onto my shoulders.
“I’m not even wearing the mask,” I hiss.
“You like me. I can tell by your blush.”
I nudge my shoulders away from him. “Your extraterrestrial crap isn’t working on me,” I lie, walking back toward the tent. I strain to keep my thoughts focused on getting Claire. Besides, I need to get ready for whatever it is that may happen when I get back inside the camp in that mask—like my own death and all. “Here’s a good plan,” I say, stopping and looking back over my shoulder at him. His eyes are looking at me like he wants to rip me to shreds. “You go in there and find yourself another girl to say all this stuff to while I go rescue my sister.”
He pushes off the wall quicker than humanly possible and slowly smirks. “You do have some good ideas in that head of yours every once in a while,” he smiles, adjusting the gun on the side of his belt. It flips out and falls on the ground.
“You’re gonna shoot yourself, Asshole.” I don’t even know why he needs one anyway. I’ve seen those metalheads shoot lasers out of their fingers.
“Yeah? And you’re not going to be able to rescue anyone without me.”
“Actually, I can. Watch me,” I say, leaving him there, every metal pore in my body screaming for him to chase after me.
Thank God he doesn’t.
