Page 10 of Tempted By the Alien Mercenary

He didn’t answer, but whether that was because he knew I was not ready to hear it, or because he was not willing to give me the bad news, I wasn’t sure. Then the pod finished its countdown and launched, abruptly forcing me back into the seat, noise roaring as we rattled around in the tinny canister, packed together like sardines. It took several endless seconds before the rattling faded and our escape pod’s route smoothed out. Like this, it was impossible to even tell if we were moving.

I locked eyes with Sin, wondered only once if I had been mistaken in putting so much faith in him, and then brushed that thought aside. “Fine, don’t tell me,” I said, and then threw down my dare. “Tell me what this means instead.” I raised my wrist to point at the silver Val had left around it. Nothing in any literature I’d read about the Sons of Ragnar mentioned anything like it. As far as anyone knew, the symbiont never touched other people—only their bonded master. Then again, the symbionts were supposed to be black too, not silver.

Sin’s silver eyes were so dark beneath his brow that they reminded me of thunderclouds. I squirmed uneasily, and that made my legs bump against his. We were packed so closely together that the only way we’d be more comfortable was if I climbed into his lap. I couldn’t, because the safety harness—and Val—kept me restrained, pinned to the seat.

“Play with fire, you get burned,” Sin drawled—a warning, voiced in a tone that seemed designed to be cruel. I bumped my legs into his again, just to annoy him, because he really didn’t scare me. His arms rippled as he crossed them over his chest, and now they almost brushed against the harness over my breasts. If I inhaled deeply, would we touch? Tempting.

“Coward,” I told him, and got a furious growl in response. It had been too big a shove; he couldn’t let it pass without some kind of retribution. I knew I had to get my words in now, before he silenced me. Although I was pretty certain I’d enjoy the way he’d do it, every aching second of it. “You’re the one invading my space, you big lunk. You’re the one who woke me and then ran away. And you’re the one who can’t give me a straight answer, and it’s not for the reasons you think. You’re scared you’ll hurt my feelings, aren’t you? You’re scared of facing the truth. You’re scared to make yourself that vulnerable. Well, I’m not.”

The harness dropped away from my body like it was nothing, and then I really was in his lap, and also pinned, by his arms, by the way his symbiont had curled around me. He roared, and it made my ears ache, but it was a pain that instantly vanished. Soothed by the silver that rushed to cover them, protect them, heal them. He kissed me next—all teeth and fang and tongue—definitely meant to punish, and it just made me ache for him.

“Mate,” I snarled in his face. Val let me raise my hand, freeing it from his restraints to press against his cheek. The faint shimmer of markings that lay beneath his gray skin gleamed brighter at the touch, exactly as I’d known it would. “That’s right,” I said, when he snapped his teeth but only glared in silent fury. “I knew it, you knew it, and you tried to walk away, anyhow. Coward.”

If I hadn’t studied alien life forms as thoroughly as I had, I probably wouldn’t have realized. I had, though, and the signs had begun clicking together when Sin tore into Val the moment he noticed the silver clinging to my wrists. No wonder his scent was like catnip, and every word he’d snarled or drawled at me in mockery had felt a bit like foreplay. It was kind of a relief to know this, to call him out on it. If there was anyone I could trust to see to it that I had a future beyond this wreckage of a mission, it was my mate.

Sin certainly did not appreciate being called a coward, or being called out, period. Given his arrogant attitude, he probably rarely encountered anyone who tried. I was not going to accept anything less than a full partnership, though, so he’d better get used to it.

There was nowhere for him to retreat inside this tiny escape pod, and I was certain he regretted that very much now. His teeth snapped together in my face, like he wanted to bite my nose off, but he wouldn’t. His arms were still around me, holding me to his chest, pinning me in his lap: a chaotic contradiction, push and pull.

“Mate?” he growled from between clenched teeth, a vein pulsing at his temple and fury radiating from his eyes. “You think you want to be my mate? Just when I was starting to think you were no idiot.” Oh, the self-loathing in those words was so intense, it practically crawled down my spine, leaving me feeling dirtied myself. Well, he could be messed up, I was too, after what I’d been through.

“We won’t know until we give it a try, will we?” I asked. I didn’t think that would get me what I wanted. There was no way this Talacan was even remotely capable of saying soft, sweet things. That should make me run, but I’d had relationships with all the right words and gestures, and they hadn’t worked out. Maybe it was time to see what was on the other side. His genetics were telling us we’d be perfect together, but a mating drive that was all about procreation didn’t mean we were right for one another. Just that we’d make strong kids. Romantic, I was not.

I didn’t expect Sin to take my words at face value, but I should have. “Try? You want to try me out before you decide?” It was utter fury—rage—and I wasn’t prepared for what he’d do. His kiss was no longer about shutting me up. No, it was all seduction this time. I felt a niggle of worry, because part of me knew this was wrong, the wrong kind of motivation for him to kiss me. But the kiss? It was so good, it didn’t matter anyway.

Under his onslaught, my thoughts fled, and my body became all instinct and sensation. My hands were on his neck, stroking the sleek skin down to the collar of his armor. He was all hard edges and metal, but that only inflamed me as he began pulling the tabs on my uniform jacket. In seconds, he had me draped over his arm, his mouth on my nipple, sucking on it through the thin fabric of my camisole. The pleasure was so sharp and bright that my thighs wanted to squeeze tightly together. Sin’s slender waist pinned between them.

He could do anything he wanted to me then. The desire to fall apart, to fly while he touched me, was all-consuming. I made no protests as he shed more of my clothes with competent hands. Camisole vanishing over my head, my pants freed at the waist so his clever fingers could slide in. The brush of his thumb over my clit made me see stars, and the curl of a finger into my weeping passage made me combust. I flew apart, moaning his name—or perhaps just naming what it was we were doing: sinning.

His fingers were rough on my skin, sliding along my spine and into my pants from behind to cup my ass and lift me. He had to be short on hands, but the fabric slipped from my thighs and tangled around one ankle. My panties tore when he pulled the hand cupped around my pussy away with a rough curse. I felt a breath of cool air against my folds, my body weightless, tangled in his grip, in his symbiont.

“Is this what you meant, Frederique?” he demanded, the space between us barely enough for me to glance down at his lap. My breathing stalled, my body suspended over his thighs in silver, my legs spread wide so my most private parts were exposed. The symbiont had slid away from his body to hold me, and he’d split his black armor open across his chest, displaying a ridge of defined abs, his heavy pecs, and gleaming gray skin marked with glowing lines that, if you squinted, just might be text in letters that couldn’t be deciphered.

What drew my eyes most was the thick cock rising from his groin—silver gray, the head sharp and a lurid shade of purple. It was mostly human in shape, but dauntingly big, as was everything about him—thick as my wrist, long as my forearm. Here, his symbiont clung in writhing, silver tendrils and ridges.

It was a good thing he did not seem to expect an answer from me; his hands curled around my hips, touching bare skin with cool fingers. It was domineering, possessive, the way he yanked me forward into his lap, raising me over his jutting cock. There was no dawdling, no foreplay, just a rough thrust into my core. I knew I shouted, pain and pleasure blending as he stretched me wide. My body was unprepared for his size but inflamed enough to part for him anyway. The shock of that shove was fire to my nerves, and I shuddered around him, clasping, spasming, tightening until it became a squeeze.

“This is on you. You started this; you finish it,” Sin snarled, but his hands were moving me with a gentle tug, followed by a firmer push that made him sink in another inch. I groaned when his thick length touched my G-spot, my thighs trembling against his legs. If he wanted me to ride him, to take control, he had a funny way of showing it. His hands got more forceful with each thrust, his hips moving up in time with his hands pushing my body down. He filled me, and then he filled me some more, until there was no me and no him—there was just us.

I opened my mouth, maybe to tell him to let me take charge, maybe to tell him to keep doing exactly what he was doing. All of it felt good, even if he was too big, even if he was too rough, maybe because of it. He didn’t give me a chance to speak, his eyes sharp and taunting, then shuttering as he closed them. His mouth was on mine, our tongues tangling the way lower, our bodies colliding in a dance as old as time.

I had not even managed to take all of him yet when I came, shattering around his thick length. Then each drop of pleasure seemed pulled from me, prolonged, drawn out. His cock, ribbed and moving, sought out the most sensitive spots inside me. That was all him—his symbiont—not his Talacan physical features. It was unexpected, a scintillating shock to be touched that way; at its crescendo, I might have blacked out.

Sin held me, and so did Val, curled around my shoulders and along my spine, shackling my throat and my wrists, pinning my legs apart across his lap so he had full access. Then it even dripped down, liquid swirling over my bare belly, coiling between my folds where they were luridly parted by Sin’s thick cock. The touch to my clit was too much. I crashed again, thrashing, shouting in pleasure, shamelessly moaning.

He swore as if that were a bad thing, and the glow of his silver eyes went dark, like a thundercloud, again. “Did I give you what you asked for?” he asked, his tone mocking, but his cock thrust back in roughly, feeling even thicker to my inflamed body. “Or do you want my seed too?” Still, he gave me no chance to answer, his hands pressing me so hard down into his lap that, finally, the last of him filled me. He had stuffed me so fully that it felt like he could touch my soul, or maybe the fucking back of my throat. He pulsed then, in rapid convulsions, one after the other, trembling against my G-spot while his symbiont pinched around my clit.

He came; I came. It was messy, and it felt good, even if Sin bit down hard on his lower lip with razor-sharp fangs and never so much as made a sound. I felt deprived, my eyes stinging wetly as I met his gaze. He still seemed angry, and the pleasure ebbed abruptly, icy water splashing down my spine. Oh no, what had I done? What had just happened?

This time, I was the one who wanted to retreat, but he wouldn’t let me. No, he kept me pinned in his lap, naked, while he was still mostly dressed. He pinned me so I could feel each inch of his long cock, still hard as steel, deep inside me. “How did I do? Hmm? Good enough for a mate, or just good enough to fuck?” Like this was an audition and not the most important discovery in both our lives. He sought to cheapen it, to make this transactional rather than meaningful. He didn’t want a partner, he’d just done this to put me in my place.

My dignity in tatters, my heart shredded—even though I felt like I had no right to feel that way, all I could do was lift my chin and mask my pain. “You’ll do,” I said, never clarifying which of the two. You’ll do. It tasted like ashes in my mouth.