I had a plan.Her people were not the first outsiders who had arrived.Not the first who believed they could conquer the storm itself.
Time and again, my people survived.The invaders did not.
I was not afraid of her people.I needed to find a way to assure her there was no need to fear.
“What do you mean, no rush?”
I shrugged.Tried very hard to appear unaffected by the idea of keeping her in this cave all night.Fucking her again and again.Making her weak with pleasure.Holding her as she slept.
That was what I wanted."There is no rush.Even if we make it to the crystal deposit, we will need to choose one of the caves to sleep in this night.We can reach the peak, but hiking down will not be safe until morning."We would gather her crystals.Once done, I would spend every moment making sure she knew she was mine.Teaching her to trust me.I was running out of time.
“So, we have one night?”
The look she gave me made my pulse race.My cock hardened.Hope bloomed in my heart.“Yes.There is nothing to do this night but hide from the storm.”
She slowly slipped her jacket from her shoulders and moved toward me.“Then let’s just stay right here.”
9
Sloane, The Next Morning
I woke before him.
The slow crawl back to consciousness in a body that was fundamentally altered.Not wrong — that was what confused me the most.Nothing about this felt wrong.I lay against the chest of a man I'd known for less than twenty-four hours on a planet that had nearly killed me, with luminous marks on my collarbones that hadn't existed yesterday.
It had been more than a day.I hadn’t eaten, but I wasn’t hungry.The bumps and bruises I’d had in the crash were completely, totally, weirdly healed.Gone.I’d had sex with an alien.Alotof sex.
Zero regrets.I was sore.My pussy ached and pulsed, the need to touch him growing stronger the longer I was with him.I’d had him naked.His cock deep.All night.The weird, alien energy of this planet moved back and forth between us like hot bathwater swaying from one side of the tub to the other.Each wave a crest of pleasure.Each ebb a moment to feelhim.His heart.His emotions.His obsession.His devotion.Conviction that I was his mate.His perfect match.Not just any female, but one chosen by the storm itself.
He was an alien.The corporation would send out search and recovery teams.Maybe even military scouts.I couldn’t protect him, or this amazing planet, if I stayed here.
Ireallyfucking wanted to stay.To be his.To give him what he wanted.To feel the bond move between us like magic every time he touched me.Good god, the orgasms alone should be illegal.I’d never even dreamed such a thing was possible.Every cell in my body felt the release.Every.Single.One.
A full body orgasm was the cherry on top of the double-chocolate, scoop of alien sex Sundae.I was never going to get over having his big, hard cock inside me as my entire body went up in flames.His lips on mine.He didn’t play games.He fucked me raw.Made me scream.Gave me everything I asked for without doubt or apology.
He was perfect.
Hell.Even thinking that made every rational instinct I had send up emergency flares.
The rest of me refused to see them.No one was coming to save me or talk me out of this.No one was going to make him make sense.Nothing about this made sense.The planet wasn’t actually alive.It wasn’t conscious.The storm was just a storm.It didn’t make choices.Didn’t shoot down ships so the sexy, walking circuit-board on the ground could get laid.Right?All of that was insane.Made zero sense.
So why was I still lying here with my head on his shoulder?His arm around my waist?My leg thrown over his as if he really was mine?I was snuggled up against him like he was my personal teddy bear.
Damn it.What the hell was I doing?
I didn’t move.I took inventory the way I always did.Methodically.From the outside in.
His arm lay across me.Heavy.Warm.His heat soaked through my jacket in a way that went past warmth into something my skin had been craving since the moment he'd first stood close enough for me to feel it.The weight of it was enormous and careful at the same time.I felt everywhere our bodies touched with a longing that left no room for pretending I didn’t want him as close as possible.
His heartbeat drummed under my ear.Slow.Deep.The rhythm of a man who slept without conflict.His skin was warmer than human-normal — a heat I'd first catalogued as data.Now that heat was something I needed to feel safe.
I studied the hollow of his throat.The hard plane of his chest.The place below his jaw where his pulse ran fastest when I touched him.
The storm nodes along his spine pulsed beneath him.I felt the energy surge under my cheek.Soaked it in.I recognized his unique energy now.The current that had moved between us in the dark like a language we'd both spoken without knowing we knew it.
I thought about the beacon on my ship.What I knew of the salvage crews.Seemed cruel to contemplate exactly what I was about to lose in the same moment I realized I never wanted to live without it.
Our heartbeats had synchronized.Beat for beat, in perfect lock-step.I didn’t know how that was possible between two members of different species who had just met.I could not tell which pulse was mine.They were the same.