He took one step toward me and I stuttered.
“How do you speak my language?”
He smiled.“I do not, female.You are speaking the language of the storm.The energy field around us understands and translates.”
“What?”Confusion made me blink.What the hell was he talking about?Before he could respond, I realized on some level that he was right.The sounds he made were no language I’d ever heard before, but my mind knew and understood.Instant, pure communication.Images and intention.Knowledge shared.Was he inside my head?No.That didn’t feel right.It was more like once words left my—or his—lips, the energy in the air transformed it into pure thought-form both of us understood.
Clearly the communication system wasn’t perfect because what he said made no sense.Something had to be getting lost in translation.Language of the storm?Like it was a living, breathing entity?Impossible.There had to be some sort of hidden technology involved.If I didn’t have a massive problem, and a seventy-two hour deadline to save my ship, and the rest of the crew, I would already be investigating exactly how it worked.But I did have a problem, so there was no time to let the scientist in me geek out over this weird communication, and even less time for whateverthiswas.Thisattraction.The heat rising in my body.The tingling in my skin.The ache between my legs.No.Not now.
“The storm chooses the path.We walk the path.”He stepped closer, lifted his hand as if he was about to touch me.
My body reacted before my mind caught up.Heat bloomed across my skin, spreading from my chest outward.My pulse leaped into my throat.The electric charge in the air between us intensified sharply, and I could feel it on the surface of my skin the way you feel the pressure drop before a storm breaks, that breathless, full-body awareness that something enormous is about to happen and there is no escape, nowhere to run.
It wasn't fear.My complete lack of fear was the one thing I could not rationalize away, the data point that didn't fit any of my existing experiences.I’d literally just watched him evaporate a monster with lightning.That was not normal.He was dangerous.I needed to focus on that very important fact.
Unfortunately, my body had zero interest in logic.Whatever was happening to my body was not fear.It was… strange.Attraction.Desire.Lust bordering on instant obsession.What the hell was wrong with me?
I stepped back, just out of reach.Whatever would happen if he actually touched me, I wasnotready to deal with it.I had enough on my plate.I did not need to waste time lusting after an alien I’d just met.
"I would suggest," he said, those silver eyes holding mine with a focus that felt almost like a physical pressure, "that you stop retreating.The creature that attacked you has a large clan.They nest in the cliff shadows behind you and are drawn to movement at dusk."
Oh, hell no.More of those things?A whole clan of them?I stopped retreating.
He stopped advancing.
We stood six feet apart in the breathing dark of an alien jungle.The bioluminescent fungi pulsed their slow blue rhythm at our feet.The air between us hummed with a frequency I was increasingly certain had nothing to do with atmospheric electricity.My heart was very loud.I was acutely, embarrassingly aware of every inch of my own body — the places where the crash had left me bruised, the dried blood at my temple, the way my hands wanted to tremble.The sheer force of will required to keep them in fists at my side.
He smelled of the storm.Warm metal and ozone and something underneath both of those things, something darker and deeper, something that made my lungs work harder to take in more.Male.Strength.Sex.My body responded without my permission, my pussy wet and achy.My nipples overly sensitive, hard peaks.I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs.The urge to reach out and touch him was a compulsion I had to fight every moment—and it was gettingstronger.
There had to be a logical, scientific explanation for the images in my mind, the urge to touch him.Kiss him.Claim him.Beg him to fuck me on the floor of an alien jungle.He wasn’t human.Oh, he stood on two legs and had the same basic form, but his skin looked tougher, dense, like tree bark or thick leather.His eyes were that strange flashing silver that cleared occasionally to reveal electric blue.And the lights moving under his skin?Some looked like miniature lighting strikes moving across his chest and shoulders.Some looked like glowing nodes that pulsed like a beating heart.
Those pulses went straight to my core.Made mewant.
Maybe there were toxins in the air, or some kind of drug?Maybe he was using mind control?Or I’d hit my head harder than I thought in the crash?
"The lights along your spine," I said, because I needed to saysomethingscientific so I could stop listening to the sound of my own pulse thundering in my ears."What are they?"
His jaw tightened.He stared at me for too long.This was something he did not want to discuss, which meant I had to get the information any way I could.
"Storm nodes," he said."Bioelectric organs.They are—" a pause that lasted exactly one of my too-rapid heartbeats "—sensitive to certain stimuli."
Certain stimuli?Like what?"Electromagnetic stimuli?Does your planet's storm field activate them?"
"Among other things."He spoke quietly.Restrained.Like he was afraid to say more.His silver eyes focused on me like twin lasers.
The rational part of my brain stepped in hard and fast.
Bioelectric response.That was logical.Right?The planet's electromagnetic field was interacting with my nervous system.Novel stimuli.Elevated cortisol from the crash, adrenal response, hypervigilance presenting as heightened physical awareness.This was not—lust.Desire.Want.
I didnotwant him.
Keep telling yourself that and maybe you’ll believe it.
"My name is Sorik."He bowed his head.“I am Commander of the Storm Guard of Sol'Virex."
Sorik.The way he said his name made my pussy clench and my knees buckle.His voice was like a freaking vibrator applied straight to my throbbing clit.
What.The.Actual.Fuck?This couldn’t be real.My reaction.His lips.His face.His muscles.This planet was not supposed to have walking, talking sex gods.Maybe I’d be able to make sense of him if I’d found natives living in grass huts.