“Of course I stare at you, beautiful,” he called down. “I have never seen anyone more worth staring at than you. It’s simply nice to know you feel the same about me.”
“Fuck you,” I muttered, but Prytheen hearing was better than I thought. The comment set him off laughing again, and I couldn’t help smiling a little, too. Which didn’t stop me from making a rude gesture up at him.
“So what do you see up there? Can you do anything?”
He turned back to the cable and examined it. Sighed. “Something did a rough job on this. None of the edges are neat, so even if I have Prytheen equivalents, matching them up might not be possible. It would certainly not be fast. Do you not have spares?”
I sighed, shook my head. “We should have a spare reel of the stuff, but it’s missing. Along with a bunch of other stuff. It’s frustrating, and we can’t work out what’s happening.”
Karnac carefully tucked the ragged ends of the cable away, wrapping them around the aerial to keep them from causing any trouble. He used that as an excuse not to talk for a few seconds, before he turned back to me and frowned.
“That is concerning,” he said. “Things going missing without a sign, in an isolated place like this? Someone must be taking them.”
“Or something,” I added. “There’s a story going round that a ghost haunts the station.”
“Humans are ridiculously superstitious. There’s a more reasonable explanation — one of the crew here is a thief.”
With that, he leaped from the antenna tower, landing in front of me. Right in front of me. Like, less than a foot away. Surprise made me squeak and jump back, my foot coming down on a patch of ice.
Three moments that followed are etched into my memory. The awful feeling as my foot skidded out from under me, sending me falling backward. The shock as muscular arms caught me, held me, slowed my fall. And last, most powerful, the joy and need Karnac’s touch filled me with.
Somehow, he twisted as we fell. Landed first with a loud thump, pulling me to him and cushioning my impact with his body.
His gorgeous, wonderful, sexy body.
I lay there, head resting on his torso, hearing the thumpTHUMP of his heartbeat. I wanted to be angry that he’d scared me like that, made me fall, but he’d also saved me.
And if a little fright was what it took to end up in Karnac’s arms, my body at least was happy to make that trade.
“Are you all right?” he asked, voice like a rumble of distant thunder. I swallowed, looked up along his body and met his golden gaze.
A mistake. A terrible mistake, at least if I wanted to keep a professional distance from Karnac. Looking into his eyes was like pouring gasoline on the flame of my lust. Whatever sound I made, it didn’t contain any coherent words.
Karnac frowned, blinked, looked away. I regained enough control to try words. “I’m fine. You saved me.”
“It was my fault you fell,” he admitted, looking down at me again. “I should not have—”
I put a finger across his lips and he fell silent. “Shush. You saved me. Let’s focus on that bit.”
Maybe touching his lips was my mistake. Maybe it reminded me of how they felt when he kissed me. I bit my lip, frozen in place and unable to move from the spot, the memory slamming into me like a wrecking ball.
Karnac growled, low, hungry, and irresistible. Swinging me around, he pinned me to the snow-covered roof and kissed me hard.
The memory had been enough to dent the walls I’d raised around my heart. The actual kiss, though? It was as though he’d set off explosives, shattered the walls and sent the bits flying. I didn’t care anymore, what did it matter that he was Prytheen? What mattered was that he was here, now, the hero of the hour.
I arched my back, pressing my body against him, cursing the thick jacket between me and his chest. His tongue pressed to my lips, pushing past them pushing into my mouth as his rough hands explored my body.
Fuck. Okay. Just… disengage and stay professional… The thoughts drifted through the haze of need and desire my brain sank into. They made no difference, just noise in the background as I grabbed at him, alien skin strange to my fingers. I ran my hands down his flanks, to his tight leather pants, fumbling as I tried to work the alien fastenings.
“Not here,” he growled. “You will freeze.”
“Don’t care,” I said, or rather panted. Short of breath, I kept pulling. “Worth it.”
Ah! A catch came undone, his belt slid apart. As I opened his pants, I slipped a hand inside, exploring.
And oh my god. My fingers closed on a monster; a dick bigger than any I’d ever imagined. Ribbed, even, and hard as iron. I gasped and looked up at Karnac in wonder.
He groaned, his own self-control bleeding away as I caressed him. “Do not do that if you do not mean it.”
I meant it all right. Wholeheartedly, intensely, my urges overwhelming my brain’s weak objections. An empty ache inside me cried out for Karnac to fill it, to fill me. And none of me cared about the temperature.
Karnac’s breath caught as I stroked him slowly, and with a groan he grabbed my jacket, unzipped and spread it, kissing my neck, my shoulders, his sharp carnivore’s teeth scraping my skin deliciously. Cold air chilled me but didn’t discourage me — the warmth radiating from my Prytheen lover was more than enough to offset the chill of the breeze, made it into a delightful contrast.
Struggling to get my arms free of the jacket, panting, our breath forming a cloud around the two of us, we fought with our clothing. My shirt? Ripped open by alien claws, baring my body for him to kiss and bite and lick. His pants? I pushed them down, freed his cock, and it was even bigger than I’d thought. Huge. Intimidatingly huge, but also mouthwateringly huge.
With quick, sure motions he undid my pants and pulled them off. In his embrace I barely noticed the cold, and when he kissed his way down my neck, each kiss burned with a heat that spread through my body.
“Fuck,” I whispered as his teeth closed on my shoulder. I arched under him, reaching down and finding his cock again, stroking. Teasing him.
“Yes,” my alien lover said, voice rough with need. “Yes, my heart. FUCK.”
With those words he bit harder and I cried out, eyes rolling back as I shuddered under him. My grip on his cock tightened and he let out a gasp.
Panting, desperate to have him inside me, I guided him to my wet pussy. He let out a noise no human throat could match, somewhere between a growl and a purr, and thrust.
It was like being hit with a piledriver, if that piledriver were made of pure pleasure. His first thrust slammed into me, stretched me, drove me back into the roof. I shuddered, grasping at him, squeezing him inside me as he filled me so perfectly.
SLAM. He thrust again, pushing me back off my jacket, my shoulders hitting the snow. An intense contrast to the fire of Karnac’s passion above me, making me cry out again. Karnac slid a hand behind my head, the other under my ass, and lifted.
Standing up, he held me to him still impaled on his hard cock. The casual strength with which he supported me was just one more thing in his long list of amazingly hot attributes.
I held on tight, arms and legs wrapped around him, panting as our bodies pressed together and he lifted me higher. Higher. Until he’d almost lifted me off his cock. He held me there, suspended in his powerful arms, and then pulled me down again.