Page 21 of Stolen Fire (N.O.A.H (Nostradamus Outerspace Advancement of Humanity) #2)

He palmed the door, and it slid into the wall with a faint scraping sound.

With a tap of his hand, the ceiling panel illuminated enough to see without blinding her.

She crossed into the room. The screen over the large oval portal, mimicking the shape of the building on its side, reflected their image.

He nestled against her back. Her pale skin and red hair contrasted with his dark-brown hair and coppery skin.

They looked like an abstract image of the place she’d been born.

Coppery clay, fiery sun, crystal underground water. Home, but better.

Her eyes met his in the reflection briefly before she reddened and turned away. The room was the complete opposite of the rusty metallic main room. “It’s so colorful in here.”

The walls and ceiling were vivid blue, and the bedcover was a yellowish-green. For the first time, she wasn’t the most garish part of a room.

“Will you stay?”

He wasn’t just asking her to stay. He was asking for her to trust him. To be vulnerable with him. The last person she’d bared herself to betrayed her. Ruined her.

There was a good chance that Cifer would be a short-term lover.

Someone she could be with while she rediscovered trust in herself and they traveled to Hiargus and back.

Her future was on The Treasure . His future was unclear after the return trip.

Although their time together might be short, it might be enough.

“Yes,” she whispered, scared of her answer but not of him.

He wrapped himself around her and kissed her as if she were the last drink of water on a barren planet.

He licked at her lips. She gripped his arms and opened her mouth to his.

He had cared for her, fed her. She gave him what she could: her warmth, her passion, her desire.

There was a chance she’d regret her choice, but at that moment, the only regret she could see was not staying.

Not exploring the connection that had built between them.

Each conversation when he’d listened without interrupting.

Each time she discovered evidence that he was an amazingly good person who cared about the kids like she did.

Each time he’d touched her like she was valuable.

She dug her fingers through his long dark hair and pulled him to her. As close as she was to his solid strength, it wasn’t enough to satisfy or even cool her heat.

He broke their kiss. “Too many clothes.”

She whined at the loss of his lips. At least he was panting. She whipped her shirt over her head. Cifer’s gaze branded her with its intensity. She froze.

What was he thinking?

Too pale?

Were her boobs too big?

When she wasn’t in shapeless coveralls, she wore loose shirts, ordered them a size larger than she needed. Maybe he didn’t like big tits. She lifted her arms to cover her chest, but Cifer reached out, a blur of movement, and stopped her.

“Don’t.” His voice was thick and low. Stepping closer, he released her arms and trailed his fingers across her chest, below her neck but not touching her breasts. He lifted his gaze. “Who stole your fire?”

“Fire?”

“You are your name—Blaize—igniting desire so deep in me, setting me on fire. Yet, I see the doubts trace across your face.” He caressed her cheek. “And I want to hurt whoever gave them to you.” His fingers trailed lower. “So soft.”

Emboldened by his desire, she released the clasp holding her bra closed and dropped her hand without parting the cups to free them.

Cifer’s eyes dilated in the low light, but the ring was white.

Not pale like hers—white, with black lines radiating from the pupil.

Those were the eyes she’d caught flashes of, but this time, they remained.

He drew his hand down her chest and gripped one side of her bra and paused, asking her permission silently.

She nodded, a tiny little movement that meant he could do what he wanted.

With his other hand, he gripped the silky fabric, and he parted the panels to free her.

He didn’t look—he kept his eyes locked on hers—but he caressed and stroked and gripped her flesh.

Pressed his hands underneath and felt their weight.

He teased her nipples with his fingers. Her buds tightened to hard points.

He pinched them, and when she would have protested, he captured her mouth with his.

His body pressed against hers. He still had his shirt on.

She pulled the sides of the fabric, but the top didn’t come loose.

Cifer released her mouth and removed not only his shirt, but all of his clothes in a flash, setting them carefully on a low chest. They settled into a gray mass, looking nothing like what he’d been wearing.

The oddity didn’t hold her attention long because he stood before her, boldly naked.

The sight of him was magnificent.

There were more muscles on his arms and abdomen and legs than she’d ever seen on another humanoid. His warm copper skin seemed to almost shimmer, like it was luminous. He was stunning. When she finally let herself look at his cock, her heart raced, and she couldn’t draw a breath.

There was no way. He was…thick.

And long.

Even his balls were big and heavy.

He’d break her with that thing.

But she wanted him. Wanted him to stretch her and ruin her. Leave her body used and aching. Instead of running, she toed off her boots and slid out of her pants, leaving her panties on as a last flare of panic hit her.

“You were made for me.” Cifer spoke as if his thoughts had sneaked out.

He gripped her hips in his hands and spun her so her back pressed to his chest. She could see them reflected in the screen, her ghostly pale skin, his shining brown warmth.

His white eyes caught hers in the image.

That’s right. He hid too. She’d never seen his real eyes before that moment. He still had secrets.

He kissed her neck, licked the crease where it joined her shoulder, and suddenly, she didn’t care if he was hiding something. She tilted her head, giving him more access to her skin.

He pushed the band of her panties down over her hips and let them skim down her long legs.

She stepped out carefully, not wanting to fall.

When she returned to their reflection, what she saw took her breath away.

Cifer was pale, the exact shade of her skin.

Where her head rested on his chest, he was deep red, identical to her hair.

She blended perfectly. For the first time in her life, she didn’t stand out like a warning light on a control panel.

Tears filled her eyes. “You’re so lucky.

I’d give anything to be able to blend.” She shuddered. “To belong.”

“You can belong to me. Or I’ll belong to you. I’m yours. If you want me. Even if you don’t,” he said softly in her hair.

Wordless, she turned and pressed him back to the brightly covered bed.

“Go back. I want to see you .”

A brief frown crossed his face. His skin slowly took on the luminous copper shade she was familiar with but suspected was an illusion as much as the pale skin had been. She didn’t care. He was hers. At least for this moment in time.

She straddled his hips, pressing his hard length between her wet lips of her pussy and his stomach. She rocked her hips once. Cifer groaned, and she couldn’t hide her satisfied grin.

He narrowed his eyes. “You like that. Teasing me.”

She smiled, a seductive grin that felt foreign. “I want to tease you and torment you and then take you inside and ride you until we both come undone. I want to please you. Make us forget the past and only be here. Now.”

Cifer slid his hands up her thighs, holding her gently.

Blaize leaned forward and kissed him. He rose to meet her.

She broke away, compelled to know every part of him.

She traced her lips down his neck and over his chest with little nibbling kisses, noting where he shivered and where he jumped.

He was ticklish in one tiny spot—right where his arm connected to his body.

She nipped him tenderly before moving on.

Every time she moved, kissing his nipples, licking them, her hips rocked, coating his cock in her desire.

“Please,” Cifer begged, pain in his voice.

She lifted off his cock so she wouldn’t hurt him, disappointed that her explorations were not complete.

“No,” he called out when her pussy left him. He gripped her hips and flipped her underneath him.

Blaize was both relieved and frustrated. She wasn’t sure how to take control during sex, but she wasn’t done.

“I promise, you can do whatever you want to me, but let me have that sweet wet pussy first. I don’t care how. You tell me. My fingers, my tongue, my cock? Whatever you want, but I need you. Please.”

Blaize was unable to find her words with the visions he’d created of his hands and tongue and cock.

“What do you want? Anything.”

“You. I want you . Inside me.” She’d beg if that’s what he required.

“This?” Cifer gripped his thick length and held it up to her like an offering, his eyebrows raised.

She nodded.

“It’s yours, Beauty.” He notched the swollen head at her wet entrance. “Protection?”

“I’m covered.” She couldn’t wait. She thrust up. They gasped in unison.

She was full, achingly full and stretched.

As if his entire body filled every space in hers.

More. She needed more. With a twitch of her hips, she tightened her grip on him.

He groaned and shifted deeper, eliminating the last millimeter of space between them.

He kissed her, his tongue between her lips, and she sucked it hard.

Neither of them was moving. She tried to figure out how to take him deeper—into her soul.

He felt like the place she belonged. Like there would never be a place in the universe that was better than where she was right now.

And then he released her mouth, and his hips pulled back and he thrust into her, and it was even better.

Threads of light danced through her vision.

It was like traveling through an ER bridge, her body being reformed and time becoming meaningless.

She moved with him. His length slid in and out, hot and wet with her slick juices, overloading her systems. Every thrust she met increased the intensity of their connection, as if she welcomed him into every cell.

She never wanted it to end. He was shaking in her embrace, his thrusts rougher and less rhythmic.

She tried to keep up, but her body couldn’t be controlled.

Then everything was gone. She was a supernova, exploding, as if light erupted from every pore of her body.

She screamed. Cifer’s deep voice joined her, and heat filled her. Consumed her. Left her panting for breath and boneless. Cifer collapsed over her and then rolled to the side, taking her with him, his solid length still embedded inside her, where he belonged.

He clung to her with one hand, his legs entwined with hers, and stroked her hair with his other hand. There were no words for what had happened. She’d had sex before. What they’d done wasn’t sex; it was something else, something undefinable and unique.

“How did you do that?” The words fell out of her mouth, and she wasn’t sure what she was asking.

“Do what?” His breath caressed her ear.

“Become me?”

“Ah, the skin.”

She nodded against his chest.

“It’s camouflage, at the cellular level. All the members of my clan have the ability. I suspect it was to aid in hunting when we were more primitive.”

“It would be incredible to be able to blend anywhere.”

“It is my greatest strength and the thing that has instigated the most pain.”

Blaize couldn’t imagine how blending in could have hurt him. “What do you mean?”