I pull her hands away from her face, watching her adorably embarrassed expression, her pale cheeks turning redder and redder as I drink her in.
“I think I would like to have more control over your body,” I growl.
And it is true.
But I also want her heart, and her mind. Not to control. Not to own. But to claim for myself, in all my selfishness. I don’t want her to return to Earth. I don’t want her anywhere but in my bed and at my side.
I clench my jaw, the primal need to win her, to claim her as my mate in the way of the Roth gripping me tight, overwhelming me.
An idea occurs to me as she sighs, and a slow smile stretches over my face.
“What if you did give me control over your body?” I ask, my voice low. Enticing. Gently, I flip her hands over, tracing the delicate blue veining under her skin there. Her skin leaves warm imprints against the cool metal of the table. “What if that’s what you need to take the edge off? To stop trying to control everything? Just for a little while?”
I want to be what she needs. Everything she needs. Always.
“What do you mean?” she asks.
There’s no denying the way her scent fills the room, that addictive, tempting smell of desire, and her. Always her.
“I mean,” I say, my smile growing, “that you let me please you. You let me take control of your urges. You let it all go, and you place yourself in my capable hands.”
“But… the ship.” Her eyelashes flutter.
“Is on autopilot. Won’t need me for, oh—” I glance at the clock embedded in the wall “—another five hours at least.”
“Five… hours?” she squeaks, then clears her throat.
I keep stroking her wrists. Maybe she needs a little more convincing. I lean over the table, brushing my lips against the near-translucent skin.
“You liked when I held your hands down in bed and rutted you like a beast, did you not?”
She gulps, her green eyes wide. “I…”
“I know you did.”
Her eyes narrow in defiance, and I grow hard as a rock for her, this little human who thinks she can hide what she likes from me. Who thinks I will not sniff out every way she likes to be fucked.
“So what if I did?” she finally says, tossing her red hair.
It drives me crazy, and my hands flex over her wrists.
“Then you will like this even more.”
“And if I say stop?”
“Sometimes, my little flame, stop means keep going.”
She hisses, and I watch her carefully. “So I need, a, uh, what’s it called, a safe word?”
“If you were Roth,” I purr at her, “you would not need such a thing, because you would know that I would stop the instant I detected a change in your scent.”
“I’m not doing shit with you unless I get a safe word.”
I spread my hands wide, doing my best to appear innocent, like I’m not about to use her body until all she can think of is pleasure and me. “Then choose a word. But know this, little mate, if you agree to this, to let me take control of your body, of your pleasure, you will be so well trained to my touch, to my kiss, that when you look at me, your cunt will be wet immediately. There will be no escaping your need for my mouth on you, my cock deep inside.”
She laughs. Laughs.
I narrow my eyes at her.
“Yeah, sure,” she says, and I glare at her for a minute.
Then I see it, that she’s nervous, that she’s worried.
“I would never hurt you. I swear it to you. If you pick a word, this safe word, I will honor it. I simply want to give you pleasure.”
“Oh, yeah? And you don’t expect anything in return, is that right?”
Incredulity sends my brows shooting up. “You think I don’t feel pleasure when I see you orgasm? To know it is because of me, of what I have done, that you feel that way?” I shake my head, laughing in disbelief. “Trust me, little flame, this is not only for your pleasure.”
“So you won’t have sex with me in…” her eyes flick to the clock in the wall, “in the five hours you plan to… tie me up?”
“I didn’t say that,” I purr, fucking loving the way her eyes dilate. “But you’ll have to ask me so, so nicely if you want my cock.”
“Marshmallow fluff,” she says breathlessly, her gaze glued to me.
I blink. “What?”
“That’s the safe word. Marshmallow fluff. If I say it, you have to stop. Immediately.”
“Understood,” I growl, and let myself go.
I snap.
With one arm, I sweep all the food and utensils off the table and they clatter to the ground.
She stares at me, open-mouthed. I long to fill those pretty lips with my hard cock, until she whimpers and moans around it.
“Do you want to use your word yet?” I ask her.
She shakes her head, still staring.
Reaching my hands around her ribs, I haul her onto the table with a possessive growl.
For a long moment, I simply stare at her, drinking her in. She’s so gods-damned beautiful. Every fucking inch of her, radiant. Glorious.
Her hair is a Roth volcano, or the color of sunset over the Roth ocean. Her skin freshly fallen snow on the icefields of the far north, her lips berry-red and still swollen from earlier. Will I ever have enough of this female?
I do not think so.
“What?” she asks, her voice nervous.
“You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen,” I say honestly.
I pull her hair back, and she gasps as I stare down at her. The smooth column of her throat bobs. I run a finger across her lower lip, playing with the succulent flesh there, loving the way she trembles against me.
When she bites down on my fingertip, defiance in her gaze, I hiss in surprise.
“Is that what you want, then, my flame? To act like you don’t want this?” I laugh, and the noise is harsh. I want her to want it. I don’t mind her games, I like them… but I want her to want me as badly as I crave her.
I am addicted to Leigh. Fully, wholly, helplessly addicted.
“For that, you will get special treatment.”
Turning, I storm over to the panel in the wall that houses emergency maintenance supplies and rip it away. The metal clatters onto the floor, the housing of the supply panel glowing red under the wall of the ship.
I tug out several lengths of wiring, triumph singing through me.
She might not think she’s mine, not yet, not fully—but I have her at my mercy for the next five hours.
I can’t think of a better way to pass the time than by drawing orgasm after orgasm from her willing body.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
LEIGH
Oh. Oh shit.
My eyes get huge as I fully realize what it is Nydo has planned.
He turns, the multicolored wiring standing out in stark contrast to his grey skin, and prowls towards me with predatory grace.
“Are you ready to use your word yet?” he asks, challenge in his tone, in the set of his eyes.
“No,” I say. No, not at all. I’ve never been so turned on in my entire freaking life.
He grabs my wrist, and I expect him to be rough, but his hands are gentle as he loops the cord around one wrist, then the other. I watch as he secures it to the underside of the table, my mouth impossibly dry, my pussy already wet and clenching on nothing.
Any trepidation I’ve had since talking with Niki, at the magnitude of what we’re about to attempt, disappears in the face of the pleasure Nydo’s promised.