PrimalHunger (4 page)

Sweat pearled on her spine and slid down, tickling the
sensitive skin. She unzipped the suit. It was getting ridiculously warm. The
rake of cloth against her skin was almost too much sensation to bear. Shit,
what if they’d fallen into some unknown danger. An allergic reaction, maybe?
She shrugged out of the top of her suit and stalked out of the lab and toward
medical. The suit top hung at her hips, brushing against her legs with every
step. She hated the full-body ensemble, but it was necessary.

“Where are you going?”

“To medical. There’s something wrong.” There was an edge of
anger in her voice. “Besides, we need to get you scanned for further damage.”

He reached her in the lounge, catching the bare skin of her
arm. “Wait.”

His touch burned her like sensory overload. She jerked back
from his hold and rubbed it. “Stop manhandling me, or next time you’ll end up
on your back.” Why did she say that?
And why did it sound so suggestive?

Her nipples tightened. This close his spiced scent wrapped
around her. Maybe she was allergic to
him
. “Stay away from me.” She
ground the words out through clenched teeth.

His gaze burned into her. “I think I know what’s wrong.” He
looked apologetic, and damn him, sexy as sin. He leaned close.

She jerked her head back. “What are you doing?”

The white gleam of his smile showed a little something she
didn’t expect. Fangs. “An experiment.” He moved closer and she backed away a
step.

“What kind of experiment?” Her back hit a wall and she
dragged in a breath.

“A very simple one.”

He moved so close she could see the specs of green in his
eyes, the near feline slits of his pupils. His scent surrounded her. “You’re
causing this.” She meant to sound angry, not breathless.

“Likely.” His gaze wandered over her face. “Your pupils are
dilated.” He pressed his hands on either side of her head. Her breath hitched
and her pulse raced. “I can see your heart racing. Can taste your scent on the
air.” His breath blew across her hair. “You are so hot for me, it’s almost
unbearable.”

She choked on a laugh, irritated and growing angry at the
accuracy of his words. “Yeah. That’s it. Or, maybe I don’t like having anyone
close to me. I have this personal space thing.” Her fingers unclasped her
weapon.

“You know what I think?” His lips hovered close to hers.

“No. What?” She couldn’t stop the breathless hush of her
voice.

“I think you want to kiss me.”

She pressed the barrel of her weapon under his chin. His
lips thinned and a muscle on his cheek tightened, but other than that he could
have been carved out of stone. “I said. Back. Off.” She pushed harder.

“You’re not going to shoot me.” His arrogance was ridiculous.
She wanted to snarl. Bite.
Where’s that spine of steel Destiny always
accuses you of having?

“Why not?”

“You’ve had plenty of opportunities if that was your aim.
You didn’t have to rescue me in the first place.” Damn him for his smile. “I’d
hate to see all that effort go to waste now.” He was smug.

“I don’t like this.”

His smile turned rueful, tired. “Do you think I do? I can’t
help what’s happening any more than you can.”

“We can fight it.”

He gently pushed the barrel of the gun away. “To what end?
For how long?” His fingers caressed her jawline.

It was the softest touch. She bit the inside of her cheek to
stop the moan from escaping.

“This is temporary for you. For me, it’s part of what I am.
Who I am.”

She let her arm drop to her side, the weight of her weapon a
nuisance, nothing more. His touch was so nice. A warm burn of lust began deep
in her core. She let her head fall back against the wall and stared up at the
stark ceiling. “How long can you hold off?”

His fingers stopped their exploration, resting gently
against her collarbone. “How long will the windstorms last?” She could hear the
restraint in his voice, feel it in the rigid way he held his body away from
her.

“Another six hours. Maybe more. It’ll be another three or so
after that before we can leave. We can’t trek out until nightfall.”

His laugh was rough, filled with frustration. “I’ve survived
this long.” His hands left her skin and pressed back against the wall. She
ached at the sudden loss of his heat, fighting the urge to reach for him. She
clenched her fist and gripped the pistol tightly with her other hand.

“Come on, tiger, let’s see to those wounds. Then we’ll see
where it leads us.” She holstered her weapon.

He paused and smiled, the sight of his fangs a bit more
disconcerting than she’d like. “So, you have fangs.” Sharp, gleaming and oh so
dangerous. Her pulse leapt, and not from fear. “Are they cosmetic?”

“It’s unique to our race. They’re quite effective. Can you
think of a place you’d like me to nibble on?” Pure mischief lit his eyes.

“That smile should be outlawed.”

His lips brushed against the sensitive shell of her ear.
“Lead the way.”

She gently pushed against his chest, ignoring how
desperately she wanted to see what wonders his suit held. His hands fell away
with a gentle caress of her throat. Kendra clenched her teeth against the need
to arch against his touch. Her eyes traveled down his chest to his obvious
erection. His cock strained against his suit, hard. Ready. Her pussy slickened
with desire.

Stop thinking about it!
She was acting like a randy
teenager for fate’s sake. Her gaze jerked back to his face and the look he gave
her was pure male arrogance.

She cleared her throat and wiped damp palms against her
suit. “Follow me.”

The corridor was stark and painted in leftover gray mining
paint. Azros filled the space, making her feel almost claustrophobic.

“Come here often?”

Kendra chuckled at the suggestive way he asked the question.
She chose to ignore the bad pickup line to give him more of the truth. “I came
here with my parents. They were commissioned to track terraforming anomalies on
this planet.”

They reached the medlab and she turned the crank. The door
creaked open and air pressure rushed out. Kendra checked the door’s seal out of
habit.

“Very low tech.” His voice traveled away from her side, but
he made no sounds when he walked.

“If you mean not having all the bells and whistles like
automatic doors, then yeah. Low tech. When you’re in the middle of a terraform
shitstorm, having the power go out is a little bit more than inconvenient.” She
palmed the light switch. Light flooded the sterile room.

“So your parents worked for the Sheon Empire?”

Kendra rolled her eyes. “You make it sound like the empire
is a great nameless entity.” She walked over to the console and initiated the
D.O.C. interface. “My parents worked for the science and life consortium.”
Again, not a complete lie. She unbuckled her belt and gently laid it beside the
console. Her holster followed. “We were going to build a new Sheon home planet.
Split from the old ways.”

She could feel his gaze, like the eyes of a predator.
Weighing her every move. His charm had hidden depths. Something was changing.
Tension crackled between them. There was no doubt sex with Azros would be
legendary. She licked suddenly dry lips. This was
not
the way to stop
thinking about him.

Please remove your garment.
A disembodied male voice
spoke in gentle and soothing tones.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.
She grinned at
the shock on his face. “Apparently Bob thinks it’s time to get this scan over
with.” Kendra picked up her gear and hauled it behind the protective shield.
She hesitated a micron before locking her weapons in the key-coded cabinet.
Being unarmed around a stranger made her uncomfortable, but his ability to take
her weapon earlier still burned in the back of her mind. Her cheeks flushed and
a spark of anger coiled. He was obviously combat-trained, and she wasn’t at her
best. She wasn’t dead yet, so he wasn’t a Sheon assassin.

Please remove your garment.

Each of them would undergo a complete exam. “You should do
as he says. He has a really mean voice when you ignore his commands.”

“Who is Bob, exactly?” Kendra almost missed his question. He
was unzipping his suit. Well, what was left of it, anyway. His disrobing was
too much of a temptation to ignore. Dark skin with sparse fur on his chest.
Just the way she liked it. Her fingers itched to run along the ridges of his
abs.
That’s it! I’m definitely getting some downtime after this mission.
Drooling all over a stranger? I am way overdue for an appointment in the
pleasure dome.

She had to clear her throat to be able to speak. “He’s the
terraform lab’s AI.”

His arms shrugged out of the flight suit. It gave her a
moment to consider his raw, masculine beauty. Azros was breathtaking. His neck
and shoulders had tiger stripes of darker skin. She wanted to see his back,
touch the stripes. How far down did they actually go? Was it a tattoo? A
birthmark? Would it have a different texture if she ran her fingers…or tongue
over it? Her gaze followed his fingers down to the waist, where either his butt
or his dick held up the suit. Kendra was betting on both.

“Should I get a sheet?” There was laughter in his voice, but
no matter how hard she tried, Kendra couldn’t drag her gaze away.

“For what?” Her husky question was followed by a shrug of
his powerful shoulders.

His hands slid the suit over his massive erection.

“Right.” She cleared her throat. Kendra quickly averted her
eyes and walked over to a cabinet. His quiet laughter chased her. She slid open
a drawer and pulled out a sheet. Everything was getting to her. Even the
normally soft material felt unusually scratchy against her hands.

Get a hold of yourself. You’ve seen it all before.
Hell, sex was a regular part of her life. She happily defended the men and
women who chose the oldest profession, so why was he getting under her skin?

She turned and smacked into a hard body. Awareness and shock
mixed. How did he sneak up on her?
I must be more exhausted than I thought.
His hands steadied her, but all Kendra could do was inhale the rich scent of
him.

He gently extracted the sheet from her hands. Her gaze
followed the line of his arm and zeroed in on the wound on his side. It took
only a moment to recognize old skin burns of a Sheon slave weapon. Long-buried
memories flashed in her mind. It had marred her mother’s broken body in the
same way. His skin was torn along his rib cage. Her fingers traced the outside
of the burn pattern. “Looks like this came from the crash.” Why did she say
that? She gently pressed on the bruised area and heard him suck in a breath.
Any
excuse to touch him, huh, Kendra?

“And your fist.”

A small spurt of satisfaction lit up her mood with that
reminder. “Yeah. Looks like you’re going to hurt for a while.”

Please lie down on the table. The scan will commence.

Kendra stepped away and clenched her hands into tight fists
to keep from touching him again. “Looks like that’s my clue. I’ll go get the
esskin.”

“Running away?”

Kendra put all her attitude in the way she raised her gaze
to his. The sexual awareness shining in their depths upped the heat coiled in
her body. His grin told her it was only a matter of time. “Just weighing the
options. Now be good for doctor Bob. I’ll prep the esskin and see if there are
any clothes you can wear.” She patted his arm and used every ounce of her
willpower to walk away. For now.

Chapter Three

Water blasted against her shoulders and back. Kendra groaned
as the much-needed shower washed grime down the drain. Azros was dangerous. She
placed her fists side by side on the tile and leaned her forehead against them.
He moved like a military man. The marks on his body were recent, and brutal,
lining up with his story. Aside from Destiny, Azros was the only other being in
the galaxy to earn her trust on a gut level. And that’s what worried her. Was
it some weird mating instinct that made her trust him? Could it bypass her
normal caution?

If there wasn’t this hormone stuff to deal with, she could
get Azros out of her system. What did a mating consist of anyway? It had to be
more than sex.

Streams of water poured along her neck to flow down her
chest. Everything had a distinct scent—the water, the sanitizing soap, even the
disinfectant she had in a bottle on the sink. It was as if all her senses were
on overdrive. The shower was roomy, large enough to fit several people. Her
mother had called it their only luxury.

The lights dimmed and Kendra sighed. The windstorm was
picking up. She turned off the water and hit the autodry. Wind battered at her
body, reminding her of aches and bruises on top of last night’s security shift.
Her scuffs and scrapes were minimal, but her legs were going to be screaming
tomorrow. She hoped her team fared better than they had.

She opened the door and stepped out of the shower before her
hair could completely dry. Would Azros be able to find his way around?

A tap on the door brought a smile to her lips. “What is it?”

“I’m done with the exam, but I need help applying the
esskin.”

She slipped on her light undergarments, wishing for something
less…serviceable. A little more feminine maybe? “I’ll be out in a moment. The
esskin is on the table.” She gave her appearance a quick glance. A shower
couldn’t do anything about the scratch on her cheek or the way her lips always
looked as if she were pouting. Her tangled mane of hair tumbled down her back
in a damp mess. She pulled it back in a ponytail and dreaded brushing it. A set
of her personal loungewear completed the ensemble. Kendra nodded at her
reflection. Train wreck. At least her clothes fit. She doubted any of the
shirts she’d found would fit across Azros’ massive chest. She clenched her eyes
against the mental image of the bare-skinned Valorian.
Way to be
professional, Kendra.
Seven more hours until nightfall. She could hold out.