Chapter 17
Sadly, Nahash didn’t have any chocolate on hand, because Cass had a feeling she wanted to be a little sinful. The more time she spent talking to him, the easier it was to look past those parts of him that disturbed her the most.
Their conversation had given her a great deal of food for thought, though she would have preferred a chocolate-covered apple instead. Now that he’d pointed it out to her, she recognized her own tendency to view her people and culture as superior. She supposed that was normal for anyone, because she suspected Nahash felt like Iriduans were superior to humans. Still, they had a lot to learn from each other, and she decided to approach those conversations in a less judgmental manner. Nahash appeared willing to make the same effort. He even listened to her talk about the Iriduan females she’d met without a single sign of a sneer.
In fact, her insistence that Shianey—the one who’d lost her harem to the slavers’ attack—had grieved for them took him aback.
“Do you really believe those women don’t care, Nahash?”
By that point in their conversation, they’d grown so comfortable together that he coiled on the floor beside her chair, propping his upper body on his elbows, supported by his topmost coil. This put his face slightly above her while she was seated. When he leaned forward, they sat at eye-level.
He pondered her question in silence for a long moment, his gaze shifting from her face to watch the light show playing on the shielded windows. “Do you care, Casss?”
She hesitated to answer that with a simple “yes, of course.” He wasn’t asking if she was concerned about him as she might be concerned about anyone. He wanted to know if she felt anything special for him. The problem was that she couldn’t be sure what she felt yet. It was still so early, and she didn’t have the instant love biology that he suffered from, which made her feelings more complicated.
She wanted to focus on returning home, back to a world that made sense to her, one where she understood her role. She’d been strong, independent, and successful. She’d worked endless hours to build her business and save other businesses. She’d acquired all the important trappings of success to signify her ambition, because ambition and hard work were virtues.
Her busy life on Earth had given her an excuse to avoid making risky emotional decisions. She needed that excuse now more than she ever had before.
“I like you, Nahash. I enjoy talking to you, and I appreciate what you tried to do to help me.” Recalling their first encounter, the butterflies camping out in her stomach fluttered in earnest. “You came to my rescue, planning to save me from a terrible fate, even though you knew nothing about me.” It had been terrifying to see him barge in, tail and all, but the fact that he’d risked his life to rescue a complete stranger said far more about him than her Mercedes said about her.
His eyes narrowed above a tongue that flicked out several times. “You like talking to me and appreciate my rescue, but do you think you could ever….” He suddenly hissed and turned away, his tail uncoiling in a dizzying movement as he pulled away from her to slither to the other side of the bridge.
She partially rose out of her seat, her hand out as if she would stop his retreat, before realizing that she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Perhaps it was best to put some space between them for her response, because she struggled to voice it, her heart pounding with panic. “I do think I could….”
He turned back to her as soon as she said the words, and the heat in his eyes stole her breath, making it even harder for her to continue. “I….”
With disturbing speed, he moved directly in front of her again, lowering himself until he was eye level with her.
“You…?” Tension tightened his voice, as if her answer meant more than anything else in the universe.
She looked into his eyes, noting that his pupils had dilated. His tongue flicked out repeatedly as he subtly swayed in front of her.
Sucking in a breath, her heart pounding in her throat so much she knew the vein throbbing there would be visible to him, she leaned closer, inhaling his earthy rain scent. “Do Iriduans kiss, Nahash?”
A low hiss escaped his throat. “So I’ve been told. When their female favors them.”
She watched his lips, noting how fine they were—perfectly formed, just plump enough to be sexy without taking away from his hard, masculine features. The scales that covered them didn’t detract from their appearance.
“You’ve never been kissed?”
Those lips curved into a small smile at the surprise in her tone. “I’ve never been anything when it comes to mating, Cass.”
Because she watched his mouth so closely, she noted how he actually bit off the end of her name, clamping his teeth together as if to keep the hiss inside. This peeled his lips back from his teeth for just a brief flash, reminding her that if she did kiss him, there probably wouldn’t be any tongue involved.
As his tongue flicked out—almost touching her lips because of their position—she amended that with a shiver. The wet heat that dampened the jumpsuit between her legs surprised her though. It had been a long time since just looking at a man had caused such arousal.
“Can I kiss you, Nahash?”
He darted forward in a blinding motion, capturing her face between his hands as his lips crashed down on hers.
She clutched his heavily muscled arms, holding on for dear life as his clumsy, hard kiss threatened to sweep her sanity right out of her head.
A low moan escaped one of them, and Cass suspected it might have been her as his lips softened their assault in response to her gentler movements. He was learning, mimicking her to turn his hungry kiss into something more sensual and explorative.
She felt his lip scales against her lips, the slight texture alien and strange, yet still spearing heat to her core, where her arousal left her wet and wanting.
His lips opened as they tasted hers, his forked tongue trailing along the closed seam of her mouth, the two ends tickling her swollen, sensitized flesh. Her gasp gave him the opening he sought, and his tongue slipped into her mouth.
This time, the deep, hungry moan definitely came from him as his tongue penetrated her lips. His hands lowered to wrap around her waist, pulling her out of her chair and onto his coils, which shifted beneath her. He pressed her against his bare chest, her palms flat against his scaled pecs, which twitched beneath her touch.
His long, agile tongue ravaged her mouth as his lips claimed hers, growing bolder and hungrier. Cass’s body responded with her own hunger, even as she felt the alien shift of scales and muscle beneath her thighs.
Then the end of his tail coiled around her ankles, sliding upwards while wrapping around her legs, capturing her in his coils so she couldn’t escape him.
Cass panicked, realizing that the simple exploratory peck on the lips that she’d intended was about to lead somewhere she wasn’t ready to go. She turned her head to the side, his tongue slipping out of her mouth as she pressed as hard as she could against his chest with both hands.
The hiss he released sounded both angry and hungry. His tail tightened around her lower body and legs, while her hands did nothing to budge him.
Before she could plead for him to release her, his mouth lowered to her exposed throat, where he began to lick and kiss at her pounding pulse, inspiring a shudder of desire. Heat speared through her, soaking her jumpsuit between her legs until she was certain she could have slipped one of his spiked cocks inside her without any added lube.
“Stop,” she mouthed, her breath stolen by his hungry kisses down her neck to her collarbone. “Stop!” she tried again, though it came out as barely a whisper.
His tail curled higher up her body, coils now holding her from the waist down to her ankles.
“Please, stop, Nahash!” She managed a near-shout that time that caused him to freeze, his chest muscles so tight with tension beneath her hands that it was like pressing against the tuned strings of a guitar.
He lifted his head from her neck, his mouth slightly open as his breath rasped from him. His dilated pupils had turned his eyes completely black. His sharp teeth gleamed against the tan color of his lip scales as he panted with hunger.
“Please release me.” Her voice had dropped back to a whisper, but this time, his dilated gaze fixed on her face, proving that he’d heard her.
He heard her, but she wasn’t entirely sure he understood, since his tail only tensed around her. When she struggled against it—fear overtaking her desire for the first time since she recognized that they’d gone too far—his lips peeled back in a snarl. His arms moved to wrap around her upper body, tightening around her shoulders to tug her back against his chest.
“Let me go,” she said, fear finally giving strength to her voice. She tried to pound on his chest, but he held her pinned so tightly against him that her arms barely moved. “I mean it, Nahash! If you don’t let me go right now, I’ll never speak to you again!”