It felt like a dream. I had fallen through space in a golden cloud, in the arms of a gorgeous man, and somehow, I’d landed safely in a ball of flame in the middle of a thickly carpeted valley.

Looking around me, I absorbed the reality of visiting an alien planet. It felt strange, but surprisingly, not as bizarre as I had imagined it. It was nothing like Vaxivia, that was certain, but it was not unlike the idyllic images I had seen of the more verdant planets in other areas of the Earth Federation.

We had begun our trek away from the crash site. The mere fact that we were walking away from a spaceship crash was incredible. I had anticipated an exciting life for an interplanetary journalist, but this surpassed even my wildest imaginings.

Considering the danger we were in and the danger we had just narrowly escaped, I was still incredibly exhilarated.

Pavar and his brothers accessed survival packs from their pods. No bigger than the size of a small book, they were compressed in a space vacuum, and when they disengaged them from the pods, they expanded and could be slung over a shoulder.

Once we finally reached the tree line of the forest ahead, we slowed our pace slightly. Though I was full of energy and excited by the possibilities ahead of us, my body ached and was sore. Like the other humans in the group, my bruises didn’t fade like those on our Dragselian companions.

Pavar’s pale blue skin had been splotched deep purple and a sickly brownish green in spots along his arms where he had absorbed the impact, trying to protect me. His face, too, had been marred with scrapes and contusions when we first landed.

By the time we had reached the forest canopy, the air had grown humid and warm and he was not the only one to lose a layer of clothing for the sake of comfort. His shirt gone, I stole glances at the chiseled, rippling muscles of his abs and the broad, meaty structure of his shoulders.

He had a thicker, brawnier look to him than his brothers. They were all fit—impressive specimens, no question there—but his build was more solid. Cutting through the thick, creeping underbrush of the forest with his hair flowing in careless auburn waves across his shoulders, he had the powerful, elemental look of a wild man.

I was sweating, but it wasn’t because of the heat of the day. Well, maybe that wasn’t true entirely. It was stiflingly hot beneath the canopy.

Strange sounds emerged from the undergrowth and Pavar stayed close to me. Every so often, a strange cackling call would sound, and I noticed the muscles in his shoulders stiffen as he covertly scanned the area and hung closer to me.

“What is that?” asked Andie, looking alert, hand on the pulsor she’d somehow managed to keep with her.

“Wylaeren,” Karun replied. “They’re the apex predators here. They sense our presence, and though they know better than to challenge more than one dragon, they smell blood and are drawn to it. They’re sending up a call, alerting the others to the prey.”

Laniope, her voice sounding meek as she looked around, scanning the tree line, asked, “Are they stalking us?”

Ragal answered, “They’re not particularly intelligent, nor are they generally active during the day. When they sense prey, they go into a frenzy, calling others in, but not in a coordinated way, though they do form groups to share food and mate.”

I didn’t see anything around us, but their odd call chilled me, and I certainly didn’t mind the escort. I hoped I hadn’t just walked away from a spaceship crash only to be eaten by some opportunistic alien animal.

We traipsed in a line, the brothers rotating the lead position and taking turns guarding the rear. Not long after we had reached the protection of the forest, we heard the echo of activity in the valley behind us. The Dragselian ground troops had apparently found our wreckage.

We limited our breaks, wary of both our Dragselian pursuers and the natural predators of the forest. The pod survival packs contained drinking capsules that, when exposed to humidity, swelled to large sponges, heavy with the water they sucked from the atmosphere and providing us with a way to stay hydrated.

My clothes had begun to stick to me. They were thin nightclothes to begin with, and dampened with sweat and humidity, I knew they were not performing any function of modesty at this point. But, having so narrowly escaped death, no one else seemed to notice, and I really didn’t care.

Pavar had finished his rotation, cutting through the dense brush, and returned to where I was in the line of humans. As he approached, I saw his gaze linger on my barely obscured body.

The hunger in his expression whetted my own appetite. After that kiss, I was dying to know what might follow it. If the desire in his eyes was any indication, it seemed that Pavar was ready to explore that as well. Good. We had flirted and tiptoed around it long enough. Conflict of interest or not, I was ready to dive in and test the waters.

As the sun sank low, I felt my energy drain and was grateful when Jennifer suggested to Zaruv that we find a safe space to rest for the night.

Andie looked concerned. “Is there any chance they’ll be searching through the night?” she asked Karun.

Uncoiling something from his survival kit, he surveyed the trees and answered her. “It is possible, but it is also Wylaeren mating season. As they are primarily nocturnal, they mate at night, and the males emit a strong musk scent, which will make it harder for the ground troops to track us. If I were coordinating the search, I’d suggest halting until a few hours before sunrise, knowing that my quarry would likely be doing the same.”

I looked around and found that both Laniope and Nurin, as well as each of the brothers, were uncoiling some kind of netting from their packs.

I watched Pavar as he held one end and let the netting fall open in a long swath. He must have noticed the confused look upon my face.

“They’re hammocks, part of the survival kits. We have one for each member of the crew. Wylaeren are ground-dwelling predators. They don’t climb, so we’ll be safest closer to the canopy.”

I looked around and saw that for Karun and Andie, Tasha and Ragal, and Jennifer and Zaruv, there was one hammock between them. Laniope and Nurin, however, each had their own. I realized, suddenly, that there wasn’t one for me—my own fault, of course, for smuggling myself aboard, but it left me panicked nonetheless.

I watched as everyone began climbing upward through the sturdy maze of branches.

Pavar turned to me, a challenge in his eyes as he raised one eyebrow. “Well, now or never. What’ll it be?”

I looked to Laniope, the only other single female, knowing that he expected me to scurry over to her, but I didn’t feel the slightest inclination to scurry away.

I returned his challenge with my own, wiping the cocky grin off his face as I traced a finger along his back, walking to the other side of him and finding a handhold to climb.

“Let’s get going then, shall we?”

I felt his body stiffen at the contact and the invitation in my words, and I smiled to myself.

We climbed much further than I anticipated, and by the time we had stopped, I could no longer find the others in the tangles of branches and leaves. It was oddly private and quiet.

It was almost like there was a second level to the forest. The crisscrossing of limbs allowed dead foliage to accumulate, creating a carpet of sorts, though a dangerous and misleading one, for one wrong step would send you crashing down to the unforgiving packed dirt of the true forest floor.

Pavar quickly selected two sturdy branches, testing their strength first and then fastening and straightening the hammock.

“After you, my lady,” he said smoothly, but not so smoothly that I didn’t notice the slight tremor of excitement in his voice.

Climbing in, I realized it was even smaller than I had guessed. Our bodies were squashed together, even more than in the life pod, but this time, there was nothing else to distract from the sensation of our contact. There was a nervous tension that initially felt impenetrable.

We didn’t speak, just lay together aroused and aware of every point of contact along our bodies, silently acclimating to the intimacy of the situation. Pavar had one arm beneath my head, and I rested in the crook of his arm, nestled beside him.

Slowly, sounds began to invade the seclusion of our hammock—the quiet melody of a night bird, the hum of insects, the swish of leaves brushing against one another in the warm breeze. It was an alien world, but somehow, the flow of nature felt distantly familiar.

Then, other sounds began to emerge—a giggle here, a loud exhale there. It didn’t take long to figure out what the sounds were. It might have been awkward, but the sounds of the forest around us grew louder and began to drown them out.

Pavar shifted and the hammock bounced slightly, the hard surface of his chest bracing me. I let my hand rest on it and felt the heat of his bare skin warm my palm.

Saying nothing, I let my fingers trace the lines of his muscles, feeling and hearing the sharp intake of his breath as I reached his belly button.

Feeling bold and bolstered by the receptiveness of his body, I lifted my head and looked into his eyes, echoing his earlier words to me. “It’s now or never, so what’ll it be?”

The tension that had been building between us crescendoed, and he half growled as his head dipped down to meet my upturned mouth.

The kiss was tender but intense, less rushed than our first. We took our time, exploring with our mouths, our passion building in the damp heat of the night.

When his hand slipped below the edge of my blouse, I arched toward him, straining and ready for his touch. Fingers searching, tantalizing my skin with soft caresses, he found my breast, moving his palm to cup me, and I gasped as my arousal grew more eager.

Sliding my top up, he hungrily put his mouth to work, taking the tight peak of my nipple into his warm, wet mouth and stroking it with his tongue. Sensation built and nearly shattered at the sweet relief of his fingers sliding into my ready heat. His thick, calloused fingers gently stroked and massaged, pushing me nearer the edge of release, but it wasn’t enough.

I wanted more than his fingers inside me. Much more.

Tangled with each other, it took me less than a second for my hand to find his swollen shaft. His body tensed as I found my prize, and I rubbed along the coarse fabric of his pants.

Our hands exploring the sensations of our bodies, the frenzy grew maddening. I pulled at the waistband of his pants, and we struggled to free ourselves of the restrictive fabric until we were pressed together, naked body to naked body, my soft curves to his hard lines.

His rock-hard length rested against my skin, and I tilted my hips toward him, grinding against the glorious pressure. We were snug together, each slightly on our side in the middle of the hammock.

Rather than rising above me and tipping us over, he stroked at my core until I was biting my lip to keep from moaning. He slid his hand back to my thigh, lifting it and fitting himself between my legs.

With one exquisitely slow, controlled thrust, he entered me. Torturing us both with slowly mounting pleasure, he maintained that languid pace until, pushed to my limit, I moaned.

“Shh,” he whispered into my ear as he sucked and nuzzled at the crook of my neck, his breaths coming in sharper, harsher sounds, matching the cadence of my own rapid breathing.

“I can’t, I can’t, oh God, Pavar, I can’t,” I pleaded breathily, straining toward him, matching his thrusts.

He didn’t seem to be able to control it himself as he groaned. His hand slid down to my thigh, locking me in place as he thrust even deeper into me. I felt my fingers biting at the skin of his hard, broad shoulders.

Our bodies danced in the most primal way until I felt myself cresting the wave of tension that had risen. Pavar took my mouth with his own, covering it and muffling the panting cry of my release until, breaking free, he buried his own into my hair, groaning as he joined me in pleasure.

He throbbed within me, and the wave of pleasure I was riding crashed and rose again, building even more intensely as my body spasmed around him.

It was exquisite, and I felt lost to time and space as sensation held us captive. Interlocked like that through the night, there seemed nothing else worthy of our attention than to circle this frenzying passion that held us both prisoner. I found myself dreading the light of day.