7. Chapter 6

She didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. She froze with her hand on the doorknob. How did he get here from the hall? She didn’t hear his footsteps behind her. He must have taken some other route.

That voice sent shivers down her spine. She murmured over her shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

“Thank you. Thank you for saying the things you did. Thank you for trying to warn us about the Allies.” His voice caressed her like she couldn’t believe. How could she deny that voice?

She turned around to see him standing next to the tapestry where he kissed her. She kept her voice low like his. She didn’t want to others to hear her talking to him. Why not? What did she have to hide from her friends?

She took a step toward him. “Isn’t there any way to convince you?”

“You already convinced me. You said the Allies were a threat, and I believe you. They just aren’t as big a threat as the Ulasso. They aren’t even on the planet.”

“We’re on the planet.”

His eyes darted around her face. “Do you want me to believe you’re a threat?”

“Of course not! I only want to...to protect you. I want to save you if I can.”

A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Go ahead, then. Protect me. Save me.”

She blushed to her eyelashes. “You know what I mean.”

He breathed through his nose. “What’s it like for you, with the men of your world? What’s it like with men like Rex? What do you do with each other?”

She gasped out loud. “What are you talking about? What do you mean—what do we do with each other? What do you think we do with each other?”

“I mean what’s it like when the women are dominant? How does it work?”

She couldn’t meet that direct gaze. “I guess it works the same way as anywhere else.”

“Does the woman go on top every time? Does the man ever initiate it? How does a woman give a man pleasure if she’s dominant?”

Jasmine stared at him in blank horror. How could he come right out and ask her questions like this? Worst of all, she didn’t know how to answer them. How exactly did a woman give a man pleasure when she concerned herself so much with dominating? Did Jasmine ever let Rex or any other man initiate? Was that the reason she got so annoyed with him in her room—because he tried to initiate something he had no business initiating?

Her mind roiled in confusion. She couldn’t answer those questions. She couldn’t think of one intelligent thing to say on the subject, so she changed it. “How do you please a woman when you dominate? What do you do to women when you are dominant? How does it work?”

He bent his chin so his eyes pierced her to her core. “Would you like to find out?”

She sucked the air through her teeth. She hadn’t meant that at all, but the question stunned her so much she couldn’t answer. Where was the biologist in her? Wouldn’t she like to know how it worked when men and women reversed their sex roles? Wouldn’t she like to take that information back to the Allies?

He turned sideways and walked a few steps around her. He stopped next to her shoulder and murmured in her ear. “You want to find out, don’t you? You’ve never been dominated by a man, have you?”

She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. What was he suggesting? He wanted to dominate her. He wanted to make her submit to him. She never submitted to a man in her life. Men submitted to women in her world, not the other way around.

She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t let this happen. They just agreed to keep their distance, and now….

He moved the rest of the way behind her. He dropped his voice to a purr. The vibration rattled her bones so low she could hardly hear it. “You want it, don’t you? You want me to finish what I started earlier. You didn’t want it then, but you want it now. You want to find out what it’s like with a dominant man.”

She closed her eyes against those intoxicating vibrations moving through her. She couldn’t cope with the intensity of this moment. What was he going to do to her?

He walked all the way back around her until he came to a standstill in the same place before her. He surveyed her mouth one more time.

Jasmine shuddered. “We shouldn’t do this.”

He addressed her in a normal tone of voice. “No, we shouldn’t.”

Did she imagine everything he said behind her? Did those words come out of her fevered daydreams? His mouth, his skin, his eyes—everything about him confused and horrified her, but she couldn’t tear herself away. She had to find some way to make it real, even if it destroyed her.

She ached to move closer to him. She teetered on her feet. “Isn’t there any way I can convince you to take this threat seriously?”

His eyes widened. He understood exactly what she meant.

She picked up her foot and took one shaky step toward him. “I care about your people. I care about what happens to you. I want to help you if I can. I’ll do anything.”

A wave of black shapes washed over his face. “Anything?”

She crossed the last divide to stand in front of him. His skin shimmered all over with dark, seething pictures. “Anything.”

He lowered his voice one more time. She hadn’t imagined it at all. “Will you submit to me?”

Her lips formed the word, but no sound came out. “Yes.”

Something changed in his skin. The tension holding his frame so stiff and strong softened before her. He didn’t move, but transformation took over him from his head to his feet. An invisible barrier collapsed between them.

He leaned forward and kissed her, exactly the way she knew he would. He didn’t have to move. She already stood close enough. That kiss started the way their first kiss started. He studied her. He explored and tested, and she responded. She investigated him, tasted him, and searched him. Was this really going to happen?

His giant hands scooped around her. He took two handfuls of her ass and lifted her off the ground. He pressed her against his body, and a hard spike dug between her legs. Holy smokes! This really was going to happen. He really intended to do this, even against both their better judgments.

He couldn’t. He shouldn’t. He wouldn’t. He would let her down in a minute, and they would both walk away like they did earlier. He would see the need to keep everything professional and above board, the same way she did.

He let her down, and her feet touched the ground, but his mouth still tugged at her lips. His tongue tingled behind her teeth and ignited one firework explosion after another. She almost regretted ending it. He excited her as no man ever had. She certainly never regretted walking away from Rex this way.

He eased off her mouth, and his hands glided up her waist to her ribs. He settled down. His energy no longer fumed and raged against her. He moved back so a tiny speck of space parted them. She could see his eyes more clearly now.

He questioned her with his gaze. What was it like for her? Did she like it? Did she want to continue? She wanted to, but she couldn’t. She had a job to do, and so did he. He would leave to fight the Ulasso. She probably wouldn’t see much of him before the Allies recalled her and the rest of the team for good.

She let out a long sigh. Well, it was nice while it lasted. It gave her a brief glimpse into the psychology of these strange people. She could honestly say she’d kissed a dominant man. She even experienced the thrill of submitting herself to one of them. What woman among the Allies could honestly say that?

She would probably never tell her friends and colleagues what she had done. After all, who in their right mind would want to submit to a dominant man? Certainly not Jasmine Forsythe, Commanding Officer.

She leaned back to stare at those mesmerizing shapes covering his face. They grew out of his neck to spread around his mouth and nose and eyes. They splattered across his forehead and disappeared into his hair before they appeared again. They decomposed into his skin to feed the next wave swooping out of nowhere to alter his expression.

She saw again the furious dragon shape. It surrounded his eyes to make them fierce burning slits. It deformed his nose into a pointed snout, and his mouth gaped wide into a flaming, gnashing gape full of fangs.

What in God’s name was he? What was he really? She couldn’t distinguish the handsome man standing in front of her from the grotesque image spread over his face. An instant later, it faded until she could barely remember it. Another second passed, and a new mask took the place of the first. Trees and leaves and branches and vines obliterated the man and the dragon—if that’s what it really was. He emerged from the planet itself. He grew out of the ground to thrive and glow and vibrate with life.

She would never see another man like this. Once she left this planet, he would fade in her memory. He would become just another pleasant thing to think about in relaxed moments. If only she could experience more of him, she might be able to take some piece of him with her when she left.

That would never happen. Attacking the Ulasso preoccupied him and she was too professional to ever fully submit to a man like that. She never really wanted to submit anyways. She only wanted to tease herself by thinking about it.

He eased back, too, and the patterns vanished once again. He liked thinking about making her submit. He liked the idea of conquering a dominant woman. In the final analysis, though, He didn’t really want to. A brief dalliance, a kiss in the hall—that’s as far as it would ever go.

Their lips released. It was all over. He gazed down at her from his height. His sheer size excited her in ways she couldn’t imagine. She’d never been this close to a man this big. He could crush her with his hand, but he didn’t. He protected her, even as she worked to protect him.

His fingers twisted in hers. Where did that hand come from? That hand spoke to her heart in a different language than his lips and body. His body demanded submission. That hand in hers whispered togetherness, unity, even equality. Those hands clasped one in the other could never dominate or submit. They didn’t understand those concepts. They only knew each other.

In a split second, all the lust and passion and raging desire of their first kiss crashed over Jasmine. She had to have him, no matter what. She couldn’t walk away from this planet if she didn’t take him with her—or at least the experience of him. She couldn’t live the rest of her life without him in her past, in her flesh and blood.

Whatever communication existed between them, he burst into passionate action. Wicked black starbursts pounded against his skin, and he hurled himself at her at the same moment she lunged toward him.

Devastating power threw them together. His arms strapped around her ribs, and she hung onto his neck for dear life. She groped at his mouth for every kiss she could wring from him. Her whole body kissed him down his front. She pressed her breasts against his chest and her hips against his crotch.

He set her on her feet one last time, but when he looked at her this time, nobody thought of walking away. Walking away was no longer an option. Jasmine would never walk away again. She’d crossed that line and would never go back.

He took her hand again, and this time, their tangled fingers spoke the language of their bodies. It spoke of sweat and blood and screaming unbridled passion. It spoke of barriers torn down and limits passed and surpassed.