CollisionWithParadise (23 page)

As she reached out to what was left of the control panel, Genevieve caught site of her own hand. It was purple! At first she decided it was the Eosian light reflecting on her. Then she took a closer look down the length of her body and screamed.

“Oh, my God!” she gasped. “I’m purple! I’m one of them!” Something inside her snapped and she fell apart. She sank to her knees in despair. “Oh, Zac, What have I done.”

What a mess she’d made. They all hated her. Even the Eosian forest had conspired against her, seducing her into a sexual transgression, with the compulsion to break every taboo in the Eosian tablet of rules. Even now, she could still feel her rebellious body stirring to the
vishna’s
allure. It would have been better if she’d died and the rest of the crew had survived. Diaprepes had called her his queen. Sure, she thought miserably, she’d done a great job of royally botching everything.

“I hate this place! I hate them all!” She pounded the glabrous mess that used to be Zac’s console then stroked it and leaned her cheek against the rough metalloid. Mind summoning back their silly joking and banter, Genevieve murmured in a splintered voice, “Here’s one for you Zac. What do you call sex with a nerd? Dorkgasm.” She choked on the answer and hiked in sobbing breaths between a spasmodic strings of words: “Oh, Zac! I miss you!” She sank into a ball on the floor and wept convulsively.

Zac, who understood her, who laughed with her, who kept her company and never judged her. Zac, who loved her…

She swallowed her sob at a clinking sound in the aft hall and swung her head around, then inhaled sharply
—
Azaes stood at the exit door of the control room, tall and magnificently naked, chest heaving with laboured breaths as if he’d run the whole way. His eyes were on fire and they flamed into hers.

She surged to her feet and quickly wiped away her tears, then squared her shoulders defiantly, unwilling to show him her vulnerability. She wondered how long he’d been standing there and felt her face burn. Had he heard her foolish dialogue with the ship? Come to think of it, he looked a little annoyed that she wasn’t hurt―he’d probably broken into a sprint when he heard her scream of distress, only to find her muttering angry words about Eos to herself.

She raised herself tall, unashamed of her nudity, and met his eyes with a steely stare. He, on the other hand, was obviously uncomfortable seeing her this way, totally revealed, legs spread apart in combat stance, fists firmly planted on her hips. And totally purple. She watched him drink in her body and her heart raced. Her breasts swelled with heaving breaths as she caught sight of his stirring penis.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“It’s the effect of the planet’s atmosphere, the aerosols exuded by the vegetation,” he explained, not bothering to answer her question. “Your pigments were already transforming, though not noticeably. But when you joined with the
vishna
, the transformation was enhanced. It became almost instantaneous.”

She firmed her lips and stood her ground, facing him with smouldering anger.

Azaes remained where he was. He said calmly, “You must come back with me, Genevieve.”

She glanced at the rope of strong vine clutched in his large hand. “I’ve seen enough of your paradise,” she bit out. “And I’ve done enough damage for one day. Thanks for the hospitality,” she said tartly, “I really must go now.”

“You can’t.”

She snorted. “Oh, and you’re going to stop me?”

If her retort rattled him, he didn’t show it. “Your ship
—
it’s dead. It will not take you home. You must come back with me,” he ended in a commanding voice.

“Must?” she said jeeringly, hiking a brow and throwing her hair back with a quick snap of her head. He still had a lot to learn about the human spirit. She refused to submit to the fact that he’d correctly deduced her pathetic situation.

He closed the distance between them in two long strides and after a lurching hesitation, seized her by the shoulders with a strong grip. His warm breath upon her was spiced with sweet intoxication. “Yes,
must
,” he said, eyes burning.

She took in a halting breath, then shook her head to clear it from the dizzy haze of his scent. “You’re not my keeper,” she hissed. “And I’m not coming back. I’m going to fix Zac.” She wasn’t about to admit defeat in front of Azaes. “And… and…” she blustered, “failing that, I’ll just live here by myself!” She struggled fiercely, refusing to acknowledge the ridiculousness of her situation. “Let me go!” She kicked out.

He yelped but held on, tightening his grip. “What madness possessed you to come out here like this? My brother is more foolish than I thought!”

“But a lot kinder!” she spat.

“So you think, fool of a woman!” He shook her for emphasis. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous out here?
He
should have known better than to send you here.”

“Your brother didn’t
send
me!”

“You’re particularly vulnerable. You didn’t grow up with the
vishna
. They will overpower you and drive you insane!”

As if he cared! “So your brother already warned me! It’s you who’s doing the overpowering now!” she shot back, then managed to free an arm and slapped him hard in the face. It smacked loudly and shocked his face into a deep purple. “You killed my husband!” she shrieked, not caring if he retaliated. Rage had taken over. “Now leave me alone! I can take care of myself. I have work to do and you have a wedding to go to!”

“That’s enough!” he bellowed, dodging her swings but not fighting back, except to tighten his vice grip until it hurt. “Your husband killed himself!”

“You’re lying!” She kicked out hard, making contact with his shin.

He yelped. “Sacred Universe! Will you be still!”

Azaes forced her backward violently. She tripped and they both stumbled to the floor. His body fell heavily upon hers and they both gasped. He smelled like the pulsing jungle, dripping with the overpowering scent of sex. And his wide eyes looked almost frightened as he stared into hers. Then without warning, his lips seized hers, crushingly. She almost lost her breath. His tongue thrust and pulled her inside him, captive. Teasing. Alluring. Torturing. His hands mauled her breasts, chafing them painfully like wood for a fire. My God! What was he doing?

“You killed them all,” she insisted in panting breaths, pushing away from him, when he released her mouth with a gasping moan. He responded by cupping his hands under her buttocks and sliding over her with his pelvis. She gasped out a moan, feeling the length of his hardness dig into her abdomen. Oh, his magnificent cock! She wanted it and felt the wetness surge out even as she struggled to get out from under him.

“First you tortured them with your dreams,” she said in sobbing breaths as she pummeled his back, while undulating and arching her pelvis to his rhythm. “Then you let your cowardly gods finish them off!”

Sweat dripped off his chin onto her face. His breaths were shallow and hard. Then, to her surprise—and disappointment—he leaned back with a humourless smile to sit astride on her thighs. He grabbed the long vine tendrils he’d dropped beside him and seized her arms, gruffly stretched them out and swiftly tied them to the legs of the console. Staring up into his pained face, she let him tie her without a struggle. What in God’s green Earth was he doing?

“I tortured no one who wasn’t already torturing himself or
herself
,” he panted, cinching the vine tight with a jerk, hurting her wrist and making her wince. “But you
will
be still now, woman!”

“You messed with their minds,” she went on in bursts of gasping and panting. “Lured them to do their own dirty work. You probably convinced them to drive the ships right into the asteroid ring,” she said with sudden macabre inspiration. “Just like Zac!”

“Sacred Universe!” he cried in a voice of anguish. “I did no such thing. I may have invaded your mind, but you invaded my heart. It is
you
who are torturing
me
!” he said with real torment, stunning her into momentary silence.

He jerked to his feet and scrambled to retrieve more vines he’d left in the hallway. Obviously he’d come prepared to take her by force, she thought. He knelt beside her and brusquely pulled her legs apart. She sucked in a breath and watched him lash one leg to a fallen console. Then he grabbed her other leg and tied it to part of another fallen instrument panel. Work done, he pushed himself to his feet, breathing heavily with legs straddled over her spread-eagled body. Nose flaring with surging emotion, he let his gaze slowly glide from her face down her heaving breasts to her spread legs and her sex, laid open, wet and pulsing. He looked insane. God! His truant behaviour went against everything Eosian. Perhaps he was a heretic after all! Or just plain mad.

He dropped down to kneel astride her, huge cock hanging magnificently between his large muscular thighs. Her eyes flickered from his tortured face to his already engorged penis, hard and erect as he knelt poised in silence. She struggled to get free. He responded by throwing himself on her with a grunt and she gasped. She inhaled sharply as his hard cock jabbed against her belly. He slid frantically over her, eyes closing and burying his face in her hair. He breathed in the scent of her hair with a long inhale, and ran his trembling hands through it with a moan of pure ecstasy.

She felt like his prisoner, yet his captor at the same time.

Still moaning, he travelled down to her breasts. Hands, lips and tongue mauled her breasts and her nipples. They teased out a painful longing that brought a hard tug against her bonds and sent her body jerking in wild spasms. His tongue traveled down her belly to the hairs above her crotch, where he lingered obsessively in her forest of nether hair and sucked in sharp breaths between gasps of pleasure.

Then he was there, licking away the wetness she’d already jetted out, tongue flickering and penetrating. She gasped out a low moan, arching and desperate for him to fill her. He responded with his hand. Her mouth snapped open at his stroking fingers. It drew out more pleading cries from her. He was torturing her, pulling out an exquisitely painful yearning and refusing to meet it.

As her beseeching cries rose to wails of agony, his lips closed over her open mouth and his tongue lashed hers to the stroke of his fingers. Despite the lack of depth, his wild rhythm released her orgasm and she shuddered as she came.

But she remained a passenger, a vessel of his lovemaking. He’d simply unlocked a deeper coil of tension. She bucked hard, keening through his mouth, needing to get more, to do more. He roared down her throat as if in defiance, then entered her with swift violence. She came instantly from deep inside with a scream, muscles pulsing in waves of release as he continued to thrust franticly and vigorously. Then he shuddered hard and ejaculated with a roaring bellow, collapsing on her with a guttural sigh. Overwhelmed with emotion, she wanted to throw her arms around him, but they were immobilized.

After a long silence, he lifted his head to stare down at her and she saw an expression of feral satisfaction on it. “You bring out the worst in me,” he growled.

“The
best
,” she snarled back.

“Ah, Genevieve” he sighed, tenderly stroking her hair. “Perhaps the best…but certainly my first.”

She’d forgotten that and felt strangely exhilarated and guilty that she’d ended his virginity. He didn’t seem to mind right now. He kissed her fervently, penis stirring again inside her. She stirred with him, knowing that each time it would be different, like he’d said in her dream, and that she desired him like no other man she’d known.

But, to her great disappointment, he withdrew, releasing her from her sexual trance. She realized that it was to untie her arms. As he did, he whispered hoarsely, “I release the beast.” He spun around on all fours until his butt faced her, genitals visibly hanging down between his spread out legs, and untied her legs. Remaining in that position, he twisted his head around to face her. “Now, you are free to whip me!” he cried hoarsely, brusquely handing her the vines. “Come! Ask me your questions. Give me your challenges! And I must answer to your satisfaction…or else!”

She raised herself on her elbows to study his buttocks and his manly equipment hanging in front between muscular thighs, and found herself relishing this. “Okay,” she said, “About your
soul-drifting
into those crewer’s dreams. Why did you make them insane?”

He jerked his head around with a frown. “I didn’t make them insane.”

“Wrong answer!” She whipped his ass hard with the vines. They slapped satisfyingly, making him wince as his huge scrotum constricted, and left temporary lines of dark purple welts.

“Their dreams only revealed their guilt, a longing for redemption or punishment in some cases…” Azaes said in a gravely voice, keeping his head facing forward so she could not see his expression. “I cannot make anyone dream anything they do not want to.”

She thought this over for a moment. “Then my dreams of you…” she trailed, brows coming together.

“Yes, Genevieve,” he said through an obvious smile. Or was it a grimace? she couldn’t see his face. “With you, it was different yet again. You took over the dream unlike anyone I have ever experienced. It was
you
who invaded
my
mind!”