Pursued by Presley Hall
Nadia
Brielle isquiet as we make our way back to our pod. I’m silent for the entire walk back, too, the burning in my cheeks receding in the crisp fall air as we hurry down the streets. Brielle keeps her hand on my elbow for a long time, as if she’s afraid I’ll turn around and go running back to the palace if she doesn’t.
Part of me wants to. But I never would. Just the thought of bursting into that grand hall and looking for Zatir fills me with hot embarrassment, although the thought that follows that—of him seeing me and pushing through the crowd to meet me halfway, drawing me into his arms and kissing me fiercely, swearing that nothing will ever separate us again—makes me burn for an entirely different reason.
But that’s a fantasy. A fairytale. The kind of thing that never happens in real life.
The moment we’re back inside our pod with the door shut, my sister whirls to face me.
“Are you sure Zatir didn’t hurt you?” she asks sharply, her blue eyes skimming over me as if searching for some sign of injury. “What did he do? What did he say? What exactly happened?”
She asks all of those questions in rapid-fire succession, not giving me time to answer any one of them before the next one comes. When she finishes, she stands there with her arms crossed over her chest, and I sigh.
“It was the bond, Brielle,” I say tiredly. I suddenly want very much just to go to bed.
I know that my older sister doesn’t doubt the bond. She’s seen it happen as often as I have, so there’s no way to deny that it’s real. But I also know that she’s wary of it. It’s obvious in the way she’s tried to keep me away from the warriors, as if hoping to cut off any chance that it could happen to either of us.
And of course, she’s eternally protective of me—particularly when it comes to relationships that happen very quickly, like the one I escaped from back on Earth.
But what just happened with Zatir is nothing like that.
“You can reject the bond,” Brielle reminds me. I can hear her thinking quickly now, using her lawyer voice, the one she uses when she’s formulating an argument against something on the fly. “The Kalixians have mentioned that before. Just because the bond activates, that doesn’t mean the two people have to be together. They can still decide for themselves.”
She looks at me expectantly, as if she thinks I’ll be overjoyed that she’s told me this, that she’s found a loophole. As if I should want immediately to extricate myself from this situation I’ve found myself in.
As if it’s automatically a bad thing.
I just nod, acknowledging what she’s said without really saying anything. I’m still reeling from all of it. My thoughts and feelings are a jumbled mess, a tangle that I don’t know how to unravel. On the one hand, logic tells me that I should distrust this, that I know what happens when you fall too hard, too fast, without stopping to think. That I’m young and naïve, and I should trust my sister to look out for me.
But on the other hand, I also know what I felt. I know the sincerity that I saw in Zatir’s eyes. I know he’s a rogue, a playboy, a lone wolf who’s probably slept with women all across the universe. But what I saw in his gaze was a man who, once he felt the bond, was ready to drop all of that in an instant. Who wanted me, and only me. And I desperately wanted to find out what it would be like to be kissed by a man who felt that way.
I believed him. I know maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did.
And I would have let myself give in if Brielle hadn’t stopped us. I don’t know whether to be angry or grateful that she did.
My sister seems to see the confusion on my face, because her next words are softer. Still serious, but more gentle. It reminds me of the way she was after my injury, how conciliatory and kind she was, even though I know she wanted to tell me all the reasons I should never have gotten myself into that situation with Kevin in the first place. She reaches out and takes my hands in both of hers, stepping closer to me.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt again, Nadia,” she says as gently as she can. “I’m just trying to keep you safe. I want what’s best for you.”
I nod again, looking down at the floor. I know that’s true. She’s always tried to do that. But a tiny part of me wonders if she really even knows what that is. Does Brielle realize that I’m trying not to be that same girl anymore—to not be the person I was at my weakest and most vulnerable point? Does she see that I’m trying to grow up, to find out who I’m meant to be in this world?
“I’m tired,” I say quietly, tugging my hands out of her grasp. She looks faintly hurt and almost as if she wants to argue, but then she glances at my face and relents.
“All right.” She steps back, drawing in a breath. “You’re right, it’s been a long night. We should go to bed.”
We’re quiet after that. We get ready for bed on opposite sides of the room, Brielle sitting on the edge of her bed and taking down her hair as I unpin mine at the small dresser. I lay the carved pin on the wood surface and look down at the shining metal, gleaming white against the dark wood. It makes me think of the moons, high in the sky above us as Zatir almost kissed me, the moonlight flooding over the balcony and washing us in that pale glow.
It was the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me.
Even now, I can’t stop thinking about him, as if the memory of our encounter is burned into my head.
I think of everything about him. The confident, cocky way he behaves. The way he speaks so smoothly and charmingly while still sounding utterly sincere—not like he’s sweet-talking me in that gross way that so many men on Earth do, but as if he really means everything he says. I think of the little I know about what he’s done in the war against the Orkun, the stories I’ve heard circulating about him since yesterday. Some of them are probably exaggerated, but still, the thought of it makes my heart race all over again. He may be an alien, but he’s everything I’ve ever fantasized about, the kind of man I didn’t think existed outside of books and movies.
As I slip into bed and bid Brielle a mumbled goodnight, I’m still thinking of him. Of the way it felt to be so close to him, the heat of his strong, muscled body warming me, the way his amber eyes looked gazing into mine. The way we almost kissed, how full and warm his lips looked, how good they would have felt against mine. How it might have felt to melt into him, to be consumed by him, claimed by him.
When I finally fall asleep, my whirling thoughts of Zatir morph into a dream.
And in the dream, he doesn’t stop.
He kisses me, his hands buried in my hair, his lips fierce and relentless, until I’m breathless and desperate for him. My blood turns molten in my veins, my body arching into his as I ache for more, more, more. He’s just as confident and dominant in my dream as he seemed in real life, his arm going around me and pulling me close against him, his lips against my ear whispering everything that he’s going to do to me—and I like it.
It ignites a lust in me like nothing I’ve ever known. I’m almost begging him to keep going, my hands twining in his thick dark hair, fingers brushing against the base of his horns, wanting all of him.
All of this unfamiliar, cocky, handsome, gorgeous alien.
We’re still on the balcony when his hand slides up my leg, pushing up my skirt. His body shields me from anyone who might see as he presses me back against the balcony railing, his hand sliding up my inner thigh. I feel a moment of fear and embarrassment, wondering who might see us—and then his fingers brush between my legs, and I don’t care anymore. The nervousness is replaced by excitement, by the thrill of what we’re doing, the adventure of it. I throw caution to the wind, kissing him again as his fingers part my folds, discovering how wet I am.
I gasp against his mouth when his fingers brush over me. As they slide inside me, his thumb presses firmly against my clit, commanding my body’s responses as easily as if I were made to be his.
And maybe I was.
Maybe everything in my life has been bringing me to this exact moment, held against a balcony railing under the moonlight by the most devastatingly handsome man I’ve ever met, on an alien planet a million miles away from home.
I give myself over to it completely. I moan and sigh into his mouth, my body moving with his caresses. My hips arch into his hand as he brings the pleasure higher and higher—a pleasure I’ve only known from quiet nights alone in my own bed. No one has ever made me come before. I’ve never felt this kind of sensation from a man touching me, and suddenly, I’m glad.
I’m glad it’s Zatir who’s the first one to do this, to bring me to the brink of what feels like incredible, shattering ecstasy.
When I come, he kisses me hard just as I fall over the edge, as if he felt me trembling there. He swallows my cry, keeping anyone else from hearing, his arm around my waist holding me close as I come apart in his arms. I’m trembling and shaking from the force of it, deep emotions pouring through me along with the pleasure. I’ve never felt anything like this, so all-consuming, so powerful, and I want to keep feeling it.
I never want him to let me go.
“I’m going to claim you,” he whispers in my ear.
His voice is hoarse and so full of need that it makes me shiver, his breath warm against my ear as I tremble in his arms. His fingers stay buried inside me as my body clenches around him, arousal flooding over his hand. I should probably be embarrassed, but I’m not. Something tells me that no reaction I have to this man, nothing I could do, would ever do anything but arouse him more.
“I’m going to make you mine,” he whispers again. Then he draws back just enough to turn me around.
My hands clutch at the railing as his fingers slide out of me. I feel empty for a moment, hollow, but the feeling is temporary. Zatir pushes up my skirts hurriedly, his hands grasping at them as he groans, his hips pushing against me as one of his arms wraps around my waist, holding my body hard against his.
His muscled frame curves over mine, his lips against the back of my neck.
“Are you ready for me, my Irisa?” he rasps.
I jolt awake, my eyes popping open as I suck in a gasping breath of air. I sit half-upright in bed, stopping myself before I can accidentally wake Brielle. My cheeks flush just at the thought of explaining to her why I’m awake.
My heart is pounding in my chest, and I press my hand hard against it, dragging in a breath as I try to calm my racing pulse.
Holy shit.
I’ve never had a sex dream like that before. Never one so vivid and intense.
Lying back down, I close my eyes and roll over onto my side, silently cursing my brain for snapping me out of the dream when it did. Then again, I guess it makes sense. I’ve never had sex with anyone before, so my imagination doesn’t have much to draw on.
But despite the arousal that still throbs between my legs, something tells me that the dream was just a pale imitation of what it would be like to be claimed by Zatir for real.
