Page 45 of Stripped By the Alien

Only after several heartbeats does he finally look down at me. His gaze moves across my face, my scorched clothing, and my shaking hands. The fury is still there, but something else has joined it now. And I think it’s relief.

“Nora.” My name emerges as a low rumble. The way he says it feels different from before. I can't explain why. Perhaps it's the memory of seeing him dive into a furnace after me. Perhaps it's the realization that he could have let me die and chose not to.

Or perhaps it's because, when I was falling toward that fire, I knew exactly who I wanted to come save me. And he did.

“I tried to escape,” I admit. My throat is raw and I smell the burning from my wrap.

Krix’vorr looks down at me for a moment. “You’re a warrior. I should have seen it.” He changes his grip on me and lifts me in his arms, turns and walks through a big membrane that opens. Trailing my singed wrap, he marches fast through corridors until we’re back in his chamber.

He places me carefully on the alien bed and gently removes the singed wrap, or what’s left of it.

“Are you injured?” he asks, gaze sweeping over me from head to toe, as naked as I’ve ever been.

“A little,” I manage. The relief of having escaped death is starting to wash over me, and my whole body shakes. I’m not in any pain, but I feel like I must have some second-degree burns after the intense heat of that furnace.

But I was saved. And now I have an intense urge to enjoy my life, for real. Hard tingles shoot down my bare body as big, strong hands stroke my skin with a gentleness that makes my head spin.

I watch him move around me, checking for injuries with the same relentless focus he brings to everything else. A little while ago I was convinced he was going to hand me over to a torture specialist. Before that I was certain he was a monster from humanity’s worst nightmares.

Maybe he still is. He harvests worlds. He serves a Queen who would strip Earth without a second thought. Yet when I fell into that furnace, he came after me without hesitation.

I can still remember the feel of his arms closing around me, the thunder of those impossible wings, the certainty that as long as he held me I wasn't going to die.

Looking up at him now, huge and powerful and completely intent on my welfare, I feel something dangerous uncurl inside me. Gratitude, relief, attraction, or some reckless mixture of all three. Whatever it is, it makes my pulse race.

“I see bruises on you,” Krix’vorr rumbles. “And you’re trembling. I will heal you.”

My whole body twitches when I understand what he means. Suddenly that’s the only thing in the universe I want. “Yes,” I urge him hoarsely. “Heal me!”

It's not a joke, either. That furnace could traumatize me badly, and I know on some primitive level that I need that terror drowned out, put in the shade by something bigger, something really good.

Krix’vorr looms over me, eight feet of carapace and restrained power. His thin wings are half-open behind him, trembling. His antennae flick forward, as if tasting the air around my body. The huge eyes glitter with bright emerald. “I will.”

My gaze snaps down to his midsection. The bulging shield of his carapace is parting. What it reveals makes my mouth go dry. It's thick, heavily ridged, flushed a deep, living crimson. It has bulbs and flared segments that look both intimidating and totally perfect for turning that furnace into only a vague memory.

I want it. I need it.

He pulls me to the edge of the huge bed and settles between my thighs.

The first brush of his mouth is careful, almost reverent. And the mandibles…

“Ooh,” I moan, as the memory of the first healing returns. It was just like that. So gentle and still sooo right–

“Oooh!” It turns intense. That alien tongue, long and clever and textured, finds me already slick and open. He knows exactly how to do this. Days ago he used this same mouth to pull me back from the edge of death. Now he uses it to pull me away from the memory of that furnace.

I arch hard, fists knotting in the sheets. “Krix—” His name comes out broken. He hums against me, a low vibration that travels straight up my spine, and works me open with slow, deliberate strokes. His soft, immensely alien mandibles drag over every sensitive place until my hips are rolling helplessly against his face.

The narrowly avoided disaster and leftover terror twist into pure, desperate arousal. I need more than this. I need him inside me, filling the empty, shaking places the furnace left behind.

“Please,” I gasp. “Not just this. I need more. I want all of you. Now.”

Krix'vorr lifts his head. His antennae brush my inner thighs and his eyes search mine. He moves so I can see him fully, the heavy, glistening length of him rising between us, those thick bulbs and ridges shining. It looks big and dangerous. But it also looks right.

“Nora.” His voice is a deep, resonant click-and-rumble. “That is more than healing. And you are small and fragile.” His cock twitches.

I reach down, wrap my fingers as far as they will go around the warm, hard shaft. The heat of him sears my palm and the ridges flex under my touch. “You healed me. You saved me. You’re here. I need you inside me. I need to feel something that isn’t burning.”

He studies me one more heartbeat. Then the wings flare wider. He moves over me carefully, the carapace cool and smooth where it brushes my pale skin. One large hand cups my hip, steadying. The broad head of him presses against my entrance. It's hot, blunt, already wet. I am so ready that the first push draws a broken sound from both of us.