The Perfect Creation

Chapter Five

After three silent hours of nonstop movement through the forest, Erin wanted a break.

Not that she needed it, but she sought a handle on the man at her back, at the male staring holes through her every time she glanced behind her and caught his piercing gaze. More worrisome than Cheltam’s changing attitude, however, was the fact that the more time she spent in his presence, the more she wanted to bow to his favour. She found herself desiring to ask him what he wanted, if the pace suited him, if the direction was to his liking.

Stop it, Erin. He’s not your Handler. You are no man’s servant, not ever again. Yet her constant reprimands made her that much more aware of his natural dominance, of the light breaths he took while they marched at a warrior’s pace, keeping even with her. So strong, so masterful. And so damned tightlipped about what he thought.

“Okay, I’m taking a break.” Erin stopped at a nearby stream and sat down on waist-high rock, just daring him to argue.

“Fine.” He shrugged off the pack he’d insisted he carry. To her consternation, he didn’t look a bit winded. Her body shivered, wanting another taste and touch of such firm muscle, to feel his warm heartbeat pulsing under her hand again. “Thirsty?” He held up a cup taken from the pack and nodded at the water.

“No, you go ahead.”

He shrugged and crouched low, gathering the water for a long, slow drink.

Small beads dripped down his mouth to his throat, and Erin watched, riveted, as his throat moved in time with his swallows. His full lips hugged the metallic container holding the precious liquid, and his long-fingered hand cupped the small container, cradling it with a firm gentleness that would be devastating on her body. She could all too easily imagine Cheltam’s callused hands on her naked flesh, easing the material off her shoulders, her arms, baring her breasts that even now swelled in anticipation of his touch…

Erin cursed under her breath, suddenly overly warm. She kept her eyes averted from Cheltam and threw off her jacket, taking in great gulps of air. Her hair felt like a blanket over her head and she threaded her hand through the strands, allowing air to pass over her heated skull. Something was very wrong, because her entire body began shaking, overheating. And without thinking about it, she took two steps to the right and threw herself into the ice-cold water of the river, sighing with relief when she slowly regained a measure of normal body temperature.

Stranger than strange. I feel better, yet still tingly, not quite myself. She shook her head, smoothed her hair back, and sighed at how good that felt.

“What the hell are you doing?” Cheltam asked in a croak, staring at her.

“I was hot,” she answered lamely, not sure what to say. The air around them had cooled considerably, and their trek hadn’t been that arduous. She had no idea why she’d grown so hot, and now that she’d resumed a normal body temperature, she began to shiver as the wet cold penetrated her clothes to her skin.

He simply stared at her, but as his gaze travelled over her with deliberate slowness, she saw that the heat in his gaze wasn’t so much from anger as from arousal. Following his stare, she saw the clinging fabric of her thin blouse clinging to her breasts and stomach. The light colour of the shirt, unfortunately, turned transparent when wet, showcasing her stiffening nipples just visible under the ends of her hair.

“Come out of there.” His flat voice gave nothing away, so it surprised her when he leaned forwards and yanked her the rest of the way out of the river. He plastered her to him and kissed the breath out of her before she could blink.

As before, the moment their lips touched, all thought left her. Sensation swamped the corridors of her body, washing her with a need so great she wanted to do whatever he asked to realise satisfaction.

“Baby, you are so fucking sexy,” he moaned, sucking on her lower lip. His hands drew up her ribs to rest under her full breasts. “These I have to see. Now.” His voice brooked no refusal, and the sheer command in his voice forced her to obey.

With trembling fingers she parted her blouse, taken with his thickening breaths.

“That’s it. Take off that wet shirt. You can’t stay in your clothes. Don’t want to catch an illness, do you?” he asked smoothly, running hot hands over her chest. “Mother of Night, your nipples are loving my hands, aren’t they, Erin?” Erin didn’t want to talk, she wanted him to touch her. She wanted his mouth over her breasts, the way he’d done before. She wanted him to fill that aching void between her legs, to put himself inside her the way the couple had in that bar…

“Answer me,” he ordered, staring into her face as he helped her remove her blouse.

She blinked hazily up at him, completely his. “Yes, they love your touch,” she whispered, not understanding when he frowned.

“You’re pulling me in with that godly scent, aren’t you?”

“No,” she answered, lowering her gaze as she’d been taught. She surprised herself with the truth. Though her instinctive response to threat was to lure in her prey, this time with Cheltam felt different. “But you are.”

“I am?” he sounded uneasy, but his touch grew warmer as he fondled her. He stepped closer and pulled her trousers down her legs. “Tell me what I smell like.” He left her body to tug off her boots and leggings and then her trousers, leaving her completely bare.

“Like warmth, like pure areesia in bloom,” she moaned, craving his touch. “Please, Cheltam. Tell me how to please you.”

“Not Cheltam,” he rasped. “Rafe. Call me Rafe.”

She nodded. “Rafe.”

“It’s another name I go by, and we don’t want to let anyone know who I really am,” he continued, as if she needed an explanation. She would call him whatever he wanted so long as he put out this damnable fire within her. He stood and walked her backward until she leaned against a large rock. “Sit back.”

She rested her buttocks against the boulder but was unprepared when he nudged her legs apart with his knee.

“You are so blessedly beautiful,” he breathed, staring at her from top to bottom.

Erin didn’t feel the cold of the air or the rock at her back. She only had eyes for Cheltam—Rafe—until he met her gaze, then she instinctively looked away. Submissive…

Fingers under her chin tilted her gaze back up. “I want you to look at me.”

“Yes, Rafe.” Yes, Sir.

He exhaled heavily. And when he inhaled, he frowned again. “You really aren’t overpowering me with that scent.”

“So what?” She arched closer to him, wanting his hands back on her. But it wasn’t her place to be aggressive. Rafe had to tell her what he wanted. No, Erin, no. Fight it. You’re in charge. You’re the Handler, not Rafe, Cheltam, whatever he wants to be called.

“So…your body is like a furnace, and every other time we’ve been together you’ve been throwing out pheromones left and right. Yet now, nothing? When I can clearly smell your cream?”

“My cream?” Puzzled, she stared at him, watching in bemusement as he fell to his knees in front of her.

“Your cream.” He put his hands on her sensitive thighs and spread her to his gaze, his stare centred on her swollen folds. “That sweet honey I’m going to eat until I’m full.” Alarmed now, she wanted to protest. The Mardu wanted to eat her? The self-preservation that should have kicked in didn’t. She waited for him to do whatever he wanted, her body thoroughly ensnared by his heady scent that thickened as he watched her.

An ache thrummed within her, and she moaned as his face neared her mound, helplessly caught in a war with her body she couldn’t win.

The speed with which his mouth found her sex startled her, as did the pleasure that shot through her.

“Rafe. What are you doing to me?”

He grunted his satisfaction and tightened his grip on her thighs as he sucked on her clit, pulling more and more cream towards his mouth. He licked with a tongue that stroked in all the right places, and like before, she burst into an incredible orgasmic bliss. Energy spiralled out from her core, his mouth electric as it wrung more and more pleasure from her.

But when he inserted a long finger into her, she tensed at the intrusion, her body making way for something larger than her own digit. And still it was not enough. The orgasm continued to wrack her as he pushed deeper, while he licked and sucked her clit.

“More,” he growled and pulled on her flesh with his teeth as he added another finger into her sheath. “So damned tight.” Working into her, he thrust repeatedly in and out of her channel with his fingers until the small pressure holding back further penetration broke. A huge burst of ecstasy ruptured the small spurt of pain until a plane of unimaginable rapture filled Erin’s world.

She distantly heard Rafe’s curse, felt his fingers slipping from her body as she blinked into a world layered atop her own. Colours became brighter, noises louder yet softer at the same time, soothing her into a state of utter peace. And then warmth covered her body, the rasp of Rafe’s shirt against her breasts pulling a moan from her. Unbidden, her body released a torrent of perfume, tying Rafe to her in an unimaginable hold.

Blinking up at him, Erin watched his eyes glow like twin suns as he pushed inside her with something more than his finger. He practically purred his pleasure as he pushed deeper and harder into her, until he fully seated himself inside her. Instead of the discomfort she would have thought to feel, however, excitement and a feeling of utter right lit her from the inside out.

“Erin, dear Flor, you’re in heat,” he moaned, pulling out only to slam back in. Rafe claimed what no male ever had, drawing from her sensations she’d never before felt. “Fuck. I have to have you. All of it, again.”

Still floating in that state of pleasure, she felt the eddying climax swell, pushing her sated body towards the crest of fulfilment yet again. As Rafe filled her with himself, a part of their energy overlapped. His pulling hers back to the forest, and hers pulling him onto a plain of conscious pleasure she never wanted to leave again.

“Yes, yes,” he moaned as his pace increased.

She felt his body overtaking hers, experienced the awareness of enveloping another, of feeling his body press hers in intimate places that sparked greater and greater pleasure. Rafe locked his mouth over hers, devouring her lips and breath as he took her harder and faster.

Erin shook, on the edge again as he pulled her with him out of that ecstatic place, only to teeter at the edge of it together. Rafe abruptly ended the kiss and caught the sides of her head in a firm grip.

Staring down into her gaze, he mastered her body and mind, controlling her every physical sensation. “I’m going to shoot so hard inside you,” he said thickly, and she moaned as he readjusted his angle of penetration. “Fuck, Erin, you’re so right.” Perfume covered them both, a mixture of his areesia and her spice, and he groaned as he pushed deeper inside her, the fullness so tight it almost hurt.

“But I’m not going to come until you do. So come for me, baby. Come now,” he urged as he bit hard at the tendon of her throat.

Erin couldn’t help but do as he commanded, and she screamed as she came, her climax obliterating all else. Once again that joyful plane awaited, but this time Rafe was there with her, jetting inside her while his energy entwined with hers.

Erin couldn’t have said when she lost consciousness, or when she eventually left that floaty perception of perfection. She shifted and suddenly felt Rafe holding her tight. He kissed the top of her head and hugged her closer. And for the first time in her life, the caution she lived with on a daily basis left her. With a soft sigh, she felt him withdraw, and she snuggled closer to bask in the warmth of the only male besides Ryen she’d started to trust.

After laying them both down on the ground over their scattered clothes, Rafe stared down at Erin, baffled at how a woman not Mardu could experience a Mardu female’s heat and wainu, both while still a virgin. By Flor’s dagger, but the woman made him crazed with just a taste. Rafe of Mardu—a Xema warrior—undone by sex. It was unheard of. His kind revered sensuality. Xema both basked in pleasure and controlled it, through years of steady practice. Through sex, Rafe could better manage his energy and eventually reach wainu— a spiritual centre that would increase his strength the more he reached it.

Yet with Erin, he’d lost any semblance of reason, a prisoner to desire. All he’d thought when eating her had been, Mine. And Gar hinted she might be a Creation? What Creation could mimic Mardu characteristics? Could take a Xema warrior to wainu?

Incredibly, the spitfire who’d not only kept pace with him but tried to take charge of everything they did had ceded him everything. Her virginity and her submission, and he still couldn’t believe it. Twice now he’d shared intimacies with Erin, and each time just got better.

Hell, he’d shot so hard and so deep into her he still felt connected to the woman.

Her innocence didn’t mesh at all with the incredible blow job she’d given him. And he couldn’t decide whether to be pleased that he’d claimed what no one ever had before, or annoyed that she’d misled him by agreeing to ‘perform’ for him whenever he wanted. A damned virgin claiming expertise. A virgin no longer, his conscious winced while the predator within him snarled its approval.

They fit together perfectly. And that made him nervous. He didn’t know her well…

hell, hardly at all. What if she was in fact a Creation? What then? Because as much as Rafe wanted to disagree with Gar, things about Erin just didn’t fit. Her face didn’t possess one blemish or flaw that he could see. And her body had been built to fuck. Rafe had lived among males of every shape and species, and he knew every male that saw her would want her. And when she let loose those pheromones… Which made him frown.

Erin could control her scent, usually. From what he’d seen of her, she appeared to use it when threatened, or when she wanted to take charge of a situation. And he had to admit, her pheromones had seriously screwed with his head before. Yet tonight she hadn’t used her scent to ensnare him. He’d been just as hard, if not harder, to have her once he saw her clothes clinging to her body. Which led him to his second big question of the night. Why the hell had she jumped into the stream?

So many questions and no answers.

Frustrated at what promised to be a dangerous, potentially addicting situation, Rafe almost wished he hadn’t been so tired of waiting on his brother. After all, Erin had been there to talk to Cheltam, and she’d planned on kidnapping his brother before he’d shown up. Yet the thought of her and Gar together suddenly made him see red, and Rafe stared at her in bewilderment.

Rafe didn’t suffer jealousy. He didn’t lose control with women. And he sure as hell had never been knocked out cold by one. But in the span of one short, day, Erin had him spinning in so many circles he felt dizzy. And that was to say nothing of this majorly messy situation with Blue Rim that would only get worse.

Erin sighed and murmured at his throat, her lips brushing his pulse, and Rafe pulled her closer, needing more contact. Hell. A Creation or criminal, take your pick, brought you to wainu not once, but twice. You barely know her. You should arrest her. And all you can think about is burying yourself in her again. You’ve got it bad, Rafe. Really, really bad.

“Shit.” Rafe shook his head and tightened his arms, not willing to let her go. Not yet.

But with Sernal missing in action and Gar giving orders—Flor help him—Rafe knew he had to find answers, and fast. A few hours of sleep wouldn’t hurt, though. And after what they’d been through, Erin had earned her share.

She murmured his name and moaned softly, and Rafe felt a curious sensation in the vicinity of his heart. Erin clearly didn’t trust much, yet she lay here in his arms, asleep. The joy that afforded him should have bothered him more. But he couldn’t help the stupid grin lighting his face as he held her close.

Erin’s cocoon shifted, allowing a slight waft of cool air to hit her bare bottom. Frowning, she took a deep breath and immediately scented Cheltam—Rafe.

Slowly blinking into the darkness, she adjusted her vision so she could see clearly. Erin lay on her side in Rafe’s arms, her shirt draped half over her back. Rafe’s heartbeat felt slow and steady under her palm, but when she leaned back to look at his face, she saw his golden gaze fixed to hers.

“You didn’t sleep long.”

She licked her lips, flushing when he followed the movement with a lazy grin. “I, ah, normally don’t need much sleep.” Correction, she didn’t take more than catnaps all day because she didn’t trust Blue Rim not to show up on her door at any moment.

He stroked her back with long, sensual caresses that made her want him all over again.

“I have questions, honey, that even the greatest sex in the System can’t put off.” Erin stared. Greatest sex in the System? She tried but failed to contain the grin threatening to take over her entire face.

“You like that,” he grumbled, a smile curling his lips. “You like making me burn.”

“Me?” She pushed him back and touched him, relishing the idea that she truly desired Rafe. So far, despite his background, she couldn’t help liking him. And she definitely had no complaints about his body or the way he used it.

“Yes, you.” Rafe sighed. “I’d much rather sink inside you again, but I need to know—” Erin grabbed his cock, marvelling at the hard shape of him in contrast to the smooth, soft skin covering his shaft. “Why can’t we do both?” He sucked in a breath. “You’re really making it hard to concentrate.” She laughed, in a wonderful, playful mood that deserved exploration. When was the last time she’d had fun? Honest, non-recorded fun that had nothing to do with tests or Blue Rim? “Hard is good.”

Erin kissed him slowly, building the need between them. The heat constantly present whenever she caught his particular scent flared, and she straddled him without conscious thought, instinctively knowing what to do. Just like when she’d taken him in her mouth and brought him to bliss. Erin knew what he’d like, and what she wanted.

Grabbing his cock, she held him steady while she lowered herself over him. As before, he filled her completely, but the impaled sensation pushed him even deeper towards her womb.

“Flor’s mercy, you feel so good,” he groaned and grasped her waist.

She agreed, especially when he pushed her up, then let her slide down him again.

“Oh, yes. That’s it.” She rocked over him, playing with her pace and roughness, finding a rhythm she liked. But Rafe stopped her too soon. “What?”

“Keep it up and I’ll come.” His raw voice sent another surge of heat through her, and without thought, her arousal pulsed through her pores to draw him closer. “Fuck.” Rafe clenched her hips like a lifeline, dragging in a breath of her perfume. “I’m going to punish you for that, you little tease. But I need to know a few things first.”

His restraint only increased her ardour. No other male had ever been able to resist her.

Not even her Creator or Handler, though they’d tried. They had years of training on their side, but when she’d finally made up her mind to leave, enticing them to show their vulnerabilities had been frighteningly easy.

Rafe, however, matched her will. And she wanted more than anything to give him what he needed.

“Ask me your questions.” She would tell him what he wanted to hear. Whatever he needed, she’d give him.

Rafe closed his eyes and forced her to remain still, and she could feel his hard cock pulsing with his heartbeat, her sensitivity incredibly tuned to his. “I’m sorry, baby, but if I don’t ask now, I have a feeling we’ll be knee-deep in peacemakers and scientists before you know it.” Rafe shifted his hips, rubbing her clit against his pelvic bone, and she moaned.

“That’s right. I’m filling you, baby. Just me. I own you now.”

“Yes.” Ecstasy consumed her, and she understood what Anin always sought but had never found during her sexual trysts. The ability to surrender fully, mind and body, to another.

“Blue Rim. Are they really as bad as you say they are?”

“Yes.”

“They’re using prisoners in their experiments?” His grip gentled and he thrust deeper inside her, arching into her sex.

The movement jolted her body to claw at fulfilment. “I’m telling the truth, yes.” She clenched her inner walls, and he cursed, moving inside her again.

“Then tell me one more truth, baby. You’re not and never were a prisoner, right?” Her mind shrieked at her to deny it, but her will was no longer her own. The urge to submit overwhelmed her need to maintain her secret. “No,” she whispered, lost when he touched her clit, rubbing the nub as he pushed her to ride him harder.

“They created you, didn’t they?”

She didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want to say it. But seeing him stare up at her as if she were his salvation, she slowly nodded.

Rafe only rubbed her faster, and then the hand still gripping her hip moved up to cup her breast, pinching the bud with delicious roughness. “Fuck. Come around me, Erin. Suck me deep, baby, while I come inside you.” His harsh command elated her, pushing her into an all-encompassing climax.

She could barely breathe as the state of perfection blanketed her, and as Rafe shouted his own release, both his seed and his spirit found her, bathing her with comfort and warmth, and what felt oddly enough like true affection.

Moments later she lay slumped over him, his callused palm centred over her lower back, their bodies still joined as they recovered from such an extraordinary coupling.

“It’ll be okay, Erin.” Rafe murmured her name as he stroked her. “This will all work out.”

Moments passed, and her peace gradually faded. This will all work out, he’d said. But for whom? Recalling what she’d confessed in the heat of passion, Erin knew the enormity of what she’d done. The calm she’d experienced now felt like a vat of Agoba acid. Staring down at a male she knew only as a manipulator, a thief and an opportunist, Erin gaped in horror and did the only thing she could think to do.

She grabbed hold of his neck and squeezed.