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Captive Desire
by Robin Lovett

Copyright © 2018 by Robin Lovett. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Chapter One

Assura

It hurts—my body burns like it’s on fire. I am agony.

Through the haze of pain, I see it. The first break in the trees since I crash-landed on this godsforsaken planet a week ago. I stumble from the jungle, my vision blurring.

Days of no one and nothing but this fever scorching through my veins. It’s not a normal fever. I don’t know how it’s possible, but it makes me want and think of nothing but sex. I’m pulsing between my legs, craving to be fucked, feeling I will burst into flames if I’m not. I’m chafed between my legs from days of giving myself orgasms, trying and failing to relieve the lust raging in my veins, the side effect of some gaseous poison in the air.

I fall to my knees on a stretch of runway. I see buildings, starships, people. Civilization. I start to shake. I can’t hold myself up. My will to keep fighting is gone.

I crumble to the ground, writhing in pain.

Voices sound all around me. Whoever is here…they may be friendly, they may be my enemy, but I’m not capable of finding out.

I’m too exhausted to open my eyes, but someone touches me, cradles my head in their lap. I want to scream at them to stop. I can’t bear to be touched; being held hurts like a thousand knives scraping my too-sensitive skin.

“What is your name, human?” The deep voice resonates with a trace of revulsion. My humanity is something he doesn’t like. By his accent, heavy on the consonants and slow on the vowels, I think I know what language he speaks. Which means I likely know why he would hate me on sight.

I open my eyes and see nothing but his face—his golden face. His skin shimmers metallic in the sunlight, and the sharp planes of his features glint in its rays. The darker gold waves of his hair nearly sparkle, and his eyes shine a blue so bright, I swear I’m looking into a cloudless sky. He looks divine, like some sort of god descended from a faraway mythical paradise.

I recognize his species. He is Ssedez, and I wonder he hasn’t killed me; one of his warriors already tried several days ago. But I’m a special kind of soldier, the kind that’s not so easily killed. They attacked and destroyed our ship. I was stabbed, given a wound that still festers in my side. It’s his fault I’m stranded on this planet and had to spend a week alone wandering its toxic jungle.

But for a reason I don’t understand, this Ssedez is not attacking me, and I have no energy to fight him anyway.

“Your name,” he demands again.

There’s a ring of authority to his tone, and it makes me want to do as he says. If I’m going to survive, I need medical attention. I need his help. “Assur,” I answer, but the word twists my stomach. It’s what my commanding officers called me. It’s not my real name. “Assura,” I correct.

The burn, the fire, surges in my body again, and I can’t stop the cry of agony escaping my lips. I fist my hands against the urge to touch myself. It’ll only hurt. Breathing the air of this planet infects me with an endless and unquenchable need for release, even past the point of injury or exhaustion.

I feel something swelling under my head in his lap. I turn my cheek and feel a long column of rigid flesh hardening behind the leather of his uniform—his cock.

I don’t give a shit if he’s my enemy. I’m so desperate to relieve the flames torching my insides, I’ll do anything to be fucked, to have him thrusting that into my starved body.

I claw at his thighs, bite my teeth at the leather shielding him from me. I’m moaning hungry sounds and hallucinating about him fiercely pouring his come in my mouth. Then, something is put in my mouth, a tube. It’s not a cock, but I’m so hungry for it, I suck on it like it is one. A creamy liquid pours from it into my mouth. I swallow it, starved and praying it will satisfy me, not caring if it’s poison meant to kill me. Dying would be better than enduring this any longer.

But it’s not poison.

It slides down my throat and cools me from the inside out. The feeling spreads through my chest and into my limbs. I go motionless, the burn blissfully fading away. My breath is heavy with relief, and I glance up into the Ssedez’s face again and whisper, “Thank you.”

His ethereally blue eyes blanch in surprise and don’t look away. He examines my face, and he must see something he likes. Heat infuses his expression, desire contrary to anything that should be possible for a Ssedez to feel for a human.

Exhaustion overtakes me. My eyes fall closed, and he lifts me. My cheek rests on his wide chest, and his inhumanly strong arms support my weight. His voice rumbles beneath my ear, his skin cool against the heat still fading from me.

The contours of his muscles are hard and chiseled beneath my hands. The feel of him is alien, too, smoother than human, refined like aluminum, not forgiving like human flesh. His bare skin has the characteristic impenetrability of his species. He’s not soft, and he’s cooler in temperature. I burrow my overheated body into his, blissfully chilled by his skin. I shudder, wondering if he’s like that everywhere.

All I can do now is rest against him, but later, I will find out. The fever may have faded, but the desire that was ravaging my body still echoes in my core like a dull murmur.

When I wake, I hope he’s there to fuck me.