Nightshift Read online

  The room spun. Too much beer, too much sensation, but her mouth on his dick anchored him. Deep crimson lips encircled the broad head. He groaned, thrust his hips forward, and she took him deep. His hands dropped to his sides as she worked more of his cock into her sweet mouth.

  “Fuck.” The curse slipped out on a whisper. He slapped his palms flat against the wet tile to stop the walls from spinning when the muscles of her throat tightened around his sensitive glans.

  “Shit. Holy, holy shit.” Mac squeezed his eyes shut. His knees went weak, his head spun. Cursing steadily, he leaned his head against the tile as his hips rocked forward into the hot, wet clasp of her mouth. Her teeth scraped the sides of his shaft and the muscles in his buttocks clenched. He struggled for control, but she hummed deep in her throat and the vibration was a shock of pure fire running the full length of his shaft.

  “Fuck. Oh ... fuck.” His hips jerked and his climax boiled up and out. He tried to open his eyes, to watch her, to prove she truly existed, but it was impossible to fight the pulsing throb of orgasm. Just as the woman was impossible. There was no one kneeling at his feet. That wasn’t the flick of her tongue licking away the last drops of his seed. No, it was merely the most vivid sexual fantasy he’d ever had in his life.

  What else could it be?

  Legs trembling, breath heaving in and out of his lungs, Mac opened his eyes. He was alone. His cock lay soft and flaccid over his throbbing balls. He’d come without touching himself. Shot his load into an imaginary mouth and felt every lick of her tongue, every deep, sucking draw of her lips and cheeks.

  Still too damned drunk, definitely spaced, Mac stared at the empty shower in front of him. At the spot where the woman had knelt. Slowly shaking his head and seriously doubting his sanity, he scrubbed the stink of the long day off his body. Then he turned off the water and toweled dry with trembling hands.

  The scent of vanilla and honey teased his nostrils, but he refused to consider the connection. Half-asleep, physically drained, he crawled into bed and turned out the light. He’d barely pulled the covers over his bare shoulders before sleep claimed him.

  2

  There it was again, that sweet scent that made him think of warm vanilla wafers. Crawling out of a sublimely sexual dream featuring his latest fantasy female—a dream that faded away as consciousness returned—Mac sniffed the air. Had the smell of cookies awakened him?

  He really wanted to get back to that dream.

  The room was still dark, but the same tantalizing sweetness he’d noticed earlier filled his nostrils. Stronger now. Closer.

  He reached for the lamp on the bedside table. A soft hand stroked his chest. Mac sucked in a gasp of air.

  Scrabbling for the switch, he flicked on the light and shoved himself back against the headboard.

  Blinking beneath the bright light, he stared into the face of a woman too perfect to be real—eyes so purple they sparkled like amethysts beneath thick, sooty lashes, and hair as black as night. Her skin was fair, her lips full and lush. If he’d dreamed her into existence, she couldn’t have been more perfect, and that was the only way she could have gotten here, because he sure as hell hadn’t invited anyone in tonight.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  She frowned. Her dark brows knotted, and two tiny lines appeared between them. “I’m Zianne,” she said, as if he should know. “Don’t you remember? And you are Mac.”

  She spoke with a soft accent he didn’t recognize, in a voice that was low and sort of raspy. Hinting of sex and secrets, it raised shivers along his spine.

  He shook his head. He’d been so damned drunk when he left Dinkemann’s place—had he met her somewhere tonight? He’d never had an alcoholic blackout in his life, but if this was the result, he’d definitely been wasting his time.

  He flashed on the fantasy he’d had in the shower. The same woman beside him in bed? No. That wasn’t real. She wasn’t real. He’d imagined that. Hadn’t he? Was he imagining her here, now?

  Impossible to imagine her scent, the weight of her warm body against his. Her touch. He inhaled a deep, shuddering breath. “Where’d you come from?”

  She shrugged as if he were a complete fool for asking, and for a minute he thought he must be, because there was no way in hell he’d ever forget bringing someone like Zianne home to his apartment. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to make him forget a woman like her.

  A memory flashed through his mind, of Zianne kneeling before him in the shower, her mouth ... Dear God. Her mouth!

  She smiled with those perfect, lush lips and stroked his cheek with her fingertips. Her touch was soft and warm. Perfect.

  “You brought me here.” Her scent enveloped him, stealing his thoughts from the question.

  Fresh-baked cookies. Vanilla and honey ... why does she smell so familiar? And then it came to him, the memory so subtle it held a dreamlike quality. Comforting smells from a childhood he’d long forgotten. A time when his parents still lived, when he’d had a real home, a real family.

  A time before he was four years old and the world as he knew it ended. No matter. He couldn’t go back, couldn’t change the car accident that took his mom and dad’s lives, the accident that left him unharmed and alone. Quickly Mac blocked the actual pain he experienced whenever that time intruded.

  He couldn’t change what was, though he could enjoy the spark of memory from before. Could enjoy the warm scent of Zianne in his arms. Mac took a deep breath and stared into those unbelievable violet eyes. Who in the hell was she?

  Zianne smiled, leaned close, and kissed him, enveloping Mac in more of that subtle, sweet perfume. Her lips moved slowly, warm and soft, over his mouth. Sex personified.

  Need blossomed. Need on so many levels, so many different wants and desires. Love. Sex. Companionship. Friendship. Other than Dink, he’d been alone for so long he’d forgotten what it felt like to have someone close, someone who mattered. Zianne’s kiss promised to fill needs Mac had forgotten he ever had.

  Her taste was even sweeter than her scent. Zianne’s mouth moved over his, tasting, nipping, licking. She slid closer until she lay atop him, until her lips covered his and her tongue probed the sensitive flesh above his teeth, inside his mouth. Her hands were in his hair, her fingers separating the strands and sending shivers of pure fire along his spine. She held him and kissed him deep; explored his mouth with her mobile tongue.

  He remembered the way her lips had felt around his cock. It had to have been her, but how? He couldn’t have imagined something as real as her mouth on him then. On him now. She’d sucked him deep, taken his seed and swallowed every drop. Now she made love to his mouth, the intensity of her kiss pulling all he was, all he had to give—just as she’d done before.

  Mac’s body grew hard beneath her long, supple length. His cock rose between her thighs, his muscles rippled beneath his skin. The weight of her breasts on his chest made him strangely angry. He wanted to see them. Wanted to nuzzle his lips and face against their softness, but she’d taken control and he didn’t fight her for dominance. He had no will of his own. None.

  He couldn’t fight her. Could only lie here beneath her perfect body as she made love to him. As she took him, raising up on her knees, grabbing his turgid length in her fist, placing the broad head between her thighs.

  There was the briefest awareness of soft, damp curls, of even softer, wetter lips. Then she arched her back and came down on him, all in one smooth, flowing motion that drove him deep inside. He felt heat and the ripple of flexing muscles, then a smooth, wet channel gripping him in an unforgivable vise, pure sensual pleasure personified in this perfect woman.

  He raised his hips and thrust hard against her, reaching now for those breasts she so proudly displayed. His palms cupped their weight, his fingers found the taut nipples and he pinched them. She moaned and he twisted the sensitive tips, waiting for Zianne to beg him to stop. Instead, she moaned her pleasure and her hips moved over him until he and she caught the same r
hythm.

  He stopped pinching and lightly stroked and teased the rosy tips, then cupped her breasts fully in his hands as their bodies danced to an unseen orchestra, to the beat of the heavy drum of thundering hearts, to the song of blood rushing through veins and the discordant harmony of straining lungs.

  Caught in a maelstrom of unimaginable lust, he thrust into her, grabbing her by the waist, lifting her up, pulling her close. The slap of flesh against flesh echoed, of lungs gasping for air as they raced each other to the finish. Zianne’s body was hot and alive, quivering beneath his hands, her eyes hooded beneath their dark fringe of lashes, her full lips parted. She watched him. Watched him with an intensity that might have frightened him at another time.

  Not now.

  Now Mac was trapped in a delirium of need, his body connected at a visceral level he’d never experienced, his heart and soul held by too many emotions he couldn’t identify. Emotions he didn’t try to name, because they couldn’t be. They couldn’t exist in his world. Hadn’t existed in MacArthur Dugan’s life since that long-ago time before his parents died.

  He’d not known true happiness since then. Nor had he felt real love, and he couldn’t feel it now. This could not possibly be love, not this amazing sexual experience with a woman he didn’t know, a woman he might never see again.

  The thought left him bereft as it flitted through what little bit of his mind still functioned on a conscious level. Then everything fled, wiped out by the full-on experience of orgasm. By the overwhelming sensation of everything he was, everything he had to give—all of it flying out of him, leaving him entirely. Leaving Mac, and entering Zianne.

  She arched her back and pressed close. Took his heart, took his soul, took his seed. She cried out as her long nails dug into his ribs, leaving red furrows behind. He welcomed the pain. Added it to the sensations ripping him in two as he practically came apart, pumping his seed deep into her welcoming body.

  Mac’s heart thundered in his ears. He felt its counterpart in Zianne’s racing heart when she collapsed against him. Her tangled hair covered his mouth, her lips were pursed against his sweat-slick chest, blowing tiny puffs with each escaping breath.

  It took everything he had to raise his right hand and stroke her smooth shoulder. Enervated, he was weak as a kitten, yet his mind seemed unnaturally clear. Impossible, considering how much he’d had to drink tonight, but he was more aware of this woman, more aware of his body and the way it connected to hers, than he’d ever felt with anyone before.

  Her inner muscles still pulsed in a slow, rhythmic clench and release around him, and he wanted nothing more than to make love to her again. To repeat what had been a singular experience, something he’d never once felt in his twenty-six years. They’d shared more than mere sex. There’d been something else, a connection he couldn’t explain. A feeling of knowing, as if Zianne knew and understood him in ways no one else ever had.

  Or ever could. As if he knew Zianne the same way. Except Mac knew nothing at all. Who she was. Where she came from. How he’d met her. How she’d come to be in his apartment.

  In his shower?

  So many questions. So much he wanted to talk to her about, but his eyelids grew heavy and his heart rate slowed. His breath no longer huffed in and out of his lungs as if he’d run a mile.

  Zianne lay across him, apparently asleep with his softening penis still buried deep inside her. He knew there were things he should wonder, but her body was soft and warm over his and her perfume took him back to that childhood he barely recalled.

  With the scent of honey and vanilla, and Zianne’s thick, black hair tickling his nose, Mac tightened his arms around her waist and drifted closer to sleep. They’d talk in the morning. For now, though, his world felt right. As if the problems bedeviling him for so long weren’t problems at all. Not with Zianne in his arms. As long as he had her beside him, Mac imagined he could do anything. Anything at all.

  3

  Shaken, Zianne stood for a moment beside the bed. Her fingers drifted softly across his shoulder, over skin damp from their loving. Her body, this unfamiliar form, still trembled from the force of his passion, her passion. It had left her energized in ways she’d not expected.

  And confused in a manner she’d never experienced. She whispered his name. “Mac.” Rolling the sound on her tongue, she gazed at him with hope, and with more than a little guilt. She’d touched his mind tonight. Touched his memories, discovered his needs, and then she’d filled them. Such a simple thing, to return the fantasy after he’d shared so much delicious energy.

  There was untapped depth to this man. Reservoirs of strength she’d not expected, and he was not nearly as alien as his form suggested. He was more like her than she’d imagined. Not merely his intelligence—no, it was more than that. Emotions she’d thought only the Nyrians possessed, needs very similar to her own. A need for family, for connection. For love.

  She’d touched those needs on a level deeper than she’d expected. Had shared even more with MacArthur Dugan than she’d planned. Was that why she felt so unsettled and confused? So filled with emotions and, curiously, with regret?

  She didn’t understand why she regretted the simple manipulation of his thoughts—she’d merely given him the feelings he needed. Maybe the elders could explain. She hoped so. An entire race of sentient beings depended on her success.

  A shaft of morning sunlight cut across Mac’s closed eyelids. Blinking against the pain of daylight and too much alcohol, he slowly rolled to the edge of the bed and pushed himself upright. What a night. And what a weird bunch of dreams.

  He sat there a moment, cataloging all the things about him that hurt. The list was longer than usual.

  “Damn.” It hurt to blink. Hurt to move. Even hurt to breathe. He ran his fingers through his mussed hair and tried to think. That hurt, too.

  He scratched his chest and ran his fingers down the ribs on his left side. “Shit. What the hell ... ?”

  Blinking owlishly, Mac raised his left arm and stared with bleary eyes at the red lines running across his ribs. Frowning, he twisted slowly and painfully and focused on the matching scratches down his right side. Snapped his head around and stared over his shoulder at the rumpled sheets on the bed.

  He thought he’d dreamed her. Sex in the shower, in his bed. It had all been a dream. He was alone. He should be alone.

  Except he hadn’t been alone last night.

  Memories flashed, exploding so fast and furious they made his aching head spin. The woman. The sex. The thick, black curls tickling his nose. The sex. Her mouth around his dick. The flick of her tongue across his sensitive glans.

  Her fingers. He groaned. Those long, mobile fingers, stroking. Tugging. Twisting and squeezing. Pain and pleasure and more pleasure. Arousal so intense it almost fried his brain. A connection unlike anything he’d ever experienced with a woman so perfect she would be forever imprinted on his mind.

  Images raced through his head. His semi-aroused morning wood rose up into action mode. Mac groaned. He lay back down on the bed with his feet still planted on the floor. Zianne. She’d said her name was Zianne, but where the hell was she?

  He sniffed the air, and caught it—the faint scent of vanilla and honey almost lost in the pungent odor of sex and sweat. “Zianne? Hey, Zianne?” He listened to the familiar sounds of an empty apartment. Dripping faucet, neighbor’s shower, cars passing by four floors down. “Zianne? Are you here?” Nothing.

  Rubbing his fingers across his belly, Mac sighed. Where the hell’d she go? If not for the scent lingering in the air, the raw scratches across his ribs, he’d chalk her up to too much beer or an overblown wet dream. Or both. But she wasn’t a dream.

  Good God ... how many times had they screwed last night?

  Made love? No. MacArthur Dugan didn’t do love, but what they’d shared went so far beyond mere screwing he wasn’t sure what to call it. So unbelievable that if not for the scratches across his ribs, he’d think he’d imagined her. It. T
he sex.

  Damn. The sex. He absentmindedly stroked his erection, remembering the feel of her lips on him, the way her violet eyes had somehow looked right inside him. He and Zianne had hardly talked, but he’d felt a connection to her unlike anything he’d ever experienced.

  How the hell did you explain something like that?

  And where the hell was she this morning?

  Just thinking about her made him harder, so he kept stroking and squeezing his dick with his right hand, reached beneath to cup his balls with his left.

  She’d sucked on them last night. Sucked first one ball and then the other between those gorgeous lips. She’d used her tongue and the pressure of her cheeks to take him just to the point of pain, just to the place where he’d felt the first frisson of panic that she might actually hurt him.

  But she didn’t. No, she’d held him there, torturing him on the edge of pure bliss, sucking and stroking and somehow knowing exactly how much pressure it took, how hard to squeeze, how lightly she could lick and taste until he couldn’t take any more. Just thinking about her now had him on the edge. Had him gripping his balls tighter, stroking faster, breathing harder.

  She’d explored his slit with the tip of her tongue, stretched the tiny opening and lapped up every drop of pre-cum. She’d used her teeth, nipping at the edge of his glans and along the thick vein on the underside. Short, sharp little bites that, along with the sucking and squeezing and licking, made him nuts.

  He tried to remember exactly how it felt and what she’d done, and suddenly he was groaning, coming all over himself, shooting thick streams of ejaculate over his hand and wrist and making a mess.

  After so much sex the night before, he couldn’t believe there was anything left. His orgasm seemed to take forever, not that he wanted to rush it. His cock continued to pulse in time with his racing heartbeat long after the flow stopped.