Tempted by Celestial Bodies

Chapter 1

chapter one

eau de orgy

Neither moon had yet to set, and I was already awake. I shuffled into the colony’s communal dining hub, my jaw cracking on a wide yawn.

Suddenly, freezing-cold air pebbled my flesh, and my nipples came to painful peaks. The blast of frigid air knocked me out of my trance-like state. Trembling, I looked down at my naked chest and the shirt I’d just peeled off my body dangling from my fingertips. Cursing beneath my breath, I quickly jerked the shirt back into place. As I did, its soft but stretchy material snagged on the messy bun piled atop my head, pulling it loose.

Fucking pheromones. I focused on breathing through my mouth while I tightened my drooping bun and glared at the alien responsible for the heavy cloud of eau de orgy hanging in the air.

Seated at one of the long tables in the otherwise empty room, Thrash shoveled a spoonful of highly sugared cereal into his mouth.

“Damn it, Thrash! Have you taken your compound today?” Without the suppressant made specifically for him, I put that alien’s pleasure pheromones at threat level Alpha. Give me serrated spines, poison pinchers, or laser gun sharpshooters any day over five minutes with those unchecked pheromones. “Unless we’re down for a colony-wide sex-pile before coffee—which I, personally, am not —you need to get that situation under control before anyone else wakes up.”

The alien with way too much skin and scales on display than was appropriate for a communal dining hub looked up, a completely unrepentant grin splitting his too-handsome face. “Oops,” he said, not bothering to look away while I adjusted my shirt.

Despite the fact I was on the verge of freezing to death—only a slight exaggeration—Thrash wore no shirt. Thick, glossy black hair draped over his obsidian shoulders. My traitorous gaze devoured the way the silky strands danced over his wide, sculpted chest.

He set his spoon in his bowl and leaned back, revealing the ridges of his hard abdomen. I couldn’t see below the table, but my mind wandered. Is he wearing pants? The man was not ashamed of nudity. As a result, I’d seen—and begrudgingly admired—all of him.

“It’s early,” he said. “I didn’t think anyone would be up yet.”

My ice-cold fingers brushed against my ribs, shocking sense into me. My hands had gone in reverse, and I once again had my shirt halfway up my torso. I gritted my teeth. “Will you do something about that smell of yours?”

I crouched to grab the jacket I’d dropped before the pheromone-induced tit-flashing. Shrugging into the light-as-tissue, wool-like material, I went to the Meal Prep X9 and punched in the code for my usual.

“I know it’s no big deal to you, but climate control is on the fritz again.” I pointed out the obvious. “You and I are on colony habitat maintenance. Go take your compound before the humans among us freeze to death.” At that moment, my teeth chattered as if to emphasize my point.

“You know I can control my body temperature. I have plenty of warmth to share with my future mate.”

“Thrash…” I poured enough exasperation into his name to fill up the entire Belathar Asteroid Belt. For some reason, among all the women in this colony—in all the sun-scorched solar systems—he had zeroed in on me as his mate.

No matter how sexy I found those scales and horns, I would never be his mate. With my sights set on retirement from the stressful life in the terraform division of the Explore, Terraform, Populate department of UFIS—United Federal Interstellar Space—I’d been dodging romantic entanglements like they were colony raiders since I started this final job. Planet KR-732 was meant to be my last terraforming gig, and I planned to walk away with zero baggage.

Unfortunately, Thrash was a labyrinth of tangles waiting to trap me. He wasn’t the first guy to try, but if anyone could tempt me away from my dream of settling down on an empyrean planet at the edge of some sleepy solar system, it would be Thrash. With or without the hormones, that guy did it for me on every level.

I enjoyed meaningless, for-the-sake-of-pleasure sex as much as the next deep-space terraformer. Existing on the edge of one lonely galaxy after the next meant there was little difference between meaningless and meaningful. With six days to go, I wasn’t willing to trap myself—or my heart—in something I couldn’t easily fly away from.

The X9 beeped and a basket slid out from beneath the machine. I grabbed the protein loaf, the heated plate warming my freezing hands as I made my way to the table and slid onto the bench seat opposite Thrash.

He watched me, a half-smile curving his lips. He took another bite.

My gaze dropped to the flex and feathering at the edge of his strong jaw. He had exaggerated features, which individually were strange to look at, but put together created a face almost as irresistible as his pheromones.

A scaled ridge that arrowed down from his hairline to end between his brows crested his forehead. Two sets of horns rose from just behind his hairline, accentuating the length of his oval face. His nose ran in a perfectly straight line from brow to tip without a bump or curve between. And then there were those lips. The bowed top lip and a lower lip with just enough padding to nibble. I’d had dreams about what those lips would feel like between my thighs. Moving against my clit, his tongue delving into my pussy.

“Victoria?” The snap of his tone and use of my full name rather than the abbreviated Tori implied this wasn’t his first attempt at getting my attention.

Cold air blasted my shoulders. I looked down, to my shirt and jacket laying on the floor. My breath was all fluttery and damp, warmth gathered in my panties. Frustrated in every sense of the word, I shrieked and stomped my feet beneath the table. “Thrash, go take your compound.”

He shoveled another spoonful of sugar disguised as cereal into his mouth. His species required a shocking amount of sugar. “Almost done.”

“Damn it, Thrash, I am team lead of this base, and I’m ordering you to go. Now!” Five halls opened onto the common room. I jabbed my finger toward the branch which led to his living quarters, snatched my top from the floor and shook it in his face. “Before I use this shirt to strangle you.”

He rose from his seat. Thankfully, he wore pants. “You win, my feisty little human.”

“I’ll show you feisty,” I mumbled through the stretchy material as I jerked my shirt on, over my head. Maybe this time it would stay on.

Thrash spoke from the doorway. “I keep hoping.”

I smoothed my shirt into place, opened my mouth to respond, and froze with one arm in my jacket. Instead of the hot retort sizzling on my tongue, only a strangled squeak came out.

He’d turned his broad back toward me and headed for his quarters. Thanks to his innate ability to regulate his body temperature and withstand a climate control system on the fritz, I got an eyeful of broad shoulders, rippling muscles, and a tapered torso as he disappeared down the hall. The Earth Sunrise setting of the overhead lights set his glossy black scales ablaze and lent his dark hair a blueish hue. Lights turned on as he passed beneath, while the lights behind turned off to save energy.

When the final light illuminating his impressive form went dark, my lungs deflated on a huge rush of relief. Ever since Thrash unexpectedly joined the team several months ago, I had been trying—unsuccessfully—to beat my hormones into submission. His frequent attempts to score a date and more didn’t help. That guy had the smooth moves to back up his party-time pheromones. Worse, since this job was my swan song to terraforming, I hadn’t jumped into another’s bed or allowed anyone into mine since touching down on this planet.

To his credit, Thrash never used his intoxicating aroma to coerce. Even when a wovvel—an indigenous, ferret-like rodent that continued to find a way inside the habitat—ate his supply of scent-blocking compound and it took a full three days for the colony’s biochemist to engineer a new batch, Thrash had kept himself locked away in his quarters.

Unfortunately, by the end of the second day his pheromones had spread through the filtration system, resulting in the largest sex-party this side of the sixth moon.

Desperate to avoid an emotional landmine, I’d barely made it to my quarters on wobbly knees and locked myself inside. That night I’d rode my fingers so hard, I had to wear a wrist brace for a week.

Thrash had never asked how I’d hurt myself, but when he picked up extra shifts in my place until my brace came off, it was clear he knew, and he didn’t feel good about what he’d inadvertently done.

Dangerous. That strong, sweet man was dangerous, to my sex drive and to my heart.