Page 67 of Hot Zone

A groan tore from his throat. “Please, woman. Release me from my promise.”

“I release you.”

He reached up, grabbed her hips and yanked her down on top of him. Thankfully, she was mostly ready for him, wet and relaxed. She gasped, and, gritting his teeth, he forced himself to give her a moment to adapt to his size. Then she did the unexpected.

She started to ride him. Fast, then slow. Hard then gentle. Rocking easily, and driving mercilessly. He thought she’d plundered the depths of his being and wrung the last drop of pleasure out of him, but apparently, there was more.

Showers of light began to spin around them, faster and faster, higher and higher, forming a towering vortex with them at its center. And then it exploded, casting them up and out of their bodies, into the darkest night of space, far beyond any place he’d ever been before, past the margins of the entire galaxy, far out into the vast expanses of the universe.

A moment of utter stillness came over them.

Just the two of them were in this place, two halves of a perfect whole, together, complete. There was no past, no future, just this moment and them. They could go anywhere; do anything. Her mind, as much a part of his as his was hers, mirrored his thoughts.

What shall we do? Where shall we go?

Anywhere. Everywhere.

A shared flash of humor faded away, leaving only a peaceful intimacy between them. And then, eventually, a sigh.

Back to our bodies now?Another shared sigh at the necessity of existing as separate entities in separate bodies part of the time….

Rustam slammed back into himself with a jolt that knocked the wind out of him. He lay on hard ground, with tiny stones digging into his back. Tessa sprawled on top of him, only semiconscious, whether from an excess of pleasure or from the shock of returning to her body after that massive jump, or both, he didn’t know.

He gasped, sucking air into his lungs convulsively as he began to breathe again.

What. In the hell. Had that been?

Never had returning to his body after star travel been a choice. It was the natural end of a jump. Out of body into energy form, then almost instantly back into physical form.

The first time they’d made love, he’d recognized the out-of-body instant as it happened, had reflexively limited the length of the jump to something safe, and had just as quickly dragged himself and Tessa back again. After all, every star navigator knew how dangerous it was to spend more than an instant in-between.

But tonight, with her in control of the vortex, they’d broken free of the limits of time and space entirely. She hadn’t contained the jump, nor had she taken them back to body right away. According to every bit of training he’d ever had, the two of them should have just died.

Howhad she done that? What did this extraordinary human woman know about star-jumping that he and his kind did not?