Page 59 of Crash Landing
The rock beneath my foot shifted, ceasing my movement. I stiffened, glancing down at the ground to see tiny fissures in the obsidian spiderweb out from the sole of my boot. I took another step to distance myself from it only to feel the stone shift again.
“Sam,” Saleuk said.
Whatever else he planned to say was drowned out by the horrifying sound of rocks sliding against rocks. The ground fell from beneath me and I slid downward, screaming as I desperately clawed for purchase.
“Sam!”
The ground was too slick. Any roots I grabbed snapped the moment my weight stretched them. I descended over one ledge and dropped ten feet to another, but I was so disoriented. I hit the ground rolling, unable to stop myself before I careened off the second ledge. That time, I took hold of a root that didn’t break. It was as thick as my arm and protruding just enoughfrom the rocks that I could lock my hand over it. My legs swung violently, hitting the side of the cliff hard.
Over the sound of pebbles falling and rain pounding, I couldn’t hear anything. See anything. Stones rolled over the edge of the cliff in my wake, some of them big enough to hurt me as they spun over the top of my head into the deep quarry below.
I tried to find something to plant my feet on so I could climb up over the ledge, but every groove just broke away. The roots started to give, too, straining against my weight.
“Sam!” Saleuk called out again.
I heard his boots slamming on the ground above me just as the root slid loose from its rocky hold.
I was going to die.
A hand slammed around my wrist and immediately, I grabbed on. Saleuk was lying on his stomach on the ledge with his arm outstretched to me.
“Don’t let me go!” I begged, glancing at the sharp rocks a hundred feet below. Tears welled in my eyes at the thought of falling. It was far enough that I would be completely conscious of my coming death. The freefall would be torture until the ground finished me. “Please, Saleuk,” I sobbed.
“Hang on,” he said, pulling me up with one arm until my other hand could hook the ledge. “I’ve got you.”
With one last tug, I was able to lift my foot onto the cliff and push forward. I stumbled, landing on top of Saleuk. Every breath was a whimper when I realized I was once more on solid ground. I could hear my own heart drumming loudly inside me, but my head was pressed against Saleuk’s chest and the sound of his hearts were so close to drowning mine out.
“Sam,” he said frantically, cupping my face in his hands. “Look at me. Are you hurt?”
I opened my eyes to look at him through the haze of tears and saw his skin slowly fade from a subtle, fiery red to a soft blue. I’dnever seen that color on him before. I almost died and my body was still shaking from the adrenaline, but all that pent-up energy coiled in the base of my belly as soon as I fully realized I was alive. Not only alive but in Saleuk’s arms. I was stretched out on top of him, mostly uninjured, and feeling my rational thoughts flea like a rabbit from wolves.
“Sam?” he repeated, eyes wide with concern.
“Yeah,” I panted, my gaze settling on his lips. I braced myself on my hands above him, pulling my knees under me so I was straddling his hips.
A crack of thunder shook the ground and electrified the air. Rain started to pour down in buckets, soaking me to the bone and making everything hard to see.
Saleuk abruptly pushed me off of him and leaped to his feet just as floods of water began to fall off the cliffs above us. Once standing, he reached down and pulled me up, dragging me closer to the cliffside. We skirted along it until a network of roots and branches led into a cave in the rocks just big enough for me to stand, but not Saleuk. He pushed me through a curtain of cold water where the space was mostly dry, a little stuffy, and enclosed. It was still loud. The sound of the storm pounded outside like a damn avalanche was rolling over us.
But I didn’t care about any of it. It barely registered to me that we were in a cave because some huge storm had hit the mountainside. All I knew was that my heart was racing, I’d nearly died, and Saleuk and I were in a cave together. I watched his back as he quickly scanned the structural integrity of the cave and then turned his eyes on me. He slung off his pack and dropped it to the ground. Then he stepped toward me, cupping my face in his hands. I was in a daze, watching him scan over my body. He turned my head from side to side and slid his hands down my shoulders. My waist.
“Are you hurt?” he panted. “Are you ok?”
He was as frantic as I had been, checking me thoroughly for injuries, but I was practically numb. If I had any, I didn’t know it and I didn’t care. I just kept staring at him, my core swelling with need.
“It’s white knight syndrome,” I muttered.
“What?”
I reached up, taking his face between my hands, and pulled him toward me. I pressed my lips to his, lifting on my toes to get as close as I could to his body. His warmth. I ground my hips against him, feeling his cock stiffen against my stomach, and pushed my tongue into his mouth with a moan. Desperation made me drunk with lust and I couldn’t contain it. Near-death experiences seemed to do that.
“Sam,” he said against my mouth. “Tell me you’re not hurt.”
“I’m not hurt.”
I stepped forward, pushing Saleuk against the wall and turning the dial on the front of his suit so the material receded into his harness. Seeing the top of him bare, I turned wild with need. I slid my pack off my shoulders, tossing it carelessly aside before I unhooked his harness and forced it off of him.
I didn’t know who I was at that moment, but death was close by, teasing me about barely escaping him, and I was in a mood to flaunt the fact that I was still alive. That I wasn’t letting anything hold me back from what I wanted.
