Lust Plague (Steamwork Chronicles) Read Free Page B

her, though some sort of cloth was between her and the earth. The sky above was blue, cloudless. Blink again. Half a mile away, she spotted her airship.
    “I’m awake, yes,” she croaked.
    On her ship, she’d been screaming. Flashes came to her—the bite of clamps on her nipples, men watching, avid, their mouths open as if they swallowed her cries of pleasure… She remembered the hot, near-orgasmic flood of desire. Why, though? What the hell happened? I can think. I’m still me. Zombie F? Can’t be.
    Her rescuer put his hand at her naked shoulder. Even that made her jump and suck in a breath.
    “I have to take this last one off. Might sting.” Above the clamp on her left nipple, Sten poised finger and thumb.
    The attached wire trailed across her breast. The pain bothered her little. His hand, though—broad fingers, man’s fingers, what they might do to her. She imagined him touching her cleft, sliding in. Her pussy spasmed and she bit her lip. What the… This is so wrong.
    “Wait!” She struggled to get her arms under her, to get some distance between her and Sten. “Don’t touch—”
    Understanding flared in his eyes, and for a millisecond, there was something else.
    “No? Why not? You need that off.” Before she could react, he’d sat next to her and hauled her over his leg to sit between his knees.
    “Because—” With his arm across her middle, he kept her there. Wriggling made him hold tighter. She seethed, wriggled again, subsided. Damn him . “Because—”
    Being enclosed like she was, by a man, a hard, muscular man, sent everything whirling. And, out of all the men it might have been…Sten. From the moment he stepped aboard ship, she’d watched him. Suddenly nothing in her head seemed to work right anymore. Her thoughts, her emotions, her tongue were weighed down and drowning in warm jelly.
    “Because you’re a frigging frankenstruct. Let go!” The words spewed out, and like a balloon accidentally released to the sky, she clutched at the tail end, knew the terrible error she’d made. She gulped. Why’d I say that? Awful, awful thing to say…
    Yet his only reaction was to rest his cheek against her hair and say quietly, “Oh? I thought as much. Leave this on and your nipple’s gonna fall off. How about while I do this, to distract yourself, you tell me what happened up there?”
    He put his hand back where it had been.
    Fascinated by the sight of his fingers so close to her breast, she licked her lips.
    “Wait.” Grabbing his wrist seemed as likely to work as telling an avalanche to stop, but she tried.
    As his fingers nudged the clamp, she gripped him tighter, realizing too late what her body would do. Pulse pulse . The finger and thumb pressed, released the clamp. All the sensations from the last few hours surged to life. Hot blood needled through her; white shards splintered. Her back arched, mouth open, neck curved—she gasped and shuddered as she came.
    When she opened her eyes, Sten’s face was there in shadow above her, blocking out the sky, and she’d fallen sideways onto his thigh. She squinted, licked parched lips. The still-golden blade of a gyrocopter cut across the sky to the left of his head. A swallow flitted past.
    “Damn,” she whispered.
    “Why?”
    His rough voice alone sent tremors through her. Through his clothes, his erection nudged at her bottom. This was intolerable.
    “Why? Because I just—”
    “Came? I figured that.” His hand cradled her head. His thumb brushed at her earlobe.
    She shuddered again, swallowed. Whatever was she doing staring up into his blue eyes? Yet…nothing seemed more important. His face was unusual—heavy cheekbones, wide nose, big deep-sea-colored eyes, every feature laid out large, like a face drawn in broad strokes. Strange how much he appealed to her. Those lips, she envisioned them crushing hers, taking.
    No. This wasn’t right . Yet…something had changed. Had the zombie virus flipped some switch inside her? She felt