She hadn’t been able to hear what had been said. She’d only heard angry voices, and that had happened almost as soon as he’d left. By the time she’d managed to get to the door the ‘conversation’ had degenerated mostly into growls and grunts.
She supposed they’d jumped him because they’d thought he hadn’t followed orders.
Gideon had to have been the one to give those orders and it made her mad all over again when she thought about it. Why would he do that, she wondered, feeling her anger dissolve as misery took its place?
He must hate her. She felt a deep down ache at the thought, wishing she could go back and undo what she’d done. It wasn’t as if she would’ve actually had the nerve to try to fly the ship herself, after all—not unless she’d found herself completely on her own with no other options.
On reflection, she decided that had been the worst impulse she’d ever had … next to telling him what she’d had in mind under pleasurable torture, and the comments her anger had prompted afterward.
Not that she wasn’t still thoroughly pissed off about it, damn him!
And he’d ordered them to torment her! Ordered them to, she thought in disbelief!
She frowned at that thought, wondering abruptly if the orders had been only that they weren’t supposed to pleasure her or if they’d been told to tease her and keep her on edge? She’d thought that was what Gabriel had meant, but he hadn’t said that. He’d said they’d been ordered not to pleasure her and she’d jumped to the conclusion that Gideon had given the order specifically to torment her. That wasn’t true, though, unless he’d specifically told them to tease her and leave her in the lurch.
She was trying to make excuses for him, she realized after a moment, irritated with herself. She wanted to make excuses for him so she could forgive him.
What difference did it make, though, if she forgave him if he’d decided he hated her?
She was actually beginning to look forward to reaching their destination. At least then, hopefully, she would have work to do and not so much idle time to drive herself crazy with too much thinking. At least she wouldn’t be cooped up in close quarters with those three barbarians!
They’d probably be more relieved than she was. She probably wouldn’t ever see them again. Very likely they would volunteer to go off and fight at the first opportunity, or maybe even volunteer for another mission like this one—anything to get as far away from her as possible, she thought morosely.
Chapter Thirteen
“That was … unnerving,” Gideon said uncomfortably, rubbing absently at his bruises as he dropped onto the bench by the table, watching Jerico prepare their meal.
Gabriel, who’d settled opposite him, nodded, but worriedly. “You saw no sign of space dementia?”
“You saw her yourself. She did not look at all disoriented. I am convinced that she was only angry. I am just not certain what set her off.”
“Gabriel.”
Both Gideon and Gabriel turned to look at Jerico. He threw Gabriel a resentful glance. “I think that she was trying to defend Gabriel from you,” he added after a moment, frowning at the container he was trying to open without spilling the food inside of it.
Gideon’s eyes narrowed as he studied Gabriel. “Why would you think she would do that?”
Jerico shrugged. “She did not offer to pleasure me that way,” he said tightly.
Gideon said nothing. She hadn’t offered to pleasure him that way either, but he was damned if he was going to admit it. “Exactly what did you do when you went in there?” he asked instead.
Gabriel shrugged, so obviously trying to hide his satisfaction that Gideon was tempted to reach across the table and slug him again. “I had repaired her glasses. I took them to her and … actually I do not remember anything very clearly after that. I was trying not to think about throwing her down on the bed and fucking her while she was smiling up at me. All I can remember very clearly was that she kissed me,” he touched his chest, “here, and then I could not really think about anything but kissing her in the same place … And then I was.”
“How did it get from there to her pleasuring you?”
“I told her I wanted to....” Gabriel broke off, shifting uncomfortably.
“Wanted to …?” Gideon prompted.
Gabriel sent him a harassed look. “I might have said something to the effect that I couldn’t, and then she offered to pleasure me instead.”
“Fuck!” Gideon growled, shooting up from the table. “Tell me you did not go in there and allow her to interrogate you, you cock sucking son-of-a-bitch!”
Gabriel shot to his feet, as well. “I was not sucking cock. I got my cock sucked!” he snapped goadingly.
“He spilled his guts,” Jerico growled in disgust. “I can see it on his face! Are you going to take him into the hold and beat the shit out of him? Or do you want me to?”
“I will take you both!” Gabriel snarled, stalking over to the hatch and snatching it open. Before he could straighten, Gideon planted his foot on his ass and gave him a shove. He managed to catch one of the rungs on the way down.
Gideon slammed the hatch and bolted it.
“Now what?” Jerico growled.
“I am all out of ideas,” Gideon snarled, stalking back to the table and dropping onto the bench he’d just vacated.
Gabriel began beating on the hatch door.
“At ease, soldier,” Gideon bellowed, “or I will come down there and break your fucking neck!”
Apparently Gabriel decided it would be best to stew in the hold for a while. He stopped beating on the hatch door. “I think we can safely assume he told her everything,” Gideon ground out. “That is why she came out and beat me with her book.”
“She tried to bite me,” Jerico added. “She is angry with both of us … very angry.”
“Because Gabriel could not keep his mouth shut!” Gideon snarled, getting to his feet and beginning to pace. Discovering after a few minutes that he was biting his nails, he stopped abruptly, stared at his hand in horror for several moments and finally settled at the table again. “This is wrecking my nerves,” he muttered, spearing his fingers through his hair as he propped his elbows on the table and held his head in his hands.
Jerico cleared his throat uncomfortably. After a good bit of rattling of containers, he finally assembled the food and tossed two of the meals into the cooking unit. “Do you think that what she did with Gabriel means that she favors him?”
Gideon looked up at him, his face slowly growing taut with anger. “Do you?”
Jerico shrugged, then frowned as he thought it over. “I wonder what it was like,” he finally said moodily. “I will say this for Gabriel—he is far braver than I. I would not have allowed her to put her mouth on me. She is too ready to bite.”
Gideon gave him a look. “You would do the same thing he did. You would risk it if she offered.” He paused. “I would, and she already bit my finger.”
* * * *
The first thing Bronte became aware of as she drifted toward consciousness was burgeoning arousal and a shivery, all-pervading, tingling tension. Warmth drifted through her, curled low in her belly, coaxing moisture from the walls of her sex and causing a gentle quaking as need stirred to life. Becoming more aware in her lazy search for the source, she eventually located the point where the delightful sensations were channeling into her.
There was a mouth attached to one of her breasts, tugging at the distended tip with a lazy, unhurried persistence that induced gentle waves of pleasure to wash through her. Awareness rose until it met the blanketing barrier of arousal in her mind that discouraged conscious thought as her focus centralized on the perception of sensation. Misgiving drifted through her mind, though, a nebulous certainty that acknowledging the giver would make the pleasure go away.
She shied away from that, unwilling to let go of the enchantment, allowing the receptors of sensation in her mind free reign to usurp cognitive awareness in favor of the visceral. It coul
dn’t last. She couldn’t hold on to it. Her allowance of sensory perception to dominate made it impossible to remain passive. The warmth intensified into heat. The tingling grew in strength until it became electric currents. The tension expanded outward until it encompassed not just her sex but every muscle in her body. Tremors began to ripple through her in her effort to remain still that gave away her awareness.
Feeling him tense as he became aware that she was no longer sleeping, she reluctantly gave up feigning sleep and sucked in a shaky breath that bordered on a moan.
He took that as a cue to shift his attentions to her other breast. She shivered as he released the bud he’d been teasing and the air chilled the moisture that lingered there from his mouth. The contrast of cold and heat as his mouth opened over her other nipple evoked a cascade of stippling flesh across her upper body that washed downward over her arms and breasts and belly. The walls of her sex spasmed, squeezing a gush of heated moisture into her sex.
The certainty settled in her that he would stop when he realized she was nearing her peak. He would tease her on and on until she thought she would die if he didn’t fill her with his flesh and drive into her until he took her the rest of the way there, and then he would abandon her.
And she still couldn’t find the will to try to avoid that inevitability. Instead, even knowing she was playing into his hands, she found herself struggling to hide from him just how aroused she was so that she could enjoy it just a little longer before he took even that away from her.
Her muscles began to ache from the effort to be still as his mouth poured fire into her veins with each tug on her nipple, each rough caress of his tongue across the exquisitely sensitive bud of flesh. A sound of distress escaped her as she finally yielded to the need she couldn’t ignore any longer and shifted her hips in search of something hard to press her mound against and discovered he’d pinned her lower body with one thigh. Her clit quaked in discontent when she failed to find any part of his body to rub it against.
She lifted her leaden eyelids to peer at him as Gideon lifted his head to study her face. “Why do you hate me so much?” she whispered plaintively.
Something flickered in his eyes. “Do I touch you as if I hate you?”
He withheld as if he hated her, she thought in dismay as he dropped his head to drag open mouthed kisses along the column of her throat as if to demonstrate how he didn’t hate her when she knew better, knew he’d set out for some reason unknown to her to make her life a living hell. “Your … programming,” she gasped hesitantly, still unwilling to anger him enough to pull away. “You said....”
He paused, lifted his head again. “I said I knew how and where to touch you to give you more pleasure than you could imagine,” he said, his voice rough.
She swallowed uncomfortably, the sound loud in her ears. “Yes.”
In the dim, omni-directional lighting of the room, she saw his brows draw together, a flicker of anger in his eyes … and something else. Pain? He tensed as if debating whether to draw away or not and she felt her belly tighten in disappointment.
Instead, he seemed to decide to punish her for pointing out his origins as a pleasure bot. His touch became more pointed, more demanding, lifting her from the plateau where she’d hovered when he’d allowed himself to be distracted and forcing her up the slippery slope that she knew was going to lead to painful disappointment because he wasn’t going to let her crest it and fall into the pool of ultimate bliss on the other side.
She couldn’t find it within herself to care for the moment. His lips felt wonderful as they crawled along the sensitive skin of her throat and the side of her neck, the light touch and faint movement enough to send waves of scouring heat through her. He sucked her earlobe when he reached her ear as he had her nipples, stirring more currents and then sent a headier jolt through her as he covered her ear with his mouth and sucked at it lightly before tracing the swirls. Shivers chased up and down her body, colliding in a delightful explosion in her belly that made her suck in a sharp breath.
Lifting his mouth from her ear, he covered her lips, thrusting his tongue past the delicate, yielding barrier and raking it over hers. The friction of his tongue rubbing against hers alone would’ve been enough in and of itself to enrapture and enthrall, but the burst of his taste inside her mouth, the infinite appeal of his scent overwhelmed her senses, intoxicated her. And each stroke of his tongue over hers, each inhalation of his scent was like another shot of his potent elixir--sweet, drugging, innervating. She shook with the force of the currents flooding her in hard waves, shifted restlessly, not only because she couldn’t be still, but because she needed to feel the brush his skin against her and couldn’t prevent the search for a touch.
The faintest of brushes would have been enough to feed the need, but he held her and at the same time held himself aloof, pinioning her legs with the weight of one thigh, her upper body with the weight of his arms across hers. It was torture, exquisite, exciting, but still torture. It wasn’t enough to feel his mouth on hers. It wasn’t enough to taste him, to feel his essence flowing into her like a river of lava. She wanted more, needed more. She had to feel him all over, feel his taut body pressing into hers, feel the abrasion of his heated flesh brushing hers.
Briefly, he deprived her of even the one point of intimate contact as he lifted his lips from hers. A faint sound of disappointment escaped her, became a moan that was equal parts pleasure and dread as she felt his lips nibbling a trail of fire down her throat and realized his goal. She tensed, waiting, hopeful, dreading almost as much as she anticipated the touch she knew was coming.
His lips closed around one pulsing nipple, sending an electrifying charge through her that seemed to fry nerve endings as it moved through her. She uttered a choked gasp in spite of all she could do. “Gideon! Please!” she gasped, a mournful note of desperation in her voice.
He seemed deaf to her entreaty, and yet he tugged harder, danced his tongue over and around the nearly painfully engorged bud with more purpose and far more devastating effect. She fought for breath, sucking tiny snatches of air into her constricted lungs as her body reached a surfeit of what it could take and yet could go no further, bound to the earthly plain by her body’s need to feel him inside of her and a stubborn refusal to give her release without it. Mindlessly, she begged for it, pleaded—thought she did. She found that she was only murmuring ‘please’ like a litany, over and over.
He stopped, lifting his head to study her and she felt like crying. “Give me what I want,” he said hoarsely.
She didn’t have to consider it. “Yes,” she gasped desperately. “Don’t stop!”
He shifted, sucked only the tip of her other breast into his mouth, flicked his tongue over it. “You will contract?”
“Contract?” she asked vaguely, even though what she really wanted to do was tell him to act now, talk about it later.
He dipped his head to toy with her nipple again, just enough to have her gasping for air. “Co-habitation. You will contract with us?”
Her mind was so awash with need she couldn’t think. Co-habitation? Us? There was something that didn’t seem to fit. He was waiting, though. He wasn’t going to give her what she wanted without an answer. She lifted her head with an effort to look down at him, thoroughly confused. “Us?”
Gideon studied her face carefully, struggling to decipher her expression when his mind and body were on fire with need and working against any ability to reason at all. The doubt in her voice alone was enough to give him pause, however. She was wavering, he thought dimly, within his grasp. Fuck the comrades in arms shit, he decided. “Me.”
She nodded, but he could see she hardly knew where she was, that he’d pushed her well beyond any ability to fully grasp what he was demanding. “Say it.”
She groaned, arching her back to lift her breast to him. He gave her what she was demanding, more because he couldn’t resist than because he thought he needed to push her more. By the time he lifted his head ag
ain, he had to struggle to focus on his objective. “Say it, Bronte.”
“Yes,” she gasped. “Please?”
A shudder went through him. Grasping her clothes, he peeled the uniform off of her with hands that shook so badly they fumbled clumsily, his mind completely unable to grapple with the mechanics of removing the damned thing. He ended up tearing it off of her when he hit a snag and couldn’t figure out how to untangle it. Grasping her thighs, he shoved them upward, bending her knees, and then pushing them wide enough he could wedge his hips between them with more haste than finesse. She was so wet for him when he reached between them to fumble with the mechanics of fitting their bodies together a red haze of insanity closed over him, compounded by the discovery that even when he’d managed to align his cock with her opening her body resisted his efforts to claim her immediately. His mind ceased to function at all then. Gritting his teeth against the near painful pleasure of feeling her heat and wetness engulfing him, he dug his toes into the mattress and heaved upward, thrusting frantically. Sweat beaded his flesh as he struggled, partly from the fire burning him up, partly from the exertion, and partly from the sudden fear that he wasn’t going to get all the way inside of her before he spilled his seed.
His teeth gritted determination and the moisture of her body finally combined to allow him to attain his objective even though it felt as if her body was clutching his cock so tightly it threatened to peel the skin off him. He had to stop to catch his breath when he’d sheathed himself completely inside of her. Impatient, she rocked her hips against his, demanding that he move. Tremors ripped through him with the effort to remain still, to keep from coming, to try to remember what it was he needed first. Unable to grasp the elusive thought, but certain it was vitally important to him, he pushed himself up on his elbows so that he could study her face, hoping it would come to him before he lost his tenuous grasp on his control.
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