Gideon, she realized, looked uncomfortable because he’d ditched his ‘comrades’ the moment he’d seen the lay of the land.
She was tempted to wait and see how he planned to get himself out of this one. On the other, she knew how this story was going to end—in the hold where all of their disagreements ended up.
“She said you have to ask her yourself,” she answered before Gideon had come up with a response, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame.
Jerico and Gabriel both whirled guiltily at the sound of her voice and froze like two hunting dogs that had just spied their quarry when they saw her standing in the doorway of the cabin completely nude. Gabriel recovered first, striding quickly toward her. Jerico was about two steps behind him and Bronte was beginning to regret the impulse to toss that challenge into a potentially volatile situation--as she so often did regret her impulses, and with good reason since they usually turned out badly.
Just as she straightened away from the doorframe to run, Jerico threw one leg out and tripped Gabriel up. Gabriel hit the deck and slid toward her several feet, but as Jerico leapt over him, he managed to snag Jerico around one ankle. Caught as completely off guard as Gabriel had been, Jerico pan-caked on the deck within a few feet of her.
Instead of trying to leap over him as Jerico had done, Gabriel leapt on top of Jerico, slammed his head against the deck a few times and then slugged him in the face with his fist for good measure. He beamed at her as he got to his feet.
Shaking her head at him, wondering if the urge to giggle was a touch of hysteria or space dementia, Bronte preceded him into the cabin. He caught up to her, snagged her around the waist, and pulled her into his embrace, tangling one hand in her hair and tipping her head back to give him access to her mouth in almost the same motion. Dizziness swept through her at the heated possession of his mouth, disorienting her so thoroughly she scarcely realized they were still in motion until she discovered he’d walked her backwards until they bumped into a wall. The unrestrained eagerness of his mouth and tongue as he lay siege to her senses was as heady a drug as his essence, inundating her with heated pleasure, instantly resurrecting the smoldering embers Gideon had left behind.
She hadn’t thought she could be so quickly or thoroughly aroused after the heights of passion Gideon had taken her to, but she discovered she was wrong, that everything inside of her responded as eagerly to Gabriel as he responded to her.
She was giddy and weak by the time he ended the kiss. Breathing raggedly, he pressed his forehead to hers, lifting a hand to stroke her cheek. “You are so beautiful,” he said hoarsely, leaning slightly away to allow his gaze and his hand to trail lightly down her body.
The comment warmed her. At the same time wry amusement flickered through her with the reflection that a rise in desire seemed to have that effect on the eyes. He stepped slightly away even as she struggled to lift her eyelids to look at him, swinging her into his arms effortlessly. More than a little breathless over his maneuver, Bronte felt her heart quicken with anticipation as he strode to the bed with her, settled her on the soft surface and followed her down. To her surprise, instead of instantly ravishing her—as she’d actually hoped he would, he merely settled beside her and lay staring at her as if fascinated by her face. Finally, he lifted one of her hands into his, examining it with equal absorption. “Will you?” he asked finally, toying with her fingers almost nervously. “Contract with me?” he added when he flicked a glance at her face and saw she was merely staring back at him in surprise.
Bronte sighed ecstatically. It was almost romantic!
If it hadn’t been for the bleeding cut over his eye, the reddened nose he’d hit on the floor when he fell, and the fact that he’d slammed Jerico’s head into the floor, she thought it would’ve been even more romantic.
Rolling onto her side, she smiled at him. “You’re certain you don’t want to torture a ‘yes’ out of me?” she asked teasingly.
Doubt flickered in his eyes, his straight dark brows tenting above the bridge of his nose in that sad/confused expression that had always tugged at her heart.
Her chest tightened as it struck her that he probably didn’t understand teasing. It was tragic that they’d missed so much. In some ways they all reminded her of over grown children. She supposed, in some ways they were, because they hadn’t gotten the chance to learn so many of the social skills developed during childhood. They hadn’t even been among the fortunate ones that at least had faux memories to give them those tools.
She lifted her free hand to brush a lock of inky black hair from his face. “Never mind, Gabriel. I was just teasing. Yes, I will contract with you—if you’re sure this is what you want?”
He shifted closer. Dragging her beneath him, he locked his gaze with hers. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I would … be honored.”
He seemed absolutely sincere, and yet the comment made her uncomfortable. “I can’t help but worry that this would be disastrous,” she said. “You and the others have so often come to blows.”
He frowned at that. “We could apply for shift rotation, and then no more than one would be with you at the time,” he said thoughtfully, and then added with the air of confession, “A soldier’s pay is not that much, but then Gideon is an officer and he makes more—so you will not want for anything of comfort. Between the three of us—if you decide that you will accept Jerico—I am certain we can provide very well for you.
“I have no programming for social skills, but I would get it if it becomes available. I have not had much opportunity to utilize my programming as a pleasure bot, but I am fully programmed and equipped. I can give you as much pleasure as the others. I am also a programmed soldier and have much experience in that, at least. On my honor, I will protect you with my life, always.”
Bronte didn’t know why his careful recital of his assets made her feel like crying—after all that was a critical part of courting, convincing the one you wanted that you were worth having—except that he was so awkward at it, obviously didn’t know this was the sort of things one demonstrated or found another way to subtly get the message across. She knew, though, that he’d misinterpret it if she gave in to the urge.
“I will do all that I can to make sure you do not regret it, Bronte—if you will agree.”
She was going to cry if he didn’t stop it! More to distract him than because her libido was still raging, she lifted her head to press her mouth to his. “Yes, Gabriel,” she murmured against his lips.
It had the desired effect—with benefits. It instantly diverted him to sex and he redirected her mind from its sentimental bent to a far more pleasant place. It took very little to reignite the fire he’d already started. She was hot and breathless by the time he ended the kiss and began the search for other delights. By the time he drifted from his exploration of her throat to her breasts, he’d thoroughly awakened every nerve ending in her body and she was hot and wet and desperate when he had satisfied his interest in her breasts and moved lower.
She began to tug at him, trying to urge him to inter her. When he ignored that, continuing to explore her belly with his lips, she shifted to spread her thighs around his hips, arching her mound against his chest. Instead of seizing the opportunity she offered to sheath himself inside of her, he slipped lower still, pushing her thighs wide and covering her sex with his mouth. She sucked in a harsh breath when she felt the heat of his mouth on her clit. The faintly rough texture of his tongue as he strummed it seemed to force the air from her lungs.
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, savoring the feel of him for many moments, feeling her body tighten, her senses expand and then focus on the delicious tug of his mouth. The sensations intensified swiftly to nearly unbearable. She began to moan instead of merely to pant for breath, to writhe and lift to meet his mouth. The sense of urgency and anticipation grew until she felt herself struggling to try to fight against the tide carrying her away. From one moment to the next she was torn between the
desire to beg him to stop and drive his cock into her and the equal want for him not to stop at all.
She did both, pulling at him to urge him to take her one moment, holding his head to her the next. And then the decision was ripped from her grasp. A keen cry tore from her throat as her body abruptly seized so hard it forced the air from her lungs and then began to convulse in hard waves as she came until she was screaming, so caught up in the rapturous spasms she was hardly aware of the hands that settled on her face.
“Will you contract with me?”
She managed to open one eye a crack and discovered Jerico’s face hovering above hers. “Oh!” she gasped sharply as another wave hit her.
“Is that a yes?”
Mindless as she was at that moment, her brain seized on the only thing supplied that might end the distraction. “Yes!” she screamed. “Yes!”
She slumped into grateful semi-consciousness as the spasms finally began to dissipate and Gabriel ceased to torture her clit and shifted over her. She groaned again as she felt his cock probing her and then thrusting inside of her. There was a dull, meaty thud and she opened her eyes, trying to focus them as Gabriel scooped her shoulders into his arms and began thrusting into her.
Jerico was on the floor, but he noticed she’d opened her eyes and sat up again. “You will agree to contract?” he asked again, trying to wedge his head between her and Gabriel.
“Yes!” she grunted out as Gabriel found his rhythm and began to drive into her in hard, deep thrusts.
“I have the contract! It is only the basic form, but I have looked it over and I think this will do.”
Her eyes crossed as Gideon shoved Jerico aside and held up the tablet for her to look at it. “I … can’t … read … it,” she grunted out testily in counter to Gabriel’s thrusts as they forced the air from her lungs.
He frowned. “Are you not done yet, Gabriel? Never mind. I will read it.”
“Oh god!” Bronte groaned, uncertain of whether it was more from irritation at the distraction or because Gabriel, prompted to hurry, was about to buckle her spine.
Gabriel’s ragged, desperate breaths near her ear drowned out most of the drone of Gideon’s voice. Between that distraction and the fact that she discovered Jerico had merely stepped back to watch, she should have been too diverted to enjoy anything Gabriel was doing to her. Contrary to all logic, however, or maybe just because her body could not be distracted from enjoying it even if her mind could, she discovered she was climbing toward climax again a handful of seconds before it hit, crashing through her even harder than her first had.
She squeezed her eyes closed, uttered a choked cry and then a series of high pitched keens as the waves rocked her. Gabriel shuddered, groaned, and climaxed on top of hers, settling weakly against her as the last shockwaves of his release went through him.
Through the warming afterglow of pleasure, she heard Gideon’s voice.
“…. Automatically renewable after the full term of seven years if undisputed, void if disputed by either party. Will that suit you, Bronte?”
Dragging in a decent breath, finally, Bronte cracked one eye open and struggled to focus on Gideon’s face. “Wha…?”
He knelt down. “Will this suit?”
She opened her other eye, struggled to keep them from crossing and finally closed one eye again. “I missed the first part,” she said with an effort.
He frowned and looked down at the tablet irritably. “I will just hit the high spots. This is too much to read again. Unless you want to read it yourself?”
“No,” Bronte responded, beginning to recover enough to feel a flicker of annoyance. “Is there a clause for early termination in case one of the parties discovers they are completely incompatible with another member of the party?”
Gideon frowned as he looked it over. “Yes,” he said finally, obviously completely oblivious to her discontent. “One year.”
“Good! Now go away—both of you!”
Jerico frowned, then slid a speculative glance at Gabriel. “He is done. Gabriel should leave and then I can ask you again about contracting with me without him to distract you.”
Bronte gave him a look, uncertain for several moments if he was serious or not. It dawned on her fairly quickly, however, than none of the three had any tact whatsoever, or any sense of humor. He was not only serious, he had no inkling that it wasn’t welcome at the moment, and obviously neither he nor Gideon saw anything at all wrong with discussing business while she was being ‘pleasured’.
That was way more than just disconcerting.
“No!” she finally responded implacably when Gabriel finally gathered enough energy to roll off of her. “I already told you I would. You don’t need to convince me!”
Sitting up with an effort, she scooted to the edge of the bed and put her feet on the floor. “I’m going to bathe,” she finished weakly, wondering if her legs would hold her up long enough to do so.
“We should sign contracts first,” Gideon said.
“I am not signing any damned thing stark naked and dripping come!” Bronte snapped.
Gideon frowned. “It will only take a few moments and then it will be done.”
“This has to be recorded since we can’t appear before a judge or anything, right?”
Gideon nodded.
“Then NO!”
Gideon’s face went taut with anger. “This is an order, sol....”
Bronte shot to her feet, stalked over to him, and poked him in the chest with her index finger. “I am not one of your damned soldiers! You might as well get it through your thick skull right now that I am not going to follow orders! We will co-habit as equal partners or I’ll have nothing to do with it and you can shove that tablet up your ass!”
He looked taken aback, obviously was, because he didn’t make any attempt to detain her as she stalked from the room and into the bath.
Chapter Fifteen
Gideon managed to ignore the accusing glares Gabriel and Jerico bent upon him for the first few minutes that he paced the length of the ship’s mid-section and back again. The moment he became aware of it, however, his temper shot up several degrees.
“You have something to say?” he growled, finally coming to a halt when it occurred to him they were offering him an opportunity to work off some of his nervous energy.
“Yes!” Jerico growled back at him. “We had only just got her to agree to sign and now you have made her angry and she is not going to sign at all!”
Since Gideon had just spent the past ten minutes trying to understand himself what she’d meant and still wasn’t certain the comment diffused his anger somewhat. “She did not say she would not,” he said uneasily. “She said she would not be ordered to do so.”
“But you did order her!” Gabriel pointed out furiously. “If she said she would not if you ordered her to, and you did, does that not mean she has changed her mind?”
Gideon scrubbed a hand over his face. “That part has been worrying me also. She said we would be equal partners or she would not. I will tell her that we will be equal partners and then she will,” he said decisively. He glanced toward the cabin door uneasily. “I think I will wait until she comes out and see if she is still angry.”
“She said you could shove that tablet up your ass,” Jerico said thoughtfully.
Gideon glared at him. “Well, I can not! And I do not want to if I could! It will do us no good there!”
“I think it was what they call a ‘figure of speech’ or maybe slang,” Jerico said after a moment.
Gideon stared at him impatiently. “Well? What does it mean?”
“That she is angry … I think.”
Gideon gave him a look of disgust. “She did not have to say that to make me understand she was angry! She must have meant something when she said it!”
“I will shove it up your ass myself if she says she will not contract now!” Gabriel growled. “Then she will be happy again and contract with me!”
“Yo
u can try,” Gideon snarled. “Mayhap I will shove it up your ass!”
“I do not know why you had to order her at all!” Jerico said with rising anger.
Instead of stalking over to Jerico and planting his fist in his face, which was what he wanted to do, Gideon resumed his pacing. “Because we passed the outer rim of the system nigh an hour ago! Command center will have picked us up by now and we will not get the chance to have the contracts signed if we do not do something quickly!” he bellowed angrily.
“We must have several hours left!” Jerico said worriedly.
Discovering a ragged nail, Gideon began to gnaw on it as he paced. “Three … at most,” he acknowledged. Successfully removing the offending nail, he spat it out, and examined the others. He had already gnawed those to the tips of his fingers, though. Disgusted, he dropped his hands to his sides again. “That is only until we dock, however. Command center will contact us as soon as we are in range, and then they will know about Bronte. For you may be sure that they will ask about the success of our mission. And when I report, as I must, then they will begin to make plans for her that does not include us! Or worse, they will instantly realize that we would have used the tactical advantage of having her with us and order us not to contract! If we have already signed the contracts they can do no more than throw us in the brig for a few months.
“What is taking her so long?” he demanded of no one in particular, halting abruptly and swiveling toward the cabin door.
He’d barely gotten the question out when the door opened and Bronte stepped out. She gave him a look. “I was trying to find something to put on. Someone, naming no names, ripped the suit I was wearing!”
Gideon stared at her blankly. “You were not wearing....”
Jerico and Gabriel turned to glare at him accusingly.
“We do not have time to ‘discuss’ this now!” Gideon ground out surging forward to grasp Bronte’s arm and lead her to the table where he had set the tablet. He discovered when he had set up the vid to record the event that she was reading it. Swallowing the urge to point out that he had already read it to her, he settled on the bench beside her, drumming his fingers on the table top while he waited impatiently for her to finish. She threw him a frowning reproach, glared at his fingers for several moments and finally sighed.
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