“More,” she begged. She didn’t know exactly what she was asking for; it wasn’t just his cock, though she needed that. She wanted all of him inside her, beside her, with her for as long as she could have him. But all she could manage to speak was a single word.
It was enough.
Dash kissed her again, their tongues tangled and tasting as he lined himself up at her entrance. And then he was sliding home, joining them together with a bond as old as time itself. She clutched at him, holding tight and probably leaving bruises, but he didn’t seem to care, so she wouldn’t either, not if it kept them close together.
He moved within her and she moved with him, their hips thrusting in sync. She stared up at him and his dark eyes sparkled with light, almost like they were glowing. He was glowing, that happiness that had been radiating off of him all day coming off in waves and all directed at her. Ro couldn’t help but get swept up in it, not when her body undulated with pleasure and she finally had the man she craved with her in bed.
The tempo increased, the dance becoming frenetic as they came to their peaks. Ro crested first, her body rippling with release, her throat letting out a decadent moan as she let go off all of the tension within and surrendered to the pleasure. A moment later Dash joined, releasing into her with a final thrust and a moan of his own.
They lay there together for several minutes, their breath mingled and chests rising in a calming rhythm. Ro’s body tingled with pleasure and she couldn’t wipe the grin off her face, she didn’t want to. She turned her head to face Dash and found him already looking at her, his smile just as wide.
The worrier who lived in the back of her mind tried to tell her that this was bad, that it was bound to end messy, painful, or both. But for once Ro told that part of her brain to shut up and enjoy the moment. She’d deal with consequences when they happened. For now, she was going to enjoy the man beside her.
THE NEXT MORNING, GOOD cheer still buzzed in Dash’s veins. How could it not? He’d reunited a family, spent the day with the woman he thought was his mate, and then spent the night with her as well. At this rate he’d be high on good cheer for months and he couldn’t see anything wrong with that. He was humming in the shower as he cleaned up and still humming when he came out to find Ro dressed and ready to go. She smiled at him, and he couldn’t stop himself from crossing the room to kiss her.
She wrapped an arm around him and opened for him and Dash’s body stirred, desperate to take her again. But they’d barely slept the night before, so caught up in each other, and while he was powered by cheer, he had to remember that Ro was human and needed a little time to recharge.
A little.
He pulled away and Ro looked at him strangely. “What was that for?” She placed her fingers to her swollen lips.
Dash kissed her forehead. “I like kissing you.”
She dropped her eyes and pressed her lips together, but she couldn’t stop the smile from blooming. “I like kissing you too.”
The feeling coursing through him wasn’t the same as what he experienced when he brought good cheer to others. It was stronger, and it took him a moment to realize it was his own personal happiness. He was a cheerful individual by default, rarely sad or down, but he was usually on an even keel, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt personal joy rather than good cheer from a job well done. “The ship should be ready to go soon. Want to grab some food before we head out?”
Ro nodded. “We’re so close to Earth I can practically taste it.”
And that statement threatened his happiness, the reminder that he only had her for a few more days. Last night had felt like the beginning of something special to Dash, but did Ro feel the same way? Or would she be happy to leave him the second he got her back to her family? A small part of him wanted to delay their journey, to find an excuse to stay on the moon for a few more days and get to know one another, but he knew how important this trip was and he wouldn’t do that to his mate. His potential mate.
He just needed to use the rest of their time together to prove that there was something between them that could grow beyond this trip. He just needed to make Ro want to keep him.
“Are you okay?” she asked, entwining their fingers and rubbing her thumb back and forth over his palm.
His smile wasn’t fake, even if it wasn’t as broad as it had been. “Hungry. Let’s eat.”
Dash took her to his favorite food stall on Lunar Base Alpha and barely noticed the taste of his own food as he watched Ro devour the wrap she’d ordered, her expression almost identical to one she’d been wearing while he thrust into her. His cock twitched, and he had to look away or risk taking her over the table. That was definitely not what he should be doing at the moment.
Once they were done, they still had an hour until the ship was scheduled for pickup, so Dash took her to the souvenir shops. There wasn’t much on Alpha, since it was meant for research rather than vacation, but one of the shops was practically a museum to the science that happened on the moon, with information going back all the way to the first human landing on the lunar surface.
“It’s crazy how after a few trips to the moon humans stopped sending people for decades,” Ro observed, reading a plaque next to a bin of toys wearing old-fashioned astronaut suits. “They just stayed in their little station and orbited. And people thought space travel was a waste. I can’t imagine. And they thought aliens didn’t exist. I’ve heard those stories of first contact.” She shuddered. “I’m happy to be a modern Mars girl.”
“Do you really think of yourself as from Mars now?” He wondered if he should admit that he wasn’t exactly human. Yes, he’d been born on Earth and he’d never left the solar system, but Dash’s ancestors had a more... celestial past than most humans, and the fact that he could shift into a beast would mark him as different to anyone who cared to look. He glanced around the store but decided to hold his confession back. He could tell her once they were in private. No need to spill his secrets for all of the moon to hear.
Ro shrugged. “No, I guess not. But it’s where I live now. And in some ways it feels more like home than anywhere else.” She picked up a toy and then frowned. “If May heard me, she’d think I was my dad.” She put the toy back and shook her head.
Should Dash let her leave it? Her mood was clearly shifting towards the dark and he wanted to cheer her up, but happiness couldn’t cloud out old sorrow. Sometimes the darkness had to be worked through. “Would that be so bad?”
“Is abandoning your family for a better life on a different planet bad? Letting them think you were dead and gone?” She picked the toy back up. “Something for Lee, I think.” She walked towards a cashier bot, leaving Dash behind.
Letting them think... Was her father dead or not? Now Dash was curious, but this time he did let the subject drop. Ro clearly didn’t want to talk about it and it wasn’t his place to pry. Not yet.
When she had the toy in a little gift box it was time to head back to the ship. They weaved through the crowds who were both arriving and departing, and Dash sent Kiki one last happy thought, hoping she had the best holiday ever.
But when they got to their dock, Dash could sense something was wrong. For one, the main hatch was open and a large collection of cables were still plugged in. And for another, a technician was pounding at a panel and muttering quiet swears to himself. Dash left him to it and found his co-worker entering data into a tablet.
“Has there been a delay?” Dash asked her. “We need to do pre-flight checks.”
The tech snorted. “You’re not getting off the moon for at least a week, bud.” She didn’t even look up while delivering the news. “You’ve got six engine components on the verge of blow out and I’ve only got three in stock. We’re having the rest shipped in, but with the holiday things are a bit slow. You know how it goes.”
“What?” It tore out of Ro as she stepped up beside him. “What do you mean a week? We don’t have a week.”
That got the tech to look up
. She raised one bushy eyebrow and stared Ro down. “If you leave, I can’t guarantee you make it halfway to Earth. Frankly, you’re lucky you managed to dock.” She turned back to Dash. “Were there any issues on the flight over? Any alerts?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary.” Dash kept his ship in good order. He had to be careful, he wasn’t going to risk his passengers. He wanted to tear the tablet out of the tech’s hands and read through everything she’d found. But he forced himself to remain calm. “Can you patch it? I just need to run to Earth, surely there’s a dock down there that can fix me up.”
“No.”
Ro breathed deep, and Dash feared she was about to launch herself at the tech. But she just took half a step forward and looked at her for a moment. “Hi,” her tone took on a false brightness, “I realize we might have gotten off on the wrong foot, but I’d like to remedy any misunderstanding. You see, my nephew is down on Earth,” she held up the gift box as if it represented him, “and I haven’t seen him in a few years. I promised I’d be back for the holidays. So is there anything you can do to make that happen?”
The tech blinked at her and pursed her lips before saying, “No.”
Dash stepped in front of Ro before she could do serious damage to the tech. “Thanks. I’ll pick the ship up when she’s ready.”
The tech shrugged. Dash turned around and shepherded Ro down the hall, his mind reeling, trying to figure out how to fix this. He was sure that Ro would leave, would try to find another way to Earth, and now that they were on the moon it would be much easier than back on Mars. There were dozens of daily shuttles. She’d be better off taking one of those. If there were any seats.
But he couldn’t let her go so easily.
He placed his hands on both of her shoulders and held on until she faced him. “Give me an hour.” He tried not to beg, but he was sure a thread of desperation came through. “I’ll find us a way to Earth. But I need to ask around.”
Ro straightened, and he could see the refusal sitting in her eyes, but she nodded. “One hour.”
Dash left her there and took off at a run. He needed to find a way off the moon before his mate abandoned him. He wasn’t going to let a broken ship get in the way of the rest of his life.
Chapter Six
AT A CERTAIN POINT, Ro was going to have to admit defeat. Right now she was pretty sure the universe was laughing at her. She’d overcome the obstacle back home and met the hottest man she’d ever encountered to boot, but now they were within sight of her home planet and their ship couldn’t fly.
Had she angered someone with magic powers? Was she being punished?
She watched Dash hurry out of the dock and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do now. The rational part of her brain said she was wasting an hour by letting him try and find another ride off the moon, and it tried to pipe up that she’d wasted an entire night. But her body was still satisfied, even if her mind was in torment, and she couldn’t regret last night.
She followed Dash out of the dock at a more sedate pace, heading towards the terminal where passengers were arriving and getting ready to depart. She glanced at the ticketing machine but didn’t walk over to see if there were seats on any flights heading towards Earth. She’d promised him an hour, she wasn’t going to torture herself by looking for other alternatives until that time was up.
She really hoped he came up with something, she wasn’t ready for their time together to end. She had plans for that man, damn it, and one night wasn’t enough. She didn’t think a few more nights would be enough, either, but it was what she’d have to satisfy herself with.
Plonking herself down in a chair in the terminal, she tried not to think about all the things that had gone wrong. She tried not to worry that Dash wouldn’t be able to find them a way off the freaking moon. She was so close! She could literally see Earth if she looked out of one of the base’s windows, but it was still too far.
“Mama! Mama!” A child’s screeching voice cut through her thoughts, and Ro looked to see a little girl running at full bore down the central aisle to where a tall woman with bright pink hair was beaming. The woman opened her arms and the girl jumped into them.
“Auntie Ro! You’re here!” She could almost imagine Lee doing the same thing, running and bouncing towards her. But he would be bigger than the little girl now, and he might not even recognize her after all these years. They’d spoken by comm, but it was different seeing someone in person.
Her heart kicked at the thought. She was happy on Mars most of the time, well and truly happy, even if she spent a lot of those days alone. Until she’d met Dash and felt how it could be with someone who just got her, she hadn’t considered it a negative. She didn’t want to move back to Earth, find some guy, and pump out a dozen little ones, that wouldn’t make her complete. But seeing the happy families all around and knowing that she’d stayed away from hers for so long made her wonder what she was missing out on.
And it was like fate was punching her in the face, insisting that no matter how hard she tried, she’d keep screwing up. Her family had already given up on her. May didn’t believe she’d make it, and now with the broken ship it was looking less and less likely that she would.
Please come through again, Dash.
“LME Shuttles has five open seats on the 3PM flight to New York. See your nearest ticketing station to claim a ticket.” The speaker cut through, and if that wasn’t a sign from the heavens, Ro didn’t know what was. But a look at the time said Dash still had fourteen minutes to get them situated. In fourteen minutes those seats were bound to be gone. Would it be so bad to buy one? She could give the ticket up if Dash came through.
No.
Ro had given him a chance and she’d keep her end of the deal. But she’d feel a lot better if he was with her. Or if she had any idea of how he planned to get them off the moon.
Where was he?
Could she trust him?
Thirteen minutes left to see.
WHEN DID LUNAR BASE Alpha get so big? Dash sprinted down the hall and finally came to the cramped office he was looking for. He’d put all his hopes on the crew being here, and the light peeking out from under the door suggested that he might just be lucky.
The door slid open when he stepped in front of the sensor, and the dark-skinned woman with bright purple hair behind the desk smiled up at him. “I didn’t expect to see you, cousin. It’s a pleasure.”
Dash sucked in a breath. He could run dozens of kilometers without an issue, but he’d basically forgotten how to breathe in his desperate sprint. He hunched over and held up a finger, needing a moment to get himself back under control.
“Yes,” Ettie said, sarcasm dripping off her words, “I’ll wait here, I’m not busy at all this time of year.”
Dash pulled in one last shuddering breath and grinned. “I was hoping you’d be here.”
She leaned back and propped her legs up on the desk. “I gathered that, seeing as you set your lungs on fire to do it.”
“When are you shipping out and where are you going?” He didn’t have time to banter. It had taken far too long to cross the station, and he wasn’t sure Ro would actually give him every second that he’d asked for.
“Last I checked, you had a ship of your own. We all do.”
Cousin was, perhaps, not the correct term to refer to Dash and his relatives. His and Ettie’s mothers had been sisters, but they had other cousins spread throughout this part of the galaxy that had a much more nebulous connection to them. But they all had similar talents and a desire to spread cheer.
“Ship needs parts. And I’ve got an emergency passenger that needs to get to Earth. Was hoping that you’re on your way there.” He needed to do this for Ro, needed to prove he could be what she needed before she slipped through his fingers. Now that he’d had a taste of her, he didn’t know if he’d be able to let her go.
“So you want to pass this passenger over to me? I can manage a seat. Just so happens we’re leaving for Florida
tonight.”
Dash had to tamp down on his urge to jump for joy. But it was music to his ears. “I’m going with. Can you manage two seats? She has to get to Minnesota by the end of the week, but we can take it from there.”
Ettie narrowed her eyes. “Why do you need to go with? And do you really think I have two spare cabins? I’m not flying a cruise liner.”
He didn’t blush, but it was a close thing. Would Ro care if Ettie knew about them being... together? Were they together? He didn’t sleep with people casually, and he was almost certain Rowan was his mate. As far as he was concerned, they were the real deal. But they probably needed to have a conversation about that before he went singing it from the rooftops. “We can share quarters,” he finally said, “and you know I can get a flight any time I need it.”
Ettie swept her legs off the desk and leaned forward. “What’s so special about this passenger? I know you go out of your way to get the job done, we all do, but this seems above and beyond.”
“I think she’s my mate.”
“You think?”
Dash’s shoulders drew up. “I haven’t had a chance to shift, have I? You know how tiny my ship is. And I’m not going to risk discovery and freak out my passengers. I was bringing a kid here, do you know how bad that could have gone? No way I could risk it. But Ro’s not like any person I’ve ever met before. And when we’re together—” he wasn’t going to explain himself to Ettie. He knew what he felt. That was enough for him.
And his cousin grinned brightly, eyes sparkling. “I can feel the cheer rolling off you, Dash. You know how difficult it is for us to feel it from each other. Yeah, this person has to be special. What’s their name?”
“Her name is Ro. Rowan Lambert. She’s trying to get back to her sister’s place in time for the holidays. She lost her seat on a shuttle leaving Mars and I promised I’d get her there. I need to do this.” He couldn’t fail his mate, he wouldn’t.
The Alien Reindeer's Wild Ride Page 5
