The warrior manning the gun glanced at her as she curled up on the long bunk behind him.
Yawning, she gestured. “Don’t mind me. I’ll catch a nap. There’s nothing to shoot for miles anyway.”
“Brask might not like this. You here with me.”
She only grunted and closed her eyes.
“So I messaged him.”
The creak of someone coming up the internal ladder leading to the turret warned her. She sat up. The circular trapdoor fell open and Brask climbed out.
“Speak of the devil,” she murmured.
“You can’t be up here with another male. It’s not done.”
Talia shrugged.
“You look tired. Red eyes. If that’s a sign in humans?” His gaze took in all of her but then he sat on the edge of the bunk and she had to scrunch back a little to allow him room.
“Dassenze kept me awake most of the night with his autopsies. Aren’t you tired? I saw you out there.”
“A little. Lie back down. I’ll keep watch.” Gently he pressed on her shoulder and she lay down on her side, eyeing him.
What was he up to? But he only laid his hand on her head.
“Mmm.” Nice. The slight pressure of his hand made her feel safe. Her eyelids drifted down and she fell asleep to the rocking of the vehicle and the comfort of knowing he was beside her.
When she awoke, the gunner was gone and Brask was stroking his fingers through her hair.
Moisture glistened on his eyes and along his lower eyelids.
Brask? Emotional? Asking him why was probably wrong.
“Hello, beautiful.”
“Hey.” She struggled to sit up, sleep still clogging her mind. “Shouldn’t someone be there?”
“We have motion, heat, and living organism detection prioritized for human size. I can man it in seconds.”
“Okay.”
Nothing much had changed. The countryside they passed was a little greener maybe, with a few more trees, but it was mostly grass, endless wire fences, and pale blue sky dotted with the ashes from Willow.
“Put your head on me.” Brask lifted her head and shoulders as he shifted back to sit properly on the bunk seat. She kept her head high for a moment, eying him. He patted his lap. “Please. I’d like it; so would you.”
A little smug but he was right. She rested her head on his thigh. The thick black leggings were slippery under her cheek and his side arm dug into her shoulder. She moved again to get comfier then couldn’t resist sighing and snuggling in.
“You do feel nice.” Smelled nice too.
Brask chuckled. “So do you.”
The rumbling of the semi and the rocking motion soothed her as much as his continued patting of her head. This was rare for Brask. He usually pounced on her in a more sexual way. Maybe the honeymoon craziness time was over?
“I’ve been thinking.”
Her senses pricked alert. “Uh-huh?”
“About us. Dassenze.”
“He’s not coming to us, ever.”
“I’d not be so sure. Things that seem impossible now can be possible, if given time.”
Deep. Brask philosophizing was a concern. It was like watching a lion debate the merits of dental hygiene before he chowed down.
“I’d never seen a female like you until I came here.” He peered at her. “Never seen a female warrior.”
“That bothers you?” she asked warily.
“No.” He puffed out a breath, blowing out his cheeks. “I admired you from the first time I saw you. Sexy, competent, skilled. That you can sometimes beat me in a fight? Took a while to get used to that.”
Sometimes? Guess with a gun in hand he might beat her. “Sorry.” But her tongue sneaked out as a smile crept onto her lips.
“You’re not.” He tugged a lock of hair. “I don’t mind.”
“Good.” She watched a small crease recycle between his brows, over and over, as if he struggled with some idea.
“And I’m proud of you.”
That was something. It made her happy that he appreciated her abilities, especially as he said it’d happened from the first time he saw her. They’d been thrown together and she’d despised him at first.
“You know I live on military bases. Some have been on moons orbiting deserted planets, some deep in the middle of nowhere in space.”
It took her a few seconds to figure out what the subtext was. He was concerned about what he could offer her?
“The future?” she drawled. “It’s not something I’ve considered past today.”
“Maybe you should. Wherever I go, I want you with me.”
Want was better than need. It said a decision made on purpose. It wasn’t true though.
“As if there’s a choice.” This compulsion, this link they had, it didn’t seem to allow for choice.
He settled back again, frowning out at the landscape. “When Stom tried to go off planet, it nearly killed him. Even if the Preyfinders leave here, I may have to stay with you. If we can leave, I’ll have to follow where my unit goes.”
In which case, there was no doubt that she’d have to follow him. The missing piece always tugged at her – Dassenze. Where was this thought trail going?
“I find I want you to be happy.” Those words had come out slowly, like teeth were being pulled.
“Hmm.” She inhaled, smelling his maleness again, feeling the solidness of his muscles. Irresistible as always. She wanted to take a bite of this leg before her. She looked up at him. Handsome eyes too. Could eyes be handsome?
But, he cared about her happiness?
“I like you more than I used to. This, talking, it helps. First time I set eyes on you, I figured you to be an arrogant asshole.”
Brask grunted. “One of the main features of Earth women seems to be this smartassedness.”
“Is that a word? You made that up.”
“It is now.”
“You’re still an arrogant asshole, aren’t you?”
“Well now.” He met her gaze with all the precision and deadliness of an incoming laser-guided missile. “I can see my pet needs punishing again.” That a smile lurked at the corners of his lips made her choke back a laugh.
“Try and die, man.” Talia turned onto her stomach. Again, there was that niggling urge that said, ‘poke the sucker until he bites back,’ and it brought her to the brink of the badlands.
“You have no marks on your face, Talia, only the sexual ones on your labia and nipples. I can do what I like to you.”
Though the anatomical terms were normal to her profession, Brask using them to talk about her made her feel like an experiment. She screwed up her nose. With her hands under her on the bunk, she raised her upper body then leaned on her elbows. “I can get some face ones soon as I find a permanent marker.”
He’d hesitated and she could tell from past experience that he was using some translation database in his head.
“A pen, alien man. That doesn’t rub out.” She sighed, rolled her eyes, and did her Yoda impersonation. “So slow at learning, you are.”
“Funny...” He lowered himself to stare while he rumbled out, “How that movie is a favorite of mine.”
She paused, struck by his humanity. He wasn’t just a soldier. “I’d heard you liked our movies.” This seemed a good time to ask. “Would you tell me why you had tears in your eyes when I woke up?”
“Ah. Tears? I wouldn’t say that.” Brask looked at her then put his palm on her back and rubbed her there for a few seconds. He tilted his head. “I was worrying about you. Worried about what might happen today.”
“I see.” She sat up on her knees, put her hands on his shoulders, and she kissed him. “Thank you.”
“For?”
“Being nice.”
“You don’t get away with just one kiss. Come here.” He lifted her onto his lap so she had to straddle him before he kissed her again. This time they took their time.
When she drew away, she ran her tongue over her lips, t
asting him, feeling the tingles from where he’d abused her mouth.
“Look at these. Pretty.”
He’d lowered his gaze, assessing her lazily, and now he traced a double curve over her upper breasts where they showed at the neckline. Watching him do that, his fingers touching her, was mesmerizing. She took her bottom lip in her teeth and found she’d automatically arched forward, as if her body was hoping he’d venture lower.
“Not yet.” He jiggled his thighs, shaking her. “Stand up and take off your shorts and underwear.”
“Here?” But she climbed off his lap and stood between his legs.
Commands from men triggered her stubbornness and the transparent turret made her nervous. Her long-lost feminism was always reminding her of how wrong this was, obeying. She wanted what was about to happen. She didn’t want.
Confusion reigned supreme in many of these tipping moments between giving up or standing tall and resisting.
But Brask had figured her out. She often did this. He knew it. She knew it. “You know you’re going to do what I ask.”
Rhetorical question.
It was excruciating. She prodded the floor, screwing into it lightly with the ball of her foot. “No, I don’t.”
The words were stupid but she said them anyway. Bondmating conflicted with her inner kickass chick.
“You are.” His voice had meandered an octave lower and her eyes widened. He stood and came to her, grabbed either side of her T-shirt and shuffled it off over her head. Then he reached to undo the button of her shorts and tugged on the shorts until they slid down her legs and he could kick them aside.
Half naked, and with Brask’s hand on her ass beneath her panties, skin to skin...
“Or would you rather I punish you?” The low timbre of his voice unraveled her rebellion. “Come.” He pulled her to the bunk and her feet stuttered on the floor as she pretended to hold back. It wasn’t all pretense. He’d not done this to her before. “Lie over my legs.”
Smoothly, he sat then pulled her over him to lie so her stomach met his thighs though her feet touched the floor in tiptoe fashion.
Made to do it in such a matter-of-fact way, it was easy to allow.
She felt a wisp of sensation as he slid her panties low enough to bare her ass. “I love these.” They were black but thankfully lacy and she found herself happy that the look of them pleased him. Or was it her ass he remarked on?
“Mmm.” She lowered her head, waiting, wondering.
“Do all human women have such asses?”
Rhetorical again but she couldn’t resist and she murmured, “Only me.”
“Liar.” He smacked her twice, once on each side. The sensation rumbled through her, clearing away all the garbage of conflict. The sting reverberated even more than when he’d whipped her. He smacked her again and the throbs built under her skin.
Another, harder smack.
“Oh!” she choked out then shuddered, her eyes closing, as he smoothed the mark.
After ten or more, the count had become vague and he set her on her feet, turning her to admire her ass again while he murmured compliments. As deliberately as a man arranging the hanging of a painting on a wall, just so, he pulled up her panties.
She swayed, remembering, feeling the gorgeous aftermath, the glow.
“Now go and do as I told you to. Undress for me.” But as she tried to step away, he halted her with his hands on her hips. “You like me doing this?” He made her turn and she had to face his deep green eyes.
Liked spanking? It was the nanochem. Or not. Perhaps she should stop blaming it.
Thoughts still roadblocked in her head but she managed a few strangled words “Don’t ask me.”
“Did you like that?” he said again, steadily. “Answer.”
Fuck. Her butt wriggled a smidgeon, reminding her of what he’d done there. “Ummm. Yes. No. Yes?”
Brask smiled. “I think I understand. It works on you. That’s what counts. I’ll do it whenever you need it. Or when I do.” He flexed his fingers, digging them into her flesh.
If anyone ever sorted out the jumble in her mind, they’d deserve a science prize.
“Go.”
“Yes, sir.” The answer came from the heart this time. He liked doing to her what she liked, and more. The more was as intriguing as the other. The future of this relationship could be very interesting.
His big warm hands slid from her hips as she backed away. Her inner slut made her turn away from him and bend over to wriggle her butt at him, while she played with the edges of her panties, pretending to pull them down.
He ground out a curse word and she smiled to herself.
Teasing him stirred her too. It made her wonder how much she had to do to get him crazy. She wriggled down her panties, an inch on one side, then another inch, enough to show some of the redness that must be there. While still revolving her ass, she sneaked her hand down the front and played with herself underneath the lace.
The man could see enough of both front and back when she moved. Of course it wasn’t pretend on her part. Showing off like this was novel and totally hot, plus she’d found her clit with two fingers then going farther had found the wetness of her swollen pussy.
A moan escaped while she was preoccupied – massaging her clit gently, taking it under finger and thumb then losing it due to her moisture making everything slip. She concentrated, playing some more, working at herself, and nearly forgetting Brask was watching her. But he was. She slackened off, using light touches, trying not to get so wound up she had to come. Even when she barely brushed at the engorged button, she shuddered. Her thighs tensed and she found herself open-mouthed and panting. Getting herself off while he watched was infinitely awesome.
“Frack.” He grinned and reclined until his back hit the wall. “Is this where I call you a hot little Earth bitch? You’re lucky there’s no one about to see this. Keep going. A warning, though. Tease me too much and I’ll just grab you and ram you down onto my cock.”
Wow. She blinked, imagining that.
Oh. There was someone. Stom. She whipped her head around. He was focused on Willow and unlikely to see. Even if he did turn, he’d not see anything below waist height, would he?
“Stom is there.”
“He’s not going to look. Keep going.” Brask folded his arms. “Pets mustn’t let themselves be affected by public display anyway.”
She sneaked another look. “Dassenze said we shouldn’t do anything in public.”
Brask laughed and that laugh had an edge of bitterness. As she swung to glare, she felt her hands taken.
“He’s not here.” He pulled her over, gentler than he had been but still determined. “Though I’d like him to be. There’s nowhere that’s away from others and I’m not waiting. I’d like him to be here, the same as you, more if anything. The two of us could do such things to you...” His gaze was bright and hungry. “You forget your place. I’m going to fuck you whether he’s here or not. I don’t need his permission for that.”
Their eyes locked.
That summed it all up. The way he said that...it made her want to do whatever he wanted to. It made her shiver and wait impatiently for him to accost her, to assault her, to do dirty bad things to her. It made her part her thighs the smallest distance because she wanted him to touch her there but didn’t want to seem too wanton.
Around his eyes crinkled. “That’s the way. Good pet. Let’s get this off you.”
With a casual flick of finger and thumb, he tore through the side of her underwear. Then he unsnapped the bra clasp and took off her bra, leaving her standing before him naked, with her nipples shrinking into hard little buttons before his gaze.
“Close your eyes and don’t open them until I say to.”
Once she’d shut her eyes, she felt his hands on her breasts and he drew her close before sucking each nipple into his mouth and tormenting her enough that she was grasping for his head to pull him to her.
“No. Don’t. Put yo
ur hands behind your back and clasp them together,” he murmured around his mouthful of nipple.
His tongue had licked at her between each word he’d said then, at the end, when she hadn’t moved, his teeth fastened onto the erect nipple and closed in. Hurriedly she shifted her hands, suppressing a whimper as she interlaced her fingers. Then he sucked on her again. His mouth was hot and his hand was travelling over her hip then belly. Anticipating his touch, her pussy clenched in. By the time she felt him insinuate his arm between her legs with his fingers wrapping around the back of her thigh, she was breathing erratically. Where he nudged his wrist into the groove between her lips, her wetness smeared over him.
“Spread your legs more.” His other hand had found her breast and now held it tightly and in place for his mouth to toy with her.
She spread her legs and he took advantage of her openness, sliding wrist and hand along in her moisture. His mouth left her nipple and she wondered if he watched what his hand was doing below. Her inhalations grew rougher and became little moans and whimpers. A few times he let his fingers or thumb part her lower lips and delve a half an inch inside. Oh, my god, that did it for her. She was so wet he could stick anything up her with ease and she wished like hell that he would. The ache pounded in her groin. Everything he did to her seemed amplified a thousand times. The repetition ground at her, the slick smack of his fingers when he dared to slap her pussy. Teasing, he was teasing her. Fuck, fuck. More there. More. She breathed when she remembered to, bit her lips as she became ever more absorbed in the agony of needing to come but not quite being there. The threshold of coming beckoned.
But he kept at it, rocking her on his arm, barely poking at her, sometimes bumping her clit, sometimes biting her neck or her nipples, sucking, licking, nibbling, smacking. Her arousal built until she grew so swollen and so wet that she might come just from this. If he kept going and everything was a little more intense.
She tried to fuck herself on those roving fingers, but he pulled away. Talia grunted in frustration, but she didn’t open her eyes. “Please?”
“How do you like it, hmmm? Being teased? Remember what I said?”
“I don’t...” She wriggled to try to get him to touch her clit, to enter her, something.
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