Yours to Uncover: ES Siren 1

by Mel Teshco

  Tristan placed his paintbrush carefully onto his palette, his eyes focused on her. “You’re not thinking clearly right now. The lieutenant drugged you.”

  So Tristan had worked that out too. His keen eyes missed little. She nodded. “I know.” She caught her lip between her teeth and whispered desperately, “Even if he hadn’t, I’d still want you.”

  He stepped forward and wrapped his strong arms around her, making her suddenly yearn for more than just sex. Yes, she wanted him between the sheets, but she wanted him in her life, too. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, his breath hot on her scalp. “I know you do. Depending on the dose the lieutenant gave you, the effects should already be starting to fade.”

  “How … how do you know so much about sexmeth?”

  His low voice thrummed against her ear, reverberating right down to her clit. “I’m a whites prisoner. The other prisoners imagine there’s no reason to hide anything from me.”

  It figured. The prisoners no doubt thought he was the lowest of the low, violent and mentally ill. Seemed most everyone underestimated and misjudged him.

  “I can’t leave,” she whispered, looking up at him with a mixture of lust and fear. “If another soldier passes me in one of the corridors before I get to my room, I mightn’t be able to control myself … and he mightn’t be as gentlemanly as you.”

  Her pleas fell on seemingly deaf ears. Tristan retrieved her bra and pushed it into place. With a few coarse swearwords, he finally latched it together at her spine.

  She wanted to stamp her feet and scream despair when he drew on her shirt and laboriously did up the buttons. Instead, tears filled her eyes. “I need you.” Her voice sounded strangled.

  “Shh.” One of Tristan’s arms moved south, his hand easily pushing past her unlatched jeans and inside her lacy panties. Callused fingertips parted her wet folds and found her tight, swollen clit.

  She gasped at the rawness of his touch, at his deft circular strokes, which left her muscles weaker still.

  “As much as I’d love to fuck you over the desk and taste you until you have nothing left to give, it’d be utter madness to risk it. Once again time is one thing we don’t have and getting caught is the last thing either one of us needs.” His breath shuddered out, raw and ragged. “What I can do in relative safety is take the edge off your needs.”

  She nodded. If someone was to knock on the door, by the time the scanner allowed them in, her zipper would be up and she and Tristan would be far apart. She thrust against his hand with little gasps of need, her pussy making wet noises as he massaged her harder, faster.

  Her knees buckled and he wrapped one arm beneath her breasts to keep her upright while he continued to knead, working her through one climax before triggering another, then another, each one fiercer than the last.

  Only when the last trembling shudders had subsided did he zip her up and then cup her face, the scent of musky sex tantalizing her nostrils. His eyes held hers. “You should go now,” he said huskily. “Before the lieutenant comes back.”

  “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “I don’t want that either. But neither of us has a choice.”

  “Tristan—”

  “Please,” he croaked. “I have needs too. Don’t push me any further on this.”

  She swallowed, her mouth drying as her gaze dropped to see the obvious arousal that tented his pants. “I’m sorry.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. Go to your cabin and stay there. At least until the drug is out of your system.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “I’m not certain. Just … stay in bed. Think of me while you pleasure yourself.”

  Her mouth lost even more moisture, his suggestion pushing her right back to hot and aroused. “I will.”

  She spun away, holding her wrist under the door’s scanner before turning the handle and stepping into the corridor. Holding the door open, she turned back, but Tristan was already focused on his canvas.

  For a moment she wondered how he’d paint the scene, before a sickening despair overrode even the lust burning within. She didn’t want to know, didn’t ever want to see the painting the lieutenant would get off on.

  Chapter Five

  Rita ran through ES Siren’s darkened corridors, hoping to work off the lingering effects of the sexmeth. Except, not only did that seem a remote possibility, the illegal drug hadn’t done a damn thing for her sleeping disorder, either.

  She’d been awake for hours, and had masturbated three or four times without any real relief. Even now, despite her thudding pulse, her face flushed and skin wet with sweat, her aroused state was nowhere near dissipated.

  She blew out a hard breath. Damn Zane to hell and back for slipping the drug into her drink!

  She now realized he’d been doing exactly that from their very first meeting, where he’d offered her his “prized” red wine. The tasteless and odorless drug had clearly been given to her in much smaller doses then—just enough to keep her enticed and stay with him, despite her reservations.

  The customary red wine he’d shared with her had been quite the cover-up for his depraved little scheme.

  The question now was—what was she going to do about it?

  Her pace eased off as a light in the darkness ahead told her where she was. No surprise there … her subconscious had been leading her toward Tristan’s cell from the moment she’d given up on sleep—and self-gratification—to head out for a run.

  She slowed to a walk, her head reverberating with the cacophony of snores from the other prisoners. Despite the fact that the modular cells would be used as temporary living quarters on Solitaire, there’d been no soundproofing or insulation for the prisoners—that would have been a waste of money, not to mention adding surplus weight. Little wonder Tristan slept so little.

  She stilled at his door, peering through the unbreakable window insert to watch him hard at work. He was in his own world, seemingly oblivious to the snores. His face was serious, almost grim, his brushstrokes gliding over the canvas with effortless ease.

  The hard angles and planes of his face seemed starker under his specially powered light, the ruthless edge he carried within no longer hidden beneath a veneer of aloof politeness.

  Her breath shuddered. Tristan was savage masculinity wrapped in one beautiful package. And she’d never wanted anyone more.

  “Chief?”

  Rita jumped at the soldier’s voice behind her. She twisted to face the woman she’d befriended days after boarding the ship. “MacVoy.” She pressed a hand to her chest, glad the darkness hid the heat flushing her face. “You scared me.”

  The other woman’s face was shadowed, but there was no mistaking the arched brow and knowing look. “I’m doing my rounds,” she explained. “The fright I gave you wasn’t intentional.”

  “No, of course not.” Rita managed a laugh, though it came out self-conscious and spluttery. “I guess I’d better be on my way.”

  Beth MacVoy put a hand on Rita’s wrist, then leaned in and said quietly, “Between me and you, I never saw you here.”

  Rita stared. “I … see.”

  Beth nodded. “The lieutenant is a pig.” She jerked a head toward Tristan’s cell. “I’m not sure what 1588 did in the past, but he’s a far better man than Zane and you know it.”

  Rita stared after her friend as she continued down the corridor as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. She understood Beth’s concern. There were rumors aplenty going around about the lieutenant, and she was certain now that most of those rumors weren’t just idle speculation. Zane hadn’t earned his stripes through honesty, fairness and hard work. He’d used his family connections and far more nefarious means to become lieutenant.

  Sexmeth probably was the least of Zane’s crimes.

  Tristan’s neighbor abruptly spluttered in his sleep, bringing her back to the present with a start. As the man’s snoring resumed, Rita looked down the corridor, but Beth was no longer in
sight. It was just Rita now, and the cons, asleep in their cells.

  Except … not all the prisoners were asleep.

  She turned back to Tristan’s window. He watched her as she watched him. Her smile widened as she flicked her wrist beneath the identifier. She could read the desire in Tristan’s stare, and knew it was mirrored in her own. She stepped inside his cell and let the door shut quietly behind her.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” he said in an undertone. His voice was tellingly hoarse.

  “Nothing could have kept me away.”

  He took a step toward her, his hands fisting and his mouth parting. He closed his eyes for a second, then said simply, “I’m glad.”

  They came together as one, mouths fusing and hands sliding over one another. He pushed her against the door and hoisted her high, her ankles lacing around his hips and her arms twisting behind his neck.

  Tristan pulled back for perhaps one second, and commanded softly, “Lights out.”

  Though desire had her heated from the inside out, she giggled as the lights remained on. Tristan had been so quiet, even the technology hadn’t heard him. But she understood his dilemma. The last thing they wanted was the prisoners waking and being treated to the sounds of their lovemaking.

  The very last thing they wanted was for one of those prisoners to earn a prized token for tattling to the lieutenant.

  “Lights out!” Tristan ordered a little more loudly.

  Sudden darkness blanketed his cell, but as her eyes adjusted she saw his unwavering profile. He asked gruffly, “I need to know, are you still under the influence of sexmeth?”

  She slid her arms down and took hold of the hem of his undershirt—he’d clearly showered, and wasn’t wearing his full prisoner garb—and pulled it up, ridding him of the shirt. Then she ran her hands over his warm, bare skin, thrilling at his magnificence.

  He inhaled sharply even before she deliberately pressed her breasts against his torso. She leaned closer still and whispered in his ear, “I might need to rid myself of a few residual urges. But if you don’t think you’re up to the task …?”

  His growl was barely suppressed as his hands cupped her ass and he ground his thick, hard erection against her. “Baby, I’ve been up from the moment I saw you at my door.”

  Then he clasped one hand behind her nape and closed his lips over hers once again. With the heat and intensity building between them, they frantically undressed one another. Her shirt landed somewhere at their feet, her bra following soon after. She gasped as his hands enclosed her bare breasts, then giggled into his mouth when they stumbled into the easel and it rattled back and forth.

  He steered her away, his mouth unlatching from hers long enough to murmur, “That’s the last piece of art I want ruined.”

  “Mm?”

  “It’s the one I wanted to paint for the lieutenant, but couldn’t. The real painting, not the perverted one he asked for.”

  She stared up at him, wishing she could see his face. But she didn’t need light to sense the fierce protective instinct emanating from him. She could feel his antagonism toward Zane, even in the dark.

  And she definitely didn’t need to be an artist to know how much Tristan would despise painting something that wasn’t genuine.

  She cupped his face in her hands, her palms soft against the coarse bristles. “I understand,” she said quietly.

  His breath hitched, his attention on her absolute. “I believe you really do.”

  Her heart skipped a beat as something deep passed between them. A new level of trust, and heightened awareness. A silent acknowledgment that what they shared was more than just sex.

  But sex was all they had right then.

  She wasn’t about to complain.

  He laid her out on his bed before taking off her shoes and peeling off her jeans and lacy panties. When he touched her inner thigh with an open-mouthed kiss, her breath came out on a strangled hiss. She spread her thighs apart as he kissed his way upward, his tongue swirling and his lips moist.

  She grasped his hair when he finally arrived at his destination. He peeled apart the folds of her labia and curled his tongue around her tight little clit.

  She gasped, her hand fisting tight. When he laved between her slick folds, his bristles rasping her delicate inner flesh, she had to bite her hand to quell the groans.

  The sensations he produced went way beyond the effects of the sexmeth. Yes, the drug might bring her to the brink all the quicker, but she knew for a fact that what she was feeling was all Tristan’s doing.

  She came suddenly, an explosion of heat and ecstasy, her eyes squeezing shut as electricity sparked from her clit and ignited, fizzing through her body right to her toes. Her hand fisted at her mouth, catching the little mewls escaping her throat.

  Before she could catch her breath he was working his way up her body. He kissed her belly and swirled his tongue around her navel, and her puckered scar, worshipping her body even with its flaws. God she could get used to this kind of pleasure.

  Soon he was licking at the underside of first one breast, then the other, before suckling each tip deep into his mouth until she was writhing beneath him.

  Her hand dropped away when his mouth at last caught hers once again. She was all but lost beneath his height and breadth. But he settled his weight on his forearms, ensuring she wasn’t uncomfortable. Her only discomfort was the ache in her pussy, made maddeningly worse by his huge cock, which was twitching against her belly.

  She pulled back from him long enough to choke out, “I want you inside me, now!”

  He kissed her one more time, long and hard, then pulled back to mutter hoarsely, “I thought you’d never ask.”

  He guided his shaft to her core and then pushed in deep. She gasped. His cock was velvet soft yet tougher than steel, filling and stretching her to the point of pain. When her muscles adjusted and he began rocking in and out, she couldn’t withhold her pleasure. The bedsprings rhythmically squeaked, and she let loose with something between a giggle and a moan. The noise was sure to wake up the entire ship.

  He lifted her from the bed with a stark apology, threw his one blanket onto the floor, then lowered her down. Clasping behind her knees, he drew her legs up and pressed them back towards her, pounding deep into her pussy.

  She arched up, meeting him stroke for stroke, no longer caring about the noise, the slap of flesh, their heavy breathing and her telling gasps. All she cared about was the release that was building …

  She shattered hard, her strangled shout probably heard by every prisoner onboard as she gave in to the climax that she’d been craving long before she’d drank the drug-laced wine.

  But as much as she’d enjoyed the sex—no, loved the sex—she was unprepared for the bliss of lying wrapped in Tristan’s arms with the blanket dragged up around them both. For the first time ever she suddenly wished they were back on Earth. She could imagine cuddling in front of a crackling fire in winter, with frost on the ground outside and the moon shining through a fogged window.

  But they weren’t on Earth and Tristan wasn’t even a free man. They were little more than prisoners on the ship, which was kept at a constant temperature. Sterile. Predictable. And just plain old lame.

  “You’re quiet,” he murmured. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes.” God, she wanted to stay with him so badly she ached. She pulled free from his arms and sat up. “I have to go.”

  There was no chance of indulging in post-coital bliss. Beth’s shift would end soon. The last thing Rita wanted was to be found asleep in a prisoner’s arms—in his cell, no less. And though she knew some of the women onboard were fucking the prisoners, they were doing so in far more discreet places. And they didn’t have the lieutenant breathing down their necks.

  As Rita went to stand, Tristan commanded lights on. He caught her wrist and pulled her around to face him, and she stifled a sharp gasp at the intensity of his expression. His eyes searched hers, revealing the depth of his pain
.

  His grip tightened, as though he never wanted to let her go. But his words were the antithesis. “We can’t keep on going like this.”

  She swallowed. “We won’t get caught.”

  His voice cracked. “Maybe not this time.”

  Sudden weakness assailed her limbs, as though the drug had reawakened in her system. Except this time she didn’t want sex, she wanted to be in his arms again, safe and reassured. “What are you saying?” she managed.

  “I’m saying, I can’t do it. Not like this.”

  “All or nothing?” she quipped weakly. But she was in no mood for jokes.

  “Yes.” His eyes blazed for a nanosecond, intense and fierce. “That’s it exactly.”

  She wrenched out of his grasp and blindly gathered up her clothes. Tristan knew all was never going to happen, not while he was a whites prisoner and she was a link in the command chain of the infantry. She didn’t say anything more until she was fully dressed. “Maybe that’s the problem with you artists—you might paint with every color on your palette, but you view everything in black or white. There’s no in-between.”

  Her voice broke as she finished. God, she sounded pathetic, like a woman wounded. A woman laying everything on the line.

  She waited a beat or two as she headed for the door, hoping he’d try and stop her. When silence thickened the air, she scanned her wrist and pushed through the door, blinking back tears.

  He’d had his chance. She wouldn’t be giving him another.

  As Rita stepped out of his cell, Beth was walking toward her. The other woman gave her a relieved smile. “Thank god. This was my last round before I’m done for the night.”

  Rita managed a smile, though her heart felt as though it had been torn in two. She was grateful for the shadows in the dark corridor. “Thanks for your discretion.”

  Beth nodded and added crudely, “You’re not the only soldier fucking a prisoner.” Rita knew Beth was speaking mostly of the male soldiers onboard, who were enjoying their share of female prisoners, but it went both ways. “Besides, you’re no longer with that pig, Zane, right?”