“Oh…” Her sighs vibrated through them both as she responded to his touch, the thought of simply surrendering to someone else the most intoxicating thing of all. “Yes,” she pleaded, “yes.”
“Nell…” The groan in his voice as he said her name made her catch her breath in response. Emboldened, Nell, crouching, moved her hand downwards to explore his stomach, then his cock. He laughed, gasped, then moved his attention to her mouth, cupping her face and kissing her deeply and slowly. The kiss went on and on, burning away every doubt and care until all that was left was their mutual desire. As she inhaled the heady scent of him, all the remaining barriers in her mind seemed to melt away. All that mattered was her and Rowe.
“Tell me,” he urged her huskily, “tell me what you want.”
“You.” She moaned the words. “I want you. I’ve wanted you so badly right from the start. Right from when you almost got yourself killed because you wouldn’t give in to those bastards on Egalita.”
“Then what are you waiting for, Nell?” he muttered as she pressed urgently against him, shocking sensations running throughout her body. The passion that simmered between them had been there from the beginning. In a moment of intense clarity, Nell looked up into his face and knew that things would never be the same for her again. Rowe had changed the heart of her forever. She shut her eyes, lost in the experience of this man wanting her, her instinctive movements and her response to his own taking them beyond what was sensible, what was advisable. If this was kissing the thought of spanking made Nell almost lose control altogether.
Rowe pulled her down beside him and pushed her legs wide, moving his body to slide his mouth over her clitoris, then rolling her so she was facing his cock with him lying on the floor beneath her.
What was a girl to do? She took his cock in her mouth, gagging slightly as she swallowed almost his entire length. Then she withdrew, rubbing his shaft with the surface of her tongue, skimming the tip around the edge of the head. It felt surprisingly smooth and tasted pleasantly salty.
Rowe groaned, thrust slightly, then pushed her legs even further apart as he ran his tongue across her clitoris, into her vagina. Holding her clit gently in his teeth, he sucked it hard.
Nell screamed.
The climax, when it came, was exquisite and complete, a release of shattering intensity. Nell clung to Rowe, shuddering with each continuing stroke of his tongue. As she came she continued to suck and lick him, even as another orgasm rolled through her body. With a deep groan Rowe came in her mouth.
“Swallow it,” he groaned against her.
Like a good girl, Nell swallowed, still sobbing through the last of her own orgasm. The aftershocks of passion finally gave way to languor, and languor to reality as she brushed the hair back from her eyes and turned her gaze to connect with Rowe’s. His eyes were fathoms deep, an unreadable, impenetrable grey.
It came to Nell on a wave of suffocating awareness that she would never be able to escape Rowe, because wherever she went, however far away, he would still be there, in her head and, quite possibly, her heart.
Shit.
Chapter Ten
Nell awoke as a hand clamped down on her mouth and both arms were seized and borne above her head.
The world was an inky black, but seemed to be packed full of any number of bodies, all intent on pressing in on her, keeping her silent and stopping her from moving. She was grabbed by the back of her neck, thrown from the bed to the floor, then dragged, naked, backwards across the room by the unseen hands.
Nell’s feet were bare, still warm from where she had been sound asleep after her encounter with Rowe, but she still kicked out, up, down, to the side. Heel first, punch-kicks aiming to hurt her assailants and make them cry out when she could not. She hit a cloth-covered knee with a satisfying crack, then struck again to make contact with what felt like someone’s groin or stomach. The resulting curse was silenced by a barked command from somewhere near her head. Nell heightened her efforts to no avail. A bag was pulled over her head and shoulders, down as far as her buttocks. The rough warmth of the cabin floor gave way to the cool smoothness of the external corridor and she scuffed her heels as she was half dragged, half carried away, trying to gain any sort of purchase in order to start her fight back.
An injection pressed against her right thigh. There was a sharp sting as a cool fluid was injected under her skin and dispersed into her bloodstream. It had to be some type of tranquiliser.
A horrible thought occurred to her. She was being taken for the mindelve despite Rowe’s vows and promises to the contrary. And now time was of the essence because the bastards had drugged her.
The sudden terror that swept through her body gave her arms and legs an adrenaline rush of raw power. She threw herself into a frenzy of kicking and as the floor continued to slip past her flailing limbs she twisted first one way, then the other in an effort to get free. Nothing worked—all her efforts brought her was a lot of loud swearing from her abductors and a heavy-handed blow to one side of her jaw that made stars appear before her eyes even inside the stifling thickness of the bag over her head.
Then there was a shout.
Nell was dropped to the floor like a sack of stones, where she landed flat on her back, unable to breathe in the aftermath of the impact. The combination of the injection and being winded meant that she started to lose consciousness, a rushing in her ears replacing the loud noises of a serious skirmish, whilst she was still trying to draw breath. As she did so, she had the peculiar feeling she was falling backwards, although her brain registered she was on the floor.
“Nell?”
Someone was calling her name repeatedly, but she was unable to respond. The roaring in her ears finally claimed her before she had a chance to draw one precious breath.
* * * *
She woke in a state of panic, her hands flying out to steady herself, but she was already lying down.
“Nell?”
It was Rowe’s Angel who was sat before her, hands on his knees, watching her with a predatory blue gaze. “Are you okay?”
Nell looked at him suspiciously before giving a reluctant nod.
“Good.” Angel climbed to his feet, lean and graceful, and moved over to a set of controls to study them further.
They were in a location she did not recognise. Nell looked about herself quickly, her eyes running along the banks of controls. It looked like a Rim-class attack vessel, from what little she knew about the ships that were used for hit and run attacks on Fleet borders. She then looked down to see that she was half covered by a light sheet.
Nell pulled the sheet up to her chin and waited a few heartbeats before she asked, “Why did you do it?”
“Why did I do what?”
“Why did you kidnap me?”
His shout of laughter brought her up short and made her frown at him angrily, until he caught sight of her face and sobered instantly. “I didn’t kidnap you.”
“But—” Nell spluttered for a few moments to master her emotions before she burst out with, “I was kidnapped!”
“I didn’t say you weren’t kidnapped,” he corrected her; “just that I was not the one that kidnapped you.”
Nell was sure she must look the picture of confusion, particularly when Angel went on to add, “I rescued you.”
He smiled and Nell felt her stomach lurch. The eyes, the killer smile that revealed a slight dimple in one cheek. Men like him should come with a health warning.
Nell pushed down the sudden bolt of desire that gripped her abdomen.
This is not like me, she thought desperately. I’ve just fucked Rowe. How can I be reacting like this to Angel?
“Still suffering from the after-effects of the tranquiliser?” Angel asked Nell with mock sympathy. The look in his eye suggested he knew exactly what was on her mind.
“Yes, yes.” Nell nodded frantically. Yes, that had to be it. She had been drugged, and one could only guess at what had to go into a tranquiliser shot to keep a R
im inhabitant down. Their metabolisms were famous, or notorious, depending on your point of view, for their ability to recover quickly.
She reminded herself that she didn’t really know which side her rescuer was actually on, and she settled for studying Angel hard. Could she believe him? Could she really believe he’d had nothing to do with her removal from the cabin? Was he in league with the shady individuals who seemed to be lurking around the edges of this entire affair? Some of them had nasty intentions with regard to Rowe, and some of them seemed threatened by her, and therefore determined to ensure she did not survive to present her evidence to the Council.
Nell had always preferred an enemy she could identify clearly.
Even Rowe himself had his doubts about Angel.
“Why are you still hanging around?” she asked him. “When Rowe has made it so clear that he doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore?”
Angel laughed.
“You still don’t get it, do you?”
“What is there to get?”
“Rowe and I go way back. Way back to a time before all this, when he was a very different man. He and I were…close. Very close. As it turns out, for me at least, couldn’t live without each other close.” Angel gave her a wry smile. “He always did have great taste. So tell me, Area Commander Helena Thorn, have you any idea who he is?”
Nell could honestly say all she really knew about Rowe was his name.
“He told me… Rowe told me he looked after an area of space that someone else had their eye on.”
“Is that all Rowe told you?” Angel started to laugh. “Try again.”
“A leader…a popular leader of some type? He doesn’t seem disciplined enough to be in something like a fighting force.” Nell considered what she knew about the charismatic man who had at first been in her custody, before their roles had switched and she was in his. “He broke the neck of a man who tried to kill me.”
“Did he?” Angel turned and fixed her with his brilliant blue gaze. “He killed someone for you? Rim Lords rarely get their hands dirty these days, but then that’s Rowe for you.”
“A Rim Lord?” Nell paused, suddenly feeling awkward to be telling Angel any information at all. Rowe was a Rim Lord, like Danyeo. She was a Fleet officer. The divisions between them suddenly sprang into sharp relief. “He saved my life.” She was a Fleet officer, trained to be resistant to all forms of technique designed to draw information from her, yet here she was spilling all to a man she had met only twice, and this second time she was almost completely convinced he had been involved in snatching her from the relative safety of Rowe’s ship. “So, is that it? He’s some kind of deposed leader, a lost Rim Lord, from the…far Eastern Complex?”
Yes, that must be it, Nell realised. Danyeo and Rowe had said as much during their earlier exchange. The far Eastern Complex was a remote sector of Rim space that had little interaction with the Fleet or the Inner Galaxy Worlds as it was abutted on most sides by Rim territories. Its outer edges stretched to touch the very edges of existence itself. It was a source of legend and speculation, as well as great mineral wealth.
No wonder Rowe had been able to resist her paltry offer of gold and crystal ziosite when he had abducted her. The sum of her wealth would be nothing against the sort of riches one could secure from the Eastern Complex.
She raised her eyes to study Angel watching her.
“You are very beautiful,” he said. “Clever, too.”
“And you are very charming,” Nell countered promptly, “and, I’m thinking, dangerous.”
Angel gave a long, slow, predatory smile, revealing beautiful teeth.
“I can smell him on you, you know.”
Nell looked at him blankly. Angel picked up one of her feet and examined it in minute detail, almost brushing her skin with his nose as he inhaled along the line of her foot and up towards her knee. “It’s a delightful combination, both his scent…and yours.”
Her legs weakened, and even Nell could smell the scent of her desire as Angel worked his way up to her dampening crotch, pushing the sheet out of his way as he went.
There was no mystery about how aroused she was becoming.
Don’t be such a slut, she told herself desperately. Surely you can resist this?
Rowe didn’t, a little voice in her head whispered.
His tongue was hot against her as he licked her between the legs, long and hard from back to front. Nell gave a groan as her entire body started to prickle with desire.
“Oh, yes,” she breathed as he started to rub the flat of his tongue against her clitoris and snake the tip into her, licking, as she rocked against him. An orgasm started to build low in her abdomen, climbing towards an inevitable peak as he continued to suck and lick at her. Nell moaned once more.
Then he stopped, smiled, and watched her face as her arousal ebbed.
Nell frowned at him, puzzled, her body subsiding from being on the edge of orgasm to being merely on edge.
“What…?” Nell started to ask him, but Angel pushed her legs open and resumed his task of licking and sucking. Her climax rose far harder and faster than before, so when he stopped again she was too close to be nice about it.
“What…are you doing?” she gasped at him, her body by now a seething, panting, sweating piece of arousal.
“Enjoying the sight of the infamous Nell Thorn, legs spread, tits shaking as she gets angry at me”—Angel laughed as he rolled away from her—“because I won’t let her come.”
Nell stared at him, speechless.
“He didn’t come either, did he?” Angel went on. “I could taste that, too.”
The memory of Rowe coming in her mouth made her self-consciously moisten her lips. Angel was not as clever as he thought he was.
“What kind of pervert are you?” she asked him finally.
“Oh, sweet Nell, you have no idea.” Angel laughed.
He seized her hands and kissed them in turn. “Just to make sure you save yourself for me, darling. No touching, eh? And as for Rowe, if only he was just a power-hungry, self-serving Rim Lord.” Angel sighed as he stood and turned his attention back to the control panels, touching several before sitting back and rubbing his face with one hand. “If. Only.”
“So what is he, if not that?”
“To most on the Rim, he is the far Eastern Complex, and his collective has always been the means by which they have survived this far out on the edge of space. You were not too far off with your guess of a popular leader. Quite simply, to the people of the Eastern Complex, Woodson Rowe is a living god.”
Chapter Eleven
In Nell’s opinion, the living god seemed rather pissed off when he finally caught up with the two of them, in a bar a safe distance away from where the Council was meeting.
His face, as he walked across the grotty bar towards them, was an absolute picture.
Of naked anger.
Rim Lord Woodson Rowe.
She never would have guessed that the man she’d scraped off a roadside on Egalita Prime could ever have been so critical to such a sensitive area of space. Did Rim Lords not have personal guards? Or maybe that was where his suspicions regarding Angel came in.
Nell suddenly felt absurdly shy in front of Rowe and ducked her head down. Last time she had seen him she had been sucking his cock, after all.
“What happened?” Rowe snapped the words out, immediately looking to Angel for an answer. He completely ignored Nell as he pulled out a chair from between them and sat astride it.
“If you want the short version, I was returning to my ship, and I found our mutual acquaintance causing something of a stir in one of the service corridors.”
It was the first time Nell had heard Angel speak of her attempted kidnapping.
“What were you doing in a service corridor?” Nell asked before she could stop herself.
“Returning to my ship,” Angel replied.
“Did you recognise anyone?” Rowe asked him.
Angel simply rai
sed an eyebrow and said, “Everyone was dressed in black. No markings were evident on the uniforms, faces covered. They were trying not to speak but Commander Thorn managed to kick one of them so hard he did shout out.”
“Anything useful?”
“Not really, but someone must be running scared to try to steal a witness out from under the nose of the Rim Council.” Angel took another swig of his drink and went on to state, “Of more concern to you is that you would appear to have someone on your crew who can be persuaded to part with information. There are factions on the borders of Eastern Complex space that have taken it into their heads that they no longer need the Rowe Collective gene strain to pioneer mining in the extreme districts. They have fallen into company with—”
“Slavers,” Rowe finished the sentence for him.
“You know?”
“Let’s say I had plenty of time and opportunity to work it out.”
“I’ve missed you, you arsehole.” Angel said the words as if they were wrenched out of him.
Rowe stared at him long and hard before grabbing one of Angel’s shoulders and shaking it slightly. “Sure you have. Good to have someone watching my back again.”
Nell looked from one to the other.
“Just who are you two jokers?” she asked, waving to the barman for another drink.
“Just the usual,” said Rowe, holding up one hand to signal that three drinks should be brought over to their table. “Two people who have known each other for an awful long time, and who would have done better to have listened to each other before listening to other people.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Angel held his glass high and drained it dry. “The far Eastern sector is getting reckless. They’ve been asking repeatedly where you have gone, and the emergency council that has been set up in your absence has blanked them repeatedly. In fact, the colonies in the delta quadrant have simply stopped sending ore for processing. They are stockpiling it until they get their answers.”
Nell Thorn Page 6
