She raised a finger and slowly pointed at that tempting stiff cock, standing up proud as could be and taunting her with its hardness, with what she knew would be the silken feel of his skin against her fingers, inside her pussy…no, focus! “Sorry, Red. Go ahead and tame that monster. Remember what happened last time we both got frisky on a dropship when we were supposed to be working?”
He scratched his chin, a wry grin spreading across his face. “That was a beautiful fuck though. Felt like the earth moved.”
She snorted. “That’s because we crashed the cargo hauler into the Wolfstar’s dock-clamp. Literally. Crashed. We were so lucky Desi was paying attention to the dock-fields and slowed us or we’d be nothing but space junk.”
He sauntered closer to her, moving with an easy power and grace that immediately had her regretting not jumping on him and riding him into oblivion. He came close enough to murmur against her ear. “So you’re saying we were dock-blocked?”
His deep voice sent a shudder of pleasure through her, even as she barked out a laugh.
He grinned wider at her laughter. “I admit I do remember crashing, but when I’m fucking you that well, nothing else matters. Only you. Besides, you weren’t complaining at the time.”
Cenn shifted with another flood of dampness between her thighs. Damn. She wanted him so badly. That arrogance… Something about it simultaneously annoyed her and turned her all the way on. Also she hadn’t been complaining at the time. She’d been screaming her lungs out and coming her brains out as he’d fucked her hard and fast in the pilot’s chair. Too bad he couldn’t fuck and fly at the same time. Their resulting bruises and contusions afterwards hadn’t been fun either. Captain Trezton had been irate. Their “hard dock” mistake had damaged the Wolfstar’s dock coupling and housing. They’d both ended up on waste reclamation duty for a standard month. She’d never seen the pack’s alpha that pissed. She didn’t want to experience it again.
“Don’t tempt me,” she pleaded. She turned her back on him as a last resort and scanned for the diggers. Yes. Work. They had four medium-duty robo-excavators with decent AI that could collect the dylios ore they refined to power the ship.
“Woman, you can’t leave a man like this,” he growled. “Showing me that beautiful ass of yours now? You’re killing me. Honestly killing me.”
“I can’t stand a man who begs,” she shot back, glancing over her shoulder and scrunching her nose at him. “Now be a responsible officer for once in your career.” She folded her arms across her chest to stop her hands from shaking and turned to stare into the thick press of fiery red and orange underbrush at the tree line. Not looking at him helped to cool her desire. A little bit, anyway. “Where are those groxxing diggers? You’re sure they had the correct landing coordinates?”
“I’m sure. We left those tread-rolling robots in the dust, but they’ll be along any minute.” He glanced at the path through the thick vegetation that the diggers had cleared. “Slow and steady AI. See? That’s me all responsible-ish. And I know you’re changing the subject.”
She blinked at him, keeping her expression innocent. “Guess I’ll start the launch prep then. The sooner we’re off this moon, the better.”
“We should be long gone before things get too shaky.”
She nodded and turned toward the dropship. She made certain to put a little extra swing in her step as she walked past him, and she brushed the very edge of his cock with the smooth skin just above her hip. He shuddered and gave a deep groan. Her smile was pure sin as she sauntered past him. She knew his gaze lingered on her ass now. He wouldn’t be able to help it. She did have a great ass—
His hand smacked her butt cheek and was loud enough to startle vyri birds from the trees in a rainbow flutter of feathers. She yelped and moved a hand to cover her stinging bare skin. The sting faded to warmth faster than she expected, but now she probably sported a large red mark where he’d spanked her.
“What did you do that for?” she demanded, but at the same time she squeezed her thighs together, feeling her clit tight and throbbing with need.
“Because we both loved it.”
She snorted. That arrogance. Damn. Now she’d need a long, ice-cold shower just to cool her heat since they didn’t have time to satisfy each other. She continued up the ramp to the dropship’s cargo area and grabbed her discarded flight suit off the deck. The diggers would be here any second, and as much as she loved being naked, no one in their right mind like to work naked. She slid one leg at a time into her flight suit, then shrugged her shoulders in and reached for the zipper that started just below her navel. Redlan was watching her, his posture casual but his gaze intense. She couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease him. She made a show of drawing the zipper up, hiding her breasts so that only the swells showed, and then finally nothing as she closed the suit up to her neck.
“I like you better naked,” he growled.
“I like you better working, but you don’t hear me complaining.”
He grunted a laugh. “Little tease, sometime soon I’m going to make you regret that mouthy mouth of yours.”
“With kisses?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. “Or cocks?”
“That would be cock, singular.”
She laughed. “My mistake. Two cocks would give men even bigger egos.”
He flexed at her and grinned. “An ego can’t be a liability when it’s well-earned. And you can have all the kisses you want, pretty lady, but what I really meant was I’d spank that rear of yours and teach you a lesson.”
“Maybe I need to be taught a lesson,” she taunted, giving him another wide-eyed innocent look and then letting it transform into one that was hot and wicked. She couldn’t hold the look and ended up laughing with delight. Then she turned and hurried deeper into the ship before she was tempted into doing something naughty. Redlan always strained her self-restraint in all the very best ways.
Redlan had always loved her laughter. It was quick and light, and the sparkle of humor touched her eyes and lit up her entire face. He wanted to follow her into the ship and kiss her again—had never wanted to kiss her more than right now. He loved how playful she was. Her teasing and taunts never bothered him. Just the opposite in fact. Wolves were playful creatures. Besides, it made things so much better for the both of them when her teasing drove him to take things firmly in hand for himself—the very thing he knew she’d wanted all along. Yeah, he adored so many things about her, and his inner wolf was crazy about her. He loved that she was submissive at the right times, cheeky at others. She kept him on his toes and sometimes rocked him back on his heels.
Trouble was, he had never told her that he loved her. He’d never claimed her in front of the pack and formally declared his love. They’d explored each other from head to toe, leaving no inch of skin unexplored, unkissed, unlicked, or unloved. Their physical intimacy certainly knew no limits. She liked it a little rough, a lot hard and fast, and he loved to dish it out. Yet there was still a gulf between them that he didn’t know if he could span. He hated himself for his hesitancy. His…cowardice. He was the best damn ore-finder in the pack, groxx it. He needed to be decisive. Commanding. And he was.
In everything but this.
He shook his head and spit a curse. All this thinking was giving him a headache. Speaking of ache, he also had a terrible case of blue balls after admiring Cenn’s smooth naked body, after touching her, and then having the damn job get in the way only to leave him completely frustrated. Now there was a physical ache in both his chest and in his balls, and he was pretty sure if things continued this way he was going to go crazy.
He dressed quickly, yanking on the flight suit, still feeling out of sorts. The first digger rumbled down the path and into the clearing. Diggers rolled along on wide treads, their robot frames built around a heavy-duty cargo hold, modified with extendable drills and laser cutters, rock claws, and sophisticated sensor arrays that let them move reliably through dangerous environments. Now dylios ore filled each hol
d. Enough to keep the Wolfstar skybound for an entire cycle with more left over to sell.
He circled the first roller as it started up the ramp, inspecting it for damage and finding none. The next digger entered the clearing, clanking forward on its treads. He glanced around, eager to be off this moon. The sooner the job was done, the sooner he could get at Cenn. He couldn’t help his grin. He intended to make her pay so hard for all her teasing that she’d be screaming his name until she was hoarse—
A small quake rumbled under his feet, making him stagger. It was one of the rolling kind and felt as though the ground beneath him had turned into solid waves that forced him up and down. The quake ended almost as soon as it had started. A small tremor, but he didn’t like it. Small quakes led to large quakes. Time to get his tail off this moon.
Cenn appeared in the dropship’s cargo hold and made her way down the ramp. “The stability sensors just went wild.”
“Groundquake. We need to take off.” He’d known the same forces that produced the pristine ore that would power the extended burn of their gisvon-V engines also tended to create a surface that rumbled and shook and riddled the landscape with huge mountains as the tectonic plates shifted and ground against each other.
“Understood. We’re prepped and good to launch. As soon as we have the diggers, we can blast.”
The second digger clanked past them, up the ramp and into the cargo hold. The third appeared at the edge of the clearing. He wished he’d programmed them to keep a tighter travel line, but that sometimes led to problems and crashes if the first digger encountered any obstacles.
Come on, you rust buckets. Hurry.
Now he could clearly sense something was wrong, and it was getting worse. Tension charged the atmosphere. The sensation of all his hairs tingling, as if a low-level current was running across his skin, set his teeth on edge. These sensations had been growing stronger and he’d missed them earlier, too focused on his lust and on getting his cock into Cenn. But now his inner wolf could sense the impending ground-quakes and by the feel of it, there were bigger ones to come.
The third digger was onboard and securing itself in its station. The fourth one appeared at the tree line. Cenn walked over to stand beside him. She wrapped her arms around her chest as if hugging herself. “Do you feel that?”
Before he could answer another quake shook the surface, this one violent enough to throw them down. The ground broke open in places and jets of steam and boiling water shot into the air from cracks spreading across the clearing and through the forest. Redlan covered her with his body as a burning droplets splattered onto his head and back. He ignored them. Trees fell, crashing violently into each other and the ground. His heart was thundering away. Cenn trembled beneath him, and he hugged her tighter, desperate to reassure her.
The violent tremors finally tapered off. He climbed off her and helped her to her feet. Both of them were breathing hard.
A quick glance showed him that the last digger’s treads had become stuck in a huge crack. The split in the ground had yawned open in a zigzag across the forest floor and stretched into the clearing.
Cenn also noticed the digger. “The last one’s trapped—”
“Forget about it,” he snapped. “We have to go.”
“We need that ore. That’s a full cycle’s worth of hard burn time!” She took a step toward the digger. The robo-excavator was rocking itself forward and backward, attempting to free its stuck tread from the gap as its programming instructed. He immediately realized the gap was too wide and the angle all wrong. The digger would have to be lifted until the treads could find enough traction to drive free.
“That rock isn’t worth dying for,” he snarled. “Now get your ass back on the ship. That’s an order.”
“We can lift that digger out. All it needs is a quick boost.”
Damn her. How could she not understand that her safety was worth far more than some groxxing load of ore? And how would he ever be able to face the pack, face himself, if she was hurt when he was supposed to be looking out for her?
“No,” he growled. “Get back inside and fire up the engines!”
As soon as Redlan gave the order, he realized she’d already made up her mind, no matter what he’d commanded. He could read it in her eyes, that determined, stubborn expression, and he went cold all the way through.
She dashed forward and shifted into a wolf before he could grab her. The flash of heat and light made him squint for a second. The next thing he saw was her wolf bounding free of a crumpled flight suit and sprinting for the trapped digger.
He started after her, but two legs were no match for four. Another quake struck, the most violent yet, and a huge, curved tree trunk toppled right at him. He threw himself out of the way as it crashed down, whipping the ground with its branches.
Cenn had already crossed most of the distance between the ship and the trapped digger. A jet of boiling water shot from the ground near her. She leapt aside in time to avoid being scalded and kept running, her wolf agile enough to maneuver even on the shaking ground.
He ground his teeth and drove his thoughts deep into his mind, where his core wolf waited, finding the place where genetic engineering had fused DNA from Ancient Earth and had given his mind a switch to change between the two forms. He embraced his wolf and exulted in the explosion of energy as he transformed. Sounds became clearer and crisper; he could immediately isolate the direction they came from. Scents erupted into an almost orgiastic flood of sensation—so many, so distracting—forcing him to tighten his control and focus on reaching Cenn.
The quake was already dying off into isolated tremors. He ran hard, knowing he could afford to be furious with her later, but only after he had her safe in his arms again. He dodged fallen trees, avoiding the sputtering geysers of steam and water spray and skidded to a stop beside her.
Cenn had already shifted back to human form. She was struggling to lift the digger’s tread out of the meter-wide crevasse that had caught its front and trapped it. Lycanari were strong, but there was no way she’d be able shunt it back onto even ground alone.
Again he shifted forms, back to man from wolf. He moved beside her, straddling the jagged crack in the ground. He wedged his shoulders and legs under the back of the digger, took a deep breath and lifted, pushing with his legs and exhaling. The groxxing thing was incredibly heavy, but he continued to lift, using all the strength he could summon. The digger finally rose high enough that its tread caught the edge of the gap.
He snarled and shoved harder, reaching for his deepest reserves of strength. The digger caught better traction and lurched forward, finally free of the crack. It sped toward the dropship’s loading ramp, its tracks throwing dirt as it rolled around obstacles.
Another aftershock hit, the worst yet. It threw Cenn to the ground. The crack in the ground yawned wider. He vaulted over the gap and landed on terrain, that had him feeling like he was joy-riding on a crazed niqurn that was desperate to buck him off. Another tree crashed down meters away. The steam was so thick in the air that he had trouble seeing. Moisture beaded on his naked skin and burned him, but he barely felt it.
Cenn was still struggling back to her feet when he dashed to her and, without a word, scooped her up in his arms. She gasped out a surprised breath and wrapped her arms tight around his neck. He sprinted for the dropship while carrying her. Maybe his human form couldn’t run as fast as his wolf, but he could move well enough, and he felt better with her held safe in his arms.
The treacherous, shaking ground continually tried to upend him. He finally made it up the ramp to the relative safety of the ship. He gently set her down on the deck and then turned back to watch the final digger clatter and clank its way inside. He waited impatiently until it finally cleared enough of the ramp for him to raise it. He slammed his hand down on the button and the lifts began to whine.
Cenn made a show of dusting herself off and glaring at him. For once he was so angry that it didn’t matter that she was
standing next to him stark naked. Groxx, the woman was going to be the death of him one way or another.
“You didn’t need to carry me,” she said. “I’m a faster runner than you anyway.”
He pointed a finger in her face. “We’ll discuss this later.”
“We saved the ore. Captain Trezton’s going to hit the ceiling, probably give us both commendations. That’s thousands of credits we saved. It was a calculated risk—”
“Later,” he snarled, pushing past her and nearly running for the cockpit. More aftershocks rattled them both. The tremors were short, but erratic. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to tolerate any more risks, calculated or not. He was getting off this damn planet. Then he and Cenn were going to have a frank discussion about the exact meaning of following orders.
He burst into the dropship’s cockpit, able to tell at a glance that she’d already brought all the preflight systems to green before the first quake. He threw himself into the pilot’s chair. The dropship’s cockpit was wide, with the pilot’s chair centered on the main console and viewscreen, and with the copilot’s chair to the right and raised into a full terminal socket—dozens of monitors and holoscreens that could be accessed in a near three dimensional workspace. Cenn headed straight for it without prompting.
“Strap in,” he demanded, securing his harness. He flipped open the mainline thrust control panel and scanned the readings. Also all green. That was good, because this would be a bumpy liftoff no matter how good a pilot he was.
Valentines Heat III Page 5
