Groxx.
She blew out a frustrated breath, trying to calm herself. Anger wouldn’t solve anything. So what to do, what to do? She could simply stew about their argument here in the cockpit. They could return to the Wolfstar angry at each other. Groxx, they could call their whole relationship off for that matter. He had never claimed her in front of the pack. There was no face to lose. For either of them.
Or she could walk her ass back to the cargo bay and they could talk to each other like intelligent creatures of the universe.
Put that way, the decision was easy. Only first she had to grab something, a bit of a peace offering to ease the tension between them.
She only hoped it would work.
She found Redlan in the cargo bay. He was using one of the Tiki-6 logistics robots to help him secure a damaged digger into its docking bay. She hesitated in the wide doorway, her stomach sinking into her boots when she spotted the half-crushed autoloader and all the damage. She groaned as she closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. This really was a disaster.
“How bad?” she asked, her voice sounding tired to her own ears.
He glanced her way, his expression carefully neutral. “The autoloader’s nothing but scrap now. The digger can be repaired.”
“The ore?”
“The ore’s fine. But the profit on the load will have to go toward repairs.”
“Groxx me. Captain Trezton is going to blow an airlock seal.”
His mouth twitched, and she guessed he was trying to hold back a smile until his expression finally settled into a frown. “Maybe, but were damn lucky to get the dropship off that moon in one piece.”
She nodded. It had been bad luck. Still, there was nothing they could do about it now but try and fix things. And speaking of fixing things… “Red, we need to talk.”
“The control board still green?”
“Smooth spacing.” She shrugged, knowing he was being deliberately obtuse. “Auto-nav is taking us to the Wolfstar’s meet coordinates.”
He grunted. “Damage report?”
“As well as the damage back here, one of the acanium joints needed repair. System says one of the fixer robos is working on it. I saw it on my way here.”
“Yeah, I spoke with the repair unit.” He turned back to his work. “I’m not sure what you think we need to talk about. Seems what’s said has been said.”
She showed remarkable restraint by not telling him that had to be one of the most idiotic phrases she’d ever heard uttered. Instead, she brought out the small ever-cool bag she’d been hiding behind her back. “I got us some Fulcrum beer from my ultra-secret stash.” She opened the bag, pulled out a frost-glass bottle, and tossed it at him before he could refuse. She was betting his quick lycanari reflexes would save him from being hit with the bottle and having it smash open on the floor.
As expected, he snatched it out of the air with ease and gave it a quick glance. “Synthetic hops? Probably tastes like bearing lubricant.”
“When did you ever eat bearing lubricant?”
“You get down and dirty in an engine, you find all kinds of things in your mouth.” A grin spread across his face.
She found herself grinning back. Groxx yeah, she’d take a smile and a vaguely off color-comment from him as a start. She refused to be annoyed that he’d implied the beer she’d picked up on Dsarchik Station shared traits with bearing lubricant, especially after all she’d done to sneak it onto the dropship past a bunch of lycanari noses.
He walked over to her. She boosted herself up on the yellow-and-black striped hazard rail and perched on top. He joined her, leaning against the rail as he twisted off the cap-seal and took a long swig.
“Not bad.” He took another drink. “Not bad at all. Thank you.”
“We earned it.”
He wasn’t looking at her, instead staring at the Tiki-6 bot as it secured the heavy cargo restraints around the damaged digger. “Is this a peace offering?”
She shrugged. “You can see it anyway you want. I figure we can waste all our time pouting and moaning and steaming about each other—or we can sit down and sort it out like adults.”
“I think things were pretty laser-defined. What more is there to discuss?”
“So I went after that digger. You believe that was a wrong call.”
He grunted. “We already established that.”
“I’m framing here, Red. Work with me.”
“You made the wrong call. That’s not the big problem. The real problem is, I made the right call, and you ignored my direct order. Does that frame it for you?”
“So this is a rank issue? A pack order, dominance and submission thing? Lots of flexing muscles and grunting, then? No wonder I’m wrong.”
“That attitude? Not helping.”
She blew out a long breath, lifting dangling strands of hair off her forehead. “Pack comes first. If we don’t forage, we don’t stay skybound. It’s that simple.”
He shook his head. His gaze was intense to the point of being aggressive. “Is that what you believe? We’re all disposable and the only thing that matters is keeping the Wolfstar in the sky?”
She held his stare, defiant. “Is there something that matters more?”
She wanted him to say it. Groxx, would he simply say it? Unless she’d been wrong in her hope. Maybe this really had only been about him getting his testicles in a knot over her selective noncompliance of his orders. She needed him to say he loved her. To tell her she was the most important thing to him.
For a moment she thought he would. He opened his mouth, but his anger seemed to take over and he went utterly cold again. He shoved away from the rail. “Thanks for the beer.”
Her breath caught in her throat. The hurt pierced her deeper than she expected—a hot spike right through the center of her.
“I might’ve been wrong,” she said, her voice shaking because she simply could not keep the emotion out of it. There was no reason to even try. “But so are you.”
She jumped down from the rail and left him.
CHAPTER FOUR
He was such a groxxing fool.
He watched silently as Cenn walked out of the cargo area. She never looked back, but he tracked her every step. Every time her heel struck the metal floor, the noise hit him like a body blow. The words he knew would bring her back had lodged in his throat. He couldn’t cough them out. They were stuck there, choking him, too hard to say.
He was nothing but a coward. He would rather win an argument than win her.
What would it take for him to tell her how much she meant to him? If anything, he would’ve bet that almost losing her today would’ve done it, but no. He’d never been good at expressing his feelings. Then again, that was a cheap, gutless excuse. Some things simply had to be done. He had to shut up and be wolf enough to do them.
On autopilot, he double-checked the restraints on the digger, his hands moving of their own accord. He knew full well he was stalling. It wouldn’t be long until the rendezvous with the Wolfstar. He suspected that if he left things as they were, with this conflict lying between them, then they were as good as done as a couple. So then, was she worth claiming? Even as headstrong as she could be? As maddening as she could be?
Who else fit perfectly against him? No one. Ever. Their connection was perfect. She wrapped around him like copper wire covering a spike-terminal, and the electricity flowed. He started to smirk, wondering if she’d like it if he used that image during their pillow talk. She’d probably laugh him out of bed. Of course, there wouldn’t be any pillow talk now. Not after he’d hull-breached their entire groxxing relationship because he couldn’t tell her she’d scared him to death by running headlong into danger. All because he couldn’t be man enough to tell her how much he loved her.
Now things had changed. He’d always known that the life of a spacer was hazardous. There was always risk. That was why spacers lived harder and faster than planet-side inhabitants. Live hard, die free, and other quippy things
like that. Lycanari were no different. In fact, they were prone to living even more carefree and hedonistically, reveling in the pleasures of food, lovers, excitement, drink, and merriment. Live the moment.
And like a naïve fool, he’d assumed she would be there for him forever.
It was time to take a risk. He could not lose her. Yet, she also had to understand that when he gave a groxxing command, she needed to step lively. He didn’t give a flying groxx for that damn digger or about the ore. He would tell her exactly how much she meant to him. He had to. There was no choice. There was no other way he could lay permanent claim to her.
And if she didn’t feel the same way about him after this?
He clenched his fist and wanted to throw something big across the room. After a deep breath and slow exhale, he managed to hold onto his self-control. Barely. Throwing things onboard a spaceship was another thing that chanced starting a series of unfortunate disasters. That didn’t mean he didn’t want to take his frustrations out on something, it simply meant he had to act like a big wolf.
Because now it was time to risk it all for the most important thing in his world.
Cenn.
CHAPTER FIVE
Cenn studied the navigation computer holoscreens for what seemed the hundredth time. She double-checked the engine flux. She ran diagnostics. She calculated how much money they’d get for dylios ore at the Sys-Trade Market rate for the UnReg systems, and even better, on the more lucrative Consolidated Core exchange where the markets were more stable. She certainly did not cry. True, she felt as if someone had kicked her in the gut. Yes, she felt empty and hollow and as breakable as glass. But she didn’t cry, and she didn’t break, and there were things that needed doing.
The door to the cockpit hissed open. She didn’t turn, because this system readout on the engine thrust-burn efficiency ratios was far more intriguing than anything Mr. Thanks-For-The-Bearing-Lubricant-Beer might have to say.
He walked up behind her copilot chair. She sensed him behind her, looming, and she ignored him with perfect poise. With a bit of back-end calibration, she could probably squeeze out another ten or fifteen percent efficiency from the central—
“Cenn.”
His voice was low and grave. It shattered through the wall of busy-work and busy-thoughts she’d built to keep her from thinking of him. She swiveled in the chair to face him.
“All the systems are still green.” She kept her tone professional to the core while she met his gaze. “We’re getting close to the link-up coordinates with the Wolfstar.”
“Cenn.” He took her hands and pulled her to her feet.
“I still have a lot of work to do—”
“Cenn,” he growled, but his expression was a strange mix of amusement and intensity. “Be quiet.”
She sputtered. “You think you can—”
He kissed her. It was a kiss to rock the worlds. He seemed to pour a cargo ship’s worth of passion and need into the kiss, crushing her to him, his mouth claiming hers. Owning hers. She felt his heart hammering away in his chest, and hers was beating just as fast. He finally broke the kiss, leaving her light-headed and yearning for his lips back on hers, wanting them on her body, everywhere. She stared up at him, waiting for his next move. He settled his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes.
“You are mine, Cenn.” His words were rough, ragged with emotion. His gaze burned into hers. “I claim you. I love you.”
She closed her eyes, titled her head away. So much emotion coursed through her that she was trembling. His hands remained on her shoulders, heavy and steady, as if he would help hold her together.
“I…” she started, and swallowed. “I waited a long time to hear that.”
The corner of his mouth curved upward. “Too long.”
She nodded. “Yeah, too long.”
“Don’t agree too quickly now.” His laughter was warm. “Your man is a moon-dumb moron not to have told you so before. What was wrong with him?”
She couldn’t help her return smile. “I don’t know. I was hoping he’d wake up some eon.”
“What woke me up was seeing you risk your tail. I realized I could lose you in an instant. You’d be gone and I’d never have told you how much you mean to me.”
“How much do I mean to you?” she asked, giving him a mischievous look.
“You’re everything to me. Simple as that. You’re mine. I’m yours.”
A flush of warmth and love flooded through her. Her heart was beating fast. The dual force of his love and his lust scorched along her body, turning her on even more. She wanted to be wanted. Needed to be needed. By him.
Cenn drew her hands down his muscular chest, loving the hard feel of him. That hardness made her think of another hardness. Her hand slipped lower, down to his crotch, and she grinned when she felt how stiff he was. She traced her fingers teasingly along the outline of his cock straining against his pants.
“Keep it up,” he growled. “I’ll be tearing those clothes off you.”
“Oh, clothes-tearing. That’s a good start, but is that all you can do?”
“Not even close. I’ll spread you wide on that console. I’ll tongue-fuck you until you’re screaming.”
“I love the sound of that.” Damn, she was getting so wet. Not just the words, but the way he looked at her with those gorgeous eyes, as if she were the one thing in the world he wanted more than anything else. As if she were life to him.
“Do you? Good. You deserve it. Because after that I’m going to turn you around and give you the other thing you deserve. For running off like the bravest, stupidest wolf in the pack and nearly giving me a heart attack, you deserve a couple of smart slaps on the ass.” He leaned toward her. “A spanking. For making me love you so hard, you damn wicked wolf.”
Her breath shuddered out. Her skin felt as if it were on fire, needing his hands on her. Her nipples were hard, tight points against her flight suit and her core was wet, hot, and aching for him to fill her.
“Promises…” she whispered, her voice escaping her lips in a needy sigh.
He drew the zipper of her flight suit down, exposing her breasts. He cupped her breasts, squeezing them, then he teased her aching nipples, pushing the tips upward and making her moan with the sudden onslaught of pleasure.
“Your mouth…” she gasped. “On me.”
His grin was almost feral. “I like it when a woman knows what she wants.” But his hands only lingered on her breasts, teasing and twisting her nipples until she arched with delight.
“Still…talking…” she managed to say.
He laughed and lowered his head to take one nipple into his mouth. She groaned, closing her eyes and tilting her head back, as he took the tip between his teeth and lightly flicked his tongue across it. And if that wasn’t enough to drive her mad, he continued to stroke and tease her other nipple with his fingers. He shifted from tongue-teasing to biting—only hard enough to give the slightest flash of discomfort before he shifted again to sucking and tonguing, so that the pain was immediately driven away by the pleasure—and the abrupt changes had her head reeling.
He pushed the flight suit, which had bunched around her waist, all the way over her hips and down to her ankles. Then he grabbed her by the backside, lifted her effortlessly, and set her down on the smooth console. The cool surface made her skin break out in gooseflesh, but Redlan’s attention to her body warmed her enough that she didn’t notice for long.
Redlan slid his hands up the back of her thighs, cupping his palms behind her knees. He spread her wide open, pushing her legs as far apart as they would go, exposing her glistening sex completely to him. He drank in the sight, his expression rapt, heated. He lowered his head and tasted her hot, slick folds.
She rocked her hips upward, rolling into him, frantic to get him to drive his tongue deeper into her. She almost fell off the console when he finally drove the tip of his tongue into her upper channel. He eased off and licked around her slit, leaving no part
of her untasted, before he alternately flicked her clit and circled it, licking, driving her mad with constantly building pleasure.
“Ah, God,” she gasped. “Ahhhnnn…” The words she intended deteriorated into a lingering moan. She stared down at his head between her thighs, and drove her hand into his dark hair. He gave her bud a good sucking and her grip tightened until her fingers clenched in his locks. He was merciless. She couldn’t have pulled his head away, even if she’d wanted to. Her knuckles were white. There were spots flickering in her vision and she felt as though she couldn’t draw in enough air.
“Fuck…” she said, panting, gasping. She bit her cheek, trying to hold in some of her moans, though she had no idea why. But after a few moments of him pleasuring her, she was helpless to even do that. Helpless to do anything but try to climb to the top of the massive wave of pleasure that was looming higher and higher over her.
An instant before she came, he drew back and slid his hands along her inner thighs, watching her with those striking amber wolf eyes. She thought she might come anyway—so close to the edge she might simply tumble off if the slightest push of his breath fell against her hot, slick folds—but though her excitement remained near feverish, she managed to hold off, wanting him inside her when she came.
But she wasn’t a patient wolf.
“I need you,” she growled. “In me. Now.”
His laugh was low and satisfied and seemed to vibrate through her like electric current. His gaze was intense, and his cock was standing up hard and proud. Precum seeped from the tip. She opened her mouth to beg, yes, beg him to fuck her. He shook his head, giving her a purely wicked grin.
“This first,” he said, and went down on her again. She opened her mouth in shock, but she was wound so tight that it only took a couple of hard flicks of his tongue against her clit, then down into her sopping pussy, and back up to her clit in merciless circles to shove her over the edge. She came hard, thrashing against him, and unable to do anything but moan and shudder.
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