Giggling at the idea of stumbling through, all laughter escaped me when he kissed me again. Instead, heat moved through my body, stealing all mirth from the moment and replacing it with seriousness I’d never felt the likes of before. I wrapped my arms around his neck, drawing him closer until I could caress the hair on the back of his head. He kept it so short, there wasn’t much for me to run my fingers through, but I had the need and so I did it anyway.
Blaze caught his breath for a second, his body hardening. Still, he didn’t rush the moment, just kissing me as I did him, lying in the darkness like we had every right to be doing this. Which somehow, we did.
He placed his hand on the side of my face, stroking his thumb heavily against my cheekbone. Suddenly, I needed this more than I ever did anything else. Blaze was air. I had to breathe him in. He continued to kiss me, but in the moments that passed, it became more intense. He ran his tongue over my bottom lip before he pushed it between them, dancing with my own. He tasted like mint, and I might very well get addicted to it. The man was beautiful. Lethal. And right then, all mine.
His total focus on me, it overwhelmed my senses, keeping me in the moment with him. What did it matter what happened anywhere else, as long as I could be wrapped up in Blaze?
Blaze might not know what he was doing, but his kisses indicated that he did. I sighed, but that quickly turned into a moan. The back of his short hair wasn’t enough anymore. I had to pull him closer, practically digging my fingernails into his neck when I did. He jerked against me, getting harder, the bulging in his pants growing ever more present as the minutes ticked by.
He traced his hands over all of my curves.
I clenched my thighs together, not sure why I did that. I truly had no idea what I was doing. I just needed this need that was forming inside of me to do something.
“Blaze. I don’t know…” I wasn’t sure what I was even going to say to him right then.
“I do. I think.”
I was glad he knew what I didn’t. Blaze pulled my shirt over my head, discarding it to the side of the bed. Without his shirt, he was a daunting figure, and now that we were both that way, the only thing I wanted to do was press my nipples against his skin. Acting on instinct, which was all I could manage in the moment, I gave into the primal urge.
He reached between us, taking my nipple in his hand and squeezing it. A jolt of pain rocked through me, but it was beautiful, easy. I loved it. How could pain be pleasure? I didn’t know, but I wasn’t complaining. As he moved toward me, the covers we had shared scrunched up and fell over, draping over the side of the bed like a waterfall. For a second, I was stunned by the feelings, as though small things could have large significance in moments like this one, enough to knock me from thinking altogether.
I laid my palms against his chest, scraping my fingers gently over the muscles, the distinct lines of them. Blaze wasn’t the biggest man on this ship, and yet he exuded power as though he were made to lead, made to be in charge, and all of that came from the cells beneath his skin. They coated his body in command.
Reaching forward, I planted a kiss over his heart, mostly so that I could feel his heartbeat. He had an advantage over me, he could hear mine drumming away. I needed a sensory touch to do the same. And I was so glad to have it.
He kissed my neck, the place on my shoulder that led to my collarbone, and I had no idea what to do in return. I kissed him wherever I could reach him, his chest, his arm. His chin. He smiled at me, warmth in his gaze, and what I now recognized as ownership. That was okay. Right then, I wanted to be owned by him.
I wanted to belong here, and I wanted more of what Blaze was doing with his hand. He stroked down my spine, stopping right over my butt. My whole body tingled. Oh hell, I needed…something. I bit down on his chest, and he moaned, a loud, filling sound that moved through my body.
Blaze stared down at me. “Do that again.”
He liked it? That was great, because if he hadn’t, I really wouldn’t have wanted to have made him mad. That would have defeated the purpose of these moments.
I bit down again, tasting the salt on his skin. He moaned, this time his body jerking. “Fuck. I just remembered what I used to do in that machine.”
He had? I opened my mouth to ask him what that was, but he’d scooted down, throwing the remainder of the blanket off the bed entirely. Blaze wasn’t gentle when he spread my legs apart. Cold air hit me on the hot, aching spot of my core that wanted him in a way I’d never wanted anyone before. His mouth came down on me. I gasped. I hadn’t thought that was going to happen. I mean, I guess I knew it could, but not to me, and oh…yes.
First, he started with the bundle of nerves that sometimes throbbed when I thought too much about this stuff. He tongued it, and I gasped. His mouth was warm, his tongue soft and gentle.
“Blaze.” I grabbed onto his hair. “I…I…”
“Just relax. I promise you’re going to love it. Let me.”
I was certainly not going to say no. Then he tongued me inside. I couldn’t believe how his hot breath added to the sensation, how I wanted more and more. What was this build up inside of me? I’d never felt anything quite like it before. Soon, I was crying out, digging my hands into the back of his hair. He didn’t stop, didn’t try to pull away. Blaze jerked his hips against the bed. That was sexy. Funny. I could hardly think, but I could focus on that.
As the pleasure faded, I panted, unable to catch my breath. My heart raced. That was…that was…
Blaze looked up at me, a smile on his face I’d never seen before on him. He scooted closer until he could kiss me. “That was wonderful. Thank you.”
He was thanking me? I’d been the one to have the orgasm. That didn’t make much sense to me. No, I pulled him down, and he let me. “We’re not done.”
With an intense gaze, he kissed the end of my nose. “We don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
“Okay.” He slipped down just a little to position his cock by my entrance.
I stared up at him for a second. Pleasure still raced through my veins, and I was sure I could handle anything and everything. Were those nerves on his face? No, I had to imagine the stress I saw there, because Blaze, leader of Super Soldiers, couldn’t possibly be worried about having sex with me. Could he?
I didn’t get to dwell on those questions. He pressed inside of me, gently, but he was huge. My muscles clenched around him, and it seemed like it took forever for him to be able to push inside. I winced. There was pain involved in this, and I hadn’t realized it would be this much discomfort. But then he finally made it all the way in.
Blaze sighed, staring down at me. “I’m hurting you.”
“Yes, but it’s lessening.” I didn’t want him to pull out. Would that undo everything we’d just done? Why did people like this?
He shifted slightly and pressed his finger on top of my clit. Oh, that I liked. Much better. He did it again and started to move slightly. My body almost sighed, all of it relaxing. Yes, I liked this. I more than liked it. The more he did it, the better it became. Eventually, it didn’t hurt at all to have him inside of me. In fact, there was a rightness to it. I giggled. He was inside of me. That should have been bizarre, but it wasn’t. I spread my legs wider, lifting my hips to meet his thrusts, and oh yes, it was so much better.
I held onto Blaze, not caring how this went anymore. I just wanted more, wanted him…no, needed him. Blaze moaned against my ear. Once, then again. He was quiet, but not for long. Soon, he was meeting my moans. We filled the room with the sounds of our pleasure as our bodies pushed against each other, wanting more and more.
And then finally, and somehow all of a sudden, it was over. I came against his cock, but he wasn’t done. I held on while his body shuddered in mine, finally coming on a sigh that was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.
For the longest time, we stayed like that. I held onto him, hearing his breaths and trying to find my own. This was…wow.
He rolled
me over and slowly pulled out of me, his mouth on mine when he did. Blaze jumped from the bed, grabbing his covers and throwing them onto the bed while he walked to the bathroom. He came out holding a wet rag that he used to wipe me.
We hadn’t said a word to each other, and I didn’t know what to say. What was traditional now? He scooted next to me, pulling me against him. “I get it now.”
Lifting my head, I studied the hard angles of his profile. “What’s that?”
“I get what it is to be human. I didn’t, I don’t think, until this. To be human is to fight tooth and nail to protect this, to protect you. Sienna, you were already mine, but now, I’m not ever letting you go. Wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do, I’ll take you there. Forever. Do you understand? I’m yours.”
I kissed his chin. “I wouldn’t want to do anything without you.”
He smiled over at me. “Good. Although I’ve done so much… Never mind, not right now. Scoot down. You need to sleep, and I’m going to try to for solidarity.”
That made me laugh. Maybe it shouldn’t have, but it was funny. Blaze shook his head. “I wasn’t even trying to be funny.”
I knew that, which made it even funnier. That was how I fell asleep, still giggling on and off, in his arms.
If he slept, I really had no idea. All I knew was that when my dreams went dark, they quickly scurried away, sent somewhere else by a strong hand on my back and the feeling of being held in the arms of the strongest man I’d ever known, who just shared something with me I’d never imagined having in my life.
Maybe I really wasn’t alone. Not even in sleep.
I woke when Blaze got out of bed. He turned toward me, kissing my cheek. “You don’t have to get up. I just need to speak to Devil. Go over the rules if he’s staying on this ship with us.”
Was that his intention? Didn’t he need to get back to the Chen Empire? My head was still too fogged from sleep to think that clearly. “Is it morning?”
“Yep. But early. Sleep some more. I’ll send someone to bring you breakfast.”
No, they weren’t here to wait on me. I forced myself to sit up. Had my body ever been this sluggish before? I admired Blaze as he dressed. He really was so muscular. After I sat up, I put my hand on his arm just to feel his skin beneath the pads of my fingers. He stopped dressing to smile at me. I might never get used to him doing that so readily, so easily.
Blaze was so serious most of the time.
“Evander will never get you, Sienna, but neither do you have to spend your life hiding some place you hate. Today, we decide where you want to go. Okay?”
I cleared my throat. “Most of all, I don’t want anyone getting hurt. I needed to go home, to see it, but now that seems foolish. Everyone here could be hurt because I did that. Or even maybe more than just here. If they want me that badly, it’s sort of my duty to hide and see to it that no one else is injured.”
“That can be your choice.” He pulled his shirt over his head. “But I sort of hope it’s not. I looked around that room when I wasn’t focusing on the right things with you, and all I could see was people who somehow manage to have very great lives despite how awful things have been. They’ve been through hell, and I’m not making light of that, but shouldn’t we get to try to have that chance? Don’t we get to say that we’re planting ourselves somewhere and making it work, even if it means fighting Evander right there, too?”
I swallowed. “I don’t know, Blaze. I’ve never had much of a life when it comes down to it. I’ve always lived mine for other people.”
He leaned down to kiss me. “Well, get ready to feel what it is to have all of us live for you.”
That was so sweet, it made me want to cry. It couldn’t be that easy. Nothing ever really was. Not for me, anyway. In seconds, Blaze was done dressing. I chewed on my bottom lip. Pick a life, Sienna. Really?
16 A New Start. Maybe
I showered, ate, and drank coffee before I found my way into the command center. As he’d promised, Blaze had sent someone—namely Anders—to bring me some food. He’d told me where everyone would be waiting for me. And sure enough, they were.
Walking in, my cheeks reddened as every gaze in the room turned toward me. They all had to know what had happened with Blaze and me. Their ability to hear everything would make this sort of thing awkward for sure. Well, except for Trenton and Wade. They couldn’t hear, but I was quite certain by now they’d know from the others.
Only no one looked at me with any unusual emotions on their faces.
“Morning.” Wade sat at the end of the long table. “How are you feeling today?”
Ever the doctor. I looked down at the readout on my arm. It held steady at three. No movement up or down on me. “Looks like I’m feeling well.”
His smile was fast. “Don’t assume you have to go by the numbers on your wrist. You can decide if you feel well based on just how you…you know, feel.”
Trenton threw his head back. “Wade is not particularly articulate this morning.”
“And you are?” Wade threw his cup at Trenton. Fortunately, it looked to be empty, since nothing spilled.
Corbin shook his head. “Keep them up one night going over things, and they both end up acting like little boys who need naps.” He turned to wink at me. “You doing okay this morning? Blaze take good care of you last night?”
Trenton spit out his coffee, and my cheeks heated up so badly that I wasn’t sure they’d ever cool down. “Um…”
Trenton shook his head. “Nope. Corbin, that’s one of those things we don’t do. In this scenario, that’s a no-no.”
For his part, Corbin looked around the room, confusion showing in the way he rocked back on his feet. “I wasn’t talking about the sex. I know we’re all supposed to act like we don’t know about that. I was asking how she slept.”
Was it possible to curl up in a ball and roll out of the room and just keep rolling until this conversation stopped? Was it…
Blaze walked into the room, followed by Dev. They both looked at me for a long second before Blaze shot Corbin a look. “Stop embarrassing her. We talked about this. Well, Trenton did. There are topics that are just better unsaid.”
He threw his hands in the air. “I didn’t say them.”
What were the other topics? I almost asked, but Kellan walked fast to the front of the room. “Should we go over what we all discussed while you were, ah, sleeping?”
Devil laughed as I sank deeper into my chair. “Sure. I mean, yes, please. I’d like to hear what you worked on.”
He nodded. “We came up with a list of five places. All of them have pluses and minuses. As far as I’m concerned, there are really only two that would completely work.”
“Kellan.” Anders shook his head. “Show her the whole thing. We don’t all agree with you on there only being two.”
Devil leaned against the wall, his concentration on what they were doing up there. Whatever issue they had with him, no one was acting like he didn’t belong right now. Had Blaze sorted the whole thing out? Or were they all just pretending to be fine because I was there?
He nodded like he thought what Kellan had on the board was correct, while in the meantime, I couldn’t figure out what I was looking at. I was like a child again with how little I knew about anything. I hadn’t cared for ignorance then, and I liked it less now.
He pointed at a map. “First up is Sandler Space. There is a moon in the center that is habitable for life. It gets sunlight about twenty hours of the day. And a nighttime rotation of eight hours. You don’t seem to sleep more than that, Sienna. Not that we can tell. I mean, we’ve had no time to work on a schedule or figure out your routine, but for the most part, it doesn’t seem to any of us that you sleep that long.”
“She sleeps in spurts,” Dev spoke up. “Like she needs it all of a sudden. But no, I don’t think eight straight hours at a time, so that it is not too little of a night for her.”
I held up my hand. “Eight would be plenty, an
d even if it’s not, it’s not like there aren’t shades, right? We can darken rooms, can’t we?”
Kellan looked at Anders. “She makes a very good point.”
“So this one is complicated because Sandler Space is very unstable right now.” Corbin spoke from the corner. “No one is really in charge there, which is fine. Let the people work out their own governments. We don’t need companies like Evander to step in and create stability or whatever.”
I didn’t follow his thinking. “Why is that a downside?”
“Because of the potential for uprising,” Devil answered for Corbin. “And he’s right to think about that. I wouldn’t have. I would have seen it as a positive. Easy to hide in chaos. But we’re not hiding anymore, according to Blaze. We’re going to settle and face an attack head on. So the chaos doesn’t add benefit, it decreases it. If we’re waiting for Evander. We don’t need to also worry that some idiot who wants to control the moon shows up with a machete. That screws up the planning.”
Trenton rose. “Or even worse, the guy with the machete is not an idiot. He has legitimate claim for the place, and we have to kill him when he actually deserves to be there. My fight has always been against the Sandler Cartel. The people who supported him are still there. If I have a vote, I’d rather not go there.”
That made complete sense to me. “You have a vote. Everyone has a vote. Listen, I’m not even sure I should have one. I just don’t want to live without the sun. As for the rest of it, I think it should probably be all of you who decide. I’m sort of beyond my depth here.”
Anders was by my side so fast, it made my head spin. One second, he wasn’t there, the next, he was. “You’re not beyond your depth. The concept of home is foreign for me. For Corbin. For Kellan and Blaze. Devil may have more of a sense of it, having been on Earth, and Trenton and Wade both once had one. But most of us didn’t. We want to make you happy. After we beat Evander, we can stay wherever we’ve picked. We can make a go at it.”
Lost Star Page 18
