by Cathryn Cade
“Did we…?” she whispered.
Without opening his eyes, he nodded.
Her eyes filled with quick, hot tears. She knew it’d been necessary—the horror of that poor, twisted mind. But if she knew anything, it was that if he could have been saved, Navos would have done so, even at a terrible cost to himself.
Then he opened his eyes and looked down into hers again. And, with a jolt of shock, she realized something more. He’d swept into her mind, but left the rest of her untouched. And somehow now her body yearned desperately to be taken as well.
With one searing look, he acknowledged her galaxy-shifting self-awareness and let her see that, even more devastatingly, he felt the same powerful desire.
Then, leaving her plucked and waiting, he straightened, turning to the others.
“You’ll find him outside the core reactor.”
“Is he armed, Commander?”
“No. But in any case, he’s dead.”
“Dead?” asked the doctor. He sounded disappointed.
“Yes,” Navos said coldly. “I was forced to execute him. He’d…gone insane.”
“There’s been an attack?” asked a deep voice, ringing with authority.
Nelah sat up shakily and swung her legs to the floor, peering around Navos. A man stood in the doorway, with epaulets on the shoulders of his silver-grey flight suit and a fierce scowl on his handsome face.
“Damn it, Daron, not another saboteur. There’s no chance you’re wrong?”
“I fear not, Captain.”
Without looking down at Nelah, Navos placed one hand on her thigh, holding her there.
“Captain, Izard and Commander Halix are with the body,” said one of the guards. “They’re waiting for you.”
“Outside the core reactor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Damn it to the seven hells!” the captain swore, scrubbing one hand over his short, silver-blond hair. “We’re not rid of these quarking terrorists yet, are we?”
“I’ll accompany you,” Navos said.
The captain shot one look from Navos’s face to hers and shook his head. “The two of you need rest—anyone can see that. We’ll handle it from here.”
The guards followed him from the room.
“Yes, rest,” said the old doctor, waving his eye stalks gently. “Unless either of you needs any help from me?”
“No, thank you, Doctor,” Navos said. He looked down at Nelah and held out his hand. She put her own in it and rose. She was so aware of him that the doctor and the medical techs gathered around seemed unsubstantial.
Clinging to Navos, she followed him out of the infirmary and into an elevator. As the door shut behind them with a quiet swoosh, they stood in silence, her hand still enclosed in his. She held very still, afraid if she moved he would let go. And she wanted desperately to go on touching him, even in such a platonic way.
“We—we killed him.” Saying the words aloud sent a deep shudder through her. This wasn’t what she’d envisioned, working with him. She’d imagined them perhaps divining a passenger had a weapon and sending him off the ship, the crew cheering. Or even forcing a wrong-doer to his knees, helpless against the strength of the two Indigons, guardians of right.
She looked up into his face. In his fathomless gaze she saw the terrible truth—that this was not the first time he’d been forced to take a life to save others. She closed her eyes, clinging tightly to his hand. She didn’t know if she could do it. She didn’t know if she could ever make such a choice again, knowing someone could die by the power of her mind.
“Situations such as this are very rare,” he said. She nodded, but she did not open her eyes, not yet.
Finally he spoke again, in a voice so controlled it was nearly cold. “You may choose a different path.”
She knew what he meant. Even through this harrowing conversation, another had been going on. The intense communion of minds they’d just experienced had super-charged their bodies with desire for another kind of melding—a sexual one. A kind of bewildered guilt besieged her, but it was not strong enough to douse the flames licking at her. She must choose whether to continue on her original path—and if she did, she should certainly not desire him.
But it was really no choice at all. Since the beginning of the voyage, the Orion had been hurtling through space, and she toward this moment. The elevator stopped, and the door slid open. He stood waiting.
Nelah looked up into his deep blue eyes, surrendering herself to this enigmatic, fascinating man.
“I choose…to be with you.”
Chapter Four
Navos led her into his stateroom, only his years of training controlling the desire flaming inside him. He knew that after a battle, soldiers often found themselves in the grip of lust, the less honorable among them committing rape.
He and Nelah had just won a deadly battle, although fought with empathic power. And now this slender, naïve young woman had him ready to shove her up against the nearest wall and take her there.
He’d nearly done so in the elevator—he had the access codes to shut it down and blank all surveillance. And knowing she wouldn’t stop him inflamed him. However, he was damned if he’d behave as a mere human male.
He’d a thousand years of Indigon evolution in at least half of him and he meant to make sure that half remained uppermost, even in what promised to be a heady liaison. He might be throwing his rules about sex with passengers out the escape hatch, but he was still Indigon.
As the hatch slid shut behind them, he led her across the few steps to the large bed waiting in the shadows and turned her toward him. He wanted nothing more than to unwrap her like a gift and enjoy her tender body with slow care, but he had little time.
They both needed sleep. She would have it. He must go and aid in the investigation now beginning. Whoever the dead man was, whoever had been controlling him, he’d been acting as a terrorist. The Orion was obviously not rid of her tormentors.
But before Navos did the work at which he was so skilled, divining the patterns and motivations in a crisis situation, he desperately needed an outlet for the sexual flames fanned by their mind meld.
He sent his power twining about her, silently urging her close to him. She shivered visibly, her plum-like breasts rising and falling quickly as she fought for breath. Her eyes rose as far as his mouth, then her own lips parted on a shuddering sigh of surrender and she swayed toward him like a lovely, slender reed.
Triumph surged through him. She was so attuned to him. He spoke to her silently once more. Would she hear him, or had their earlier communication been a fluke, forged in the fire of urgency?
“Touch me.”
Her hands settled like birds’ wings on his chest, slipping up over the sleek fabric of his flight suit. She found the fastening at his throat, baring a long vee of flesh.
His hands curved around her tiny waist, urging, guiding. She swayed closer, first her moist breath and then her soft lips brushing against the column of his throat.
Every cell in his body thrilled.
“More!” He had to feel that torturously delicate exploration move up his throat, then down, across the smooth hardness of his chest, her eager hands pushing his flight suit back until her fingertips found his nipples. A hard shudder arrowed through him as she traced them.
She was trembling in his hands, a fact that filled him with savage delight. He wanted her shaking, wanted her desperate for him.
He pushed his loins against hers, rocking his erection into the juncture of her thighs as she tasted his skin with the tip of her silky little tongue. He hung on the feathered edge of orgasm. His nostrils flared, jaw clenched, as he fought the urge to let go just from the graze of her mons on his straining phallus.
But no, he wanted every bit of her, wanted to be deep inside her before he put them both out of this delicious agony.
He traced just the fingertips of one hand, so large against her delicate frame, up the sleek front of her flight suit, over o
ne pebble-hard nipple thrusting underneath, up under her chin, tipping her face toward his. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, dazed. Good.
He nipped at her lower lip—hard. “Open your suit to me.”
She fumbled with the fastening under her chin, her eyes drowning in his. It parted under his waiting fingertips. He slid his fingers down with hers, so under his tutelage she unfastened the garment clear to her belly. Her skin was unbelievably silken, shivering at his touch.
His mouth hovering against hers, he stroked the suit open farther, until his fingertips found the firm mound of her mons. Ah, like a velvet peach and a few inches farther, the luscious juicy center of the fruit, the sleek folds of her vulva. Indigons had only the faintest traces of hair around their sex. It gave the women a delicate, vulnerable beauty.
She whimpered some incoherent plea against his lips, her hips tilting forward to meet his touch.
“Yes,” he breathed into her mouth. “Give yourself to me.”
“I already—have.”
Some strange, tender warmth swelled in his chest. He swept the flight suit from her shoulders, down her body, and gathered her close to him, enclosing her fragile nudity in his arms as he bore her to his bed.
Her head fell back across his arm, presenting the lovely long arch of her throat. She cried out when he raked his open mouth along its length. He found the tender juncture of her shoulder and sucked hard, then laved it with his tongue, exulting in the press of her slender hands in his hair, holding him to her.
She was lissome in his arms, soft under his hardness, trembling against his strength. The scent of her skin, heated woman and those elusive flowers, drove him on, down her body. Her small breasts, peaked with tender buds of pale mauve, fit perfectly in his hands, and she moaned when he squeezed them, pinching the nipples up between his thumb and forefinger for his tongue. He suckled her hard, ravenous for the velvety texture on his tongue. She bucked underneath him and he pushed harder with his mind, urging her fiercely to let him deeper inside.
Nelah was drowning in pleasure. He’d given her no quarter, no respite, no hiding place during their work together. He demanded all of her now, as if to devour her sensually. She could conceive of no sweeter fate. She wanted to be consumed, she wanted to forget the terrible events of the evening.
And Navos was clearly the man to help her. He knew his way around a woman’s body—where and how to use his hands and his mouth, pulling rapaciously at her nipples in turn, sending sensation shooting through her until she had to cry out her pleasure to the night.
And then he enticed her to let him deeper into her mind, as well. She resisted at first, realizing even as she did it was but a token effort and he knew it as well as she. For when she gave in and dropped her mental barriers, allowing him inside to feel every nuance of her pleasure, it was the most delicious surrender of all.
With a deep sound of approval, he invaded her mind with swift, steady surges of power, sampling her gasp of near pain as he used his teeth on her nipple and then her pleasure as he laved it tenderly with his tongue. He rewarded her with the same treatment on the other. When she held his head to her breast, he turned his face into her cradling hand and bit the pad of her thumb, then stroked it with his tongue.
His hands worked between them. Dragging open her heavy eyes, she watched him part his flight suit clear to his groin. She wanted him to pull it all the way off, she wanted to see his long, lean body and touch him all over.
“You may touch me the next time, as you are imagining.” He palmed the length of his penis, so she caught only a glimpse of it, stiffly erect and of a startling size. “Now, open to me.”
Embarrassment scalded her cheeks, but at the same time her pussy clenched and melted. She wanted to open to him, wanted his eyes on her. And he knew, so there was little point in hesitating. She parted her legs, drawing up her knees so she lay in a pose of wanton surrender. And as his dark, hot eyes traveled down over her naked body, he stroked himself. Heat pooled in her pussy as if she were melting under his gaze. It was utterly delicious.
“You enjoy my eyes on you,” he approved. “You’ll enjoy it when I put my mouth and hands on you, and my cock in you, won’t you?”
Desire swelled inside her. She fisted her hands in the soft bedcover, arching her back, offering herself to him helplessly. “Yes—oh, please,” she pleaded. “Commander!”
“Say my name.”
“Daron…” His name sighed through her mind like the stroke of a silken feather. Then she whimpered it as he stroked his fingers into her sleek labia and deep into her pussy. It burned a little and she felt his large finger every centimeter of the way. And loved it.
“My gods, you’re tight. Nelah—you are a virgin?”
She gazed up at him, unable to form a coherent answer while he was stroking her with such complete intimacy. She supposed she was—the only thing that had penetrated her before his touch was her slim vibrator.
She’d begun to experience sexual needs in her late teens, but Indigons were fastidious by nature and she hadn’t been sufficiently attracted to any of the young men she knew to want more than kisses. Taking the advice of an older girl, she’d purchased a vibrator. She certainly hadn’t enjoyed all the uses suggested on the package, but it took the edge off of the needs that left her tossing restlessly in her bed at night. Needs that had a face and form—his.
Realizing by the look in his eyes he’d read this jumble of sensory memory, Nelah gave a squeak of complete embarrassment, covering her face with her hands, as a hot blush scalded its way from her face down her throat, even over her chest.
“Ah,” he breathed. She sensed his surprised pleasure. She was an idiot, hiding her face from him when he was able to intuit her so deeply, but she kept her hands there anyway.
He stroked her again and this time his thumb found the tiny swollen bud of her clitoris. She gasped, her body tightening at the touch on this most sensitive part of her body. And she discovered no device could ever approach the knowing caress of this man. The one man she wished to touch her.
“Nelah, look at me.”
Slowly, she obeyed, letting her hands slip back on the pillow beside her head, and looked into his eyes as he caressed her, a light, slippery touch as he moistened her with her own arousal. Her toes curled into the mattress and her hips tilted up helplessly toward his touch. She felt suddenly frantic lest he should stop, heat flushing under her skin.
“I won’t stop,” he assured her. “Come for me. The next time I’ll have you with my mouth, but I can’t wait that long this time.”
He stroked up inside her, finding that special pad of nerves and pressing deep. She cried out, a soft feminine sound as the pleasure burst, surging outward through her in deep shivering waves. Through it all, he was with her.
Relaxing at last, she forced her heavy eyes open. A smile curved her mouth as satisfaction reverberated through her body.
“Gods, you’re lovely.” He slid his strong hands under her, lifting her up to him.
She found herself astride his lap as he knelt on the bed. Startled, she clutched at him, his body hard and powerful, his flight suit sleek under her as she slid her arms about his shoulders. His penis, that brash male weapon, brushed against her belly as he held her there with one hand on her bare bottom, the other under her chin.
He turned her face up to his. His eyes glittered with need and passion, nearly black. His face was beautiful in its male demand and her body flowered in response.
“Now,” he echoed her thoughts. “Take me inside your body, Nelah. Share your pleasure with me.”
“Yes,” she sighed in spite of the fear that sprang out of the shadows at her. She knew this was going to hurt—he was much bigger than her vibrator.
He cocked his head and kissed her. She forgot to be afraid as the narrow lips that could tighten in such regal disdain, now met hers. Oh, how the man could kiss. He demanded everything—first the caress of her lips under his, then that they should part and let him in, let
him learn every inner curve and trembling sigh, before his tongue met hers and she leaned into him, deepening the kiss hungrily, her tongue tangling with his.
Her breasts pressed against his chest. She wound her arms about his neck, rubbing herself against his penis, a silent invitation. His hand tightened on her bottom and he shuddered deeply.
Still kissing her, he urged her to lift up, his hand brushing her inner thigh as he guided the head of his penis into the wet petals of her labia. He looked into her eyes as he pressed into her, guiding her with his hands to rock her hips, stroking him a little deeper up into her each time. She was in control of her own deflowering.
That it was he cleaving her untried body made it a shattering experience. She was giving her body to the man whom she’d long dreamed of meeting, but only in her innermost heart had she every dared to dream they might be lovers.
His penis was like a hot brand forging up inside her. She knew logically the burning was caused by the stretching of her untried flesh, but emotionally it seemed he caused the pain. He was both beguiler and punisher.
He kissed her, stroking her back. “Sshh,” he soothed. “Only this first time.”
At last he was seated deep within her. She looked into his eyes as he urged her silently.
“Now, ride me. Take me.”
Slowly, uncertainly at first, she rose so his shaft slid part way out of her, then sank down again. It burned. The intimacy was nearly unbearable. She’d allowed this man deep into her body—he was inside not only her most private place physically, but psychically.
She wanted to cry out, she wanted to move faster—so she did both. Another creature seemed to be emerging inside her—a wanton female whose soft cries of need drove both of them until she was riding him like a wild thing and he was thrusting up to meet her. The tight friction of his penis inside her was the only thing that mattered.
When the burning became pleasure and the pleasure began to tighten and tighten, she clutched at him, digging her nails into his broad shoulders. Finally it burst, and she screamed with delight.
