Liberation's Desire

by Wendy Lynn Clark

  He focused on that movement with the weight and heat of unspoken hours. A new heat rose between them. He licked his lips to match her. “What did you have in mind?”

  She sat on the edge of the bed and rested one leg on each of his armrests. The robe parted to reveal her long, creamy, shapely thighs. Although many parts of her body didn’t receive her love, she had always been proud of her thighs.

  A pleasing hard shape pulsed against the taut fabric below his waist. “Dexterity isn’t my strong point right now.”

  She grinned. “Then let’s do something that doesn’t require being dexterous.”

  His blue eyes gleamed with gold.

  She tilted her chin.

  He dropped his mouth onto hers, sealing their union with a life-promise of kisses. He was alive. He was here. He kissed her with a desperation that couldn’t wait.

  His mouth moved against hers, and his teeth nibbled, drawing her forward, breathless, opening to him. He tangled her tongue, filling her mouth with delicious command. She melted into his kiss, resting her hands on his shoulders for balance. He pressed her swelling breasts against his hard chest.

  She whimpered. “Yves.”

  He drew back and buried his face in her neck. “You are too generous. I want to protect you from everyone who would take advantage of you. But the worst offender is me.”

  She smiled. “Is that what your research has led you to believe?”

  He squeezed her hard. “I’m done with research.”

  She stilled. “You’ve figured out how to control your passion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” She cleared her throat past the lump. Her hand, splayed across his rippled back, made her want to hold him tighter. So she did. “Congratulations. What’s the secret?”

  “The only way to control my passion”—he kissed into her neck, teasing her sensitive column with his teeth—“is to give in to it. Over and over. For the rest of my life.”

  Joy suffused her. Finally, he acknowledged what really mattered. She stroked the long line of muscle.

  He pulled back, sliding her robe from her shoulders and appreciating her bare breasts. “Are you shocked?”

  “No.” She shimmied the rest of the way out of the robe and ripped apart his flight suit to bare their bodies. “I could have told you that from the beginning.”

  A smile curved his lips.

  He rose.

  She pushed him back into his seat. “Now, I’m going to have my way with you.”

  His brows lifted in surprise.

  She trailed her hands over his hard, naked body. The planes of his strong shoulders. His smooth pectorals and perfectly formed abs. The trail of dark hair down to his thick, pulsing manhood.

  She encircled the smooth shaft. He hadn’t come last time. Even though he’d given her pleasure, he hadn’t allowed himself any. “Fully anatomical?”

  “Of course.”

  She teased her fingers up and down the sensitive skin. “All parts in working order?”

  He shifted his hips forward, opening himself to her. “You’re about to find out.”

  The smooth, mushroomed head dripped a perfect white pearl. “What does it taste like?”

  His brows lifted. “What do you want it to taste like?”

  So, she could decide? Something to have fun with next time. She wet her lips, enjoying his hitch of breath, the intense focus of his gaze on her, the matching wetness between her legs in readiness. He looked like he wanted to reach out and touch her, but his hands were too bandaged to make contact.

  She put him at rest. “Enjoy yourself.”

  He rumbled. “That’s guaranteed.”

  “Don’t think so hard.” She kissed the twitching tip. He pulsed beneath her. “Just feel.”

  He held his breath.

  She kissed down the shaft and back up, learning his weight and scent. Canvas and masculinity and him. He shifted and moaned, his eyes focusing only on her. Her power. Her touch. Her love.

  She swirled her tongue over his smooth head. Salty and wet.

  He groaned. “Mercury.”

  “Just feel,” she whispered.

  Her lips passed over his head, and she took the long, hard shaft into her mouth. He burned brutally hot and desperately ragged. Her own core moistened with hot, throbbing need as she sucked on him and gave him nothing but selfless pleasure.

  With one hard gasp, he tensed and shot his release.

  She swallowed the creaminess, wiping her mouth. “That was…faster than I expected.”

  “Most men have to distract themselves,” he told her, unapologetic. “I experienced every single exquisite sensation.”

  Heat poured into her molten core.

  She slowly rose. He remained hard and proud and ready for her. “How about some more sensations?”

  His eyes seemed to shift color, more gold than blue. “Use me as you will.”

  “Oh, no.” She lowered the armrests and straddled his seat, placing her full breasts at his level. “I expect active participation.”

  “I love it when you take charge.”

  He nibbled from her collar down to her breasts, his breath contracting her deliciously sensitive nipples. She gasped, letting herself sink into his rapture. He enjoyed her, teasing the soft peaks and tasting them between his teeth. Desire twisted between her legs, hot under his attention, rising high and needy with every succulent kiss. He drew her forward, belly to belly, holding her in his arms the way she wanted. She twisted her fingers in his hair, reveling in his concentration, releasing her passion as urgent writhing. She needed this. She needed him.

  His hardness pulsed against her trembling inner thigh. Rhythmic as a supernova, ancient as the stars.

  She moaned and pressed against him. His thick, hard shaft fit to her.

  “Yves—”

  He filled her mouth with his tongue, reading and responding perfectly to her every desire. She pressed his shaft deeper into her center and drew him in, wanting all, accepting all that was him. He groaned against her mouth.

  “Just feel,” she whispered.

  He buried his face in her neck. “I only feel you.”

  She eased him in all the way, until he buried hard and deep into her soft wetness.

  Yes. Finally, yes.

  She arched against him.

  He gazed at her pleasure-soaked skin as though losing himself in her over and over again as he pulsed against her most pleasurable spot, hard and soft, slick and sweet, and exactly how she wanted it.

  Her nails dug into his thigh.

  He threw back his head, driving himself deeper into her, communicating their connection with his body.

  And then she couldn’t think either. The delicious tingles grew, and her gasps grew louder in her own ears, and the pleasure drove her harder, and she tasted it in her mouth, and she cried out his name—“Yves!”—and it burst in her body, starbursts and cloudbursts, lovely supernovas, all tingling wonderfully downward.

  She collapsed in his arms.

  He shuddered, hard and silent, as his release rocked through him over and over again.

  He finally collapsed in the seat.

  She stroked his shoulder until his perfect skin cooled beneath her touch. Still connected, as deeply as a man and a woman could be. The look in his color-shifted eyes told her that he felt their connection too.

  She wiped the dampness from his fine features. “You look…” She was going to say “satisfied,” but the shadows deep under his eyes changed her mind. “…wrecked, actually.”

  He snorted. Familiar amusement curled his lips as he helped her stand on trembling legs. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” She tugged him up onto the hospital bed, which grew to fit their larger portions, and hit the rejuvenators. “You are amazing and sexy and wonderful.”

  The incubator closed over them, flooding them with bruise-easing mists and recovery-enhancing atmosphere.

  He sighed as he gazed into her eyes. “Cuddling with you is ev
en better than I imagined.”

  Surprise and pleasure twined around her heart. “You imagined cuddling with me?”

  His smile deepened. A sweet and oh-so-intelligent engineering student who’d discovered his ideal subject of research. “I love touching you. I love holding you. I love everything about you. Let me show you.”

  And he curled around her, holding her safe and beautiful and warm.

  ~*~*~*~

  The hail chimed five times before his lovely lady stirred in Yves’ arms.

  The warm satisfaction curving her sweet lips and the pleasure beneath her dark, fringed lashes almost made losing her sleeping body from his arms tolerable.

  “Hey,” she said softly as she stretched.

  He smiled at the woman who now fully, truly owned her identity, from the way she moved her body to the solid transmission of her fully activated chip ID. “Hey.”

  She hit the button to open the incubator. “What—”

  The hail chime went off again. She frowned and rose, hitting the answer with her mind clearly still half-asleep.

  Yves dove for his flight suit.

  The screen overhead resolved into Xan, whose eyebrows shot up as he delicately looked away, and Cressida, whose important frown turned to surprise and then red-faced chagrin.

  “Oh, Cressida.” Mercury yawned and put her arms through the robe, cinching down her beautiful body in socially acceptable modesty. “How’s your hand?”

  “Fine,” she said uncomfortably.

  “And what’s the emergency?” Yves asked, trying to suppress his amusement as he sealed up the suit to the neck.

  Xan burst out. “I tried to stop her. I swear.”

  “I can call back,” she said.

  “It’s fine.” Mercury bumped Yves’ shoulder. “I’m awake.”

  “I wanted to confirm our destination.” Cressida struggled for her usual calmness. “We’re coming up on the Tube. Our hangar can only be repaired at a planetary station, and I don’t feel comfortable making ourselves so vulnerable in Faction-controlled space.”

  “I can keep this rig together until we reach somewhere like Seven Stars,” Xan said.

  The heart of the Hyeon subfamily of the Antiata conglomerate.

  “It’s currently surrounded by the Faction’s Third Brigade.”

  She gasped. “No.”

  “We intend to go to their assistance,” Cressida said.

  “And we can rescue Aris,” Mercury said.

  Her sister nodded. “We’re heading there on your mark.”

  “On my mark?”

  Cressida looked up at Xan, standing behind her, and lifted her hand. He took it, stroking her. “You’re the one in the big warship. You set the pace. We’ll try to keep up.”

  “Me?” Mercury repeated.

  “You’re faster,” Xan said. “And you’ve got all the guns.”

  Mercury smoothed her robe absently. “Guns…”

  “Mercury?”

  Yves slid off the bed. “She’s still half-asleep. We’ll contact you shortly.”

  Her older sister and the x-class both gave him knowing smiles as he closed the connection.

  But Mercury wasn’t half-asleep. She was frowning hard at her open hands.

  He came to Mercury’s side. Curse the zero class that had taken his fingers and destroyed his hands. Weeks were too long when he needed to comfort Mercury now.

  He stroked her hair with his bandaged palm. “You can handle this. I’ll help you.”

  She sighed and rubbed her hands on her knee. “I don’t de—”

  He coughed.

  “—ny the appeal of having a Treaty-class frigate to face down the Faction.” She raised her brows as she looked up at him. “I don’t deny wanting to exact a little quid pro quo for all the people they killed on their quest to hurt me.”

  He rubbed her shoulders. Fuck yeah. He would make whatever she wanted a reality.

  “And as soon as we rescue Aris and figure out where they’re actually holding my uncle, I fully intend to go do that.” She grinned, harsh. “All weapons fully armed.”

  “They don’t have your uncle,” he said.

  She squinted up at him. “You said that before—”

  “And I was right before.” He tapped his brain. “The Faction embedded a file in my cortex that activated when I saw the video. Like a bomb waiting for the right trigger. It seems they always intended for me to go off with you. Our togetherness was part of their plan to flush out Cressida and Xan, if they were still alive, and to capture the rogue.”

  She frowned. “Are there any more bombs in your head?”

  “Even if there were, my brain has changed.” He nuzzled her. “You’ve changed me, Mercury. I can tell a wrong conclusion from a right one. I can go with my gut when I need to. And I’m no longer the Yves|Santiago I once was.” He lifted his chin. The final change had shifted when he had been buried deep inside her on the chair. The part connecting him to the Faction forever closed. But a new connection had opened. “I’m Yves Sarit Santiago now.”

  She smiled, winningly beautiful, and kissed him. It tasted sweet and tender, and it shot straight to his cock, filling him with the magnetic arousal only she could raise in him.

  But then again, only she could ever make a cold mechanical man like him human.

  “Yes.” She wiped her mouth. “We have to give my mark.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  She slid off the bed. The former crew’s remains, which the Faction had caused him to incorrectly identify as a type of paint, had been lifted by aggressive self-cleaning programs, along with the pieces of enforcers Xan had left strewn over the ship when he had single-handedly retaken it according to Yves’ carefully selected route.

  Highly polished, long imperial boughs blossomed amid rushing rivers and sprinkled tiny snowflakes of oxygen-refreshing blooms over the doors. Entering the thickly carved marble, she strode into a vast star chamber. Cut gem tiles created an almost religious pathway to the central command center: a pillowed silken pedestal hung with retractable privacy drapes.

  “Wow,” she murmured, crossing the long path to the center. “I hope their food is as exotic as their command center.”

  Yves moved to the forward command seat and tapped a button. One of the sun-drenched command posts rose up to reveal a full reprocessor. “You won’t operate at a deficit, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Mercury stared at something on the pedestal. “Yves? Where did this box come from?”

  He stepped on the antigravity lift and floated up beside her. From the captain’s chair, a star-spattered sky stretched in every direction. “What box?”

  She turned.

  The simple delivery box in her hands had “Antiata” written on the return label.

  His senses activated on high alert. “Xan and I examined every part of this warship. There was no box.”

  She lifted out two MAC necklaces. “It was the rogue. I’m sure.”

  Impossible. “It wouldn’t be hard to duplicate this delivery box.”

  “But it would be hard”—she showed him the necklaces, one scratched-up red and one pristine iridescent blue—“to duplicate these, since they were both hanging around my neck up to Luck Station. And this card is my uncle’s. He always sends me holos from his trips, usually in an anonymous envelope.”

  Yves analyzed the possibilities. He didn’t like the conclusion.

  “The rogue was here,” Mercury said slowly. “That evil woman was right. Somehow, she followed us.”

  Yves had theories about that too. Uncertain theories, which could only be concluded with more data. “Well, she’s gone to her next target now.”

  “The evil woman was right,” Mercury repeated. “You were wrong.”

  “Yes, yes, yes. It happens occasionally. Let’s see what your uncle has to say.” He placed the holo card on the pedestal’s convenient viewer.

  This time, rather than gray prison walls, Mercury’s uncle looked out from a burned
up military spaceport.

  She turned to Yves. He put his arm around her shoulders, anticipating her need for comfort.

  “Hey, kiddo. Sorry this comes in a message. I’m not headed home right away.” His lips rolled as he gave the bad news. “Something strange is happening in my old unit. Lost identities and restore points, and a culprit that only you and I would believe. The man you were supposed to meet, in case of you know what, has gone on ahead of me. Our old escape plan is too ancient for you now anyway. We’ll come up with a new plan when I get home.”

  She nestled into Yves’ shoulder. The time for running had passed. They fought together now.

  “I love you, baby, and I’ll see you before you know it. Keep on with your cooking, will you? You’ve got a gift. Make me proud.”

  He waved. His insignia, Sirus Antiata Chen, stamped the screen atop his frozen smile.

  Her breath sounded uneven. Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes. She wiped them away. “Another mystery.”

  “It sounds like he’s okay,” Yves said.

  “Yes, which is why we’ll see if there’s anything we can do to help him after we rescue my brother.” She rose, so strong and so determined, already taking command. “Contact Cressida and let her know we’re ready to go.”

  Yves moved down the pedestal to the nicely scented, orchid-strewn navigation center.

  She moved to the reprocessor. “Would you like tea and macaroons?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve improved my brother’s recipe.” She punched in the ratios. “The scent is more pronouncedly coconut, and it’s in the small egg-like shape with a dappled pink outer frosting ‘skin’ and a jewel-tone, almost purple inner cake.”

  “Delicious. I look forward to tasting it.”

  Mercury’s laughter dried away the last of her tears. “That’s something I never expected you to say. How many neurons fried while I was asleep?”

  “Some subjects are vaster than any analysis,” he said. “Such as learning from experience. And my love for you.”

  She rewarded him by pressing her soft, loving body against his. “Speaking of subjects, while we’re traveling, there’s a few positions I’ve always wanted to research.”

  As an analytical, thoughtful, and now unrestrainedly passionate android, he was more than happy to oblige.