Jewel

by Veronica Tower

  He caught one of her large nipples between his thumb and forefinger and twisted hard, causing more pain than pleasure.

  “Oh, Jewel. Oh, Jewel. Oh, Jewel,” he gasped.

  She wanted to catch some of that frenzy too and wrapped her thighs around his waist in hopes of getting into the action.

  It helped somewhat, changing his angle, but she still felt more discomfort than pleasure. Maybe she should have told him this was her first time. Maybe he could have done things differently. But it had all happened so fast and she didn’t know what to do now.

  His eyes rolled up in his head again. “Ah, ah, yeeeeessssssssssssss!”

  New heat flooded inside her and then Erik’s big dick was outside her body again and pumping torrents of pearly white semen all over Jewel’s tits and stomach.

  The mess wasn’t what she wanted either. She hadn’t really thought about it before, but sex had a definite dirty side that wasn’t the good kind of dirty that she’d thought her girlfriends meant when they talked about these things. Fortunately, she was in a shower and the filth quickly washed down her stomach, onto the floor and out the drain.

  “Oh, wow,” Erik murmured as he tried to shift himself into a slightly more comfortable position against her—one that didn’t crush her with all his weight but let them lay together side by side. “That was…wow, you were…”

  He stroked her cheek and kissed her again on the bridge of her nose. “You’re special, Jewel, really, really, special. Thank you.” He closed his eyes and nuzzled up against her, his arm circling her body, not going for her breast but hugging her intimately close. In just a moment’s time, he dozed off.

  Jewel lay beneath him, trying to process what had just happened. Was this sex? Was this what she’d been wondering about all of these years? It wasn’t anything like she’d expected. She hadn’t even come like she did when Erik fingered her and she was absolutely shocked by how sore she was. Her girlfriends hadn’t talked about the pain. All they ever gossiped about were the incredible orgasms they felt when a man went down on them—especially with his mouth. Was this…was this what she’d fought her parents over all these years? Was this the freedom she’d just endangered their world for? She’d wanted to be independent—out from beneath their cold calculations that put money over her dignity and happiness. But somehow she’d expected sex to be more than this—more than a painful grinding of bodies in a tiny shower stall in a lost star system in the Fringe.

  “Mmmm,” Erik murmured into her flesh, proving he wasn’t completely asleep. “Let’s clean you up, turn off the water, and do it again. I’ll be able to last longer this time. I don’t think you came with me like you did when I touched you and I don’t like that.”

  He reached up to caress her cheek, then gently kissed her mouth.

  Jewel closed her eyes and let him kiss her. She felt like she was watching a vid—seeing the two of them from another vantage point. It was almost as if the two people who had just made love were strangers she had just happened across.

  Erik’s mouth drifted lower, touching her neck, her collarbone, her breasts.

  A tingling sensation broke through her dazed shock and she wrapped her hands around Erik’s head as his lips settled on to her nipple. “That’s nice,” she murmured—and she meant it. This was the sort of thing her girlfriends had been talking about. A little electricity, a growing warmth, her nipple getting hard as Erik stroked it with his tongue…

  “If you stand up,” Erik told her, “I can keep kissing my way down your body. There’s just no room in here for me to do it with us both curled up on the floor like this.”

  Almost nonchalantly, his hand slipped down between her legs where he could lightly tickle her thighs. She was sore, but the featherlike touch of his fingers still made her squirm.

  “I think I could do that,” she told him, wondering if he meant he wanted to lick her pussy. She wanted him to try. Hathor especially liked to talk about all the guys she’d made lick her to orgasm. She made it sound like the best feeling in the world and Jewel really wanted to know what she’d been missing. She might even be willing to suck on Erik’s dick if it got him to show her what it was like to have a handsome man kiss and lick her pussy.

  With a groan, she pulled herself to her feet with a little help from Erik’s strong shoulders. In doing so, she discovered she wasn’t quite as clean as she’d thought she was, so she filled her hand with cleanser and scrubbed self-consciously at the mess remaining on her breasts and stomach, turning about so that the spray hit her front and not her back.

  Erik took advantage of the opportunity this presented to familiarize himself far more personally with Jewel’s ass, kissing and licking her surgically tightened buns and sending tingles of pleasure shooting through her body.

  Jewel couldn’t help moaning in response. She’d never expected her rear end to be this sensitive. Almost of its own accord, her body leaned over so she could plant her hands on the wall of the stall to help support her weight. She spread her legs as wide as she could in the close confines of the shower, trying to make it easier for Erik to get to her ass and pussy.

  Erik continued to tickle her inner thighs with his fingers while his lips sucked and kissed her ass. She felt slutty in all the right ways, her ass stuck out behind her while the hot water bounced off her shoulders to run down her back and over her breasts. Erik’s fingers stroked higher, brushing against her swollen pussy and sending increasingly intense jolts of pleasure shivering throughout her body.

  She closed her eyes and tried to ride the feeling. This wasn’t the way she’d ever imagined sex before, Kole—she meant Erik, Erik—taking her from behind, but here her lover was for the second time in ten minutes fixating on her backside.

  She shivered again as his fingers barely penetrated her labia, releasing a torrent of hot juices to run down her thighs.

  “I can’t believe how beautiful you are,” Erik whispered. “Your whole body, everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman all in one place.”

  He stroked her again and Jewel’s body shuddered strongly in response. Her elbows shook under the effort to support her weight as she leaned against the shower stall wall. “It’s like you were made just for me,” Erik told her.

  Not for you, an evil voice deep inside Jewel chided. You were made for Kole Delling and you know it, Jewel. Mama and Papa made you for Kole, not this man.

  She squelched the inner voice before it could completely shake the mood Erik was stroking in her. She wasn’t experienced in lovemaking but she had made herself orgasm lots of times—especially since she’d managed to shut down the spy in her head. She knew herself well enough to know she had a very good chance of coming if she could just get her conscience to shut up for a few minutes.

  Erik seemed happy to help her. His mouth slipped lower, finding the lips between her thighs. His tongue tickled her crevice, lapping at her juices as his fingers slid up to her clitoris. Surprised by the sensations, Jewel opened her eyes, looking down between her legs. Erik’s free hand stroked his own erection, encouraging it to regain its full girth and length. His chin stuck out beneath her lips as he burrowed his face more firmly into her pussy.

  Her breathing grew ragged. Her heart pounded in her chest and though she shut her eyes again to help her brace against the waves of pleasure, she could still see his dick in her mind. The large head popped out of Erik’s fist as he stroked himself, only to disappear again as his hand rode his length again.

  “I can’t believe I’m already this hard again,” Erik muttered into her pussy. “Stars, Jewel, look at what you do to me.”

  She was more interested at the moment in what he was doing to her. She dropped one hand from the wall and tentatively covered his fingers where he probed her. Her fingers slipped over his and shyly tried to show him the way she liked to be touched—gentle, circular motions, not this rough back and forth that was exciting but not quite right.

  Erik didn’t quite get the message. Instead he abruptly grabbed her by
the hips and twisted her around so that her back slapped up against the wall. He didn’t seem to notice how roughly he was suddenly treating her. All of his attention was on her pussy, which he attacked from the front, pushing her fingers away so he could get his mouth on her clit.

  This was what Hathor had talked about—the warmth, the pressure, the rhythmic sucking edging her up to—

  “Mr. Gunnarson, please report to the briefing room.”

  The sound of Lara’s Everson voice over the ship’s intercom confused Jewel, threatening to knock her body out of the orgasmic groove it was cruising in. It did not, however, divert Erik from sucking on her pussy.

  Everson’s voice repeated, “Mr. Gunnarson, please report to the briefing room.”

  Erik pulled away from Jewel. “Void! Of all the rotten timing.”

  Jewel couldn’t help but agree with that notion. She was still intensely turned on and she needed some release. Her hand covered her pussy, but she felt too self-conscious to masturbate when Erik was pulling away from her. What if he got angry? What would he think if she kept playing with herself when duty called?

  Erik rose to his feet and kicked at the wall of the shower stall while Lara Everson went on to summon Ship’s Navigator Mustafa Peron, Deck Officer Emmanuel Warrant and Ship’s Engineer Ana Yang to the briefing.

  Jewel didn’t know what to say. She was still clutching herself beneath the water’s spray, too horny to stop and yet not comfortable enough to continue. She felt abandoned, and yet knew in some portion of her mind that that wasn’t a fair emotion. Erik didn’t want to leave her. His dick was still hard and he was clearly enraged by the interruption. What was she supposed to do?

  Erik must have sensed her hurt and disappointment because he suddenly turned back to Jewel and wrapped her in his arms. “Damn it all, I am really sorry about this. I know you understand I don’t want to leave now, but it’s important to me that you also believe in your heart that I don’t want the last few minutes to be a one-time thing. I meant it when I said I think you’re special. Maybe we can continue this in my cabin when we’re both off duty again?” He smiled encouragingly. “I don’t have a roommate now, but I’m willing to take one on if you’d like to be it.”

  Jewel’s heart melted. Things had definitely been moving too quickly, but she suddenly felt confident that everything was going to be all right. Erik could be the guy she’d been dreaming about now that she’d escaped the threat of the Armenite marriage that had hung over her head her entire life. “I’d like that, really,” she told Erik. This time she initiated the kiss.

  His fingers slipped down to her ass again, squeezing delightfully, making her sore pussy tingle with renewed excitement.

  “Mr. Gunnarson,” Everson’s voice crackled over the speaker again. “Captain Kiara has ordered me to tell you to stop wasting water with the purser and get both your asses to the briefing chamber pronto. She doesn’t want to have to tell you again!”

  Jewel’s head snapped away from Erik’s in horror. “What did she say?” she asked, even though she’d heard the words perfectly clearly. “How did she know?”

  “That rotten bitch,” Erik responded before storming out of the shower and turning off the water.

  Chapter Three

  “Hi Ana,” Jewel said, forcing herself to suppress a wave of sudden shyness as the ship’s engineer appeared at the other end of the corridor outside the briefing room. It hadn’t been an easy twenty minutes, hurriedly dressing with Erik and then racing through the corridors to the briefing room. Everson’s not-very-vague comments about Erik and her showering together had been said over the ship-wide address system—not piped solely into her cabin—and everyone they ran into had a look, a comment or a knowing smile for them as she and the exec strode past them.

  Erik didn’t seem troubled by any of this, much to Jewel’s frustration. When crewmembers laughed and offered them a thumbs-up, Erik was quick to flash the symbol of approval right back at them. He’d also wanted to hold her hand, as if inviting more people to speculate on the fact they’d just had sex. Jewel couldn’t stand it. Where she’d grown up, such doings would have had her face plastered across all the tabloids with embarrassing headlines such as, Cartel Princess Gets Personal Service and Princess Caught Cleaning Help in Shower. She was much too private a person to want everyone talking about her like this.

  But if there was one person on the Euripides that Jewel might have confided her encounter in, it was Ship’s Engineer Ana Yang. They weren’t exactly confidants yet—Jewel was too nervous about slipping up and revealing some clue to her real past to feel comfortable developing a genuine friendship. But Ana had taken Jewel under her wing in those first few days and taught her a lot about how to get along on a starship. If there was one woman on the vessel Jewel hoped she could talk to about something this important, it was Ana Yang.

  “Don’t speak to me, you bitch,” Ana hissed at her as she stormed down the hallway in their direction.

  The sudden hostility stunned Jewel. “Ana?”

  Beside her, Erik groaned as Yang turned the full force of her fury in his direction.

  “And you! Is this why you broke up with me in Thimble? Trading me in for a younger model? How long have you been fucking her, you bastard?”

  Horror slowly infused every cell in Jewel’s body as she realized what the older woman was saying. “Ana, I—”

  “Don’t talk to me,” Ana snarled. “I thought you were my friend!”

  Tears threatened to burst from Jewel’s eyes. “But I didn’t know—”

  Ana grabbed Jewel by the front of her shirt. “I said don’t speak to me,” she shouted.

  “Ana,” Erik said. He placed a hand on her forearm as if planning to pull her off of Jewel, but the engineer whirled on him the moment he touched her.

  “Don’t you dare touch me!” she said. “How could you dump me for this surgically enhanced prissy little princess?”

  In the back of her mind, in a part still sheltered by shock from the fury of Ana’s attack, Jewel protested the use of the term prissy. She’d done everything her job required of her and more on this tour. But before she could argue the point, Erik stepped up his defense of her.

  “Ana, I don’t think Jewel even knew we were together. We were always discreet—”

  “And why was that?” Ana interrupted him. “Were you embarrassed to be sleeping with me? I wasn’t young enough to stroke your fat ego? Didn’t the other men on the ship want me enough that you felt you had to crow about your latest conquest?”

  Jewel took a step away from both of them, recoiling from the pure vehemence of Ana’s rage.

  “I had nothing to do with that announcement,” Erik protested. “How was I to know that the captain was monitoring my water consumption?”

  “Well maybe you should have considered that she might still be mad you aren’t fucking her anymore!”

  This was too much information for Jewel. Erik had slept with Captain Kiara too? How was that possible? Was there any woman on the ship he hadn’t had sex with? She didn’t want to think about it. She’d just given the man her virginity and now everything was turning ugly. Was she just another girl on his string? Did she matter to him at all?

  Jewel turned to flee and bumped directly into the briefing room door, which unhelpfully opened for her. Captain Kiara, Mustafa Peron and the Euripides’ third-in-command, Deck Officer Emanuel Warrant, were already waiting around the table.

  “Nice of you to join us, Ms. Aurora,” the captain said.

  Jewel felt her heart sink even further. There was no denying the anger in the captain’s eyes or in her tone of voice. This was going to be terrible.

  Peron laughed when he saw Jewel’s expression. His grossly swollen nose and blackened eyes added a hint of sadistic cruelty to his appearance. “Let me guess,” he said. “Ana just found out about you and Gunnarson. And you just found out about Gunnarson and the captain.”

  “Mr. Peron,” Captain Kiara warned him.

 
; The navigator laughed again. “What can I say, Captain? We all know how Gunnarson is. He’s a good exec, but he gets around with the female crewmembers.” He smiled lasciviously at Jewel. “We could run a pool on how long you’ll last.”

  Jewel’s spirits plummeted even deeper. How could this be happening to her?

  Peron cruelly moved in for the kill, obviously enjoying her discomfort. “Nothing’s truly private on a starship. If I want to find out, you can’t slip anything past me.”

  Jewel’s battered pride wouldn’t let her continue to be silent. She needed to wipe the grin off Peron’s face and she knew just the way to do it. “No, I guess we can’t. It has to be the size of a star system for you to miss it.”

  Peron stopped laughing and got to his feet. “You’ve got a nasty mouth, you know that, Aurora?”

  “She’s also correct,” the Deck Officer observed. “You want to explain to everyone how you missed factoring an entire star system into your course calculations? Because there’s a definite chance none of us are getting home again thanks to you.”

  Peron whirled on the man. “We’ll get home, Warrant. And plotting a starship’s course is complicated even in the well-established space lanes. Out here in the Fringe where the navigational charts are incomplete at best—”

  The door opened behind Jewel and Erik strode into the briefing room, interrupting what was, to Jewel’s mind, an incredibly lame defense of unforgivable carelessness. Erik didn’t say anything. He just strode past Jewel, an unhappy frown upon his face, and took a seat at the end of the table opposite Captain Kiara.

  Ana entered behind him, looked around, and pointedly took the seat between Erik and Warrant. Unfortunately that left Jewel the only remaining chair—the one between Erik and Peron.

  She suppressed a sigh and sat down. Peron looked no happier with the seating arrangements than she did. “What’s she doing here anyway?” he asked. “She’s the purser—not a real officer.”

  Captain Kiara finally stirred herself to acknowledge that her officers had finished gathering. Everything Jewel had learned about leadership growing up in the Cartel Worlds told her that Kiara was mishandling this meeting. She should have been the last person into the room, striding in quickly, implicitly impressing everyone with the value of her time. Kiara was cut from a different mold. She’d probably been the first in the room, waiting with an angry expression for the others to arrive. It didn’t seem like an effective leadership strategy.