Stowaway (Star Line Express Romance Book 1)

by Alessia Bowman

  I lean over and take her left wrist and wind the bracelet onto it, keeping some room between it and her skin, since she’ll never be able to take it off. Then I lock it in place.

  Aymee picks up her hand and stares at the bracelet. It’s shimmering a bit, but nothing like it’ll be doing in a darker environment. The interior of the pod is well illuminated, and that spoils some of the effect.

  She tugs on the bracelet but, of course, it doesn’t come off. It’s meant to never come off.

  She tugs on it some more, then tries to work it off her wrist.

  “Don’t bother,” I say. “Pointless.”

  “I cannot believe you’ve arrested me!” she says, tugging harder on the bracelet and pushing and pulling on it, then trying to twist it. But I’ve done a good job and the bracelet is on her for keeps.

  “Well, you are a criminal,” I say. “Many times over, as you’ve confessed. Not just an ordinary, petty thief, either. High crimes, all of them.”

  “You don’t have any power over what I’ve done on Choryn!”

  “I’m the captain of this, uh, ship,” I say, not wanting to declare myself captain of an emergency escape pod. “And the captain can carry out the laws of whatever place he chooses.”

  I kind of make that part up, but I’m hoping Aymee doesn’t have a lot of knowledge about the rules governing intergalactic ships. The important rule I got right. That’s the only one that matters to me.

  “You—you . . . monster!” she says, squirming now, as though she could get out of here and go someplace else. “I cannot believe you arrested me! I thought you loved me!”

  “I thought you loved me,” I say. “But I also thought you were the saboteur. I prefer to look on the bright side of things, though. At least that’s the one crime you really are innocent of.”

  Chapter 24

  Aymee

  If I could get out of this damned emergency escape ship and make it to the nearest semihabitable port, I’d do it.

  I turn around and make sure there isn’t an emergency escape pod inside this one. A smaller one, of course, but I’d take it. It’d have to hold only me, and I’m a lot smaller than my shipmate.

  Oh, excuse me, not a shipmate, but the captain.

  Who’s arrested me.

  This damned cuff will not come off.

  “Damn you, Arca!” I say. “Unarrest me right now.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

  “Fearful, are you?”

  “That’s just a turn of phrase,” he says, grinning like he’s just become commander of the fleet or maybe supreme ruler of the Seven Galaxy Congress, even though there is no such position.

  “We cannot go to Choryn,” I say, pointing out the obvious.

  “I think what you’re trying to say is that Aymee Desryx, committer of I believe four high crimes, can’t go to Choryn,” he says, looking positively thrilled as he says it.

  “We cannot go there,” I say. “Show me the map again. I’m sure there’s somewhere else that would work out.”

  Here I spend a moment cursing myself for not having taken enough courses in navigation—for not having taken any courses in navigation.

  First Officer Niklas Arca—excuse me, Captain Niklas Arca—lights up the map again and I stare at it and work through every scenario I can see and some I can only wish for, yet I come up with nothing.

  “Are there suits in here?” I ask. I didn’t see any when I boarded, by which I mean when I was placed in here. Although at the time, there was no alternative.

  “No,” he says. “It’s not built for that. It’s a short-term, emergency solution. The regular life rafts have more equipment on them. This baby here is the last-ditch, everyone-else-is-off-the-ship-and-the-captain-can-go-now raft. We’re lucky it’s got a seat in it.”

  I squirm a little in the seat, which I’m sharing with my lover/arresting officer/former accuser. I try to ignore his sexy-as-all-hell self. The stubble on his face is almost shimmering and it’s very hard not to touch it. Especially now that I’m back to having only a short while left to live.

  “I think we can make it to here,” I say, pointing to the nearest object, which I think may be a semihabitable asteroid. Or a quasihabitable asteroid.

  “It’s seventy-three parsecs farther away from us than Choryn, and you think we can make it to there,” he says. “How do you propose we accomplish that feat?”

  “We could try,” I say. “Seventy-three parsecs?” I check the display again. He’s right, but I don’t acknowledge that rightness. The more things he’s right about, the fewer chances for freedom I have.

  “Nik,” I say, trying to strike a softer tone. “You didn’t have to arrest me.”

  “I didn’t,” he says. “But you didn’t have to stow away on the Centreale, either.”

  “You’re wrong,” I say, loving saying that he’s wrong. Gives me a sort of a sense of right purpose. “I did have to stow away aboard the Centreale. At the time, it was my only way of getting off Choryn. Of getting away from my life mate.”

  “Instead, you found a new life mate,” Nik says. “Kind of fascinating how that all worked out for you, isn’t it?”

  “It hasn’t worked out for me,” I say, not-shouting. “I’m about to be arrested. And . . . and . . . the Chorynean Guard execution squad . . .”

  I turn around so I’m facing the escape pod’s captain. In order to produce this effect, I have to practically sit on his lap. Okay, I do have to sit on his lap. But not like I mean it. It’s just the only place in this cramped pod where I can confront him directly.

  “Be straight with me, Nik,” I say. “Did you contact the Chorynean Guard?”

  I have no idea what he’s been doing with the controls, and it’s just occurred to me that he might’ve been sending a coded message about my arrest. So I’ll be taken into custody the moment we land.

  I feel like I can’t breathe.

  Nik plants his lips on mine—they were only a few centimeters away so it was easy enough to do—and kisses me with something between unfettered need and wild lust. For a moment I forget what I’d just asked him and give back exactly what I’m getting. And more.

  I look frantically around the minuscule interior of the pod. There must be a way we could have sex here. I just have to figure it out. What good is being an expert unaided hypercalculator if you can’t put your skill to good use in situations like these? Essential situations.

  But no matter how I look at things—there’s only looking, since rearranging is impossible—sex is out of the question.

  Yet my crotch is right up against his ever-harder, ever-larger cock, and as I reposition my legs to get a better feel for things, Nik reaches down and puts his hand—the one that’s not on the pod’s controls—right where I’m pulsing the hardest, and despite every vile thing I’m thinking about the Big World Terran, my body is telling me to get out of my clothes immediately and enjoy this fantastic sensual pleasure while I can.

  Niklas

  “If you’re mad at me, you’re doing a very poor job of it,” I say while I stroke the fabric covering her crotch, enjoy hearing her involuntary moans, and restrain myself from tearing the pants off her.

  They’re all she’s got. We didn’t have time to pack anything and even if we had, there’s no room in here for anything else. As awkward as it’s going to be to arrive on Choryn, it’d be better if she’s clothed. Bad enough that my shirt’s a veritable rag at this point.

  “I’m not mad at you,” she says as she touches the stubble on my face, then nips at my left earlobe. I start thinking of tearing off my pants, if they don’t burst open from the pressure of my throbbing cock.

  “I’m fucking hating you,” she says, snuggling ever closer to me. “But you’re all I’ve got, and I want to make the most of it.”

  “Good for you,” I say as I move my hand from her now-damp crotch to the smooth skin of her abdomen. I have a brief fantasy based on the sex we had in the cell on the Centreale and I moan a bit
as she repositions herself even closer to me.

  Now she’s moving her hips up and down and my desire for her hits a new high.

  I put my arm around her waist, to assist her movements, check the controls, and reassure myself that my concentrated attention on them isn’t needed for a while. Satisfied that it isn’t, I give myself over to Aymee Desryx, who’s both boiling mad and boiling with lust. It’s not a bad combination, and I think of how much fun we’ll have when she realizes what’s really happened.

  She’s almost humming now as she rubs up and down against me and I move my hands onto her nipples, which were hard and tight before my hands got there.

  “Oh, Nik,” she says as I stroke, then pinch, then stroke their pebbly flesh. Her shirt—my shirt, actually—is now pulling up and I can see her luscious breasts. It’s my turn to sigh.

  Then she squirms off my lap.

  “No, no, no,” I say, trying to pull her back.

  “I can’t stand it,” she says, curling up into a ball, undoing her pants, and trying her damnedest to take them off. I’m pissed off that there’s nothing I can do to help her in her quest—which coincides nicely with my own quest—but there’s simply not enough space in here for me to do anything but sit and admire her efforts.

  And undo my own pants.

  My cock springs up, relieved to be out of the confines of clothing but also desperate to feel Aymee Desryx around it, desperate to be inside her, to feel her wet, hot sex surrounding me. I grasp myself in my hand to try to calm my need.

  “Almost,” she says as she moves to the side to pull one leg off her pants. She moves to the other side, but she can’t quite get there, and I realize her efforts at this point are unnecessary.

  “Leave it,” I say, reaching out for her and feeling the sensuous curve of her hip under my hand. I move my hand to her sex, dripping and pulsing and spasming as I touch her, and she gasps and says, “Nik. But—”

  Then she realizes that having one leg out of her pants is sufficient, and, facing me, she pulls my gray off-duty shirt off over her head, tosses it aside, throws her leg over my lap, straddles my seated body, and slowly, slowly lowers herself onto my swollen shaft.

  I guide my cock into her and she throws her head back with the sheer pleasure of it all, puts her arms around my neck, pulls the strands of my hair that are still restrained free of the tie-back, and as she rocks her fantastic body on me, sending waves of ever-increasing heat and need through me, she leans forward and kisses me.

  Aymee

  I’ve forgotten everything but this urgent need. Nik’s hair is loose now and I put my hands into it while I ride him, holding on to his mane. His tongue is inside my mouth, his hands are doing insane, unbearably exciting things to my breasts, to my nipples, and now he starts stroking the mound of my sex, and something unleashes me from the reality of my doomed fate and I throw myself into this last, this last great thrill.

  Nik’s hands are both on my breasts now, cupping them while he twists on my nipples and we both groan. I hang on and move so that he’s even deeper inside me. If I’m saying anything, if he’s saying anything, I don’t know what the words are. I’m too caught up in the rhythm of my need, riding him with ever-faster, ever-harder, ever-more-needy thrusts.

  “Aymee,” he says while he kisses me and pants out short breaths. “Aymee.”

  “Nik,” I say. “Nik. Don’t stop.”

  “Don’t you stop,” he says. He’s helping me now, his hands on my hips, and he’s pushing me down onto his thick length, showing me exactly what he needs, showing me exactly what I need. The tension builds to its unbearable limits, then breaks through to new limits. As each new limit is broken, another takes its place. Then another. Then an impossible three others.

  Until, finally . . .

  “Now,” I say, “now, now, now.”

  “Yes,” he says as he leans down and puts his mouth on my left nipple. He’s holding my left breast with both hands and his teeth are teasing and biting and his tongue is licking me.

  “Now,” I say. “Nik. Now!”

  I ride him harder and faster until I think I’ll scream if my release doesn’t come soon.

  Then I am screaming as my world breaks apart, disintegrating into a million shattered fragments, scattering themselves through the stars.

  Chapter 25

  Niklas

  As she rocks and trembles around me, I finally let myself go, pouring my stream of cum into her while I move my mouth back to hers, to taste her while our universes join themselves together. As they should be. As they will be. Always.

  “Aymee Desryx,” I say when her spasms, when my spasms, calm into gentle pulsations.

  “Niklas Arca,” she says, moving back a little—there is only a little—and looking at me with those huge gray-green eyes, just a bit too far apart. She must be the most amazing female on Choryn. In the Seven Galaxies. Lasson Birtak was a fool to let her go, and I say so.

  “He shouldn’t’ve let you refuse,” I say, brushing the strands of her silky black hair off her shoulder and as she turns, catching a glimpse of the star cluster there. I touch it and she shivers.

  “Who’s that?” she says, still dreamy, still part-caught in the ebb and flow of deep passion.

  “Lasson Birtak,” I say.

  “Oh.”

  “We’re going to be there soon,” I say.

  “Oh.”

  I lean around her and check the controls.

  “Very soon,” I say. “I need my hands back.”

  She moves off my lap. I’m sorry she has to do this as I’d like her to sit there for another few hours or days, but it’s a necessity. She curls up into a ball again as she struggles to put her pants back on. While I work on the entry sequence, I close up my pants too.

  “This isn’t really Choryn,” she says as she pulls on what used to be my gray off-duty shirt but is now hers.

  “It really is Choryn,” I say.

  “You’re just kidding me,” she says. “You wouldn’t do this to me. Not really. Would you?” She looks at the bracelet, pulls on it again, but it’s made to be worn permanently and she can’t do anything about it.

  “I would,” I say.

  “I can’t believe you’re arresting me,” she says.

  “I can’t, either,” I say. “Better hold on to something. I’m not sure landing this flimsy thing is going to be too comfortable for either of us.”

  She grabs on to my forearm with one hand and braces herself against the dash with the other.

  “I despise you,” she says, not looking at me.

  “You have a funny way of showing it,” I say, grinning with the memory of the sex we just had. I can’t wait to get her into a real bed in a real chamber. Not the cot in a jail cell or the command chair in this tiny escape pod.

  I glance over at her. She’s staring down onto our landing place, which is unmistakably the main Chorynean docking base.

  The Soron station, where, until this morning, she was the chief engineer, glistens under the streaks of night lighting. Choryn might be a hotbed of liars, thieves, schemers, and have the most draconian laws in the Seven Galaxies, but it’s got great lights. I’ll give it that much.

  And it used to have an extraordinary female. But I’ve changed all that.

  I bring the escape raft in for a rather smooth landing, and no sooner do we arrive at the dock then someone is undoing the hatch.

  I exhale my relief. We’ve survived. We’re together. The rest will be easy.

  I hope.

  Aymee

  From one escape to another and now back to the inescapably familiar.

  We really are on Choryn.

  I left here nearly a day ago, not knowing what the hell I was doing, just knowing I had to get away if I wanted some degree of personal freedom.

  When I snuck on to the Centreale, I didn’t know what would happen, but I hardly thought that I’d fall in love.

  Or be accused of sabotage.

  Or have to abandon a sabota
ged, disintegrating ship.

  Or that the Big World Terran I’d fallen for would arrest me and take me back to Choryn.

  Damn him. How is it that one male can give me so much pleasure—and so much pain?

  I glare at him as the hatch opens.

  “Aymee Desryx,” says Daril Tobs as he peers down into the pod.

  Just my luck that it’s my next-door neighbor who’s on duty at the landing dock.

  Not that it’d be necessary for anyone to already know who I am. Because, at this point, everyone on Choryn knows who I am. Bulletins about wanted criminals circulate fast here. Everyone relishes this kind of news. Keeps the populace occupied with someone else’s wrongdoings, making the rest feel superior and self-satisfied.

  Tobs looks pretty self-satisfied and superior-feeling himself.

  “Couldn’t stay away?” he says. I see him fumbling on his belt and realize he’s alerting the Chorynean Guard.

  I look at Niklas, hoping that something of the emotion he must have felt for me—or was it just lust?—will make him help me out. His hair’s back in its military tie, which he must’ve fastened while we were landing. I was too preoccupied to notice.

  Arca’s got a serious look on his face, and he seems unconcerned for me.

  I feel for my neck, which may be getting separated from my body sometime in the much-too-near future.

  “Daril Tobs,” I say. “This is First Officer Niklas Arca of the Star Line Express Centreale.”

  “You, out,” Tobs says to me. He’s produced a weapon from his pocket, one of those short-range stunners that’s rumored to do a lot more than just stun, and he’s pointing it back and forth between me and Niklas. Serves Arca right. Now he’s being treated like a criminal too.

  Nik helps me stand up and Tobs grabs my arm and hauls me out of the cramped pod.

  The Big World Terran is just behind me, and he’s holding up some sort of official identification, which causes Tobs to stop pointing the weapon at Nik. Now it’s aimed directly at only me.

  I stretch, because I need to.

  “Unh-uh,” says Tobs. “Don’t move.” He looks at Niklas. “She armed?”