by Zoe York
“No hiding.”
“I’m not hiding!”
He laughed. “Tell me something, then.”
“I really like having your cock in my mouth.” She grinned as the erection in question pulsed against her belly. “And I very much want it in my hot, tight, wet—”
He cut her off with his tongue in her mouth and his hand in her hair, pulling almost hard enough to be more pain than pleasure. Almost.
God, it was possible that there was no limit with him. She wanted it all—the bite, the sting, the bloom of heat and the restless ache that always followed.
“Not. That. Kind. Of. Sharing.” He sank his teeth into her lower lip before pulling back again. His own eyes were as glassy as hers felt, and the air pulsed thick with arousal around them. “Which fact upset you more? That I rescued you or that you didn’t manage to escape on your own?”
She rolled away from his naked torso and flung her forearm over her eyes. “What is it with you and deep conversations?”
He laughed, a rolling, rumbling confirmation that her bark no longer flustered him. “This is as close to vulnerable and open as I’m going to get you. I’m seizing my opportunities.”
“I liked it better when you were scared of me,” she muttered.
His mouth closed hot and wet over her bare breast, sucking her nipple deep into his mouth. Her head rolled back and her mouth fell open in another wordless scream as he found her wet between the legs and speared two fingers deep inside her, driving hard in an aching rhythm that matched what he was doing with his talented tongue.
“I take that back,” she panted as he flipped her over. Shamelessly arching her back into his touch as he palmed her ass. “This is marginally better than besting you with the sword.”
The swat that landed on her backside was lazy, light, and way too teasing. “I was never scared of you, woman.”
“Don’t call me that.” She shoved her hips back against him, eager to be filled with his cock. Maybe hungry for a harder spank. Definitely open to playing out this argument in a physical way.
“But you are my woman,” he whispered as he arched over her, his huge body everywhere at once. Between her legs, she could feel his big fist slowly jerking himself off. The fat crown of his cock rubbed through her folds and against her clit, but each time she tried to slid onto him, he evaded capture.
It just made her all the more wet.
Wanting.
He nipped at the curve of her ear, his breath hot against her skin. Twisting her head so she could see him, she gave him a slow, cat-like smile. “Trying to prove a point, Viking man?”
“Should I stop?” He pressed his teeth into his lower lip, his eyelids hooding as he fisted himself faster. “Or should I just get myself off between your legs and leave you panting as punishment?”
“Punishment for what?” she ground out, twisting hard beneath him so he rocked to the side, giving her enough space to flip onto her back.
Maybe not the way he meant it, but she was his woman. With Aldric, she didn’t need to be tougher than a man, didn’t need to hide her desires. With him, they didn’t make her weak or a liability.
In this moment, she’d never been stronger.
“For pretending this doesn’t mean anything.” He groaned as she spread her legs even wider, opening herself to him.
“Come on, Viking man. Get yourself off between my legs,” she taunted.
The heavy weight of his cock slapped against her clit and her smirk fell away as heat spiralled through her core.
Above her, Aldric shook with need.
“Please, baby,” she whispered, reaching between their bodies. Her fingers tangled around his and together they slid his erection through her folds, finding her wet entrance. “Please. I’ll stop teasing you.”
“No you won’t,” he grunted, pulsing his hips. Just a bit. Just enough. “You’re going to fight this with every breath.”
“I won’t. I want you. I promise.” She was desperate for him now, and that was dangerous—could he trust her word? Could she trust herself?
He sank further into her, stretching her wide. So full. She rolled her hips, trying to fit around his throbbing length. He took her breath away, but he gave it right back, making her gasp as he dragged his thick cock back through her folds. No, no, no. And then yes, as he thrust home again.
She was wet and slick for him, but he was big and she was tight, and the next few strokes were the same kind of battle. Add on the layer of desperation—needing more and being terrified that it would be over far too quickly, because she was already on the precipice of another climax—and she was out of her mind with need.
“I want you to come with me,” he muttered, bruising her lips with another kiss as he started to fuck her hard and fast.
“I will.”
“Now, Navena.”
“I’m yours, Aldric.” She panted, meaning maybe to say something else. I’m with you.
Or maybe not.
She was his, and saying it crashed that dawning understanding onto her, spinning her arousal in an unexpected direction.
Burying her face his chest, she cried out as he sped up, driving them both into a messy, spectacular orgasm.
This time there was no gentle after-care. This time he was twitching just as much as her, clinging just as hard, and when she finally wriggled out of his viper grip, agony was writ all over his face.
“What is it?” she whispered, peppering his face with tiny kisses.
“Don’t be sweet with me,” he muttered, his jaw clenching beneath her lips. “That was too fast.”
“Not at all.”
“We’ll do it again and take our time. I can do better.”
She snorted. “If you do better, you might kill me.”
“Never.” He inhaled deeply, then relaxed around her. Against her hip, his cock felt wet and sticky, and she was sure that if she shifted again she’d feel a similar mess between her legs.
“We should clean up,” she whispered, although why, she didn’t know. They were alone on a spaceship in the middle of a nebula.
“After,” he mumbled into her hair. Between them, his erection swelled, and suddenly between sticky and wet seemed like not so bad after all.
“Again?”
His hands roamed her torso in an unspoken answer. Yes, again. Yes, always.
He had years to make up for, she reminded herself. And so did she—how she hadn’t seen him right in front of her, this giant, beautiful man with an endless thirst for her, who even put up with her ill-temper and demanding ways—yes, again. Yes, always.
She nodded as she opened her mouth and tasted his skin. Salty and warm, uniquely Aldric. “You are mine as much as I am yours,” she whispered, her voice catching on the emotion as she fluttered her tongue along his collarbone.
This time their coupling was urgent in a different way. She braced her heels on the mattress and thrust up to meet each of his strokes. He held her hands above her head and refused to break eye-contact.
This time, they knew what they were doing and what it meant.
They’d both just come. This wasn’t about a race to an orgasm, and when Aldric had seen whatever he’d needed to see in her face, he relaxed. Slowing, he rocked her at a delicious, humming pace that kept her somewhere past turned on and halfway to ready to explode, but it was a nice, steady state. Like, a this-feels-amazing state.
Let’s keep doing this forever kind of state.
As if he could read her mind, Aldric blinked twice and lowered his head, slanting his lips across hers for a kiss that felt…different. Like a preface to something.
“Min smukke stædig kone,” he breathed against her mouth as she trailed her fingers over his broad shoulders.
Her stomach trembled as she gazed up at him. He was deep inside and all around her. She sighed, letting her eyelashes flutter shut. She was half-afraid of the answer, but she had to know. “That doesn’t mean annoying, does it?”
Groaning, he licked his w
ay into her mouth instead of answering. She squeezed his hips with her thighs and he gave a slow, determined thrust that told her he wouldn’t be rushed here.
“Tell me.” Her voice cracked. She didn’t care if it was intense. She was pretty sure, anyway.
“In a manner of speaking, I suppose that could be the translation.”
She slicked her lips, enjoying the way his gaze caught on the tip of her tongue and followed it across her mouth. “And a more literal one would be…?”
“You talk too much.” Grabbing one of her wrists, he lazily tugged it back over her head, then shifted his weight to grab the other. The whole time, he kept moving inside her, giving the tease as good as she did.
They were matched for each other, that was for damn sure.
“Mmm-hmmm.” He was nervous, too, and that gave her a fresh, hungry confidence. “Tell me.”
Once he had her pinned down, he gave her a heady look that made her toes tingle and her womb clench.
Shit.
Double shit.
Navena would have sworn, at any other point in time, she didn’t even have a womb. Like, she was not that kind of woman. She was a woman, to be sure—happy to have breasts and hips and a pussy rather than a dick, but on the inside?
The part of a woman that Vikings seemed to value extra hard?
Nooooo.
So yeah, shit.
Because all of a sudden, she knew what Aldric was going to say before his face cracked into a easy, happy smile.
All while fucking her.
This was surreal.
“Min smukke stædig kone,” he repeated. “It means my…”
A wave of emotion roared up behind her.
“Beautiful.”
Louder now, but she wouldn’t stop him, not for anything.
“Stubborn.”
God, the way he said that, like it wasn’t a bad thing at all. And then the wave crashed into her.
“Wife.”
His wife.
It had been a sham, she’d thought. Apparently not for him.
From deep beneath the surging feelings, Navena stared up at the man who thought of himself as her husband. When had that happened? She whispered his name, dragging herself up to him again.
She kissed his lips and held him tight.
Wound her legs around his body and squeezed for dear life.
He didn’t wait for her to respond. He just took over again. At some point she was definitely strapping him to the bed and having her way with him. It wouldn’t do for him to think that he got to be bossy all the time.
She’d ignored his clues for two long, lonely years.
She’d been left behind in a prison and he’d come for her.
She’d yelled at him and shut him out, and he’d hunkered down and waited.
Oh god.
She didn’t deserve him.
Whispering his name, she rocked beneath him, loving him with her body. Giving herself to him. She brought his hand to her breast and stroked her own down to the tight, straining curve of his ass. She wound them together as tightly as she could, then she welcomed his release deep into her body.
Her husband.
Well, fuck.
What the hell was she going to do with a hot Viking husband?
Besides love him, of course. As inconvenient as that truth would probably turn out to be, her new feelings for him were crystal clear.
Love.
What a novel concept.
This time, it was her that clung tight, and Aldric made the first noises about maybe moving to the shower.
She didn’t answer him.
He misunderstood that, of course. “That was…it’s been a while since I’ve bed anyone. I got carried away.”
“Really?” Her heart squeezed. She didn’t want that to be true.
He paused a beat. “No. But I’d pretend it to be true if you asked it of me.”
Relief flared bright in her chest.
“You don’t need to say anything, of course. I have no expectations of you.”
She laughed and nodded against his chest. “I know. But I want to. Say something, I mean.”
He waited for her to gather her thoughts.
It took a while, because what she was about to propose was frightening. It was, technically, an abdication of her duties and a uniform offense.
She took a deep breath. “We don’t need to race back to Midgard or anywhere else. We can stay here, as long as your supplies will last.”
It wasn’t the most she could give him. It wasn’t a promise of forever or an admission of love.
But it was something. A chance at fostering the fragile bonds between them.
Against her cheek, his heartbeat picked up. “This is what you want?”
More than anything else, ever. She nodded. “Let’s hide here. Just you and me and the stars.”
Chapter Eight
They’d been hiding from the world for eight days. Eight days of exploring each other’s bodies and only pausing long enough to shower off the intoxicating scent of sex, or nap together, limbs entwined. Maybe eat something.
Occasionally.
It was a hungry tummy that woke Navena early on the morning of the ninth day. She’d been nestled against Aldric’s back, his bare, warm skin soft against her cheek as he slumbered. All those muscles finally at rest.
She crept out of his bunk and went in search of some food. Dehydrated apples and a tube of protein+ peanut butter hit the spot as she curled up in the cockpit. She’d seen pictures of the nebular taken through distant telescopes, but up close—on a galactic level, anyway—the cosmic ice sculptures were different and more breathtaking than she’d ever imagined. Dust pillars carved from cold molecular clouds, that’s how she’d thought of them before. Now the giants silently loomed right there, and she kept being drawn back to the cockpit where could sit and stare and think.
“They’re like gods, aren’t they?” Aldric’s voice slid around her through the quiet as he filled the open hatch from the common room.
She glanced at him over her shoulder. Speaking of god-like… “Your hair is growing in. It’s a good look for you. A bit Roman, though. Are you my Gladiator man now?”
“Don’t change the subject.” He smiled as he moved closer and leaned in, pressing a thorough, delicious kiss to her mouth that said he’d be whatever she wanted him to be. “You’ve been getting up to look at the nebula almost every night.”
“Night is kind of arbitrary—”
“I’m seriously going to take you over my knee for the constant back talk.”
“Promises promises,” she muttered through a grin, kicking away his grabby hands as he settled into the pilot’s chair beside her. She sighed. “Yes. Okay, fine, are you happy? I’m finding some comfort in staring at a glittering dust column that’s bigger than a planet.”
“Have they given you any guidance yet?”
She snorted. “Dust, Aldric.”
“You say dust. I say gods.”
“Then you’re crazy.”
Now it was his turn to sigh. “Didn’t they teach you cultural sensitivity in the fancy FedNat training you did?”
She shook her head. “I played hooky those days. Besides, it’s not a spiritual crisis I’m having.”
He lifted one eyebrow and waited for her to continue—like he could sense how her skin prickled in discomfort and didn’t want to risk spooking her by saying the wrong thing.
Aldric had proved a good listener. A keen one, as well. So far she’d talked about everything except her future, but now she couldn’t hide from it any longer. They were running low on supplies and would need more food in a few days.
At the first opportunity to contact her commanding officer, she’d really need to take it—or give up her career forever.
She dragged a fortifying breath into her lungs and tipped her head back against the headrest. “The thing is, I’ve always wanted to be a soldier. And yeah, I know that there are mercenary gigs available, and I’m n
ot…opposed to that. But would I be trading one demanding career for another?” She squeezed her eyes shut tight, not wanting to risk seeing Aldric’s reaction to the next part. “Because the thing is—”
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Navena threw herself forward, eyes flying open, self-pity forgotten as the ship’s proximity alarm rang out. “Do we have company?”
Aldric swore out loud and punched the console after reading the display. “Gods. Fuck me.”
“What is it?”
He winced. “More like, who.”
Heat crawled up her spine. “A visitor you know?”
“Yeah. And she’s going to want something from me.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “They’ve got some telepathic skills. There’s no point pretending we don’t see them.”
She’s going to want something… Navena hated whoever she was already.
Aldric thought seriously about powering up, firing his thrusters into Bel’eel’s exhaust manifold, and dealing with the fallout of that once she’d chased their asses back to Midgard.
But the threat of his brand-new, maybe soon-to-be-ex wife meeting his definitely-ex-girlfriend inside the nebula’s radiation field—while real and terrifying—wasn’t actually as dangerous as trying to outrun a bounty on their heads across an entire quadrant.
This was going to be painful though.
Opening a comms link, he set his feet wide and crossed his arms over his chest. Bel’eel couldn’t see him, but he’d learned long ago that his voice projected more power when he was standing.
“This is the Ormen Drake. State your business.”
The cockpit chilled an easy ten degrees as purring laughter filled the air and Navena tensed beside him.
“Oh, Aldric,” Bel’eel murmured as if she were curled up naked in front of him. “So formal. Is that because of the angry woman I can sense is standing next to you?”
“What do you want, Bel’eel?”
“I have cargo for you.” Fucking fuck fuck. No way was her cargo legal. He didn’t answer right away, which of course, Bel’eel would hate. Over the comms connection, her voice grew as cold as the look Navena fired his way as the Verveenian hissed, “Remember our deal, Viking.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
