by Calinda B
“Of course I will. I’ve been in tougher situations than this, woman.”
He’d annihilate this monster, whatever it was, and then get her the hells back on the Z, where they’d be safe. Unless this quarking planet had some kind of reptile the size of a skrog, which he was beginning to believe they might.
He aimed his laser for the center of the creature’s mouth and began to squeeze the trigger.
Only to have Scala knock his arm up for the second time that night. “No. Don’t shoot.”
The laser charge went wide, searing off into the night.
“What the fuck?” Tal demanded, fury replacing his fear. He aimed again just as the creature bellowed again. “Are you crazy? You nearly made me shoot my ship.” He’d been right about her—she was crazy.
“It’s just a garganta lizard.”
She bent, picked up something from the ground and hurled it at the creature, hitting it between the eyes. Tal watched in disbelief as the thing dropped its ruff, morphing into a harmless-looking lizard.
A rock. She’d run the monster off with a fist-sized rock. Turning, it lumbered away into the desert shrubbery, which rustled violently with its passing and then settled into place.
Tal Darkrunner, scourge of New Seattle, king of the underworld, summoned the icy control on which he prided himself, and turned the beam of his flash on his companion.
He waited.
She bit her lip but failed to keep a straight face.
“They’re harmless,” she said, her voice quivering. “They put on a big show, but it’s all to convince you to get out of their territory. Never been known to attack a sentient being.”
He said nothing, and she set her hands on her hips. “All right, I’m sorry. I should have said right away. but you were so—so sweet, ready to protect me.”
She snickered, and he moved. Squatting just enough, he grasped her around her hips and tossed her over his shoulder. She wasn’t very heavy, and her ass felt good under his hand as he stalked back to the Z.
As he waited for the gangplank to lower, she spoke. “You’re mad, huh?”
“I never get mad,” he told her. “But I always get even.”
Chapter 9
As Tal carried her up into the Z, Scala twisted to peer over his shoulder. She groaned inwardly. Of course everyone was in the cabin to see Darkrunner haul her on board like pirate booty.
Trix was curled in Darry’s lap, a holodice game open before them, while Dalg watched a holovid with lots of violence.
Darry looked up as Tal and Scala entered. ‘You didn’t get swallowed by a big-ass serpent then,” he said with relief.
The hatch slid shut behind them, and Tal set Scala on her feet. He put his hand on the back of her neck. His grip felt right, which conversely made her want to duck away. Instead she allowed him to herd her across the cabin. She expected his goal to be his sleep cubby, but instead he stopped before one of the chairs.
He dropped into the seat and motioned her to the floor before him.
“Here?” she asked, her brows flying up.
“Here,” he said. He looked up at her, a beautiful, dangerous man, daring her.
“Hot damn,” Darry breathed. Trix made an approving sound and smiled at Scala.
He wanted the others to watch her suck him off. She hesitated, then pushed down the emotions battering at her. It was just sex, nothing more. She liked Trix and Darry. Dalg she could ignore, over in his corner.
Damned if she’d let Darkrunner intimidate her. She’d show him she wasn’t one to back down from any challenge. She’d give him what he wanted, then get what she wanted from him or maybe Darry. He’d certainly shown he was willing, and so had Trix. And it wasn’t like she didn’t want Tal’s cock in her mouth, she did.
Holding his gaze with her own, she dropped to her knees and put her hands on his, slowly pushing them apart. His legs were long, lean and corded with muscle, which only emphasized the bulge of his erection.
Scala slid her palms slowly up his legs. The plush leather was warmed by his flesh, over hard muscle. But when she reached his groin, he stopped her with a slight shake of his head.
“Naked,” he said.
The sound of Dalg’s actionvid was loud, but Scala could hear her heart thudding in her ears, and she could feel the hot intensity of the four gazes riveted on her.
Darkrunner watched her, his gaze drilling into her, through her. Deep inside her, where no one was allowed to venture. To the girl who had given up on finding somewhere to belong, and learned to take fleeting pleasures of the flesh, because that was all she could allow herself.
Beings wanted her, they always had. Males and females of all stations and ranks of wealth and power. They wanted her body, they wanted what she could do with her hands and mouth. Once, she’d given without choice.
Now that she was an adult, she took what she wanted in return, at least physically. But since Ssaar, she made sure she kept her dignity. It was all she had left. Kneeling naked to service Darkrunner while he and the others were clothed—no.
Anger blazed through her, a welcome heat, burning away an ache she refused to acknowledge. Hurt, that even with these outlaws, she was on the outside, a plaything to be used and tossed away.
“You want me naked?” she asked, smirking at him. “You gonna get naked too, Darkrunner? We could put on a helluva good show.”
He opened his mouth and reached for her.
“C’mon,” she dared him, shoving at his arm. “Why not? Going shy on me, ganger? You’re among pals, right?” Even if she wasn’t.
Trix and Darry were still, watching them. “Hey,” Trix said softly. “It’s okay. We can get naked with you, Scala.”
“Shut up,” Tal said to Scala and kissed her. His mouth was soft and warm, and his other arm slid around her.
He stood, pulling her up with him. “We’re taking this to my bunk,” he said, his gaze still locked with hers. “Changed my mind. Not in the mood to share.”
“See ya later,” Trix said behind them.
“Babe,” Darry protested.
“Let them go,” she cut in. “Now play. If you win, I’ll ...”
Scala missed what Trix promised, because Tal carried her down the passageway to her sleep cubby. The hatch opened and he carried her inside.
He let her down on the bed, but when she moved, ready to scramble for the side of the bed, he held up a hand, palm out. Not adamantly, but gently as if he were soothing a wild thing.
She watched warily as he shrugged out of his duster. Then he reached down and pulled his tee over his head and off, baring his torso to her for the first time.
Oh, goddess. He was beautiful, the personification of male sexuality. His lean, enigmatic face, braids spilling around his face and shoulders ... forearms corded and biceps bulging with muscle. His lean torso a sculpture in pale olive, decorated with black markings. His broad chest bore the etching of a heart exploding to reveal a fiery core, the flames twining out to become branches bearing ebony blossoms and wicked thorns. There were other markings on his taut abdomen, and a dark trail of hair that arrowed down into his leathers.
She remained spellbound as he unfastened them and then shoved them down. He bent to push them off along with his low boots, then straightened. He faced her and waited.
Scala shifted up onto her elbow and looked him over, letting her gaze trail down over his lean hips, and the vee cuts that arrowed straight toward the black curls nested on his groin, his heavy sac and his cock. Full and erect, it bobbed in the air between them, a turgid length of male flesh, flushed a dark rose.
She’d had that inside her. Her pussy clenched, but more than that her hands twitched and her mouth watered. She wanted to hold him, stroke him and taste him, pull him into her mouth and feel him surge and quiver in her grasp.
He lifted his arms out from his body, his hands out, then dropped them to his sides. Saying silently that he was naked ... for her. “See anything you want?”
“Maybe,” she
said. “Why don’t you come here and we’ll find out.”
One of his winged black brows rose and his eyes narrowed with wicked promise. “Yes, we will.”
She half expected him to rip her clothes off, but instead he undressed her with slow care, watching as every curve and hollow was bared.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, trailing one hand down over her chest, between her breasts, and across the hollow of her belly. His hand was hot, his rings warm knobs on her skin.
Her nipples tightened into hard, aching knots and her pussy clenched, aching to be filled.
“See anything you want?” she mimicked. Her voice was breathless.
He didn’t answer, at least with words. Instead he bent to press open-mouthed kisses on her abdomen, then worked his way north, rubbing first his cheek against the plump lower curve of her breasts, turning his head to drag his lips over each nipple in turn. His braids slipped over her bare skin like heavy silk, the slight bumps heightening her sensitivity.
“Oh, goddess,” she whispered. “I think I like your braids.”
“I like your long nipples,” he said. “Like two little sex lasers, ready to fire.”
“Sex lasers?” she choked, a laugh quivering in her chest. It ended on a gasp as he opened his mouth over one breast and sucked her nipple into his hot, wet mouth. When he pulled on it hard with his tongue, the first featherings of an orgasm made her writhe under him.
Watching her face through his braids, he tugged at her tights. “Don’t come till I’ve got my finger on your trigger.”
“I wait for no man,” she managed, arching up as he fastened his mouth on her other nipple.
He slid his fingers into her labia, and then pinched her clit between thumb and forefinger. “You’ll wait for me.”
Scala drove her fingers into his hair, clasping his head in her hands, his braids spilling over her arms. “That’s not exactly ... a deterrent, Darkrunner.” She flexed her hips, working his fingers against her clit.
With a swift movement, he turned and straddled her on the bed, his head over her mons and his cock bobbing over her face.
“Since the first sec I saw you on board my ship, I’ve wanted into that mouth of yours,” he said. “Take my cock, Snake Eyes.”
Since he held his head just over her in a way that meant he wouldn’t touch her again until she complied, Scala had no choice but to obey. Because she wasn’t letting him out of this bunk until she’d come at least two or three times.
She hmmed with approval as she reached up to wrap her fingers around his cock and lick him into her mouth. He froze, rigid in her grasp as the fingers of her other hand cupped his balls, and then ventured farther, into the crevice of his ass.
“Fuck, yes,” he muttered. He thrust himself slowly into her mouth, and then withdrew to do it again. He smelled of spicy musk and tasted of salt and delicious man. She wanted to suck on him for hours, her own personal lolly.
“Is it true?” he asked, his hand cupping her pussy. “That Serps don’t gag?”
She let go of him and peered through the shadows at him. “Yesss. It’s also true I was ready to come and you stopped. You want my throat—work for it.”
“Work?” he asked, his breath puffing on her as he parted her with his fingers. “You mean on this pretty, wet cunt? Should I just follow the little trail of curls, or do I need a map?”
She lifted one leg and captured his head in a vise, pulling his face to her. “You’re already there.” In answer, he bit at her just hard enough to sting, and then put out his tongue, running it down the furrow of her labia and back up to her clit.
Her mouth full of him, she moaned with pleasure. Fortunately, he took over the job of moving his cock in and out of her mouth, because all she could concentrate on was his rough, wet tongue flaying her mercilessly. Then he thrust two fingers into her pussy and hooked them to press against her G-spot.
She came instantly, clenching her fingers into his taut ass as pleasure took her.
When she was finished, he tipped his head against her thigh, his breath gusting damp and hot on her skin. “I’m gonna take your mouth now. You need me out, slap my ass.”
Scala tightened her grip on him and used her tongue on the head of his cock to let him know she wouldn’t be letting go of him until he came.
He shuddered like a man driven beyond control and began to thrust, long sleek strokes that took him to the back of her throat and beyond.
Perspiration sprang out on his flanks under her grasp, and his musky scent intensified.
“Yes,” he said. “God ... fuck ... fuck, you’re good.”
He came in thick, salty spurts, and she swallowed it all, not releasing him until he hung over her, breathing hard.
He pressed a soft kiss to her inner thigh, and pulled himself from her mouth. He collapsed on the bed beside her, and they lay there, head to toe. She felt strange, as if she’d opened a door and found something she’d always wanted. But she was afraid to reach for it, afraid that like always, it was only a chimera.
She lay very still, resisting the sudden urge to bolt. Stupid, she was so stupid. This was just sex. If she tried to make it into anything else, she was the biggest fool in the galaxy. She’d let a male lead her there once, but she was never going to be that vulnerable again.
“You have sexy feet,” Tal said lazily, one warm hand enclosing her ankle, his thumb rubbing down into her arch. “Yet you can kill with these.”
“I never have.” She leaned up on her elbow and watched as he stroked her feet with his beringed hands. His strong hands and corded forearms made her limbs look delicate.
She wasn’t. She was strong enough to take care of herself. She didn’t need a man, so no use pining for this moment to go on.
She gave him a sidelong look and found him watching her, a little smile playing around his mouth. “What?”
“You’re as defensive as that garganta lizard,” he said. “You never let your guard down, do you, Snake Eyes?”
She sat up and leaned over him, reaching to stroke his braids back from his face. She pushed them behind his shoulder, admiring the ink swirling over the smooth bulge of muscle.
“I have before,” she confided. “And it always, always turned to shit. So I don’t do it anymore.”
She jerked her legs away from his grasp, but he moved with that shocking swiftness she’d witnessed once before, twisting up and over, to pin her to the bed, his hard, warm body over hers, his hands holding hers.
“Whatever you’re considering,” he warned. “Don’t do it.”
“Oh,” she asked, wide-eyed. “You mean smashing your balls up into your gut and then scratching your eyes out?”
“Yeah,” he said, his gaze caressing her face. “That.”
Then he bent his head and kissed her. It was those damn braids falling around their faces like a silky curtain of intimacy; that was the only reason she didn’t follow through on her threat. Well, and the guilty pleasure of being pinned down by one of the few males she’d ever met that she wasn’t sure she could best.
He kissed her slow and deep and hot, his legs bracketing hers, his chest hard against her breasts, and like an idiot, she felt safe, cradled by his strength. Not only of body, but of will.
“That’s right,” he whispered against her lips. “Gimme that tongue. Wrap it around mine and show no mercy.”
By the time he flexed his lean hips enough to press his cock into her, she was more than ready for him. She swallowed her moan of pleasure as he slid deep, abrading tissues already swollen and wet.
He lifted his head and tossed his head to cast his braids to one side, looking down at her as he began to take her with long, slow strokes. In the light of the glowlamp he was so beautiful she wanted to touch his face, to sculpt him with her fingers, her palms. To drink him in through her skin.
She clenched her hands into fists and the pillows and closed her eyes, shutting out his gaze that saw too much, too deep.
“Open your eyes, damn it
.” Tal leaned over her, his elbows planted on either side of her head, his breath gusting warm and damp on her lips. His eyes glittered down at her, pale icy fire in their rim of ebony lashes.
“Let—me—in,” he demanded, his voice nearly soundless with intensity.
Scala huffed a laugh, but she shivered around his cock, her thighs tightening on his lean flanks. “You’re in far as a man can get, Darkrunner.”
His eyes narrowed further, and he began to thrust inside her, slamming into her with each lithe twist of his narrow hips, raking her sensitive channel and hitting that magical place inside her with each thrust.
“You know what I mean, Scala Raj,” he told her, his hard chest moving against her breasts with his deep breaths. “I want in there, behind those big, gold eyes. I want in deep, where you never let anyone else.”
He continued to move inside her as he spoke, his voice as relentless as his cock.
“You’re tough, but you showed me vulnerable out there in the cabin. I want more. I want the real you.”
She clung to him, her short nails digging into the silky skin of his back, her heels into his taut ass. Great goddess but he was good—hung like a skrog, and he used his cock with a force and skill she could become addicted to ... if she let herself. Combined with his silky, beguiling voice, he was a drug swimming through her veins.
But she wouldn’t let herself need him. And she wouldn’t let him in any place but where he was, either. No male got inside her head, not anymore. This was just sex, not a means to break her down, control her. She couldn’t risk it, no matter how much a weak part of her longed to lose herself in the allure of his eyes, longed to open up and let herself hope to be held and cherished.
“Don’t be afraid anymore,” he demanded, his voice soft yet ringing with power. “Let me in and you’ll never regret it, I swear.”
Never gonna happen. And she must be crazy to even wish for a sec that it could happen with this one.
“You’re in farther than ... any other male for ... quite a while,” she panted. “Just ... oh, goddess, don’t stop. Oh, Tal ... I’m—”
