Love was for fools, and she’d do well to remember that.
Chapter Four
Ava slipped out of her clothes and discarded the red swim garment on the floor. She stepped into mister, letting it spray her naked flesh. The hot water would soothe her stress, lighten her mood, and give her a chance to work off building frustrations.
His kiss. She ached for more. Raising her fingers to her mouth, she ran the pads along her swollen lips, where she still tasted him. Memories of the kiss, the heat of his body as she touched him. She throbbed between the thighs, hot, desperate to have more of the Regulator. The contact didn’t sate her. It had made her ravenous. She closed her eyes as the shower rained like a spring storm.
Gods, she was a fool. She wanted him and yet she’d locked him to the bed, leaving him in his room, angry.
She shouldn’t feel guilty about cuffing and leaving him, but she did. The League certainly would’ve tagged him, and they’d know his exact location when he failed to check in as Regulator protocol dictated. He wouldn’t be stranded for long.
The first rule in running a criminal enterprise—know thy enemy. Ava knew the Regulator standard operating procedure better than most of the men who carried the badge. Her uncle made her memorize the entire four-hundred page digital document before she reached the age of eight. To this day, she could quote any section if given a page number and twist it to suit any need she had. Loopholes were a smuggler’s blessing. She knew every trick and had even created a few of her own.
She put her hand under a soap dispenser. It squirted a slippery fluid into her hand. Bracing a leg against a nook in the wall, she started to soap along her calf, moving up her thigh, massaging every inch of skin. A warm buzz moved through her body, molten heat and lust.
Her fingers brushed her swollen clit. Her mouth fell open, and she gasped. Ava collapsed against the shower wall, and pressed her heel tighter into the nook. Water ran down her body, splashing over the jewels and igniting them, driving the spike of need deeper.
Him.
She ran her fingers up her thigh, along the outside on her mons until she stopped above the throbbing nub. She sucked in a breath and stroked again. What would it feel like to make love to the Regulator? Would his touch be gentle, or rough and demanding? Something told her both. He could meet passion with passion. She’d seen it in his eyes.
Her fingers slipped over jeweled lips, chemically bare of hair. The removal wasn’t for any other reason than vanity. Ava was far from vain. The tradition had been carried down from mother to daughter, something that made her a woman in her culture. It was the only Nexian custom she indulgenced in, something the women of her world would never go without, a custom her mother embraced and passed on to her.
As soon as a Nexian girl hit puberty, they permanently removed body hair and adorned their sexual areas with jewels. Each stone was mounted to the skin by tiny bio-filaments that pierced the flesh and sprung open underneath. Nanites would then weave the man-made, biological roots into the skin and around nerves.
The studs were like a piercing but more delicate. The more wealthy the woman, the more jewels she wore. All started at the mons and moved up the hips along the belly, navel and even in some cases, reaching the breasts.
Nexian mates would expect nothing less than a clean, hair-free, adorned body. Not that she ever wanted a mate. She didn’t. The practice was ultra-feminine, and all that kept her from becoming just another antediluvian smuggling contraband.
The studs intensified the sense of touch and heighted sexual pleasure, created by the same men of her culture who frowned upon woman enjoying them for the purpose they were created, sometimes punishing the adorned female for having orgasms. The women of New Xiera had some of the biggest sexual appetites in the galaxy. In comparison to Nexian female desires, they were nothing, and Ava was no exception. Nexian women could be executed for giving in to the hunger, and had been. On New Xiera, they had freedoms not seen on Nexis and indulged liked starved children, using the star stones for more than just their marriage beds.
She lived her life as she pleased, free to do what she wanted with whom she wanted. Yes, she had Nexian genetics, but she wasn’t raised to be like them and could give a mud-gat’s ass if her behavior raised a few brows with the population of Nexians on New Xiera.
Ava pushed two fingers inside her pussy and worked them to the sweet spot, rubbing and petting the nerves that would give her release. This time it was his touch, his hand on her. His palm pressed against her clit. In her mind, his mouth kissed her breasts and licked the water from her naked skin. The fantasy was so real she could smell him and feel the intensity of his energy as he loved her.
She sucked in a breath and moved faster, picturing Seth as he rode her, imagining the way he’d stretch her with his cock, doing every forbidden thing she desired. Her thighs tightened and pressure built in her pelvis. Another finger joined the other. Ava tipped her head back and gasped. Every nerve in her body fired, spiraling her closer and closer to oblivion and the release she desperately sought. Her pussy clenched around her fingers and Ava came with such force, she had to grab a bar to keep from collapsing. Each spasm sent a rapture of pleasure washing through her body, sating the roughest edge of her need. After a minute, the orgasm ebbed and brought her back to where she was.
Alone.
Masturbating would satisfy her for a while, but it wasn’t a solution. Eventually she’d have to find the product of her need and relieve the building tension. It was said when a Nexian met a soul-match, they would hunger for them as though they starved.
At that was the problem. Legatus Seth Reynolds was her soul-mate, and her body knew it. Ava was ravenous, every thought preoccupied with the dangerous and forbidden man.
She pulled her hand away from her pussy and dropped her foot, feeling along the wall for the lever to shut off the water. Alert prickled up the back of her neck. She opened her eyes.
Standing on the other side of the barrier, with enough heat to melt the ionic glass between them, was the demon she’d just exorcised.
Ava forgot how to breathe. He stared with the intensity she’d felt. Heat. Power. Need. And like the sharp edge of a blade, the hunger bit into her twice as strong as before.
***
Seth damn near tore Frost’s ship apart, and still couldn’t find anything to indicate she’d lied. It appeared that the vessel was in the shop for a paint job. The exterior tiles were gone, stripped away and probably in the paint booth as she’d claimed.
Nothing illegal showed up in the hold. He’d gone so far as to test for drug residues. According to her manifest, when space control cleared the Avira for launch on a prior world, the hold had been empty.
It didn’t mean she hadn’t been up to illicit activities. Seth knew he’d missed something, could feel it nagging at his mind, pulling on his instincts, the very same instincts that led him to her ship and not the room she’d claimed to have rented. His gut feeling was on, and Captain Frost’s ionic walls were coming down before he left. Even if he didn’t find anything, she wasn’t off the hook.
If she hadn’t broken the law, why did she blow backward through a wormhole?
He blew out a breath, left the flight deck, and moved toward the crew’s quarters. He pressed his hand into a gel lock, triggered the mechanism to pop open, and entered the room. Sounds of running water drew his attention to the lavatory. His anger got the better of him, and before he knew it, he stood in front of the shower, unable to move.
Fuck. And all he could do was stand there and suffer.
As Seth stared into Ava Frost’s eyes, he knew exactly who she’d thought of as she’d masturbated in the shower. She didn’t blush, even though he’d witnessed her pleasuring herself. Nor did she seem to care that she didn’t have anything on. As she stood there with a feral look on her face, she popped the release on the ionic shield, cutting the power to the Tourmaline crystal particles that clumped together when charged. The microscopic matter broke apart, and th
e shield vaporized, leaving nothing but air between them. Jewels twinkled back at him from a luscious body.
For a simple freighter captain, she had a lot of expensive jewels and technology. Most freighter ship captains couldn’t afford ionizing shields to create inner walls, and they most definitely couldn’t afford even half of what was certainly a fortune in Nexian stones covering Captain Frost’s body.
Ships with ionic walls could change their interior layout with a punch of a button, creating a larger area to store freight or more cabins to accommodate an expansion in crew or passengers. The walls could be solid or transparent as her shower had been. Handy when someone had something to hide, since ionic walls could also be used to create hidden rooms inside a ship to smuggle illegal goods.
The technology seemed a little excessive for someone dealing in legal trade. Seth made a note to check her outer shields for similar technology, something only found on the best battleships. If her ship had an outer gravity field that suspended ionic particles, there was a good chance she was involved in something illegal. The outer shields were a quick fix, when a hull received a blast, and only one kind of ship would take hits from a League destroyer.
Seth snatched a towel from a shelf and tossed it to her, resisting the temptation to act on everything his dick begged him to do. “When you’re dressed, we need to talk.” Gods, the woman made him crazy. He knew she was up to something. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind, and yet her tricks were getting to him. He’d been cuffed an hour before, and thoroughly humiliated when his first mate came to free him. But here he stood, like a moron, craving more of her, seconds away from making the mistake again.
She didn’t bother to wrap her body. She rubbed her hair dry and dropped the towel to the floor. When she took a step in his direction, it took all his control not to grab her. Little drops of water trickled down her flesh, racing toward the sparkling adornment. “Talk? Is that what you want to do, Legatus Reynolds?”
No. Gods, no. And the damned jewels didn’t help. He’d watched them sparkle as she touched herself. His cock went rigid, almost painfully stiff. He’d never seen the decorations on a woman before, but he’d heard of them. They were rumored to intensify sex for a man as well as the woman. Little micro-charges pulsed against the nerves they’d been carefully placed on, stimulating orgasm with a touch. They were never spoken of in polite company, but whispered about in boudoirs between lovers, and joked about over card games with buddies.
Now that he’d seen them, he’d wanted to know more about the intensely erotic custom practiced by prude people, one he wanted to investigate further, along with Frost’s disappearing walls.
He’d never wanted a woman the way he wanted Frost, but loss of control had already gotten him into trouble once. Seth pulled on his reserve strength, blocking the need that coursed through his body before he made an ass out of himself.
Again.
He spun on his heel and left the crowded lavatory.
She stepped into the bedroom and went over to a shelf that held various makeups and perfumes. She lifted a feathered brush and dusted metallic powder onto her nipples—an odd place for makeup, but ho boy, it got the desired effect.
Seth shifted on his feet. Lust hit like a bolt of lightning. She snagged a sheer white dress and dropped it over her head. It fell to mid-thigh, showing off her extraordinary legs. Everything could be seen through it, and it didn’t seem to bother her. She pulled a second solid garment, a red spider-silk, strategically covering her breasts and bejeweled pussy.
Covering her body did little to ease his need; if anything, it made it worse. She had nothing on underneath, and knowing seemed to intensify the effect. He did his best to remember she intentionally distracted him, and had taken advantage of it before.
Ava glanced back, shot him a sultry smile and bent over to slip on a pair of boots. Crystal wedge-shaped heels, clear leather, all gave her the illusion of walking on her toes like a dancer. “So, what do you want to talk about, Legatus Reynolds?” She all but purred his name.
His dick grew harder.
“Well?”
Seth stared at her ass where the fabric rode up. She wiggled her backside, and she switched feet. It gave him a view to everything, and she knew it. Damn her. He shifted on his feet again. Fucking woman! “Enough!”
“Enough what?” She stood and adjusted one of the straps on her bodice, coming around to face him with a wicked gleam in her eyes.
“Do you think I’m stupid, that I don’t know what you’re doing?”
“Truly?” Ava stepped up to him, ran her hand along his jaw. She threaded her fingers into his hair and then fisted the strands, holding him face-to-face. Her eyes glittered in the dim light. “It’s not what I’m doing, but what we could be doing that concerns you. Is it not?” She leaned in closer. Warm breath misted his chin. She kissed the corner of his mouth and nibbled along his lower lip. “I would be in cuffs right now if you had something you could take to the local authorities. I know you’ve already searched my ship. So why are you still here?”
“And I’m going to search it again when you drop these ionic walls.”
Ava smiled and pressed her palm into a pad on the wall. All her shields dropped, leaving her ship one large open area. His gaze swept around the interior, from one side of the hull to the other. Bunks, lockers, seats, and her dressing table. Nothing that screamed she’d been engaged in anything illegal.
“You won’t find anything you can charge me with.”
He focused back on her face, staring in her eyes. No, he didn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. She’d taken his laser and cuffed him to a bed. That wasn’t the act of an innocent woman, nor was blowing backward through a wormhole. “I could charge you with pulling a weapon on me and locking me to that bed.”
“Yes, you could, if we’d been in space. Or you could go to the local authorities.” She cocked a brow. “But you’d also have to come clean about why you were locked to the bed and explain who did it to you.”
“How do you know I haven’t already?”
“Because your position as a Regulator means too much to you, Legatus Reynolds. No court anywhere would see it as anything more than kinky sex play, especially here, on this world.” She released his hair and dragged her finger down his cheek, chest, and lower to his groin, where she traced along his erection, making it clear she knew her effect on him. “Do you like kinky sex?”
He grabbed her hand and pulled it away. “Careful, Frost. You’ve no clue who you’re messing with.” Seth watched her lips curl into a devious smile. Flirt. Tease. He clamped down on his teeth to keep from growling. She knew what she was about, and he wouldn’t give her the control again.
Ava pressed her lips to his ear. “I think I know exactly who I’m messing with, Legatus Seth Reynolds.”
“Then you know how dangerous it is to play with me.” Seth wanted to slap her in cuffs and toss her in a cell almost as bad as he wanted to throw her on her bed and tussle in the sheets. One more touch and it would be latter.
She locked gazes, gave him a radiant smile, spun and walked to the mirror. Ava punched a button on a console and the walls rose again, sealing them alone in a very private cabin, where they could engage in very wicked activities. “I told you, I’ve nothing to hide.” She turned to the mirror, leaned forward, and slowly applied lipstick, giving him another enticing view of her backside. “Are you going to follow me all night?”
“Yes.” He’d decided to keep her under surveillance the moment he’d spotted her on the beach. That much hadn’t changed. Ava Frost hid something, even though it appeared she didn’t. Seth’s gut told him not to believe everything he saw, regardless that he’d searched her ship and found nothing. Nothing about the damned woman was innocent.
He eyed the hem of her dress where it showed the bottom of her ass cheeks, and fought the urge to skim the pads of his fingers along her naked flesh and lift the flimsy garment up, revealing more of what she teased him w
ith. Seth couldn’t take his eyes off what she displayed.
It could be another trick, most likely was. He forced his attention off her ass and over to the lavatory door. It didn’t help. Images of her touching herself on the other side of the ionic shield, rapture on her face, heated sighs escaping her lips, and rolling in a cloud of steam toward him, leapt into his mind. His cock twitched and he returned to staring at her ass, a better choice than thinking about her masturbating in the shower.
“Do you dance, Legatus Reynolds?”
“No.” Bumping and grinding with her would lead to an entirely different kind of bump and grind, one he had decided he’d have no part of. He’d already lost his objectivity once this day and didn’t intend to fall into her trap twice.
She watched him through the reflection in the mirror. “Somehow I think that’s a lie.”
“I don’t lie. You should change into something a little less revealing.” He let his gaze drift over her clothing. She might as well not be wearing anything. She couldn’t possibly want to go anywhere in that, which meant what, exactly? She’d put it on for him?
“Does what I’m wearing bother you, Legatus?”
Fuck yes. “No.” Of course admitting it would only give her power. Regardless, she’d already touched his cock and would only need to look down to see it hadn’t changed. “The night crowd around this part of New Xiera Port can be rough. It’s dangerous for a woman to walk around like that.”
“I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
He didn’t want her to take care of herself. He wanted to take care of her. Every need. Every desire. Unable to resist further, Seth stepped behind her. His hand went to her shoulder, hovering over her skin for a moment, not sure if touching her would leech his control.
“You can touch me.” She pushed the strap off her shoulder and spritzed the top of her breast with perfume. “Do you want me?”
Rebel Souls Page 4
