by Cathryn Cade
She did, her blue eyes hazed with heat. She whimpered as he slid one, then two fingers up into her tight pussy, but it contracted around his fingers, and again harder when he slid the fingers of his other hand down to work her from behind, stroking her wetness up to the tight rosette of her anus and petting it as he stroked her clitoris with his thumb.
“That’s it,” he praised her, watching her pupils dilate as she focused on him, and her body focused on what he was doing to her, then watched and felt as she gave in to the sensations he was wreaking on her. “Now come for me, my Zaë. Give it to me.”
“Yes,” she moaned. “Yes-ss. Oh, my. Oh, Joran.”
His name on her lips as she shook and spasmed around his fingers was like the burn of good moonbrandy, tempting him to keep coming back for more.
He pulled her down for another kiss. This time she melted on him, and kissed him back with abandon, her fingers sliding up across his chest.
Joran began to move under her, feeling her soft heat so close to his cock. He groaned. “We gotta figure out who the hells you are,” he muttered against her mouth. “Can’t go much longer without getting inside you.”
She was looking at his mouth, licking her lips like a satisfied mawwr. “You don’t have to wait,” she said. “I want to please you too. And I want what you give other women.”
Joran groaned again. ”You do, hmm? Well, you can have some of it. Sit up, bunny.”
When she did so, he tapped his belt buckle. “Unfasten it. Now, my pants, that’s right. Now take my cock out.”
Her eyes widened, but she sat back on his thighs and delved into his loosened pants and closed her soft fingers around his cock. He wrapped his hand around hers, and pushed himself into her snug grip. Ah, that was good. He did it again.
“You want to please me?” he asked.
She nodded quickly. What would her reaction be if he told her spanking her had pleased him, to the point he’d jerked off in the showerdry and then fucked another woman twice afterward, thinking of her while he did it? Not being an idiot, he didn’t voice the question.
He guided her to keep stroking him, nice and hard the way he liked it. With his free hand he touched her mouth, dipping his fingertip inside. “Not taking you all the way—not yet. I want in here right now. Are you willing to try that?”
Her soft, wet tongue curled around his fingertip and sucked. Joran’s eyes nearly crossed as he imagined that warm softness working his sensitive cock.
“I would like to do that,” she said against his finger, her eyes bright with excitement. “I like your cock.”
“You like my cock,” he repeated, sliding his hand around the back of her neck and pulling her down for another long, wet kiss. She kissed him back eagerly, and her giving her mouth to him so sweetly along with their hands on his cock, he knew he wasn’t going to last much longer.
He pulled back. “Now would be good, baby.”
“Okay.”
Shaking with an eagerness he hadn’t felt it too many years, Joran watched as his beautiful, sexy lady scooted back, her hand holding his cock like a big sweet treat. She bent, opened her mouth and licked the arousal off the head and tasted it, her tongue a delicate butterfly of sensation that sent a hard shiver through him. Her hair hung around her, a silky slither over his groin, more arousing than the most sophisticated courtesan’s play.
Then she bent and took him into her mouth, and he swore he could have come right then and there, no more play needed.
He held off as long as he could, sliding his own hand down to squeeze the base of his cock, and watched her with agonized determination as she licked and sucked him, her gaze on what she was doing, her hair caressing his skin, her mouth the sweetest, dirtiest caress he’d ever known.
Then she looked into his eyes and he gave in. His orgasm took over, his balls squeezing tight, and the delicious pulses of pleasure sweeping through him.
Tightening his hand in her hair, he pulled her off of him, and grabbed his cock, jerking his hand up and down, up and down, then watching as his cum spurted out, fountaining over his hand and arm, his belly.
She watched, panting, then came when he pulled her down onto him for another kiss, this one slow and sweet.
He slid his arms around her, and palmed her ass, moving slowly under her to drive his cock along the wetness of her labia.
“Thank you, baby,” he murmured. “Like playing with you.” He liked his cum warm and slippery on her skin and his too. He’d like it even more in her.
She lifted her head enough to look into his eyes. “Why won’t you put your cock inside me? I’ve given you permission.”
“Because, that right may belong to another man. I don’t want you regretting—”
She sat up and scowled down at him. “’That right’?” she repeated. “You speak as if my wishes don’t matter. I may not know who I was, Joran Stark, but I know who I am, and what I want now.”
“Your wishes do matter, but if you were my woman, out there somewhere, it’d sure as fuck matter to me if some other male was docking his ship in my bay. I may not be the most honorable man you’ll ever meet, but I have that much of a conscience.”
The look on her face was indescribable—a kind of disbelief combined with indignation and anger too.
“Your docking bay?” Her voice rose. “That’s—that’s so retro, it’s primitive. It is my docking bay, thank you very much. And I don’t belong—I mean, I don’t think I’m with another man. I think I would know, somehow.” Her words were adamant, but her eyes still expressed doubt, and it cut at him—a small, but sharp blade.
He sat up, his hands on her hips. “When we get things straightened out, you learn who you are and what you want, we’ll see. But I’ll tell you this—when I get in there, do not mistake me. It’ll be mine, and what’s mine, I hold. Now, up. I have things to do to keep what’s mine safe.”
Ignoring her huff of displeasure, he set her off of him, waiting until her feet were steady on the carpet before letting go.
“You are extremely irritating,” she called after him. “The dominant male may still be in place in the more primitive tribes, but that doesn’t mean it will work with me.”
She was lecturing him now? He turned to give her a look. She looked so pretty standing there, naked in his tont, with her hair hanging around her, he nearly went back to her. “Baby. This is my tribe, and it matters not to me if it’s primitive—works for me, and I’ve no reason to change.”
He left her sputtering wordlessly, and walked into the lav. He found himself chuckling as he turned on the water. His Zaë was a handful.
When or if she got her memory back, she could turn out to be a bitch on rocket boosters. In which case, a man might just enjoy hanging on for the ride. He shook his head at this. Had it only been days ago he’d told Creed he wanted a sweet, quiet woman to bear him sons and keep herself to herself?
His smile slid as he recalled his primary qualification for a woman. Sweet, yes, but she also had to be strong and whole, to deal with him and his ways. She couldn’t be a wounded little immi who was lost in the galaxy, no matter how sweet her kisses and her pussy.
Weakness of the mind didn’t improve with age and time, it got worse. A lot worse, no matter how desperately others tried to support, to care for that being. And certainly a man who took a woman like that couldn’t expect her to support him in his declining years, to bear him sons and be there to nurture them.
Fuck, he didn’t need this on top of everything else. He braced his hands on the wall of the showerdry and leaned into the hot water. Time to stop tempting himself. Zaë was gorgeous, she was sweet and she was willing, but she was not what a man like him needed. She might heal completely, or she might not.
He dressed, made sure he had the weapons he wanted in his vest, and tied his hair back, the routine a relief. On his way out the door, he stopped, his gaze already on the holovid, scanning the camp.
“While I’m out,” he told her, “you stay close. Very close. I don’t want
to have worry about you, don’t want any of my people worrying about you. You’re either here or you’re at Ringi’s. You get me?”
“I get you, yes,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“Told you, lot going on. See you later.”
She was silent as he stepped out into the day. And why did that make him uneasy as well as guilty?
***
He met with Qala, Haro, Ilya and Pede aboard the Hawk. Besides his tont, it was the one place in camp he could be absolutely sure there were no spybots or other surveillance watching and listening.
They sat in the main bay, ranging themselves on the leather seats.
“Here’s where we are,” he told them. “Logan’s in, which means LodeStar security is in. Creed has some of his Zhen brethren on the way. We have the IGSF, though we’ll have to use them with extreme care—the way techs handle a live reactor core—to keep Ceruls’ poison from spilling over into places we don’t want ‘em.”
He looked around at them. “And we’ve got us. We all want these slimers not just out of business but annihilated. I mean to see that we make that happen, at the same time we get Cerul out of our asses.”
“And how are you gonna do that?” Ilya asked, her gaze sharp and angry in her drawn face.
He nodded to her. “Glad you asked. Here’s my plan.”
When he was through telling them, they all stared. Qala’s mouth was open a little, and Haro’s brows were up. Pede had a look on his face that said he didn’t know whether Joran was crazy or joking.
Ilya shrugged. “It can work. I get point on tech. This Bronc works with me, not the other way round.”
Joran bowed. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“And I get her,” she went on, a white rim of rage around her mouth. “I get that Serp bitch. I analyzed the holovid, brought in some light. She shot Var—missed Vadyal with one of her shots, and hit my man. I want to be the one who takes her down.”
“Now on that,” Joran shrugged. “First come, first served. We all owe her for Var. And we wait until we’ve got them all rounded up. There’ll be no going in rogue just to take her out. I want them all.”
“You’re not gonna get them all,” Pede said. “This is just one tentacle of the beast. There are other gangs in every quadrant of the galaxy.”
“True,” Joran agreed. “But we’ll teach them they don’t slither into this one, or they get cut off and then sliced into pieces so tiny they can’t find their own cocks.”
“I’m in,” Haro said. “Whatever you need. As long as we get to take down Cerul too.”
Qala nodded, and Joran returned her steady gaze. “Good. We’ll get her, too. I promise you that. But I can’t do this without you—all of you.”
“And I wouldn’t mind a shot at that Arc,” Haro added.
“What about the others?” Pede asked.
Joran gave them their assignments. Ilya was liaison with Bronc Berenson, Haro with Mecham of the IGSF, Pede was in charge of their own crew, while Joran would remain in his usual role as Il Zhazid, calling the slavers’ attention to himself, with Qala at his side. “The others—you can each decide who you want working with you.”
“I’ll go with you,” Haro offered. “Have Qala work with the epaulets.”
Qala glared at him. He avoided her gaze, watching Joran doggedly.
“No,” Joran said. “We need someone to keep things smooth with them, so they don’t suspect a thing. That’s your area. If Qala gets mad and mouths off, this thing blows higher than the displays on that casino.”
He looked to Qala, who was frowning at him. “I need you with me. Slidi’s a bitch who uses sex to get what she wants. She’ll discount you because you don’t play on that. I’m hoping the others will follow her lead, not see how dangerous you are.” He lifted a brow. “Also hoping you’ve been practicing with those new stun charges.”
Her face cleared. “I’ll bring a pocketful.”
The bay was full of tension, not only pre-fight but more—Ilya’s deep sorrow and rage, Pede’s distaste for this operation, and Haro’s anger that Qala wouldn’t take a back seat. Joran looked around at them.
“I know this is not fun,” he said. “For any of us. But we get through this, we make this work, we can get our lives back. Our freedom. And our good names—such as they were.”
Pede snorted at this, Haro joined him and then they were all laughing, even, reluctantly, Ilya. It felt good.
Ilya slid a com device from her belt and fiddled with it, turning it over in her hand. “We’ll never have our lives back,” she muttered. “Not the way they were. So we’re gonna take some others—as many as we can.”
Qala rose, running a hand through her hair. “Well, I’m out. Gotta go check some things.”
Haro uncoiled from his chair and followed her from the cruiser without a word.
Chapter 24
Outside, Haro ran the few steps to catch Qala by her arm. “Qala. Come to my tont.”
She let him swing her around, face to face. Her gaze was guarded. “Why?”
His heart pounding, he took her hand in his. “I’ll show you when we get there.”
She walked with him. He held open the door flap for her, and then stepped in after her, keying the door to lock behind them. She stood in the middle of his small living space, her face shadowed, the light of the glowlamps highlighting the proud, graceful tilt of her head, and the wisps of auburn hair curling around it. Baby soft, her hair was a contradiction, like the tender curve of her wide mouth in unguarded moments, and the sweep of her lashes on her angled cheeks.
“So?” she asked. Her voice caught on the single word, and he felt it in his gut. She was nervous, that was something, wasn’t it?
“I have a gift for you,” he said. Instantly he held up his hands. “No joke. I really do have something.”
He walked over to grab a small unit from a shelf, and hand it to her. “It’s a holo unit. Press that button there.”
She did, and then started as their reflections sprang up across the room, looking back at them. “Holy quark,” she breathed, pleasure lighting her face. “That’s good.”
He grinned. “Yeah. Stole it off the Pleasure Palace, Ilya and I adapted it.”
“The holovid greeters,” she said admiringly.
“Yeah. This can send for a longer distance now. Make it look like you’re way ahead of yourself. Thought it might come in handy sometime.”
“I’ll say.” She looked up at him. “Thanks. But, you kept one for yourself, right?”
“Yeah.” At least Ilya had promised to have another by tomorrow.
“Thanks. It’s starry.” They stood for a moment, and then she stepped back, her gaze skittering away. “I, ah, I should go.”
“Wait.” He put his hands out, grabbed her shoulders, so slim and strong. “One more thing.”
Ducking in, he kissed her. His mouth landed partly on her cheek, but hells, he didn’t care. It was enough just to get his mouth on her skin, to drag in a deep breath of her sweet, womanly scent, feel the slight quiver of her lips against the corner of his.
But then he had to have more. He went after it, cocking his head and opening his eyes to find her mouth with his.
She was still for about a half sec and then she went molten in his arms, grabbing him and jolting up against him, her mouth opening so her sweet, eager little tongue could lick into his mouth and find his. She tasted of coffee and possibly heaven.
Finally. The relief of finally tasting her was so intense it nearly drove him to his knees.
Then, when she kissed him back, he gave up thinking in favor of getting his clothes and hers off as fast as physically possible, and getting her on his bed. They didn’t quite make it before she was wrapped around him like a vine and he was reeling to fall with a groan, her incredibly soft, slick heat enveloping his cock.
He landed on his back, holding her tight, his tongue in her mouth and his hands full of her tight little ass and her surprisingly slender back.
She rode him like a mating cata, and he let her, moaning as his orgasm blasted up through him like a laser charge. When she convulsed around him, he let go and came so hard he saw a supernova behind his closed eyelids.
Afterward, they lay on the edge of the bed, both gasping for air. Finally she moved. His arms tightened, although he couldn’t quite manage to get his eyes open.
“Oh, no,” he husked. “You’re not getting away yet. Been waiting too long for this.”
She lifted her head, and he felt her studying him. He smiled like a fool.
“You have?” she sounded puzzled.
Haro couldn’t help it—he started to laugh. Which predictably pissed her off, and then he had to wrestle her for dominance. Being larger and stronger, though wary of her knees, and since she wasn’t willing to hurt him, he got her on her back in the middle of his bed, where he tipped his forehead against hers.
“Yeah. I have. You’re the only one in this end of the galaxy who hasn’t noticed.”
She looked away, an extra edge of color flushing her already pink cheeks. He kissed her blush, because it was so close and he wanted to spend hours doing just this, holding her and learning her all over, then nuzzled her ear and moved, nudging himself inside her again. He slid home, all the way to his version of heaven.
She gasped, and her hands tightened on his bare back. “You’re…still hard. Oh, quark, that feels good.”
“Hard again,” he corrected her. He nipped at her ear and continued to move. “Nearly always am around you. Gonna make you come twice, this time. Maybe three times.”
She grabbed his ass and squeezed. “You’re welcome to try.”
***
Zaë was done being a victim. She was done waiting passively for her fate to be decided by others.
Having Joran make love to her—because his tenderness, his care that she enjoy what they did, felt like so much more than sex—and then walk away, avoiding her gaze and further discussion of what they’d done…it hurt. Lodged somewhere in the region of her heart and lay there like a burning chunk of wood from the camp fire pit.
