The gash on her scalp is small, but she sucks in a pained breath when I palpate it. The asshole who took her bashed her in the skull first. “That bastard…” I murmur.
“He wasn’t one of Meshach’s men,” she says.
“No, he was a slaver.” According to the symbol on his belt, he works for an establishment on the third floor. At least, that’s where it was the last time I visited Miscellany, several years ago.
Grace frowns. “You said slavery is illegal.”
“It is, but little of what happens this far from the core of the galaxy is legal.”
The man who took her would have hauled her upstairs, stripped her, and chained her to a bed. And considering that she’s probably the most beautiful woman he or any of his customers have ever seen, he would have been able to charge a fortune for her.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” she says, and it takes me a second to follow her train of thought. “Because there aren’t many…police…this far out.”
“Police.” I can’t resist a laugh.
Her cheeks flush. “That’s the wrong word, isn’t it? What’s the intergalactic version of ‘police’?”
“In this sector, it’s the Bureau of Compliance. But you’re right. Out here, they turn a blind eye unless they’re forced into some kind of action, because they can’t enforce law this far out without taking heavy casualties. And no amount of hazard pay can be spent after you’re dead.”
“That’s why Meshach lives…near here? We’re still near Gebose, right?”
“Yes. Though I don’t know whether this sector was the lawless frontier it is now, back when Meshach’s people settled on Gebose. It’s possible that his planet’s reluctance to abide by the rules helped establish this sector as a place that would harbor…well, people like us.”
“You and the Dinghy crew aren’t criminals.”
“We are now,” I tell her. “But I’m not only talking about criminals. Some of the people out there are just running from something. Or hiding from something.”
“Like me,” she whispers.
“Yes.” But not exactly like her. There’s no one in the universe exactly like Grace.
“So…why are we here? Can we go back to the Dinghy?”
I hesitate for a second, as the truth burns a hole on my tongue. But I won’t lie to her. “Meshach is on Miscellany. I brought you here to hide you from him, until I get the all-clear from Sotelo.”
Panic swims in her gaze. “He’ll find me.” Her grip tightens around that handful of her sheath until her knuckles turn white. “He’ll take me back. He’ll make me—”
“No.” Before I even realize my feet are moving, I’ve gathered her in my arms, her cheek pressed against my bare chest, that horrid nano garment trapped between us. “I will never let him near you. Not Meshach, his son, or anyone else from that godforsaken planet. Even if I have to kill every one of them.”
She trembles in my grip, so I hold her tighter. That oscillating sound begins to build in my throat again, growing until it competes with the whoosh of my own pulse in my ears. I can tell Grace hears it too, when she begins to shift in my grip.
At first, I think she’s trying to get free, and disappointment wounds me. Then she presses herself closer against me. Her hands slide around my sides and her palms flatten against my back until she’s clinging to me. As if she’d like to climb through my skin and take up residence in my soul.
And god, I wish she could.
Her head tilts up, her hair tickling my chin, and when I look down, I find her staring up at me. “Coleman?”
“Vaughn,” I whisper. “Call me Vaughn.”
“Vaughn?” she says, and the sound of my name on her tongue makes my cock so incredibly, instantly hard that I have to shift my pelvis away from her, to keep her from feeling it.
Because the strength of my need for her scares even me.
“Yes?”
“I…” She frowns. “I don’t really know what I was going to say. I just wanted you to, um, look at me.”
“Gladly.” My right hand slides slowly up her spine and over her shoulder until I can trail the backs of my knuckles—spikes safely sheathed—along her chin. “Grace, may I kiss you?” I am fully prepared to be rejected. I expect to have to wrestle the beast back into the cage at the back of my mind, because he doesn’t want to take no for an answer. But I wouldn’t—
“I’ve never been kissed.” Her perfectly arched brows dip into a little frown. “I’ve never been held like this either, except the time Silas tried to—” She shakes her head, as if to clear the memory from her mind. “Never mind.”
I swallow to stifle the growl trying to claw its way up my throat. That growl is for Silas, not for her, but she might misunderstand. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes.” But she seems surprised to hear her own answer.
I tilt her chin up, but I still have to bend to bring my face toward hers, and just before our lips touch, she gasps, a sound so exquisitely, perfectly surprised and eager that I want to swallow it and keep it forever in my heart.
Then my lips meet hers, and she sighs into my mouth. And from that moment on, I am a lost cause. I am hers to do with as she pleases. To use. To tease. To abuse. To love. To utilize as a human shield. I will do it all. I will take anything she wants to give.
I will never leave her side again.
“Mmm…” she murmurs against my lips, and my hand slides around the base of her skull into her hair. I tilt her head, then I pull her lower lip into my mouth, tugging on it lightly with my teeth. Tracing it with my tongue, even as that sound continues to echo from my throat.
I tilt my head, deepening the angle of our kiss, and as I’d hoped, her lips open. I groan as I dip my tongue into her mouth and let it slide along hers in greeting. Stroking. Exploring gently. As politely as I can, in the face of a maddening desire to know every single inch of her, inside and out.
She moans, and the most delicious scent teases my nose. It smells like her skin, clean and sweet. But muskier.
Oh my god, she’s wet.
The oscillations in my throat rumble faster, louder, exploiting an instinct I don’t fully understand, and the scent of her need swells around me. My mouth waters, eager for a taste of her. My cock hardens.
Suddenly she pulls away from me, breaking our connection with one palm against my chest, her modesty sheath puddled between us on the floor. “Coleman…”
“Vaughn,” I correct her.
“Vaughn.” Her pupils are dilated. Her lips are shiny with moisture, and I want to taste them again. I want to probe the warm depths of her mouth and let my hands wander other places my tongue would like to follow.
“Yes, Grace?”
“I…that wasn’t what I expected.”
I smile. “You’ve never seen anyone kiss?”
“Once or twice,” she admits. “But people don’t do such things in public, on Gebose, and Meshach and Damaris rarely touch in front of anyone, even in the privacy of our home.” She frowns. “I’m even not sure they kiss in complete privacy. Though maybe he kisses Naarah.”
“Who’s Naarah?”
“His concubine. His woman for pleasure, rather than childbirth.”
“Is that all women are for, on Gebose?” Anger adds an edge to my words. “Pleasure or childbirth?”
“Oh, no.” Grace looks surprised. “We cook and clean, and we care for the children. We shop and run errands. We offer comfort and consolation, where they’re needed. And an ear, where one is required. We—”
“You have no idea how strange that is, do you? How very archaic. How barbaric.” I study her, trying to understand. “Yet you must, if you left.”
That little frown appears again, two delicate lines between her brows. “I didn’t know things were so very different on other planets. I only knew I didn’t want to open myself for Silas. For the rest of my life. Then I met your crew. I saw how Lilli and Dreyer live here, uncovered, yet safe. And I… I want that.”
I lean down and kiss her again, and this time she sinks into that kiss with her whole body, pressing her entire length against me. Her breasts are a firm pressure against my ribs, the points of her hips like little arrows on the fronts of my thighs. Her mouth opens again, and when I don’t immediately heed the invitation, she makes a disappointed sound.
But I make myself wait, and after a second of simpler kissing, she boldly slides her tongue into my mouth.
I reward her intrepidness with a stroke of my own tongue, and the next thing I know, I’m sitting on the bed with her in my lap, feeding from my mouth as if I am the only source of sustenance and she has been slowly starving for decades.
Finally, she sits up and looks down at me, her face flushed with this new passion, and I am careful to keep space between us. To keep from pressing my erection against her stomach, because I’m sure that would break this spell. That the reality of my desire would scare her.
The size of my cock in this moment would scare even an experienced woman.
“You don’t seem shocked by my wanton behavior,” she whispers, her voice awash in a tantalizing mixture of awe and…need. I can scent her desire. I can feel it in the warm flush of her skin. I can taste it in the tiny beads of sweat forming above her lips.
“I’m delighted by your wanton behavior,” I whisper back to her. “You are beautiful and brave, and I want to experience every inch of you.”
She blinks, and something like fear flutters in her pulse. Then she swallows, and I’m sure she’ll climb off of my lap now. That I’ve ruined this for both of us with an admission someone who grew up in a convent—or someone who at least thinks she did—is not ready to hear. Which is why I’m stunned by the next words that fall from her lips.
“I want you to take me, Vaughn,” she says, her voice so soft it hardly carries any sound. “Please. Right now.”
7
GRACE
I DON’T KNOW where the words came from. I didn’t intend to say them. I had no intention of giving in to lust, even if people outside of Gebose don’t see that as a sin. But the moment I hear my own request—my plea for Vaughn to have his way with me—I realize that my poor impulsive and confused body may actually be smarter than my head.
Vaughn Coleman is kind, and smart, and strong. He may think he’s doing a good job of hiding his desire, but while I’m straddling him on the edge of this small bed, I can feel that hot, hard bit of him through our clothing every time either of us moves. I know how badly he wants me, and there’s no sense pretending his need isn’t mutual.
But even beyond my newly awakening desire… Vaughn is my way out of service to Silas. He may be my only way out, because Meshach could find us at any moment. And no matter how uniquely suited Vaughn and the crew of the Dinghy believe they are for this job, they can’t be the only crew out there who could find Meshach’s cargo. But they are the only ones who have me.
If Meshach finds us, he will take me back, even if he has to shoot Vaughn Coleman and all of his friends to get to me. He will drag me back to Gebose and give me to his son—unless I’m no longer intact.
I have to be a virgin when I’m presented to Silas; the heir to the planet will accept nothing less. If my virginity is a ship that has already sailed when he finds me, Meshach might kill me for denying his son that “gift,” but I would rather die than spend the rest of my life serving Silas. I would rather die than spend the next few years letting him “practice” on me, in preparation for his wife, a woman who will no doubt treat me as poorly as Damaris treats Meshach’s concubine.
Yet Vaughn has not replied to my request. He’s still staring at me as if he thinks I’ve just paused in mid-sentence, and the rest of what I’m saying will negate the words already spoken. As if I’ll just…take it back. Change my mind.
When I don’t, he frowns. “Are you… Are you serious?”
“Why would that surprise you?”
His hands slide up my arms, chasing away chill bumps with the warmth of his touch. “I assumed that would be the last thing you’d want from me, considering that it’s what Meshach and his son are demanding from you.”
“It is the last thing I want from them. Because they are demanding it. But that isn’t true here. With you, it would be my choice.”
“Of course.” His pupils dilate until they’re each encircled by only the thinnest ring of golden iris. “I would never take anything you didn’t want to give.”
“Well, I want to give,” I tell him. “Will you have me?”
“Will I—?” That sound echoes from his throat again, and my lower parts clench around nothing but possibility. Curiosity. I know what’s supposed to happen between a man and a woman, and the thought of letting Silas inside me sends a bolt of ice scraping up my spine.
Yet the thought of Vaughn…
Moisture gathers between my thighs, and I can feel my face flush. I want to cross my legs to hide the evidence of my desire for him, but I can’t do that while I’m on his lap. And I don’t want to get up.
“You don’t finish many sentences, do you?” I smile down at him, and he laughs.
“You leave me somewhat speechless, I must admit.”
My smile grows, just a little. “Fortunately, I don’t require your tongue.”
He laughs again. “Don’t be so sure about that.” Then he slides one hand behind my head and gently tugs me down until my mouth meets his. He sucks on my lower lip, and I moan. My heart is racing too fast. My head feels light enough to float from my shoulders and hover near the ceiling.
I have no idea what I’m doing. But I know it must be done. I cannot be intact when and if Meshach finds me.
My hands land on Vaughn’s shoulders, and as his tongue slides into my mouth, I let my fingers glide over his bare chest, mesmerized by the contrast of my light hand against his dark skin. I’ve never touched a man before. Even when Silas groped me in the hallway, trying to steal what wasn’t yet his to take, I kept my hands pressed flat against the wall.
But now…
This isn’t what I expected a man to feel like. Vaughn is much…harder. And I don’t just mean where he’s throbbing against me. Between my thighs. I mean all over. His chest feels like warm marble. Like the floor in the convent foyer felt after I’d lain on it for an hour, studying the art on the ceiling. After my body heat had warmed the stone. But it isn’t my own heat I’m feeling now. This is all Vaughn.
His skin is surprisingly smooth, not as if he’s shaved, but as if hair never grew there. I wonder if that’s true. I’ve heard that hair grows on a man’s chest, but most men don’t have bony blades growing from their forearms or spikes from their knuckles. I can’t be sure that anything about this particular man is standard.
He makes a pleased sound as my hands slide over his skin, getting to know every hard plane and muscled ridge. This man is made of muscle, it seems. He is strength covered in flesh and—
That soft thrumming swells from his throat again, and I moan as my hips arch forward all on their own, pressing my most private parts against his. Straining for him, through his clothing and my own.
I should be embarrassed by my body’s wanton desire for him. By the fact that he can probably feel the moisture soaking through my undergarment. But shame is not among the maelstrom of emotions currently storming inside me. Even if it should be.
Vaughn’s mouth abandons mine again, and he gently tugs my head back with a loose grip on my hair. The motion lengthens my neck, giving him a path to follow with his lips. His tongue…
He leaves a hot, wet trail, and with every inch his mouth travels along my flesh, my heart beats harder. Faster. Air slips in and out of my lungs too fast, until I am lightheaded again, but this time I’m grounded by the feel of him against me. Beneath me.
“Grace, are you—?” he mumbles against the base of my throat, where he seems fascinated by my pulse.
“Another half-sentence,” I tease, but my voice is so breathless I’m not sure he can understand me.
H
e clears his throat, then he sits up and lets go of my hair so I can look directly into his eyes. “May I undress you?”
“Yes, please. And hurry,” I add, suddenly terrified that we won’t have enough time to…finish. Before Meshach finds us.
Because he is looking for me.
I didn’t know about this part. About the kissing and licking and touching. I knew where Silas would want to put his…manhood. I know the mechanics of the act. But his eager groping the night he trapped me in the hallway gave me reason to expect that when he took me, the experience would be brief. At the time, that was my only solace. But this is…
This is…
Vaughn stands, lifting me, and I cling to him, startled by the shift in position. But his hands grip the backs of my thighs, steadying me for a second before he carefully lowers me to the floor. “I…I don’t know what to do,” I admit as my heart pounds against the inside of my chest. “Should I be doing something?”
“Close your eyes,” he whispers. “Concentrate on what you feel.”
I comply, though the idea of giving up sight gives me the first hint of fear I’ve felt since the moment I decided on this course of action. Without my eyes, I can’t see what’s happening. I have no idea where he will touch me. Where his mouth—
Fingers land on my hips and I suck in a surprised breath. His hands wander slowly upward, pausing at the hem of my top to slide beneath it. The material of my undergarments is snug, but it gives easily. As his hands move up my sides, they bring the material with them until it gathers beneath my breasts.
“Grace, are you sure this is what you want?”
I give him a hesitant nod, still focused on the feel of his fingers, warm against my ribs.
“Look at me,” he says, and I open my eyes to see him staring down at me. The intensity of his golden-eyed focus is…stunning. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Yes.” I blink up at him. “But I’m… I’m…”
“Nervous?”
I nod again.
“You’re a virgin?”
“Intact,” I tell him. “Untouched, until now.”
Vendetta (Project Vetus Book 2) Page 10