She still wasn’t willing to give up the advantage he’d given her. The problem was, she couldn’t decide for several moments how she could use the advantage. If she sprang up and grabbed him, he would probably slough her off and retreat as he had before. She was tempted to ignore the glasses and grab him by his cock since it was within reach, but she didn’t think that was going to do the trick either.
She would have to lull him into a false sense of security, she decided. Lifting her head again, she smiled at him. “This is so sweet! I’m …. Overwhelmed! I hardly know what to say!”
He looked surprised but pleased. “It was nothing.”
She smiled up at him again. “It is to me. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed having them!”
Reaching for the glasses finally without looking at them, she grabbed his hand instead of the glasses, coming up on her knees at the same time. Unfortunately, she discovered that didn’t bring her within reach of his face. Shrugging inwardly, she leaned toward him and placed a kiss in the center of his chest instead. He flinched all over as if she’d stuck fire to him instead of her lips. He didn’t retreat, however. Heartened, Bronte moved both of her hands to his waist, and tipped her head to smile up at him again.
He caught her wrists as she allowed her hands to drift downward in the direction of her goal. She’d barely managed to brush the bulge against his loincloth.
He ground his teeth. Tiny beads of sweat popped from his forehead.
She could see his eyes had glazed with desire, though, and that he was struggling mightily against the urge to throw her down on the bed.
Balked of going straight for her goal but certain he was teetering on the edge of reason, Bronte dropped her head and began to nibble a trail of kisses along his chest.
It was all the encouragement he needed. Her head swam as he shoved her down on the bed and fell on top of her. Excitement threaded her veins as he kissed her throat and tore at the opening of her suit, squeezing her breasts almost painfully when he finally managed to bare them to his touch. Bronte gritted her teeth against the intensity of the fire that burned through her as his mouth closed over one achingly sensitive bud, tugging at it greedily.
Fighting the weakness and disorientation that engulfed her instantly, she stroked her hands over his head and back and shoulders as he pulled at her breast with his mouth, undulating her hips and pressing her mound against him rhythmically in a desperate attempt to tear his control from him. As if he couldn’t stop himself, he hunched against her in response, thrusting his erection almost painfully against her thigh. She dug her fingers into his arms, trying to shift downward to align her body with his.
“Can’t,” he muttered hoarsely as he lifted his head and stared at her other breast hungrily.
She arched her back, lifting it toward him in offering. He succumbed to the lure, covering it voraciously, sucking at her nipple until she felt like her chest would cave in from the lack oxygen … or she would pass out from lack of air. Tangling her fingers in his silky black hair, she held him to her, fighting for breath.
When he came up for air, she tried to pull him to her, or shift lower, wanting his mouth on hers, wanting to feel his cock digging into her belly, or her mound, or better yet thrusting inside of her instead of digging into her thigh. He caught her wrists, parting company with several hairs on either side as he shackled her wrists to the bed. He barely even flinched, didn’t seem to notice. “I can not,” he ground out, his gaze moving over her face as if he could devour her with his gaze alone.
That pierced her high when his last comment hadn’t.
“Why not?” she asked huskily, writhing against him enticingly, managing to lift her head high enough despite his hold to nip at his cheek with her lips.
“Orders,” he managed to gasp out, twisting his head to brush his parted lips against hers, sucking at them as if he was struggling with the urge to complete the circuit and explore her mouth thoroughly.
“Orders?” Bronte murmured, returning the favor by sucking at his full lower lip.
“Not to pleasure you,” he said in a rasping voice as he dipped his head to suck at her chin and then nuzzled the side of her face, nipping at her with his lips.
The flames leaping inside of Bronte were instantaneously transformed into pure rage. They had been doing to this to her on purpose? Deliberately arousing her and leaving her to swelter in it? Why? To get even with her because she hadn’t just given it immediately and spread her legs for them? Because she’d touched their precious controls?
She didn’t care why, not at the moment anyway. The need for revenge burned as hot as her desire had a moment before, so hot she could barely bring order to her thoughts. Gabriel’s desperation provided the answer without a great need for thought, though. She turned her head to nuzzle his face as he had hers. “But I could pleasure you, couldn’t I?” she murmured in a breathy whisper near his ear. “They wouldn’t be angry about that would they?” she added when he shuddered all over, tracing his ear with her tongue for good measure.
He lifted his head to stare at her doubtfully. “I do not think I could control myself, Bronte. I am on fire for you,” he said hoarsely. “It hurts like hell.”
Bronte’s anger vanished at that, most of it anyway. She could see in his eyes that he wasn’t exaggerating or trying to play on her sympathies. She stroked his cheek. “Shhh. I’ll make it better,” she murmured, pushing at his shoulders.
When he rolled away from her, she followed him. He caught her waist in his hands as she climbed on top of him, straddling him, as if he meant to toss her back onto the bed. She stroked his chest and belly soothingly and finally leaned down to follow the path of her hands with her lips. He tensed at the first touch of her lips. A tremor raked through him, but although his hands tightened on her waist, he didn’t push her away.
He sucked his breath in and held it as she explored his chest with her lips and tongue, nipping at him lightly with her teeth at times and at others sucking small patches of skin. He let his breath out in a ragged grunt as she teased his nipples as he had hers.
Slowly, she worked her way downward from his chest to his belly. When she’d scooted far enough down his belly to reach his cock, she covered it with her hand, stroked it through his clothing. He shifted beneath her restlessly, tensing, holding his breath and finally expelling it harshly and sucking in another.
When she worked a hand beneath his loincloth and curled her fingers around his shaft, he caught her wrist. She shifted her gaze from his hand to his taut face. “I know how to pleasure a man as well as you know how to pleasure a woman,” she murmured. “If I take you into my mouth, it will feel the same to you as it would if we had sex … except you won’t be going against orders.”
There was distrust in his eyes, but painful need, as well. Finally, he loosened his hold on her. Unable to figure out how to remove the loincloth, she merely pushed it aside, shifting down his thighs until she could caress him more easily. She could hear him grinding his teeth when she covered the head of his cock with her mouth and sucked on it experimentally. She lifted her head in surprise. “Did that hurt?”
“Yes … No,” he choked the words out. He reached down and unfastened the loincloth, however, throwing it out of the way.
She studied his genitals as she caressed him, deciding that as cocks went, his was as beautiful as the rest of him—long, sleek, and thick. She liked the taste of him, too—liked his taste a lot. She hadn’t expected to be aroused all over again just by giving him pleasure, but the desperate yearning for fulfillment that had burned in her so powerfully only moments before, arose again as she alternated between stroking and sucking him, using her hands and mouth to engulf his huge cock when she went down on him because she couldn’t take him fully into her mouth.
His fingers curled into claws on either side of him, digging into the sheets. After a few moments, he caught her shoulders, dug his fingers into them as if he was trying to decide whether to push her away or not and
then returned his hands to the bed. His hips jerked, lifted and stilled. He caught her shoulders again and then speared his fingers through her hair, clutching tightly at her skull. His growing excitement fed hers until Bronte completely lost touch with her original intention. Instead of focusing on giving him pleasure, she became intent on her own. She wanted him to come, needed him to. The hunger in her belly to be filled drove her to suck at him more and more feverishly. She pulled at him with the suction of her mouth as if she could suck his come from him.
When his cock jerked in her mouth, he bolted upright, trying to pull her free. She planted a hand against his belly and shoved at him, sucking harder. Uttering a deep groan, he fell back, arched his hips upward to meet her mouth, and then a choked groan as his body reluctantly yielded up his seed. She hesitated as she felt the hot liquid shoot down her throat and then swallowed and sucked and stroked him faster as one hard shudder after another raked through him until they lessened to tremors and his cock at last went flaccid in her mouth.
Exhausted as she was, as painful as her own body was still clamoring for release, Bronte felt satisfaction of a different kind as she leaned her cheek wearily against his hip and his hand settled against her head. She could hear the thundering of his heart in his groin and that not only pleased her, it gave her a sense of triumph. He reached for her when he’d finally caught his breath. Dragging her up his length, he studied her face for a long moment and finally nudged her chin up and kissed her gustily.
After a moment, he rolled onto his side and burrowed his face against her throat. “I have never felt anything like that before,” he murmured lazily, shivering faintly as Bronte lightly stroked his back.
“But it felt good?” she asked.
“I do not think good is a strong enough word to describe it,” he muttered, chuckling huskily. “But it only made me want to....” He broke off, stiffening. “I should go.”
She didn’t try to stop him. She watched his face worriedly, though, as he pushed himself off of the bed with an effort, looked around vaguely for his loincloth and then stood up to put it on, swaying slightly.
“Gabriel?”
He glanced at her uneasily.
“Don’t tell them what I did. I don’t want … I’d hate it if you got into a fight, or … anything because of me.”
He reddened, looked uncomfortable, and finally merely nodded and headed for the door.
* * * *
If Gideon hadn’t been watching the door of the cabin, waiting for Gabriel to come out, he would’ve missed the lopsided grin of satisfaction that flickered across Gabriel’s face as he emerged. He’d been counting the minutes since Gabriel had disappeared into the room with Bronte, however, and he’d reached the boiling point. He’d already pushed himself up from his seat and turned to stride to the room and drag Gabriel out. When Gabriel left the room, therefore, Gideon had a clear view of his face and he knew instantly what that imbecilic expression of bliss denoted. Uttering a growl of rage, he launched himself toward Gabriel even as Gabriel came to a halt and glanced guiltily toward Gideon and Jerico.
Hearing the warning growl, Jerico intercepted Gideon, bracing his body and exerting an equal, opposing weight against Gideon. “The hold, Gideon! Not here!”
“I do not need to go into the hold,” Gideon growled. “I will strangle that son-of-a-bitch with my bare hands. There will be no sound at all save for his gurgling as I choke the life out of him.”
“Fine!” Gabriel growled. “I will meet you in the hold!”
“We agreed to conduct these discussions in the hold!” Jerico reminded Gideon.
Tiring of trying to shove Jerico out of the way, Gideon slammed his fist into Jerico’s belly instead, lifting him nearly a foot off the floor.
“He has fucked her!” Gideon ground out, slamming his other fist into Jerico’s belly and then shoving him out of the way. “We agreed that we would hold out for a contract! I will tear his cock off and choke him with it!”
Gabriel ducked as Gideon launched himself full tilt at him, catching Gideon in the breast bone with his shoulder. The blow knocked the breath out of Gideon and sent him pin wheeling backward. He fell on his rump and side and skidded several feet.
“I did not fuck her!” Gabriel snarled. “She pleasured me!”
That caught both Jerico’s and Gideon’s attention. Holding his chest, still struggling to catch his breath, Gideon merely glared up at him as he staggered up from the floor. Jerico, massaging his lower belly, having just regained his feet, froze. “She did what?” he demanded in dawning fury.
An expression of guilt and then pleasure flickered over Gabriel’s taut features. “With her mouth.”
Jerico and Gideon exchanged a glance. “Her mouth?” Gideon demanded, still without comprehension but with dawning outrage.
“Yes!” Gabriel snarled. “I did not breach orders! She took me into her mouth and pleasured me!”
“Now I know I will kill you!” Gideon ground out furiously, launching himself at Gabriel again.
Jerico, uttering a roar of rage, reached Gabriel first. Burying his head into Gabriel’s belly like a battering ram, he drove Gabriel backwards until he hit the corner of the table and fell. Gideon, hard on their heels, grabbed Jerico and slung him aside then dove on top of Gabriel, grabbing him by the throat.
Gabriel pried at Gideon’s fingers then slammed his fists against Gideon’s forearms. Unable to break the hold, he reached upward instead and closed his fingers around Gideon’s throat.
Bronte, hearing the commotion, ran to the door and froze as she reached the threshold, staring in frozen horror at the tableau before her for several moments. “Stop it!” she cried out finally. “You’re choking him!”
“I mean to choke him to death,” Gideon snarled in a choked voice.
Glancing around a little frantically for a weapon, Bronte finally realized she still had her book in her hand. Charging across the ship, she began pounding on Gideon’s shoulder with the plasti-metal tube. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” she yelled, punctuating each demand by rapping Gideon on the shoulder with the hard, cylindrical tube.
Jerico snagged her around the waist and snatched her off her feet, heading toward the room with her. After prying at his fingers for a moment and discovering she couldn’t break his grip on her, she began swinging blindly at him with the tube, catching him several times on the head with it before he snatched it out of her hand. “Damn it, woman!” Jerico growled as he set her on her feet inside the cabin. “Stay in here!”
Glaring at his back when he turned to head back into the fray, Bronte followed him. He halted at the door, whirling to face her. “You will stay put or I will tie you to that bed!” he ground out.
Bronte snapped at his finger with her teeth when he shook it in her face.
He managed to snatch it back before she could clamp down on it. For a split second an expression of stunned surprise crossed his features. Anger quickly replaced it, however.
“Bronte!” he growled warningly.
“You stop them then!”
His eyes narrowed. “Did you pleasure him with your mouth?” he demanded.
Bronte blinked at him rapidly several times. “He told you!” she gasped indignantly.
Jerico’s face contorted with fury. Turning on his heel, he left the room abruptly.
Furious herself now, Bronte was tempted to let them kill each other. As she watched the fight, however, searching a little frantically for something she might use to distract them, her gaze lit on the refrigeration unit. Stalking over to it, she opened the door, snatched the large container of ice water from the shelf and pitched the contents at them. As full as the container was, it seemed doubtful more than a glass full had hit any of the three. They were already overheated from fighting, however, and the moment the icy water sluiced over them all three men sucked in a harsh gasp of shock and froze, lifting their heads slowly to stare at her in disbelief.
Stunned herself at the effectiveness of it, Bron
te stared back at them with a shock nearly equal to theirs. The moment their shock wore off, however, and all three faces went taut with anger, Bronte dropped the container and sailed back to the safety of the room. She wasn’t sure where to go once she got there. There was no place to hide and no room that she could barricade against them—nothing she could drag to the door to use as a barricade. The bed was attached to the wall and floor.
Scurrying over to the bed, she hopped on top of the mattress and snatched the cover up … as if it would work as some sort of shield if they decided to come after her.
Minutes passed while Bronte tried to listen over the thumping of her heartbeat in her ears and wondered what in the world had possessed her. She’d just decided they weren’t going to follow her when the door opened and all three men crowded into the doorway. After staring at her frowningly for several moments, however, as if they were trying to figure out what had possessed her, they turned and left again.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Bronte dropped the cover she’d been holding and stared at the door thoughtfully, wondering why she’d decided to interfere. It didn’t take long to arrive at the conclusion that she hadn’t actually decided to at all. She’d felt a compulsion to stop them and she’d acted on impulse.
As her impulses went, this one hadn’t been near the disaster her urges usually were. In fact, now that she thought about it, it had actually worked very well. She’d broken the fight up and in record time.
She still didn’t know why she’d felt compelled to do anything at all.
She hadn’t wanted them to hurt Gabriel, she realized.
Not that he didn’t deserve it since he’d gone straight out and told them when she’d warned him not to, she thought indignantly. After she’d thought it over a few minutes it occurred to her that he might not have. He’d been so sated he’d hardly been able to drag himself up. She smiled faintly at the memory.
He’d looked so cute and addled when he’d left.
Maybe he hadn’t said anything to start it? Maybe they’d only looked at him and known instantly that he’d just been thoroughly pleasured and they had suspected he had gone against orders? And then he’d told them in his defense?
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