Roark (Women Of Earth Book 1)

by Jacqueline Rhoades

  Petrark, along with some of Roark’s newly arrived security personnel, would use the traitor’s own methods to hide their intentions. If Mira understood correctly, they were recycling feeds and using bait and switch flights, similar to the heist movies she loved before the war.

  It was hard to follow, not only because of the logistics involved but because she was becoming more and more aroused with each change in location and tactic. She was giggling too hard to listen as Roark’s finger bombs exploded against her ribs. Her breasts became the mountains to the west that Roark drew to sharp peaks with his lips, tongue and teeth.

  The First Commander paused after amassing his troops in the valley between the mountains, but there was no rest for Mira. Roark looked at her with eyes that seemed to search the depths of her soul. Her heart was booming in her chest and her breath was coming hot and heavy when he began to speak.

  “These priests you speak of, where can we find one? Will they perform the ritual that will make you mine? Is there a contract I must sign? I will pay whatever bride price your brother and sister ask including his freedom. I want you bound to me, to bear my mark, not the mark of my House, but mine alone. You are barren to my kind and Godan law prohibits our union, but I will pledge my life and my honor by the God you worship, that I will never replace you for the sake of an unborn son. You have touched my heart in a way no other could. I need you to remind me of my beginnings, to remind me that my heart still beats, that beauty and laughter still exist in my world. Even when you know me for what I am and grow to hate me, I will need you near. You are miku Mirasha and I cannot let you go.”

  She’d stopped laughing when he looked into her eyes. At his first sentence, she’d caught her breath.

  By his last, tears were leaking from her eyes. While his eyes searched the depths of hers, he’d exposed his soul as well. His words were a vow of love, but the torment behind them was unbearable.

  Mira slid her fingers over his temples and along the close cropped hair at the sides of his head. Her thumbs followed the brows that arched or opened like the wings of the eagles that glinted in the starlight as they flew over the town at night. His nose was straight and maybe a little too large. The bones of his cheeks were sharply outlined against the flat planes of the face below them. He wasn’t soft and pretty like Petrark and she would bet he never had been.

  It was his mouth that saved his face from cruelty. His lips were full and soft, and when he smiled, his face was transformed.

  No, he never had the young Legion Officer’s beauty, but when Mira closed her eyes, she couldn’t picture Petrark handsomeness. Roark was always there. She could trace the ridges and arches and planes of his face with her fingers in the air. She could feel the soft and demanding pressure of his lips when he kissed her.

  He was all the things she said he was; the warrior, the leader, the lover, and occasionally, the grumpy bastard. He was foolishly jealous and a master of the back-handed compliment, but he was also the man who made her heart beat faster at the sound of his voice. He was the myth, and the legend, and the fulfillment of a dream. He was her Viking and she loved him.

  Leave him? She would have no life without him.

  “You have touched my heart, First Commander Roark,” she whispered, “and you will continue to touch it all the days of my life. I could no more hate you than I could hate the air I breathe. I haven’t seen a priest since old Father Cavanaugh died in the first year of the war. His church is gone, too. It doesn’t matter. There is no ritual to bind me to you. The only thing that can do that is the love in my heart. I appreciate your offer, Roark, all of it, but your offer comes too late. My heart’s already bound to yours.”

  She stretched her neck up just enough for her lips to meet his. Her kiss was light and quick. “Why don’t we talk about this tomorrow when you’re sober?”

  He started to protest, but she stopped his words with two fingers to his lips. Her laugh was as quiet and soft as her kiss when his eyes flashed at her impudence.

  “Yes, you’re drunk, Roarkiem mika. Whether it’s alcohol or the sweet nectar of victory doesn’t matter. You’re drunk, and this is not the time to have this conversation.” She kissed him again to show him her words weren’t a rejection.

  Roark took her kiss and made it his. He deepened it, slanting his head while drawing her bottom lip between his teeth. He held her there, his hand fisted in the curls of her hair as he tasted and taunted. His tongue delved inside, not demanding in its invasion as it usually was, but softly searching out her tongue to tangle and dance.

  His free hand sought her breast and his sigh mingled with hers when he ran the rough pad of his thumb over her nipple. It was already taut from the heat of his kiss and tightened further at this gentle touch. His hand cupped around her, kneading and molding her breast to his palm.

  He lay on his side, his body half covering hers, one bent leg holding her thigh to the bed. The hand at her breast moved downward, thumb tracing the center line of her body, fingers splayed over her ribs. He traced the line of her hip, the concave of her belly and the rise of her mound. He was memorizing her body as she had his face.

  When his search moved between her legs and he found her wet and wanting, he didn’t smile in his usual self-satisfied way. He shifted and positioned himself over her, but he made no move to enter. He raised himself above her, arms fully extended and looked down at her.

  “Take me in your hand, miku Mirasha, take me in your hand and bring me home.”

  He watched as she reached for him and wrapped her hand around his erection running her thumb through the moisture at the tip and then brought him to her body’s entrance. Her thighs spread further to accommodate his hips and her hips rose to welcome him. Calves wrapped around him, pressing him to her, Mira did as he asked and brought Roark home.

  There was a beauty in this union that made her want to weep. Roark, as he always did, took over the rhythm of their joining. He didn’t take from her as he did in his post-nightmare need. That night he gave. With slow and steady movement, he found the angle that brought her the most pleasure and he enhanced it with kisses to her eyes and ears and throat. He brought her to the heights and only sought his own release when he felt her body soar beyond those heights into momentary ecstasy.

  Later, still basking in the glow of an orgasm that had come upon her like their lovemaking, slowly and gently, she turned onto her side to watch him sleeping beside her. Unlike other nights, he hadn’t wrapped his arms around her and held her to him, but had rolled to his back and closed his eyes. He slept, but not before they spoke.

  “You,” she’d breathed, her body relaxed and content, “are a wondrous man.”

  “I,” he’d answered drowsily, “am no man at all.”

  She tried to ask him what he meant by that, but the drink, or the sweet nectar of victory, or simply the late hour and their lovemaking had finally caught up with him. She didn’t have the heart to wake him. He looked like she felt, contented and at peace.

  Or she was until he mumbled those words. He’d said them in Godan and they were somehow familiar, but she couldn’t find the reference in her mind.

  She was becoming more proficient in Godan every day and was slowly picking up a smattering of Kirku, the more formal language of the Galactic Confederation. Her problem wasn’t grammar or vocabulary. Her knowledge of both was growing steadily. Her problem was speed. One on one, she was fine, but in a group, especially a large one like the one gathered around her table that night, she had trouble following the rapid fire conversation with one speaking over top of another.

  She might have heard the words during one of those conversations, but she didn’t think so.

  Mira touched the globe of glass that stood to the side of the bed. Dim light filtered across the room, enough to see by, though not enough to read. For that, she’d have to touch it several times.

  “I am no man at all.”

  She watched the man sleeping beside her, wondering how he could say such a th
ing. She smiled to herself as her eyes took in the long legs, muscular arms, and a torso hard enough to be made of steel. She’d felt every inch of that body and knew what it could do to her own. Too much to drink hadn’t altered his abilities in that department.

  “Even when you know me for what I am and grow to hate me...”

  She was missing something, but what?

  Her eyes traveled over the blood markings that her fingers had travelled over before. They fascinated her. The markings were heaviest on his arms and legs and then his sides. There were a few on his back, none on his buttocks or the manly bits up front. They were not all the same design or style and looking closely she could see the handiwork of different artists. She loved the markings, though she didn’t like the reason for them.

  Tattoos were popular before the war and Mira, who was always searching for commonalities, saw the similarities between some of the more popular human designs and the blood markings on Roark’s body. Some were similar to Asian style characters made with broad strokes and pointed tips. Others were inked in swirls, waves and curlicues in purely fanciful designs. Both legs, one high on his right thigh and the other below his left knee were banded in designs that were common before the war; one a Celtic knot design and the other of vine and thorns. Another banded design circled his right arm above the bicep.

  Not wanting to wake him, but unable to resist, Mira ran her hand over the Celtic design above his knee. The scar felt almost like Mohawk’s, though not as fresh.

  Mira’s snapped her hand back to her chest and stared at the circlet of scarring. She wanted to press and prod the limb beneath searching for differences, but knew she’d find none. Mohawk’s recreated limb felt no different than real flesh and bone.

  Three circlets on three limbs.

  “I am no man at all.”

  Mira stifled her sharp intake of breath with a hand to her mouth. She knew where she’d heard those words. In his nightmares, Roark called them out along with his string of curses.

  The light glinted off the jewel in the mouth of the dragon that circled his ear. It gave the impression that the creature winked.

  It was another thing she should have noticed. The dragon was more than decoration. He never took it off. She thought it might be a symbol of his rank or family, but it was more than that. It glowed when he was angry and he had told Bitsy it made him behave.

  That dragon was connected to his recreated limbs though she wasn’t sure how. She would have to ask Ahnyis so she would be prepared when she brought the subject up with Roark.

  In the meantime, she added asinine to her list of Roark attributes because that’s exactly what he was if he thought those artificial limbs were a reflection of his manhood or would make her love him any less.

  Mira fell asleep a little angry that he would think her love would be so shallow.

  Chapter 26

  Ahnyis leaned over Mason’s back and tickled the edge of his ear with the tip of her tongue.

  “It’s almost time for you to go.” Her whisper was followed by a soft breath of air along the wet line left by her tongue.

  Mason swatted at his ear like he was bothered by the buzz of a fly.

  She pressed her unbound breasts between the scapulae at his back, using them to rub the silk of her nightgown against him. “Mason,” she sang in what she considered an alluring voice.

  “Ahnyis, lovey, back off. I’m almost there.”

  He shuffled through the papers in his hand. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but it wasn’t there. He started flipping through the folders scattered across the table in Ahnyis’s quarters. He stared at the table, eyes roving over the mess and did a mental count of papers and folders.

  He was missing one. He looked around the living area, but didn’t see it, which wasn’t surprising. Ahnyis’s quarters looked like a twelve-year-old’s idea of a seductive boudoir, clashing neon colors and all. There were enough swaths of sheer fabric to fill the rooms of a harem, enough delicate scarves to keep Salome in seven veils for fifty years, and enough lacey ruffles to outfit the full cast for the entire production of Gone With The Wind. Twice.

  For a woman who dressed in bland clothing and subdued colors like a nun on her better days, and a bag lady on her worst, Ahnyis’s colorful quarters were mindboggling. There wasn’t a single surface that wasn’t covered in something frilly and ornate.

  “Have you seen the ration report? The one that details what’s missing.” He kept shuffling through the papers. “Clothing. I’m missing that one, too. And the mileage reports, er, I mean...” His finger spun in a rapid circle and then pointed to Ahnyis as if selecting her from a crowd for the privilege of answering his unasked question.

  “Time-distance comparison. TDC”

  “Yes! That’s it.”

  The way he said it sounded like he knew and she’d guessed the answer correctly.

  Ahnyis frowned. Having a lover wasn’t nearly as exciting as she thought it would be. Lovers were supposed to be different from husbands. Lovers were supposed to provide an endless display of affection and an unquenchable desire for sex. Weren’t they? She’d amassed a sizeable library of stories from all over the galaxy that swore to it. The stories were fiction, certainly, but they had to be based on a modicum of truth, didn’t they? Otherwise, why would females continue to read them?

  She wasn’t completely naive. She understood that for literary purposes, much of the mundane minutiae of biological function was ignored in these stories. No one ever used the bodily waste disposal units found in almost every cleansing facility all over the galaxy, nor did anyone allow for methane expulsion unless the portrayal was meant to be crude. Crude!

  Ahnyis hissed at the ridiculousness. Every creature with an intestinal digestive system eliminated fibrous waste and gases, just as every consumer of organic material ended up with foul scented breath, particularly in the morning. She didn’t know why Mason found it so funny. Prayers to the goddess! He was a doctor and should know better.

  The sex wasn’t much better. The windup was terrific, and the delivery was explosive, but it was short-lived. She was coming into heat, for Tyre’s sake, and an hour’s recovery for a mere three hours’ worth of sex seemed excessive. Worse, during that recovery time Mason slept, and once when she’d tried to wake him with a playful little slap, he’d growled at her. She didn’t know humans could growl.

  Mason now knew Katarans could, though, because she’d growled right back.

  Still, she thought he was the sexiest thing in the galaxy, though she didn’t understand why.

  She found the papers he was looking for under a side table dressed in flowing scarves just like in Clijon Corruption, the little story she’d picked up at Space Station 2 while she and Vochem waited for the shuttle that would carry them to the Stargazer, the huge starship that carried them across the galaxy. Clijon Corruption was so romantic and exciting, she’d delayed going into stasis until she finished it.

  The folder she found under the ruffled pillows on the sofa. The pillows were beautiful and exactly like the ones Zoamon and Femice made love on in Rebel’s Rapture. Mason said they made him itch and that no one could make love balanced on that many pillows unless they were contortionists. He made a valiant effort, though, and it was fun.

  She handed him the folder and her tail just happened to swish up into his lap and just happened to land on his delightful package of genitalia that should bring her hours and hours and hours of pleasure, but rarely did. Human physiology was a mystery to her. None of the medical texts explained Mason’s lack of stamina or his complaint that she made him suffer from blue balls.

  Absentmindedly, Mason stroked the tail in his lap and heard Ahnyis purr happily. Her appetite for sex was every man’s dream and he had plans to start working out so he could keep up the pace.

  She was a funny little thing. Highly intelligent, she was a rarity among the type of woman he preferred and he enjoyed talking to her when they weren’t fucking like a couple of rabbits. She w
as part sober scientist, part adolescent Lolita, and part frat boy on a Saturday night with nothing better to do than hold fart and belching contests. God bless the man who found a woman who wasn’t constantly nagging him to hold his gas.

  He’d thought about showing her the trick with the lighted match, but thought better of it. Scorching that amazing tail wasn’t his only concern. Between her long winded and malodourous farts and the amount of flammable fluff surrounding them, one lit match could take out the whole damn base in a meteoric display of epic proportions.

  He smiled happily. Ahnyis was damn near perfect for him.

  “Meteors. Holy shit!”

  Mason scrambled for the papers he needed and, except for the map, pencil, and ruler, swept everything else onto the floor.

  Ahnyis giggled and clapped her hands with glee. “Oooo, are you going to throw me onto the table and have your way with me? It would be just like the scene from Dervil’s Delight.”

  “Not right now, sweetcheeks.” Mason pulled Ahnyis to him and gave her a smacking kiss before turning back to his map and papers. “I think I’ve found the missing kids.”

  Chapter 27

  “Surprise!” Ahnyis and Mason shouted.

  Vochem said it, too, but without the enthusiasm. His smile fell into an unhappy frown, before Mason clapped him on the back in an uncharacteristic display of friendliness.

  “Don’t look so glum. You’ll enjoy it.”

  They were standing beside a skimmer. The open back of the roofed vehicle was loaded with blankets and boxes and what looked like might be a tent. It was difficult to tell since it was rolled.

  Mira looked at them as if they’d all gone crazy. A major battle was in the offing. Roark should be making sure that all was going as it should. The healers and doctor should be preparing for incoming wounded, shouldn’t they?

  The plans were all hush-hush, of course. Roark, and therefore his troops, weren’t supposed to know, but the dining room had been turned into a war room where one by one, Roark’s officers had met with him. Petrark and his group of handpicked security people had taken up residence in Roark’s office. Harm had been out coordinating training missions with the newly arrived troops since their ‘failures’ were obviously the cause of the recent campaign’s disastrous results. The whole camp had heard Roark’s opinions on that, violently, viciously, and in no uncertain terms. The place was in an uproar talking about it. Still, this didn’t seem like a good day for an outing.