The Breaking

by Imogen Keeper

  Blowing out a long breath, he headed into the bathroom.

  When he came out a few minutes later, she lay against the wall, facing him. Curled up, head resting on his pillow. He killed the lights and lay down beside her. His heart pounded hard enough to shake the bed.

  Scalpels and warts and bile. Big gaping wounds…

  Soft, warm skin. Smooth legs and a nice round ass.

  No. No. Disgusting things like… beautiful things… Perfect little tits with erect nipples I want to nibble and… He rolled onto his side so his back was to her, willing his cock to stop throbbing.

  After a moment, she moved in against him and pressed her forehead against the back of his neck. “Good night, Ay-shocks.”

  Her breath rippled against the bare skin of his back. His cock throbbed so hard he was surprised it didn’t snap off, sprout legs, and climb across the bed to cozy up closer to her.

  Her breath tickled his ears, and it took every ounce of power he possessed to keep his hips from thrusting as instinct and intellect fought a silent war in his skull.

  Fuck. This is going to be a long night.

  He bit back a groan when she sighed against him.

  She was torturing him. It had to be intentional.

  A few minutes later, the even rhythm of her breathing told him she was asleep… He—and more to the point, his cock—were not.

  11

  Sleep-pink and blinky.

  The dim hall of Sierra-Six’s healing bay echoed in the night. Chilly and sterile. Feola hesitated outside the doorway to her own room, waiting. Ajax had been in the room across the hall for a long time. Should she offer to help him?

  It had been a couple weeks since he’d woken her. She’d been among these massive aliens long enough to understand certain things about them. Long enough to see how Bonds worked. Long enough to understand the gleam in Ajax’s eyes when he looked at her, and the desire in Utto’s. Long enough to know their version of marriage was far deeper and stronger than anything on her home planet.

  Ajax was so gentle. She wanted to stay with him. To belong with him. She’d never belonged anywhere since Mamma’s death.

  When the door swished open, she jumped. He stepped into the hallway, scrubbing his hands through his hair in his familiar expression of unease. He looked stressed. And confused. And hot.

  With a curse that her translation device didn’t bother to interpret, he moved his hand down to his groin, cupping himself.

  His whole body froze, gaze locking on hers. Had she sucked in a breath or moaned?

  “Ajax—” Her gaze dropped to the muscles of his forearm, flexing and cording. What had he been thinking about? Her? Her cheeks heated.

  Something moved behind his eyes, lust, resolve, determination? He crossed the hall in a single stride, reached out a hand, took her head in his palm, and yanked her against him. Her body bowed. When he lowered his mouth, she whimpered and parted her lips. He tasted like spices. His tongue against hers was softer than velvet.

  “Ajax—” she tried to whisper, but he kissed her again, silencing her with hard hands on her body, grinding that thick hard ridge against her belly. She couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t care. Who needed to breathe when they could have Ajax?

  He backed her up against a wall, all panting breath and wild savage need. Her head spun as he pushed his hand up her dress.

  “Feola,” he whispered reverently, the way one said the name of a god they worshiped. Imploring, desperate, loving.

  Only it wasn’t Ajax’s hand anymore. Nor was it his voice. It shifted like a writhing beast in her ears and became another male’s voice.

  She was back in Utto’s bathroom on Romeo-Two, bent over the sink.

  Rennie’s hand slid up her thigh over her bare skin, pressing inside her folds, his breath hot on her back. “That’s right, spread your thighs for me so I can see your pretty cunt. Utto will be gone for hours. Just you and me.”

  Her hand wrapped around the handle of the knife in the pillowcase…

  She woke on a piercing inhale, drenched in sweat and breathing as if she’d been running from an army of Rennies.

  Veiled in the safety of darkness, she stared up at the shadowed ceiling above. Rennie is gone. Rennie is gone. Utto can’t hurt me. Ajax is here.

  There was no obvious sense of time on Ajax’s ship. Without a sun, there was no morning. No night. Only dark time in endless space, measured away by civilization’s feeble attempts to track it, control it.

  There was surely a clock somewhere, but she didn’t know where.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep or when they would rise. It didn’t matter. Ajax’s body was warm and solid, and the steady din of the ship soothed. Every second put them farther away from Utto.

  She’d gladly lie beside him forever, letting the calm flow from his sleeping body into hers, letting him eat away all her sins. It had been so easy to forget them for a few moments the night before. To pretend they were a normal man and woman, without months of pain and confusion between them. He made everything seem so safe and so normal that she’d almost forgotten about Utto and Rennie and all of it.

  With a sleepy murmur, Ajax rolled onto his back, and she curled into his side. His big arm tucked around her, drawing her body close until her leg lifted and the cleft between her legs pressed against his hard thigh.

  His big hand palmed her bottom, the heat burning through her body as if invisible cords stretched between every place his body touched and her burning core.

  She pulsed so hotly in her cunt that her head swam. Rennie’s word. Utto had always said pussy. It had always seemed dirty. She didn’t have another word for it. On Triannon, well-bred ladies had always just called it down there.

  Though, maybe if Ajax called it a cunt or a pussy, in his deep mellifluous voice, it wouldn’t sound so bad. Or maybe he had some other word for it.

  Heat that had nothing to do with her need for serum, and everything to do with Ajax, fluttered through her belly.

  She wanted him. She wanted her hands on him. And his on her—all over her. She’d never felt like this with Utto. With him it had been all serum, but with Ajax, it was constant. He deserved to feel this with someone else. Someone who didn’t look at people and see their potential to cause pain. Someone fresher to love him.

  Something dark and animalistic rose within her at the thought, until her conscience subsided and desire reigned. It would be right for him to be with someone kinder, but the thought made her want to claim him now, take him inside her and tie him to her forever.

  The shirt had ridden up to her waist, leaving her bare down below. Her hot skin pressed against his hard thigh. Her hips pushed against him, calling to her in an ancient rhythm. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to still. Not appropriate to hump a sleeping man.

  She took a deep breath as her fingers, summoned by a force all their own, slid across his stomach under the covers. Even as he slept, his belly was layered with rigid muscles; she’d been right. His bare skin was smooth and fire hot. She rubbed her nose against his side, breathing in the smell of spices, trees, and his own special man-musk. Addictive.

  More pulsing and heat and panting. For once, Utto was silent across the Bond. He must be sleeping, praise the gods.

  Ajax shifted a bit, and her knee bumped into something even harder. Something big that called like a magnet. She wanted to press against it.

  He grunted, and the sound went straight to that throbbing place.

  He stiffened. “Feola?”

  The darkness hid the furious blush riding her cheeks. She’d woken him up practically humping him. What is wrong with me?

  “Is it morning?” His voice was sleepy soft and gruff. Rumbly. Just like the first time, when she’d woken to see his face after a five-hundred-year-long nap.

  His grip on her bottom tightened, and she pressed her hips against him, couldn’t stop it.

  “I don’t know. How would I tell?” She kept her voice at little more than a whisper.<
br />
  “Has the alarm sounded?” His voice sounded strained. He must be so tired, and she’d just woken him with her selfishness.

  “I don’t think so. I haven’t heard anything.”

  “Then it’s still night.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Are you all right?”

  She swallowed. No. Not all right at all. She needed him or something. Needed something… him… to fill the emptiness.

  He took a deep breath. “Do you need—”

  She shook her head, fast, before she could change her mind. “No, Ajax. I’m fine. Sorry for waking you. Let’s go back to sleep.”

  He exhaled something that sounded like a laugh, and that hot, hard length jerked against her knee. She pressed her bare, damp skin against his thigh. Could he tell?

  His hand tightened, pulling her hips closer.

  Would it be wrong to pretend to need his serum?

  She may not need it, but she really wanted it. A wave of heat crashed down below.

  Her chest burned as Utto’s emotions bucked. He was angry, no doubt having endured her arousal beating in his chest. She smiled grimly. Good. Feel it, bastard. Wonder.

  Ajax released a strangled moan, as if he were in pain, and wrapped his other arm around her. He pressed a kiss to her temple, extricating her arm and turning her so that she faced away from him. He looped a lazy arm around her waist, but didn’t press any closer.

  She frowned at the wall in front of her as her body throbbed angrily.

  The next time she opened her eyes, Ajax exited the bathing chamber, a towel draped low and loose around his hips. He moved silently, pushing the hatch closed. Light pooled along the bottom and sides of the frame, washing over the cold, hard surfaces of the room, and the warm, smooth surfaces of Ajax.

  When he shifted, every muscle—from his corded calves to his ridged abdomen to his sculpted arms—rippled and flexed.

  Her mouth dropped.

  The man didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. Not one. Smooth skin lay taut over muscle and bone. Deep twin ridges curved inward from his hipbones in an arrow headed straight for his groin.

  His arms flexed as he pulled briefs from a shelf. He turned, dropping the towel, and stepped into the shorts.

  She puffed out a breath, and his head pivoted toward her. The shorts rode low. A soft, knowing smile lurked at the corner of his lips.

  He stalked toward her, smooth and easy, graceful as a wild animal, running a hand over still-damp hair. “Morning.”

  She dragged her eyes from the dips of tendons and muscle in his shoulders. “Did you sleep well?”

  A smile lingered at the corner of his lips. “It was a good night. Are you hungry?”

  She nodded.

  His smile stretched. He tilted his head in the direction of the hatch and the galley that lay across the passageway. “Let’s go eat.”

  She pulled at the neck of his shirt, hanging loose over her shoulder. “Like this?” The shirt covered her nearly to her knees, but she was completely bare beneath it. Hardly adequate attire for a meal.

  “Why not?” Something moved in his eyes, almost like he was goading her. “I like you in my clothes.” He gestured that she should go first.

  She stepped carefully from the bed, enjoying the burning weight of his eyes on her back as he followed her from the room. She couldn’t help that her hips swayed just a bit wider for him.

  In the galley, he poured a mug of eeffoc and pulled out some serrichol berries, while she spread nut-butter on toast.

  He leaned a hip against the counter, overtly comfortable in his near nudity.

  Something was different about him. Something had changed overnight.

  He handed the mug to her, and she couldn’t tell if she’d imagined it or not, but she’d have sworn his eyes dropped briefly to her breasts.

  Veins ran down the front of his biceps as they flexed with his motions. She dropped her gaze to the line of hair that ran down the center of his belly, darkening and widening to disappear into the waistband of his shorts.

  She swallowed a big gulp of eeffoc and nearly choked at the heat.

  Ajax’s turquoise eyes narrowed at the corners, and a dimple appeared for a split second in his unshaven cheek.

  He poured a second mug of eeffoc. His gaze lingered on her breasts, where her nipples pressed hard and tender against the shirt.

  She hadn’t imagined it this time. Her whole body sizzled. Wet heat rushed between her thighs. She pressed a hand to her flaming cheek. She couldn’t think straight. Her nipples burned under the weight of his eyes.

  “You’re pretty in the morning,” he said, deep and velvety. He kept his mug and stepped closer to her, invading her space, stopping when his hips were a hand’s width away and his shoulders blocked out her view of anything but him. He trailed a finger over her cheek to smooth back a strand of hair. “All sleep-pink and blinky.”

  “‘Sleep pink and blinky’? That makes me sound like a splirantu.”

  “A what-who?” He sipped his eeffoc but didn’t back away at all.

  “A splirantu—fuzzy little animals that live in the trees of the forests back home. They’re pink. They sing and blink a lot.”

  He licked his lips, stepping closer. She caught her foot in midair as she tried to step back. That was the old Feola. The new Feola didn’t retreat. Not even from Ajax.

  “Sounds like you. Cute.”

  The counter pressed against her back; she must have retreated anyway. Ajax loomed everywhere else. She tilted her head, trapped, meeting his smiling eyes.

  Something brushed against her belly, and her mouth went dry.

  “I want to kiss you, Feola.”

  She blinked.

  “But you know what will happen if I do?” His hand closed over her hip, his thumb stroking her belly through the shirt. “Your body will respond to the natural aphrodisiacs on my tongue. You’ll get hot, and you’ll want more.” He spoke slowly, druggingly, and he smelled so good. Her eyes drifted half-shut. “And so will I. We won’t be able to stop.”

  She was already very hot, already wanting more. He’d woven a spell around her. Made her forget all the fear and guilt and shame.

  “I want to give you my serum, Feola. So badly my balls are blue, and I barely slept last night thinking about it.”

  She stilled, trapped in the hypnosis of his vibrant eyes, her heart pounding a primitive beat.

  “I realized something last night, lying beside you. Smelling you, when you rubbed against me. You want me, and not just for my serum. I want to touch you, Feola. I want to touch you everywhere. Tell me you want me, so I can touch you. Now, while you have a choice. Not later, when your body’s sick and you need me for serum.”

  She blinked again, heat rushing straight between her thighs.

  He dropped his mouth to her forehead, touched his nose to her hair, breathing hard. His morning-stubbled jaw grazed down her cheek. His lips roved her neck, behind her ear.

  She gasped, arching up, pressing against his thick bulge. When he closed his teeth around her earlobe, his breath tickled on her skin and she moaned aloud. Foolish, nonsensical, animal sounds. He was the only man who’d ever touched her like this, as if she were something special, not an object to be fondled. There was nothing to fear from Ajax.

  “Tell me,” he purred in her ear. “Tell me you want me. I need to hear you say it.”

  She didn’t even hesitate. She’d wanted him forever. “I want you. Now. Not just for your serum.”

  For a split-second he pulled back with wide, hungry eyes. He growled, low and savage, his hands curled around her arms.

  He kept his eyes on hers as he lowered his lips to hers. Her knees trembled.

  His big hands smoothed over her back and down, over the rise of her bottom, lifting and pulling so her hips could rock against him. And it wasn’t nearly enough to cool the burn.

  His lips met hers, and though his hands weren’t gentle, his mouth was.

  Too gentle. She pressed her ha
nds against his chest, slid them up over the rise of his collarbone, dragging him closer.

  His tongue stroked hers, and he groaned, deep in his throat, lifting her up higher as he straightened, so their mouths were at the same height. She wrapped herself around him, giving back every single thing he gave, stroking him with her tongue, gasping when he set her on the counter. Her legs circled his waist, her hands pulled him closer. She wanted more because when his mouth was on hers she couldn’t think. She couldn’t feel anything but him, and the hardness that pressed against her core. And it felt like freedom and safety and heaven in a single overpowering dose.

  Tearing his mouth from hers, he whipped the shirt over her head and, at the sight of her exposed body, growled again. His gaze roved her breasts, stopped between her legs.

  “You’re so beautiful.” He pushed her thighs wider, pulling her forward so her tender, now-bared flesh pressed against his thick brief-covered ridge. She panted. He ground against her, and she dragged his mouth back to hers.

  He tasted delicious, like eeffoc and mints. And himself. She remembered that from the last time he’d kissed her. His smooth tongue stroked against hers. His hand closed around her breast, and she gasped into his mouth, smiling when he moaned.

  It was so wrong. She shouldn’t let this happen. He deserved more, but she couldn’t resist him.

  She pressed into him, writhing her breast against his palm, grinding her hips against his big, hard length. His hands were in her hair, and on her back, on her breasts. He was everywhere, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted more of him. She wanted everything. Her brain shut up, and her body took over.

  Maybe the aphrodisiacs kicked in—she really couldn’t tell, because she wanted him every bit as much as she had the first time he’d kissed her, and again when she’d laid beside him last night. Maybe she didn’t need his aphrodisiacs. She just wanted him.

  She worked her hands into the back of his briefs, dragging them down, and he let out a long, low growl, breathing hard. “Wait,” he gritted out, freezing.

  “What?” She couldn’t think. The air between them was cold. She tried to pull him closer, but he was too strong. “Ajax, please.” She scooted closer, across the counter, pathetically desperate.