Sleeping Beauty (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Beth D. Carter

  “Now,” she said as the elevator came to a stop. “Two questions. What’s the plan and how the hell are we going to clean up?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The service elevator opened on the seventh floor and Ronan looked first before exiting with Alivia by his side. To get to the main corridor they had to go through several passageways until finding the exit door.

  The trade stores looked the way they always had. Level six had all the stuff to buy new but level seven was where to go when cargo needed off-loading, trading, buying and selling. Ronan saw several men he knew and they all offered him a nod of greeting. These men had been friends with Tatum so when the burly, gruff captain had brought him onboard as an apprentice co-pilot, Ronan had learned to make nice. They had almost walked all the way around the station when he finally found Charter’s store.

  When he entered, Charter was talking to another customer. Charter went to raise a finger in the universal I’ll be right with you sign before he realized who it was. When he did, he cut the customer off midsentence with a hearty greeting.

  “Ronan, my boy!”

  Charter hurried over and threw his arms around him. Ronan smiled and hugged him back.

  “Hey, Charter. Long time no see.”

  Charter drew back to look at him but didn’t release his hold on Ronan’s arms. “Is everything all right? You look tired.”

  Charter’s eyes drifted over in Alivia’s direction and Ronan could see the question shining bright.

  “Alivia, this is my friend, Charter. Charter, Alivia.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” she said, smiling.

  He nodded at her. “Beautiful hair,” he murmured. “Reminds me of sunset. Back when I saw the sun, of course. No sunsets on this damn station.”

  “Charter, could I discuss business with you? Privately?”

  “Huh? Oh, yes!” Charter turned to the still-waiting customer. “So sorry, chap! Got special business with my young friend here, you see. I’m gonna have to give you a rain check on that merchandise.”

  “I’m not holding the merchandise, Charter,” the customer grumbled.

  “Yes, yes. So sorry.”

  With Charter’s firm, guiding hand, out the door the customer went, and Charter locked the door behind him. Then he turned to face Ronan and Alivia.

  “What’re you doing here again, Ronan? I thought Tatum made it perfectly clear for you never to come back to Tortuga.”

  “Don’t start, Charter,” Ronan said, holding up a hand. “My ship was hit by some damn pirates and we needed to make repairs.”

  “What were you doing in The Cold Lands?”

  “Noah heard something—”

  “Noah and his damn ears! You’ve got no sense, Ronan!”

  “I need your help.”

  Charter snorted. “Figured you didn’t stop by to reminisce.”

  “Noah was taken by a man named Max,” Ronan stated. “I tried getting him back but he seems to have collected some bodyguards.”

  Charter’s eyes narrowed. “Tenth floor Max?”

  Ronan nodded. “When did he get here?”

  “Near as I can remember, about the time you found Noah. Max arrived and systematically began killing off the ruling pimps of the Sin Floor. Now he’s the one everyone pays for the privileges of debauchery.”

  Ronan ran a weary hand over his face. “Noah has a past with Max. I have to get him out of there as quickly as possible, but there’re too many people and too many goons.”

  “So what were you thinking?”

  “Can we gas the whole tenth floor?”

  Charter blinked. “Come again?”

  “Put the whole tenth to sleep. I can collect Noah and we can get the hell off Tortuga, away from fucking Max and away from the man chasing us.”

  Charter cocked his head. “What man chasing you?”

  Ronan pursed his lips. He probably shouldn’t have said that.

  Charter held up his hands. “You know what? Probably best I don’t know. As for your little plan, well, it can be done, especially with a little monetary incentive. But give me some time to get it operational.”

  “All right,” Ronan replied. “I’ve got the money. Don’t worry about that. Plus I’ll give you the cargo I have for my thanks and your time. How long?”

  “I’ll let you know in a couple of hours. In the meantime, it might be best if you stayed out of sight.”

  “Okay. We’ll head to the ship. I’ll arrange with the dock master to hold the cargo for you. Flight deck four, hangar seven.”

  “Then I’ll see you in a bit. Oh, and…you might want to shower. Sorry but, you two reek.”

  * * * *

  They made it back to the hangar quickly, and maybe he was just being a paranoid shit but he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder every couple of seconds. He didn’t breathe easy until they were safely onboard and the hatch locked behind them. Only then did he unload his blasters, turning them off and putting them back in storage.

  Because they were in port, they had the opportunity to use real water for the shower. He let Alivia go first, giving her more of Noah’s clothes. They were going to have to get her some decent clothing soon. When it was his turn, he stood under the hot water, enjoying it ease the tension in his muscles.

  Once clean, he went to find her. She was using Noah’s brush on the tangles in her damp hair. Alivia watched him with those huge green eyes of hers, yet he couldn’t really tell what was going through her mind. There was a large part of him that wanted to go back out, storm the tenth floor until he found Noah. But he knew he had to play this wisely.

  “What’s going through that pretty head of yours?” he finally asked.

  “How do you know Charter?”

  He sighed. He knew this was coming. “I told you I lived on this station but actually, I was born here. All I know of my father was that he was high born, an enforcer, although my mother wasn’t sure which planet he served on. Anyway, he left and she was pregnant.”

  “You don’t know who he was?”

  “No. My mother said he had a tattoo on his shoulder, crossed swords or something. That’s all I know. So I grew up on Tortuga and the prospects for my future were pretty grim. I wasn’t very law abiding back then, if you get my meaning.”

  She gave him an I get it look. He grinned.

  “But I loved the ships,” he continued. “I loved the possibility of them and when I got to be a teenager I fantasized about taking one and getting the hell off this wasteland station.”

  He turned off all the lights and headed toward the rear of the ship, toward the galley. Alivia followed.

  “A little after my twentieth birthday I bumped into this old man, Tatum Hark, captain of this very ship, and he starts yelling at me to watch where I’m going and shit. So I back talk him, telling the old man to go to hell and all that. And then he decks me! Right there!”

  He laughed at the memory but she only blinked. He grabbed a bottled beer from the cooler and offered it to her. When she said no, he opened it and downed a deep drink.

  He burped. “Excuse me. So there I am, flat on my back, my jaw hurting like a son of a bitch with this old geezer smirking at me. Told me I should’ve ducked. And then he offers me a job, cleaning the hull of his ship.”

  “Did you take it?”

  He nodded, taking another smaller sip of his beer. “It was backbreaking, grueling work but I did it. The fucker stiffs me on the money he’d promised so instead I ask for a driving lesson.”

  “Did he follow through?”

  “Oh yeah. A year later, he offers me a position as his assistant.”

  “And that’s how you got the ship?”

  “Yeah. Tatum took me under his wing, showed me everything about this ship. Made me learn about the engine because his philosophy was that every captain had to know how his ship ran.”

  He fell silent as the memories swamped over him. Tatum had turned his life around and he missed the old dude.

  “He die
d?” she asked softly.

  “He got sick and I took him to his old friend, Valin. There wasn’t anything the doc could do. When Tatum died, I inherited the ship.”

  “And his name?”

  “I didn’t have a last name,” he said with a shrug. “Figured the old man was like my dad so why not honor him? Ronan Hark has a nice ring to it, don’t ‘cha think?”

  He winked and she chuckled.

  “What’s your last name?” he asked her.

  Immediately, the amusement faded from her features. “Who do you think I am?”

  “Ah. Twenty questions?”

  She waited, staring at him.

  “Okay,” he relented. “You’re a royal, maybe a bastard. I was able to connect to the station’s webdata and read up on Marvala. There were three kingdoms that ruled on the planet, but the alpha one, for lack of a better word, was Carian. King Elwin and Queen Marias’s reign was one of peace, prosperity, sunshine, and goodness. And then the king’s evil cousin sweeps in and brings about an army big enough to defeat the monarchy.”

  He watched her closely but she kept her eyes downcast, hands fiddling with the brush.

  “When the king was killed the crown reverted to his younger brother,” he continued. “But he was struck down as well and then…there wasn’t anyone else. The cousin took the throne.”

  He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t ask her any questions or demand she tell him who she was. Tears slid down her cheeks and he hadn’t the heart to push her further. So he gathered her in his arms and wrapped them around her shivering body. He rested his cheek on top of her head and they sat there for a long time. Long enough for her tears to dry and for the rest of his beer to go flat.

  Damn, he didn’t want to have been right.

  “Can I sleep with you tonight?” she asked.

  He tensed. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  She lifted her head to look at him. “Please? I don’t want to be alone.”

  His determination to keep her at arm’s length until Noah was back and they’d had a chance to talk wavered. Sadness lingered in those beautiful eyes and he longed to wipe it away.

  “Okay,” he heard himself agreeing. What the fuck?

  He rose, lifting her into his arms and carried her toward the bedroom. It was big enough for two people, sparse like the rest of the ship. He and Noah didn’t need a lot of room and they didn’t really have all that much in possessions. He laid her down on the bed and unlaced her boots for her, sliding them off and setting them near the door. He did the same to his and then he stretched out next to her.

  Damned if he’d get any sleep with her body next to his.

  She turned on her side to stare at him. He could feel her eyes caressing him. Fuck! His resolve was never going to last.

  “How did you know you wanted to make love with Noah?”

  He blinked and turned to look at her, shocked at the question. “Um, what?”

  “Noah. When did you know you wanted him as a lover?”

  “That’s quite a question,” he told her, trying to stall as his brain caught up with the answer. “Well, after Valin healed him I offered to take him anywhere he wanted to go. But he said he didn’t have anywhere to go so I kept him.” He smiled at the memory. “He was so skinny. Flesh and bones. I fed him, made him stronger. He suggested salvaging wrecks.”

  “You became business partners?”

  “Yes. For two years we were just friends. Noah had gone though a lot of shit and needed to heal. And then one day…one day he kissed me. And I couldn’t believe how lucky I was that I’d found him and that he was now mine.”

  “You are lucky,” she murmured. “You and Noah are beautiful together.”

  His gaze captured hers.

  “He and I feel something for you, Alivia,” he boldly told her. “Something I never thought I’d find once, let alone twice.”

  She didn’t answer him. Instead, she lifted her arms and encircled his neck to give him a little kiss on the lips. Holy fuck, she was mouthwatering. She ran her tongue ran along his bottom lip, licking and setting his body on fire. He opened for her, his own tongue colliding with hers in a tangle of wet heat. His fingers tangled in her hair to pull her more firmly against his body and her curves melted into his hard angles. He ground his hips into the juncture of her thighs, parting them and allowing him to fit more snugly against her hot center. Shit, he needed to get closer to her. He needed to taste her. He broke off the kiss to stare down into her now-shadowed eyes.

  “I want to know what you taste like,” he whispered. “I want to lick you and eat you until you come on my tongue so I can discover your flavor.”

  She whimpered and her hips surged upward in wordless agreement. Excitement surged through him, making his hands slightly shake. He bent his head and kissed her cheek, over her jaw and down her neck, giving little flecks with his tongue over her skin.

  “God, you’re so fucking sexy,” he crooned. “I love how soft your skin is.”

  His hand slipped under her shirt, tracing over her ribs until he found the curve of her breast. He cupped the shape, molding her to his palm as he gently squeezed. Her nipple pebbled under the thin tank of her undershirt and he traced over the turgid peak with his fingertip. She arched and gasped. He pushed her shirt up, revealing her perfect breasts, the tips pointed in invitation. He bent his head and closed his mouth over one, lavishing it with his tongue and teeth, tugging tenderly until she lay beneath him writhing.

  He sat back for a moment to sweep her bare from the waist up. She lay bathed in the faint glow of the room, a goddess of beauty. Her nipples were ripe little berries, made redder by his sucking. She held her hands up toward him and he returned to her breasts, unable to get enough of them.

  Soon, his hands began to wander down. He unbuckled her pants and pushed them down. She lifted her hips so he could push them further, and then he left her chest to kiss his way down her flat tummy, taking a moment to dip his tongue into her belly button. All the while, his hands were tugging off her pants.

  As he continued his downward path, he bypassed the apex of her thighs, where he could smell her musk beckoning him. God, he wanted nothing more than to sink his steel-hard cock into her wet cunt and pump her until they both splintered apart. But whatever sanity he had left raised a red flag. He couldn’t take her virginity here, in some dump heap station and he definitely couldn’t take her without Noah beside him. They were partners, in every sense of the word. And although he knew Noah had feelings for Alivia, they hadn’t gotten around to talking about the items they’d agreed to when they decided to become lovers.

  One of those hard limits had been no other sexual partners.

  And he knew, technically, what he was about to do with Alivia was a violation of that agreement in an abstract way, but damned if he could keep the logistics straight. His higher brain functions fled. He was going to make damn sure she would turn all gooey at the thought of him, that she would invite him and Noah back into her arms and into her body very, very soon. Once her pants were off, he returned to where her thighs clenched together.

  “Open for me, sweetheart,” he murmured enticingly.

  Exerting a little pressure, she slowly relaxed and let her legs open. He got his first glimpse of her pretty pussy, all plump and swollen with her desire. Moisture glistened around the curls covering the hood. He ran a finger gently through them, barely brushing against her slit and a moan erupted from her lips.

  “Fuck, you’re wet,” he murmured. Then he kissed her, right on the spot he’d just touched and her hips jerked up, bumping against him.

  “Ronan,” she breathed. “Oh, Ronan.”

  “You taste so damn sweet, honey.”

  He pressed his tongue against her again, as far as it would stretch, dipping a little into the slit. She moaned again and the little sound took him over the edge. He had to fully taste her now.

  “I’m going to stick my tongue in you now,” he told her. “I want you to come
so I can lap up your cream. Let yourself go, baby, as many times as you can.”

  Using two fingers, he spread her until he found her clitoris, and then proceeded to lick her, like a cat licking cream. As soon as his tongue rasped against her sensitive nub, her body arched like it had touched a live wire. Her hands buried in his hair, pulling it almost too aggressively. But he loved it. It gave everything an edge that pumped through his blood, lighting him on fire. He licked and sucked her in, sliding one finger into her heat. She bucked against his hand.

  “Ronan!” she cried.

  “Fuck, you taste like candy.” He moaned, blowing against her weeping core and causing her to shiver. “So good. So wet, so hot. Jesus, so fucking tight!”

  He pushed another finger inside and took her little clit between his teeth, sucking hard.

  “Ronan, please!” she begged. “I need…”

  “I know what you need, baby. I want to give it to you. Let go, Alivia. Come for me, sweetheart. Give me your cream.”

  He began licking, up and down, driving his tongue in and over her nub. He worked her, until her little cries were echoing all around. Her body tightened beneath him and he could feel her quivering around his fingers. He blew against her again and immediately she broke apart.

  He had never seen anything more sensual, more desirable, than Alivia in the throes of bliss. When her body finally relaxed and she sagged back onto the blanket, he eased up his torment but he didn’t withdraw from her body.

  Putting his hands under her knees, he pushed back her legs and scooted up until they hung over his arms. Then he dropped his head over her wet pussy and began his attack anew. He flicked her clit in quick, repetitive motions, making her scream in pleasure. Her cream ran and he lapped it up. He sucked on the little bundle of nerves and she splintered apart again. She tasted so damn good and he loved having her come apart in his arms. Damn if he wanted to stop.

  When she collapsed he finally pulled back and let go of her legs, wiping his face on the sleeve of his shirt. He was so fucking hard that it was actually painful to sit in such a position, so he eased onto his side and tried to adjust himself. She cracked her eyes opened.