“Yes, of course there will. I bought you for sex,” she replied without preamble, sticking to her own cover story.
It sounded a little too well rehearsed, even to Nell’s ears.
He nodded down at his lean, well-muscled hips, his flat stomach and smooth thighs. “When did you expect me to start work?”
The flood of heat that swept up from her chest to flush her neck and face caught Nell completely by surprise. It was made worse by the fact that she seemed more disconcerted than he did.
“I didn’t want to rush you.” She felt the evasive words tumble out of her mouth before she could stop them. “You’ve been ill.”
Pathetic. Nell cringed silently. What was it about this man that left her fumbling for the right words?
His gasp of laughter made her start.
“Prefer women?” He was suddenly sympathetic and it was almost her undoing. “Don’t want Daddy to find out?”
“No!” Nell was indignant, a little shocked at his assumption. “Of course not… I mean…” She scowled, taking a step back in an effort to regain her legendary poise. “I don’t have to explain myself to anyone, least of all you.”
“Ah.” He smirked. “A nerve. What is it? Not a woman, then. A man… Maybe a man you can’t have?
“I don’t…”
“Don’t…or won’t?”
“I haven’t…”
“Haven’t?”
“I didn’t mean that! Of course I’ve… Not that I haven’t…”
“So you have?”
“No… I mean yes.” She glared at him furiously. What was it about this man? He was supposed to be cowed, uncertain. Not tying her in verbal knots.
“It couldn’t have been that good,” he observed with a sly smile.
Deep breaths, she told herself.
“It was perfectly adequate, thank you,” she replied in freezing accents. How dare he?
His effort at laughter, genuine laughter, made her jump. “Captain Thorn, you have a body made for love, for sex. So exquisite that even as I lie here, imprisoned in a cage, sedated with your evil-tasting medication, I know that ‘adequate’ would never be good enough for you.”
The man lay propped up on one arm, but his attitude was of a leader reclining on a throne rather than a captive in a cage, and the use of her formal name in such a context rattled her more than she cared to admit. The cage had a minimal structure so no software could be hacked to reveal anything about its occupants, or other general data obtained that could be used further.
It also meant she could not ignore him.
His words seemed to seep into her skin, making her senses prickle with awareness, her nipples hardening into aching tips as his words registered. “Who are you?” she finally asked him.
“You don’t know?” he quizzed, his attention seeming truly caught. “But, then, do you need to? It was no accident, was it? You turn up just in time to save me from slavers. You’ve obviously taken risks, performed days of sub-speed Rim-running to get me away from Egalita, and you do not even know my name.”
“I just follow my orders,” Nell snapped.
“And what is there to stop me leaving at the first opportunity that presents itself?”
“As I just said,” Nell told him through gritted teeth, “I follow my orders, and my orders are to escort you to a prearranged rendezvous.”
“These orders that not even a GEF Admiral is privy to?” He gave a low whistle, and Nell cursed the fact that he had obviously taken note of how vague she had been around her father, and had been capable of listening to what had been said on other occasions as well.
“Not everyone in the Fleet knows about every order issued.” She felt evasive even as she said it.
“Hmmm,” was his only response.
“So what is your name?” Nell asked him finally.
His gaze focused on her face, one eyebrow lifting to clearly show a sharp intelligence that had hitherto been missing. “If they’ve not told you, there must be good reason for it. It might be better if you don’t know my full name, but I think it’s safe enough for you to at least call me Rowe…”
* * * *
“Who is this man Rowe?” she asked Talbot, later.
“No one you will have heard of—yet,” her contact told her.
Nell got a sinking feeling deep in her gut.
“You are not attempting to manipulate Rim politics again, are you, Talbot?”
“No one can manipulate Rim politics, Helena, not even the Rim itself. Let’s just say I’m attempting to head off a future clash between GEF and Rim. The rendezvous coordinates will be coming through soon. It’ll probably mean a meeting at Sigma Alpha, as usual.”
“You’re not… It’s not a trap, is it?”
“Oh, Helena…” Talbot sighed and moved forward to switch off the commlink. “Don’t grow a conscience on me now.”
* * * *
It was the gasping sound of someone trying to desperately draw breath that woke him. Not the erratic, thudding sound of flailing limbs, or the low, rasping voice of a gloating assassin.
“Come on.” The voice was thick, coarse and unfamiliar. “That’s it, fight. Not so easy now, is it? Now you haven’t got all that security around you, at your beck and call.” The only response was the hoarse gasp of someone fighting for their life. “That’s it, pretty. I’m going to fuck you, then cut your throat as I come.”
Amateur, thought Rowe as he knocked the door of his prison off its hinges with one blow. A professional would not have wasted time with words.
She would have been dead by now.
Chapter Four
Nell was doing her best to fight the man sitting on her chest, but he had a good grip on her throat and was literally throttling the life out of her. As her vision blurred, the bed dipped and her attacker’s grinning face, with its macabre smile, was joined by another.
It was Rowe.
He was not smiling.
His muscular arm was around her assailant’s neck before she could blink, and it jerked with a sickly crack. The man’s eyes briefly registered surprise before his head lolled forward like that of a broken doll, and he fell to the floor with a loud thump. Nell slumped back onto her bed, sucking in huge gasps of welcome air, spots appearing before her eyes as every cell in her body woke to a welcome surge of oxygen.
“You… What are you doing?” she croaked furiously.
“Saving your life. He was killing you!”
“You stupid idiot, I do know that. You can get off me.” Nell fumed. “He’s not moving now, is he? You’ve broken his neck.”
“Yes, of course I have,” Rowe agreed, without a shadow of remorse, so sure that Nell regarded him with a frustrated scowl. Then she froze, her body becoming rigid as she felt how intimately Rowe pressed down on her, his muscular body straddling her thighs. Nell was aware of the heat from him seeping into her fear-chilled skin, and then the slow curl of desire that unfolded inside her as he shifted slightly, totally unaware of the effect he was having on her. Her eyes grew wide as he continued to glower back at her, his gaze narrowing at her thankless reaction.
“Believe it or not, this is not the first time it’s happened and I am armed.” She fished a laser gun out from under her pillow and brandished it under Rowe’s nose. “How will I find out who it was that sent him? Now that he’s dead, he won’t be saying much, will he?”
The adrenaline from her brush with death still pulsed through her body, but it was her GEF training and experience that kept her voice and nerves steady.
For now.
This time Rowe remained silent but his eyes said it all. Many would take death over interrogation by the Fleet any day. Rowe had probably done her failed assassin a favour.
They stared at each other in a long, drawn-out silence.
“I’ll call security,” Nell hissed finally.
She glared at him until he raised his hands in acceptance and climbed off her, then off the bed, without once turning his back to her.
/>
* * * *
Nell called a security detail and watched silently as her team dragged the body from her cabin. She felt sick, dirty, contaminated.
Also, she felt incredibly lucky.
If Rowe had not killed the man they would both be dead by now, as well as a large part of her ship destroyed. Her people had identified her would-be assassin as affiliated with a long-standing enemy of the Thorn family. His abdominal cavity had been rigged with a mass of surgically inserted explosives. Nell dreaded to think how it would have been triggered, and the subsequent damage that could have been caused to her space vessel as a result. She owed her mysterious guest a massive debt of gratitude.
She needed a wash.
Slowly Nell started to move, eyes closed, mind focused only on getting to the shower without breaking down in front of Rowe. She turned to enter the facility, and almost leapt out of her skin at the sight of the man himself sitting in silence on a low seat behind her, his face pensive.
“How long have you been there?” she gasped, clutching at her chest where her heart was drumming at a rate that could hardly be good for her.
“Long enough.” He paused. “You have great powers of self-control.”
A compliment?
“Thanks,” Nell said awkwardly before pulling at her sweaty vest top, her hands trembling slightly as she plucked it away from her skin without removing it. “Comes with the job. I’m…going to clean up now.”
She slammed on the shower and stood beneath it, the jets hammering down on her head and shoulders. At this point she would normally be feeling some relief from the frozen muscles in her neck, or maybe even crying her eyes out.
But she couldn’t do either with Rowe there, just as she couldn’t bring herself to remove the last pieces of her clothing with him watching her.
A hand gathered the vest top up and pulled it from her body, then pushed her hair away from her neck and started rubbing soap over her back in firm sweeps. Nell arched under Rowe’s hand, unable to contain a small gasp of surprise at the sensations raised on her skin by Rowe lathering her back, her shoulders.
“Rowe—” Initially she reached out to intercept his hand but he caught it in his, squeezing it gently before releasing it. Nell could feel the play of muscles in his naked chest as he pressed against her back, his hands then moving down to sweep across her stomach, across her breasts, rubbing her nipples briefly before moving down between her legs to soap her there.
Rowe held her clitoris gently between his fingers through the thin, wet cloth of her briefs, and abruptly all thought of what Captain Helena Thorn should do in this situation was lost to her. Nell could feel his erect cock digging into her as he moulded his body against hers. She shut her eyes and surrendered to the sensation created by the proximity of his body and roving hands, her breathless gasps the only sound apart from the hissing of the shower jets and the glide of the soap.
He traced the inside of her thighs; her legs were already apart in an effort to keep her balance on the wet floor. Slowly, tantalisingly, his index finger moved up towards her clitoris to rub the sensitive flesh there, gently, persistently arousing.
Nell could feel herself flushing. Her breath seemed non-existent and she had to inhale quickly to get another fix of precious oxygen. Rowe nuzzled her neck, and Nell felt him move to fill his hands to overflowing with her breasts, her nipples between his fingers.
“Oh…” The bolt of desire that ran directly from the tips of her breasts to the centre of her clit made her groan out loud. He moved his head down, his mouth latching on to one ear, then the other, sucking and nipping.
He thrust his large erect cock between her soapy thighs, rubbing her clitoris through her water-soaked underwear as he gathered her against his hard stomach. She was held, immobile, as Rowe rubbed his body against her and pushed the briefs down her legs to her knees. Nell felt the plump end of his cock roll against her soapy buttocks before it pushed into the crease in between them. Mindlessly, she tried to angle her hips to capture his thickness with her thighs, to direct him towards her hungry core, but he was too clever for her. Angling his thrust upwards, he moved his cock across her soapy backside, brutally squashing it between her cheeks as he pushed her against the tiled wall. He slipped two fingers into her and confidently found the sensitive spot just inside her pussy as he pinched her clit.
Nell came with a groan, gasping breathlessly as she felt him breathe into her ear one word. “Nell.”
With that Rowe climaxed, shooting his load over her soapy back and buttocks.
They stood there for a few moments in silence, breathing as heavily as if they had both been running a race, the water pouring down over them in a steamy cascade.
Rowe was the first to move, gently washing her once more from top to toe, removing her briefs from her legs before he left as silently as he had arrived.
“Oh, crap,” gasped Nell as she leaned, dazed and sated, against the wall of the shower. She felt confused, conflicted. The urge to cry had gone, but now a new sensation had come to take its place—the urge to follow Rowe back into her cabin and fuck him senseless.
Nell Thorn just might do that, but Captain Helena Thorn of the Galaxy Elite Fleet would not.
It was a rare moment of weakness in her normally ordered and ambitious existence, an emotional glitch.
Nell turned the shower to freezing cold and stood beneath the icy jets, her skin stinging as the chilled needles of water hit her skin.
She was in control.
Completely.
Forever.
Chapter Five
Half a standard annual cycle later…
“Hey, you!” Nell shouted at the lone barman in an imperious tone. “Why don’t you get over here and take some of these bags?”
The barman simply regarded her with a frosty glare, before flicking the cloth twice in his hand and resuming his efforts to clean the bar top. He spat on it for good measure and continued to rub.
It just about sums up my entire week!
Nell had just been ignominiously offloaded onto a grey, nondescript world that seemed to consist only of one docking station and a rather run-down bar facility. She had certainly seen much better on any number of other abandoned IGW colony planets, but then she wasn’t in the mood to ever feel good about this particular place. Not when she had just been dumped here in the middle of try-outs for the role of Area Sector Commander. In fact, Nell was positive that, at this particular moment in time, she would rather be anywhere in the known galaxies than on this particular IGW-forsaken world.
Another customer glanced up from his drink at the sight of her standing, at a loss, amidst her considerable collection of cases. Her face felt as if it were flushed an unprepossessing red from the exertion of carrying so much weight, and he was obviously waiting patiently for her to recognise him. It seemed to take somewhat longer than he had expected.
“Ahem!”
Now Area Commander Helena Thorn knew she was having a bad day.
“Talbot? What are you doing… How the hell did you know?” she snarled venomously, walking towards Talbot’s table after dropping all but one of her bags in the middle of the bar floor. “How could you know? I’ve only just been”—she threw the last bag at a chair with more aggression than accuracy—“offloaded.”
“I had heard dumped. I also heard there had been a big argument.”
“I was doing fine. The Sector Commander’s promotion was as good as mine until some nasty ingrate implied I was using my family connections to cut him out of the running.”
“And you weren’t?” Talbot’s note of surprise was clearly audible. “Is it possible for you not to use your Thorn family connections, Helena?”
Nell simply looked down her nose at Talbot, not even condescending to answer him.
The truth was that the big argument on her secondment to Sector had been to do with a rival implying her ‘packaging’ was starting to slip, and nothing to do with using her Thorn family connections at all. Nell
was starting to feel that she had spent her entire life trying to get the right type of recognition, attention for what she could do rather than what she looked like or who she was. She had had to style herself into the pushy, artificial bitch that the rest of the GEF knew so well. The Elite Fleet understood thrusting ambition, and it had worked in her favour. The last thing she wanted was to start looking like an ageing, desperate, pushy, artificial bitch.
“What did it really boil down to, then?” Talbot asked her.
Nell sighed, a long, weary sigh.
“He pointed out to me that no one would notice when his packaging started to slip.” Nell sat heavily in one of the many vacant chairs. “I pointed out to him that physically probably not, but that intellectually they would definitely notice he had little to start with…”
“Touché, Helena.” Talbot smiled wryly.
“He did seem to take exception to it.” Nell pulled a face. “But I don’t think it helped that I am almost certain he was sleeping with the Exercise Commander.”
Talbot rolled his eyes at her words.
“You don’t need this, Helena. You don’t need all the nasty politics and in-fighting of being a Sector Commander.” Talbot took another sip. “Stick with your new Area Commander remit for now. After all, it’s a rather ambitious step to be chasing Sector responsibility merely months after gaining the rank of Area Commander, don’t you think?” He took her silence to mean she might actually be listening to what he said. “Have you ever thought you might be sending out the wrong signals to those higher up, Helena?”
Nell looked the other way, her face grim.
“It was not your fault that Rim pirates attacked your ship last cycle. The attacks around the area of the Sigma Alpha Rim are notorious, and were particularly bad at that time.” He wiped a small trickle of liquid from the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “Rowe was always an opportunist. A way to escape presented itself, and he took it, that’s all.”
“I keep telling myself that. But it had all the markings of a setup,” she replied absently, her gaze still locked on to nothing in particular, “particularly the timing. Was he taken by someone else, or did he escape? If I had been in charge of the Sigma Alpha Sector, the Rim pirates would never have taken the risk of coming so far into Fleet space.”
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