He unlaced his fingers and drummed them on the counter. “If we aren’t able to take the Black Star quickly, or if we take it but not before the others get here, then it won’t be easy. Fighting three warships at once definitely wouldn’t be ideal. Strikken and Patel are captaining two of them. I don’t know the new commander, but those two are smart. They’ll give us trouble.”
“So, we have to capture the Black Star quickly,” Jerick said. “Seems simple enough to me.”
“Not to me,” Skylar murmured.
“We need to load all our men into the shuttle, fly over there, and convince them to take us aboard, preferably without realizing we have a strike team along.”
Skylar wrinkled her brow. “Why would they invite the shuttle in? Wouldn’t they assume you’re coming to do exactly this?”
“Yes, we have to find a way to make the old Trojan-horse ploy work.” Cortez gazed thoughtfully at her. “I had the thought that a hostage might escape or claim to have escaped. That person, and her pilot friend, could fly over with a strike team hiding in the rear of the shuttle. But I don’t want to volunteer you for that. Or make you regret your friendship with us.”
Skylar opened her mouth but closed it again without saying anything.
“My other thought is that I could pretend to surrender myself,” Cortez said. “I don’t know if Falconer would believe I’d do that. Also, as much as I appreciate trickery in battle, to outright lie to a fellow fleet commander—someone who was once a fellow fleet commander—smacks of dishonor. I know we’re in a perilous situation and need a way out, but it’s hard to swallow having to use deceit.”
Jerick patted him on the shoulder. “I’ve got another idea.”
“Oh good. The mind that thought this up—” Cortez held up the lumpy grenade, “—has an idea.”
“If you mock me, I won’t share it with you.”
Cortez and Skylar both looked at him.
“What is it?” Cortez asked. “I’m done mocking.”
“A criminal slated for the death penalty, being a rather desperate man, could escape in the shuttle, offering intel on you or whatever we deem would entice them in exchange for freedom.”
“You?”
“I suppose Haywood or Donovan could do it, but they truly would sell you out for freedom.” Jerick smirked. “So I escape in the shuttle—guess I’d need to take the pilot who absolutely loathes me along—with your strike team hiding in the cargo area. I get invited into the warship, come out with my hands up, then drop some of Skylar’s special vials. Everyone in the shuttle bay passes out, and your team charges in, wearing spacesuits so they’re not affected by the gas. The rest would be up to your burly heroes since I’d be drooling on Falconer’s boots in my sleep.”
Cortez propped his elbows on the counter, interlaced his fingers again, and rested his chin on his knuckles.
Jerick imagined him running calculations, debating which of the possible scenarios was more likely to get them to their goal. Any one of them would be difficult, and Jerick fully admitted there were dozens of ways his plan could go wrong. He believed his idea was better than Cortez’s—Falconer would be more likely to fall for it—but even if it worked, there was a lot of hubris in believing they could defeat a crew of over a hundred soldiers with their small team.
As Skylar had pointed out, why would Fleet even think of letting them in? No matter how they played this, the shuttle couldn’t be much of a Trojan horse. The fleet soldiers would be too ready for double-crossing.
“I think,” Skylar said into the silence stretching between them, “that having me be the one to contact the other ship and claim to have escaped would be most likely to be believed.”
“That’s a given,” Cortez said, “but we’re not asking you to do it. I can’t think of any way we could spin it to make it look like we made you do it.”
“You’d just have to make sure you succeed and take me with you on this cross-galaxy adventure you have planned.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She looked worried and uncertain of her offer.
“We have to plan for every contingency, including failure,” Cortez said. “My career is already ruined. I don’t want to ruin another one.”
Jerick agreed with it all, that using her would be more likely to work, but that it was also unacceptable. If he and Cortez and all the cyborgs died in a spectacular battle out here, she had to be allowed to go back to her world and her life, preferably unscathed.
Once she was safely there, he and Cortez would be but a strange memory for Skylar. She could go back to her game universe and maybe find another man who kissed her “fine” and who wouldn’t leave her at the altar.
He gazed at her, the thought saddening him, but not as much as the thought of her ending up in jail, or worse, because she’d associated with them.
“Jerick,” Cortez said, nodding to himself as if he’d made his decision, “we’ll go with your plan. Somebody is sure to remember that you served with me, but I doubt anyone there knows we were as close as we were. And after years in prison, and your execution pending, it seems believable that a desperate man would do just about anything for a chance at freedom.”
“That’s right.” Jerick nodded, pleased with the decision. Better that he go into danger than Skylar. The gods of the universe knew that he didn’t have anything left to lose. He looked at the two of them, a feeling of sadness and longing pinging at his heart. Maybe it was more accurate to say that a couple of days ago, he’d had nothing to lose. Now… he would try to find a way to win. One way or another. “I can be convincing.”
“Good.” Cortez patted him on the shoulder, then looked at Skylar. “I—we—do appreciate you offering to help us. Again.” He rested his hand on her forearm.
“I just want you to have the best chance at making it.” She met Jerick’s eyes. “I think you deserve happiness, a place to be free and to be yourselves.” Her gaze shifted to Cortez again. “You both do.”
Jerick grinned. “Don’t you love that she cares about us?”
“Yes,” Cortez said without hesitation, gazing into Skylar's eyes.
Her cheeks reddened again, and she looked down. Cortez touched two fingers to her chin, lifting her face, brushing her lips with his thumb.
Skylar licked her lips, her tongue touching his thumb, and he froze. Jerick smirked, imagining his stoic captain getting harder than a rock. Maybe his fantasy would play out, after all.
Skylar glanced at him. Cortez’s eyes narrowed as he followed that glance.
“What were you two doing in here before I came? It couldn’t have taken more than three seconds to come up with that grenade.”
“There was a battle to fight.” Jerick waved toward the corridor, certain Cortez must have seen the smashed drone in the bag. “And then Skylar insisted that I share my life’s story with her before she would kiss me.”
“Kissing? I knew it.”
Jerick couldn’t tell if he was jealous or just hoped that one of them would kiss him. He looked more like a detective who had put together the clues in a satisfactory way rather than a jealous lover. Jerick wondered if maybe Cortez had been having fantasies of his own about finding them naked in the armory and walking in and joining them.
“Who’s your favorite superhero?” Skylar asked, touching Cortez’s face.
His brows drew together, but he promptly said, “Superman.”
“I thought it might be,” she said and kissed him.
It didn’t take long for thoughts of kissing and touching to return to Jerick’s mind. He eyed the countertop that had starred in his earlier fantasies. It didn’t look very comfortable, vials and grenades notwithstanding. He supposed they could find an unused bed somewhere, but he didn’t know if he could lure Cortez into something as sybaritic as a bedroom, not when he was on a mission. A mission they dared not fail.
Of course, as their kiss went on, Jerick started to wonder if he would be invited to join in if Skylar and Cortez decided to spend the hours until t
he shuttle was repaired entangled in the throes of passion. Skylar had kissed him, but now she was kissing Cortez. Maybe he was forgotten. Maybe Superman was preferable to the Winged Ranger.
He must have made some disgruntled noise because their lips parted, and they looked over at him as one. He didn’t know if he would be asked to leave or invited to come closer.
Back in sickbay, with painkillers roaming his system and making his thoughts blurry, it had seemed the most natural thing to slip an arm around Skylar from behind, to touch what wasn’t being touched, to kiss the sweet skin of her throat.
He looked at her now, silently asking what she wanted, sensing Cortez would go along with whatever it was. She hesitated, then lifted her fingers, wiggling them slightly. Uncertainly? An invitation, but she didn’t seem to entirely know her own mind. Maybe this was untrod territory for her too.
Jerick left his side of the counter and joined them on theirs, resting his hand on Cortez’s back for a moment before taking a position on the other side of her. She gripped Cortez’s arm, but then shifted toward Jerick, lips parting, eyes meeting his. A thrill of excitement surged through his body. She wanted him. She wanted both of them.
13
Once again, Skylar found herself pressed between the two men, their bodies exquisitely hard against hers, their muscular arms roaming her sides, her back, brushing her breasts through her shirt. It was surreal and yet already seemed familiar, right. She marveled that they both wanted her, that they didn’t mind sharing. Or maybe it was that they’d wanted each other in some abstract way for years, but neither had quite known how to solve that equation, and having her in the middle made the sums add up for them.
She had no idea if a lasting relationship could be built like this, or if she was insane for thinking of going off to distant and unknown stars with them, but she did know that her body had never responded like this before, never grown so excited by a man’s touch. Nor had she ever felt so appreciated, almost revered, as if in choosing not to fight against them, she’d done some magnificent thing that they would never forget. She didn’t think it had been that grand a decision, to choose not to condemn them to prison and death, but if they appreciated it, and appreciated her for it, who was she to object?
No one, the thought whispered through her mind as one of Jerick’s hands drifted down to her ass, cupping her, massaging her through her pants. His other found the buttons of her shirt, and tendrils of heat twirled and tightened in her body as she remembered the last time she’d been shirtless in front of them. She vowed to get their shirts off this time. Cortez’s shirt, anyway. She had yet to see Jerick with a shirt on. Not that she’d minded.
Anticipation hummed through her as she imagined exploring their naked bodies. Cortez shifted closer to her, his hands stroking and rubbing, one sliding under her shirt in the back, finding the fastener for her bra. But he hesitated, running a finger under the strap but not undoing it yet. The soft scrape of his nails on her skin sent thrills of pleasure through her.
Even as she kissed Jerick, his hungry lips growing more demanding against hers, she turned slightly, just enough to unbutton Cortez’s shirt, eager to touch his naked chest.
He caught her hand, rubbing the back with his thumb. His other hand warmed the bare skin of her back, his finger still toying with the fastener of her bra. “Are we doing this in here?”
Skylar could guess what Jerick’s answer would be, since the prison pants didn’t hide much, and his hard length was pressed against her hip. She thought about shifting so it pressed against a more sensitive area, but she was determined to explore Cortez’s chest first.
“You don’t find the scent of a hot woman mingled with the scents of explosives and gun oil stimulating?” Jerick asked, sliding her shirt off her shoulder.
Cortez gazed down at her chest, and Skylar had the urge to arch her back, to thrust her breasts out so they could better peruse them. Her hard nipples poked against the fabric of her bra. This time, it didn’t embarrass her.
Jerick followed Cortez’s gaze, sliding his tongue along his lips as he looked at her. He wanted to taste her breasts, to lick them. She could see it in his eyes, in both of their eyes, and it made her feel like some great beauty, someone men had wet dreams about, not some geeky scientist, always wandering distractedly around her lab.
“She might like a bed,” Cortez said, his eyes still locked on her chest, his finger still on her bra fastener.
“We can use the counter,” Jerick said.
“The counter full of grenades and vials of poison?”
“It’s not poison,” Skylar murmured, watching as Jerick lowered his head, his short black hair brushing her bare skin. “Just a seda—” She gasped when he flicked her nipple with his tongue. She still wore her bra, but it did little to dull the sensation of pleasure that shot straight down between her legs.
“Hell,” Cortez said, shifting against her, so his hard cock pressed against her opposite hip. “We’ll figure something out.”
He flicked the fastener, and her bra straps loosened. He pushed them off her shoulders, and she also shrugged her shirt the rest of the way off.
For the second time that day, her clothing ended up on the floor, and she didn’t give a damn. Jerick made a greedy noise and took her breast in his mouth, lips and tongue sliding over warm bare skin. Her nipples tightened almost painfully, and she rubbed the back of his head, sliding her fingers through his hair, luxuriating in the feel of it as he enjoyed the feel of her. She found herself pushing her breasts toward him, eager for even more attention.
But there was still Cortez’s unexplored chest. She turned, not enough to dislodge Jerick, but enough to find that open white shirt with her free hand. She ran it down Cortez’s chest to his hard abdomen, following the trail of short dark hair.
She’d been seeing Jerick shirtless for two days and would happily stroke his chest, too, but this glimpse under the professor’s tweed tantalized her. She grinned and leaned in, breathing in his scent and rubbing her cheek against his muscles. When she caught sight of his hard, pink nipple, she leaned in to taste it, feeling naughty for licking it even as Jerick licked hers. But someone would have to do something for Jerick. Would Cortez reach over and stroke something of his?
She kept massaging the back of Jerick’s head, dragging her nails against his scalp, hoping that would suffice as she ran her tongue over the contours of Cortez’s chest. He inhaled deeply, letting his head fall back as she used her tongue to explore his amazing body. She shifted from licking his nipple to sucking it, then gave a playful nip.
He growled deep in his throat and gripped the back of her head, tilting her chin up. His mouth descended on hers, an aching need in his kiss that made her own need grow, her body throbbing deep inside.
Jerick must have noticed her fingers had slowed, and she worried he would protest. He dropped to one knee, running his tongue from her breast down to her stomach as his fingers found her belt. She felt cool air and then his tongue sliding lower. Tight hot excitement pulsed through her as she realized what he meant to do.
Meanwhile, Cortez’s kisses grew more demanding, his hand capturing the breast Jerick had left. Calloused fingers roamed over sensitive skin, and his lips shifted as he glanced down. Looking at her breasts? Or at Jerick sinking lower?
Jerick pushed her pants off her hips as he breathed in her scent, rubbing his face against her. She arched into him, so ready for a more intimate touch that she might have fallen over if Cortez hadn’t held her. But she knew he would never let her go.
Jerick nuzzled her, teasing her, tantalizing her, then made a murmur of pleasure as he slid his tongue into her slit. She gasped and bucked against him, her need ratcheting from a five to a ten.
Jerick lifted her legs to remove her shoes and pants, then hooked them over his shoulders. Cortez shifted, so he was behind her, an arm around her waist, supporting her even as he continued to kiss her, moving from her lips to her throat. She could feel his cock against her back
, full and ready, but she could barely think about it as Jerick sucked and licked, his explorations straying closer to the core of her desire. Not quite close enough. She heard herself panting, almost pleading, as she thrust toward him. A part of her was embarrassed by her displaying her intense need to them, but she couldn’t stop herself.
Cortez’s arm tightened around her, and he rubbed against her from behind. The fabric of his clothing did little to restrain his cock, and she felt his every line, felt all of him pressed against her.
Jerick circled her clit with his tongue, and she dropped her head back on Cortez’s shoulder as she thrust her hips forward, her pulse pounding in her ears, tension stiffening every part of her. She was so close, his tongue creating exquisite sensations like nothing she’d ever felt.
Cortez nuzzled her ear and murmured, “You’re so hot, Skylar.” He cupped her breast, squeezing it lightly, demanding it. “You’re mine after this.”
Too breathless to talk, she nodded. She wanted to be his. And Jerick’s too. She wanted them both.
Jerick wrapped his lips around her nub, and every nerve in her body quivered.
“You’re coming with us,” Cortez added, his voice growly and delicious. “No way we’re letting you escape after this.”
He caught her earlobe and nipped lightly as Jerick sucked on her below, and she exploded with pleasure, crying out, her words nothing articulate, just a jumbled exclamation of her intense satiation. She slumped against Cortez, trusting he had her.
Jerick looked up at her, his lips moist, his eyes gleaming with lust as he stroked her thighs, her legs still on his broad, powerful shoulders. Skylar could feel Cortez’s hard, tense body behind her, felt his need radiating from him, but when her eyes met Jerick’s, she knew she had to give him the same pleasure he’d given her.
Unchained_ A science fiction romance adventure Page 16