“Why don’t you take a break?” Indi sat up, letting the blanket fall away, and patted the cot beside her. “You must have been up for hours.”
“Only one hour.” He sat next to her, resting a hand on her bare thigh. “I’m very efficient. And thorough.”
“Yes, you were.”
He grinned and leaned in for a kiss, which she returned happily, her hunger surprising her. But after touching herself, she was already primed.
A flush of warmth rushed into her core as his fingers slid along her inner thigh. She remembered how deft they had been earlier.
She found herself planting a hand on his chest and pushing him back onto the cot. She wanted to be in charge and set the pace. While his teasing had been exquisite and pleasurable, she didn’t want to delay this time. He had his work to return to, and she wanted him now.
At first, he hesitated, as if he objected to her taking charge, but she brushed her fingers over the bulge in his trousers, and he forgot his objections. He let her break the kiss and push him onto his back. She shifted so there was room to tug his legs up onto the cot, and she straddled him, the coarse fabric of his fatigue trousers rasping against her bare thighs. It felt better than she would have expected, especially with her nerves alive and tingling down there, but she wanted him as naked as she was.
She paused to admire him, running her hands over his chest, then following the trail of black hair to the fastener for his trousers. Before opening it, she squeezed him lightly through the fabric, and he growled deep in his chest. His hands flexed, as if he would reach for her and yank her down, but she gave him a frank look while she held him. She was in charge this time, whether he’d agreed to it or not.
He seemed to understand, for he shifted his hands to her bare thighs, kneading and stroking her. It stirred her senses to a new level, especially when his thumbs curled to the insides of her legs, trailing toward her aching core. She inched higher so she rested atop his hard bulge. Logically, she knew it would be much better when she got his trousers off, but this was hot too. He shifted upward, pushing himself toward her, and she closed her eyes, pushing back, grinding against him.
He lifted a hand to her breast, cupping her and stroking her nipple with his thumb. It tightened in response, and she leaned her chest closer to him, forgetting her thoughts of being in charge. His other hand slid high up her thigh, and his thumb ran lightly along her crease.
“Hierax,” she whispered, starting to grow breathless as her body responded to his expert touch. “You have excellent thumbs.”
“I’ve honed them through years of working with tools,” he said, then propped himself on his elbows so he could reach her breasts with his mouth. His tongue slid across her nipple, and she gripped his shoulders, needing the support as waves of pleasure shot through her body.
“Your tongue too?”
He sucked her nipple for a while before answering, and she was absolutely fine with that.
“Not my tongue. I think you’d get electrified if you used a tongue on tools.”
“Maybe it’s just naturally gifted.”
“It wants to perform well for you.”
His thumb slipped between her lower lips, finding her clit, and she gasped, almost coming for him right there.
“I… approve,” she whispered, then she forgot words and reached again for the fastener of his trousers. It was time to get him out of those. “I want you now.”
“Take me,” he murmured, switching to her other breast, his tongue tracing a circle before it found her nipple again.
She was panting as she tore open his trousers and yanked them off his hips. He lifted up, releasing her long enough to help remove them. Even though she longed to have him naked and free, she couldn’t help but murmur a protest when his thumb slid out of her. She never wanted him to stop touching her.
His trousers dropped to the side of the cot, and he lay on display beneath her, his long, muscular body filling the cot, his cock as erect as a flagpole. As she gripped him, shifting herself into position over him, he found her breasts again, taking them in both hands. Once again, he rose up so his mouth had access to her, licking and sucking, making her pussy throb in response.
She guided him into her, and he groaned against her heated skin, a lick turning into a nip. Pleasure rocketed through her, and she impaled herself fully on him. He drove himself upward, his ass coming off the cot, as if he couldn’t get enough of her. She gripped his shoulders again as they found a rhythm, one fast and driven by need. She was already so close, already so aroused by the delicious way he filled her tight passage.
He let go of her breasts and slid his hands to her waist, also holding on as their pace quickened. He let her take control, her breasts swaying above his chest as they rocked into each other. She lowered herself, and their lips met for breathless kisses. Her arms trembled as she held herself above him. He squeezed her ass, pulling her hard against him, his movements defined by urgency. His other hand shifted to her sweat-slickened belly, then lower, finding her lower lips again. The memory of their last time flashed through her mind, and before he even touched her clit, his big, hard cock drove her over the edge.
She grasped him, pausing as waves of euphoria crashed over her. She opened her eyes, looking down at his flushed face, and realized he was still thrusting into her, still seeking his own release.
“Who knew… engineers… have such stamina?” she whispered, resuming rocking, wanting him to experience his own euphoria.
“I knew,” Hierax growled, thrusting upward so hard that the cot legs bounced.
She laughed and clutched his shoulders. He roared as he poured himself into her.
The cot creaked ominously, and she imagined it breaking, leaving them on the deck in a tangle of legs, his cock still in her.
But it survived the vigorous lovemaking, and Hierax gazed up at her, sweat bathing his brow and a smugly pleased expression on his face. She might have teased him over that expression, but she probably wore a similar one. She’d lured the indifferent-to-sex engineer away from his project to use his thumbs—and tongue—on her. Somehow, that seemed like a huge conquest, made even better because she knew he’d had a good time.
Indi lay down atop him, her breasts molding to his chest, and gave him a long, languid kiss. He would need to go back to his work, but for the moment, he was hers.
He slung an arm around her back as he returned the kiss, and she felt pleased again that he wasn’t rushing to get back to that drone.
She lifted her mouth so she could gaze down at him, and her braids fell about them, creating a curtain of intimacy.
He gazed back at her, looking contented and spent, and traced a finger down her cheek. “You’re amazing.”
“Because of my hot ass and big boobs or because I remember the name of your favorite tool?”
He grinned. “Yes.”
She smiled fondly at him and pushed a hand through his damp hair.
“Hierax?”
“Yes?”
“Now that you’ve convinced me you are a brilliant man whose intellect is too great to be measured, I’d like to give you a new challenge.”
His eyebrows arched. “A riddle?”
“Of a sort.” She lifted herself so he would slip out of her, then laid down on the cot beside him. “Here it goes: I’ve decided you’re a really cool guy, and I’d like to spend more time with you, but if we succeed in getting out of this system, I’ll be going back to my planet eventually, and you’ll be leaving on your ship. And from what I’ve heard, your government may disable our gate or otherwise quarantine us in our own system somehow, so we won’t be able to get out into the galaxy until we’ve significantly improved space travel, something that probably won’t happen in my lifetime.”
“This isn’t a math riddle, is it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?” She combed her fingers through his hair. “The challenge I’m posing to you is to figure out a way to change your government’s mind and ensure your peop
le are welcome to visit Earth—and me—any time. And I guess my planet would have to be alerted to the fact that there’s a big galaxy out there, and we’re not the only humans in it.”
“Do you still want to go back to your world? I mean, I know we’ve just met, but I thought you might want to stay in my universe.”
“I’d be very open to working on your planet for a time, and maybe even your ship, if it would stop going into battle with horrific aliens. Maybe for more than a time. I’d like to see what we could become. But I have friends back home, and even though my family and I don’t always get along, I’m not looking to bail on them for the rest of my life. I want access to you, and I want access to Earth. Isn’t there a way my world can get an invitation into the Confederation? Or at least be visited often by ships from the Confederation, so people could go back and forth? I want you to figure out how to make that happen.”
He rested his hand on her hip. “It’s not going to be easy to set up this equation.”
“If anyone can make it work, you can.”
“I noticed that you didn’t start acknowledging my superior intellect until you wanted me to do something for you,” he said dryly.
“For us.” She reached down, wrapped a hand around his penis, and wiggled her eyebrows at him.
“Ah, yes, I see your point now.”
“That’s your point.”
He grinned and kissed her. “All right. I think we may have to get Sagitta in on this, to work the angle with the archons and the headquarters people—assuming they don’t shoot him for disobeying orders—but I’ll put my prodigious intellect to work on this problem.”
“Have you ever noticed how many adjectives you have to describe your intellect?”
“Not nearly enough. The dictionary should have more words for expressing its vastness.”
18
“A little to the left, Hierax,” Zakota said, his voice coming over the comm. “Ease her in real slow.”
“You sound like you’re giving me sex directions,” Hierax said, not needing the advice.
He had the warship’s tow beam wrapped around the new gate and was manipulating it into its spot while Indi and the blond-haired Lieutenant Arkyn, their temporary helmsman, looked on.
“I—what?” Zakota sounded dumbfounded.
“Never mind.” Hierax should have known better than to make a joke about sex. That wasn’t his strength.
“Sorry, I’ve just never heard you make such jokes. What were you and the alien AI’s chosen woman doing over there all night?”
“Fixing the helm and disassembling a drone.”
“If that’s true, that’s a little sad, my friend.”
“Just pay attention to your beam,” Hierax said, watching the old gate and the new one as they were pushed closer and closer together.
The old one remained stationary, anchored in space in whatever way the Wanderers had accomplished that. Hierax hoped the song Indi planned to play included orders for it to scoot its round ass out of the way.
She stood a few feet behind him, fully clothed now that Arkyn was on the bridge. She held the violin loosely in her hand, and the sheet music lay spread out on a console not in use. He wondered if she was nervous. He knew very little about music, but figured it was hard to play something all the way through without flubbing a note. What would happen if she didn’t perform the song perfectly?
“Is the captain there, Zakota?” Hierax asked. He assumed so, since this was a crucial moment, but Sagitta hadn’t spoken in a while.
“Yeah, he was puzzled by your sex joke too.”
“Ha ha.”
“What is it, Chief?” Sagitta asked.
“When I was dissembling the drone, I found its power source, and it’s fascinating. It uses solar power and stores it in a battery, which is nothing new, but it also has a crazy strong amplification system. When those drones on the planet were shooting at us with those beams, they were just little nudges, trying to herd us in the right direction, but they could have fired much more powerful blasts. Like knock-a-building-or-twenty-down-with-a-single-shot powerful. And all based on the sun’s energy. Suns’ energy, technically, but you know how our solar power is pretty weak, right? Relatively speaking, when compared to nuclear fusion or even burning coal. This is amazing. You should see the amount of energy I was reading when I tested the battery.”
“He really was dissecting that thing,” Zakota said. “When he had a pretty woman in there. And a cot. That’s definitely sad, Hierax.”
Indi came forward and rested a hand on Hierax’s shoulder. “I assure you, I was fully satisfied by my night here, Lieutenant Zakota.”
A stunned silence came from the other end before Zakota choked out, “I don’t know how to respond to that.”
“Good,” Hierax said. “Maybe that’ll keep your lips from flapping. The new gate is as close as we can get it to the old one without starting a kissing session.”
“The chief’s comments do seem to have an atypical carnal flavor today,” Sagitta murmured.
Hierax flushed. It was one thing for Zakota to razz him. The captain never did.
Indi squeezed Hierax’s shoulder. He patted her hand.
“Any idea as to how we move the other gate out of the way?” Sagitta asked.
“I’m hoping Indi’s music will do it,” Hierax said.
“Do the gates have receivers? A way to accept our comm transmission?”
“I didn’t see anything like that when I was studying the one in the hangar, but the alien AI has, so far, been fairly intuitive and good at figuring out what we want and need.”
“On the planet,” Sagitta said. “Will its influence and awareness extend all the way out here?”
“I guess we’ll find out, sir.” Hierax turned to Indi. “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she muttered, lifting the violin and placing her chin on the rest. She gave him the most nervous smile he had seen from her. “What happens if I screw up?”
“You try again.”
“Dr. Tala says she can try it if you want,” Sagitta said.
“And then we toss you out the airlock for failing,” Zakota said. The captain must have shot him a dirty look—a deservedly dirty look—because Zakota added, “What? It was a joke.”
“I never thought I’d be voted off the island for something related to music,” Indi said.
“Voted what?” Hierax’s brow wrinkled.
“Never mind. It’s an Earth expression. Captain? I’m ready to start.”
“Go ahead,” Sagitta said.
“Good luck,” Tala said.
Was she standing on the bridge with him? There was a time the captain never would have let a civilian up there. He wasn’t even pleased when crew members who weren’t assigned to the bridge came up.
“Thanks,” Indi said.
She took a deep breath, laid the bow across the strings, and began to play. Hierax couldn’t say he found the alien music appealing, but it did seem cohesive. Intentional. A song as well as a list of commands?
The sheet music lay spread out before Indi, but she barely looked at it. Hierax stood nearby in case she needed him to flip a page or do anything. After he’d made sure the comm was open, her song going out to anyone out in the system who could receive it, there wasn’t much for him to do. He found himself sticking his hands in his pockets and feeling useless. A strange feeling for him.
He could go back to working on the drone—the captain would be pleased to hear that he might be able to copy the Wanderer solar power amplifier to make some interesting weapons—but he figured the song wouldn’t take that long to play. And he should be there for Indi in case she needed something. Needed him.
The last note rang out—she held it for a long time—and she lowered the bow.
Hierax looked at the view screen and the gate beyond it, also glancing toward the sensor display to check for energy readings. The new gate had been quiescent since the Falcon 8 had picked it up. It rema
ined so. The magnetic field it had emitted on its way off the planet had disappeared after it had been flung into space.
“Anything happening?” Indi asked.
“Nothing yet.”
He wished he could say otherwise. What if this had all been a waste of time? What if they had brought the new gate all the way out here for nothing?
An intense white light filled the bridge, and Indi groaned—or was that a curse?
Hierax turned, wincing as the now-familiar scan focused on her, the light so intense around her that he could barely make out her form.
Though blinded by that light, he rushed forward and clasped her arms, afraid she would have a seizure again. If she did, how could he help? The two ships weren’t linked anymore, and it would take time to get them together again and to carry Indi to Dr. Tala.
Indi stiffened in his arms, a gasp escaping her lips. She went limp and tipped sideways.
Hierax wrapped his arms around her, keeping her from falling, though the violin tumbled from her fingers and hit the deck. He barely noticed it.
“Leave her alone,” he snarled to whatever alien presence was responsible.
The light dimmed and finally disappeared. Indi lay lifeless in Hierax’s arms.
With shaking fingers, he touched her throat to check her pulse. She had to be all right. If not… Damn it, he’d just found her. All these weeks those women had been aboard the ship, and he hadn’t realized there had been someone to joke with him, to test his mind, to remember the names of his tools, and to accept him despite his eccentricities. Many eccentricities, as he’d been told so often in the past.
Her heartbeat pulsed against his fingers, and he felt some relief, but her eyes were closed. What had that scan done to her this time?
“Indi,” he whispered. “Wake up, please. I haven’t gotten a chance to show you my cot yet. My upgraded cot. I need you to come to engineering with me on the Falcon for a date. Because you’re the only woman who’s ever realized what a fantastic place that would be to spend time.”
Hierax: Star Guardians, Book 4 Page 23