“I didn’t beat anyone up,” Jamie protested, shifting her legs farther apart. Inviting him to explore that sensitive inner flesh more? Gladly. “I just wanted to leave, and he was in the way.”
“I believe the story may have grown in the telling, but if you would like to continue your self-defense classes, I would be glad to teach you.” He leaned down and kissed the back of her thigh as his fingers rubbed and roamed. The kiss turned into a nuzzle, and he inhaled deeply, wondering how long she would want the massage to go on before she was ready for something more vigorous.
“I would like that. Thank you.” Did her voice sound a little hoarse? Maybe she was already thinking of more than massages.
He let his thumb brush her suit between her legs and found the material damp. His groin flexed against the table. Easy boy, he told it. We’re taking our time, making sure she never wants a massage from another man.
He drew back, fighting the urge to focus his rubbing fingers on that tiny area covered by her suit.
“Do you want the front done?” Sergei asked. Damn, his voice was hoarse.
“Yes, please.”
Jamie shifted onto her back, her breasts jiggling, distracting him from his thoughts of her lower regions, though he didn’t take his hands from her legs. As he kneaded her quadriceps, his eyes were locked on her pert nipples.
“Looks like my suit fell off,” she murmured, smiling, watching his eyes even as he watched her.
“Poor quality construction obviously,” Sergei said, his mouth dry. He wanted nothing more than to cup one of those breasts, taking a nipple in his mouth, sucking it and teasing it with his tongue. So long as he kept up with the massage, what was the harm? His groin agreed with the sentiment. More than that, it wanted him to climb on top of the table and test its sturdiness.
One thing at a time. He leaned forward, leaving one hand on her thigh, rubbing and stroking, and lifting his other to her breast. He opened his mouth, anticipating her taste.
“Sergei,” Jamie said, admonishment in her voice.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted, feeling guilty.
“Your suit fell off too.” She grinned impishly at him, and he relaxed, realizing she was teasing.
“Really poor construction.”
Hopefully, she wouldn’t wonder how it had come to hang in that bush over there.
“Hm.” Jamie lifted an arm toward him, and he leaned down again, so she could slide her hand around the back of his head, fingers scraping through his hair. Another surge of blood flowed to his groin. She pulled his head down, toward the breast he had been ogling.
He went eagerly, his tongue slipping out to taste that dark pink tip.
A soft contented moan came from her lips, and she shifted toward him, her fingers still kneading his scalp. Encouraged, he sucked and licked as he slid his hand across her abdomen and up to cup the other breast, rubbing his thumb across her nipple. He relished the deep rise and fall of her chest, the way her fingers dug into his scalp, sending shudders of pleasure through his whole body.
“I wonder,” she breathed, “if the bottom of my suit will fall off too.”
“It seems inevitable,” he murmured against her skin. “Due to the poor construction.”
“Yeah,” she rasped.
Sergei continued to stroke her nipple with his tongue, but he let his hands drift southward, finding the knots at the sides that held the suit. He had them undone within seconds and slipped the bottoms off, dropping them onto the floor with the rest of their discarded clothing. He returned his hands to her hips, her thighs, her inner thighs… and brushed her with a thumb again. This time, there was no barrier, and he more fully felt her damp eagerness. She moaned and bent her knees, shifting her legs wider, begging for his touch. He was happy to comply, though the feel of her shifting and squirming against his hand made him squirm. Barely conscious of his actions, he rocked against the side of the table, though the hard wood of the edge wasn’t what he wanted to feel against his naked shaft. He wanted—
“Sergei,” Jamie gasped.
He lifted his lips from her breast, meeting her eyes.
“I didn’t fix that table leg for no reason.”
“No?” he whispered, slipping his thumb between her lower lips, stroking her gently.
She gasped, pressing against his hand. He rubbed more quickly, and she groaned, arching into him. His cock was straining, and it was all he could do not to leap onto the table and take her right there, but he relished her soft moans, the way she looked at him hungrily. He wanted to tease her, to extend her pleasure.
“Why did you fix it?” he whispered.
“Sergei,” she panted, squirming harder against him, sweat gleaming on the quivering muscles of her belly.
“Yes?”
She growled and sat up, surprising him by grabbing his shoulders and jamming her lips to his, devouring his mouth with her own. She practically flung herself off the table and wrapped her legs around him, pressing her hot moist core to his aching penis.
“I want you,” she moaned into his mouth. “Now.”
“Any time,” he growled and gripped her ass with both hands even as he returned her ravenous kiss, finally releasing his willpower and guiding her onto his shaft.
A wave of pleasure crashed over him as he thrust into her. This time, he was the one groaning into her mouth, his body so hot, so hard. He braced her against the table, using it for support. They could have stumbled over to the bed, but they had already found a rhythm, her legs locked around him, and him thrusting into her, his muscles taut, keeping them upright as they fused together. Exquisite ecstasy ran through him, knowing that this beautiful sweet woman wanted him as badly as he wanted her. She was his, and he was hers. Whatever the galaxy threw at him, he had her waiting for him, understanding him, comforting him. And kissing the hell out of him as she slid up and down his pumping piston, swelling, straining, nearing climax.
She came first, a great shuddering release that rocketed through his body as much as it coursed through hers. She kept rocking into him, her eyes full of warmth and pleasure as she looked into his. She whispered his name as if it was the sweetest word in the world, and he burst over the edge, a torrent of pleasure flooding him as he stared back into her eyes, loving every second of their bonding.
She kissed him, her shy smile returning, as if she hadn’t just been clawing at him and begging for him to take her. “I didn’t know you could do it standing up.”
Sergei chuckled, the tension draining out of his body, and he carried her to the bed. “You seemed impatient. I didn’t want you to have to wait until we lay down.”
She giggled. “You’re so thoughtful.”
“We’ll use the bed next time. Wouldn’t want to waste the room’s fine amenities.” He curled up beside her on the blankets, his chest against her back, relishing the feel of their bodies pressed together. He slid his hand along her waist, still reveling in the notion that she had chosen him, out of all the potential suitors on the ship—in the system. She wanted him. He kissed her shoulder and vowed to be good for her.
“I look forward to it,” she whispered, gazing over her shoulder at him.
THE END
The Ruins of Karzelek
1
Kalish Blackwell had never planned a heist before. As she studied the satellite images, Mercrusean tangleworms wriggled and writhed in her stomach, and she worried that she would throw up. Again. The ship’s compact floor-cleaning robot buzzed and whirled, dealing with the last mess.
“Some thief you are,” she muttered.
“Kalish?” came her mother’s voice from the freighter’s rear hatch.
“In the library.” Kalish took a deep breath and wiped her brow, not wanting her mother to see her nerves, not when she had been arguing and promising that they could make this work.
“Library?” Mom ducked to step through the hatch, her single blonde-gray braid swinging past her shoulder. “Your insistence in calling three books and a computer te
rminal a library is odd, don’t you think? Especially considering there’s a lavatory in the corner.” She smiled, though it was not a heartfelt gesture. The pistol, laser knife, and multitool belted at her waist spoke of her military past, as did the tattoos running up her lean forearms, but uncharacteristic uncertainty lurked in her blue eyes, eyes tight with worry, the creases at the corners deeper than usual.
“There are thirteen books,” Kalish said. “Fifteen if you include the atlases.” She kept herself from saying anything further, from bristling with her natural instinct to defend the ship. It might not be some finance lord’s yacht, but she owned it outright as of six months ago, and she was damned proud of that fact.
“No argument about the lav, though?”
“It folds into the bulkhead. You barely notice it. And I know you were glad it was there the other week when Tia had that stomach bug and was doing dreadful things in the main lav.”
“I suppose.” Mom frowned at the images of the mining camp displayed in the air above Kalish’s tablet. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
No. “It’s the only way to get Dad back. I thought we’d agreed to that.”
“I know. We did. I’m just worried about you. Those men in there—” Mom waved at the thick walls of the compound that were displayed in the three-dimensional map, all of them lined with antipersonnel and anti-spacecraft armament. “I’m sure it’s been months, if not years, since some of them saw a woman. If you’re captured...”
“It’s a mining camp, Mom. Not a prison.”
“What’s the difference out here?” Mom jerked her head toward the ceiling, or perhaps to the stars and the pinkish-red Rimfire Nebula stretching above Karzelek, the dust ball of a planet they were visiting. “If anything other than the supply ship visits them regularly, I would be shocked.”
“I know, and I understand your concern, but—” Kalish stopped herself from saying the miners would probably just shoot the intruders instead of worrying about rape. That wouldn’t comfort her mother. Instead, she finished with, “It’s not as if I’ll be going in alone.”
That was the wrong thing to say too. Mom’s lips twisted downward so far that they were in danger of falling off her face. “Oh, yes, you’ll have a band of musclebound mercenaries at your back. I’m so comforted.”
“I chose them carefully.” Sort of. Mandrake Company was one of the few outfits that had a reputation for snubbing finance lords, and they had been finishing up an assignment nearby. Finding quality people out here in the hairy armpit of the system wasn’t easy.
“Mercenaries are mercenaries. They work for money. If they get one sniff of what you’re after, they’ll turn on you faster than a jackal on wounded prey.”
“Have I mentioned how much your positivity warms my heart and buoys my soul, Mom?”
“Not recently.”
“There’s a reason for that.”
Mom smiled, however forced it appeared, then came forward to clasp her hand. Their skin contrasted, Mom’s ivory fingers around Kalish’s brown. “I know how much you’re worried about your father and want to save him. Trust me, I’m worried too, even if we haven’t talked that much of late. I just wish you’d given me a chance to work the numbers more, find another way.”
Kalish turned the handclasp into a hug, but couldn’t keep from objecting. “Another way to come up with a million aurums? I know you’re a finance specialist these days, Mom, but you can’t magic numbers like that into the company bank account.”
“A loan might have—”
“We don’t have that kind of collateral, and you said yourself, nobody’s going to finance treasure hunters, not even treasure hunters with a proven record for finding valuable loot. It’s going to cost us enough to hire these mercenaries.” Over two years’ profit, to be precise. In addition to finding the item Dad’s kidnapper wanted, Kalish hoped they might find some relics her family could sell so they might break even somehow.
“I’m just worried that—”
“Kaaaaylish,” came Tia’s drawn-out call from somewhere near the front of the ship. They probably could have heard her from anywhere on the planet.
Mom stepped back, brushing the back of her hand over her eyes. Kalish’s stomach clenched anew at the realization of how worried her mother was. She had always been so tough, so... soldierly, even after retiring from the Galactic Conglomeration Fleet and switching careers. To see moisture in her eyes rattled Kalish.
“Your sister’s calling you.”
“Yes, I heard,” Kalish said dryly.
“You don’t always. When you’re engrossed in research.”
“Oh, I always hear her. I just don’t always respond.” Kalish walked to the corridor, ducking her head and stepping through the hatchway.
“Kaaaaylish,” Tia repeated, this time even more loudly.
“I heard you, I heard you. And those miners will too, if you yell any louder.” Her little sister was twenty now, but sometimes she seemed like the same twelve-year-old girl she had been when Kalish first left home.
“Just figured you’d want to know your mercenaries are here.”
More nerves squirmed through Kalish’s belly, but she managed a calm, “Thank you,” and turned for the exit hatch on the side of the ship, rather than the bridge.
She opened the locker in the bulkhead and pulled out her weapons belt, complete with laser knife and two laser pistols. She stuck one of the ship’s comm units to her collar and also eyed the rifles, thinking about taking one of them, too, but she had a suspicion one shouldn’t greet one’s potential employees with arms. Not with really big arms, anyway.
Kalish waved at the sensor by the exit, and a shish-clank sounded as the seal disengaged. The hatch rose upward, catching on something. It continued upward, but the grinding scrape made her wince.
Kalish tapped the button-sized comm, ostensibly to test it but mostly to complain. “You landed a little close to the boulders, don’t you think?”
“You said to make sure we’re as hidden as possible,” Tia said brightly.
“Hidden is good, but so is being able to take flight again. It’s tough to leave orbit with one of your hatches missing.”
“You’re so fussy, Kay. I’ll send a bot out to fix it. Now go meet those big boys. Maybe you’ll find one to replace Mingus, and you won’t be so grumpy all the time.”
Kalish snorted and stepped outside. As if this was the time to shop for boyfriends. Even if Dad hadn’t been in danger, she wouldn’t have been eager to jump into bed with any man after dealing with the betrayal of that slug-sucking ass Tom Mingus.
She climbed the boulder, glowering at the fresh scrape in the granite, courtesy of their hatch. The chill, dry air of the planet wrapped around her as soon as she escaped the ship’s environment, and she shivered even with her jacket and radiant-heat thermal unders. When she reached the top of the boulder, the wind struck her as well, harsh air that scraped across the rocks, blowing tumbleweeds and dust. The field of boulders stretched for miles in all directions, punctuated occasionally by spiky cactuses sprouting in protected alcoves. She glanced back at the ship to make sure the camouflage system she had paid handsomely for was in place. The Divining Rod’s usual color was a dull gray-green, but it matched the dusty brown of its surroundings now. From twenty feet away, Kalish had no trouble picking it out, but to a ship flying by overhead, it ought to blend in with the boulders. A sensor-dampening shield protected the hull as well, so from a distance, it should appear as nothing except boring ground to a ship’s computers.
She started across the top of the boulder, toward a small field a quarter of a mile away, the coordinates she had given the mercenaries. But the hatch opened again, and she paused. Mom walked out with a laser rifle cradled in her arms, her face grim.
“I’m your backup,” she said to Kalish’s look of inquiry.
“You think a bunch of musclebound men will be intimidated by one woman?”
“They’ll be intimidated by Carl,” Mom said,
patting the rifle. “You talk to them. I’ll be out here, watching your back.”
Kalish smiled and nodded, knowing her mother was still a fine shot.
But in the meantime, she had better hurry. The mercenaries had not been paid yet, and standing out there in a boulder field might make them impatient. Kalish scrambled across the rocks, grunting as she banged her knees and scraped her hands on the uneven boulders. Now and then, her noises scared lizards basking in the meager sun, and they scuttled into holes and crevices. Some of them were poisonous, she had read, but it was the creatures under the planet’s surface that she needed to worry more about, assuming they got to that point in this mission.
“Hullo, pretty lady,” came a man’s drawling voice from off to her side.
Kalish jumped, nearly pitching off her boulder. She had been focused on the clearing ahead and hadn’t thought to watch for people earlier than that. Still, that didn’t keep her from spinning, her pistol leaping into her hand with speed that would impress an Old Earth gunslinger. The Fleet might have rejected her for having a couple more inches around the waist than their sleek, athletic female soldiers were supposed to have, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t take care of herself.
“Easy, pretty lady,” the voice came again, and a big man ambled out from the shadows between two rocks, his hands held out, though he wore an unconcerned smirk. Fine mesh battle armor covered his torso, so her laser probably wouldn’t do anything anyway, unless she struck him in the face. The ugly, spiky hairdo wouldn’t protect him from having an eyeball burned out.
“You with Mandrake Company?” Kalish asked, not lowering her pistol. She doubted he was a miner—they wouldn’t have battle armor that expensive—but she found herself hoping he wasn’t one of her mercenaries, especially when his gaze slid down her body, lingering on her breasts. Maybe Mom had been right. Maybe this was a big mistake.
“Sergeant Striker, Chief of Boom,” he said, then bowed.
Mandrake Company- The Complete Series Page 78