Keeping the movement too shallow for what her body seemed to need, he stroked his thick fingers in and out. As she adjusted to the intrusions, she knew he was going to fill her and that it was going to make the ache go away. He circled her clit with his thumb, the action relaying pleasure back and forth between his fingers inside. She was on the cusp of an orgasm already, a state that rarely happened so quickly when she touched herself. Okay, never happened so quickly. But the massive male currently controlling her body seemed to know exactly how to take her body towards ecstasy. Was this what people called sexual chemistry, or was it merely the result of the mating urge? In the midst of that question, the pressure inside her reached the boiling point and she came in a gasping, stunned moment of thunderous intensity. Colors exploded inside her head like a sparking, loose wire snapping free of its tether connection to a huge power source. He thrust his fingers deeper into her. She felt the sensation of her insides stretching mix with the more powerful, pleasurable sensations rolling out of her core throughout the rest of her body, sending the electrical charge out to the tips of her body.
Eventually, the crashing waves subsided and she felt like a limp, empty salla peel. He slowly withdrew his fingers. She felt him shifting back up her body, and the firm tip of his cock poising at the entrance to her vagina. This was the moment she both feared and craved, her crossing out of her sexual ignorance into a true shared experience. She forgot everything else, but this moment, this male.
Her cellmate pressed his face into her neck and loose hair. She held her breath as he slowly, steadfastly drove his cock up through the folds of her womanhood, into the dark recesses of her most intimate core. He didn’t stop until he’d filled her completely, bumping against the end of her channel. Her tender insides burned at the penetration.
He grunted, drew back and inch or two, then drove back in, harder this time, sinking impossibly further into her. The intrusion stung despite her natural lubrication and she sucked in a sharp breath to counter the ragged pain.
He stopped moving, which she imagined was in response to her verbal distress. She took another deep breath, tried to relax her muscles and then, he covered her mouth with his in a demanding kiss, distracting her from the overwhelming sense of fullness. His kisses were soft brushes of lips against lips. He slipped an arm up under her right leg and brought it up to her chest, holding her secure and trapped under him, making her feel safe and steady. He slid slowly out of her and back in again then, over and over. The initial pain diffused itself into pleasure.
She whimpered again, this time in need.
“Faster,” she begged.
He increased his tempo, his cock rubbing, dragging back and forth against her inner tissues. He altered his position slightly, tapping some hidden part of her vagina that ratcheted up her arousal. Pain disappeared into an explosion of another mind-shattering orgasm. Her muscles clamped and quivered around his cock and after two more hard, intense drives he moaned and buried himself deep, his face jammed against her neck, her delicate skin caught firmly, but gently, in his teeth. She felt the wet warmth of his ejaculation filling her inside. She lay stunned, sated.
Violent explosions somewhere nearby rocked the room, causing their mat to slide several feet across the smooth surface of the floor into the center of the room.
Nadiah lay trapped under her cellmate’s body unable to move or react. Then, he lifted his head, planted a possessive kiss on her lips and pulled out of her and away. He stood and pulled her to her feet. Her legs were shaky and unstable after two of the most intense orgasms she’d ever had. Their mixed fluids ran down the insides of her legs.
She stumbled and he caught her against his body.
The ceiling of the room slid open at the high center and a bright beam of light shone down on them, through accompanying acrid smoke as it poured down into their cell. Nadiah blinked at the sudden brightness, her vision slow to adjust. Her fellow prisoner moved to cover her body from sight.
“Your Highness?” Someone was calling to them in a clipped, elegant accent. Still disoriented by the brain-melting sex, Nadiah struggled to place the language as she started coughing from the fouled air.
Something snake-like dropped and hit the floor to the left of them. The male pulled Nadiah to it. He picked her up and lifted her to his chest, indicating she was to wrap her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. He spread her long curls down over her back where they fell past her hips like a cape. She caught hold of him. They were escaping? The haze in her mind lifted and she focused. She realized that it was a rope was hanging down into the room and he was looping it around his lower right leg and his right wrist. He held her tight against his body with his left arm and locked onto the rope with his right. She clutched him.
They were suddenly rising, being lifted out of the chamber. The light above was intense, the air smoky, and she began coughing in earnest. It was impossible to breathe. Someone caught them and swung them over, away from the hole. They touched down on floor. She turned her head and peaked out past her hair, grateful that it tumbled down her back and hid most of her body from the others’ view. In the confusion and limited visibility, she couldn’t tell who surrounded them. Her guy released the rope, wrapped both huge arms around her, and strode towards several more males that looked similar in size to him. She still struggled to see clearly in the bright light. She looked up then at her rescuer and was shocked to see that he was practically an albino. His skin was paler than hers, his long hair, short, thick beard and hawkish eyebrows all a silvery white, and his eyes a pale gray, with just a hint of icy blue at the edges.
Somehow in the black cell, she’d imagined him dark, but here he was, as light as a white Edan haque, the predatory bird on Illysia known for its brilliant white feathers that glowed iridescent in sunlight. He seemed to be communicating silently with the other men. He looked troubled, angry. Then he looked down at her and she was awed by the beauty of his intense eyes. He smiled at her reassuringly and kissed her forehead, then pulled her face into his chest again. Nadiah could feel him gesturing his free arm and then a warm cloak was wrapped around the two of them.
Then they were running. She clutched him tightly, trying to match his movements to be as little burden as she could. She could hear the sound of laser-based weapons activating, pinging and sizzling their deadly hits on metal somewhere outside of the protective cape.
She heard him grunt, and he briefly stumbled. She worried he’d been hit. A new terror hit her. Nothing could happen to him. Some part of her knew that she never had and never would feel as safe as she had in his arms just minutes before. She already dreaded losing him.
Suddenly, her brain pulled up who they were, who he was. The royal Anskarians, ruling class of Dugar! That’s what these people were even though she’d never met one before this moment. She buried her face into her cellmate’s thick neck. The man was practically a warrior god. Absolutely stunning. A pale ice prince descent from one of the purest, fiercest and most private races in the galaxy. Like an ancient Viking warrior back on Earth in the stories her mother told her. The Anskarians had ruled over the native Dugarans on Dugar for centuries. And even though her gentle giant had been intimate with her, and he must suspect that he’d taken her virginity, she doubted he would want her now that they were out of the cell. The other men had called him Your Highness. Other women of his race would be equally majestic and gorgeous. The legend of their pale, ethereal beauty was well known beyond their home planet. Nearly as beautiful as an Anskarian. How many times had she heard that expression in reference to flowers, fine sculptures, searing starbursts? Even in the middle of her rescue, Nadiah felt uncomfortable and inadequate with mixed human and Kadisian heritage and unique looks.
Nadiah had been told she was attractive for a human, because her mother had convinced her of that fact, but she didn’t glow like these people. She was pale pink, covered in freckles, her hair a wild, thick unruly red thatch of long curls that hid her tiny horns. She was puny.
Short in stature, with breasts and hips too big for the length of her body. She knew she didn’t have the elegant curves rumored to be the least of the Anskarian women’s attributes. And that’s exactly what her cellmate was. She’d studied about their race only a year ago in a course on alien cultures. The Alien Viking race, her mother liked to call them, although no evidence existed that they’d come from Earth. Gigantic, pale blonde, muscular, vicious warriors with tall, willowy blonde-look-alike women, if the history vids were accurate.
They entered a midsized ship and the doors slammed shut. Her escape partner half fell, half sat on some kind of bench, trapping her legs behind his back. There was a lot of shouting and males gesturing and then they were rocketing away. She thought she should let go but the ice god was not releasing her. When she pushed lightly against him, he only tightened his arms around her back. She sighed and relaxed back into the safety of his arms.
Someone approached them.
“Rurik? Let me take the human. The medical staff are ready and waiting to go into surgery the minute we dock with the battleship. Dr. Longmoren is already prepped.”
He paused as if he were listening to a response. Were these people psychic, like her father and uncle? Or did they have implants that allowed her protector to communicate with them silently?
“In your quarters? Are you sure, Rurik? Lady Beatrice also came on board with Longmoren and…yes, yes, of course. I’ll have her moved. But maybe if this one is placed in a guest suite…of course, I understand. I will see to it. No one will touch the girl.”
He paused again.
“The equivalent of two sun cycles. Maybe longer. We’ll be approaching home by then.”
He paused, again appearing to listen to silent communication.
“Sir. Do not worry. Dr. Longmoren is one of our best; your father made arrangements to send him to us within hours of your communique indicating the damage to your tongue. He has prepped an entirely new tongue from your own genetic file in preparation. The surgery will be routine, recovery swift and complete. You will hardly know you suffered the injury by this time tomorrow.”
Nadiah listened to the conversation and deduced the course of events coming up. Rurik—her ice god was named Rurik—was going into surgery for the reconstruction of his tongue. She was going to be placed in his quarters while he was in surgery. Someone named Beatrice seemed to be an issue and was currently staying in Rurik’s suite. She shivered. What if Rurik didn’t survive surgery? What if Beatrice was one of the Amazonian Anskarians? Was she his mate? Intense jealousy and fear and anger rose in a muddled combination of confusion from her gut and, shivering, she burrowed deeper into Rurik’s chest. Where was her father? Surely he was tracking her and on his way. She felt confused and the desire to cry due to something other than frustration rose in chest.
Rurik tugged the cape more tightly around them, tucking her into his warmth. She didn’t ask him any questions. However, he was still communicating with the other man, and she apparently didn’t have the same ability to receive.
They clung to each other, skin-to-skin, until they docked on what appeared to be a giant battleship. Rurik seemed to be asleep again, his body shut down in a trancelike state. A team of medical staff entered the space with a gurney to take Rurik away. The man who had been speaking to Rurik during the flight tried to open the cape to pull Nadiah away when Rurik roused with a warning growl. The man stepped hastily away.
Rurik stood and turned so his back was to the officers and medical personnel, hiding Nadiah from their view. At his soft urging, she let her legs unwind from his waist and she slid down his front. She felt him react to her body sliding along his shaft; his cock hardened with surprising speed and pressed against her stomach. Her own body hummed in response, despite the fact that they were not alone. He stood taking deep breaths, seeming to will it down and it softened again. He shifted the cape around so that it settled only around her. He pulled it tight across her chest, swaddling her. She was completely covered except for her face and hair. Even her feet were covered because the length of the cape was longer than she was tall, and puddled on the floor. She wasn’t sure how she was going to walk without tripping.
They were parting.
Nadiah looked up anxiously into his eyes. Even though she knew he was leaving her for medical treatment, she couldn’t completely tamp down her fear. He gazed back down at her with intelligent and reassuring eyes. He seemed to be telling her to trust him. Not for the first time, she wished she’d inherited her father’s ability to read minds. He looked away to his officer who stepped forward.
The officer tipped his head in greeting then spoke somewhat imperiously to her.
“I’m Krat and I’ll be seeing to your care while his Royal Highness Prince Rurik goes into surgical stasis to repair his injuries.”
He cleared his throat.
“We are currently en route to our home planet Dugar. Prince Rurik wants you to know that you will be safe alone in his personal suite. He regrets that he will be unconscious and away from you for two sun cycles but then he will return to you and answer any questions you might have about what is happening. He wants you to stay safely in his suite, without leaving until he returns. He will have me bring you meals three times a day.”
The officer’s red skin flushed red as if he was uncomfortable with delivering the instructions that Rurik was transmitting.
“You are to remain covered and your body hidden from other’s view at all times. Do not let anyone touch you.” He frowned. “He claims you belong to him.”
At this point, the officer turned in surprise to Rurik.
“Sir Rurik, you cannot…”
He stopped speaking abruptly, flushing again, this time in agitation and anger.
“Of course, your Highness. I did not mean to overstep my place.”
Rurik scowled at him in disapproval. Then he turned back to Nadiah and she nearly shrunk away from her Viking’s angry face. Then he softened his look and smiled at her, shaking his head. He caressed her face a moment, kissed her forehead, and then with an abrupt nod, released her and stepped to the gurney, stumbling slightly. That’s when Nadiah and the others saw the welted damage to his lower left calf.
Nadiah cried out and rushed to him. He turned to her, puzzled.
“Your leg, Rurik. You’ve been shot!”
He glanced at it, winced slightly and set her away from him, shaking his head at her, and brushed her away. That gesture hurt her feelings. He turned, hopped up onto the gurney and they were wheeling him away from her.
***
Nadiah stared out at the darkness of space. No one, who grows up on a beautiful planet with the constant cycle of suns and moons rising and setting, realizes that the thing you come to know most intimately during space travel is the darkness. Darkness that bleeds from the outside into the deepest passages in one’s mind. As a child, she had thought her destiny was to be out in space. That’s where she’d been conceived, on her parents’ first voyage together. That’s where she’d spent half her life, traveling on the family’s ship. But she’d always loved coming home for their extended stays dirtside, knowing that the colors, sounds, flavors of a planet resonated in a deep part of her sense of self more than all that time spent zipping across the galaxy. Waiting, alone, for Rurik to return to her, all she wanted was the natural light of her home planet’s sun. The steady turning of light to dark and back to light again. The steady passing of the days. The regularity of time progressing. She ran her hand along the industrial and boring white wall surrounding the window of the giant battleship they’d eventually boarded. Everything in Rurik’s suite was a neutral color—white, cream, gray, black. Though the space was filled with smooth surfaces and soft fabric on the bed and furniture, it lacked both vibrant color and rich scents of the cabin she shared with her sister on their father’s ship and in her room at their domicile back on Illysia. Nadiah longed for the wheel of color in her paint trays and the sweet smell of the climbing flowering vine that
grew wild outside her own bedroom window.
If she were staying, she’d paint this room a deep turquoise like the sea on Illysia.
Here in space, she was losing track of time, despite the timekeeper on the wall. Had Rurik only left her two days ago? Had she only known him for one day before that, as Krat had informed her? Time bled out of its limited container of minutes and hours and days, slipping away into a void of space. She felt like she’d just left her father’s ship moments ago, like she’d known Rurik for years.
She felt she’d been kept away from him far longer than two days.
She missed her father, her mother, her uncle, her siblings, Rayna, people. The only person she’d spoken to in these two days was supercilious Krat. Just sitting here staring out at the black, feeling the loneliness of her confinement, as luxurious as it was, she slid her fingers over her imbedded tracker again. In her heart, she knew her father was on his way. It was only a matter of being patient. Her brief interactions with Krat exchanging dirty dishes for clean ones with freshly prepared food was more frustrating than reassuring. She needed conversation, contact.
Krat told her little of Rurik’s condition except that he was in the medical center recovering. There was nothing for her to do. She knew they were headed towards the Anskarians’ home planet of Dugar, the Ice Planet, and little else. She’d tried to access the vid system right away, but Krat had appeared suddenly at the suite, knocking politely before entering, but entering nevertheless, and he’d shut down the vid system completely, telling her that Rurik’s suite had access to high level government information and that she could not use it at all. Hadn’t they ever heard of user passwords?
She dressed in a soft cream shirt that she presumed belong to Rurik and even though it didn’t smell like him, she felt closer to him knowing that he’d likely worn it as some point on his body. The garment was so large it fell to below her knees. The suite was kept warm for her so she didn’t need any other clothes to be comfortable.
Baby, it's Cold in Space: Eight Science Fiction Romances Page 38