Loch stood and spat blood, then he helped Rhys up. Rhys slapped his back and said, “I forgot how hard you hit, old man.” He grinned and dodged as Loch threw another lightning-fast punch at him.
Loch turned and met my eyes. Everything in me went still and tense at the naked desire in his gaze. My body responded, tightening as lust blazed through my system. He tilted his head in silent invitation and I nodded once.
“Which way to a spare room for me to clean up?” Loch asked.
Rhys grinned and rolled his eyes. “Go up a level and pick whichever room you want,” he said.
Loch strode over and offered his hand to me. He stood still, a conquering warrior waiting for his lady’s favor. His scorching gaze locked on my face. Tingles spread throughout my body even before I slid my hand into his. He pulled me to my feet with effortless strength and the arousal I’d been feeling all day ignited into burning desire.
Loch took the stairs two at a time. I laughed and kept pace, driven by the same urgency. Once upstairs, he stopped at the first door on the right and clicked on the light to reveal a bedroom in shades of blue. He stepped inside and closed the door behind us. He backed away a few steps, leaving me next to the exit.
“If you stay in this room, we’re going to fuck,” he said plainly. “If that’s not what you want, you should leave now.”
He was asking for consent and doing it without trying to coerce me. He might not know how to escort a lady to dinner or which fork to use for salad, but at his core he was more of a gentleman than a good chunk of the Consortium.
So long as I remembered it was just sex, I would be fine. My body throbbed in need. Opportunities for what I hoped would be mind-blowing sex didn’t happen every day, so I would guard my heart and have a night of fun. Tomorrow he would be gone and I’d go back to being alone. I refused to dwell on why that made my heart ache.
“I’m staying,” I said quietly.
“Are you sure, Ada?” he asked again, seeking confirmation. The rumble of his deep, gravelly voice sent a little frisson of lust through my system. I shifted restlessly. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I am.”
He stepped close and pressed me against the door. “Good choice,” he murmured against my neck. My whole body came to attention. He smelled like warm, sweaty male, but under that was the musty, metallic scent of blood. Conquering warrior or not, the blood had to go.
“You really do need to clean up first,” I said. “But if you ask me nicely, I’ll wash your back.”
Loch groaned. “You’re going to kill me, darling,” he said. “Hold on.” He hooked my legs around his waist then picked me up with strong hands under my ass. He carried me to the en suite bathroom. He set me down and turned to start the shower. “Get naked,” he said over his shoulder, “unless you don’t like those clothes and want me to help.”
I shucked my clothes with economical motions, but from Loch’s expression you’d think I was performing a striptease. Anticipation tightened my stomach. It had taken a number of years, but these days I was comfortable in my own skin. I knew that I was slender and toned, and if my breasts were on the small side, well, they went with my body.
Then Loch dropped his pants and it was my turn to ogle him. His jutting erection was an obvious clue to his state of arousal, but it was his smoldering stare that had me crossing the room to kiss him.
His mouth fused to mine and the hot, hard length of him pressed into my belly. “Shower,” I growled, “now.”
We fumbled into the shower stall, and I sighed in bliss at the cascade of warm water from every direction. Trust Rhys to have guest room showers with more heads than any one person could ever need.
I ran my hand under the soap dispenser then smoothed it over Loch’s chest, grazing his nipple. He sucked in air. I liked that reaction, so I repeated the motion on the other side. His hands clenched on my waist.
I washed away the blood from his chest and back, and made note of the cuts and bruises, checking to ensure nothing needed immediate attention. He would be bruised to hell in the morning, but nothing looked serious. “You’ll live,” I told him.
“Not if you keep this up,” he muttered. “Turn around.”
I turned and he pulled me back against his chest. His left hand flattened on my lower belly to hold me in place while the other glided across my chest with soapy slickness. He circled both breasts while ignoring my nipples. I whimpered and ground back against him.
His right hand slid down my front while his left traveled upward. He glided a finger over my clit at the same time he pinched my left nipple and that was all it took. I’d been on edge for so long that I fell into the orgasm without any warning.
I moaned and shivered as he held me through it. Then he scooped me up, turned off the shower, and headed for the bedroom. I clung to his neck when he would’ve dropped me on the bed. “Not the bedspread!” I said.
He snarled and ripped the bedspread and part of the sheets off of the bed then dropped me in the middle of the remaining mess. I didn’t mind. He climbed over me, all bronzed flesh and wicked intent. He claimed my mouth in a fierce kiss and I moaned as I sucked on his tongue.
I spread my legs in welcome and reached down to caress him once, twice. He groaned, his eyes glowed, and then nothing mattered except where our two bodies met. He rubbed against me, then slid inside, centimeter by delicious centimeter. He was big and he hit nerves I didn’t even know I had. I flexed around him and he slammed forward with a growl.
I wrapped my legs around him and tried to press closer. He retreated then slid back with a measured stroke. Another and another until he hit somewhere that caused stars to explode behind my eyes. “Yes,” I hissed. “Do that.”
As if my words had unleashed him, he drove into me with abandon. Every stroke wound me tighter until I was clutching at his back just to stay anchored.
“Ada, what do you need?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” I whined. I slid a hand between our bodies and ghosted a finger over my still-sensitive clit. Close, but not quite there. I whimpered.
Loch bent down and told me all of the things he wanted to do to me next. Between his filthy language and his guttural voice, he sent me sailing over the edge screaming his name.
He groaned against my throat and his thrusts became hard and erratic until he collapsed on me, breathing hard.
“So, that was marvelous,” I said once I could talk.
“That was just round one, sweetheart,” Loch said with a grin that threatened my guarded heart. “It only gets better from here.”
He proved himself right.
Chapter 17
Between rounds two and three I’d sent Loch to check on Veronica. I hadn’t exactly asked when she wanted to leave, so I’d needed to know if we should go so she could get back to Lin. He’d come back with an amused expression and told me that she would be fine until morning or perhaps late afternoon.
Now, in the light of day, I saw what he meant. She looked like she hadn’t gotten any more sleep than I had, which wouldn’t be too suspicious, except she had a bad case of stubble-burn reddening her jaw and down her neck. That plus the cat-that-got-the-cream expression led me to believe she and Rhys had had an interesting night of their own.
I caught her eye, tipped my head toward Rhys, who was deep in conversation with Marcus, and raised an eyebrow. She blushed then grinned. “And I told him who I am,” she whispered, “so you don’t have to call me Yasmin anymore. You and Loch?” She raised her own eyebrow. I nodded and grinned, though in truth, I was uneasy.
The sex had been beyond amazing, but I’d expected Loch to be gone when I woke. When he wasn’t, Rhys’s warning had come back to me with a vengeance. One-night stands I was comfortable with, relationships I was not. It was a lesson I’d learned the hard way during my first season.
At seventeen I’d been allowed to join the adult Consortium events for the first time. James had been a decade older and handsome as sin. He was from a small house of no importance, but he sh
owered me with the attention and affection that I secretly craved. I’d thought myself in love.
My parents refused to let me see him, which only made him more tempting. He wooed me with all the skill and cunning of an apex predator. He was my first, and it was only thanks to my older sisters that I didn’t end up pregnant—they had taken me to get a birth control implant a month before my debut.
No one could deter me from James, and when he asked me to marry him, it was the happiest day of my life. I accepted and broke the news to Father. Father laughed until he saw I was serious, then he told me that I was free to marry “that bounder” but that I would be cut from the House if I did. I didn’t care—it was true love.
James had a different reaction. I told him that Father would disown me if we married, but I would sacrifice my House for him. I’ll never forget his sneer and his response: “You are worthless to me without your name. I can’t believe I wasted months on you.” Then he turned and walked away, just like that. At the very next event he had showered attention on Elizabeth Rockhurst while the Consortium ladies twittered behind their fans at “that poor von Hasenberg girl.”
It wasn’t until years later that I realized exactly how lucky I’d been, but by then the damage was done. I’d become just as cynical and jaded as the rest of the Consortium, especially about relationships, which I avoided like the plague.
But no matter how cynical I became, I couldn’t escape my younger self, the girl who just wanted someone to love me for myself and not because I was a daughter of High House von Hasenberg. It was a personal failing, so I armored over the weakness and kept people at arm’s distance. If I didn’t give them an opening, then they couldn’t use me.
Loch’s continued presence was a gigantic opening. Why would he decide to stick around? Did he realize how vulnerable I was to him? Doubts assailed me.
But while my mind had concerns, my body had no such qualms. Loch brushed a casual kiss across my mouth on the way to the dining room and I nearly hummed in pleasure. This was bad, so very bad.
Rhys fed us breakfast, and it was over delicate crepes that my com exploded with messages from all of my sisters. I read the first one and my heart sank. House Rockhurst was now overtly threatening war over my broken non-engagement and demanding my dowry in exchange for peace. Father was having none of it because we didn’t have any official agreements in place.
“What’s wrong?” Loch asked.
“House Rockhurst is rattling their sabers at us and demanding my dowry, with or without me. And Father doubled my bounty in an ‘excess of caution,’ so I’m now worth more than some planets.”
“What is so special about your dowry?” Veronica asked.
I opened my mouth to tell her I didn’t know, then paused. Richard had demanded marriage when I’d talked to him on TSD Nine, too. I had meant to look into why he wanted my dowry, but I’d forgotten to do it. “That’s a really good question,” I said. Bianca, bless her completionist heart, had attached a list of what my dowry included. Money, land, ships, planets, and mineral rights were all included, mostly for planets I’d never heard of.
But one rang a bell: a tiny frozen planet in the heart of the Antlia sector. Hadn’t I heard something about Rockhurst and that planet already? I pulled up the planet’s info on my com but it was listed as barren. So why would Rockhurst want a frozen, barren planet?
I widened my search and found Rockhurst controlled several planets in that sector already. All were mining planets, but none listed what they were mining. That was unusual but not completely unheard of. It usually meant they were mining something they wanted to keep under the radar.
So, if they’d found a new resource, they wanted to corner the market before they released any info. And our planet threatened that monopoly. But what would be worth starting a war over?
None of the reasons I came up with made any sense, except one: faster FTL drives. If the resource needed to produce faster drives was only available in the Antlia sector, that would absolutely be worth war, or at least the threat of it.
“What’s the fastest you’ve ever heard of an FTL drive being able to recharge?” I asked the table.
“I’ve heard rumors that Yamado’s got it down to five hours and change for moderately sized ships,” Rhys said.
“Five or six hours is what I’ve heard, too,” Veronica said. “Why?”
I considered everyone at the table and how much I trusted them. I sighed. At least if they betrayed me, someone besides myself would know the secret. “Because the ship I stole from Richard can jump in an hour. I plotted it up to four jumps and they were all going to take an hour each.”
Loch and Veronica looked only mildly surprised. They must’ve guessed we were jumping faster than normal from our travel time. Rhys, however, looked stunned.
“Do you know what this means?” he asked.
“Yeah, it means you’re all likely to betray me and try to steal my ship,” I said drily.
Rhys shot me a reproving glare. “It means you’re sitting on a piece of information worth unimaginable wealth. Your father would drop the bounty in an instant in exchange for the ship. Yamado would grant you safe passage and set you up like a queen. And Rockhurst will kill to keep it a secret.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s why I plan to leave today after I stock up on supplies. I’ve shut down communications and the trackers I’ve found are all short-range and dependent on the ship’s communication array, but even so, it’s not safe to stay in one place for too long. That’s why I wanted Veronica to talk to you as soon as possible.”
“Rhys and I talked last night,” Veronica said. She almost managed it without a blush but faint color stained her cheeks when I grinned knowingly at her. “I still think joining you for a while is my best option. I know it will be dangerous, but if we’re in a ship that can out-jump everything else out there, the danger should be manageable.”
“That would be true if I planned to keep running, but if it comes to war then I can’t. I might not care for Father or his policies, but I’m still a von Hasenberg. Plus, I do care about my siblings and want to be there for them.”
“Could you bring me in as part of your Cabinet?” Veronica asked.
“I could,” I said slowly, thinking it through, “but I would have very little power to protect you. I’m the fifth of six children. Father only cares about me insofar as what my marriage will gain him. But it is possible that I could make your safety and position a condition of giving up the ship.”
Veronica nodded as if that settled it.
“However,” I said, “I’m planning to go check out a hunch first. It’ll take me deep into Rockhurst territory, very likely territory they don’t want looked at.”
“Why not have your father send someone?” Loch asked.
“Because we’re already teetering on the brink of war. If one of our House ships goes and starts poking around it could be enough to start the fight. And, yes, I know Father could send someone more low-key, but he wouldn’t—that’s not how he rolls. I might be able to persuade Bianca to send someone to check it out on the sly, but by then I could’ve just gone myself.”
I did not mention that it was possible we had a high-level spy in our House. I trusted them, but only so far. Either way, my concerns were valid. If Father thought Rockhurst was hiding something valuable, he’d send in a fleet and that would be that. And with as fast as Polaris jumped, I could be in and out before Rockhurst even knew I was in the area.
But I also wouldn’t go without letting my sister Bianca know exactly what was happening—I wasn’t stupid. If I didn’t return in a few days, she would share the information with Father. And if anything changed while I was away, I trusted her judgment. If Father needed to know sooner, she would update him.
“If you are intent upon this madness, I will go with you,” Rhys said.
I looked at him like he was crazy. “I’m trying to talk people off of my ship, not on it, you dummy.”
Rhys shrugged. “W
ar might be good for business in the short term, but it’s bad for everyone eventually. And while you would get picked up immediately, I happen to be a well-respected businessman-slash-smuggler. People expect me to show up in strange places.”
I rubbed my temples and prayed for patience. The hell of it was, he was right. Having him along would be better for me, but I tried not to use my friends like pawns, especially when it put them in danger.
“Plus, I’m dying to get a look at the ship,” Rhys said with a grin.
“I’m in,” Veronica said.
“Well, if you all are going to get yourselves killed, I’ll go, too. You’re going to need someone to bail you out. And I am quite looking forward to my next meeting with one particular Rockhurst,” Loch said with a feral smile.
Pleasure and panic thrummed through my system. I couldn’t decide if I was happy or terrified at the thought of Loch’s continued presence. My mind was very much against it, but my heart danced in joy. I was in trouble.
I sighed. “You all need to think very carefully about what you’re doing. We will be flying a stolen ship into a potential war zone where we are very much unwanted.” Rhys started to protest and I cut him off. “Just take a few hours to think about it. Anyone who still wants to go can meet me at the ship at sunset. For now, I have to get back, assess what supplies I’ll need to purchase, and update my sister.”
Veronica and Loch returned to the ship with me. Rhys promised he’d meet us at sunset. I half hoped he’d change his mind. I wasn’t used to feeling responsible for anyone but myself and now I had a whole group of people counting on me.
I swept the bottom level of the ship for trackers and cleared the ones I found. Then I dove into the result of yesterday’s diagnostic. The search with the new pattern for input had caught a couple more trackers deep in the ship’s system software, but I assumed that still wasn’t all of them. Richard was thorough, the jerk.
After I’d done as much as I could with the trackers, I started going through the ship’s manifest, looking for anything that needed to be resupplied. Nothing was terribly low, but I would need to stock up on more real food if Veronica wanted to cook. Otherwise, more ammo was always a good thing. I sent an encrypted request to Rhys along with promise of payment.
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