His hands moved, but she was so consumed with the feel of his mouth on hers that she was barely aware of him sliding the thin straps of the golden gown down over her shoulders, letting the cloth slide down to her waist. She cried out, breaking the kiss unintentionally when his hands cupped her breasts. His fingers caught and tugged at her nipples, sending a sudden rush of heated sensation tumbling to the molten pool beginning to pulse deep inside her.
“Wolf,” she gasped out, arching her back to thrust her breasts toward him.
“So beautiful,” he muttered, lifting the full, soft feminine flesh to his mouth. One after the other he caught the rosy peaks with his lips, flicking them with his tongue. Shaylah moaned his name, twisting sinuously on his lap. She felt his hips shift beneath her, felt the heat and rigid length of him, barely restrained by the trewscloth, and she couldn’t resist the urge to shift herself until the curve of her buttocks slid over him.
“Stop,” he hissed suddenly, his hands going tensely still. Shaylah drew back to look at him, hurt at his sudden, sharp command flickering in her eyes. “Shaylah,” he grated out, making an obvious effort at control, “I’m not . . . fighting this any longer. So if you keep moving like that, we’ll end up making love right here in this chair.”
She blushed, partly at his words, partly at the fact that she could see so very clearly his hands on her breasts, golden against her pale skin. Her nipples were wet from his mouth . . . and suddenly his words weren’t embarrassing, they were arousing. And it seemed right somehow, that this place that had seen so many of her varied moods should be the site of her greatest joy.
“Yes,” she said huskily. “Right here, right now.”
Wolf swore, low and deep and harsh. He reached for the golden gown and tugged at it. She lifted herself to help him, and it slithered over her hips to puddle on the floor, baring her to his heated gaze.
He groaned, the sound rising from deep in his chest. He reached for the ties of the trewscloth, but Shaylah beat him to it, her slender fingers pulling them loose swiftly. He lifted himself this time, so she could tug away the brief cloth that restrained him. As his engorged flesh sprang free, Shaylah felt his hands grip her waist, and he lifted her to straddle him. Her long legs parted to slide down past his hips to either side of the narrow seat, and her hands went to his shoulders as she felt the first probing touch of him between her thighs.
He paused, holding her suspended, waiting, empty. “Shaylah?”
She heard the question and gave him the only answer she could; she freed one hand and moved to guide him home. He began to impale her slowly, inching her down onto his swollen shaft, his arms trembling with the effort.
“Wolf,” she moaned, “please!”
He slammed her down then, driving himself into her, and his groan mingled with her sudden cry of delight. She rocked on him, flexing, feeling him stroke her to the core, savoring his low, growling sounds of pleasure. But soon that gentle rocking was not enough, and she began to move faster. He seemed to catch her urgency and began to arch upward, driving into her.
Shaylah felt like some kind of wild thing, twisting, writhing, clawing, but she couldn’t help it. This was a course she’d never flown, a course that couldn’t be charted. She’d been merely a dying star before; now she was a new one, being born. She knew that she had all of him now, that he was holding nothing back from her this time, and it fired her as nothing ever had. She had thought nothing could surpass what she’d felt before with him, but this, this was fierce, it was hot, it was . . . flying.
She felt his hands leave her hips and realized he was bracing himself with his hands on the sides of the seat so he could raise himself to plunge harder, deeper. She rode him joyously, against the backdrop of the stars, reveling in his strength as he lifted her with the force of his thrusts, building the pressure growing within her.
“Shaylah,” he said gutturally. “I . . . I can’t . . .”
His body bowed beneath her, his head arching back, the corded muscles standing out at his throat as he fought for control. His beautiful, bare throat, Shaylah thought through the haze of rising sensation, of unbearable pressure. Free, unmarked, uncollared. Impulsively, she leaned forward to press her lips to the faintly lighter band of skin.
The movement shifted his hardened flesh inside her and brushed her rigid nipples against his chest. Wolf groaned, his face contorting with unrestrained, exuberant pleasure as he exploded in her in a fierce burst of pulsing sensation. The mere sight of him unleashed the flood within Shaylah, and she followed him with a joyous cry of his name spinning from her lips.
IT WAS A WEEK she treasured, hoarding it like the most precious of jewels, the week that they stole. She had asked him for it, a week with past hurts forgotten, a week without thought of decisions to come. It was all she dared; they would be looking for her soon.
“You know we’re just . . . postponing it, don’t you?” he’d asked gently.
“I know. I don’t care. No matter what happens, I want this. Just this time, Wolf. For both of us.”
“All right, Shaylah. You’re not a captain facing Coalition punishment, I’m not a liberated slave with nowhere to go. No past, no future, just now. Just us.”
It was sweet, it was hot, it was much, much too short. They talked, Shaylah of her parents, her childhood, and Wolf of his, and of Trios before the Coalition. Shaylah smothered her qualms at the secret still held within her; she would not risk this precious, unshadowed time with him for anything.
And one day, with a vindictive pleasure she didn’t try to disguise, she put the chains and the collar into the air lock and blasted them out into space. She shivered when the scanners registered the explosion as the collar, out of range of the controller, detonated. Wolf stared impassively at the screen, but she saw one hand steal upward to rub at the healing scar at the back of his neck. When the debris had scattered, she handed him the controller.
“I thought . . . you might like to do this.”
Their fingers touched as he took it from her, and when it followed the chains into the darkness, it was Shaylah he was looking at.
They made love—Shaylah had long since ceased to call it merely mating—whenever the need overcame them, which was often. Especially when Wolf saw no need to wait until the artificial night set by the ship.
“You’re the captain,” he said as he played with the silken strands of her hair, worn constantly free now. “You decide when it’s night.”
She inevitably agreed, and they retired to her quarters. Except, she thought with a blush, the times they hadn’t made it that far. The galley once, the observation port again, and once, frantically, up against the wall of a corridor. And tonight, at the end of the last day of their allotted week, in the command chair on the con.
“I find,” he’d said as he’d knelt before her there, “your competence, your abilities, very . . . arousing.”
And proceeded to arouse her, with his hands, his mouth, his body, stripping away her control as easily as he had stripped away her flight suit. And she knew that even if by some miracle she was able to keep the Sunbird, it would never be the same to her again. Never again would she sit in this chair without thinking of Wolf, of his strong, lean body gleaming naked and golden as he took her on the highest flight of her life.
In the morning, she knew the moment she found him in the observation port, leaning against the bulkhead as he stared out at the expanse of stars, that their stolen time was over. She bit her lip, but it didn’t help steady her voice.
“Whe—” She swallowed. “Where do you want to go?”
He turned his head to meet her gaze. She knew he saw her tears brimming, her lip trembling, but she couldn’t help it.
“Shaylah, you knew this was coming.”
“Yes.” I love you, she cried silently. Don’t ask me to leave you joyfully, even if it is what you want
. “Where do you wish me to take you?”
He looked back to the viewport, as if he couldn’t bear to see her pain any longer. After a long, silent moment, he said, almost reluctantly, “I’ve thought about it for a long time. I know it’s futile, and probably crazy, but there’s only one place I want to go.”
Shaylah’s breath caught as dread closed her throat. “Where?” she whispered.
He turned back to her once more, his mouth twisting ruefully. He shrugged and said simply, “Home.”
Chapter 12
“TRIOS?” IT CAME out on a gasp of shock.
“Yes.”
Dear Eos, Shaylah swore silently. “You can’t go back to Trios. There’s . . . nothing there, nothing left for you.”
“I know. But I have to see it again.” His jaw tightened. “Even if it’s only to wipe out the memories, to replace them with the reality. I can’t go on with my life until I’m truly convinced it’s gone forever.”
“The Trios you knew is gone forever,” she said urgently. “I’ll take you wherever you want, Wolf, right now if you want, but please, not there.”
“I must,” he said patiently.
“Wolf, you can’t!”
Her desperation got through to him then, for his brows lowered as he looked at her. “Shaylah, what is it?”
She tried to speak calmly. “Please, Wolf. Keep your memories. The reality is too ugly, too monstrous to bear.”
His eyes narrowed. “And how would you know?”
“I . . .” Shaylah’s mind was racing, frantic to stop this. He would die if he went back to Trios. “I’ve seen what the Coalition leaves behind. Too often.”
“So have I. But I can’t believe even the Coalition destroyed all the beauty that was Trios.”
“They did,” she said flatly. “They always do.”
If he noticed how completely she had separated herself from the Coalition, he didn’t remark on it. He was, she saw with a rapidly sinking heart, too intent on her extreme reaction to what must seem to him a harmless, if perhaps foolish request.
“Shaylah,” he said slowly, “if there’s nothing left, why are you so adamant?”
Her usually quick mind failed her, and she knew it was because she hated lying to him. All she could seem to do was look at him, misery in her eyes as she felt everything she’d gained with him slipping through her desperately clutching fingers.
“My God,” Wolf breathed, “there is something left. Isn’t there?”
“Wolf, please—” She stopped short when he grabbed her, his fingers digging into her shoulders.
“Tell me.” She’d never heard that tone from him, that voice laced with the whip of command. It startled her, so much that all she could do was gape at him. “Tell me,” he repeated, sharper still, in the tone of nothing less than an order. “What is happening on Trios?”
Shaylah crumpled before his forcefulness; she couldn’t lie to him any longer. “A rebellion,” she said dully.
Wolf stared at her. She felt the tremor that swept through him in the sudden flexing of his hands on her shoulders.
“A rebellion?” he whispered in shock. Shaylah saw the green eyes lose their sharp focus, as if his gaze had turned inward, to some vivid memory. “They’re alive . . . ? My God, my people are alive?”
“Some,” she said in that same flat tone. “Enough to force the Coalition to send three tactical wings. They’ve surrounded the capital.”
“Triotia,” he breathed. That unfocused look lasted only another split second. Then he was back, his eyes piercingly sharp. “You knew this,” he said in shocked disbelief. “You knew my people were alive and fighting . . . and you didn’t tell me!”
“Wolf, the Coalition is there in force,” she said, her tone urgent. “What good would it have done? There’s nothing you can do. You would only have felt more helpless.”
“I see,” he said. “You decided I didn’t need to know?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I’ve spent five years thinking I was the last, that I was alone, that the people and history of Trios would die with me . . .” His grip on her shoulders tightened to the point of pain. “How long have you known?”
Shaylah winced under the pressure. “Wolf, please, I would have told you if—”
“If you hadn’t been busy making my decisions for me? I find I’m growing very weary of that, Captain.” His voice sharpened once more. “Did you know when you came to Major Claxton’s?”
Shaylah sighed wearily. “No.”
His unwavering stare was almost painful to her. She could see him thinking, knew he would soon reach the only possible answer. When she saw his brows lower, then lift as his eyes widened, she knew he had gotten there.
“That last day . . . you said you were recalled . . .”
She just looked at him. He let out a small breath, a compressed sound of shock.
“You went to Trios. That was your recall, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t know,” Shaylah said tiredly. “Not until I was clear of Carelian airspace.”
He let go of her shoulders abruptly, as if he could no longer bear to touch her. Shaylah swayed slightly at the sudden release.
“So, Captain,” he said in a voice laced with acid, “how many of my people did you kill?”
“No!” she protested instantly. “I didn’t even get close. All I did was carry the general around. And to Legion Command and back. We were never in battle.”
Wolf’s mouth twisted ironically. “You do that well, Captain. You don’t believe in slavery, just fight for the system that enforces it. You didn’t kill the last of my people, just helped the man who will.”
Shaylah drew herself up. It took every bit of her flagging courage to face him, but she did it.
“Everything you say is true. I can’t deny it. And it’s nothing I haven’t already said to myself.” Her voice was taut, bitter. “Perhaps I should have followed my first instinct and blown the Sunbird, the general, and myself to Hades.” Something flickered in his eyes that could have been admiration, but it was gone too quickly for her to be sure. “But it wouldn’t have stopped anything. If anything, it would have made things worse. I withdrew the first moment I could.”
“And came back for me.”
“Yes.”
“Why? Did it amuse you to toy with me, all the while keeping from me that some of my people had survived, were fighting back?”
“I never—” She bit back the fierce protest; it didn’t matter now. He would never believe it, anyway. “No.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Did you hope that thinking I was the last of my kind alive would make me . . . dependent on you?”
Somewhere deep inside her, anger flickered. “If I’d wanted you dependent,” she said harshly, “I would have left that collar on you. And used it.”
He seemed to consider this. “That is true, I suppose. So why remove it, then? An act of atonement? For hiding the truth?”
The anger flickered again, then caught, flaring, giving her strength and rekindling her pride. “I have explained myself to you repeatedly. I will not do so again.” She paused, then realized she had nothing left to lose. “Except know this, Wolf. What I did, I did for one reason. I love you.” She saw the shock register on his face. “I have never said that to any man, not that it will matter to you. Nevertheless, it is true. You may do with that what you wish.”
She turned on her heel and strode toward the observation port steps.
“Captain!”
She looked back at him. His face was impassive; if he truly had been taken aback by her brusque declaration, he had recovered quickly. Why not, she thought, when it mattered so little to him?
“There is the small matter of your promise.”
“My . . . promise?”
“Except Trios.”
“That was never mentioned.”
“Because it is impossible,” she said flatly. “All of the ports are surrounded. They will be running regular patrols over the entire planet. There is no way past the Coalition blockade.”
“You think not?”
“You think so?” she countered.
“I know so. There are places on Trios the Coalition would never find.”
“Perhaps. But you’d have to get there first.”
He lifted a mocking brow at her. “Afraid of a challenge, Captain? Or of committing treason?”
“Do you think I care about that?” Her indignation died as soon as the words left her lips. “Never mind. Of course you do. With what you think of me, how could you not?”
“I’m not certain what I think of you any longer, Captain. But that doesn’t matter now. Will you set the course for Trios, or shall I?”
“Wolf, we can’t—”
“We will leave immediately.”
Shaylah bristled at his tone. “The Sunbird goes nowhere unless I command it.”
“The Sunbird,” he said, in that masterful voice that had so startled her, “will go where I fly her.”
She had been wrong, Shaylah thought, stunned. She did indeed have something left to lose.
SHE HAD GIVEN up without even a whimper, Shaylah thought in amazement as she watched Wolf at the controls of the Sunbird. He had commandeered her ship, and she had let him with barely a protest. And now she was getting a taste of what it felt like to have your decisions made for you, and she didn’t like it one bit.
She should have fought him, she thought in the oddly detached, analytical manner that seemed to have overtaken her, but she hadn’t been able to quite muster the energy. Or the desire. In fact, she couldn’t seem to do anything but sit here in the con room and watch the man who had taken her place aboard the Sunbird.
Lord of the Storm Page 21