by Zoe York
Had never been what he wanted.
She tightened her hold on him, his warmth seeping through her shirts and into her own skin.
“You haven’t been looking at me like a friend. Something changed.”
He closed his eyes and she laughed gently as she kissed one closed eyelid.
“Too late, Viking man. I’ve seen it. I can’t un-see it.” She inhaled shakily. God, this was hard. “I don’t want to un-see it, either.”
“Thank Christ,” he muttered, exhaling his relief against his cheek as he slid his face against hers. Stubble scratching. Lips parting. Breath hot and demanding.
She couldn’t think straight. He’d consumed her and they hadn’t yet kissed.
When was that going to happen?
She needed—
His lips, softer than she remembered, pressed against hers.
Oh.
Oh, yes. She parted for him, immediately sliding into a new kind of first kiss. He wasn’t Gretch and she wasn’t a prisoner, and the hard press of mouths they’d had the day before meant nothing.
This. This meant everything. This was a real kiss, hard and heady and straight to light-speed intensity. She whimpered as his tongue stroked against hers, as he gave himself to her, sharing breath and taste and touch in a kiss so intimate it made her blush.
He turned his head, his lips sliding against hers. Chasing his mouth, she deepened the kiss again. More, more, more chanted her brain through a muzzy fog.
Blindly, she traced her fingers over his stubbled head and down his neck. Strong muscles flexed beneath her touch. She wanted to explore every inch of his massive body. Make him hold on to the top of a door frame and lick every single muscle from his collarbone down to his hips.
Get on her knees for him and suck him deep. Make him beg and plead before she’d let him spill himself down her throat.
She wanted him to return the favour.
She wanted everything.
For now, she settled with wiggling her fingers into the leather lacing up the front of his tunic and tugging the shirt open so she could splay one hand across the hard plane of his chest. With the other, she wrapped her fingers around his neck again. It was entirely possible she’d never stop kissing him, because it was too damn delicious.
On her hips, his hands tightened. She rocked in his grasp, because yes, please. Then he did it again, this time with an accompanying mumble against her greedy lips.
“What?” she asked breathlessly, pulling back just a bit.
“The computer is beeping at me.” He laughed and kissed her again, too briefly this time. “I didn’t hear it at first, either. I started an engine analysis before you came in.”
“Okay.” She nibbled at the corner of his mouth, not really caring about the engine particularly.
He shifted her effortlessly to the side—damn giant man with his giant strength—and turned his attention to the display panel. “Hmmm.”
“What, hmmm? And can it wait?”
He smirked and tugged her hand to his lips. God, he was kissing her fingers and it was making her melt. What the hell was going on with her?
And the weirdest part was, she didn’t really want or need an answer to that rhetorical question.
“If we’re going to get you back to Midgard sooner than later, I want to do a complete systems check before we make a run for the nearest wormhole.”
That was what she wanted. Right? Back to Midgard, where she could safely contact her command chain and find out what the hell had happened that she’d been abandoned in a prison on the edge of the galaxy.
And whose ass she got to kick over the fuck-up.
But right now, curled up in the warmth of Aldric’s lap, she had trouble remembering why that mattered.
More kisses seemed like a much better plan.
She sighed.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m just being a silly girl.”
“Are you thinking about how much you want to see me naked? Because I’m on board with that plan.”
She laughed and pressed her face into the warm, taut skin on his neck. “Mmm-hmm.” It was rude to lie, after all. “But that systems check sounds important.”
“It won’t take long,” he murmured, wiggling his hand under her tank top. She shivered as he traced circles on the bare skin of her waist and sighed as his mouth found her neck.
Dropping her head back against the edge of the pilot’s chair, she fought to remember reasonable, non-sex-oriented questions that would be good to ask. “Do you need any help?”
Aldric fought against the very distracting scent of turned-on woman and tried to focus on the tasks at hand.
Taste her neck.
Bare her breasts.
Not those tasks. “Ummm.” He breathed in deeply. The usual sweet orange scent he’d come to associate with her was missing, as she didn’t have any of her usual toiletries. He felt badly for a moment, realizing he’d overlooked that, but having the real Navena in his arms—warm scent of skin and nothing else—was an unexpected intimacy he didn’t want to give up. “The systems check. There are a few visual inspections to do, then I’ll get the ship to run a tip-to-toe self-diagnostic.”
She peeled herself out of his lap and he clenched his fists to keep from grabbing her back. His cock strained against the lacing on his leather pants, which pinched like a son of a bitch as he stood up.
“It won’t take me long,” he muttered as they stepped out of the cockpit. So brace yourself to be stripped naked sooner than later. But he couldn’t say that.
She stopped suddenly, and since the first thing he felt was her ass bumping into his dick, it took him a minute to realize she was annoyed.
Why—how—did women do that? Flip from turned-on to pissed-off in a nanosecond? Because he was still stuck on wanting to mate with her, over and over again, until the end of time, in every filthy combination imaginable.
“No, don’t look at me like that. I’m not responsible for anything I say or do right now.”
“I know a thing or two about engines,” she said, a note of bitterness tinging her words.
He blinked at her in surprise. That was good. Helpful, even. Not something to be angry about, he was almost definitely sure. “Okay.”
“I’m just saying, I could help.”
“And I said, okay.”
“Not just as a flashlight holder—”
“Gods, woman.” He crowded her against the bulkhead, jamming a thigh between her legs to keep her from wiggling out of his grasp—and maybe to feel the heat of her pussy against the ridge of his muscles. Yeah. Fuck, yeah. Definitely for that, too. He covered her mouth with his, slowly thrusting and twisting his tongue against hers until she melted in his arms.
Why hadn’t they figured this out sooner?
She was made for him, and he for her.
When he pulled back, she chased his lips.
He grinned at her. Good. “I need you to take apart the central circuit control panel and do a visual inspection. Repair materials, if you need any, are in the blue supply cabinet in the engine room. I’m going into the airlock to do a visual inspection of the thrusters, then I’ll get the self-diagnostic going.”
Her lips curled into a damn sexy oh. “Okay.”
“See? Just as I said. Okay.”
“Apologies,” she said softly, looking at his mouth.
He leaned in and gave her one last, lingering kiss. “Then we have some unfinished business in my bunk.”
Chapter Seven
Navena worked quickly but carefully, checking every circuit for corrosion or fraying. The last thing they needed was something catching fire as they pushed the ship to its maximum capability.
She waited for the expected flutter of anticipation—she loved the thrill of traveling through dangerous territory. Scanning ahead for enemy ships, listening to the comms channel for whispered threats. In her career, she’d role-played this outlaw escape many times for training purposes, but actually doing it s
hould light her on fire.
Instead, dread knotted up her guts. She had no idea what they would find out there, and she didn’t mean bounty hunters or pirates.
No matter how it unfolded, she was looking at months of administrative duty while a formal investigation could be completed. Endless interviews and probing questions, and for the first time in her life, she wasn’t up for it.
Being alone in the stars with Aldric felt freeing. Glorious danger, actually living on the edge. This beat yet another troop transport, hands down.
She sighed before she hit the intercom. “All done in the engine room.”
Grunting preceded his response, and she bit her lip to keep from laughing. He growled under his breath. “I’m. Almost. Done.”
“Do you need help?”
Silence.
“Tell you what, I’ll just come to the airlock and if you want to boss me around to hold a wrench or something, that’s cool, okay?” She disconnected the line before he could curse at her in either Danish or English.
But when she stepped into the corridor, Aldric was waiting outside the airlock—and his shirt was hanging loosely from his hand. He didn’t say anything, just stood there in gleaming, tattooed, bare-chested glory.
Waiting for her.
Heat swamped her body, a prickly, hungry sensation that made her knees weak and her heart climb into her throat to get away from the overwhelming need pulsing in her belly.
“Unfinished business?” she whispered through a tentative smile.
He held out his hand.
Five quick steps and she slid her fingers through his. “This is crazy.”
His only answer was a brief shake of his head as he pulled her across the common space to his cabin. Toward the bed that smelled like him, and now her, that maybe they should have shared the night before but now they were definitely going to make up for that.
As soon as his feet stopped moving, she was on him. She cupped his face and tugged his mouth to hers as he started to undress her. She shook as he loosened the drawstring of her pants and spread his palms over the curve of her ass, barely covered in her skin-tight FedNat-issued shorts. Previously a practical base layer, now they felt positively indecent and still too thick a layer.
She wanted to be bare for him.
And the reverse was also high on her wish list—she wanted to strip him naked and devour every inch of his amazing, work-honed body. As he wound his arms around her, taking over the kiss, she let her fingers roam over his chest and down the furred line of his well-muscled mid-section to the lacing on his pants.
If she’d thought undoing his tunic earlier had been hot, she’d been wrong. That had been fun. This was scorching. Her fingers fumbled as his erection flexed against her knuckles and she twisted her hand to cup him. Yes. Oh, holy hell. He was thick and long and so, so hard.
His hands tangled in her shirt as she dropped to her knees, dragging an open-mouthed kiss down his torso on the way. He growled something she didn’t catch as he pulled the fabric up and over her head, leaving her in just her snug tank top and shorts.
Pressing her forehead to the hot, fuzz-covered skin of his lower belly, she tried to ignore the restless way he stroked her hair and shoulders. She wanted to slow down time and remember every second of getting to know his body. With slow, shaking fingers, she loosened the leather strip criss-crossing over his straining cock and tugged the pants low on his hips.
Underneath, he wore nothing. Swallowing hard, she wrapped her hand around his length and tugged it free.
A pleased, silly whimper escaped her lips. He felt so good and as she stroked him, he swelled even further. His dark pink cock rose beautifully from dark hair nesting around the base, and curved into her palm before flaring wider still at the tip. Lighter pink there with a drop of pre-come blooming from the slit at the centre of the perfectly shaped crown.
“Lick me.” His coarse command startled her, and she laughed a little as she glanced up at him.
“Like this?” Sticking out her tongue, she traced the curving edge of the head. Soft, velvety, and thoroughly addictive from the first taste, she had to hold herself back from sucking the entire thing into her mouth.
“That’s a start.” He rocked his hips forward, nudging his erection against her smiling lips. “Open.”
She did just as he asked, parting her lips enough to let her tongue peek out.
“Woman, I will take your mouth if you aren’t careful with this game.”
“And how do you know I don’t want you to do just that?” A coy look from beneath her lashes was all he needed. There would be times in the future when she’d want to be in charge. Right now was not one of them. She needed the freedom that would come from handing him control, from letting him take her places she might hold herself back from.
“Ah, min kone.” His hand tightened in her hair, pulling her head back and forcing her gaze up. The lines in his face hardened as he fisted his cock, working it in front of her face. Like he was torn on whether or not to take what she’d asked him to take. After a beat, he groaned and rocked his hips forward again. “I bet you do.”
She greedily opened her mouth, wiggling her tongue along the underneath of his erection as her cheeks stretched wide. Yes. She tried to swallow him deeper, but he growled and slid back out over her lips.
“If you do that,” he muttered, staring down at her with a heat she was sure would soon incinerate them both. “Then I’ll spill myself down your throat like a schoolboy.”
She widened her eyes. “I think your school experience might have been quite different from mine.”
He cursed under his breath, then laughed, his straining erection bobbing in front of her face. “Nothing with you is easy, is it?”
Swaying closer, she settled her hands on his leather-clad thighs and kissed his bare hip. “Do you want easy?”
“I want you, just like this. Difficult and funny. And for the next two minutes, silent.” He grinned, feral and in command again, as he rubbed the wet head of his cock against her lips. The scent and taste of him turned her insides to liquid and made her mouth water. “Open.”
Like he had to ask twice. Staring up at him, she parted her lips wide, and this time she let him do it all. She just watched and felt and listened as he slowly began to fuck her face.
His pace was deliberately teasing. Taking his time with this, or making this last without going too far. She had no doubt that it wouldn’t take him long before he flipped her onto the bed and took the rest of her body like he was taking her mouth.
This was an appetizer, for them both.
A test, too.
She had to let him in, and he had to get over whatever fear he had about taking what he needed from her body.
He needs more than your body. She shoved that uncomfortable thought away, making herself focus on what she could give him. How she could be present with him. Smell him. Hear his groans and feel the tension in his hands.
But with each guttural noise and twist of his fingers in her hair, a whisper of what this really meant tattooed a little deeper on her skin. By the time he was done with her, she’d be branded as Aldric Gunter’s whether she liked it or not.
“Enough,” he rasped, staggering back. She sat back on her heels, watching through hooded eyes as he stripped off his pants and stalked back to her. She let him pick her up and carry her to the not-so-narrow bunk. Big enough for two bodies entwined at least.
More than big enough for one body—hers—to be laid out, sideways, with her legs hanging off the side.
Aldric clearly thought it was his turn to fall to his knees after he stripped her out of her clothes. As his tongue stroked through her drenched, swollen sex, she couldn’t agree more. “Yes, yes, yes,” she chanted as he licked up her arousal. Then her words dissolved to indecipherable moans and mumbles as he sucked on her flesh, gently at first and harder as she dug her heels into his shoulders. “Harder. Please…”
Her pleading dissolving to a wordless cry as he
did just that, pulling her clit tight into his mouth at the same time as he fluttered his tongue against the tip of it.
It was like he had fishing line attached to every nerve ending in her body and was reeling them in through the apex of her legs. Her arms fell wide, her head tipped back, and she gave in to the dark implosion inside her body.
Fucking. Awesome.
He kept kissing her through her orgasm, stretching out the after-tremors with long, sweet licks and gentle tugs of his mouth.
Okay, she owed him like a dozen blow jobs for that.
“Come here,” she whispered, tugging on his nearest hand. He climbed up her body and she cupped his face. He smelled like her and had the biggest, dirtiest grin on his face. She laughed as she pressed up on her elbows and kissed him, sipping herself from his lips. “That was unbelievable.”
“I’ll have to do it again, then.”
“Yes, please. Now I can return the favour?”
He shook his head and pressed her back against the mattress. “Stop for a second.”
“What?”
Curling around her, he traced his fingertips down the valley between her breasts and over her quivering stomach. “It doesn’t need to be so fast. It’s not just an exchange of easy pleasure.”
“That sounds really good,” she quipped, cutting herself off with a guilty blush as he glared at her.
“I’m not trying to be difficult, you know,” she murmured, rubbing her fingers against his chest.
He shrugged. “It’s been a trying few days. I expect everything you’ve been through to put you on edge.”
“I’m fine.” The denial of stress was swift and automatic.
“Few people would be fine after being incarcerated, Navena.”
“Well, I’m not like other people.”
“I’m aware.” He smirked as he pushed up on one shoulder. “You’re smarter, sexier, and entirely more deadly.”
She sighed as he tugged her hand up and around his neck. “So you want to take it slow?” She brushed a kiss along his granite jaw. “I can do that.”