by Lauren Esker
"Mr. Lucado, I could get the impression you're trying to distract me."
"Is it working?"
"Yes," she said, and met his lips with hers.
There was a playfulness to it, as if their kisses and nibbles were a wordless version of their usual teasing banter: a little give, a little take. She nipped at his neck and slid her hands inside his robe, caressing his chest and flicking a thumb across his nipples. His chest was nearly hairless, with only a small triangle of sparse dark curls at the notch where his pecs met. "Don't tell me you wax," she murmured.
"I just don't have a lot of body hair. Dunno if that's a dragon thing or not."
"I will have to investigate this further."
She undid the belt of his robe. Now only her weight was pinning it shut. He was acutely aware of every inch of her small lithe shape, her slight weight resting on his stomach and groin. She wiggled her hips a little, grinding her pelvis against his. Although she was still fully dressed, he'd already gotten rock-hard under the robe.
"Is that a lizard in your pocket ..." she murmured, pressing her hands on his chest and rubbing her thumbs over his nipples, "or are you just happy to see me?"
"Both, I think."
She grinned and explored his torso with her hands under the robe, light touches moving around his ribs, down beneath his shoulders. "Nice muscles."
"Thanks. You know, if you'd get up, I could take this robe off."
"Get up, huh?" She sat up, straddling his hips, and stripped out of her sweater. She had a dove-colored sports bra underneath it. "Sexy, I know. Somehow I wasn't expecting to be taking this off in front of anybody."
"It's sexy as hell on you."
She grinned, a flash of small, even white teeth, and pulled off the stretchy sports bra with a quick over-the-head motion. "See, if we'd actually had sex when you were drunk the other night, you wouldn't even remember any of this."
"I wasn't blackout drunk," he protested. "I was tired."
"Excuses, excuses. Come on, tell me how awesome my breasts are."
"Your breasts are awesome," he agreed, reaching up to cup them. They were small and high, perfectly formed with dark, erect nipples. He caressed them and then wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her down so he could get his mouth on those erect little nubs. He felt her body jerk with electric pleasure when he tongued first one and then the other. She squirmed against his front, dislodging his robe with her wriggling until it fell open.
"You're still wearing your pants," Lucky pointed out when he came up for air.
"Someone seems to be distracting me with nipple play."
"Excuses, excuses."
She laughed, and raised herself up on her toes and one hand to unzip her jeans. What she did then—Lucky could only compare to rippling out of her jeans and underwear. A quick wiggle of her hips and a flick of her leg, and they were off.
"How flexible are you?"
"I'm a climber." She stretched, arching her spine and bending her head backwards until her hair brushed his legs; her body was curved like a drawn bow. "I do yoga. I also took dance when I was a kid. Basically—" She straightened up, snapping the bow back to its resting position. "—I have a bendy gecko spine, and I know how to use it."
"Oh God," Lucky said, his mind instantly going to a number of different sexual positions he'd only read about, and hadn't been entirely sure were possible.
"Is this seriously how you make love to a woman? A little breast-nibbling, let her undress herself, and lie there like a lump while quizzing her about how flexible she is? No wonder you're single."
"Challenge accepted." He sat up and caught her by the waist.
"What's the plan, Stan?" she asked, wrapping her arms around his neck.
"First of all, don't ever call me Stan while we're having sex. And the plan is to make you come until the neighbors pound on the door and tell us to keep it down in here."
He'd never seen someone's eyes actually dilate with arousal before. "I like that plan," she announced.
"I thought you might."
She silenced him with an enthusiastic kiss.
He slid a hand between her legs, and was unsurprised to find her soaking wet. His finger dipped into her folds, teased at her clit before sliding inside her as far as she could take it. She was still kissing him for all she was worth, while he slid another finger into her, and then a third. She clenched around him, her whole lower body flexing. Lucky pulled his fingers out, and guided himself into her.
The first thrust made her hips buck, and she pushed him back down onto the couch so she could ride him. That was ... wow, yes. His first strokes were tentative, not sure how deep she could take him, but she thrust back with hard snaps of her hips, and the answer was, he found, as deep as he could go. She rode him with wild abandon until their steady bouncing on the couch scooted them right off the edge.
Lucky gave the coffee table a hasty shove to get it out of the way before they both split their skulls open. It skidded on the carpet and tipped over with a tremendous crash, spilling magazines and dinnerware and what used to be a very nice lamp. Right now, he didn't care. The floor was just as good as on the couch, and it had a nice deep pile to break their fall and cushion his hips. Still, on his back he couldn't thrust as hard as he wanted to ...
Lucky rolled onto his side without breaking the rhythm or letting them come apart. He kept hold of her with an arm around her back, pressing her against him, and himself into her. "How flexible are you again?"
"This flexible," she panted, and lifted her upper leg carefully, stretching it out, toe pointed. She laid it along his chest.
Whoa. Lucky turned his head to kiss her ankle. "How's that feel?" he gasped. For his part, feeling her move on him, rotate around him, was pretty damn great.
"Good—but—can't really move." She was definitely still moving, but he could see what she meant; her thrusts were shallow and ineffectual. Frustrated, she reached past him to try to get a grip on something, but only succeeded in pulling the cushions off the couch on top of them both.
"Turn around."
He didn't need to ask twice. She pulled off him and flipped around, pressing the curve of her ass into his groin. He slid in from behind, and felt her tense around him. She gave a soft groan of pleasure. Lucky wrapped his arms around her, brushing his palm over her erect nipples.
"Harder," she panted.
They were still lying on their side, which limited the amount of force he could apply without shoving her away. "I don't—think I can—"
"Let me ..." she panted. She brought her legs up and pressed both feet against the underside of the coffee table, shoving them back against the couch. With the couch at his back, and Jen using the coffee table to stop herself from moving, Lucky was able to pound her in a much more satisfying way—
—but still not quite enough, and he could read the same in her increasingly aggressive thrusts back against him.
He struggled to his knees, pulling her up with him. Jen braced herself on her hands and knees. They were both sweat-slick now. He held himself up with one arm and cupped a hand over her mound, teasing her clit while he thrust into her.
She gave a sudden cry, arching against him. He rode her through the waves, his own pleasure rising in him, and fought himself back from the edge, trying not to give in just yet. He slowed as she began to relax, and settled to stillness, holding her against him while she fluttered around him.
"Whoa," she murmured. "You didn't—uh—"
"Not yet." He ran his thumb around one of her nipples. "The neighbors haven't started complaining yet."
She laughed breathlessly. He gave a slow thrust to start them off again, and she panted, "Wait—wait!" Scrambling to her feet, she gripped the back of the couch, bending over it. "Okay. Better angle. Go."
He slid inside her. The moment's break had heightened the anticipation, and he almost lost it when her warm heat enfolded him. He clenched his teeth and fought himself back down, riding the ragged edge of the wave as he t
hrust harder and harder, feeling the sensations mount—
Jen gave a tiny yelp as the couch went over backwards, with them on top of it. Jen managed to roll sideways, pulling off him, to avoid landing under him. She ended up head-down among a tangle of the few couch cushions that hadn't been knocked off already, looking startled.
"Jeez, you okay?" Lucky asked, picking himself up.
"I'm fine. Ooh. Come here. I want to do it like this."
Lucky gazed at her with a mix of arousal and bafflement. She was face-up among the couch cushions with her spread legs draped over the now-vertical couch seat.
"Upside down? Seriously?"
"I've never had sex upside down. Come here, quick. I'm losing the moment."
"Nobody's had sex upside down. You can't have sex upside down, it's not possible."
"You're only saying that because you don't want to try."
"No, I'm saying that because I don't want to end this evening with a concussion." Still, she was about the hottest thing he'd ever seen, flushed and tousled with her hair spilling around her head in a dark corona, her legs spread apart and glimpses of her swollen pink folds visible—
Lucky knelt beside her on the back of the couch and parted her thighs with his hands. "I don't think I can fuck you like that—"
"—only because you won't try—"
"—but there are other options." He brushed the tip of his tongue over her clit, and was rewarded with a galvanized jerk as her body reacted. He wrapped an arm around her buttocks, holding her firmly in place.
"I changed my mind," she mumbled as he dipped into her salty folds again. "Upside—ooh!—upside-down sixty-nines is just as good. Oh God! Move over." She gripped his buttock and tugged. "Can't reach, tongue isn't that long when I'm not a gecko—note to self: don't think about geckoes during sex—come on, Lucado, shuffle over this way—"
Lucky shifted his hips her way without slowing the cadence of his licking, shuffling his knees around until he was straddling her face. A moment later, her hot mouth wrapped around his cock. Her tongue rolled around the end of it, and he had to pause for two slow deep breaths to keep himself under control.
Around the head of his cock, Jen said indistinctly, "Hey, not to bother you up there, but the licking stopped."
"That's because someone's ... doing too good a job of sucking me off ..." he panted.
There was a sucking sound as she popped her mouth off his cock. "Don't hold back, go for it. I'm on Depo, but this way we don't have to wonder, hey?"
"You're all right with it?"
He could almost feel the dirty look she had to be giving him. "Yeah, I always ask for things I don't want during sex." Her tongue darted around the head of his cock, and he groaned. "Yeah, buddy," she muttered, "that's what I'm talkin' about. Get your mouth back in my pussy."
"Your wish is my command," he murmured, and tongued her silky folds.
The wet heat of her mouth was pushing him over the edge, but he was determined to hold out until he coaxed another orgasm from her. He slid a finger into her, then another, stroking in and out while she made little stuttering gasps around his cock.
He didn't know how much longer he could hold it ...
Jen gave a low, moaning cry, and he felt her clenching around his fingers as the first spasm hit her, just as he reached the point of no return. His hips jerked and he came in long, glorious waves.
They spent a little time draped limply over the couch back, sweat drying on their skin. Finally, Lucky raised his head and surveyed the room: the tipped-over coffee table and couch, the shattered remains of the lamp. "I'd hate to see what we could do to a place if we really got going."
Jen swung her legs down from the back of the couch one at a time. "This is awesome. One of my life goals is to have furniture-destroying sex. I can die happy now."
"We seem to have managed not to annoy the neighbors. We'll have to try harder next time."
"I expect on this ship, the neighbors are used to ignoring any mysterious crashes or screams from next door."
"That's an oddly chilling point."
Jen got up, a little wobbly after being head-down for so long. Lucky offered her an arm. She accepted it, but then proceeded to take control and tow him toward the bedroom.
"C'mon. If I'm going to have mind-blowing sex, I expect spooning afterward."
"The lady's wish, et cetera."
They crawled together into the bed, and after a little shuffling around, ended up with Jen curled up inside the curve of Lucky's body. He laid an arm over her. The reality of it was starting to sink in.
She'd learned his secret. More than that—she knew most of his life story now. And instead of running, she'd just had wonderfully athletic sex with him and now she was curled up in his arms.
It would end, he thought. It couldn't last. But ... let it not end quite yet.
He lay with his face buried in her hair, inhaling her scent and the faint, lingering smell of sex. And slowly it began to sink in that he was not at all sleepy—napping most of the evening would do that, apparently—and as nice as it was to have her in his arms, he was starting to get very slightly bored and wonder how to gracefully extricate himself.
A few minutes later, Jen said, in a voice slightly muffled by her pillow, "Lucky, are you sleepy?"
"No," he admitted.
"Great!" She popped up like a jack-in-the-box that had been waiting to release its spring. "Let's go exploring while everyone's asleep."
Chapter Eleven
It was a little after midnight when they left their room. The hallway was brightly lit, but empty and very quiet. Jen could feel herself dropping into sneaking mode without really thinking about it.
They tried the employees-only door at the end of the hall first, but it needed a key card and the elevator code didn't work on its number pad. "We'll hardly be able to go anywhere without a card," Jen complained. "I pickpocketed one off a redcap yesterday, but I had to leave it in Marius's room along with my clothes."
"You know how that sounds."
She kicked his shin playfully. "And you know what I mean. I didn't get it back when Roxy gave my clothes back, which means either he hung onto it or she's got it now. Either way, I should try to get another. I could search the guest rooms tomorrow—well, more like later today—while people are out. Try to figure out which one our mysterious maybe-Lucia went into."
Lucky's face went still, and she wished she hadn't mentioned it, ruining their sneaking-around camaraderie.
"We could knock on doors?" Jen suggested. "People won't appreciate being woken up, but most of them are probably home."
"No. Not yet. We don't even know if it was her."
But he had a distant, unhappy look as they headed the other way, to the lounge and the elevators.
There were more people in the lounge than Jen had expected, at least a couple dozen in small groups or singly, scattered about at the tables. Some had alcoholic drinks; others were sipping coffee from the silver decanter that the redcaps seemed to keep filled at all hours of the day or night. There was no sign of a bar; as far as she could tell, anyone who wanted a drink flagged down the nearest redcap and had it brought to their table. Which meant there were quite a few of them around.
"Now what?" Lucky asked, as Jen got herself a cup of coffee.
"I can get us onto the elevators," she murmured, "but not with this many witnesses. Let's explore."
There were a few other doors near the elevators. Investigating, they discovered a small theater, with a handful of people watching a current blockbuster on a screen that rippled slowly with the ship's rocking—Lucky paled and hastily withdrew—and a gym. "Ooh," Jen said, perking up at this. She'd been missing her daily workout routine. Geckoing around the walls just wasn't a substitute for a proper tour of the weight machines or some time on the jogging track.
And the place was nice. At this hour, the only people in sight were a couple of bodyguard types pumping iron down at the far end. All the equipment was clean, modern
, and new, and the Egyptian theme was a little less overdone here; the walls still had painted columns and an occasional tomb-painting-style depiction of people in athletic poses, but the equipment was typical gym stuff in the usual shades of black and chrome. The oceanside wall consisted of floor-to-ceiling windows, so you could cycle on a stationary bike while looking out across the moonlit plain of the sea.
"We can stick around here for a little while if you want to work out," Lucky said.
Jen looked at him closely. He was still pale. "Nah, no sense wearing myself out and being all sweaty and icky. Maybe later, if I still can't sleep. You sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine." He rubbed his forehead with a thumb. "I thought I was getting used to the ship, but it feels like that damn drug threw my equilibrium off again." As she continued to give him a worried stare, he quirked up the corner of his mouth in a tiny smile. "Don't worry, that's all it is. Seasickness is unpleasant, but at least I'm used to it."
"You should eat something," Jen declared. "Something filling but not too heavy. I saw a tray of rolls and croissants back at the coffee machine. That'd be perfect."
They were at the coffee machine, where she'd coaxed him into nibbling half a roll, when Roxy Molina found them. She was muffled in an oversized beige sweater and her short cap of gray hair looked damp. "Ah, there you two are. I tried your room but you weren't in."
"It's the middle of the night," Jen said. "What'd you do, just walk in?"
"Yes," Roxy said, unruffled. "Was there some sort of altercation in your room?"
"Just wild, athletic sex, thanks for asking," Jen said with a bright smile. "We destroyed the couch."
Roxy gave her a narrow-eyed, suspicious look. "... Yes, I saw. Anyway, I wanted to let you know the Yegerev situation is taken care of. He was working alone, and he claims he didn't intend to kill you, just put you out of commission for a while." She flashed a humorless smile. "Consequently, I didn't kill him, just put him out of commission for a while."
"It's nice to know you have our backs," Lucky said in a voice so dry it could have stripped paint.