Page 5 of Black Star
Chapter Five
Mikiel dropped to his bed. All he wanted was to close his eyes and rest for a week. What the fuck had he just done? He had taken Nadira for her piloting skills. Nothing more. He had to remember that. Without her full attention on learning how to fly Sword Breaker as efficiently as she had the Black Star , she wouldn’t be able to bond with the Sword Breaker . At present, Sword Breaker was the only Asalian vessel to be equipped with cyborg intelligence -- computers combined with human brain cells -- but who knew how many the Vok’nair had. So far, no one had been able to bond with Sword Breaker . Who knew how many Vok’nair vessels had been bonded.
When he’d seen the way the Black Star moved and fought, he knew he had to find out everything he could about her pilot. When the Sword Breaker had been commissioned, the ultimate goal had been for the three key people aboard a ship to bond with it -- the captain, the second in command, and the pilot. Given the degree of skill with which the Black Star had moved, of those three people, the pilot had been the most likely to have bonded with the ship. It was still possible one or both of the others had bonded as well, but given the fact that they hadn’t pursued yet, he figured they either didn’t have a good bond, or hadn’t bonded at all. With the addition of Nadira to his crew, he began to think there might be a possibility of finding the key to this stupid three-quarter cyborg, one-quarter human tin can. The only reason the Asalian Coalition had built Sword Breaker in the first place was to keep up with the Vok’nairs’ technology. It was a colossal waste of time, materials, and manpower as far as he was concerned.
Still, he had to make sure she stayed focused, and fucking her until they were both sated and sleepy would not accomplish his goals. If anyone was going to bond with his ship, it was Nadira. He knew it in his gut.
Now he had to be strong, had to live up to the reputation of the cold and calculating commander he’d worked so hard to achieve. There was more at stake here than his engorged cock.
As he lay there, remembering how silky her skin had felt, how beautifully she’d responded to him, that aforementioned engorged cock twitched as if reminding him it still needed attention. Ignoring it wasn’t an option, not when it was this hard.
Touching Nadira had been the worst kind of heaven. Once he’d slipped his fingers inside her and knew beyond a doubt she was a virgin, a quick fuck was out of the question. Sex with a virgin might be a heady thought, but there were invariably messy emotional complications. Always on the part of said virgin. Mikiel wasn’t the kind of man to be with only one woman.
But what a fuck it would be! He took his dick in one hand and squeezed gently. It pulsed in his hand as if eager to begin. Pulling up, then down, he stroked himself steadily at first, wanting only to get off quickly. It was working, too, until the image of Nadira’s lips enveloping his cock popped into his head. The air left his lungs and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. In his mind, she looked at him, drawing her lips up the shaft and letting go of the head with a popping sound before wrapping her lips around him once again and starting over.
On second thought, he wanted this to last as long as it could. The possibility of actually getting Nadira into this position was virtually zero, and the image was too damned good to rush. He wondered what she would think or do if she came out of his office and found him like this. With that thought came a rush of lust so strong he couldn’t hold back his climax any longer. He let go and a low groan escaped his throat as stream after stream of his own seed spurted onto his chest and belly.
For a few moments, he simply lay there trying to catch his breath. It had been a long time since the mere image of a woman going down on him had brought about such a powerful orgasm.
Fuck! He had to keep his wits about him and quit thinking with his dick. The Coalition was counting on him to figure out how to bond this ship, and Nadira was his best hope.
Taking a deep breath, Mikiel sat up. He touched his hand to his chest. It came away sticky and he winced. He needed to clean up, and a bath sounded really good.
In the bathing chamber, he took a long, hot bath to wash the semen from his torso and collect his thoughts. Well, at least it was done. He wouldn’t have to worry about his wayward cock rearing its pesky head for a while.
Then he walked into his study.
She stood in the center of the room, her arms outstretched, her face tilted upward as if looking to the sky, but her eyes were closed. There was a look of utter concentration on her face. She looked like she was listening to something. No sooner had the door whooshed shut than she lowered her arms and took a step back away from him, the spell broken.
“What were you doing?” He regarded her with wariness. He’d bet his life she’d done it already. Bonded with his ship.
“I -- nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me, Nadira.” He didn’t raise his voice, but he made his tone as sharp as he could. If she’d linked with the ship, he needed to know. “Have you bonded with Sword Breaker ?”
“No.” She took a step backwards, then held her ground, raising her chin. “But I might have if you hadn’t broken my concentration.”
Mikiel took a few deep, calming breaths. Even still, his heart was racing. Just like that. For twenty-one Asalian sun cycles they had tried to figure out how to access the organic parts of the computer brain in this ship and she had done it in less than five standard hours.
“How?”
“I’m slightly empathic, but only with closely related family members. Somehow, this ship reached out to me on an emotional level.”
Mikiel thought hard about his next question. If the Black Star had indeed linked with the Sword Breaker , Nadira would likely know Sword Breaker was not bonded and maybe even that they didn’t know how to form a bond with their bloody cyborg ship. If she hadn’t picked up that information, he didn’t want to volunteer it. That was information that could be potentially damaging if Nadira were to escape. He tried to phrase it as carefully as possible.
“Do your people have to be empathic to bond with a cyborg vessel?”
When she didn’t answer right away, Mikiel knew she was measuring her response as well. “We believe so, yes,” she finally answered.
Mikiel huffed an exasperated sigh. This was going to get them nowhere. If they were going to figure this out, they had to work together. He wasn’t going to let her go, anyway. Why not simply tell her? Maybe she could solve their problem for him.
“We thought telepathic enhancers for the neurological conductor pathways in the synthetic brain would be enough.”
Nadira shrugged and turned away. Apparently she wasn’t going to volunteer information. While he admired her for it, it also made him angry. They had one of the most technologically advanced vessels in space and they couldn’t fucking figure out how to use it.
He crossed the distance between them in three long strides, grabbed her arm, and jerked her around to face him. Her body landed flush against his.
“You’re not going anywhere, Nadira.” He gritted the statement out through clenched teeth. “Even if by some miracle your government decided it gave a damn because you’ve bonded with one of their ships, I absolutely will not let you go.” He shook her slightly to emphasize his resolve, and she cried out. “I need you to tell me how to create a human-to-ship bond.”
“You don’t understand!” she yelled back at him. “I don’t know how! This ship reached out to me, not the other way around.” She paused for a moment, her breathing shallow and her cheeks flushed. “I didn’t even bond with the Black Star .”
For a moment, Mikiel was too stunned to say anything. He simply gaped at her, trying to decide if she was telling the truth. Her silver-blue eyes were wide in shock and fear. When he had pulled her to him, he hadn’t realized the arm not holding onto her upper arm had snaked around her waist, but now he used the leverage to pull her closer.
He wasn’t sure why he did it, but when her mouth parted in surprise, he couldn’t help but taste what she’d inadvertently offered. He didn’t take her gently -- quite the opposite -- he swooped down like he meant to conquer. He pulled at her lips with his teeth and plunged his tongue inside to explore.
When she moaned and tilted her head back, something inside him snapped. His other arm went around her to grasp her ass, and he pulled her pelvis into him. His cock had gone rock hard, and he ground it into the soft flesh of her belly. The form-fitting outfit offered only a scant barrier between them. The heat from her flesh seared him.
After a brief hesitation, Nadira kissed him back. Her touch was tentative at first, but before long she kissed him with as much vigor as he kissed her. Wrapping one leg around his hip, she struggled to find a position that gave her some relief. Mikiel knew what she wanted and pressed his thigh between her legs. When Nadira made contact with him, she cried out yet again and began to ride him rapidly. She ground herself onto his leg, obviously hitting her clit with the friction she needed.
It wasn’t long before her breathing became erratic and her cries louder and more frantic. Within moments, she tore her mouth away from his, threw her head back, and screamed out her climax. When she fused her mouth to his once again, Mikiel was startled when she bit him, actually drawing blood. He pulled her back with a fist clenched tightly in her hair close to her scalp. The fierceness in her eyes, the unadulterated lust, called to his own baser nature. She might be a virgin, but she certainly knew what she wanted and went after it as aggressively as she flew ships.
With that thought, a realization of what he was about to do came crashing down on him. He shoved Nadira away from him a little harder than he should have, and she stumbled and fell. Her face hit the edge of his desk. Mikiel resisted the almost overpowering urge to help her to her feet, but he was afraid that if he touched her just then, he’d rip the uniform from her delectable body and fuck her until they both collapsed. Even so, when she turned back to him, tears trickling down her face -- he could see from the look in her eyes it was from the shock of the blow as much as from the pain -- he almost went to her, anyway.
Nadira touched the injury gingerly with her fingertips. “I guess I’ll have matching bruises.” She gave him a deprecating smile. “I supposed I deserved that.”
Mikiel wiped a trail of blood from his chin where it had dripped from his lip. “No woman deserves that, Nadira. We don’t treat our woman like that, slaves or not.”
“So you said once before.” She got shakily to her feet and almost fell. Mikiel couldn’t stop himself this time. He did reach out to her. When she flinched, he thought he’d throw up. He wanted -- needed -- to keep his distance from her emotionally, but he didn’t want her to fear for her safety. She was needed as a pilot. Anything else would have to be her choice and not like this. She had to make a rational decision, not one made as a result of stress and sexual tension. Mikiel had never taken advantage of a slave -- or any other woman for that matter. He didn’t intend to start now.
“Nadira --”
“No.” She held up a hand and looked away from him, as if she couldn’t bear the sight of him. “I don’t want to hear how sorry you are, or how ‘if only we’d met in another lifetime’ or some other shit. You don’t want me. That’s all I need to know. I’ll never do that again.”
That statement enraged him and he wasn’t really sure why. It was what he wanted, wasn’t it? Why did he feel so strongly for this woman out of the blue? The thought that she would never seek him out was almost as troubling as the thought that she believed he didn’t want her. He took a few deep breaths, hoping it might slow his pounding heart and get the blood flowing to his brain instead of his cock.
When he had better control of himself, he spoke with more conviction than he had ever felt about anything in his life -- up to this point. “You will do that again. Once you’ve bonded with this ship and learned her as you knew the Black Star , you will come to me on your own.”
“What makes you so sure of that? What makes you think I won’t escape and spill all your secrets to the Coalition once I learn them?”
“Because I don’t believe you can share that kind of bond with this ship only to betray her in such a manner.”
She looked helpless and afraid for a moment before she schooled her emotions and blanked her face. “I will not pursue a man who does not want me. I won’t lower myself.”
He advanced on her again and almost pulled her into his arms to show her how very wrong she was. “There’s a difference in not wanting a woman and not wanting to take her before she’s ready.” He pointed his finger at her, bringing it inches from her face. “You need to learn the difference. When you do, then you’ll come to me.”
Mikiel watched Nadira for a few moments, purposefully letting his lust for her show on his face. She would come to him, and when she did he would prove to her how very much he wanted her. Nadira gasped and would have taken a step back if she had been a lesser woman. She might look young and fragile, but she had the heart of a warrior.
Satisfied he’d gotten his point across, Mikiel turned and left the room. His life was going to be hell for a good long while.