Page 368 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Akri

“That’s the ship,” I said, pointing at the sleek, gray, short-range vessel parked not too far away from our hiding spot.

I’d created a blind spot for us on the camera feeds around here, but we still had to avoid being seen by any of the people on the docks.

That was no easy feat, as it was extremely busy in the port at all hours of the day.

On the side of the ship, the name was scrawled in the typical hieroglyphs of the Ovt language. This was it: the supply ship bound for the research facility with the supercomputer I needed and the scientist whose brain I wanted to pick—my primary goal, in fact.

“Looks deserted. That’s good, right?” Jenny asked me.

She wore only a thin blouse, along with her pants and boots.

During the day, Ov’Korad got much too warm to wear much more.

It allowed me to see the freckles that dotted her arms and the upper part of her chest. I hadn’t counted them yet, but I really wanted to.

“Yeah, it’s scheduled to leave in about two hours, once they finish loading it.

” I gestured at the open loading hatch at the back, where crates stood in stacks, ready to be brought aboard.

Nobody was working on them yet, though we’d watched as bots had brought them to the back of the ship not long ago.

“Seems like our window. Let’s go,” she said, and then she was off before I could even contemplate whether she was right.

With her big backpack on her back, her silhouette took on a strange shape, especially as she ran bent over to stay hidden behind a row of containers as much as possible. I rushed after her, following her lead.

Weaving around what cover we had along the way, we avoided the line of sight of the dockworkers one ship over.

Jenny didn’t even pause as she reached the open loading hatch of the ship, her booted feet thudding on the metal ramp as she ran inside.

I was hot on her heels, my heart pounding rapidly in my chest. What if there was someone inside we hadn’t seen?

The ship looked deserted from the outside, but that didn’t mean it truly was.

The cargo bay was empty and unlit, the only source of light being the daylight filtering in through the open hatch.

There weren’t many visible hiding places, but I knew exactly where to go.

I’d downloaded the schematic of the ship; I knew it inside out.

Jenny was standing just far enough inside the cargo bay that she couldn’t be seen from outside, but she was staring around the empty space with dismay.

“This way,” I said, grabbing her hand to tug her along with me.

My nearest tentacle immediately reached out to her, the tip brushing along her shoulder, and I saw her chin lift, a smile flirting at her lips.

Heat surged through me at the response; even though my tentacles kept malfunctioning, my control over them slipping, she didn’t mind.

It filled me with a sense of satisfaction that she welcomed my touch.

It was when I was leading her to the maintenance hatch where I’d planned to hide that I realized just how small and cramped the space would be for us together.

Using my tools, I made short work of unscrewing the panel.

All the while, my body was breaking out in a cold sweat.

I identified this sensation as nerves. Was I nervous about being in such close proximity with Jenny again?

I’d been dreaming about her body pressed to mine each night since we met.

Was the reality going to live up to that? To the memory of that first night?

Once I had the panel off, I carefully watched Jenny as she appraised the narrow tunnel.

It was meant for mechanics to crawl into or send a bot in to do the work, so they could reach some of the life support systems beyond this wall.

It wasn’t very big, barely big enough to fit an adult male.

She’d have to lie on top of me for us to fit, as it wasn’t deep enough for us to get in there in succession.

“Hmm,” was all she said as she took off her pack and started stuffing it inside.

“You’d better get in first,” she added once the pack had been kicked in as far as it could go.

She was right, and we needed to hurry if we didn’t want to get caught.

Crawling in feet first, I flattened myself on my back.

It was a tight fit for my shoulders to lie like this, but there was plenty of space above me for her to fit.

Jenny cast one glance over her shoulder at the open loading hatch and shuffled her feet, as if she felt a little hesitation.

But finally, she moved. “How long is this going to take?” she asked as she slung one leg over my head, her knee settling on my shoulder.

That’s when it finally sank in what position I was asking her to put herself into.

Just to get inside this hatch… she had to climb over my face. I was asking her for a lot of trust.

My tentacles didn’t play fair either. They curled around each leg and slid up, seeking her heat.

She froze in place, and I fervently apologized, trying to get my arms around so I could grab my wayward limbs.

“I’m so sorry, Jenny. I didn’t mean to do that.

” She let out a nervous little laugh, the sound echoing loudly in the cavernous cargo bay.

A scuffing noise came back at us, followed by the soft rumble of an engine and several male voices.

The dockworkers had arrived, and they’d start loading this ship in a moment.

If Jenny wasn’t in the hatch before they came inside, they’d catch us.

She had arrived at the same conclusion as I had, and scrambled to get her other leg in.

There was very little grace to her movements now, just a mad dash for safety.

She landed crotch-first on my face, and I instinctively inhaled, a musky, sweet smell I’d never encountered before filled my nostrils.

My body’s physical response was instant: my cock grew erect in my pants, and my heart pounded in my chest. Everything in me just wanted to grab her and grind her against my face, to keep breathing in that delicious scent, to yank her heat down my body and press my aching cock against it.

A pained groan escaped me, my hands finding her hips.

I started to press her against my mouth, my tentacles leading the way, stroking along the seam of her pants.

Sounds from outside managed to penetrate my lust-addled brain just enough to remind me of the danger of the situation we were in.

It was a Herculean effort to use my grip on her hips to yank her inside the hatch instead of doing with her what I really wanted.

She yelped, the sound muffled when she turned her head into her shoulder.

Her soft belly dragged over my face, my tentacles clinging to her ribcage, rubbing up the sides of her even softer breasts.

They were warm and soft as they landed on my face, and I found another spot I wanted to bury myself in.

Now that I knew just how soft each part of her was, I knew I would never get that information out of my head; I didn’t want to.

She had her back arched, her head lifted as she tried to assist in climbing down my body and into the maintenance tunnel. Her heat was all over me, legs along mine, belly to belly. There was no doubt she knew my cock had escaped my control, just like my tentacles had.

As soon as she was inside, I tried to refocus myself instead of lingering on all the sensations I’d just experienced.

Blindly, I grabbed the hatch I had detached and yanked it into place over the opening.

It clicked shut, though it wasn’t solidly attached with screws like the ones I had removed earlier.

We were both breathing rapidly, our breathing far too loud in the quiet of the cargo bay.

We were going to give ourselves away like this.

Jenny’s face was completely red, and when our eyes met, she turned her head away, thumping it down against my chest. I felt her warm breath through my thermal shirt, skimming over my pectoral muscles and touching one of my nipples until it, too, became hard.

It was a sensation I had only experienced before when my body was cold. I was definitely not cold right now.

Regulating my breathing took effort, but it was the only thing I had even the slightest bit of control over.

My head appendages curled around Jenny’s shoulders, stroking along her back.

I could still vividly remember the scent of her cunt and the feel of her breasts on my face.

This was completely unfamiliar territory for me in this body.

Was this normal behavior? Was I deviant for responding this strongly to her nearness?

“I’m so sorry,” I dared to whisper. “I’m so sorry, Jenny.

I didn’t mean to… I had no idea.” I was unsure what to even say—or apologize for.

Definitely for the lack of permission when I touched her, it was wrong; I knew that much.

Her scent was still so thick in the air that it was making my head spin.

I wanted to keep on touching her, and I wanted to move my hips beneath hers.

She made a sort of gurgling noise that I couldn’t place, her breath blowing over my shirt and already painfully tight nipple again.

“You’re sorry?” she whispered. “God, Akri, that was the least appropriate moment to turn a girl on like that…” She turned her head into the little valley between my pectoral muscles, and I could just make out the muffled scream she emitted.

“How long is this going to freaking take?”

I had no clue what to make of her words; she was upset, but what exactly was she upset about? Was she angry that I touched her, or not? It seemed like her words meant both things, but how was I supposed to react to that? How could I fix that?

“Several hours at the least,” I said, since I did know that information.

She groaned in answer, her body wiggling back and forth across mine in the tightly confined space.

It made her hips brush along my engorged cock, and I swear I saw stars for a moment, which was impossible, as we were indoors.

“Please, Jenny. I have no control over this body. It aches. I want… I should… We can’t…

” I had never been so incoherent as I was around this human female.

This brain was acting like it didn’t have the computing power to process all these feelings and sensations, which was ridiculous, since brains were the best computers there were.

“Oh, I know, don’t worry,” she responded. She rolled her head on my chest, ending the torment of my nipple and allowing me to look her in the eye. She was flushed along her cheeks, her eyes sparkling with something that seemed as if it might be amusement. “You really like me, don’t you, Akri?”

Baffled by the question while my body was misfiring so badly, I could only respond by jerking my chin down to my chest. I liked Jenny more than any other person I’d ever met, and that was saying something, considering my many good friends back on the Vagabond—especially the tight kinship I felt with Ziame, my captain, my protector.

The smile she offered was mysterious and soft. She moved her arms so she could cradle her chin in her hands, propping herself up on my chest. “Good. I like you too. You’re not very experienced at this kind of thing, right? That’s okay; we’ll figure it out together.”

I wasn’t sure what exactly she was talking about, yet again.

Then she leaned up a little more, her soft breasts pressing into my chest, my hands somehow landing on the perfect curve of her behind.

Her lips brushed against mine, sensations firing through my body that I desperately tried to analyze. This was a kiss. Jenny was kissing me.

My brain short-circuited, my body becoming one big ball of instinct and desire. Yes, kissing was a good thing.