Page 22

Chapter Fourteen

Lunar Base

V ic couldn’t breathe. Just by touching her, Drafe had roused so many emotions she couldn’t begin to identify.

She ached, her skin flushed, and deep within her, something twanged, making demands she prayed he could assuage.

When he buried his face between her legs, she wanted to squirm away.

Nudity was one thing, but exposing her sex was new to her.

Yet, when he sucked on her, stars exploded behind her eyes, the colors awe-inspiring, the sensations ricocheting through her. This was amazing. Why had she taken so long to find out? Had it been out of principle when Sebastian Carne had implied it was her prized possession?

Writhing under Drafe’s skilled tongue, she thought this was it. Something built inside her, rising, growing, until she expected to break in two. Then he dipped a finger inside her, and new sensations assailed her. He could do anything to her now, and she would let him.

Finding her face buried in the linen, her ass in the air, wasn’t what she expected. He’d flipped her without a word of warning. Not that she minded when he pushed into her, expanding her, introducing her to an intense need, an ache so deep she whimpered his name.

“Foq, Vic, you are breathtaking.”

His sincere compliment settled on her arid heart.

Arching her back, she silently pleaded with him to hurry. Never had she felt this good. Never had she been complete, as if the connection between them had come full circle.

“Drafe, please.”

He growled and layered his chest to her back, pulling his cock out to thrust in.

Overwhelmed by a burning need, the fire in her core, and her mind bombarded with thoughts of him, she screamed into the linen to smother her cries for more.

As he sucked on her ear, thrust in and out, he splayed his fingers over hers.

Tingles began in the very depths of her and spiraled out and upward, until with his deep thrusts, she exploded.

Shivers assaulted her. She coiled, riding an explosion of pure pleasure.

He roared, slipped an arm around her waist, and bit her shoulder, summoning another intense crescendo.

He collapsed on the bed, taking her with him, yet kept her close.

His labored breathing and pounding heartbeat merged with hers.

Tears pressed against her eyes. They made no sense, and still, she had chosen him. He had delivered beyond what innocent her could have imagined. Yet despite the sense of rightness, she couldn’t help but feel she had lost a part of her. Her very soul was no longer hers alone.

Feathering his lips across her ear and along her jaw, he tilted her head to snatch a kiss, grumbling as he did so. “Amazing, Vic.”

She nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat.

“May I search for you when my mission is complete?” The sincerity in his golden-yellow eyes tore at her. He was sweet for such a warrior.

She twisted to cup his cheek, brushing her lips across his. “I would be honored.”

“Ah, Vic…” Dieter’s voice sliced through the moment. “You best hurry. Nikko just told me to fire up the engines, but I know for shit, you’re not on board.”

She stilled, groaning at her inability to see Nikko as a lying sack of shit. “I’m coming.” When she tried to wriggle free, Drafe tightened his hold around her.

“No,” he growled.

She chuckled past the darkness of goodbyes squeezing her chest. “Duty calls.”

He released her but watched her scoot across the bed to yank on her dress.

When she bent to tug on her boots, he snatched her into his arms and pinned her to the wall again.

His kiss was heaven, the taste of him, and the heated dominance of his tongue.

For someone who hadn’t known what a kiss was, he’d learned fast. Hoisting her legs up, he plunged into her.

Too close to her last orgasm, she exploded, riding pure pleasure that left her disinterested in returning to the ice hauler and what Nikko had done to her.

Instead, she clung to Drafe as he fucked her hard enough to bounce her off the wall.

Sweat glistened on his obsidian skin, and when she buried her fingers in his mane of hair, he bellowed, his body twitching.

He arched, keeping her in place with the power of his hips.

“I mean it, Vic. Ten minutes to departure.”

Drafe staggered back, his cock still hard and a delicious black and cream color.

She would love to explore the ridges on the top, and the pointed tip of his cock too.

On trembling knees, she managed to don her boots.

With a last lingering kiss, she slipped out of the room, then burst into a run, taking the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator.

Sprinting and weaving through the crowds, she bounced her leg when she had to take the one elevator to the docking level. Dieter waited on the ramp, his brow furrowed as he searched for her.

Grinning, she strolled the final few meters. “I’m here.”

His shoulders slumped. He beamed. “Cutting it fine, Vic.”

“You’re not going to garner any favors for helping me. If Nikko wanted me off, he won’t appreciate this.”

“Captain’s my boss, and he told me to call you.” Dieter pressed a red button as soon as they stepped into the cavernous bay. The mechanical whine of the ramp retracting merged with the squeal from the lowering bay door.

She had hoped Nikko hadn’t sold her out. Why had she thought she didn’t need to guard her back as she had at Carne? “Yeah, I think we have a ‘who’s boss’ problem.”

“Want to finish the tour now?” Dieter flicked his gaze over her. “Might as well get your uniform too.” Walking backward along the passage, he studied her. “What took you dockside?”

“Oh, just had to see a man about a promise I made,” she chuckled.

D rafe stared at the closed door then sat on the edge of the bed.

Holy Osnir, he was bereft, still aching, his symbiotes zinging along his veins in tormented bliss.

As explosive as this had been, it hadn’t been enough.

He needed more time with her, more of…her.

While snapping on his boots, he relived her kisses, the addictive sounds she made that caught in her throat, and the feel of her engulfing him.

Never had he been this energized. His symbiotes reacted to her in ways he struggled to understand.

In his village, there were too few females for mating, especially for pleasure. And traveling to other villages for such a task was done only once a season. The males who did so had to accept that their symbiotes recorded their dalliances for all generations to witness. He was not such a male.

He licked his lips and savored her flavor, better than the sweetest of water, the freshest of vasquva, or the fragrance of the morning sun hitting the Nadaar dunes.

Summoning his armor, he strolled out of the room but not before he drew in a lungful of their union.

He wanted to capture the moment. Growling, he stomped into the descending box and across the lounge.

His glower silenced anyone curious enough to glance his way.

The Aroagni was close, not that he cared when he cut a wide path through the crowds.

“What has you so miserable?” Vaen guarded the entrance, his scowl a deterrent as well.

“I…lost something.” How else could Drafe explain the darkness enshrouding his soul?

“Oh?” Vaen studied Drafe. “You have your blaster and a strange black strip around your wrist.”

Lifting his hand, Drafe twisted his wrist. He could talk to her, so that was something. She said he could find her after they had learned who killed the ots. He need only focus on that.

“Ulvus is most displeased with your departure.” Vaen fell into step beside Drafe. “Aehort awaits you in the command room.”

“I know where it is. You need not escort me.” Drafe glared at Vaen. He was hoping for a moment alone, to gather his focus, and remember the honor of Qaldreth came first.

“Aehort was most specific.” Vaen grinned and thumped Drafe on his shoulder.

“Fine.” He shrugged, trying to dislodge Vaen. “Cease touching me.”

Vaen drew in a deep breath. “You smell…good, like Qaldreth sunlight baking the rocks around the Aguura salt plains.”

Fire exploded inside Drafe and across his vision.

“My…” His what? His scents? His personal space?

His…Vic? He’d lain with her twice. She wasn’t his but was a free female, without filial responsibilities, alone…

Yet, she had said she would be honored. The perfect response.

His armor hardening should have warned him, but instead, he threw Vaen off.

“Whoa.” Vaen held up his hands, stepped back, and allowed Drafe to enter the command center first.

Aehort met Drafe’s gaze for a minute before nodding. “So it has begun.” He gestured to the circular table in the center of the oval room. Holographs rose, building a three-dimensional representation of the star system around their location.

“The data shows these carry the explosives.” Thousands of blue dots popped into the model, moving as they traveled outward.

“They have no predetermined destination. A few collide with meteors, asteroid belts, debris, a few are collected by astro-hoppers—what the humans call those who mine the asteroid belts. A few of these pods encounter planets, habitable or otherwise.”

“Do we know what’s inside them?” Drafe spun the model as dots blimped out of existence.

Aehort zoomed into a dot, analyzing the pod-shape of it. “No, which is why we need to capture one.”

The corpse was discovered in such a pod. Drafe flicked the dot aside and chose another, hoping any difference would reveal more information. “Wouldn’t that mean opening ourselves to the same outcome?”

“Indeed.” Aehort squeezed his shoulder as if it bothered him. “I considered this conundrum. Not if we study it on an asteroid or desolate moon.”

Drafe traced a dot’s trajectory in reverse. “Where is the source of these pods?”

Aehort touched the model and blue lines formed, pointing to a planet nearby. “This is what the humans call Jupiter—to them it is but a ball of compressed gas. They have no knowledge of what lies on its surface or if it has one.”

“Yet, the pods originate from here? What about one of its moons?” Drafe spun the model, touching the closest moon to expand it. Details popped up: iced oceans, a silicate-rock mantle, and an iron core.

“It is possible.” Aehort tapped the model, and seventy-nine moons aligned from largest to smallest. “We’ll investigate everything to do with this planet. Monitor all communication in and around it. Mark future pod deployments.”

Aehort had a plan. The confidence crossing their bond bolstered Drafe’s flagging spirits.

“Leave us.” Aehort met the gazes of the males in the room, then waited for them to obey. Once they were alone, he faced Drafe. “She is yours. You need only be patient.”

Drafe winced. “Am I that obvious?”

The uz cackled, his laughter jarring his narrow shoulders. “Only to me. She is part of the solution to this, Drafe.”

He clenched his jaw at Aehort’s cryptic words—cursed Ivoyan intelligence granting the species a preternatural foretelling. Regardless, no way would Drafe endanger Vic.

“Be at ease.” Aehort patted his shoulder with his elongated fingers. “Now, bathe, you stink of mating.”

Drafe stumbled to his quarters, a little dazed as he unraveled and analyzed Aehort’s words.

Stripping off his armor, commanding his symbiotes to unmask, he stepped under the water’s spray.

While washing, he touched parts of himself she had, and when he rubbed his koq, renewed sensations bombarded him.

If he didn’t resolve this mission soon, memories of her would be the death of him.

He snorted. When next he traveled home, all would know how he had lost his soul to a non-Qaldreth. If he had his way, Vic would be with him when he stepped onto his homeworld.