“I’m going to touch you, Irena,” he said in a thick voice, his eyes glowing and sparking blue, locked on my folds like he was a starved man. He flicked out his tongue and licked his lips, and my thighs grew tense. Was he going to? Then he groaned and swore roughly. “Damn it, as much as I want to wear your taste on my face for all to catch… I can’t. That would give too much away.” He reached then, and my whole body twitched when his fingers slid beneath my panties and touched my folds.
Unerringly, he located my clit and began stroking it with his thumb. His other hand grabbed his jutting cock, forcing my eyes back to that impressive sight. What had I gotten myself into? There was way too much of him, and he was like an avalanche, there was no stopping this train now. My hands fluttered against the blankets, wanting to touch, overwhelmed at the same time.
He bared his teeth. “Yes, come for me again, come on my fingers, pretty Irena.” I lifted a hand between us like it was a questionmark, but the other clutched at the blanket beneath me. His thumb worked magic on my clit, and his other hand stroked his beautiful cock in quick, rough motions. As precum dribbled from the tip onto my belly, he caught that questing hand and folded it around his cock. Heat warmed my palm, his cock silk over steel. He groaned, and his fists closed around my fingers. Then he was using my hand to stroke himself, and it was all too much.
I came with a scream. I convulsed against the blankets, eyes closing, senses turning inward. Such pleasure, I hadn’t felt good in far too long, and it washed away things inside me, cleansed me. When I came back to the present, my eyes were wet with tears, and my body was a trembling mess. Flack’s gaze was blue fire, and then he came too. Rope after rope of thick white seed bursting from his cock. It landed across the front of my dress, on my breasts, and one sticky drop even hit the upper curve of my lip. I flicked out my tongue and tasted it before it even fully registered.
“Stars!” Flack growled. His cock twitched in our combined grip, and more seed spurted out, this time landing across my throat. “Irena!” He released my hand, and then he came forward, bracing on his fist above my head, his mouth crashing to mine. “You are too sexy for your own good, you know that?” he groaned. I tasted him on my tongue—his seed, his mouth—and he had to taste that too.
“Sorry?” I offered a little helplessly, and that made him laugh, a deep, husky chuckle, eyes dancing with mirth. My whole body felt like it glowed, and that smile only made the feeling stronger. What just happened? That was crazy. It was insane, actually. We’d had sex without the sex, in a cramped little space, surrounded by danger. It was nuts, and yet, as he gave me a lastlingering kiss and tucked me—sticky with his own seed—against his chest, I could not regret a single moment.
“Sorry? She says sorry after derailing my entire morning plan,” Flack said, his face now tucked into my hair at the top of my head. He didn’t fit onto the blankets with me, but he’d curled himself around me, holding me tightly. We were both sticky and sweaty, and he didn’t care. He held me like that part mattered as much to him as the other stuff had. “I only meant to stick around till you woke so you would know I hadn’t abandoned you. This… this wasn’t the plan.”
I liked how his deep voice felt like a rumble against my ear when I was pressed so tightly against his chest. My eyes could finally gaze along his naked body to the black ink that marked his thigh, too. It looked vaguely like a map, or a schematic, but it was pretty at the same time. Like someone had tried to hide the purpose of the ink with pretty details.
“You have to leave?” I asked, because that was sinking in. Of course he did; he had to figure out how to free us. That involved leaving, but I very much appreciated that he’d stayed until morning.
“Only so they don’t realize I’m able to move freely. Promise me you’ll hide here until I come to get you? Till it’s safe?” He withdrew as he spoke, and I felt the loss of his presence keenly. It was not cold in here; it never was, but every touch made me ache in a good way, and his arms had made me feel whole and safe. I really liked that feeling. He shifted back on his heels, crouching next to me in the awkwardly tight space. When I nodded to indicate I’d stay as he wanted, he looked grim rather than pleased.
“Stay safe. Don’t come out for anything,” he warned me. “I brought you supplies, so you should be able to last a while. Don’t worry about me.” He pointed, still gloriously nude, but that part was growing on me. A stack of boxes sat at the back of the hideyhole now, piled high and somewhat haphazardly. I could not read the labels on those boxes, but I recognized them as food rations and bottled water right away. My stomach instantly lurched eagerly in my belly. Yes, food, lots of it, and it was all mine!
It distracted me enough that I almost didn’t catch how he raised his hand, the hand that had rubbed my core to orgasm. His tongue lapped at his thumb, his body shuddering, his face ecstatic. “Next time, I’ll taste you right at the source, little one. Think on that while I’m gone,” he swore. As the images he provoked filled my mind, he shifted, shrank to an absurdly small fox, and vanished into one of the pipes.
Holy crap. I fell back against the blankets, still shaky and stunned after the multiple orgasms. Flack was a whirlwind, a force of nature, a… I didn’t even know what to think right now. Just that I felt good, safe, protected. My eyes flicked to the many boxes of ration bars, and I felt fed, too.
Chapter 12
Flack
Seeing Irena leave while I was trapped in a cell, unable to shift, had been unbearable. Being the one doing the leaving felt like I was ripping myself in half. She was so much more than I ever could have imagined, so sweet, so beautiful. Her tiny body curled on that nest of blankets looked so fragile, but I knew she had a core of steel. She had to be strong to survive what she had, and I wanted her to know she never needed to be that strong again. I was her shield now.
My paw still smelled of her delightful scent, and I wanted to wear that scent with pride. Instead, I forced myself to pad through a puddle beneath a leaking pipe and wash it all off. I’d have to take comfort in knowingshewas the one wearing my scent right now. My body sang with pleasure, remembering the delicate and entirely instinctive dart of her pink tongue when my seed landed on her lip. Stars, that had been the hottest thing I’d ever seen. Now I could not keep myself from craving the feeling of her lips wrapped around my cock. Soon, I promised myself: business first, then vengeance, and then all the pleasure my Irena could handle.
I slipped into the brig the same way Irena had snuck in and out of the place. I was forced to shift briefly to close up the hatch and hide it from sight. I altered shape again quickly, becoming small enough to slip through the bars and into my cell. Then I redressed in my pants and boots, relieved to discover one of the many lock picks I always kept in secret spots in my clothing was still there. It was the work of a moment to unlock the shacklesand lock them back around my wrists. When Dimon showed up, and I knew he would, he’d notice nothing amiss. I’d even added the detail of the bandage on my side, though the wound had fully healed thanks to Irena. Let the bastard think he had another advantage over me that way.
I did not have to wait long this morning, which was a relief, as my patience was wearing thin. The clomping of boots against the deck preceded his arrival, the sound of his tread as familiar as the ship itself. Dimon was decked out in full battle gear, but it sat a little more snugly than I recalled around his middle. The hilt of a sword rose above one shoulder, and a laser rifle hung from a strap clipped to his chest plate. Once upon a time, he would have looked terrifying; exactly like a menacing, notorious pirate captain should. Dimon was getting old, though, as much as he tried to hide it.
That was not the case for Xathena, who followed him into the brig. She was decked out in her own fighting gear, with an impressive amount of weapons that might even make Jaxin jealous. Xathena had a curl to her mouth that spelled nothing good, and I knew right away that she was the one I really had to worry about. This was going to be Dimon’s last mission, either by my hand or by hers.
“I am ready,” I said, cutting to the chase and rattling my chains with a loud, annoyed sigh. “The lack of FTL jumps this morning means we’ve reached our destination, I assume?” If it were me, I’d wait to make one last jump to ensure we were off the radar before we reached the wooded, temperate planet where the diamond was currently located. It had taken me a while to narrow down its location, but I’d traced a private auction to a rich Asrai who kept a mansion and vault here. If I’d cracked thatpaper trail, then so had Dimon. He might be old, but he’d always been clever. It was from him I’d learned that particular skill, in fact.
Dimon’s mouth tightened, and the lines at the corners of his beady black eyes grew more pronounced. “Close,” he agreed. That meant we still had one FTL jump to go. The question was, would they release me before or after? I’d supposedly been given the drugs, so Dimon had to think I couldn’t shift right now. I was certain they also knew shifting was part of how I got into places that were impossible to get into, though I’d never shown anyone how I did it. Except Irena, last night.
“You’re not going to try anything, Flack,” Xathena barked, charging ahead in her usual brash fashion. “I’ve got this gun loaded just for you,” she added, tapping the laser pistol strapped to her thigh, then flicking her long green hair over her shoulder. I eyed the gun warily but forced a grin, one I soon felt for real. So what if she had a gun with my name on it? I wasn’t going to give her the chance. Today was going to be recon only, because for my plan to work, I’d need Irena at my side.
The pilot announced the FTL jump just as Dimon unlocked my cell door. I braced myself, felt the urge surge through me to strike first. This was the male who had kicked my Irena when she was down. These were the people who had bought her at a slave auction and had offered not even a shred of decency. My mate had gone months with no medical care, though the need was urgent, and barely any food. She did not even have shoes to protect her tiny, dainty feet.
Almost, I gave it all away by shifting and leaping for their throats. Almost. Vaka calling out a countdown stayed my hands,or my fangs, as was the case. I froze, braced myself for the leap, and worried how Irena would fare on her own inside that tight junction. What if she didn’t hear the warning and was flung about during the rapid burst of travel? FTL leaps could heavily disorient a person; some humans even got nauseous from it.
The ship regained focus around me, and the twisting, warping shadows and blurs that had altered my vision faded. It was a very short burst, though time was always deceptive inside a jump. Dimon was holding steady by the door, as unfazed by the jump as always, though Xathena had braced a hand against the bars for stability. As if he hadn’t been interrupted by the jump at all, the captain moved into my cell and, with a clunky metal key, began undoing the shackles holding my wrists. “I know this goes against your nature, but no tricks, alright? We hold all the cards here.”
I chuckled as I shook out my arms and pretended they were stiff and sore from being pinned in place for so long. “You know I always win at Keflo,” I reminded him casually. And not by cheating either, that wouldn’t be fun. I rose to my feet and, with satisfaction, towered over Dimon. He glared, refusing to give ground. The urge to flick my tail and bare my teeth was strong, but I reined in the impulse. I didn’t even have a tail right now, though I very much enjoyed having the ability to express frustration that way.
“Xathena is allowed to shoot you if she thinks you twitched wrong,” Dimon warned. The Xurtal female bared her sharp teeth in a malicious grin, clearly relishing the thought. So I winked at her. That’s how the trip from the brig to the hangar bay went, and the tension between me and my former pirate crew only mounted as we took the shuttle down to the planet.
It was a world located somewhere along the far borders of the Aderian territories. A world that needed little protection, as it held nothing of interest, and thus received only the barest of military patrols through its system. I knew there was a mining town that yielded a small profit in gems, pretty trinkets, not diamonds. It was run by an Aderian noble family, and it was quiet and peaceful. There was a village for its workers, but the place we were after was located far away, deep inside the mountains and their thick forests.
A home was built here for a reclusive but rich Asrai prince, a place he retreated to for peace and quiet whenever the conniving court intrigue got to be too much. Or so the story went, but there were so many Asrai princes, thousands of them, that I had no specific knowledge of this particular one. His name was too similar to a dozen others that stories, facts, and locations had all gotten jumbled. What Ihadmanaged to get my hands on, I was certain had been lost entirely to Dimon.
