Dark Moon (9 page)

Cole followed him, waiting until he was outside before closing and locking the door.

When he came back to Emma, she melted into his arms.

“He’s lying,” she whispered. She was about to speculate about his role on the ship when Cole shook his head.

“Yeah, but let’s not talk about it,” he said, a warning note in his voice, and she realized that she’d forgotten the conversation in the car about microphones. That seemed like a thousand years ago. When they’d been in the normal world. Not this place that had turned deadly almost as soon a they’d stepped on board.

She was sure someone had been killed. But who and why?

When she made a choking sound, Cole tightened his arms around her, running his hands up and down her back.

He was the only thing she could cling to in a universe that had gone mad.

“That was frightening,” she murmured, sure that any normal female guest would have a similar reaction. If she were free to get off this boat, she’d turn around and leave. But they had a job to do. And now it seemed even more urgent than when they’d been given the assignment.

“The security staff took care of it right away. Let’s forget it and have fun here,” Cole said, putting a note of bravado in his voice.

Oh sure
.

She held tight to him, needing him, in so many ways. More than she could name. But she understood where she was going to start.

And she knew on some deep, instinctive level that it was the same for him. Heat flared between them. The same heat they had felt earlier. Still he tried to pull away.

“Don’t,” he choked out.

She kept her voice low. “I won’t let you push me away because you think it’s the right thing to do.”

“It is.”

“You’re wrong, and I can prove it.”

They had reached the end of the conversation. Moving one hand upward, she cupped her palm around the back of his head and brought his mouth down to hers.

They had kissed before, with an urgency that had taken her breath away. On the hovercraft, he had brought her to climax after they’d watched the erotic dance. All of that was nothing to what she felt now.

Need coursed through her. Not just arousal. Need for
this man
. All of him, not just what he had given her a little while earlier.

The feel of his mouth on hers sent hot, urgent messages to every one of her nerve endings.

And when she heard him make a low sound of surrender, she felt joy leap in her chest—in her soul.

His mouth turned rapacious as he drank from her like a man who had been denied water for an eternity.

In response, she opened for him, eager to give him anything he wanted—and at the same time take what
she
needed.

Strong forces had been building between them for eons, maybe since the first day they’d met, and the dangers of this place had brought it all into sharp, aching focus.

She swayed against him, hardly able to stand on her own.

“You’re sure?” he murmured.

“Oh yes.”

He raised his head and looked around. “Someone could be watching.”

“Oh Lord. I . . .”

With a growl, he picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. Still holding her, he bent to sweep the covers back.

After laying her on the cool sheets, he strode back to the door and flipped the light switch, plunging the room into darkness except for a shaft of light coming from the bathroom.

He took care of that by closing the door almost all the way, leaving only the barest sliver of light. She heard him kick off his shoes before he came down on the bed beside her, gathering her in his arms again.

She knew that he had fought the feelings building between them, and he had lost the capacity to keep fighting. Maybe back on the hovercraft he could pretend he was simply being chivalrous. Not now.

oOo

“Shit.” Bruno Del Conte stared at the black monitor screen. That bastard Mason had turned off the lights, just when things were getting interesting. So did he know that someone might be watching? Did he have inside information, or was he just being cautious.

Leaning over, Bruno fiddled with the brightness, but it didn’t help.

A knock on the door made him sit back in his chair.

“Come in,” he called.

His security chief, Ben Walker, entered. Walker had been with him for the past six months. He was good man, meticulous, quick to crack down on troublemakers, and able to pretend that he was only a minor player on the security team.

“What happened down there exactly?”

“A slave found out the hovercraft was due and tried to escape.”

“How did he think he was getting on board?”

“He had a crew member’s uniform.”

“Which he got how?”

“Maybe from the laundry.”

“And what happened to him?”

“They challenged him before he got to the embarkation area. He ran, and they shot him. He’s dead.”

“Good.”

“I’m sorry for the disturbance. It seems that the unrest has spread farther than we originally thought. I’ll be personally reviewing the sex sessions that included the dead man.”

“What’s his name?”

“Joseph Naguro.”

“I can’t remember anything special about him.”

In the five years he’d been operating the
Windward
, Bruno had had problems from time to time, but never at such a sustained level. It was as though people who should know their place were thinking they deserved unwarranted consideration.

“Do you think Cole Mason and Emma Ray have anything to do with it?”

“I think they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Maybe. What were your impressions of them?”

“He kept his cool in a tense situation.” He laughed. “Well, he got a little smart aleck in his remarks.”

“How do you interpret that?”

“His response to being pushed to the floor and having a gun held on him.”

“Was he in danger?” Bruno snapped.

“If the rebels had gotten into the reception area, he would have been.”

“Maybe we didn’t check out Mason carefully enough. Go over his background. And Ms. Ray’s. I mean more than what we’ve already got.”

“Yes sir. Is there anything else you need at the moment.”

“I think we’ve covered it,” Bruno answered. When his security chief left, he repressed the urge to pick up the glass on his desk and throw it at the bulkhead. But that would make a mess someone would have to clean up, and he didn’t want anyone to know he was upset by this latest incident.

He looked around his office, loving the furnishings and artwork he’d picked out. The juggler across from his desk was a genuine Picasso etching. The huge abstract on the sidewall was a Jackson Pollock. And he’d taken a very nice Salvador Dali from his father’s collection.

He’d outfitted this ship for his own pleasure and turned it into as close to a kingdom as you could get without being born into royalty. Now some of his subjects were trying to fuck that all up.

He grimaced, then pressed a button that brought up a flat-screen TV on the far side of the desk. He had a library of tapes that always soothed him. He’d watch one now.

Rather than tie one of his slaves to the whipping post. Another decision not to give anything away.

Relatively few people in the world knew who he was and how he had gotten where he was today. Those who did thought he had always had it made. But it hadn’t started out so well. Bruno had been sickly as a child. He’d eaten a lot of bananas trying to keep everything he ate from going through him. Just as his digestion had gotten better, he’d started school and turned out to be a slow learner. He’d needed endless tutoring just to get the hang of reading. His older brother Dieter had been robust and quick at his studies, and his parents’ favorite son.

He’d ached for what his brother had. The good health. The easy time in school. His charm. He’d used all of those to get what he wanted, and it had looked like he’d succeeded.

Until he’d screwed up in his early twenties, driven drunk, and plowed his Mercedes into a lady crossing the street. Papa’s money hadn’t kept him out of jail for manslaughter. And Bruno had used those two years to prove he was the model son. Dieter had come back from his prison term angry at the injustice of what had happened. And angry when he saw he’d lost his place as the favorite. Which had only worsened his position.

Papa had bent over backwards to be fair. He’d left his two sons the same inheritance. But Papa had drawn closer to Bruno, given him good advice. Which he’d taken. And prospered.

For all his early promise, Dieter had never done anything important on his own. In fact he’d made some very bad investments. Bruno had pretended sympathy and been glad to bail him out when he’d been secretly gleeful that his brother had made a mess of things. Instead of succeeding—through hard work and guts.

After dragging his thoughts away from the past, Bruno scrolled through his private film library and found one of his favorites. Called Marlene. A woman forced to service a series of men.

oOo

In the darkness, Emma felt Cole’s hands working the ties of her halter top before tossing it onto the floor.

Her own hands were no less busy as she pulled his shirt over his head, then fumbled for the button at the top of his slacks.

She wanted to experience this with all her senses, including sight, but she understood why he had darkened the room. It was the only way to make sure they had some privacy.

She ached to say so many things, but she would have to communicate in other ways. Like Morse code, only better.

When he slipped his hands into her panties and cupped the rounded curve of her ass, she felt her sex go hot and slick. When he dipped lower, sliding a hand into her cleft, she went up in flames.

His fingers glided through the slick wetness, dipping into her, circling the entrance to her vagina. Teasing her there before stroking upward to her clit.

As he felt her reaction, he made a sound of approval, low in his throat.

He leaned down to take one of her distended nipples into his mouth, sucking hard, wringing a glad cry from her lips.

She found the band at the top of his shorts, tugging them down so that his cock sprang out as she freed it.

He kicked his pants off the end of the bed. Naked, he gathered her close, stroking his fingers over her back, down her flanks, pulling her against his body.

As they rocked together on the bed, she wondered why they didn’t set the sheets on fire.

“Now, please now,” she whispered.

“Not yet. I want you molten.”

“I am.”

Easing away, he took her breasts in his hands, his thumbs stroking over the hardened tips, making her whimper with need as she arched into the caress.

He used his mouth on her again, this time teasing one pebble hard nipple with his tongue and teeth while he used his thumb and finger on its mate.

If he waited much longer to finish this, she would lose her mind. Reaching down, she closed her hand around his erection, feeling the size and weight of him, then moving her hand up and down, squeezing tightly.

He made a low, ragged sound.

“Time to feel you inside me,” she gasped.

With a growl, he rolled her to her back, clasping her to him, and she guided him into her.

They both cried out at the joining. She wanted to look into his eyes. She wanted to tell him how much she had secretly craved this, even when she couldn’t even admit it to herself.

Now she wanted to say that they belonged together—until the end of time.

But she couldn’t say it. This was too new—and unexpected. All she could do was cling to him as he moved within her, fast then faster taking her up and up to where the air was almost too thin to breathe. When he reached between them, pressing a finger against her clit, she felt her inner muscles tighten around him, the contractions like small electric shocks that spread from her sex to the rest of her body.

And as an all consuming orgasm still gripped her, she felt release grab him. Throwing his head back, he shouted out his pleasure.

 She was shaken to the depths of her soul as he collapsed against her, his head drifting to her shoulder.

Knowing that her whole life had changed, she reached to stroke her fingers through his hair, then turned to softly kiss his cheek.

He shifted to his side, and they lay clasping each other for long moments. When he reached for her hand, she knit her fingers with his.

For a while Cole had carried her away to a land where only the two of them existed. But as they lay together in the darkness, Emma remembered exactly where they were. And why.

No matter how desperately she wanted to get away from this place, they had a job to do, and they couldn’t leave until they had finished it.

“Hell of a time for this,” he muttered.