Hostage To The Stars: A Sectors SF Romance (15 page)

“I recommend we don’t think along those lines.”

“Right.” Carrying two plates, he passed her, going to the table. “Can you get us water? I didn’t see anything more interesting to drink.”

“Water is fine.” She walked into the kitchen, found a couple of mugs and rinsed them under the water, using hot water. Struck by an enticing idea, she turned. “Johnny?”

“Problem?”

“If there’s hot water in here, is there a shower somewhere in this complex that might also have hot water?”

“Sure, all the amenities powered up when I logged in at the door.” He grinned as she came to the table with the two mugs of water. “You can have first dibs on the shower. I gotta call in; send the word about the Mawreg. I should have done a transmission first but I was thinking with my stomach.”

“Beds, real beds?” she said longingly.

He jerked his head to indicate a door on the far wall. “Bunkroom in there.”

“How long are we staying here?” She cut into the steak and lifted a bite to her lips. Chewing slowly, she savored the taste. On her salary she couldn’t afford Azrigone beef and this was amazing. Juicy, tender and full of flavor.

He was watching her. “Good, yes?”

“Heavenly. Do you eat like this all the time on Azrigone? Cause I might have to emigrate.”

“We don’t eat beef three meals a day, every day.” He laughed. “But yeah, it’s part of the regular diet. The grasslands on Azrigone have special minerals enhancing the flavor of the meat. To your question, I’m not sure how long we’ll be here. Depends on what response I get to my message.” He cut off a chunk of his own meal, speared a helping of veggie pods and took his time enjoying the mouthful.

“Can the ship pick us up from here? Send a flitter?” Sara hoped desperately the answer was yes. She was so tired of hiking all over the planet and afraid memories of the near death experience with the Mawreg would never leave her. She’d do anything to avoid taking the chance of encountering them again.

He was already dashing her hopes. “Nowhere to land or even hover. Strictly foot traffic in and out. This was an operator bolt hole, not a base. There is an emergency exit, remind me to show you later. Our ultimate destination is still the bigger outpost to the north. But we may be here a few days. How’s your hand?”

Sara held it out to him, wincing at the ugly black and purple bruises. The ridge of knuckles looked wrong, a bit sunken in one spot. There was an odd, fierce pain, unlike anything she’d experienced before.

Johnny examined it carefully, his grip firm. “Broken all right. There might be pain killers if the medical cabinet wasn’t emptied when the team redeployed elsewhere. I can’t set the bones or do a repair.”

She pulled her hand away, cradling it against her chest protectively. “I’ll manage till we reach a ship, thanks.” She took a few more bites of the delicious meat, then set her fork on the edge of the plate and took a deep breath. “We’re going to talk about what happened at some point, right?”

Eyebrows raised, he gave her a questioning glance.

“What that creature was, how it set us free. How you called it, or whatever happened. Why it helped us. I— I need to know.” Sara was desperate to understand what had gone on in the Mawreg installation because it was so far outside her own experience as to be magical. She believed she knew Johnny pretty well, understood him…and then this ability to summon raging psychic creatures left her grateful but a bit scared. And the words he’d said to the creature about her —how much might he have meant by them?

“I can tell you now, although you’ll have to suspend disbelief to accept what I’m going to say.”

“All right. But remember, I’ve studied AO installations so I’ve seen pretty unbelievable things.”

He sat back in his chair. “The creature is a cherindor. It’s an allegedly mythological animal from Shalira’s home world.”

Sara picked up on the name immediately. “Mike’s wife?”

He nodded. “Cherindors are associated with her family.”

“It was the animal from your medallion, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Automatically he touched his neck but the chain had broken and the medallion disappeared when the cherindor came to life. “I think the presence of the Mawreg summoned it to help us. When we were on Mahjundar, Shalira’s planet, there was a run in with an alien god who reminded me a bit too much of the Mawreg.”

“I heard the cherindor call them a name I can’t even begin to pronounce.”

“Tlazomiccuhtli.” He gave her a halfhearted smile. “I’ve met the dude and I can barely say it.”

“You’ve obviously seen the Mawreg before too.” She tilted her head, hoping for more details.

“Run enough missions and you run into them.”

Sensing there was more, she waited to see if he’d add anything.

Johnny shoved himself away from the table and paced the small room, coming to stand close to her. “I need a drink.”

“If it’s so hard to talk about, then don’t.” She regretted pushing him now.

“I—I want to tell you.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “The enemy captured me once before, on our last mission before Mahjundar. I came to in one of those floating cage things like we did earlier today, only there wasn’t any cherindor to rescue me. They— they tortured me, Sara. The Mawreg do things to a human body you wouldn’t dream in your worst nightmares could be possible. And then they patch you up somehow, good as new, if less than sane, and start over.”

She left her chair and gave him a hug, holding him tight. “I’m sorry I asked. You don’t have to say any more.”

But it seemed he couldn’t stop. Wrapping her in a hug as if he was hanging on for dear life, he said, “I only went through one session before Mike and a bunch of Team guys who volunteered broke into the Mawreg base and rescued me. I had to have pretty intense therapy, even did a session with a Mellurean counselor once after Mike pulled strings, but the flashbacks are an ever present threat. I should have killed myself but I didn’t.”

Horrified, she pulled his head down so she could look him in the eye. “Don’t you ever say that to me. You did what you had to do to survive and there’s nothing wrong with your choices.”

“Sara—” He captured her lips, holding her close and kissed her in a fiery, passionate embrace. He ran his tongue along her lips, seeking entry, which she gave him with a little moan. He locked his arms around her, Sara squirming to get closer because she couldn’t bear to have any distance between them. He ground his hips against her, the hard steel of his arousal undeniable proof of his desire for her. Rubbing herself against the heat and power of his body, she felt as if she could climax just from the pressure of his sex against hers, even through their clothing.

He broke off the kiss to pick her up, before he was seeking her lips again while she clutched his shoulders, trying to get as close to him as she could. As he strode toward the bunkroom, Sara unfastened his shirt and slipped her hand inside, caressing his hard chest, skimming her palm over his flat nipples, delighting in the feel of his warm skin, his scent, her power to arouse him.

Johnny didn’t wait for the portal to open fully before he turned sideways, careful not to bump her head on the door, and carried her inside the bedroom. Three steps and he set her gently on a mattress.

Sara expected him to join her. She reached up to grab at his open shirt when he didn’t. “Johnny?”

Fists clenched, he took a deep breath and then another. Face full of worry and concern, he said, “I am so sorry. That never should have happened.”

She eyed his crotch, where his erection pressed against the fabric of his pants, and cupped him with her free, uninjured hand. As he thrust his hips instinctively against the pressure she was applying, she said, “I don’t understand. You— you do want me, don’t you?” The unmistakable evidence was right there, in front of her, so his hesitation was puzzling.

Gently he brushed her tousled hair off her face. “Of course I do, I’ve wanted to make love to you for days now. But after all you’ve been through, the way the warlord’s men abused you, what kind of bastard am I to just grab you and throw you on a bed? Without even asking you if you want this? If you’re sure? You must be terrified right now. I-I swear I won’t touch you again. I can’t bear for you to be afraid of me.”

She sat up, circling his hips with her arms, hands on his ass, holding him close. The impressive bulge of his arousal was impossible to ignore, enticing, promising. She kissed him through the fabric, hearing him bite off a moaned curse as she blew her hot breath into the cloth. She tugged him onto the bed by the belt loops, forcing him onto his back, correctly figuring he wouldn’t resist for fear of hurting her. Climbing onto him so she could straddle his hips, Sara rocked slightly on his trapped cock, enjoying the pressure on her own sensitive inner folds through the fabric of her pants. “So you didn’t ask me in so many words. Next time you can get permission in advance.” She trailed one hand across his hard abs. “But give yourself credit for pausing when you realized I might be scared. Even if there’s no need for you to restrain yourself.”

He started to protest and she laid her fingers over his lips. “Surely you can tell I’m willing? I want you, in all the ways a woman can want the man she – she loves.” Deliberately she let herself say the word, even as she blushed, because it was the truth. She couldn’t meet his eyes. Putting her heart out there for him to crush if he chose was one of the scariest things she’d ever done. “You’re not like the warlord’s thugs. You’re you. I know the difference and I trust you. You’ve shown me in so many ways how much you care about me and I believe you’d never hurt me, never do anything I didn’t want. I’m not afraid to tell you no if I need to.”

He rolled her over, trapping her beneath his hard body, although next moment he was on his side next to her instead. He looked at her for a long moment, while she was terrified she was going to cry, finally ducking her head. Johnny leaned over carefully to capture her lips again for a kiss that began sweetly and became more passionate and entangled the longer it went on.

“Did you hear what I told the cherindor?” he whispered, staring into her eyes, his dark brown ones intense. “I said you belonged to me. I-I wanted that to be true, I wished it was true. I’ve never met anyone like you Sara Bridges, and I’m so in love with you I can’t think straight.”

She ran her hand through his thick, soft hair. “The cherindor didn’t want to rescue me, did it?”

“You weren’t on Mahjundar with us so it had no ties to you. No way in the seven hells was I leaving you there and the damn creature knew it, so it gave in and set you free for me.”

“Another debt I owe you.” She kissed him lightly.

He shook his head. “No debts between us.” Toying with the fastening of her shirt, he undid one and then the next, moving with deliberation. “Promise me you’ll tell me if anything I do makes you uncomfortable or anxious, or gives you a flashback. I can stop. I will stop, my word of honor.”

“All right, but only if you give me the same promise.”

Startled, he leaned away from her, eyebrows raised. She laughed, pleased with herself for surprising him with her reciprocal demand. He had bad memory incidents too, after all. Sliding her hand down the enticing trail of fine hair that led below his waistband, she wrapped her fingers around his cock for a moment, stroking from root to tip. “Are we done talking for now, I hope?”

“Oh yeah,” he said with a purr of male satisfaction in his voice. He undid her shirt and she released her grip on him so she could shrug her top off, unfastening her bra herself and throwing it to the floor. Her pants and underwear went on the pile next. Johnny was stripping with efficiency on the other side of the bed. Naked, he turned and drank in the sight of her, lying in the center of the bed on her side, one hand propping her head up as she enjoyed the sight of his masculine physique.
 

Johnny gulped. “You’re so beautiful.”

She was suddenly shy, fighting not to hide, or cover herself with her hands. He was magnificent, corded muscle everywhere, long thick arousal jutting proudly from his body. Of course she’d seen all of him before, when she had to give him the bath but this experience was different. “Come to bed?” she said, indicating the bare mattress, hoping he wasn’t having second thoughts. Heat and desire blossomed deep inside her and she wanted nothing more than closeness with him.

He moved onto the bed next to her as she reclined, lying on his side, gently skimming her body with one hand, pausing at the ugly bruises and marks left by the warlord’s men, which were fading. He stroked her left breast, teasing the nipple ever so slightly. “Perfect. So soft.” He lowered his head to brush his lips over a particularly purple bruise in a caress that melted her heart with its tenderness. “I hate the way you were mistreated. Abused. I wish I could kill them all for you.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to risk yourself to get revenge for me.” She tensed at his attentions to her breast in spite of her best intentions to relax and allow him access.

In response to her unspoken signal, he moved his hand to the curve of her waist. She rolled onto her side, so his arousal lay heavy in the vee of her thighs. Sighing, she kissed him, her tongue seeking his, even as she allowed her hand to rove over his butt, squeezing gently, enjoying the flex of his muscles. Lost in the kiss, she drifted her fingers between their bodies, to cage as much of his erection as she could, using her thumb to massage the sensitive tip before transferring her attention to his balls. He shivered under her touch and pressed closer, urging her onto her back.