Solar Storm (6 page)

“Uh-huh.”
 

Gods, he was
solid.
Silken skin over steel muscles. She smirked at her own thought, worthy of a slushy romance holo-novel. Dismissing the idea, she stroked her fingers over the solid planes of his chest. No going to fat here…none whatsoever. Her fingers traced the series of silver scars running down his ribcage. A shudder hit her at the thought of the war, and the fact he could so easily have been killed.
 

“You like what you see?”
 

She flicked a glance up at his question. Head propped on her pillows, he watched her with an unreadable gaze. The expression in his eyes stole her breath. Midnight-dark and as hot as hades, it made promises about the night ahead. Promises she looked forward to.
 

She managed an indifference she didn’t feel. “You’ll do.” Leaning down, she ran the tip of her tongue over his flat, male nipple.
 

He barked a laugh. The next second, she was flat on her back, looking up into his handsome face. The light was behind him, casting his cropped black hair into a blue halo around his head, his features in shadow. All laughter had gone, leaving an almost feral expression. A shiver of anticipation jolted through her. Kelwin was—always had been—dangerous. The sort of dangerous she’d always had a thing for. Her body clenched hard.
 

“I’ll
do
? Let’s see if we can up that rating, shall we?” He didn’t kiss her. Instead, he nuzzled at her neck, nipping her earlobe lightly before moving down her throat. He paid homage to the hollow just above her collarbone and trailed kisses over the top of her shoulder.
 

His leather-clad legs moved, one parting hers wide so he could settle between them. She caught her breath as the rough material rasped against the soft skin of her inner thighs. She was naked, spread under him and open wide to anything he wanted to do. Her survival instincts should have made her fight him off, then escape as fast as her legs would carry her.
 

Instead, she twined her hands around the sheets to stop herself reaching for him. This was just sex—nothing more, nothing less. He wouldn’t appreciate her clinging to him like some lovesick teenager.

He took his own sweet time moving down her body. Each kiss was placed with deliberation and precision as he worked his way down the soft slope of her breast. Her nipples tightened in anticipation.
 

His breath washed over the beaded flesh a second before his mouth closed over her. Warm, wet pleasure enfolded her as he suckled gently as his free hand stroked and molded to her breast. He didn’t paw or grope. His gentle touch made her heart ache.
 

“Perfect.” His whispered breath branded the word into her skin. She murmured a noncommittal reply in the back of her throat. Who was she to argue? She was short, skinny and plain. But the way he touched her, the way he looked at her, made her feel as if she was the most beautiful woman in the universe.

Thankfully, he didn’t seem to expect an answer. Bending over her, he dropped burning kisses in a line down her ribcage to her abdomen. Her stomach quivered as he reached it. Her body tensed, muscles aching as she tried to decide between laughing and moaning in desire. Her hips bucked as he kissed the sensitive flesh on her belly, lips already curved to laugh.
 

When he slid big hands under her ass and hooked them around her thighs to hold her still, she moaned. Having him between her legs, so close to her core, made her clench around the increased ache in her pussy. Liquid heat slipped from her, made the delicate lower lips slick with arousal.
 

“Gods, you smell fantastic.” His voice was hoarse and rough, as though he rode the edge of his control. She froze as he dropped a kiss on the short curls over her mons, anticipation holding her body taut like a sail under a full wind as she waited for him to move.
 

She didn’t have to wait long. The sheets rustled, and his hot breath washed over the lips of her pussy. Her clit throbbed at the slight sensation, aching for his touch.
 

His tongue flicked out, chased the seam between her lips before he delved within. She gasped as the hot, wet brush of his tongue rasped over the delicate flesh. He didn’t tease, locating her clit and circling it with a confidence that shattered her composure.
 

Pleasure cascaded like a solar waterfall. Her back arched, her body on fire as he nibbled and sucked relentlessly. Romance be damned, she wanted more of this. Wordlessly she urged him on, arching her back as she fought her moans back.
 

“That’s it, let it all out, babe. I want to hear you…want to hear what I’m doing to you,” he whispered against her and dipped his tongue lower. She bit her lip as he circled her slit, then thrust his tongue deep to lap up the essence of her arousal.
 

“Oh gods…”
 

The feel of his mouth on her, the liquid sound of pleasure, and the soft pants she couldn’t hold in filled the room. An erotic background of low noise that drove her higher until she took flight. Need roared through her veins, filled every cell until she could do nothing but respond to the ecstasy he created in her. Her hips rocked as she sought the release that hovered tantalizingly just out of reach.
 

“Come for me, babe. I want to taste it.”

His gentle words and the soft lick over her clit eased her over the edge. With a gasp, she fell and shattered. Light poured through her, the shards she’d become catching every drop and breaking into a thousand rays of color as her body clenched hard. She rode the waves, soft moans slipping from her lips as he moved. A zipper was maneuvered, the soft sound of leather over skin following it. Automatically, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and welcomed him into her embrace.
 

He nudged her thighs apart with a hair-roughened knee, and then he was there. She caught her breath, felt her eyes widen as he pressed the thick head of his cock against her. He was big, far bigger than any of the other one-night lovers she’d had before. Would she be able to take it all?

“Shhhh, it’ll be fine. I promise.” He pressed kisses to her temple, peppered them across her cheeks, and finally claimed her lips. His kiss was so sweet she ached. He parted her lips and delved between them with a tongue like velvet, stroking and tangling with hers in a gently erotic dance she couldn’t resist.
 

Her body stretched around him as he pressed into her. She was slippery with her arousal, but his penetration was a long, slow ride of friction and pleasure, every line of his body taut with control. With each thick inch, he sank deeper, stroking against hidden nerve endings in her pussy. Her gasp matched his groan as he bottomed out, his hips against hers. Trapped between them, her clit ached and throbbed for more. He stopped, held himself rigid over her. So still that she started to worry.
 

“Kel?”
 

He lifted his head from her shoulder, and the look on his face made her catch her breath. Need, pleasure and feral lust combined into an expression that sent a bolt of heat straight to her pussy.
 

“Sorry, baby. I just need a second…I promised slow and sexy. Romance…I can do it, I can. I just need a moment,” he begged. “Just hold still for a moment. Then it’ll be fine.”

She bit her lip, the urge to move overwhelming. “Fuck romance. We can do slow and steady next time. Just do it—hard and fast.”

With a grunt, he planted a hand by her head for balance and started to move. His large body was braced over her, his hips driving in a hard and fast rhythm, his cock filling her over and over until she wanted to cry with the sheer pleasure of it.
 

She moaned and clung to him, accepting everything he was offering her. His body shook, fine tremors that told her how much control he was exerting not to become the ravening animal they said soldiers—even ex-soldiers—could be.

He rolled his hips, ground his pelvis against hers, and her ability to frame a coherent thought disappeared. Hard pleasure exploded through her body like a star going supernova. She gasped and her back arched again. Her pussy clamped hard around his cock as she came in long, brutal waves that swept everything else away.

“Oh gods. Babe, that’s…fuck!” He roared an incoherent cry as he drove into her once more. His body stiff, the chords stood out in his neck as he came, his cock pulsing as he spilled his seed deep within her.

Nerys rarely slept. With ships subject to the whims and winds of the often-temperamental solar roads, no sailor risked succumbing to the blessed oblivion deep sleep offered. So she napped, always keeping an ear out for any sound that shouldn’t have been there. Any sound that warned the squid or another of its kind was targeting the engines. She didn’t think that was likely. As a precaution she’d turned the engines off, but there was always the possibility that one would get close enough to sense the residual energy.
 

Cat-napping had its benefits. With Kelwin’s large body wrapped around hers—protective even in sleep—his even breathing had lulled her into a comfortable doze. No wonder he was deeply asleep—the man was insatiable. The first time had been fast and furious, but the second and third time he’d taken her with such tenderness that it had brought tears to her eyes.

Her heart ached as it fought to be free of the iron bands she’d clamped around it. This is what her life could have been. Had she stayed all those years ago—not left with her father—she could have had this. Had Kelwin.
 

Lying on her back, she looked up at the ceiling and went over everything she recalled about her ill-fated wedding day. It wasn’t a lot. She’d been so excited at the thought of being a bride—at the thought of being Kelwin’s bride—that she hadn’t been able to think of anything else. Unlike the other engagements her father had proposed, this one was different. She’d wanted to marry Kelwin…had
ached
for the day to arrive. So much so that she hadn’t looked much beyond the ceremony and the dress. Certainly not to the hard reality of a lifetime of marriage.
 

During the reception, her father had been far too busy showing her off to his business associates for her to get more than a minute or two with the groom. Kelwin, for his part, had been glued to the bar for most of the night with her father’s operations manager, Lee Mallas, hanging from his every word. She had been naïve not to realize how much a man could drink until merry wedding guests had dumped him on the bed in their bridal suite.
 

He hadn’t just been drunk—he’d been insensible. When she couldn’t wake him, she’d made him as comfortable as possible and curled up next to him in the delicate nightgown she’d brought to delight him on their wedding night.

He’d never seen it. Her father had hammered on the door the next morning, holo-evidence of Kelwin’s infidelity with three Talorian lap-dancers the night before their wedding clutched in his hands. Which just added insult to the injury she’d already suffered to her pride when he’d hit on the ushers and her aunt. She’d left and hadn’t looked back.
 

Wincing, she wriggled in the bed. Kelwin grunted and pulled her closer. The scent of sleep and warm man washed over her.
 

It was a pity she hadn’t known then what she knew now. That her father was a self-serving mercenary shit only interested in one thing—the accumulation of wealth. And he didn’t care where that money came from. Marrying her off to a wealthy ex-soldier with a multi-million credit payout for services rendered must have seemed like a meal ticket.
 

Until Kelwin had refused the “deal of the millennium” her father had offered him the day before the ceremony, saying he intended to stay retired and look after his new bride and any family that came along. She’d thought it was romantic, but kept her thoughts to herself when Kelwin had left and her father had exploded with rage. Her childhood had taught her one thing—no one interrupted Cordon McQuaid mid-rant, not unless they wanted to feel the back of his hand, and his fists a moment later. Even his wife and children were not exempt.

Nor were they allowed an opinion on how he ran their lives. They were simply resources to be used. That had been made perfectly clear to her when—a week after her failed wedding—he’d told her to “be nice” to a rich investor he was wooing. One loud and vicious argument with her father later and she’d returned to her rooms, only to find said investor getting comfortable in her bed under the impression he had her father’s blessing.
 

She’d thrown the perverted old bastard out—butt-naked—with the aid of the micro-knife she carried concealed on her person at all times. To the rest of the quadrant, she was the pampered princess, envied by all, but the reality was far different. She was McQuaid’s daughter through and through, so she’d made sure she could look after herself, knowing that sooner or later she’d need to.
 

As soon as the door had closed on her “suitor’s” bare, wrinkly ass, she’d packed a bag and disappeared. She refused to be a pawn in anyone’s game, even her own father’s.
 

Especially
her father’s.

Had both she and Kelwin been pawns that day? Soldiers were surgically and physiologically altered for combat. They were stronger, faster and had a higher metabolism than unaltered humans. When she looked back, it seemed unlikely he’d allow himself to get in such a state. He should have burnt the alcohol out of his system within hours, yet he’d still been unconscious when she left. And the incidents at the wedding…now she thought about it, that wasn’t Kelwin. It just didn’t fit with what she knew of his personality.