The Space Colonel's Woman (Dragonus Chronicles Book 1) (8 page)

She chuckled. “Hardly the most masculine name, is it?”

“No.” He agreed, pulling her against him, each of them blocking the wind for the other.  “You wanna go in?”

She shook her head and fought to tuck her hair inside the neck of her jacket so she didn’t keep choking on it every time she spoke.  Mark led her over to a contoured bench that seemed to have morphed right out of the balcony surface.  She sat down, ass sliding as the small of her back settling perfectly to the chair.  Even with her long legs, her toes barely scraped the ground. 

“Who’s Jase?”

His question, coming out of the blue like it did, confused her and delayed her reply.  He sat in a fair approximation of calm patience, but she could see the tension in the usually fluid lines of his body.

“A guy I worked with, why?”

“You and he…”

“No, oh no, no, no.” Julia laughed, waving away the idea with the hand not clutched tight in Mark’s white-knuckle grip.  “No, just a colleague.  His wife and three girls are lovely, if a bit full on.”

The relief in Mark’s face was absolute, and he relaxed back into her side; the grip on her hand easing too.

“So, choppers, huh?”

He smiled, crooked and sexy, and full of boyish excitement.  The gold flecks in his eyes flaring bright. 

“Yep.” Julia grinned back and leaned in to lay a kiss on the tip of his nose. “So, how old are you anyway?”

Mark groaned, ducking his head and rubbing his free hand back and forth through his hair, before looking up again. “Thirty-six.”

“You look pretty well-preserved for a man of your advanced years.”

She squealed when Mark growled and hauled her across his lap, nimble fingers getting up under her shirt to tickle her ribs.

“And how old are you, Beautiful?”

“Thirty-three.”

Julia squeaked between giggles as the fingers edged higher, stroking the sides of her breasts.

“Age is just a number.” He leaned in, slow and deliberate, and kissed her long and languid; tasting her until she was pressed close to his chest and her fingers yanked in his hair.

“Favorite book?” She asked a while later when the sun shadow had crept an inch or two closer and she lay with her cheek over Mark’s heart

“Anything that doesn’t make me think too hard.” She remembered the stack of well-thumbed magazines on the nightstand. “There’s kind of a library one of the techs started up, mostly we all just share the books we have, and pass them on when we’re done.  You?”

“It’s about two lovers separated across time, and how they find their way back to each other.” She smiled when his arms tightened around her, drawing her in as close as she could get.

“Might have to read that one.” He murmured and brushed aside a strand of hair, so he could kiss her temple, her cheek, and the spot behind her ear.

The tour of Phoenix City had instead become the tour of
them
and their common interests, differences, trivial things they loved and despised, and the dreams and the hopes closest to their hearts. 

“How long have you been here?”

“Six years.” He curved his palm to her thigh, thumb brushing along the stitching.

Julia pressed closer, his body heat seeping into her side. “Any family back on your Earth?” 

“Mom died seven years ago - just before I came out here.” Mark took his time formulating each word, weighing them before offering them to the greedy wind. “My father, six months back.  Luke, my brother, took over the business.  He’s got it all under control.  We were never that close.”

She squeezed his hand in response to the old pain she read in the taut lines of his body.

“I guess the short answer is, no.” He shrugged, offering a half-hearted smile that faded before it could be realized. “And you, do you have anyone back home?”

“No.”

Mark said nothing.  The only pressure applied in the tightening of his fingers around hers.

“Remember that eight year old I told you about?” She kept her head down, focused on the way her fingers traced his knuckles and the tendons in his long fingers; the rounded squares of his nails. “We were inflight to Waikato when they radioed.  A logging truck lost its load in the gorge.  They were four cars back, but it didn’t matter, there was nowhere to go.  SR2 had the call. William and Rachel Swift were black tagged at the scene, and Logan coded enroute to Auckland.”

Mark enfolded her into his embrace, solid and warm and exactly where Julia wanted to be.

Neither spoke for the longest time. 

But the world, even an alien one in an alternate reality, wouldn’t stand still for two lovers united at last.

Mark’s radio gave a quiet chirp and he raised a hand to tap it. 

“Go for Holden.” He waited, listening. “Thanks, Doc.”

“What?”

She smiled in answer to the one lighting Mark’s with all the wonder and excitement of a kid on Christmas morning.

“Come with me.” He grabbed her hand and jogged back into the corridor. “You’re gonna love this!”

Julia trailed after him, keeping pace but not wanting to let go of their joined hands, for fear she’d get lost in the maze of identical corridors.  There were more people about now that Mark had led her back into the hub of the city; past Colonel Archer’s office, and across the bridge into the Birdcage. 

There were no ground crews or pilots, just rows and rows of metallic-hulled alien spacecraft, which yes, did in fact look like birds – sleeping birds.  One opened its hatch as they approached, interior lighting powering up.  Julia followed Mark up the ramp and sat in the pilot seat when he asked.

“Put your hands here.” He whispered in her ear, pointing to the flight controls, but was careful not to touch them himself.  She looked questioningly over her shoulder at him. “It’s okay, I promise.”

Julia placed her hands on the controls and with a hollow hum the console lit up.  When she yanked her hands back and the console powered down.  Julia could’ve sworn the little ship pouted and sniffed like a child denied a favorite toy.  Mark was grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

“Well, that’s interesting.”

“What is?”

“Peyton told me you have the X
2
gene required to operate the Zydonic tech, like me.”

“Wow.”

Here was proof positive that she and Mark belonging together.

“You love flying, don’t you Wings?” He asked in a dreamy faraway voice. “It’s more than a job to you.  You love it.  You breathe the freedom of it.”

She nodded, unable to speak through the emotion clogging her throat.  Mark got it.  He understood, completely.

“You wanna learn to fly these beauties?” He gestured to the glider around them, eyes agleam with a wonder Julia was eager to experience for herself.

Again she nodded, enthusiastic grin plastered across her face.  The chance to fly a glider was the equivalent to flying the space shuttle.  The career peak a pilot could aspire to.  No one in their right mind would ever turn the offer down.

Mark swiveled the chair back round to face him, his hands on the armrests trapping her in place as he nudged her feet with the toe of his boot.  Julia parted her knees and he stepped between them, leaned in and kissed her.  Breathing hard through his nose and as he tangled his fingers in her hair.

“Amazing!” He whispered, out of breath, before diving back for more of her mouth as she wrapped her arms around his neck, fingers playing in the curls at the nape of his neck.

Julia wanted him.  She arched her back away from the seat, thrust her breasts up, and tugged him down by the front of his shirt.  He groaned in the back of his throat, and without breaking their kiss, dropped to his knees.  Julia reveled in her power over him as his hands circled her waist and pulled her to the edge of the seat. 

His mouth traveled down her neck to the first button of her shirt.  Her erratic breathing thrust her breasts in his face and he slid his palms up her sides to cup them.  His thumbs grazing over peaked nipples, before undoing the remaining buttons and tugging down lace cups so he could suckle.

She arched further into Mark’s mouth, answered his moans with her own, fingers caught in the anarchy of his hair, holding him tight; stubble lighting sparks of heat across her skin.  Mark gazed up at her from under his lashes, seduction and wonder and need swirling in whiskey depths; voice all gravel and molten honey. “Julia.”

“Yes?” She panted, lost to the fire this man ignited in her and frustrated by his sudden desire for words.

“Close the hatch.” She moved to the console, but his hand on hers stopped her. “No, just think it.  Imagine it closing.”

Julia tried, and after a moment of passion-distorted thought, the ramp began to close; sealing them inside, alone.

“Amazing.” He murmured to himself as he tugged her jeans and panties off her legs.

He lifted one leg over his shoulder, groaning as her scent enveloped him, and leaned in to worship her with his mouth.  Julia’s hands clenching and unclenching the armrests as she came with her colonel’s name on her lips. 

Mark gazed up at her with crazed lust in his eyes, removed his shirt and laid it on the floor.  His arms tightened around her as he laid her down, supporting his weight as he drove deeper; chasing his pleasure.  The echo of her name the only sound in the hot breaths they shared.

~*~

“Won’t someone find us?” Julia whispered, thinking clearer now that her mind wasn’t hazed with the need for Mark to be inside her, taking her apart only to put her back together again with his body.  She groaned and leaned up to press a kiss to his bitten mouth.

“This one’s mine, no one flies it but me.”

“Oh.” She shivered and he leaned closer, using his body to warm her.

“Do you want to leave?” He asked, reluctant.

She shook her head. “Is there a blanket?”

“Ah yeah, hang on.” Mark rolled his eyes and smirked as he wriggled free and went to search the rear cabin.

Julia shivered in the breeze created by the unfolded blanket floating to rest over her and Mark shifted to lie beside her side, and she flicked the blanket over him too.

“Thank you.”

He smiled dreamily, moments from sleep. “Welcome.”

A loud knock resounding on the hull had Julia leaping out of her skin; her violent jolt waking Mark too. “Huh, what?”

The knocking came again, all the more insistent for not receiving a reply the first time.

“Holden, you in there?” Hayden’s gravelly voice was thick with amusement. “Colonel Archer wants to see us.  You weren’t responding to your radio.  Must be a glitch.”

Hayden waited for a response, and not getting one he continued.  “Be in the conference room in ten.”

They listened to his fading footsteps and Mark pulled Julia to his chest, stifling his laughter in her hair. “Oops.”

“Oops is right, lucky we shut the hatch or he would’ve really gotten an eyeful.” Julia chuckled, straightening her bra before doing up her shirt buttons.  She could feel his gaze following every movement, and slapped him on the thigh. “Come on, Colonel, get dressed.  You’ve got places to be.”

Julia handed Mark the shirt he’d so gallantly laid her on, and wriggled her feet into the legs of her jeans.

“Do you want these?” He asked, her panties dangling from his fingertip.

“How about you look after them for me.” She tucked them in the thigh pocket of Mark’s BDUs. “Our little secret.”

He grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her in for a hungry kiss.

“Are all my flying lessons going to be this instructive?” She panted when he released her mouth at last.

“Is it something you’d enjoy?”

“Definitely.” She slid her palm over the curve of his ass as they walked in step down the ramp.

“Meet you back at my quarters?” He queried, clipping his radio back onto his ear.

“Ummm.”

“Back across the bridge, down the back stairs, take the first left, and it’s the double doors at the end of the corridor.”

She nodded her understanding as Mark stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, before walking away.

“Hey, you can open the doors yourself.” He said, fixing his collar, and picked up the pace to get to the conference room in time for the meeting.

Julia waited a few minutes after she’d lost sight of his retreating back.  This day was shaping up to be a real winner.  She had the X
2
gene, and Mark was going to train her in the glider.  Julia hugged herself and grinned, then followed Mark’s directions back to his quarters.

~*~

The walls were closing in and Julia needed something to do.  Something other than reading, listening to music, or pacing while she waited for Mark to return.  She glanced out the window at the perfect blue sky and the way the sunlight sparkled on the water, and made a decision.

Julia took three of the aqua-skinned fruit she’d enjoyed at breakfast from the small wall fridge, put them in the side pocket of her camera bag and slung the strap over her shoulder; wiggling an earbud into her ear as she walked out the room.  The doors sliding shut behind her with barely a thought.