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  Chapter Five

  The whole crew gathered on the bridge to watch as the news about those responsible for Kithra’s explosions shot across every media outlet in every galaxy. The whole thing felt surreal to me because I’d been taken from my home years before the explosions. I’d mourned when my owner showed the vids of Kithra’s demise, mourned to the point of breaking because even though I didn’t remember my parents, I remembered their love, remembered feeling safe there. I’d held on to the hope of home. Seeing the explosions took the last of my hope away.

  The media went crazy as it tried to take in all the information. News of fleeing Saturna partners rivaled that of the vids of the explosions. Ones I didn’t care to watch again.

  Instead, I looked around the bridge.

  It was the roomiest section of the ship I’d seen so far. There were two pilot seats in the front and two rows of seats behind them. The front was one huge window and the sides of the room held monitors and gadgets I supposed made everything run. Speero was in the pilot seat and he gave me a friendly smile before turning back to his vid charts.

  I met Lia and had to struggle to hide my surprise. She’d sounded bigger, more powerful outside my door, and I’d pictured someone entirely different than the diminutive alien female. She was humanoid, but stood less than five feet tall, had spiky white hair and huge eyes with orange pupils. She moved with an odd, fluid grace—almost like she glided.

  “Woohoo, those assholes are finally gonna get what they deserve!”

  Her yell made me flinch and want to cover my ears. Such a loud voice to come out of such a tiny body.

  A man as massive as Juniper came onto the bridge. My eyes went wide as he had to turn slightly to fit through the wide door. He had nice features—kind of ordinary, really—with light brown hair and dark eyes. But from his neck down, he was thick. Thick muscles, wide shoulders and thighs. He walked to Lia and ran his hand over her spiked hair and his hand covered the entire back of her head. This was Bucho? The one she said could do things with his mouth?

  I stared at his ordinary-looking mouth then quickly looked away, my gaze snagging on Anders, who stared at me with a crooked smile on his face. He must have known I had heard his conversation with Lia outside my bunkroom. He winked just like the captain usually did. I quickly looked at the screen, ignoring his low laugh.

  Clay touched several screens until the room was filled with the noise of excited newscasters sharing breaking news as they got it. He walked behind Anders.

  “He did it. My brother did it.” Clay words barely broke a whisper but I heard them, watched as his shoulders sagged as he leaned on the back of the chair Anders had sprawled in. I don’t think he even realized that he seemed to be seeking comfort by being closer to the bigger man. His breath must have brushed against Anders’s neck because Anders briefly closed his eyes, and when he opened them and returned them to the screen, I caught a fleeting glimpse of real devastation.

  He loved the captain.

  Not in the way most of this crew seemed to carry affection for the man—he flat out loved him. I tried not to be obvious as I watched them, tried to keep it to short glances out of the corner of my eye. Anders held perfectly still as if he was afraid moving would cause Clay to walk away. Clay, gaze glued to the vidscreens, didn’t seem to realize he’d put his hand on one of Anders’s shoulders and that every so often he squeezed.

  Anders stared straight ahead, so motionless it seemed he didn’t breathe. There was an inner battle going on there—a fierce one. The hand he had resting on his thigh tightened and I knew he wanted to touch the one Clay had on his shoulder. Their relationship spoke of years of friendship and closeness, and I couldn’t help but wonder what had ruined it. What had instilled this tension between them that kept them from acting on their obvious attraction and affection for each other? Lia had asked if he was still celibate.

  He didn’t strike me as a man who’d tolerate that well. In fact, they both seemed like the types to wallow in pleasure.

  I was suddenly taken back to a strong memory of one of the kinder men who’d kept me for a night on that ship. He’d been one of the government officials who’d come to see my owner only once. I’d noticed him right away because he’d smiled at me and he had a crooked mouth that gave him an interesting lopsided grin. He’d also had pretty amber eyes that looked Gwinarian while nothing else about him did. Brown hair, light brown skin. He’d sat at the table, eating with the others, and every now and then, he’d frown and glance at me as I knelt on the floor. That particular night had been excruciating because I’d been punished for crying over Bastian and my owner had made me kneel in a squat he knew sent licks of pain up and down the backs of my tortured thighs.

  Lashin had seen him watching me and asked if he wanted me for the night. One of the others had spoken up to ask for me first and I must have given something away in my face because the first man quickly accepted the offer. I hadn’t known what to expect with him, but I’d been with the other one many times and hated him. Just that afternoon, he’d watched Lashin take Bastian harshly after whipping his back into raw meat. The entire time, he’d stroked my body and rudely stuck his fingers in my backside without any sort of lubrication, then slapped me when I’d flinch. A lot of my flinching had been for Bastian.

  When I’d cried, Lashin had given the man holding me a knife and he’d cut “pretty stripes” into the backs of my thighs.

  So all I could do was hope this one would be as gentle as his smile suggested. He had been. He’d stretched me out, treated the back of my legs and tried to find out anything he could about my parents, but I was long past remembering any information that could help him. He hadn’t had sex with me. Just kept me company the whole night.

  Two days later my owner had laughed in my face after telling me the man had offered him a small fortune to keep me.

  Someone touched my arm and I flinched, then blinked at Clay, who stood looking at me with concern. “Is it too much?”

  “Is what too much?” I whispered, still trapped in memories.

  He nodded toward the vidscreens where images of Kithra’s explosions were now being played—vids that had come in before all communication had been cut off.

  Some of the same vids Lashin had used to break me.

  I met that light blue gaze and nodded. “Is it okay if I go back to my room?”

  “Of course. You are free to do anything you want.”

  I had to walk past Anders to leave and he too watched me closely. I didn’t know what made me do it, but I stopped just behind him and put my hand on the same shoulder Clay had touched. I squeezed. His hand came up and covered mine as he continued to try and read my emotions. I poked and prodded past my own inner torment brought on by memories and found a smile for him. A real one.

  He sucked in a breath, stared hard at my mouth, then shook his head ruefully. “You are going to make my heart break again, aren’t you?”

  I lifted an eyebrow over the again part, then realized Clay had heard Anders and gone still. The two men stared at each other. Nobody else was paying attention—all eyes on the replay of the same horrific vids.

  Clay walked right up to Anders and leaned down until their faces were only inches apart. He whispered, “Who broke whose heart?”

  The emotion that stretched between Anders and the captain touched me—really touched me. I could feel it in the warmth that cropped up again—the one I never could drum up, even with the nicer men and women who had taken me in for the night. Not that there’d been that many nice ones. Good people didn’t frequent ships like the one I had been on.

  These were good men, pirates or not, and whatever kept them from being together seemed pretty damned ridiculous to me right then.

  I glanced back at the screens, took in the visuals of pods exploding, knowing that people, my people, had been inside them.

  Clay and Anders were alive and they obviously loved each other.

  As I turned my back on them and the screens and made m
y way back to my bunkroom, it hit me. I was alive too. Alive and free and I owed that to those two men.

  The next day, banging and cursing through the wall pulled me into the passageway and into the open doorway of Anders’s bunkroom.

  Anders, frowning, poked at the settings on a bolt gun in his lap.

  “Can I help?”

  He glanced up at my voice. “There’s not enough room for two over here, but you can keep me company.”

  I sat on the bunk against the wall and pulled one of his blue pillows into my lap. Anders shot me a quick smile before returning his attention to the table he was bolting into another wall. Muscles flexed in his arms as he held the steel top and lifted the bolt gun with his right hand. The rods echoed with a loud boom in the nearly empty room every time he hit the trigger.

  “How’d the questioning go?”

  He was talking about my vidscreen interrogation from the enforcers early that morning. Clay had sat down with me for the entire thing. “About like I expected. I was too secluded to learn a lot. I did share passcodes I’d learned, that sort of thing.”

  “I’m sure those helped.”

  I shrugged.

  “How are the wounds on your thighs?”

  I touched my pants over the wounds, smiling when it didn’t hurt at all. “Nearly healed. There’s only a twinge every now and then. It would have been nice to have access to that sort of healing gel in the past.”

  He scowled. “Don’t remind me of your past. Makes me want to punch things.” His blond hair fell messily in front of his eyes and he blew the long bangs out of his way. I liked the way he’d cut his hair. He hadn’t gone as short as Clay’s, instead hacking it off just behind his ears and leaving long layers on the top.

  He tugged hard on the table to make sure it was secure, set the bolt gun down and strode across the room to sit next to me. He sniffed the air, leaned closer. “Your hair smells like strawberries,” he murmured, nose against my temple.

  I’d used one of the shampoos in his box of lady stuff—the one I thought smelled the best. “What are strawberries?”

  “Aw, your taste repertoire needs serious work, sweetheart. We’ll add strawberries to the list of foods I plan to feed you. They are small, heart-shaped berries that can be sweet and tart. They’re my favorite.” He pulled my heavy hair away from my neck and nuzzled his nose there.

  My entire body snapped taut and he sighed, pulled away to scoot back on the bed so his spine rested against the wall. “Apologies. You, my sweet, are irresistible, especially smelling like my favorite berry.”

  A low throb started between my legs and I was suddenly aware of my breasts because they felt heavier and I wanted his hands on them. “You do the strangest things to my body. So does your captain. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  “What sort of things?” he asked quietly.

  Shivering, I closed my eyes to better concentrate on the sensations. “Warmth and this strange tingling.”

  “Tingling is good. Where?” He held his arms open. “Come sit against me. I promise to be good.”

  Fear tightened my muscles again. Frustrated, I twisted to look at him. “I want to do more than just sit against you.”

  He shook his head. “Siri, you’re afraid. I can feel it.” His expression, so serious, made me desperately want that one-sided, sexy smile back.

  “I’m not afraid. Not of you.”

  “Clay?”

  I shook my head. “Neither of you scare me. You make me feel things I don’t know how to deal with. But I want to—deal with them, that is. I want to feel these things. I might tense up and I can’t help it. I’ve spent years getting very few friendly touches and nearly all of the ones I did get were followed by pain. I think with you…and with your captain, I could learn—”

  I broke off, overcome by my desperate need to feel like a female. To touch and be touched. To know what true pleasure felt like. But how could I get these things across?

  “Damn, Siri. You are so beautiful, you make my heart ache, do you know that? And your loveliness isn’t just on the outside. I could see it instantly and I’m amazed with every moment I spend with you that you aren’t broken.”

  “But I am,” I whispered.

  “Not in the least. Wary, yes, but you must have one hell of a resilient core of inner strength to be handling things as well as you are. Most would be curled up hidden in their bunkroom.”

  “I’ve spent a lot of time in there.”

  “You know what I mean.” He framed my face with his big hands. “It kills me that you’ve been mistreated and I’m just as scared as you are to take this further.”

  “But you want to?” I whispered the question.

  “Want is too tame a word for what I feel for you.”

  “And what you feel for the captain?”

  A shadow passed through his eyes. “I’ve been in love with Claybourne Canfield for years.”

  “Then why do you torment him so much?”

  “Can’t help it. I’m afraid if I let any moment get too serious with him, all I feel will spill out and I’ll have him up against a wall so fast, he’ll hate me forever.”

  “Oh no,” I breathed, putting my palms on his chest, reveling in the strong heartbeat against my skin. “That man could never, ever hate you. I think he might love you too.”

  “You’re sweet, but no, he doesn’t. He cares for me. We are friends—or we used to be before I screwed up.”

  “Have you ever tried to…” I trailed off, not sure how to ask such a nosy question. Always before any sign of interest from me was considered rude—not my place—and earned me pain.

  That grin, the one that made my entire lower body knot up with heat, came back. He blew a hunk of blond hair out of his eyes. “Have I ever tried to what?”

  I looked down briefly, but forced myself to raise my face and meet his gaze again. “Touch him.”

  “Yeah, I’ve tried to touch him. Done more than tried.”

  I shivered and his grin stretched wider.

  “You like that idea.”

  Nodding, I bit my lip.

  “So,” he breathed, his hands cupping my shoulders. “That’s something you’d like to see?”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

  “What would you like to see me do to him?” He turned me so I was facing away from him, then flattened his hands on my stomach to pull my back to his chest. He nuzzled my neck, this time my hair had to be all in his face. “Tell me.”

  “I want to see you kiss him.” I couldn’t imagine how beautiful they would look together. Clay, so dark, compact and intense. Anders, so tall and fair. “Have you ever kissed him?”

  “I have. At one time, I kissed him often. He’d even started to return them despite constantly harping on the fact he’d only been into women in the past. He used to say his brother got all the bisexual genes in the family.”

  “Bisexuality is a gene?” I frowned. That’s not what I’d been taught. Gwinarians believed all kinds of love were perfectly natural as long as everybody consented.

  “It’s a joke.”

  “When was the last time you kissed him?”

  “Recently actually. A Gwinarian Tracker and another ship’s captain took over our ship and locked us in a room together. I got bored, tried to kiss him and received a nice black eye for my trouble.”

  I twisted around again. “He hit you? Is he violent?”

  “Siri, do you think he’s violent?”

  “I think he could be violent. I think you could be too. Everyone is capable of violence—even me. I suppose I didn’t think he’d hit you, his friend. He does care for you, I can tell.” I smiled. “I even saw him looking at your backside.”

  One blonde brow lifted. “Backside? I do love the way you talk.” He kissed my nose and leaned back against the wall again. “Looking at my backside, eh? Progress.”

  “Yes, progress.” I turned, and this time I snuggled back against him. Immediately, I felt the hard ridge of an erection
against my own backside. I started to pull away, then bit my lip and forced myself to settle in more. The faint groan that rumbled into my hair filled my belly with those lovely tingles. I clenched my legs together, suddenly achy between them. Shock filtered through my system when I realized I wanted him to touch me. I wanted to tear off our clothes, straddle his lap and see what it felt like to be the one to choose. Holding my breath, I tried to stop the shaking that started in my limbs and couldn’t.

  “Siri,” he breathed. “Siri, sweetheart, I won’t hurt you. Please don’t be afraid of me.”

  “I’m not afraid of you.” I turned, unable to stop my stupid legs and arms from shaking, and I knew right then that if I didn’t do this now, I might never be able to get past my own fear. “I want you to shut the door.”

  Like that, his eyes narrowed as he studied me, his big body tense.

  “No, I will.” I scrambled off his lap, crossed the room and palmed the door closed, hitting the lock mechanism and turning back to him. He’d sat up straight, gaze so damned penetrating—I felt it inside my bones. “I’m sorry that I’ll be shaking for this.”

  “For what, Siri?”

  I climbed back onto his bunk and straddled his lap. I shook so hard, I was kind of bouncing on his thighs, but I stayed there, closed my eyes and willed my limbs to stop.

  “Siri?”

  “Put your arms around me,” I whispered. “Please.”

  He slid those huge, warm arms around me and I expected fear at the first sign of his strength, but quickly realized that a part of this shaking wasn’t fear at all but a sort of fluttery anticipation that was taking over my whole body. I started to put my hand on my stomach but Anders pulled me closer until my sex was nestled firmly over the hard ridge in his pants. I watched his face as he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. I placed my palms on either side of his head, leaned close until his eyes flew back open. His breath brushed over my lips and I licked them so his air was cool on them.

  He groaned.

  He wanted to kiss me and was holding back. He was waiting for me to make the choice.