Fools Rush In (The Interstellar Rescue Series Book 3) Read online

  “Gods, you’re perfect.”

  He ducked his head, seeking her lips again, but she held him off, wanting the same pleasure of looking at him, touching him. She ran her hands over the smooth expanse of his chest and down over the tight muscles of his belly. She smiled to hear him gasp as she skimmed his nipples and made a note to use that later. Right now she had a more immediate goal.

  She slipped her hands inside his waistband and worked his pants down so he could step out of them. And, oh, God, there he was at last, long and thick and jutting up out of a nest of dark curls at the juncture of his strong thighs. She reached for him, but he swept her up into his arms before she could touch him, wrapping her legs around him, trapping his erection between their naked bodies.

  “Not now,” he growled into her ear. “I swear if you touch me now, I’ll explode. I want you too much.”

  The ache in his voice tugged at something below her ribs, something that had been buried deep and long protected. In self-defense she kissed him, seeking the firm answer of his lips, the silky touch of his tongue, the heady taste of intoxication.

  He lowered her to the bunk, stretching her out beneath him, and she groaned with the pleasure of it—the slide of his skin on hers, the heated spike of his erection pressing into the groove of her hip, his breath matching hers. His freshly-shaved cheek was smooth against her skin, and his lips were soft, so soft, as he lifted them from her mouth to nibble at her ear, her neck, her throat.

  His mouth found her breast, and his tongue circled the sensitive peak. He suckled, drawing just hard enough on her nipple to cause a sharp twinge of pain, a sizzle that ended in a warmth she felt in her deepest core. She lifted her hips, wanting more. His hand slipped down her belly, across her hip, down the outside of her thigh and up the inside to the intimate folds between her legs. His fingers began to explore the slick flesh.

  His name escaped her on a sigh.

  He switched his attentions to her other breast while one finger massaged the swollen pearl of her desire, slowly, maddeningly.

  He stopped. Looked at her. “Tell me you want this.”

  She could barely find the breath to answer him. “God, yes, I want this!”

  He nipped gently at her nipple. “Tell me you want me.”

  She grabbed his hair and made him look at her. “I want you, Murphy. Nobody else.”

  He looked back at her with a slow, seductive smile, and, God help her, she nearly came. His hand between her legs had set up an unbearable ache, one only he could satisfy. At last she insisted on the pleasure of touching him, wrapping her hand around his thick shaft, feeling his pulse in her palm. He closed his eyes and shuddered as she stroked him, and her chest expanded in delight to hold him in her hand.

  When he spoke again his voice was a whisper of sand. “Tell me . . . how . . . you want it.”

  “Now, baby.” She couldn’t believe she was saying this to him, but it was what she wanted and she wouldn’t wait any longer. She needed this from him. “Hard and fast and don’t even let me breathe until I come.”

  She saw his eyes darken with understanding. He rose over her and centered himself between her legs. His broad tip waited at her entrance—hot and blunt and ready. She pulsed against him, eager, needy. She held her breath as he guided himself in and lingered to caress her just above the place where they were joined. For some seconds he didn’t move. He simply filled her and stroked her while she adjusted to his length and his thickness. He stretched her enough to sting, but Jesus God she ached for him! She burned in a fire of longing.

  She squirmed under him. “Sam! Goddammit!”

  “Shh. I’ll give you what you want.” His voice was a low, soothing baritone. “I’ll give you everything you want.”

  He began to move in her slick channel and soon swung into the rhythm she needed—long strokes, hard ones, enough to shake her where she lay beneath him. He held his weight on his hands on either side of her; she reached up to grab his forearms, roped with taut muscle, and held on while he drove her relentlessly up to a steep, airless peak. She looked down her body at him, at the sight of his flat abdomen rippling as he pistoned in and out of her, the column of his shaft starkly pale between her dark thighs. His muscles gleamed under a sheen of sweat. And his face—the way he watched her, as if her every reaction fed the hunger in him.

  But then she closed her eyes because it was good, so damn good, and she couldn’t do anything but feel. Her blood was molten metal; her lungs were on fire. Every stroke into her core sent electric shocks deep into her belly, into her chest. The pleasure drove her higher. And tighter. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. She could only scream as she fell apart under his sweet assault.

  Rayna came, her hips arching up off the mattress into his, her sheath clamping down on his shaft in rolling spasms, and it was everything Sam could do to hold back his own climax in the storm of her release. Gods, she was so beautiful, her face flushed with color, her full lips parted to pull in breath, her breasts rising as her back bowed in ecstasy. He gritted his teeth and fought for control as waves of scalding need swept up through his groin when she squeezed him, fought for breath as his chest constricted when she gasped his name. He thrust deeper and she only flew higher, soaring for the next peak.

  She pulled him down into her arms and moaned a command: “Don’t stop, Sam. Just don’t stop.”

  He growled in response, shifted his hips to make sure she felt him in all the right spots and kept on. He refused to stop, refused to slow his pounding rhythm, though every move brought him closer to losing control. He held on. He had promised her, and he would deliver.

  She writhed under him, clinging to his shoulders as a second orgasm took her, her breath coming in keening gasps, as if she was unable to pull in enough air to scream or call his name. Tiny muscles spasmed and clutched at him, her climax bathing him in hot cream. Her hips moved greedily beneath his, milking him of every possible pleasure, igniting a wave of answering fire in him.

  Near his limit, he waited for the frantic seizing of her intimate muscles to subside, for her breath to stop its desperate rasping. Then at last he slowed, drawing out his strokes to his full length and reseating himself high and tight. The pressure in his balls eased from now! to merely urgent. She trembled in his arms, her core pulsed around him, and he knew she wasn’t done yet. She needed more. His swollen shaft jerked in response, ready to provide it.

  He took her mouth as he took her body—a hot, deep, lazy plundering of the treasure of her kiss while he moved slow and deep inside her. Her honeyed taste and the silky slide of her tongue distracted him for a moment from the blazing need in his groin. She moaned into his kiss, and he felt it all the way to the base of his spine. Liquid fire gathered there, a pressure building that would not long be denied.

  He broke off the kiss with a groan. On his elbows now, his body covering hers, he ground into her in unrelenting circles. Every stroke was fire, her channel answering with flame, their bodies moving together, their hearts beating in unison as they strained towards paradise. She began to whisper in his ear, words of encouragement, words of undeniable passion, words that made him crazy with the need to fill her, to claim her, to own her.

  And when she said, “Now, baby. Give it to me,” he couldn’t hold on any longer. Every muscle clenched as the climax took him, and he drove deep into her welcoming warmth, again and again. He felt her close around him as she cried out his name, joining him as he went up in flames, and for a moment there was only that heat, that delicious, mindless heat.

  Then, when it was over, there was Rayna, looking up at him with a slightly dazed, disbelieving smile. Rayna, her eyes liquid, black and glazed with pleasure, her lips swollen from his kisses and her hands still tracing warm circles on his back. His heart expanded in his chest, surprising him so that his breath hitched.

  She reached up to touch his face. “You know, you are sweeter than luta nectar when you want to be. You could definitely spoil a girl’s appetite for anythi
ng else.”

  Her tone was light, teasing, but her smile didn’t reach her dark eyes. He realized with a fierce rush of possessiveness that he wanted to spoil her for anyone else. He wouldn’t share. She was his.

  The unaccustomed emotion made his chest tighten around his thudding heart, but he kept his tone light, just as she had. “I could get used to spoiling your appetite, Little Bit. Breakfast—” he kissed her ear—“lunch—” he nuzzled her neck—“and dinner.” He dropped tiny kisses along her jaw until he reached her lips. There he lingered, teasing, nibbling, suckling, eventually plunging deep into the warm cavern of her mouth to entice her tongue to play. After a while he grew hard again inside her, and the sweet ache encouraged him to move.

  She sighed into his ear. “God, yes, Murphy. You could make a woman lose her mind.”

  Sam smiled and took his time, knowing now just how to please her. First her mind, then her heart—that had to be the plan. It was the only way to even the score between them. Because somewhere between “My name is Rayna Carver” and “oh, God, Sam!” she had stolen what belonged to him. He doubted he would ever get his heart back in one piece.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Zetana Be-Kor sent instructions to her team in half-second microbursts over an infrared frequency so low as to be nearly part of the background noise of the ship. They had less than 30 hours until the C4 jump, and she had been assured by their allies that assistance would arrive before then. When the moment came her people needed to be ready, at their posts with a complete understanding of what they were to do.

  If she’d had a handful of professional Thrane soldiers to accomplish her tasks, she would be confident of success. But she had been forced to recruit amateurs in the hold of that slaver—resistant slaves barely out of the grip of the mindwipe. They were unpredictable, as Falla had so clearly shown.

  --You set an excellent example with Falla, my love. Rex cupped her cheek with one large hand. In the confined space of the access tube they could touch, they could share the intimacies of their bond, but speech was still forbidden lest the sound give them away. Discipline is easy to maintain now. Besides, the task we have given them is not complicated.

  Zetana allowed a humorless smile. She supposed assaulting the crew member nearest you was not too complicated. In fact, it was ridiculously simple, and it usually met with a high degree of success, especially on a pirate vessel.

  --You have to admit, however, their success is not guaranteed on the Shadowhawk.

  Rex rubbed at the stubble on the sharp planes of his face. Agreed. Captain Murphy runs a very disciplined ship for a blackjack. He grinned as his natural optimism resurfaced. But no matter. My work is done. When my darlings start going off all over the ship, no one will be concerned with the fighting in the corridors.

  She placed a hand on his chest and looked up at him in delight. You have been busy!

  --Did you think I spend my days lying around thinking only of new ways to please you in bed, k’taama?

  --I had hoped so. Her hand moved from his chest to his thigh and squeezed.

  He pulled her head down to his and savaged her lips in a long, brutal taking of her mouth. Her body responded instantly, heat flaring all along their bond. Whatever their problems, they were well-matched in the art of love. She wanted him, as she always had. He knew it, as he always had. Zetana allowed her bondmate to press his advantage now while they had time.

  And even as she surrendered, she acknowledged the responses from her team members, one by one. When the ship reached the rendezvous point they would be ready.

  Rayna drew her hand across the captain’s broad chest, followed the line of fine, dark hair down his tight stomach to his navel and stroked across to his hip. She petted him, her captain, knowing it was an indulgence she shouldn’t allow herself. Like the night she’d just spent with him. A temptation she should never have given into—a rich dessert before dinner, a treat all the sweeter for having been stolen.

  Who’d have thought a pirate would have been such a talented and sensitive lover? Oh, he’d been a machine when she wanted it, too—the thought of that made her flush with heat—but it was the subtlety of his lovemaking that surprised her. The way he seemed to know what she needed—fast or slow, deep or shallow, tongue or hands or teeth or . . . Jesus, she had to stop or she would wake him up and start all over again.

  Maybe she had surprised him a little, too. That look in his eyes seemed to say so. Like he’d suddenly discovered who she really was. No. Like he’d discovered a treasure. Now what was she supposed to do with that? What were they supposed to do with that and the way it made her feel?

  Nothing. The answer was nothing. He was who he was. She was who she was, and that wasn’t going to change. He was taking her to Madras, goddamn it! And it would set her mission back multiple twentydays and there was nothing she could do about it. She wasn’t fool enough to think one night in the captain’s bunk would be enough to change things, no matter how much she—or he—had enjoyed it.

  Frustrated and riding an edge of anger now, she pulled back from Sam’s warm body and rolled out of bed. She reached for her clothes.

  Instantly awake, Sam came up on an elbow to look at her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She got her clothes on as quickly as she could. “Third watch is almost over. I should go back to my cabin now.”

  “You don’t have to. Stay here with me for a while.”

  She faltered, part of her wanting so much just to crawl back into bed with him. The other part of her, the part most people saw when they looked at her, stiffened her spine.

  “Wouldn’t look so good, Captain, you sleeping with someone like me.”

  He got out of bed and came to put his hands on her shoulders. “My ship. My rules.”

  She lifted her chin. “Let’s just say I’m not ready for the attention, then.”

  “Discretion is my middle name.” He smiled, but there was defiance in his eyes, blocking her withdrawal.

  Damn it. Something ached deep in her chest. She slipped both arms around his neck, stood on tiptoe and put her lips to his. He still tasted like bourbon and cherries.

  She whispered in his ear, “Thank you for last night.” It was all she would allow herself.

  He pulled back, left a hand on her cheek. “‘Thank you’ is much too weak a term for what I’m feeling right now. Besides, the night’s not over yet.” He hit her with that intense green gaze of his, and she couldn’t hold on to her resolve. She knew she had to get out of there or be lost. She started to protest, but he kissed her again, stopping the words. Her traitorous body responded with shortened breath and pounding heart and an ache of desire that betrayed every argument of her logical mind.

  He nipped at her ear. “Come back to bed.”

  She took a step back. “I can’t, baby. I have to do my job now, and you’re going to have to be the captain.”

  “Perai, are you going to pull a stunner on me and take over my ship?” He didn’t look particularly worried about that scenario. “Can I at least put my pants on?”

  In spite of everything, a smile broke through Rayna’s guard. “Yes and no.”

  Sam folded his arms across his chest and waited, eyebrows raised.

  “Yes, you can put your pants on. No, I’m not going to pull a stunner on you and take over your ship.”

  Sam’s expression cleared, but lightning flashed in his eyes. “You, my vicious Little Bit, are taking a fast run through an asteroid field. What is it you’re after?”

  “You still refuse to take me to LinHo?”

  He took a step toward her, a dark, dangerous smile spreading across his face. “Are you trying to tell me last night was a bribe? Because I wouldn’t believe that, Agent Carver, no matter what you tell me now.”

  “Jesus, no!” It was the last thing she wanted him to think. Her feelings for him had been real—were real—which only made what came next harder. “I didn’t plan what happened last night. I did it because I wanted you. I sho
uld regret it, but I don’t.” She touched his face. “Last night was you and me, Sam and Rayna. I wasn’t thinking about anything else.”

  Sam took her hand from his cheek, held it for the briefest second, then released it. “Let’s say I believe you. What about today?”

  “Today, if I’m not going to make LinHo, I need to contact my people and let them know. We need to get started on a Plan B.”

  Sam was silent for a long moment, his expression stony, but at last he relented. “All right. I’ll set it up with Communications. You can use my comp right here.”

  She reached out to touch him again, but found he’d retreated somehow. He was the captain of the Shadowhawk now, not Sam, the man who’d been inside her such a short time ago. She had only herself to blame, though. She had set aside his warm lover for the cold-blooded Rescue agent that woke him up this morning.

  Still, he could just as well have said no to her request; that deserved some acknowledgment. “Thank you, Captain.”

  His jaw clenched, but he said nothing to her. He turned and punched the deskpad to connect him with the bridge.

  A face appeared on the inclined reading surface of his desk. “Patel, here, Cap.”

  “Morning, Patel. Agent Rayna Carver of the Interstellar Council for Abolition and Rescue needs access to the next comm packet. Patch her through from my cabin and give her whatever she needs, okay?”

  “Aye, Cap. No problem.”

  “When’s the next transmission to Madras?”

  “I’ll be sending it out in the next hour. Even with two relays, it should reach there by 1100 hours.”

  “Good. Stand by for Carver’s message.”

  “Acknowledged. Standing by.”

  Sam stepped away from the desk and waved her over. “It’s all yours.” She might have been a complete stranger.

  Anger flared. “Thanks for announcing my presence to the whole ship.”

  “Why do you always assume my ship is run like some sleazy Ninoctin orejacker?” he said with a scowl. “Patel knows to keep his mouth shut.”