Dark Solstice (6 page)

“If you’ve already got it all figured out, you don’t need to ask, then, do you?” Raathe growled, shoving to his feet.

Justice came to his feet, as well. He wasn’t as tall as Raathe, but he didn’t miss it by much, and he was noticeably stockier. The two men eyed one another with grim speculation. Unnerved, Rhea got up, as well, trying to decide whether she should move to a safer distance or not.

“You planning on sharing her?” Justice asked after a prolonged, uncomfortable silence.

Rhea felt a stab of anxiety. Her jaw slackened with shock.

“Why the fuck should I?” Raathe asked coldly.

Kyle felt a cold sweat pop from brow, not the least because he had no fucking clue how he’d come to challenge Raathe outright when he was certain he’d had no intention of doing so five seconds ago.

But then Raathe’s possessiveness of her brought out the savage desire to pulverize the bastard.

It didn’t make him feel one fucking bit better to see the look on Rhea’s face at his question. He felt, in fact, more than a little nauseated and lower than a snake.

So much for trying to win her over with his charm!

He saw nothing for it, though, but to brazen his way through the fucking mess his tongue had just pitched him in to, trying to salve his conscience with the reflection that it was actually ‘in character’ even if he did feel like kicking himself. “Why not? You could name your price for a little bit of her time.”

Raathe’s lips curled in a cold smile. “I don’t have anything to fumigate her cunt with and I’m real particular about where I stick my dick.”

Rhea sent him a horrified look. There hadn’t been any threat of sexually transmitted diseases in decades. It was the eradication of them and advances in birth control that had finally completely liberated human sexuality for both sexes. His implication that he might need to disinfect her if he shared her was frightening enough by itself to overshadow her fear of being turned over to the other inmates for their use.

Disease shouldn’t have been a threat. The prison population should be as protected in that respect as anyone else, but then again, slavery was illegal and the warden had obviously disregarded that as he had all of the other laws he regularly broke within the walls of Phobos Prison.

The two men assessed one another for several moments. Finally, with obvious effort, Justice forced himself to relax. “When you get tired of her, then.”

Indignation replaced Rhea’s fear. She glanced at Raathe and discovered he’d transferred his attention from Kyle Justice to her. Their gazes locked for a handful of seconds. “What have you got to trade?” Raathe drawled.

The grin that parted Justice’s lips was more friendly, but there was no friendliness in his eyes. “If you’re interested in negotiating, you can check out what I’ve got when we get back and we’ll see if we can do business.”

A mixture of anger and despair settled in Rhea’s belly in a sickening knot as they returned to work. It had taken a strenuous effort to hold her tongue while they discussed using her as if she was no more than one of the tools they passed back and forth between them, but caution had stayed her tongue. She was in no position to defend herself from either man. Beyond venting her feelings by voicing her objections, saying anything at all would be worse than useless, she knew, worse because the only thing it might possibly do would be to anger both men.

Resentment churned inside of her as she followed them around, lugging tools and supplies hour after hour, but it was hard to maintain in the face of the weariness and depression and the sense of utter hopelessness.

Four days after they’d left Phobos, they were loaded into the shuttles again and hauled back to the prison. It was ironic that the conditions on the planet were so bad that Rhea was almost grateful to get back to the prison.

Exhaustion made Rhea far more immune to distress and embarrassment as they were processed into the prison again than she would’ve thought possible. As soon as they debarked, they were herded toward the waste stations to vacuum the suits and from there to the decontamination ‘showers’ where they and the suits they were wearing were sterilized inside and out. They were halted to strip the suits, breathing units, and helmets off once they emerged from decom and then marched to the showers.

Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have been self-conscious at all. Anyone who went into space grew accustomed to unisex baths fairly quickly. Her circumstances made it impossible to be completely oblivious, though, since she was the
only
female in the group.

She relaxed fractionally when she saw the men were as weary as she was, or the next thing to it, too tired to spare her more than a few vaguely interested glances. Raathe discouraged even that, however, taking up a stance behind her as they showered and blocking much of her view of the others and vice versa. The brief blast of the dryer as they emerged from the showers didn’t serve to do much besides pebble her skin all over and set her teeth to chattering. She was still more than a little damp when she took the suit Raathe shoved into her hands and clambered into it. The suit clung to her wet skin uncomfortably as they were marched from the bathing facilities and back to the cells.

Rhea was so exhausted by the time they reached Raathe’s cell she was nearly staggering. She headed toward the bunk, intent on nothing but collapsing on it and sleeping as long as she was allowed to sleep. Raathe halted her by grasping her arm when she’d nearly reached it.

She glanced up at him dully.

“Take off the suit first.”

She stared at him uncomprehendingly but finally nodded and dragged the thing off, dropping it to the floor. He was directly behind her as she climbed onto the bunk but she didn’t tumble to his intent even when he sprawled half on top of her, insinuating one of his hard thighs between hers. Weariness had dulled her instincts as well as her wits and, she supposed, close proximity for days without threat on any kind of physical intimacy had given her a false sense of security.

Maybe he’d been waiting for that, the slow crumbling of her defenses?

His mouth settled on hers at almost the same instant as he closed one hand over a bare breast, squeezing and massaging it. Without time to throw up any sort of mental walls, surprise was the only thing that shielded her from the first touch and that crumbled to dust almost instantly. As weary as she was, her body responded instantaneously to the pleasurable stimulus.

His mouth was hard, hot, his taste and scent seizing command of her perceptions as swiftly and completely as the most potent liquor or recreational drug. Warmth invaded her, leaching the tension from her muscles. A sense of floating, sinking, whirling dizziness followed on the heels of it and then the heat seemed to center in her blood stream, surging through every part of her as her heart leapt and pounded more rapidly, pooling in her pulse points and generating heat instead of mere warmth.

He pushed her thighs wider with the knee he’d wedged between her legs the moment he covered her, reaching between them and aligning the hard evidence of his arousal with her body. Surprise flickered through her again when she felt his thick flesh parting hers. She’d generated just enough moisture in tentative arousal to ease his possession in a series of short sorties that seated him completely inside of her. He broke the kiss. Rising above her, he positioned himself for better leverage and began to stroke the inner walls of her sex at a pace that stirred hotter currents. Pleasure wafted through her at the delightful friction of his thick flesh sawing along her channel. She caught her breath, savoring it as the tension built.

Just as she’d begun to feel the tension building toward release, she felt him stiffen.

“Wait!”

She wasn’t certain if she’d gasped the word aloud or not, but it availed her nothing. She felt his cock jerk inside of her, felt a hot fountain of semen fill her. He shuddered with release, sucked in a harsh breath and drove deeper, holding himself still until the quakes finally stilled and he settled heavily against her.

A sense of disappointment filled her. It didn’t ease as he shifted enough to pull his now flaccid flesh from her and settled his weight on the bunk beside her. Instead, it grew more profound, was joined by a sense of misuse.

He lifted his head to look at her assessingly.

She swallowed against the uncomfortable knot of emotion that tightened her throat, closing her eyes the moment she felt him shift to look at her. After a prolonged moment, he dropped his head to the pillow beside hers, sighed heavily and within moments she heard the heavy, even breathing of sleep.

As tired as she’d been before they’d lain down, she found herself wakeful long after he’d gone to sleep. The arousal he’d stirred up left her slowly, left her feeling tense and uncomfortable. The sense of misuse gave way after a while to confusion.

He hadn’t raped her. He’d aroused her enough to make possession easy, not hurtful, had pleasured himself without causing her pain or even ‘inconveniencing’ her for more than a few minutes.

Why was it that she didn’t particularly appreciate the consideration?

Chapter Six

Rhea wasn’t sure what woke her. One moment she was aware of nothing, the next wide awake and keenly aware of the rigid tension in the big body sprawled across hers. Raathe’s entire body flinched, his hand tightening on her convulsively. A sound, almost like a raw sob for breath escaped him, drawing her gaze to his face. Even in the dim, bluish night light that permeated the cell she could see that his face was twisted with the terrible agony of profound anguish. Moisture spiked his thick lashes and, as she watched, a single drop escaped, tracing a path from the corner of his tightly squeezed eye into the pillow beneath his head.

Disoriented as she was from sleep, it took her no more than a moment to process what was happening, though, and the terrible anguish she saw in his face found a sympathetic echo within her, lancing through her with something akin to pain.

“Amy!” As if the single word was wrenched from him, he sucked in a harsh breath and jerked all over.

Something compelled her to close her eyes at the realization that he’d jolted from his sleep, to pretend to be oblivious.

He was breathing as heavily as if he’d run a mile when he pushed himself upright and stared down at her for a long moment. She knew he was trying to decide whether she was asleep or a wake and doubted she’d fooled him, but she kept her eyes closed.

He rolled off the cot, swayed a moment until he caught his balance, and headed to the lavatory. Rhea peered at him through her lashes as he hunched over the small bowl and splashed water over his face.

He turned to look at her speculatively again once he’d dried his face. Sensing brooding anger in him, Rhea rolled onto her side and put her back to him. After a few minutes, she heard him move toward her again and he settled behind her on the bunk.

Amy, she wondered, trying to jar her mind in producing an answer to the question of who he’d dreaming about that had made him weep in his sleep. Or maybe it was an incident, not a particular person?

She didn’t believe that. His voice had been slurred by sleep and by the agony in his voice, but he’d said Amy—clearly—his voice ragged with emotions she would never have credited him with feeling—ever.

His hand settled on her belly and skimmed upward to cup a breast.

Dread suffused her and she stiffened.

He ignored the tension of refusal he couldn’t have helped but notice. Dragging her reluctant form onto her back, he met her gaze for a prolonged moment and then transferred his gaze to her body, watching the reaction of her nipples to the tease of his fingers as he plucked at first one and then the other. Uncertain of whether he was trying to distract her or himself, Rhea’s reluctance grew more profound. He’d aroused her before and left her uncomfortably unsatisfied. She didn’t want more of that.

She discovered she didn’t have a choice. Unfulfilled, her body reacted even more quickly to his touch than it had before, or maybe it was the ‘knowing’, the primal chemical reaction of attraction to a similar chemical makeup? She didn’t know and she didn’t have time to analyze it or throw up a real defense.

He followed the play of his hands with his mouth. Her belly knotted almost painfully just from the anticipation of the feel of his mouth as she watched his descent. The moment that heated, gentle suction closed over one swollen tip, she caught fire, the heated tendrils licking through her from breasts to belly. She struggled to close her mind to the sensations pouring through her in response to the tug of his mouth on her breast. For a few moments it seemed she teetered between triumph and failure, but he was insistent, determined. Her body awakened to his touch, every part of her. The heated pull of his mouth submerged her mind in a sea of dizzying sensation even before he’d tired of toying with one and moved to the other.

She was panting for breath, still struggling to hide her reaction to him even though she couldn’t prevent it, by the time he lifted his head to study her face. He shifted, fitting his mouth to hers even as she tried to turn her head to avoid him.

It angered him that she’d even attempted to elude him. His hard mouth on hers was testimony to that, the demand inherent in his touch as he raked his tongue possessively along hers, sucked at it. Her belly shimmied, tightened painfully, flooded with heated moisture.

Fleetingly, she wondered how a man who seemed to have ice water in his veins could so easily pour fire into hers, but he had command of all of her senses. Her attempt at rationalization was as useless as her attempt to shield herself from feeling. She didn’t attempt to evade him when he pressed her thighs wide and stroked his cock along her cleft to join their bodies. It didn’t occur to her to try. She was as anxious to feel him there as he seemed to be to claim her again, shaking with the need, and when he pressed inside of her, she sucked in a harsh breath, closing her eyes tightly at the exquisite feel of him.

She wasn’t even aware of the fact that she’d clutched his shoulders so frantically that her nails were digging into his hard flesh until she felt the ache in her fingers. He moved slowly at first, watching her face. She couldn’t find it within herself to care, or to try to shield her reaction to him in any way. She couldn’t focus on anything but striving to reach the pinnacle that he’d denied her before, gasping for breath and arching to counter each thrust as he increased the pace, driving her search for release before him with his pounding thrusts.