Morgan's Choice (44 page)

“Yes. A little more mopping up and these
people can start reclaiming their planet.”

“I expect they’ll have a lot of work to
do.”

“Yes, in the major cities in particular.
Come, let’s eat.” He shepherded her over to the table and sank down
onto a pouf. “I’ve allocated as many of my people as I can to
assist. The Union will send others. Ships are already on their way.
We have appointed a local Mirka planetary governor.”

Tullamarran brought the food, a colorful
selection of dishes surrounding the mound of cereal, and offered
wine. Why not? She thanked him when he’d poured. Ravindra served
himself and helped her to choose. They ate in silence for a few
moments. She found it hard to concentrate on the food. Judging by
those lingering looks across the table, so did he.

“In a few days’ time, I will take leave and
we will go to Tamlin, you and I.” He smiled and a tremor ran
through her body. “Where the rainforest meets the sea. A perfect
setting for The Orionar Queen.” He put down his bowl.

“Which reminds me. Tomorrow you must come
down to the planet with me.” He frowned. “We’ll have to find you a
white dress to wear.”

She almost choked. “What? Like the horrible
thing Asbarthi had me wear? Not a chance.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Admiral… I am a Supertech, not a Queen. I am
a woman, not a ship. I will wear what I want to wear. If that
doesn’t suit.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Too bad.”

The frown deepened and then he chuckled. “Is
this how you treat admirals in your own society?”

“
Yes, it is. I’m good at what I do.” She
stared straight into his eyes.
And what are you going to do about it?

He didn’t blink, never flinched. “You may
wear your own dress. But it must be white and gold and I must
approve. What you wear is important. Me, I have a hair piece until
my own hair grows back. I am
Darya
.
I must have a
coti
.” He moved
his head so she could see the silver clasp at the back of his neck.
The borrowed hair hung down between his shoulder blades. “You must
understand. This is politics. The Orionar Queen arrived on their
world and then hell followed. So. They should know the Orionar
Queen did not cause the hell; she ended it.”

“With some help from the Mirka.”

He raised his glass and sipped the wine.
“Yes.” He matched her gaze, his lips slightly curved.

The temperature was rising, no doubt about
it. She sipped at her own wine while a lovely, sexy shiver ran down
her back.

Tullamarran appeared, soft-footed and silent,
to clear the plates.

“You may retire, Tullamarran,” Ravindra
said.

When the manservant was gone Ravindra took
her hand and led her to the sofa. His pupils were wide and black,
the amber just a glowing outline. “Will you do something for
me?”

“
Probably.” She squirmed while her nipples
hardened and her groin tingled.
Anything you want
.

“Show me the red dress you intended to wear
to the mess.”

She grinned. “You didn’t like it.”

He moistened his lips. “Oh, I liked it. Very
much. It just… wasn’t appropriate for the mess. Here it’s
different.”

Oh, now this was going to be fun. A bit of
sexual foreplay before the inevitable result. She stood and
concentrated, finding the dress’s tiny processor with her mind.
First the color. Blue tinged to purple and then the red began to
dominate. As the color changed, she altered the neckline.

His lips quirked into a smile.

“Now this, you see, was about how I had it
set up that evening.” A scooped neckline with a hint of cleavage,
not much more. “In my society this is quite demure, very acceptable
in an Officers Mess. If I wanted to be a bit provocative, maybe I’d
do this.”

She changed the neckline to a halter,
replacing the curve with a dramatic plunge. He swallowed, following
the changing material with his eyes. She stopped just below her
breasts.

“You would go to a Mess? Like that?”

“Only if I was being a little bit naughty.”
She chuckled. The look on his face was worth every moment. “In
private I might be a little naughtier yet.”

She resumed the plunge, exposed a little
more of her breasts, lowered the backline. She turned in a circle
so he could see her back, bare to just above her buttocks. “Now
this really is the sort of dress a
vesya
would wear.”

“Yes, indeed. And then what?”

He hadn’t moved, simply sat on the sofa.
There was no doubting what he wanted. He was leaving it to her; her
choice. If she wanted him, she was going to have to prove it. No,
not prove, show. Her choice.
I love you
.

“Well, if he was someone I really fancied, I
might do something like this.”

She slid onto his lap and nibbled at his
lips. His hand cupped her breast through the material, his fingers
squeezed her nipple. His tongue flicked into her mouth but she
edged away, resisting his attempts to deepen the kiss despite the
growl of impatience.

“Patience, Admiral,” she whispered, “you’ll
get what you want.”

His hand brushed aside the impeding material
and fondled her breast. She squirmed, positively squelching, aware
of his erection. Not yet.

“Well? You have my attention. In every way
possible.”

She extracted herself from his embrace and
stood. A swift alteration and the dress slithered down her body to
form a soft red carpet at her feet. His gaze roamed over her, eyes
blazing with lust. Well, she hadn’t bothered with underwear. What
was the point? Kneeling in front of him, she unfastened his
trousers and drew out his rigid cock. She took him in her mouth,
sliding his foreskin down with her tongue while he hissed his
pleasure. His fingers were in her hair as she sucked and licked,
taking him deep into her throat.

“No.” He reached out, hands on her shoulders.
“I want to be inside you.”

She could do that. She rose and straddled
him, face to face as she guided his cock into hot, slick wetness.
His eyes narrowed as she sank down onto him, his hands grasping her
hips.

He groaned.

His mouth fastened onto her breast, sucking
hard while she rode him. The material of his uniform scraped
against her skin, his fingers dug into her back. He grunted as he
came, all too quickly, muttering words she didn’t understand. He
wrapped his arms around her, his head bent over her shoulder, his
fingers gentle, kneading, stroking.

“
See what you’ve done to me woman?” He
brushed the side of her neck with his lips. “You’ve reduced me to
a
Balahn
.”

Balahn
. That was a new one. She stood in response to his
gentle pressure.

“A boy with his first woman,” he said,
re-arranging his clothing

“Oh. Should I apologize?”

“No.” He lifted her in his arms and carried
her to the bedroom. “I shall apologize. At length, as soon as I
can.”

A brief kiss and he deposited her on the bed.
She lay on her elbows and watched him strip off his uniform. Jacket
first, hung neatly in the closet, undershirt. Her gaze lingered on
powerful arms, rippling abs. He had the body of an athlete, long,
sculpted muscles. He sat down on the edge of the bed to take off
boots and socks and then he stood again to slip off his trousers,
which he tossed over a chair. The soft light gleamed on his skin as
he moved, picked off the lines of the tattoo on his shoulder. Wow,
what a body. Undershorts gone. He’d need to rearm but that
shouldn’t take long. She licked her lips.

“In future if I want to prevent you from
staring me in the eye, I’ll take off my uniform, shall I?” His eyes
gleamed with humor as he joined her on the bed.

“Mmm. I think I’d like that. Or you could ask
me to help you take it off.”

“And now, my darling, we make love.
Slowly.”

He pulled her close and kissed her. She
closed her eyes and lost herself in warm sensuality, aware of his
body, his smooth skin, the tang of spice with a hint of musk, the
taste of his lips, his tongue in her mouth. His hands slid over her
body. Soon he nuzzled her breasts, biting hard enough to make her
yelp. He stopped and raised his head. “I’m sorry. I need to
remember how fragile you are.”

“Fragile?” Not a word she would have used for
herself.

He stroked her breast and down her belly.
“Like silk. Fine and beautiful. He fondled her nipple and it
tightened even more at his touch. “You see? A manesan woman would
hardly feel that.”

Good grief. It was almost enough to bring her
to orgasm.

He smiled at her briefly and continued his
exploration, sliding his tongue down the length of her body from
her breasts to her mound. She shivered, sure she’d melt, already
aching for him and ran her hands over his shoulders. He slid lower,
out of her reach, rested his face between her thighs. When he
probed her folds with his tongue she was certain she would explode.
He found her clit and flicked, tickled. She wriggled. God, this was
so good.

At last he shifted his body over her and
pushed into her, right up to the hilt in one easy shove. She moaned
and raised her knees around his waist so he could get in further,
deeper, harder. He moved slowly, in and out in long, rhythmic
strokes. She clung to his shoulders, feeling the muscles flex under
his skin. Oh God, this was unutterably delicious. Her body
tightened, her breath shortened as the tension rose, a dam set to
burst. “Oh yes. Oh yes yes yes. Fuck me. Oh yes.” She arched
beneath him, eyes closed as the orgasm engulfed her.

He strained into her, grunting. After a
few moments, slumped over her to regain his breath, he took his
weight on his elbows so he could see her face. His chest heaved as
he breathed. “I love you.”

She stroked his cheek. Why had she ever
doubted it?

Chapter
Fifty

Dawn. Creatures stirred in the treetops,
yelling insults at each other to announce a new day. Not that you
could see the sunlight down here. Asbarthi opened encrusted eyes
and wished for a bed under a roof, hot food and a shower. Three
days he’d been out here in the jungle with Prakesh and his
squad.

The big man leaned into the shelter and
shook his shoulder again. “Come on,
Sur
. Time to go.”

Asbarthi crawled out of the shelter onto
moldering leaf litter and scratched at his belly. Something had
bitten him, he was certain. His lace cuffs hung around his wrists
like wet string. And if he took his pants off, they’d walk off
without him. Dark, damp and oppressive. A man couldn’t see more
than a few meters into the forest. Once he got back to civilization
he was never, ever going to do anything like this again. “Where are
we going?”

Prakesh gazed up into the treetops, hands on
his hips. “It’s gone pretty quiet with these little alien fellas.
Reckon it’s time we checked in with management.”

Asbarthi’s head jerked up. Management? “What
do you mean?”

“We’re heading back for Zaffra Bay, see
what’s doing. Best get yourself a ration bar, we’ll ship out
shortly.”

Zaffra Bay, eh? Well and good. Surely he’d
find an opportunity to slip away, head off for Devagnam’s house.
Had Akbar survived? Maybe. He’d been at Krystor Central making
speeches to the people. Had Lakshmi made it through? Somehow, he
rather doubted it.

One of their females handed him a ration bar.
He pulled off the cover and leaned against a tree to eat as the
troopers busied themselves around him, dismantling the camp,
packing up equipment. Amazing how quiet and efficient they were,
these great hulking brutes. Any one of them could have picked him
up one-handed. He waved a four-winged flying thing away from his
face.

He’d barely finished swallowing what passed
for breakfast when Prakesh clapped his hands. “Let’s go. Mount
up.”

They piled into the troop carrier, Asbarthi
seated as usual next to Prakesh. There were two spare seats now.
Two troopers lost in Prakesh’s guerrilla campaign against the alien
invaders.

“Take us above the canopy,” Prakesh said to
the driver.

The Halycon rose, crashing through the
branches into an overcast, smoky sky. Red-green jungle stretched
between the mountains and the sea. A distant plume of black smoke
in the low hills marked a fire.

“No aliens, Chief. A bit of traffic here and
there but all ours,” the driver said.

“Zaffra Bay, then. Carefully.”

Asbarthi stared out the window at the
mountains, blanketed in cloud. If these aliens hadn’t turned up, he
would have been ruler of Krystor. His fingers clenched into a fist
at the thought of Ravindra and her. That woman. The Orionar Queen.
Lakshmi had been right about her. They were dead, both of them.
They’d flown straight into the alien ships. Somehow the fact
afforded little comfort. He’d so looked forward to causing Ravindra
misery.

The pilot’s voice brought him back to the
Halycon. They were dropping toward the gate.

“There’ll be a slight delay,” Prakesh said.
“Seems they’re having a parade. Beam it up on the screen, Jag, so
we can all see.”

Two people in white and gold stood on a
podium in front of a parade of troops, with a row of dignitaries
sitting behind them. Asbarthi’s heart lurched. Selwood. That was
Selwood dressed in a flowing white and gold gown. And Ravindra.
Admiral damn-his-hide Ravindra in full ceremonial dress uniform.
How had they survived?

Ravindra was speaking. Jag turned the
sound up as the driver let the Halycon settle to the ground.
“Together,
Suri
Selwood and
the fleet have defeated the alien invaders. Krystor has suffered.
Many have died and even more have sustained injury and loss. It
will be many years before this lovely planet is restored to its
previous wealth and beauty. But without this lady, many, many more
would have died, your planet would have been laid waste as were
Andreena and Dilmar. All of us of the fleet would have died. We are
indebted to
Suri
Selwood.
She was never a Queen, never wanted to be a Queen. Vesha princes
eager for power for themselves used her, deceived her as they used
and deceived many of you. But she is a hero and I salute her.”
Ravindra bowed to her, the sort of bow he would have offered an
equal.