Salvage Rights (Distant Worlds Book 2) (18 page)

While the servants
bustled in, exchanging all his cooled plates with hot from the oven
replacements, he waited, his dynamic blue eyes tracing the movement of a
particularly lovely server who was trying to keep her head down and move
quickly.  The scent of fear in the room only added to the food’s sweet aroma.
Then, when they had all bustled back out, he cut up the bloody lamb and took a
bite. 
Perfect.
  A smile stretched across perfectly formed lips as he
chewed. 
Everything was perfect.
  But then he never allowed anything
less.

For Danika’s part, the
meal seemed both interminable and, at the same time, it was over too quickly. 
When the last of the dishes were cleared away by servants Danika had never even
seen before, she was not ready for it.

“As usual, the grub was
good,” Barnos stated, leaning back in his chair and patting his flat belly, “but
I have to say the addition of the lovely lady made the whole trip worthwhile.”

Danika bowed her head
in acknowledgment of his flattery. “I thank you for the many wildly . . . interpretive
stories of your ancestors.”

He threw back his head
and laughed.  “Got your truth-sense buzzing, did I?  I’ll have to come up with
some new ones for the next time I visit.”

“Something with a small
grain of actual truth you mean?” Lucan asked mildly.  “That would be a nice
change.”

“Oh, believe me,”
Barnos answered, tossing his napkin on the table, “the truth is usually more
unbelievable then the shit I make up.” 

“I think I can
understand that better than most,” Danika said, smiling briefly.

He looked to Danika and
smiled back, and this time she thought it was more than his usual façade, that
he actually meant it.  “Lady Danika, I look forward to many nights of fine
meals and better company in the future.”

Lucan raised a brow.  “Don’t
you have a fugitive to chase?”

“I do indeed.” The
captain stood.  “And I should get back to the ship before that motley crew I
employ finds trouble where there isn’t any.”

Danika stood as well,
and Lucan followed suit.  She bowed her head briefly.  “I look forward to a
time when you can return.  I will excuse myself so that that two of you can
speak your goodbyes without audience.”  Danika nodded her head to Lucan and
headed for the door.

“I will see you in a
bit,” Lucan said softly from just behind her.  She turned to find he had
followed her to the door.  “My door is open.”  She could read the smoldering
intent in his eyes.  She swallowed her nerves and just nodded, and heard the
door close behind her.

***

“A Bruha, truthsayer,
reader, fucking beautiful to boot, and she is smart
and polite
.  Tell me
she is a tigress in bed and I will have to kill you,” Barnos said, his voice
portraying his envy.

Lucan shook his head
and turned to face the man who, once Danika was gone, slouched his way back
into a chair and was pulling over the whiskey bottle and a large glass.  “I don’t
have any intention of telling you anything you big bastard . . . and get your
feet off my table.”

Barnos snorted and
muttered “Prissy” under his breath, but he let his big boot-covered feet fall
to the floor.  “Where did you find her anyway?  I mean, since you never set
foot off your moon unless the sky is falling.”

Lucan sighed and joined
his friend at the table, knowing from the look of him it would be a while
before he really returned to his ship.  “A salvage captain found her in a two
hundred year old stasis pod left aboard a derelict craft.  He brought her here
to offer me her employment.”

Barnos stilled with his
drink halfway to his mouth and looked at Lucan, his brow raising.  “Come again?”

***

By the time Barnos
loudly staggered his way from the table, Lucan had him escorted to a guest
room.  He was in no condition to fly.  Lucan would have been in the same
situation, but alcohol had never stayed in his system long enough to do any
damage.  It was a trick of his genetics, one of the few that he appreciated,
even as he hated the scientific tampering behind it.

Now he stood in the
blue room looking down at Danika, who was asleep and curled up in a ball, still
fully clothed on the top of her blankets.  She had obviously fallen asleep
waiting for him, though not, he was quick to note, naked in his bed as he had
hoped.

Her head rested on her
cheek and curled in sleep as she was, it should have been a thing of peace; instead,
he could see the tension still in her shoulders and the tense way she held
herself so protectively.  He was loathe to wake her knowing as he did what
little sleep she had managed since she woke from stasis.  But even more, he
could not bear the little sounds of fear she made as she slept so restlessly. 
He lifted her in his arms carefully and did, for the second time, what he had
never done with any other woman who stayed here.  He took her to his bed where
he had wanted her from the moment she arrived.

Danika slept through
the transport and the disrobing.  She did not wake up when he curled around her
skin to skin and pulled the covers over them both.  She did snuggle closer with
a sigh of relief, as if she, too, had been waiting for this moment.  She curled
into his heat, her head on his chest, her arm wrapped around his torso and
slept, only now it was without the tension and fear of before.  Feeling her acceptance
and the peace of holding her close, he slept.

He could feel the
second Danika woke a few hours later, even though the tension did not return. 
Rather, her heartbeat sped up where her soft breasts were pressed up against
his chest, and he woke with the difference.  He could feel the sweep of her
lashes against his chest as she blinked and wondered at her lack of reaction.

“Aren’t you going to
start screaming and trying to get up?”  His voice was both amused and gruff
with sleep.

She turned her head up
so that he could see her face.  Her eyes looked like pools of heat in the
moonlight.  Her voice barely a whisper, “I don’t feel like screaming and trying
to get up.” 

His hand in her hair
moved when she did, and he held the silky hair in his grip while he rubbed his
thumb along her cheek.  That look in her eyes and the sound of her in the dark,
in his bed, felt like a soft hand on his already half-hard dick.  So much so he
hardened in a solid rush, and every nerve ending in his body seemed to fire at once.

“What do you feel like?” 
His voice dropped even further, as his hands tightened, one in her hair, the
other at the curve of soft hip.  Both holding her, she was not going anywhere,
not this time.

She sighed out a breath
and he felt it along a stiff nipple.  Her eyes captured his with innocent
heat.  “Yours,” she finally said, after what looked like a difficult swallow. 
And the truth behind that one word rang between them like a call to arms.

He stilled, and
searched her eyes, when all he wanted to do was mindlessly devour.  “Till death
do us part?”

Her soft lips opened on
a shudder and he took that as answer enough.  His lips crashed to hers and
reveled in the sweetness he discovered there.

Danika melted under his
lips, wondering why even as she burned, she wanted more of his heat.  When she
awoke in his arms she knew the decision had been made.  Not because the feel of
his skin touching hers was the most pleasure she had ever felt, and it was not
the way he held her, as if she had already surrendered and was exactly where
she belonged.  Rather, what sealed both their fates was that she had opened her
eyes for the first time since she could remember, warm and rested, because he
had held her during the night.  She knew then that she was not giving him up, even
if it meant trapping this beautiful and scary man in a bond neither of them
understood.  Danika only knew that she did not want to be cold and afraid
anymore.   So whether he knew it or not, she was staking her claim.

She moaned into his
mouth and opened to him in every way a woman could open for a man.  He took
that as the invitation it was, and rolled her under him so that he rested
between her warm thighs.  His chest pressing into hers, the rough hairs rubbed
over her while he pressed deeper, then his hands began to explore down her
sides, his lips trailing to her neck.  He moved with purpose and without wasted
time.  In short order, he claimed every inch of her with his hands, then his
mouth.  She was lost to the sheer weight and friction of him.

Everywhere he stopped
seemed to build on the pleasure until she was sure she would die from it.

“Luc,” she groaned,
when he circled a turgid nipple with his lips, his hand wrapping around and
squeezing her breast up for a suckle.  She could feel the heat and wetness of
his dexterous tongue learning her secrets, even as her toes curled from the
electrical current that seemed to lead directly from his lips to the heavy heat
of her.  Then he moved down farther, over her quivering belly, and beyond.  The
feel of him at her most private place had her trying to come off the bed, but
he held her to his pleasure, and hers.  It was as if the push of his tongue
inside her sent that same electricity to greater and greater heights, until
finally she was forced to clench both hands into his hair to hold him to her. 
Then with a burst deep inside, she threw her head back and gasped out her
pleasure.

She was still breathing
hard when he slid back up her length.  Luc took hold of her cheek, his thumb
pushing her chin up to catch her eyes.  She focused slowly on those eyes, so
much desire stormed behind those eyes she feared that it would kill them both
before they were done.  He held her firm when she would have looked away.

“No more running,” he
growled, and then holding her tight in his grip he thrust between her legs and
claimed her.

The pain was
instantaneous and extreme, he was not small or patient anymore, but ruthlessly,
he plowed his way through until he slipped into her womb.  Pressed fully inside
her, both of them breathing hard and glistening with sweat, he softly and
unexpectedly ran his lips over the tears clinging to her lashes and held her
while the connection clicked painfully into place.  He soothed her, running his
hands down her hair and kissing her cheeks and lips with soft apology.  Finally,
she settled, but it was only when he could see the pain fading from her
distressed eyes that he truly began.

He started slow, and
worked tirelessly until the pleasure rose to even higher heights.  Then,
finally pounding his claim into her beckoning body, he brought her with a great
rush of moist heat.  She had no breath for a scream; all she could do was cling
to him and struggle to breathe around the pleasure.  She had no idea of when he
joined her in that pleasure, because the second he spent himself inside her,
the final mating took place, shooting both knowledge and pleasure through her
body.  It was too much after everything else. Danika passed out in his arms.

She never knew he held
her sleeping body long after the wind smelling of the sea cooled their bodies,
and her breath relaxed into a more natural sleep.  Or that he stroked her skin
and murmured softly into her hair, watching over her while she slept.

When she woke up the
next morning, she was alone in the room.  Still, she knew that he was in his
office working, and the second she awoke, she could swear she felt him look
around for her and say her name.

She snuggled back into
the bed with a sigh and did her best to let the connection between them fade,
at least enough so that they could function away from each other.  She pulled
his pillow into her belly and breathed in the sea and man scent of him. 
Nothing had ever smelled that good.  She felt a twinge of response and then
almost gasped at the soreness between her legs.  Whatever she might want, it
was doubtful she was ready to take it this soon after the pounding last night.

Danika felt the
powerful claim he made on her in the aching muscles and sensitivity just under
her skin.  It should have scared her, worried her; instead, she hugged his
pillow to her chest and wallowed in being warm to the tips of her toes.

Lucan shook off his
nerves when he felt Danika wake up.  He could not stop himself from saying her
name even as he
knew
she was not in the room with him, but snuggled deep
in his bed.  He felt her phantom sigh on his skin and wanted nothing as much as
he wanted to return to her and expand on all the ways he had touched and taken
her last night.  He closed his eyes briefly imagining it, even as he knew she
was too new to lovemaking to comfortably take him again so soon.  He felt the
connection between them fade, and let it with an effort, not wanting her gone
so completely.

He should have been
concerned for his own autonomy, worried that this need for her was a thousand
times stronger than it had been, that she was a weakness he could not afford. 
But all of that had stopped mattering the second he kissed the tears from her
lashes.

He had claimed her and
he knew she had done the same with him.  There was no going back now, nor was
he going to regret claiming her as his own.  She would adjust to belonging to
him in time, and he would learn to let her go, a little bit, sometimes. 
Whatever happened they were bonded now, he could feel that with every fiber of
his being.  He had heard that a Bruha claiming was no small thing.  Well, they
had the right of that.  They were together now.  They both would just have to
deal with what came of it.

He returned to his work,
his thoughts down the hall in his bed for the most part while he checked
manifests and cargo for departing ships, as well as planned future roads for
his profits.  He did it all with half his brain distracted, but he snapped to
attention quick enough when Tuft reported the return of Tolan Lark, towing in
the salvage ship Jezebel.