Stark Pleasure; the Space Magnate's Mistress (The LodeStar Series) (6 page)

Without being asked, Opal glided to the back of the ship, to his private cabin and returned with a comforter, woven of Pangaean halfpaca, soft and warm, in Lodestar’s trademark gray. She helped Stark tuck it around Kiri, wrapping her in a cocoon of warmth.

“It’s all gone,” she mumbled. “My things.”

Stark met Opal’s eyes. Kiri couldn’t have had much, in that place. But losing it tonight, on top of losing her credit … that was one hell of a lot to process.

“Mementoes, perhaps,” Opal murmured, her eyes soft with pity.
 

He’d nothing to say to that. Everything he possessed, he’d fought for and won, or purchased for himself as a grown man. But he knew that to people who’d grown up with a family, such things were important. Holographs, jewelry, pieces of furniture, even treasured clothing were passed down, squabbled over.
 

He’d started with nothing. Was this woman strong enough to do the same?

Chapter 5

Kiri dreamed that she ran through the dark, wet streets toward her apartment building. In the way of dreams, her feet would not move, mired in helplessness as thick as glue. Around her, the buildings burned, flames spurting viciously between the buildings, hissing in patches of old fuel and piles of garbage. Beings shouted, their cries far away, muffled as if a curtain hung between her and their battles.

But she was not alone. Whirling, she gaped at the tall form looming in the street behind her, a black silhouette against the flames. Only his eyes glittered, reflecting fiery red and yellow of the flames, and yet she knew the flame that burned inside him was more powerful still—that of absolute will.
 

“It’s gone,” Stark told her, his deep voice slicing through the chaos like a steel blade. “Nothing left for you here.” He held out his hand to her in a clear command.
 

“No,” she protested, shaking her head desperately. “No, they’re still there; I just have to find them.”

She turned away, trying to move on, but her feet were trapped in hot, enveloping folds. She tried to scream, but nothing emerged but a whimper.

“Kiri,” he ordered, his heavy hands grasping her arms like manacles.
“Kiri. Wake up.”

She woke to find herself lying in a soft bed. Stark leaned over her, a powerful silhouette against dim lamplight. His hands grasped her bare arms. As she stared up at him, her heart thundering against her ribs, she knew a sudden, nearly overpowering urge to fling herself against his shoulder and weep.

He didn’t give her the choice, pulling her into his arms. He was living heat and strength, from the broad expanse of his chest to the length of his legs, clad in some light, clinging fabric. Against her bare skin… Someone had undressed her, although she still wore her soft bra and panties.

He was in the bed with her. This realization should have shocked her, but instead, he was a bulwark against the nightmare. She snuggled closer, shivering, her face in the curve of his throat. His scent filled her nostrils, clean male musk, tinged with that delicious tang of the forest. She spread her palms flat on the hair-roughened plane of his chest, her belly snugged against his, her legs opening to tangle with his longer ones.

“Shh,” he murmured, his voice a rumble in her ear. “It’s all right. You’re safe.”
 

One of his arms was wrapped around her, his hand stroking her bare back. The other hand cupped the back of her head, his long fingers spearing through her short hair. From this warm nest, it seemed safe to examine her memories, terrible as they were.

“My place ... is it really gone?”

“Yes.”
 

She shuddered. Not a nightmare then, but real. “I dreamt I was there. While it burned. And I couldn’t do anything.”

“You were there.” His breath was warm on her temple, his lips brushing her skin. “And you can’t do anything about it.”

She took a sobbing breath, fighting the hot weight of tears pushing behind her eyes. “I won’t be helpless. I won’t. I’m strong.”

His hand smoothed over her back again, down into the curve and lower, over her ass. “You’re a fierce one, Kiri te Nawa.”

The remnants of her fear morphed into anger, swift and hot. She pushed at his chest, her fingers tangling in the mat of short, curling hair on his chest. “Are you laughing at me again?”
 

His hand smoothed down her back again. “No, wildcat. I’m admiring you. You’ve been through a lot in the space of a few hours, and you’re still hissing your defiance. Hold onto that. Sometimes defiance is the only thing that gets you through. Although I’d remind you recklessness does not necessarily denote strength.”

“Sometimes … it’s all I’ve got,” she whispered. Then, ashamed of betraying vulnerability, she flexed her hands, digging her nails into the plush swell of muscle of his pectorals. He sucked in a sharp breath, and she bared her teeth against his throat and nipped at him.

His fingers tightened painfully in her hair, and he pulled her head back, his eyes glittering. “Tyger kitten or no, do that again and I’ll turn you over my knee.” His breath puffed warm and moist against her face.

She believed him, but she needed some outlet for the emotion tumbling inside her. Sliding her hand up, she speared her fingers into his short hair, cupping the back of his head, hard and silky under her palm.
 

She tried to pull him closer, but he resisted. She glared at him. Couldn’t he see she needed him, needed forgetfulness? She was just giving him what he wanted, wasn’t she?

“Are you sure?” His face was taut, his square jaw set. “If I kiss you, I won’t stop there.”

Her heart thundering, trying to climb her throat, Kiri trembled clear into her feminine core. She held male power in her grasp. She wanted desperately to unleash it, use him to burn through the dark backlog of despair. “Yes. I want this.”

He swooped, his mouth opening over hers, his lips hot and demanding, his tongue licking into her mouth to claim hers. It was more than a kiss, it was a claiming, and she reveled in it, her body softening against his, his taste and scent filling her senses. This was sheer hedonistic pleasure, drowning her in sensation.

He held her in one arm, while his free hand stroked down over her shoulder, his fingers tracing the edge of her soft bra. He cupped her breast in his hand, and she arched into his touch, loving the cup of his palm over her sensitive flesh, even through the thin, stretchy fabric of her bra. He dragged his thumb over her nipple and she moaned as pleasure shot down through her body, straight to her pussy.

Kissing her deeply, Stark stroked his hand down over her belly, over the thin fabric of her panties. His fingers delved between her thighs, and he cupped her mons. Claiming her most private place, for now.

Another moan struggled up her throat, the soft sound hanging over them, above the rustle of sheets, the rush of their breath and the thundering of her heart.

“That’s right,” he urged against her mouth. “Let me hear your pleasure.”
 

He let her go, just long enough to yank at her panties. The soft fabric tugged at her hips and then tore, falling away from her. She should care, but she wanted his hand on her again, so desperately that she whimpered instead, opening her thighs to him, lifting her upper leg to curl it over his hip, arching into him.

When he cupped his hand over her again, bared now to his warm, powerful touch, she cried out at the exquisite relief. He kissed her again, closing his lips over hers to drink in her cry.

Then he stroked his long fingers into her waiting flesh. His touch was sleek and easy—she was wet for him, so ready for the large pad of his finger to delve into her, drawing her wetness up, up and over the swollen knot of nerves hiding in her curls.

“This?” he asked gently, drawing his finger in a tiny, tantalizing circle.
 

“Yes.” She strained toward him.
 

“Say my name, Kiri.” He stroked her again, with the same teasing care, and her pussy contracted, aching for more. She dragged her eyes open enough to find him watching her, his eyes hooded, gleaming with pleasure as if he were surveying a new acquisition, one that he planned to exploit to the fullest. “Who do you want touching you?”

“You. Stark,” she managed, wanting to hit him, wanting to kiss him. “Please, touch me.”

“Logan. You’ll call me Logan. Say it when you come. Can you do that for me?”
 

How dare he sound so … tender, coaxing? She wanted to please him as much as she craved the pleasure his diabolically clever touch promised.

She had to get out of here. Just as soon as he gave her what she needed. This was just sex. Any more of his tenderness, and she was afraid she’d cling to him like a weakling, not wanting to let go. “Yes.”

“Good. Lights, dim.” The room darkened around them, until he was only a darker shape in the shadows around them. “I want you only to feel, Kiri. Feel me, feel my touch.”

He stroked her again, slicking more of her wetness up over her clitoris. His touch quickened, deepened, sure and swift. She clung to him, breathing his breath, bowing into his touch as he stroked her up the cliff of need and tugged her over the top.
 

“Logan …
Logan.”
She arched in his hands, her pussy spasming with delicious pleasure that spread outward, through her body. With a shudder, she sank against him.

“Mmm,” he approved. “Again, I think.”

She opened her mouth to protest. She was relaxed, hazy with release. And in her previous encounters, one orgasm had seemed a fortunate thing. But he kissed her, and his tongue licking into her mouth, and two large, insistent fingers thrusting up inside her pussy was so lovely she surrendered, just for a little while longer, to the pleasure of being explored by a man who clearly knew his way around a woman’s body.

“You’re very tight,” he murmured against her mouth. “I like that.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but gasped instead when he hooked his fingers, pressing hard against a magical pad of nerves still throbbing from her orgasm. Need spiraled again and when he stroked his thumb over her clitoris, she moaned his name.
 

“Logan … oh, that feels—that’s so …”

He nipped at her lower lip, wet from his kisses. “Can you take your bra off for me? I’d enjoy suckling you while I make you come again.”

She would have done anything he asked in that moment. Fumbling with the soft fastening between her breasts, she pulled her bra open and shrugged her shoulder out of it, letting it fall behind her.

“Mmm.” He moved down in the bed and she felt his hot breath on her bare breast. “Put your nipple in my mouth, little cat.”

Incredibly, she blushed, heat scalding under her skin in the darkness. She cupped her hand around the back of his head and pulled him to her breast, arching her back to offer herself for his mouth.

He laughed, low in his throat. “Your pussy is squeezing my fingers like a hot little vise.” He moved his head, brushing his lips back and forth over her pebbled nipple. “Nice and long, I like that.”

Then he licked her nipple into his mouth and began to stroke her again, inside and out. He enjoyed her other breast as well, using his teeth carefully on her distended nipple and then pulling on it strongly, a soft, wet tugging that sent pleasure streaking through her in dark pulses, in time with his fingers. And Kiri found that she could, after all, respond a second time, longer than the first.
 

“Say my name,” he commanded, his voice a velvet leash in the darkness, binding her to him.
 

“Logan,” she cried, riding his hand into delicious oblivion. Then she simply whimpered as she came apart in his hands.

When she had finished, he pulled her close against him, her thigh across his hip. Kiri lay in his arms, panting. Her skin was damp and hot as if she’d been running, her muscles lax. She stroked her face against his throat, breathing him in and slid her hand over his shoulder, stroking the hard curve of muscle and down over the bulge of his biceps.

She shifted and felt another bulge, a hard rod that twitched against her mons, straining beneath his thin sleep pants. Kiri’s eyes flew open as she realized that he had pleasured her twice and himself not at all.

She opened her mouth and nipped the tender skin where the strong column of his neck flowed into his shoulder.

He grunted. The lights gleamed on and she found herself flipped onto her back, her wrists cuffed over her head on the pillow in his ungentle grip, gazing up into the eyes of a dangerous man. “I told you what I’d do if you used your teeth or claws on me again.”

Breathless with daring, Kiri showed him her teeth. “Why don’t you have me, instead?”

His brows shot together. “Because I don’t take advantage of women who are traumatized.”

“What do you call what you just did?”

He smiled slowly. “I call that making you very relaxed.”

She licked her lips, suddenly dry from her swift breaths. He had her completely in his power, and at this moment, there was nowhere she would rather be. “Then let me make you very relaxed, Logan Stark.”

His eyes fired again, molten heat replacing the anger. He moved, settling into the cradle of her open thighs with a lithe twist of his powerful body. She moved to accommodate him, helpless to hide her response as she felt his cock lying on her belly, long and turgid even through his thin pants.