Thantose: Book Two in the Galaxy Pirates Alien Abduction Romance Series Page 14

  “Fuck,” he says. “Have I mentioned how much I like your Earther curse word? We don’t have time for this drack. I wanted this to be a surgical strike—in and out. Auction the goods, hand me my credits, and we’ll be on our way.

  “Marcus and Seneca, I’d like you to stay on board. Seneca, I know you haven’t picked up a firearm since you left the military decades ago to become a medic, but I’d like you to wear a sidearm while we’re on Carden II.

  “Sextus, Griff, Devolose, I’d like you to accompany me to the auction. Thanks for your help, Tawny, but the females will stay on board.”

  “Sir?” Now Tawny’s calling him Sir? She must be about to hit him with a big request. “I’ve been researching these items for months. I have pages of notes on every single item in that auction. There’s no way you could get up to speed on this in less than a day.

  “Might I remind you that this is a reserve auction. At any point, if we don’t like the final offer, we can remove the item from sale. I think I need to be there, Thantose, otherwise you’re likely to lose money and let some of your goods go for too low a price.”

  “Fuck. My trouble detector is blinking red inside my mind. There have been too many changes. Devolose? What are your thoughts?”

  “My thoughts are that if I want to keep my manhood intact I need to let Tawny dictate her own course. I should have no part in the decision.” Devolose raises his hands as if in surrender. He’s a wise male. No wonder he and Tawny have such a wonderful relationship.

  “Tawny, this might get dangerous,” Thantose tells her.

  “A few changes in time frame don’t sound dangerous to me, Thantose. Let Brin come with me? We can sit together at the fancy dinner and whisper about the weird food.” She flashes me a conspiratorial smile.

  Every muscle in T’s body tightens, including the harsh set of his jaw. He makes a soft, irritated grunt in the back of his throat. I don’t think anyone heard it but me.

  The old Brin, Amrus’s Brin, wants to stand here as if I’m invisible and let Thantose make the decision. The new Brin, who’s been figuring out what she wants both in bed with Thantose and out, wants to go to the fancy dinner. I could wear one of the beautiful kimonos Valeria loaned me and have more fun than at the Meris Society’s naked slave orgies.

  “Absolutely not,” Thantose says at the same time I say, “I’d love to.”

  If I wasn’t the center of this raging storm, I’d find this fascinating. Devolose’s right eyebrow is raised almost to where his hairline would be if he had hair. Is he waiting for his cousin to explode? Is he signaling him to back off?

  Griff, who had his eye on me from the moment we met, is smirking. It looks like he’d love to see some fireworks between Thantose and I. No one else is moving a muscle.

  “You said those Meris Society parties made you want to slit your wrists, BB. Why would you want to attend a dusty antiquities dinner?”

  Why do I? Everyone’s looking at me and I need to come up with something.

  I still don’t think T and I are real. I still don’t think this relationship has a snowball’s chance of working. I’d like one memory I could look back on where we were in public as a couple. Where we’re both dressed to the nines and he’s not in a bejeweled loincloth. Where it’s obvious to everyone in the room that we belong together.

  “I want to go,” I repeat. Someday I’ll learn how to be articulate. Right now, this is the best I can do.

  “There have been no threats,” huge, blue Sextus says. He’s the muscle on the ship. “I’ve been monitoring space chatter since we booked our place in the auction. Nothing has even tickled my drack detector.”

  “Traitor,” Thantose says under his breath. “All right. Tawny, meet me in the mess hall in ten minimas to go over specifics. Sextus, Dev, and Griff, meet Tawny, Brin, and I at the ramp at 1730 tomorrow night. And Destin? If I see one more bowl of sumra for breakfast tomorrow I will lose my mind. Can you provide me with something, anything, other than that?”

  “Sure thing, captain.”

  Thantose escorts me through the bright metal hallways as if he owns the place, which, indeed, he does. Or at least he will after he collects his credits from the auction and pays off his ship.

  “Game room.” He points to the right. “Dining.” He points left. “Forward wing. Aft.” His level of displeasure is so high, I’m surprised he’s even bothering to give me this almost nonexistent tour of the ship.

  Two Brins are following him through the hallways, scurrying to keep up. One has fear skittering along every nerve and synapse. She’s picturing every dangerous, painful act of retribution that might be waiting for her in Thantose’s cabin. The other is trying to assume the quality of ataraxia. Valeria told me it means serene calm.

  I am my own person, and I want to go to a freaking fancy dinner. Other than the Meris Society, this will be the first such event where I was not placed under the table naked to be fed scraps and ordered to . . . I don’t want to go there, not even in my mind.

  “My cabin,” Thantose mutters, pointing to the door in front of us. He closes his eyes, takes a long, deep breath, and says, “Our cabin, Brin. I should have warned you, it’s a disaster.”

  He hits the palm plate and the metal door whooshes open. I’ve seen worse.

  “What the fuck?” His head caroms back and forth as if he’s looking for something that isn’t there. “Half my things are gone. More than half.”

  Tawny is jogging toward us. She’s so pretty. I always thought she was the prettiest of us Earth females. I’ll never get used to the beautiful Brin reference. I don’t even get the ballsy Brin moniker, I can barely speak up for myself.

  “Sorry, Thantose, I wanted to catch you before you got to your room. I thought you’d be taking Brin to her . . . I thought I had an extra minute to catch you. Half the shit from your room is going to be auctioned tomorrow. I followed your instructions to the letter. As I recall, and I quote, ‘sell anything down to the pots and pans’. I took you at your word. Sir.”

  Maybe she added that last word, because she can see the male at my side is vibrating with anger.

  He squeezes my hand harder, as if I’m the lifeline that’s holding him tethered to his sanity.

  “Give me ten minimas to help beautiful Brin settle into our cabin, and I’ll see you in the dining room.”

  He pulls me in and palms the door closed behind us. OMG, did he just double down on the relationship status? I think he just took us from ‘it’s complicated’ to ‘in a relationship’. He doesn’t want us to be a secret! He even called this ‘our room’. I’m still processing that as I listen to him moan.

  “The Nubian sleep headrest,” he says as his palm strokes an empty spot on his dresser. “The brides of King Almachadnae painting.” His eyes flick back and forth over a barren stretch of wall. “The gilded chalice of Chaldea.” His forlorn glance at his bedside table speaks volumes about how much he loved that chalice.

  “The waistcoat King Daragon wore at his anointing. The step stool Queen Daragon used to climb into her marital bed. The Manuan trophy that signaled the end of the War of Elwes. All to be sold?”

  “Sorry T. It’s like these were your friends. Can you pull them from auction?”

  He freezes, then looks at me as if he’s seeing me for the first time. “It’s stuff, BB. It’s old, dracking stuff. It is not now nor was it ever my friend. Dear Gods.” His ass hits the bed hard as he falls onto it. “I was collecting this drack like it was important.” He shakes his head.

  “I was so wrong. People are important. You are important. You, BB.” He grabs my hand, tumbles me onto the bed, and squeezes me with a hard, happy grunt. “What’s the Earther word? Shit? That stuff is shit. Let Tawny sell it all. I have new priorities now. Well, one priority. That’s you. And I was harsh with you, and heavy-handed. Forgive me? I’m sorry.”

  Has anyone ever asked for my forgiveness before? I don’t know, but Thantose is asking, and I’m answering. “Of course I forgive you. I’m ju
st trying so hard to figure out what I want. I want to go to the stupid party, and wear a pretty dress, and be escorted by the handsomest male on the planet. Someone who is my equal and I’m not pretending to own. And someone who isn’t pulling me on a leash.”

  “And you get a kiss for that, Brin. A kiss for speaking your mind.” He bestows me a peck on the lips. “And maybe more kisses after my meeting with Tawny. After I muscle the name out of her to find out who broke into the captain’s quarters to nab my stuff. I have a feeling his name starts with ‘Dev’ and ends with ‘olose’.” He kisses me on the lips again, swats my bottom, and launches off the bed.

  “Get to sleep if you can. Don’t wait for me. Even though my meeting with Tawny should only last ten minimas, every male and female aboard is going to ambush me and ask about beautiful Brin.”

  My heart clenches in my chest. “What . . . what are you going to tell them?”

  He palms the door open and turns to me. “I’m falling for beautiful Brin, and it has nothing to do with the fact that she is, indeed, movie star beautiful.” He stalks out, presses the palm plate, and the door slides closed with a pneumatic snick.

  I jump off the bed and dance around the room as if I’m already wearing my finest dress. My guy just called me beautiful. And he wants everyone on board to know he’s falling for me. And I’m not a secret. And, dear God, did he just apologize to me?

  So many emotions are flying through me I’m having trouble identifying them. Surprise, amazement, shock—yeah, those are there. But when they settle down, another emotion bubbles up and takes residence in my mind—and my heart. I love him.

  This isn’t the unrealistic, childish, ‘I met you and I like you and I want to please you sexually like I’ve done my entire life’ feeling. This is a real, adult, might I say mature, emotion.

  I haven’t just been watching Thantose from afar and hearing his mother tell me glowing stories about him. I’ve spent every hour of the last ten days with him. He’s kind and caring and gorgeous. And he just said he’s falling for me.

  Could something good really be happening to me? After everything I’ve been through could I be at a place in my life where I could find . . . happiness? I don’t care if he doesn’t come back for hours. I’m waiting up for him.

  I’ve dreamed for months of sleeping in the same bed with him. The go-slow game is a pain-pleasure sandwich of getting to know each other on one hand and longing and denial on the other.

  The door whooshes open and he waltzes in, a distracted look on his face. Then he sees me and that handsome face lights in a smile. “I didn’t expect to see you up.”

  “You just said you’re falling for me and you didn’t think I’d wait up to talk?”

  He looks at me as if he’s seeing me for the first time. His eyes flick up and down, taking in every curve and hollow from my feet to my hair. His dark eyes are hooded with desire.

  That hot look sparks my craving for him. I’ve been tamping it down for days, but it flashes from an ember to a full-blown conflagration in an instant.

  “I know my mind, T. The go-slow game is driving me crazy. Driving us both crazy.”

  Every muscle in his face tightens. That beautiful face has almost hardened into a mask. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was furious. But I do know better. He’s using every ounce of self-restraint not to pounce on me.

  “I knew what I wanted when I asked to go to the fancy dinner tomorrow, and I know what I want now. I don’t want to play the go-slow game anymore. Maybe we don’t have to play the go-all-the-way game, but could we play the next-step game? After all, we’ve been there before—at the Meris Society.” I sink all my weight into my heels, a physical effort to keep from launching at him and kissing those soft, plump lips and tearing off his clothes.

  His fists are balled at his sides and he takes a step back. He’s trying his hardest to stay in his wise mind and not let passion lead him into a bad decision.

  I approach him, grasp his hand, and march him into the small, attached restroom. I position him in front of the mirror over the sink.

  “Don’t move a muscle, then check out that face, Thantose.”

  His eyes flick to the polished metal of the mirror.

  “Yes or no, do you look approachable?”

  “No.”

  “Do you look fierce?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did I just waltz up to you and grab your hand anyway?”

  His eyebrow quirks, and he answers, “Yes, you did.”

  “You don’t scare me anymore, Thantose. Your caring and concern, it just kept coming at me. It’s been talking to me, speaking volumes, reassuring me. And maybe telling everyone on the ship that we’re together, letting me sleep in here with you, maybe that helped me too. I’m working hard on not only knowing my mind, but speaking it.

  “And what I want right now is a kiss. A real kiss like the one your ahma interrupted a week ago after I saw the pictures in the Meris for the first time and had a meltdown about slavery. A kiss that makes my synapses sizzle and the space between my legs ache.

  “I want more than a kiss. I want your mouth on my breast and my mouth on you, and every other intimacy two people could share. I want more than what you gave me that evening at the Meris Society—much more.

  “But at least a kiss, T? At least one kiss tonight where we could share the passion we have for each other?”

  Our gazes meet in the mirror. I watch as his stern facade crumbles. He pivots on one foot, lifts me into his arms, carries me into the bedroom, and sets me on my feet. Grabbing my head, he reaches down and kisses me with all the passion I knew was hiding inside him.

  He invades my mouth as if he owns me. I’ve never met this Thantose before. For the first time, he’s not treating me as if I’m breakable. His tongue forces its way into my mouth, demanding, taking, exploring.

  I’ve relished and admired his sweetness up until now. It was just what I needed to trust him and be ready for this, this unbridled, uncontrolled passion. The days and nights of sweetness are gone.

  One hand lodges between my shoulders, the other at the small of my back. He wrests me to him, moaning with the need of it, wanting me even closer. I feel his granite-hard cock press against my belly.

  Pulling his mouth from mine, he nips along my jawline to my ear. “Enough, Brin. You’ve made me crazy enough. I can’t exert enough willpower for both of us anymore.”

  He snakes his tongue into my ear, his hot, panting breaths doing incendiary things to my arousal.

  “Stop me if you want. Just say the word, but if you don’t, we’re going to do all the things you threatened to tell me in those comms of yours.”

  He bites my earlobe and my knees buckle. But I don’t fall, the arms holding me are like steel cables.

  “I’m going to hear them all, you know. You’re going to tell me, and we’re going to do them. Not tonight. Tonight we’ll perform my fantasy. The one I’ve fisted my cock to since the night on Primus when you asked to share my cabin with me.”

  A breathy, “oh,” escapes my mouth. I feel like he just plucked my clit. The picture of him working his thick cock, thinking about me, makes my channel clench.

  He kicks off his boots, then sits on the bed, his back against the headboard. He rests his hands behind his head and says, “Strip for me, BB. Nice and slow and just the way I’ve imagined a million fucking times since I met you.”

  His brown eyes flare with desire. His hard cock is outlined against his black pants. I’ll strip for you, Thantose. First, though, I gather every memory of doing this before under threat of punishment and mentally shove them out that pneumatic door. Tonight, I strip for T, my T. And maybe I’ll surprise him and dance for him. It will be just him and me, though, no bitter memories, and definitely no regrets.

  I know he’s ready. It’s ridiculous, but I don’t want to strip out of this ugly black t-shirt and leggings.

  “Hold that thought,” I toss over my shoulder as I grab my pack and run into the
restroom. One minute later, I’m wearing my favorite kimono, the white one with purple and orange splashes of color. Lucky me, I lived with a fashion designer. She gifted me with the most sensuous scraps of fabric to cover my breasts and my sex. They’re so lovely and ethereal they don’t qualify for the name underwear.

  I glissade into the room, doing three of them before I get to the foot of the bed. My kimono, loosely tied with a sash at the waist, billows around me. I’ve never danced like this before, never of my own volition, never embracing my feminine power. But glancing into Thantose’s eyes, seeing the muscle pulsing at the curve of his jaw, I’m certain I’ve caught his full attention.