"I don't recall ever asking for romantic dinners," she mused blithely.

Bronse snapped. Maybe it was anger, maybe it was frustration, but whatever it was it was powerful and unstoppable. He spun her around hard and shoved her across the room toward the door.

"Do yourself a favor and get out!" he barked at her.

"I'm not leaving."

"Why the h.e.l.l not?"

"Well, you just said you're never around."

Bronse tried not to growl out in frustration. "You're not making any sense!"

"No. I make perfect sense. If you are never around, that means I should take advantage of every moment that you are around. But I think my being here is making you very uncomfortable, and I am curious as to why that is."

"Maybe it's because you're in my f.u.c.king bedroom when my crew is marching watch in the corridor only a few sheets of metal away! I've compromised the integrity of this ship and this crew enough for one mission, Ravenna. I'm not going to compound the issue!"

He grabbed hold of her arm and tried to march her toward the door, but she ducked and slipped right out of his hand, moving back toward his bed. Bronse had to stop her. He didn't think he could stand the sight of her in his bed again. It would play tawdry tricks with his imagination-more so than the scent of her perfume was already doing. That intoxicating Ayalya spice was just about killing him. Just breathing it in was making him hard. He had to get her out of his room. He refused to force his crew to "pretend" to not see or know any of this. He'd disgraced them enough. He needed to take back control. He needed to prove to himself that he could.

"I want you to leave. Can I make it any clearer? Are you going to make me use force?"

"Hmm." She hummed that as if contemplating the possibilities, and abruptly he was contemplating them too.

Then suddenly he wasn't just contemplating. He all but pounced on her, grabbing her by both arms and slamming her up hard against his chest and body. So hard that the air left her lungs in a sudden gust.

"You're doing this on purpose," he gritted out between his teeth, trying not to notice how her body heat seemed to burn so much fiercer than his own. She was so hot in so many ways.

"I never made a secret of that," she said. "Do you want to know what I see?"

As she asked the question, she reached to place one hand over his heart and the other around his neck. He squeezed her hard between his hands.

"Is it the same thing you saw when you read me before I went back to find out where the Nomaads were?" he asked. "Don't you see? You're afraid of me. Afraid of what I do. You can't read my fortune every time I go off on a mission just to see if it will turn out okay!"

"Why not?" she asked simply. "I have a power and I'm going to use it. If it benefits you, I see no wrong in it."

"It's the fear that I see is wrong," he said with intensity. "You're afraid of what I do. By the Being, could you see yourself if this ever really went anywhere? You'd be a basket case, afraid of what I might be doing or how I might be trying to get myself killed!"

"Think that if you must. If it gives you comfort. But you don't look comforted, Bronse," she said softly. "You look like you're the one who's scared."

Bronse's brain hazed over with emotion, more than he could identify right then all at once.

"You have no idea what you're getting into," he hissed softly. He lurched forward, just a single hard step, and she hit the side of his bed and fell down onto it.

No. He actually threw her onto it, he confessed to himself as he flipped her hard onto her belly and followed her down with a fierce caging of his body over hers. He pressed down over her, his whole body screaming with the relief of feeling her beneath him again. There was a way, he realized, of making his point to her and satisfying this unholy craving he had for her. As he yanked her onto her knees and against his chest, he groaned with uncontrolled pleasure when her bottom rose up against the fly of his uniform pants. He rubbed up hard against her, trying to relieve the pressure of his swiftly growing erection and serving only to make it worse. His hands were nothing less than harsh on her as they swept to embrace both her b.r.e.a.s.t.s through the fabric of the shirt she was wearing.

That was when he realized that it was his shirt. She wore only his shirt. Like some kind of brand he'd stamped there himself, his mind swam with a possessive fury that rushed through him. She looked incredible like this. So curvaceous and feminine in an article of clothing meant for war in the desert. The blackness of it was stark against her soft skin, making it seem paler than it was. Making her seem somehow more vulnerable and more womanly all at once. No wonder the sight of her had been driving him crazy ever since he'd walked in the door.

Normally he'd have been more considerate, more patient. He'd have preferred to shower to wash away the long hike they'd taken to get to the ship. But he didn't care about niceties. In fact, lack of gentility was his very goal. She needed to learn more about him than just the gentleman she had seen last night. She needed to know just what she was getting herself into.

He shoved the hem of the shirt up over the round curve of her backside, baring her creamy smooth skin and that delightfully naughty curve of flesh that he was stroking in stronger and stronger pa.s.ses of his hand. He wanted her to feel the rough calluses of a soldier's hands, to feel how uncivilized and coa.r.s.e he could be even in the smallest details.

The problem was the way she pressed back against him, teasing his c.o.c.k with the curve of her b.u.t.t and taunting his sense of smell with the sudden wash of aroused female scent that drifted up between them. Unable to help himself against even the slightest impulse, he stroked her down between the split of her cheeks and straight into the hot and ready wetness waiting for him. His fingers were working inside of her an instant after that, testing her heat and tightness for what would come next.

Then he was ripping at the front of his trousers with growling impatience, freeing himself in just a few temperamental tugs until his swollen c.o.c.k was lying hot against her. Without any preamble or anything even remotely resembling foreplay or gentlemanly behavior, he thrust himself into her, shoving into the dark liquid fist of her body and sinking deep and true to the hilt.

She gasped in a staggered breath, but at the same time she pushed back against him to make certain that she had him as deeply as she could. Bronse rose up to balance on his knees, digging them into the mattress even as he dug a bruising grip into her hips. With a surge of power he undulated into a deep, body-crashing thrust that sent an impact completely through her body. The next thrust was harder still, the sound he made raw and savage. But as rough as he was, as brutish as was his technique, she reached back to grab him by his shirt, fisting her fingers in deeply, holding him to her and telling him she wanted exactly what he was giving her.

But all he had for her was savagery, one blind and banging thrust after another until he finally heard her moan in an attractive breath of pleasure. He had meant to give her nothing, meant only to take, but that changed as he vented his frustration in pa.s.sionate thrusts. Now he chased her. Chased her satisfaction down, f.u.c.ked her to the very edge until she was forced to press her face down into the mattress and m.u.f.fle the shouts ejecting from her body. He felt the very instant she broke into o.r.g.a.s.m, felt it because he'd never known anything so tight and wrenching to his soul. Then he was just blindly thrusting, taking her up off her knees with every impact until his chest was on fire for oxygen and his gut was clenched forever in antic.i.p.ation. He finished with a ripping roar, the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n streaking out of him in vicious pulses that were pain and pleasure combined. Only the clench of his teeth kept him from shouting down the ship, and only the sudden brace of his hand kept him from falling down over her and crushing her flat beneath him.

Bronse kneeled there, propped over her, for several long minutes as he sucked hard for breath and tried to focus. He'd never felt anything so incredible in all his life, and had never done anything so d.a.m.ning. His behavior had been appalling, had gone against everything he'd ever trained himself to be when it came to women. The worst part was that he couldn't see what she had done to deserve it. What had seemed to have logic in the heat of the moment was now lost on him. It was one of the most horrific moments of realization he'd ever had.

Drawing himself from her, he fell back onto the bed, his hands scrubbing up to cover his face as waves of shameful guilt rode over him. Why had he done this? Why had he been such a b.a.s.t.a.r.d to her?

"Bronse."

She said his name, still breathless with her exertions, and then slid herself over him. She straddled his body, her hot, wet core slipping over his relaxed p.e.n.i.s and lower belly. He looked at her, the sight of her astride him so painfully wonderful that he could hardly stand it. She was driving him insane. He'd utterly lost his mind. And yet she had the sweetest little smile playing at her lips as if he weren't the worst kind of jerk on the planet.

"Bronse, you don't have to be afraid of me," she said softly to him, bending forward to give his lips a kiss too warm and affectionate for him to have deserved. "You don't have to be afraid I'm going to ask for too much. Take too much. Be too much of a liability. That isn't what I want."

"It's too late for that," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "You're already a liability. I haven't made a single right step since the moment I first laid eyes on you."

"That's not true," she soothed him softly, kissing him again until he was compelled to kiss her back. He started it off with confusion and compulsion, but by the time his tongue swept in to touch hers, he was starting to settle, starting to concede to the inevitability he saw before him. "You are doing much better than you think you are. But tell me," she coaxed him, "why you are so afraid of me."

Not of her, he realized, but of himself when he was with her. He was overwhelmed by how quickly she was getting under his skin. When he looked up into her beautiful face, he started to see cravings in himself that had no place in his life. He had already proved to himself that he wouldn't be able to have what his father and his uncles had had. His career choice had made it impossible. And he was afraid she would get too attached to him too quickly and would be hurt badly when he inevitably failed to satisfy her needs.

"Why," she breathed softly against his mouth before kissing him, "are you a.s.suming that what you feel for me is wrong?"

Put like that, Bronse felt his heart hiccup in his chest. What he felt for her? How could he feel anything for her? He hardly knew her! And she hardly knew him. Wasn't that what he was trying to prove just now as he had taken her so roughly and crudely?

And yet she had accepted it. Every minute of it. h.e.l.l, she'd even taken her pleasure in it. She'd kept pace with him every single step of the way. How could someone so new to these sorts of things take to them so easily and with so little confusion? How was it that she always seemed to be thinking so clearly when he was a jumble of disorganized thoughts and feelings? He was supposed to have the coolest head in the business.

At least, that was true when it came to his work.

This was something else entirely.

But he kept confusing the issues because at the moment the issues were lying on top of one another just as surely as she was lying on top of him. Of course, they weren't reaching to strip off her shirt the way she was right then.

And just like that he was distracted from the turmoil of his thoughts by the creamy perfection of her skin and the startling dark points of her gorgeous nipples in full thrust and in full reach of his hands. Like metal to magnet, he stroked bold hands over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, catching the nipples between his knuckles and tugging on them again and again as he kneaded her in leisurely pulls of his fingers and palms. She fit him so well like this, filling even his very big hands. As with everything else, it was as though she'd been made to match him perfectly.

"I don't think it's wrong," he said at last, speaking the words aloud and realizing that he believed them. She was anything but wrong for him. "It's just that I know how hard it is to be part of my life. I'm not sure someone who is so strongly centered in home and family could ever find happiness waiting for me to show up." Leaving her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, he stroked down over her ribs. "Ravenna, you need a strong partner. Someone who can help you raise those kids and keep Kith and the others in line. That means someone who will be there for you."

"And you think you are not strong? That you could not help to raise these kids? That you could not keep Kith in line?"

That wasn't true, he realized as she reached to push his shirt up his body. Distracted by his thoughts, he had lifted up for her without even thinking about it and helped her free it. Now she was at liberty to slide her hands up and down his bare chest and was able to sc.r.a.pe teasing nails over the flat disks of his nipples. The sensation shimmered right through him, both clouding and clearing his mind as he talked with her.

"I could do all of those things," he conceded, but then added his caveat, "if I were around. But-"

"You're never around," she supplied for him helpfully. "I see. But did it never occur to you that I have done just fine ruling my roost all on my own, long before you came into the picture? I'm used to fending for myself. I'm used to defending my Chosen Ones. You continually mistake me for having need of you in a way that is heavily dependent. I had need of you in this particular situation, yes, but this was once in many years. Don't you think having you available to me only once in many days would not be anything but an improvement?"

It was far too logical and making far too much sense for him to be staggered by the spell of her touch. Bronse reached out and caught her hands, stilling them against himself.

"You say this now," he said warily, "but how do I know that it will not change once you've gotten a real dose of what it's like to be involved with me?"

"You don't know. No more than I do. But I can tell you a very certain way of finding out." Her smile was teasing and went straight to her eyes. "If you want empirical evidence, Bronse Chapel, you must carry out the experiment."

Bronse caught his breath at the very idea of what she was suggesting. She was saying that she wanted to try out a relationship between them. Like dating. Like normal people. The idea made him nervous, but he quickly realized that it wasn't because he was afraid of the experimentation; it was because he was afraid he would fail at it. Fail miserably. Just like he had once before.

But Liely had been a very different kind of woman. One who had been less than honest with him about her expectations. How could he be certain that Ravenna was telling him the truth? Once again, the answer was as she had said. The only way to know would be to throw himself into the situation and find out the hard way. What he couldn't believe was how strongly his psyche balked at the idea. Perhaps, he thought, he had been more damaged by his ex wife than he had given himself credit for.

The idea left a sour taste in his mouth. Would he really pa.s.s up a woman as incredible and unique as Ravenna just because of his failure with one messed-up female?

The answer was no. And just as soon as he realized that, he also realized that Ravenna had already understood this. She'd understood everything. His confusion, his fear, even what had bordered on barbaric behavior.

"Rave," he whispered softly, reaching to cup her whole head in his hands as regret filled his eyes. "I didn't mean to be so crude with you."

She had the temerity to shrug a single shoulder, as if it meant nothing at all to her. "I rather liked it, to be honest." And Bronse could tell by the excited lilt in her voice and the shiver that shimmied down her spine that there was no way she was lying to him. She really had liked seeing that coa.r.s.er and ungentle side of him. "I like every single aspect of you I discover, each in their turn"-she suddenly scooted back onto his thighs, exposing him to the cold refined air in the cabin as she pulled his pants down over his hips-"each one slowly coming to light as I uncover them."

Ravenna slowly bent forward to kiss his half attentive c.o.c.k, then she slid back up into position over him, enjoying the hardening of the shaft as she wriggled herself down into place.

Bronse sat up suddenly, sending her sinking deep into his lap, the position spreading her legs wide open. He reached to rapidly unlace his boots, then shucked off his pants and socks. Suddenly he wanted more than anything to simply be there, naked with her. He drew her in tight to his chest and ran his hands up her long, lean back, bending his nose to her sweet, clean skin and the enchantingly spicy scent of her.

"I'm an idiot," he confessed to her. "I'm not normally so dense or so boorish, but I think this situation strikes closer to me than anything else ever has." He reached to kiss her mouth in a lingering clinging of lips. "I think I might be afraid to fail you because I don't want to fail you. And I'm not certain I know how to avoid it."

"Perhaps you should stop thinking so hard about it and start seeking more practical experiences to prove to yourself that you might succeed, that you will not fail."

Bronse smiled beneath her lips as she nibbled kisses across his mouth.

"Perhaps I should," he agreed with her, suddenly feeling the lightest he had felt in hours. He turned her and rolled her beneath him, settling himself comfortably up the center of her body and between her thighs. Feeling suddenly ravenous for the temptations of her bare skin, he began to kiss and lick a path of exploration down her throat, along her breastbone and b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and over the taut line of her tummy. He swirled his tongue over her as he went lower and lower. But just as he reached the damp curls protecting her s.e.x, she seemed to balk. She reached to grab hold of him by both ears and pulled against his effort to touch his mouth to her most private places. He looked up in curiosity.

"What are you doing?" she wanted to know.

"I'm kissing you. Everywhere." The way the quantification rumbled out of him was nothing short of sinful. But she was suddenly covered nearly head to toe in a body blush.

"Why would you want to do that?" she asked him as if he was out of his mind. "No. Please don't. Let's just make love."

"That's what I'm trying to do," he countered. "I'm trying to give you such a healthy dose of pleasure that you'll try to fly right out of my arms." His smile was wicked and hot. "Now, let go of me."

"No. This isn't how it works," she insisted breathlessly.

"Oh, it will work. Trust me."

He pulled out of her staying grasp and lowered his head between her thighs. He could see the fine antic.i.p.atory tremors running through them, as well as the resistant tension. Her naivete was showing itself again, and it made him chuckle softly to himself. With the lightest touch of his fingers, he spread her open, taking in the sight of her and breathing in the raw, uncensored smell of their earlier frantic s.e.x. She smelled of excitement and of him, as if she were now deeply marked as his very own. Now he wanted to leave yet another mark, an indelible memory on her that she wouldn't soon forget. What's more, he wanted to know what their combined flavors would taste like on his working tongue.

He started by kissing her firmly at the far upper cleft of her p.u.s.s.y, his tongue flicking down only briefly to flirt against her untried c.l.i.t. He absorbed her shocked gasp greedily, but ignored the unsure clutch of her fingers fisting into his hair. He knew she was in for a very big surprise, and he was of a mind to bring it to her with teasing slowness. Very carefully he began to kiss and lick at the richly damp folds before him, and his fingers painted her in teasing touches, but both they and his mouth stayed very clear of her fattening c.l.i.t. He could tell by her breathing that she had gone from cautious and uncertain to curious and then craving. She relaxed back with a purring little moan, lifting her pelvis from the bed and seeking his mouth blindly. She might not know exactly what it was she was looking for, but she was beginning to want it very badly.

"Bronse," she begged him softly as her nails sc.r.a.ped over his scalp.

But Bronse was already more than busy enough drawing her against his palate again and again with ever-broadening strokes of his tongue. He even tried to thrust his tongue inside of her, but she was too tightly tensed for it. Another time, he thought, as he drew a long, slow line up her p.u.s.s.y with his tongue until it led him straight to her c.l.i.toris. As he washed up flatly against her sensitive nerves, Ravenna cried out in a combination of shock, surprise, and need. But that was nothing compared to what she was going to feel very soon, he thought, when he began swirling his tongue against her in long, slow-turning strokes.

Ravenna gasped with every stroke, the pitch of it climbing just as her swaying pelvis tried to climb closer and deeper into his mouth. He wasn't very gentle as he introduced the shocking thrust of two fingers deep into her hot center. Out of her mind with climbing pleasure, Ravenna felt herself detonate under his skilled manipulations. The o.r.g.a.s.m was tremendous, blacking out her vision entirely as her head and neck arched back into the crest of it. She had never felt anything so shocking and so glorious all at once. She fell from the crest with a crash, sucking for breath, trying to get away from the overwhelming continuation of his attentions. But he held her down to the bed tightly and began all over again, determined to start anew and not taking no for an answer. He wasn't going to trade away hearing her abandoned groans of pleasure or the erotic undulations of a body going wild for the things he was doing to her. The second crest she hit was of a keener pitch, almost more painful and infinitely more pleasurable because of it. She had never dreamed of such things. She had thought herself learned in the ways of s.e.x, even though until now she had never taken part in them, but this was something she hadn't ever been able to conceive of on her own, and none of her experiences had led to the explanation of the act.

Bronse was surging up over the center of her body, and it was clear by the pa.s.sionate violet of his eyes that he was nowhere near done with her. His mouth was wet with his sinful work. Suddenly and boldly she wanted to kiss him, so she grabbed hold of him and did so. Taking the alien taste of her own pleasure onto her tongue, at first she thought it so very strange. She tried to seek the appeal for him in this salty, musky flavor, and as he deepened his kiss and the play of his tongue against hers, she realized the erotic power of it. She instantly wondered what he tasted like. Her teasing kiss of earlier had allowed her only a sample of the rich musk of his scent, but not of anything resembling this exotic tang she was savoring.

She broke from his kiss and breathed, "I want to taste you too. Do you taste like this?"

"I'm not nearly as delicious as you are, but that's from my perspective. You might feel very differently." The idea of her mouth on him, exploring him as thoroughly as he had her, made his already heavy c.o.c.k ache with fresh interest. He rolled aside, lying on his back and trying for all he was worth to adopt a note of control and calm. Waiting for her to approach him was sheer torture, and it pulsed through him over and over again as she reached out with tentative fingertips. The pads of her first two fingers slowly rode his length from tip to base, her breath buffeting against him over and over as her excitement climbed. He reached down to close his hand around himself, the thickness weighing heavy in his hand as he squeezed a little patience into himself. But he was also showing her that he could tolerate a very strong touch and she need not be afraid she'd do something wrong and hurt him.

"Just do what I did. Use all the soft parts of your mouth against me. You can take me into your mouth and suck on me." He was amazed he got the instruction out coherently. Just the thought had his c.o.c.k drooling for her attentions. The appearance of the wet liquid at the tip instantly caught her attention and her fascination. She bent over him and reached out to take it onto her tongue, giving him a tentative little tasting.

"But it's so different," she marveled in a whisper. "The same in some ways, but so very different from me. And you're wrong; I think you taste much better than I do."

Bronse groaned as she pushed his hands away from her field of interest and took him in her hand as he had done. She squeezed him every so lightly, sending flames of white fire burning over him. She wasted no time in exploring him further, her tongue licking over him again and again until he had to shut his eyes and grit his teeth to keep from screaming. Then she pursed her lips around him and tried her hand at sucking him into her mouth. The unguarded sc.r.a.pe of her teeth nearly broke him, nearly had him shouting out with the pleasure of it.

"You're holding back," she noted with a pout. The plushness of her lips kissed against his straining c.o.c.k.

"Bad enough to have a psychos.e.xual and your brother the d.a.m.n empath in my business," he hissed. "I'll not give any more food for ship gossip. This is private. Between you and me and-Great Being, you're driving me mad!" The last was a clenched whisper as his hands dove deep into her hair. He made her pay full attention to the things her mouth was doing, and the more focused she was, the more unfocused he became.

He knew she had no idea what she was doing, but he also knew that when she got the hang of it, she'd be a natural killer. Right now, though, it seemed to be everything to him that each of her first steps, first explorations, were with him. They were taking place against his skin. Testing his sanity.

The roll of possessive emotion that followed every roll of pleasure that buffeted through him was breathtaking and intimidating. He had never felt anything so fierce and strong as he was feeling right then. Not for any woman. Not even close. It was like being introduced to a part of himself he'd never met before. A different and powerful part. A potentially dangerous part.

And just the knowledge of that made the next stroke of her tongue against him seem like she had poured acidic pleasure across him. As inexperienced as she was, as awkward and seeking as her discovery was, he was positive that all it would take was just one more sinful second inside of her mouth and he would come apart. His mind and his emotions had made him a hair trigger.

And, of course, with that uncanny instinct she always seemed to have, she did exactly that. She used her tongue to draw him into the hot haven of her mouth, and then she began to test him in increasingly strong sucking draws.

But not nearly strong enough.

"You won't hurt me," he choked out. "I'm so hard right now that nothing could hurt me. Suck me harder. Just a little-ah! Heaven help me, you're going to-"

Oh yes. One day soon she'd be giving the most skilled head in the universe, but today was about firsts and about onlys. It was about him being her choice and her being his.

It was everything.

"Ravenna, I'm going to come," he warned her, trying to draw her away because he knew how shocking it would be to her inexperienced tastes. "Ravenna!" he cried when she wouldn't give way, "I'll fill your mouth and then some and-and-"

He was in no s.p.a.ce to properly explain or make even the remotest kind of sense. The urge to release was ripping out of him like a violent storm, and his whole being shook with the power of it. He began to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e into her mouth, the hard spurts like spasms as they shot from his body. She drew back in surprise, releasing him about halfway through and letting herself get shot with pearly strings of the stuff against her cheek and lips and then down over the fingers that still had hold of him.

Bronse had all he could do to suck in breath after breath and keep himself from yelling out for the universe to hear.

The proximity alarm went off, jolting Bronse out of the deepest sleep he'd had in years. He felt Ravenna startle awake where she lay in the crook of his arm. He should have bolted out of bed and started gearing up, but he knew that Justice wouldn't park them until he gave her the go-ahead to dock. It gave him just enough of an excuse to spend time breathing in the smell of his shampoo in her hair. It wasn't Ayalya spice, but it was yet another stamp of himself on her that gave him a deeply grounding sense of rightness and satisfaction. By then he had stopped trying to understand it and was simply embracing it. It was right for him. It felt right on every level. That was all that mattered to a man like him who lived by his gut instincts.

"What is it?" she asked sleepily, her beautiful eyes confused in the dim light of the panel that was flashing the alert just to the left of the bed.

"We've reached the IM station. We're home."

"Oh." She closed her eyes and sighed. "I guess I better go wake up the others."

But she wasn't moving any faster than he was to get to her feet. And it was no wonder. They were extremely comfortable as they lay there snuggled together beneath the warmth of their blanket. It would be hard for anyone to want to leave such a safe haven and leap forward into unknown dangers ahead. It was a moment of reckoning for both of them. Things were about to get really crazy, and it could all go very smoothly or it could get shot to h.e.l.l.