Last Call (Stranded in the Stars Book 1) (3 page)

Good thing he can't see me.

When he turned in her direction, she slowly pushed herself closer to the ground just in case she hadn’t been entirely hidden. He heart pounded as she tried to relax. Her long brown hair, the thinning leather rags she called clothing, and tanned skin camouflaged her perfectly on
Hell-in-Space.

The strange male turned back toward his ship and she let out the long tense breath that she had kept in.

He must be looking at the damage
.
Maybe his ship was also caught in the meteor storm like mine had been.
She couldn't really tell from this distance.

Feeling equal parts curious and courageous, she started moving forward, desperate to see the male up close.

She crouched behind a small rock outcropping that was several dozen yards closer to the male. He didn't look like a Trentian. He resembled more of an Earthian but much larger. Berating herself, she knew she was putting herself in serious danger being this close but at the same time she knew she had little left to live for and that truth stopped her from retreating.

If she assessed the risks, he could hurt her, kill her, or even steal her away and return her to the Warlord. He could also do much worse. But refusing to stay on that train of thought, she was satisfied that she was close enough to make out the details of his character.

He was the most frightening male her eyes had ever laid on in her life. The male was tall enough to climb and every inch of his length was protected by hard black body armor with accentuations of dark grey mesh that sculpted around his muscles. He wore heavy boots that were rimmed with metal.

But what was most unnerving was the giant gun strapped across his back, the duo laser pistols on his tool belt, and the daggers strapped to his legs. He was not a simple man but a weapon-heavy warrior.

The man had strong features, a strong chin, high sculpted cheekbones and all of it was uncannily, perfectly symmetrical. The only imperfect feature he had were two scars. One that had split his bottom lip on his left side that descended towards his neck while the other was just over his left eyebrow.

And his eyes... his eyes were silver and violent. Even from this distance his eyes held a storm of dark emotions raging through them. She could only imagine how many beings died before them. If she could just get a closer look she bet she could see the gateway to hell and the souls of a thousand beings swimming behind them.

The male equally terrified and intrigued her.

She couldn't help the strange heat that pooled between her legs or the perspiration beading between her breasts. Her heart felt like thunder in her chest.

***

Jack went about his ship, taking visuals of the damage and storing it in his database. A big damn meteor had struck his ship, not only fucking up the impulse drive but leaving jagged skid marks along the outer body.

Catching Larik wasn't just a job anymore. It was revenge. The bounty he would get for his capture would more than cover the cost of repairing the perforations but that was just a bonus now.

The satisfaction of dumping his body on Taggert, a prisoner planet, with his blood still on his hands would be the real reward.

The pirate will pay for the crimes he committed against me
.

Jack didn't give a damn about his other transgressions, it was personal now.

He breathed in deep, trying to calm himself down only ended up being a terrible mistake. The female had moved dangerously close to him. If he focused he could hear her slight breaths. The wild girl either liked what she was seeing or was frightened because her heart rate had increased dangerously high. A human male could have smelled the fear and pheromones wafting off of her.

Groaning in frustration, Jack zeroed his attention on the girl behind him, only putting up the pretense now about his ship.

Her breathing was elevated, her heat signature knocking up a degree. He could smell the sweat moistening her skin. It wasn't a bad smell. It was wild and erotic and drew him to the conclusion that this girl had been stranded on the planet for some time.

His mission was now buried deep in the recesses of his mind because his body was reacting to her smell and even as a Cyborg his cybermechanics couldn't extract the pull she created. It would have been humbling, knowing the part of him that made him a man had more control over his technology but he had a job to do and within the last hour he was beginning to change his priorities
.

His nanobots were not doing a damn thing to cool his fascination.
How the hell was she exuding such powerful pheromones?
Nothing in his databases had an explanation.

He entertained the idea of walking over to her, lifting her in his arms and confronting her when the ground began to shake. A wurm passed dangerously close by beneath his feet. Taking his knife out for good measure, he stabbed the ground, knowing the vibrations would be felt by the monster. One of them had to act civilized.

Jack looked up, the meteor shower that caused this predicament was now over and Argo's sun was on its descent into darkness.

He made one last perusal of his ship, absently wiping some the dust that already started to collect on it and headed back to the hull. The monsters inhabiting this planet will be making their presence known and he didn't feel like tussling with one tonight.

He left the hatch open to his ship and waited in the shadows to see what the wild girl would do. If she were smart she would take her leave while she still could.

Chapter Four:

---

T
he male was naive.

He barely acknowledged the environment after his first survey of the terrain and he could have been attacked and killed many times over if it had been night. Allie was always aware of her surroundings.

He even left his dagger in the sand.

She wanted to take it but knew he would miss it come morning.

She wanted to warn him, wanted to tell him of the monsters that came out after dark especially since he blatantly left the hatch to his ship open. His actions were dangerous to his being. Allie mulled it over and decided she would wait awhile longer to see if he would come back out. It didn't hurt to play sentinel for a short time.

When the time continued to pass and it began to appear that he had retired for the day, Allie determined it was for the best that she retired too. The temperature was beginning to drop and it was always cold at dusk and even colder at night.

She judged the sun's location and if she ran, she would make it back to her
hole-in-the-ground
before everything was consumed by the chilly darkness. She really shouldn't have stayed so long to watch him and so giving the open hatch one last look, Allie headed home.

At full sprint, an hour and half later, she saw her sanctuary come into view. The exertion it took her to get back before dark caused her to nearly pass out and it didn't help that she hadn't eaten more than one critter all day and was now faced with the repercussions, the weakness. She set aside her pouch, disrobed her rags, and slowly descended into the small warm spring at the back of her cave.

Years ago, when she found this place, she had cried for joy and stayed in the spring for a week, living here ever since and finally cutting off all ties with the tomb she had arrived in.

The only light she had were from the tiny little organisms that lived at the bottom of the spring.

Once she had tried to capture them and bring them above water, only to fail, when they all died soon after. Now she left them alone. They gave off just enough blue luminescence to discern the shapes of the rocks and her personal items around her.

She didn’t have much, not after being stranded on this planet for a countless amount of time. Her makeshift home had an array of frayed cloth that she had brought with her, small metal brackets and pieces that had broken off of the ship when it first crashed here, and small bone tools that she had fashioned from the exoskeletons of long dead wurms.

Allie had several other worthless belongings, things that reminded her of civilization that she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of. Her favorite of those pieces was an old, worn lighter that she had used up many moons ago. Now, when she felt wistful and bored, she would roll the spring with her thumb and listen to the soft zing.

Resting her head on the ledge, she wiggled her feet amongst the organisms beneath her and whispered to herself, "No shame..." then slid her hand between her legs.

Passion had been strictly forbidden at the commune as the crones drilled into her that it should be reserved only for breeding. The elder women of the group had ingrained the idea that there was perfection in innocence, sublimation in mating, and an extreme importance in sustaining the race.

The stress and the pressure that she had been under mixed with the hatred from many of the other women she had lived with had worn her down as she struggled to assimilate. Sadly, no matter how often she reassured herself– that, that mantra no longer applied to her, she always woke up the next morning feeling guilty.

A man had never excited her like the one that had stepped out of the ship today and she wasn’t entirely sure why. She didn’t think it could be that he was the first man that she had seen since her time traveling space but something about the mere presence of him that had caused her stomach to clench and her mouth to water.

Even now with her core tensing and burning up, she felt wanton shame.

Her entire body felt like a furnace as the pebbles beneath her butt dug in. Her bare heels grinding into the slick ground.

Allie was attuned to everything around her– wanting to rub her body against the hard rocks of the spring and imagine those rocks were the large male she had spied on all day. He had looked fierce and strong and not just physically. His smoky eyes had been intense and discerning as he had scouted the area around his ship and that natural strength allured her like a moon moth to a flame.

Maybe he intrigues me so much because it is strength that I am lacking.

She spread her legs open under the cool water as she thought about him and tickled her fingers between her legs, she continued her fantasy that it was his body that she was pressed up against– that he was impossibly large and anchoring her body like he owned it, like he owned everything he had laid his eyes on.

I want him to own me. I want something more than my imagination. This is my curse for running away, from not fulfilling her duties, of being the only one to survive.

She moaned as she brought herself to the first climax of the night– then she mewed again and again until she passed out to the thought of violent eyes penetrating her soul while he mated her into unconsciousness.

***

Jack couldn't focus. He repeatedly attempted to connect his processors online to hunt for any leads that may have popped up on Larik but his attention kept going back to the female that had watched him all day.

She hadn't taken the bait and entered his ship. He was unsurprised. Only an idiot would. Oddly, though he was disappointed that she hadn't.

He could tell that the female's movement had stopped, her heat signature had remained in the same place for the last hour, glad that he now knew where she resided during the night, storing the information for later. Unfortunately though, he could also tell that the signature was erratic, surmising that she may be ill.

He would have liked the opportunity to get a visual of her but the phantom of her that he created in his mind would just have to be faceless tonight. That phantom smelled like sweat and sex and he pictured his fantasy kneeling between his legs with her mouth on his cock– sucking him off as if she were starving. Grunting with the lurid thought, he gripped his cock and started to work it with speed.

He increased his pumping, inhaling the lingering scent of her smell in the air.
Fuck.
He stood up, opened the hull and walked outside wearing nothing but a dagger strapped to his bicep. He continued walking until he stood over the area where she had crouched all afternoon.

Picturing her still there, looking down on her, he fucked his hand vigorously. He imagined that she was unaware of him while he jerked off above her. Her ass was in the air and it was a perfect apple shape; and she was touching herself. Spilling his seed all over the ground, he envisioned it spraying over her skin, surprising her, while it dripped between her legs and down her thighs; laying his claim on her.

What is wrong with me? I want to see my milky cum drip over her phantom skin and I don’t even know what she looks like. I’m acting like a savage.

He enjoyed the smell of his seed mixed with her fading scent, breathing in deeply several times and when he began to feel himself calm, he walked back to his ship and entered the lavatory to sanitize himself.

He had been taking job after job for so many years now he had never stopped to take a lover. He would have to remedy that although finding a willing woman who was also sincere in her desire would he difficult. Jack couldn’t stand the actresses that he had often encountered.

Thankfully, he did enjoy his fantasies knowing that he was as hard in bed as he was brutal in the battlefield and most of the women he had met throughout the years during the fallout were often terrified of him, knowing what he was.

It was then that the ground began to shake again as a behemoth emerged nearby and let out roar that would frighten grown, battle-hardened men. His thoughts drifted away from his disappointing sexual conquests and instead towards the creature staking its territory; waiting for it to move on.

After he dressed and strapped his weapons back on, he exited his ship and headed in the direction of the girl. If she was ill, he wanted to know. His human side was still susceptible to disease and he didn’t want whatever she had. His body was not at optimum function after the landing.

Jack kept his pace fast, the stars were bright enough here that he didn’t need to switch to his night vision and it wasn’t long before he was standing several yards from the girl’s signature anyway; he could hear her heart beating now if he focused on it. She was below him and it didn’t take long to find the small hole that led to her rocky, underground hideout.