My Prize (7 page)

"Well, well, well," boomed his loud and nasal voice. "If it isn't little Boralle North. Going in to the holo-vid for a bit of practice, are we?"

Boralle raised an eyebrow at him. "Practice?"

Lefton sneered. "Well, dear, seeing as the whole ship knows you can only get a three on the cummeter...I would say practice is in order, wouldn't you?"

Boralle felt Rory move behind her, and realized with astonishment that Lefton truly was unaware of his presence. "
Stand a little straighter, Boralle
," Rory's voice was a mere whisper against her ear.

She followed his instructions.

"
Ask him what he scored
."

"You know, Lefton," said Boralle, wondering where this was going, "I never did hear what your score was?"

Lefton's chest puffed out. "Me? Why I scored a high four, you know."

"Really? A high four?"

"
Now run your hand through your hair, slowly...
" Rory whispered again.

Boralle did as he said, only to realize that Rory's hands were now sliding up her body to cup her breasts.

Without realizing it, she licked her lips in anticipation and sucked in a breath. Her nipples hardened at Rory's touch. She could feel it, but to the casual observer it was simply a reflex action.

Casual observer Lefton swallowed.

"All by yourself, huh?" continued Boralle, getting the general idea. She leaned back a little and let her weight fall on one leg as the other bent slightly.

"
Lick your lips again, and keep them apart this time
,
then move your hips forward, just a fraction
."

With her breasts thrust forward and her lips gleaming, she appeared suddenly wanton and extraordinarily feminine. Of course, the fact that Rory was gently stroking her breasts certainly helped. He was turning on her sex-appeal, she realized.

Well rass. She never knew she had any.

Obviously, Lefton didn't either, but he was now getting an eyeful of it.

"Er, listen, North...if you want, I could give you a few tips, you know? Get that score up? If you want to come to my cabin?"

"Officer Lefton!" said Boralle, chidingly. "You know that is completely in violation of I don't know
how
many regs. Besides, I'm in training. Can't sully myself with inferior equipment."

And with a scornful glance at the rather modest bulge in his uniform, Boralle swung open a door and stalked through, making sure Rory had followed her before she shut it in Officer Lefton's stunned face.

She crumpled into silent laughter.

"Oh God, I enjoyed that," she hiccupped. She kept her voice low, but clutched her ribs with mirth. "He's such a pompous jerk."

"I gathered as much," said Rory wryly. "It only took about two words. Are there others like that?"

"Most of the ship."

"How do you stand it, lass?" The question was clearly meant to be humorous, but it came out as genuine concern and stopped Boralle in her tracks.

"I never realized what I was missing," she said honestly. "I guess I never spent time with anyone who wasn't a pompous ass before now."

"Well, thanks for the compliment. I think."

"You're welcome."

Rory looked around. "Where are we? Looks like some technician's nightmare."

The room was surprisingly large and cluttered with a tumble of electrical conduits, flashing panels, oddly-shaped power units and the low hum of contented technological equipment.

"This? This is the holo-vid center."

"Aha. Where you have your holo-romance adventures?"

Boralle grinned. "Actually, I only ever had one, and that was with a girlfriend back in my educational years."

"Seems you're a wee bit overdue, lass," said Rory absently, wandering around the room and marveling at the intricacy of the electronics. "Can you show me how it works?"

"Sure." Boralle crossed to a large and relatively clear control panel and placed her hand palm down on a sensor unit. She turned her head and looked back over her shoulder at Rory.

"Where would you like to go?"

"Anywhere you are would be heaven." Rory's answer brought the color to her cheeks, and she lowered her eyelids, shielding her eyes from his gaze.

"Umm..let's see...oh, I know." She turned back to the panel and touched a few more controls. "This is one of the most romantic places I can think of. Just perfect."

There was a hum followed by a loud buzzing sound, and the room flickered, darkened and then brightened again.

The surroundings were now quite different.

Well, almost quite different.

"Er, Boralle?"

She sighed as she looked around her. "Yes, isn't it lovely?"

Rory McAllen looked at the medium sized cabin with gray walls, gray flooring and a slightly larger bed than he and Boralle had shared.

"Well, that's a pretty impressive machine." His voice was a little strained and Boralle turned to look at him.

"This is the pleasure quarters of the CGC-14. She's a real beauty. One of the few in her class built for speed and luxury. I got to visit aboard her once for a legal conference. What a wonderful treat that was. Every convenience, everything new, and everything working..." The walls to Boralle's left fizzled a bit as the last words left her lips. She frowned at them and they solidified again.

"Ah."

"Well, can't you see?"

"See what?"

"The huge bed? And Rory, look here," Boralle crossed to the bed and ran her hand gently and appreciatively across the spread. "Genuine pseudo-silk velvet. And it's
red."
She stretched out on the bed and sighed.

The Laird McAllen looked at the spread.

The color was somber, slightly richer than rust, and probably could have been loosely called red at some point, if all ambient light from the upper end of the spectrum was removed.

Boralle's face fell as she saw Rory's less-than-ecstatic reaction. "You don't like it."

"Oh, no, sweetheart. It's wonderful, and it's romantic, just as you said." Rory moved over to slide onto the bed beside her. "It's just a wee surprise, that's all."

"So. Are we ready to start now?"

Rory paused, and looked at the woman lying next to him. Her soft blonde hair sifted through his fingers, her blue eyes watching him carefully, waiting for his first moves, and her body settled in, poised for action, ready for its adventures. It was the body of an athlete, a fighter, a woman who was constantly on the move.

It was not, unfortunately, the body of an aroused lover.

He had his work cut out for him.

So what the rass was he waiting for?

Boralle tamped down her impatience, and watched him, wondering what was going through his mind. His eyes were impossibly green as they roved over her face, and the feel of his fingers playing with her hair was quite soothing.

"Are you more comfortable with ma touch, lass?" he asked quietly, moving his other hand to her cheek and just lightly grazing it.

"I'm...I'm getting used to it," she admitted. She smiled slightly at the soft burr of his voice and the odd little expressions he used.

Hah. In all honesty she was beginning to crave his touch. His warmth, his strength, the tenderness that peeked out at odd moments as if it were a part of him that he wasn't even aware of.

Even his scent was becoming familiar to her, a mixture of man and musk and heat that coiled deep within her belly and started an answering fire.

She was astonished that her body would react so strongly to the presence of another human. She wasn't even sure if the TUNG could arouse her quite like this.

Tentatively she reached out her hand, stopping short of his face. He smiled and leaned in, letting her palm rest against his cheek.

So smooth yet a little prickly. Unlike her fellow crewmembers, Rory had a beard that was obviously active, growing and needing to be shorn. She wondered if he'd be interested in using the defuzzing unit, which removed body hair permanently. She spared a thought for the fluff of red curls that she'd seen around his cock.

Did men remove those too? She knew she did, and that her body was bare of any excess hair at all. Would he care?

Unconnected thoughts tumbled through the shambles of her mind as she lost herself in Rory's eyes.

He pressed her palm to his face and brought his head down, sliding his gaze to her lips. She felt her own eyes close as he neared her, and the warmth of his breath on her mouth sent a tingle through her body and turned on some inner faucet. She was astounded to realize that she was beginning to grow damp between her thighs and he hadn't even touched her.

Her breasts felt swollen and tender, and when his chest just brushed them, she gasped, not realizing that such a touch could send licks of fire down her body to her clit.

He took shameless advantage of her indrawn breath, and chased it with his mouth and tongue.

Angling his head, he plunged deep into her moistness, swirling his tongue over and around hers, and encouraging her to move in the dance with him. She moaned deep in her throat, caught up in the amazing sensation of lips pressed against lips. Of the taste of a man and his desire, and of the explosions of pleasure that his movements were causing.

Her hands slid up his arms to his shoulders and she twined herself around him, trying to get nearer and closer to that teasing tongue and experience all that there was to this kiss.

She'd seen such things before, and even brushed her lips against another's cheek in greeting a time or two, but nothing had ever prepared her for this.

He understood, pulling her body tight to his and wrapping her in his strong arms.

She allowed her hands to play in his hair and gasped for breath as he pulled back and scattered soft kisses over her cheeks and chin, returning with passion to seize her mouth once more.

Her skin plastered itself against him from breast to shin, moving, writhing, twisting against his hardness.

A portion of her brain recognized the hard length pressed against her groin as his arousal, and she opened her legs in an involuntary movement, unconsciously yearning to get him where he could do the most good.

His hand dropped from her face to her body, and he stroked her breast as he plunged his tongue deep into her mouth. Swallowing her cry of surprise he found her nipple, teasing and fondling it to a hard and sensitive peak before allowing her another breath.

"We've too many clothes on, ma heartling," he muttered, swiping his tongue around her ear and making her shudder.

"Here..." She struggled to show him a faint line running along the front of her suit.

She touched the top of it with her finger and the fabric parted, slowly peeling back and revealing her soft white flesh to his gaze.

She thought she'd die of pleasure when he touched her naked skin as the cloth spread apart, following the opening down between her breasts, over her navel to the top of her mound.

Within moments he'd found the lines that freed her legs, and seconds later she was all but naked next to him.

"Ah, you've a sweet bare pussy, lass," he said, stroking the soft folds that lay between her legs. They shone now with the moisture his touch had released.

"It's considered routine...procedure to remove all body hair...prior to a tour of duty in...space."

The formal phrase lost much of its impact since Rory was still stroking her, delving between her silky ruffles and finding her most sensitive spots. Her breath came quickly as his hand sought and found her clit.

"Rory," she whispered, eyes wide.

His touch was setting fire to a variety of different places, not the least of which was her brain as it tried bravely to withstand the sensual assault. But his light strokes on her flesh were having a tumultuous effect, and Boralle found her thought processes stuttering to a halt as the information overload swamped any logical or rational ideas and left her moaning with pleasure.

His mouth dipped and found her breast.

She gasped as he touched her nipple with his tongue. Just a soft lick was enough to send waves of shivering delight up and down her body. He did it again and she was unable to control the sound that burst from her throat.

Rory smiled.

Fingers still gently circling her now-swollen clit, he opened his mouth wide and swooped onto her breast, sucking it up into his warmth like a vacuum limpet from Coris Major. She'd seen vids of those creatures, opening their great maws and linking to each other as they mated.

It couldn't have felt much better for the vacuum limpets than it did for Boralle North.

She shuddered, muscles ceasing to respond to her at all, but now totally under Rory's command. Each flick, each brush of his fingertips brought another sensation of exquisite joy and taught her that there were so many sensitive areas on her body she'd never known about.

For example, her inner thighs.

As Rory's hand brushed the skin there, she felt his touch like a rasp, almost painful but yet so wonderful.

And always he returned to her naked mound, teasing, loving, flicking with the lightest of touches. She knew that her body was welcoming his sensual invasion because a cool draft around her hot flesh indicated the presence of moisture.

It was at this point that the TUNG would customarily introduce the penile probe, and without thinking, Boralle spread her thighs wide.

"Oh, sweetheart, not yet," chuckled Rory, voice low and caressing. "You're with a McAllen now, not a machine."

"Rory," she began, only to have her words slip away from her as he used two fingers to spread her labia wide. "Rory..." she repeated. This time it was a muted cry.

Her hips started to move, and his body leaned further onto hers, holding her still beneath his weight. His chest hair brushed her sensitive nipples and added to her shivers, just as his lips closed again on hers.

His tongue thrust deep into her mouth as two fingers thrust deep into her cunt.

He drank her cries, swirled them, swallowed them, and let his fingers respond, teasing, withdrawing, and always keeping pressure around her clit.