Save for Shardae (5 page)

“Get naked. Now. I want to see your firm, fine ass.” Those strong pilot hands smacked her hard across her bottom.

Heat raced over her. With heart and clit beating like mad, she stripped off the rest of her clothes under his burning stare. He watched her intensely.

Zander squatted down behind her. He didn’t speak, only caressed her, wrenching up her desire. Still, her body stretched taut with just the quiet pants of Zander’s breath. She whispered, “Do it.”

“I will.”

“Please,” she squeaked. Her hands cupped her breasts. With her forefingers and thumbs, she rolled the stiff tips of her nipples. “Don’t make me wait.”

“Wait.”

Would the real Zander leave her to this sweet torment? That thought made her smile. Zander had been nothing at all like his rumored self. She couldn’t quite see him as the playful heartbreaker the whispers painted him to be. But she had just met him.

Rough hands grabbed her shoulders. Her Zander spun her around so she faced the head of the bed. The ivory illuminated walls behind it melded into a circular thicket of trees. This holographic Zander program only contained one construct for play and didn’t involve the setting features most sim programs did.

Voyeur. This Zander’s primary role.

Pushing her down onto all fours, he still didn’t speak. Cool air made Shardae’s skin prickle. Fine by her. Although he looked identical to the real Zander, his voice didn’t bear any resemblance to
him
. So him not speaking only fed Shardae’s fantasy.

She twisted herself over on the bed and looked at him. His eyes, mouth, smile all matched, but lacked Zander’s personality, the real source of his attractiveness. She shut her eyes and focused on the alive, breathing, under-her-skin Zander.

Just then the simZander’s mouth brushed her exposed pussy. Another swipe. He drew a moan from her lips. Only Zander’s delightfully skilled tongue on her clit, strumming with abandon over the engorged bud, remained.

Raising herself on her elbow, she clutched her right breast. Her index finger flicked the taut bud again in time to Zander’s cadence. Zander’s essence filled her senses, and became real -- his skin, the woodsy scent of him, the deep sensual rumble of his voice all manifested in the air around her. If only…

She mentally slammed the door on that thought and dove back into bodily bliss. But those lively licks abruptly stopped. “Roll over,” Zander ordered.

She did so begrudgingly. Her ragged breathing disturbed the quiet. With heart racing and sweat slipping down her face, she propped herself up on her elbows again. “I was close,” she whispered in dismay.

“I know,” Zander said. “I want to watch.”

She never tired of those words. She swallowed hard. “What?”

“Fuck yourself.”

The coarse words erupted in a lust-filled fire that raced right to her core. The croak of his voice almost made her lose control -- almost.

She lay back and fumbled around until her hand wrapped around the dildo. “You want to watch me come?” she asked thickly, rotating the head of the dildo slowly around her opening, rolling it across her nether lips.

“Yeah. Fuck that like you’re going to fuck me. Show me how you like it.”

Shardae heard those words in Zander’s voice -- the real one.
Oh, sweet Neptune
!

Moaning, her back arching in sultry passion, she pushed the cock into her with one solid movement. Instantly, her inner core clutched it like a vice, filling her tight tunnel. Would Zander feel like this? Deliciously wide, thick, filling every inch of her so that when she took a breath, she felt him?

What really sent her into the stars was each time she glanced at him, his eyes were on her. Her approaching release crested over her. Almost like he sensed it, Zander rushed to the bed, lifted her legs and placed his head between her open thighs. He took the dildo from her, not missing a beat. With one long suckle of her love button between his lips, she shouted in rapture.

Short-lived, the delicious warmth was already waning when the room stopped turning. Shardae swallowed her disappointment. “Collapse program.”

“Goodbye,” the simulated Zander said before winking out of existence.

The room quickly returned to its Aspen quiet. A tinge of loneliness rippled through her. That guy wasn’t even real! That only served to show how truly pathetic she’d become.

Falling backward onto the firm memory-foam bed, she inched slowly up until she reached her pillow. Really, she had to sleep. In about four hours, maybe less, she’d have to check on the crew. Dangerous people were onboard. She didn’t like Lee’s comments about her team’s response time or Darryl Snow’s warnings about a mutiny.

Lee and Zander had both come onboard her craft too soon in her command. She hadn’t admitted to anyone, but she wasn’t altogether sure she could handle both. Everything inside her remained torn between her attraction to Zander and the suspicion that Lee had a few snakes up his sleeve.

The problem remained -- how to stop thinking about all of it… especially Zander.

After much mental scuffling, she corralled her thoughts, pinned them down. She released a long deep breath. Her eyelids drifted shut, allowing her at last to fall into the fitful arms of sleep.

Chapter 7

Zander signaled the bartender to send over another drink. Seated alone in the belly of the craft, in the oval-shaped cafeteria, he slouched against the foamy two-person booth. It cushioned his weary muscles.

Droplets of condensation slipped between his fingertips. He blew out a sigh, but his fatigue remained. The day had seemed to go on. He’d given up watching the pilot steer. Really, if you’d steered one spacecraft, you’d done them all. His downtime commenced now.

Nursing his drink, his mind locked on the lovely Shardae Simmons. How would she feel when he entered her moist heat? Would she buck against him for more, or would she wrap her sexy legs around his waist and pin him to her molten heat?

“You order another beer?” asked a polite female voice.

“Yeah,” Zander answered, gaze locked on the beauty of space rolling by outside the oval porthole.

Hours earlier the vessel launched into open space, going through the empty expanse to Titan. The blurring of day and night confused his body’s natural rhythm. The beer didn’t help, but he’d given up on sleep. His security detail would begin in just under two hours. He’d have to get a sobering pill before going to his post. But he had time yet. Being on the morning rotation shot out his energy levels. Being on the evening shift would probably kill him, but he’d plow ahead. He’d told Simmons he could handle the double duty. He would.

Besides, the mission was a simple dump, depositing Lee, Rojas, and Brock. The penal colony waited for their three new infamous passengers.

But something nagged at Zander.

Lee.

A tickle in his brain, a silent warning, alerted him whenever he replayed the scene in the cargo bay, but Zander’s mind and body had become much too worn out to grab it. Something Lee had said, or the fact that neither Rojas nor Brock had said anything at all. He couldn’t place it. People ordered to work the remainder of their lives on Titan collapsed in fear, wet themselves in terror, or became mute -- all bravado stolen. Not so with Lee.

Could it be because Lee knew he wouldn’t arrive on Titan or that Lee had no plans to stay there?

“You’re Zander Reyes, aren’t you?” gushed the young woman, yanking him out of his deep brooding.

“Yeah.” Zander tried to smile to soften his sharp reply. “Sorry, you startled me.”

She blushed. “Yeah, sorry. Everybody’s on edge around here.”

He took the drink she offered him. Toying with the cool droplets of water along his current beer, Zander kept his mouth closed. If the girl wanted gossip, she’d have to go elsewhere.

“So, um, you like our craft?” she asked, twisting her hands in front of her ebony uniform.

“It’s okay.”

“You, uh, wanna join us for a game of futbol later?”

“No, thanks.” He grinned before it registered what she’d asked him. “Wait!”

He’d better start getting to know his fellow crewmates. Being rude only fed the rumors that circulated about him. He didn’t care about them, but he’d promised his father he’d try to do things differently.

“And you are?” he inquired, but he didn’t really want to know so he didn’t ask her to sit. He wanted Simmons beside him, nuzzling his earlobe and kissing him. He wanted to inhale her scent and taste her soft kissable mouth after she’d taken a sip of raspberry wine.

Not that it mattered what he wanted at the moment.

“I’m Crewman Porter.” She blushed, making her freckles blend in more. “I’m on the security team, under Sergeant Simmons. I saw you in the cargo bay earlier today.”

“Oh yeah.” Crewman Porter gave him pause. He left the beer she’d brought him untouched. “I need to be going.”

“Why?” she inquired, licking her lips. “You’d let a girl down?”

“No, but I don’t see a girl here. I see a wolf in sheep’s clothes.”

“What?” she balked, feigning ignorance.

That pissed him off. “You aren’t my type, Crewman Porter,” he explained. “But you do make a damn good waitress.”

Her jaw slacked, and she stumbled back a step. Gasping like a fish out of water, she managed to push out, “You’re impossible! You aren’t some god. I’ve heard about you -- you arrogant ass!”

“Yes, he is,” agreed a voice that reeled Zander back from giving Porter a real education in trying to flirt her way to information. The owner of that voice could tutor him in whatever she wanted.

His stomach rolled over in anxiousness. He peered around Porter to see Sergeant Simmons just off to the right, as if answering his quiet, internal pleas. The very sight of her smooth skin and full luscious mouth made his heart bound violently in his chest.

She stood there waiting with amusement on her face. “Excuse us, Crewman Porter.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Porter muttered before storming off.

“Is all of security a bunch of loonies?” Zander asked. “First, O’Leery. Now her.” He jutted his finger at Porter’s retreating back.

A flicker rippled over her face, but she hastily concealed the emotion. Wiping her hands on her pants, she closed the distance between them. “Sit, please, Pilot Reyes.”

He did, waiting for her to tell him why she’d come to him. “You hungry?” he asked casually. “I can get you a coffee and a bagel.”

She tented her hands in front of her. “No, thank you.”

Zander watched her. Freshly showered, Sergeant Simmons sat across from him wearing an expression so blank she
had
to be hiding something. The urge to yell at her to wake up swelled inside him. None of the people on her security team could be trusted. Porter, O’Leery. The entire lot of them bore investigating. He’d have to make some personal comms.

“You’re drinking? You start your shift in an hour.” He had a feeling by the way the corner of her lips twitched that
that
wasn’t what she wanted to say.

“I know, ma’am,” he prompted.

The glint in her eyes warned him to halt whatever foolish ideas he might be entertaining.

“Reyes.” She sighed, and not in a good way. “The security team is very close knit. You being thrust upon them, especially after what you did to O’Leery…”

“He started it.”

Anger rolled across the sergeant’s face. She banged herself against the back of the booth’s seat and folded her arms. “Not the point.”

He clenched his mouth closed. That was exactly the point. The security team was comprised of a bunch of sore losers.

“They take care of each other. So, be ready to show how you fit in. They need to know they can trust you.”

He noticed how she hadn’t included herself in the security team. “How is it my fault?” he asked, unable to just sit back and be lectured.

“I didn’t say it was.”

“No? Then how come you’re lecturing me?”

One dark mocha brown eyebrow rose above her honey-brown eye. “How do you know I didn’t already talk to my team, you egomaniac?” She scooted out of the booth, yanking her uniform jacket down from where it had inched up her waist. “Grow up, Reyes. Not everything is about you.”

“I -- I -- but Porter…” he stammered, aware of the glimpses of other patrons on them. He could blame his tiny meltdown on the booze or his exhaustion. One look at Simmons’ face told him she wouldn’t buy any of those.

Scrabbling out of the booth, he hurried to join her. The furious sergeant didn’t stop marching in the direction of the exit when he called.

“Sergeant Simmons,” he yelled again. His breathing hitched at the swish of her hips. He couldn’t help it. Whatever he was going to say left him. Mentally, he tried to lift his gaze, but the tight, round buttocks held him firm.

“That’s quite far enough, pilot,” she said softly.

Oh, this can’t be good
. He lifted his eyes up to her surprisingly calm face. That he hadn’t expected. Fury? Yeah. Calm? No. “Ma’am?”

She folded her arms over her breasts. The corridor outside the cafeteria held a few crewmen, but she waited until the space cleared. Leaning casually against the wall, she pursed her lips. “You see something you like, pilot?”

Was she kidding? He liked everything, even the little smirk flitting around her too-sexy mouth. He opened his lips to say so, but caught himself. What if she was trying to trick him? “Uh, ma’am?”

“You seem quite interested in my anatomy,” she purred. “So?”

A radiant heat pooled in her eyes. Goodness. Was it genuine? If she packed that much heat behind her stone visage, what would happen once he unlocked her waiting emotions?

“I, uh, I do?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

“Is this how you do truth, pilot?”

“No, ma’am.”

“No,” she repeated breathlessly. Her fingers snaked along the collar of his uni-jacket. “Then keep your head and eyes on the prize. Focus.”

I am
. “Yes, ma’am,” he whispered.

He leaned down ready to press his lips to her moist, lipsticked mouth. Just one little nibble of her delectable lips was all he requested from the known universe, just one swipe of his lips across the soft canvas of hers.