Sail

Dread gathered at the base of my spine every time I thought about what just happened. What had happened? Why had those creatures been hanged in the Vicious room? What were they? And most importantly, how long could I stay alive after all my iron ran out? Long enough to find Ellison?

My mind couldn’t process any of the steady stream of questions, so I allowed it to finally give up so I could concentrate on what was expected to be on the lunch gurney in one hour.

Mase stood from the gurney, still chewing his last bite of stewed pum meat and vegetables over a bed of rice.

“Leaving already?” Captain Glenn asked.

“I have piloty things to do,” he said with a private grin aimed down at his plate.

A smile fluttered across my mouth at our inside joke, but it didn’t stick.

“Did he just say piloty?” Nesbit asked.

The captain’s eyebrows knit together with his frown. “I think so, yes. Remember we’re sweeping this floor again for Randolph at two o’clock.”

Mase saluted then strutted out.

Captain Glenn wiped his mouth and stood too. “I better see to our cargo. And Nesbit, see what you can do about fortifying our shields. We’ll have to skim through a portion of the mother of all nebulas so we can avoid The Black.”

“I’ll be on it like a dog in heat just as soon as I. Eat. One. More. Bite.” His fork flew to his mouth, most of the food dropping to the floor instead of making it to that gaping hole in his face. He stood with his hands above his head, somehow victorious. “Done.”

When he left, I turned to the captain. “The Black?”

“The black rogue planet in Earth’s debris. Its nickname is The Black,” he said with a nod, then stood. “Ships disappear if they get too close. Have you ever heard of the Bermuda Triangle?”

I nodded.

“It’s similar to that, but instead of an area of ocean, it’s the whole planet that can swallow you up. Some say it’s colored black because of the ice, but others say it’s haunted by the billions of people who lost their lives on Earth.”

“Ad astra per aspra,” I said automatically. To the stars through difficulties.

He echoed it back in a solemn murmur. “I’ve heard enough stories about it to steer clear, but it sounds like it makes our experiences on this ship seem like child’s play.”

Enough said.

He paused at the door, his shoulders drooped like he had the weight of a world on them. In a way, he did. “I haven’t stopped searching for your father, James, and neither has the rest of the crew. We’ll find him.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You haven’t said anything about the ghosts bothering you,” he said, turning to catch my eye. “Are they? It does seem like things have calmed down a little. Sometimes.”

I fidgeted with the corner of my napkin because I didn’t know what else to do. I sure couldn’t explain myself, so I settled on a simple shake of my head.

“You said your goddess had something to do with helping with the ghosts. Offer up a prayer of thanks for me, if you would.” He gave a small smile and left.

I looked down at my plate and sighed. Even if Feozva was helping, she wouldn’t be able to pack my pockets with more iron if there wasn’t any. When I ran out, that was it. Iron was so much a part of me, that doing without would mean stripping myself of my constant armor. It terrified me.

I stacked some plates and stood, but stopped short when a messy blond head popped through the door.

“Good, they’re gone,” he said with a quirk of his mouth that somehow stirred heat through my belly.

I raised a wary eyebrow. “Why is that good?”

“Because.” He sauntered toward me. “I wanted to tell you we’ll be going right by your sister’s ship tomorrow.”

My heartbeat stuttered. “Tomorrow? Really?”

“I used the coordinates you gave me and just barely altered our course, but I’ve already told the captain it’s to avoid the nebula and The Black. We’ll be there tomorrow morning, and I’ll do a scan of her ship when we get close enough.”

Tomorrow I might be able to finally see my sister, or at least get some sense of what happened to her. A scan would tell if she was on it or...not. If she wasn’t there, then I didn’t know what I would do, but at least I would know for sure. The thought filled me with a sense of hope that lifted my mouth into a smile.

“Thank you,” I said, though that didn’t even begin to express what I felt toward him at that moment. He wouldn’t be altering the route if he didn’t care, and the fact that he did swelled my heart big enough for him to build a home there.

He held my gaze for a long moment, those mysterious eyes seeming to memorize mine. “You’re welcome.”

I looked away first, my cheeks thoroughly heated at that probing stare. “What if her ship is empty?”

“What if it’s not?” he asked, his voice soft.

“Then I’ll order her to land where we land just so I can punch her in the face. And then I’ll hug the life out of her.” My throat ached, and my eyes burned with a matching intensity.

Feozva, I missed her. If she was in deep space, sailing or whatever, then we had a serious list of things to discuss, like how she could do that to Pop and me. If it really meant she’d turned her back on the human race. Giving, loving Ellison would never do that, which made the alternative much, much worse. Still, I had to know either way.

“Speaking of punching someone in the face… We need to talk about what happened the other day,” Mase said, and the tone in his voice sounded like I didn’t have a choice in the matter.

“You’re going to have to narrow it down for me.”

“What happened between us.” He nodded toward the kitchen. “In there.”

I smashed more plates into a stack and leveled him with a glare. “You rejected me. What else is there to know?”

I moved through to the kitchen, not surprised when he followed me. There was much to discuss, but I didn’t know if I wanted to hear any of his excuses about why he didn’t want to have sex with me that wouldn’t embarrass and sting me anymore. He’d hurt me, but for whatever reason, I still wanted him. I’d be a fool to deny that, but I’d never admit it aloud for fear it would make me seem weak. I hated weak, and a huge part of me hated him for having enough power over me to make me feel that way. Yet, I still wanted him. The stupid. It burned.

“I didn’t tell you the whole story that day,” he said.

The dishes dropped in the sink with a loud clank. “Oh?”

“People thought I was a bad ass when I was younger. I had no direction, but I had looks and charm and—”

“A massive ego?” I shot over my shoulder.

“Well, yeah. People drifted toward me because they thought I knew what I was doing. Including the girls.”

Screwing my face up in disgust, I turned the water on full blast.

A hand touched the small of my back, stiffening it to steel, and another skimmed past my side to shut the water off. “Listen. Please.” His whisper brushed warmth past my ear, shooting an electrical tremble down my neck and across my shoulders.

I let him turn me around to face him, but I refused to meet his gaze.

“That morning when the attack happened, I wasn’t alone in my bed. A girl came through my window and slipped under the covers with me.”

My mouth popped open. “Did you know this girl?”

“Well, yeah. She lived down the street from me.”

“Did you keep your window open in case that would happen?”

A pause, then, “Yeah.”

“That’s just…” I said, shaking my head. I didn’t know what that was, but I knew I didn’t want to hear this. Any of it. “I have enough on my mind right now, Mase.”

“She begged me for it,” he said like he hadn’t heard me, “and even though I could hear the rest of my family in the kitchen making breakfast, even though my dad was calling for me, I did. If I hadn’t…if I hadn’t, I could have maybe saved my family or I could…be with them.” His voice strained at the memory. “Right now, I could be with them.”

I closed my eyes at the obvious pain in his. “What happened to her?”

“She made it out the window with me and then…I don’t know. It was chaos, and I… All I could do was run. That one simple mistake changed my life forever.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. I could hear the guilt in his voice thick as honey. He felt responsible for his family’s death like he’d dropped the bomb on them himself. “Mase,” I said, reaching out to touch his chest, “you were just a kid. How could you have known what was going to happen?”

“I stole one of the Byrian’s ships even though I’d never learned to fly and somehow made it to Mayvel even though I was half-blinded.” He pierced me with his blue eye and the one colored like iron bordered by scars down his forehead and cheek. “I’m still half-blind.”

I searched his gaze for the truth in his words. “You are?”

“I can still see the ship’s controls. I can still see the stars.” His jaw pulsed as he leaned his forehead into mine. “I can still see you. But, yes. I can’t see out that eye.”

“Oh,” I breathed.

“When I was in here with you, it was like I was reliving that part of my life. The girl, the captain calling for me… I swore a long time ago I wouldn’t make another mistake that would put people I care about in danger.” He grasped my fingers, dwarfing them with his own, so that I could feel his heartbeat slam into my palm. “Including you, Absidy. I couldn’t put you in danger like that. If the captain or Nesbit had walked in on us or heard us from the very next room, they would’ve figured you out just as quickly as I did. I couldn’t do that to you.” His head bent to glide his lips over mine. “Even though I really, really wanted to.”

Heat surged through my body at the touch of his mouth. His heartbeat sped under my tightened fist, and I pulled him even closer.

“The captain and Nesbit aren’t around,” I said between kisses. “Do you still want to?”

He slid his hands down the back of my pants, cupping my ass, and flicked his tongue to take my iron into his mouth. I took that as a yes.

“Nesbit’s knuckle-deep in engine oil, and the captain is in the middle of feeding time with our cargo,” he said, breathless, as he pushed me to the small table. “I checked.”

“Evil,” I said with a laugh, and fisted the rest of his shirt to peel it off of him. A carved chest made out of steel and scarred but beautiful flesh nudged me into the edge of the table, scooting it closer to the door in a long squeak. The spatula’s handle jumped across my knuckles as the table bounced, so I wedged it through the double doors. Just in case.

“That gives us forty-five minutes.” With a sweep of a hand, Mase knocked everything else to the floor. Perfectly muscled arms made quick work of my pants and sweatshirt. Once I stood almost naked in front of him, a low groan parted his lips, and a passion sparked so intense in his eyes, my whole body flushed.

“We need to get rid of that tape around you,” he said, his voice a growl, and he looked around the kitchen.

I pointed to a drawer. “Knife.”

He pulled one out and gingerly sawed through all the tape until my breasts sprang free.

The way he looked at my body coiled desire between my legs. An ache for him to take me laid me back on the table and arched my back up to him. I craved this distraction almost as much as I craved iron.

“Hurry, Mase.”

His gaze drank in my entire body, and he shot a hand to the button above the swell in his pants. “You are so goddamn beautiful, Absidy. You’re perfect.”

I reached my hands above my head, waiting. Each rake of his gaze over my body, every involuntary rock of my hips stormed slick desire to my center.

He tore off his jeans and boxers, darting his tongue out to wet his lips. His enormous…wow…was fully erect and ready to drill me into the table. He nudged my dangling legs apart with his hips and bent over me to lick and tease my breasts. His teeth nipped at my nipple while his fingers pulled the other into a peaked bud. His length rubbed against my core, and something unintelligible came out of my mouth as a moan.

He dropped a trail of kisses down my belly, lightly scraping the tip of a screw gripped between his teeth as he went. My toes curled at the shockingly sensual feel of metal on my skin. He slid his hands down the inside of my thighs to spread them wider, and then his head disappeared between my legs.

The first flick of his tongue lifted most of me off the table. I cried out, scrambling for something to hold onto to keep me grounded on this plane of existence. My fingers eventually found the back of his head and tangled there to urge him on. What his mouth was doing—it numbed all thought and left only that delicious sensation pushing me higher and higher.

His tongue didn’t relent, even as I bucked against the table. He tried to hold my hips steady, but that only made me grind into him harder. My body came alive under his touch, and I couldn’t control it. The nerves between my legs pulsed with every taste his tongue gave, pulling harder, until something inside me snapped. I screamed his name while I sailed through the stars, every glimmer shuddering waves through my body.

Aftershocks rippled from head to toe as Mase raised his head, a wicked grin on his mouth. “Did you say something?”

“Uhhhnn,” I breathed, and that was all I was capable of saying.

“You taste just like dessert,” he said, and taking his sweet, sweet time, he dropped kisses up my stomach, across my breasts, and over my jaw to my cheeks. He propped his arms up on either side of my head and leaned back to study me, his probing gaze searching my face. “Why are you crying?”

I didn’t mean to, but the gentle way he asked only made the tears roll faster. There wasn’t an ounce of judgment on his face, just concern written in the wrinkled V between his eyes.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

I could only shake my head due to his brain-scrambling performance. He’d done the exact opposite of hurting me, had carried me into an altered reality where there was just him and me and nothing else. No ghosts. No worries. It was a place I hadn’t known existed. I wanted very much to go back there. The shock of its discovery smoothed some of the cracks in my existence that living in fear had created. It was overwhelming.

I worked a hand up over his bare chest to cup his stubbled cheek and said, “You’re freeing me.”

He sank his head into my neck, chuckling, and the sound tickled across my skin. “For some reason, that makes me want to pound my chest and kiss you.”

“Kiss me. Definitely.”

He did and it was warm and soft and…reserved. My tears must’ve been holding him back, which was incredibly sweet, but not what I wanted at all. I lifted my hips against his erection while deepening the kiss, every slide of his flesh against mine pushing my body into a fevered state.

It didn’t seem to take long for Mase to forget all about my tears with my coaxing. He worked my nipples with an eager tongue and the iron he’d stolen from my mouth he now gripped between his teeth. His hand massaged between my legs. The volume of my panting grew to kind of an embarrassing level, but he didn’t seem to notice at all. Or if he did, he was too busy exploring my entire body with his mouth and hands to care. Between licks and bites, he’d throw me one of his unforgettable naughty grins that fired me up even more.

When he dipped a finger inside me, I threw back my head with a gasp and crushed his hand between the press of my thighs, as if that could keep him locked inside me forever.

But I hadn’t forgotten about him. “It’s your turn.” Before he could say anything, I removed the iron from his mouth with a kiss then dropped to my knees in front of him. He’d already given me relief by helping me see what I’d been missing, and not just the orgasm either. Though yes, there was that too. Definitely that. But there was such a thing as being free—in every sense of the word—and Mase had introduced me to it, if only for a little bit.

I wanted to feel it again but on my terms so I could be the one in control. Fear had ruled all my life; maybe it was time I took that power back. I braced my hands under Mase’s thermal shirt to feel the iron sculpture of his abs and took him into my mouth.

He filled the room with a loud sigh as he dropped his head back. He tasted salty and sweet, his erection both stiff and silky. I didn’t know if I was doing this right, but I thought I had the basic idea since I’d lived with Moon. Mase didn’t seem to mind my lack of skill, which urged me on.

His hands went to the back of my head where they weaved between the short strands of my hair. He thrust his hips, matching my rhythm and driving in deeper. The iron on my tongue rolled over his length, but he gave no indication that I was hurting him.

“Such a…sinful mouth,” he breathed.

He slowed his pumping. His breaths became ragged, then with a loud gasp, he came hard and fast. Warmth rushed over my tongue, and I swallowed every last drop.

I stood, licking my lips, while aftershocks trembled through his body. Seeing him in such a vulnerable state made me feel powerful, more so than I’d ever felt. It made me wonder what else I could do, and not just sexually either. Maybe I could find some way to live in the fearless and free world Mase had shown me.

But if I wanted freedom, true freedom, I’d have to scrap my armor and the sense of security it gave me. For good.