Page 11 of Saving the Space Pirate

“But we can’t just leave them.”

“And you can’t save the whole world.”

I thought about that statement for a moment. “Why not?”

“Because…” He ran his metal fingers through his hair. “Damned if I know.”

“Well,” Joe said. “I’ll leave the two of you to think about it. I’ll be back when I have some news.”

I watched him go. I wanted to talk about saving the world, but a wave of exhaustion washed over me. I swayed and Killian caught me, picked me up and carried me deeper into the cave. He lowered me to the warm, soft sand, and I burrowed in, making a little hole for myself. Kill came down beside me. Wrapping me in his arms, he kissed me, came over me, filled me, and made slow passionate love to me. I was asleep as the orgasm rippled through my body.

It wasn’t so bad. In fact, those days in the cave with Killian were some of the happiest of my life. Like a time-out.

On the practical side, we’d set up a latrine of sorts behind a boulder. We washed downstream so the water upstream would stay clean for drinking and cooking. We were warm, we had food of a sort, drink, and each other. We made love constantly, until we were sore and too tired to move, and then we’d make love again. I never, never, got enough. He could make me want him with just a glint in his eye. We did it lying down, him on top, me on top, side by side, standing, from behind, in the water. I spent probably hours with his cock in my mouth, his tongue in my pussy. I still wouldn’t let him touch my ass, but that was the sum total of my limitations.

We’d finished the bottle of alcohol Joe had given us, but on the third morning we woke to find a bag next to us with more food, another bottle, and a pair of boots that were almost a perfect fit. I was falling in love with Joe. I mentioned this to Killian and he growled.

“Why don’t you like him?” I asked at one point.

Killian was silent for a moment. “He thought he had the right to act like my father, tell me what to do.”

“Well, he was your uncle. There must be something else.”

“He also thought he could tell Kara what to do. It was his fault Kara ended up in the brothel. He said it was the one way out for a woman. Better than the mines. He pushed her into it. She could have stayed under the radar. She was beautiful, but that’s easy to hide in the mines. Joe told her to clean up, get the attention of the guards… I didn’t want her to go, and he told me I was being selfish, holding her back. That being a whore was a better life.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I never spoke to him again after she died.”

So much pain. I wanted to hold him, keep him safe, tell him everything would be all right. But I was in no way sure that was the truth. After a week, we hadn’t heard anything.

“We’ll make sure it never happens to anyone again,” I said.

He smiled. “Ruby Robbins, savior of the universe. Is that how you see yourself?”

I thought about my answer. Who I was, who I wanted to be, and what I wanted to do. “Maybe it isn’t who I am right now, but it’s who I want to be.” I rested my hand on his bare chest. “With you beside me, I feel like I can do anything.”

He shook his head. “You are seriously scary. But I feel the same. I never came back here because I was scared, and I never felt like I could do anything. But maybe together we can change the world.”

I think I was falling in love.

But honestly, as saviors of the universe went, I was pretty crappy. I decided I needed to address a few of my weaker points. So when we weren’t making love, Killian was teaching me to fight.

With mixed results.

The laser pistol still terrified me, but I could manage to hit most things I aimed at, if they were close enough. Hand to hand, my small stature was always going to be a disadvantage. Kill said I had to play to my weaknesses. Pretend to be puny—hey, there was no pretending about it—lull them into a false sense of security, get close, and bash them where it hurt. A direct hit to the throat or the groin could disable a man, and then all I had to do was run as fast as I could.

But I’d discovered with a blade I bordered on brilliant. I could hit a target every time, and Killian had given me his knife as a present.

Sometimes I felt like I could be happy here forever. Other times, I thought I would go crazy without access to ice cream and pizza.

We talked masses. I told him about Earth and he told me about the universe. Not so much about Groth, which I knew he had no happy memories of, but the rest of the universe he had traveled with Zak. They’d flown theHelldiverbeyond the edges of civilization, just to see what was there. They’d fucked and brawled and partied across the occupied planets. Worked when they had to—anything they could take on when they needed the money. Had fun. That could be my life, too. In between the serious stuff of saving the universe. If we ever got out of here.

“But maybe there are more important things than fun,” he said.

“I hope you can have fun again.”

“So do I.” He leered at me and then made a grab for my ass. And we had some fun. Afterward, we fell asleep on the warm sand.

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