Page 1 of Rescued By the Convicts
Chapter One
MELINA
Melina removed the blood-stained clothing from the auto-clean and realized she hadn’t set the controls properly. She’d been too distracted, here in the bunker and at the med-center, since Zev left three weeks ago. Not knowing what he was doing or who he was working for left her anxious and fearful. Ivan suspected Zev worked for The Company, but quite frankly didn’t practically everyone in this sector of space? The question should be what was he doing for them. Or better yet, when would he finish and return to her?
Lips kissed the back of her neck, taking her mind off of Zev. Two strong hands moved under her shirt, caressing her skin, making her melt into the hard body behind her. Jayce. He liked to take her unaware, though he also had a sixth sense about when she needed company. Like now.
“Why are you up so early?” she asked. Second shift didn’t start for another two hours.
“I need to get laid.”
“Good luck with that,” she said as she reached for the panel to adjust the settings and redo the load. Ivan had gotten into another fight in the mine, and getting hold of new clothing wasn’t easy. Well, it was for Jayce, but there were more important things he needed to procure, such as food and parts for a second microscope she hoped to build so she could work in the bunker when Ivan was too skittish about letting her go above.
Jayce turned her toward him. “What’s wrong?” he asked, all levity gone from his voice. “Are you still thinking about Zev?”
It wasn’t just Zev she worried about. Or Ivan. Reece had left for another long-range hunt, without saying goodbye. But she often worried the most about Jayce. Despite those brilliant green eyes shining with life right now, he’d been sullen lately.
“I miss him,” she confessed. Jayce wasn’t the jealous type. Reece was the only one of her four men who had issues sharing her, even though sharing a woman was not only common, but mandated by law on Baccula, her and Reece’s home planet. She’d never met Reece before arriving on Veenith. He’d been on the prison planet for five years. She was entering her third month of her life sentence.
Melina stroked the third finger on her left hand. The one that bore no ring, unlike her three other fingers on that hand. Reece had ringed her first, placing his ring on her thumb according to Bacculan tradition. Jayce had been the next to ring her, placing a leather band similar to the one from Reece on her second finger. Ivan had skipped over the middle finger when he presented his ring. He’d left the spot for Zev.
Jayce tightened the knot of the threadbare ring on her fourth finger, so it didn’t fall off. “Ivan should have put more thought into a ring. This piece of fabric is frayed and won’t stay on much longer.”
“Then I’ll sew it back together,” she said as she ran a finger over the soft blue fabric. “He honored me with a ring, Jayce, no different than you.”
Jayce traced the leather ring he’d placed on her second finger. “I meant it, you know. All the promises that went with this ring. I want to protect you, make you happy.”
She tilted her head. “Then tell me what’s going on with you. You haven’t been yourself.”
He laughed, though the sound sent a chill through her. This wasn’t the light-hearted side of Jayce, but the derisive one, the one stuck in the past. “You don’t know me well enough yet to say what is or isn’t me.”
He was right to some extent. She’d only been with the men for two months. The first month had been rather rocky, especially with Hawke kidnapping Jayce to get to her. But she knew enough about Jayce to say he was a decent man, one who wanted to do what was right in life, even if he didn’t always have the opportunity.
She ran her fingers down the side of his head, tugging at his thick dark hair. “I’m a good listener.”
“You don’t want to hear it, Melina.”
Melina. He wasn’t using her nickname, which meant he was pulling away. She ran her tongue over the leather ring he’d made for her, trying to draw a smile from him.
“That’s not where I want that pretty tongue,” he said as he unbuckled his pants and pushed them down.
The man’s cock stood hard and ready. Jayce could be too direct and a bit crude at times, but he had a gentle side of him, too, one he feared showing. She’d caught glimpses of it here and there. Jayce had been on Veenith six years compared to her three months and she wondered if that time here had made him more closed off. Ivan spoke of their childhood together and their teen years. The man he described wasn’t the man she’d come to know. Ivan reluctantly admitted Jayce had changed.
She understood how this planet could change people. In three months, she’d seen several stabbings and one murder. And she was the only woman on the planet of violent male prisoners. If another group of men ever got their hands on her. . . She shivered, trying not to think about what would happen. . . what had almost happened already. Hawke had come close, twice.
Jayce’s finger stroked her cheek. “I see fear in your eyes, Melina. I thought we were past that.”
Her eyes darted back to Jayce. “I was thinking of Hawke.”
“We won’t let him touch you.” Jayce drew his pants back up.
She put her hands on his, stopping him. Jayce doubted himself with her too much, and here she’d let her mind wander to Hawke and his unit. Jayce deserved her full attention, especially when they were alone.
Melina captured his lips, teasing him with her tongue until his hands returned to her back, stroking over her scars as if they didn’t exist. She loved how he disregarded them, perhaps because he had his own scars.
She tore her lips from his and slid down his body. As she slowly licked his tip, his hands sifted through her hair.
The taste of him threw her back to that first time she’d taken him in her mouth, while Zev’s head had been between her legs. The men had discovered they worked well together that evening, even though they hadn’t yet learned to trust one another.
