Page 1 of Vicious
1
The purpleand green curve of the planet Orin smiled at the twinkling stars that filled the window of theVicio’s cockpit. Only three hours until we landed to hire people who resembled me in an attempt to throw the law off my fugitive tail. No small feat, but one made easier by the delicious ache from being ravaged night after night by the beautiful man lying next tome.
Mase’s fingers curled against his palm in a loose fist, and the corners of his mouth tipped up in a relaxed smile. Strands of blond hair I loved to run my fingers through so much fell across one eye, down along the stubble of his strong jaw, and feathered almost to his shoulders. He looked so peaceful in sleep, even with the scars striping his perfection and often marring hismemories.
I sneaked out a hand from my blanket to graze his thumb and scooted a little closer, and for the second time in my life, I realized how impossible it was not to fall in love with something that slept near me. Granted, he didn’t lay nose-to-nose with me like my roommate Moon Dragon’s slothcat Jezebel did, but the effect was still the same. It made him seem vulnerable, more real somehow I supposed, and for whatever reason, that melted every single one of my softspots.
I should probably keep that information to myself though. How do you make Absidy Jones, fugitive ghost magnet, love you? Easy. All you have to do is sleep next toher.
But surely I wasn’t that simple, wasI?
His eyelids fluttered, and as soon as his eyes, one blue and one gray, met mine, my heartstuttered.
“Hi,” hewhispered.
“Hi,” I whispered back, and I was pretty sure my smile stretched to my ears and cracked myeardrums.
He answered it with a beaming one of his own. “How areyou?”
“Sore.”
“Would I be a giant dick if I said I wasn’t sorry?” he asked with asmirk.
I touched my lips to his, instantly breathless with just that slight connection. “Yes.”
His gaze grew heated, and through his smirk, he slid his tongue over his teeth. “I could begentle.”
“You could get me dead,” I said as I pushed away from him. “Randolph will murder me if I’m lateagain.”
Ever since he’d been forced to go off alcohol cold turkey, having totally run out of it about a week ago, Randolph was almost impossible to be in the same room with. He’d already drunk what booze hadn’t been destroyed in the stasis food pantry when the Saelis aliens had boarded theVicio—more accurately called theVicious. I rose from the bed, the slight chill in the air peppering my naked skin with goosebumps, and grabbed my sweatshirt from thefloor.
Mase grazed his fingers over my bare ass with a groan. “Speaking of giantdicks…”
“Put yours away.” I swatted at his hand while I searched the floor for my underwear. “Breakfast first. Then maybe if you’re good, I’ll let you put your hands down my pants before we land on Orin.” I threw him a wink over myshoulder.
“That’s my favorite thing to do to you. That’soneof my favorite things to do to you,” he corrected, propping his head on an elbow to press kisses into my hip. “You won’t make me hold a potatoinstead?”
I threw my head back and laughed. Feozva, it felt good to be free around him, free of my haunted past to embrace my future. But his wandering hands down the backs of my thighs and his sinful mouth on my skin were awakening the fire that only he could ignite. I needed to get away from him, and fast. My underwear had somehow wound itself around the toe of his cowboy boot—symbolism, anyone?—and I hastily pulled itoff.
“There will be no potato holding if you let me walk out that door in a timely fashion,” Iwarned.
“On one condition,” he said, grabbing my wrist before I could reach for my sweatshirt. “No underwear today, in memory ofme.”
“In memory.” I snorted. “Like I need any help being reminded ofyou.”
Sheets rustled, then he stood next to me, his chiseled body gloriously naked. And yes, a mighty erection. He brushed the sexy mess of hair off his forehead and connected his sharp, mismatched gaze with mine. “I don’t need any help being reminded of you either. But last time you were more than a ship-length away from me, I didn’t know if I would ever see you again. This trip to Orin… I’m not looking forward toit.”
I swallowed thickly. I thought I couldn’t love this man more than I already did because of the impossible size of his heart. Stupid me. We’d been through a lot in the short amount of time we’d known each other, including being kidnapped by aliens to a haunted rogue planet called The Black. Our lives were not the regularkind.
“No aliens will be taking me away from you,” I said, pressing myself against him in a tight hug. “Nothingwill ever take me away from you. I love you too much to let that happen. You’ll find an engineer, we’ll find copies of you, me, and Ellison to throw the police off all our trails, and we’ll be back together again in notime.”
Mase squeezed me right back, and I had to wonder how it would feel if I thought I’d lost him forever too. His musky smell, his laugh, the disarming things he’d say to make me laugh, the way he moved inside me—he’d become my new addiction, had seeped so completely into my soul that I spared only a fleeting thought or three to iron. More when he wasn’t by my side. Being without him terrified me as much as being without iron once had. Before now, I hadn’t allowed myself to think about it, but today we would have to split up, if only for a couple of hours. Aneternity.
“I’ll go without underwear if you do too,” I said around the sudden knot of emotion lodged in mythroat.
“Agreed. But only if you stay away from the engine room. It’s notsafe.”
I leaned away to study him. “What?”
