Page 50 of Sunastara & the Venusian
His hands unclenched, his fingers diving into my hair, and with an exquisitely grunted “fuck,” and still as politely as anyone ever had, he thrust into me once, twice, and came entirely undone.
When I looked up again after working him all the way through his orgasm, I almost opened the photo app in my VC so I could snap a pic of him leaning against his door, breathing hard, releasing his hold on my head to cradle my face gently, reverently. Because I never wanted to forget him like this, so beautifully disheveled.
“That was… I’ve never… How did you…?”
Placing a sticky kiss on his hip, I pulled his pants carefully back up and over him and led him to his bed. “I’d say years of practice, but I’m not sure that’s what you want to hear right now.”
With a breathy laugh, he said, “Practice makes perfect, Isuppose,” while collapsing onto the edge of his bed. And then, as if coming to his senses, he looked up at me, his brows pinching together above his wide, concerned eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry if?—”
Leaning down, I kissed him deeply before he could utter another word. “No apologies. I loved every second.” A corner of my mouth ticked up. “Especially that last little bit.”
He took my hand to pull me down beside him. I let him, resting my head on his shoulder. The mirror above his dresser reflected a picture of a dazed but happy man and a contented woman I didn’t quite recognize.
His eyes finding mine in our reflection, he said, “We look good together.”
It was a simple statement, almost benign compared to other professions he’d already made to me. And he wasn’t wrong either; we did look good together. In another life, maybe we would have lived happily ever after. But not this one. In this life, we were Phoebe and Joshua. In this life, we were only having fun. In this life, none of this was real.
20
“You meanto tell me the senator has her own security detail staying on this ship, pretending to be guests?” Rax barked, skipping over the objectively more important details of the briefing Tig and I provided to land on this concern. “And we knew nothing about this until now?”
“Yes. That is exactly what we mean,” I said, holding up my hands. “Don’t murder the messengers.”
Sharing Rax’s outrage, Morgath chimed in with “That she doesn’t trust us to at least know who her SOs are is an insult of the highest order.” Darting his gaze between each member of the crew, he slammed his green fist down on the table. “It is an insult to everyone in this room!”
“I’ll admit it is unusual,” Chan said, his hand running uneasily over his close-cropped hair, betraying his composed tone. “But given her situation surrounding whatever this proposition is, as well as the fact that someone is hacking into our system to monitor her family’s comings and goings, I can understand why she wants to keep her security undercover.”
Tig had informed the crew that while several of theguests had their itineraries accessed by the hacker, the senator’s had been accessed by far the most often.
“Well, I can,” Rax snapped. “She should have warned us before coming aboard, given us time to prepare. Or to decide whether we wanted to let her on the ship at all. Now we’re caught with our pants down.”
My eyes flared, heat flooding my chest, leaping into my throat at the memory of finely muscled thighs dusted with soft hair, sweatpants falling to the floor. When I chanced a glance at Freddie, I found him dutifully studying an imperfection in the table, but his cheeks were flaming. Apparently, we had some work to do on thesecretpart of the whole secret relationship thing.
“So, what do we do?” Tig asked, pulling at the strings of her hoodie. “I could try harder to uncover the source of the breaches, but I might get caught.”
“That seems like a bad idea,” Elanie said. Bionic skin was truly a marvel, because with how often and how deeply Elanie scowled, she should really have at least one wrinkle by now. “I’m not sure how much we want to implicate ourselves in whatever the senator is wrapped up in.”
Chan nodded, Rax and Morgath grunted their agreement, and I began to simmer. “Excuse me,” I said, my annoyance bubbling over into hot indignation. “But if somebody is bypassing our security to obtain protected information on our guests, I believe we have an obligation to do everything within our power to keep those guests safe as long as they are aboard this ship.”
Freddie raised his head. “I agree with Sunny,” he said, nodding in a show of support. “Any threat against any one of our guests is a threat against everyone on the ship. Knowing what we know, what can we do to minimize our risk?”
“I think I can trace the breaches without being detected.”Tig bit her cheek. “But it will take time, lots of time. And I’ll need some backup.”
Whistling a weird, two-note song, Chan said, “Funny you should mention that, Tig. Turns out”—his laughter was forced—“some relief is on the way.”
One by one, we turned our heads to stare at him, and he avoided our questioning glares by picking at one of his hoverchair’s armrests.
“What ‘relief’?” I asked, breaking the charged silence. “Who is coming?” Besides the FFKs, there were no special guests or LunaCorp tech visits on the docket. And Chan wasn’t possibly implying that some deep-space pirate could assist Tig in high-tech espionage. Right?
“Funny story,” he blurted out. “I mean, it’s wild, really. You won’t believe it?—”
“Spit it out, Chandler,” Rax growled between his clenched teeth.
Repositioning himself in his chair, shifting his weight from one hip to the other, Chan said, “Well, while they’re here, LunaCorp wants us to…uh…train the FFKs in?—”
Rax and Morgath surged to their feet, the explosion of green outrage pushing me and everyone else back from the table.
“If the next words out of your mouth have anything to do with giving Kravaxians access to our IT, you can consider our employment aboard this vessel terminated,” Morgath said with a calm fury. Rax—not so calm and far more furious—grasped the edge of the table so tightly, I was worried he might break off a chunk of it and hurl it at somebody. Even considering the news, the twins seemed more highly strung than usual. It had been a while since I’d checked in with them. I should schedule them a day at the spa. Maybe an afternoon in the pleasure pods?—
