He slowly smiled. “Allie, we’re on an illegal mission that could lead to a charge of desertion. If everything goes right, we’re going to get a runner ship and try to penetrate an enemy border to steal people away from an alien race. I’m pretty sure we are in danger already.”
Allie looked down at the strip of brown skin showing between Shank’s shirt and his pants. She returned to tracing circles on it as she tried to sort her feelings. “It isn’t the same. We chose to come out here.”
“And we didn’t choose to get caught up in an SC plot,” Shank finished.
It was true. TheCandiruhad been a small listening post, a tiny dot in space whose only job had been to watch for the enemy. They’d lived at the edge of human space before the Security Central had shown up with their plots. Now crew were dead and missing, and Allie had an unshakable sense ofwrong wrong wrongthat thrummed through her veins.
“You know how I went on a vision quest?” he asked, his voice gentle.
She nodded.
“I was about three days out when the air scrubbers went off-line.”
Allie frowned. “So you had to put down somewhere?”
“There wasn’t anywhere to put down,” Shank said. “I was on a vision quest in a shuttle without intersystem drive, and my folks had gone to finish a trade run.”
“They left you?” Allie looked at Shank. The bastard had the nerve to look amused, but as far as Allie was concerned, his parents were monsters. Who the hell left a fourteen-year-old floating helplessly in space?
Shank curled his hand around her wrist, and Allie realized she’d splayed her fingers out and was pressing into his stomach. She settled back down on the bed, taking her weight off him. “I needed to know that I could handle myself, that I was a man.”
“Try summer camp.”
“From your stories, your summer camp was far more traumatic than my vision quest. When the atmosphere had become dangerously contaminated, I vented much of it, and then used electrolysis with my remaining water supply to create more oxygen.”
“Holy mother of God. I’m surprised you didn’t blow yourself up.”
“I was motivated,” Shank said with a sly smile. “But I wasn’t afraid.”
“Because you were clearly an idiot.”
He chuckled. “I was in control. If I died, I died doing something to try to save myself. It’s about choosing your own death.”
Allie sighed. He didn’t need to draw the picture any clearer. He wanted to be able to save himself or die trying. Only, when you were a soldier, you didn’t always get the chance. Sometimes they’d been ordered into places where they didn’t have any control. She didn’t like that they’d been ordered into the middle of a fight, and no one had bothered to tell them a fight was even going on. They’d gone out thinking they were bringing spare parts to a damaged and stranded ship, and they’d ended up having to finish the SC mission to save the batface ambassador. None of them had been prepared for that, and none of them knew how to save themselves.
“I don’t handle taking orders well,” Allie admitted.
“I hadn’t noticed,” Shank said with the sort of mock seriousness that made her want to tickle him into submission. Instead she went back to drawing symbols on his bare skin, this time leaving lines of invisible nav code around his navel. She ran out of room for the navigation trajectory for reentry into atmosphere of an M-class planet, and she let her hands slide under the waistband of his pants.
Shank watched her, his eyes half-closed as she opened his zipper. His hard cock pressed against his underwear, but she ignored it as she let her fingertips trail over the skin just above the curled patch of hair between his legs. He sucked in a breath, his chest rising and falling with exaggerated motion, but otherwise he remained still. Emboldened, Allie leaned in to kiss him, and his lips parted.
His hand slipped around her waist as their lips pressed together. Heat, longing, desire, and the tentative wisps of hesitation wound around them even as Shank arched into her touch.
Allie pulled back, her breath coming in little gasps. “God, I’ve missed you.”
“I never went anywhere,” he said, and then he strained upward toward her. Allie used a hand on his shoulder to push him back to the bed right before she straddled him. He yielded quickly, his warm hand resting against her hip as she leaned in so they could kiss aggressively. She nipped at his lower lip and crushed her mouth against his. The whole time, she let her hands wander over Shank’s strong shoulders and then down his arms. When she pulled back again, his lips looked red and swollen against his dark skin.
“Maybe I went somewhere,” Allie admitted as she reached for his shirt buttons. That felt about right. She’d gone so far into her own head she’d lost track of the fact that they were alive and here. She pushed his shirt open, exposing his dark nipples. When she took one in her mouth and sucked, she could feel Shank writhe under her, his body bucking off the bed. She pushed her weight back until she was sitting on his cock, and that forced him back down to the bed.
Allie eased up and looked into Shank’s face. His pupils were wide, and he smiled at her before catching her hand and bringing it up to his lips to kiss the palm. “I’m glad you’re back,yumni.”
“Yumni?”
“Special one,” Shank translated. “Don’t leave again.”
Allie bowed her head until she could rest her forehead against his strong shoulder. “And what if I have to leave?”
“Then I will find you as long as you want to be found.” Shank sounded so sure, and right now, Allie needed that. She’d had enough worry and darkness. She sat up and leaned back until he arched his neck and hissed with need. Only then did she rest her weight on his cock again. While he was distracted, she pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it to the side before slipping out of her tight undershirt.
