“I am very glad you did,” Reuel said. “Forewarned is forearmed. So now we know that we will have competition and that we will have something to guard against. I had not really expected that we would not. It would not be a very good place to colonize if there was not an abundant food supply, which would also require guarding against animal attack since they will almost certainly see us as food, as well.”
Chloe glanced at him in dismay. “You think they’ll think we’re food?”
He studied her for a long moment and abruptly smiled. “You have lived too long on this ship. You did not have to worry about such things before you came here to live with your father?”
Chloe frowned. “Not that I remember.”
“You do not have to worry about it when we reach the planet either,” Kane said abruptly. “I will guard you from harm.”
Jared glared at him. “I will be there. I think that I can protect her from the beasts as well as you could.”
“I will hold you to comfort you while they slay the beasts,” Damon offered teasingly.
Chloe chuckled. “You aren’t going to slay the beast for me, too?”
“There cannot be beasts there that would take more than the efforts of two such fine warriors! And I cannot do that if I am to hold you for comforting!” He considered that for a moment. “Mayhap I could hold you with one arm and slay the beasts with the other?”
Chloe laughed at the image he conjured until she noticed that Jared and Kane were glaring at him. She sobered abruptly, folding her lips, and then cleared her throat. “I feel better already! If any scary beasts come around, I can depend upon my two best buds to slay them!”
Jared stood abruptly, snatched his half eaten tray from the table and stalked off.
Chloe stared at him in dismay, feeling her throat tighten with the sudden urge to cry. She struggled for several moments with the urge to get up and follow him and finally yielded to it when he strode from the mess hall.
“Excuse me,” she said hurriedly, jumping to her feet and rushing after him. Glancing both ways when she’d left the dining hall, she spied him heading toward the aft of the ship. She had no idea where he was headed, but she jogged behind him, trying to catch up. “Jared! Wait!”
He didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow down until she began running. She knew he heard her and she’d begun to wonder if she should simply give up when he finally stopped and turned to look at her. He was furious. She could see that and her heart skipped several beats, but it was Jared! “What did I say?” she asked breathlessly when she finally caught up to him.
“Go away, Chloe,” he growled.
The urge to cry that had hit her before swarmed through her. “But I don’t understand. Why are you so angry with me? Just tell me! I don’t want you to be angry with me. You’re my best ….”
He caught her shoulders abruptly. “Do not say that,” he said through gritted teeth. “I do not want or need to be your buddy. And I do not want or need your pity!”
She stared up at him anxiously, hurt that he didn’t want her friendship when she depended on his so much, distressed that he’d misunderstood her empathy for his pain and suffering as mere pity. Lifting her hands, she gripped two fistfuls of his flight suit when she realized he meant to push her away. He merely released his grip on her shoulders instead of thrusting her away, however. Capturing her face between his palms, he waltzed her against the wall of the corridor behind her, pulling her up to meet him even as he lowered his head. She stared at the savage purposefulness of his expression as he diminished the distance between their faces, and she still had no inkling what he intended until his mouth met hers. A shockwave traveled through her as he covered her lips. Her heart jerked in her chest as if an electric current had shot through it and then total chaos erupted inside of her as a veritable wall of keen sensation enveloped her.
It was sensory overload. From every direction sensation inundated her brain and created meltdown. A chemical rush of euphoria flooded her mind, adding to the state of utter pandemonium. At once, she was aware of every hard square inch of his body pressed tightly against hers—his scent, taste, the heat of his body, the rush of his breath, the firmness of his lips, the texture of his tongue as it sawed restlessly along hers. She tightened her grip on his suit instinctively as her body seemed to dissolve in the heat pounding through her in pulsing waves.
The expectation of fulfilling long dormant desires that had been hovering in her subconscious from the moment she’d decided to go after Damon raced to the forefront of her mind and her body tensed with quivering anticipation. Almost the moment Jared began to grind his cock against her, her body gathered itself to take the leap and it took no more than lifting one leg and curling it around him to redirect the pressure just where she needed it. Rapture blossomed within moments, expanding in a fiery tide from her clit throughout her body and leaching the strength from almost every muscle in her body. When Jared released her abruptly, there weren’t even bones substantial enough to hold her upright. She slid down the wall and settled on the floor in a boneless, glutinous puddle.
* * * *
A consuming, expanding sort of madness had swallowed Jared even before he touched Chloe. He wasn’t certain himself what was driving him until he felt her soft lips beneath his, felt her flesh yield as he pressed himself against her. The instant his brain registered that, however, it finished his descent into bedlam. Pleasure swamped him and the hunger for more rose to the forefront of his mind. Reason had fled, even before he touched her, though, and he couldn’t work his way through the puzzle of how to get more.
Instinct took over. The hot, sweet dampness of the cavern of her mouth around his tongue produced an image in his mind of his cock sawing in and out of the cavern between her legs.Thatwas what he wanted, needed.
He shifted a hand to her buttocks to draw her hips harder against the throbbing ache that seemed to jolt all the way through him almost painfully with each frantic beat of his heart. Blackness closed around him for a handful of seconds as pleasure went through him that was so intense it bordered pain. He groaned into her mouth mindlessly, torn for a split second as to whether he could stand more or if his heart would explode. There was no contest really. He discovered he couldn’t stop, couldn’t force his hand to release its grip, couldn’t keep his own hips still.
He kept grinding his cock against her soft belly, wanting more, kept kissing her until the burning in his lungs finally forced him to wrench his mouth from hers and suck in a lungful of air.
It cleared just enough of the heated fog from his mind for a flood of thoughts, impressions. The clothes were in the way—his, hers. He wanted to be inside of her. Heneededto be inside of her. Rubbing against her wasn’t enough. It was almost as much torture as it was pleasure.
He lifted his head and looked around a little drunkenly and it hit him that they were standing in the corridor and there was no bed. He didn’t even have a fucking clue of where theywerein relation to a gods damned bed!
Kane’s enraged face swam into view as he was staring blankly at the metal walls and floors, trying to figure out how he was going to manage what he wanted. It took him a moment, in point of fact, even for recognition to register let alone the aggression evident in his expression.
“Let her go!” Kane snarled.
Possessive rage instantly swarmed through him. He set Chloe aside and planted his fist in the middle of Kane’s face. Kane rocked back and then forward again. Jared caught a glimpse of a blur flying toward his face, but the drunkenness of lust was still slowing his reflexes. He jerked his head aside too late to avoid the fist completely. Fortunately, Chloe had slid toward the floor when he let go of her. His head connected with the wall instead of her.
