Page 29 of Taken to Voraxia
I need to get inside the bathroom before the explosion goes off because I don’t have any idea how powerful this energy source is, but by the vibrations radiating through the copper wire in my hand, my guess isvery.
“One,” I whisper out loud, but before I even get to two, I hear the distant sound of footsteps over my adrenaline. They’re heavy, and they’re coming closer.
I pull the copper wire out of the explosive I’ve jerrybuilt and quickly — but moreover,carefully —push all the pieces against the bed and cover the bomb with bits of the stained sheet.
I perch on the edge of the bed and plant my feet flat on the floor. My shoulders curve inwards but, noticing the position, I roll them back and hope that I appear ferocious, instead of like a hungry, tinkering maniac.
The sound of boots stops and the doors glide open with a whoosh. There he is. Xoran or Raku, depending on what kind of mind he seems to be in.
The wind from the doors ruffles a strand of his hair. It’s escaped the heavy onyx braid that drapes halfway down his back and settles against his jaw and I watch its color vibrate in the light for a moment longer than I should. When I come back to myself, I register his scowl and shiver even though the air clinging to my bare red flesh is still and warm and enveloping.
I inhale sharp and short, and my shoulders curl involuntarily.So much for ferocious…Meanwhile, his nostrils flare at the sound even though his ridges betray no color at all. He just glares at me as my gaze tracks over his washed, braided hair and mottled grey-blue face, down the ridges that drape across his brow bones and the tough hide that covers his chest.
He changed his clothes. He’s wearing one of those loin cloth things again a black belt and what look like heavy black boots. His skin looks oiled. The sight of it makes me heat. I feel flushed. Behind him, his tail flits back and forth like a snake.Asteroid strike me now…
He blinks sideways, like I do, and when he glances down at my body, still bared before him, I struggle not to instinctively cover myself.
“I…” I start at the same time that my stomach grumbles. The sound is so lard and so startling my left foot kicks — straight into my machine.
The sound of pieces clattering against one another grabs both of our attentions — his before mine, because when he lunges for the sheet and rips it back, I’m not fast enough to stop him.
Looking down at the mess I’ve made of his thermal guage, his ridges flare red. Bright red. Terrified — because I’ve seen that color before — I make a move for the exit, but all I’ve drunk is water from the shower and I haven’t eaten anything since the sand bread and fruit leather Kiki and I shared over a solar ago.
My head spins at the sudden motion and I lurch left of the door, not quite catching it before it slides shut. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyways, because hands are on me now, lifting me up.
He shoves my body into the paneled wall. “What was your intention with this device?” He seethes, his cool breath fanning my face, tasting of last night’s kiss, but even stronger.
I feel confused when my chest expands, because inside I’m oddly comfortable being held here like this, feet dangling above the ground, shoulders bunched under my ears, even though he looks and sounds like he wants nothing more than to kill me. My heart beats fast, but my breaths come slow.
I blink and wet my lips with my tongue. “I was just…”
“Planning to kill me? Or yourself?” His hands clench around my upper arms. “Tell me which it was so I can administer the appropriate punishment. To believe that you could kill me — yourRaku —is just as unthinkable as the idea that you could take away that which is mine. We arebound.”
My face twists up and I grab, albeit lamely, for his hands, pulling at them without making any difference. “Kill myself? Are you insane? And why would I kill you? You hold the fate of my people in your hand. I just…are they safe?”
He shakes his head. The pressure of his hands on my skin eases. “You will explain what you mean by this question.”
“I thought you were satisfied. But maybe you aren’t. Maybe you weren’t,” I blurt, “Maybe you just gave the order to have all my people killed and Ishouldhave been making that bomb to blow you up, or me up or your ship! I just…I thought…last night…it was…it didn’t hurt like I thought.”Dark matter, take me.“And you…I…do we still have a deal?”
His black eyes bore. He growls, “Do we still have a deal? I fail to understand what this has to do with the incendiary device you left on my floor.”
“It doesn’t,” I say, hushed, “I just need to know. Were you satisfied? Are my people safe?”
A pause. One, two, three, four, five…I wait. His jaw ticks. His ridges flare a multitude of colors and I don’t know what to make of that at all. But then his gaze locks on my lips and in the instant my chest starts to burn right in its very center, his cedar and smoke scent washes over me, and his mouth crashes down onto mine. Hard.
He buries his tongue between my lips and between them, utters a harsh whisper, “Yes, Rakukanna, your people are safe.”
I moan wildly at the invasion and just like that — with nothing more than a few tawdry words and a touch, less than gentle — my body responds.
He tastes like spices and wine, a little like smoke, as his hard, unyielding lips nip at my own. I get every sense that he’s trying to be gentle, but in seconds my lips are swollen and I’m out of breath.
To slow him down, I reach around his shoulders and thread my fingers through his hair. Finding his braid, I yank down, hard.
His voice catches, “You play a dangerous game, Miari.” Pinning my hips with his own, I circle his waist with my legs. Anchored as I am, it gives him enough mobility to reach for his belt, unhook the clasp and let it fall to the floor with a bang. Anticipation pulls pleasure through me, a shadow of what’s to come.
“Raku,” I gasp as his hips come up against me and I feel the pressure of his stiff malehood at the entrance of my swollen, sore labia. Everything is shaking down there, but I don’t have the words or the desire to stop him.
“Nox.” He grabs my face in one great hand, forcing me to look at him violently, even as his lips gently taste each of mine in turn. “Speak my name. I long to hear it on your tongue.”
