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Galen stared at Ryder and struggled with the need to slam him against the bulkhead and choke him for daring to bring Tari out here for some cozy tête-à-tête. Damn if the man didn’t stare at him, mocking him with his eyes.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he thundered.
A blond brow rose a fraction. “I was thinking Taryn would enjoy the fresh air.”
“We’re not out of danger yet, you placed her in jeopardy by bringing her up here.” His hands closed into fists.
Ryder crossed his arms. “And what? I’m not capable of protecting her? Only you are? I’ve been doin’ this longer than you have, Galen.” Without waiting long for an answer he continued, “What’s really bothering you, Galen? The fact she was out in the open or that I gave enough of a damn to get her out of that small ass room she’s been hiding in while you, the one who supposedly knows her didn’t?”
He opened his mouth to respond only to clamp it shut. How could he not have seen her desire to be outside? Hell, her face had been plastered against the window so much she practically screamed her wish. Even in school, she’d been afraid of small places.
Ignoring his shame, he focused back on his friend and teammate. “Stay the fuck away from her.”
“Taryn is a grown woman, a beautiful woman.”
He stalked toward Ryder until they were nose to nose. “She. Is. My. Woman.”
The man he’d fought beside and trusted at his back barely blinked by the threat. “Perhaps you should tell her that instead of me.” That said, Ryder walked back to the blanket and began gathering the items up.
Galen moved off through the narrow hall until he found himself poised in front of Taryn’s room. Hand raised he paused before knocking. If he knocked and she was there, she would ignore him. If he just walked in, she couldn’t keep him out.
Unease shifted through him. He could handle rejection from a lot of people. Most in fact but not her. Never Tari.
Before he could talk himself out of it with one of a hundred reasons why the smart thing to do meant keeping his distance, he opened the door and stepped into the room. A single light illuminated the room with a soft glow. Immediately he spotted her lying on the bed, back to him. He shut the door as quietly as he’d opened it.
“Tari?”
Her entire body stiffened before relaxing and he felt bad for scaring her. Then she slowly sat up so she could look at him since she couldn’t roll on her injured shoulder. Her hair hung plaited and draped forward over her left shoulder.
Delectable.
Innocent.
Vulnerable.
Perfect.
His.
He stared at her, eyes skimming along the remaining bruises on her face before dipping down to where her breasts were hidden behind his shirt.
“We need to talk,” he said stepping closer.
She blinked once and rotated so she could lay back down, only this time facing him. “So talk.”
“What I did...well, I did it because...”
“Does it really matter, Galen? You had your reasons and I don’t really care what they were. But I have been thinking. You seem attracted to me and we both know I am to you, so I wouldn’t be averse to having sex with you until we get to land.”
She frowned slightly a cute furrow appeared between her eyebrows. “Of course, I can’t guarantee they didn’t do anything to me while I slept but they never touched me when I was awake.”
He couldn’t believe his ears. Was Tari offering to have sex with him? Wouldn’t be averse. Crap, could she state it anymore dispassionately?
“Are you offering to sleep with me?” he questioned.
A detached look filled her face. “I’m proposing a mutual relief. Unless I was mistaken earlier when you told me just how much you wanted to be buried deep within me and have my cream soaking your tongue.”
His body trembled with the vividness of her statement. Christ, she was going to kill him. He had uttered those very words earlier but...it was an entirely different matter to hear them from her lips.
His cock had no problems with her suggestion and had stiffened the moment the words hit the air. He had crossed to her side before he realized what he’d done and slammed to a halt.
“Why the change, Tari?”
She blinked once. Slowly. “Does my reason really matter? You’re a man. I’m a woman. I’m offering sex. This is a problem for you?” She sat up watching him with guileless eyes.
No! Yes! Hell, he didn’t know. He wanted this woman so badly it ached. He ached.
But, she proposed this like it was nothing more than a business transaction.
Find a man. Check.
Offer him sex. Check, check.
Leave him at first opportunity. Triple check.
Mission accomplished. Move on to next list item. It just rubbed him the wrong way.
“We’re back to port in two days. What then?”
Barely a flicker of emotion crossed her features. “We go our separate ways, and carry on with our own lives.”
She didn’t want anything long term and for some reason that bothered him. A fact he filed away to mull over later. Refusing to allow her any distance, he prowled to the edge of the bed and sat so his thigh brushed the top of her head.
Before she could move away, he trailed his fingers gently along her hairline, over the outer shell of her ear, and across her jaw line. Then he smoothed his palm along the softness of her hair.
“So you want to fuck for two days then go our separate ways?”
She stiffened. “No need to be so crass.” Her words were drenched in haughty tones.
He almost laughed with the pure absurdity the situation. Tari reprimanding him for saying “fuck” when she had been the one who suggested a two day, no strings rendezvous. Instead, he leaned closer, his voice a low intimate purr.
“You want flowery words? Sorry, I don’t know any.”
Tari maneuvered to an upright position, swung her feet to the floor, and they were thigh to thigh. Shoulder to shoulder. Everything about her called to him and it scared him. Her gaze moved to him, trailed up his stiff profile to linger upon his face. She didn’t say a word just stripped his defenses bare with naught but her eyes. The woman was powerful.
His breathing hitched when she slowly reached for his face. Her touch, light and damning, followed the same path he’d taken on her. Hairline, ear, and jaw.
The air between them taut with tension. He couldn’t look away, had no recourse to erect a wall and keep her from seeking out and finding the young boy he’d been when they met all those years ago. Her brown eyes sought something, something he wasn’t sure he wanted found.
He jerked as if shot when her excruciatingly tender touch trailed over the brand on his neck and yet he could no more move from her seeking digits than he could halt the tides. Galen longed to close his eyes, no wish to see her sympathy or pity at his mark of shame, but he couldn’t.
Captivated, Galen found himself unable to do anything aside from crave more of her touch and sink in her endless gaze. Hunger leeched into the depths of her eyes and overtook all emotion.
“Take your shirt off,” she whispered.
His shaft thickened with want. She lowered her hand and he did as she’d ordered. A sharp breath lifted her chest invitingly and he was inordinately pleased with her response.
“Lose the guns.”
Holding her gaze, he undid them both and put them on the floor. She stood up, blanket slipping to pool on the bed. He groaned, raw need pierced him like a bayonet on a practice dummy. Tari wore his shirt and a pair of socks. Nothing else.
The material stopped mid-thigh. He gulped and dragged his hungry gaze over her smooth legs, endless legs. Not even the bruising could distract his mind from envisioning those limbs around him. Holding him while he plunged between her thighs and gripping him as he knelt before her, feasting, lapping at her core.
He stared up at her. The white strap from her sling cutting a swath through the olive green of his shirt. Her skin marred by the remnants of the abuse she endured while held captive had begun to heal itself.
A groan slipped out when her tongue slid out to dampen her full lips. She didn’t speak, just moved around to his back, one knee on the bed and her other foot on the floor. Light touches caressed the back of his shoulders, along the muscles and up to the hair which hung there. She touched his brand again and he swallowed the urge to bolt.
Her fingers left it only to be replaced by the feather soft touch of her lips. One kiss. Two. Three. And a fourth. Her right hand gripped his shoulder and smoothed along the skin while she just held her mouth over the mark.
Tari nuzzled her way up to the sensitive skin behind his ear. Her breasts pressed into his back as she allowed him to hold up more and more of her weight. Her tongue flicked the outer shell of his ear and he shuddered, his hands tight fists.
“Tari,” he ground out in warning.
“Two days, Bane,” she murmured, warm breath skimming his ear.
That name snapped him almost out of the trance her touch had lulled him in. But, devilish vixen she was, Tari hadn’t finished. Hell, she’d not even begun.
“That’s what I’m offering. No strings, no consequences. No past. You and me. Bane and Tari. Talk if you want to talk. Or we can spend it all in bed.” Her head moved to his other ear. “You saved me, more than you can possibly know.”
Relaxing his hands, he stared at the hatch. “Are you doing this out of thanks?”
“I’m doing this because I want you and you want me.”
And he did want her.
He readjusted so he could see more of her, her breasts pushed against the thin shirt she wore, her nipples blatantly tight behind the material. His mouth watered at the thought of closing his lips around them and teasing the tips with his tongue and teeth. He gripped her around the waist, lifted so she straddled his waist, placing them core to core. His fingers dug into the flesh of her ass, feeling the lines of her panties beneath his hungry touch.
Ripping his gaze up from where it had focused in on her tempting breasts to her guileless eyes he almost drowned in the stark craving lingering there. She didn’t back down from his stare. Tari shifted on his lap rubbing herself against him before she took her right hand and brushed some hair back from his face, then trailed her index finger down his neck, over his pecs and continued to his abdomen only to stop at the waistband of his cargos.
His cock, so rigid in his pants he knew it wouldn’t take much for his to explode. He trembled, everywhere she had touched him, his skin felt taut, almost painful. Christ! He’d never wanted anyone so bad in his entire life. And yet, he forced himself to remain immobile. Despite her words, Tari was still injured and he had no wish to aggravate the healing wounds.
“Since you seem unsure about this, Bane,” she whispered. “Think about it while we sleep.” Tari dropped her gaze to his lips and back to his eyes. Before he knew what hit him, she kissed him.
A whisper of a kiss, lips barely touched, but it splintered through him, showering him with a myriad of emotions. Innocence. Trust. From the heart. Loving.
The contact between their lips ended before he seemed to register it had begun. Her eyes, while still hungry, teemed with exhaustion.
“You want me to sleep in here?”
“Do you have somewhere else to be?”
Did he? Honestly all he could focus on was Tari. Galen moved his hands up to her face and used his thumbs to trace the lines he knew he’d never forget. One eye still a purplish mass but much better than before. “No, there is nowhere else I have to be.”
Soon, they were sharing the single bed, her lovely body covering his, the lone light off, and the scent of her skin permeating his nose. Her head buried beneath his chin, he clasped his arms loosely around her middle, anchoring them together.
As he lay there listening to her deep even breaths, he knew there was nothing to think about. While he didn’t like her having been the one to treat it like a business proposition, he figured he had two days to change her mind. For the first time in many years, holding this slumbering woman in his arms as she trusted him to keep her safe, Galen realized he was no longer tense. He had no rush to get to the next high missions brought him. No need to hurry home and drink until he couldn’t remember his own name. No panicking urge to keep his past a secret from everyone.
Tari had always been special to him when they were the young outcasts but these telling aspects showed him one blatant truth. What he felt, right here, right now, simply put...contentment.
And he could never let her go.
