Roran Read online

  “It’s not dried yet; I’ll just wet it down before I take it off,” she said, shuffling toward the bathroom in a kind of a daze.”

  Roran shook his head and swore under his breath. She was unhurt, but it was clear, the attack had not left her unscathed.

  He followed her into the bathroom, needing a shower to wash off the blood before he put on fresh clothes. Already naked, Roran helped Becca take off her tunic then pulled her into the shower with him. He didn’t start the water right away; he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her for a long time.

  Chapter Ten

  “Maker! I was afraid they would take me out and hurt you or take and sell you to slavers,” he murmured next to her ear, rubbing her back. Though he wasn’t ready to say the words, she had already stolen his heart.

  The attack just made him realize how much she meant to him in the short time they’d been together. Roran wanted her from the moment he recognized her as his solmatu.

  Of course, he became fully aroused as soon as he started taking off her gown. His erection pressing against her belly seemed to pull Becca out of the aftershock of his brush with death. She sighed against his chest and looked up at him, her lips parted in an invitation for him to kiss her.

  He murmured the command for a warm mist to swirl around them and did just that. Kissing her tenderly at first, he relished the feel of her soft, pliant lips against his. Roran deepened the kiss, stroking and swirling his tongue around hers.

  Becca raised herself on her toes, rubbing her pebbled nipples against his chest and her mons up the length of his cock. He groaned as he got even harder, moving his hands to her breasts to knead them and tweak her sensitive nipples. She leaned into his hands, making the little sounds of pleasure in her throat he had come to love.

  When she was in his arms, he experienced a kind of joy like none he had ever known before. Each time he thrust his cock into her wet heat as their bodies slammed together, it felt so right.

  Roran lifted her up against the shower wall and slid his cock into her. Becca wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his shoulders. They groaned in delight as they came together and stilled while he continued kissing her deeply. As he teased her tongue with his, her inner walls squeezed his cock, and his balls tightened.

  He basked in her tender caresses everywhere she could reach throughout their passionate kisses. When he was with her like this, everything else faded from his awareness except the feel of her body wrapped around him.

  With her balanced against the wall, he brought up his hands to tease and pinch her nipples.

  Becca moaned against his mouth as waves of pleasure converged at her core. She had never been with anyone who seemed to know just what she needed and wanted. She had never wanted a man the way she wanted Roran. Slowly he pumped in and out of her swiveling his hips to hit her clit as he thrust into her.

  Then he was fucking her hard and fast, holding her buttocks in his big hands slamming into her. Becca cooed and moaned as he took her closer and closer to the summit of ecstasy. He was hers, and she was his, and she reveled in possessing his hard muscular body and the joy of their passion.

  Becca wailed as her orgasm exploded through her body while Roran took just a few more strokes to pour his hot seed into her. Each time he pulsed inside her, her inner walls squeezed him, and she convulsed against him. As long as he stayed hard inside her, he thrust intermittently, grinding his pubic bone against her clit to draw her climax out as long as possible.

  Sex with Roran was mind-blowing, but even the first time, it felt like more than just sex. She felt a special connection with him almost from the beginning. He told her that his ancestors, the ancient Uatu people believed that solmatu was a spiritual connection.

  When Roran finally waned, and they separated, they showered and dressed in comfortable casual clothing. By then, all of his wounds had closed with no need for sutures or surgical adhesive. He was still sore, but the sex had brought him down from the adrenaline surge of the fight and their escape.

  By then, they were ready for a meal, so they went to the galley to eat.

  Becca made them some hot tea that she found among the food stores in one of the cupboards while Roran heated the prepackaged meals.

  “After what happened on Napus, I should take you somewhere you’d be safe while I finish this investigation,” Roran said.

  “Where would that be, Ran?”

  “Farseek, but it would take rotation spans to get you there. That’s where the only people I trust to protect you are.”

  “You protected me just fine.”

  “This time. What if next time I can’t?” The timer on the heating unit beeped, and Roran took the meal trays out and set them on the counter, then went around it to take a seat. “You could end up right back where I found you… After males like those thugs took turns raping you,” he shot back. “Just thinking about it makes me want to kill someone.”

  “And you did.”

  “I’m a trained warrior and black ops covert agent. It’s what I do,” he growled. “We are at war with these beings. They bombed my planet and stole our people. The Sargans built their whole empire on slavery.”

  Becca carried the mugs of tea to the counter and went around to the stools on the other side to sit beside him.

  “Yes, I know, and I understand. Where I’m from, there are always wars somewhere in my world, and violence in the cities. But I’ve never seen it firsthand until today,” she said evenly. “It’s just a little mind-boggling to reconcile that persona with the man who fucks me senseless with such passion tempered with tenderness.”

  “And I’m sorry you had to see all that, but it’s my reality. But you are my solmatu, and I would fight to my last breath to protect you.”

  “I don’t want that. I want you alive and well in my arms.” Becca protested.

  Roran leaned over and put his arm around her shoulders, kissing her cheek and murmuring close to her ear, “I want that, too, me’ara. But I have put you in a dangerous situation because I can’t give up this mission. Haemeg’s murder was an assassination; they killed him to shut him up about something. If I can find out what he knew, then I will find out who had him killed.”

  “I know.” Becca raised her hand to his cheek in an affectionate caress. “Ran, I don’t want you to give that up. You are my only human connection in this part of the galaxy. I want to be with you, not left on a world of strangers while you do this.”

  “I want you with me, too, but I don’t want to get you hurt or killed. You are not trained for any of this.”

  “Then help me learn. Considering the level of technology I’ve seen so far, my limited computer experience is archaic.”

  “Sad, but probably true. Feenix has a complete medical program as well as piloting and navigating a spaceship. We learned basic medic skills in warrior training,” he said.

  “I certainly can learn, but not so much until I can read your language.”

  “Voice commands, me’ara” He smiled at her as he straightened and turned his to get a bit of his food. “Tell your tablet to read it to you.” He added after he had chewed a bite and swallowed.

  “Like the computer on Star Trek,” she said. “We don’t have little tablets like this back on Earth. We don’t have starships either. Star Trek is just a TV show I watched in reruns as a kid.”

  “Was that like our holograms?”

  “Yes, but just flat on a screen. They were starting a new Star Trek movie in the fall after my vacation. Darn, now I’ll never get to see it.”

  “You do remember that was at least thirty star-spans ago,” he reminded. “It didn’t say which star and planet they are using for their time reference.”

  “Yes, I remember, like it was a couple of weeks ago.” Becca sighed. She started eating, as well. Several bites later, she said, “I guess I don’t need to watch that stuff anymore now that I am star trekking.”

  “In a war zone with a spy on a dangerous mission,” Roran mused. “
I just wanted to have some courting time with you, do something fun. I didn’t expect to be risking our lives.”

  “Then teach me what to do and how to fight. I took some karate lessons when I was a kid with my brothers. I only made it to the yellow belt before I was old enough to get a job to earn money for college. The boys got jobs too. Sending three kids to college wasn’t cheap, either.”

  Roran looked at her and slowly smiled. “We are of the same mind. I thought that even as you said it. This karate you mentioned; is that a fighting technique?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what it is.”

  “I could start teaching you some fehiatu a Uatu fighting technique. I have a section set up in the cargo bay for training to keep fit.” Then he grinned. “But the exercise we have been doing is much more pleasurable.”

  Becca giggled. “Sex with you is almost like a full-body workout. You are quite enthusiastic.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Okay, let’s go through these moves slowly,” said Roran.

  In some ways, Becca thought it was almost like learning to dance. Roran started the training process by mimicking attack and defense strategies in slow motion, encouraging her to show him how she would counter with what she remembered of her karate.

  Though she still had much to learn, she remembered more than she thought once they started going through the motions. Roran’s fehiatu incorporated some of the same moves as karate.

  The next day after the attack, they started a routine of exercise and training Becca in fehiatu. Before he found her, this was his routine, but he sparred with a holographic partner. He still did that to demonstrate how to put the moves altogether in a fight, but Becca was not ready for that.

  Roran’s training equipment consisted of weights, a punching bag, a mat, and a knife-throwing target. A couple of rotations after they started training, he brought out a set of throwing knives and began to teach her how to throw them. That also became part of their daily routine.

  Becca enjoyed that practice as though it were a game. She made Roran chuckle when she jumped up and down, clapping her hands; the first time, she threw the knife, and it stuck to the target. By the second session, she was getting the dagger to stick in the target more times than not.

  “I wasn’t sure I could ever hurt anyone, but when I saw that guy cut you, I wanted to hurt him,” she said and threw the next knife.

  “I don’t want you to fight unless there is no alternative. It’s better to run if you can, and we would have if the thugs hadn’t sabotaged our car,” he said. “There was too much opened space, and I didn’t know the area.”

  “That outfit and shoes I was wearing were not made for running.”

  Another rotation, Roran brought out a knife belt with three very sharp throwing knives and a larger combat knife for Becca. “These will be yours. Now that you are hitting the target and they are sticking, I want you to start practicing with these.” He took one out and showed her.

  “That looks sharp.”

  “They are. That’s why I taught you to throw from the handle and not the blade. The knives you learned with were just for sport. These go deep if you hit your target. If you run a finger along the edge, it can cut to the bone with barely any pressure. You can use them for stabbing as well, but they are balanced for throwing.”

  “The other knife is for close combat. Its blade is equally as sharp; we won’t be practicing with it, I have composite replicas for training.”

  “Don’t you have phasers or some kind of guns that we can just shoot them?” Becca asked, looking at the lethal blade in his hand and up at him.

  “I do, but on some of these worlds, we can’t get out of the starports with a sidearm.”

  “But they allow knives?”

  “No. I will have to buy some from a black-market dealer,” he said. He set the belt on the weight bench and picked up two replicas of the combat knife made from a plastic-like material. He gave one to Becca. “Now, show me how you would defend yourself.” He walked out onto the mat and waited for her to join him.

  “If I saw a big guy like you coming after me with a big knife, I would run like hell,” she said as they faced off.

  “There is nowhere to run; you have to fight.” He lunged at her, holding the fake knife out.

  As Roran lunged, Becca slashed across his forearm with the fake knife. But in the next moment, he disarmed her, twisted her arm behind her, holding his fake blade against her throat. “Now what are you going to do?”

  With her one free hand, she pushed his knife-wielding arm, pretended to stomp on his instep, and smashed the back of her head into his throat, trying to twist her arm from his hold. When he didn’t let go, she reached down and grabbed his balls.

  Roran drew the fake knife across her throat. “That’s not going to work.” Then he released her arm and cupped her breast, nibbling her neck.

  “I think it did.” She released her hold on his balls and turned to face him. Leaning into him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and raised up on her toes to lightly kiss his mouth.

  That was all the encouragement he needed to claim her lips in a passionate kiss. Not for the first time, they ended up making love on the mat. They had worked hard the last few hours, and Becca thought it was time for some fun.

  Sometimes, it was hard to concentrate on training when his hard, male body pressed against her. Her concentration would falter as she thought of how delightful it felt when he was on her and inside her, driving her to ecstasy.

  Once she got sidetracked, it wasn’t that difficult for her to distract Roran. Just as often, he might be the instigator.

  They might take a few detours, but they would get back working the next day.

  Roran had no illusions that he could fully train Becca by the time they reached Volugua. As they got closer to landfall, he concentrated on basic defensive techniques to get herself out of danger. He knew she was making progress when he found himself on the mat, looking up at her. She looked almost as surprised as he felt, as she offered him a hand up.

  Since Volugua did not allow anyone who was carrying weapons to leave the starport, Roran packed a box with some contraband tech to trade for weapons. With tech to exchange, he could get knives and possibly a couple of plasma pistols.

  Roran warred within himself whether to take Becca with him on this mission or convince her to stay behind. She trained hard and made good progress, but there were so many ways it could all go wrong. Or, it could be no problem at all.

  He still suspected that Jerdek had set them up on Napus either on purpose or merely mentioning the meeting in the wrong place. There would be no meetings set up at Fujhan, the starport city. Roran planned to find them where they lived and confront them. He would do whatever it took to make them tell him who sent them to kill Haemeg before he killed them.

  He wasn’t sure he wanted Becca to see that, even though she’d already seen him take down three humanoids. On the other hand, he was training her to work with him; he should take her out on the job.

  Roran lay in bed with her the night before they were to land on Volugua mulling over all the things that could go wrong. He was unable to sleep. Even though he had not moved or made a sound, Becca somehow sensed his restlessness and woke.

  “Ran, why aren’t you sleeping?” Becca turned up on her side and stroked his chest.

  “I want you to stay on the ship while I go to Fujhan to find those bastards who killed Haemeg. I know you’ve worked hard, and you’re doing well in the short time we’ve been at it.”

  Her hand stilled on his chest. She didn’t say anything for several breaths. “Then what am I training for? How am I going to watch your back if I am sitting here on the ship going stir crazy worrying that you might not come back?”

  He knew she was upset even though she spoke in calm, quiet tones.

  “What if I were going on this gig alone, and you had to stay behind waiting and wondering if I were coming back? How would you feel?”

  Roran thou
ght about it for a moment. “I couldn’t let you do that alone. That would scare me even more than having you with me,” he admitted, turning on his side toward her and pressing her naked body against his. “But I’m going there to kill them after I find out who sent them.”

  “From what you told me, they have it coming. You are all I’ve got here; I want to make sure you stay alive. I can be your lookout while you do what you have to.”

  “All right,” he said and sighed.

  He kissed her forehead, then her nose, and finally her lips. Then he rolled her on her back so that he was on top with his hard cock resting against her mons.

  As Roran looked down at her in the soft blue glow of the night light overhead, all he could think was how much he wanted her, how much he had come to love her in the rotation spans since he’d found her.

  Chapter Twelve

  Roran could feel she was wet and ready. He could have taken her right then and pounded into her until they both reached orgasm. Only he wanted to take it long and slow, to pleasure her until she asked for him to take her.

  He couldn’t say the words yet, but he could show her how much she meant to him.

  When his lips connected with hers, she opened and welcomed his tongue, caressing it with hers. She ran her hands up and down his back, tilting her hips to rub her clit against his cock.

  It nearly destroyed him to realize nothing had ever felt so good in his life as being in her arms. In her complete surrender, she dominated him. She wrung emotions from him; he had never dared feel before. She gave him everything and took everything from him at the same time.

  He took his mouth from hers and dragged his moist lips along her jawline to her earlobe. He sucked it into his mouth and nipped it gently between his teeth.

  “Ooh…” she moaned and arched her back to press her aching breasts against him. The nipples had puckered into hard peaks.