Cold Victory Read online

  “No. Keep them open.”

  His palm moved slow and sure against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh while he tortured her with slow and wicked kisses, trailing a path down her neck, tasting the hollow of her throat, licking a searing line between suddenly heavy breasts.

  She wanted his mouth on her nipples. His eyes challenged her to beg. Instead Zoya arched her neck and silently offered herself to him. His mouth closed softly on an aching tip of her breast just as his hand finally found the wet heat of her sex.

  She held back a ragged moan as his fingers lightly teased her nether lips, gently sliding over their softness before spreading her labia to circle that swelling knot of concentrated pleasure.

  Control be damned. Her body clutched at him and shuddered, her thighs clamped on his wrist and wouldn't let him go. There… Almost. She ground her hips into his hand, trying to align herself fully onto that teasing, wicked fingertip.

  “Almost,” Stark murmured against her breast and lifted his head to watch her.

  His gaze wouldn't let her close her eyes. “Will you come for me?”

  She couldn't breathe, couldn't think to answer except to lift her hips into his hand, matching his rhythm as he stroked her, steady and maddeningly slow. The edge of need sharpened the sensations, the greed for more tightening and pulsing in her core. Her hand was on his wrist now, trying to control his movement, trying to reach the final thrust over the edge that he withheld from her.

  “Will you come for me, Officer Scott?” Soft, whispered words against her lips, light and bold strokes of his strong hand. He loomed over her, his other palm supporting his weight on the comm station. His body pulsed with heat, so close it nearly seared her, surrounding her, making her helpless, weak. Craving every sensation he could give her.

  She strained against his hand, against his wild gaze and gasped hard as she tried to reach a mindless, shattering climax.

  “Will you come for me?”

  “Please. Yes.” She hissed the words, let her head drop back in a silent scream of ragged sound as his strokes firmed, sending wild, sharp-edged pleasure throughout her blood. More, harder, faster, until the sparks became a shuddering fire, and Zoya shattered into a million points of light.

  She hadn't realized his arms held her against his body until her breath returned to normal. Zoya opened her eyes to find Stark watching her, his eyes wild and blue and burning with desire.

  “Again.” Low, savage words. She was lifted into his arms, carried as if she weighed nothing through his quarters until he laid her onto a bed covered in soft gray sheets.

  “Let me touch you.” She didn't care anymore about control or games or orders. She had to get her hands on him, to feel the burn of his skin against hers, to feel him inside her. With trembling, clumsy fingers, she tore at the snaps of his uniform.

  His undershirt was a short battle of frustration. With a sharp move, Zoya ripped it off his shoulders and finally spread her hands over taut, olive-tinted skin. His heart pounded under her palms as she dug her fingertips into those massive muscles and rubbed her cheek against the crisp dark hair of his chest.

  “You're heart's racing, Commander.”

  His answer was to palm her breast, then capture her nipple between his third and second finger. “Same goes, Officer Scott.”

  Her gaze still locked with that wild blue of his, Zoya ran her hands from his thick chest to his rippling belly, over the line of hair arrowing under the fabric where his cock bulged thick.

  She licked her lips. “I want you naked.” A slow smile. “Sir.”

  His teeth scraped at her ear. “Since you asked nicely…”

  In seconds, he knelt on the bed in front of her, gorgeous and naked, with gleaming skin poured over rock-hard muscles, his massive chest and shoulders rapidly rising and falling with each ragged breath.

  His cock jutted out toward her, smooth velvet over steel. Zoya reached out to wrap her fingers around it and felt his hand restrain hers.

  “My rules. My orders.”

  “No.” She nearly drowned in that heated blue gaze. “Not anymore.”

  He took her mouth in a long, punishing kiss, nearly brutal, as if trying to reclaim his power over her. She reveled in the strength surrounding her, the taste of him, the raw masculine scent.

  Her gaze locked with his. Zoya let him lift her above his lap and position her so that the tip of his arousal pressed hard and sure into the wet heat of her sex.

  “Do you want this?” Brutal jagged words.

  She gripped his wrists and tried to force her weight down onto him. “You know I do.”

  “Then say it.”

  He let her sink onto him, slow and steady, his cock incredibly thick inside her clenching, shuddering core. “I want this. I want you.”

  Those wild eyes darkened as he slid inside her to the hilt, so she knelt over him, afraid to move, afraid to breathe for fear she'd simply die from all that molten, quivering pleasure.

  “Am I hurting you?”

  She only shook her head and tried to move, feeling her muscles clench around him. The fullness of his cock pressed into her inner walls, each movement a subtle caress, each shudder a dark spark of pleasure.

  Control belonged to her. Zoya moved over his body, her lips hovering over his, taking in his gasps, his grunts. Her inner muscles squeezed around him as she rode him, slow and steady.

  “Do you like this?” She watched his eyes as she clenched her thighs around his waist and slammed down hard.

  “Fuck. Yes.”

  And she nearly squealed when a swift blur of motion had her lying on her back, her thighs still wrapped around him, her hips up high, his palms gripping her buttocks, holding her up for a slow, sensual onslaught.

  Pleasure she had thought was sated unfurled to become need as Zoya rose to meet each forward stroke, mourned each slow, torturous withdrawal.

  “Look at me,” he murmured when Zoya closed her eyes.

  She only shook her head.

  “Look at me.”

  His muscles stood out in relief, his shoulders wide, his skin glowing with perspiration. She reveled in the scent of a hard, aroused male pumping inside her, stoking the fire that was both a coiling of need and a relief from it.

  Her pulse pounded thick and hard as Stark watched her face, his jaw clenched, his gaze a mix of tender savagery.

  A deep plunge into her. A slow withdrawal. Another forward motion, impossibly, incredibly full, spreading her, filling her, only to pull back and start again.

  The tremors started low inside her belly, then spun faster out of control. His movement slow and steady, Stark slammed inside her, watching her face, always watching her face. And when she came again, a silent scream bubbling out of her throat, he gripped her hips and hammered into her with short, furious strokes until he froze above her body to grunt in his own climax.

  Zoya couldn't quite breathe with the weight of a warm, satisfied male on her. The wonderful press of skin against skin, thigh against thigh, chest against chest, as if they were one body, as if nothing mattered except for eradicating every small pocket of space between them. For a short moment, she didn't have to think, didn't have to push away dark thoughts. Instead, she ran her hands over his back and marveled at the strength she felt under her palms.

  “Do men pump their muscles full of nanites to look bigger?”

  He shifted a bit so she could breathe. “I prefer pumping other things.”

  She snorted, couldn't help herself. Stark's arms banded around her waist, holding her tight. His scent surrounding her, Zoya inhaled deep to take all of him in, but she couldn't avoid the thought that in a few short hours, he wouldn't have time to ask what the hell she had done.

  “Not yet,” he muttered when she tried to move away.

  At least she didn't need more stabilizers. The ones she'd taken earlier would keep the nanites happy for a few more hours, regardless of how and what she felt. “You know I can't stay here.”

  “Can't? Or won't?�
�

  The soft mood was already broken.

  “Poll is already making accusations…” Her voice drifted off, and she shrugged.

  “Poll is a prick.” He shifted so that all his weight was on the bed, his heavy arm holding her steady. Those steel blue eyes were solemn now. “It hasn't gone away.”

  “I know.” She had to stop herself from touching him. “But hopefully it'll be easier to concentrate.”

  He shifted away from her, and Zoya felt a chill dance on her skin.

  “Hopefully. You'll have to let me know.”

  Naked, he got out of bed and headed to a small partition she assumed was the head. And when he closed the door behind him, she took the opportunity not to have to face him as she sneaked out of his quarters like a thief.

  Chapter Six

  They had less than twenty-four hours to prep Victory for the blockade. The intense repair schedules, reshuffling of personnel, and checks and rechecks of weapons and fuel systems kept Stark from brooding over a certain redhead who'd snuck out of his quarters like a fucking thief.

  “I'd have figured you'd sleep.” Dex walked beside him, plugging something into the virtual display on his wrist unit as always, blinking at the responding data sent into his eyes.

  “I'd have figured the same.” Zoya had left while he was in the head, as if what they had done had been shameful. A part of him could understand her point of view. After having been called Pazlov's Pet, she probably didn't want to be the commander's playmate. Logically it made sense for her to leave, to avoid any speculations. Except he didn't give a fuck about logic. He wanted her in bed or spread out naked over his comm. He wanted to hear that quick catch of her breath just before she came.

  Again he had to force his hormones back.

  At least Dex didn't ask questions. “I'm still not clear about Intelligence's involvement. I didn't think the general would stand for that.”

  Which was another way of saying the general probably shit a brick upon finding another department sticking its nose into Tactical business.

  Stark frowned at the data coming into his ocular, ignoring another complaint from food storage that some supplies were missing or had been rearranged.

  “Tactical figured out that Intelligence pushed through the order for Victory to move. They even offered to send two of their own ships to cover the supply station.” Stark snorted. “They know full well their ships wouldn't hold up in a fight.”

  Noting another ugly crack on a communication bulkhead, Stark shot off a holo to the comm chief while ignoring a small headache brewing between his temples. He'd had it since the conversation with his father at the start of the shift.

  “They offered two of their own?” Dex lifted an eyebrow.

  “The general was thrilled.”

  “I can imagine.” Dex frowned, as if something inside his overtaxed inputs didn't add up. “You do realize we have numerous outbounds to Intelligence.”

  “And?” Stark stepped over a piece of bulkhead waiting for a yellow crew to rewire its guts.

  “And it appears to be a nice, shiny coincidence. Intelligence is suddenly dictating tactics, while you have a pilot officially attached to one of their rank. Who, by the way, stonewalled her physical.”

  That last part had Stark coming to a stop. “Physical? What the fuck for?” Images of her hurt, in pain, bruised, something, flashed into his mind. Maybe that's why she'd left so suddenly. He should've made sure she was all right, he should have—

  Dex simply stared at him with calm and knowing eyes. “She didn't maintain after the last fight.” He shrugged, as if tabling the topic. “Regardless of her official attachments, it's against protocol to flash-secure communications with other department seals.”

  Stark couldn't exactly invoke protocol after fucking her blind.

  “I'm simply noting the coincidence.” Dex slicked a fingertip over the scars that split his eyebrow. “And since neither of us can assess those communications, it may be logical to ask.”

  One didn't argue with logic. And Stark was damned if he'd ignore an officer simply because she'd left his bed without a word.

  A quick glance at the pilot rotation schedule showed her to be at the launch deck with her newly reshuffled squad. Before he headed there, Stark took another glance at the rewired bulkheads and wondered how long plaster could last.

  “Officer Scott.”

  She sat cross-legged under a Sabre, and when she looked at him, Stark thought he saw a number of things in her gaze: apprehension, vulnerability, arousal. Dread.

  He forced a normal timbre to his voice, aware that every ear on the launch deck went to abrupt attention. “You'll stand when approached by a senior officer.”

  Without a word, she rolled onto her feet, her movements graceful, her eyes carefully blank. The heat inside him flared once again, arousal tightening his muscles. At this point, he didn't need to touch that soft and supple skin to get rock hard.

  She wouldn't look him in the eye.

  “You've flash-secured your comms with Central Intelligence.” He didn't phrase that as a question.

  Controlled uneasy stance. “I have.”

  “And you're aware of interdepartmental protocol.”

  A strange half smile. “Yes, sir.”

  He refused to feel heat at those words. Instead Stark stepped closer, if only to show both of them that he could do his job regardless of the need for her. “Then you knowingly broke it.”

  She didn't bother lying. “That's correct.”

  More than likely, Pazlov had been the one insisting on security. Yet Zoya's lack of excuses set Stark's teeth on edge.

  “You want to tell him how you've stolen supplies?” Poll sauntered up behind them. “Maybe the commander would find it interesting.”

  Silence accompanied with an empty, dark gaze.

  Stark went still. “Do you deny these allegations, Officer Scott?” He couldn't comprehend the words even as their meaning sank like shards of ice inside him.

  “Will I find unauthorized supplies inside your Sabre?”

  A soft and final exhale. “Yes. You will. Sir.” She wouldn't meet his eyes. The lush erotic mouth that had explored his skin with greed two days ago was now pressed into a tight and stubborn line.

  A cold, tight feeling inside his gut choked away any remaining tendrils of arousal.

  “Your purpose for them?” He heard his voice drop, didn't care.

  Her face remained a smooth, calm mask. “As I've told you before”—quiet and firm voice—“I've requested a transfer. I'm expecting an approval anytime.”

  “I've seen no comms on transfers.” Something flickered in her eyes. “Until then, you're under my command. You will allow the sub-commander access to your communications with Intelligence.”

  She took a breath and squared her shoulders. “As soon as Admiral Pazlov approves.”

  Every crewman on deck suddenly stopped whatever he or she was doing. Stark felt their gazes on his back. “I am approving it.”

  Those gold eyes didn't flare at the challenge; that smooth, cold mask didn't slip off her face. “I'm afraid I can't comply.”

  Betrayal tasted bitter on his tongue. “Officer Scott, you're confined to the brig.” He was afraid to look at her cold, empty eyes for fear he would simply grab her arms and shake her. “Squad Lead Poll will escort you.” He forced himself to watch that prick Poll take her arm and lead her toward the exit, her posture stiff, her movements calm.

  Stark didn't bother engaging his ocular to see if this exchange affected her. Dex stood silent beside him.

  “I need a favor.” Stark forced himself to face his longtime friend, accepting the silent look of understanding. “I sure as hell won't be requesting secured comms.” He kept his voice low, brisk. “I'm asking you to fuck with protocol. I'm asking you to dig inside the shit you loaded in your head to see if you can filter out her comms with Pazlov.”

  Dex thought about it for a moment, then finally nodded his head. “So you're sa
ying it's a good thing I haven't been sleeping.”

  “Yeah.” At least he could laugh. “That's exactly it.”

  * * *

  She sat in complete darkness because that asshole Poll hadn't left her any light. Zoya didn't know how long she had been stuck in the gravity-heavy brig on the supply level. At first she had paced, but the increased grav easily wore out her muscles, weighing on her until she didn't have a choice but to sit with her back pressed to the wall and simply breathe.

  The cold dread circling inside her stomach had become a giant knot hours ago.

  She had to get off Victory. Maybe she was a gutless coward willing to kill somebody else, but Zoya was prepared to deal with it. Perhaps stealing a Sabre full of supplies wasn't the most thought-out plan. It had seemed like the simplest way to get out of there.

  Pazlov would bitch, but he wouldn't compromise the mission. He'd leave her on whatever battle cruiser she'd end up on, and she, in turn, would kill dozens of faceless people for a chance to end the war.

  The air was warm, as was the hard bulkhead against her back. Poll didn't know or didn't care that she didn't possess an implant to see in the dark, and Zoya sure as hell didn't ask him for it. Someone probably watched her. At this point, she simply didn't give a damn. She hadn't been able to sleep after she'd left Stark's quarters, tormented by the voices in her head. Sacrifice few to save many. Sometimes she wondered if she'd simply gone insane.

  She had agreed to Pazlov's mission with a clear head. She had no love for the damned military, and killing Murks seemed like a better deal than rotting away in a labor colony for convicts, growing food or mining meager resources. Pazlov's promise to set aside supplies specifically for refugees was the final bonus to have sealed the deal.

  She had a chance to end this war, to let children live normal lives again. She wasn't hesitating because of loss of life, a cold, impersonal decision to “sacrifice few” by people far removed from combat. She hesitated because of a single, irritating man. She had no problem killing everybody else.

  A part of her wondered if she had truly died on Primus next to the tiny, emaciated body of her nephew.