Caught in a cocoon of black wool, struggling to break free and soar, Ky's mind thrashed and tore at the threads that bound her to this place of nothing. Her breath echoed in her ears, the thump of her heart beat time in the sides of her neck, and a sharp pain ricocheted back and forth, bouncing off the walls of her skull.
The world was too bright when she lifted the shades of her eyes, blinking against the ambient light that glowed from the molding around the ceiling of the room. Her arms and legs were weighted baggage, and she struggled to bridge the chasm between lethargy and reacquainting her body with the fact that she was still alive.
Scourge had warned her about using her gift too often, but choice doesn't always adhere to the wisdom of warnings and having no choice renders wisdom null and void. The Eidolon had let her live—this time—and she questioned if she was prepared for round two.
Grime and grit grated on her skin as she squirmed under the sheets and she realized she'd been stripped down to her skivvies. 'Surely Beryl hadn't allowed Skavak in the room for that,' she mused, oddly surprised that the idea was mildly entertaining.
"Mistress?" Rook's voice shredded the silence. "Are you well? Shall I call Mistress Beryl?"
"No," Ky croaked from a throat gone dry and brittle as glass. "Give me a few minutes then help me up—nature calls and I need a shower."
Rook was in the process of changing the sheets when she exited the refresher. "How long was I out this time?" she asked.
"Close to thirty hours," the droid replied, shaking the pillows down into their cases and smoothing out the blanket. "The others sat with you for a long time and left only when they knew you were out of danger. Are you sure you don't want me to wake Mistress Beryl?"
"No, thanks, Rook. I think I want to spend some time alone," said Ky, slipping into sleep pants and tank top as the droid left the room.
Wide awake, nerves dancing to an insane rhythm, and an annoying ball of pain at the center of her head—empty stomach or not—she needed a drink and the solitude of the stars.
Glass in hand, Ky dropped into the pilot's chair and let her mind fly free in the swirling mists of hyperspace, pondering on how different her life would be had she never been taken from her homeworld. At twenty-nine, she'd likely be a farmer's wife with kids in tow, baking bread, helping with the harvest and sleeping under a handmade quilt beside a man she adored. Corso would have loved it, and she might have too had she never known anything different.
Her life had taken twists and turns she could never have foreseen in the wildest fantasies of a young girl. Test subject, arena fighter, smuggler, Hero of the Republic, outcast, hunted, and adrenaline junky—never knowing the outcome until she was thigh deep in shit and sinking. As screwed up as it all seemed in retrospect, this is where she fit, and her only regret was loving a man that didn't fit here too.
She drained the glass and hoisted herself to her feet still arguing the options of refill or bed and stopped short when she spied Skavak propped languidly against the doorframe—his arm barring the way.
"For fuck's sake, what do you want?" she asked with an exasperated sigh.
He tilted his head and raised his brows as if she'd just asked the dumbest question in the universe. "I think I've been pretty clear on that subject. We could've died on that planet, and you're an itch I've never been able to scratch."
She shook her head and rolled her eyes as if he'd just provided the dumbest answer. "Did you really just play the 'we could've died' card? That's desperate even for you. And why me? You got a checkbox needing ticked for 'fucked the Voidhound' on your bucket list or something?"
That infuriating cocky grin played at the corner of his mouth. "Nothing quite so banal I assure you although the idea has merit. All those months you chased me, so close sometimes I could feel your hands around my throat. All those nasty tricks you pulled, and yet there was something. I actually missed you when you finally gave up. You're a mystery and a challenge. I haven't been this intrigued by anyone for a long time."
"Women actually fall for this shit?" she huffed. "You want a challenge? Slap some engine grease on your cock and try to grab hold for a handjob."
He sucked his lower lip into his mouth, releasing it with a smack. "Mmm. I do love it when you talk dirty."
Tit for tat like two punch drunk flyboys duking it out in a bar, both too damned stubborn to give in. Stars, she was sick of it all. "Do you have to work at being this much of a dick, or is it a natural talent?"
His expression changed like the tack of a sail in the wind. "Aren't you tired of this constant game of felinx and rodus? Admit it, I'm in your head just as much as you're in mine."
Damn his arrogance!
Her lip curled upward. "I'm not in your head, you just don't like being told no. Now, get out of my way."
His eyes twinkled in the dim light, and a frown creased his brow, but he lowered his arm unbarring the exit. She swept by and like a fool ignored rule number one in the spacer's survival manual; never expose your back. The footstep from behind barely registered before she was hauled backward by her hair, throwing her off balance and into steely arms locking her tightly against his chest and hips. She froze for a moment while her brain processed what had happened. A moment's hesitation where his lips whispered 'I can make you forget' across her ear and his teeth branded the side of her neck.
She shoved with her legs and snapped her head back. His body jerked, and his skull gave a satisfying thud as it hit the doorframe. A pained oomph escaped his lips rippling the hairs on the back of her neck. The glass she'd held thumped to the floor and rolled away as she whirled out of the cage of his arms and pivoted to face him. The trickle of crimson down his chin did little to appease her anger and his words only sparked more fury.
"Foreplay, Captain?" he sputtered. A rumbling chortle resonated in his chest when he brought his blood speckled fingertips away from his swelling lip.
"Don't ever touch me again," she fumed, backing away, regretting she'd only busted his lip, but not nearly as much as she regretted the thrill that had surged from navel to knees when his body pressed against hers.
"Touch is not what I had in mind, but it's a start." His laughter followed her down the passageway.
Ky tilted her head and inspected the mark on her neck in the mirror above the sink. It stood out in reddish-purple relief against the paleness of her skin, her hand trembled as she probed the rising welt with her index finger.
Stark and starved were the eyes that stared back at her and rationalizations stacked like empty cargo crates in her mind. Corso was gone and not coming back, so what did anything matter now? She missed him with a ferocity she didn't understand but couldn't live off his memory forever.
Her old ways beckoned with open arms offering familiarity and comfort, like going home after a wonderful vacation except the baggage would stand forever unpacked by the door. Fucking hell, wasn't it bad enough that she'd given up the love of her life, and now there was Skavak. 'I can make you forget,' he'd said.
Emptiness had hollowed her nights to routine and rote, tears and longing and she needed to ignite. Skavak was an equal fire sparked by flint and steel and unafraid to strike the tinder. Guilt and love had no place in what she was about to do. Physical need drove her and availability was just through that door. She fostered no illusions and was broken enough to go to a man she despised and use his fire to cauterize wounds that refused to close on their own.
"Damn you," she cursed herself but exited her room anyway, slunk down the hall and rapped lightly on the door.
Skavak answered, blotting a cloth against his lip. His brows arched and his eyes narrowed to azure sky peeking through storm clouds. "Well, well—"
Ky raised her hand in the universal sign for silence. "Don't be a smug ass. I'm not here to play who got the better of who or keep score though if it strokes your male ego, please feel free to assume." She exchanged one damnation for another and edged across the threshold. "Can you do it?"
"Do what?" His brows drew together in confusion.
"Make me forget, at least for a little while."
"Oh yeah, sweetheart. That I can do." He reached around her and pressed the button that closed the panel behind.
She stifled the bells chiming inside her head, warning her it was too soon, and gave in to the moment, opening herself to experience it all. It was a betrayal, and she was a fool, but Corso was forever gone, and she clung to the impossible hope of quelling the misery and feeling anything other than being dead inside. Her senses expanded and she became a vessel, reeling at the raw power of human touch.
Skavak smelled of soap and faintly of spice and rum and the gel he used to slick back the hair she grasped in her fists, each strand an ebony thread wrapped around her fingers. The metallic tang of blood mixed with the taste of his tongue where his lip split again when he'd crushed his mouth to hers. Hot air puffed from his nostrils, molecules gusting in tiny blasts on her cheek. Energy left her body as the cool metal absorbed her warmth where he'd pinned her back against the door. He'd forced his thigh between her legs and the friction of the rolling grind of her hips pooled in a twisting loop of heat low in her belly. He flattened her ass against the wall rubbing his growing hardness into her groin.
One hand gripped her upper arm, digging into flesh, the other skimmed her ribs to squeeze her breast, fingers plucking the hardened nipple, the fabric rough and skirting the edge of pain. She whimpered into his mouth. His lips abandoned hers to travel across her jaw, teeth pinched her earlobe and moved south, nibbling on her neck to her collarbone.
She tugged his head back, using his hair as handles, and studied his face, the anticipation of predator and prey reflected in the cerulean facets of his eyes. The back of her knuckles drifted down the tattooed side of his face, soft until she hit the prickly stubble of his jawline. He closed his eyes and leaned into the sensation, a soft purr rumbled in his chest.
"I need to feel your skin on mine," she said, her voice far away, a mere conveyance of her desires.
His eyes snapped open, hard and blue as sapphire, "Turn around."
"You shy?" she teased.
"Hardly," he pivoted her roughly and placed his hand on the small of her back, shoving her against the door. "Stay there."
The tapping of his nails on the buttons, the slithering whisper of his shirt gliding over his arms, the thud of his boots, click of his buckle, and rasp of his pants sliding over his hips and down his legs, all drifted to her ears. Separate entities of sound to savor and catalog and file away.
She jumped when Skavak's thumbs tucked into the waistband of her pants. "Your turn," he said and skimmed the satiny material over her hips and thighs to lie in a loose manacle around her ankles. He lifted each leg, and she stepped free then yelped when his teeth bit into her backside.
"That's gonna leave a mark," he snickered. "Payback for the lip and I've been wanting to do that for days."
Hands traveled up her ribs, taking her shirt with them, tracks of kisses up her spine, arms pushing hers upward, shirt fluttering to the floor, body molding skin to skin, love drops on her thighs, fingers sliding between hers, gripping, pinioning, holding her still.
"Spread your legs," he growled.
"I thought you'd never ask," she said, toe-heeling her feet to the side.
"What the hell do you think I've been doing for the past month?"
"Maybe I didn't get the memo."
"Maybe you weren't catching what I was pitching." He yanked her hips back clearing the way, guiding himself inside. "You catch that?"
"In the pocket." She surrendered to sensation, her entire body a response device feeling every nuance. Each movement, stroke, pressure, broken down into numbers and physics condensed to one heated spot of Skavak's fingers caressing, stroking, bringing her to the point of combustion. Ciphers and integers scattered in the detonation blinked out of existence by the eruption of her body's response.
There was no equation for this, no calculation for the impact of pure physical reaction. Her fingers curled into claws around his, her head rolled back, he thrust into her core, a chorus of broken accompaniment tore from her throat. She was giver and taker, him and her, both at once, the gift filled her, he filled her. Deep muscles tightened along his length, the walls thickened around his cock, he throbbed, she pulsed and rode the flush of blood to her chest and thighs. They stood rigid like petrified trees, locked in mutual release. His teeth buried in the soft tissue between her shoulder and neck, blood trickled down her back followed by the sting of salty sweat. The gift closed like night blooming jasmine in the first rays of dawn, loneliness rolled aside as easily as turning down a bed, and he covered her with his already dissipating heat.
He softened and started to pull out and away. "Don't move, not yet," she said, not wanting to lose the feel of his body molded to hers. He nuzzled into her hair, lightly kissed the marks he'd left on her skin and folded his free arm across her stomach. Neither moved or spoke, words unnecessary and inadequate to the whispers of the flesh. Minutes flowed like honey on Hoth, and the air vents threw a chill into the air.
"Will you stay?" he asked.
"No," she answered. "Sleeping with the enemy takes more nerve than fucking the enemy. I'm not that brave."
"So, I'm still the enemy?"
"For now."
He pulled away leaving her free to turn around and take stock of the man standing before her. Skin paler than Corso's, a bit taller and slighter of build but well defined with muscles of a runner, whipcord strong, wiry and dangerous. Broader shoulders than she'd expected, lean hips, nice ass. His tousled hair gave the impression of a boy, innocently mischievous until you knew how deadly his charm could be. He was built of lies, constructed to last and leave when the wind blew wrong.
She gingerly touched her cheekbone, sore and likely bruised from being pressed against the ungiving metal, a drop of blood dotted her knuckle when she stroked the back of her index finger under her nose.
"I guess I should leave. We'll have treasure to inspect and divvy up, and Beryl will be awake soon," she said, picking up her clothes and opening the door. She glanced over her shoulder before exiting, a smile touching her lips. "Thank you for your service."
"You really are a bitch," he chuckled.
"So I've been told, and then some," she replied with a wink.
The door closed on the shrine of her room, this place where she kept Corso's memory swathed in batting and tucked away. All her energy drained to the soles of her feet and sluiced out in one unchecked gush leaving just enough steam to crawl into bed.
Corso was gone, and Skavak blew through her dreams like grains of sand.