Queen of Dust exclusive
Here’s a sneak peek of QUEEN OF DUST, a riveting, sexy science-fiction romance about a seductress forced to guard her heart against the enemy soldier duty-bound to protect her.
Chapter One
Mara would not clench her fist.
Let the damsel glitter. Even in the low light of the ship’s humming overheads, the woman’s silvered skin sparkled like morning sun on frosted glass. She was painted from head to toe, including the bottoms of her feet—which Mara could see as the damsel knelt in front of Liam, her head bobbing up and down while he watched. His eyes weren’t the only ones on the damsel; the observation deck was filling with passengers the way it always did before dinner.
And that was what threatened to close Mara’s hand, to set her mouth in a hard, tight line.
That he’d done it with an audience.
A dalliance was fine, expected, healthy. But Liam had chosen to broadcast this one to an entire ship full of people who looked up to him, and not just because they had to. Liam Pent, CEO of the Pent Corporation, was as ubiquitous and powerful in the universe as the Dern Empire. But here, on his ship, he was admired. A manifest full of high-class passengers who could afford a Fold, and had chosen this one, to spend the time with the man who’d grown a business to span the universe. And what was he telling them now? That he’d had to outsource his Balti Temptress. That Mara wasn’t what she claimed to be.
Mara flexed her fingers and forced her features to relax. She kept her face pliable, refusing to flatten her pouty lips. Instead she parted them, sipping something bitter and tart out of the heavy-bottomed coup glass she’d carried from her room, aware that eyes had pulled from the spectacle and found her. Aware that people were waiting on her reaction.
The ship’s front viewing deck was part lounge, part boardroom, complete with a throne-like chrome-and-leather chair reserved just for Liam. Typically, Mara’s place was right beside him. And she knew why. Despite the skeptical whispers about their relationship, Mara knew the strength of the threads that tied them together. They both had legacies that set them apart. Legacies that were impossible to escape, that were better to embrace—showing people what they expected to see had its advantages. And then there was their shared, open disdain for the Dern. If there was one part of her Balti heritage she didn’t have to learn, have to work at, it was despising the empire that had cost her a home. That came as naturally as breathing.
Liam’s past was different from hers, but he hated the Dern as she did. A ship like this had been his childhood home. He had no land, and his loyalty to the Dern crown was entirely financial. They’d tried to convert him, of course, but subjugation wasn’t one of Liam’s interests. When the pushiest of his Dern partners was last aboard to discuss the renewal bid for military supplies, Liam had proven his disinterest in Virtue by taking Mara on the glossy boardroom table. Midmeeting. Mara remembered it in a rush, how Liam had bent her forward, water sloshing in the pitcher at the center of the table with each of his thrusts.
Liam Pent was no Dern. Liam Pent did as he pleased, when he pleased. And Mara Leanor was happy to help, happy to show the Dern her equal disregard for their oppressive Virtues. How good it had been: the Dern watching them, shifting uncomfortably in their loose, simple tunics, needing the deal to go through, forced to allow Liam his theatrics. His display of power. Mara remembered best smiling and coming hard.
Now he was putting on a show with someone else.
Sauntering through the room, her feet crossed with each step, the way she’d been taught by Jimma. The only other Balti she’d ever known. Mara hoped no one registered that one faltered step when she’d spotted Liam with the damsel. He must have picked her up on Satsume. But why not leave her there when he’d finished? Mara assumed they’d been docked long enough. It was hard to tell. Time in the Black was weightless, as unbearably useless as up or down. This “morning” seemed ages ago and she had slept the whole “day,” only to awaken to another stomach-churning lurch from the ship’s nuclear reactor. Another nauseating jolt of power thrusting her forward, correcting and maintaining their course in spurts and spasms.
With her face composed, and her grip on the glass as light as she could get away with, Mara kept her struggles to herself. Why had Liam brought the damsel here? Mara looked again at her painted skin—paint that had yet to smudge—meaning Liam had saved her for this display, the same way he waited until they were almost out the door to don a fresh white shirt. He was not generally a patient man, but he cared how things looked. And this was something he wanted Mara to see.
“Fine evening,” she said, the common greeting practiced on her tongue. Though it wasn’t. Not fine nor evening, just more cold, dark Black.
Liam looked up from the damsel and smiled, a guiltless offering that dared Mara to question what he could and could not do, on his ship or anywhere.
“What’s this then?” she continued.
Jazzy notes of a song she’d heard at least a hundred times bounced around them. Even the musicians on board were recycling stale product.
“Just a little entertainment,” Liam said, trailing off with a satisfied grunt. His pale fingers threaded into the damsel’s braided hair, linking them further.
Entertainment. Oh. So Mara had brought this on herself.
“I hate space,” she’d told Liam that morning. “I can’t breathe in this lifeless air anymore—and can’t they do something about the cold? I’d think I were dead if I weren’t so bored.”
“Bored, cold, in need of livening? I can think of a remedy or two,” he’d said and reached into the slit of her silk robe.
Mara had forgotten herself and jerked back from his icy hand.
The recycled air that tasted of laboratory O2 had felt thin before, but Liam’s hard stare seemed to collapse her lungs. Mara reached out a remedial palm for him at the same moment his attention shifted to the communication stone glowing on the table. Normally she resented its constant presence, but the interruption had been a relief.
“We’re landing on Satsume, for supplies,” he’d said, standing up. Mara had stood too, pressing the pad on the wall to open the closet. She had held his shirt for him as he stuffed his arms into the sleeves. “Are you coming?” he’d asked, looking her over as he secured the buttons. She should have loosened the knot of her robe, let the shoulder slip to reveal the tight bud of her nipple, let him think the shivers that started from her bare feet on the cool floor were for him. But she tightened her arms across her front. Maybe if Satsume weren’t full of covered cities, maybe if it were open to the elements, the air and the sky, but she’d only have been locked in another layer of tin.
“I’m tired, I—”
“Suit yourself,” he had said and was already at the door, the metal panels opening like a concertina at his touch. They’d flattened shut and Mara had been alone.
If only there were a button she could push to flatten the layers of anxiety that spiked her moods. Mara had been trying to contain her agitation for weeks and it had only been getting harder. She longed to do what she’d been taught: balance feelings like these with pleasure, let raw need wash out the tension that plagued her. But it was as if she couldn’t focus on desire, she was too overwhelmed by her nerves to feel anything else.
When she complained to Liam, it was easier to claim the Black as the cause—and she did hate it. Hated the windows that showed her nothing, the view always the same. Hated how stifled and restless eight months on the ship made her. Hated the repeated jolts that accompanied every nuclear reaction propelling them forward. It would have been harder to admit that the pressure making her so reactive was an unexpected dread that built as they neared their destination. As she neared her home.
Balti waited for her, growing closer every day.
The planet that had all but dissolved in her memory would be tangible soon. She’d feel the sea wind on her face, taste the salt of the air, hear the rush of vital water from every direction. For eighteen years she’d been drifting so far from it; now she was caught on a tide that had finally turned, bringing her back.
She should have been excited. Wired and ready. Instead her energy flagged as trepidation rose to the surface of her mind. Today she had given in to it, sleeping the entire time they were docked on Satsume. But when she woke, still on the ship, alone in the dark, she knew she had to do something, and soon, before the feeling drowned her completely. She’d showered and poured herself a drink strong enough to burn her throat, tried to heat herself up for Liam’s return, thinking she could make them both forget. Forget the moment that she’d refused the distracting pleasure he offered her. But Liam never forgot a thing.
So Mara watched, along with the rest of the people on deck—employees, partners, and travelers who were posh enough to afford a ticket on one of Pent’s Folding ships, the people who made up Liam’s corporate court. Watched as this done-up damsel slopped her tongue all over Liam’s hard cock.
Mara wasn’t sure if it was comforting or insulting that the damsel’s technique was so very bad. It amused her slightly to see Liam reach for his stone, his attention pulled from the performance in his lap as it never would have had Mara been starring in the role. Of course he often multitasked—but his attention never wavered when she coaxed his cock from his pants. Pleasure was her heritage. She should have drawn on it this morning, to avoid the embarrassment now.
But embarrassment was internal—and she wouldn’t show it. Would never admit this was anything that bothered her. Let Liam make a wet mess of his damsel. Let him stamp his hands on her painted skin. Mara had been taught to accept bad with good—both were fleeting. And it was in her power to create more pleasure than pain. That was the Balti way, and Mara had committed herself to it.
Smiling at a board member she knew, at a stranger, too, Mara let everyone see how unbothered she was. How relaxed, how uninvested. With a magnetic click, she set her glass down on a long side table and made a show of choosing an edible from the bowl next to it. The zyng-root flavor filled her nose even before she’d bit through the gummy square, felt its spicy heat on the back of her tongue. Having another drink would make it look like she needed immediate relief—the edible would prove to them that she had time, that she could take it.
Mara caught a raised eyebrow from across the room—Harper, one of the security personnel Liam insisted on. He prized loyalty and Harper was incorruptible. Her face was round but her eyes were sharp. She was a presence just like the Black, always waiting, always there. Her skin as rich in hue, her reach as penetrating. Liam’s shadow, she saw and heard everything. And if she didn’t buy what Mara was selling, Mara had to elevate her pitch.
The Balti let a better smile pull her mouth open, one cheek at a time. She squinted at Liam like they were conspirators. “Am I next?”
Liam didn’t grin like she’d expected him to. He didn’t react at all for a minute, his mouth moving with the quiet murmurs that told her he was in the middle of composing a message. Some urgent missive about interplanetary ore deliveries or updated trade treaties that opened new markets. Nothing that mattered to Mara very much. There was only one planet in the system she cared about. And she was almost there.
When Liam did focus on her, he closed his fist around the stone and rested it under his chin. His other hand stroked the damsel’s hair, following the ribbon that wove through her braid to the knotted end. Mara mashed her tongue to the roof of her mouth—the only way to express the tension she was feeling without it showing. She’d never risk a furrowed brow, or any line that would illustrate what she was really thinking.
As Liam considered her, his eyes a foamy green, deceptively soft, Mara felt the cold of the ship again, the thinness of the air. She’d told him she was bored. But she hadn’t meant of him. Liam had been her rock since Rozz had died. And there was more than that fueling their attraction, sustaining their connection. What the Dern had done on Balti had impacted both their lives.
But since Liam had taken over his father’s company at sixteen, he hadn’t spent a day without everything around him exactly to his liking. Mara usually reveled in that power: his ability to create the world he wanted for himself. What she would give to do the same. He watched her now and she knew he was trying to figure out what that was.
What would Liam like next?
“She’s all yours,” he said finally.
“I can hardly wait.” Mara didn’t miss a beat, allowing a hint of relief to shine through her eyes. She didn’t mind letting the damsel have a go at her cunt next. A bit of pleasure to balance the negative trend of her day. And it would work for Liam, too, smooth his ruffled feathers. It wouldn’t bother her to let him and any other interested parties watch. She was not bound by abstract Virtue. Liam was ready to get over their tiff. Mara would be getting off easy—
The metal doors surged open and Liam glanced at the new arrival. A grin split his face as he returned his attention to Mara. She stood straighter in response, a wire charged by unexpected current.
“Why should you have to wait?” He beckoned to someone behind her and Mara craned her neck to see who it was. “I’ve got an assignment for you, Captain—Ms. Leanor requires a little warming.”
Nerves fizzled in Mara’s chest. “Liam—”
He interrupted her. “Isn’t that your complaint about space travel, my dove—too dreary, too cold? Too boring? This will be interesting.”
Mara didn’t trust herself to protest again, not until she had control over the rapid-fire pulse of her heart. She’d caught sight of the man Liam had addressed, a grunt, a Dern soldier, this one with a shell of dark hair smoothed over his head. And she knew when he turned her way she’d see black eyes and thick lashes and the resigned face of a man she’d been determined to dismiss.
Chapter Two
The Balti had been eerily pale in the first moment he’d seen her. So pale she glowed, ethereal and unreal. He’d blinked, rubbed his eyes, and blinked again, not trusting his own sight. That had been in the unpredictable light of the tram tunnel, and he had no reason to think her a vision now that he’d caught up to her on the deck. She was real—real and fired up—an invigorating color enlivening her face. Her hair was as striking as before, red-gold and set off against all that phosphorescence. He supposed the contrast was exaggerated by deep space, where there was no sun to bake her skin, only an internal heat that flushed her cheeks in Liam Pent’s presence. Liam Pent, who was unaware of the conversation that had just transpired between them. Liam Pent, whose Balti Temptress had already piqued Calvy’s interest.
The ship’s internal tram had brought her right to him. It should have been empty, what with his stop being on the lowest of decks. The end of the line where he’d found himself, with only one direction open to him. Instead, through the car windows, the Balti had stood. Glittering. Glorious. Shocking him. And that was all before he’d noticed her hand spreading open the folds of her dress, caressing herself just below the trim patch of red curls that glinted at the apex of her thighs.
Virtue be damned.
It wasn’t the first time Calvy had had that thought in recent months. Recent years. The further he got from home, the more he saw of the galaxy, the harder it was to be that boy who’d tried so diligently to find solace in the rules of his people. It had worked for him—for a time—when his family and their advisors had told him to wait. Wait until they’d figured out what they should do with him. It had worked because, at his core, he believed in patience and compliance and dedication—he believed he had a purpose. He could feel it, looming, a little further off. Someone he was meant to be. A promise between him and the unknown. It was only later he realized those qualities could—and did—exist throughout the galaxy, without any connection to Dern Virtue. Without the inflexibility of Dern demands.
The Balti was a perfect example of life outside those rigidities. Her ensemble had made that clear enough. She was traversing the ship in a dress not much different from a robe—the slit skirt and plunging neck gathered together in a narrow swath from above her navel to barely below her pussy. When the tram droned into view, the material, a metallic auburn, flickered in the passing tunnel lights like flame.
The car slowed, the doors hissed open for Calvy to enter, and then shut, without the Balti paying them—or him—any mind. Lost in her own world, she parted her painted pink mouth and scraped her teeth across a full bottom lip.
Calvy coughed. “Fine evening.”
The Balti ignored that too.
He pressed on, undeterred. “I hate to interrupt.”
“Then don’t.” Her voice was lower than he expected, slower too. The words drawn out, lazy and detached, like driftwood.
“Where are you…getting off?”
The Balti opened her eyes, grey and rimmed with kohl. Her hazy gaze slid to the silver panel of buttons. Calvy pressed the furthest one to the right, for the observation deck, and she frowned.
“And for you—”
“That’s fine.” She took a sip from a glass in her free hand.
The Balti swayed as the tram kicked back into motion, and Calvy slotted the pieces into place. She must have forgotten to push the button wherever she had gotten in and the tram had taken her the opposite way, to the back of the ship, where he had joined her.
Slanting against the car wall, her eyes drifted closed again. Calvy stood straight and tall, his shoulders as square as the jaw he’d inherited from his father, forcing his eyes to fix on an innocuous spot above him and not the continuous motion of her hand under her dress. He was tested when the dress shifted open, displaying a lovely, plump breast, exposed to the air, to him. The sound of the tram whirring through the tunnel filled his ears like static as he held, and then those grey eyes opened, narrowing in accusation and then widening with surprise. “You’re not staring.”
“No—” He shook his head against the lie. “Yes, I was. At your hair.”
The thick bob sprang away from her face, settling above her shoulders like pulled sugar, popping against the background of dull metal.
Calvy swallowed. “It’s very vivid.”
“Is it,” she replied without inflection.
“You’re a Balti.”
An explosion from the ship’s propulsion engine caused the tram to lurch from side to side, sloshing the drink over her hand.
“I know what I am.” She sent the drips to the tram floor with two sharp shakes of her wrist and looked him over again, taking in the details of his appearance. He saw the moment she formed her conclusion with a long blink and a sideways glance. Dismissing him as a witless enlisted Dern. Someone who didn’t know how to conduct himself. Calvy could represent the Third better than that.
“Pardon me. I meant—you, yourself, are striking. I studied Balti. And I’ve traveled quite extensively and never met—”
“Yes, well, that’s what a P bomb does.”
Calvy’s throat tightened. The feeling he knew best in the world washed over him. The intimate shame of his presence unrequested, unwanted. “My apologies again,” he choked out before clamping his jaw shut.
But he had the Balti’s attention now, whether he wanted it or not.
“Again? And what are these pardons for? Your rudeness or your part in the destruction of my people?”
“My part?” Calvy balked.
“You’re dressed as a Dern soldier.”
He looked down to check his structured green uniform. A foolish gesture. An unnecessary one, as if he could forget he was wearing it. So stiff and fitted compared to the loose jumpsuit he’d been allowed on Theos.
“Unless it’s a costume,” the Balti continued.
“Is yours?”
It was her turn to glance down and review her outfit. The liquor in her glass tipped, gathering close to the edge as possible without spilling over, as she used two fingers to adjust the thin fabric and recover her breast. “This? A costume? And what part would I be playing?”
“The Balti Temptress. My grandfather’s first wife was a Balti. Not a Temptress, mind.”
“It’s not for everyone.”
“Some are called?”
“Chosen.” She swallowed something back. “To inspire. To set an example of how to live pleasure to pleasure.”
“I’ve heard the stories. In private of course. The kinds of things that would burn a priest’s ears right off.”
“Your priests, perhaps—religion in Dern is awfully restrictive.”
“Everything in Dern is restrictive.” His eyes flickered to the one hand she’d casually retucked under her dress. “You’d be arrested for such a wild display.”
“Must the Dern categorize any simple pleasure as wildness?”
“What would you call it?”
“This?” She set her hand moving again, circular strokes that Calvy imagined held just the right touch of pressure. “This is serenity, this is only taboo if you’re told reward finds you once you commit to being wound with burden. A Balti creates her own reward.”
The thrill of debate quickened Calvy’s response. “Virtue isn’t about pain at all. It’s meant to bring you peace. To help you surrender your agony. To let it go.”
“To let go of control?”
“Yes.”
“So some D’Aldiern king can take it? No. I decline. I more than decline, I’d counter that instead of taking, you all might give us a break. Keep your Virtue to yourself.”
Calvy breathed into his nose and steadied his stance. “It bothers you—that the Dern are devout?”
“Hardly. It is your corrupt politicians forcing that devotion on the rest of us that bothers me.”
A long whistle escaped his lips and he turned to face the doors. If this was a Temptress’s mind slowed by drink, he didn’t want to know what she was capable of sharpened and more alert. “My grandfather used to say there’s nothing like the tongue of a Balti woman.”
This one was voicing, proudly, things he’d only heard whispered, far from Dern, in private spaces. In the back of his own mind.
Her cheek twitched. “No doubt what inspired your scholarly interest.”
“It wasn’t that.”
“Oh?”
“I didn’t believe him.”
“Why not?”
He caught her eyes in the glass, trying to ignore the unwelcome sight of his own untanned skin. “I was skeptical—that anything could be so powerful.”
She held his gaze through the reflection, the two of them a pair of would-be ghosts. Her airy tone was as dismissive as the once-over she’d given him earlier. “You don’t believe in the power of controlling a person’s satisfaction—the power of having them beg you for release?”
“Not if you’re the one on your knees.”
A sound caught in her throat. When she spoke, her disinterest sounded forced and Calvy felt a prick of satisfaction. “I shouldn’t expect a Dern to understand. Haven’t you done away with the carnal in favor of automated reproduction?”
“That seems to be what’s trending in high society, certainly.”
Her gaze settled on the left breast of his jacket. An empty space where the fabric was dotted with tiny holes, a constellation that mapped the shapes of two chevrons. The evidence of embroidered patches recently ripped from their place. He watched more conclusions form in her mind. Watched her see what he was: a demoted officer. Someone who had started at this low rank and recently returned to it. Someone who’d earned position but didn’t have connections strong enough to keep it.
She confirmed her assumption when she jabbed again. “Not yet trending in your circle?”
Calvy held his hands behind his back and widened his stance, at ease. He’d missed this—the back and forth of conversation, the spirit of interaction. A basic amenity his situation on Theos had lacked. He’d been right to get out of there, whatever the cost. It was worth it simply to find himself here. Trading words with this woman, he was starting to feel free again. Free like he hadn’t felt since he’d first enlisted. When his father couldn’t do anything to stop him. He wanted to hold on to that feeling, the memory of possibility waiting just ahead of him. “I’d offer to prove it to you, but you seem to have everything well in hand.”
The Balti laughed, her head falling back to reveal a slender neck he suddenly imagined catching in his palm.
Not that free.
“I’ve never found a Dern amusing before. Never known them to be as clever with their tongues as I am with mine.”
Calvy’s heart thumped, forcing blood that had gone thick and syrupy through his tightening veins.
She watched him through heavy lids. “It’s not my experience that a Dern knows what he’s doing. A pity for your lovers, but at least they don’t have to suffer long.”
“Maybe you can share some knowledge, help the poor people of Dern.” He smiled back at her and she frowned in response, like it displeased her that he was enjoying the exchange.
“Some things can’t be taught. And I’m not available for practice.”
“No, you look like a professional.”
Her hand fisted and her mouth opened, but she snapped it forcefully shut, letting his attempted quip spiral lower in the air between them, an obvious, embarrassing end to their sparring.
“I—” Calvy had begun, but the tram doors had hissed open again and the Balti had breezed down the hall and away from the stop.
The two men at a security desk had let her pass unbothered, but one had stepped in front of Calvy. Frustration had simmered under his skin as they scrutinized his credentials and insisted he check his sidearm. He had wanted to catch her. Wanted to apologize.
It was clear that what he wanted didn’t matter to a Balti. He was only a Dern grunt, after all. She hadn’t even looked back. He was sure she’d spend the rest of the journey avoiding him completely, looking through him like so much space dust. But the security team had let him through, the deck doors had zipped open, and Liam Pent had grinned, forcing her to meet Calvy’s searching gaze again.
Chapter Three
A black-eyed gaze set in a face that missed the sun watched Mara for an answer to Liam’s challenge. Let the grunt warm her? Not if she could help it. She would give the Dern no more amusement. He’d proven in the tram that one couldn’t expect anything from a Dern but insults—their prejudices were as deep as their pockets and the only thing they liked more than repressing themselves was forcing worse suffering on everybody else. She’d told him as much.
“Liam, please, you’re making the poor boy blush.” Mara looked the soldier over again. He was most definitely not a boy—he had a manly build, tall and athletic, albeit slim. His coiffed coal hair added to his impressive height. But he was Dern and that was enough to classify him as inexperienced, craven.
Liam lifted his chin and spun the stone in his hand, ignoring her. “Go on, Captain, that’s an order.”
The music had stopped, the duo hired to play caught up in the new entertainment. Mara took a step forward to approach Liam, but the soldier, already in her path, moved slowly towards her. She froze. The Dern, who had all but called her a damsel minutes ago, dared to act as though this was going to happen.
She looked at Liam, trying to conceal the anger that salted her blood. Though his face was formed in amusement, she could see this was more than diversion to him. It was as serious as a contract negotiation—every line was under scrutiny. He’d walk away with everything as he wanted it or smash the unsigned tablet to pieces.
Mara hadn’t simply bruised his ego this morning, she’d ignited a question in his mind. He was testing her now, seeing how she responded to the challenge—how far she’d go to please him. She’d never needed to say no to him before—she’d never wanted to. She connected with Liam, admired his strength. When she’d faced the rocky unknowable ridge of the future, he’d paved her a path. But the trip was almost over, and he’d noticed her drawing herself in. She understood completely that underneath his bravado was fear: fear that he’d been played for a fool, that she’d only been using him for a free Fold. She had to prove to him that wasn’t the case. If only coupling her with the grunt wasn’t what he wanted.
But she was no Dern, forced by Virtue to conform with regulations stipulated by uptight men in buildings that speared the sky billions of light-years away. So when the soldier reached her, the square unadorned pads of his uniform shoulders blocking Liam temporarily from view, Mara tilted her head up to meet his eyes.
“If you don’t want me to—”
“On your knees, soldier,” she said loud enough for Liam to hear, adding more quietly, “Was this not what you had in mind in the tram?”
“I didn’t require an audience,” the soldier said in a low voice that matched her own.
“Well, you’ve got one.” A flood of unfamiliar sympathy washed through her at his lined forehead. “Look, just tell him you won’t do it. You’re Dern—this goes against everything you believe in, it offends your Virtue, what have you. He’ll understand.” Maybe if she could convince the soldier to back out Liam would relent—
The soldier shook his head. “Purity through patience, clarity through compliance, deliverance through dedication.” He recited the Three Virtues of Dern. The rules they’d made up to extend their control where it did not belong. Virtues that emphasized idleness and obedience in return for the promise of betterment. Virtues that stopped anyone from making waves.
“But if you don’t want me to. Say. Say and I won’t.” He lowered to his knees in front of her, exposing her to Liam’s scrutiny again.
Mara pushed her tongue over her dry lips, drawing the chemical perfume of her lipstick into her mouth. Her breasts, rounded from the cold, rose heavily in her lower periphery as she looked down at the soldier. Despite herself she felt anticipatory heat spread from her stomach. A low throb threatened to push thought out of her mind as her body began to take notice, take over. She’d been taught that shame and dishonesty had no place in pleasure, and she knew not to discount the telling slickness that coated her cunt. That was real. That was her body informing her: she did want the Dern soldier. She liked the way he looked down there, awaiting her command. Not that his inexperienced touch would be all that enjoyable, but she could let him give it his best attempt for a few minutes, to appease Liam. To ease the desire that was rushing in her veins.
She needed the release, the catharsis of pleasure. Craved it like she craved fresh oxygen. Maybe she could wring something from this nobody.
“Thank you for thinking of me,” she said, flicking her gaze back to Liam momentarily. And then, addressing the soldier but loud enough for Liam and the others to hear, “Is this a lesson in patience? You should know I don’t care for practicing Virtue myself. I’m not accustomed to waiting.”
A determined look hardened the soldier’s eyes. Her cunt contracted, and she felt its emptiness gnawing at her. It had to be the power, not the Dern himself, that roused her interest. Or perhaps it was all the buildup, the length of delay that had her in a state of anticipation. Mara placed a hand on the starched stiff jacket as he pushed her dress off her thighs with both hands. It was almost a shame, that the Dern soldier wouldn’t be able to—
Oh. Mara’s head fell back at the first brush of his curious tongue. She spent a long, open-mouthed moment with her neck bent, dark space filling her vision as she looked up to the deck’s triple-paned dome above her. Then she brought her chin down to see him, meeting his black eyes, reading the question dented in between his eyebrows: Okay? Mara nodded, her face flushing, words too complicated to form, and the soldier’s eyes sparkled. He took her cue to increase the pressure of his mouth, then his tongue teased into her and Mara gasped, her head dropping back again, the force causing her to lose balance. She gripped his head for stability, pushing her fingers into his hair, through the waxy crunch of the top layer, into the soft thick bristles at his scalp. The soldier’s hands moved to cup her from behind, holding her to him. As if there were anywhere else she wanted to be than here, right here under his hot mouth, wet to wet with her aching cunt.
Some internal fire burned the bottom of her feet. Her eyes locked on to him. She couldn’t look away. That strong, dark brow had unfurrowed, like he didn’t need to concentrate, like this came naturally to him. Knowing what to do for her.
That annoyed her. She lost the rhythm of pleasure for a moment. How irritating, that he didn’t have to work at it. That he looked so comfortable, so good obscured by her cunt. She pulled on his hair and his chin pushed harder against her in retaliation.
A low note throbbed through her, out of her. There, she had the beat back. The soldier’s tongue dipped into her again, drawing up over her center with a twist. Her body contracted, and she clutched him closer, urging him to do it again. He obliged, and suddenly he was taking her through the flood of release. The soldier kept his mouth hard against the bone of her pelvis as the waves of pleasure washed over her, as she rose, higher and higher. Momentum before a fall.
The force and timing of her orgasm surprised Mara and she tumbled inwards. It hadn’t taken long at all for her to come—when she’d implied the Dern were quick, she’d meant with their own pleasure. Standing on unexpectedly weak legs, she found herself wishing she’d let it go on a little longer. Drawn out the experience. No Dern had made her come like that before.
No one had made her come like that before.
It had to be the exhibition of it, or the work she’d done to prime herself on the tram, any little touch would have made her crack. There had to be something, some other reason—something besides the someone—to explain her reaction to that magic mouth.
It took longer for her to remember herself. To remember Liam. Her audience. His cock was still in the damsel’s mouth, his stone balled tight in his fist, but his full attention was on Mara, and it took her muddled brain time—too much time—to decipher the hard look in his eye.
She blinked, trying to focus. She’d done something wrong, she realized, her heart hammering. While the soldier was on his knees in front of her, she’d kept the pleasure to herself. Liam had been expecting them to share. He’d paired her with the grunt so he could watch. Her breath caught, out of rhythm. Liam had watched as she’d parted her lips for the soldier. Liam had seen that she’d forgotten he was there.
The Dern braced his hands on her hips as he stood, and Mara fixed her breathing in his shadow where Liam couldn’t see it. Then she plastered a smile to her face and leaned around her human shield.
“There, now, we can—”
“No.” Liam’s knuckles stretched around the stone, tight and pale. “His turn.”
Not even the flush of ecstasy could stop Mara’s cheeks from losing their color at Liam’s words.
His eyes softened. “Not that, my dove. But it wouldn’t be fair, would it, for the captain to remain so uncomfortable through dinner.”
Mara took note of the large lump raising the front of the soldier’s pants. She swallowed, relieved that Liam wasn’t suggesting she get on her knees for the stranger, perform a Balti Kiss for him. She wouldn’t. A Balti Temptress was known for her tongue—but she didn’t lavish it on just anyone.
The soldier began to loosen his hands on her waist but Mara planted hers on top of them. They were in this together for the moment, and he wasn’t going anywhere. She took a step back, pulling him with her into the wall. She’d seen the nonnegotiable look on Liam’s face—this wouldn’t be over until he was satisfied. Liam’s satisfaction: that was her objective. It should have been her objective all along.
“I’m not going to—” the soldier started.
“Don’t be stupid, of course you are.”
“Am I?”
His resistance made her pause. There were rules to pleasure—all parties had to be willing, invested. “Do you want to?” she asked genuinely, for the first time addressing the soldier without bite, without sting.
The soldier took his time answering, considering how his options affected his Virtue, no doubt.
“Yes,” he said. And that settled it.
Mara perched herself on the long side table, the surface cold under the thin fabric of her dress. She refused to shiver. Instead she’d pull the warmth from the soldier’s skin and take it for her own. She parted her legs, waiting for him to fill the gap. He stayed at a distance and she fell back on her training, letting her cheeks pull apart one at a time, that smile that told a lover she was scheming, colluding just with them. Creating an intimacy, a secret intrigue. Making him forget the rest of the world—or at least the rest of the observation deck. She looked at his hair, the strands all out of order, forced out of place by her hands. The wax meant to keep it flat now charged it upright. Distracted, she swallowed a laugh at the disorder of it.
He stepped closer and her smile grew—another thing she and Liam had in common. They both liked to have their way.
The soldier unbuttoned his jacket and Mara met his hands at his pants. She tugged his blouse up as he undid the fastening and groped her hands over his hip bones until he guided her to the spot she was looking for. He pressed her thumb against the circular indent under his skin—his health regulator, ensuring her that there’d be no result from their encounter, that he was healthy and he’d handled protection.
“You’re sure about this?” he whispered and she hesitated. Not because she didn’t know her own mind, but because she didn’t understand his. She’d expected to hear apprehension in his voice. The Dern were known to be uncomfortable even during private acts, and this was anything but. Instead he seemed unfazed, as if his concern were for her. Which was impossible. He was a Dern—this situation had him so far out of his comfort zone—see there, his hand was trembling against her thigh.
She pulled him closer, positioning herself over his shoulder, so she could lock eyes with Liam, see his reaction to her getting fucked by this poor grunt who’d stumbled through the door at the exact wrong moment.
The soldier didn’t move. He stalled, waiting for her answer. “Are you?”
“What? Oh. Yes.” She ran her palms up his shoulders. “Liam’s right, it’s your turn.”
Still the soldier held his ground.
What did a man need to hear? Same as a woman.
Up close his hair smelled sweet, like the white curled flakes of dried coco Jimma liked to toast and scatter over thick breakfast cream. Mara sighed into his ear, knowing truth was the secret to seduction. “You made me feel so good.”
Had she been looking, she might have known to brace for the impact of his smooth cock pushing into her. He’d done his job well earlier and her cunt was wet and ready for him, but the shock of its size, the tap of his tip against her back wall stole her breath, a gasp cut in half by surprise. Mara forced her eyes to stay open and narrowed her gaze on Liam, who at last offered her a small smile. He sat forward in his chair, pushing the damsel’s head flush against his pelvis, her jaw opening wide for him. Mara smiled back and matched her hips to his from across the room—finally understanding what he’d wanted: proof that connecting with him was her priority.
Which—of course it was. It had been from the start, since before he’d set up this stunt. Liam didn’t like to talk about it, but Mara had to remember that he’d been affected the same as her—both of them orphaned by the events on Balti. Sometimes he was that boy again, afraid he was alone in the universe. Who knew better than her how that felt? Mara licked her lips for him—they were in this together. Liam grinned and his grip tightened on the damsel’s hair. He was getting close and Mara could feel the proximity of his finish as if it were her own. Because she was enjoying it—the charge of his gaze, putting on the show for him.
But then the soldier slowed, his last thrust falling short, failing to nudge that spot that sent jolts up into her lungs.
“Don’t stop,” she hissed.
His whisper was strained but clear. “I could easily give my dick a tug in my bunk.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can do this alone myself.”
“You’re not alone.” Mara rocked against him to urge him back into motion. Liam was so close.
“You’re not—I lost you somewhere. And I’m not going to—”
Mara let her head rest on the wall as she rolled her eyes to meet his. It was exasperating dealing with men—they made everything so complicated. “I’m right here. I’m with you. Okay?” She nodded at him, drawing one hand up to his cheek and sifting the other into the hair at the base of his neck.
A moment stretched between them as his eyes fixed on hers.
Desire swelled in her as she waited. He was filling her, expanding her, and yet it was his focus that made her breathless, made her want. Finally he began to move again. Mara didn’t dare look away as tension knotted in her cunt. Now she was close—so close to bursting. He tilted his head and for a wild moment she imagined kissing him, sliding her lips against his, still glistening with the taste of her.
They’d been hurtling through space for months, fast enough to rip her body apart were it not for the thick panels of the ship. But the journey thus far had seemed static. Like being trapped in a giant icebox. Now, suddenly, it was as though she could feel the ship’s speed, vibrating the screws in their sockets, the sheer uncontrollable force of it making her dizzy, making her weak. And for once the voyage felt like flying, like she was soaring through endless velvet space, locked into a collision course with the twin orbs of light reflected in the Dern soldier’s black eyes.
The first time he’d made her come had been a surprise. This second time, even as she felt it rising inside of her, the indulgence still registered as unexpected, a force as powerful and hot as the nuclear explosions that rattled the ship, throwing her off balance and forcing her to right herself. This was the pleasure she needed, to push the hard thoughts out of her head, to focus her in the moment. As the soldier thrust into her, Mara clamped down on him, moaning wordless curses. And only when he squeezed his eyes shut and unloaded into her tight cunt did she turn her head to find Liam, to let him see the pleasure shudder through her. She watched him push further into the damsel’s mouth with a groan.
Mara smiled at Liam with the soldier’s damp forehead resting against her neck. She scratched at his scalp absentmindedly and he shivered against her. Liam sat back, gliding his cock from the damsel’s mouth. Then he smiled, he nodded.
Good, Mara thought fuzzily as she untangled her hand from the soldier’s soft hair, it was done.
QUEEN OF DUST releases on January 24, 2023, and is available for preorder now!
Copyright © 2022 by Hanna Donner
