27. Chapter One
Chapter One
P resent Day
Somewhere in Space Aboard the Space Vessel the Fool’s Errand
Stryker
Look at her. Gods, she’s beautiful. Sometimes, when she lets me sleep in her cabin, I force myself to stay awake after sex. When she’s fast asleep, I turn on the light in the refresher so it casts a glow into the room and I just watch her.
I love to look at her. She won’t let me tell her she’s beautiful. It’s one of the many rules Maddie laid down early in the relationship. I don’t even know if I can call what we have a relationship. I’m not sure what this is. Other than I love her.
I keep the lights off during sex. Another of her rules. I know she can’t stand to see my face. Who would? It’s badly scarred from injuries when I fought as a gladiator. They threw me in with that feline beast from Abachae without even a six-inch merryck to protect myself, much less a sword to attack him with. I was badly mauled. I wouldn’t look at my face either if I didn’t have to. I understand.
My cock is hard already, even though we had sex less than an hoara ago. Shit. That’s another of her rules. I called it making love once and that made her very unhappy. She didn’t have to tell me not to say it again. The way the corners of her mouth turned down and her pretty brown eyes filled with tears was enough to make an impact even on my thick skull.
We’ve known each other for over an annum . I was on a space vessel on my way to a slave auction with nine other gladiators when our captors threw an Earth female into each of our cells. Within an hoara, they forced us to mate upon threat of death.
She was so terrified I could smell her fear. She backed into the far corner of our cell, her eyes so wide the white showed all the way around. I tried to put my head in the shadows so she wouldn’t have to look at me. But that day I don’t think she could have identified my face if pressed to do so. She was too busy looking at my cock. It scared her more than my face.
I waited as long as I could before I approached her, but we weren’t given time to get to know each other. I was gentle and didn’t hurt her. I talked to her and tried to calm her. It didn’t work—no matter what I did she was petrified.
Later, she told me she appreciated how hard I tried to calm her fears. Despite my efforts, she cried all through it though, which made it difficult for me to stay hard. I’ve never found it arousing to hurt anyone. But we got through it and began an easy truce.
The gladiators staged a revolt within a week. We commandeered the ship and now we’re speeding through the galaxy making money from gladiator matches where we get to keep our own purses. Almost all the money I earn goes back to the ship. My contribution makes me feel like I’m a part of something bigger than myself.
We’ve formed a family on this ship, as well as adding another vessel to our little armada. We’re all escaped slaves just trying to stay one step ahead of the Feds and our former owners, the MarZan cartel.
Many of those original couples have formed permanent matings. Maddie and I, though, are what she calls ‘fuck buddies’. I never let her know how this designation squeezes my heart. I just try to be the same Stryker I’ve always been. I’m a male who has a strong sense of right and wrong, and I’m loyal. It’s my fondest hope that one day she’ll want us to be more than fuck buddies.
I’ve bonded with her. I love her, although I know better than to say it. That’s why I like to stay awake until she’s sleeping. I wind a strand of her springy brown hair around one of my huge fingertips, and I whisper how much I love her without fearing her rejection.
It doesn’t matter how good I think we are together. She needs to feel that way, too. Obviously, she doesn’t.
Although I don’t understand why she rejects me yet shares her body with me, I sometimes get the feeling something eats at her from the inside. If she would only share her worries and concerns with me, I would be able to make everything better. I’m strong and fearless. If she would reveal what weighs on her so heavily, I will go to the ends of the galaxy to fix it.
I’ve asked, but she denies anything is wrong.
There’s one way we’re compatible. In bed. She seldom grants me permission to sleep with her, but she’s never said no to sex. I love to provide her endless pleasure, and she’s never failed to make me feel good. It’s the one place she’s giving. Generous in fact.
I press my nose under her ear and nuzzle her, then suck in a deep, humid breath. We’ve been together long enough I know every move, every technique to arouse her. She loves to be awakened like this—fully ready for sex.
Once she even let it slip why she likes it. She said this way is the best because she doesn't get in her own way. I’m not certain what that means, but I think sometimes it’s hard for her mind to shut down enough for the pleasure to take over. When she wakes up wet and wanting, though, she can dive into the act. Even though it’s with me.
Maddie
I’m on fire. Oh, Stryker’s doing it again. I love when he wakes me like this, my core already dripping wet, my nipples hard as diamonds, my hips thrusting. Sometimes I wake with a little moan on my lips, like now.
“Stryker,” I whisper. He likes when I say his name. It’s the least I can do to please him.
His thick, calloused fingers pluck my nipples in the way that quickens my pulse and makes me wet. I roll onto my back and open my thighs, giving him complete access to me.
“Maddie,” he growls, biting back the things I know he wants to say.
Damn. It’s going to be one of those nights. Sometimes I can shut out my shitty thoughts and just dive into the physical pleasure. I can already tell tonight won’t be that night. The snakes in my head are coming out to play in full force. Hissing at me, chastising me, deriding me.
You’re such a fucking bitch to him , one of my many inner critics scolds. Great. Even the heckler is on duty tonight.
I redouble my efforts to take pleasure from Stryker’s sexy hands, his deep breathing, his hard cock pulsing against my thigh. When that doesn’t stop the contemptuous voices in my head, I wiggle out of his grip and push him onto his back, then dive for his cock.
His hard cock in my mouth is one of the only things guaranteed to keep the crazy thoughts out of my head. Ahh, yes. It’s working.
I love everything about this male’s body. Every plane, every muscle, the shallow divots at the sides of his ass, and the little ones on either side of the base of his spine. My fingers adoringly explore his ropey shoulder muscles. When we're not in the thick of things, I even like the soft hair under his arms. I like everything about this body.
It’s hard and masculine and tastes good. Even when he comes in from the ludus after sparring, when he tries to jump into the shower before I attack him, I’ll catch him just to snatch a taste of his salty tang.
I like his face. I know he’s self-conscious about his scars, but I don’t see them anymore. I just see the compassionate male beneath his skin. I wish I could see him now, but I can’t bear to have the lights on during sex. I don’t like the way I look, which makes it hard for me to find my pleasure. Since the lights are on now, I’ll keep my eyes closed.
Right now, though, with his thick cock in my mouth, all the writhing snakes in my head are finally silenced. It’s just me and Stryker. A fucking miracle.
I cup his balls in my palm and roll them just the way he likes.
“Maddie,” he says on a deep sexy groan.
That’s right Stryker, no one deserves pleasure more than you. I swirl my tongue and roll his balls and then flick his frenulum; it’s his very favorite place.
“You’re trying to kill me, L—” He thinks he caught himself in time, but he just awakened all the snakes. Shit. I thought we were going to get to the finish alone this time—just him and me without the snakes. Not tonight, I guess.
But he’ll never know. I want him to think I didn’t hear him almost call me ‘Love’. In fact, I speed up, bobbing my head, moaning in pleasure, providing more pressure with my lip-covered teeth. He’s panting, his thick fingers taking extra effort to be gentle on my shoulders, so I don’t feel like he’s forcing me onto his cock.
He doesn’t need to compel me to do this. I love it. I love giving him physical pleasure. It’s the only thing I’m capable of giving.
“Gotta slow down, Mads,” he says as he flips me onto my back and maneuvers between my legs in one swift move.
Two hundred pounds of gladiator muscle is crouched between my thighs with one mission and one mission only. This man wants to hear me come.
He won’t be satisfied with a faint little moan, either. He won’t stop until I’m screaming loud enough for everyone on the ship to hear. We’re a little family. My screaming orgasms quit embarrassing me before we even staged our insurrection, when we were still locked in the cell block. There’s no way to hide them, and they make him so fucking happy.
I guess a few good things came from his gladiator training. He has the stamina of five males, and he had to train with his non-dominant hand, so this male is ambidextrous in all the right ways.
He can finger fuck me with one, and practically bring me to orgasm with the other just plucking my nipples.
“You just keep getting better at that,” I tell him between gasping pants as my head thrashes against the pillow. I pull my knees up, my heels flat on the mattress, and can’t contain my urge to press his beautiful head even harder against my clit.
I come with a grunt, then a long, howling moan. Somehow, he knows what every wordless noise and changing pitch means. He knows when to get right down to business, and when to back off to prolong my ecstasy.
Tonight, I just want it hard and fast, and the handsome red male is delivering it as if he had a written playbook.
He strings three orgasms together, first using one finger, then two, then a third. He does the come-hither thing just when I think I’m rolling to a stop, and amps me up for several more releases. It’s only now that he gives me what I truly desire—that beautiful cock.
I’m slippery with my release; he needs no help to enter me in one long, hard, delicious drive.
“That’s right, Stryker. Right where you belong,” I whisper as I feel my inner muscles quiver against him, setting off a chain reaction of explosions—mine and his. I love to feel his come jet into me. It never fails to make me feel so feminine and somehow cared for and owned. The snakes always go away, at least for a moment, after he comes.
I pull him down onto me, our bodies hot and sweaty. I lick his pec with the tip of my tongue so I can go to sleep with his taste in my mouth.
I let him cuddle me after sex. It’s the only time I allow it. And now the snakes come back to play, hissing at me, deriding me for ‘allowing’ anything in a relationship like this. I’m an awful person. I know it.
With two people, one shouldn’t have power over the other. But it’s the only way I can bear to be in a cabin alone with him. If he didn’t follow my rules, my edicts, I’d never be able to tolerate him walking through the doorway.
I wake early, today like every day. Stryker’s gone, just as I expected. I laid down the ground rules the day we were freed: no words of endearment, no praises about my looks, no sleeping over unless expressly requested, and if so, be gone when I arise.
Bitch , my heckler hisses.
No shit , is my honest reply.
I need to get going, an entire ship full of people are going to be in the dining room wanting breakfast in an hour and I don’t have time to dawdle.
Except I can’t force myself out of bed.
I knew this was coming. It’s why I tried to keep him at arm’s length since the day we met. I knew I could fall for him quick and hard if I allowed it. How could I resist the gentle giant? Look at his big, strong hands, yet they touch me with such exquisite tenderness. And the way he looks at me, the way he’s looked at me almost from the moment we met. God, what woman doesn’t dream of a male gazing at her with adoration?
I didn’t want to taint him. I didn’t want my snakes to infect him, too. He’s too wonderful to be contaminated by the shit in my head. But here we are. Does he think he’s sly? Does he really think I don’t know he sneaks into the bathroom at night and turns on the light just so he can look at me? Does he think his little slips where he almost says the “L” word trick me?
I know how he gazes at me with longing when he doesn’t think I notice. And it breaks my heart that I can’t reciprocate.
Hot tears flow down my cheeks. Tears of sadness. And self-loathing, too. Don’t forget that.
I’m getting worse. I knew this was coming.
I’ve fought depression since my teens. It waxes and wanes. Some days are worse, some are better, but on the whole, the really dark times come every few years. Those are the periods when meds don’t help. There’s no ‘better living through chemistry’ that I used to joke about with my friends.
No, there are periods that sometimes go on for years where I gut through the debilitating depression through sheer fucking strength of will. Today I can feel it coming after me fast and hard. And outer space’s version of Prozac is no better than the original. It just can’t stand up to Maddie-level depression.
As much as I love the salty taste of Stryker’s skin, I hate the salty taste of my tears. I pound my fist on my thigh and try to pull myself together.
I’m going to have to do it. I’ve avoided it since the day we met. I thought if he followed my rules, we could keep what we have within my set parameters. But I’ve hurt him. I know it. I don’t know how I deluded myself for a year, pretending the way I treated him was okay.
I’ve debated with myself about telling him, coming clean, explaining my condition. Then I remember what happened when I told my best friend, Yasmin, about my diagnosis in eighth grade. The depths of my depression weren’t nearly as bad then as they are now, but I’d explained my condition to her, showed her my pill bottle. She was ever so compassionate until one day I begged off going to a movie with her as we’d planned.
I couldn’t get my mascara to look right because my eyes were puffy from crying all day for no reason. Which made me cry harder. The combination of clinical depression and teenage hormones wasn’t pretty.
When I told her I wasn’t feeling up to going and asked for a raincheck she said ‘fine’ in that funny way people do when things aren’t fine at all. She never spoke to me after that. That was all I needed to vow to never divulge my problem to another soul except for my doctors. I realized not only wouldn’t people understand, they might take things even farther and ostracize me.
Before I fall into the deep chasm of the worst of my depression, I’ve got to send him away. I’ve got to save him from me, protect him from the black hole of my emotions and unquenchable needs. He’s too good. He deserves so much better, better than me. I don’t want to drag him down with me.
I hurtle off the bed, perform the world’s quickest shower, and skid to a stop in my kitchen within ten minutes.
I cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner for all souls onboard every day of the year—nonstop. It keeps me as sane as I can get. And I get accolades, which helps, even if some days it feels like they’re praising someone other than myself because I’m cocooned so far inside myself I feel hollow.
Around eight a.m. when everyone rolls in, I put on my Maddie persona and do my chef thing. As far as anyone on the ship knows, I’m the happiest female they’ve ever met. I don’t talk, I sing. I think I developed it by watching Oprah who kind of sings her words sometimes. Only I do it constantly.
My depression is my little secret. No one knows. Except for Dr. Drayke. I went to him shortly after we fought for our freedom and he tried me on a med that has kept the depression at bay for the last year. But just like on Earth, the med lost its effectiveness over time. They always do.
“Biscuits and gravy,” I call cheerily to the folks in the dining room. “Eggs will be there in a minute.”