Free Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Prisoners of the Wind by Unknown

pressed firmly against her right thigh, his hands
on the arms of her chair, effectively pinning her in.
    “Where,” he asked, locking eyes with her, “did you learn to
steal runabouts, Lady Marin?”
    Unable to speak for her mouth was as dry as the low desert
dunes of Arabach on Domhan, Marin shook her head.
    “You don’t know where you learned to be a thief or you don’t
want me to know who taught you such larceny?” he asked.
    Her friend Simone’s face flitted across Marin’s mind a
second before she clamped a lid on the treacherous thought. She lifted her
chin, willing to take her own punishment without implicating another.
    “Simone,” he said, his voice a tender caress.
    Marin’s shoulders slumped. She should have known he’d pluck
that knowledge from her mind as easily as drawing a breath.
    “A talented lady, your little revolutionary,” he quipped.
“What other tricks did that firebrand of rebellion teach you?”
    “Don’t blame Simone,” she was quick to tell him. “She was
only trying to help.”
    Drae’s eyebrows shot up. “Help how, wench?” he inquired.
“What possible reason could she have had to teach you how to steal a man’s
ship?”
    “In case I needed to escape some…” She stopped, clamping her
lips shut lest she say something to wipe the pleasantness from his lean face.
    He cocked his head to one side. “To escape what, wench? Or
should I say who? Some would-be rapist, perhaps?” he prodded.
    “If the label fits, aye!” she threw at him.
    The Tiogar shook his head slowly, clucking his tongue at
though at an unruly child. He sighed deeply. “You never cease to amaze me, Lady
Marin. Scared shitless of me one minute then at battle stations the next.” He
held her gaze. “Can’t make your mind up whether to slap me or fuck me, can
you?”
    Marin’s eyes flared and she lashed out at him, intending to
slap the smirk from his face, but he caught her wrist in his powerful hand and
jerked her to him. She slid out of the chair, her body pressed tightly to his,
her right leg draped over his left thigh as his arms came around her back like
steel bands. The wrist he held felt as though it was shackled. Her other hand
was caught between the two of them, her palm flattened against his rock-hard
chest.
    “I think it’s time we settled this, don’t you, wench?” he
asked, his face only inches from hers.
    Her body shivering from his tight, imprisoning embrace,
warmth curling in the lower part of her belly as ripples of need traveled
through her, her nipples tingling with an ache she could not explain. Marin
could only stare into the golden depths of his eyes as his lips slanted
slowly—possessively—across hers in a kiss she felt to the tips of her toes.
    One moment she was kneeling there on the bridge of the
runabout with him and the next he was lowering her to her back, his powerful
body lying atop hers, his mouth still clinging to hers. When she was stretched
out beneath him, he lifted his head, breaking the kiss.
    “I will not wait until we get back to the Revenge ,”
he said in a husky voice. “Before we go another click, you will be mine.”
    “The ship…”
    “Is on autopilot and a Fiach is built by superior craftsmen.
It will warn us if something comes up,” he stated.
    Falling into the passionate depths of his aureolin gaze,
Marin could feel a deep throbbing between her legs. She wanted the man poised
above her, his lower body pressed intimately against her own. She was glorying
in the weight of him lying atop her. She needed to know what mysteries lurked
beneath the heated eyes that were devouring her.
    No words were necessary for Taegin Drae. He leaned to one
side and reached up to grasp the zipper of Marin’s jumpsuit between his thumb
and middle finger. Slowly he opened her garment, his index finger trailing down
her flesh as the zipper lowered.
    Marin shivered beneath his touch. She made no move to stop
him as he lifted her upper body from the floor and peeled