Free Queen of Starlight by Jessa Slade Page A

how many credits it takes to repaint the outside of a sheership? Besides, what else should I have called her?”
    “The Fight and Flight . The Sheer Escape . Corso’s Getaway ?”
    He nudged her again, harder. “You make it sound like I can’t abide any humanoid connection.”
    “Just none that might get in the way of your freedom.”
    As he stared out the portal, brow furrowed, his hand closed on the trailing edge of her veil and he rubbed the silky fabric between his fingertips. The veil was long enough that the idle movement didn’t tug at her. She wouldn’t have even noticed the link between them—he didn’t seem to realize he was reaching for her at all—except she was watching for the gesture.
    Yes, the captain fought with everything he had to keep his eyes on the stars, but some part of him wanted this touch.
    “Space is lonely for a reason.” His tone was abrupt, but his grip on her veil remained. “The sheerways get tangled when ships pass too closely. Ships end up lost or shredded. That distance keeps us alive.”
    “People aren’t sheerships,” she said, since it seemed he needed the reminder.
    “I suppose not.” He didn’t sound convinced.
    They’d been leaning closer into each other, but they both leaned away when Evessa cleared her throat. “Course is set and locked, Captain. I’ll be monitoring from the bridge. Summon me if you have need.”
    She slipped out of the room, and the door whispered shut behind her. The light off Qv’arratz and the glow of the holo view of their course left Corso’s face in shadow as he stared after the departed pilot. For a moment, Benedetta thought he would follow the woman out.
    Instead he murmured a lock command on the door. The double click made her heart catch.
    “What were we talking about?” Her voice sounded a little breathless in her own ears.
    “Something about me not wanting to make connections.”
    “I think you said that, not me.”
    “You implied I’m a loner, a coward, and possibly a misanthrope.”
    “Not a coward anyway.”
    He slid closer to her on the seat. She scooted away until the curve of the viewport windows pressed into her back. Of course the deadly cold of space was held at bay, but still somehow the radiation from the reflected sunlight seemed to scorch through the transparent steel. Only a sun’s worth of burning hydrogen could explain the heat in her skin; even the qva’avaq could not blaze this hot.
    “Now who’s the coward?” His murmur brushed her cheek.
    “I’m not afraid,” she protested, which was mostly true. She’d spent a lifetime preparing for this moment, but… “I am just not certain you know what you want from me.”
    “I’m not sure either. I’m figuring you out as I go.” He braced one hand on the viewport and without any of the rest of him touching her, he leaned in for a kiss.
    It was worse than before. Or better. Anyway, it knocked her spinning thoughts of arousal stages and mating rituals into disarray like an asteroid plowing through the tidy orbits of outer moons.
    His tongue swept hers. No more tentative tangling and retreating, he took her mouth with a marauding power that would do any mercenary proud. She moaned against his lips, and the heat inside her went supernova as the qva’avaq that laced her skin chimed softly.
    One touch from him? Truly? His mouth was the spark that lit her crystal lines.
    She clutched his broad shoulders, as if her grip were the only thing that kept her from tumbling out into space. Still he did not touch her, though his lips drifted from hers to the edge of her jaw and then down the column of her neck, along the wild flare of her pulse—avoiding the a’lurilyo torque—to the hollow at the base of her throat.
    He licked the notch where the qva’avaq pooled, and in answer, the notch between her legs went hypernova.
    She gasped and tipped her head back with a thunk against the viewport. He chuckled, a deep vibration against her throat that echoed all the