Orion and Juanita walked side by side, bumping against each other, almost leaning against each other, as they shambled wearily into the ship. A few limping Star Guardians traveled ahead of them with smoking holes in their armor. They looked like they would need a doctor. Orion wondered if Sage would try to get Juanita’s friend to help again. He hadn’t exactly sweet-talked her the last time.

Most of the Star Guardians were still outside, rounding up prisoners. Orion had no idea how Sage would fit all of them in his ship. The brig was already full with the first crew of slavers, and the women had the rec room. He hoped the water tank problem had been fixed, because the Falcon 8 would have to travel directly home with no more stops, or there wouldn’t be rations to go around. Sage’s crew might be fine with fasting, but the women and the prisoners would cry mistreatment if they weren’t fed.

Treyjon, still back at the hatch, hollered something to someone outside. Mikolos, the other Star Guardian that had been escorting Orion and Juanita, had already gone back out to hunt.

Orion slowed his pace as they neared an intersection. He wasn’t sure where he was expected to go or what he was expected to do. Nothing? Sage hadn’t indicated that he needed him.

The Falcon 8 thrummed with power again, the faint reverberation of the engines tangible through the deck. It apparently hadn’t suffered any damage in the battle with the slaver ship. As far as Orion had heard, all the Star Guardians had survived too. Some of them had certainly been wounded, as the smoking holes in the armor promised, but he didn’t think there had been any life-threatening injuries. Once again, the heroic Sage had battled against great odds to win the day. More than that, he’d lured all those slavers down here to eventually be defeated and captured. Where had they all come from, anyway? For curiosity’s sake, Orion would have to ask eventually.

Not that it mattered. Once again, Sage would be lauded for his brilliance. Once again, nobody would know that Orion had done anything to help.

What waited for him when the ship reached Dethocoles? A murder charge that would be laid at the Assembly’s feet by his own brother.

They paused at the intersection, and Juanita peered at his face. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Orion forced a smile and resolved to keep his dark thoughts to himself. “Just tired.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t want to…” She raised her eyebrows. “Clean up together?”

His ennui disappeared in a flash. He looked in the direction the wounded Star Guardians were heading and then back to the hatch. Since Sage was busy outside, he shouldn’t have time to check in on the women for a while. First, he would have to make sure all the slavers were captured and secured. Then, he’d be ensuring the ship’s water tanks were sufficiently cleaned so they could safely travel home. Surely, it would be hours, if not days, before he thought of the female passengers—and Orion’s relationship with one.

Could he slip away somewhere private with her instead of returning her to the rec room?

“I was fortunate enough to get a guest cabin with a shower in it,” he offered, wondering if the ship’s water tanks had been refilled yet. He hadn’t seen Hierax out among the men fighting and wouldn’t be surprised if he’d stayed in engineering the whole time.

“Really? There were times when I thought your brother was going to give you a cell in the brig.”

“I think he wanted to, but the slavers were taking them all up. And he only has the one guest cabin, so it’s not like he could have given me crummy accommodations. Unless he made me bunk with him. But that would have been torture for both of us.”

“Speaking poorly of the captain?” Treyjon rumbled from behind them.

Orion jumped. He’d forgotten there was someone behind them, someone who might have orders to escort Juanita back to the rec room with the other women. And Ensign Bystrom might already be standing guard there again.

“Just discussing his bunking preferences,” Juanita said brightly.

“As far as I know, he has none. Captains are married to their ships, you know.”

“So, ah… Eridanus, was it?”

Orion snorted, wondering when she’d had an opportunity to chat with the ship’s AI. He thought Eridanus only interacted with the bridge and engineering crew. Maybe she’d charmed him.

“Technically, I suppose it is,” Treyjon said, “but I don’t think either the captain or the AI has carnal needs. I know Maladar hasn’t had any luck getting Sagitta to join him in visiting the women at the Beruvian Baths. Or the boys, either.”

Orion shook his head, not surprised. The last he’d heard, Mom had given up on trying to get Sage to marry and have children. It helped that Leo had given her three grandchildren to keep her busy. She didn’t seem to feel the need to pester him as much now.

Orion didn’t think Sage was completely above or oblivious to carnal pleasures, but trying to have a relationship with someone when flying around the galaxy for all but one week of leave a year seemed an unlikely proposition at best. And that was the position Sage had been in since the war ended and he’d been given this command. Before the war ended, he’d been too busy soldiering on the front lines.

Judging by this ship, the Star Guardian forces were maybe one fifth or one quarter female. Some of the crew probably did choose each other for companionship, but he’d heard that was frowned upon, and even forbidden when there were large differences in people’s ranks. Since the captain had a large difference in rank with everybody on board, he certainly couldn’t consider it.

Oh, well. Orion was more interested in his own relationship than in any his brother might or might not have.

Treyjon waved for him and Juanita to let him pass through the intersection without mentioning that she needed to return to the rec room. Orion arched his eyebrows and kept his mouth shut. If Treyjon didn’t remember Sage’s rules, then Orion wasn’t going to remind him.

But Treyjon paused before swinging into a ladder well, and he looked back at them.

“Eventually, the captain is going to finish everything and think to count heads in the rec room,” he said. “Whatever cleaning you two plan to do, you may want to make it quick. Maybe if it’s quick enough, nobody with tendencies toward brusque grumpiness will notice.”

With that said, he swung into the ladder well and disappeared.

“Quick?” Juanita murmured. “I was imagining a more thorough cleaning after all we’ve been through.”

“Why don’t I show you my cleaning facilities, and we’ll see what unfolds?”

“I’m amenable to that. Can we stop in sickbay along the way? My shoulder is still sore, and I’m sure I’ll want my full range of motion for what I anticipate to be vigorous cleaning.”

“Absolutely. You should have told me you wanted painkillers earlier. I could have shaken someone down for a first-aid kit.”

“I didn’t want to be a pest.”

“You were magnificent.” Orion kissed her, forcing himself to keep it chaste even though she returned the kiss eagerly. “This way.”

Juanita followed Orion into his cabin, relieved when the door slid shut behind them. Out in the corridors, she’d feared they would chance upon the captain or some other authoritarian figure who would glower at them and direct her to the rec room, sans Orion. Here, they were out of sight and, she hoped, out of mind.

Too bad the cabin didn’t seem much like Orion. It had bland gray walls without any artwork, and the thin blue carpet was only marginally better than the cold metal decking.

This wasn’t his ship, she reminded herself.

The guest cabin did have a couple of redeeming features, a comfortable-looking double bed and a porthole displaying a dusty red planet with two blue moons orbiting it, a sun brightening one side of all three bodies.

Surprised the view wasn’t of the swamp outside, Juanita rushed to check it out. Was it a view screen rather than a porthole? She tapped a button to the side of it, and the view shifted, displaying that of the lake outside. She pressed the button again, and the planet and moons returned.

“You can have it display what’s actually outside the ship, or choose from stored images of places the ship has been to,” Orion said.

“This is so beautiful,” she whispered, hoping to visit the planet and moons one day.

“I was hoping you’d say that when you looked at me,” Orion said from behind her.

Juanita grinned and turned, a joke on her lips, but she forgot it when she saw him.

He’d removed his vest and tugged his hair from the knot he always wore it in. The wavy brown locks fell about his broad shoulders and brushed the tops of his prominent pectoral muscles. A scattering of chest hair drew her gaze downward to the defined ridges of his abdomen. She’d seen body builders in magazines that looked like him, but no guy she’d dated had ever come close.

Feeling daring, she let her gaze drop lower. He still wore his trousers, the leather-like material quite formfitting. The bulge of his penis pressed against the fly, and she jerked her eyes up, feeling embarrassed for looking. Especially when she knew he was probably watching her.

Yes, he was. His eyes were hooded and locked onto her, as intent as a hawk ready to pounce on a field mouse.

“You’re fine,” Juanita said, a weird squeak in her voice.

She cleared her throat.

“Just fine? That’s disappointing.” He strolled toward her, glancing at the porthole behind her shoulder. “I was hoping I’d earn as good an adjective as that dusty red ball out there.”

“You’re comparing yourself to an entire planet? That seems arrogant.”

“Well, it’s an unassuming planet.”

He didn’t stop until he was so close to her that she could feel the heat from his chest. He lowered his face and captured her lips with his, his kiss urgent, demanding, and entirely without preamble. Their preamble had been in the corridor outside the rec room, and in the marsh against that tree. Maybe this time, they could continue with what they both wanted without someone walking up on them.

His hands went boldly to the buttons of her blouse, not hesitating to open them. Not asking permission. He knew she wanted his touch everywhere, knew she couldn’t wait for all of their clothes to drop to the deck.

The brush of his bare knuckles against her stomach raised gooseflesh all over, but she was so distracted by his kiss that she barely noticed. His tongue stroked hers, and then he borrowed her one and only sexy move, sucking on the lower lip. He did it much better than she, and electricity streaked through her, igniting her every nerve.

Orion moaned softly, seemingly excited by the taste of her. She heard her own soft moans as she leaned into him. His fingers swept around her bare waist, tracing her exposed contours. His demanding kiss contrasted deliciously with his light touch.

“The shower is in there,” he murmured against her lips, pausing the kiss to tilt his head toward a door on the wall opposite the bed.

“The shower?”

Juanita didn’t care about the shower. She ran her hands up his arms and down his torso, her nails scraping along the curves of his muscles. The sight of his hard nipples excited her, and she ventured forward to taste one, flicking her tongue across it.

He groaned, his head falling back, his hips thrusting toward her, as if of their own accord. The hard bulge in his trousers pressed against her bare stomach, and she reached for his belt.

The fastener wasn’t like the buckles she was familiar with, but she would figure it out. While she kept tasting his taut, salty skin, and he kept stroking her waist. Maybe he would slip her blouse the rest of the way off, remove her bra, and stroke more of her.

“Didn’t we discuss cleaning first?” he asked, though his hands slid around her back to pull her against his hardness. “I can’t imagine I’m—”

He gasped at what she was doing, and she grinned, nipping and licking her way to his other nipple. It thrilled her to have him respond so to her touch, to be so obviously aroused by her.

“I can’t imagine I’m that appealing after rolling around in that swamp,” he finished.

“Yeah, you are.” She rubbed her face against his chest, inhaling his masculine scent as she fiddled with his clasp. Was that the release there? “You’re beautiful.”

“Like a planet?”

“Maybe even like a nebula.”

“Now, you’re really exciting me.”

She grinned, the words exciting her. Heat built in her core, making her want nothing more than to wrap herself around him, to feel him in her. But she had to figure out how to get his damned pants off before that could happen.

She lowered to her knees for a better look. With a little more fumbling, the clasp for his belt finally released.

His trousers sagged on his hips. She poked around for a zipper, inadvertently—or maybe not so inadvertently—rubbing him through the material as she tried to figure out how to free him. He sucked in a breath, his hips thrusting toward her. She pushed her thumb up and down the seam, puzzling over it, and he groaned, finding her head with his hands and kneading his fingers into her scalp. Delicious waves of heat charged through her at his needy touch.

“How do I, uhm, open this?” she asked, growing frustrated with the strange clothing technology. She wanted to hold him and see him. Now.

He looked down, startled. “I thought you were just teasing me with all that rubbing. It’s been driving me—well, I was about to throw you down on the bed, and— No, we were going to shower first, right?”

“Not until you open this,” she said, meeting his eyes and feeling powerful at the way he was panting slightly with his words, and the way his hips strained toward her.

He hesitated. “I’d wanted to… make sure you enjoy yourself before I do.”

“Open it now.” She squeezed him lightly through the material.

His eyes blazed, fire igniting in them. His hand jerked over, and with a quick swipe, his fly was down. His penis sprang free, almost poking her in the eye. His hand twitched, and he opened his mouth, perhaps to apologize. But she grasped him, and his words disappeared in a groan, his hips jerking forward again.

Again, his arousal, his clear desire for her, excited her. As she stroked him, her eyes taking him in, the heat in her core intensified, a throbbing ache pulsing through her body. She had the urge to tear off her own pants and to jump up, grabbing him by the shoulders and impaling herself upon him. Over and over.

But instead, she slipped her tongue out, knowing how much it would excite him. She wanted to make sure he remembered her. Always.

He groaned as she slid her tongue along his quivering cock. His hands flexed and opened at his sides, the corded muscles in his forearms so hard, so taut.

She could tell he wanted to grab her head and push deep into her mouth. To her surprise, she wanted that almost as badly as he did. She’d never been one to get excited about going down on a guy, but he’d been her protector since the beginning, and she wanted to thank him for that. More than that, the way he trembled at her touch and kept looking down at her with those intense eyes made her feel hot and desirable in a way she wasn’t used to. In a way she liked.

She gripped the base of him with one hand and wrapped her lips around him, taking him into her mouth. He couldn’t quite keep from thrusting, but she softened her throat, taking in more and more of him. She sucked him in and out and ran her other hand up his leg, squeezing his thigh, then gripping his butt. His panting grew more pronounced, his breaths almost ragged. She quickened her pace, knowing how badly he wanted this. She imagined that he’d wanted it since they first met. Certainly, every time they’d been pressed together, she’d felt his hard cock against her.

He could have been an asshole like those other slavers. There’d been no police to enforce laws on that ship, no reason for good behavior. What could she have done against him if he’d decided to take her by force back in that cell? But he’d been noble. Her noble protector. She had no idea why his people hadn’t made him a Star Guardian. He deserved it.

She lifted her eyes slightly as he rocked in and out of her, and she found him staring down at her, his gaze hungry with need. But more than that, there was appreciation in his eyes. Even… adoration?

Seeing his naked feelings on his face fueled her own fires, and she went faster, sweeping him in and out. She thought about dropping her hand and rubbing herself while she pleasured him, but she could tell from his flushed body and his ragged breaths that he was almost there.

He brushed his fingers to the side of her head, the touch surprisingly gentle given how tense he was, how ready to explode he was.

“I’m coming,” he whispered hoarsely and started to turn his hips away, to pull out.

She grabbed his ass with both hands, locking him to her and sucking lightly.

He came then, pouring himself into her, and she welcomed it. His entire body shook with the power of his release, and he threw his head back again, the tendons on his neck standing out. His entire magnificent form on display for her.

He softened, and she pulled her mouth free, running her hands from his ass to his legs, stroking his lean contours. She was glad she’d slaked his need, but a twinge of disappointment went through her. She was hot and wet, and now it would be some time before she would experience him inside of her. Still, she felt content to have pleased him, and she rested her face against his thigh.

“My protector,” she murmured.

He dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around her.

“Juanita,” he murmured, kissing her neck. “I thank you for that, but I confess, I wanted to give you that gift first.”

“I thought you wanted to give me a shower.” Juanita tilted her head to the side to give him better access.

“There were to be gifts in the shower.”

“Oh?” She shivered with pleasure as he nipped at her sensitive spots. “Like scented soaps and loofahs?”

“On a Star Guardian ship, you’ll be lucky to get soap at all. They tend toward the utilitarian.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve had the meals.”

He grinned and picked her up.

Surprised, she gripped his shoulders. “Shower?”

“Yes.” He carried her toward the bathroom door. “Fortunately, because the Star Guardian ships sometimes transport admirals, ambassadors, and high-ranking politicians around, the guest quarters are spacious, including the lavatory and the shower.”

“This passes for opulence, eh?” Juanita wrinkled her nose as she looked around the cabin. It wasn’t small, and there would be room to do some floor exercises on the carpet if one was predisposed, but other than the porthole, she wouldn’t call it luxurious.

“It’s bigger than the captain’s quarters. And the shower is large enough for two.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Sometimes, those ambassadors are plump.”

“Ah.” She began to see what he meant by spacious, and she smiled as she got an idea of what he might have in mind. With her body still aching to be satisfied, she hoped his gift was even better than a loofah.

He stepped through the doorway with her still in his arms, and she smiled at the idea that the bathroom was considered spacious—both the sink and the toilet had to be unfolded from the wall for use. But, as promised, the shower was large enough for two to stand in with elbowroom leftover. The entire bathroom seemed familiar, not unlike what she would expect from her people if they ever managed to travel through space like this, and she decided being kidnapped by humans was better than being kidnapped by aliens.

“Are showers normal?” she asked as Orion set her down. “Or is it like on our space station? I think they just get wet towels and rinseless shampoo. But they don’t have gravity. I read that people’s pee gets recycled and that they later drink it.”

“Everything does get recycled on a spaceship, yes, but if it makes you feel better, we’ll probably be getting water that was never peed in, since we just dumped everything and sucked fresh water out of the lake.”

“Wouldn’t there be fish pee in it?”

“It gets filtered.” Orion arched his eyebrows. “This isn’t the discussion I imagined having with you after you, ah—” He set her down and waved at his lower regions. He had refastened his belt so he could carry her in here, but she didn’t have any trouble grasping what he was referring to.

“This is what being with a geek is like,” she said, having no idea what the translator would do to that word. Had there been geeks in Ancient Greece? Had they had a term for them? “You’ll just have to get used to it.”

“I think I could do that. Especially if you share your stories with me and let me read Herakles adventures to you.”

“I’m looking forward to it!” She grinned and leaned against him.

“Excellent.” He kissed her forehead, then pushed her blouse off her shoulders. Earlier, she had distracted him from undressing her, so he hadn’t gotten past unbuttoning the front.

Juanita shivered as the fabric slipped down her arms, his fingers brushing her here and there to facilitate the process. She wondered if he would have as much trouble with her bra as she’d had with his belt, but after a peek over her shoulder, he seemed to get the gist. He unfastened it with a one-handed twist that would have teenage boys all over Earth sighing in envy.

Then he bent down to kiss her, and her thoughts jumbled and tangled. Suddenly, it seemed too hard to think about bras or water recycling. She leaned into the kiss—and into him—and wondered if they would ever actually get into that shower.

Her socks, shoes, pants, and panties joined the bra and blouse on the tile floor. He tugged off the rest of his own clothes, then swooped everything up, only breaking their kiss for a second, and tossed them out the door. Onto the bed maybe. Or maybe a laundry robot would swoop out and clean them.

“Juanita?” he murmured, his lips against hers, his lashes low over his eyes as he met her gaze.

“Yes.”

“I meant to ask earlier…” As he spoke, he slid his hands up her rib cage to stroke the sides of her breasts, and she shivered with hot delight. “Presuming we actually make it to the bed at some point, do you have an internal contraceptive or do you need me to find a condom?”

She smirked, for some reason amused that the chip in her ear had no problem translating those terms, but she supposed humans across the galaxy would have all the same issues when it came to reproduction.

“I have an implant,” she said, closing her eyes and relishing his touch. “If you don’t have any weird space diseases, we should be fine.”

“Oh, good. I wasn’t planning to find someone—to find you—while I was on this mission, and definitely not while on my brother’s ship full of stuffy Star Guardians. So I didn’t bring anything along. I would have had to run to Treyjon and see if he had condoms.”

“As much as I’d enjoy seeing you running through the ship naked, I’d prefer you not leave me now. I’m…” She slid her arms around his shoulders and kissed him, letting her actions speak for her, letting him know how much she wanted him.

“Mm,” was all he articulated.

He shifted to the side, tapping shower controls to turn on a fine spray. They moved as one, stepping under the head. Her shoulder brushed the wall, which she noticed had a textured surface, almost corrugated. Some kind of technology that made the shower more efficient at sucking in the water for recycling?

She thought about asking, but that would have involved taking her lips from his for too long. She did manage to smile and murmur, “It feels like the tree.”

His brow furrowed, and he leaned back. “What?”

She put a hand on the quirky corrugated tile. “It’s a bit like that tree where we almost…”

“Got joined by a random Star Guardian?”

“That’s not the part I was remembering.”

“Good. I want you thinking only about me.”

“I can do that.” She gripped the back of his head, his hair starting to grow damp, and she pulled him back down to resume kissing.

“Excellent.” He drew back again, laid a hand on the side of her face as water misted down between them. “I want to give you your gift now.”

“A loofah?”

He smiled. “No.”