Among Galactic Ruins (14 page)

He moved his hand up and when all he
encountered was hot, damp flesh, he groaned in her ear.

“I washed my underwear…I didn’t have any
others.”

Thank God he hadn’t known, or he’d have had
an erection the entire evening.

He ran his fingers through her wet folds and
she pushed back against him. “Stay still,” he warned.

She made a small keening sound, but tried to
obey. He kept teasing her, stroking, caressing.

“Stop teasing me, dammit,” she whispered
furiously.

He was avoiding her clit, circling around
it, but not stimulating it. He smiled in the darkness. He liked the
idea of teasing his little astro-archeologist.

He kept doing it, heard her breathing speed
up, saw her lips part. If it wasn’t so dark in the tent, he knew
he’d see that her cheeks were flushed.

“Watch the dancers, Lexa.”

Some of them were making love now. One man
held his partner aloft, her face to the crowd, every expression
visible on her face as he thrust inside her. Another woman was on
her hands and knees, her partner powering into her from behind.

“Oh…” Lexa bit her lip.

Damon slid a finger inside her. Damn, she
was so tight. She jerked against him and turned her face, her teeth
sinking into his forearm. He kept moving his finger, added
another.

“I’m…so close.” She bit him again. “Please,
Damon, not here. I want you inside me.”

Damn, it was what he wanted, too.

He pulled his hand away, and with her
watching, brought his fingers to his lips and sucked the taste of
her off. Her eyes widened.

“You taste too damn good, Lexa. A taste a
man will always hunger for, will never want to give up.”

He yanked her up and moved her toward the
tent entrance. As they ducked out, he heard some of the dancers
finding their climaxes.

“Hurry,” she urged.

Hand in hand, they ran back toward the
inn.

***

Lexa stumbled into their room. The lamps were
off, the only glimmer of light in the room spilling in through the
window from the village outside.

Damon spun her and was pulling at her
clothes. She did the same, helping him yank his trousers open. As
her fingers brushed the bulge there, he groaned.

He gripped the neckline of her blouse and
tore it apart. She gasped, the cool air hitting her overheated skin
and making her already hard nipples pucker to tighter points. She
moaned. She needed…she needed Damon.

He grabbed her and spun her against the
door.

He shoved her skirt up around her hips.
“I’ve wanted to fuck you since those damn dancers started.”

“Inside me, now,” she panted.

He slid his hands under her bottom and urged
her up. In one hard thrust, he was seated inside her.

Oh, the stretching sensation. He really
filled her up in a way that had pleasure edged with the slightest
bit of pain. He pulled out slowly, the thick head of him circling
her before he plunged back in.

“Yes, Damon.” Her head knocked back against
the wall. She clutched at his strong shoulders, trying to find
something to anchor herself. She felt like she was going to
explode. The sensations building inside her were hot and intense
and coming so fast.

“Look down, Lexa.”

His raspy command had her obeying.

There was just enough light to see where
they were joined, where his thick cock speared into her. A small
cry escaped her throat.

His thrusts quickened, and his mouth caught
hers. She kissed him, wildly, driven by the spiraling need.

“Fuck, I’m going to come soon and fill you
up.” A deep growl.

Then she felt one of his hands move out from
under her. He slid it between them, touching her where she was
stretched tight around him, then he flicked a finger against her
clit.

She jerked. “Damon!”

“Yeah, baby, that’s it.” His thumb pressed
down hard on the slick little nub. “I want you to come now and
scream my name so everyone can hear.”

Another rub of his finger and she
shattered.

She did scream his name, helpless to do
anything else. The pleasure washed over her in waves, and it was
stronger than anything she’d felt before.

After another few thrusts, Damon ground
against her, his release spurting inside her.

They slid down the wall and ended in a
tangle of sweaty limbs.

Wrecked. She was completely wrecked.

“Bed,” he rasped.

“Too far.” She moved her fingers in his
hair, which was all she could manage.

A satisfied male laugh sounded in her ear.
“I’ll get us there.”

“Told you that you were a hero.”

He made a sound that might have been a snort
or a laugh. He got to his feet, and despite the fact she was
completely wrung out, her belly spasmed looking at him. At all that
lean, male beauty.

He hauled her up and over his shoulder.

“Hey!” She slapped a hand against his very
bare and very fine ass.

“Only way I know I won’t drop you.”

He headed for the bed and laid her there.
Then he climbed in beside her and tugged her close to him.

Lexa sighed. This felt…really good.

A bit of her good feeling evaporated. This
would end when they got back. It was like a vacation fling…but with
more sand. She was well aware a man like Damon Malik wouldn’t
settle down with a wealthy-heiress-turned-astro-archeologist. He’d
spent a lifetime traveling the galaxy, no doubt meeting all kinds
of beautiful, exotic women. She was nothing but a change of pace,
holding his interest for however long it lasted.

But…her hand curled into his hard chest and
he made a contented sound.

She wasn’t sure she wanted this to end.

Lexa wiped her forearm across her forehead.
The suns were both high in the sky and blazing down like a double
incinerator.

Her new ballo beast ambled along, following
Dathan and Damon. She patted the animal’s matted fur, kind of
missing her last one. As the ballo stepped over some rocks, Lexa
winced. She was, unsurprisingly, sore. And riding a ballo beast
through the desert probably wasn’t the best idea after a day of
intense sex. Of mind-blowing, sometimes sexy, sometimes hard and
dirty, and sometimes fun sex with a man who couldn’t get enough of
her.

She looked at Damon’s back. He was leaning
over on his beast conferring with Dathan. God, just looking at him
made her feel that little tingle.
Get a grip, girl.
She’d
turned into some sort of sex maniac. She wanted to blame the
dancing, or the goddess, but she knew deep down it was
this…connection between them.

They’d headed off at dawn. As promised,
Dathan and Pris had organized the supplies and a new ballo. Pris
had come to say goodbye, bitching the entire time about being up at
an ungodly hour. Dathan had a very pleased look on his face that
told Lexa he’d manage to talk some lovely young thing into sharing
his bed for the night. He’d also managed to collect all the
information he could on the Devil’s Garden.

Apparently, it was a lone rock formation in
the desert that included sharp rocks sticking up through the sand.
Excitement winged through her. She couldn’t wait to see it. He’d
also found numerous stories that said the Orphic priestesses used
to warn people to stay away from the Devil’s Garden, which just
strengthened Lexa’s belief that their temple was there
somewhere.

The thought of stepping foot in that temple,
being the first person to do so in hundreds of years, made her
shiver.

Ahead, the men had stopped. With a frown,
she urged her beast up behind them.

Then she saw what they were looking at.
“Oh!”

It was amazing. The line of tall, jagged
rocks speared into the sky, following a line of large sand dunes.
God, it did almost look like the skeleton of some long-ago
dragon.

“Come on, Dr. Carter.” Damon nodded down the
dune. “Let’s go exploring.”

They descended the dune, which brought them
to the bottom of the Dragon’s Spine. Staring up at the rocks, she
knew they wouldn’t be able to ride their ballos up there.

Leaving the beasts with some feed, Lexa and
the men headed up on foot.

It was hard going. The temperature had
reached scorching, in places the sand was unstable, and in other
spots, the rocks were broken and rough. But before too long, they
were passing through the giant spires.

She touched the rock surface; it was dark
and smooth. She frowned. It didn’t look like bone, but it also
didn’t look like any type of rock she’d seen before. They kept
moving upward, searching every rock for any sign of anything
manmade, or priestess-made.

But Lexa didn’t see anything but rock and
sand.

Hot and cranky, she was happy when Dathan
called for them to take a break. She sipped from her canteen and
looked up at the rocks tracking up onto the next dune. She looked
back and couldn’t see the ballos anymore.

“Here.” Damon held out a piece of nutrition
bar.

She took it even though she hated the stuff.
They were one step above cloned food and always tasted the same,
regardless of what flavor was promised on the packet. She chewed
it, looking again at the rocks.

“It’s here. I know it.”

Dathan swiped his brow, his shirt covered in
patches of perspiration. “You sure?”

“We keep looking,” she said firmly.

The treasure hunter nodded. “You’re the
boss.”

After the brief rest, they got back to
searching. Every promising rock turned out to be nothing, and Lexa
had to concede that every possible engraving was made by the wind
and sand.

“Dammit.” She kicked a rock and sent it
skidding down the dune. Doubts rose up, but she stomped on
them.

Then she heard a faint sound.

The tinkle of…water?

She moved away from the men, wanting to
confirm she wasn’t having a heat-induced hallucination before she
mentioned it to them.

The rocks were packed closer together here
and she climbed up, wedging her boots in wherever she could find a
foothold. As she pushed up over a small ledge, the sound of water
intensified.

She crouched and stared at a tiny pool
formed by a narrow rivulet of water dripping from out of the rock.
She moved closer. The pool was sitting in a basin of rock the size
of a bathroom sink.

Was it natural? She ran her hand over the
basin. The rock was smooth, the water was cool. The basin certainly
seemed perfectly circular, but nature could possibly produce
something like that.

Then she looked up at where the miniature
waterfall traveled down the rock and into the pool. Behind the
water, she saw something. She leaned closer. A familiar egg shape
was carved into the rock.

Her breath caught. Yes!

“Lexa?” Damon’s voice echoed up, edged in
concern. “If you’ve broken your neck, I’ll be upset. I rather like
it.”

Dathan snorted. “I thought it was other
parts of her you liked.”

“Shut it, kid.”

With a shake of her head, Lexa leaned over
the ledge. “I’m up here.”

They looked up at her and she took a second
to appreciate the male beauty of them, both tall, dark and
handsome. Even if they both looked a bit hot and bothered.

“I found something!” she told them.

A moment later, Damon climbed over the ledge
in an athletic move that he made look easy.

She mock-scowled at him. “Were you born
competent at everything?”

He shot her a look. “Hardly.” He eyed the
pool.

“I think it’s a shrine,” she said.

“Well done, Dr. Carter. We’re on the right
track.”

She knew she was beaming.

Suddenly Dathan yelled at them from below.
They traded a look. There was urgency in his tone that spelled bad
news.

“Damon! Lexa! Get down here.”

They both looked down at the treasure
hunter. He was turned away from them, looking into the
distance.

“What is it?” she asked.

He spun, his face tense. “We have a
problem.” He pointed.

She looked, sensed Damon doing the same.

A huge, billowing sandstorm filled the sky
to the south.

And it was headed their way. Fast.

***

Damon climbed through the rocks, keeping an
eye on Lexa as she scrambled beside him.

He heard Dathan grunt as he clambered up
behind them. “I’ve never seen a storm move as fucking fast as this
one.”

Already the wind was picking up around them.
Damon could hear the sand pinging off the rocks and in the distance
he saw the wind skimming sand off the tops of the neighboring dunes
in a wild, dancing spray.

“We need to find shelter,” Damon said. “Keep
moving to where the rocks are denser.”

“Shouldn’t we head back to the ballo
beasts?” Lexa asked.

Dathan shook his head. “We won’t make
it.”

“Will they be okay?”

“Yep,” Dathan answered. “They’re used to
sandstorms. They’ll find the best spot to wait it out and their
thick coats will protect them.”

“We don’t have the same protection,” Damon
said. The thought of harsh sand ripping into Lexa’s smooth skin
made his chest tighten. “Look for a cave, an overhang,
anything.”

They kept climbing, the wind turning to a
low howl around them. No caves appeared.
Fuck
.

“Is it true the sandstorm can take your skin
off?” Lexa’s voice was labored from the climb.

Dathan’s face was grim. “Yes. And this one
looks bad.”

Suddenly, Lexa lost her footing. She fell,
skidding down the rocky-sandy slope.

Damon grabbed her hand, halting her fall.
She struggled to get her feet under her. The wind was whipping her
hair into her face and he felt sand stinging his own cheeks.

She expelled a harsh breath. “I can’t…don’t
let go.”

“I won’t. Take your time, move your foot
slowly.”