Branded By Kesh (5 page)

I stared at him incredulously. I couldn’t believe he’d just said that.

“Of course it changes things, Kesh. You’re pirates, for stars sake. Everything you are goes against everything my parents have raised me to believe. The Universe has ways of balancing things out, and what you and your crew are doing will bring the Universe down on top of you.”

“We’ve managed to survive so far without the Universe retaliating, Magnolia. Even if I believed in this all powerful Universe that you seem to think is out there, it wouldn’t stop me from being part of this crew. What we have is freedom, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the Universe.”

His words resounded inside me, hitting at something that was close to my heart, but it was only one thing we had in common. This need to be free.

“That’s why we won’t work, Kesh, because you believe something completely different to me. We’re
too
different,” I told him.

“If you believe we won’t work because of that, you’re lying to yourself, Magnolia.”

How dare he! I was not lying to myself. I’d always tried my hardest to be honest with myself about what I felt and what I wanted. Yes, I wanted him, but any kind of relationship, even a short-term one, wasn’t going to work. We wanted different things. We stood for different things. What we believed in was different. I wanted a man who held similar beliefs to me, a man who understood me, and I didn’t think Kesh would understand me. And I didn’t know him well enough to know if he’d try.

I pushed past him, my shoulder brushing up against the heat of his body. Anger thrummed a tune inside me. I was so angry with him that I almost vibrated with it. I placed the herbs down on the counter next to the cut vegetables.

A hot hand wrapped around the bare skin of my upper arm and turned me to face Kesh. I looked up at him, about to tell him to get his hand off me, but I didn’t get the chance. He swooped down and kissed me—a hard, angry kiss that had heat of a different kind flaring to life inside me.

Moaning into his mouth, I pressed up against his heat. He drove me crazy, I was still angry with him, but I couldn’t deny the chemistry we had. Every time he looked at me or came near me, heat sizzled inside me, turning me liquid with desire. He didn’t even have to touch me and I was wet with need. His mere presence was enough to ignite the flames of passion inside me.

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away from him. Have you no shame, Magnolia?”

Jaxxon’s angry voice cut through the haze of passion and made me pull back to stare at him. Heat flared in my cheeks as I stared back at him. His angry green eyes flashed in the bright lights of the dining room. A low growl of sound came from Kesh, vibrating through my chest where we were still pressed together.

“What are you doing here, Jaxxon?” I demanded of the man who until the night before had been my best friend.

“I came to see if you wanted some company. You always liked me sitting in the kitchen with you when you cooked,” he replied. “But I see you don’t need more company. You have all the company you can handle.”

I heard bitterness in his voice and felt my chest tighten as sadness almost overwhelmed me. We had so much history together that was going to be lost because he couldn’t understand what I needed. I didn’t even know if I had anything with Kesh, and now it looked like I was losing Jaxxon as well. The fact that Kesh was a pirate was a huge stumbling block that I didn’t know how to get over.

“I’ll always enjoy your company, Jaxxon. That hasn’t changed. It’s
you
that can’t handle what I need,” I told him.

He looked back at me, stark anger on his face.

“Have you told him what kind of relationship you want, Magnolia? What does your new man have to say about it?”

My stomach twisted at what he was saying, at the conversation I still needed to have with Kesh. I didn’t think the conversation would go as well as it had when I’d had it with Jaxxon. Kesh and I had barely begun, and I wasn’t sure after learning that he was a pirate that we would even start. I’d told him that there was no future for us, had told him that we were too different to make it work, and I still believed that, no matter how he made me feel with his kisses.

“What’s he talking about, Magnolia?”

Kesh’s deep voice rumbled up from his chest, vibrating through me. I stepped back out of his arms. I wanted distance between us for this conversation. I wanted to be able to see his face and the emotion that he was bound to feel.

“Kesh—”

“So she hasn’t told you. Then, let me inform you of the kind of relationships Magnolia expects to have.”

“Jaxxon—”

“No, Magnolia. The man deserves to know what you expect at the outset. How can I deny him that knowledge?”

Jaxxon looked from me to Kesh and before I had a chance to say anything, he continued.

“Magnolia’s parents have an open relationship, where they allow each other to be with other people they meet. That’s the kind of relationship she wants. She wants the freedom to be able to start something with people she meets along the way if she finds them
interesting,
”

Jaxxon looked at me.

“I believe that was the word you used wasn’t it, Magnolia?”

I hadn’t looked at Kesh since Jaxxon had started talking. I was too afraid to see the rejection on his face, too afraid to see the anger I could feel radiating off him.

“Basically, what she wants is the freedom to have a relationship with you while I hang around waiting for her to be done with you so she can come back to me.”

“Jaxxon that’s not what—”

“How can you deny it, Magnolia? That’s
exactly
what you want. You want the freedom to come and go as you please, fucking whoever takes your fancy.”

I looked back at Jaxxon in shock. He was so angry. I hadn’t realised he felt so strongly about the kind of relationship I wanted. He’d always been supportive of me and the decisions I’d made, but I’d never found a man in the three years we’d been together that I wanted to explore a relationship with.

He’d never seen me with another man. He’d never had to stand there and watch me be intimate with another man, and it was obvious to me from his anger that he didn’t like it, couldn’t handle it.

Had I made the wrong choice when I’d agreed to start something with him? Had he lied to me about how he felt about the kinds of relationships I wanted? It was the only thing that made sense in the face of his anger.

Kesh hadn’t said anything in response to Jaxxon’s little speech. I looked up at him, not sure what I would find. His black eyes burned into mine, searing me with the anger in them. He leant down so our faces were close together.

“I’m giving you fair warning, Magnolia. When you become mine, I won’t share you. You’ll belong to me and
only
me.”

He turned and stalked away, leaving the echo of his words ringing through the kitchen.

Chapter Six

Kesh’s words stayed with me for the rest of the day. He didn’t come for a midday meal nor the evening meal. I had a lot to think about, his words repeating over and over in my mind, confusing me with the conflicting emotions I felt.

His assertion that being a pirate was about freedom had me reconsidering my initial reaction. I still didn’t agree with what they did. However, I could understand their desire to be free. After all, that was what I wanted in my relationships. Somehow, I had to make Kesh understand that.

I was angry with Jaxxon for the way he’d told Kesh the kind of relationship I wanted. I would have eased it on him in a far gentler way, the way I’d told Jaxxon. Then again, Jaxxon had agreed to the kind of relationship I wanted and now he had changed his tune, so maybe that wasn’t the best way to tell Kesh after all. Maybe saying it straight up was the best way to go. It didn’t matter anyway, because he knew now and had made his position clear on what kind of relationship he expected.

My reaction to his parting statement confused me. His declaration that I would belong to him left me feeling a strange sense of excitement that I didn’t understand. No man had ever claimed me so thoroughly. No man had ever demanded so much of me. To belong to him and only to him—it scared me silly.

What if another man came along that I had chemistry with? I wouldn’t be able to see what kind of connection we had, how we could come together. I couldn’t explore a relationship with any other man. However, if the man I was tied to were Kesh, would it matter? Or would the chemistry we had burn out as quickly as it had started? Would we have sex and find it was just a brief fire that once quenched had no substance to it, had no holding power?

For the first time in a long time, I was questioning what I always thought I wanted. I’d watched my parents’ open relationship and seen how they made it work. While loving each other they had allowed each other the freedom to explore other relationships, and I’d always thought that was what I wanted, too.

Now I felt confused by the strong connection Kesh and I seemed to have, by what he made me feel, and confused that although I was sad that my relationship with Jaxxon seemed to be at an end, I wasn’t heartbroken over the fact. Did that mean I hadn’t loved him?

I let Penta go after we’d cleaned up for the night, I had some things to prepare for breakfast and wanted the quiet and solitude of being in the kitchen by myself to think about what was happening in my life. We were going to be aboard this ship for such a short period of time, whatever I had with Kesh might only last those two weeks. But if I pursued it, if I had even a short fling with Kesh, I would lose everything I’d had with Jaxxon.

Even if he’d accept me back after I’d slept with another man, I didn’t think our relationship would ever be the same. I’d seen a side of him that I didn’t like, and I didn’t want a relationship with a man who would agree to my conditions to get me into bed and then change when things didn’t go the way he wanted.

The lights in the dining area were dimmed to low when Kesh arrived. He stood, leaning up against one of the counters not saying anything while I finished washing my hands. He leant his big, muscular body casually back against the counter, no sign of the anger that had been on his face when he’d walked away earlier.

I moved around him, my heart skittering at having him so near, putting the last of the things away in the store cupboard and cold room. I stood in the store cupboard for a long moment trying to get my heart rate under some kind of control, trying to find the calm my family knew me for.

Nothing I did seemed to make a difference, and in the end I gave up, moving back out to the kitchen to stand at the long counter in the centre of the room. I looked at Kesh, our gazes meeting, and I felt the connection we had snap into place as our gazes locked. We stared at each other, not saying anything, the tension slowly climbing until it was almost vibrating through the room.

I didn’t know what he expected of me or what he wanted, but something had to give.

“Kesh—”

At the sound of his name, he unwound his long body from the counter and started to walk towards me, all lethal grace and danger, holding my gaze in his, pinning me to the spot with the heat in his eyes. A fire burned in his eyes, scorching me from the inside out, turning me liquid. Heat raced through my body and gathered between my legs.

He stopped in front of me and reached for me with two hands, sliding them into my hair and lifting me towards him.

“Kesh—”

“Don’t talk, Magnolia.” He pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “Don’t think.”

Another soft kiss, this one with a little suckle of my bottom lip.

“Just feel. Feel the connection we have. Feel what I do to you and after.”

A deeper kiss, this one wet and full of the soft slide of his tongue against mine, sending heat spiralling through me to land with a throb at my core.

“After, you can try and tell me we don’t belong together. You can continue to lie to yourself that what we do doesn’t matter.”

I stared up into his eyes, not really hearing what he was saying. I’d heard the part about not talking and not thinking, about just feeling, and I’d switched off. He was giving me the permission I couldn’t give myself just to let him love me. I nodded up at him, unable to talk. Feeling had taken over and his heat beat into me, the feel of his hands in my hair and the soft kisses he was peppering across my lips, the soft nibbles of lips, the stroke of his tongue and his spicy taste were all combining to send me out of my body towards the stars.

Strong hands lifted me up and sat me on the counter, bringing me up to his height. I gasped at the sudden action, clasping my hands on his shoulders, steadying myself. Those same strong hands slid up the outside of my ankles, my calves, my thighs, trailing heat up my legs as he pushed my long skirt up and stepped between my parted legs. He grasped my hips and pulled me flush against his heat, the hard ridge of his erection pressing into my softer core, almost pulling a moan from me.

Stars, I wanted him. I had since the moment our gazes had met across the cargo bay and I’d felt the connection we had snap into place. Since I’d felt heat spiral through me from a mere glance. His hands on my bare skin felt delicious and hot, searing into my sensitive skin.

Those hot hands delved under my top as he kissed me again, stroking the skin of my waist and around to my back where they brushed against the ultra-sensitive skin over my spinal ridges. The bony protrusions along my spine had come from my biological father, along with my green hair. The skin over those little protrusions was incredibly sensitive and sent bolt after bolt of pure pleasure shooting through me as Kesh gently ran his fingers up and down my spine. A little whimper slipped from my throat and had his fingers going still.

“Am I hurting you, little flower?”

“No,” I gasped wanting him to continue. My core was throbbing and I knew if he continued long enough, he could make me come just from stroking me there.

Teasing fingers stroked up my back, feather light along the ridges of my spine. I shuddered as pleasure coursed through me and drew a moan from deep in my chest.