Finding Lara (Distant Worlds Book 3) (15 page)

“Exactly like that, only
scream it like before,” he suggested with a half-smile, patting her ass, and
pressing soft kisses to her smiling lips between words.  Before she could
sputter out her answer through her laugh and the warmth he was stroking, he
spoke again.  “Or maybe softer this time with more panting and possibly a purr
at the end.”

This time Lara snorted
and smacked him on his wide shoulders.  Even she could hear the laughter in her
answer. “You are the most obnoxious man.  I do not purr.”

“Not yet,” he said with
definite promise.  His voice dropped darkly.  “But you will.”

Then he rolled her under
him and started all over again.  This time when she said his name, it was “Conall,”
just like he wanted.  But it was the dark sound of her own name whispered
across her shivering skin that sounded like a purr to Lara.

***

On the fourth night after
landing, Lara was trying hard not to laugh at some story Conall was telling.  “There
cannot be any truth to that,” she maintained. Her nanite armor was askew at her
chest as it had been since Conall was usually around to adjust it over her
breasts to his liking.  If it had not been safer to wear it when they weren’t
actively pursuing bed play, Lara was convinced he would have her constantly
naked instead; but since they might face unknown danger at any moment and the
planet was an unfamiliar one besides, she wore the armor.  As it was, whenever
she fastened the suit, he adjusted it enough that between that and the constant
sprawl across his lap and her escaping breasts she had to resemble a dizzy barmaid
more than her usual serene ladylike appearance.  The strange thing was that
laughing in Conall’s muscled lap and fending off his wandering hands while he
told ridiculous stories of his travels was fun.

“I know why you would
think so; if I had not seen the beastie with my own eyes I would have never
believed it myself.”

“I am not referring to
your description of the Fanhian.  I was referring to your retelling of the
battle,” she said, shaking her head at him and giving him censoring eyes that
fairly sparkled with the laughter she held back.  She removed his hand from her
breast again only to have it wander over the curve of her ass.  “Stop that,”
she said squirming.

“Stop what?” 

His too innocent eyes
were ridiculous when paired with the wicked smile. “You know what? We are not
having sex again.”

He looked appalled.

She laughed at the overly
dramatic look and then relented.  “Tonight.  We are not having sex again this
eve.”  She gave him a worried look.  “Surely even you must sleep sometime.” She
pursed her lips looking over his face.  “Eventually?” she added hopefully
without much true hope.  That familiar gleam was in his eyes again, and despite
the days and nights of lovemaking they had relentlessly pursued and her own
readiness to sleep, her body started to tingle. 
The man is a sorcerer
, Lara
thought starting to move out of his arms in self-defense. 
An evil hedonistic
sorcerer.

Conall finally laughed,
pulling her back into place when she would have bolted.  “Relax, sassy, in
truth I just want to hold you and tickle about a bit before I have to leave on
patrol.  It gets lonely traversing the wilds, a man alone.”  He nuzzled the
last words into her neck; she could feel his eyes on her exposed cleavage.

“I offered to go with
you,” she said with remembered ire.

This time he was the one
who snorted.  “Yes, but I want to remain unseen and
unheard,
sassy.  The
one time I let you go your mouth did that thing it does.”

“That thing it does?” she
asked, narrowing her eyes and dropping her voice.

“Yes, that thing where it
never closes and every thought in your head spews out in a great tide.”

Lara tried to hold onto
her mad, but his description of a few questions she had asked was ludicrous.  “I
asked a few questions. You could have just said to be quiet.  Instead of
throwing me over your shoulder and hauling me back here.”

“A few questions, she
says,” he muttered against her neck between kisses.  Really, those lips were
the only reason she put up with him.  Then he chuckled when she swatted at the
back of his head.

“You could have just said
to be quiet.  I was a little nervous but I’m not stupid.”  She couldn’t help
the small amount of hurt that crept through the anger in her voice.  She just
hoped Barnos was too busy with whatever he was doing with his tongue that was
making her nerves shiver and pulse to hear it.

She found herself on her
back a second later.  She was suddenly looking into heated and unusually
serious eyes. “Truth is, sassy, I like hearing you talk, makes me hot when you
start spewing facts no one in the universe knows but you.  I threw you over my
shoulder and dragged you off so I could have my wicked way with you.”  He
smirked down at her, his eyes trailing from her head to her chest leisurely.  “It
was either that or fuck you against an alien tree in a mysterious jungle with
no animals.”

Lara blinked up at him
and felt her lip twitch and her knees tingle.  The two desires to smile at him
and throw herself at his head were equally strong.  She cleared her throat, and
let her random thoughts flow.  “It is strange.  Never in all my travels have I
visited or read about a world so evolved having no species of animal that
evolved as well. There is something wrong on this world that we haven’t seen
yet.  Some mysterious evolutionary strain that will eventually pop up and kill
us when we bleed in the water or something else significant.”

Conall lowered his head
and nipped at her collarbone with a growl.  “Now you’re just teasing me.”

Lara laughed and he
growled again.  Then hissed with his head pressed against her chest.  “Shite. 
Now I have to go on patrol with a fucking rocket in my pants.”

Lara snorted through her
laugh.  “Now who’s teasing?”

Conall lifted his eyes
and narrowed his laser sights on her.  Then he started in with the real
tickling, digging his fingers into that spot on her side that he had discovered
made her screech with helpless laughter.  He showed no mercy, even when Lara
begged for it.

Seven nights after
landing Barnos stood at the top of the rise, looked out over the darkened
jungle, and cursed.

There were lights. 
Barnos gritted his teeth at the view he had hoped not to see.  Too close, too
many lights, and all moving their way.  With how close those moving lights were
there had to be another sensor in the survival gear.  They could not have
gotten that close otherwise.  He cursed and ran for the cave, and Lara.  There
was no chance that this was anyone but Warrung.  No one else knew what had
happened to them.

“Time to go, sassy!  Move
that sweet ass.”

He was gratified to see
her do that, jumping up and throwing the Fire Gone on the flames with quick
efficiency, but when she went for the supplies, he grabbed her arm.

“Leave it.  They’re
almost on top of us; no way could they have tracked us this quickly unless
there were more sensors in the supplies.”  She looked with regret at the bed
and their little cave, then turned and pulled on her boots.

Barnos offered her a hand
when she was finished and she took it.  He hauled her up and they were running
before they hit the end of the cave.  They headed up rather than down, because
their pursuers were coming up the only climbable part of that side.  That meant
they had to head up and over and hope the other side of the mountain offered
more possibilities for escape.  It would also give them a chance to watch the
followers and see if they continued up after finding the supplies.  Since they
couldn’t bring the lights, nor would they use them anyway without showing their
own position, Barnos and Lara were dependent on his cybernetic eye.  So, they
moved with Lara at his back, one arm wrapped around his torso, her hand flat on
his hard abs.  Her other hand was holding his waist, her head ducked against
his back.  It meant they could move fairly quickly with Lara protected from the
wild foliage she could not see to duck.  They were moving fast, but whoever was
coming after them was going to be able to move faster because they were not
hampered with the dark jungle trek.

“I’m slowing you down,”
Lara murmured as if she read his mind.  He had noticed the more time they spent
together, the more she seemed keyed into his thoughts.  They hadn’t discussed
it, but then when he wasn’t checking for pursuers, he was keeping her naked and
too busy for talking.

“Bollocks,” he muttered
back.

He felt her clutch his
waist harder.  “If it’s a choice between one or both of us making it . . .”

He squeezed her hand in
warning and interrupted before she could finish.  “Then you fucking run while I
deal with them.”

He could feel her shake
her head against his back, and her voice was soft when she spoke again.  “Some
pirate you are.”

The plain truth was that
after spending days with the woman, he liked her more, not less.  He would be
dead before she fell into the hands of Cor Warrung.  Wanting to protect her was
not him going soft.  Fact was, he had never been more dangerous.  If Lara
wasn’t safe, nobody else would be either.

“Just pipe down the
talking, sassy.  We might lose them after they hit the cave anyway.”

He kept climbing, pulling
Lara along with him. They made it to the point in the mountain where all that
was above them was sheer rock and turned right.  He stopped and looked down the
mountain and felt Lara look around him.  She could see the lights heading up
the hill past the cave as well as he could.

“Conall.”

Since the morning they
made love and he told her which name to scream, she had stopped calling him
Barnos.  Never before had he felt the need to enlighten a woman about his first
name.  With Lara, he fucking loved hearing her say his name.  Even in this
fucked up situation it gave him a visceral thrill he could feel in his dick.  Right
now, he ignored the distraction in favor of staying alive.

“I see it,” he said
grimly.

“What do we have left? 
My armor?”

“And the blaster,” he answered,
pulling it out and throwing it back down the mountain away from their
direction.  Lara started pulling at her armor, but he caught her hand.  “What
the bleeding hell are you doing?”

“What if it’s the armor?”

“If we need to split up it’s
the least you will need to survive.”  He pulled her hand away and smoothed her
armor out.  He took a moment to push her hair back and smooth it down behind
her shoulder.  “You keep the armor.  If it comes to that I will kill the man
with the tracker and shove it up Warrung’s arse myself.”

She kept her eyes on his,
hers going infinitely sad.  “You are the most stubborn man I have ever had the
misfortune to meet.”  She said it softly, her eyes tender on his face.

He kissed her hard.  His
hand fisting in the hair he just smoothed, he held her hard against his body,
his lips and tongue a heated dance, nearly brutal against her mouth, as if he
could imprint himself there.

Then he let her go and
without letting her catch her breath, he started around the side of the
mountain with the hope that there would be some way to get down and away on the
other side.  They were both very aware that their chances of survival had
dimmed considerably when the lights passed up the cave after only a short stop
and kept coming.  Barnos had his eyes on the jungle around them, looking for
another way down that did not require repelling off a sheer cliff.  So far, he
had seen nothing but certain death.  He started to look for ambush sites where
he could lie in wait, or safe places for Lara to wait if he needed to turn and
face them on his terms.  He had found nothing that would offer him anything
along either of those lines when they came to a dead end.  A rock ledge hung
over the jungle surrounded by sheer cliff on all sides.  He went to the edge
looking down for tow holds or anything that meant they could climb down and saw
only empty space below them.  “Shite.”

***

Out of the heavy jungle
and shadowed cliffs, Lara finally had enough light from the three moons to
see.  What she saw was a whole lot of nothing in front of them and a sheer drop
below.  She blew out a breath.  “Can we back track and find another route?”

“There was no path, or I
would have taken it.”  He turned and looked around them, then up above.  Lara
watched him, and even after she had already done the same thing, she looked
again.

“Conall,” she said
quietly watching him looking around again, his eyes fierce with stubborn
resolve.  At her tone, he turned towards her and she stepped forward, lifting
up on tiptoes at the same time she pulled him down by a grip on the neckline of
his armor.  She kissed him, trying to put the same fierce possession into the
kiss that he had earlier.  Just that quickly he took over; his arms curved
around her and closed like a steel trap.  He lifted her off her feet never
breaking the kiss, as his tongue dueled and danced with hers.  She broke away
finally, breathing hard.  “I just wanted to say, you have been my best
adventure yet.”

She expected him to laugh
and say something raunchy or suggestive but he didn’t. He dropped her to her
feet and swept a hand across her cheek and into her hair. His forehead rested
on hers for a moment, then he kissed her again, a soft brush of lip on lip. “When
I tell you to run go for the cave and grab what you can, whatever will help you
survive.  Forget the damn bed.  Then you run as far and as fast as you can.”

“And while I am running
away what are you going to do?” she asked, her serenity cracking.

“Lara,” Barnos growled, “we
don’t have time for this shite.  When I tell you, move your arse out.”

He watched a militant
look come into her eyes that had him cursing.  Her lips firmed, her chin rose. 
“We fight them together.”

“Fuck that,” he said
succinctly.  “You are useless in a fight and you fucking know it.”

“I’m not running while
you sacrifice your life for me.”

He growled, grabbing her
slight shoulders to pull her into his chest, a physical act of domination and
intimidation. His voice hardening further.  “Don’t throw dirt on my grave yet, sassy. 
If I don’t have you to worry about, I have a better chance of ending these
fuckers.  You keep moving and out of enemy hands and I will find you.”

She looked unsure
suddenly, wondering if he would really be better off without her.  “Conall?”

“I will find you.”  His
grip on her shoulders loosened, and he kissed her again.  “Run when I tell you
to, and stay alive.  Those are your only jobs.”

Lara wanted to know what
he was really feeling.  She did not want to leave him when she could help, if
nothing else, as a decoy.  She didn’t want to be a weapon used against him
either.  She needed to know what he really felt about her going or staying. 
While she would get whispers from him occasionally when they were close or his
feelings were intense, she was getting nothing from him now; his emotions were
locked up too tight.  Lara did something she did not usually do; she went
looking for what he was feeling.  It nearly brought her to her knees.

Barnos was determined
like nothing she had felt before, his focus on her safety completely; beyond
that she felt a rage that she had rarely encountered.  A rage directed at the
men coming for them and that, too, was on her behalf.  He would kill them all
to keep her safe.  Where her safety was concerned, he was completely
implacable.  He would never agree to her helping, she knew that now.  If the
bad guys got a hold of her they could use her against him, and he would
sacrifice himself to see her safe; she knew that because by what she was
feeling from him, he was already planning on exactly that. 

Lara took a deep breath
and wrapped herself around Barnos, her cheek resting on his chest.  “I’ll run
when you tell me to, and I will stay alive,” she said quietly, squeezing her
eyes closed against the tears threatening to fall.  “But I will hold you to
your promise.  I expect you to come for me.  You need to stay alive for that.” 
You need to stay alive for me.
  She did not add the last part, but she
thought it, and willed him to live, no matter what.  She didn’t waste time
wondering when the pirate had come to mean so much, she just knew he had.

***

They could hear them
coming now.  Lara hated hiding in the trees when Barnos was in the open and
drawing their attention and fire.  It took everything she had not to jump down
and join him in his fight, but she knew that would only distract him at the
moment when he needed all his senses on the battle ahead.  She saw the lights
before she heard the subtle hush of the foliage being moved through.  It was so
dark under the trees with the solid wall beside them blocking the light of the
moons that she could see nothing but the lights.  The only thing she knew was
that they were heavily outnumbered.

She counted six separate
lights, and as they got closer, she realized that the lights were actually
coming from eyes.  A half dozen cybernetically enhanced eyes.  She wondered briefly
if Conall could do that, too, but saved it to ask later.  Then she would decide
if it was creepy or interesting on him.  On this bunch coming so quietly
stalking through the dark, it was terrifying.  She froze in her hiding spot
while they passed her.  If they were tracking her suit, the reading would take
a moment to calibrate once they passed her position.  Conall planned to use that
moment to start taking out cyborgs.  The tracker was going to be the first to
go, and when that happened, Lara was supposed to climb down and run without
looking back.

It happened almost like
that, but when the first cyborg fell, it was only a sound; Lara could not see
to verify what had happened and she was terrified of moving too soon and
getting them both killed.  There were more blasts exchanged, some she could see
shooting blindly into the trees as they caught fire.  Lara started to move out
of the tree, then took one last moment to try and see Conall. 
Was he
already hurt?  Does he need me?

The decision was taken
out of her indecisive hands when the tree she sat on gave a great rumbling
shake and she was pushed right out it.  She didn’t have time to get her breath
back after her ignoble crash to the ground.  The ground under her began
twisting and bucking.

She was rolled into the
thick of the cyborgs, still trying to find something to hold on to.  There was
nothing on the ground that was in any way safe to touch.  She was bucked again
and rammed into the body of one of the cyborgs; with an oomph he tried to grab
hold of her but she was already shoving herself to the side.  He came up from the
teetering soil, his hands out to grab her, his light blinding her and framing
her for everyone to see.  She heard a battle cry she had never heard before and
still somehow recognized.  Conall was coming but he was going to be too late. 
Then, just before the cyborg had her, a yawning hole opened up with rocks
jutting like teeth in the flashing strobes of cyborg light and sinister dark
shadows.  The cyborg was swallowed.  Lara felt her legs fall into the hole
after him and threw herself backwards with a shrill scream of pure terror. 
Scrambling to find something, anything to grab hold of, she was sucked in after
him.

Something grabbed her out-flung
arm as her fingers dug furrows into the shifting dirt but found no purchase. 
She screamed again.