Sex or Suffer [Dark Colony 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (12 page)

The communications bell sounded again. “Penelope?” Captain Wyckoff’s luscious voice came through the air and her heart promptly skipped a beat in surprise.

Composing her voice so as not to squeak she managed a quiet, “Yes.”

“It’s Gray. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”
Liar
. Her libido taunted her with images of a sleep rumpled Gray right before she’d thrown her clothes off and invaded his bunk.
I’d be better if you came to my room.
She approached the device. His handsome face filled the screen and she could tell he was back in his quarters. Directly. Next. Door.

His startling blue eyes fixed on hers and fairly mesmerized with their intensity. “I wanted to let you know about why your room seal failed. The blackout did cause the seal between these two rooms to default back to the original quarantine programming. I’m very sorry. I wish I could say it won’t happen again, unfortunately, we haven’t discovered what caused the blackout yet.”

“I see.” Penelope wanted to invite him to her room in the worst way.

“I’ve already retrieved the room separation program files and put your room back as it was when you arrived. I’ll look into reconfiguring the seal of the room so that even if there is a blackout, the system will default back to isolating your room by itself. I will, however, have to assign someone else to manage the project.”

“Someone else? Who?”

“I might be able to get Angelica to work on it. I’m using a very lean and mostly temporary skeleton crew on this journey instead of a full group compliment.”

Penelope knew her unreasonable demands were the true reason his ship was flying without a full crew. Still, she didn’t want anyone to discover the reason she needed to be trapped in here or worse discover what she’d done to Gray when it failed. “I wish you didn’t have to tell anyone.”

“Well, I’ll hold on then. The good news is that as long as you stay in your room, the seal will reactivate and as long as I’m not in my room…well, you should be okay.”

“I don’t mean to be difficult about the secrecy. It’s just embarrassing.” Penelope resisted the urge to hide her head beneath her arms.

“I understand. You aren’t being difficult. ”

Penelope pushed out a breath deciding that she was
too
being a big pain in the ass. She should say she was sorry, instead she said, “Thank you. I really appreciate your efforts on my behalf.”

He nodded and a smile played along his luscious lips before he asked, “Is there anything else you need?”

You
. “Are you busy right now?”

“I…no. Why?”

Penelope didn’t know where she came up with the audacity, but she guessed that desperation changed the playing field. At least it did for her, so she straightened and asked for what she truly wanted. “I was wondering if you’d like to participate in an experiment?”

His gaze shifted from hers and he laughed in a rich deep way that touched her way deep inside. “That depends on the experiment.”

Clasping her hands together to keep them from shaking, Penelope took a deep breath before she responded, “Would you come to my room?”

His eyes narrowed for a moment as if suspicious as to why she’d want him near, but soon softened. “Because you want to know how long your temporary cure lasts?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

His eyebrows quirked upwards. “So this would be purely for scientific reasons.”

Okay. If that’s what it takes to get you over here.
“Yes. Purely scientific. Unless you want to talk. We can do that too.”

Another seductive smile slid into place across his beautiful lips. “How long has it been now?”

“About seventy-five minutes.”
But it seems like days since you touched me.

“Give me fifteen minutes more and I’ll come over for experimentation and chatting.”

“Great. Thanks for understanding.”

“Sure.”

Penelope skittered off to the bathroom to see if she could improve her looks in the short term. It wasn’t like a date. Not exactly, but her heart rapped against the inside of her chest as if it was. Captain Gray Wyckoff was a man worth getting a little worked up over.

* * * *

Gray checked his external communication device, sent another video message to Nathan at the
Mirage
on planet Echo Province regarding his sudden flight to the Parsec Colony without mentioning Penelope or her disastrous problem and then carefully contemplated Penelope’s request. A smile formed as the memory of their previous liaison slid past his frontal lobe. Checking his timepiece, he noted another five hours before he’d have to report to the Command deck for duty. Plenty of time to experiment with Dr. Drake.

Surprised by his own anxious attitude of wanting to get involved with her, Gray realized he truly liked Penelope. If they both lived on Bravura full time and she didn’t have a dicey medical problem, he’d bring her flowers or take her to dinner first. Likely it wasn’t going to be possible to have any sort of regular budding relationship given her constraints, but the idea of quality time with Penelope wasn’t a hardship.

This attitude was also a surprise as he didn’t usually seek out women for relationships. Often his “feminine” relationships were quick and one-time affairs. He traveled a lot and most of the women he knew looking for a mate didn’t like to be married to men they only saw infrequently throughout the year. Gray’s life was in galactic space and he’d never found a woman he liked enough to either tame him to stay on solid ground or one who would agree to come along.

Dr. Drake made him reconsider his lonely bachelor status, and another smile formed. To solve her immediate problem, he merely needed to be available for sex at any given moment. An easy proposition. He closed his communication device and headed next door…for experimentation.

After a quick knock at her door, she opened the entry as if she’d been waiting for him and hovering by the door.

“I appreciate you volunteering for doing this. If you’ve changed your mind, I completely understand.”

He stepped across the threshold of her door and kept his gaze on her face. “I haven’t changed my mind. Anything for science I always say.”

She grinned. “Really? Anything? How brave of you.”

Gray approached Penelope, who stood very still in the center of the room. “Listen, I
am
very sorry about the seal breach. But I promise to do everything in my power to help you on this trip.”

“I thank you.”

Unsure of exactly what to expect, he glanced down her body quickly and asked, “How do you feel?”

Penelope shrugged. “So far so good.”

“What happens so that you know you’re about to have…an attack.”

She crossed her arms and rubbed her upper arms as if she were suddenly cold. “It starts with your scent,” she finally whispered.

Nodding, he smiled. “I’m glad I showered then.”

The musical sound of her laughter which escaped her smiling lips all of a sudden warmed him deep down in his soul. He wanted to please her. He wanted to make this trip easy for her. With an internal sigh, he admitted to himself that he simply wanted her.

She caught his eye. “You don’t have to do this, you know. I probably shouldn’t have asked—”

“It’s not a really a hardship for me,” he broke in before she changed her mind. “Likely it’s harder for you.” He moved closer, step by step until their toes almost touched.

“The truth is that it wasn’t much of a hardship for me either. Not with you.”

He leaned closer with the intent to capture her mouth, but she moved faster and they connected mouth to mouth, lips to lips in a mutual embrace.

She was aggressive, but soon broke off the ardent kiss with a shake of her head.

“Wait. I know I started that, but I think it will lead someplace I’m not ready to go yet.”

He pushed out a long slow breath. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

With the taste of her still on his lips he said, “I’m not.”

“You’re very understanding.”

He laughed. “No. I’m a man. I don’t often need much of a reason for…experimentation.”

“I’d like to wait and see how long it takes before I…um…need to…”

“I know. I get it.” He crossed his arms as if it would be enough of a barrier to keep them apart. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to wait for her virus to kick in, but there was something to be said for anticipation. He definitely wanted her. He wanted to make her scream in delight. What would happen if he tried harder to wrench a climax from her as he pushed inside her body as fast as possible?

“Once your…attack begins, may I try my own experiment?”

Her brows furrowed. “Like what?”

“I’d like to try to make you come during your ‘episode.’”

Her eyes widened. “What are you going to do?”

Arms still crossed, he leaned forward. “I’m going to finger your clit while I relieve your anguish with my cock thrusting into your body.”

She swallowed hard. “But you’ll stop if it hurts?”

“Of course.”

Nodding, she allowed a little smile to surface. “Okay.”

“And if it does hurt too much during the treatment process…then I plan to make the necessary time afterwards to ensure you get some enjoyment from our coupling. As a matter of fact, I’ll insist on it.”

A slow smile crept over her lips. “That’s what makes you very different from the pricks I’m used to dealing with. The men I’ve been romantically involved with up to now couldn’t care less if I enjoy sex. Likely it wouldn’t even matter if I were suffering.”

“Then you’ve definitely been with the wrong men.”

She grinned. “Well, there haven’t been very many, but I’ve come to believe you’re correct. All two of them were wrong for me.”

Gray wanted to hug her tight again, but instead, he strolled across the small space and seated himself in the chair by her communication device. He stayed well out of the scope of the camera’s view. No need for anyone to see him in here. “Tell me about yourself. What do you do in the lab where you work?”

Moving to the bunk adjacent from his chair, Penelope sat, visibly relaxed and spoke in a quiet voice. “I spend a great deal of my work day studying historical mass illness breakouts.”

“Really? So after you read about all these histories, what do you do?”

“Then I try my best to find a better, cheaper or faster cure.”

“Was there a mass break out of the disease you carry?”

“No. Thankfully it was a very isolated case. My superior, Dr. Ledreder, asked me to handle the two cases quietly and assigned a staffer to help me.”

“Were you able to cure them?”

She shook her head solemnly. “They’d had the virus for too long. The cure we had didn’t work on either of them.”

“Why not?”

“The first woman killed herself shortly after entering our facility. I’d secretly given her the available treatment, but it didn’t work possibly because she’d had the virus in her system for too long. She killed herself before I could stop her. And I didn’t have time to study the illness before I caught it myself.”

“I’m sorry.”

Penelope shrugged, but he could tell she was devastated by her patient’s death. “The second victim wanted to end her life, but I refused and had her placed in a coma to allay her symptoms until I could figure out why the cure didn’t work. But then I caught this virus myself so…everything changed.”

The color in her cheeks rose as she spoke. Gray wondered if she’d be so embarrassed if she didn’t harbor the illness herself.

“Which is why you need to get to the Parsec Colony in less than two weeks.”

“Yes. I don’t know that I could endure this for a life time.”

“Understandable. We’ll make it there in time. I’ll see to it.”

“Thank you.”

They spoke for nearly two hours about her work and her life before this auspicious meeting between them. As the third hour passed with no attack, Gray wondered if perhaps he’d cured her for good. But shortly thereafter, it became apparent that was not true. She asked him a question about his past space travels and before he could utter a word he watched her transformation from intelligent passionate doctor of science to determined sexual hunter ready to pursue her prey in a matter of minutes.

Her eyes glazed over in a subtle manner and at first he thought she was sleepy, but then she took a deep breath and a dreamy expression came over her features. She smiled in a lazy sultry way. The kind of smile meant to entice and engage.

Her voice lowered to a deep smoky tone. She leaned closer. “You smell delicious.”

“Do I?” Gray watched her fix her gaze on his cock for quite a long time until it started to rise from the rapt attention. He pulled his shirt off over his head readying himself for the inevitable as he watched her conversion into sexy siren on the prowl and unable to take no for an answer.

Her movements changed. Whereas before she’d been a little bit shy and distant with regard to her personal space as they’d spoken, now she undulated towards him with precise movements meant to seduce. Before his eyes she changed. She was about to suffer from an attack of sexual desire because of the way he smelled. She needed sex right now this second because of him and their invisible chemical attraction. Extraordinary.