Read Online Queen of Starlight by Jessa Slade - Free Book Online Page A

sir.” The medic saluted crisply and went to the hatch to close the ship.
    Benedetta matched Corso’s brisk strides into the main corridor and restrained a grateful sigh when the studded grill underfoot gave way to cold-but-smooth, blue-gray panels. “I don’t need your protection, but that was well handled.”
    “I wasn’t protecting you, I was maintaining order on my ship. And I don’t need your approval.”
    “I suppose you don’t, since you get so much of it. And it doesn’t mean much from a slave-whore.”
    He stopped abruptly and turned to her. In the lower lighting of the corridor, his face was as hard set as the sheership’s uncompromising lines. “He shouldn’t have said that.”
    She lifted her chin to match his expression. “Your medic is not the only one who thinks that way. You’ve said it too, Captain.”
    He took a step closer and stared down at her, brow furrowed in fierce concentration. “You never yield, do you? Not once.”
    “Should I?” She closed her eyes for a heartbeat, gathering her qva’avaq as she would in the meditation dance. When she looked up again, she willed him to feel the flaring energy. “Are you the man to make me yield?”
    He reached up one hand…and leaned past her to trigger a panel in the wall with his palm print. A door popped open, and he slotted the hazer in among a half dozen other weapons. The click and whir as he shut the panel and locked it again almost covered the sound of his low sigh as he leaned with his hand flattened against the wall. “I shouldn’t have said it either. We do what we must to survive. I must be getting lazy to have forgotten that.”
    She shrugged. “Maybe you’re too principled to be a mercenary.”
    When he straightened, he trailed his fingertip under her raised chin, tracing the silvery lines she knew marked the inner contour of her jawbone. Despite the weariness of his stance, his dark eyes speared her. “No. I’ll still take that payment you offered.”
    Though the threads of qva’avaq were faint there, the shock of his touch echoed all the way down her spine, forcing the breath from her body in a gasp she couldn’t contain. And when she inhaled again, the air around her was rich with his male scent, sharpened with the ship’s metallic tang. L’auraly texts described the symptoms of crystalline desire, but even set to music, those poems did not capture the keen rush now accelerating her pulse. The Asphodel —revved up and ready to soar—must feel like this.
    She struggled to keep her voice light. “Then I should have brought dessert with me, since you gave up supper to the rest of your crew.”
    His gaze fell to her mouth as he held the point of her chin in a loose grasp. “I wasn’t thinking of berries.”
    He lowered his head so slowly she thought her qva’avaq pathways might ignite with her anticipation. But the sound that came out of her when his lips closed on hers was nothing more than a whimper.
    The touch of his mouth was exquisitely tender, almost tentative. The dance of desire she’d been taught started with the slow slide of his tongue along the seam of her lips. The glissade mesmerized her so that she forgot the steps she should follow and instead sank her hands into his hair to anchor his mouth to hers.
    He echoed her grasp, and they clung together as if the Asphodel were falling into the sun and this was their last breath. Certainly Benedetta’s body felt the rising heat and pressure all around her. He shifted his thumbs along the points of her jaw, forcing her mouth open farther, and tilted his head over hers, taking the kiss deeper. She moaned into his throat, and his knee thrust between her legs, pinning the fragile folds of her veils to the bulkhead. She dropped her hands to grasp his hips and angled herself to ride his thigh.
    He lifted his head with a gasp, his hold falling to her shoulders. “Etta...”
    “If you’re going to say something stupid or rude, please just kiss me again