The Space Colonel's Woman (Dragonus Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Julia wanted him. She arched her back away from the seat, thrust her breasts up, and tugged him down by the front of his shirt. He groaned in the back of his throat, and without breaking their kiss, dropped to his knees. Julia reveled in her power over him as his hands circled her waist and pulled her to the edge of the seat.

  His mouth traveled down her neck to the first button of her shirt. Her erratic breathing thrust her breasts in his face and he slid his palms up her sides to cup them. His thumbs grazing over peaked nipples, before undoing the remaining buttons and tugging down lace cups so he could suckle.

  She arched further into Mark’s mouth, answered his moans with her own, fingers caught in the anarchy of his hair, holding him tight; stubble lighting sparks of heat across her skin. Mark gazed up at her from under his lashes, seduction and wonder and need swirling in whiskey depths; voice all gravel and molten honey. “Julia.”

  “Yes?” She panted, lost to the fire this man ignited in her and frustrated by his sudden desire for words.

  “Close the hatch.” She moved to the console, but his hand on hers stopped her. “No, just think it. Imagine it closing.”

  Julia tried, and after a moment of passion-distorted thought, the ramp began to close; sealing them inside, alone.

  “Amazing.” He murmured to himself as he tugged her jeans and panties off her legs.

  He lifted one leg over his shoulder, groaning as her scent enveloped him, and leaned in to worship her with his mouth. Julia’s hands clenching and unclenching the armrests as she came with her colonel’s name on her lips.

  Mark gazed up at her with crazed lust in his eyes, removed his shirt and laid it on the floor. His arms tightened around her as he laid her down, supporting his weight as he drove deeper; chasing his pleasure. The echo of her name the only sound in the hot breaths they shared.

  ~*~

  “Won’t someone find us?” Julia whispered, thinking clearer now that her mind wasn’t hazed with the need for Mark to be inside her, taking her apart only to put her back together again with his body. She groaned and leaned up to press a kiss to his bitten mouth.

  “This one’s mine, no one flies it but me.”

  “Oh.” She shivered and he leaned closer, using his body to warm her.

  “Do you want to leave?” He asked, reluctant.

  She shook her head. “Is there a blanket?”

  “Ah yeah, hang on.” Mark rolled his eyes and smirked as he wriggled free and went to search the rear cabin.

  Julia shivered in the breeze created by the unfolded blanket floating to rest over her and Mark shifted to lie beside her side, and she flicked the blanket over him too.

  “Thank you.”

  He smiled dreamily, moments from sleep. “Welcome.”

  A loud knock resounding on the hull had Julia leaping out of her skin; her violent jolt waking Mark too. “Huh, what?”

  The knocking came again, all the more insistent for not receiving a reply the first time.

  “Holden, you in there?” Hayden’s gravelly voice was thick with amusement. “Colonel Archer wants to see us. You weren’t responding to your radio. Must be a glitch.”

  Hayden waited for a response, and not getting one he continued. “Be in the conference room in ten.”

  They listened to his fading footsteps and Mark pulled Julia to his chest, stifling his laughter in her hair. “Oops.”

  “Oops is right, lucky we shut the hatch or he would’ve really gotten an eyeful.” Julia chuckled, straightening her bra before doing up her shirt buttons. She could feel his gaze following every movement, and slapped him on the thigh. “Come on, Colonel, get dressed. You’ve got places to be.”

  Julia handed Mark the shirt he’d so gallantly laid her on, and wriggled her feet into the legs of her jeans.

  “Do you want these?” He asked, her panties dangling from his fingertip.

  “How about you look after them for me.” She tucked them in the thigh pocket of Mark’s BDUs. “Our little secret.”

  He grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her in for a hungry kiss.

  “Are all my flying lessons going to be this instructive?” She panted when he released her mouth at last.

  “Is it something you’d enjoy?”

  “Definitely.” She slid her palm over the curve of his ass as they walked in step down the ramp.

  “Meet you back at my quarters?” He queried, clipping his radio back onto his ear.

  “Ummm.”

  “Back across the bridge, down the back stairs, take the first left, and it’s the double doors at the end of the corridor.”

  She nodded her understanding as Mark stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, before walking away.

  “Hey, you can open the doors yourself.” He said, fixing his collar, and picked up the pace to get to the conference room in time for the meeting.

  Julia waited a few minutes after she’d lost sight of his retreating back. This day was shaping up to be a real winner. She had the X2 gene, and Mark was going to train her in the glider. Julia hugged herself and grinned, then followed Mark’s directions back to his quarters.

  ~*~

  The walls were closing in and Julia needed something to do. Something other than reading, listening to music, or pacing while she waited for Mark to return. She glanced out the window at the perfect blue sky and the way the sunlight sparkled on the water, and made a decision.

  Julia took three of the aqua-skinned fruit she’d enjoyed at breakfast from the small wall fridge, put them in the side pocket of her camera bag and slung the strap over her shoulder; wiggling an earbud into her ear as she walked out the room. The doors sliding shut behind her with barely a thought.

  Several wrong turns later, she found herself in the central control room. It was crowded with uniformed staff wearing both Phoenix shoulder patches and designation logos. Who stood in front of holographic screens projected from the surface of the curved white and silver consoles. The atmosphere was one of such official importance, Julia was hesitant to interrupt.

  “Can I help you?” The blond woman at the nearest console asked, her smile open and friendly.

  “Hi, yes,” Julia stuttered. “How do I get outside? Maybe to the gardens?”

  Julia gestured to the camera bag at her hip and smiled, trying not to look too out of place while the woman looked her over.

  “Oh, you’re Colonel Holden’s…guest. Right. Sure.” The woman brushed a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear when it fell back over her eyes. “I’m Ange Green.”

  “Julia Swift, nice to meet you.”

  Julia smiled and offered her hand, which Ange was quick to shake.

  “Outside to the gardens, you said? It’s best to take the relocator to the auxiliary science wing, two buildings over, and out the double doors at the end of the corridor.” Julia nodded, asked where the relocator was and headed in the direction Ange pointed, after asking her to let Mark know where she’d gone.

  The relocator turned out to be a far weirder experience than the characters of the show made it out to be. But then the one on Phoenix Rising hadn’t actually been real. The one Julia had just ridden in left her feeling queasy and like she wasn’t all there. She could still walk in a straight line on grounded feet, and yet. Being in one spot then, with the flash of pristine white light, appearing in another less than a second later, was bound to cause a glitch in your programming.

  The doors whispered closed behind her, and Julia found herself breathing the open air of her new home once again. It was clean and crisp, and felt invigorating in her lungs; minty fresh in her sinuses. She could easily get used to standing in the middle of a city minus exhaust fumes or smog.

  Julia craned her neck to see more of the watercolor-blue of the sky overhead, so clear and clean it hurt to look at it. The ghosts of two planets reflected the sun’s rays, just like the single moon did back on her Earth. She lowered her gaze and rubbed the back of her neck before taking in the sights at ground level. Th
ere was no chance of missing the Birdcage now. It rose from the center of this Eden like an elegant greenhouse, surrounded by its lush plantings of emerald green spangled with blooms of every color and shape. Groups of scientists huddled about, taking samples and readings with hand-held instruments similar in appearance to the tablets of Julia’s Earth.

  White paving squares meandered in a complicated architectural design along tree-lined promenades, beneath archways, through formal plantings with fantastical water fountains at their centers, and past private seating nooks; each with the same white benches as the balcony. It was impossible to choose where to go first.

  Her decision was made for her when two men dressed in green overalls and carrying a metal crate between them, reached the doors. They were too caught up in their heated discussion of the crate’s screeching occupant to pay her any attention. So Julia went straight ahead, hand clutched knuckle-white on the strap of her bag. This place may bear a resemblance to the parks back home, but the truth was, they weren’t. They, and Julia, were on a different planet, in a different galaxy, universe even; and that knowledge would take some getting used to.

  She had found a spot about ten minutes’ walk from the science building’s doors and was humming along to her playlist and munching on one of the fruits she was yet to learn the name of, when she saw Mark approaching. He was dressed in his tactical gear, T60 clipped to his vest and APX in his thigh holster. Julia went the impulse and snapped a dynamic portrait of her colonel, stark in his blacks against the crisp white of the tower looming behind him.

  “Hey, you.”

  His shoulders were a sharp line of tension as he brushed a strand of bourbon back behind her ear.

  “What’s up?” She asked, ignoring the sexy smile. It had been four days but she had a pretty good handle on his tells.

  “Gotta go off-world.”

  Julia popped the last of her fruit into her mouth, and tried not to choke on the sweet dark juice.

  “Oh.”

  “Be back as soon as I can.”

  It made sense. Logically she knew what his job entailed. Three years of watching Phoenix Rising had told her that much. But the reality was different, and a lot more dangerous. Television meant a change of scene, or a fade-to-black, and the actors went home to their lives at the end of each work day.

  This wasn’t television. And it wasn’t a world populated by cardboard sets and Christmas light console panels. This was Mark’s world. And it was real, and deadly, and any off-world mission could be his last. Julia couldn’t help wonder what would happen to her if Mark didn’t make it home. After all, she’d only just arrived on Phoenix; hadn’t established herself as anything other than Colonel Holden’s…guest.

  “I’ll leave a light on.”

  Mark used Julia’s outstretched hands to pull her into him, wrapping them around his neck before lowering his mouth to hers. His palms rested on the small of her back as he kissed her, soft and lingering, before stepping back and tapping his radio.

  “Garrett, I’ll be there in five.”

  He laid a peck on her nose and smiled the crooked smile she loved so much. The one that always made her smile in return; before running back the way he’d come.

  “Please, keep him safe for me.” She whispered to the universe, and retreated into the world inside her camera.

  ~*~

  Julia lay in bed, wide awake and alone in the darkened room. She stared at the red glow of the alarm clock, where it sat mocking her from the bedside cabinet. It’s black presence alien against the stretched and languid curves of the room’s design. Mark had been gone for ten hours and thirty-four minutes; thirty-five minutes.

  She had spent another hour out in the gardens before returning her camera to Mark’s quarters and going to the Mess hall for dinner. Ange and Doctor Peyton had been sitting together and invited her to join them. Their invitation had saved her the embarrassment of choosing where to sit, a task that reminded her too much of high school to be a fond memory.

  She and Mark had been so wrapped up in each other that she hadn’t had time to meet anyone aside from Anora, Hayden, and Stephen. And they were all off-world with Mark.

  Over trays of schnitzel and salad Doctor Peyton had mentioned a movie night in the FOQ. Two buildings right of center, Ange had explained as she swigged the last of her bottled water. It wouldn’t have mattered what was playing, Julia would’ve gone anyway. Anything was preferable to waiting alone in Mark’s quarters, counting out the minutes until he returned. It had been better to socialize and begin the process of finding her feet in her new home. Step one, making friends.

  Nineteen-hundred hours had found her in the common room of the female officers’ quarters, seated between Ange and Doctor-call me Lenti-Peyton, eating pink popcorn made from Salmat kernels. Best of the Best had turned out to be this reality’s equivalent of Top Gun, complete with a volleyball scene.

  Julia smiled to herself. Apparently hot flyboys playing volleyball transcended all space-time dimensions. Not that she was complaining. Lenti and Ange had been great company and she hoped they’d hang out together again.

  But the movie was long over, and Julia, was sleepless in Phoenix. The edginess she felt when she was parted from Mark freaked her out. She had never been this dependent on anyone before. Jumping into a relationship was one thing, but abandoning everything you knew for a man from another reality was something else entirely. It didn’t feel like a mistake. And she sure as hell didn’t want to take it back. But it just the biggest fucking decision she’d made in her life. Ever. Maybe this was what it felt like when you found your soulmate? Julia didn’t know. She collected shells and random driftwood at the beach, not sexy-ass space colonels with non-regulation bed hair and whiskey-gold eyes.

  Whatever it was they shared, Julia would rather have it than not; even if it meant winging things for a while. She grinned at her pun. Besides, it wasn’t like Mark was any wiser about their situation. He’d looked just as stunned by their connection as she was.

  Julia snuggled deeper into the pocket of warmth she’d made for herself in the huge bed. Too much thinking was bad for your health. Ten hours and forty-six minutes…

  Through the haze of finally-arriving sleep, Julia heard the doors hiss open and Mark’s quiet bootsteps as he crept in. She listened to the thuds of his boots hitting the floor, and the whisper of his clothes as they followed the boots. When he arrived in bed and spooned against her back, his knees behind hers; he was naked except for his tags.

  Julia sighed, her body relaxing against his hot hard chest as his arms folded her in close; humming at the heat of his lips on her shoulder. Mark laid his head on her pillow, inhaling the scent of her freshly washed hair; his breathing slowing and deepening as he drifted off to sleep. She sighed; allowing sleep to claim her too. Mark was home.

  Chapter 9

  The way the morning sun filtered through the Birdcage’s dazzling alien glass and reflected off the corrugated wing spans of the gliders was breath-taking. Julia couldn’t help standing and staring at the way the spaceships were stacked four levels high above her head. Each ship rested on a giant silver soup spoon, the end of the handle attached to the support pillars. They looked like an exotic breed of newly-discovered bird of paradise sitting on their roosts, each level spaced on alternate pillars from the ones above and below them. In between were elegant balconies made of the same glass and silver as the Birdcage itself, only they weren’t balconies, but elevators to take the flight crews to their spaceships.

  She must’ve been standing there for ages, eyes wide and mouth hanging open, because when Julia finally dragged her gaze away from the architecture, Mark was leaning against the first glider in the bottom rank; arms folded over his chest and ankles crossed. His eyes were sparkling and a grin playing around his mouth.

  “Ready for the thrill of your life?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Mark pulled up just inside the rear cabin and tugged Julia back against him; arms wrapping aroun
d her waist as he ducked in close, hot breath stirring the curls by her ear.

  “You’ll be awesome, I know it.”

  “I appreciate the confidence, Colonel.”

  She pressed a soft kiss against his lips and Mark groaned his appreciation before releasing her. “You wanna fly us out?”

  “What do you think?”

  Julia dropped into the pilot’s chair, swinging her knees under the console and placing her hands on the alien equivalent of a steering wheel. The little ship hummed to life in response to her X2 gene and the thrill of connection sparked in the back of Julia’s mind as if Glider one was welcoming her home. It was a sensation that left Julia feeling both overwhelmed and elated. She wasn’t sure exactly how she was supposed to concentrate on telepathic flight data transference, while physically navigating them out of the Birdcage and into open air, but she sure as hell was ready to try.

  “Propulsion, navigation, altimeter.” Mark gestured to sections of the display, each one self-illuminating when his palm hovered over it. “And your earpiece connects to Flight Control.”

  She nodded and took the radio Mark held out to her. It curved around the shell of her ear and tucked inside; the tiny tech so light it was easy to forget it was there at all. “Flight, this is Glider one, ready for lift off.”

  Mark snorted with amusement as he settled into the padded leather of the co-pilot’s chair. She felt her cheeks flush but didn’t look at him. He’d have to teach her the correct terms, so she’d know for next time.

  “Glider one, acknowledged.”

  Julia, under Mark’s direction in the form of him pointing out the windshield, had no trouble maneuvering the glider off its silver spoon, out through the open door, and ascending to thirty-thousand feet. They flew over the rear arms of the city’s crown, leaving it behind in the blink of an eye, headed inland to the coordinates Mark had programmed into the glider’s console matrix. All she had to do was follow the plotted course.