Petr's Mate (11 page)

“She will have to wait until I
am long gone from this universe,”
Fintan
said. “My
daughter will not be dating, fraternizing, or otherwise associating with any
male other than her immediate family until such time. If she does, the male
will find himself on a long journey aboard a slow freighter bound for nowhere.”

“I second that,” Petr said with
a firm nod.

Sam
laughed. “Oh my God. Nothing has changed. In all this time, all this distance,
every man seems to think that the women in their lives need protected from the
opposite sex. Do you feel the same for Lennox? Does he have to wait until you
are both gone from this world?” She was snickering, she couldn’t help it,
because she knew that the same restrictions wouldn’t be on the little boy. When
she looked at
Adira
,
who was barely holding in her laughter
as
well,
she knew she’d hit the nail on
the head.

Fintan
opened his mouth, closed it,
opened it again,
then
seemed to think better of
answering her question.

Petr didn’t have the same
problem. “Lennox will be too busy watching over Morgan. When she is eventually
settled happily with someone he approves of, and knows we would also approve
of, then he
’
ll
see to his own happiness.”

Samantha
burst out laughing at that pronouncement and noticed that
Adira
was, too.
She
was snorting from laughing so hard. It was hilarious because the truth was that
they all knew better.

Sam looked down at Morgan and
smiled. “One day you will find someone and he’s going to be everything that you
could have ever wanted. I have a feeling that your daddy and uncle will bend to
your will easily. You already have them wrapped around your little fingers,
don’t you, darling?”

Morgan
looked up at
her,
then smiled angelically. The little girl knew her power, Sam realized.
Especially when she proceeded to turn to look at Petr and lift her arms. Her
lower lip gave a quiver, and instantly Petr scooped her up to give her a
cuddle. The look Sam got when Morgan rested her cheek to Petr’s shoulder said
it all.

Sam snickered and leaned over to
kiss the girl’s cheek. “Little lover. You keep that up, darling girl.” She
looked down at Lennox and smiled. “Looks like it’s just you and me, little man.
How about I tell you a story?” She grinned when he kicked his feet. “Let’s see,
what story fits?” She had to think for a moment. Then she adjusted Lennox on
her lap so that her hands were free and began to do the spider song, using her
hands to move the song along. “The itsy-bitsy spider climbed up a water spout
…
” She was singing very softly
because she hated her voice when she sang, even if others liked it.

Lennox clapped his hands when
she finished. Turning, he looked up at her with pursed lips.

Fintan
chuckled softly. “He wants a
kiss, if you weren’t picking up the signals,” he told her. “My son has
discovered he is thought highly of by most of the females on
board
and has also learned that if he acts
cute he can earn kisses.”

Sam
couldn’t deny the child. She leaned down and gave him a kiss, then tickled his
belly. “Okay, here is another one.” Lennox was watching intently now. She
started to do the “Little Pigs” on his toes and snorted when the little boy
laughed with her. “That’s
awesome,
”
she said with a grin. “I have all kinds of
them,
darling. I will have to make sure to
leave some of them with your parents so that you can learn more of them and
maybe pass them along to others.”

“You have made a friend for life
in that one, Samantha,”
Fintan
said. “He will now
demand we tell him these same stories every night.”

“How
many do you know?” Petr asked her. Turning her
head,
Sam saw Morgan playing with his hair,
tugging on the short strands with a determined look on her little face. Petr
sat there taking the abuse and occasionally shifting Morgan’s little feet so
she didn’t step on anything she shouldn’t.

“It’s
been a long time since I’ve had to think about
them,
but I know a lot of them. There was
also a book that came out a long time before I was born called
Aesop’s
Fables
, which had a bunch of stories for children.” She paused when she heard
an alarm and frowned. It wasn’t obtrusive or
loud,
but it was coming from Petr.

“The
communicator,” he muttered. He shifted slightly to dig it
out
and slip it into his ear. “Go ahead,”
he said softly. He listened for a time, his brows drawing lower until he
grimaced. “Understood, we will be returning shortly.”

Pocketing
the device, he lifted Morgan to kiss her on her chubby cheek. “I’m sorry,
little
one,
but I have to go now.” He passed Morgan to her
mother,
then stood to take Lennox from
Sam. He cuddled the little
boy
and gave him a hug. After passing him to his father, Petr dug out the packages
from the satchel he’d brought along to set on the table before the seating.
“I’m sorry,
Adira
. I wish we could have had more
time,
but it seems there is a vid conference
I have to be a part of. I will let you know what’s going on when I can.” A
quick hug for his sister, then he held out a hand to Sam.

Sam
watched
Adira
cling to her brother for several long
moments. She felt the tears prickling behind her eyes and watched as
Adira
fought not to cry. She gave the woman a hug and
pressed kisses to both babies’ cheeks and put her hand into Petr’s. She gave it
a squeeze. “I’m with
you,
”
she told him softly as they started out of the room. She could practically feel
the pain radiating from Petr for leaving his sister.

He
smiled down at
her
and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Petr hugged her tight to his side as
they made their way quickly through the destroyer and back to where they’d
started. “I hate leaving her,” he said while he prepped the crawler for
departure. “I know she is safe, happy, and
loved,
but it doesn’t make it
easier.”

“I
can’t imagine that it
would,
”
Sam admitted. “Hopefully, one day there will be peace between your people and
you will be able to spend more time with them. All that we can do is continue
to work toward peace, behind the scenes, of course. Hopefully, we will be able
to find more information. Speaking of, did
Fintan
send the data that I asked for to the crawler so that I can look over the
Craegin
history?”

He
lifted the crawler off the decking. Then they dropped down outside of the
destroyer. When Petr had them
underway,
he leaned over to press a few buttons on her
side
and shot her a look. “Still
downloading. If he started it when we were there, or even right after we left,
we
should have the full download
before
reaching the border. Which is
good, since the asteroid field would mess with the signal if we are more than
halfway through it while that is still transmitting.”

“Okay.
Good.” She wanted to cross check the history of the
Craegins
to the history of the
Imarians
. She was buckled up in
her seat and closed her eyes when they lifted up to take off. “I enjoyed
meeting your family.”

“I did mention that you had
nothing to worry about, did I not?” She heard him moving around. Then the
crawler’s artificial gravity kicked out for a moment to let her feel the force
of whatever he was doing. “
Adira
adores you. The
little ones love you.
Fintan
we do not count since he
still hates me. If he hates me, who knows what he feels for anyone else.”

“He doesn’t hate you. I saw the
look on his face and he doesn’t hate you. As for your sister, I’m glad that she
likes me. And those babies.” She laughed. “They are perfect. I love them
already and I just met them.”

“If we can figure out a way to
end this war before it gets started fully then we will be able to have all the
time we want with them. We
’
ll figure this out, all of us, and then when we can
we
are all going to celebrate.” A
beep
sounded. “The
download is complete. Hold on to your seat tightly. I need to get us through
the field faster than we came in originally. This may get rough.”

“Great, thank you.” She closed
her eyes again and held on to the seat. With any luck, she wouldn’t puke all
over the deck plating.
She grimaced when she felt a sudden rise
,
then fierce drop, of the crawler.

“Hold on,” he told her a few
minutes later, “we
’
re coming in for a landing now. You can open your eyes
soon.” She listened while he talked to his vessel, then the AI system of the
crawler as it fed him data for the landing. Shortly after she felt the telltale
bump of them landing. “We’re home now, Samantha. I will have one of the crew
dump everything
Fintan
sent to us onto a data pad for
you to use.”

“Sounds
good,
” she told him with a smile. “I
look forward to looking over their histories. There were a couple of places in
your people’s history that I wanted to cross reference. A couple of places that
I was certain were odd, that looked to be altered somehow. Just in the way that
it was worded more than anything else,” she explained when he gave her a look.

“Let
me know what you find out. I’ll come find you when I’m done.”

Chapter Six

The door sliding open to reveal
Petr had Sam blinking like she’d come out of a dream. She’d been deeply
involved in reading all the data
Fintan
had sent her.
It was intense stuff. Some of it was hard to read. Not only because it was old
text with odd wording but also because of the emotions that came through in the
writing. Sam felt like she’d ridden a roller coaster worth of emotions.

When Petr collapsed next to her
on the sofa, his head dropping back to rest on the cushions, she set the data
pad aside. “Interesting reading?” he asked. He looked exhausted, mildly
irritated, and she could tell he’d scraped his fingers through his short pale
blond hair numerous times. It definitely wasn’t as tidy as it had been when
they’d parted.

She
curled up close to him and nodded. “I’m not back as far as I want to be but,”
she pulled the data pad close, “did you know
that at one time
your people had a trade
agreement? It was broken when the war
started,
but I can’t find that one missing piece. On one of the
documents,
there was a marriage that had
been announced, and a few days later there was a complete retraction and then
the statement that there was war. There is definitely something
hinky
going on there.” She looked up at him. “Want to talk
about
it,
honey? About what has you looking like you’re ready to kill someone?”

He
slipped his arm around her to pull her closer, his chin resting against her
hair. She felt him take a deep
breath
and let it out slowly. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding like I
have a high opinion of myself, so I’ll just say it. Forgive me if it comes off
wrong.” He turned to wrap his other arm around her. “Our ruling body of
Imara
are behaving like a group of
vreesha
symbiots
.
They don’t care for anything other than the credits they can pocket, and will
sell their votes to the highest bidder no matter the cost to the people.
Arguing with them to get them to see reason on any topic is like slamming my
head to the walls repeatedly. Painful and unproductive. Yet they wonder why the
people are so displeased with them, and why riots often occur in their
sectors.”

“I’m
so sorry.” She sighed. “Greed. It’s something that’s everywhere and that makes
me so sad. Humanity had started to band together when I was sent into space. We
realized that we were killing our planet and knew the only way we would ever be
able to go on was to find new homes in the stars. But to know that greed is
once more alive and well? It makes me sick and I’m so sorry.”
God,
she hated that for him.

“We
are blessed that our planets have very strict laws about the environment. We
also have laws about buildings, placements, and numerous other items that
protect our ecosystems. What we don’t have is a way to remove the ruling body
from
its
position of power when they
are set to put our people in harm’s way with this senseless war they are
attempting to reignite. The
Imarian
armada is not
controlled by them, thank the spirits, but they have their hands in too many
officers’ pockets. Those that don’t want war, like myself, have been working to
isolate those working for the ruling body. If we are
successful,
we’ll be able to remove them
fully from control and take back the armada fully ourselves to guarantee there
is no war. It would also leave us in a position to give the citizens of the
Imarian
worlds what they want, a
rulership
they have chosen, one that can be removed if they go against the people’s
wishes.”

She
looked up at him and frowned. “I think that would be
wonderful
if you and your friends were
somehow able to do that. You would make a good president, or whatever your
people’s
term for it is. You are
patient, kind, and you listen and take advice.”

Petr
drew back to stare at
her
and snorted while shaking his head. “Not for me,” he said. “I would never want
the job. A position like that needs someone who is in touch with the people and
their needs. I’m a military man. My life is what you see here. That is all I
need, all I want.”

“I
think I’ll always need
you,
”
she confessed, then tapped the data pad with one finger. “And I’m sure that one
day you guys will find someone to take over and rule your worlds. I just hope
that we’ll still be around to see it happen.”

“We can only hope, little one.”
Brushing a kiss to her forehead, he slouched further into the seats and hugged
her tight. “Tell me more about what you
’
ve found, or not found. I may be able to help you fill in
any blanks.”

“
Well,
it seems as if about thirty
generations ago you guys all had the same languages. That’s very cool.” She
thought that it was, at least. To
her,
that was an indication of either them having been of the same race at one time
or them having been such close tradesmen that they had the same languages.

“I
seem to recall
Adira
making mention of something like
that,” he said. Petr rested his cheek to her shoulder while she showed him a
few items on the data pad. “That
leads
to her theory we were one grouping at some point in the past, or at least more
closely linked than we are now.”

“There’s
always
conflict,
though, especially if greed plays a part. I had hoped with all of the
advancements of today that we would be able to move past all of
that,
but I guess it’s just wishful thinking
on my part, isn’t it?” She stroked her hand over his thigh and smiled. “But I
have you and you have me. Life is damn good, right?”

“It
is, little one.” Giving her a squeeze, he sat
up
and began to work on undoing his
uniform jacket. “I’m going to take a shower, and then I think we should go have
dinner with some of the other crew tonight. If I stay in
here,
I’ll only come up with extremely
creative ways to dispose of our ruling body. And while I doubt anyone would blame
me, it’s best not to dwell on their stupidity or greed.”

She snickered. “The crew are
probably thinking that I
’
m keeping you locked up here with me. Although they do give
you a look at times as if you are a lucky devil,” she teased.

Standing,
he shrugged out of the jacket and carefully draped it over his arm. “I am
lucky, Samantha.” Petr reached down to catch her
hand
and tugged her up to her feet. Then he
tossed her over his
shoulder
and headed for their bedroom. “I have the most amazing, delightful, and
gorgeous woman to call my own. No other man in all of history has been as
blessed as I am.”

She smacked his ass while he
carried her out of the room. “So am I going to shower with you, darling man?”
She squeezed his ass again.

“You
are showering with me. Later I was thinking we could use our bathing water
ration for something more soothing
before
sleeping tonight and take a bath together.” In the
bathroom,
Petr bent to let her slide
easily off his shoulder. Straightening, he gave her one of his smiles.

“Sounds good.” She still
couldn’t get over the fact that they were not only such a spacefaring people
but also the fact that they were able to have baths from time to time as well.
“I love that your people are as advanced as they are. Being able to sleep with
you, being able to bathe with you. It’s freaking awesome.”

“You’re
mine. Why would you not do these things with me, Samantha?” he asked. He was
working the buttons free of their holes on his shirt, giving her little peeks
at his chest underneath. When he reached the
bottom,
he wrapped it closed instead
of pulling it
off
and cleared his throat.

She
started to undress. “I have no idea. I just know that I love being able to do
this with you. It just amazes me that we have all this ability, to know that we’re
able to be as safe as we are in such a massive ship. In my
time,
we didn’t have anything like that.
It’s just surreal to me,” she admitted.

His
face showed that he was thinking through her answer. “The
cruisers
and destroyers are impressive.
Large cities in space, when you think about it. I enjoy being home from time to
time, but this is where I feel most comfortable. I cannot wait to show you my
world, to see it through your eyes,” he said, pulling off his shirt to fold it
up neatly.

That
had her smiling and she nodded. “I can’t wait to meet your people, your
friends,
and your family. Wait, do you
have family aside from
Adira
?”

“Sadly,
no.
Adira
, Morgan, and Lennox are my only living
relatives. My parents have long been gone from this life. My mother would have
liked you a lot,” he told her. Lifting a
hand,
he gently brushed back her hair, then
cupped her cheek. “She always told me that the woman meant to be mine would
have to be unique. I’m not sure if this was quite what she meant.” His grin got
bigger, and he moved to pull his boots and pants off.
After setting his
folded pants on top of the
shirt,
he crowded her toward the shower stall and inside. He set the timer to a
long, low
setting
and pressed a kiss to her
shoulder.
She
leaned back into him and tilted her head. He still smelled so good to her.
Everything about him made her hunger for more.
Hugging her
close,
Petr nuzzled at her neck. One
of his hands slid down until he was cupping her pussy, a finger stroking
between her folds. She watched him as he moved down her front.

Thrusting
two fingers into her
pussy,
he began to stroke her. He nibbled lightly on her neck before he nipped at her
earlobe. Then, withdrawing his
fingers,
Petr spun her in his arms to face
him
and lifted her until she could wrap her legs around his waist. He called a hold
on the shower while putting her back to the wall.

Petr caught her
hands
and pressed them up over her head.
She felt herself stretching to
accommodate him, pushing her hands up higher over her head. “Petr,” she had her
eyes closed and neck arched, “what are you doing to me?” She liked it. Whatever
it was, she liked it.

With
an adjustment of his
hips,
he began to press his cock into her sheath. “Do you want me to stop?” he asked
against her mouth.

“No, don’t stop.” She moaned,
tightening her legs around him as she spoke.

His nibbled on her lower lip,
then licked at her mouth. Thrusting forward, he buried his cock deep inside of
her.

“God
yes. That feel so good.”
Any
time
he was inside of
her,
it felt amazing. She could easily see herself being a
nymphomaniac
until she was dead and buried
with this man.

His laugh vibrated through her.
His mouth moved over her neck and shoulder before returning to nibble up her
throat. Petr kept the pace slow for a time. Then, slipping his hands into hers
to lace their fingers together, he kicked it up a notch.

“Every
night before we go to sleep,” he said against her ear, “I will have you.” He
rolled his
hips
and picked up the pace, stretching her arms higher so her nipples rubbed deliciously
against his chest.

He
gave her exactly what she wanted. She knew he always would. Each thrust was
hard, deep, and had her squirming on his cock. With the
hold
he maintained
on her hands
she couldn’t do anything more
than flex and clench her fingers around his.

She
didn’t know how long they were in the shower, how long that he pumped in and
out of her body while holding her
up,
but she was impressed with his strength and stamina all the same. He tilted his
hips just a bit and the feeling of his cock brushing her clit had her panting.
Then she screamed as her orgasm washed over her.

Petr
followed her over the edge with two more hard thrusts before his semen splashed
hotly into her sheath. Slowly he let her hands go, pressing her tighter to the
wall and lowering her arms to rest on his shoulders. When he found his voice
again,
he had the sonic shower
continue its cycle while they rested against the wall, wrapped around one
another.

When
the cycle was over, Petr gave her a
kiss,
then scooped her up in his arms. He carried her out of the stall and into the
bedroom, then let her down onto her feet. “Dress so we can get down to the
dining hall. We need to feed you.” He stroked a hand down her
arm
before he went to the
wall
and opened the panel to pull out clean
but casual clothing. It was the first she’d seen. He
’d
always worn uniforms around her since
she’d come on board except in their quarters.