Nell Thorn (3 page)

* * * *

Nell called a security detail and watched silently as her team dragged the body from her cabin. She felt sick, dirty, contaminated.

Also, she felt incredibly lucky.

If Rowe had not killed the man they would both be dead by now, as well as a large part of her ship destroyed. Her people had identified her would-be assassin as affiliated with a long-standing enemy of the Thorn family. His abdominal cavity had been rigged with a mass of surgically inserted explosives. Nell dreaded to think how it would have been triggered, and the subsequent damage that could have been caused to her space vessel as a result. She owed her mysterious guest a massive debt of gratitude.

She needed a wash.

Slowly Nell started to move, eyes closed, mind focused only on getting to the shower without breaking down in front of Rowe. She turned to enter the facility, and almost leapt out of her skin at the sight of the man himself sitting in silence on a low seat behind her, his face pensive.

“How long have you been there?” she gasped, clutching at her chest where her heart was drumming at a rate that could hardly be good for her.

“Long enough.” He paused. “You have great powers of self-control.”

A compliment?

“Thanks,” Nell said awkwardly before pulling at her sweaty vest top, her hands trembling slightly as she plucked it away from her skin without removing it. “Comes with the job. I’m…going to clean up now.”

She slammed on the shower and stood beneath it, the jets hammering down on her head and shoulders. At this point she would normally be feeling some relief from the frozen muscles in her neck, or maybe even crying her eyes out.

But she couldn’t do either with Rowe there, just as she couldn’t bring herself to remove the last pieces of her clothing with him watching her.

A hand gathered the vest top up and pulled it from her body, then pushed her hair away from her neck and started rubbing soap over her back in firm sweeps. Nell arched under Rowe’s hand, unable to contain a small gasp of surprise at the sensations raised on her skin by Rowe lathering her back, her shoulders.

“Rowe—” Initially she reached out to intercept his hand but he caught it in his, squeezing it gently before releasing it. Nell could feel the play of muscles in his naked chest as he pressed against her back, his hands then moving down to sweep across her stomach, across her breasts, rubbing her nipples briefly before moving down between her legs to soap her there.

Rowe held her clitoris gently between his fingers through the thin, wet cloth of her briefs, and abruptly all thought of what Captain Helena Thorn should do in this situation was lost to her. Nell could feel his erect cock digging into her as he moulded his body against hers. She shut her eyes and surrendered to the sensation created by the proximity of his body and roving hands, her breathless gasps the only sound apart from the hissing of the shower jets and the glide of the soap.

He traced the inside of her thighs; her legs were already apart in an effort to keep her balance on the wet floor. Slowly, tantalisingly, his index finger moved up towards her clitoris to rub the sensitive flesh there, gently, persistently arousing.

Nell could feel herself flushing. Her breath seemed non-existent and she had to inhale quickly to get another fix of precious oxygen. Rowe nuzzled her neck, and Nell felt him move to fill his hands to overflowing with her breasts, her nipples between his fingers.

“Oh…” The bolt of desire that ran directly from the tips of her breasts to the centre of her clit made her groan out loud. He moved his head down, his mouth latching on to one ear, then the other, sucking and nipping.

He thrust his large erect cock between her soapy thighs, rubbing her clitoris through her water-soaked underwear as he gathered her against his hard stomach. She was held, immobile, as Rowe rubbed his body against her and pushed the briefs down her legs to her knees. Nell felt the plump end of his cock roll against her soapy buttocks before it pushed into the crease in between them. Mindlessly, she tried to angle her hips to capture his thickness with her thighs, to direct him towards her hungry core, but he was too clever for her. Angling his thrust upwards, he moved his cock across her soapy backside, brutally squashing it between her cheeks as he pushed her against the tiled wall. He slipped two fingers into her and confidently found the sensitive spot just inside her pussy as he pinched her clit.

Nell came with a groan, gasping breathlessly as she felt him breathe into her ear one word. “Nell.”

With that Rowe climaxed, shooting his load over her soapy back and buttocks.

They stood there for a few moments in silence, breathing as heavily as if they had both been running a race, the water pouring down over them in a steamy cascade.

Rowe was the first to move, gently washing her once more from top to toe, removing her briefs from her legs before he left as silently as he had arrived.

“Oh, crap,” gasped Nell as she leaned, dazed and sated, against the wall of the shower. She felt confused, conflicted. The urge to cry had gone, but now a new sensation had come to take its place—the urge to follow Rowe back into her cabin and fuck him senseless.

Nell Thorn just might do that, but Captain Helena Thorn of the Galaxy Elite Fleet would not.

It was a rare moment of weakness in her normally ordered and ambitious existence, an emotional glitch.

Nell turned the shower to freezing cold and stood beneath the icy jets, her skin stinging as the chilled needles of water hit her skin.

She was in control.

Completely.

Forever.

Chapter Five

Half a standard annual cycle later…

“Hey, you!” Nell shouted at the lone barman in an imperious tone. “Why don’t you get over here and take some of these bags?”

The barman simply regarded her with a frosty glare, before flicking the cloth twice in his hand and resuming his efforts to clean the bar top. He spat on it for good measure and continued to rub.

It just about sums up my entire week!

Nell had just been ignominiously offloaded onto a grey, nondescript world that seemed to consist only of one docking station and a rather run-down bar facility. She had certainly seen much better on any number of other abandoned IGW colony planets, but then she wasn’t in the mood to ever feel good about this particular place. Not when she had just been dumped here in the middle of try-outs for the role of Area Sector Commander. In fact, Nell was positive that, at this particular moment in time, she would rather be anywhere in the known galaxies than on this particular IGW-forsaken world.

Another customer glanced up from his drink at the sight of her standing, at a loss, amidst her considerable collection of cases. Her face felt as if it were flushed an unprepossessing red from the exertion of carrying so much weight, and he was obviously waiting patiently for her to recognise him. It seemed to take somewhat longer than he had expected.

“Ahem!”

Now Area Commander Helena Thorn
knew
she was having a bad day.

“Talbot? What are you doing… How the hell did you know?” she snarled venomously, walking towards Talbot’s table after dropping all but one of her bags in the middle of the bar floor. “How
could
you know? I’ve only just been”—she threw the last bag at a chair with more aggression than accuracy—“offloaded.”

“I had heard dumped. I also heard there had been a big argument.”

“I was doing fine. The Sector Commander’s promotion was as good as mine until some nasty ingrate implied I was using my family connections to cut him out of the running.”

“And you weren’t?” Talbot’s note of surprise was clearly audible. “Is it possible for you
not
to use your Thorn family connections, Helena?”

Nell simply looked down her nose at Talbot, not even condescending to answer him.

The truth was that the big argument on her secondment to Sector had been to do with a rival implying her ‘packaging’ was starting to slip, and nothing to do with using her Thorn family connections at all. Nell was starting to feel that she had spent her entire life trying to get the right type of recognition, attention for what she could do rather than what she looked like or who she was. She had had to style herself into the pushy, artificial bitch that the rest of the GEF knew so well. The Elite Fleet understood thrusting ambition, and it had worked in her favour. The last thing she wanted was to start looking like an
ageing, desperate
, pushy, artificial bitch.

“What did it really boil down to, then?” Talbot asked her.

Nell sighed, a long, weary sigh.

“He pointed out to me that no one would notice when
his
packaging started to slip.” Nell sat heavily in one of the many vacant chairs. “I pointed out to him that physically probably not, but that intellectually they would definitely notice he had little to start with…”

“Touché, Helena.” Talbot smiled wryly.

“He did seem to take exception to it.” Nell pulled a face. “But I don’t think it helped that I am almost certain he was sleeping with the Exercise Commander.”

Talbot rolled his eyes at her words.

“You don’t need this, Helena. You don’t need all the nasty politics and in-fighting of being a Sector Commander.” Talbot took another sip. “Stick with your new Area Commander remit for now. After all, it’s a rather ambitious step to be chasing Sector responsibility merely months after gaining the rank of Area Commander, don’t you think?” He took her silence to mean she might actually be listening to what he said. “Have you ever thought you might be sending out the wrong signals to those higher up, Helena?”

Nell looked the other way, her face grim.

“It was not your fault that Rim pirates attacked your ship last cycle. The attacks around the area of the Sigma Alpha Rim are notorious, and were particularly bad at that time.” He wiped a small trickle of liquid from the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “Rowe was always an opportunist. A way to escape presented itself, and he took it, that’s all.”

“I keep telling myself that. But it had all the markings of a setup,” she replied absently, her gaze still locked on to nothing in particular, “particularly the timing. Was he taken by someone else, or did he escape? If I had been in charge of the Sigma Alpha Sector, the Rim pirates would never have taken the risk of coming so far into Fleet space.”

A disturbance by the bar made both Talbot and Thorn look back towards the barman, who was attempting to argue with two officious-looking individuals determined to approach them.

“I had better go now. It would not do for us to be seen together.” Talbot looked nervous, studying the nearest slumbering drunk in some detail. “But do take my advice, Helena. Return as Area Commander to your old quadrant. Carry on working on the occasional mission for me. If you only knew how useful you are to us, Commander Thorn.”

The barman’s voice was now raised well above a normal volume. “They are obviously Elite Fleet. If you are wrong and there are repercussions, I do not want them descending on me as part of a clean-up exercise.”

It seemed like a prudent time to leave. Nell looked down at the cuff of her distinctive Galaxy Elite Fleet travelling jacket.

“Have you a ship in dock, Talbot?” Nell turned her attention back to her drinking companion, but he was gone. He had vanished as if by magic. It looked like she would have to wait for the passing freighter bound for Port Luz, after all.

The two officious-looking individuals had given up arguing with the bartender, and were advancing on her now lone position.

“Madam Commander Thorn?”

“Area Commander Thorn,” she corrected them automatically.

“The docking scan shows that you are chipped, Area Commander Thorn.”

Nell’s stomach dropped to her boots. That did not sound good.

“What do you mean, I’m chipped?” she asked in a disgusted tone.

“It means you are biologically tagged, Area Commander Thorn. You are owned.”

“That’s impossible. I’m a GEF officer.”

“GEF not exempt. Never near here. Here you are on the outer edge of the Rim. Rim exempt,” said the second official, obviously unused to trying to communicate with an inhabitant of the Inner Galaxy Worlds.

“I have no idea what you are going on about,” Nell responded, gathering up her bags. She started with the one that contained her weapons.

“What my colleague is trying to say is that we are obliged to report your whereabouts to the person who has registered an interest in your location and is named on your tag.”

“And who would that be?”

“That information is confidential.”

“Well, as I am not tagged or chipped or whatever it is that you think I am, it is also irrelevant. I am a Fleet officer. Am I talking to two complete and utter idiots? Watch my lips—you have made a big mistake.”

“Of course, it is most likely an error.” The more competent official bowed slightly, indicating that she should precede him and clicking his fingers at the barman, who actually scurried in to gather up the remainder of her luggage with no need for a second bidding. “We will do the necessary checks and no doubt all will be resolved before your transporter arrives.”

Nell could do nothing but fume silently. She damned her associates at Sector. No doubt this was their petty attempt at some form of revenge, in addition to getting her offloaded in disgrace from the Sector Commander interviews.

If they thought this would be the last of it, they certainly did not know her, or her reputation. She would make sure they regretted the day they’d ever crossed her path.

“If I miss my transport, I and the Galaxy Elite Fleet will hold you both personally responsible for my absence from my scheduled meetings.” Which were actually about refitting her ship and not that critical, but she did not need to tell them that. The second official fingered his collar nervously, but the gentleman who had done most of the talking so far was made of sterner stuff.

“I am confident, Madam Commander, that all will become resolved long before your connection ever gets here,” he assured her unctuously, rubbing his hands as he did so.