Ellora's Cavemen: Jewels of the Nile III Read online

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Ellora’s Cavemen: Jewels of the Nile III

  ISBN 9781419916519

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Adrift Copyright © 2008 Elayne S. Venton

  Passion’s Song Copyright © 2008 Jory Strong

  Private Lessons Copyright © 2008 Solange Ayre

  Return to Xander Copyright © 2008 Rowan West

  Sorcerer’s Song Copyright © 2008 Cindy Spencer Pape

  White Valley Copyright © 2008 Lacey Thorn

  Editorial Team: Raelene Gorlinsky, Carole Genz, Sue-Ellen Gower, Helen Woodall, Denise Powers.

  Cover design by Darrell King.

  Electronic book Publication September 2008

  Trade paperback Publication September 2008

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Ellora’s Cavemen:

  Jewels of the Nile III

  Adrift

  By Elayne S. Venton

  Passion’s Song

  By Jory Strong

  Private Lessons

  By Solange Ayre

  Return to Xander

  By Rowan West

  Sorcerer’s Song

  By Cindy Spencer Pape

  White Valley

  By Lacey Thorn

  Adrift

  Elayne S. Venton

  Dedication

  In memory of Rod Serling.

  Acknowledgements

  To my critique group, especially India Masters, fellow sci-fi fan.

  Chapter One

  “Cryonic thaw is complete,” a computerized voice droned into Lorie Walker’s foggy brain.

  The solid, curved front cover on her freezing chamber slid open with a soft hiss, allowing the warm air of the ship to wash over her cold body. She squinted against the light glowing from the emergency lamps inside the compact spacecraft. When her eyes adjusted, Lorie blinked at Communications Specialist Dodd Henderson’s back as he floated just above the gravity-enhanced floor in front of the control panel, typing at lightning speed. Completely engrossed in his work, he didn’t seem to hear her soft groans as she stretched her stiff arms and legs.

  For a long, unfocused minute, she admired his wide shoulders, trim waist, contoured buttocks and long muscular legs showcased within his snug, shiny gray flightsuit. In the four years she’d worked on Space Station 5423, Dodd was the only man who’d made her pulse race. Luck had been on her side when the Interplanetary Defense Council reassigned them to Pluto IV together.

  Or maybe not. Her gaze shifted to the black expanse outside the cockpit window. A shiver trickled across her shoulders. Where were the stars, the streaming comets and floating asteroids? She’d never seen space so dark, so empty. So lifeless.

  This is what purgatory must look like.

  She rubbed her cold arms in an attempt to chase away the bone-deep chill. After taking a deep, lung-filling breath, she stepped out of the cryotube on unsteady legs. The door hissed closed behind her. The unusually weak suction in the gravity-enhanced floor threw off her equilibrium. She slapped a palm on the hull wall for support.

  Dodd spun around as if surprised to see her, and then relief eased the strained lines on his face. “Thank God I’m not in this nightmare alone.” A muscle jumped in his tight jaw. “Simulation training didn’t prepare me for this.”

  Lorie cleared her raw throat. “Where are we?”

  “In a black hole.”

  “No.” She took a step and her knees buckled.

  Dodd lunged across the small space and clasped her arm in a firm grip. “Take it slowly, Walker.” He clasped his other hand on her opposite arm to steady her, and looked deeply into her eyes. “You’ve been immobile for fifteen years.”

  “What?” She squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden pain in her head. “Fifteen years! What are you talking about?” She forced her gritty eyes open again and glanced up at her handsome crewmate. A wheat-colored five-o’clock shadow covered his jaw, as if he’d awoken from one long hard night rather than years in cryostasis. Concern darkened his dazzling eyes and furrowed a crease across his forehead. Still wobbly, and drawn by his heat, she leaned into his side, but only briefly, determined not to show her weakness. “The journey to Pluto IV was supposed to take no more than five years.”

  “Yeah.” He looked beyond her at the closed cryotubes. “Something went wrong. The gauges are out of whack, which would explain why the cryotubes deactivated without the proper destination approach signal.” Dodd flipped down a nearby jump seat and gently pressed down on her shoulders until she sat and the magnetic discs in the chair linked to the clips on her belt. The brittle material of her flightsuit tore at the knees, bearing evidence of long exposure to sub-freezing temperatures.

  “Five years,” she emphasized softly, as if repeating it might make it true. “Not fifteen.” Her legs bounced up and down in a nervous tremble.

  Dodd plucked the serum injector from the wall bracket. A piece of metal flashing caught the back of his hand and he absently rubbed the bleeding cut before he held the injector to her neck. “This will make you feel better.”

  The prick barely registered, but the medication rushing through her veins jolted her back to life. She sighed at the warmth. The tingle of instant thaw danced in her fingers and toes, and then spread inward to her belly and nipples.

  When she glanced up at Dodd’s probing gaze, a surge of lust shot through her system, making her clench her quivering thighs together. Certain her reaction was due to the therapeutic properties of the medicine, she disregarded the heat swirling low in her belly the best she could, and concentrated on the perilous situation.

  During the short time they’d prepped for this flight, she and Dodd had become friends, not tell-me-all-your-secrets friends, but good buddies. She trusted him to give it to her straight. “What happened?”

  “All I know is we’re floating in a black hole and the date log tells me fifteen years have gone by. So far, I’ve had no luck hailing anybody. And there’s no record of anyone trying to hail us.” He hunkered down in front of her and smoothed his palms over her thighs, settling the quivering with his big warm hands.

  Heat shot to her feminine core. She ducked her head, hiding any signs of yearning on her face. In the months she’d spent with a lover who’d claimed to both love her and hate her, she’d learned to hide her sexual desires. Too many harsh encounters had outweighed the enjoyable ones.

  Since then, Dodd was the only male who made her smile, who made her feel sexy and alive. He was an outrageous flirt, winning the affections of more women than she could count. Whom he bedded, naturally, and usually not more than once. A rea
l Casanova, he fed her private fantasies, and gave her hope she’d find someone as devilishly charming but with a darker side to suit her needs. He was very tempting. She kept her distance, though, knowing it was safer to simply imagine the wicked things she’d like to do with him.

  A shudder rocked the ship.

  Now is not the time to examine your sex life. Concentrate on the problem.

  “Prognosis?” she asked, fearing the worst.

  “You’re the engineer. You tell me.”

  A quick glance at the flashing warning lights on the console tightened the knot in her stomach. “Do you believe in miracles?”

  * * * * *

  Dodd admired Lorie’s lush backside as she leaned over the console doing exactly what he’d done when he’d first looked out the window into nothingness. She attempted to decipher the jumbled information stored in the database.

  “That can’t be right,” she mumbled to herself.

  That’s what I thought too.

  He still didn’t quite believe they floated in a black hole. Stars vanished into the vast emptiness of black holes. How could a small craft like theirs remain intact? He must be dreaming while in stasis. After all, Lorie Walker filled his mind during waking hours. It made sense she’d sashay into his dreams during the long flight to Pluto IV.

  Then again, he’d never heard of anyone dreaming during cryostasis. At least not that they remembered.

  The cut on the back of his hand stung like hell. Did that prove anything? Lorie’s solid yet feminine form felt amazingly real when he’d caught her before she fell. The citrus scent of her skin wasn’t something he could easily imagine. He’d already tried pinching himself, and that accomplished nothing.

  Real or not, he’d finally scored time alone with the elusive Lorie Walker. He had an opportunity to discover the real Lorie, not the dull engineer who worked on Space Station 5423, but the vixen who played there. She hid her secrets well, but his job as a communications specialist taught him how to scrape away people’s façades and find the truth beneath.

  Okay, so he’d discovered her darker side by accident when he’d tapped into the com unit in her quarters and discovered she’d made appointments at the Sub Level within the Pleasure Club—under an alias. Miss Straight Arrow, it turned out, indulged in kinky fantasies right up his alley.

  Casual interest in the redheaded engineer had exploded into rabid curiosity.

  But she was a tough nut to crack, either ignoring or rebuffing any seductive comments he made. He’d never been able to pin her down alone, until now when fate intervened.

  How they ended up in this limbo of time and space didn’t matter. He intended to take advantage of every second.

  In case he wasn’t dreaming though, he’d better see what he could do to get them out of there. He didn’t want to float in this abyss until life support depleted.

  “Watch your feet,” he said, patting her ass as he stepped past her. “I’m going to crawl under the console.”

  She shot him a guarded look and went back to work.

  For a microsecond, he thought he saw a flash of interest in her eyes. After all, getting a spanking topped her list of naughty things to do in the Pleasure Club. Too bad anxiety clouded over the brief spark.

  If she didn’t act so damn unapproachable, he might take her into his arms and ease the fears that flickered in and out of her gaze. Any opening at all and he’d jump on it.

  Before they crawled back into the cryostasis tubes in victory or defeat, he intended to break down her barrier and hold her close, preferably naked.

  Determined to find a way out of this mess, Lorie fought the panic clawing up her throat. “The hull seems to be holding up against the outside pressure,” she reported as calmly as possible. The ship’s occasional shudders and creaking didn’t encourage her, but she had confidence in the engineering and construction of their long-range transport. After all, she helped design it.

  She turned her attention to pinpointing their current location on the star chart. The galaxy was vast, so much unexplored. In fifteen years, who knew how far they’d traveled from their original path before the black hole sucked them in?

  “We veered off course long before we hit this black hole,” she said, tracking their flight path on the navigation screen. “By the scratches on the nose cone, it looks like we ran into a meteor storm.”

  Dodd hummed an unintelligible response.

  “My best calculated guess is that we’re still…” A lump clogged her throat. She looked down at Dodd, stretched out beneath the com panel inspecting connections—quite an appealing position, she thought absently while she checked out the outline of his cock.

  Jeez! Now was not the time to study Dodd’s attributes.

  “Twelve light-years from Pluto IV,” she finished in dismay, dragging her gaze back to the viewing screen. “Running on impulse power, we might drift through this black hole forever, unless someone spots us. The automatic distress signal is on, but sonar pings probably fade away inside a void like this.”

  Lost in space was not how she envisioned her last days of life. She swallowed hard.

  “Dodd?” Give me a sign of reassurance. Tell me we’re going to make it back to the stars. “Any luck down there?”

  He grunted in response, which she decided meant “No”.

  She took a deep breath and gathered her courage around her. If he could be composed about the situation, so could she. Still, her hand shook when she scrolled through the life-support readings for the third time.

  “The oxygen meter indicates the pump isn’t functioning, which is obviously wrong since we’re breathing.” She waited a full minute for Dodd to say something. “It’s a good thing the oxygen wasn’t supposed to initiate until the cryotubes opened or we would’ve depleted it a long time ago. The bad news is the oxygen tanks only hold a two-week supply of air.” Still nothing from him. “Did you hear me?” She nudged his hip with her boot tip. “We have two weeks to live!”

  “I heard you.”

  After waiting for something more and getting nothing, she nudged him again, this time closer to his ribs. “Hey! We’re in deep shit here. I’m starting to freak out.” She slapped her hands over her face. Why had she admitted that?

  He grabbed her ankle, slid out from underneath the com station and jerked her off her feet.

  She yelped as she fell, but the low gravity slowed her plummet, allowing her to land softly on her butt beside Dodd.

  “Come here.” He sat up, grabbed one of her legs and dragged her astride his lap.

  Her mound brushed over the bulge in his pants before she sidled backward and slapped her palms onto his chest.

  Undeterred, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close until his cock nestled against her pussy. He stared at her with a solemn expression.

  “What are you doing?” she rasped.

  “Making everything all right.” He gave her a small smile and rubbed a soothing hand up and down her back. “We’ll take things one step at a time. That’s all we can do.”

  Relaxing into his embrace, she rested her forehead on his shoulder, thankful she didn’t have to face the blackness alone. He made her feel safe, which was ridiculous given their situation and the shifting bulge in his pants, but there it was. She slipped her arms around his waist and hugged him. “I can’t think straight.”

  “Don’t think, then.” He tucked her head into the crook of his neck and kissed the top of her hair. “I’ll take care of you.”

  Magic words. Seconds dragged by. Sitting in his lap comforted her as much as the gentle caress of his hands on her back. She turned her cheek and softly kissed his neck.

  It didn’t surprise her when he twisted sideways, lowered her shoulders onto the floor and rolled on top of her, belly to belly, thigh to thigh, his cock settled between her legs. Still, she felt safe—and excited.

  He gripped her wrists and pressed the backs of her hands down next to her shoulders. “I’ve wanted to do this since before the t
rip began.” His eyes darkened as he slowly dipped his head. A hairsbreadth from her lips, he stopped, watching her closely.

  Anticipation fluttered in her belly.

  How many times had she imagined falling under his spell like this, lost in those sky blue eyes, awaiting his kiss? Now, away from his admirers where she’d been one in a hundred, her turn had come. Despite her wariness, she needed his warmth, his strength, needed to push aside her fears, if only for the span of one kiss.

  Little by little, he eased her arms upward and pinned her wrists to the cold floor above her head. Her breasts swelled. The skin around her nipples puckered. After an interminably long minute, he finally pressed his mouth to hers.

  Her fingers slowly curled into loose fists. Her pulse thumped heavily beneath her jaw. As he glided his lips over hers in long, measured strokes, liquid fire pooled in her belly. Her pussy throbbed and desire dampened her panties.

  It was only a kiss, for Pete’s sake! It meant nothing. Dodd had a reputation for kissing every female on the space station. She was simply another notch in his belt.

  Did she care? Hell, no.

  Weak and hungry, she parted her lips, easing the tip of her tongue past her teeth in a blatant invitation. Unexpectedly, he drew back and gazed into her eyes. Self-conscious, she covered her move by licking her dry lips.

  “Lorie,” he said, drawing out her name until it faded away in a whisper. “Lovely temptress.”

  Her pulse kicked up.

  “No one makes my heart stutter like you do.”

  “I don’t need your false flattery, Dodd. Just kiss me.”

  Rather than dispute his sincerity, which he looked like he wanted to do, he released one of her wrists and stroked her temple. The tension in her shoulders dropped away as he dragged his fingers through her hair until they snagged in the thick strands at the nape of her neck. The kiss roughened. His tongue slipped inside her mouth, probing, licking, sliding over hers in a sensual dance.