Masters of Eden Read online

  Chapter Six

  “You’re a brat,” Mixer said, chewing on a French fry.

  They were in a 20th century fast food restaurant, one that served up grease and meat and sugar in equal delicious amounts. Of course, in real life they were still on the Preceptor, but their senses were registering a completely different holographic reality. And what a reality it was. The floor of the restaurant was covered in scuff marks and trodden-in debris of the world that went by outside the finger-smudged windowpanes. The air was thick with grease and salt and sweat, the unmistakable smell of unwashed patrons. Why the program designers had felt the need to go into such detail, Ghost was not sure. Eden seemed to enjoy it though.

  For three weeks there had been an idyllic peace. Eden proved to be an able, generous, and talented lover and a wickedly intelligent companion capable of holding her own with both her captors. Of course, she was also an intractable brat at times, strong-willed and occasionally ill-tempered, but nothing a good spanking didn’t soon quell.

  “Yeah? You’re a brute,” Eden shot back with a grin, flicking her straw so a bit of hydrogenated dairy product sprayed over his face.

  Mixer raised a dark brow. “You want to get spanked in public?”

  “Sure,” she shrugged, grinning naughtily.

  Mixer and Ghost exchanged looks. Eden was completely incorrigible, and they’d grown to love her for it.

  “Settle down,” Ghost said, reaching over to pat her hand. “Isn’t your butt sore enough?”

  “You spanked me for no reason,” she said, flicking him too. Little spittle-like droplets of milkshake landed in his hair, arousing mirth from both Eden and Mixer. “Oh, you look good with pink hair,” she grinned. “Pretty Ghost!”

  “I know someone else who looks good pink,” he said, dabbing his hair with a scratchy, not-at-all absorbent napkin. He gave Mixer a significant look, one which received a look of agreement back. Silently, they made their decision.

  Ghost grabbed Eden by the back of her neck while Mixer cleared the table with one powerful sweep of his brawny arm. Ghost then pressed his squirming charge over the Formica top and flipped her cute little skirt up over her bottom.

  “Ghost!” Eden squealed for clemency, but it was too late for that. His finger slid between her bottom cheeks, taking the flimsy scrap of her panties with it and then she was bare bottomed in the middle of a popular fast food chain, getting her bottom spanked by Ghost while Mixer first held her hands, then realized that he was wasting an opportunity.

  While Ghost swatted her behind, turning her jiggling cheeks the promised pink, Mixer lowered his zipper and pushed his semi-erect cock toward her mouth. Eden did not waste any time in parting her lips and welcoming him into her mouth. She was such a good girl when she wanted to be. She dutifully sucked his cock, lifting her pretty eyes to Mixer as he fed the length of his shaft over her tongue.

  “This is better for you than those fries,” Mixer said, running his fingers through her hair as his hips rocked back and forth. Eden made a mumbled reply that could have been assent, or disagreement, or simply a statement of enjoyment. It sounded more like the latter, for her entire body was writhing in a slow erotic wriggle, her bottom swaying back and forth against Ghost’s hand.

  Ghost spanked her with light swats, landing the odd stinging slap across her lips. She moaned around Mixer’s cock in response, lifting her hips and spreading her legs so that Ghost had better access to her naughty pussy. She couldn’t speak with her mouth full of Mixer, but her body language screamed for more spanking.

  He smiled tenderly, loving how she responded. She was perfect for the both of them, a companion unlike any other. There was a great wide universe out there, but Ghost had never dared imagine that such a perfect woman was out there. He let his fingertips play over the lips of her wanton pussy, listening to the moans she made as Mixer began thrusting inside her mouth. He was close to cumming, his jaw and shoulders taut with tension as he worked his cock in and out of her tender lips. Mixer rarely lasted very long once Eden started her suckling with little tongue laps and lashes around the head of his cock.

  Ghost spanked on, swatting her with enough force to make her round cheeks jiggle and blush. Her bottom was the only part of her that ever seemed to blush, for she did not feel shame. She was a shameless little wretch, one with an undeniable talent for oral pleasure. In very short order, Mixer lost the battle to extend the blowjob. He came, clutching at her hair as he pumped his seed over her tongue and down into her belly. Ghost took the opportunity to slide two fingers deep into her wet pussy, noting how eagerly she received them. Her pink cheeks bounced as she moved her hips back, eagerly impaling herself on his digits.

  “Wow,” Mixer said, stepping back and zipping his pants. “That was great, sweetheart.” He bent down and kissed her lips. “I’ll leave you two to it,” he continued. “I’ll be on the bridge if you need me.”

  A moment later, he disappeared, having disconnected from the simulation. Ghost and Eden continued on, Eden grasping the edge of the table as Ghost simultaneously worked his fingers inside her tight canal and slapped her bottom with his free hand.

  “Do you want me inside you?”

  The question was redundant. The juices coating his fingers told him that the answer was yes. He wanted to hear her say it though.

  “Fuck me,” she moaned breathlessly.

  He did not wait to oblige her. In a second his cock was free, the flared head pointed toward the tight little hole waiting for him. He saw her pussy contract and pulse with need as he guided his cock closer, letting the head brush over her juice-covered clit first, teasing her with his hard heat.

  “Inside me,” Eden moaned, moving her hips so his cock came into contact with her lips and thence slid into the welcoming channel. Her moan of pleasure when he slowly began entering her was as sweet as it was hot. She loved to be fucked, she adored the way he felt inside her. He knew it by every move and sound she made, by the eager thrusting of her hips as she started fucking herself on him, not waiting for him to take her.

  “Easy,” he chided, slapping her bottom lightly and putting a hand on her hip to still her movement. “Greedy girl.”

  She whimpered as he reached under her and teased the hard button of her clit. His fingers strummed against that naughty bud, making her wail and disobey him as she pushed right down on his cock, swallowing him deep inside her tight pussy.

  Giving up on any kind of a slow encounter, Ghost clamped his hands on her bottom and began fucking her with hard, fast strokes. One hand on each cheek, he spread her wide, thrusting his cock in and out of that tight little hole without any kind of mercy. The sight of her beautiful cunt taking the full length of him was intoxicating. The grasping grip of her inner muscles soon had him rocketing toward his climax. She was right there with him, panting and shrieking her pleasure, begging to be allowed to cum.

  “Cum for me,” he growled, slapping her bottom hard enough to leave his hand print clearly on her cheeks. “Now!”

  She obeyed, her cunt gripping hard as her orgasm rushed through her. He came in response, shooting his seed deep inside her unprotected pussy, coating the walls of her cunt with his need and his lust and his love. He thrust himself in as deep as he could, keeping her filled to the very last moment. Then, as his cock began to shrink from her heavenly embrace, he gathered her up in his arms, removed their goggles, and carried her off to bed for a well-deserved rest.

  “You are so good,” she whispered to him, nuzzling under his chin as he walked.

  The little motion and the soft words made his heart swell.

  A little later, Ghost found himself watching Eden sleeping and trying not to think about what would happen when the clock ran out on their time together. They would sedate her, put her into a pod similar to the one she’d arrived in, and bid her farewell. The thought made him sick to his stomach if he dwelt upon it for too long. He suspected Mixer felt the same way, though neither of them had spoken about it.

  Sharin
g Eden had come surprisingly easy. Years of living in close quarters had not left much room for territorial impulses. Space bonded men in strange ways. Besides, Eden was more than a handful. They took turns at making love to her, disciplining her, and making sure she didn’t tear the station apart.

  Ghost figured it had to be working. It had been weeks since her last escape attempt. Since then she’d been content to focus her attention on low-level misbehavior, the sort of stuff she thought was funny and Ghost occasionally thought was cute.

  He was just closing his eyes when Mixer’s deep, carefully enunciated tones emanated from the patch panel at the head of the bed. “Ghost. We have an emergency. I need you on the bridge.”

  Ghost reached up and tapped the intercom. “Coming.”

  He was reluctant to leave the bed, but they didn’t often have emergencies and there was an uncharacteristic note of panic in Mixer’s voice that concerned him. He rolled out of the warm covers, donned his uniform, and went to see what the matter was. It was possible that one of the reactors had burned out, or perhaps an issue with the heating system. It did seem a little cooler than usual as he strode toward the bridge, but he was more inclined to put that down to being away from Eden’s sweet embrace.

  “What’s the issue?” Ghost asked the question as soon as he reached the bridge.

  Mixer was standing in front of the navigation panel, his shoulders slumped and tense. He turned to face Ghost slowly, with the expression of a man who has seen a horror he does not want to comprehend.

  “We’re moving.”

  “Moving? We’ve been in a stable orbit for over a year. How many degrees are we off?”

  “Degrees?” Mixer gave a hollow laugh. “This isn’t a matter of degrees.”

  Ghost made his way to the navigation controls and looked at the numbers. “These can’t be right. There must be a malfunction somewhere.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Mixer said. “Then I checked under the panel…”

  He pointed under the desk. Ghost had to bend down to look. When he did, he saw a mass of wires, some frayed, some spliced. None of them where they should have been.

  “We’ve been traveling for three weeks,” Mixer said. “At maximum power. When she got out that time… she must have put the ship into flight mode…”

  “Disabled the sensors, put the monitors on a loop…” Ghost finished Mixer’s train of thought. “Smart. So I suppose we’re headed for a rebel base. Which one?”

  “She didn’t head us toward a rebel base. She pointed us at an uncharted planet.”

  “What?” Ghost heard Mixer’s panic in his own voice. To have been traveling without knowledge was bad, to be potentially captured by rebel forces was worse, but to have been cut adrift in the middle of the universe, pointed at a planet that had not so much as been charted… there were few worse fates for a ship.

  “We can get into orbit again,” he said, trying to think. “Leech power from the sun…”

  Mixer was shaking his head. “We’ve been cut off from supply routes. We can get solar power, but we can’t get water.”

  “How are our liquid reserves?”

  “We have a week left.”

  “Can we send the emergency craft down to this planet, source water, and bring it up?”

  “We can, but all that will do is buy us a few extra weeks before the fuel dries up. And I doubt they have any reactor fuel down there.”

  “Well, then I guess we get water from below, turn ourselves toward the nearest human base, use as little fuel as possible, and hope we can coast along enough to get back to a port, or at least to make contact.”

  “It’s risky,” Mixer said, shaking his head. “The emergency craft isn’t designed to withstand several atmospheric barriers. It should hold up one way, but even if we do get it down to the surface, and even if we do find water, there’s a significant chance of burning up on the way out.”

  “So we land the whole ship down there.”

  “We can land there. We can even try to survive there. But if we do land there, there’s no way we’ll ever get off. There’s not enough fuel on this thing for a terrestrial takeoff. If we land, we’ll be stuck there for the rest of our lives.”

  “Any chance of hailing help?”

  “We’re out of direct communication range. I can send an SOS, but that will take months to arrive anywhere useful. By that time we will have starved on the ship or landed down there.”

  “Then we land,” Ghost said. “Send out the SOS from our current position, attach location data, and prepare for landing. With any luck, they will find us in a year or two.”

  “Or more likely never,” Mixer said. “You know how stretched they are for resources out here. They’ve lost ships before without a search. They tally it in the loss column and carry on.”

  “That’s not our priority right now. Right now, our priority is a safe landing and an intact ship.”

  “And Eden? What are we going to do about her?”

  “Don’t worry about Eden,” Ghost said firmly. “Worry about surviving the next twenty-four hours.”

  *

  “Get up.”

  Ghost’s cold, clipped tones infringed strongly on Eden’s twilight sleep state. She opened her eyes to see the taut, unimpressed lines of his face as he glared down at her. It was a far cry from the way she’d gone to sleep, his hard member still inside her as he stroked her hair and held her close.

  “Huh?”

  “Get. Up,” Ghost ground out. “And put your clothes on.” He yanked the sheets back and tossed her crumpled clothing at her.

  Eden didn’t need to ask what was going on. Ghost wasn’t given to mood swings. She had been anticipating this day for quite some time. The day her captors realized that she’d captured them right back.

  She dressed with as much dignity as she could muster, tied her hair back from her face, and looked at Ghost, waiting to see what was going to happen next. He was angry, of course. Fortunately for her, he was just as handsome angry as happy, maybe even a little more handsome because he slipped into what she had mentally nicknamed ‘supreme commander’ mode. His every movement was imbued with authority, his body held tall as he glared down at her.

  “Oh, come now,” Eden said, cocking her head. “Did you really expect me to just go quietly into the night?”

  “No,” Ghost growled. “But I also didn’t expect you to hijack the ship.”

  “Well, that sounds like a significant oversight on your part,” Eden observed unrepentantly. “I told you I was in this for my life. Did you think making love to me would make me forget?”

  “No…”

  “I was going to be stranded on a godforsaken rock with hundreds of sex-deprived criminals,” Eden interrupted him. “I decided that was not going to be my fate. I would have escaped alone, you know, but you wouldn’t allow that. So I had to bring you with me. It’s not the way I wanted to do it, but you really fucked with my options.”

  “Oh. I see. I fucked with your options, so you took my ship and flew it into the middle of nowhere.”

  “Yes,” Eden fumed back, putting her hands on her hips. “That’s exactly what happened. Get over it.”

  “Get over it?”

  “Over it, under it, through it, I don’t care. Just quit whining. I did what I had to do.”

  For a second, she was afraid Ghost might unleash the beating of a lifetime.

  “This is not the last of this, my girl,” he growled with impressive self-control. “To the bridge. Now. On the double.”

  Eden followed the direction of his sharply pointed finger.

  “Really, if you think about it, this is your fault anyway,” she added as she walked. “Neither of you checked the navigation panel for a whole three weeks. If you’d done a proper sweep when you found me out, you would have caught it right away.”

  Ghost did not make any reply. There was no sound aside from the quick marching of his boots on the ship’s floor. Eden had to scurry to stay ahead of him. Th
ey came onto the bridge at a quick clip, where Eden was halted abruptly when Mixer snatched her up against his chest, his nose pressed against hers as he bared his teeth in a snarl.

  “What the hell…”

  “Put her down,” Ghost ordered abruptly. “We do not have time for this.”

  Mixer lowered Eden to the floor, a credit to his discipline.

  “We don’t have time for much,” he said. “The survival rate for humans on unsettled planets is…”

  “Unknown,” Eden interrupted. “The planet is far enough along in its development that there is plenty of vegetation, a full canopy, and mammal-like creatures. We can live there.”

  “With no access to any kind of technology…”

  “Aside from the bloody great ship we’ll be landing in?” Eden cocked her head to the side. “I never picked you for a coward.”

  “You…” Mixer snarled, but did not finish the thought. His hands were trembling. Eden didn’t know if that was because he was angry or afraid. Probably both.

  “Oh, stop it,” Eden said. “I just saved you decades of withering away on a ship playing pretend in your little simulations. This isn’t any life for a man. It isn’t a life for anybody.”

  Mixer’s glare intensified until Ghost felt the need to step between them. “Go cool off,” he ordered. “I need you calm and focused.”

  “Thanks,” Eden said when Mixer had stormed away. “He was overreacting.”

  “He’s right. You likely have killed us all,” Ghost said grimly. “Sit down in that chair, strap yourself in, and keep your mouth shut unless you are directly spoken to.”

  Eden sank down into the seat and looked up at him under her lashes. She’d not expected a positive reaction from either of her captors, but things were actually going better than anticipated. There had been no shouting and no spanking, just an angry focus on maximizing their chances of survival.

  A minute or two later, Mixer returned. He and Ghost began an extensive consultation, ignoring her. She didn’t listen in all that much. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. It sounded like they were intending on making a landing. A whole new life on a whole new planet. It was the most exciting thing Eden had ever contemplated.