Adira's Mate by April Zyon Page A

me, I find myself aching to come closer to you. I need to
be closer to you. I look at you and I need . It’s the oddest of
feelings.”
    “ Definitely strange,” he agreed.
Lowering his head, Fin brushed his nose lightly to hers. “I happen to like it.
Though I worry what others may say. I don’t rightly care what they may think,
but it’s what they say that has me concerned. I’d rather you weren’t hurt by
their stupidity, and misguided concerns.”
    Adira shrugged. “ I’ll survive. I have survived a
lot in life, I think that I will be able to handle
their words against me.” As long as it wasn’t against him. As long as it didn’t affect him she would survive, somehow and someway. “I
don’t care what people think about me as long as you like me.”
    “ I most definitely like you,” he
said. His fingers slid over her throat lightly, stroking up and down her
fluttering pulse. Then he pressed his palm to her skin, his fingers wrapping
lightly around her neck. “I have a great many plans for you, Adira mine. Many of which we will need to discuss at some
point.” Fin moved his lips lightly across hers to her other cheek, where he let
them drift back and forth over her skin.
    “ And when do we have this
discussion?” She swayed into him, her eyes closed and hand on his chest. She
felt as if she had been waiting for this man to come into her life from her earliest
moments. “I am more than willing to fill all of your needs.” She hoped so, at
least.
    “ Once we are picked up and secure.
I don’t like the idea of wandering about in this crawler. It screams Imarian , and makes us a target for any who decide to ignore
the broadcast going out. It’s why I’m hopeful Bracken finds us before anyone
else. At least he’ll know for sure it’s my words, and not something the Imarian scientists cooked up as a trap.”
    “ And if it is someone other than
your friend that finds us first? Will they part us and imprison me while
locking you into your quarters while they try to figure out what is real and
what is a trap?” That was something she could easily see happening and it
scared her to her toes. More than ever, she was hopeful that it would be his
friend that found them.
    “ Or make us disappear in a cloud
of shrapnel.” He gave a lazy shrug. His lips continued to ghost over her skin,
moving toward her ear. “It’s hard to say. There are many who would love to open
up a slot so they might get the chance at running their own destroyer. There
are only so many top positions, and it’s hard to get there without killing one
off or hoping one is taken out in some manner. Sadly we’re rather easy pickings
out here. I’ll have to change our course in a few hours, send another message
to Bracken, and cross my fingers once more that we don’t meet up with someone
I’ve pissed off over the years.”
    “ By the stars, Fin, you are truly
a man full of secrets, aren’t you?” she asked with a grin. “I can imagine that
you have to be hard to kill.” Petr was one such being as well. He was a Fleet
admiral and had been targeted more than once by the Craegin and even by those under him. “I understand what you mean, though. Sadly, when
you reach a certain position everyone wants what you have and will do whatever
they must in order to have it.”
    “ Very true,” he said. His lips
brushed over her earlobe, and she felt the bite of his teeth. A light tug before he released it, and drew back a little. “So, what are our plans for the next two hours before I need to make a course
correction?”
    “ I have nothing planned at all.
Our meal is cooking slowly in the baking unit,” she told him and tilted her
head to the side to give him full and free access to her. “What do you think we
should do in order to pass the next two hours?”
    “ I think we should talk,” he said.
Rubbing his thumb up and down her throat, he leaned back a little further. She
watched as his gaze slid down her body, then up once