Destin's Hold (The Alliance #5)(41)

“She looks a helluva a lot like him to me. Same color hair, same color skin, same build,” Tim gritted out with a glare of distrust at Sula.

“Tim…,” Destin waited until his friend turned his eyes back toward him. “She isn’t like Badrick.”

“How do you know… for sure?” Tim demanded.

“I know,” Destin replied, not clarifying anything.

Tim returned Destin’s look with one of his own before he turned back to the door. “I’ll go help Mason get the group together,” he said.

Destin watched Tim leave. It wasn’t until after the door shut that he realized that neither one of them had remembered that Tim needed to show him how to reset the control panel. He’d have to get Tim to show him when he saw him again.

He turned, feeling the silence descend in the room. His gaze swept over where Sula was silhouetted by the brilliant blue sky and fluffy white clouds. From his vantage point in the room, all he could see was the sky. He walked silently across the thick carpet. He couldn’t see the scarred surface of the city until he was almost in front of the window.

“For the first time, I can honestly see a brighter future for my people,” Destin said in a quiet voice, staring down at the buildings still under construction. “It is just like Kali and I used to talk and dream about.”

He turned his head when Sula didn’t answer him. It was only then that he saw the single tear glistening on her cheek. Her arms were wrapped protectively around her waist.

“Sula…,” Destin murmured, turning her to face him.

She shook her head and lifted a trembling hand to wipe the tear from her cheek. A soft, uneven laugh escaped her and she blinked. He reached up and grasped her hand before she could return it to her waist.

“I assumed I would not be very welcomed due to the previous events,” she said.

“I’ll have another talk with them, this time with all of them,” Destin promised. “Most of them lost family and friends in the fighting. Badrick was instrumental in supplying weapons to Colbert and his followers. Some of them were separated from their families when Colbert took over. Tim was one of them. His younger sister is one of the ones missing. A few people who knew Lina said she had been taken with a group of women that was rounded up.”

Sula glanced down at their joined hands. Destin could feel her hands tremble as he spoke. It wasn’t just that, and he knew it. There were a lot of unhealed scars left over from not only the fight with Colbert, but also because of their resentment toward the aliens for making first contact which had set off a horrendous chain of events on Earth.

“I will do everything I can to help locate her. If… If you have any images of the missing women, that will help. I promise, Destin. I promise to do everything I can to locate the rest of the missing women,” Sula whispered, gazing up at him.

Destin’s lips curved into a tender smile and brushed his thumb across her damp cheek. “I know you will. If there is one thing that I have learned about you over the last several months, it is that you are one helluva a tenacious woman when you set your mind to something,” he murmured.

“I hate crying,” she sniffed with a rueful shake of her head. “I never cried until I met you – well, almost never.”

“I know,” Destin replied, brushing a tender kiss across her lips. “But, you are a beautiful crier to me.”

Sula chuckled and lifted her arms to wrap them around his neck. He could feel her warm breath against his skin and a soft moan escaped him, his body responding to her being pressed up against him. His lips moved along her temple and his arms tightened around her waist.

“I wish to hell we were still back on the spaceship. I want to make love to you, but I need to go meet with my team,” Destin breathed, bending his head to kiss the long column of her neck.

“I could pleasure you before you go,” Sula suggested, sliding a hand down his chest and across his flat stomach before she moved it lower. “You would have time for that.”

Destin reached down and gripped her wrist. His eyes glittered with desire. His thumb brushed over her wrist, feeling her pulse quicken at his caress.

“It wouldn’t be fair to you,” he muttered in a terse voice. “Your pleasure comes first, then mine.”

Sula’s bottom lip pouted and she gave him one of her wide-eyed sad looks. A giggle escaped her when he groaned and captured her lips, crushing them in a deep, passionate kiss that quickly spiraled out of control. His body throbbed with the desire to take her.

Releasing her lips, he turned her until she faced away from him. Pressing a series of hot, open-mouth kisses along her neck, he positioned her until she was facing the large expanse of tinted windows that looked out over the city. A soft gasp escaped her when he slid his hands down along her arms before gripping her hands and placing them on the glass.

“Stay like that,” he ordered in a thick voice filled with need.

“Destin,” Sula moaned when he lifted the silky, almost transparent silver cover up around her waist and pulled her leggings down to her thighs. “What…?”

“I want you, but I said your pleasure first. We’ll come together,” he gritted out, unzipping his jeans and pushing them down part way before he wrapped an arm around her waist and aligned his cock with her entrance. “I need to play with you.”