Barbarian Lover (Ice Planet Barbarians #3)(37)

“Then let it take you away,” I tell her, grabbing her hand and pushing it back into the furs. I capture her mouth with mine, and pump into her again, and she moans, her hand gripping mine tightly. When she comes again, she cries out sharply, so loud that it rings in the chamber.

Not nearly as loud as my own shout as I come, but almost. We are going to be a noisy pair, I think with pleasure as I collapse onto the furs next to my gasping, panting mate. They will have to move us into one of the back caves so our late night antics do not wake all the kits.

I pull Kira against me and kiss her sweaty brow, well pleased with my mate.





KIRA


My brain is mush. Good mush, but still mush. I slowly drag myself awake. Aehako has his leg over mine and his hand over my breast. I turn over in bed and his tail flicks, then swats me.

“Go back to sleep,” he mumbles.

“I need to stretch a bit.” I ignore his request and slide out of bed, taking a few ginger steps toward the bathroom. I feel a bit sore between my legs. Okay, a lot sore. But it’s a good sort of sensation, and I don’t mind it in the slightest. It just reminds me that I belong to Aehako, and I enter the bathroom with a dopey grin on my face.

The first thing I do is check my ear out in the reflective glass of the shower. It feels weird to not have the translator in anymore, and I’ve got a few new ear-piercings in weird spots as a memory of the device. Overall, though, my ear seems to look okay? There’s a vague ache deep inside, but I imagine I’m still healing up. And Aehako said he got rid of the device, but….”Computer?” I whisper. “Has the translator that was removed from my ear yesterday been destroyed?”

It beeps for a moment, and then a tinny voice pipes into a speaker over the sink. “The device was destroyed upon request. It was disassembled and then crushed in the trash compactors. Do you wish retrieval?”

“No, that’s okay,” I tell it, relieved. “I’m good.” One problem down, at least.

I clean up with water from the sink, do my business, and then dress in my leathers. Maybe it’s because I did a lot of sleeping yesterday post translator removal, but I’m pretty awake. I enter back into the bedroom, but Aehako is still sacked out. I contemplate getting back into bed with him, but I worry about Harlow. It’s no secret that she and Haeden aren’t exactly rubbing along, and this is an alien spaceship…and I’ve probably been unconscious for about a day. I should check on her.

I exit the room and head down a hall, until I realize I have no idea which way is back to the front. “Computer, can you lead me to Harlow?”

“Please follow,” it indicates, and the lights edging the floor go in the opposite direction I’m heading. Oh. I turn around and follow its twisting path through debris-strewn halls. Several corridors later, I hear the sound of what seems like a power drill, and when I enter, I see Harlow with a pair of oversized protective goggles on, drilling something together and peering at a computer screen.

“Hi?” I call out.

She looks up at me and the goggles slide down her face. “Oh! Hey!” She pushes at the goggles. “These stupid things do not fit human heads very well.”

I stifle my laughter and approach, gazing at the bits and pieces she has strewn on a metal table. “What is all this?”

“Well,” she says, setting the drill down and putting her hands on her hips. “This is a bunch of junk at the moment. But I’m having the computer read me a manual about how to create a rock cutter.”

“A rock cutter?”

“Yeah, so, did you ever notice that the bachelorette cave has one wall that’s rougher than all the others?” Harlow peers at me and pushes back her wild red hair. Her freckles crinkle around her eyes as she swipes a hand over her forehead and leaves a greasy mark there.

“Um, you know, I don’t think I ever did.” Now I feel a little silly. “It’s unfinished?”

“Yeah, and I always wondered about that. But you know most of the cave is super smooth. So I figured that when they left here, they probably cannibalized a lot of the computer parts to make rock cutters, and the computer told me I was right. I guess they just ran out of juice when they got to our cave.” She shrugs. “So I thought I’d see if we could put together some new cutters in order to hollow out a few more home caverns for people, since we’re so crowded.”

That’s so thoughtful of her. And here I was just having sex and thinking about myself. “You’re wonderful, Harlow. You know that?”

A surprised smile crosses the redhead’s face. “Thanks,” she says shyly. “I was just trying to think of ways I could help out, you know? My dad was a mechanic and so I know my way around a few things, but I have to admit that all of this is baffling to me.” She spreads her hands out and gestures at the metal junk on the table. “Luckily there’s lots of pictures on the computer, so I’m mostly going off of that.”

“Smart,” I say, examining the table. All of the pieces look like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Even the drill Harlow is using isn’t exactly normal looking.

“How’s your ear?” she asks, picking up a piece of metal and holding it up to get a better look at it.

“Better. Translator’s all gone.” I hesitate, then ask, “You get what you came for?”