Solar Storm Read Online Free

was into women. Everything male in him rebelled at the thought. He hoped she wasn’t—not looking like that. A soldier’s wet dream, she was made for bedding.  
    Unbidden, his mind filled with the image of her spread over his bed with all that fiery hair like a halo around her head. His cock hardened, a savage ache. How long had it been since he’d had sex? Shifting on the stool, he tried to ease and conceal his erection at the same time. It wouldn’t be polite to show such a reaction to his rescuer. He didn’t feel anywhere near polite at the moment, but his mother had tried to instill manners in him. Some had actually stuck. The rest…well, they’d disappeared the day they wheeled him into surgery and installed all the fancy-schmancy hardware that made him a killing machine.
    “I wasn’t staring. I was merely…worshipping your beauty.”
    She favored him with a look over her shoulder, skepticism clearly written on her features. “Yeah, right. Stop taking the piss and keep your eye on that nav. If we’re late, I’m counter-charging you for rescue and recovery.”
    Kel gave her a mock salute and studied the readouts again. There was no point—as soon as he mentioned she was off course, she’d already changed it. How she was anticipating the twists and turns of the currents, he didn’t know, but somehow she was.  
    He settled back and stole a few more looks. She seemed oblivious to his interest. How could she not realize what she looked like or the power of her own allure?
    “What’s your name?” he asked suddenly.
    Was it his imagination or did she pause before answering? A split-second pause but still there, which left him to wonder why. Didn’t she want him to know her name?
    “Rhys Devin.”
    Rhys Devin. He rolled the name about in his head a couple of times. An unusual name for an unusual woman. She’d have to be—not many women took to the solar roads, but from the faint golden sheen over her skin, he could see she’d been on them for a few years.  
    “Pleased to meet you, I’m Kelwin—”
    “Sayeed,” she finished for him as she swung the ship into another swell. “Yeah, I know. You were a big war hero at one time.”
    Kel’s eyes narrowed. She knew who he was. Either she came from a military family or she’d followed the progress of the war and its major players, or… Okay, maybe those were good enough reasons. During the war, the Soldiers had become mini-celebrities, the public fascinated by the process to take a normal man and turn him into an enhanced combat operative, the risks they took and their higher sex drive. Back then he couldn’t walk past a vid-screen without seeing one of his brothers-in-arms on it.
    Still, he couldn’t shake a feeling of familiarity.
    “Er, yeah. I was. Long time ago now, though.” He stopped and looked around as another question occurred to him. The bridge was empty apart from the two of them, the hatch to the crew quarters open and battened back. “Hey. If you run solo, when do you sleep?”
    She gave him her back to look at. It was a nice back. The traditional sleeveless vest of a sailor laced up the sides and across the shoulders, giving him a tantalizing glimpse of tanned skin. Leather was the only fabric that had a chance of standing up to the discharge particles that reached through any shield, no matter how good. Even so, it toughened, baked in the rays, and had to be replaced often. It was easy to spot an older sailor—they wore leather rather than a normal fabric shipsuit and their skin was usually a dark golden color. Rhys was young—in her twenties somewhere—but already her skin had changed. He found the sheen as erotic as hell.
    Icaria was at least four days’ travel. No one could stay awake that long, unless…
    His voice was iron-hard. “Tell me you’re not using Euphoria.”  
    A product born out of the war, the drug was as addictive as it was stimulating. He’d used it in the last months of combat when the fighting got so