4. Alik

four

Alik

T he three comm screens I have on my desk are supposed to be used to help me find information on the smuggling ship we're trading with in a couple of weeks. What they're not meant for is to be solely focused on three areas of my own ship where Sloane likes to hang out.

One camera watching the entertainment room, one in the kitchen, and the third in the navigation pit because she's been hanging out with Phial and Holoth, much to my displeasure.

I take a deep breath and rub my eyes. I've been watching the screens off and on since yesterday when I maybe reacted in a stronger way than I should've. Thankfully, Phial is a good friend, and he's been on the ship long enough to know I'm not normally that volatile.

He accepted my apology as soon as I stopped by his room last night. He didn't even let me get the words out before he was laughing and telling me it was fine.It's not the first time I've had to apologize for being an ass, but it's the first time it's happened over a woman.

As soon as the apology was over, I began my surveillance of our ship. We have cameras set up around the ship, but most of them were switched off until I turned them back on. I might've waited until everyone was asleep to do it, because I do have some shame.

Anytime Jovi's been in our shared room, I've flicked the monitors off. He will no doubt make fun of me as soon as he finds out how I kill my time hidden away in our room. He's not in here often. Not when he gets to spend so much of his time flirting and courting Sloane.

It's not something he should get used to since Sloane will be gone as soon as this mission is over. As much as we'd love a permanent pleasure crew member, no one has ever been interested. I doubt Sloane will want to stay, either.

I don't blame any of the past pleasure crew females. They were here for a job, and they completed their job. I just wish that one of them, preferably the human female working with us now, would want to keep working for us.

Movement in my leftmost monitor has all of my attention moving to it. Sloane walks through the door to the kitchen, laughing as Essa follows right behind her.

I gave myself two rules when I started watching Sloane through the video feeds. The first is that I cannot, under any circumstance, turn on the camera in her room, even though all I want is to make sure she's safe. The second rule is I don't turn on the audio, so I can't hear what she's saying to anyone. I know I'm crossing so many boundaries already by watching her in communal areas. I don't need to make myself more pathetic by listening in.

"Are you serious?" Jovi asks from right behind me.His lower hands slam down on my shoulders, holding me in place in my chair because he knows I'm about to try to scramble away.

I growl, try to jump, and quickly turn off the monitors as though that will stop Jovi from having already seen that I'm stalking our human crew. Shame and embarrassment wash over me, so much so that my entire chest is violet. Jovi laughs harder and spins me around to face his stupid, smiling face.

"I don't think this is legal," Jovi says as he releases my shoulders. He tosses a cookie at me, but I'm still too startled to react. The cookie hits me in the chin before falling into my lap.

"I don't need to explain how I keep this ship safe to you," I growl, trying to regain some amount of dignity.

My statement is more or less true. Technically, and by the barest of metrics, I'm the captain of the Jolly Folly—yes, it's a dumb name for a ship. Essa can never know how terrible we all think it is. She was so proud when she told us.

When Jovi, Essa, and I all chipped in to buy our own ship, the Intergalactic Alliance needed a contact for the captain of the ship. While they both argued about it being one of them, I filled out the paperwork and sent it in. They never stopped their bickering until we got the confirmation notification that we could apply for jobs.

"Keeping us real safe from…" Jovi walks over to my monitors, swats my hand away from the one I'm guarding, and turns it on. "The females befriending one another in the kitchen. Those sneaky females always making us so unsafe."

I can hear the mockery in his voice. I choose very purposefully to ignore it. "I'm making sure our cameras work inside the ship in case the need arises."

"Need arises?" Jovi tilts his head to the side, resting his hands on his hips. It's clear he doesn't believe me, but he drops the topic. "When are you coming to hang out with everyone?"

"Hang out?" I ask.

The crew has been together in its current state for six years now, and we all get along pretty well. The only time things get iffy is on missions when Jovi and I have pleasure crew members. Not that I've ever acted like I did yesterday because I never have. The stress of being on a mission is enough to have Jovi and me more on edge. When that happens, we need pleasure crew members to help us calm down.

What we don't do is hang out with everyone when there's a pleasure crew member because being around other males when there's an eligible female around only has the length of the calm shortening. It's why Jovi and I stick to being around one another during missions unless the whole crew is meeting to talk about said mission.

"Yeah, come be normal around all of us," Jovi says, like it's something we've done with a pleasure crew before. "You'll like Sloane even more once you get to know her. She's so funny and clever, and she really seems to care about being friends with everyone. Essa loves her already."

"And how has it been for your irritability?" I ask.

When we're around everyone and a pleasure crew, we're on the brink of biting the other crews' heads off by now. I already have. Jovi seems more relaxed than normal, which is frustrating, considering I feel like something is crawling underneath my pelt.

"I think I'm doing a lot better than you are," Jovi laughs as he leans against the wall. "Seriously, you're going to keep yourself on edge in here all alone."

"I'm fine," I lie.

I haven't been doing great. Anger's been bubbling up under my pelt too easily, but not to the point of attacking anyone again. At least, I don't think so. If I were to leave now and try to talk with the rest of the crew, I don't know how well I'll be able to control myself.

I like to think I have a good handle on my emotions, especially the anger that can show up when I get possessive. There's something about Sloane that's crumbling my self-control.

"Well, when you realize you're not fine, maybe come sit and have a meal with us." Jovi tilts his head to the side and then stands up straight. "I'm going to see if Sloane needs any help with whatever she's doing in the kitchen. Maybe you want to join?"

I clamp my teeth down hard, working them back and forth. I want to say yes, but at the same time, I don't want another incident to happen like yesterday. I don't need to scare Sloane like that, and I don't need to stress my relationship with the other crew.

I'm saved from having to answer Jovi when my alternate comm pings with a notification from the smugglers we're meeting with.I'm their point of contact and the one who they think managed to grab a human off Earth when we stopped by to refuel.

Do I like having to pretend to be scum who would kidnap and sell a defenseless creature? Not particularly, but I'd prefer to make myself sick than push it on someone else in the crew.

On route to rendezvous. See you in about two weeks.

"I need to deal with this," I tell Jovi before turning my chair around and turning all of my monitors back on. I ignore the laugh that Jovi lets out when he sees where all the cameras are watching. If he wants to give me more shit, he can, but I really do have more work to do. "Let Sloane know that I'm glad she's getting along with the crew."

"I'm not doing that," Jovi says as he leaves the room. I turn to scowl at him, but the door is sliding shut, leaving me alone with my security feeds.

I leave the furthest left one on the kitchen feed since it looks like Essa and Sloane are getting comfortable to stay for a while. On the other two, I close out the cameras and pull up the information for the mission we're on.

Our part of this mission is simple. We're going to collect the data off the ship to send to the Intergalactic Alliance Sentient Smuggling Department and, hopefully, re-kidnap the human they have onboard. What we're not doing is taking on an entire smuggling operation on our own.

Our work goes as far as stopping low-level layers of smuggling operations and feeding the information we gather to our contact in the Intergalactic Alliance. They have specialized teams with more resources and dedicated crews to bring down larger operations.

So far, we've stolen data from about twelve other ships. We've attempted to collect their human cargo as well, but it hasn't worked out yet. Either the smugglers have already dropped off the humans they were carrying or they haven't picked them up yet.

We're hopeful we'll save this ship's human cargo because we have one of our own. As far as we can tell, this ship's crew doesn't like doing singular pickups. That's the whole reason I argued with our contact in the IA to get us a human crew member so we could seem more legitimate as smugglers ourselves.

Movement in the left monitor catches my attention again, except this time it's Jovi walking into the kitchen. He faces the camera and gives me a knowing smirk because he knows I'm watching them right now. He walks over to Sloane and puts his lower hands on either side of the counter she's sitting near, trapping her close to him.

If she cares about his proximity, she doesn't show it. In fact, her smile seems only to grow, the pink in her cheeks deepening to a soft red. Jovi whispers something in her ear, and her eyes flicker around the room before stopping in the corner where I have the camera watching from.

I swallow hard as Sloane's eyes take on a devilish quality. She pushes at Jovi's chest until he steps back from her, and says something to him that has him frowning down at her. He might not like whatever it is, but he spins around, not looking at her.

Essa is busy doing something with the food synthesizer, but when Sloane says something to her, she looks over her shoulder and frowns at the camera. I'm surprised she doesn't draw her dagger, but she just shakes her head and turns back around.

My heart rate quickens as I watch Sloane step closer to the camera, stopping when she's just about centered. She says something to the camera, but I still don't turn on the sound. I don't know if she's talking to me or if she's talking to someone in the kitchen. I let out a long, shaky breath as her eyes stay pinned on the camera, and her fingers find the hem of her shirt.

My brain can't fully comprehend what I'm seeing until Sloane has her shirt pulled up, revealing her soft abdomen. She keeps pulling it up, up, and my growl sounds so loud in my room I'm sure they can probably hear it everywhere on the ship.

Sloane's eyes dart to the door, her breasts still bared to me, and then she looks back up into the camera. Her eyes crinkle in the corners as she tries to bite down a smile that has my heart rate doubling. I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful female, and I'm not just saying that because I can see her nipples.

Sloane holds her shirt up for just a few seconds, but those seconds are long enough for me to sear the memory of her bare into my mind forever.I'm glad I never set up recording on the cameras because I would be getting myself into a lot of trouble right now.

Sloane pulls her shirt down, winking at the camera as she does it, and then skips back to where Jovi is. Her fingers wrap in one of his hands, and he turns back around, his chest violet, eyes accusatory as he looks into the camera. I can't blame him. I just received easily the best show of my life and he was forced to look away.

My cock twitches in my pants, telling me I should go down there and see if she wants to repeat her little show for a live audience. I shake the thoughts from my mind, reminding myself she still has two days left to acclimate to being on the ship. Two days too long.