Please be gentle?

A half-naked man hacks the state-of-the-art security on the emergency hatch, out-logic'ed my ship's onboard AI, and walked over to me with those glistening...

Glistening, wow...

The guy looked like he came right out of a pool. Or a shower.

A hot, steaming...

And all I can say as he walks up to me to do terrible, unspeakable, and possibly unspeakably hot things to me, is 'please be gentle'? Me? A thoroughly emancipated pirate captain, scourge of the seven seas?

Well, I'm infamous at seven different bars on the Sea of Tranquility back at Luna. Almost as good.

But in my defence, the guy looked like he had spent the last eighteen months in the gym preparing for a lead role in a Marvel movie. From stubble that looked like someone had painted it on his face to arms that were probably thicker than my legs to abs that I could open a beer bottle on...

Would love to try that.

Well, 'please be gentle' was all I managed to say to him as he sauntered across my ship as if he owned it. When I said that rather embarrassing thing and practically gave him license to ravage me, he stepped up to my seat and gave me a lustful, deep and intoxicating stare that made me quiver.

"Of course," he said in a gentle whisper that made me want to hear it in a very large bed after a very long sleep. And I'll admit I was not nearly as frightened as I should have been when he reached down between my legs...

And undid the five-point safety harness on my chair.

I was more frightened when he scooped me up in his arms with unnerving ease. Like I was made of styrofoam, I swear the guy didn't even strain when he nearly tossed me into the air, somehow cradled me in one of his arms, and stopped to pick up the emergency first aid kit.

Idly, my mind still a little hazy, I wondered why he took it with us. Most of the single-use birth control was in the bathroom.

He took me outside, to a scene that seemed like it was straight out of one of those super-smutty historical dramas I watch when I don't think anyone will notice. The ones people watch more for the heady passion in straw beds or out in nature, rather than the dialogue. Period porn with a plot. You know, like Outlander.

Or Game of Thrones.

Also, I have never seen so much nature in my life.

Grass just went everywhere. Over rolling hills, and right up to distant forests, everything was incredibly, brilliantly, vividly green. Flowers everywhere, more colour than your average Disney movie, and asides from my broken ship, nature from one pristine horizon to the other.

It was revolting.

But if that's what he was into...

He laid me down on the grass, and I squirmed a little in anticipation. He leaned over me, his eyes heady with lust, and with a low, expensive-drink smooth voice, asked, "Do you hurt anywhere?"

I shook, blinked, and tried to figure out what he was talking about. And why my clothes weren't coming off. "Uh, no," I said.

He frowned and looked me over with those smoky, obviously lust-filled eyes. "Take a moment before you answer. You were just in a fairly spectacular crash-landing. Your ship's onboard sensors said you hadn't broken or strained anything, but computers only look for the obvious signs. You're not in any danger, so don't feel rushed to tell me anything."

Okay, he wants to play doctor? In the woods? A little weird, but with those muscles and that smile, I was willing to humour him.

"Well doctor," I said in as girly a voice as I could manage. I was trying for a bit of the Marylin Monroe 'happy birthday' voice and hoped the effect was as good as I thought it was in my head. "I think I hurt somewhere. You should probably check me over."

He raised an unnaturally well-sculpted eyebrow and frowned. He then very gently put his hand in my hair and leaned forward. I closed my eyes and pursed my lips a little, bit was only met with the dewy breeze. "I didn't think you had a concussion. Must have been something loose on your ship."

"A concussion?" Okay, this game was getting a little too weird for my tastes, and his frown looked more like he was wondering what the hell was wrong with me. I sat up and tried to rub the back of my head.

"Don't get up," he said, holding his hand out and guiding me back down on the grass.

Now that's more like it!

"Listen, it's Isabella, isn't it?" he asked, and I have to admit, I really loved the way my name sounded on his lips. Could definitely hear that again.

"Yes," I said, settling down happily into the grass. Remembering my name was a good touch, I have definitely had some occasions where the guy has forgotten it the morning after. Or the night of. Or at the bar, preventing the night of.

Wait, when the hell did I tell this guy my name?

"What?" I asked, sitting up again and this time not letting him guide me back down. "The? Fuck? Why do you know my name?"

The guy sat back and rolled his shoulders, reminding me in a much less sexy way that he could probably bench press me with only one arm here on Mars. "I asked about your ship's registration when you entered my atmosphere. Also, it's on the welcome message to your keypad on the outside of your ship. And your medical information is written inside your first aid kit."

"Oh," I said, scratching my head. "I guess that makes sense."

"So, are you sure your head doesn't hurt?" He asked. His concern would be cute if his face had a little more boy-scout charm and a little less 'I'm convinced you hit your head'. "You've been acting a little loopy since I walked into your spaceship."

Sure. He kills the mood and blames it on me. What a jackass.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Considering how fast this stupid planet pulled me in, I'm fucking peachy right now. Kinda hoped you had some cake or something to celebrate because that deceleration burn was awesome," I said.

And it was awesome. Wish someone — besides this snarky piece of man-meat who didn't seem to appreciate the grandeur of my unspeakably magnificent accomplishment — was around to appreciate it.

"You still crashed," he said. There was a very inappropriate chuckle in his voice, as if he just understood nothing about how great that landing was. And it was a landing, damnit! That was not a crash.

"My computer gave me a 0.000-" I started to explain, but he laughed and cut me off. How very male.

"Pretty sure you're just making that up," he said.

"Would you let me finish?" I asked indignantly, seriously affronted. Ooh, two more good literary words. Loving my vocabulary today. "0000247% chance of landing my ship! What I did is a bloody miracle?"

"That," he said, pointing at my Nightmare, "Is not a landing."

My ship just had to choose that exact moment to split in half. The hull split in a neat circle, bifurcating the hull like ripping a piece of paper. The engines rolled away from the rest of the ship. The engines dropped to the bottom of a small ravine and wiggled mockingly.

Stupid traitor.

"Hey, any landing you can walk away from," I insisted, very reasonably. "Considering my odds, any other pilot in the system would have died. And if I had done nothing my crash probably could have killed you, too. So, you're welcome."

"Well, since you're feeling better," eye-candy said. "Why don't you tell me what you're doing on my world?"

I coughed and sputtered. "Your world?"

Oh shit. Oh, frozen turd shot out of a waste disposal chute at relativistic speeds burning up in-atmosphere that some lovestruck teenager makes a wish on! I should have noticed it earlier. I know exactly who eye-candy with glistening muscles is.

The sole owner of the Cardego corporation. The world's only trillionaire. Inventor and sole owner of the wormhole generation technology that had revolutionized space travel. The solar system's most desired, but not necessarily most eligible bachelor for most of the last decade. And the sole financier of the Martian terraforming project.

"My world," Luca Cardego said, and his smile was now much more sinister than sexy. Okay, only a little more sinister. Okay, okay, really more sexy than menacing.

"This is my world. You are standing on my land. The seas are mine. The sky that you graffitied with your daredevil descent is mine. Which, by laws of salvage, also makes your ship mine," he said, slowly and menacingly, and somehow his shadow seemed to grow longer with each sentence.

"And like this world, you are mine," Luca totally said. I didn't just make that part up in my head. Don't believe a word he tells you later.