the metal grates on either side of her to feel the ship’s movements. When the ship started to reverse, she rose to her feet and reached for the railing lining either side of the corridor. He did the same, already anticipating the stomach-churning free fall of the shuttle exiting the main ship. These older cargo ships were bare-bones and rarely had proper shuttle launching gear. Instead, the shuttles reversed out of the cargo ship’s departure doors straight into space, often falling hundreds of feet before their engines fully engaged.
As expected, the shuttle dropped out of the ship. They lifted off the floor, their bodies momentarily weightless until the shuttle surged to life. Their feet connected hard with the metal grates, and he grunted against the sudden forces compressing their bodies. After a few uncomfortable moments, the pressure eased, and the shuttle leveled out while picking up speed.
Eventually, the shuttle pitched forward slightly as it started its descent into the planet’s atmosphere. The incline sharpened, and he worried Maisie would lose her balance. He glanced back at her, but she was braced against the wall and seemed to be maintaining her position easier than he was.
Despite his lingering gaze, her focus never shifted from his boots. She was deliberately ignoring him. Ever since he had ended their tryst, she had shut down. He had expected irritation or anger, but the indifference was unsettling.
Grimacing at the memory of the way he had so roughly used her, Terror felt a fresh wave of shame. Never in his life had he been so careless with a woman. Maisie had consented to a little pain to amplify her pleasure, but she hadn’t consented to the cruel way he had buried his cock inside her. He gritted his teeth against the revulsion that burned him as he imagined how much pain he had caused her. All this time, he had sworn to protect her, to keep her safe, and the first chance he had, he broke that promise by bending her over a table.
She deserved so much better. She was absolutely precious, and he had treated her like something cheap and expendable. And then, to make matter worse, he had treated her like a child, handing her that pair of overalls without giving her a chance to say another word. He was piling fuck-ups on fuck-ups.
The ship suddenly hit turbulence, knocking all thoughts of the fiasco in their bunkroom out of his head. His boots came up off the floor, and he grasped at the bulkhead before finally catching a pipe. His grip slipped when the ship lurched up, and he barely managed to avoid slamming his face into the wall. Unsurprisingly, Maisie dangled gracefully from the same pipe he had failed to catch. She seemed amused by his near-miss.
Another pocket of turbulence lifted him from the ground. The ship took a sharp nosedive, and metal groaned all around them. He went airborne and flipped backwards, tumbling dangerously toward certain injury. A pair of slim but strong legs caught him around the waist, stopping his dangerous trajectory and giving him a few seconds to grasp for purchase overhead. He righted himself as the ship took another wild lurch up and down.
The ship made a terrible noise as metal warped and clanged under the intense pressure of the descent. Maise couldn’t hear the sounds, but she seemed to feel them. Her expression morphed from one of amusement at his bungled attempt to stay on his feet to one of serious concern. She dropped her legs from his waist and lifted them higher until they were hooked around the pipes. She wasn’t taking any chances until the flight leveled.
Glad she had the training and experience to know how to keep herself alive, he followed suit, latching onto the pipes and wishing like hell he never had to deal with turbulence like this again. As old as this ship was, it wasn’t in the best condition for the intense pressure forces being exerted upon it. He tried not to think about the shoddy maintenance, or how quickly the entire ship could break apart and send them hurtling toward the planet’s surface in a death spiral.
The ship shuddered violently, and he swore and grunted against the painful pressure squeezing his body. Then, in a moment of absolute relief, the ship entered a clear path and resumed normal flight. He waited a few moments before finally uncurling himself and dropping back down to the floor. Maisie did the same and wiped