by Linda Gayle
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Loose Id, LLC
www.loose-id.com
Copyright ©2010
First published in 2010
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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Loose Id Titles by Linda Gayle
Linda Gayle
Warning
This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Loose Id LLC
PO Box 425960
San Francisco CA 94142-5960
www.loose-id.com
Chapter One
They say that in space, nobody hears you scream—unless you’re having an orgasm, in which case, you might have an entire audience screaming right along with you.
Kels Havoc—Captain Kels Havoc until very recently—blinked the sweat from his eyes, gripped the woman’s hips, and ground into her for about the eight millionth time. “C’mon, luv. Give it up already. I feel like my dick’s about to break off.”
“Wearing you out, am I?” Keeva, his gamespartner, laughed up at him, her teeth flashing very white against her exotically dark skin, her biolume tattoos writhing over firm muscles. She hooked her ankles over his sweat-slippery shoulders and pinched her pierced nipples. “Just a bit more, Kels. Right there, yes…” With a back-arching shudder, she came around him. Her pussy clamped on to his cock and practically ripped the orgasm from his body. Giving a grunt and a shout, Kels poured himself into her. Sweet saints below, bless his worn-out cock, she could still send him to the stars and back.
The crowd went wild. Finally able to free a hand and swipe back the hair hanging over his forehead, Kels looked around at the packed stadium and grinned. “Best show of the night, no doubts.”
“Not bad for an old man.” Keeva lay panting on the bloodred platform, her many braids, laced with gemstones, spread about her pixieish face. He reached out to help her up, and she placed her elegant fingers in his.
“You’ll give me a heart attack one of these days, Keev. Least I’ll go out smiling.” He kissed her lips lightly, and they took a quick bow to the roaring audience. “What was that, three for me, six for you?”
“At least.” Holding his hand, she stepped gracefully along beside him.
Farkin’ cooling system, it was hot as a sun in here. He could hardly wait for the icy spray-down that awaited them at the exit. He eyed his gamespartner. Considering they’d been fucking their brains out for well over an hour, she looked suspiciously fresh. “What’s your secret, luv? New tantric exercise?”
He knew she knew what he was really asking, and couldn’t or wouldn’t meet his eyes. A bad sign. “It’s the diet I’m on. Nothing but fresh fruit and veg.”
He pulled her up short just before the exit and clasped her upper arms to make her look at him. “Tell the truth. You’re not hopping, are you?”
“I passed the drug test coming in, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but—”
“Come along, you two. Unless you fancy another round.”
Kels sneered at Maji, the slimy Quitza bastard who worked the gate at the Dome, but there was no use in delaying. The next group stood at the gate, ready to make their entrance, and behind them, the bacti-hoses worked to clean the stage.
Keeva tipped her head, her large, almond-shaped eyes guileless. “We better go, Kels.”
He tightened his grip a moment. “You know it’s not just the games. I worry about you. It’s bad stuff. You can’t play around with it.”
She bit her lower lip, and his heart sank. Shrugging off his hands, she turned and headed toward the spray-down, light on the balls of her feet, her perfect, heart-shaped ass swinging, her braids licking down her supple mahogany back. Already fans lined the corridor, digipads at the ready for autographs and photos.
He strode to catch up, but she’d slipped ahead of him into the spray-down. The door sealed, and he watched as she turned in the mist that would clean and sterilize her body. Would he be able to tell if she was tripping on hoppers? Yes. No. Maybe. He knew that lithe body, knew every inch of it inside and out. So things hadn’t worked out for them in the romance department; he still was her best fuck partner. And truth be told, he still carried a flame for her. She knew it too, or she would have told him outright to go screw a pith when he’d approached her about the games. She was sparing him from something.
Keeva danced out of the chamber on the opposite side and grabbed a white robe. Maji appeared at his shoulder. His sour banana-peel smell made Kels’s nose wrinkle. “Go on, or do you need a formal invite?”
“Fuck off, Maji.”
The quease-inducing ratlike lowlien snickered at him. “Thanks, but no. Besides, I don’t think you got any juice left.”
Even by Quitza standards, Maji was an asshat, but he’d risen far for a lowlien. He knew it, and he worked every angle. Ugly but shrewd. Perfect for this job, Kels supposed. “What’s the house take tonight?”
“Record breakin’.” The Quitza’s yellowed whiskers quivered. “Canto’ll have your share waitin’ if you ever decide to wash.” He spread his nasty little pink-palmed rodent hands and elaborately waved Kels inside.
Record breaking. Good. Kels raised his arms for the frigid blast. Sweat and fluids sluiced away. His dick shriveled from the cold, as if it hadn’t taken enough abuse for the night. He thought back on Keeva’s words: “not bad for an old man.” Maybe he was getting too old for this. But he needed the money, needed his ship back, and this was one thing he knew he could do well. Besides, it might get him back in tight with Keeva.
He saw her form, wavery through the pale blue rivulets running down the interior of the shell, already almost at the end of the line of admirers, humans and aliens with hands and appendages extended to touch her as she passed. Even here in the Dregs they paid good money to partake of her sexual talents. Their bodies monitored by nerve sensors, he and Keeva and every other sexplayer broadcast their orgasms to the plugged-in audience.
It was one big cluster fuck, made all the more potent because few humans and fewer aliens had the ability to achieve orgasm on their own anymore. Humans, in their self-absorbed wisdom, had largely and accidentally purged themselves of sexual response with designer pharmaceuticals, and aliens, well, except for a few exotic high species, they’d never known such sensations existed until they’d made contact with Earth sixty years earlier. Now it was as powerful an addiction as any drug.
Powerful and profitable.
He pushed open th
e spray-down hatch before the mist had settled and snatched up a robe. A few bystanders held out digipads to him as well, but Keeva was the real star, and where the hell had she gone? Not bothering to sign autographs, he shoved his way past the clinging hands and fingers and headed for her dressing room.
But someone had gotten there first. Towering over Keeva, a two-and-a-half-meter-tall Drolik, dressed ridiculously like an Old Earth American gangster in striped slacks and fedora, handed her a digipad to sign. No admirer, this. He’d know that gray-blue face anywhere.
“D’Parr,” Kels growled, approaching them.
D’Parr glanced up, his large eyes swirling reds and blues slowly, unconcernedly.
“Captain Havoc. Or not captain anymore, I believe.” For such a large, lumbering creature, D’Parr had an oddly high-pitched voice.
He ignored the gibe. “Keeva, what’s he doing here?”
The high collar of the fluffy white robe made her dark face seem small and vulnerable. “It’s business, Kels. And none of yours.”
Well, that hurt, but not nearly as much as the sinking feeling that seized his gut. “You can’t mean to work for him. You know what he is.”
Keeva handed the digipad back to the Drolik and crossed her arms over her chest. “Look, I meant to tell you earlier, but I knew this was the reaction you’d have. I’m leaving the Dregs. This place is finished.” She waved a hand at their surroundings—the narrow, dimly lit hall with its peeling paint, the drab, hinged doors, the poorly filtered atmosphere. “There’s just no money left to be made here. We both know it.”
He felt as cold as if he still stood in the spray-down. “Where you going, then? To the Rim? With this?” He jerked his thumb at the Drolik. “He’s a scrag criminal.”
“I prefer ‘independent entrepreneur.’” D’Parr hooked his lethal-looking thumb spikes in the lapels of his suit jacket.
“Shut it,” Kels said. Then to Keeva: “When were you going to tell me?”
Her sultry lips compressed in a frown. “As soon as we collected our take for the night. I’d hoped it would be enough for you to get the Ash Nova back. Then we both would get what we wanted.” One shoulder lifted in a shrug.
“I don’t care about the Nova.” He shook his head. “I mean, I do, but not the way I care for you. Do you realize the demands that’ll be put on you in the Rim?”
Her face fell. Oh no. “Saints, Keev. What’s really going on?”
D’Parr snorted. “Keeva Ny has higher aspirations. As her agent, I—”
“She’d never hire you. Why don’t you go fuck yourself, over there, and give us a few minutes.” Kels shoved a finger toward the shadowy end of the corridor.
Keeva looked alarmed. “He is my manager. And he’s booking me in the high games.”
“In the Conflict Zone?” he asked, feeling his eyes grow large with disbelief.
“At the edge of it. Savoonga Station,” she hemmed. “And since when have you grown particular about criminals? Have piracy and smuggling gone legit?”
“Even I have my standards,” he growled. Reaching behind her, Kels shoved open her door, dragged her inside, kicked the door closed, and flipped the lock before D’Parr could get his big, greasy paws around the edge.
“Have you fucking blown your neurons? Keeva, you can’t do this. I won’t let you.”
She spun away from him and crossed the tiny space. “It’s hardly your decision. You dumped me, remember?”
He had. And regretted it every day since.
She turned and leaned back on her cosmetics counter. “What do you want me to do? The Dregs are the Dregs. They’re tapped out. Who’s in our audience; did you see them? Lowliens and brain-busted humans, scraping together their last iron for a ticket. I can do more. I’m ready for more. Everyone knows the big money is out in the Zone.”
He wanted to grab her and shake some sense into her, but settled for shoving his fingers through his hair. “They’ll fuck you to death. Literally. They’ll have you on hoppers before you even land.”
“It’s the way of the future. You can’t avoid it.”
“Are you hopping now?”
Her lips twisted. “Small stuff. Yes, I admit it. Go ahead, make that angry face; I don’t care.”
“But you got past the scan.”
She picked up a crystalline jar and toyed with it. “New stuff. More subtle, more sophisticated. Harder to trace. The equipment here is old, outdated. It was easy to slip it by Canto.” She huffed impatiently and set the jar down with a thud. “How do you think I managed six orgasms?”
His ego slunk off into a dark cave to sulk. “Well.” He shrugged.
She laughed without humor. “Whatever we had, we still have it, but not six orgasms’ worth.” She crossed to him and put her hand on his chest. “You’re a good man, Kels. You got me where I need to be, but I don’t even know why you bother with the sex games. How old are you now? Thirty-two?”
“Thirty-one.”
“And a half. Isn’t it time to put your cock away and find some honest work?” Her hand stroked down his chest, and her thoughtful gaze followed. “Kels.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t what you envisioned back when we had dreams together.”
Dreams of recolonizing. Dreams of being together forever. He took her hand in his and kissed her knuckles. “We can start over. We can try again.”
She pulled her hand away, her expression hardening. “No, we can’t. I can’t stand the Dregs even one more day. The grimy sex dome, the filth, the pathetic, grubbing losers who come to ogle us.”
“You really think Savoonga will be that much different?”
“At least the clientele will be prettier.”
“Come on. That’s where the real scum is—slavers, traders, mercenaries.”
“Money.” She held up her thumb and middle finger and rubbed them together. “Filthy lucre. That’s all I’m interested in, not their morals or their business.”
“This isn’t you, not the girl I know. What happened to you, Keeva?”
“I grew up. I got broke. I got tired.” She opened her robe and ran her hand down her incredible athletic body. “How much longer do you think this will last? I have maybe five cycles before I’m too old for the high games. It’s now or never.”
“What about me, about us? We have a contract with Canto.”
“D’Parr made a deal with him. No worries there. It’s all been smoothed.”
His mind whirling with options, none of them workable, Kels shook his head. “When do you leave?”
“Tonight.” She went back to the counter and started packing her things in a silver case. He could see her grim expression in the mirror, and his face too, sad and lost. “I’ve already signed the contract, as you saw. D’Parr waits for two other clients; then we’re all shipping out after twelve-hour.”
Pretending to be resigned, he nodded. “Well…I guess there’s nothing else I can say to change your mind.”
“No. Nothing.”
In the reflection, he thought he saw a tear running down her cheek. She brushed it away. He went to her, slid his hands over her shoulders, leaned down, and whispered in her ear, “I never stopped loving you.”
She whirled on him, making him hop back. She clutched her cosmetic brushes, which she brandished at him. “You had your chance, Kels.” Her hot glare burned him from head to toe. “I thought maybe, when you came to me about the games, maybe…we could be together again. But no. It’s the same old thing, empty promises about the future and new beginnings. This time, I’m dumping you, and no regrets about it.”
He’d believe her if the tears weren’t welling in her eyes again. But he knew better than to push. He held up his hands, palms out in surrender. “Okay, luv. Best of luck, break a leg, whatever saying goes along with selling your body and soul nowadays.”
Her lip curled in a sneer before she put her back to him.
When he slammed out of her dressing room, he shoved the door into D’Parr’s head. Apparently
, he’d had his aural pad to the jamb, listening in.
“If I hear she’s been killed or hurt, I’ll come looking for you,” Kels snarled, squaring off against the tall alien, who rubbed the new lump on his skull.
“In what ship?” D’Parr laughed, a grinding noise deep in his chest. “Unlucky in love and in jarouk, I hear.”
Crack and ruin, did everyone know how he’d lost the Nova?
“Watch your back,” he snapped, then strode off down the corridor to his dressing room. He couldn’t let that scrag have Keeva. Between him and his first mate, Elion, they’d come up with some deal she couldn’t resist.
About half past twelve-hour, Sayal Iluma found an empty seat in the back of the smoky bar and watched her quarry gesturing emphatically while he told his first mate about his tragic evening. Had she not known who he was, she wouldn’t have pegged him as a gamesplayer. Shaggy deep brown hair, nose slightly crooked from having been broken and badly repaired, scar on the chin… Kels Nero Havoc, former captain of the Ash Nova: pirate, smuggler, off-and-on sexplayer, and the perfect man for the job she had in mind.
At last destiny had shown her the instrument to revenge.
Then why did her hand shake when she lifted the glass of bubra the tender had given her? Sayal took a lengthy sip of the drink. The time for nervousness was well past. Never would she have this chance again. Kels and his mate needed their ship back. She needed transport to the Zone. Most importantly, she needed a partner for the high games, and Kels Havoc qualified on all counts. Best of all, he’d be motivated to take her offer now that his former lover traveled there as well. Truly, destiny favored her.
Kels sat back, still talking, his boot heels on the table. His blond mate, a slender man with thoughtful, pale blue eyes, listened with enduring patience. Elion Ingemar Andervaars. Sayal reached out to him, touched his life pulse with hers. Yes, he longed to join with Kels, but friendship and duty overrode his desires. She wondered if Kels knew. The man seemed so self-absorbed, she doubted it. Even now he went on about Canto’s refusal to pay him.
