Because disbelief colored the word, he soothed her. "I want to know you better, Kiri. I understand you feel rushed, but the chaotic nature of our relations so far stems from your life, not mine."
"Hey—the riots aren't my fault."
"Of course not. But you were living in that area by choice. And you gambled by choice. There are consequences for all our actions."
"So you've never gambled?" she retorted.
"Of course I have. Business is one big gamble. The difference between you and me is simply that I've won many more times than I've lost. And I don't waste my credit on games—I save it for real opportunities." He softened his voice. "I'm not judging you, kitten. I told you, I've been where you are. I'm simply stating facts."
"I'll need at least two weeks," she said, watching him. "And a loan. As long as I'm going to have your help, I want to buy better coffee and other supplies for my stand. You can have one of your accountants do a contract."
"Done." He regarded her with satisfaction. "I'll be leaving tomorrow, traveling to New Asia. Whether I'm here or gone, I want you at my penthouse. One of my men will take you to work and anywhere else you need to go."
"Starry," she murmured, her eyes dazed. "Who, this guy?"
Stark shook his head. "Giles and Opal travel with me. I keep the floor of apartments just below the penthouse for my staff. Natan, my chef and housekeeper lives there, and I'll have the pilot bunk there as well. I'll assign Rak to you. He's old enough not to be beguiled into any mischief even by a lovely wild cat."
She slid down in her chair, shoving at his knee with her slippered toe. He caught her foot easily in his hand and held her there, chuckling at her childish gesture. She stared at him, a smile dawning on her face.
"What?"
"I've never heard you laugh," she said. "I like it."
Stark leaned forward and caught her by the waist, pulling her forward and onto his lap, so she straddled him. "You'll like what I'm going to do with you when I get you back to my bed, too," he said into her ear.
She shivered. "Maybe."
But this time she kissed him, tasting his lips with hers, teasing him with their plush sweetness. Her slender arms slid around his neck, and her soft breasts pressed against his chest. He filled his hands with her firm, round ass and kissed her.
With her soft heat so close, his cock reacted swiftly and predictably, stiffening demandingly. He rocked into the soft notch between her thighs. "The moment I get you inside," he said against her mouth, "I want you to walk into my bedroom, and wait for me there. Understood?"
She moved her face against his, inhaling. Taking in his scent. Good, he wanted to imprint himself on her, so she'd know him in the dark, or blindfolded and bound, know him from any other man who touched her.
"Is this the beginning of you ... teaching me?" she whispered, her breath tickling his face.
His cock stiffened even further, and arousal roared up through him. Quark, it was going to be so intensely sweet to mold her. "Yes, kitten. It's the beginning."
"Don't know where your room is." She rubbed subtly against his cock, stroking him even hotter. She was shivering, despite her attempt to be as calm as he.
"Next to the room where you stayed last night. From now on, when I'm there, you'll be in my bed."
"Yes, sir."
He spanked her bottom, a sharp little smack that made her jump against him. It also, strangely, sent an odd little thrill through her.
"'Yes, Logan' will do very well. And now we've landed."
She slipped to her feet, looking self-consciously toward the open hatch. But Opal, ever discreet, had disappeared once she ascertained the craft was docked safely.
"Go on." Stark gave Kiri a gentle push. "I'll be a few secs. I want to talk to Giles."
He wanted—needed—to get his arousal under control before he pinned her against the bulkhead and fucked her right here.
He didn't mind an audience, but not his employees.
Chapter 12
Aroused, uncertain and shaken, Kiri walked through the podway and into Stark's plush penthouse. Quiet settled around her, the hush of seclusion that only wealth could buy. The place even smelled of money—so clean, with some faint echo of flowers or something. She hadn't spent much time around live plants, but she thought she remembered how they smelled.
She much preferred it to the heavy perfume of Maitresse. Not to mention those women tripping themselves to be the one to assist Stark. She didn't like the way Haassea looked at him, or that other one—Slidi. "'Oh, sorry to disturb you, Mr. Stark,'" she mimicked under her breath. More like 'Oh, take me instead of her, Mr. Stark'.
But she was the one who was here, so she'd deal with her nerves. She wanted more of what he'd given her in the night before. She wanted him to hold her in his arms, and help her forget her forced visit to the port police headquarters and everything else, just for a little while.
She half-expected someone to step out and demand to know who she was and what she was doing there. But although she could hear activity from the closed doors beyond the sleek expanse of an ebony dining table, no one accosted her as she walked across the sitting room and turned into the short, wide hallway.
Stark's bedroom was larger than the one she'd stayed in the night before, but even this large room was dominated by the expanse of a huge bed covered in dark, silky pewter and mounded with luxe cushions. The walls were gray as well, the fitments silvery cerametal. And it smelled clean, too, but faintly of him. Of that lotion he used.
Walking over to the bed, Kiri traced her fingertips along the plush coverlet. It was soft against her skin. Velvet. Probably spun from lii silk bugs on Pangaea, or some such. A customer had laid her jacket across Kiri's counter once, and Kiri had picked it up to hand it back. It had felt like this.
At a sound behind her, she turned. Logan stepped into the room, and the wide doors slid shut behind him, enclosing them in this room that was meant for sleep and sex.
He regarded her, his eyes hooded in the look that now sent a shiver of heat straight down into her pussy and made her legs feel weak, as if she wanted to fall at his feet. Which she did not do, even when she was reeling the way she was today.
"You are indeed a pearl in my oyster," he said, his voice deep and soft. "I am fortunate to be the man who found you, Kiri te Nawa."
He tossed something on the bed beside her, and she looked down. A twisted length of soft cord lay there. Her heart skipped a beat, and she side-stepped away from the thing. "What's that?"
"Soft restraints."
Alarm sent her heart leaping higher against her ribs. He was unfastening his jacket with slow deliberation, watching her.
She shook her head, lifting one foot onto the bed and sliding back onto it, her fingertips bracing her on the bed. "I told you, nothing t-twisty."
He shrugged off his jacket, tossing it onto a leather bench, and began to unfasten his shirt.
She indicated the restraints. "That's twisty."
He pulled his shirt off, and she stared, caught by the sight of his powerful shoulders and arms, his broad chest and hard abdomen, ridged with muscle. "Don't you trust me?" he asked, casually as if he were asking her what she'd like to drink.
She looked up into his eyes, heated now like molten silver. He was the most irritating, stubborn, single-minded man she'd ever met. "Well, pretty much, or I wouldn't be here, would I?"
He shoved his pants down over his lean, hard hips, baring the flatness of his groin and the two deep grooves that arrowed down toward his cock, as it sprang up out of his slacks with arrogant beauty, rampant. He stepped out of his pants and stalked toward her, naked and ready.
"Perhaps you like an edge of danger with your sex. Some women do."
She shook her head in a silent denial. He smiled slightly, just with his eyes.
"What?" she snapped.
He lifted her chin on the edge of his finger and looked down into her face. His was taut, his nostrils flared as if he were scenting her, breathing her
in, his chosen female.
"I don't believe you," he said softly. "You pit yourself against dangers of every kind—with your business, your gamble, even where you choose to live."
"That's different," she whispered. Her body responded helplessly to him with a trembling deep inside her. She wanted to sway against him, rub herself on his heat and splendor. Beg him without words to take her, assuage the throbbing in her pussy.
"Is it? Say my name," he commanded softly.
"Logan."
His hand framed her face, caressing her cheek and the side of her jaw. She turned her face into his hand, craving his touch. "Do you want me, Kiri?"
She nodded. His hand tightened, just a little. "Say it."
"Yes, Logan. I want you." She did, damn him. She craved him. She wanted him to lay her back on the bed now and slide deep inside her. She just didn't want to be tied up while he did it.
"Good. Then let me undress you, little cat, so I can please you." He slid his hands down over her shoulders, taking the sweater with them. Kiri let it drop behind her and then lifted her arms above her head, so he could pull the tank up.
The thin fabric slid up and away, baring her to him. When it reached her wrists, he tugged gently, twisting the fabric so her hands were trapped. She knelt there with her arms bound over her head, half nude, her breasts jutting out at him, and peeped up at him. The look in his eyes, the feel of him holding her there to look at made her quiver with a deep, guilty pleasure.
Maybe … maybe it would be kind of hot to be tied up, for this. But she bit her lip, holding back any incautious words. Was she as twisty as those restraints to enjoy this? She knew there were clubs where people did this as well as acts a whole lot twistier, but she'd never been interested.
He smiled slowly and cupped his free hand over her breast, fondling it with slow care, and then squeezing her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She wished he could do that all night.
"You're beautiful like this," he told her. "Many would kill to have you." His warm, powerful hand moved to her other breast, cupping it. "And when I look at you like this, I'd kill to keep you for myself."
She let her head fall against her arm, intoxicated by his voice and his words. She was ready to dissolve in a heap on the bed, open for anything he wanted to do to her.
"Now do you understand, kitten?" He curved his hand around her throat, tipping her face up to his as he bent to kiss her. She kissed him back, opening her mouth to him, and drinking in his taste, his touch. Her pussy was throbbing in time with her thundering heart, so that she pressed her thighs together, seeking relief.
"I—I don't know." That kind of intensity wasn't for her … was it? She wanted pleasure, sure, but she wanted to be pampered and held, the way he had last night.
He studied her, and she resisted the urge to pull away, run from him. But she quivered in his grasp. Something in his heated silver gaze called to her to leap and let him catch her. But would he? Or would she end up hanging by her fingertips while he took his pleasure at her expense?
"You're not ready for that." He drew the tank away, freeing her, and she lowered her arms, watching him. "Not yet."
Not yet? Did that mean he meant to keep pushing? Was that part of what he planned to teach her? "What would you want to do, anyway?" she asked. "If I let you, um, tie me up?" And why did her pussy clench harder just thinking about it?
"It's all right," he murmured, his hands on her waist, warm and powerful. "Stay in the moment, kitten. I don't want you helpless; I want you to submit to me. There's a difference. For now, take your tights off for me."
She slid off the bed, hooked her fingers in the soft waist band, pushing the tights down and off her hips and thighs. She drew one leg up and then the other, stepping out of the tights as he watched. Baring herself to him.
"Come to the edge of the bed," he urged, sinking to his knees between her feet. "That's right. Now open your legs for me. Yes, very pretty."
She sat there, her legs spread wide, feet braced on her tiptoes, pleasure and need gathering beneath his gaze as he looked at her mons. His gaze was hot, like a heat lamp directed on her bare flesh. She wanted him to go on looking at her until she melted just from that.
He stroked her thighs, his thumbs tracing the curls between her thighs. "You're very wet."
He looked up into her eyes and stroked a fingertip up through her swollen, wet labia. He dipped it carefully inside and then back out again. Her pussy released his finger with a succulent sound, and he smiled. "Now you'll come for me, won't you, kitten?"
"Yes." She was going to come all by herself in a sec. When he stroked his broad fingertip over her clitoris, she whimpered, a small feminine sound of need.
"Look at me," he ordered when her eyes slipped shut. She dragged them open and gazed into his beautiful eyes as he stroked her clitoris, his touch wet and silken and perfect, until she was following his touch, jerking her hips into his touch. She came, her pussy rippling with intense pleasure.
"Logan." She was drowning in that molten gaze.
He bent and kissed her, hard, his tongue sweeping into her mouth to claim her. She kissed him back, sinking into the taste and wet heat of his mouth, loving the warmth of his hands on her, holding her safe as she came down from her swift release. She leaned into him, her hands curling on the hard warmth of his bare shoulders, luxuriating in the chance to hold him. She was sliding them around his neck when he moved away. She protested wordlessly, forcing her heavy eyes open.
Stark stood before her, and Kiri looked up at him, at his face taut with desire, his cock standing up before her, rigid and flushed. He flexed his hips, moving it toward her. Then he pressed gently on her shoulders.
"Will you let me take your mouth?" he asked.
She let her gaze slide down over the power and beauty of his broad chest, with the curling mat of hair that arrowed down across his hard abdomen to flare again into a mat of dark curls around the base of his cock, and the heavy balls that were drawn tight beneath. She reached out to touch it gently, examining him with her fingertips and her gaze. Long and thick, dark with blood, a single drop of arousal glistening on the broad head. Hot and silky under her touch, it twitched demandingly as she curled her fingers around it, and stroked up.
Sucking in a hard breath, he pushed himself into her grasp, and his hands tightened on her shoulders. "Your mouth, little cat."
Without a word, she slipped to her knees before him, her hands resting delicately on his hard thighs, dusted with fine hair. She'd done this a few times and kind of enjoyed it as a warm-up, as long as he didn't try to shove it down her throat or expect to come in her mouth.
He touched her face tenderly. "You're beautiful right now," he said.
She looked up at him from under her lashes. She might be on her knees before him, but she held the power now, in this instant. "So are you."
His cock jerked, straining toward her. He groaned. "Now, please." Shifting closer, he touched her face, guiding her so that the velvet head of his cock nudged her lips. She smoothed her hands down his thighs, cupping the back of his legs, hard and powerful under his warm skin.
He smelled so good. She could drown in his scent, musky and clean with that faint edge of some wild forest. He tasted faintly of salt—the glistening drop of arousal that she licked from the tender slit. He pressed further, and she opened her mouth, taking him further in. He filled her mouth, a hot, firm, velvet rod of flesh, male incarnate.
"Again," he urged, his voice rough. "Ah, you have no idea how lovely you look. Another time I'll—but that will wait."
Another time, what? She hesitated, jolted out of her haze of pleasure
He withdrew a little and then thrust back into her mouth. "Look at me," he urged. He looked down into her eyes as he thrust again and again, fucking her mouth. She curled her tongue, caressing him with it each time he withdrew.
"It's good, isn't it, little cat?"
She nodded as best she could with her mouth full, surprised to find
she meant it. She liked doing this for him.
He withdrew with clear regret. "That was very good," he told her, lifting her up with his hands on her waist. "But now, I need to be inside your tight little cunt."
He kissed her deeply, cupping her mons with one hand and swallowing her hoarse whimper of eagerness at the thought of having him inside her again. "Are you ready for me?"
"Yes, Logan."
He thrust two fingers up inside her, his breath hissing in sharply as she contracted around his fingers. "Yes, I do believe you are. I'd like to take you from behind."
"Okay." She liked that—it meant she could touch herself and get off faster.
"Such eagerness."
He guided her to climb onto the bed and lie on her stomach. He tucked one of the fat cushions under her hips, so that her ass was tilted into the air, her arms braced before her.
This was a little weird. She felt at once admired and exposed. The bed shifted as he moved off of the bed and then came back again. He trailed his fingertips through her wetness, pushing her legs wider apart. Something warm dripped down the crevice of her ass, trickling over her labia.
"Is that what you used last night?" she asked, twisting to look at him over her shoulder.
He knelt between her thighs, looking down at her. "Mm, yes it is," he said. "Now, I'm going to use it on your pretty little ass, kitten. Hold still for me, that's right."
Kiri flinched as she felt his slick finger massaging the gesic into the tight ring of muscle. "I don't really like being touched there."
"Are you sure about that?" He leaned over her, bending his head to kiss a soft line up her back while he continued to stroke her.
Well, of course she was sure, or she wouldn't have said so. But then the warm tingling seemed to dart inside her, and she gasped. He made a sound of approval.
"I believe you're ready for a very, very small toy."
"A what?" Kiri stiffened. "You're not shoving some mechanical in me."
He smacked her bottom with the flat of his hand. The sting distracted her—almost—from the soft heat of something pushing inside her ass. "Of course not. This is just a soft plug."
Nebula Nights: Love Among The Stars Page 86
