Gambit

by Kim Knox

  “This can stop now.” Daned’s hand dropped away and the imprint of his fingers burned against her skin. His unreadable eyes held her and she breathed against the need to grab him and kiss him into submission. His head tilted and he eased back from her. “We’ve had our play. I’ll let you sleep.”

  Was she insane? She was turning down sex with Daned…because she was scared? “No.”

  “No?”

  Something stirred under his question and the thought made Chae bite at her lip. Her gaze slid down the lean perfection of his torso to the towel still wrapped around his waist. The tented towel. “I have money.” She smirked. “I will have money. And I’ll be in need of a pilot, now that I caught the slipstream and screwed my license.”

  “You trust me to take you?”

  Chae bit back a bigger grin. “Is it innuendo when it’s that obvious?” She shrugged off her tunic and dropped it in a puddle of cloth beside her boots. Her heart pounded and heat flushed her face, her fingers curling into tight fists as unexpected nerves wiped away her usual bravado. She took a step forward, meeting Daned halfway. The first press of her breasts against his bare chest dizzied her thoughts. She pulled in a quick breath. “Yes, I have a vacancy needing to be filled.”

  His large hand stroked over her waist and hip, the light touch leaving a tingle under her skin. “Should I continue with our unsubtle innuendo?” His warm breath brushed her lips. “Or fuck you?”

  Chae shoved down the fear of wanting more from Daned than his delicious body, more than a shallow fuck. She’d wrestled with that insanity and her libido had won. The need to bite at his full lower lip held all of her attention. More tempting than bought flesh. More tempting than anything she’d ever known. And she had never been good at resisting temptation.

  Her teeth grazed his lip and the sweet taste of him drew out a soft moan. The false fire of the living gold had faded and something else replaced it. She melted another kiss from him, and another, slipping her hands over the hard muscle of his chest to circle her arms around his neck. His mouth was addictive, sweet, hot and his tongue stroked slow against hers.

  Daned’s mouth broke from hers to tease kisses against her throat, her shoulder. He nipped her skin and she yelped. “I like you naked,” he murmured.

  She grinned, not exactly sure what the hell was going on, but more than happy to go with it. A warmth curled in her belly that she’d not felt before, something right, needed…and she wanted more of it. “Then finish the job.” She nudged him until he lifted his mouth from her shoulder. “Like I wanted you to before.”

  The dark heat in his gaze ran thick through her blood. “Before…” He eased her down to the hard mattress of the bunk. He knelt in front of her, their eyes level, and ran his hands along the damp length of her thighs. “…I couldn’t stop.” He let out a slow breath and the brush of air against her skin forced a shiver.

  Daned pressed his warm palms against her legs, his thumbs teasing circles over the curve of her sensitive inner thigh. Chae closed her eyes and let the little ripples of pleasure ride up through her body. His every touch was…incredible. Living gold? She could happily recycle the stuff.

  “We have no say in who our genes choose for us.”

  Daned looked up and the desire in his eyes urged her to really make him stop talking. She had plans for his mouth. “Really. Well, I think you got a great deal.” She cupped his jaw and leaned forward. Her lips brushed his and she chose to ignore the knot of fear in her gut. It was only genetic attraction. She had to remember that. “And you know we’re wasting valuable naked time.”

  A grin broke from him, but then it faded. “You weren’t raised Ladaian. We’re prepared to accept it. Supposedly.” His thumb teased her bottom lip and she flicked her tongue at its tip. His other hand tightened against her thigh. His gaze darkened. “But you have to know, have to realize that this will make us permanent.”

  Her heart squeezed, too tight, and heat flared. She swallowed, wanting to keep the squeak from her voice before she asked, “Permanent?”

  A hard smile cut his mouth. “One free fuck. Then we risk permanence. That’s the rule. Even for a Traern.” He let out a slow breath. “And you…I thought it was the gold that made me want to push you up against the nearest wall.”

  “Permanent?” She couldn’t ignore the fact and her suddenly fast-pounding heart didn’t want to either. Daned would be hers. The idea seared across her thoughts, burning fiercer heat than the gold had. “As in…?”

  “How else do you want me to say it, Chae?”

  She blinked. It was the first time he’d used her name, and it urged her forward until her mouth found his. She threaded her fingers through his hair. Permanent. She groaned and slid forward on the mattress, wanting to press herself fully against him. Her other hand tugged at the towel covering him. She wanted, she needed skin to skin.

  “Chae…” He murmured her name against her lips, his hands exploring her skin. “This is not the time to do this.”

  “Want me to stop?” She chased kisses down his throat. “Because I can. I have the control to stop and just walk away…”

  “Very amusing.” He nipped at her shoulder and she yelped. “Permanence doesn’t guarantee that we’ll even like each other…but what it does promise—or so I’ve been assured—is incredible sex.”

  Doesn’t guarantee that we’ll even like each other. For too long a moment, pain twisted in her gut. Shit, what the hell was she expecting from him? Sex. It was all about sex. “I thought we had that.”

  “Maybe.” He eased her back onto the bunk, and the hard mattress forced an unwanted ache through her bones…but she didn’t care. Not with the smooth, hot press of Daned’s skin against hers, the tease of his mouth over her shoulder, her collarbone until he found her breast. He looked up, the sharp light from the overhead bulbs dropping silver into the dark depths of his eyes. “We agree to this and there’s no going back. The best sex you’ll ever have…or we agree to stop.” His warm breath skimmed her nipple and she gasped. “Right now.”

  She pushed his hair back from his temple. Everything in her wanted to accept him, instincts that she’d never had before screaming at her to take him, bind herself to him in a way that living gold could never hope to copy. But insecurity had her stomach tight. And she hated it. It wasn’t her…but Daned was…well, stunning. Why would he want her? “And you’re fine being stuck with an itinerant runner who flies too close to breaking the law?”

  “I wouldn’t do this…” His tongue flickered against her peaked nipple, teasing and playing until she arched into him for more. He grinned. “…if I wasn’t.”

  Chae closed her eyes and let the feel of his warm mouth slide deep into her flesh. “So…you like me?”

  “Chae…” His tongue traced over her ribs until he found her scars. “NK-12 strafing,” he murmured, pressing light kisses against the puckered skin. “Old.” He glanced up at her and his eyes held an emotion she didn’t want to read. “You were thirteen and caught in the attack that almost killed your boss.”

  “I pulled him to safety.” She fought down her ingrained need to cover her scars. “He saved my mother. I owed him.”

  “And he apprenticed you to the Tryne Loxias Malyn to smuggle vials of caustic-angel.” His mouth hovered over the last of the line of scarring. “The drug has no effect on Ladaians or Trynes. You discovered that your first trip out.”

  She snorted. “Is there nothing you don’t know about me?” She was glad of the dim lights. The strafing on her stomach was one thing. The jagged mess on her back was another.

  Daned smirked and chased kisses down to her navel. “No.” He flicked his tongue and the sudden, sharp spike of sensation shot her pelvis off the bunk. “See?”

  “What about you, Daned? I know nothing…” Her words faded as he strung a wet line of kisses across her hip bone. Was this part of their permanence? That he could have her heart thudding and her breath short with a few simple kisses?

  “What’s to k
now?” His mouth paused on the crease of her leg. “You have three questions.”

  “Only three? I’m going to be stuck with you and that’s—”

  The curve of his smile against her skin sent flickers of heat to warm her belly. “Is that one of your questions?”

  “So funny.” She’d have smacked him, but the way his lips moved over her skin, the tantalizing lick of his tongue, stopped her hand. What did she want to know about him? Besides everything? Which just wasn’t her. She didn’t do relationships—not forever ones. He was more than perfection. Chae stared down at the smoothness of his skin and her first question hit her. “You don’t have scars.” His thumbs teased her thighs and the flow of need tightened her flesh. Was he trying to distract her? “You’re built to fight. You can’t be that good.”

  “I don’t scar. No Traern does.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Perhaps.” For a moment, he just breathed and the brush of air tickled. Chae twisted and he gripped her thighs with hard fingers. “We’re bred for strength and beauty. Our history…” His thumbs started to stroke her skin in a slow, even rhythm. “I’m not allowed to display how I defend the Ara Family. Can’t have it mar me. I’m a well-trained machine for the Ara. A secret hidden in plain sight.”

  Chae’s stomach knotted at the suppressed pain in his voice. Her scars were a reminder of the past—most of it painful. She could happily live without them. Daned wanted that reminder, an acknowledgement of who he was, of his duty. Her fingers skimmed over his dark hair, needing to offer comfort. “I’m sorry.”

  “Another question.”

  Her fingers curled away. The undercurrent in his voice spoke of an old pain. It was too soon to pick at it. She scrabbled to think of something fun, something that would lift the sudden sour mood. She wanted to have fun with him, to be fun for him. That was another surprise, her wanting to please, and it brought up another question. In a way. “Shock me.”

  Daned looked up. “What?”

  “Tell me something about yourself that would shock—and excite—me.”

  He hesitated…before a smile touched his mouth. The gesture warmed her. “I don’t usually find myself face-deep in hot, naked pilot.”

  A laugh broke from her and she let her arms flop above her head. That was a shock. A nice one. Yes, this real man thing was so much better than bought flesh. No, not a real man. Just Daned. “You think I’m hot?” She stared at him. With the way he looked, wasn’t a scarred pilot a disappointment for permanence? But she didn’t, couldn’t, ask that question. Not that way. “And why not with the hot and the naked?”

  He grinned. “Yes, Chae, I think you’re hot. And that’s one question too many. I have a pilot to eat.” He dipped his head and traced his tongue down the crease of her thigh. Her flesh tightened.

  “Daned, you’re walking sex—”

  “The attention can become…tiresome. Annoying.” He glanced up and the stark overhead beam of light gleamed in his eyes. “Don’t you prefer my being selective?”

  He blew warm air over her mons before his tongue curled against her flesh. Chae couldn’t help the groan that escaped her. She wouldn’t question why he wanted her. Not when he could do this. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “Good.”

  It was insane, but already heat tightened low in her belly, and each unerring flick of his tongue against her clit forced harsh gasps. She wouldn’t last long, didn’t want to. Daned was hers and she intended to enjoy him in every way she could before they burst out of rift lock. Which didn’t leave her long…

  His hands gripped her thighs, spreading her, holding her, his thumbs hard against sensitive flesh. He kissed his lips to her pussy, his tongue a constant pressure against her clit…and then he started to hum.

  Chae tried to arch her spine, twist and turn to escape him, but he held her firm. She panted and cursed, the sudden, intense rise of need in her flesh driving her closer to her release. His humming vibrated through her flesh and she couldn’t…couldn’t—

  Orgasm smashed into her, tightening her body, making her cry out his name and clutch at the thin sheet stretched over the bunk. She flopped back to the hard mattress. Her body still shook, the little aftershocks heightened by Daned’s open-mouthed kisses over her hip, her ribs, until he found her breast again.

  “Almost there, Chae.” His grin was wickedly smug. “I’m almost stuck with you.”

  Chae lifted a hand and slapped his shoulder. She grimaced as she hit hard muscle that stung her more than it hurt him. “For that I might make you wait.” She huffed her hair from her face and glared at him. “And then wait some more.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Chae lifted her brows, still enjoying her post-orgasmic haze, the floating joy that had been denied her earlier. “Really?” He licked her nipple and her eyes slid shut. A little happy sigh escaped her. Yes, a Ladaian man was definitely better than Aleph’s grown creatures. “You’re so—”

  Daned pressed a finger to her lips and hushed her. His body tensed, and his expression fixed to stone. Hard. Implacable.

  Chae froze, the languid ease gone from her body. She’d been mired in enough shit to know when to stay still and shut the hell up. She strained to listen, hearing only the dull roar of the engines and the straining thunk of tech somewhere in the bowels of the tau. Nothing that would tax her brain. She narrowed her eyes on Daned, questioning his tension, the thin line of his mouth.

  He pointed a finger downward and eased back from her. Another point indicated for her to get into the far corner and crouch down. What the hell had he heard? And how had he heard it through the din and vibrations of the bucket of a ship? But she did as he asked, pressing her bare, damp spine into the cold metal of the bulkhead. She wrapped her arms tight around her knees and watched him scan the room. He’d been trained since he was a small child, she could see it in his confidence, how he searched the room. He was lithe, strong, a honed killing machine.

  A smile curved across her mouth, breaking through the panicked beat of her heart. He was her killing machine. He stopped and her pulse ramped. Daned pointed to the bed. Chae followed his gaze to the solid bunk. Something clinked against its metal sides. Shit.

  She clamped her hand to her mouth before she cursed out loud. Her boots. The one with the sliver of black crystal had a gash through the thick leather. As had the secret inner pocket. Now she had no fucking payment.

  Chae gritted her teeth. What was it with her and poverty? Why the hell did it love her so much?

  Daned backed away from the bed and she remembered that, yes, she was in danger. Being poor didn’t matter right then. Still, it was bloody annoying.

  He gripped her Sel-9. The weapon primed, its faint hum lost in the noise of the ship. “Come out. Now.”

  Anger burned under his words and she wondered how much of it was frustration. They had less than a quarter of a standard hour before the lock gave out. She’d hoped to spend that being seriously naked with Daned. The cold of the metal at her spine ran goose bumps over her skin. Not the same as Daned’s talented mouth. Not the same at all.

  He flexed his fingers around her gun’s grip. “Now, or I set this Sel-9 to full charge and obliterate the bunk.”

  The clinks stopped.

  “I’ll give you a three count.” He paused. “Three. Two—”

  The side of the bunk clanked to the floor and Aleph-Nun rolled out.

  Chae blinked and a disbelieving curse shot through her thoughts. What the fuck was Aleph doing under her bed? Her heart tightened. It wasn’t Aleph. Her friend had a scar running down his right ear from the blade of a dissatisfied customer three years before. This Nun-Samekh looked fresh. They’d grown a pod-brother under her bed?

  Her stomach turned over. Angered, she jerked up from the floor. Her friend was trying to stiff her over money? Hell, had he lied about her ship to get her on this piece of tau junk? Did he think—know—she had more black crystal hidden? “You’re fresh-grown. They planted a pod—what?—to ste
al my crappy bit of crystal?”

  The stranger sat up, her crystal tight in his clawed hand. “You know nothing.” He glared at Daned, anger sparking in his gaze. “And you’re not just a toy.”

  “No.” His shoulders straightened. “Ara-Ladaian security.”

  The Samekh’s lips pressed together around his mouth plates. “Chance caught us,” he muttered. “Aleph knew her sexual routine, tagged her and the flesh she bought—”

  “What?” Chae resisted the urge to grab her gun from Daned and puree the Samekh’s internal organs. “He tagged me? How?” She let out a groan. “The ambrosia roots.”

  “You’re Ladaian.” His gaze slid to her and his thumb rubbed over her crystal, his claw clicking against its polished surface. “Every one of you living beyond the ten planets is watched. The Enan Family pay us well.”

  “Hand that over.” Daned snapped his fingers at the sliver. “Now.”

  “This?” The Samekh held it up the crystal, turning it so that it caught the spot of light. “I’m afraid you can’t have this back.”

  “Now that’s where you’re wrong.” Daned fired, the burst of hot light blazing over the Samekh’s forearm. It should have cut through, sliced into the heavy bone. It didn’t.

  He patted the singed fabric of his sleeve, his fingers coming away bloody. Daned upped the charge and fired again. The Samekh simply laughed. “I am Resh-Nun.”

  “Resh.” Chae swore and wiped a hand over her mouth. They were so screwed.

  Daned flicked a glance at her. “What?”

  “Resh is the name given to the final pod-brother. The one who absorbs the pod in which they’re born. It creates an armor over their skin. That—” she waved her hand at her gun, “—won’t even graze him.”

  Resh inclined his head toward her, a gesture so reminiscent of Aleph her gut twisted. Her friend had played her from the beginning? She ignored the sour anger rising up from her stomach. Deal with the threat. Then she could mope and be pissed off.