by Calinda B
He kissed her, his soft lips sipping at hers so sweetly she clung to him, as he thrust again, so hard she whimpered with joy. And then he jerked away, out of her just as her orgasm was beginning to feather through her.
“What—?” Her eyes flew open to find him braced over her, watching her.
She let out a hiss of rage, and dug her nails into his back, baring her teeth at him in sheer fury. “No! You quarking bastard.”
He smiled at her and drove his cock up the furrow of her labia. He was laughing at her. Then his eyes rolled back, and hot liquid jetted over her belly. He’d finished without her.
“Ohh. You piece of worthless space rubble.” She went for his face, raking it with her nails.
He rolled away with her on top, still laughing even as blood welled from his cheek, bright red against the ebony of his tattoos. He grabbed her wrists and held her there over him, his gaze bright and hard, ferocity in the curl of his lip, the white flare of his nostrils.
“Thanks for the use of your pussy, babe. Enjoyed it.”
Then he pushed her off and rolled off the bed.
A tumult of anger and hurt surging in her chest, she let him get two steps before she launched herself in a twirl-kick. Her leg struck him hard across the back and flung him across the small room.
He landed with a grunt against the wall. He whirled in a defensive crouch, fury blazing in those eerie eyes.
What had she done? She reeled mentally, a part of her cowering before him.
She forced herself to flick her tongue at him in derision. “Thanks, ganger. I enjoyed that, at least. And as for the other? I have tech for that.”
He straightened, flexing his back. He put one finger to his lip, and it came away with a smear of blood on it.
But then he smirked and flexed his lean hips at her even as he hit the control to open the hatch to the lav. His cock hung heavy between his thighs “You might have tech, baby, but it ain’t the same as me, and we both know it.”
Turning on his heel, he sauntered into the lav. The hatch closed behind him.
Damn him, he was right. Even flaccid, he was one of the most impressively hung males she’d seen. And the way he moved, the way he could piston that tight ass ...
She kept her expression smooth, though her body still screamed for release. He might come back. After all, he’d left his shirt and pants on her floor.
Slipping off the bed, she keyed the lock on her door into the lav. Then she bent and picked up his pants. The leather was soft and supple in her hands. The cold floor had sucked his body heat from it. That made touching it a little less intimate, until his male scent wafted up to her sensitive olfactory glands. She closed her eyes on a wave of helpless lust, her pussy contracting with need. Bastard, she’d get even if it took the rest of this voyage.
After she got that pardon.
Nothing in his pockets but an array of blades, both throwing and folding. She nearly smiled at that. He was always prepared.
She started to drop the garment on the floor, but then she carried them back to the bed, and yanked her vibrator from under her mattress. She slipped it into her soaked pussy and switched it on. It began to pulse and vibrate inside her, the soft arm fastened on her clitoris like a small suckling mouth.
Lifting his shirt to her face, she inhaled and then came hard, imagining it was still his cock moving inside her.
She moaned into his clothing, shuddering with pleasure. Dragging his pants closer so that the leather stroked her breasts, belly and thighs, she came again.
Then she switched the vibrator off and rolled onto her side, pulling the covers over herself. “Lights, dim,” she mumbled.
The vibrator shrank, the flexible sides so much like a softened cock inside her that for a few moments she was nearly able to pretend she was safe and warm in a lover’s arms. His arms.
She froze when she heard a slight snick at the door. Her laser came easily to her hand but she waited, curious. He was a professional thief, after all.
Sure enough, her door slid open and a shadow drifted into her room. She watched from under her lashes as he looked on the floor, and then crossed the room to the bed.
He bent to pick up his clothing from the edge of the bed and his laugh ghosted over her cheek. “Fucking my clothes, Snake Eyes?”
“Mm-hmm,” she agreed. “They were better than you, too.”
He stilled, arm in mid air. She smiled into her pillow. But as usual he had the last word. “You can have the real thing again. Just ask real nice.”
“I don’t ask nicely for sex. Don’t have to.”
Her only answer was the hatch snicking shut behind him. Then his voice came over the com, as if his ship itself were whispering to her.
“You will next time, Snake Eyes. In fact ... you’ll beg.”
When he was gone, she snuggled down again, but somehow the triumph she’d expected to feel was out of reach. Instead she felt antsy, irritable. A hot, heavy ache pressed behind her eyes.
She sat up, throwing the covers back and raked her fingers through her hair. “Damn it all,” she muttered. “And damn him.”
She heard the faint hum of the showerdry. She waited until it stopped. Then she slid out of bed, into her cashmere robe, and crossed to the lav. She opened the door, her mouth open to say ... something. Not to apologize, but to explain, to tell him he couldn’t expect her to open a vein for him when they were essentially strangers, just ships passing among the stars.
She stopped with her words frozen in her throat.
Tal had left the hatch open on the other side of the lav into his sleep cubby. A glowlamp cast a soft light over the small room, glinting off luxe black fitments and the rich sheen of deepest burgundy velvet and black satin on his big bed.
Tal stood by the bed with his back to her, naked. Darry, who was still clothed, held him in an affectionate embrace, his arms around the tapering vee of Tal’s back. Tal had one hand cupped around Darry’s head, his rings glinting from locks of blond hair
And they were locked in a slow, wet kiss. Darry’s eyes were closed. Everything in their stance said they were more than familiar with each other.
Tal broke the kiss far enough to murmur something, and Darry laughed quietly, tipping his head down on Tal’s bare shoulder.
Then Tal’s head turned, and he reached out a long arm to pull Trix into the embrace. She tiptoed up to kiss him as well, her arm slipping down across his bare back to cover Darry’s.
Scala broke out of her daze and backed away, into her cubby, praying she would not make a sound and betray her presence. She slid the hatch shut, and went back to her bunk.
She hadn’t felt so alone for a long time. And this time she had the horrible feeling she wasn’t just a prisoner of the chip under her skin, but maybe an invisible one on her shoulder.
Chapter 10
After he’d slammed out of Scala’s cubby, Tal shut himself in the showerdry and let the hot water pour over him. But instead of washing, he braced his arms against the wall and bowed his head, ignoring the sting of the hot water on his lip and the aches where he’d slammed into the wall.
Fury pulsed through him, as hot as the water.
He’d been pulled in by the vulnerability in those eyes, the hint of lost girl behind her tough exterior. Enough that he’d been tender with her.
All he’d asked in return was for her to let him in. He was the boss. He took care of all who were his, and in return they gave him what he asked. When he wanted solitude, they left him alone. When he wanted intimacy, they let him in, let him take care of their needs, sexual and emotional.
That was what he did, how his world worked. Trix and Darry understood this. Many a night had ended with the three of them in his bed, while they pleased him and each other. He knew what they needed, they knew to let him see that, let him give it to them.
Sometimes others joined them.
He’d expected Scala, a beautiful, sensual Serpentian with the casual sexual mores of her race, to leap joy
fully into the game. Hells, she’d loved Darry’s voyeurism.
But tonight, when he’d wanted her to begin the evening’s games, she’d looked at him like he’d ordered her to get naked in the middle of Flash. When that lost, beaten look ghosted through her beautiful eyes, he’d actually wished he could take back his words.
He never did that shit. Shame was an emotion he did not waste energy on. He was who and what he was, and the galaxy could quarking well accept him. He was a rough-edged, snake-mean, flashy ganger lord who owned a gaudy nightclub and a few other profitable ventures on the side, all of them looked down on by the higher class citizens of New Seattle ... that is when they weren’t coming down to the slums to get their thrills.
He’d scrapped and fought and bled to win his gritty kingdom, and quarked if he’d ever give it up for anyone.
Fuck, he was also done trying to decipher what went on in her mind. She didn’t want to be part of his coterie, fine. He turned, letting the jets of warm air dry his skin, and palmed his cock absently. It wasn’t like he was asking her to be his lady, for fuck’s sake.
That spot was reserved for another woman.
He thought of Kiri, waiting for the peace she always brought him.
It didn’t come.
Instead he saw Scala, pulling away from him with that tough-girl sneer on her face that he knew very well hid hurt so deep it defined her. Knew because he’d worn that look himself. Was he the one who’d fucked it up, rushing her?
He walked into his sleep cubby and found Darry leaning against the door. Darry flipped an antique coin end over end in one hand and waited silently, watching Tal.
Tal jerked his head, and Darry came to him. He slid his arms around Tal and lifted his face, offering a kiss.
Tal kissed him, comforted by the familiarity of Darry’s lips, the scratch of their whiskers, and the feel of his compact, hard body against Tal’s.
“Thanks,” he muttered, rubbing his nose against Darry’s. “Think I’ve been snake bit.”
Darry chuckled, leaning his face into Tal’s shoulders. “You’ll tame her to your hand. You always do.”
This was true. He leaned his chin on Darry’s hair and held him, gazing at the priceless ancient firearm hanging on the wall over his bed. He hadn’t survived this long in his world by giving in. He wouldn’t begin now, with this woman. She might have a vicious bite, but he could handle her.
Meanwhile, he had a truly poisonous Serp to find and destroy. And Scala was going to help him do it.
Trix slipped into the room to join them, and he gave her a kiss as well.
“You want us to sleep here?” she asked, her soft hands stroking his back.
He nodded and watched as Darry nuzzled her ear. “Thanks, babe. Yeah, you two climb in bed. I’ll be back in a few, got some work to do.”
“Okay.”
“What are you smiling about?” Tal asked her.
“Nothing.”
Tal let it go. He needed to plan his next move more than he needed to delve into any more female psyches.
Tal left the pair climbing into his bed and padded out into the main cabin. Dalg was sprawled in his favorite corner chair, playing solitude.
Tal flung himself into another chair and scrolled idly through his waiting links. Receipts from Flash were down a bit, but the profits from other ventures were up, especially the escort service. He ignored links from a city councilwoman, a dirty cop and the usual pleas for credit, drugs, backing for new ventures that he could tell with one glance would never work.
Then he brought up an old link and lay back in his chair, studying it as he rubbed his forefinger over his lip and back. Kiri gazed back at him, her face flushed with sex, her gaze turbulent. The backdrop was one of the sex cubbies that lined the back hallway at Flash.
He waited for the familiar rush of tangled triumph and frustration that always filled his chest when he saw her face. But it didn’t come. Instead, he felt a kind of dispassionate admiration and then ... impatience.
Would Kiri ever accept him as he was? Would she appreciate what he could give her? Hells, would she even care that he had caromed half-way across the galaxy in pursuit of a madwoman to ensure her safety? Or would she always compare him to Logan Stark?
He tried to picture Kiri in his bed, with Trix and Darry watching, maybe helping them both get off, but the picture would not come. Instead he saw that look of outrage and disgust Kiri had given him last time they spoke, like he was the dirty pavement under her feet.
‘She’ll always see you that way,’ whispered an insidious voice in his head. ‘You’ll never be anything but a street rat to her, an outlaw ganger who does dirty deeds. You’d better look in the gutter for your own kind.’
He broke the link, bringing himself back to the Z, surrounding him in dark, gleaming luxury. Fuck the voices from his past. He wasn’t just a ganger, he was the fucking lord of gangers. He could buy and sell city councilors; he could summon the fucking mayor if he felt so inclined.
His people knew his worth.
He saw once again the look on Scala’s face when she’d walked aboard the Z, wary but full of admiration, nearly awe, like it was the most luxe craft she’d ever boarded. And the way she looked at him, those beautiful eyes filled with mingled distrust and longing. She couldn’t fucking resist him, and knowing this filled him with a hot, surging triumph.
And so what if she didn’t trust him? Hells, he could count on three fingers the beings he trusted. He respected a suspicious woman, especially one who could use the power of her sexy body to back that up. He scowled, as he pictured Scala sauntering away for good. The hells with that. He’d keep her around. She just needed to learn her place with him, that was all.
Not as his lady, but ... ah, he didn’t know. Part of his coterie. An important part.
He remembered how she’d smiled at Darry as he, Tal, fucked her against a wall. How she’d kissed Trix with unselfconscious enjoyment.
And when he pictured her in his arms while Trix and Darry came naked into the room and asked to be included, he could see her looking up at him and smiling, that naughty twinkle in her eyes that said ‘Now we’re gonna have some fun’.
Damn it to all seven hells, no! She was the wrong woman.
He scowled impatiently and broke the link, scrubbing his hands over his face. Fuck it, he was tired, that was all. He had a tough, canny crew and more firepower than most IGSF fighters, should they have need. He’d complete this mission and show her his worth, and then the infuriating woman would look at him in a new light.
Kiri, he meant Kiri. Fuck, he needed sleep.
* * *
Scala stood at the turn of the passageway into the Z’s galley, her feet stuck to the floor like stones. She did not want to face Tal and his ... lovers. Every time she pictured the three of them holding each other, the same pangs of anger, envy and loneliness snarled in her chest.
“You’re only here for a few more days,” she told herself. And nights, a sly voice murmured. She shoved it down. Didn’t matter what he’d offered, she couldn’t accept.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped around the corner. The voices she’d heard when she stepped out of her cubby quieted. Trix and Darry looked up from their breakfasts to study her. Dalg kept shoveling food in his mouth.
“Morning,” she said, avoiding all their gazes.
Tal leaned against the counter beside the coffee maker, a steaming mug in his hands. She chose a mug and turned to fill it, refusing to react to the prickling electricity of his nearness, the warm brush of his shoulder on hers.
“Sleep well?” he asked in her ear. She hunched her shoulder, shivering as one of his silky braids caressed her cheek. Were the damn things alive, for goddess’ sake?
“No. Which is why I need caffeine.” She watched her mug fill with dark, steaming brew, then pressed the button to add soy creamer. Taking a long drink, she nearly groaned with gratitude at the strength of the brew.
“What’s on for today?” she asked.
When he didn’t answer, she looked up at him over her mug. He was examining her, a look in his eyes that sent a frisson of alarm down her spine. Possessive, analytical. Like she was a weapon or a vehicle that wasn’t performing well and needed work.
He took a drink of his own coffee and gave her a limpid look over the rim. At least he didn’t seem to be carrying a grudge, although with him, who could tell? And why should he anyway, when he’d promptly slid into bed with two willing bodies, while she’d slept alone, only her pride for comfort.
“Today you earn your keep,” he told her.
She took another drink of scalding coffee, wishing it contained a shot of something stronger. “As long as I get to do it with my clothes on.”
Tal smiled. “In a manner of speaking.”
Oh, hells. That didn’t sound good. But it seemed he was done tormenting her.
“First,” he said, straightening to pace across the galley with restless energy. “We need to find out which of these places the Serp is holed up in—if any. Since you’re a native, we’re gonna send you in.”
She shrugged. “Just ask around?”
“No, I picked out a cover for you. You’re the mistress of a wealthy man, looking for a new hideaway for the two of you, away from his jealous wife. Since you’re a bitch who’s earning your credit the hard way, you want only the best. That means the Lure Valley.”
“So I’m shopping for one of these homes?” Scala drank her coffee, her mind racing. There was an easier way to access the information—ask her handlers to get it. But she couldn’t very explain her access to this information to Darkrunner, unless she was feeling masochistic—which she wasn’t.
Besides, he owed her some new clothing, and she had nothing against a bit of role-playing. She walked over to refill her cup. “I’ll need to dress the part.”
“The resort has shops,” Trix said. “You can buy some things there.”
Scala turned with her full mug and a smile. “I’m in. What’s my credit limit?”
Darry and Trix looked at each other and laughed.
“You don’t have one, Snake Eyes,” Tal said. “I’m fucking loaded.”
