Dangerous Men, Dangerous Places

by Krystal Brookes

  Too quickly he let go of her, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and grunted, turning away from her. But not before Gemma had noticed the obvious tenting of his pants.

  “Are you ready to go?” he growled at her.

  “Pardon?” Gemma could feel the anger rising in her. “Do you want to explain what just happened there?” He may want to pretend it hadn’t happened but there was no way she was letting him get away with it. He could just explain his actions.

  “I said ‘are you ready to go?’”

  “Yes and I asked you to explain yourself.”

  He eyed her warily, then stroked his hand through his shaggy brown hair.

  “You’re a woman, I’m a man. It’s been a long time. Do I need to draw a diagram for you?”

  “Oh, you know how to make a girl feel special,” she snorted.

  “I’m sorry I am not adhering to proper dating protocol, ma’am.” He mockingly bowed before her, then straightened up and looked at her, as if daring her to complain more.

  She shrugged slightly.

  “I’m glad you are adhering to a strict ‘any port in a storm’ protocol,” she threw back.

  “Well, much as I would like to stay here, massaging your ego by telling you that you are stunning and sexy, I think we should get to your shuttle and get it fixed before I do more than kiss you.”

  “Fine. Can I have my pistol now?”

  “No.”

  “No? Give me the damned gun.”

  “Are you stupid? Honestly, how the hell do you manage to track criminals? Looks like I need to spell it out for you. If we bump into any other prisoners and you’re holding the pistol, it’s not going to look like I have you in my custody. They will run at you, overwhelm you and then we’ll both be dead. For the purposes of this trip to the shuttle, you are my prisoner. And that’s final.”

  She had to admit that his logic was impeccable. She hadn’t thought of it like that. She had just wanted her pistol. It looked like she was going to have to trust him for a little longer.

  Gemma raised an eyebrow before nodding and preceding him out of the hut. He caught up to her and put his hand around her shoulder. She scowled at him.

  “If any of the prisoners see you with me like this, they will assume I took what I wanted from you and that I have claimed you as mine. They are scared enough of me to not try and hurt you or have sex with you. Feel free to look scared. You have enough bruises from the crash that they will think I gave them to you.”

  “They’ll think you raped me?” she asked incredulously.

  “Of course. Most of the men here are savages and if they’d broken into your shuttle before me, well...” his voice trailed off. “Look, don’t worry about it. You’re safe and I won’t let them hurt you.”

  A shiver ran down her spine as images of what might have happened flashed through her mind. She felt bile rise into her throat. She looked at Rob who was now refusing to meet her gaze.

  “Even though I was the one who captured you on that deserted planet on the edge of Terran space?” she asked, desperate to deal with the subject as soon as possible.

  He didn’t reply but his grip on her shoulder tightened. In her mind’s eye she could still see his cold hard stare as he had realized that she had been the one to capture him. Then she saw her shuttle in the distance. Even from far away, she could see that it was badly damaged. A man stood near the shuttle, and as they approached, she noticed he was about fifty with dirty long gray hair and a toothless leer.

  “You found the pilot then, Paris,” said the man.

  “Yes.”

  “You know she’s a bounty hunter, don’t you?”

  “I suspected. She’s warm and wet, that’s all I needed to know.”

  Gemma ground her teeth together, looking determined. She refused to look scared. She had to go back to her work when this was over and she couldn’t afford to reveal any signs of weakness.

  “Are you going to share?”

  “Nope!”

  “Oh come on man!”

  Suddenly Rob let go of Gemma and pounced on the man, straddling his now supine form. He pulled Gemma’s phase pistol from his belt and held it to the man’s throat.

  “Don’t even think about it, Jenkins. If you as much as look at her I’ll castrate you with a blunt, dirty knife. She’s mine.”

  “OK. I won’t touch her. I was only joking.”

  “See that you were,” Rob snarled, getting up off Jenkins and returning to Gemma. He took hold of her braid and steered her towards the shuttle. His grip was firm and her scalp stung with every step they took.

  When they arrived at the door to the vehicle, Gemma pressed her hand to the palm print reader and the door opened automatically. She then flattened her hand to the panel inside and let out a satisfied sigh as she heard the door lock. Rob let go of her hair.

  She rounded on him, preparing to give him a piece of her mind.

  “What hell was that?” she shouted. But he placed his hand over her mouth, pulled her into the small bathroom and pressed himself against her.

  “Quiet!” His voice was a low, menacing whisper. “Are you trying to get yourself hurt?”

  Her eyes widened in fear. She’d thought she was safe with him but maybe he was going to smother her, or worse.

  “Down on your knees and give me head,” he said loudly.

  Gemma pushed herself harder against the bulkhead, shaking her head, trying to free herself from his grip. He shook his head and rolled his eyes.

  “That’s a good girl. I knew I could get you to obey me if I gave you a bit of a slap around.” Then he groaned loudly as he placed his finger on his lips and looked pointedly at her.

  He was telling her to be quiet and she nodded her agreement as he let go of her mouth and moved slightly away from her. He continued to make sporadic moaning sounds, occasionally hitting the bulkhead for effect.

  “I don’t care if you’re gagging. Take me deeper, bitch!” He spoke just loud enough to be heard through the bulkheads. “That’s better.”

  He leaned against the wall and began to rhythmically hit his backside off the outside wall of the shuttle, continuing to make moaning sounds until suddenly he roared a fake release.

  “Swallow,” he grunted. He waited a few moments before he said, “Now you can clean me, with your tongue.”

  Gemma slid down the wall. Although he had not hurt her in any way, the violence of his acted out crime had shocked her. He was on his knees instantly, pulling her into a hug.

  Gemma burst into tears and tried to pull out of his embrace but he wouldn’t let her go. He stroked her hair and made soothing sounds as she let out all the pent up fear and worry.

  Much as she wanted to stay in his arms and feel safe, she also knew that this was not getting her shuttle fixed. She had to get off this god-forsaken planet and back to some kind of safety. Even so, in her current job, she was never truly safe. She pulled away and swiped at her tears. She couldn’t show weakness in front of Rob Paris again.

  “I’m fine now,” she muttered, pushing herself to her feet with her good arm.

  “I’m sorry I had to do that, but it was necessary to put on a show for him. He’ll tell the others and hopefully now you will be marked as mine.”

  “You make me sound like your property. Is that really how you see women?”

  His sigh sounded exasperated and he rolled his eyes at her again.

  “We’re not playing by the usual rules here, Gemma. If you’re not my property, then you are common property or the property of the man out there who can fight the rest off. Sorry, honey but this ain’t a Jane Austen novel.”

  “Stop being so condescending. I’m quite aware of the danger I’m in. Why else do you think I’ve allowed a known criminal to keep hold of my gun and pretend to force himself on me? Now let’s get this thing fixed.”

  “Don’t you want the analgesics first?” he asked.

  “No. They’ll dull my ability to work efficiently.”

&n
bsp; “As will pain.”

  “I’m fine. It’s not as sore as you seem to think.”

  “Hmm!” He sounded unconvinced but said no more. He preceded her out of the small compartment, peered out the shuttle window and smiled back at her. “It looks like we’re alone again.”

  “Good. Let’s get working.” Gemma walked over to the pilot’s seat to assess the damage. She pressed the button to power up the engines but nothing happened. She had to admit to herself that she wasn’t particularly surprised. She knew that both engines had failed. But she had hoped for a little residual energy to at least get communications online.

  “OK, I’m going to have to fix the engine manually. Can you get me that tool kit in the back of the shuttle? It’s a big gray box which has the words ‘tool box’ on it.” She grinned.

  He scowled but obeyed her. She pulled her arm quickly out of the sling and discarded the piece of material on the pilot’s seat. She needed both hands if she was going to manage this.

  She thanked him when he arrived with the heavy piece of kit. She found the sonic screwdriver and set about removing a piece of bulkhead. Rob helped to hold it in place until all the screws were removed, then he took the heavy metal and placed it on the other side of the shuttle.

  They worked together for about an hour without saying very much. When he looked over her shoulder to see what she was doing, his warm breath made her shiver with anticipation. Occasionally Gemma asked for a tool and Rob looked through them until he found whatever she had asked for. Then he held it out to her, making eye-contact and holding onto the tool slightly longer than was necessary. She knew that he was impressed with her abilities and she smiled to herself. He had obviously thought she was completely helpless. Yes, she had been afraid and to an extent, she still was. But she would not let that stop her.

  “You don’t seem to be strong enough to be a bounty hunter,” he said suddenly.

  “Who said being a bounty hunter was anything to do with strength?” she asked.

  “Well, you bring in all these violent criminals. I would have thought that you needed some amount of strength for that.”

  “You’re stronger than me, aren’t you?” she noted.

  “Yes,” he conceded.

  “I caught you.”

  “You snuck up on me.”

  “Well this is not the OK Corral. Different rules apply. I’m not legally obliged to allow you to walk twenty paces away from me before I shoot you.”

  “Fair enough, but you must have captured good marksmen and more wily prey than me.”

  “Yes, but I have other talents.”

  “Such as?”

  She smiled at him over her shoulder.

  “Let’s just say that there are some situations in life where men are the weaker sex.”

  His snort of derision made her eyes narrow and her mouth set in a determined line.

  “It’s very hot in here,” she said softly before pulling off her t-shirt. He raised an eyebrow at her but said nothing. She continued to work on the engine for a few minutes in her bra and leather pants, before turning to find him watching her intently. She turned toward him and smiled again, this time crawling over to him and raising herself so that her breasts were level with his mouth.

  She raised her hands and ran them through his soft brown hair. She watched as he licked his lips, dragging his eyes from the lace covering her pert orbs, up to her eyes. She knew this was a dangerous game she was playing. She really wanted to prove her point and he was not her prey. For hours she’d longed to know how it felt to have his lips surround her nipple and suck on it. The very thought send a spear of want to her core.

  He gently kissed the skin just above the lace of her bra. She was straddling his legs and could feel him harden underneath her. She pushed him back gently until he was lying down, then covered his body with hers, claiming his lips in a fervent kiss. As he tangled his fingers in her braid and he deepened the kiss, she groaned.

  This had started out as an exercise to show him how weak men were and how easily they fell prey to her feminine wiles. But it had backfired on her. She pulled back and looked down into Rob Paris’s passion-filled brown eyes. She smiled as she gently removed her pistol from the holster on his side and pressed it into his neck.

  “Like I said, in some situations, men are very weak.”

  She watched as fear flashed across his features. Just as quickly though, it was gone.

  “So this is how you catch your prey?” he growled.

  “Sometimes,” she said softly before tossing the weapon away. “Sometimes it’s how I seduce a man that I want.”

  She touched her lips softly to his, waiting to see if he responded. He didn’t. She knew she had wounded his male pride.

  Gemma sat up, still straddling him, and undid the front fastening of her bra. She felt a sense of power drowning out any vulnerability as the constricting garment fell away. He unconsciously licked his upper lip. She climbed off him, shedding the garment and moving back to the hole in the bulkhead. She heard him move behind her and smiled as she picked up a sonic screw driver and started to adjust some of the engine’s wires.

  He handed her the bra.

  “Please put it back on,” he said in a husky voice.

  “Why? I want to screw you and you want to screw me. We’re both consenting adults.”

  “It feels wrong.”

  “Why, because now you know I can overpower you with little more than a kiss?”

  “No. It’s not that.”

  “Do you think I screw men to capture them?” She turned to look at him and could tell from his expression that it was exactly what he thought.

  “I’m not a prostitute. I never allow it to get that far. Believe me, for most men, a kiss gets me close enough to disarm them. The only reason I had to get even closer to you was because I was unarmed this time. And I only did it to make a point. If I had planned to kill you, I would have done it by now.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You really think you’re clever, don’t you Ms. Scott?”

  “It’s not about being clever, Mr. Paris,” she said as she moved toward him. “It’s about knowing your prey. When I capture a woman, I tend to use the whole sisterhood friendship ploy. It works like a charm too.”

  Gemma stood and removed the rest of her clothes and stood before him naked. She pulled the elastic out of her hair and allowed the sheet of auburn waves to fall over her shoulders. When he still didn’t move, she knelt down in front of him, one of her nipples close to his mouth. She ran her hands through his hair again as she heard his breath hitch and a groan of resignation as his mouth clamped around the erect bud.

  His arms wrapped around her waist and he pulled her closer. His tongue flicked across her nipple before he started to suckle hungrily. She smiled as she curled her fingers into his hair, pulling his head closer and pushing herself into his mouth, surrendering to the sensations coursing through her body.

  She stroked down his back and tugged at his shirt. She wanted to feel his bare skin against hers. Rob grunted and let go of her nipple, allowing her to pull his top over his head. She leaned back and ran her fingers over his strong, bare chest. There were just a few hairs around his nipples and she could tell that he was used to manual labor.

  Moving forward, she pressed her lips to his as she wrapped her arms around his neck. One of his hands moved back around her waist and the other cupped her breast. As his thumb toyed with her nipple, she groaned and pushed her hips against his hardness, wanting to feel his weight on top of her and his cock fill her.

  She began to fumble with the button and zipper of his pants and eventually managed to get them undone. She pushed all the material in her hands down and freed his throbbing erection, palming it expertly as Rob hissed a breath in through his teeth.

  He pulled her hand away and placed it back around his neck, capturing her mouth again and plunging his tongue inside as if showing her with his tongue what he wanted to do to her with his cock.

  G
emma lost herself in the kiss, allowing her mouth and hands the opportunity to explore. Her pussy was beginning to ache with a need to be touched and her hand slipped between her thighs. If he was not going to do anything about it, she sure as hell was.

  He pulled away from her and scowled as she pressed her fingers against her own clitoris.

  “You’re so impatient,” he scolded before grabbing her around the waist and carefully moving them so that she was on her back on the shuttle deck. He quickly removed the clothes on the lower half of his body and moved to suckle her breast as the fingers of one hand moved tantalizingly through her folds. She sighed in relief as she arched her back, pushing her heated flesh into his touch.

  As she moved against his exploring fingers, she felt her moisture spread. His thumb circled the aching bundle of nerves and she thrust harder against his hand, her head rolling from side to side as she searched for a release that was just out of reach. His mouth moved from her nipple as he trailed delicate kisses down her stomach, over her navel and down to the nest of curls at the apex of her thighs. Gemma held her breath in anticipation as he blew a cooling sigh over her hot tender flesh.

  “Please.” She gazed down at him through her eyelashes. His smile was teasing but kind as he stuck his tongue out. Then he buried himself between her legs.

  His hot, rough tongue rasped through her sensitive flesh, pressing gently at her opening before swirling up and around her aching clitoris. Gemma grabbed for something to hold onto but the carpeting of the shuttle had no purchase and her nails dug into the pile as she resolved not to grab at his hair and risk hurting him. His tongue was pulling her to the heights of desire and although other men had done this to her, none had been quite so proficient and so intuitive as Rob Paris.

  “I’m going to come!”

  He hummed his understanding into her, increasing the sensation and pushing her over the edge of delight. She cried out as waves of pleasure coursed through her veins. Her inner walls pulsed, though there was nothing to pulse around until she felt him slip one, then two fingers, inside her.

  As the orgasm subsided, he moved up her body, his mouth clamping round one of her nipples as his fingers moved in and out of her and his thumb danced gently around her oversensitive nub.