Courtesans and Lovers (The Space Courtesans Saga Book 2)

by Cheri Chaise

  His eyes crossed ever so slightly before they drifted closed. The drug appeared to finally be taking effect. “I’ll bet there are a few…who never…make it to the…bed.”

  “Hmm,” I noncommittally replied. I only hoped he’d be one of them.

  Breathing deepened and lengthened out. Almost there. “I’ve wanted to…do something new…with my girlssszzz.”

  I sighed with relief. I’d never been so happy to put up with a client’s resonate snoring as the moment Sir Kranst started in like a separator saw my mech tech had once demonstrated. It sounded just as frightening as it’d looked.

  All of five seconds passed before Jace peeked around the curtain into the sanctuary. “I thought he’d never conk out.”

  I poked Sir Kranst in the side just to make sure, before I stood and wiped my hands on the towel. “You and me both. He was slow to drink the tea.”

  Jace growled with a scowl as he took in my nude form. “And I hate that he touched you.”

  “Never mind about that now.” I pulled and tugged until feet dangled off the side of the teak table. “Just help me drag him over to the bed.”

  “As long as you’re not in it.” He grabbed a leg and jerked, sending Sir Kranst face first into the hard floor.

  “He’s not going to be too happy when he wakes with bruises and a broken nose.”

  “Just tell him he asked to play rough.” Jace dragged him across the floor, hiked the large man over his shoulder, and then tossed him unceremoniously into the bed.

  I shouldered the mech tech out of the way to draw up the bedcovers and tuck a pillow beneath Sir Kranst’s head. “Sounds like someone else I know.”

  Jace pressed his hardening cock between my ass cheeks while I was bent over the bed. “If you want it rough, all you’ve gotta do is ask.”

  My body responded by sending a flood between my thighs. I spun around and palmed him before leading Jace by his swollen cock to the doorway.

  “When I’m done with you…” I leaned in and sucked his bottom lip between mine, slowly drawing it out from between my teeth as he hissed. “You will have a whole new understanding of what it means to play rough.”

  There was that sexy grin that liquefied my insides. “Just give it to me good, Dahlia.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The pod door slid aside and propelled our writhing bodies forward. Jace unceremoniously tossed me onto my bed and made quick work of shucking his clothes into a pile on the floor. If he wanted to play rough, I’d do my best to give him rough.

  I rose to my elbows to stop him as his body and limbs bracketed mine. “BIP!”

  “Yes, Dahlia.” The AI’s voice crashed between us.

  “Really?” Jace’s green eyes darkened in frustration, his cock at attention. “You’re going to have a conversation with her right now?”

  I ignored him – until his mouth clamped down on the underside of a breast and he sucked. Hard. “Dammit!” My breath came out in a gasp, and a flood of hot juices pooled on the sheets. “Verify Rylan is not on the ship,” I cried out to the AI.

  “You like that, don’t you?” Jace asked, coming up for air before scraping his tongue across my erect nipples.

  I knocked a supporting arm from underneath him and flipped us until I straddled him, looking down from beneath a cascade of loosened curls. “You tell me,” I rasped right before I ran my teeth over his nipples in return.

  “Shit, that makes me hard.”

  “You’re hard already.” I rubbed my steaming, dripping pussy along the planes of his muscled stomach.

  He groaned then ran his fingers through my seam. “You’re fucking soaked already.”

  “Passenger Rylan was secured by Ambassador Dregas and is no longer on the ship.” The AI had the worst timing.

  “Thank you, BIP.” I smacked Jace’s thigh. “Sit up,” I commanded.

  He didn’t waste time – and smacked my ass in return. The vibrations reverberated in my clit as he rubbed the sting into my skin. “Do you like to play rough with your clients?”

  “You tell me.” I started behind his ear near his hairline, tracing my teeth in a path down his neck to nestle in the deep groove where neck met shoulder.

  “BIIIIIP! Change my pod status to Dahlia’s.” His shouted words didn’t cover the gasp when I razored my teeth back and forth along his shoulder. “Oh yeah…make it hurt…soooo good.”

  “Pod status updated,” BIP intoned as I stopped to suck hard in the groove at the base of his neck. “Dahlia’s personal pod is now also assigned to Programmer Jace.”

  “Temporarily,” I yelled.

  Why we were worrying over pods and placement at a time like this was beyond me. It was almost an even greater turn-on though, talking over each other to BIP about mundane details while marking one another as if we took ownership of more than just my chamber.

  “My turn.” Jace pulled me roughly to his chest and sought to mark my shoulder as I had his.

  The sensation of his teeth against my skin sent a burn of sheer pleasure racing beneath the surface. We cried out together as I raked my nails down his back and he dug into my ass. I tore my teeth away with a shiver when the hint of copper hit my tongue while his fingers probed deeper.

  Just before I knew he was about to impale me with that glorious cock, I stumbled away from him on wobbly legs to collapse on my knees at the end of the bed. I bent over to my elbows, presenting my pussy to him in all its welcoming, steaming agony.

  I wanted him. Wanted him in a way he’d never taken me. I shivered with the memory of what it was like to come upon him, pummeling pussy from behind in a way that made those women scream.

  “Now,” I purred, glancing over my shoulder as I wiggled in invitation. “Take me like you did your clients.”

  The air in the room stilled instantly in chilly restraint, the warmth sucked out with one word. “No.”

  “Come on, Jace. Isn’t this how you like it?”

  “Not like that,” he growled, his eyes darkening before he looked away. “Not with you.”

  “It was good enough for them.”

  He jumped up from the bed and ran his hands through his hair. “That was different. It was meant to be cold…impersonal.”

  I knew I was being cruel to remind him. But I couldn’t get it out of my head until I experienced it for myself. There was only one way to goad him into taking me from behind. I climbed from the bed and leaned over it to present my pussy once again.

  Words I’d sworn never to utter passed my lips in a seductive and sultry whisper. “Fuck me, Jace.”

  He hesitated as if he hadn’t heard me right. “Wh…what’d you say?”

  “I said fuck me, Jace Wylder!” I commanded.

  The second time came easier. The moment the word echoed between us, the room temperature spiked. I could almost feel the grin that just had to be stretched across his face.

  The smack of his hand vibrated all the way through me. “Oh, so that’s the way you want it, huh?”

  “Give me your cock,” I panted, my knees weak.

  His hand came down to smack my ass again – a little harder this time, quivering all the way to my clit. My pussy wept in a torrent as he lined up for entry. Hi velvety tip bumped the edge of my sheath, but he held back, stroking it through my seam. I tensed and throbbed with unrealized desire.

  A new sensation tingled through me at this unusual dance. I felt wanton. All I wanted was his cock buried deep inside and stroking those hard-to-reach places. To feel everything he had to give to me, and not just what I gave to him. Such actions were completely outside my courtesan training. I felt like…like a common passagewalker. Free from restraint.

  Jace growled as I backed my hips toward him, but he held me firmly in place. “You’ve got such a greedy pussy, don’t you?” The sting of his slap released my pent up groan. “Say it, Dahlia.”

  I buried my sweating face into the musky bedding to cover my mumble. “I’ve got a greedy pussy.”

  “Louder.”
>
  This time the force of the smack lifted my head. “I’ve got a greedy pussy.”

  He plunged into me so hard, my elbows skidded along the sheets until only the bed’s edge stopped forward progress. Jace’s cock slid out partway with the force of his thrust tossing me forward, but I felt every delicious ridge as he quickly filled me again. I didn’t even try to hold back the moan.

  “How do you like this?” He slowly withdrew then thrust all the way in before doing it over and over again.

  A whole new sensation hit me as his cock grazed a sensitive area deep inside that only this position seemed to touch. My knees threatened to buckle each time his ridges slid over that delicious surface. “That…oh, that is…” I gasped as an orgasm suddenly shuddered through me.

  When my legs finally gave out this time, he wrapped his hands around my hips to keep me steady. “Now…” He leaned over my back and trailed his tongue along my spine. “Tell me how bad you want me to fuck your pretty little pussy.”

  I looked over my shoulder to see Jace dripping perspiration as he fought against driving into me with abandon like he usually did. His broad, naked chest glimmered beneath the lights as he held my hips in place before reaching between our joined bodies.

  The moment his fingers slid across my swollen and aching clit, my pussy pulsed and throbbed uncontrollably once again.

  “Just fuck me now before I come again!”

  He didn’t hesitate. The force of his pistoning, the pounding in my pussy, and the echo of our screams as his hot seed burst and spurt into me left no doubt in my mind that Trina was right in her estimation last night.

  I had changed. Oh, how I had changed.

  In more ways than one.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I don’t like this.”

  I stepped around a still naked Jace as I came out from a quick steam shower. His body was riddled with the effects of our roughhousing. Reddened and bruising swells in the shape of my mouth. Teeth marks down his neck and across his broad chest and shoulders. It would take more time than I had to count them all. Embarrassment flooded me like a cold vapor as I realized how far I’d let myself go in the heat of the moment.

  Courtesan training never involved actions so degenerate. It was all about pleasure – not pain. I’d manhandled Jace in a way that I’d never even consider treating a client. Marked him as if claiming him as my own so that no one else but me would have him again. Yet in the moment, I’d found it liberating. And I couldn’t deny one key thing.

  I’d enjoyed every moment of it.

  “I can’t go in with another client smelling like someone else,” I returned, piling dark tresses back up on my head and fixing them in place with a few loose tendrils spilling across my creamy shoulders.

  “I’m not talking about you getting all steamed up in the stall.”

  I teased a few more hairs loose and checked in the mirror as I rubbed in a bit of scented oil to cover up what I couldn’t wash out. If Sir Kranst was to believe we’d spent several hours together in my sanctuary, I needed to appear properly mussed, hair dry, and not smelling completely clean.

  “I know what you’re talking about, Jace.” The blue and purple marks and teeth trails my mech tech had peppered me with stood out on my skin. “But I need to be in my sanctuary when Sir Kranst wakes up.” I spun around and planted a kiss against one of the marks I’d left on Jace’s chest. “Go check in with Trina about Rylan then get some sleep in here until I return.”

  “I’m not a babysitter,” he growled. “I’d rather get some work done around the ship.”

  “Whatever you have to do to take your mind off of things,” I said, stepping out into the passageway as the door slid aside. “Just stay put somewhere away from the passageways near the sanctuary. I don’t want Sir Kranst to see you.”

  “Aye, aye, Cap’n.”

  I ignored the salute that accompanied the sarcasm. It wasn’t like I looked forward to this either, but it had to be done. I’d much rather spend a few hours entwined with Jace’s warm body in either sweet ecstasy or restful repose, than to lie next to a man who used children for – well, whatever purpose. A purpose I was determined to discover and put a stop to.

  Regardless of the reasons.

  A sudden headache sent me grasping at the door to my sanctuary to steady myself as a memory tugged at my mind. Of a life before I’d settled on Andurea. Long before I’d entered the life of the courtesan.

  I was so young then that only feelings remained. Feelings of love. A sense of safety and security. Affection that didn’t involve the sharing of bodies. Of family.

  Before they were gone.

  I shook my head to dislodge the unwelcomed thoughts before sliding beneath the silken sheets next to Sir Kranst. Snores signaled that his nasal passages were probably swollen a bit, but his nose didn’t appear broken. Only traumatized a bit. However, I’d have to figure out a good story to explain the facial bruising.

  His skin still glistened with the sheen of oil I’d massaged over him earlier. Perhaps I’d explain how he’d slipped in his fervor to exchange the cleansing station for the bed. I’d just leave off the part about Jace helping in that regard.

  I fluffed a pillow and rested it gently beneath his head, then rustled the bedding and tugged away corners to better reflect how Jace and I had left the bed in my personal pod. Or our personal pod.

  I groaned inwardly. Having Jace underfoot had been irritating enough in the weeks of travel from Port Flint. And that was with the entire ship keeping us busy with duties that gave us some separation. Sharing personal space was a step so far beyond my comfort zone that I didn’t know how I’d survive the time it might take to find Rylan’s sister.

  And what if Sir Kranst had more girls than the few we suspected? I didn’t have room for more, or the means with which to travel the galaxy and return them to their families. I had business to conduct. Duties to perform.

  I thought all over again about Trina’s previous suggestion. About contacting Irik for his help. I spent the remainder of the hour stewing over the ramifications of such an action then decided to leave it off for now. No need to disturb that lion until we had more information.

  When Sir Kranst showed the first signs of stirring, I laid my head against the carpet on his chest. Several additional minutes passed in slumber before his hand beside me flexed and then wrapped around my hip. I fought the flinch that rose up as his hand slid down to cup my bare ass.

  “Mmm,” he groaned without opening his eyes.

  I ran my fingers through the mass of curls. “I hope it was as pleasurable for you as it was for me.”

  “Must’ve been,” he replied groggily. “I feel like I used muscles I haven’t in cycles.” He started to stretch then stopped with a moan. “Scratch that. I feel like I’ve been run over by a hoverspeeder…repeatedly.”

  “Let me get you a drink.” I rose, never so happy to get away from a client.

  His eyes popped opened. “Water only…please.”

  “Of course.

  I made certain to keep the cup within sight of his watchful gaze as I filled it straight from the tap then handed it over. He watched me over the rim as he drank, taking in the myriad of marks Jace had left me with.

  “I don’t…uh…usually do that to my girls.” He extended a finger toward me from the cup he still held.

  I sat on the bed’s edge and leaned toward him to plant a kiss on his cheek as I took the empty cup. “I’m not one of your girls.”

  He considered that as he took another drink. “I hope I didn’t get too rough.”

  “Nonsense.” The sensation of Jace’s mouth sucking hard at the underside of my breast sent a thrill through me at the memory. I stepped aside again to set the cup on the tea ceremony tray. “I am a courtesan, trained in all manner of ways to pleasure.”

  His gaze raked up and down my nude form as he sat up, silk sheets pooling near his waist to cover his growing cock. One I hoped to never see again.

  “That
brings me to the real purpose of my visit.”

  That stopped me as I bent to retrieve my dress from the floor. “Oh?”

  “I want to hire you again.”

  My insides squeezed at the thought, but at least I had a ready answer this time. “I’m sorry, Sir Kranst, but my next few evenings are booked with other engagements.”

  “Not evenings,” he interrupted with a wave of his hand before stumbling from the bed. “Daytime. A few hours in the afternoons.”

  “Afternoons? I…I don’t usually….”

  “With my girls.” He slid into wrinkled trousers and the shirt that had lain crumpled for several hours on the floor. “I want my girls to have a little more finesse and polish. To refine their skills to be a little more…” A hungry grin oozed from his lips like a predator about to go after a kill. “…like yours.”

  As if he remembered anything that happened last night. Or in his case, what didn’t happen.

  “A courtesan is trained in most matters from a young age, Sir Kranst.” I fastened the clasp at my shoulder, glad to be clothed in his presence so I didn’t have to endure his slimy gaze any longer. “Our ways cannot be learned in a matter of days.”

  “Just a few lessons,” he urged. “Like that tea thing. And the oil massage, which was my favorite part.” His brow wrinkled as if realizing for the first time that he couldn’t remember what had happened after that.

  Nothing, of course. But I didn’t need him to realize that now. It was best to keep him talking.

  I glided slowly closer. “A courtesan’s training takes many cycles before she is presented to the ranks in the House. It is important so that every action…” I traced a finger along his jawline as I curled against him. “Every caress…becomes second nature.”

  Dark eyes drifted to half-mast. “The basics then. Something they can practice after you leave.”

  He wouldn’t be easily dissuaded. “Really, Sir Kranst, I don’t think…”

  “I’ll pay you.”

  He named a sum that sparked a twitch of my cheek and stilled my finger at the cleft in his chin. I really couldn’t. I certainly shouldn’t. If Lily found out I’d shared the ancient ways with outsiders, she could take away my credentials. My livelihood. Worse, she could force me back to Andurea. To face Irik all over again.