Lady Luck

by K. C. Cross

  “A gate?” he asks.

  “It’s just a theory,” I say. “No one really knows because you can’t collect information from the event horizon of a black hole or a gate. So who cares?”

  “Well, they care!” Luck says. “That’s the kind of shit they’re doing in there.”

  “In where?”

  “The Pleasure Prison.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t really know what they said. You burbled out a sentence of big words that made no sense at all.”

  “But you still understood it,” he counters.

  “I’m guessing. Also, the spacetime in the virtual and the spacetime out here aren’t the same. So what does that have to do with virtual information being real?”

  He sighs. “I don’t know. But it’s something important. They’re gonna call a meeting about this when they figure it out.”

  “Oh, well, good. Then we’ll all know.”

  “No,” Luck says. “That’s not good. Asshole ALCOR is in there with the Succubus AI. What if they hear about this real stuff and escape?”

  I raise my eyebrows at him. “I don’t understand. I thought the Succubus being in there was her idea?”

  “They,” he says, all agitated again, “are doing secret shit inside our virtual. And I don’t like it. Not one bit.”

  “Are you sure you’re not just jealous?”

  “Of what?”

  “Who, you mean. I know that you and Valor used to be tight and now he’s all about Tray.”

  “I’m not jealous.” He stares at me. But that stare softens as it lingers. “OK. Maybe I’m a little jealous.”

  I laugh. “OK. How about this? I’m sorry for the fight earlier.”

  “You should be,” he says. “You’re keeping things from me too.”

  “I’m just about to make you a good offer, Luck. Sometimes you need to learn to shut the hell up.”

  He makes a motion of buttoning his lip.

  “I’ll find out more about this for you. And it’s free. No strings at all.”

  He unbuttons his lip. “Really?”

  I nod. “Yeah. A favor between friends. It’s no big deal, really. A quick conversation is all it’ll take.”

  Everything about Luck relaxes in that instant.

  And in the next one… he kisses me.

  His hands slip down to my waist and his chest presses forward. One moment his mouth is hard and rough, the next it’s soft and pliable. Opening up so his tongue can twist together with mine.

  It’s so unexpected I gasp a little.

  This makes him growl. And I expect him to push me into an alley and fuck right now.

  Because that’s what we do.

  But he doesn’t.

  He ends the open-mouth kiss, then touches his lips to mine very gently and backs away. Like he’s rewinding time and what he just did never happened.

  My fingertips reach up to touch my lips of their own accord. And I stare at him.

  “Thank you,” he says. “And there’s no strings attached to that kiss either.”

  Then he turns and walks away.

  And maybe, for the first time ever, I don’t want him to do that. I want him to stay. I want to be taken into an alley, or a new secret garden, and fucked properly.

  I want to show him what I’ve been holding back.

  But he disappears around a corner and I have to shake my head to pull me out of the swoon-state he left me in.

  “Sun,” I mutter. “Now that… I could get used to.”

  No. The voice in my head is sharp and clear.

  Do not lose sight of your goal.

  I want this ship. I want to leave this station. I want to kill people and get revenge.

  What I don’t want to do… what I will not do… is fall in love with my soulmate.

  Never. Ever. Ever.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN - LUCK

  I don’t know why, but I feel better knowing Nyleena is working my little Valor problem. In fact, I feel so much better about shit, I go hang out with Lady in the docking bay and hook into the virtual we have onboard so I can watch her and Booty and Dicker play poker.

  They always cheat. Always cheat. They gang up on the other ships in the docking bay—especially the ones who are just about to pay off their servitude tithe—and take everything they can.

  That’s all sanctioned by Crux, of course. He wants to wipe out their savings and make a long-lasting partnership with Harem their only real option.

  It’s a shit move, but hey. By the time these sentient ships pay off their five hundred spins, they’ve been on missions for us, they’ve learned secrets, and to be honest, they are an investment at this point.

  They technically have to agree to who takes them on as a responsible party, but we strongly urge them to see things our way and take who we assign to them.

  It occurs to me, as I watch the virtual game through a pair of goggles, that one of these losers might end up belonging to Nyleena in a few days.

  Is Crux serious about this?

  I can’t tell.

  I know he wanted her to start pulling her weight, but letting her take a ship and leave to go get into trouble somewhere far away… that’s just not a good idea.

  He can’t be serious. It’s got to be some sort of trick.

  I track Nyleena as I hang out with the ships. Watching her go places. She visits the Pleasure Prison first, presumably to hit up Valor and Tray for info on my behalf, but then she leaves almost immediately and I figure they’re already inside doing whatever secret stuff they’re working on.

  Then she goes to grab dinner. Alone. There’s a moment as I watch her status on my little virtual station map when I consider joining her.

  But no. I stay away.

  That kiss was pretty great. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to drag her ass into the closest secret garden and have my way with her.

  But she’d just fake it again and I’d be pissed off anew.

  I don’t need that.

  So I just stalk her from a distance. She goes to a shooting gallery down on the lower levels after that. There’s a fight while she’s there. I know this because I can watch the Baby activate security in real time on my screen. But Nyleena isn’t arrested, so I deduce she wasn’t involved.

  Then she goes to an arcade, blows through a few hundred credits, and leaves. Enters and exits a few stores. Stops to sit on a park bench.

  Is this what she does every night? Just… wastes time all by herself?

  Doesn’t she have friends?

  I access Lyra’s tracker. Find her in Serpint’s quarters. Then find Delphi in Jimmy’s quarters.

  None of them ever hang out with the other princesses up in the harem or the free ones that decided to stay and work in other jobs on the station.

  Cygnians have an inherent sense of class division. Because the pinks and silvers seem to be considered outsiders to the regular princesses we keep here.

  I don’t quite get that. I guess I could ask, but eh. Don’t really care, either.

  A few hours later I notice Nyleena is on her way back into the Pleasure Prison and I deduce that Tray and Valor told her to come back later.

  So I leave Lady and the other ships to their game and head back that way, hoping I can catch her coming out and see if she got any information for me.

  And even though when I check my air screen for the time and realize it has taken me a full thirty minutes to get back up there, she’s still inside when I arrive outside the control room doors.

  I wait on the side of the door and press my ear towards it, listening.

  Laughing? Do I hear laughing?

  Oh, that’s definitely laughing. Definitely Nyleena laughing.

  I take a step forward and peek through the small slit of a window at eye level.

  They’re all drinking. Nyleena is not dressed in the normal outfit from earlier. She must’ve bought something in one of those stores a
nd changed. Because she’s wearing a tight, shiny-pink plynal bodysuit that shows off every curve of her hips. And she was definitely not wearing that earlier. There’s a fat silver zipper that starts at the middle of her back, runs down the crack of her ass, and right between her legs.

  I know this outfit.

  Well, not this particular outfit. But I know this style. It’s her fuck-me-quick outfit. No need to remove clothes, just unzip the parts required.

  I palm the door open and say, “What the fuck is going on in here?”

  Tray spins around so fast, his drink goes sloshing over the side of his glass. “Oh, hey, Luck. We’re just having a drink and shootin’ the shit. Your girl is funny.”

  I narrow my eyes at my most-hated brother.

  “And pretty sexy too,” Valor says. “That outfit. Sun’s sake, princess. You leave nothing to the imagination!”

  I take that back. Valor is now my most-hated brother.

  “What are you doing here?” Nyleena snaps.

  “What am I doing here? What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Someone’s in trouble,” Tray clowns.

  “Well,” Nyleena says, flattening out some make-believe wrinkle in her bodysuit. That thing is way too tight to wrinkle. And there’s a second zipper in front. One that allows her tits to practically pop out but doesn’t connect to the one that stops short just below her hip bones. “I guess I’m outta here. Thanks, you guys!” she calls brightly as she pushes me out of her way. “Maybe I’ll stop by tomorrow?”

  “Try all you want to get in my pod.” Tray laughs. “Not gonna work, Nyleena.”

  She shoots him a tight-lipped smile as she passes through the door.

  I follow her. “What the fuck was that about?” I ask again, once we’re outside in the main concourse.

  “That was you and your stupid bad timing. That’s what that was! I was not only just about to weasel my way into using his gaming pod to get a conversation with Real ALCOR, I had them talking about their big spacetime secret when you barged in like an alpha caveman and ruined all my hard work!”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN - NYLEENA

  “Hard work?” Luck laughs. “Is that what you call it now?”

  I narrow my eyes at him, so angry. I was so close! I practically had Tray wrapped around my little finger. He was going to let me use his gaming pod! He was! And then Luck barged in and ruined everything!

  Now I’m right back where I started. And I’m out two hundred credits of next week’s allowance for this sexy outfit I bought just for the occasion.

  “What I call… what?” I growl. And it’s a mean growl. I’m so angry at him right now.

  “Prancing around in that tight outfit showing your ass and tits off to my single brothers. You’re mine, Nyleena. Mine!”

  “You’re insane! You think I was in there to what? Fuck them? I was leading them on to get information you wanted, remember?”

  “I never told you to sleep with them for it! No wonder you offered that info up to me for free! You were gonna get something else in the process! Were you gonna fake an orgasm for them too?”

  “Fuck you!” I say. And then I slap him across the face and turn my back.

  “Oh,” he says behind me. “You did not.”

  Oh, yes, I did, asshole.

  I make it all the way to the elevator before he catches up with me.

  “I’m going home. Do not,” I warn, “follow me. Do you understand? You’ve gone too far, buddy. Way too far tonight.”

  “You’re not going anywhere until I find out what they told you.”

  I get in the elevator and push the button for my floor. Our eyes are locked together. Each of us challenging the other.

  The doors close, Luck still on the other side of them. And I allow myself a small smile of triumph.

  But then his hand sneaks in at the last second and the doors pop open again.

  “What the fuck, Luck?”

  He steps inside with me. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what they said like you promised.” The doors close us in.

  “Yeah, well, you promise me great sex every day and never deliver. So I don’t really feel the need to tell you anything.”

  “Is that right?” he asks. Just as the elevator doors open to my floor.

  I step out without comment and walk quickly to my quarters, punch in the code, and slip inside, fully intending on closing the door right on Luck’s face. Then he does that sneaky hand thing again and pushes it back open.

  “What?” I seethe.

  “I don’t deliver?” His eyebrows are so high up on his forehead in shocked surprise, I can see every curve of his wide-open violet eyes.

  “No,” I say. “You don’t. In fact, you suck in bed. You’d need four cocks to make me feel good.”

  “Four cocks, huh?” He points to the ceiling. “You had four up there in the control room at your service. How was it?”

  Ohhhhhhhh, no, he didn’t.

  I slap him again.

  He laughs.

  Then he pushes me aside, slams my door closed, spins me around, and shoves my back up against the door. “I thought we came to an understanding.”

  “We did. And then you turned into a giant cocky jerk and ruined all my plans! It’s like… you want me to fail, don’t you? You want to trap me here, just like you guys do everyone else, and make me stay. I’m this close,” I say, holding my pointer finger and thumb together with barely a fraction of space between them. “This fucking close to solving my fucking problem and you barged in and ruined it on purpose!”

  “You bought this outfit for them, didn’t you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I was tracking you. I saw you enter those stores. You weren’t wearing the pink bodysuit of sexiness earlier! So you bought it just for them!”

  “You’re stalking me again? What the actual fuck is wrong with you?”

  “You’re mine,” he says. “Mine.”

  I force myself to be still. And I look him straight in those glowing violet eyes and say, “Never.”

  But in that same instant that my single, determined word bursts from my mouth, he spins me around, drags my bodysuit zipper down to the crack of my ass, then spins me around again, reaches between my legs, and keeps unzipping until he’s got an all-access pass to my lady goods.

  I cock my head at him. “Really?”

  He grabs both my hands, hikes them up above my head, clasps my wrists together in one fist, and then unzips the top of my bodysuit in one, swift motion so that my tits pop out in all their spectacular glory.

  I panic for a moment. But take a deep breath and remind myself that he won’t get this outfit off me. And he can’t see the parts of my body I’m trying to hide. Not with these strategic zippers. That’s the whole reason I bought it.

  “I suck in the sack, do I?”

  “So bad,” I seethe.

  “Well, let me tell you something, princess. You’re no prize.”

  “Oh,” I laugh. “Is that so?” The nerve of him.

  “You might be silver. And you might be a bitch. But your glow, Nyleena, lacks luster.”

  “Fuck you,” I spit. “You’ve never even seen my glow! My glow is so powerful I—”

  But I stop. Because I don’t want him to know that. I don’t want anyone to know what my glow does.

  “Prove it,” he growls.

  I am so angry right now my blood is boiling. Rage fills me up and I can feel it. Just on the edge. Just waiting to burst forth and wash this whole station in the bright white inside me.

  I wriggle one hand free from his tight grip, pop the tab on his pants, and reach inside to grab those cocks. I squeeze them with all my strength.

  “That all you got?” he hisses, yanking my hand away and securing in his grip above my head again.

  “Oh, I haven’t even started yet,” I purr, the anger and rage bubbling underneath my fake, calm demeanor.

  I hike one leg up, hook it around his ass, and pul
l him towards me until his hips bump into mine and his cocks slam against my stomach.

  “You know why I fake it with you, Luck?” Oh, he’s so mad. So mad. “Because not only can you not handle me, you can’t ever even hope to satisfy my sexual needs.”

  He reaches down, fists his cocks, and then shoves them inside me with no care at all about being careful and considerate.

  “Shit!” I wince.

  “That’s right, princess. Now you’re gonna get all of me.”

  He pulls back and thrusts forward so hard, I gasp.

  But fuck him. He’s not gonna win this. I hike my other leg up, cross my ankles and squeeze him between my thighs as he pushes me against the door.

  “Yeah,” he says, laughing. His violet eyes bright with light now. Sizzling and crackling like there’s some kind of electric current hidden deep inside him. “You want more? You need it harder? I’ll fuck you harder! I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll think there’s four cocks inside you!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - LUCK

  She moans. And sure. She’s moaned a lot during sex. But this one is different. There’s white light inside her eyes. Like she’s got a sun hidden in there. Like she’s about to unleash a solar storm on my ass, the likes of which I’ve never seen before.

  And all I can think is… Yes. Give it to me. For once, let me see the real you, princess.

  I thrust deeper and deeper inside her. Pounding her back against the closed door. My pants down around my knees from all the fucking. And her legs, all covered in shiny pink plynal, still wrapped tightly around my waist like she wants to squeeze the breath out of me.

  Fuck yeah.

  I let go of her wrists and immediately her hands drop to my shoulders and her nails dig deep into my flesh.

  I don’t feel it much. Not in this kind of heated moment.

  But I’ll feel it later. And I can’t wait.

  Her body goes stiff for a moment and I know… I know she’s close. She has to make a decision to pull back and keep that release inside her like she’s been doing… or let it go and fully expose herself to me.