by Shay Fulk
If Amari put some dangerous animal on his ship, he would kill her.
Tony drew his blaster out of the holster and palmed the door. It whooshed open and he looked inside quickly to make sure something wasn’t waiting to attack him.
Lying on the bed inside the cabin was a girl and Tony stood there, gaping at her.
“Who the hell are you? And what the fuck is going on?” he asked at last.
The girl spun around to look at him and he almost fainted at the incredible blue of her eyes.
“I am Asandra, daughter of Utari. I do not know what is going on. One moment, I slept in my bed; the next moment, I slept in this bed. Who are you? And where are you taking me? My father will pay you much ransom if you wish it, but you must return me safely.”
“I’m going to kill her!” Tony whispered.
“Of whom do you speak?”
“Amari Kincaid.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “She has done this. But why…?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
Turning on his heel, he called, “Nav, proceed back to that planet. I want to talk to Amari now.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
Tony felt the deceleration and felt the arc as his ship made the wide turn to go back.
“I’m no fucking slave trader,” Tony screamed as he stepped into the bar.
Amari stalked out of her office as the room cleared out. Amari walked over to him and that damned blaster appeared from nowhere again. She pointed it below his waist.
“You are whatever I pay you to be, Tony. Now get the fuck out of my bar and deliver the goods I paid you for.”
“I don’t know what you’ve gotten me into, Amari. Get that girl off my ship,” he demanded.
She snorted. “Yeah. Well, let me tell you something, Tony. As far as her father and his men know, you kidnapped the girl and you are holding her for ransom. Now if you don’t want everyone in Tralpeen turning bounty hunter for your ass, you’ll deliver the girl to Algedi.”
“Why? Who’s on Algedi waiting for her?”
“You don’t need to know. Just get the fuck gone or her father is going to get an anonymous call that’s going to bring the authorities down on your ass. You’ll spend the next twenty years on a prison planet.”
“Bitch,” he said.
“Call me what you will. I don’t care as long as you deliver the goods.”
Tony spun around and stalked out of the bar, his spacer boots almost pounding holes in the floor.
He took off again after a delay from the space port. They had two cargo ships that had to take off and one of them was missing the captain. When he showed up, the cargo ship took off, but those ships were big and bulky and weren’t in any hurry to get where they needed to go.
“Nav?”
“Nav here.”
“Reset course for Deneb Algedi.”
“Aye, Captain.”
* * * *
The girl sat across from him. “I do not know why she wants me on Algedi.”
“So who is your father?” They’d been in space almost two weeks now and had another ten days. He’d pushed the engines as hard as he could. It wasn’t that he was trying to get rid of the girl. He hadn’t realized how lonely he was, traveling alone, until he had her for company.
“He is Governor of Nihal. Why do you think she wants me on Algedi?”
“I don’t know.” He looked at the envelope his orders were in and picked it up. Opening it, he looked inside. Inside was a small piece of paper. He had a feeling he wasn’t supposed to find it because it was quite small.
He unfolded it and slid it under the computer reader. It magnified the paper and the words written on it.
Tony read: “Here is the virgin I promised you. You can kill the man with her.”
Tony crumpled the piece of paper and threw it across the room. “Fucking bitch!”
“We must prepare for this,” Asandra said, rising to pace the galley.
“How would you suggest we do that?” Tony screamed, spinning the girl around to look at her.
Asandra laid her hand against Tony’s chest, her fingers moving against his ship suit. “Well, one thing that we can do something about is my virginity.”
“Huh?”
“You are a man; I am a woman.”
“You’re a child.”
“I’m older than I look. I will be thirty on my next birthday.”
“Then…” He moved his hand to emphasize his point, “how come you’re still a virgin?”
She shrugged. “I have never found a man I wished to give myself to. You are the first.”
He removed her hand from his chest. “Let’s just think this thing through, Asandra.”
“I know I am inexperienced, Tony. But I am willing to learn,” she admitted.
“Let’s just talk about this, Asandra. I’m not…”
Her hand slipped down his chest to his cock, hidden inside his spacer’s pants. She moved her hand against him and he felt himself getting hard.
“Asandra, do you know what you’re starting?”
She looked down at where her hand lay against the rigid outline of his cock. “Yes, I think I do.”
“I’ve never been with a virgin. My lovers have always been experienced.”
She smiled. “I am virgin only in that I have never had a man fuck me. I am not saying I am virgin in all ways.” She licked her lips and he knew, just by the way she acted, that she had gone down on a man before.
That fact gave Tony a raging hard-on. He saw Asandra grin and she undid the front of his trousers.
Her eyes widened when she saw the size of his cock, but licking her lips, she pushed him down into the chair and came down onto her knees in front of him.
She licked up the full length of his cock to the purple head. A drop of pre-cum glistened on the end and she licked it. Tony gasped as her tongue abraded against the head of his dick. Then much to his surprise, she took the entire length down her throat.
“By the Goddess,” he cried out. He fisted his hands, trying to keep from coming too soon because her mouth and throat worked him as an electric milking machine would work on a cow’s udder.
He closed his eyes, giving in to the feelings. But he also had to control his orgasm — had to keep himself from going off too soon.
Tony knew now that he couldn’t let her go. He couldn’t let her go to that man.
He lifted her head from his lap and leaning down, he kissed her.
“Asandra, I love you.”
She smiled up at him. “I love you too, Tony.”
Lifting her into his arms, he carried her down the hall to his cabin and gently laid her on the bed.
Tony let Sandy have all of Asandra’s feelings. As a muse, he could allow a person—his client—to know the emotions of any character he wanted him or her to feel. He knew Sandy was very repressed and needed the release only he felt he could give her.
He slowly undressed her, making love with her as he did so, tasting, caressing her skin until she squirmed beneath his touch. When she was naked, he stood up away from her, looking down over her.
Her incredible blue eyes were dark with sensuality. Her full, sexy mouth curved with the faintest smile. Her dark blonde disheveled hair made her look like a woman who had just made mad, passionate love with someone. He’d never seen a woman look more desirable, more lovely and sexier.
He undressed the rest of the way, and then came down on the bed beside her. He kissed her again, and then made gentle love with her.
Chapter Five
Sandy stirred in her sleep, feeling Tony on top of her, thrusting into her.
RING
It took Sandy a moment to come awake enough to realize her phone was ringing.
“What?” she screamed into the receiver.
“Thanks a lot. That’s a fine how-do-you-do to the woman who made you a thousand-aire.”
Sandy wiped the sleep out of her eyes and looked at the travel clock besi
de her bed. “Sorry, Lynda. It’s three fucking o’clock in the morning. What the hell do you want?”
“Three o’clock Nice time. It’s five PM in California.”
“Call me back at a decent hour.”
“Just tell me that you’re almost finished with Paul and Pam’s story.”
“Yeah, almost finished. About another ten to fifteen pages.”
“Good. The webmaster is waiting for it.”
“I’ll e-mail it to you within the next twenty-four hours.”
“Good. I’ll be expecting it.”
Sandy hung up the phone. She knew there was no need to try to get back to sleep. Rising, she made coffee from the coffee maker in the room, and turned on her computer while she waited for it to brew.
She poured her a cup and sat down to her computer. She knew it would only take an hour to finish writing Pam and Paul’s story, but the dream she’d just had…what an exceptional idea.
She began writing and finished Paul and Pam. Opening a new file, she began writing the sensual science fiction she’d just dreamed.
Her stomach rumbling made her aware of the passage of time and she looked up, then over at her travel clock. It was ten am and she was starving.
She ordered breakfast through room service and made another pot of coffee. Her back hurt from bending over the keyboard and she knew she had to take a break.
Raoul delivered breakfast and she sat down to eat. When she finished, she left her dishes in her room and left to go for a walk.
As she walked down the beach, she wondered where Tony was, and then she heard a pounding up the beach. She looked up and her heart began pounding in her chest, as she saw him riding toward her on his horse.
“Sandy,” he said, riding up beside her.
“Hi, Tony.”
He reached down for her hand and she allowed him to take it. “Ever gone riding before?”
“When I was a child.”
He moved his foot out of the stirrup and she put her foot in it. He pulled her up to sit in front of him, riding sidesaddle.
Tony leaned down and kissed her as he turned the horse back the way he came.
“Where are we going?” Sandy asked, when he released her from the kiss.
“Back to my villa.”
They galloped down the beach about two miles, and then he turned the horse into the woods bordering the beach. A sandy path led through the woods and they followed it until they came to a villa on the hill above the beach.
Tony got down from the horse, then reached up to take Sandy’s waist. As he brought her down, he pressed her body against his until her face was even with his and then he kissed her again.
Her arms were around his neck and he held her off the ground, his arms around her waist.
Still kissing her, he carried her into the villa, her legs now wrapped around his waist.
He carried her upstairs to the bedroom and set her on her feet beside the bed.
Tony slowly undressed her, kissing and caressing her. He laid her on his bed and came down to lay beside her. Just as he did so, the phone on the bedside table rang.
“D—don’t answer it,” Sandy begged.
“I have to,” he said, reaching for the receiver. “Yeah?” He listened for several minutes. “Okay. Be right there.”
“Now?” she asked, as he rose and began dressing.
He leaned over the bed and kissed her. “Yes, babe, I’m sorry, but my sister is in the hospital in Nice. That was my mom. They need me there.”
Tony kissed her again. “You can stay as long as you want. The house belongs to me.”
She sat up and waited until he’d walked out the door before lying back. Turning onto her side, she lay there, wondering what was wrong with her. She was obviously attractive, but for some reason, the only man she’d been able to fuck was Raoul. What was wrong with her, that she couldn’t get the one man she wanted… then she stopped. The one man she loved…into bed with her.
Was it her fault? Or was he married? Did he expect her to be waiting for him while he went home to his wife and kids?
Rising from bed, she quickly dressed. She didn’t know how far she was from the Hotel San Castel Rivera. She went searching for a telephone and dialed the hotel.
“We will send a limo for you immediately, Madame,” the concierge replied.
She hung up and waited outside the front door.
Arriving back at the hotel, Sandy walked in to her room, hurling her bag on her bed.
“There’s no fucking way I’m sitting here, being his side-job when he doesn’t want to spend time with his wife and kids,” she shrieked. “No…fucking…way.”
She began running around her room, gathering her things, throwing them in her suitcase. She didn’t worry about being neat. She just wanted to get the fuck out of there before Tony came back to the hotel.
Raoul came when she called and he helped her down to the limo waiting downstairs. She laid her credit card on the counter and took her receipt as Raoul and the limo driver packed her things in the back seat. She told Raoul to do that so she could pack better on the way to the airport in Marseille. She had an hour’s ride before arriving there.
She caught a connecting flight in Paris, arriving in New York City, eight hours later. She caught a flight there to Atlanta, then on to Tulsa.
The moment she stepped out of the terminal in Tulsa, she wished she was back on the beach in San Tropez. Sandy should have known it would be hot. It was August, the hottest month of the year in Oklahoma.
She took the shuttle to the parking garage where her car was stored and she drove home, after paying for the number of days she’d been gone.
The moment she walked in, she set her suitcases inside the front door and went to the air conditioner control. Turning it down as cool as it would go, she walked over and sat down in her arm chair to wait until it was cool enough inside the house to unpack.
Exhaustion sent her to the sofa. She remembered lying down but that’s the last thing she remembered. As she slept, she dreamed…
Chapter Six
July 1774
Lady Cassandra Tompkins stood at the railing, looking far out to sea. She couldn’t believe her father had done this to her. To sell her off to that toad Sir Anthony Rice! She clenched her teeth.
“Lady Cassandra.”
Cassandra turned and saw the cabin boy standing behind her. He was about nineteen years old.
“Yes…” She paused, trying to remember his name.
“John, ma’am,” he said, bowing to her. “The captain has supper ready and we’re about three days out of Boston.”
“Thank you, John.”
She lifted her skirts a little and followed the young man below deck and into the captain’s cabin.
Captain Steven Wilson helped her into a chair and then took his own.
“Wine, Lady Cassandra?” he asked.
He was an older man, near her father’s age, and she’d found a friend in him, where her father never had been so to her.
“Thank you,” she said, holding her glass.
They laughed and talked as they ate supper, with John serving them their meal.
Cassandra finally went to her cabin and prepared for bed. Her maid helped her undress and change into her nightgown. Cassandra crawled into bed and soon fell into a light sleep.
BOOM!
“Mistress!”
“Calm down, Tansy. It’s probably just another ship passing us in the night with news from England or from Boston.”
BOOM!
Something crashed outside and Tansy shrieked, the whites of her big brown eyes showing. A moment later, the door popped open. It was John.
“Mistress, grab a blanket. We are under attack by pirates.”
Cassandra couldn’t help her eyes traveling down to the crotch of the boy’s pants. A dark stain and the distinct scent of urine filled the room.
Cassandra grabbed her robe and pulled it on. Tansy sat on her bunk, clutching the rough blank
et to her chest.
“Come on, Tansy.”
“No, what if there’s pirates out there, Mistress?”
Cassandra stalked to the second bunk in the room and pulled at the blanket covering her Negro maid. “If there is, we will deal with them. Let go.”
“No… No, mistress…”
Cassandra stood back. “Very well. Stay here and die.”
Cassandra turned on her heel and followed John out of her cabin as another cannon shot shook the ship. Cassandra screamed as the ship rolled, throwing her against the wall. Clutching her arm, she followed John up the gangway to the top deck.
Smoke and chaos filled the night air as Cassandra stepped up onto the deck. She could smell the fear and the urine of the dead and dying men.
Several men fell against her and she pushed them off as she made her way. Weaving her way, following John, she finally came to the other side of the ship.
“You’ll have to climb down, Mistress.”
Cassandra looked over the port side rail to where the lifeboat lay on the ocean surface.
“Climb down?” she squeaked out.
“I’ll climb down first, mistress, and make sure you don’t fall.”
Gathering her robe up, she tucked it into the tie of her robe and waited there on the deck until John climbed down into the lifeboat.
Cassandra swung her legs over the railing of the ship and watched as John climbed down the rope ladder against the side of the ship. The captain told her they called it a Jacob’s Ladder and they would use it if pirates accosted them.
John got into the lifeboat. Just as she started to climb down the Jacob’s Ladder, she thought she could do it as she would a wooden ladder, but she found it quite difficult. Then she remembered watching John do it and emulated his position.
Cassandra felt John’s hand on her ankle and she almost screamed. Realizing who it was, she allowed him to guide her down to the waiting lifeboat.
John began rowing away from the crippled ship. He was about thirty feet away from their ship when they stopped suddenly.
“What’s wrong?” Cassandra asked.
“We’ve run aground on a sand bar. Have to wait until the tide comes in to float us off.”