by Linda Gayle
“No. Coerced, perhaps.” She waved it all away with a toss of her hand. “It hardly matters now.”
He took her hand and held it. “Listen, Sayal, too many birds get into the games trying to erase some evil done to them by crappy men. It never works out, do you hear me? If that’s your story, then I won’t be a part of it. I’ll be your friend, I’ll hold you, I’ll even fuck you if you like, but I won’t risk putting you up on display, because believe me, that’s what the games are all about. I’ve seen too many chickies shattered that way; guys too. It takes a toll, ‘less you’re into voyeurism.”
“Are you?” She gazed into his serious, honest eyes.
“Nah, not really. Not that I care who’s tuning in to watch me get off, but I tend to block them out—the audience.”
He played with her fingers while she asked, “How’d you get into the games? Was Keeva your first?”
“Not hardly.” His grin sprang to life again. She’d puzzled over his ancestry and thought perhaps it was a blend of Old Earth Spanish and Irish. Whatever, he pleased her. “I was just a young buck on my first deep-space freighter when I got into a bit of heat in a bar. Ended up missing my ship-out and got stranded on a shithole space station, worse than this one if you can imagine. A female captain took pity on me and let me fuck my way home.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Now there was a woman who wanted the world’s eye on her. Gorgeous lay. Never forget her.”
“And after that?” she prompted.
“Well, after that, I worked on a mess of different ships. Got drafted into the Conflicts, bailed as soon as I could. I always found the games to be a ready source of income in hard times. There’s always somebody needing a partner, and if not, there’s the group games—triads, quartets, pentads, and whatnot.”
“Oh.” She felt her eyes had gone wide, and he patted her hand.
“One-on-one’s the best,” he assured her. “Or a triad. More than three and it starts getting political. Too many hands in the pot if you know what I mean.”
She didn’t but nodded anyhow.
“Men can’t help being competitive over the women. I’ve seen some dynamite triads, though. Two guys, one bird; two birds, one lucky fella.”
She took a deep breath. “Did you and Keeva…and Elion…ever…?”
He glanced at her sharply. “Ever fuck? Nah. It wouldn’t be right. You know, him being my second in command. Besides, he despised poor Keev, and I do prefer the ladies, though a hole’s a hole once the lights go down. Do you fancy him, then?”
Her brain whirled with all the images he’d spun for her, so that she could hardly think straight. “I think he’s…quite a nice man. And I think he cares for you.”
“Yeah, yeah. El and me, we go way back.” He twined his fingers through hers. “Listen, if you want to have a go with him instead of me, it’s fine, though I have to warn you, he’d never step foot in the Dome. He’s only even watched a few times.”
Probably because it pained him to see his captain with another lover, she suspected. She leaned her shoulder against his, craving the warmth, the contact. “I only want you.”
“Well. Lucky me, then.” His grin sloped again, and he pressed his lips against her willing ones. She flattened her fingers in his lap and found his growing erection beneath his fastener. Her hand still twined in his, they squeezed it together, and Kels made a low rumble of approval.
“Saints below, you can spin me,” he murmured against her lips.
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Chapter Four
Kels leaned toward her, then over her, then followed her down onto the mattress. He braced himself on his elbow while his other hand roamed the curve of her hip and the dip of her waist. He loved to kiss, and so did she, as their enthusiastic mating of tongues and lips proved. She tasted sweet and followed his lead, nibbling, licking. He palmed her breast, and her nipple beaded and lengthened as soon as his fingers touched it. Her breathing deepened into needy sighs while he trailed sucking kisses along the side of her throat.
“Is your back all right? I’m not hurting you?” he asked against the pulse in her neck.
“It burns a little, but I can bear it. Please, don’t stop, Kels.”
If she said it burned a little, then it probably hurt like the seven hells. He couldn’t fuck her now, as auspicious a start to their business partnership as that might be. Also, besides hurting her freshly tatted spine, she hadn’t been cleared for health, far as he knew, though he’d be tempted to toss caution to the stars for her.
He rubbed his hand over the silky skin of her belly where her shirt had ridden up. Saints, she was a stunner. He’d seen a lot of pretty women in his day, but never had he seen eyes the same green-gold as hers, or such flawless symmetry as made her body a delight to behold. He thought of her brief story, of being coerced to perform. What bugger would force this prize of a girl? He’d like to throttle the ass.
She put her hand over his. “Kels?”
“Sorry, princess. Just thinking on how lovely you are.”
She lifted her arms to him, and he sank down against her, not enough to press her sore back into the sheets, but enough so that she’d get used to his size and weight and to just being held by a man who wouldn’t hurt her for all the iron in the SenVerse.
He slid his hand under her blouse and found the nipple he’d teased a moment before. While he took her mouth again, he rolled the hard nip between his fingers and smiled to himself when her hips jerked and writhed. He pushed the blouse up so the lush tit lay within reach of his mouth. He worked his wet lips over the tip of her nipple, then circled his tongue around the pebbled areola. Sayal dug her fingers into his hair and turned to press her breast into his mouth, and he obliged by sucking rhythmically, using his teeth lightly on the sensitive tip, then dragging the flat of his tongue around it before giving the other the same loving treatment.
She moaned low in her throat. “Kels… Can we fuck now?”
“Not yet, princess.” He licked her lips before plunging his tongue inside to meet with her anxious one. Already in a froth, she was. He slid his hand down to the fastener on her leather pants and found she’d beat him to it, and the waistline was loose enough for him to navigate his way to her lightly haired pussy.
Heat and moisture drenched his fingers as soon as he couched them between her silky folds. Her clit was an eager little knot against the heel of his palm. While he sucked her tongue, he ground his palm against it and slipped his fingers in and out of her cunt. He thought she’d rocket right off the mattress. Even Keeva didn’t get this molten this quick, and the way his cock rubbed inside his pants, she’d have him coming along with her. He hadn’t shot his load in his pants since he was a barely tried boy.
Her hot breath blew along his cheek as he nipped at her jaw and slid his way back to her breasts and those exquisite, responsive nipples. He’d lifted his hand from her clit and now sluiced two fingers through her juices, circling her hole, making her wait—making her angry, perhaps, as she gave his hair a sharp tug.
“Easy, luv.” He laughed up at her flushed face.
“Kels, I…I’m burning.” Her eyes were alight with lust and desire.
“Shhh, patience.” And he drew her nipple, hard, against his tongue.
“I can’t…I can’t…”
He sensed her climax approaching as her inner muscles twitched, her body tensing, her thighs loosening. He lightened the pressure on her tit, rubbed his palm in circles over her clit, and stroked as deeply as he could inside her with two long fingers slightly impeded by the confines of her pants, and she lifted her hips off the mattress, crying and trembling, pushing against his fingers. Her cream dripped between his knuckles, her pussy rippled over them, and his cock tightened. Then, with a bone-deep shudder, his own orgasm rolled over and through him in a ferocious wave.
“Ah, hells…” he ground out hoarsely. He pressed his cheek to her breast while his cock jerked and the pleasure surged through him. A hot wetness spread around t
he head of his dick. Sayal threaded her fingers through his hair, holding him to her breast, Kels panting as if he’d fucked her soundly. Saints, if that wasn’t one of the best comes he’d ever had. After a moment while he caught his breath, he tipped up his head and they kissed softly.
“Well,” he said, brushing his lips against hers, “I’d say that’s a promising debut. I didn’t hurt your back, did I?”
“What back?” She laughed, and it was a joy to hear. He still had his hand in her pants, cupping her mound, his fingers soaked in her flow. He rolled his palm over her clit, and she bit her lip.
“Too soon?” he asked.
“Mm. Maybe in a few minutes, we could—”
“Nah, keep it easy, luv.” Drawing his hand reluctantly from the tropic paradise of her puss, he said, “You need to rest, and I need to change my pants. Good thing they’re black. I can’t tell you the last time a girl made me lose it like you did.”
Even with her bronze complexion, he could tell she blushed. He pulled himself alongside her and rolled her against his chest, his arms around her. She curled against him awkwardly. He got the impression she hadn’t been cuddled much, but knew all women universally liked it, and to be honest, he’d gotten used to the practice himself. The bedcover hung off the edge of the mattress, and he flipped the excess over her.
“Besides,” he yawned, his bones buttery, his muscles slack, “before we get into it that deep, we have to be vetted by the gamesmaster. Make sure we’re both healthy and not likely to drop little Kels and Sayals about the place.”
Sayal stiffened slightly. “What does that involve?”
“A quick scan. No big event. If you’ve traveled deep space, and you must have to get here, then you’ve been through it already, right?” He kept his tone casual, although her sudden silence sent up a flag of alarm.
“Of course,” she said after a heartbeat, a gap of time his mind filled in with a stew of unsavory scenarios.
“Sayal,” he said, tightening his fingers around her shoulder, “where exactly are you from?”
Sayal had been dreading the question and hoped he’d never ask. In the lonesome hours she’d spent in the last freighter’s cargo hold, the fourth craft aboard which she’d stowed away since she’d escaped Sorush’s private deep-space liner, she’d prepared a stock answer for whoever pried. Now, though, she wasn’t so sure Kels would be fooled.
He turned his body so they faced each other. “It’s all right. I figured a girl like you had a hard luck story of some sort, otherwise there’d be no reason for you to be stuck on a shit pot like Aleut.”
The heat of his big body wrapped around her, and his hand lay on her hip possessively. Yet she doubted he would hesitate to push her away, even report her, possibly even kill her, should he know the truth. Sayal licked her lips and said, “The man I told you coerced me into performing for him?”
He nodded.
“I escaped him about four Earth months ago.” It was a strange quirk of humanity that they still gauged the passage of time by the movement of their native sun. “I escaped onto a supply ship leaving his liner, and I’ve been sneaking from place to place ever since, trying to get as far from him as possible.”
He stroked over her waist and hip, his expression pensive. “Is he hunting you now?”
“No. His…activities, the business in which he was engaged, were highly illegal by both human and alien standards. I’m sure he’s hoping I’ve died, or that I’ll simply go away and never bother him again, which is what I do wish.” She swallowed the lie. “I want only to live the best life possible as a free woman.”
Kels rolled onto his back and folded his arm beneath his head. “Slaver, was he?”
“Not exactly.”
“Whoremaster?”
She flinched at the blunt term. “Not exactly that either. A man with peculiar ambitions.” She imagined her mother, her poor little sister who had never had a chance, and felt genuine tears blurring her vision. “Please… It’s very painful for me to talk about.”
Part of her hated to work on Kels’s sympathetic nature, for she could see the idea of her suffering repulsed him, yet another bitter part of her was glad Fate had guided her to a man who could be manipulated by emotion. If it meant using him to fulfill her goal, she would bind him to her, through sex, through sympathy.
He thumbed away a damp trail from her cheek and leaned to kiss the tip of her nose. “Don’t cry, princess. When you’re ready, you can tell me the rest. For now, you’re in good hands.”
She let him pull her close and cushioned her cheek against his chest. Hearing his steady heartbeat in her ear, she thought of his agile fingers on her body, in her body. Very good hands, indeed. And how lovely it felt to be held by him. She hadn’t been cuddled since she was a child, when her mother would take her to watch out the huge windows of the Prime’s ship at glorious novas and striped gas giants and glittering space battles on the fringes of the Conflicts.
With her cheek over his heart, she couldn’t see his face. “Why do you help me?”
He smoothed his hand over her back, and she thought she could fall asleep like this, like a baby, sleepy and soft and content. “Let’s face the truth, here, luv. You’ve got something I need, and I’ve got something you need. That’s how business is done this side of the SenVerse, and the other side too, I’d imagine.”
“And when it’s over, and I’ve established myself in the high games, then…you’ll walk away?”
“More than likely. I can’t see myself fucking forever—least not that way, competitively. I’m not a man for commitment if that’s what you were hoping for.” His hand stilled. “That’s not what you were hoping for, was it?”
“No. Of course not. It’s business for me as well.”
His chest fell with an exhale, of relief, she thought. “Tell me, why the high games? You could cut decent pay from the games on the Rim, or do something else, a pretty, clever girl like you.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “You think I’m clever?”
“Well, you thought pretty quick on your feet back at Ulvik’s. How is your tat, by the by?”
“I hardly feel it. Is it strange that I don’t?”
“Let me take a look.” He rose on his knees, then guided her onto her belly and lifted her blouse. She felt his fingers brushing over it. “Can’t even tell he did the job.” The amazement in his voice made her worry.
“Perhaps it didn’t work.”
“Oh, it’ll work, all right. He’s a scrag bastard, but Ulvik knows what he’s doing. Some of Keeva’s took a few hours to show. Might be it’ll take longer than standard biolumes.” He spread his fingers across her butt. “You never did answer me, princess. Why the high games? Why’s that so vital?”
Sayal answered, carefully impassive. “Why bother scraping at the Rim when I could be swimming in iron in the Zone? Men desire me; sometimes women too. You desire me.” She rolled over and shifted her hips toward him, subtly, but she saw his pupils spread. “I wouldn’t be such a clever girl if I didn’t utilize the assets given me…” By an alien geneticist, she thought but didn’t say.
His darkening gaze swept over her, and her nipples tightened, aching for his tongue and teeth once more. With the edge of her hand, she brushed open her blouse so her breasts were bared to his sight and circled her fingers around the areolae. She arched her back and stared into the depths of his eyes, more than satisfied with the feral lust building within them.
“I see what you’re driving at,” he said, his voice gruff. He raised a brow and dragged his gaze up to her face. “You are prime material.”
His use of the word prime struck her like a blow, but just as quickly she realized what he meant, and that was almost worse. She was material—raw material, flesh to be marketed and displayed. Well, wasn’t that what she wanted? Why did his personal approval suddenly matter so?
Determined to hide her absurd hurt, Sayal sat up, turning her face away. “Perhaps in the time we have before th
e jarouk game we should visit the gamesmaster and get ourselves cleared. Then we can start rehearsing as soon as possible.”
He didn’t touch her as he stood from the bed. “I need a cleansing, and I need to change or process my clothes.”
“There’s a processor in the corner.” She waved him toward a thin door. Having escaped in one set of clothes and acquired only two others since, she’d used it often. “I’ll use the cleanser first. You can go in after me.” She suddenly needed to wash his touch from her, wash away the false feelings of security and comfort lying in his arms had evoked. Her mind tossed with new, uncertain emotion.
As she bent to take off her boots, Kels stood and began stripping. She watched covertly from beneath the curtain of her hair as he peeled out of his shirt, revealing a muscular back and biceps, then tugged off his boots and his pants. Kels had not the physical perfection of her Prime creator. Yet something about Kels’s hairy legs and big feet and the silver scars that lined his flesh enamored him to her.
He turned and caught her watching. “Still dressed? Need help?” he teased.
She shook her head, smiling. “No, I can manage. Why don’t you use the cleanser first, since you undress so much faster than I do?”
“Lots more practice, I’d bet.” He winked and strode past her toward the cleansing chamber. As he passed, she appreciated his abs and tight ass. The mist hissed on, and the lightly perfumed odor of the soap rolled out to her like luring fingers.
She considered joining him, perhaps taking his cock in her mouth and wrestling back some control. He was far too dominant, mastering her body until she was mindless for more. Sadly, this small cube came with an even-smaller cleanser, and it would simply be impractical. Perhaps on the Nova there would be better accommodations.
Yes, the Nova… That reminded her; she needed the patch for the game tonight. She rose from the bed and crossed to the dining area, then waved her hand over a flat panel in the wall. The panel slid open, revealing standard first-aid equipment. She selected a gauze patch and scissors and cut a piece down to a smaller size, something that would look convincing. For creativity’s sake, she trimmed it into a diamond shape. Now, what to use for the “antivenin”? Sayal settled on a paste used for burn treatments and wiped it over the patch. She shut the drawer, and it whispered back into invisibility in the wall. She wrapped the sticky gauze in a plastiseal baggie and tucked it in her pocket.