Spaceport: Forget Me Not

by Mikala Ash

  She took it from him. “You seem pretty together,” she said cautiously. “What brings you to Adana?"

  He leaned back into his chair, relaxing at last. “Let's just say I had some IAC entanglements that I'd rather distance myself from, and Adana is as distant as you can get without leaving the galaxy."

  "It is that.” She gazed at him silently, waiting for him to continue.

  He laughed. “I like your style, Holly Barberossa."

  "And what style is that?"

  "Ask a question and if the answer isn't to your liking you stare into your victim's eyes with that irresistible gaze and with it you draw the truth out of them."

  "Is that what I'm doing?"

  "I'm tempted to tell all, I really am, but we hardly know each other."

  "I'm not giving you the come on,” she said acidly.

  "I didn't think you were, but only friends should know as much about me as I do. That means trust and that, Holly Barberossa, takes time."

  "You don't have a bad style yourself,” she allowed. “You didn't answer my question to my liking and got us onto a whole different track."

  "Unsuccessfully, I see."

  "That makes us even.” She drained her caffee cup. “If you get any more, you can get me on this number.” She held out her e-card. He took it, his fingertips brushing hers and his eyes holding her gaze like a vice. A wave of heat swept across her body, touching places that had been cold ever since Maxim had left.

  He stood up and gazed down at her. “I understand how hard it must be."

  Anger flashed. “What do you mean?"

  "Staying on the job despite what happened to Maxim. I've heard how close you two were. You're a professional. I respect that.” He gave a polite bow and turned to leave.

  "Wait,” she said.

  He cocked his head inquiringly.

  She didn't know if he could be trusted, but he was, after all, a private detective. “I wonder if you could do me a favor."

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  Chapter Three

  Silas left the caffee shop both pleased and disgusted with himself. Pleased that Holly liked him—he could tell that by the way her gaze had softened the longer they spoke, and how his words had angered her because she mistook them for having a sexual connotation, which suggested she'd been thinking of him that way herself.

  He was disgusted because he had used the funeral of her lover to maximize his impact. Maximize, now there's a dandy play on words for you. Silas, you're a bastard, a real bastard.

  There was no denying he wanted to get to know her in every possible way, but to intrude in this moment of profound sadness was beneath him. If only necessity hadn't demanded quick action. He was realist enough to know that he wasn't every woman's ideal mate, but he also knew that most women found him attractive, and when they got to know him, they all wanted to bed him. It wasn't ego or hubris that told him that, just experience.

  That Holly had asked him to investigate the circumstances of Maxim's disappearance, as she insisted on calling it, was evidence that she at least trusted his ability. Her request was also good for two other reasons. It kept him close to her, and satisfied his desire to help her accept the fact of Maxim's death. Not that it would speed her into his bed, necessarily, but if she didn't come to grips with his death soon, she was leaving the door open to a lifetime of pain. He decided he would do everything to make her accept reality even if she ended up hating him for it. He knew how bad not letting go could be.

  The official investigation, Holly believed, had been badly flawed. She had a healthy distrust of the authorities and in her experience the official line was rarely the truth. He had a few contacts in the navy, he'd told her, and would be able to get at what was between the official findings of death by piracy and her belief that Maxim had been kidnapped.

  Silas received Kasamee Kee's summons a scant twenty seconds after leaving the caffee shop. She was waiting for him in her office. Her taciturn bodyguard showed him in, his imposing physique and protective attitude promising violence should Silas step out of line.

  "She likes you,” she commented, without looking up from her desk.

  He'd known from the start that the judge would have him under surveillance, but to what extent he couldn't guess. Now he could. It was close and it was good. He hadn't noticed anyone or anything following him, and she was a stranger here herself, so having the caffee shop, one they'd chosen at random, bugged would have been beyond her.

  He was being tailed, possibly by a nano-bug, an impossibly small flying listening device that would hover about him out of range of his personal anti-bug shield. It was to be expected and didn't anger him in any way, but it suggested Kasamee wasn't leaving the uncovering of Holly's true nature to his judgment alone. “We've achieved a certain amount of rapport,” he said.

  "More than that, I'd say.” Her jade eyes narrowed. “The vigilante story, it is true?"

  "Don't be so surprised. I am running a legit detective agency. My first two clients were distraught mothers, and yes, the gangs are worried that the ‘Port Authority is making a move on them."

  "Could it be true?"

  "I haven't found anything that tells me the authorities are behind it. The gangs are notoriously paranoid about this sort of thing."

  "A lone vigilante, then."

  "Or, as Holly suggested, someone new making a move on them. I have no way of knowing for sure, yet."

  "Interesting.” She stood up and walked around the desk to sit on the corner closest to him. She stretched out her long legs and then slowly crossed them. He followed the line of her leg from the nicely shaped ankle, the curve of her calf to her shapely knee. Her upper thigh was exposed. The short tunic she wore beneath her judicial robes had ridden up, giving him a clear view of her creamy flesh. He knew those born on the planet Holth were characteristically pale, but he had no idea how marble-like the complexion could be.

  He stirred in his seat. His cock had no reservations about showing his appreciation of the view, and he decided he wouldn't be backward in showing her too. He raised his eyes to meet her amused gaze. “She doesn't believe her lover is dead,” she said. “Sounds like she can't accept reality."

  "From what she told me, there are problems with the evidence,” he said. “His family only believes it because Maxim's leonine lover was there."

  She frowned. “Yet she doesn't believe him. But what evidence does she want? They found his thumb in the wreck of his ship, did they not?"

  "She is a passionate woman. Her love is not easy to achieve, or lose."

  "You've discovered the real Holly Barberossa then?"

  "Hardly. We've only talked for ten minutes."

  "Yet you have strongly held opinions about her."

  He shook his head impatiently. “Surface impressions only. I think she is much deeper than what I have seen."

  "Then you'll have the chance to dig deeper."

  "I don't follow."

  "I want you to protect her."

  "From what?"

  "The threat to her life."

  "I wasn't aware there was one."

  "Believe me, there is."

  He took a moment to consider the implications of the judge's revelation, suppressing the frisson of excitement that the necessity of being close to Holly created. “From who?"

  "That, my dear Silas, is what you must discover."

  She was playing with him. “What do you know?"

  "Simply that there is a suggestion that there is a contract out on her life and the lives of those who were witnesses to the attempted coup."

  He quickly put seven and seven together. “You're saying Maxim was murdered deliberately and not by a random pirate attack."

  "Precisely."

  "Your evidence?"

  She clasped her hands about her knee and leaned forward so he could see her ample cleavage. “Classified. Just say that as judge in the trial, several anonymous sub-space intercepts were brought to my attention."

  "Wh
y not put them all under protective custody."

  Kee shook her head slowly. “I'm a stranger here, Silas, like you. Do you know who you can truly trust?"

  He understood her predicament exactly. Getting the witnesses into protective custody might play directly into the hands of the bad guys, whoever they might be. “You want me to tell her?"

  She leaned backwards, uncrossed her legs and crossed them again. “Her ability to shake the tree, as you so eloquently put it, may make them visible to us."

  "She's bait, in other words."

  "Crude, but true."

  "With me in the trap beside her."

  "What better place to be? You can watch her and protect her, not to mention be close to her. You'd like that, wouldn't you?” She reached out and touched his jaw with a long pink fingernail. “Silas, I've been thinking about you, since our last meeting."

  Her jade eyes were sharp and eager. His cock responded to the touch. He'd often heard the male organ being compared to a caged beast, and he recognized the animal now, his erection pressed against his trousers demanding release. “You think I'm so easy to manipulate?"

  "Come, come, Silas. I know you want me. Your body betrays your desire. I'll be honest and admit that I want your body too. My body betrays me, does it not?” Her fingers traced the swell of her breast, circling around the point of a very pert nipple. She opened her silky legs. “I am wet. Would you like to feel how wet?"

  Silas stirred in his chair. That wild, mindless beast was pushing against the cage of his trousers. He couldn't refuse her, not that he wanted to, but to have sex with her would make him her thing, her pet. He wasn't sure he wanted to hold the rank of minion.

  He indicated the silent guard at the door with a tilt of his head. “I don't perform in front of an audience."

  "Leave us,” she said, her jade eyes not wavering from his, and he heard the door slide shut behind him. She smiled wickedly. “That better?"

  He cleared his suddenly dry throat. “I am conscious of the value of the gift you wish to give me, but the cost is far too high for me."

  She threw her head back and laughed. It was a real laugh this time, pure amusement, with no cynicism or sarcasm. When the laugh was exhausted, she opened her eyes, glistening now, wet as if she'd been crying. “Can I be open with you, Silas?"

  "I thought that was your intention."

  "Now, now, be nice."

  He apologized with a slight bob of the head, his eyes drifting to the dark apex between her thighs.

  "The cost of my position is that no one, absolutely no one, sees or even thinks of me as a woman. I am the Judge. I am Power. I am the Law. No one flirts with me, no one enjoys my company simply by being with me. Do you understand how lonely that can be?"

  "I can imagine the problem."

  "Can you?” Locking his eyes with her intense gaze, she proceeded to unbutton her silk blouse, pulling the material apart to expose her creamy white breasts and the light rose pink of the areolas surrounding her erect nipples. “You, Silas, despite your reserve, flirted with me. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed that, how it made me feel. For a brief moment the other day, I was a woman again, not the Chief Justice of the IAC."

  So, her promotion had been confirmed and he was to be her celebration fuck. That was good, if that was all it was. Silas searched her eyes for any hint of duplicity in the countenance of the Chief Justice, but what he saw was all woman and that made his cock throb with greater intensity. Her breasts were now entirely exposed, full and round. She cupped them, offering him the nipples. “You are very much a woman,” Silas muttered.

  "No longer the Chief Justice?"

  He pulled her to him. His mouth found the nearest nipple and he drew it deep into his mouth. The flesh was delicate, warm and soft on his tongue. He slid his hands down her flank and onto her belly. She was breathing fast, her stomach quivering. At first she had been tense; now he felt her relax and fall into his body.

  He moved his hands from her midriff to her hips and then down her upper thigh till he found the hem of her tunic. Beneath his hands the firm flesh of her thigh trembled. She opened her legs for him. Her hands moved across his back, pulling him tighter to her. Her breasts were now squashed against his chest.

  She opened her legs. He ran his hands along the inside of her thighs. Her flesh was as soft as the petals of a lassa flower, the lush emblem of his home world. She moaned softly as he trailed his lips down her quivering belly.

  She was shaved, the pink lips of her pussy standing in contrast to the whiteness of her skin. The folds of her labia were so reminiscent of the lassa that he imagined he was home. The scent of her body was delicate, a perfume so arousing he felt his pulsing cock would burst.

  He buried his face between her legs, his lips brushing the delicate folds, and his tongue flicking across the cleft to taste the moisture gathering there. She shuddered and called out softly when he found the swollen nub of her clit.

  He stroked the lips of her pussy with his tongue. Delved deep and then, brazenly, left her pussy lips to claim her mouth. “You taste sweet,” he said. “Like honey."

  "So I do,” she returned and kissed him again. “We Holthian women are renowned for it."

  He laid her back across the desk and, parting her thighs, stepped between the alabaster limbs and stroked the puffy lips of her sex with the head of his cock. Her pussy was wide open and glistening, inviting his invasion. He delayed the attack, gliding the head of his cock along the silky slit, parting the lips wider, teasing her by pretending to advance. She shuddered when he touched the engorged nub of her clit. The tiny organ quivered and he smeared his own juices over it, so that it became a bright lurid pink.

  "Fuck me,” she rasped.

  Silas pushed his cock between her pussy lips, but only as deep as the ridge encircling the engorged head so that the length of his thick shaft still separated them. He bent his head to once again take the engorged nipple between his teeth. He bit her, gently, while rasping the tip with his tongue.

  Her breathing was coming in short staccato bursts, her whole body shuddering in tune with the flicking of his tongue, and when he touched her clit with his forefinger and circled it with increasing pressure, she suddenly wrapped her ankles around his hips and drew him in with one forceful jerk.

  Enveloped by the slick, hungry walls of her pussy, Silas drove into her. Grasping her hips for leverage, he ploughed into her with relentless ferocity, losing himself in the basic connectivity of man and woman. Their respective positions in society crumbled beneath the power of his lust.

  With the strength of a great mechanical piston, she pulled him into her with her ankles, forcing him deep and then releasing for a moment before driving him in again. At last her whole body tensed as if stretched and then she gave a great shudder as the tension broke. The walls of her pussy pulsed, clenching at his shaft like silken fingers, stroking him to orgasm.

  He couldn't resist the powerful yet delicate pulses and, with a cry wrenched from deep inside, he came, all the while driving his cock into her deepest depths. As his cock gave a series of mighty spasms, he collapsed over her.

  For a long time they lay clutching at each other, till their breathing slowed and the perspiration of their combined efforts became cold on their flesh. Slowly, reluctantly, Silas withdrew from her body and fell into the chair, exhausted.

  Kasamee sat up and gazed at him thoughtfully, her eyes misted with emotion, what exactly he couldn't tell. She absently fingered her nipple, and then, keeping her eyes on his, reached inside her pussy with a long forefinger and took her glistening finger to her lips to taste him. “Sweet,” she muttered.

  Boldly he took her in his arms and kissed her. “You're right,” he said. “Though not like honey."

  She laughed into his mouth as she kissed him again. “Definitely not like honey.” She sighed then, deep and long. “I wish I were free to enjoy you all afternoon and then the night, but court sits in an hour."

  "You're the boss. You're in
charge. Cancel today's sitting and we'll fuck our way through to breakfast."

  She gave a wistful sigh. “Oh, to be so carefree. I miss being a teenager, don't you?"

  "I play teenager every day,” he said. “I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up."

  "You make me laugh, Silas Archimedes. But I am no longer a teenager, and neither are you."

  "It's fun pretending, though."

  "That it is.” On naked feet she padded to the other side of her desk. He was so startled by her change in attitude. Gone was the delicate teenager looking for love and back was the cool professional, the Chief Justice of the IAC. “Give her this."

  He took the proffered data slice. “What is it?"

  "She asked you to help her investigate Maxim's death, didn't she?"

  "Maxim's disappearance,” he corrected.

  "Whatever. This is a list of pirates that could be involved."

  "Where shall I say I gained this intel?"

  "I'll leave that to you,” she said. “You being so orally creative and all."

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  Chapter Four

  It seemed that the new judge was in a hurry to get the case moving again. Holly watched Kasamee Kee closely. She appeared far too glamorous to be a judge on the ascendancy; big hair, luminescent green eyes and the pale almost transparent skin, characteristic of the inhabitants of the ice world of Holth, gave her the appearance of an ethereal creature of the night.

  She was competent, no doubt about that! Judge Kee held a strong and disciplined line against the defense, and the case saw more action in a day than the previous six months. Holly suppressed a chuckle at the judge's curt dismissal of a defense lawyer's objection based on the definition of a political coup. “Mister Kershaw. I do believe, if you were the defense counsel of Attila the Hun, we'd still be debating the wording of the charges against him."

  "Your Honor? Does that mean you accept my submission for a suspension of this hearing until the definition of the charges are more clearly defined?"

  "It certainly does not. Mister Kershaw, I and everyone on this spaceport have a crystal clear definition of these charges. You and your team seem to be the only ones mystified by the language. I suggest you either read the charges again and develop an understanding of them, or your client gets another lawyer—and before you resign as a further means of delaying the case—I have an IAC appointed defense lawyer sitting in the third row just itching to take over, though I doubt her sanity for wishing it. Your application for a deferment is dismissed."