by Alyx X
“It’s the cargo we seized. It’s alive.”
I narrowed my eyes this time. “What did they bring?”
“Earth cattle. Apparently, it’s a delicacy?”
Roe’s eyes gleamed. “Oh, yes!” she said as she licked her lips. “We had some last night. It is indeed a delicacy.” Then she stood. “Where is it? In the cargo hold? I’m going to see.” She sucked in a breath. “I might even need to find a new chef.”
I waved her away to the cargo hold. “Take the current chef with you. See what he can do.”
Cows? Well, shit. I wasn’t going to conquer any world by taking control of their cattle. Still, Roe had enjoyed it at the farmer’s meal. Maybe that was enough reason to have a hold full of the animals.
I returned my attention to Fin. “And why are the cows preventing us from going at full speed? Can’t they run fast enough to keep up?” Fin furrowed his eyebrows, his confusion evident.
“It was a joke,” I assured him.
“Oh.” He smiled, then chuckled. Then full-out belly laughed. “Very good, Captain. Their legs. I get it now.” Then he sobered in an instant. “We can’t go full speed because of the density of their bodies. Their mass just won’t cope under the force. We’d be in danger of their bodies collapsing or flying apart in the hold. That would be both messy and potentially destabilizing to our flight pattern.”
I rubbed the side of my face. Perfect. Just perfect. I needed to get away from Earth before my cock exploded from all the memories of Emma, but my hold was in danger of exploding farm animals instead.
I sighed. “What’s our max speed?”
“I’d advise setting the ship to our slowest travelling speed.” For a moment, concern flickered across his features. He probably feared my temper. “But only while we build up their resistance and work out what their bodies can withstand.”
I nodded. All sensible precautions. And it wasn’t like I could just jettison the cargo. That would draw attention to us, and Roe wouldn’t be pleased if she’d already started the chef on planning how to prepare her new favorite food.
But thinking about the cattle made me think of the meal at the farm.
Which brought all of my thoughts back to Emma, and my cock vibrated slowly with desire.
“Slow and steady on our route,” I called to the crew on the bridge. “I’m going to get some sleep, but I want to know if there are any problems.”
We weren’t expecting any flares from their sun, but it was unstable, and anything like that could knock out our systems. I left the bridge, my palm already pressed flat against my cock. The familiar corridors seemed never ending as I waited until I was out of sight of my crew before jogging the path to my room.
I needed to be alone.
I needed relief from my unwanted memories.
I needed release.
I burst through my door, already unfastening my pants, when I stopped. Even my breath caught, and confusion buzzed in my head. There, her hair spread out behind her over my bed, her tits on offer to anyone who happened to come into my room, lay Emma.
7
Emma
I glanced around the room. Clearly, the guy was not accustomed to hosting anyone. The room was messy, to say the least, and downright depressing, to say the most. It was dark—only one window, and it was night anyway—and held no comforts for a lost human.
Qui. Memories of the things he could do with his hands and his cock heated my skin, and desire raced through me. I walked around a little, touching the blankets on the bed, and looking out of the window. My stomach rolled as I watched the stars race toward me, but I’d done it. I was off Earth.
I walked past a mirror and glimpsed myself. Shit, I was a wreck. My knee was still bloody, my clothes were dirty, my hair was a mess of tangles, and my face shone with a sheen of sweat.
Really attractive.
I was pretty sure I reeked of horse, too.
I peered back out into the corridor. It looked pretty clear, and I couldn’t hear a thing. If I could find a bathroom, I probably had time for a shower. If Qui came back during that… Well, there were worse things than him finding me naked and dripping.
I tried the other doors in the room. Nope…closet. Huh. Another closet. Finally, one opened to a room that looked like a pretty basic bathroom from home. There was enough there for me to clean up and wash my hair, anyway. After the fastest of showers, I found a device that blew warm air. I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to do, but it dried my hair in record time.
My skin felt soft and warm, and I made my way to the bed before climbing onto the huge surface and laying back against my pillows. Then I glanced down at my body. I couldn’t wait for him like this. Lying flat on my back made my tits look like two pancakes hanging off the sides of my body. I was going for full-on seductress, so they needed to be perky and ready to go.
Lying on my front was out. No sense in covering up all the goods. So, I rolled to my side. Hair flipped back, curves on display. I glanced in the mirror… Looking pretty hot. I bent my leg in front of me. Not everything should be on show. I needed him to want to explore too, after all.
As I waited, I glanced around again. I might have gotten this very wrong. Goosebumps broke out across my skin at the thought. What if had?
Panic—not an emotion I was used to—started a slow crawl through my chest. I swallowed and the thought that maybe I just needed to hide out somewhere until we landed on an interesting planet flitted through my mind.
Before I could do anything, the door slid open and Qui rushed in, already unfastening his pants. My eyes widened at the bulge his cock was making.
And his eyes widened when he saw me.
He stopped and became completely still. I wasn’t sure he was even breathing. Maybe that was how his species showed excitement when they were surprised. Or relief. Yeah, probably relief. He hadn’t looked like he wanted to leave me behind on the farm, right?
“I wasn’t sure I had the right room.” I grinned and traced a finger around my nipple until it hardened. I watched his face and he watched me, completely silent. His eyes grew wider then narrowed, and he frowned. His skin grew redder, but I couldn’t read his emotions. Arousal? Pleasure? Confusion.
Until I could totally read his expression. Yeah. None of the above. Only rage.
He shook with it, and it wasn’t the good kind of vibrating he’d done before. I shrank back, grabbing a pillow to put between us.
“How the hell did you get here?” he boomed.
Fuck. This wasn’t how my creeping onto his ship was supposed to go down. I sat up and put the pillow to one side. I didn’t need the protection offered by soft furnishings, and it spoiled Qui’s view. There was nothing seductive about me covering up.
Maybe escaping the farm hadn’t been wise. The panic that had crept through my chest bloomed there now, and I took a deep breath to quash it. There was no point in panic. It was useless to me. I’d stolen aboard a spaceship. I’d taken off into space. Earth was behind me. I had to think of my future.
I stretched out across his bed; my movements languid. I was comfortable with my body, comfortable without clothes, and comfortable using sex as currency. Without a doubt, I needed to use it as currency now. It was all I had to offer.
I just needed to work it.
It was unlikely he’d go to the trouble of turning his ship around and losing face by returning me, but there was probably an airlock around here that he could have me ejected from. Shit, why hadn’t I thought of that? I wanted to explore space, not lose my life floating around in it.
I watched Qui and waited for him to reach out and touch me, but he spoke instead.
“As I said, what the hell are you doing here?” He wasn’t as loud, but anger made him gruff, like he was just managing to suppress it. He curled his hands into fists and stalked away from me to stand by the wall, well beyond touching distance.
Of all of the reactions I’d considered, this was unexpected.
I kneeled up. It made my
thighs look great, and my tits were perky. “What do you mean, what am I doing here? You said you wanted to bring me. I’m here.”
It all seemed so simple. He wanted me. I was his for the taking—literally offering myself. No plate required. What was his fucking problem? He sucked in a long breath and almost seemed to be counting to control himself as he rolled his eyes upward. Then he scowled, his eyebrows drawn down.
“What?” My tone turned defensive. “What the fuck is wrong now?”
His scowl slipped, becoming a sneer, and I stifled a shiver at the ice in his gaze. “I didn’t think you were one of those human whores the TerraLink program sells.” Then he shrugged, his movements suddenly casual, like he’d worked it all out.
The stupid bastard.
I laughed. “Not a fucking chance. Who do you think you’re fucking talking to?” Had Qui even met me? A whore? A TerraLink whore? That really boiled my piss. I crossed my arms, pushing my tits higher, and his face reddened. “Let me remind you,” I said really slowly. “I’m not with TerraLink. I choose who I fuck.”
I climbed down off the bed and walked toward him, throwing a bit of wiggle into every step. He turned away and rubbed a hand over his face.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It really is. I came because I wanted to.” He sighed and stepped farther away. I continued, daring him to look at me, “No one knows I left. I’m here because I want to be.”
He made a frustrated noise. “This wasn’t the plan. I didn’t bring you.” He laced his fingers together behind his neck and bowed his head. “Fucking humans.” But something in his tone sounded torn between frustration and approval.
“Hey, it’s okay.” I dodged around his body to stand in front of him so he had to look at me while I spoke. I reached for his cock. His pants were still unfastened, and I could almost see exactly what I wanted to touch. I ran my tongue over my lower lip as I remembered how he felt, and I wanted to know how he tasted. I leaned against him, my lips pressed against the hard muscles of his chest, my tongue ready to swirl over his nipple, but he stepped back and grabbed my wrists, pinching them together in his tight grasp.
I struggled against him, but my movements threw me off balance. “What are you doing?”
“You’re coming with me.” He began to walk, and I struggled to pull my feet underneath me, pushing ineffectively at the floor instead.
“But where are we going?”
We were headed to the nearest airlock, probably. I was destined to be space trash.
I twisted my hands, but that just hurt. “Wait. Stop.”
He slid his bedroom door open. “You shouldn’t have come. You shouldn’t be here.” He ground the words out, and my chest hollowed. He was going to fix that right now. After all I’d been through to sneak onboard, he was just going to eject me straight back out. I struggled against him as he turned down unfamiliar corridors. We passed door after door, and I flinched at every one, certain it led to the airlock.
“Are you ejecting me?” My words came out strained, not the sultry tone I tried to reserve for Qui.
His steps faltered. “What?”
I didn’t know what to say next. Either he was playing dumb, he hadn’t heard me properly, or I was about to give him an idea he hadn’t thought of. “I mean, please don’t just throw me out into space.” He laughed. The red bastard actually laughed at me.
“You know nothing about space.” He glanced at me. “Dumb puny humans. You’re so controlled by TerraLink you have no idea at all. Eject you out into space? What are you? Shit? Am I just supposed to flush you?” He fired rapid questions at me, then laughed again and I bristled at his obvious amusement.
“I can walk, you know.”
He scoffed. “Clearly. You walked yourself right onto my ship.”
“Is that the issue?”
He finally slowed enough for me to scramble properly to my feet and walk behind him.
“Are you just bothered I got in?” I moo-ed and he turned around in surprise. “You shouldn’t leave big fucking doors open if you don’t want people sneaking onboard.”
“I’m taking you back.” He looked straight ahead and didn’t respond when I tried to stop walking.
“What? No.” I hadn’t come this far for some big dumb, new-species alien to mess everything up for me. “You don’t have the right to take me back.”
“It’s my ship, and I don’t allow stowaways.”
“I’m a souvenir.”
He shrugged. “Either way, you’re unwanted, Emma.” But he wouldn’t meet my gaze.
Ouch. It was the first thing he said that gave me pause, because he had wanted me. Or so I thought. He’d wanted me, even though all I wanted from him was a free ride into space. And I had my naked ass to prove that.
“Look,” I aimed for my soft tone, the one that got me everything I wanted with the farmhands, especially if I was riding them at the time. “Just drop me off on the nearest planet that isn’t Earth, and I’ll make things work. I can figure shit out. I’m tougher than you think.”
He smirked at me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” But I would have told him anything if it meant he didn’t take me back to the farm. He stopped and turned to me, his gaze sweeping up then back down my body. “You certainly don’t look so tough. You look weak. And you look fucking ridiculous.”
“You don’t get to talk to me like that.” I stiffened my shoulders and straightened my spine. “And you don’t get to tell me you want me to come with you, but the moment I get on your ship you reject me. That’s a fucking asshole move.” I almost stomped my foot to punctuate my sentence, but that might only prove his point that I looked ridiculous.
“Fine.”
“What?” The word took me by surprise. “I mean, what do you mean, fine?” A glimmer of hope flickered inside me. I knew what ‘fine’ usually meant, but I’d thought I knew what Qui had meant when he told me he’d take me with him, too.
He bent down and pushed his face toward mine. “You get to stay.” He enunciated each word, and there was no misunderstanding them.
I blew out a sigh of relief and smiled. “Oh, that’s great. I knew—”
As I tried to free my hands from his, he shook his head, and the smirk found its way back to his face. “It’ll be on my terms, though.”
“Yeah, that’s fine. I can do that…” But my words grew quieter as he shook his head slowly, and my relief faded away.
Suddenly, his terms didn’t look like they’d be what I wanted them to be.
8
Emma
I just stared at him, trying to work out what he meant. His terms. The smirk on his face grew wider, causing the sinking feeling of dread somewhere in the bottom of my stomach to grow bigger. But something in his eyes held promise, and my mind warred with my body. I didn’t know whether to struggle away from him or press myself closer. I was terrified of what he might do, but also intrigued.
Before I could land on one emotion or the other, Qui abruptly turned around and we were headed in another direction. I shuffled my feet, trying to find the correct stride so I could keep up with him. Anticipation filled me and chased away my nagging doubts. Then I took another breath and each of those doubts came rushing back in.
He took an abrupt turn down a corridor I hadn’t seen before, yanking me along. It was narrower and darker than the ones I’d used before, and some of the doors were labelled with writing I couldn’t understand. He transferred my wrists to one of his giant hands so he could open a door in the wall. I hadn’t even noticed it, but it led out to a steep, narrow staircase. Dim lights glowed orange, creating strange pockets of shadow everywhere they didn’t penetrate, and the bottom of the staircase was dark when I peered over the rail. I shivered as a cool breeze drifted upward over my bare skin, and my muscles tightened at the drop in temperature.
Rust stains marked where the walls met the floor, and dirt and dust had gathered in the corners. Apparently, no one cleaned this part of the ship, and I shivered again, but not becaus
e of the cold. We walked right to the bottom of the stairs, Qui’s boots striking every step with a clang that echoed from the metal walls surrounding us, and me lurching in his wake.
“Where are we going?” I wasn’t riding the thrill anymore. Maybe he actually did have an airlock to eject me from. Maybe I was just some shit he needed to flush away into space.
He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes dark in the dim light so I couldn’t see his expression or read his gaze. “You came in with the cattle.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a flat statement, but I nodded, anyway. “The door was open.”
“You came in with cargo.”
I nodded again. “Through an open door.”
“You aren’t my guest. You came in through the cargo hold.” He repeated for the third time, like he was trying to get me to understand something. I couldn’t tell if he sounded angry, amused, or please. Perhaps all three rang in his tone. “So, if you want to be cargo, you will be treated like cargo. That means your place is here.” He pushed a door open with a flourish and pulled me in front of him, pushing me into a small room that smelled like whatever had been there before me had died in the corner.
Chains and manacles hung from frames on the walls, and a cage took up half the space. Instinctively, I shrank back, despite the room looking almost purposefully menacing. Who the fuck used chains anymore? I’d snuck aboard the ship for freedom, for adventure. Not to be a different sort of prisoner than the one I already was on Earth.
“I was impressed with your boldness on your planet.” Qui laughed as he spoke, almost like he was sharing an amusing memory. “But up here, on my ship, things work a little differently.”
Any illusion that I had this situation under control slipped away and crawled off into the corner to join whatever was already rotting there. I drew in a breath but struggled to hold the dank, putrid air in my chest.