Felice stayed bent over, like a good sub. Kieran wanted to laugh. Great playacting. He wrapped fingers gently around her collar and pulled her upright, his touch caressing, making sure the collar didn’t bite into her throat. He’d never hurt her.
Kieran tugged her against him, his body relieved to finally be touching hers. Her breasts pressed his chest, the whole of her soft and inviting.
He never kissed his ladies when he started full level three, but Kieran tilted Felice’s head back and opened his mouth across hers in a deep kiss. Her lips were warm, welcoming, everything he needed.
He’d been right about the chair. If he used it to brace his knee, he could lower himself enough to pull Felice right down on top of his cock. He grasped her around the waist, guiding her onto him, and she came to him with no resistance.
“You’re sweet, baby,” he said, loving how her mouth softened and her head went back as he filled her.
Felice looked down at him, a sub gazing at her Dom full in the eyes. She wasn’t supposed to do that. He could blindfold her next time as punishment.
But by all the gods, nothing was better than Felice and her gray-green eyes looking deep into him, touching places Kieran had kept shielded from everyone in his life. That had been the only way to survive.
Felice, with Kieran’s cock deep inside her, was ripping away his barriers, driving out fear and anger, filling him with astonishing gladness. Sex had always been just sex, but with Felice, it was something new, fresh, fragile.
To feel her around him, taking him into her wet heat, made him lose his calculated control. Kieran drove up into her, wrapping her warmth and her noises of pleasure around him like silken bands.
Felice’s eyes began to lose focus, her breath coming faster, her body rocking on his. Kieran grasped her hips, pushing into her, her skin slick, her breath hot on his face. She cried out as the first of her climax washed over her, thrusting her body against his as she arched back, her sounds of pleasure carried away by the breeze.
When Kieran knew he could no longer hold the position, he ripped open her tethers and carried her away from the table, down to the warm, tickling grass. His cock was still rock hard, now wet with her and hot, so hot. In a moment, he was back inside Felice, this time loving her face to face.
Felice smiled and kissed him, the tenderness in her eyes undoing him.
Kieran groaned, then growled as he came, far too soon. She held him, welcoming, as he went on thrusting, kissing her face, hot openmouthed kisses because he wanted to devour her.
Felice smiled at him, so beautiful in nothing but his collar. Kieran gathered her to him, needing nothing more.
*** *** ***
Felice woke a short time later, entangled in Kieran and loving it there. The grass cradled them together, erasing any sting from her backside.
She’d felt a touch of fear when she’d seen his array of tethers, straps, and fine chains, but the fear had vanished when he’d started spanking. It had stung, but not hurt—difficult to explain, even to herself. It had been as though the slaps were releasing things from her, letting out tension with every stroke, until she’d wanted to scream out to the universe that she was free of it.
Just when she’d thought she couldn’t take any more, Kieran had come around her, shed his clothes, and given her all of himself.
Felice touched his face. The giant of a man was sleeping, his dark hair mussed, his mouth slightly mashed where it pressed the ground.
He was the most amazing person she’d ever met.
A harsh chime sounded, more like a klaxon, and Kieran woke with a start.
The trees receded. Felice blinked, then grew dizzy as the clouds, sun, trees, grass, hill—everything—drained away and vanished.
She and Kieran lay on an empty floor in a giant white room. The table and chairs were still there, arrayed before a white metal wall, with a floor-to-ceiling window showing the bedroom suite on the other side. That, at least, was real.
Kieran glared up at the blank white ceiling. “Buzz kill, Baine.”
So sorry to interrupt your procedure, came Baine’s voice. But we have a problem.
“What kind of problem?” Kieran snapped.
I suggest you come upstairs and see. Dr. Laas wants a word.
*** *** ***
Dr. Laas explained as soon as Kieran and Felice were upstairs in her lab. Kieran hated anything to do with labs, but he put up with it whenever he came here. Dr. Laas had tried to soften the room with couches, vibrant wall colors, and another mural that depicted a view of high mountains, but it was still a lab.
Banks of computers beeped softly, and Dr. Laas had instruments and syringes lying about everywhere. Nothing Kieran ever needed to see again.
“What?” he demanded. All Kieran wanted was to be alone with Felice, and everyone kept interrupting.
Dr. Laas touched a few controls and pointed at the screen. “That.”
“That” was two patrollers lounging in the alley near Kieran’s apartment. Not approaching his door, but sitting around as though prepared to stay until he came back.
Dr. Lass touched another control, and the screen dissolved to the street outside Judith’s bar. More patrollers. One was talking to Aiden, who was smiling at her in an attempt to melt her.
“They’re looking for you,” Dr. Laas said.
Felice stepped to the screen, watching, her eyes round. “For me?”
“I meant Kieran,” Dr. Laas said. “They’re wondering why a Shareem suddenly went off their radar. Rees contacted me. They think he got onto a transport with you and blasted out. If they can’t find him, they’re prepared to round up and punish the other Shareem for it.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Stupid,” Kieran said, but his insides roiled. “How do they know I’m not just holed up with a woman? I am holed up with a woman. At least, I was before Baine butted the hell in.”
“I know that, and you know that,” Dr. Laas said. “And Felice and Baine know that, but they don’t.” She calmly dissolved the image of Aiden going all level one on the patroller, and the mountains returned. “Rees and the others are covering for you, but that won’t last long.”
“Damn, fuckwad patrollers.” Kieran wanted to throw something at the screen, but all he’d accomplish would be marking the wall and making Baine say something coldly sarcastic. “Why don’t they leave us alone?”
“Because it’s their job to make your life hell,” Dr. Laas said calmly. “If they’re not seen doing it, they get disciplined or something. The price Shareem pay for being allowed to live.”
“We didn’t ask to live in the first place,” Kieran growled. “Dumbass scientists were playing gods, and now we’re stuck with all this shit.”
Dr. Laas flushed, though Kieran hadn’t meant her in particular. He’d meant the other experimenters at DNAmo, who’d looked delighted every time they’d tortured Kieran in the name of genetics and scientific discovery.
“I’ll go home then,” Kieran said. “You take care of Felice. That’s why I brought her here.”
He started for the lift, and found Felice in front of him, her gray-green eyes sparkling with anger. “You can’t go. They’ll arrest you. Question you. Punish you if they don’t like the answers.”
Kieran shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. If they search the city—I mean really search it—they’ll either find this place eventually, or start torturing Shareem until they give me up. Not gonna happen.”
Felice’s eyes softened. Kieran was still thrumming from their wonderful encounter in the meadow, which stupid Baine and the stupid patrollers had to ruin. He’d found completion in Felice, and any threat to that made his blood burn.
Kieran scooped her against him and kissed her, even as she parted her lips for more protests. He’d intending a simple brush of lips, but he lingered, tasting her softness, and at the same time, her strength.
How amazing was it to kiss a woman in tenderness like this? No level three, no expectations, no telling him to turn o
ff and go away once she was satisfied.
Felice only pulled Kieran closer, her warmth caressing him in return. She kissed his cheek and whispered into his ear, “Be careful.”
A new sensation trickled through Kieran. No woman—ever—had looked at him in sweet worry and said, Be careful.
Kieran touched Felice’s face, savoring the moment. He kissed her forehead, held her for another second or two, then walked to the lift, and left her.
Had to be the hardest thing he’d ever done.
*** *** ***
“You looking for me?” Kieran said to the patroller leaning on the wall outside his front door. Only one now—the gods knew where the other had gone.
He’d moved lightly and quietly up the alley and had come up behind the patroller before she realized he was there.
The woman jumped about a mile and came back down, her hand on her sidearm. She was one of the three who’d been prowling the dockyards the day Kieran had found Felice, the one who’d threatened to hose down the other two for talking about Shareem.
“I am looking for you, as a matter of fact,” the patroller said when she found her voice again. “Kieran, right?”
“You know it is.”
She gave him a severe look. “You need to tell me where you’ve been.”
“Where do you think I’ve been? With a woman. Having sex. Lots and lots of sex.”
Kieran tried to move past her, as though only interested in getting inside his apartment to sleep, but she stepped in front of him, blocking his way.
“You need to be more specific.” The patroller pulled out her handheld. “Name of the woman and where she lives. I’ll have to contact her to verify.”
Kieran glared at her. “Shareem don’t give away clients’ names. Part of the service.”
The patroller kept her eyes on her handheld. “Her name, or you go into a cell.”
Damn, stupid, asshole patrollers. Kieran was sick and tired of people fucking up his life.
“Why the hell do you need to know?” Fuck being diplomatic. Rees would shit himself, but Kieran was done with this crap.
The patroller started tapping the screen. “Because you were seen in a restricted area, twice. Because you fought with humans from off-world, which you’d have been arrested for if the witnesses hadn’t all left the planet. We know you did it, but the courts make us provide proof beyond what’s caught on monitors.” She looked at him, her eyes full of frustrated fury. “Which pisses me off, because I know you did it. We also suspect you stole an indentured servant, a woman, from TGH Corp.” Her lip curled. “Is she who you were holed up with? Did you steal her to play out one of your twisted fantasies? You Shareem make me sick.”
Kieran’s rage flashed through him, making everything suddenly hazy. He wasn’t supposed to be able to get angry like this—or upset, afraid, unhappy, lonely, or violent.
Screw all that.
Kieran grabbed the handheld from the startled patroller’s grip and broke it between his big hands.
The patroller stared at him, open-mouthed, as the plastic and metal bits rained to the dirt of the alley. A second later, she skimmed out her sidearm, taking aim.
Kieran moved fast—he’d been trained to strike like a desert cat on its prey. He had the pistol away from the patroller, its pieces shattered on the ground along with those of her handheld before she could draw another breath.
“What the fu—” The patroller’s words cut off as Kieran clamped a hand over her mouth, and her eyes went round with fear.
Kieran dragged her to his door, opened it, and pushed the patroller inside, away from the surveying cameras. He could only hope no one had been looking at that particular monitor at that moment, but he also knew he probably wouldn’t be so lucky.
He drove the patroller back through the apartment and into his bedroom, snatching up his restraints as he got her on the bed. In the work of a few moments, she was chained, spread-eagled to his bed, a gag cutting off her screams.
Kieran made sure she was secure before he ducked back outside and collected the broken pieces of handheld and pistol.
“Waste of time on you,” he growled, coming back into the bedroom. The patroller struggled with her bonds, her eyes enormous with fear. “Why the hell do you want to mess with my life when I’m just trying to live it? I haven’t done anything to hurt you or mess with your life—so why are you making mine grief?”
Kieran knew he was talking too much but he couldn’t stop. Only one thing to do before he said something dangerous . . .
He dug into a cabinet in the bathroom, found a tranq syringe he kept for ladies who liked to be sedated when they had sex, and carried it to the patroller. Her eyes got even bigger, her terror radiating to him.
“I know you don’t believe me when I say I won’t hurt you,” Kieran said as he checked the dosage. “You think all Shareem are crazy ravishers, who’d take you down and do you against your will, but we’re not. We’re nice guys, underneath it all. If you took ten seconds to find that out and believe it, maybe you’d enjoy yourself a little. Sweet dreams.”
Kieran stuck the syringe against the patroller’s arm and shot the sedative into her. Her eyes grew glassy with tears, then she drooped. Her entire body relaxed, her eyes closed, and she slumped against the pillow.
Kieran felt her pulse, but he didn’t worry that he’d given her too much. He’d perfected the art of putting a woman to sleep. A weird thing to know how to do, but it came in handy now.
The patroller’s pulse was strong and even. She’d likely not had this good a sleep in a long time.
Kieran stared down at her, his heart beating triple-time. He’d solved the problem for the moment, but created a bigger one for later, like when the patroller didn’t check in at her station.
Shit. Kieran left the room and slapped on his console. “Rees,” he said, when Rees, who looked like he’d spent the afternoon doing what Kieran had done with Felice, answered. “I fucked up. Bad this time.”
*** *** ***
Baine did not want to let Felice out of the compound, but after she and Dr. Laas watched Kieran break the patroller’s gun and force her back into his apartment, Felice knew she couldn’t stay.
“Baine, erase that footage,” Dr. Laas had said in alarm. “Make sure it’s eradicated from every database on the planet.”
Already done, Baine’s smooth voice came to them. Monitors will no longer pick it up, and in fact, some have shorted out.
“I need to help him,” Felice said. She was on her feet, heading for the lift. “Open this.” She waved her arms at the stubbornly closed door.
My instructions are to keep you safe, Baine said. Here, you are safe. Outside, I can no longer ensure this.
“They’re looking for me, damn it. They think Kieran took me—I can help him get the patroller out of there, maybe find something to make her forget what happened, and then get the hell off Bor Narga. Let the patrollers and slave hunters chase me. Let me fix this.”
Dr. Laas, please explain to her that it is the height of foolishness to try to help. She will succeed in getting herself arrested—at best, she’ll given back to TGH; at worst, terminated.
“No, I won’t.” Felice swung around to Dr. Laas. “I won’t be stupid and rush in headlong, but Kieran’s going to be killed if we don’t help him.” Her anger got the better of her. “You hide in here, while they live like animals in cages. Why don’t you do something?”
Dr. Laas didn’t look upset. “I am doing something, child. I’ve been doing something for them for the last twenty and more years, every day of my life. If they live like animals in cages, at least they are alive, and the cages are large. And they’ll be gone soon. Rees and I are assuring it.”
Felice listened to this without understanding much of it, but she didn’t care. “Let me help him. I have to.”
Please, reason with her, Baine said.
Dr. Laas came to Felice, the shorter woman studying her with shrewd eyes. “She’s right, Baine. She ne
eds to help Kieran. In fact, I think she’s the only one who can.”
Baine heaved an aggrieved sigh—Felice hadn’t known computers could sigh—and the lift doors slid open.
Felice covered herself from head to toe in her sun-blocking robes, pulling on the goggles and taking the mask. Dr. Laas handed her a few things, explaining them, then the lift shot Felice back to the hot, dusty, drab, and dangerous surface.
*** *** ***
“What the holy fuck did you do?” Rees filled the doorway of Kieran’s bedroom and stared at the unconscious patroller on the bed.
“She pissed me off,” Kieran said.
Rees scrubbed a hand through his hair. “We have to get her out of here. And our timetable just moved up—like to today.”
“Yeah? You have a transport?”
“No.” Rees gave him an irritated look. “I only have prospects. No guarantees any of them won’t turn us in and reap a reward. Damn it, Kieran, I wanted this to be perfect.”
Kieran let his anger come. “We don’t get perfect, Rees. We get the best we can. You’ve been fucking around with this so long, we’re never going to be able to go. I’m starting to think you want to stay.”
Rees blinked at him. “Are you crazy? Why would I?”
“Because you have it all cozy with Talan, and can go off to her moon villa with her anytime you want. The rest of us live in the dirt. Oh, no, wait, Calder, Braden, and everyone else have highborn women to hole up with. Pampered assholes.”
Rees watched him in surprise, then raised a hand, the gesture he made when he wanted to soothe. Arrogant shit.
“Calm down, big guy,” Rees said. “We need to take this one thing at a time.”
“Screw that. I’m sick of you treating me like I’m stupid. Why the hell did you let patrollers wait for me on my doorstep? You could have got rid of them, easy.”
“Kieran . . .”
“Leave him alone.”
Kieran’s heartbeat soared off the charts when he heard Felice’s voice. He shoved Rees aside and charged into the front room. There she was, removing her robes and hanging up goggles and breath mask, coming home like she belonged here.
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