“Who are you?” she demanded in the most formal tone she could muster, even as she fought the oddest desire to run her hands over the smooth curves of his horns. She shifted ever so slightly in his lap, causing him to groan, before he settled her bottom into a more comfortable position against his powerful leather-clad thighs.
Ignoring her question, he flagged one of the floor servers at that moment, a female Sagoran who strode over with a sour look on her face.
“We’ll have one of the house’s special plates and two shots of Dugaran vodka, please, Leesha.”
“And I’ll take back my cabin card,” she scowled. “I don’t work no second place ménages with the performers.”
“That’s a shame,” he murmured. But there was humor in his voice making Ayanna think he wasn’t especially disappointed.
The beautiful Sagoran server held out her hand expectantly. With a roguish grin, and not a bit of embarrassment, the horned guy pulled out a key card from his chest pocket and handed it over. Ayanna shouldn’t have felt annoyed at the evidence that he’d been planning on meeting the server later for sex. Most of the lower paid floor servers augmented their income with prostitution, which was legal on the floating luxury liner. The fact that the server had given him a card to her cabin was particularly perturbing though.
The business opposite the club rented out bedrooms by the hour to capitalize on the servers’ side work when they were charging. They took a cut for the service, but it wasn’t a large one. That the Sagoran was interested in bedding the horned male without charging bothered Ayanna as much as the idea that he had intended to accept the offer. So what was he doing with her? If he thought he was trading up, he was very mistaken. She caught his wrist just as he was passing the card to the server.
“No need to return that card. I am not inviting you back to my cabin.” Her voice was more breathless than she’d liked.
His eyes dropped to her lips and then rose to pin her haughty gaze with hot determination. Her stomach fluttered.
“If you insist.” Then he smiled. The smile lightened his dark features with a playfulness and humor she wasn’t expecting. All she could think about was the hard length under her butt. It made her want to wiggle. It made her want to take him to her cabin.
Turning to the server, he passed the Sagoran the offending card. “Take it, and bring the drinks,” he told the Sagoran, who snatched it and stomped away in repressed fury.
The horned playboy stroked Ayanna’s arm with possessive appreciation, his fingers playing across the ID security bracelet she wore on her left wrist.
She related to the server’s anger, feeling it grow in her own gut towards the arrogant stranger. “I am telling you. We will not be having sex. Not now. Not ever.”
“Won’t we?”
Then he cupped her chin, holding her where he wanted her, and kissed her with all the force of a hundred-mile-high waterfall, raining, rushing down on all her rocky resistance, wearing it away, one relentless grain of sand at a time.
Four
As Razer pulled back from the kiss, one of the more difficult things he’d ever done, he tried to bring his frazzled brain back online. No kiss had ever affected him so completely. He forgot for a moment where they were.
It hadn’t taken him long to toss over the server for the dancer and he knew why. The server would have been a fun time—and she was clearly experienced—but the dancer, the dancer promised to be a special once-in-a-lifetime event. Frack but she turned him on. Having her in his lap, enclosed in his arms, looking directly into those wide pretty eyes? Kissing her? He’d never felt anything for a female like this before. Their chemistry burned like a giant red star. He wasn’t sure what was happening exactly. Some kind of perfect synchronicity of sexual passion and comfortable security?
He wanted to strip her, toss her on the table and take her right there in the club in front of everyone without preliminaries, and he wanted to steal her away, hold her and caress her, exploring every curve and every smooth line until he memorized her body and her soul. Then fall asleep wrapped up around her, to wake up and make love again. The first kind of desire, he understood, the second kind of desire, he’d never experienced before the moment he’d seen or then touched Butterfly.
“Who are you?”
He leaned back and plastered a cocky grin on his face, struggling to cover the fact that he’d almost blurted out his true name, which would have been stupid. He always kept his identity a secret. He swallowed and opened his mouth to give her his standard travel name, Jenick Za.
“Razer.” Sonofabitch. He coughed. Had someone slipped him a truth serum? He kissed her again, quick. If she felt as dazed by their connection as he did, maybe she’d forget it.
“And what’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Butterfly is all you need to know.” She shifted innocently on his lap, making his cock grow harder than hammered Faik ore.
Like hell it was all he needed. Hadn’t she been as moved by that kiss as he had?
What was she thinking? For some reason, he wanted to know about her, no secrets, no evasions—yet her mind was a locked vault. It shouldn’t matter to him because she was just a temporary craving. After all, red giants eventually burned out. If he could just sate himself on her a couple of times, ideally within the next cycle, he’d be fine, ready to move on. He didn’t need to know her name to enjoy her body. At least, that’s what logic told him.
Could she be an Earthling like his brother’s and cousin’s females? She had the right build and physical characteristics. Neither Galen nor Kugen, two of the most powerful telepaths in the Alliance, could read their human partners’ minds, something that frustrated and intrigued them to no end. It was just bad luck to be attracted to a woman he couldn’t manipulate as well.
Mind-reading could be tedious, especially when it came to relations with the female sex. The ease with which he read their minds ensured he pleased them in bed, but it also tended to trip up his own pleasure. Took all the fun out of living in the moment when he discovered, as he was having sex with a female, that she was hoping to get pregnant with his offspring or intending to trap him in a mate binding. Thoughts like those deflated him in the middle of the action, despite knowing he wouldn’t be making either wish come true.
All his sexual encounters to day might have something to do with why he didn’t want a long term relationship. The balance of power between two individuals was never matched when one individual could read the other’s mind. He figured that’s why he had to be so turned on by the dancer in his lap, squirming and making him feel a little crazy. If he could read her thoughts, her appeal would probably plummet. But since he couldn’t…he saw nothing wrong with pushing the experience through to its natural state—buried deep between her long, lithe legs.
He stroked Butterfly’s arm through the drab flight suit she wore. Even with most of her honey-hued skin and lush curves hidden under the bland boxy design of the suit, he could see the rise and fall of her chest straining against the fabric—that stunning, set of tits that had about knocked him back off his chair earlier during her performance—and it took all his best behavior not to catch hold of the front zipper—zipped up tight against her neck—and pull it down for a close up right now. He’d bet good credits she wasn’t wearing anything under the suit. The suit didn’t hide other compelling things about Butterfly either. Like the way she smelled. He inhaled her scent. Something spicy and floral and…female. Arousal tinged with anxiety?
He’d play this one cool. Seduce her into going to one of the temporary cabins for rent across the hall, deliver her a handful of orgasms—maybe take an extra galactic cycle with this one—then, when she was replete and asleep, sneak back to the club with her bracelet and under her mask and cape, pull off the heist and skip ship. She could claim she’d been robbed, be off the hook, and he’d be long gone.
She’d be back on stage dancing her next act and he’d be on his way to Illysia with the funds needed to rescue more slaves. In
time, he’d just be a story she’d tell others to warn them off horny horned strangers. Something about that scenario made his stomach lurch unpleasantly. Some possessive part of him wanted to take her home. But that was crazy thinking. He was too young, his lifestyle too dangerous, his appetites too varied to settle down so early in life.
“Butterfly is a lovely stage name. Tell me your given name?”
“Why do you care?” She blinked at him, clearly doubting his intentions, as she should. Not just beautiful. Smart. Cautious. She’d probably met his type before. None of them better have used her…or he’d, he’d…gods, he was confused. He’d make her his for a few cycles, give her pleasure, and they’d part amicably. He still wanted to know her real name.
“I told you my name, so it’s a fair exchange. Also, I want to know whose name I’ll be calling out when I spill deep inside your body.”
She snorted indelicately, but a faint flush rose on her cheeks, like she was picturing that scene herself. She pushed against him, more firmly this time.
“Let me up or I’m not staying to eat the food you ordered.”
Razer reluctantly let her stand, feeling the coolness of her absence like a Dugaran ice wind, which made no sense with his history and his intentions. His only consolation was that she took the opposite seat at the small table instead of running away. Unfortunately, she plopped her glasses back down over her eyes again so he couldn’t read her expressions easily. He might not be able to read her mind, but those gorgeous eyes did little to hide her emotions. He could see why she wore the mask on stage. If the audience had been able to see just how beautiful her face was, how stunning her eyes, they’d stampede the bouncers. He slid his long legs out on either side of her, trapping her in her chair, not unlike he had against the bar earlier. Something about her made him want to touch her, keep her near, wrap her up and pull her close.
“What’s with the caging me in? That’s the second time you’ve done it,” she bristled. “I don’t need to be held down to have a conversation.”
Gods, he wanted to hold her down against every surface he could find, and it wasn’t to have conversations. At least, not verbal ones. When had any female ever enticed him like this? Never.
“Are you going to keep count? If so, I want you to know I’m an overachiever.” He winked at her, and stroked his sideburns. “Now tell me your name. Please.”
“No.”
“Why not?” If she didn’t, he’d just read that giant bodyguard’s mind to get it. He turned and scanned the room but the lug was following his mental directive to ignore them. He loosened hold on the guy’s mind to do a little snooping.
Butterfly cocked her head at him, watching him questioningly. Oh yeah, she’d asked him something. He wished he could see her eyes. It had been difficult in the dark lighting of the bar to be sure, but they’d looked almost violet. He tended to be indifferent about eyes since he could read minds. But her eyes were beautiful and apparently the only route into guessing her thoughts.
“Look, Razer,” she laid her hands on the table between them. He laid a hand over hers and her voice hitched slightly. “I appreciate you buying my dinner, but I’m not having sex with you and I’ll likely never see you again after this meal. You probably should have kept the Sagoran’s temporary keycard. She rarely goes home alone, if I remember correctly. And is seems all you’d have had to do is buy her a drink.”
He shifted forward, freeing her legs but catching her other hand in his as well and tugging her into closer proximity over the table. Time to see just how hard-to-get she’d play this situation. Was she naturally cautious or had prior experience left her skittish around males?
“Sweetheart, I’d buy you anything you wanted in order to spend the night with you. Got your eye on a trinket in one of the jewelry shops? We can swing by on the way to a room and I’ll let you pick out whatever you like. I’m confident you’ll be worth every credit spent.”
“Ugh!” She pulled free of his grasp. “You’re crude. Do you think that just because I dance for a living that I’m available for sex too? You’re just like all these other males in the room, treating females like your personal pleasure toys. Well, I’m not available. I’ll never be available to someone like you.”
At that moment, Leesha returned with their drinks and the plated dinner special. The dancer yanked free of his hold, stood, grabbed one of the drinks and slammed it down her throat, picked up the plate of food and stormed away. Razer was so astonished he was still sitting when she breezed through the security portal leading to the back stage area, under the helpful guidance of the big bouncer who had his arm around her shoulders. Razer growled his displeasure.
Leesha smirked down at him and set his drink on the table. “Well, I guess she told you. And that’ll be 300 credits plus my tip.”
“Put it on Jenick Za’s account,” Razer murmured. In his hand, under the table and out of sight, he fingered the dancer’s security bracelet and hooked her pack and cape with his boot, drawing the set up against his calf.
Only after the waitress turned away did he toss back his vodka and slip quietly, surreptitiously out of the club. The body guard Max’s mind had been an open book, easy to read in just moments. There had been a lot of dangerous secrets in the guard’s mind as well, but they didn’t concern Razer at the moment. His focus was the dancer.
Ayanna. Beautiful hard-to-get Ayanna. And now Razer knew everything he needed to know. Details that surprised and disturbed him. Like the fact that Max wanted her, but had never had her. That she hated stripping and she only did it to support her family back on Ozan’s moon settlement Huldra. A desolate and depressing place. She’d grown up in a rundown, backend city just like he had, outside the slick, modern metropolises of the primary planets. That something had happened to her there that forced her to hide out across the universe on a traveling vessel. Something unpleasant to do with sex.
He also learned that she shared a cabin with other dancers on the 4th level of the employee section of the ship, suite 1152. That Max wanted to rescue her from her situation and teach her to like sex—a task Razer suddenly found himself considering taking on himself. Which was flat out crazy. Yet, wasn’t he in the rescuing business already? Wasn’t he perfectly prepared to save her and her family? No. He was having thoughts contrary to his goals. Thinking things he’d never, ever thought before in his life. About a female. What was it with these Earthling females? They’d seduced his cousin and half-brother into exclusive partnerships. Was he going to fall victim to the mating urge too?
The last detail in Max’s head that surprised Razer? That someone so sensual, someone who epitomized sexual desire in every way in her act on the stage, and who was an adult female apparently skilled in pleasing a man, was still a virgin in reality? He looked down at Ayanna’s long velvety cape, and the pack that probably held that sinful costume she blithely removed to the delighted lust of her male audience, himself included. He fingered the access bracelet he’d slipped off her during her rush to leave the table. He had everything he needed to slip past security and lift the treasure in the club owner’s office before disappearing into the dark skies, but now all he wanted to plunder was Ayanna.
Shit. He’d promised Galen and Kugen that he’d reunite with them in just a few galactic days. He didn’t have time to woo a female who probably didn’t want to be wooed, in spite of the obvious attraction she held for him. He knew that his heists had to be fast and simple. Sticking around long enough for people to remember him created dangerous complications, the chance of getting caught. The last job had demonstrated the risk all too well, when he’d snooped around for information about his deadbeat father.
The alternative to following through the original heist plan and getting off ship in the next couple of galactic cycles—by arranging to take Ayanna with him against her will—meant doing the very thing he worked to rescue people from—a forced abduction. He sighed. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t seduce her, use her and leave her behind, and he cou
ldn’t abscond with her against her wishes. He definitely couldn’t woo her. Being a good guy fucking sucked.
Five
Ayanna shook with anger and something else. She felt like she’d just avoided something dangerously tempting, something that would mess up all her plans. Clearly, that rascal Razer was naturally skilled at both charming and pissing off females since he did it with little to no effort, managing to solicit and anger the Sagoran server and her both in a matter of one galactic cycle. The guy was a jerk.
Or was he? She felt conflicted, that there was more to Razer than a guy on the hunt for sex. What would have happened if she hadn’t run away? Fortunately, Max had seen her melt down coming and been waiting for her the minute she took off for the safety of her dressing room. With the food, of course. Those saved credits could be the difference between survival and starvation for her sister and father.
Ayanna stewed as she shoved the spicy Yird specialty into her mouth, relishing the way it burned her tongue like her temper burned at thoughts of Razer. The way, deep in her torso, her body burned for his touch.
“Where’s your pack and cape?” Max looked around the dressing area.
She swallowed. “Crap. I left them at the table with—I hate to ask but—”
“No bother. I don’t want you going anywhere near that guy. I’ll go get everything right now.”
“Be careful…I—”
“I know. He’s gifted. Powerful. A damned KhaRya. They’re supposed to be a myth. I tried to fight his mental influence, but, it was impossible. He must have released me at some point.”
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