by Ros Baxter
‘No,’ she said shortly, swerving to miss an oncoming boulder only to ricochet into two more on her left. She hissed in frustration. ‘If I free your hands, you’ll try to kill me.’
‘No,’ he insisted, forgetting the chains and leaning forward for a moment as another collision rocked the pod. ‘I won’t. It would be madness. You’ve read my file. You know I scored the highest aptitude ratings ever on the pod proficiencies.’ He hesitated, searching for more. She was chewing her lip and swallowing hard. He pressed on. ‘This is my thing, Klara.’
‘Don’t call me that,’ she spat at him, looking like a hunted animal.
‘Okay, I won’t,’ he agreed, trying to show her with his eyes that he meant no harm. ‘But listen to me. You know, from those files, that I’m logical. I wouldn’t kill you; it doesn’t make any sense. I need to get us out of here.’
And I don’t want to kill you. I want to…I don’t know what. Protect you?
Reetor wanted to thump himself on the head to clear the ridiculous thought, and it was only the chains that stopped him. Protect her? The girl who planned to kill him? The girl who had just disposed of an enormous, blood-seeking Medusio? He must be going mad.
The girl fought valiantly with the controls, but the ship started to judder and groan.
‘I promise,’ he said, throwing every ounce of the sincerity he felt into his gaze as he pleaded with her, ‘I promise I won’t hurt you. Untie me, and I’ll get us out of this. Then you can restrain me again and we’ll be even.’
‘Even?’ Her green eyes widened.
‘For before. You saved me, from the Medusio. It’s my turn to save you.’ He saw her eyes narrow and her chin set, and realised too late the appeal to her desire to be rescued didn’t sit well with her. ‘Us, I meant,’ he said quickly, shutting his eyes briefly at his own stupidity. ‘I’ll save us. Myself.’
Her shoulders sagged a little and then she shifted towards him. ‘Yes,’ she said, on the smallest of sighs. ‘It makes sense.’ She whistled, sharp and low, and the horrible links unravelled themselves from his arms and legs, unwrapped themselves from his torso and slid across the floor to her like the chain was a pet snake, climbing her legs and wrapping around her am; a macabre bracelet. If he ever got anywhere with this girl, he was sure going to buy her some more appropriate jewellery.
Now where the hell had that thought come from?
She stood and motioned to her chair and he moved very slowly and carefully over to it, partly because his joints and muscles still ached from the bite of the chains, partly because he didn’t want to spook her.
She took his chair, taking out her blade and her gun and resting them on her thighs, pointed towards him, as he began the process of subduing the asteroids.
‘Don’t trust me?’ He didn’t look at her as he said it; he was too preoccupied with trying to build a shield of smaller rocks, skating close enough to them to let them attach to the pod’s skin while trying to subtly shy away from the larger ones. It was delicate, intellectual work, like chess. Like dealing with her.
‘Of course not,’ she said, laughing slightly. ‘But I like something about the fact of you anyway.’
She likes me. It was ridiculous that he was sitting there, naked at gunpoint, saving this woman’s bacon on the promise of later advantage-taking, and near-certain death, and the words still thrilled him. He reminded himself to harden up. All was not lost. He had been an Avenger; he knew how to fight at least as well as she did; and while he had promised he would not take advantage of the situation with the keloid cluster, as soon as they were even, all bets were off.
As he thought it, a particularly nasty shower of rocks slammed into the pod and she drew in a sharp breath. He focused on picking his way through, with the crystalair announcing one vientamite converter failing. ‘Are you afraid? Of crashing?’
‘Yes,’ she said, and then her words seemed to come out in a rush and he wondered if it was because she was worried about the outcome. ‘I do sometimes become afraid, when there is a turbulent journey, or we are fired upon.’ She clucked her tongue in an unusual sound that he supposed was mimicry of some Temer expression. ‘It makes no sense; I am not afraid of very much. I can only assume I had a bad trip when I was tiny, and they brought me to Temer. The Posterei call it…’ He flicked a glance at her and she was screwing up her face in an effort to translate. ‘…kind of like memory from your muscles. Something you can’t remember, but your cells can.’
‘Huh,’ Reetor grunted as he swerved to avoid a massive chunk of rock chasing him, and he picked up a shower of tiny asteroidal gravel to shield the section of his flank the thing had been drawn to. ‘I like that. Muscle memory.’ He bit his lip as he saw clear star space in the not-too-far-away distance. This was always the most dangerous time. You could not afford to get complacent. He slowed down his movements and pretended he had not seen it. He coasted towards the clear sky, as though he and his battered little pod had not a care in the great big universe.
‘It makes sense to me. Sometimes I think I remember things, from the Earth before all this. But I know I can’t possibly, of course.’ He glanced at her quickly, cursing as a small but determined asteroid belted into the visor. She was fixated on his words. ‘We must be about the same age, you and me. I have twenty Old Earth years. You?’
She nodded. ‘Approximately, I think,’ she agreed. ‘From my calculations.’
‘So we were only one or two when it went down.’ He finally cleared the last of the debris and scooted the little craft to freedom. ‘I can’t remember, but sometimes I think I do. A face. A man. You would think it would be a woman, wouldn’t you?’
She screwed up her face. ‘Why?’
He sighed. ‘No reason. Anyway, I think I remember a man with dark skin, like mine, and square glasses. It’s more a feeling, really.’
‘A feeling?’ She was making no move to get up and trade places.
‘It makes me feel good.’
She nodded. ‘I have no such memories,’ she said, bouncing her weapons on her thighs thoughtfully. ‘Just fears I can’t explain.’
He shrugged. ‘You never know. You might have some one day.’
‘I hope so,’ she sighed. ‘I would very much like to know my name.’ Her voice was soft as she said it, and her words cut into him.
He shook his head to clear it and think through his next steps. ‘How is the pain?’ He gestured at her wound.
‘Not very bad, with the narcan,’ she said.
He drew in a breath. They had some history now, the two of them. One all; one rescue each. ‘I told you I would go back into those chains, and I will,’ he started, his skin crawling at the thought of it. ‘But I’d rather not.’
She considered him silently as he set the instruments back onto the course she had programmed previously. To Temer.
‘You know what I want,’ she said, swallowing hard.
‘Still?’
‘More,’ she said, opening her hands to show him her seriousness. ‘More now that you have shown me these sides of you. You are so human. I want to know what it is like.’
How to explain to her that the bald terms of her deal had a dampening effect on his growing arousal for her?
She frowned; he could tell that she could see it. ‘I have an idea,’ she said, raising a finger. ‘How about we agree no fighting until it is over? Once we are both satisfied, we will retreat to opposite sides of the room and then we can fight. The winner takes the trophy; their life.’ She frowned deeper at him. ‘It’s a fair deal, is it not?’
Wow, this girl really backed herself in a fight. She clearly didn’t know what a good session of lovemaking could do to you if she thought she was going to roll over, jump up and start to fight for her life.
But it was his only chance. He was almost positive he couldn’t kill this girl while he was inside her, however much his old Magister might have sneered at him for it. But she was offering him a fair fight. She just wanted this one thing first.
&nb
sp; Thing was, he wanted it too.
‘You have a deal,’ he said, his voice catching a little as he felt suddenly nervous about his nakedness, and her ferocity, and what was to come.
‘Thank you,’ she purred, standing up, shucking off her boots in a single easy manoeuvre and stepping out of her animal-skin pants. She flicked her shield off her shoulder and stood before him, naked and glorious.
This time there was no hiding the effect she had on him.
She was long and tall, her skin milky white and silvery all over, except for the long, vicious tattoo that decorated her body all the way from her face to her hip on one side. Her red hair spilled across her shoulders and down her back, and her breasts stood proud and full as she carried herself erect in preparation for what she wanted. A triangle of red at the apex of her legs surprised Reetor; he had never seen hair on a woman there. X had kept herself hairless and her skin well oiled. The sight of it pushed his erection higher. There was something so primitive and sensual about this creature. He felt like he should be too freaked out by the strange situation to do what had to be done, but his body knew the way.
He stood and joined her, standing very close so their bodies touched lightly at chest level. He picked up her hands and joined them in his, then placed them on his chest so she could feel the muscles there and touch the place where his heart beat in his chest. ‘Sex isn’t just physical,’ he told her, surprised at the intensity in his voice. ‘Every creature in the universe mates, but humans have always used this ritual for so much more.’
She wrinkled her nose, and the gesture was so cute and surprising that he wanted to kiss it. ‘For more what?’
‘To express love,’ he said, running her hands and his down the length of his torso before moving them onto her pale skin. ‘To make a connection. To create family.’
‘All species use it for offspring,’ she scoffed, although he noticed her breath hitched satisfyingly on the last note as he dragged their hands over both her breasts, tugging them down with the weight of his hands, and lightly pulling at the nipples as he moved to her tummy.
‘I didn’t say offspring,’ he whispered against her ear, leaning forward to smell her hair and the spicy musk of her skin. ‘I said family. It’s different.’
‘How do you know?’ She stepped back a little, and he could see she was trying to catch her breath against the little shivers that ran across her skin as he breathed against her ear. ‘You never had a family.’
‘I lost mine,’ he agreed, not wanting to let her escape, stepping forward to touch her again, and this time turning her with his hands so he could run them down her back, buttocks and thighs. She felt so different to X; so long and lean, but her skin was incredibly soft. The feel of it heated his hands where he touched her. ‘But my foster parents showed me what it meant.’
‘And love?’ The girl turned, presenting her front to him, arching her back and tilting her breasts towards him in a clear signal: more. ‘Did the woman from the vidfile teach you that?’
He thought about the day X had said goodbye to him. ‘No,’ he said, and he knew, finally, that it was true. ‘But she was lovely, for a while.’
Then he didn’t want to talk anymore. Because this lovely, surprising, fierce woman was looking at him with such open longing and hope that all he could see and smell and think about was her. He wanted to take all the things he knew and show them to her. He wanted to make her moan and weep and come screaming while she fell apart in his arms. ‘Come here,’ he said, placing his hands at her waist and lifting her up onto his hips, before carrying her over to the wall and placing her against it.
‘I am here,’ she said, wrinkling her nose again.
This time he did kiss it, then he trailed hot kisses down her cheek, giving the snake the evil eye as he passed it, before heading down to her neck, her shoulders and then her breasts, where he dragged first one milky white breast and then the other tattooed breast deep into his mouth, sucking and biting at them as she arched in his arms. There was no skill or artifice in her. Her green eyes shone pleasure at him as he moved lower and licked and sucked at the sweet flesh hidden inside that mound of red hair.
His cock groaned and strained as he tasted her, and he knew he wanted to take it slowly, make it worth her while, make it beautiful and memorable for all the times her life might be horrible, later. If she survived. But her legs were wrapped around his shoulders and she was begging him in some language he didn’t recognise. Finally, she seemed to come back to herself and she spoke. ‘I need to feel it now,’ she commanded, dragging him back up to her by his hair.
‘You need more before that,’ he insisted, patting that light triangle of hair before plunging a finger into her and showing her how good and varied and wonderful all the different sensations could be.
‘No I don’t,’ she whimpered, pushing against his hand. ‘I want to feel it properly. I want you to show it to me.’
‘There is no “it”,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Sex is not a single event. Not one moment. It’s an experience.’
‘Well,’ she continued, and he could hear the stubborn set in her voice, ‘I want the culmination.’ She sighed. ‘You know what I want.’
He couldn’t help but laugh at the petulance in her voice. ‘You want this?’ He pressed his cock against her, pushing inside, knowing he shouldn’t, knowing he should take longer, make it better, but powerless to resist her demands and his desire to take her.
‘Yes,’ she breathed, a huge smile spreading across her beautiful, terrifying face. ‘Yes, that is precisely what I want.’
He pushed farther and harder into her, feeling her flesh resist and her excitement mount. God, he was really going to embarrass himself here; how long could he last? She was so beautiful, so sweet and warm and open, he wanted to plunge into her and never surface again. At least she had nothing to compare him to.
Finally he could hold back no longer. He grasped her face in his hands and watched her as he drove into her. She matched his rhythm, driving back against him, exactly the right size, the perfect shape, the right match for him. Her cries grew formless and louder as her muscles tensed against him, and he felt her let go an instant ahead of his own release.
He buried his face in her neck and grasped her buttocks in his hands as they moved together into some other place where bounty hunters and deserters alike could live long and beautiful.
By the time it was done they had moved from the wall and were lying panting on the floor. He kicked open a stow with his foot and dragged a thermal blanket from the recess.
‘Now,’ he said, running his hand across her belly and up to cup her breast. He had never seen or felt skin like hers, the softness of it. He wanted her again. ‘Before we start to kill each other, we need to do that again. The right way.’
She sat up and hooked a leg over his stomach, pulling herself over to straddle him. She started to settle down against his cock and he groaned as he wondered how many times it would take before he could take it slowly, and how he would ever have the energy to fight her afterwards. ‘That was the wrong way?’ She frowned.
She wasn’t trying to make a joke, but he laughed anyway. ‘No way.’
Chapter Four: A New Plan
Reetor had lost all sense of how much time had passed. His whole body fuzzed and melted on the thermal blanket. Maybe this had been her strategy all along, to exhaust him and addle his wits, so he would have no chance against her in the fight that was to come. His stomach clenched at the thought. Could he really fight her, after what they had just shared?
Could he kill her?
It would be obscene to end beauty like hers, and all because she had no choice in what she had to do. It came to him again: there had to be another way.
But he didn’t want to think about it yet. He just wanted to lie here, with her resting on his bicep, nestled in against his body, and run his hand down the silky length of her back, stroking and patting and imagining a life where she was his, and not promised to some
Temerite warlord. Most of all, he wanted to know more about her.
‘Who taught you English?
She tensed against him. ‘Is this the custom?’
He frowned. ‘Is what the custom?’
‘Is it the custom to share information after mating?’
He laughed, and couldn’t resist squeezing her against him a little. ‘Sometimes,’ he admitted, trying to find the right words to explain to her why he wanted to know. ‘When you feel close, you want to get closer.’
‘We couldn’t get very much closer than this.’ She wriggled against him to underline her point and he groaned.
‘If you keep doing that, we won’t be having a conversation about anything.’
She laughed, drowsy and sweet. ‘You want more?’
Did he? Hell, yeah. But he wanted something else first.
‘I want to know who taught you English.’
‘Why does it matter?’ She edged away from a little, and all of Reetor’s nerves jumped to attention. Was this it? Was she going to roll away from him and attack?
He had to get this right.
He cupped her face in his hands. This was not a ploy. This was not an attempt to win her over. He wanted to know, whatever happened next. ‘Because I’ve never met anyone like you.’
‘No one has ever met anyone like me,’ she objected, her voice cooling. ‘Xhozei has never met anyone like me; that’s why he wants me for his collection. It doesn’t mean we —’
He put a finger to her lips and with his other hand pulled her long frame against his. ‘I’m not done.’
She stiffened, then relaxed against him.
He took a deep breath. Here goes.
‘I’ve never met anyone like you. And you affect me, somehow. I don’t want this to end here today. And not just because I don’t want to die. I want to know you. And it’s not because you’re exotic, or novel. It’s because you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.’