The Space Marshal's Captive

by Jaye Peaches

  He scratched the deep stubble on his chin. “The bounty hunters?”

  “I don’t know.” She hadn’t attempted to draw them in the dirt. “If they’ve not been here, then perhaps they haven’t found Krul either.”

  “Possibly.” Mason didn’t sound convinced.

  “Please, let’s go back to the village and eat, you need to get your strength back. I’m sure they will welcome us.” She grasped his hand and squeezed it, a small gesture of conciliation.

  “It is getting dark,” he commented. “Come on, then.”

  They walked hand in hand with Mason carrying the heavier pack and the three men leading the way. They understood, it seemed, where she and Mason wanted to go. The dusk was brief and by the time they reached the huts, it was nearly dark with just sufficient light to follow the path.

  The chief offered them a hut, its platform raised on stilts. The children were being corralled into another hut and torches had been lit around the village, circling it with a protective ring of light.

  The interior was basic with matting for a bed and blankets woven using the fibrous husks of nuts and other vegetation. Jade had seen similar things in museums back at home. A woman brought a pot of water and fruit in a bowl, bowed her head, and spoke a few words before retreating. Jade thought all the women to be very shy.

  Mason peeled off his filthy vest, revealing a few bruises and several scratches. He lay on the matting and Jade bathed him, dabbing at the cuts until she’d washed the dried blood away.

  “There,” she said, settling back. “You look so much better.”

  “Thank you.” He propped himself up on an elbow and picked up a piece of fruit. When he bit into it, juice squirted out.

  For a while, they ate in silence, eyeing each other without speaking and the lack of conversation was deafening to Jade. Was he so cross with her that he couldn’t speak?

  She picked at the matting by her feet, waiting for him to finish. She wasn’t that hungry.

  “You should sleep,” she suggested.

  “I slept one night in that hole,” he said. “There was nothing else to do.”

  “You look tired.”

  “I was hungry and thirsty. I’m not any longer. At least I don’t need a drink. I still have a hunger.”

  She tingled, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I? I didn’t obey your directive.”

  He put down the bowl of fruit; only a few pieces remained untouched.

  “There lies the dilemma. How can I punish the person who saved my life? What does it say about me that I prize obedience above life? Yet again, you’ve amazed me with your ability to think your way out of situations. I called you a liability once; that was unfair. No, I’m not going to punish you, but I am going to reaffirm what you mean to me.”

  Jade was stunned, unsure what to make of his decision. No punishment for disobedience? It didn’t seem like Mason to miss the opportunity to spank her. However, he’d acknowledged her opinions about freedom and choice, and what part they played in her decision. Part of her was incredibly relieved, another part was actually disappointed, as if it was important to know that he cared enough to punish her. How ridiculous! She opened her mouth to question him, but something caught his attention.

  The hut creaked and the wooden slats of the floor shifted slightly as it bore the weight of another person.

  They weren’t alone. One of the younger men had entered the hut. He gestured toward the door, waving at them.

  Mason sighed. “I suppose we should go and be good guests. I need to find out about the hunters. We’ll deal with this later.” A promise, but not a threat.

  The chief welcomed them into the largest structure, which seemed to serve as a communal room. There was more food and a ring of men sat around the bowls and dishes, eating and chatting. The hut went quiet as Mason and Jade entered.

  Offered a place next to the chief, they sat and smiled, trying to show their appreciation.

  “Do you think you can find a way to talk to them?” Mason asked.

  “I need something to draw on.” She picked up a long spoon, turned it around, and circled the end on the floor in front of her feet.

  The chief spoke to the man next to him, who left the room, then returned a few minutes later with a flat tray filled with a layer of sand.

  Jade had never rated her abilities as an artist; however, she had drawn plenty of schematics and other designs. She applied those skills to drawing outlines in the sand. Mason instructed her, making suggestions and she crafted the figure of two men with guns.

  The chief frowned and shook his head.

  “Then they haven’t come this way,” Mason concluded. “It doesn’t mean anything. They could be approaching the river from a different direction.”

  “There was no ship orbiting the planet,” Jade remarked.

  “There is a moon. They could have programmed the autopilot to hide their craft behind the moon, out of sight of Titan.” Mason smoothed out the sand and drew a curving line.

  “The river?” she asked.

  “Yes. Where on the river is Krul hiding?”

  She drew a smaller version of the picture she’d done outside, the one of a lizard man, but this time next to the river. Mason tapped the line representing the river and raised his eyebrows.

  The chief spoke to his men; they seemed to be having a heated conversation, which the chief ended abruptly with a wave of his hand.

  Jade watched as the chief drew an elaborate picture in the sand with remarkable accuracy and detail. It told a story, it seemed.

  “Krul hunts along the river.” She noted the fish. “He attacks anyone who comes near.” The chief had drawn a picture of a dead man lying next to the river. There was a look of intense sadness on the chief’s face. The dead man was somebody special, somebody who had been loved.

  Mason asked her to paint a different picture, one of Krul in chains, dragged away by him to the shuttlecraft. She had a go, and the chief’s eyes widened as she animated their plan to capture Krul using a sequence of sandy drawings.

  The chief clapped his hands and from out of the shadows a woman appeared with a large jug. She poured the liquid into the chief’s beaker, then into Mason’s. He lifted it to his lips and drank, indicating Mason should copy.

  Mason did, and the color drained slightly from his face as he spluttered.

  “Fuck,” he muttered. “That’s strong stuff.”

  The men in the hut laughed and Mason joined in.

  “What’s happened?” Jade asked.

  “I think they like our plan. I guess I’ve some help tomorrow.”

  “They only have spears and bows.” What good would they do if they couldn’t fight Krul?

  “They know the terrain. Where to find him and assuming I take him down alive, they’ll help get him back to my shuttle. Callo’s doesn’t have enough room for three of us.”

  She’d forgotten about the Steadfast. “You’ve a team, marshal.”

  Mason put down his beaker and smiled. The expression lit up his face and sent a shiver of delight down her spine.

  “It seems I have,” he said softly.

  Somebody began to beat a drum, then another and before long, the men were swaying and chanting. Women appeared with more food and drink, their barely clad bodies draped with wildflowers. They stayed and it was apparent that there were couples because each woman knelt alongside a man and tended to his particular needs.

  The circle dispersed, people moved around, and some stretched out as if to sleep, while others drifted into the shadows.

  Jade masked a gasp. The man who’d been sitting next to the chief had taken his woman and without any shame, bared her bottom, knelt behind her raised ass, and entered her.

  “We should go,” she said quickly.

  “Why?” replied Mason.

  “Because… because…” she stuttered. “It’s rude to watch.”

  “Given that nobody seems to care, I would say this is the norm for
these people. Uninhibited sex,” he grinned. “Looks like fun.”

  Jade’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. You can’t be serious.”

  She started. A familiar noise reached her ears. Amongst the grunts or groans of the couples, she heard a hard slap of flesh against flesh. The slap was repeated, then again and again. She pivoted, hunting around for the source of the noise.

  In the gloom of the interior, she located a man seated against the wall and over his lap was a naked woman, squawking and panting. He was spanking her hard without pausing between smacks. The red-faced woman held position while he spoke to her, repeating a few phrases, which he punctuated with his hand. When she shook her head in disagreement, he smacked her harder.

  Jade was transfixed. This could be her—bent over Mason’s lap, her bottom turned red by his spanking hand. She expected to feel embarrassed on behalf of the other woman, instead she felt guilty, because she envied her. How could that be right? Watching gave her such a huge turn-on and she squished her thighs together, trying to quell the arousal.

  “Now, that is something special, don’t you think, sweetheart,” Mason growled in her ear. “Seems like the people in these parts believe in disciplining their women, too.” He nipped her earlobe with his lips. “There’s a rift between us, you know it’s there, I can see it in your face. You want to know if I still love you.”

  She said nothing, too ashamed to admit he was right.

  He lifted her chin up with the tip of his finger. “I love you more than ever,” he said. “What is it you want from me?”

  She didn’t understand his question, because all she wanted was his love and to return it in kind. The man had stopped spanking his woman and the two of them were engaged in other activities. Jade’s jealous grew at the sight of their intimacy, the way the man rubbed the woman’s bottom and fingered her pussy, drawing out her orgasm with practiced ease.

  “Your forgiveness,” Jade said, turning back to face Mason.

  “You have that,” he said firmly. “What else?”

  “Your respect.”

  “Sweetheart, you know I respect you.”

  “Then, I want… I need your protection. Do you still care for me? I mean,” she lowered her voice, as if they could understand her words, “won’t you punish me ever again if I’m naughty or disobedient?”

  He cupped her face in his hands and briefly pressed his lips onto hers. “I don’t want to punish you ever again. But, I will if I have to. There is a difference between wanting and needing, Jade. I don’t want to, but you need my firm hand to keep you safe. I asked you to go to Novador because it was the safest option. What other traps could you have fallen into, what if the natives were aggressive or the bounty hunters close by? Eh?”

  “If I’d obeyed your command to hand myself in, then you would be still here in a hole and I would be facing punishment at the hands of the Federation. I’d rather have yours. I want you to punish me, sir.” She lay her hand on her breast, feeling her heartbeats thump beneath. She’d said it, words she’d not believed would ever be uttered, a request that she’d never conceived as possible.

  “Then I will punish you here and now. As I said earlier, I will reclaim you as mine and this will wipe away any doubts you might have about my love. Take off your clothes,” he said sternly.

  She hadn’t expected him to mean there and then, not in front of other people. On the Titan she would have responded instantly. Amongst strangers she hesitated. Mason raised his eyebrows higher and stared directly at her. He meant it. No amount of sass or sweet talking was going to change his mind.

  Removing her clothes, she tried to make herself as small as possible. It wasn’t as if she was underdressed; her skimpy vest and shorts were far more than what the other women were wearing.

  Mason continued to eyeball her expectantly and a flush of heat hit her face as she lay across his lap. He’d positioned himself against the wall of the hut, giving them a little more space. The light of the torches didn’t quite stretch to reach them, but it didn’t matter; even in the dimness she was visible to everyone. No amount of preparation would have helped with either the shame or sense of vulnerability. She burrowed her head in her hands and waited for the gasps and snickers, some kind of humiliating response from their audience.

  Nothing. She peeked between her fingers and if she expected numerous eyes to be centered on her, she was mistaken. They continued with the quiet conversations, muted acts of sex or cuddling. It was as if she and Mason weren’t even there. What was wrong with these people? Weren’t they embarrassed or upset at their behavior?

  Mason cupped an ass cheek and gave it a light squeeze. She jolted, remembering why she was over his knees in the first place. She’d asked for this. If she didn’t start relaxing, it would hurt like crazy.

  “Please,” she pleaded, peering over her shoulder. “Just a moment.”

  “Sure, sweetheart. I’m in no rush.” Mason smiled and patted her back. “This ass is getting spanked one way or the other.”

  Jade counted down from ten, breathing in and out in time to the numbers. It almost worked. Why couldn’t he wait for them to be back on Titan, or at least in the privacy of the other hut where they’d stored their possessions?

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  He warmed her bottom first, kissing her ass cheeks one at a time with glancing swats. Slowly he built the pace and force until the smacks were obvious to anyone in the room. Jade whimpered and squirmed, requiring Mason to hold her tight about the waist. Resisting never helped, but she couldn’t stop herself. If only they were alone.

  She lifted her head and glanced around the room. Again there were no ridiculing expressions; if anything there was a lack of interest, or perhaps it was exactly that. Maybe what she and Mason were doing was so ordinary it wasn’t anything special.

  Jade groaned. How stupid of her to make false assumptions! She’d looked at the situation through her eyes, not theirs. These people had never been off world or traveled to the furthest places. They’d probably only seen their jungle and met other natives. She and Mason had landed in the midst of a community that mirrored their own relationship—loving discipline and plenty of spankings. They didn’t react to her punishment because it wasn’t different or unusual.

  The revelation brought about a change in her demeanor. She ceased worrying about what others were thinking and focused on what she should have done from the beginning—Mason and his firm hand.

  “Good, that’s better,” he remarked, as if he’d read her mind. More likely, he’d seen the shift in her body, the way she parted her legs and stopped tensing her thighs. She bore each slap with fortitude, but the tears were welling in her eyes and her lips trembled. The heat in her ass was now a fire, her bottom was ablaze. He made no attempt to alleviate the discomfort with soothing rubs.

  “Oh, oh, ow!” she squealed.

  “This, young lady, is for taking risks. Putting yourself in danger.” He rattled off another battalion of spanks. “Don’t underestimate how important you are to me.”

  He halted and once again cupped her hot ass, allowing his fingers to dip into her furrow and along her slit. She was wet, undeniably so and it was there not due to pain or shame, but entirely as a consequence of Mason’s staunch dominance.

  Jade sniveled, her tears dripping off the end of her nose. Another kind of wetness and less endearing. She probably looked a mess.

  “So are you,” she added meekly, “important to me.”

  He eased her up and she draped herself over his bare chest like a layer of clothing.

  “I know, sweetness. But there is a precedence in our relationship and that’s the way it’s going to have to be. You aren’t less worthy; quite the contrary, you’re too special and that’s why I’m taking this seriously.”

  She didn’t argue. His view of compatibility depended on her submission, but what if she was put in the same situation again? Would she abandon him?

  * * *

  In a space of a few hours, Mas
on had experienced a rainbow of emotions: despair at his captivity, elation when rescued, disappointment and anger at Jade’s disobedience, and finally as she lay across his lap, delight. Her bared moons, which quaked with nerves, had quelled any doubts he had quietly harbored that she might have reverted to her former self.

  She offered herself up for punishment, which took courage and trust. It wasn’t that he regretted his decision not to punish her, only that they both needed to move on and by handing back control to him, she accepted that it was his right to do as he pleased. One thing a spanking would guarantee him was an invigorating burst of energy and he planned to put that to use later.

  By the time he’d finished spanking her, her ass was the shade of an evening’s sunset and damn hot. So fucking hot, he had to keep his cock under control and sit her on his lap to hide the erection. If he’d continued staring at the crease of her thighs, the dew glistening on her exposed folds, he’d have had to take her and much as he enjoyed the hospitality of his enlightened hosts, he preferred to fuck his girl in private.

  “Come.” He helped Jade up, took her by the hand, and led her away from the gathering. He made the point of bowing to the chief, which was noted with a raised hand and a wry smile of understanding.

  As soon as he had Jade in their guest hut, he stripped off his remaining clothes. Kneeling on the matting before him, she licked her lips and baited him with her sultry eyes and demure pose.

  “What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

  “The nights are long here, as I found out in that pit. Now I’m going to fall into another one, a pleasing wet fuck hole.” He held his cock steady, the angle poised for penetration.

  Jade must have a fire burning below; Mason had one in his loins and heart. Damn, she was a cute creature on her knees, staring up at him with dark hollow eyes, lips slightly parted and hands clasped behind her back. Without preamble or permission, he bundled her hair into his fist and shoved his cock between her lips and down her throat.

  She got it. She got the message loud and clear. What he planned to do with her. No questions, no doubts. She was his, no one else’s.