Hot Redemption

by K. D. Penn

  “Goodnight, Epic.”

  He sighed in contentment and his breathing began to even out. Against my will, my fingers stroked his hair. The silky strands slipped underneath my fingertips and smelled of bubble gum. He must have washed his hair with one of his sisters’ shampoo. I chuckled a little to myself, careful not to wake him. My fingers sank into his hair and remained until I joined him in sleep.

  Hours later, I awoke with a start, my heart thundering in my chest because I couldn’t move my arms. Someone held me. He encased me in muscle and was too huge to move. I couldn’t get free.

  “No!” I screamed as I flailed in an effort to free myself. “Teddy, no!”

  Whatever was constricting my movements was suddenly gone and someone shook me. “Nix—Nixie baby—it’s me—Epic.”

  I blinked away my confusion and focused on Epic’s face. Worried lines edged the corners of his eyes as they flickered between blue and black, belaying his concern and pity.

  I gritted my teeth. “Let me go. I don’t like feeling constricted.”

  “I’m sorry.” Epic sat up and stared me as I studied him. His skin appeared less pale. His hands didn’t shake. Clearly he was feeling better. Not good, but better. Quitting quake wasn’t going to be that easy, but the initial physical withdrawal was over. The rest would be up to him—or, really, me.

  “What happened? What were you dreaming about?”

  “You’re feeling better, I see,” I stated trying to change the subject.

  “Yes. I am.” He sighed. “You yelled out Teddy. Is that the guy that hurt you?”

  “He can’t hurt me anymore. Let’s talk about something else.”

  “What did he do to you?” Epic asked, not allowing me to drop it.

  “That’s none of your business.” I wasn’t going to just drop all my baggage on someone who wouldn’t be in my life for long. He’d probably think I was young, weak, and stupid, probably because I had been.

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “Actually, it is my business. If you’re suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder, I need to know about it—before the hit. It could affect things.”

  I glared at him, and he had the nerve to chuckle. “I’m not as stupid as I look. I’m actually not stupid at all, Nixie baby.”

  “Says the quake addict,” I retorted snidely. “Because getting addicted to anything points to all kinds of smarts.”

  Epic dropped his gaze from mine and frowned. “We all have our demons.”

  Now that intrigued me. What kind of demons did he have that would push him to use quake?

  Maybe Epic isn’t the Neanderthal thug that I think he is.

  I shook my head to dislodge that thought. There I go again, trying to give people more credit than they deserve. Not everyone has layers of complicated deepness to them. Some people are one dimensional and you get what you see. I’d learned that lesson from Teddy too. I thought Teddy had some kind of profound pain under the surface, some level of emotional deepness that he tried to hide with his attitude problem. And, of course, I had also thought I could be the one who brought it out and healed him. Instead, I found out just how horribly wrong I had been.

  “I don’t really care about your demons, Epic.”

  “But I care about yours. I need to know if your condition and will it affect . . . the heist,” Epic persisted.

  The heist? Sure. He wants to know if it will affect him getting closer to me. What other reason can it be?

  “Okay, fine. I have some baggage. But who doesn’t. I cope, and I don’t use drugs to do it.” My voice was starting to get shrill and I hated that he knew he was getting to me.

  “Just tell me what happened to you.”

  “Fine, you want to know what happened to me. I fell in love with the wrong guy. I trusted him. And when I realized he wasn’t who I thought he was, I tried to leave, but it was too late. He wouldn’t let me.” A sob erupted from my chest as the images of him burning me rushed through my mind. I’d spent so much time pushing those memories back into the secret areas of my brain and there they came after a few questions.

  “Tell me, Nix.” He wiped the tears away from my eyes. “I won’t judge you, baby. You’ve helped me so much. I won’t think any worse of you.

  I gulped in a load of dread. “Teddy decided that I belonged to him, that I would never be allowed to leave him. He wanted to punish me for even thinking of escaping him. He . . . he . . .” Flashes of Teddy’s dark eyes glittering with amusement as he heated the lighter skidded across my mind and I shuddered. “He kept me prisoner, raped, and beat me. And toward the end, he burned me and not just on my arms or legs. He burned me in areas that it took years and lots of enhancement surgery to fix.”

  I couldn’t even have kids. That was how much damage he’d done. Even though the flames didn’t go all the way inside me, he’d ruined me to the core. Tears ran down my face and I raised a hand to wipe at them with bewilderment. I hadn’t realized I had any tears left to shed over what had happened to me.

  “I still have scars in many places. I never could afford all of the enhancements. It took lots of hustling to get my face fixed and then my legs and breasts.” I closed my eyes. “Fixing the other places took even longer.”

  “You said he’s dead, right?” Epic growled.

  “Yes.”

  “I wish he was alive. I’d melt his skin, let him heal, and then do it again.”

  I displayed a pitiful smile. “My own special psycho.”

  “That’s right, Nixie baby.”

  I spread my legs open and exposed the scars on the edge of my bikini line. I ran my fingertips along the raised ridges on my inner thighs. They stood out a light white color in contrast to my olive-toned skin. The jagged marks rose half an inch.

  “Oh God, Nixie. I’m so sorry.”

  “I survived. That’s the whole point. I survived.” I turned around and lay on my stomach. “There are scars all over my back. I couldn’t afford any more surgeries so I decided to cover it up. Naturally, I couldn’t do electric tattooing.”

  “It burns as the color is applied.”

  “Yeah. It was too close to that time. I couldn’t relive it. But truthfully, I saved the marks on my back for last, even when I had the money to fix them. I wanted them to remain there on my body.”

  “Why didn’t you want to remove them?’

  “Because I never wanted to forget—I never wanted to make the mistake of trusting someone like him again.” My whole body shook as if I were cold, and I couldn’t seem to stop it. “And the marks on my back was the last time he burned me, before I pushed his own flames against his face and set him on fire. You couldn’t even imagine the feeling of freedom and the rush of relief as I watched him burn.”

  The muscle in Epic’s jaw twitched. “Where did you hide his body?”

  “I didn’t. I set his whole apartment on fire and never returned.”

  “And the phoenix ink is because of him too.”

  Not a question, I noticed, but a statement. Somehow Epic had gotten me to spill my biggest secret with hardly any effort. What is it about him that gets to me? More tears streamed down my face, much to my dismay, and I ran my hands up and down my arms to stop myself from shaking, but sadly, it wasn’t doing any good.

  Suddenly I was surrounded by Epic’s warm body, his delicious, spicy scent swirling around me. I raised my hand to push him away, but he pulled me into him tighter and kissed the top of my head. “It’s okay, Nixie baby. It’ll be okay.”

  For some reason, the emotional dam inside me broke and I began to sob in earnest. Pain tremored through my body. Epic pulled me back into bed with him and held me tightly against his chest. His heartbeat thumped in my ears. I continued to sob. He stroked my hair and murmured words, ones that pacified the slivers of fear that cut into my heart, words that caressed something deep inside my soul. Th
at odd self-destructing part of me pondered if I was being stupid, letting him comfort me, but it felt so good to let go and to feel completely safe for once. So I let him reassure me and massage my back with his hands until I eventually fell asleep and dreamed of us, together, far off on a secluded planet, just him and me making love under the moonlit sky.

  CHAPTER 11

  Epic

  I stood on the hotel balcony, feeling renewed. Nix had rented us a room on the twelfth floor, which gave us a great view of the aerial expressway.

  Being off quake made everything seem clearer.

  Color exploded everywhere in bright shades. I snapped pictures with my eyes when something captivated me. Lush trees stacked with leaves dipped in a deep cobalt blue. Stark white smeared the glorious sky. Violet birds flew by with crooked lilac beaks. The sun burned gold. The streets cried silver metal and gleamed with polished surfaces.

  People zoomed by on small personal hovercrafts. The tiny machines looked like floating scooters as men and women stood on the contraptions with their hands on the handles in front of them. A few wore various types of helmets—huge plastic things that wrapped around their heads with straps. The cooler helmets had designs done in blinking lights. A few aerial cars rushed by in the farther lane as if they weren’t allowed to drive on the same path with the personal hovers.

  How much does it cost to get your own personal hover?

  And the people, Holy Duchess, they were different than anything I’d ever seen. I didn’t get to see many other species on earth. The planet didn’t receive a lot of tourists once the president agreed to the landfill deal. There were mainly three types of groups who tended to visit earth. The really poor—so broke they had nowhere to live and so they traveled to earth and worked menial jobs for little pay. Busloads of middle-grade students came, escorted by teachers, to hover over the landfills and learn about the consequences of waste and not recycling. Finally, star lords trafficking drugs made weekly drops to all the continents on the planet. But no one else really arrived to vacation or tour.

  Especially not people like the ones who’d driven in front of me.

  Lime-green skin coated most of the drivers. Brown freckles dusted their foreheads and noses. Do they speak English? And do they talk out of their mouths? I hadn’t seen any lips, just a line under their pointed nose. I assumed the creatures came in male and female. My old biology teacher had preached that almost all species across the galaxy possessed male and female form, except for one: Crohs. They boasted three genders, female, male, and the last one called nun that merged the sexual organs together. If I remembered correctly, the only way the Crohs could reproduce was a connection of all three united together.

  I laughed as I spotted a few Crohs among the traffic. They stood tall compared to any other. Dark black skin stretched over their bony bodies. Silver filled their eyelids. They possessed no hair. One beeped at me. I had no idea what gender it was, but I raised my hand in greeting anyway.

  Women with seductive smiles waved at me as they drove by. Their fingers glittered with jewels. Classy fabrics wavered against their body as the wind stirred their clothes. A few hooted at me with an air of independence. Perfume drifted my way, the expensive kind, the type that signaled the wearer had the cubes to purchase it and more. I winked at a few.

  “You might want to put some clothes on, lover boy,” Nix’s voiced sounded behind me.

  And suddenly all those women blurred into nothing. All those expensive perfumes evaporated into Nix’s alluring scent of jasmine and roses. A shiver traveled through my body, awakening my flesh. I breathed her in and licked my lips, but couldn’t turn around yet.

  Early that morning, I’d woken up to my arms around her body. Only a thin piece of material concealed those soft breasts against my chest. She inhaled and exhaled as she slept. Even her breath held a note of something sweet, like she’d been eating ripe peaches the whole night. My dick shifted to hard steel in seconds. It took every bit of strength I had left to unfold myself from her firm body, leave the warm bed, and escape to the balcony. Because the last thing I wanted to do was wake up the woman who’d helped nursed me through withdrawal for three days and shove my dick into her unsuspecting center.

  I can’t force myself on her or try to take advantage of her.

  Not when she’d let her guard down with me and confessed her secret and tortured past. I couldn’t be that bastard that walked through her nightmares. She deserved more.

  “Good morning, Nixie baby.” I slipped my hands into my boxer briefs and adjusted myself to hide my erection. The urge to slide my thumb against the mushroomed tip of my dick hit me hard, but I forced myself to calm down. That was all I needed to do, masturbate on the balcony in front of Nix and planet Trinity’s commuters. I’d be locked up by the end of the night. “Did I wake you?”

  “Nope. Your amorous fans did,” she replied.

  “They weren’t that loud.”

  “Really? Every time someone honked, I figured a pair of panties was being added to the pile.”

  Laughing, I faced her. “No. I haven’t had panties thrown at me since I performed on stage.”

  “You sang?”

  “Yes.”

  The sun shined on her face, highlighting her eye lashes with golden light and causing those emerald eyes to gleam. Breathtaking. She wore a tight pink shirt and matching shorts. I didn’t figure her for a lady that wore pink, but the color radiated a hard edge on her. She seemed even more dangerous as her nipples pushed against the fabric.

  “What’s going on in that devious mind of yours?” She quirked her perfectly arched eyebrows.

  “Thank you for taking care of me.”

  “Your battle with quake isn’t over. Some say it takes a month to even begin controlling the cravings and a year to start forgetting it.”

  I let my gaze stray to those plump nipples, before dragging my attention back to her. “Are you telling me you want to stay in this room with me for a month? It could get boring, although I have some suggestions for entertainment.”

  “Yeah, I bet you do.” She tucked midnight strands behind her ear. “It might be time to focus on why you’re here.”

  “I don’t know. After all of this honking and your helping me get over quake, perhaps you can show me how to catch a female whale.” Maybe that will stop me from drooling over you. “Do you think I have what it takes?”

  I spread out my arms and twirled around. Someone honked behind me. Nix trailed her gaze from my head to my toes and then frowned.

  I shrugged. “I guess that frown is a no.”

  “Maybe.” She captured her bottom lip with her teeth. I craved to suck on that lip as she pierced it with no restraint.

  Fuck. I got off quake to now be hooked on Nix.

  “Whose picture is in that locket?” She pointed to the heart monitor I wore on a chain that my mother had bought me for my tenth birthday.

  “No one’s picture is in there.” I didn’t want to say what it really was. It was dumb enough to get addicted to a crazy drug like quake, even more stupid to do the drug while you had a heart problem. Granted, I hadn’t had a heart attack in ten years, but the possibility always remained lurking within the shadows.

  Chuckling to myself, I stepped around her, went inside the hotel room, and headed to my jeans. “How much did this room cost you?”

  From the open balcony doorway, she watched me pull out my wallet. “Don’t worry about it. Just start focusing on business and mainly our hit.”

  “That’s my plan.” I yanked out several hundred cubes. The silver disks smoothed against my hand. I set them on the table. “Meanwhile, take this to relieve some of the guilt I have for you taking care of me.”

  “It was nothing. Really.”

  I looked into her eyes. “It meant a whole lot to me. I stood outside of that cab like an idiot, ready to run in the other direct
ion and buy some quake. And there you came, saving the day and bossing my big bozo brothers around.”

  “Like I said. It was nothing.” She twisted the end of her shirt with her fingers. I wondered if it was a nervous habit. Up until this moment I didn’t think she got nervous.

  I stepped toward her. “I owe you.”

  “Yes, you do. But I’m not accepting anything less than the amount of a quarter million cubes.” She backed up and narrowed her eyes at me. “That payoff is the real reason why I babysat you while you detoxed, nothing else. We’re just business partners.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you now?” She gestured to my erection. “And what about him? Does he know that my tender side was bought on by the quarter million cubes in my future, and nothing more?”

  I flashed a wicked grin. “Him and I both understand. But give him a break. I’m only human, after all. You’re fucking hot and your scent is intoxicating. Plus it’s been a while since I had sex.”

  “Well, don’t expect me to offer. I thanked you with that friendly little mouth hug. You should count yourself lucky, because that’s all you’ll be getting from me in this lifetime, lover boy.” She crossed her arms around her chest and scowled at me. My dick pressed against my boxers’ fabric.

  Why did she have to remind me of that mouth hug? As if it could be called something so trivial.

  I stalked by her. “I’m going to take care of my horniness tonight. Until then, I’m taking a shower.”

  “Why not just take care of your horniness now—in the shower?” she asked behind me.

  Leave it to Nixie to suggest I yank my cock off without feeling embarrassed or weird about the topic.

  “Thanks, but I’m particular about the act. I prefer a warm and wet body under me.” I entered the mint-colored bathroom with a television screen mounted inside the wall of the shower. I pressed the button near the light switch. The TV flashed on to the news. I pushed the mute button since there was a trail of words at the bottom of the screen that informed the viewer what was being said. I kept the channel there, figuring the news would be a great way to familiarize myself with the planet.