“Thank you for saving me,” she whispered.
“Huh. Any time. And now I don’t want you leaving again. But I don’t want you living in a hovel, with a Shareem even the Shareem worry about. Can you understand that?”
Talan touched his face. “We don’t have to live in a hovel. I have lots of money. We can live wherever we want. We can live here. It’s nice.”
Rees started to laugh. “This from a woman whose furniture rearranges itself for her.”
She waved that away. “I want to be with you, Rees, not my furniture.”
Rees cupped her face in his hands. His touch was warm, soothing, entrancing. “And I want to be with you. But I’m afraid. Remember what happened the last time we were together? I nearly went crazy with you. There’s nothing to say that won’t happen again.”
“What calmed you down? Rio?”
“Partly.” Rees smoothed his thumbs across her skin. “Mostly remembering that I loved you.”
“Well, then. All you have to do is remember that you love me.”
He smiled, the shower water dripping down his face. “That easy, is it?”
She gave him a sly look. “Well, we could always ask Rio to help out.”
His eyes darkened. “You’re mine, Talan.”
Talan kissed him, and the kiss turned deep. Rees gathered her to him, his hands sliding down her slick, wet back. She felt his heartbeat quicken, his tongue strong inside her mouth.
She broke the kiss, drawing a breath. “Are you sure about that?”
Rees growled low in his throat. “Mine, baby. All mine.”
She slid her arms around his neck. “Besides, Rio’s going off world.”
“Only if I can get him there.”
“I told him I’d provide the money for it. All you need do is set it up.”
Rees looked down at her, brows raised. “You’d do that?”
“Why not? He helped you when you needed it. He probably saved your life. I’m happy to help.”
Rees held her close. “You’re an amazing woman, Talan.”
She lifted her face to his. “Does that mean you want to stay with me?”
“Hell, yes.” He kissed her, his hands moving down her back. “Every day of my life. Gods, Talan, I don’t know what you did to me.”
“Whatever it was, I like it.”
“You can’t change your mind now.” His voice became lower, sexy, enticing. “I let you go once, and it nearly ripped me apart. I can’t let you go a second time. I hope you came to stay.”
“Of course I did. With you.”
“Because I’m not letting you go. I’ll keep you chained up if I have to.”
Talan smiled, excitement fluttering in her belly. “That sounds like fun. Level two, is it?”
He growled. “Whatever I am, that’s what you’re getting.”
“Good.” She nuzzled his cheek. “I can’t wait.”
Rees lifted her against the cool wall of the water shower, and moved her legs apart. “This is what you’re getting, babe.”
He slid his cock inside her. She was wet, not only from the water, but from her own excitement. This was where she belonged, with Rees’s arms around her and him inside her.
Talan wriggled, letting his cock penetrate deep. “Do you still have the collar?” she asked.
Rees’s eyes had filled with dark blue, his breath hot. She swore that steam was curling from his skin. “You bet I do, little sweetheart.”
“I want to wear it and hand you the chain.”
His cock pressed in deeper. “I think I can arrange that.”
“I want you to teach me, every day, more and more of what you know.”
“You got it, baby.”
“Do you love me, Rees?”
“Gods, yes.”
He ground his hips into her. She tilted her head back and let the shower rain on her. He kissed her throat, licked her skin.
“Will you spank me when I’m bad?” she whispered.
He bit her neck. “Every time.”
“I want to be bad now.”
Rees licked his way back to her lips. His fingers slid between her buttocks and started playing with her ass. “I’m glad Rio’s leaving. I want you all to myself.”
Talan gave him a playful look. “But maybe we can have him over, just to say good-bye?”
Rees rested his face against hers. “You are a bad girl.”
“I know. You taught me how to be.”
He kissed her hard. “I love you, Talan.”
“I love you, Rees.”
Rees looked at her a long moment. Then he eased himself out of her and turned off the water shower.
He took her hand and led her, dripping and naked, to the bedroom. He lifted the collar from where he’d kept it inside his cabinet and snapped it around her neck.
Talan pulled the thin chain across her breasts, letting it catch on her hardened nipples, then she handed it to him.
Rees’s eyes went dark. He took the chain and led her with it across the room to the bed.
*** *** ***
Many hours later, Talan drowsed against Rees. They’d called Rio after their first, intense, passionate lovemaking alone, and now she lay sandwiched between her lover and her friend. Both men warmed her, soothed her, eased her.
Her legs were twined with Rees’s and her head was on his shoulder.
This is happiness, she thought. Love and being with the one you love. Not ideas, not riches, not convention. Deep contentedness, she thought, was worth all that.
Talan nearly laughed out loud thinking about how she was spending time with the one she loved.
Her soft giggles woke Rees and Rio. Rio raised up on his elbow and grinned.
Rees kissed her. He lifted her, his hands going to her already wet pussy to spread her and ready her.
And then they made her happy all over again.
End
Rio
Tales of the Shareem
Book 2
Chapter One
Rescue
He was an unlikely rescuer—more than six and a half feet tall, clad in black leather, and with eyes so blue Nella swore they were trying to suck her in.
He stood between her and the hovering ball of the assassin bot, close enough to Nella’s hiding place that she could smell leather and sharp, male scent. For some reason, she wanted to wrap her arms around his broad thigh and hang on.
The man didn’t know that Nella hunkered behind a dry-rotted crate inches away, hiding from the bot. He’d strode into this alley and surprised the foot-and-a-half round sphere, which had whirled around and gone after him instead of her.
Humming like an angry mosquito, the bot smacked itself against the tall man’s chest. A normal man would have been flattened by its powerful strike, but her rescuer only eyed the shining sphere in irritation.
“Get out of my way, you gods-fucked machine.”
The words translated harshly in the implant below Nella’s ear, but the voice that spoke them was smooth as satin. Warm and rich, his voice made her want to stop and listen, as scared as she was.
The bot started to back away. The assassin bot wouldn’t try to kill him—it was programmed to kill only Nella. But the thing would hurt the man if he got in its way.
The assassin bot hovered again, then made a sudden dart around the man toward Nella’s hiding place. The man swung his fist, and the bot spun crazily into a wall with a loud boing. The sphere bounced back, wobbling a little.
Time to run. But Nella crouched in place.
Assassin bots were programmed by people who didn’t want murder traced to their doorsteps. After the bot shot its killing dart into Nella’s body, it would disintegrate, leaving no evidence of where it came from or who sent it. Linginian knew how to cover his tracks.
The bot struck the black-leather-clad man again. Growling, he caught the sphere in both hands. The bot crackled with electricity, covering the man’s fingers and wrists in a wavering blue field.
“Fuck!
” The man tossed it away.
The bot’s hum increased. Bots had no feelings, not even a computer brain. They sought and destroyed, that was all.
But Nella had the strong feeling that this bot was annoyed. It wanted to teach the man a lesson before it got down to the business of killing Nella.
The man glared at the sphere, then a gleam entered his eye. “All right, you hunk of junk, come get me.” He sounded elated, like he was having fun.
A man who had fun fighting an assassin bot?
He led the bot backward, step by step. It followed him, and he laughed, one of the finest sounds Nella had ever heard. A woman could fall in love with that laugh.
But any moment now, he’d fall over Nella’s hiding place, and the bot would get them both, which meant death for her. She held her breath.
At the last minute, the man stepped through a narrow doorway into an empty warehouse. The bot skittered into the shadowed opening, then it stopped, confused.
The man ducked out and slapped his hand against the wall. A huge metal door slammed down, carrying the startled bot with it. The heavy slab of metal smashed the bot into the floor.
Plastic and metal and gold bits flew every which way, clattering against the rusting walls. Then with hiss and a pop, the pieces disintegrated. The man laughed again. “There. See how you like it.”
But the bot was programmed to kill, no matter what. At the last moment, it released one of its darts, lightning fast, straight at Nella, programmed to seek and find her DNA signature.
Nella felt the sting in her bare leg. The poison acted swiftly, and her vision blurred.
Through a fog, she saw the big man standing over her, concern in the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. He pulled out the dart and stood holding it in one large hand.
She heard him say, “Shit, are you all . . . ?” and then, there was nothing.
*** *** ***
“Rio?” Dr. Laas came out of her laboratory and stared at the unconscious young woman in his arms. “Who is that?”
“No idea.” Rio carried the girl past the professor and into the softly lit room. “Some floating ball was chasing me, and it shot her. I can’t wake her up.”
Dr. Laas was one of the original inventors of Shareem—men created in the laboratories of DNAmo to be tall, tight-assed and long-cocked, and know every way to bring a woman to ecstasy and keep her there. For days.
“And you have no idea who she is?” Dr. Laas asked.
“Nope. Found her hiding in an alley.”
Rio laid the young woman on the table Dr. Laas indicated. The woman had a round face surrounded by dirty and tangled hair. Red, Rio thought. When she cleaned up, her hair would flow like living fire.
She wore a tight, translucent tunic, torn and dirty, that covered her from neck to thigh, the garb of a servant. Her bare legs were sweetly rounded, her feet covered with too-big shoes.
The tunic shaped itself to a lush body—full breasts, round hips, a belly she probably thought was too ample. A sweet, lickable woman who’d look good naked, kneeling, her hands bound behind her.
Right now, her face was pasty white, her breath shallow and her limbs ice-cold.
“What was she shot with?” Dr. Laas, ever practical, asked.
Rio took the dart, which he’d wrapped in cloth, from his bag. “Careful.”
Dr. Laas accepted the cloth gingerly and carried it to a computer terminal built into a round table. Rio didn’t know one end of a computer from the other, but Dr. Laas was a genius. She touched them and purred at them, and they did anything she wanted.
When she unwrapped the dart, her eyes widened. She studied the fine-pointed needle a moment, then scraped it against a plastic slide. She dropped the slide into a slot on the table, picked up her light wand, and touched a few pads. “Mmm. Not good.”
Rio lifted the young woman’s hand. Her fingers were cold but her palms were slick with sweat. “What isn’t good?”
The computer voice Dr. Laas called Baine answered the question. “An alkaloid poison. Old-fashioned, but effective. It kills by asphyxia.”
“That’s why she can’t breathe,” Rio said, his heart speeding in alarm.
Dr. Laas touched more light pads, muttered to herself, and straightened up. “Be right back.”
She stepped to the lift tube at the end of the room and disappeared downward.
Rio looked down at the young woman. “Hang on.” He circled his thumb over the backs of her fingers, which were limp and unresponsive. “I don’t want you dying because of me. You’re way too cute to die.”
Shareem, the theory went, were programmed to not have strong emotions—hate, rage, fear, desperation, joy, love.
Which is total bullshit.
Rio wanted this woman to live. He didn’t know why he cared so much. He didn’t know her—she’d never said a word to him. But he felt a pull to her, a bond of compassion. Maybe because they’d both been hunted.
He wanted her to open her eyes and look at him, to smile at him, to live and walk and talk. He wanted to have sex with her. He wanted to know everything about her.
Why he wanted this so bad, Rio had no freaking clue.
The lift whirred open. Dr. Laas moved smoothly across the room, syringe in hand. She tapped the syringe, then plunged the needed into the curve of the girl’s arm. “That should do it.”
The young woman gave a ragged gasp. Rio watched her anxiously, Dr. Laas looking down at her without expression.
Then the woman’s body relaxed, she drew a long breath, and slid into a natural-looking sleep.
Rio also drew a breath, relieved, surprised to find himself shaking. Thank the gods. She would live. He kissed her fingers and laid her hand at her side.
Chapter Two
In the Lair of Dr. Laas
Nella opened her eyes and realized she was naked.
It was a relief to be out of the dirty, sour-smelling tunic she’d stolen, but a bit unnerving to wonder who’d taken it off. A kind stranger? A doctor in a hospital? Or that bastard Linginian?
Nella turned her head to assess her surroundings. She lay in a small room with no windows but lit with soft, artificial light. The bed was the only piece of furniture in the sparse room. To her right, an open door led to what looked like a bathroom.
The recirculated air carried a faint scent, a warm, spicy smell. A sheet covered her naked body, and there was no sign of her clothes.
This wasn’t a hospital room, which would have had rows of blinking computers monitoring the patient. If Nella were a captive, on the other hand, then her captors were being gentle with her. Or perhaps they hoped she’d relax and trust them.
Had Linginian succeeded in finding her again, after all? Had she been taken back to his luxury liner, or to his huge house on the southern continent of Ariel?
After Nella had escaped him and his pretense that the two of them had run off together, Linginian had done his best to kill her. If Nella were dead, she couldn’t tell one and all that he’d kidnapped her and tried to form the Bond by artificial means, could she?
But, if Linginian had her, why would he put her in this pleasant room with scented air and a soft bed?
She had no idea. Her brain swam with confused images, and her bladder was full, making the bathroom inviting.
Nella slid out of bed and paused to stretch. She felt well and rested, better than she had in days. This could not be Linginian’s work—he’d denied her all comforts when she refused him, hoping to break her.
She relieved herself in the bathroom, then looked at the shower that took up one wall. It was a water shower, with five jets positioned over a long bench. A person could lie there, naked, and let water fall on them.
Most people these days used sterilizers to get clean. This shower was for someone who liked the feeling of hot water trickling against naked skin.
The bench was wide enough so that two people could lie down very close together. Or one on top of another. A wicked idea, one she was surprised popped into her hea
d. Sex had been the last thing on her mind since she’d become Linginian’s prey.
But Nella was unwashed, her hair in tangles. She studied the controls at the end of the shower, adjusted for water temperature and pressure, and the showers jetted to life. She walked under them, pulling her hair back to scrape the wonderful water through it.
Nella glanced at the bench. She could simply soap herself down and turn off the water, but . . . why not? If her captors wanted her to enjoy her shower, then she would. Even if they killed her later, she’d be clean and comfortable. She was tired of being exhausted and dirty.
Nella lay down on the bench, face up, closing her eyes.
The shower poured over her like a warm waterfall. It made her feel lighthearted, giddy, as she had when caught in a summer rain as a child. Except now she did what she’d always wanted to do, spread her arms and legs and let the water flow over her unashamedly.
The shower beat softly on her skin, tingling her breasts. Her nipples rose in response to the gentle massage.
She spread her legs a little more, wanting the same massage between them. It felt good. Nella had never been with a man—she would not until she found her Bond-mate—but she liked the feeling of the water tapping her clit and flowing down her opening. She wondered if a man’s tongue would feel like that. Nella groaned a little, thinking of it.
She remembered the tall man fighting the assassin bot in the alley. That hadn’t been a dream. He’d been real, and he’d smashed the bot.
Had he carried her here? And why?
So she could lie under the water and think of his tongue lapping her? Because he would be the exact man Nella would want. He’d look at her with those strange blue eyes, laugh that silken laugh, and run his tongue over her until she cried out with joy.
Nella raised her hips, wanting the water. She wondered if the shower had been programmed to rain on her in just that place with the right amount of pressure to make her wild.
It worked. She made of noise of pleasure, then bit her lip as the sound echoed through the bathroom.
If the dark-haired man were with her now, he’d lie beside her, his hair slick with water, droplets on his lashes and cheekbones. He’d trail his hand across her, teasing where the water did, smiling the broad smile he had when he’d smashed the assassin bot.
Tales of the Shareem, Volume 1 Page 18