by Cheri Chaise
When I returned and pressed the moist cloth to Rylan’s head, she didn’t even groan. Even though she’d tried to hurt me and succeeded in cutting Jace, I was still concerned. What would drive a young girl from the safety of her home and family? Did she even have any family left in this galaxy?
I shuddered. She was too young to have been affected by the circumstances that had made me an orphan. The Galactic Council had long assured residents that piracy would never again be a scourge to the Empire.
But that didn’t mean the unscrupulous folk had all disappeared. They just found new ways to hide their misdeeds out here along the Rim – as I had unfortunately discovered.
“Are you sure she’s alright?” Rylan’s chest rose and fell as I stroked the cool cloth across her brow, so at least she was assuredly alive.
The clicks and hisses behind me stopped. “Outside of a headache and a bad taste in her mouth when she wakes up, she’ll be fine.”
“A bad taste in her mouth?”
“Yeah, from the pulsar gun.”
“Spent a lot of time getting pulsed, I take it.”
“One of the first rounds of training at the Academy.” He grunted as he twisted and tightened a set of clamps through the cable. “After being poked and prodded with a complete and very thorough physical, they gas and pulse new recruits…non-lethal, of course.”
I gasped. “Whatever for?”
“To weed out the weak,” Jace replied nonchalantly. “Send ‘em home.”
“Is that what happened to you?” I figured if he was going to continue this charade, the least I could do was play along. I might even find out some real information about him.
“Nah. Like I said before, my cock got caught between the admiral and his daughter.”
“Mmm.” As he drilled the cable through the clamps, my mind flashed to him drilling into that other woman. “Seems like your cock has been the source of a good deal of your troubles.”
A deep sigh permeated the silence as he momentarily stopped work. The space between us was heavy as we each contemplated what had happened earlier that morning. I wanted to figure out how to bridge the divide that had expanded between us, but I didn’t even know where to begin.
“I know I’ll never be able to say it enough,” Jace finally murmured. “But I’m really sorry for what happened, Dahlia. I…I should’ve found another way to pay you back.”
My heart pinched. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye to see his head bowed over his work. But I’m sure he wasn’t looking at the bits and bobs scattered around his knees.
“I let my emotions get the best of me, Jace, which is against every bit of my training. For that, I apologize.” I teetered on the edge of the bed and continued cleaning the blood out of Rylan’s pale hair. “But seeing you like that though. It was…just a bit of a shock.”
He tugged the cable toward the door as if measuring the distance, then sat behind me on the edge of the bed. With a flick of deft fingers, he reached around to untie Rylan’s hands then secured the clamps around her wrists. The heat of his nearness sent an unwelcome ache through me.
“If it helps, I didn’t enjoy it.” His breath fluttered against my ear. “That’s why I had them turn…”
I put up a hand to cut him off then turned to face him. “We’ll speak no more of it…please.”
A nod, then he tugged on the cable to test the hold against the wall. “I think that’ll work. She can get from the bed to the stall but won’t be able to reach the door.”
The access panel by the door still hung by wires. “So your room will serve as a prison cell?”
“She’ll be secure here until we return her to Port Flint…when you drop me off.”
Emerald eyes stared deep into mine. The words spoken in anger still hung between us.
I rested a hand against his grimy one, little caring for the slicks that now coated his fingers. “I don’t want you to go, Jace.”
There. I said it.
His whisper ground out huskily. “I don’t want to go either.”
A deep breath released some of the tension between us. But I still felt as if we were on fragile footing. “But there are rules that you must follow if you’re going to stay on though. If you’re going to officially be my lover.”
“Rules, huh?” The grin I enjoyed so much peeked out from the corners of his mouth. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from a courtesan.”
My finger against his lips sent a shiver through me when he sucked it into his mouth and slid his tongue along it. I was just glad my hands weren’t dirty, though I doubt the taste of slicks would stop him.
“The most important rule is that you will remain exclusive to me.”
“Exclusive,” he growled as he released the suction on my finger to draw it from between his lips to kiss the tip. “A bit of a double-standard, don’t you think?”
I shivered when his tongue slid down my fingertip like mine usually did when I swirled the velvet of his cock. “Which is why it is rare for a courtesan to take a lover. Few can fight the constant sense of betrayal, not to mention tolerate taking the submissive role.”
“Submissive, huh?” Heat moved in closer as he drew us to a standing position away from the bed. “Does that mean you’re about to crack the whip on me?”
I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my lips. “I’m sure we could figure out something, if you’d like.”
“Oh, I know I’d like.”
My heartrate speed up as he bent to kiss me before Rylan’s groan interrupted us.
“Out,” I whispered. “She’s waking up.”
“Don’t you want to question her?”
The door slid open and we stepped into the short passageway. “Of course. But I think we should let her adjust to the situation first.”
“Hold on.” Jace returned to stuff personal items into a bag and tossed it at my feet into the passageway. Then he grabbed his tools and fiddled with the access panel on the inside doorframe before he stepped out and the door slid shut. “BIP, access the newly installed vidfeed in my personal pad.”
“Accessing new vidfeed in Programmer Jace’s communications device.”
“Video?” I questioned.
He pulled a palm-sized communicator from among his tools and coded in to activate it. “Transmits directly to my com pad.”
I glanced around his bicep to see the feed wink to life on the small screen right as the AI confirmed. “Vidfeed is now active and transmitting only to your personal communications device.”
“Thanks, BIP.”
“Anything for you, Programmer Jace.”
I glanced around the ether above our heads. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say my AI has developed a crush on you.”
“I help her, she helps me.” He shrugged. “It happens.”
A chuckle surprisingly trickled past my lips. Not too long ago, he was the one reminding me that my AI wasn’t human but a program. Now the tables had turned.
“Let’s see about getting that cut properly treated.” He stood after dropping his device into a bag, displaying his muscled, male form in all its glory. “And hopefully you’ve got a clean pair of pants in that bag.”
He shouldered his bags with a lust-filled grin then followed me down the passageway to my pod. Officially he was my lover, after all, so I suppose it was only natural to make him my bunkmate.
No matter how much the very idea of all that closeness terrified me.
Chapter Sixteen
It took a few minutes to properly clean and dress Jace’s wound. Through the disinfection process and the application of the bio-sealant, he remained stoic – until I wrapped the bandage too tight.
He sucked in a breath and jerked his arm away. “Damn…you’re gonna cut off my circulation.”
I grabbed his hand and gently tugged his arm back into my lap. “And here I thought you were going to be a model patient.”
“Hey, as long as I still get a treat at the end of this.”
; He didn’t have to stroke his firming phallus for me to understand the treat of which he spoke. But he did it anyway.
I eased from the bed and gave him my back as I tossed the medical supplies into the case and stowed it in the locker drawer under my – our – bed. “We have more important things to take care of right now, so put that away and get dressed.”
The sight of his rising cock gave rise to the image of him with the other woman. Of him thrusting that bountiful rod in someone else’s moist heat. I fought the tears that threatened to cloud my sight and the emotion that tightened my throat.
I was being ridiculous. There was no love lost between me and Jace. So why did that unfamiliar twinge of hurt and – and – jealousy – mar my thoughts all of a sudden? I had nothing to be jealous about. I got to enjoy the pleasures of his playground whenever I wanted. So why was I being plagued with this ridiculous sense of betrayal?
My questions had to remain unasked and unanswered for now. Jace slid into some trousers and was pulling a fresh shirt over his head when the first clang reverberated down the passageway.
“What the…?” My mech tech grabbed his personal com then tore out of my pod and thundered down to his old one.
I rushed out on his heels. “What is it? What’s she doing?” Clang. “She better not damage my ship!”
He paused in front of the door to view the screen as another thunderous assault rattled in our ears. “Shit. She’s throwing a lube wrench at the controls.”
I stared at the screen to see the girl strain against the cuffs that bound her wrists to the tether. “Where’d she get a lube wrench?”
“I must’ve left it behind.” The pulsar gun appeared in his hand, and he waved me aside with the other. “Stay back. I’m going to open the door and try to wrestle it from her before she succeeds in destroying that access panel.”
I stepped out of the way just before the door swished open and the wrench came sailing through the air on a trajectory toward Jace’s head. Thankfully he dodged in time, leaving the dent intended for his skull in the passageway wall.
“How dare you tie me up!” Rylan screamed. “I will not be your sex slave.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jace attempted to calm her, but that wasn’t likely to happen when he had a pulsar aimed at her. “You’re not anyone’s sex slave.” A pillow smacked into his hard torso. “But I will stun you again if you don’t pipe down and stop throwing things, so quit it.”
Things quieted enough that I moved into view next to Jace. Fresh, glistening tracks streaked through the smears on her cheeks that she hastily swiped at. Fear was palpable in the room and washed over me in waves. But she kept her fear tamped down with a front of fury.
I calmly kept my arms loose at my sides to show I meant no harm. “We will not hurt you. You are safe from being accosted while on my ship, even though your presence here places us in a bit of a predicament.” Out of the corner of my eye, Jace took a protective stance as I stepped closer into the pod doorway. “However, I can offer you a safe return to Port Flint if that is what you choose.”
The muscles in her jaw clenched before Rylan finally ground out, “Flint isn’t my home.”
That surprised me. Perhaps Jace was wrong in thinking he’d seen her around there. But her features were most unusual, and I found it hard to imagine he had mistaken her for someone else.
“Then Jace and I will be glad to escort you…”
“Lyandra isn’t either,” she clarified with a tic in the corner of her eye. “Besides, I wouldn’t have gotten on this piece of crap ship if I’d wanted to stay on Flint.”
Well there was an answer to an unasked question, but at least we knew Jace’s observations of her had been correct. My spine stiffened though with the derision against my vessel.
“Then why did you get on it?”
Something new flickered behind that brittle and angry stare. Just for a split second. Not quite fear, though her defiant attitude reflected plenty of that. No. It was something else. Something akin to…
“You’re looking for someone.” I placed a hand over Jace’s to lower the weapon he still held. “You’re concerned about them.”
Surprise raised barely-there brows. “I…I don’t…”
“A friend?” I took another step forward to get a better sense of the situation. “Or perhaps family?”
Tension burrowed her neck into her shoulders. “It’s none of your business.”
Her body language gave everything away. So it was family she was trying to locate. But who? And why?
“Oh, I think it’s very much my business, Rylan. An underage girl stowing away on my ship puts me in a very difficult position if you are caught aboard with no legal guardian present. We could all end up under lock and key.” Her lips dropped open as a furrow marked that pale brow. “Then if enforcement authorities take my ship, I’ll have no way to help you get home.”
I caught the snap of Jace’s head as it turned my way. “How did you…?”
“A courtesan has her ways.” I didn’t think now was the appropriate time for a more in-depth discussion on the ways in which we were trained to read body language.
“Well now I’m curious,” he murmured.
“You see, Jace, young ladies don’t hop on spaceships all by themselves to hide out in those hard to find places.” I gave her grimy appearance another onceover and caught the minute flicker of her eyes snapping upward. “Like…ventilation tubes?”
The deepening of her frown signaled I got another guess right. She remained silent, allowing me to continue.
“Such young ladies would sacrifice much more than their virtue if caught, which was why she chose to stowaway on a courtesan’s vessel. She estimated she’d be safe with a fellow female, because she didn’t think I’d ever ask for something like that from her.”
Until I’d welcomed Trina into my sanctuary. Though she’d been unable to see anything while in the vent tubes, I’m sure the sounds alone were enough to traumatize Rylan with the realization she might’ve made a mistake in her estimation of me. I couldn’t even begin to wonder what she’d surmised from all of the times shared with Jace.
“I’ll be damned,” my mech tech said.
“She just didn’t anticipate you coming aboard, Jace,” I finished.
Rylan’s scowl cut briefly toward him before transferring back to me. To the only person on this ship that she’d once deemed safe. Maybe gullible too, if she’d planned to try and hijack it, doubtful though that may be with BIP in control. But everything had changed when the mech tech climbed aboard.
The first hint of tears glimmered in her eyes and a bob in her throat signaled the fight she undertook. To trust or not to trust. Oh, how I understood that struggle.
I stepped one foot past the doorframe. “You have nothing to fear from him. And I can help you, Rylan, if you’ll just tell me why you’re here.”
The struggle against the tears intensified, however briefly, as her limbs quaked and quivered. She wrapped thin arms around her frame as if she could hold everything she’d been feeling inside. Her voice was reedy and thin when the silence stretched to the end of her breaking point.
“I need…” Her throat bobbed again as she fought for control. “I’ve got to find my little sister.”
~~~~~~
Rylan practically crammed two nutri-bars into her mouth at once and almost swallowed them whole as she gulped down water in loud slurps. I wasn’t sure if the continued growls of her belly were a digestive protest or if she was still completely famished.
In a show of good faith, I’d asked Jace to release her from the clamps before sitting at the galley table to partake of some obviously needed nourishment. Nutri-bars were the safest option since they didn’t require the use of sharp utensils. After all, we’d interrupted her previous meal when we’d caught her earlier, though why she hadn’t availed herself of more food these last weeks was a mystery.
As was how she’d found a way onto my ship – and hidden herself so well.
I glanced at Jace as he leaned against the wall right behind Rylan, the pulsar gun strapped to his hip in close range of his folded arms. His body language might’ve appeared relaxed, but I still detected a protective stance in those taut muscles as I sat down directly across the table.
“Why haven’t you eaten more before now?” I finally asked our guest as she continued to devour everything in sight.
“Because you guys keep the oddest hours. I never knew when it was safe to come down from hiding. About the only thing I could do was grab one of those candies real quick.”
Candies? I wracked my mind until realization struck. My supplement chews! Well, at least now I knew where they’d all gone – and that I owed Jace an apology.
She grabbed a shriveled pear from the centerpiece I’d used for mere decoration to separate her hands from mine. “You gonna eat this?”
“Well no, I…”
Instead of the expected sour face as she bit into it, Rylan’s eyes almost rolled back into her head in ecstasy. She groaned as she licked her lips. “I haven’t had a fresh piece of fruit since I left home.”
I schooled against the disgust that rolled in my belly and threatened to show on my face. There was nothing fresh about any of the basket’s contents. “And where might that home be?”
Rylan stopped chewing and eyed me in silence before swallowing the bite.
I continued, “If you want our help in finding your sister, I need to know where you both came from in order to see you home safely.”
The mention of her sister returned a glisten of tears to the corner of her eyes. And thankfully opened her mouth for more than eating rotted fruit. “We’re from Crente…me and my sister.”
I glanced at Jace, a smile of satisfaction tipping the edges of his lips. At least that planet was a fairly short flight. If we were able to find Rylan’s sister, we could definitely get them home in short order without risking attention from enforcement – if we could get off of this ice cube.
“What’s your sister’s name?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Rika.”