Captured Rapture: 3 (Mercy) (2 page)

“Well, if you’ve finished fucking
around on the cold side…” Fraz grumbled through the com-link, and I could
practically see his scaly, ugly face wrinkling with impatience. “I’ve done the
eastern sweep and want to get back to Mercy. There’s no sign of life out here.
I don’t know what the commander was thinking, sending us out to this ass-end
lump of rock in the first place.”

I climbed astride my jet cycle, not
relaxing my grip on my disintegrator one iota. The second my ass connected with
the hover-cycle’s seat, the propulsion engine activated, sending a deep,
thrumming vibration into the damp junction of my spread thighs, and I gasped.
Not at the sensation itself, but at the instant memory of my attacker.

Torr. In your dreams, his name
is Torr
.

Gods, Raina, get out of here
now, before you go looking for the psycho.

The thoroughly enticing and
hideously unnerving thought spurred me into action. As did the persistent
tingle up and down my spine that told me beyond doubt, the man was watching me.
I shoved my disintegrator into its holster, gunned the jet cycle’s throttle and
shot forward, flying across the moon’s dead surface as fast as the transport’s
engineering would let me.

The desolate red landscape became a
desolate red blur, the dry, frigid air blasting my face, lashing through my
hair in violent tugs that for some reason made me think of my attacker again.

Stop. Go back.

I ground my teeth, denying my
body’s wanton, traitorous command. There was no way in all the hells I was
going back. No matter
what
my commander wanted, I wasn’t stepping foot
on this—what did Fraz call it?—“ass-end lump of rock” ever again.

My sex throbbed with angry regret
and I shifted on the jet cycle, pressing the still pleasure-swollen folds of my
pussy to its hard, cold seat. Why was I still horny? What the fuck was wrong
with me?

Destiny. Mine to fuck. Mine to
claim. Mine to—

“No.” I slammed a mental door on
the surreal memory as I squeezed even more speed out of my jet cycle. “A whole
friggin’ bag of no.”

I threw the transport into a tight
right turn and headed for my rendezvous point with Fraz, crouching low behind
the windshield, tense and alert. Ready to be pounced on again.

Ready to be taken and used and
pleasured again no matter how much I told myself I wasn’t.

Ready to be fucked and claimed.
Wanting
to be fucked and claimed.

Gods. I was insane.

Fraz took one look at me as I
climbed off my jet cycle and he burst out laughing. A laughing Bo’aa is not a
pretty sight. They are an ugly, serpentine race of unsavory bastards with no
lips, no eyelids, slitted nostrils and razor-sharp teeth that look as if they
could tear the hide from a Tallaxion mammoth without breaking a sweat.

Bo’aas didn’t sweat. They made
other species sweat.

It was a fairly well-known fact the
Galactic Union had spent considerable credits trying to wipe the entire Bo’aa
race out of the galaxies. It was also a well-known fact they’d pissed off the
Bo’aas so much that if a Bo’aa came face-to-face with a Union official, the
official was sent back to the GU Premier in a large collection of small
containers. You didn’t piss off a Bo’aa unless you wanted to end up dead and in
pieces.

Fraz was a prime example of his
species. What he was doing as a GU Enforcer, I didn’t know, but I thanked the
old gods every day he was on my side. I’d never tell him of course, but I was
glad he was my partner, and not just because he scared the shit out of just
about everyone. He
always
had my back, no matter how dangerous or
messed-up the situation, and for a girl who grew up being tossed from one
orphanage to another, having someone watch your back was pretty fucking
incredible.

Of course, that didn’t mean I
wouldn’t throw him a filthy look when he was being a dick, like he was now. The
last thing I needed was Fraz laughing at me. Geez, after everything I’d been
through. “Shut the fuck up, Fraz,” I grunted, letting him see my best menacing
glare. I have a very good menacing glare. It comes in handy a lot.

Fraz, however, just laughed again,
his slitted green eyes practically gleaming with mirth. “I don’t know what you
were doing out there, Mynn, but you look like you had an argument with the
ground and came off second best.”

Taking a page from
his
book,
I bared my teeth. Again, not a particularly wise thing to do. Bared teeth meant
one of two things to a Bo’aa—you wanted to fight them or you wanted to fuck
them. I didn’t want to do either.

No, you want to fuck the lunatic
weirdo from—

I shut the thought down with a
sharp snort and stormed away. It would take us approximately half an hour to
get back up to Port Mercy. I wanted a shower.

“Wait wait wait wait.” Fraz laughed
behind me and I turned to glare at him again. Did I mention he was ugly? And
annoying? Loyal, sure, but at times really annoying. And ugly all the time. “You
can’t just walk away looking the way you do and not expect me to demand a
report.” A grin pulled at his lipless mouth and his green eyes glinted. “Don’t
make me pull rank on you, Enforcer Mynn.”

I rolled my eyes. You’ve got to be
kidding me. “Rank? Friggin’
alphabet
, you mean. We graduated from the
academy at the same time, from the same class, with the same scores. The only
reason you received your bars before me is because your last name is M’x.”

I fisted my hands on my hips and
glared at him some more, trying not to grin. “What the hell kind of name is
that for a Bo’aa anyway? M’x?”

Fraz smirked, a sheen rippling over
his brilliant orange scales. “The best kind. Now give me your report or I’ll
kick your ass all the way back to the spaceport.”

Fraz beat me once in a training
session of
te’kw d
, a thoroughly violent and brutal fighting style they
teach at the academy, and he’d never let me live it down. One day soon I was
going to have to do something about that, but not right now. Right now I wanted
to get the smell of the dead moon off my skin. Right now I wanted to wash away
every second I’d spent on its desolate surface. Especially the seconds spent
pinned between it and the madman who’d declared me his destiny.

Torr.

A tight, squirming knot of heat
suddenly filled the pit of my belly and I groaned.
Shyte
, why did I have
to go and think about that lunatic again?

Again? Had I really stopped? I bit
back another groan. Fuck.

Fraz cocked his head, his eyes
narrowing. “You want to tell me anything, partner?” His tongue flicked out,
tasting the air, and I suppressed the urge to fidget. Tasting the air wasn’t
bullshit. Bo’aas have freaky senses. “Why do you smell like you’ve been having
sex?”

Ah, hell. “Yeah.” I gave him a
duh-are-you-stupid look. “I had sex. I found this all-male brothel out on the
cold side and thought,
shyte
, I haven’t had any for a while, may as well
take the tension off while I’m out here.”

Fraz flicked out his tongue again
and shook his head. “Nope. You definitely smell of sex. The air tastes of your
musk, emanating from between your legs, and I can detect elevated levels of—”

My face burst into mortified heat
and I slammed my hands over my ears. “Oh my God, Fraz!” I yelped, staring at
him. “Shut up. That is wrong. Just plain wrong.”

He grinned at me. “Just telling it
like it is, partner. Whatever you were doing while off your jet cycle, it
wasn’t GU work—and you were enjoying it.”

I threw up my hands and turned
away. “Get a life,” I tossed out as I rushed across our short-range shuttle’s cycle
bay. “Better yet, get a new tongue. The one you have is faulty.”

“Bo’aa tongue knows all, Raina
Mynn,” Fraz called out, and I ground my teeth not only at the elated mirth in
his voice but the horrible, horrible truth in his words. The pit of my belly
churned. My face felt hot. My friggin’ pulse pounded in my neck.

Enjoying it.

Yeah, Fraz was right. I
had
been enjoying it. Whoever my weirdo on Mercy’s beta moon was, whatever insane
ideas he had about me being his destiny, what he’d been doing to me
had
felt goddamn wonderful. I may have fought the bastard off, but I’d never
experienced anything as intensely delicious as the dominating force of his
lust. The arrogant power of his certainty.

The rightness of his touch.

I stumbled to a halt. Had I just
thought that? My mouth went dry and I ran my hands—my trembling hands; what was
wrong with me?—up and down my arms.

No. I shook my head and continued
through the shuttle, heading for my quarters and my shower cubicle. I was
overworked and overtired. Fraz and I had been tracking an escaped spice dealer
for the last two months. We’d had no downtime. That’s why I was thinking Tall,
Dark and Delusional was the man of my most secretive fantasies. Our commander
had sent us to Spaceport Mercy based on a tip from some inside source, and
since we’d arrived we’d done nothing but follow false leads and dodge Port
security.

Passing ourselves off as salvagers
meant Fraz and I fit right in with the spaceport’s scum and villainy, but
something about us seemed to put Commander Kassandra Scott on edge. I
personally blamed Fraz. He’d picked a fight with the head bouncer at The Steam,
he’d insulted the little spaceport’s reporter, Itia Something-or-other, he’d
punched one of the Echo brothers—the angriest one, I think—and kept kicking at every
member of the Felinia race he encountered.

I
have
pointed out Bo’aas
are unsavory bastards, haven’t I? And that I’m glad Fraz is on
my
side?

Yep. Just overworked. If the man
with the wide shoulders, impressive bulge and unsubtle propositioning skills
had tackled me any other time, I would have torn his arms from his body and
shoved them so far up his backside he would have needed a flashlight to pick
his nails.

See? I can be unsavory too, when I
need to be.

Stomping into my quarters, I
stripped off my clothes, pulled the band from my hair and stepped into my
shower cubicle. Fraz could pilot the skip back to Port Mercy on his own. That’s
what he got for laughing at me. Oh, and for making me feel embarrassed. I
never, ever wanted to hear the words “your musk” come from his mouth again.
Eww.

I activated the water and stood
motionless under the icy stream, letting it run over my body, my breasts,
between my legs. It licked at me with cold thirst and my nipples pinched tight,
something about the wet caress making my heart thump harder.

I closed my eyes, my hands pressed
flat to the metal wall before me. The feel of the water running over the folds
of my pussy, the button of my clit, drew a ragged breath from deep within my
chest. I pressed my thighs together and the gentle pressure on my clit sent a
warm finger of pleasure into my core.

I whimpered, unable to stop my
right hand from leaving the wall and slipping between my wet thighs.

Mine to fuck. Mine to claim.
Mine to—

I slid the tip of my finger over my
clit, hissing at the sharp and eager heat blossoming in my pussy at the
contact.

“Oh.” I pressed my finger harder
and, before I knew what I was thinking, an image of the man from the moon—Torr—filled
my head.

My body reacted. Instantly and
powerfully.

My pussy clenched viciously,
gripping a cock that wasn’t there. My nipples grew harder, so hard they ached,
and I knew, deep down inside where my unspoken fantasies lie waiting for night,
that the only cure for that ache was Torr’s touch. His fingers, his lips, his
tongue, his teeth.

I turned in the small cubicle.
Leaned against the icy metal wall and closed my left hand over my left breast.
But it was
his
hand I felt. His hand I hungered for. Eyes closed, lips
parted, my body hot and flushed despite the chilly temperature of the shower, I
let my mind tell me it was Torr’s hand massaging my breast. Torr’s fingers
rolling over my clit…

He sank his fingers deeper into my
sex and I moaned, grinding my clit against his exquisite invasion. He dipped in
another finger, wriggling them both inside me, stroking the spot that turned my
ragged breaths to shallow panting.

He pulled at my nipple, tweaked it,
dragged his thumb over its distended tip, and I moaned again, thrusting my hips
higher. Gods! Why was I doing this?

Mine to fuck. Mine to claim.
Mine to—

The memory of his thought pushed me
higher. My pussy squeezed the fingers invading it. Fingers I knew were mine but
wanted to be his.

Mine to fuck.

I plunged them into my wet heat.
Wriggled them. Scissored them.

Mine to claim.

I squeezed my breast and tortured
my nipple, letting my mind tell me it was him.

Mine to—

I rode my hand, mauled my breast
and cried out raw words that made no sense when I came, my orgasm as sharp and
brutal as the empty longing I felt for a man I believed a lunatic.

* * * * *

I stormed through Port Mercy.
There’s no other word for it, I’m afraid. I was pissed off and my walk showed
it. People leapt out of my way—and by people, I mean humanoids, insectoids, slitheroids,
sentient gaseous mistoids and just about any other “oid” you can name. If a
species existed in the known galaxies, at least one of its kind was here on Mercy,
usually partaking in something criminal and unsavory. Fraz fit right in.

Speaking of my partner, he strolled
along beside me, baring his teeth at the fake Slessorian whores who lined Blowjob
Alley, letting everyone see the long Bo’aa blade he wore under his sleeveless
jacket, and generally exuding all round menace. People leapt out of Fraz’s way
too.

“You going to tell me yet?” he
asked, eyeing one particularly lush Slessorian wannabe who eyed him back.

I refused to look at him. “No.”

“Care to explain why you smelled
more like sex
after
your shower, then?”

I suppressed the urge to scream.
And the urge to punch Fraz’s lights out. “Fuck off,” I grunted instead.

He laughed. People around us
cowered away. They usually do.

We continued making our way through
the spaceport, heading for Steam. I needed a drink. God knows what Fraz needed,
but I suspected it was another crack at the head bouncer. Sometimes I think
Fraz has a death wish. Maybe that was another reason I liked him so much,
another reason we suited each other as partners—we were equally unhinged.

The bar was as crowded as usual,
and as usual the crowd parted somewhat as Fraz pushed his way through it. He
really did come in handy at times, especially when I wanted something fast—like
a shot of Bundaberg Black Label Rum. Drink in hand, I turned and leaned against
the bar, running my gaze over the writhing mass crammed into the small space
before me. Up on the stage, a Felinia belted out a New Earth tune, swiveling
her furry hips in such a provocative way I almost wanted to blush.

Or fuck.

I frowned. Now where the hell did
that thought come from?

“The commander’s going to be
pissed,” Fraz muttered in my left ear, and I jumped a little. “
You
can
tell him the moon was a big fat waste of time. There’ve been no signs of any
spice deals going down.”

“What happened to rank?” With a
small grin, I took a sip of my rum.
Shyte
, my hand was trembling. What
the fuck was my hand doing trembling?

Storm-cloud eyes flashed through my
head, followed by tension in my sex.

I bit back a curse and sculled my
booze.

The liquor burned its way into my
belly and I turned back to the bar, indicating to the woman behind it I wanted
another shot. I needed to get a grip. I couldn’t do my job if I was constantly
thinking about some maniac who kissed like a demon and—

My sex constricted in a powerful
pulse, so powerful I had to cling to the bar. There and gone in a blink.

I threw back my head and swallowed
my second rum in one mouthful.

I was in trouble.

I think I’ve mentioned before I
have a no-strings, no-pain rule when it comes to sex. There’s a reason for
this. At the tender age of two New Earth years (maybe more, maybe less, no one
really knows), I was found cowering on the steps of a sex den on the boundaries
of GU space by a Slessorian pleasurer.