Creed of Pleasure; the Space Miner's Concubine (The LodeStar Series) (10 page)

“You will? Does that mean you want me to stay?” she called after him.

He stopped, his back to her. “I … don’t know. Just … wait.”

Wait and find out if he could find a way to be near her and still be in control. Of himself and the way she made him feel.

In his study, the door shut behind him, he linked Joran, the middle of the three brothers in age. Stark’s blood brother, so when the link opened, familiar features looked out at him—angular, handsome face with heavy, arching brows, hawk nose, although Joran’s face was tempered with a habitual smile and by long, auburn-tinged hair falling around his face.
 

“Hey, little brother,” Joran said lazily from the shadows of his tont. “What’s new?”

Creed stared at the naked woman who lay on his brother’s chest, her pretty face slack with satiation, her hair tumbled over Joran’s bare skin. Unaccustomed heat rising in his face, Creed forgot what he’d wanted to say.

Joran did not move from the cushions he lounged against, but he spoke softly to the woman and she sat up, pouting. Joran smiled at her, and smacked her on her round, bare ass. She flounced away, although not without a longing glance over her shoulder. Joran did not return the look. Instead, he waited patiently for Creed to speak.
 

“Ah,” Creed fumbled. Shit, how did he say this? How did he ask about something that most men his age, quark, nearly all men his age knew so well? “There’s a woman here.”

“At LodeStone?”

“Yes. In my house.”

Joran nodded slowly. “So, this is good, right?”

Creed scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck, and moved restlessly. “She’s ... pretty.”

Quark, this was stupid. To his brother’s credit, however, Joran’s expression changed not one iota. “This
is
good. She available?”

Creed snorted a laugh, looking down into his coffee mug. “Highly. Logan sent her. She’s a wh—courtesan.”

Joran’s brows went up. He pushed his hair back with one hand. “Logan actually sent you a woman. Holy skrog crap.”

Creed shrugged. “You know Logan. You don’t move fast enough to suit him, he makes the move for you.”

Joran tipped his head back and laughed. “Yes, he does. Well, little brother, this time I must say he’s topped all his other moves. He also has good taste in women. Fuck me, can’t wait to see her.”

“No need. I’m not going to ... that is, I told her to go.”

Joran’s brows shot together this time, in a curious frown. He waited.

Creed shifted uncomfortably. He paced outside onto the balcony, where a warm breeze blew up across the valley into his face. He squinted into the sunlight. “The Zhen teachings say a warrior has to place himself above the pleasures of the flesh.”

Considering he was speaking to his brother, who specialized in such pleasures and had, from the look of him and his woman, just finished indulging in one of them, this sounded as if Creed was parroting old, stale teachings. But for so long, they’d been a part of him—a Zhen monk, above temptation yet stooping to help those who floundered below.
 

“I imagine to do what they do, a man has to focus,” Joran said, his tone respectful. “Intense lifestyle, calls for total concentration. But you left for a reason, right?”

Creed leaned his elbows on the rail of his balcony and gazed up the mountain at the gates that led into the mine. “It was time.” Or so his teacher had insisted.

“Then maybe it’s time for this, brother.”

Creed explored this idea, but the hair on the back of his neck stood up and his gut tightened. “Not sure it will ever be time.”

 
But he had to admit, another sensation curled through him, pushing through the dread like the little plants they occasionally found in the mine shafts, insistent on growing where they’d landed despite the dark.
Hope
.

And anticipation, such as he used to feel when he went to the mine in the morning, ready to search for another vein of precious ore. Or when he was planning this place, the first place that was his and his alone.
 

Or further back, when he’d ridden his cruiser away from the monastery, ready for a new life. And then the flight that brought him here to a new planet, ready to be explored. Ready for him to claim part of it for himself.
 

But that had been so simple, compared to this. She—Taara was a living being. A woman—more mysterious than a new planet. And far more dangerous to his peace of mind.

He looked down, his hands gripping each other. He had to force his next words out. “You know I’ve never ... I mean, I want her. But—”

“If you want her, then it’s time, Creed. Don’t try to figure it all out now. Your body will show you what you need. And she’s experienced; she’ll show you some things.” Joran’s handsome face lit with deviltry. “You want her eating out of your hand, you find out what she likes and do it. She’ll be wild for you.”

“Wild?” Creed didn’t want wild, he wanted soft and sweet.
 

Joran muttered a curse and sat up. “Creed. It’s okay to let that ice cold control of yours melt once in a while. Fucking is one of the reasons to keep on living, brother. As good as riding a fast pony, or flying a cruiser at top speed—maybe better. As good as taking down an opponent, or winning a huge deal. Or, I don’t know, finding one of those big veins of ore you search for.

“You’re a man, time to be
all
man. The Zhen may be celibate, but you aren’t with them anymore, so you don’t need to cling to all their ways. You left for a reason, so leave behind what’s no longer working for you.”

“But if I let go of my control,” Creed shook his head, “who am I?”

“Still you,” Joran answered instantly. “Still strong. True heart, sharp mind, still the best man I know.”

Creed stared at him. This was how his brother, the wild hell-raiser who led a band of nomads in activities mostly frowned on by the InterGalactic Space Forces, saw him?

“True heart?” he muttered.

Joran shrugged. “I know you didn’t spend all your time with the monks on your knees meditating. You swept in and cleaned house, took some foul predators out of business. Good reason the Zhen-Lou are spoken of with awe and respect. You brought that with you to LodeStone. You take care of your people, you put up with Logan’s skrog shit and you never say a word when I ask you to, ah, look the other way when my people need to hide out on your land.”

“You’re my brothers.” Creed’s cheeks were hot again.
 

Joran nodded, his gaze warm. “Yeah. That’s what I mean. So, go with your gut—or a little lower down—on this one, brother. You’ll still be in charge.”

“Ah … I wouldn’t know how to ...”

 
Joran grinned at him. “Negotiate. That’s what you do with a courtesan. You tell her what you want and she tells you if she’ll do that. If not, you do something else, or you send her away and get another. You’re the boss.”

He was the boss. Right. He could handle a huge mine, all the techs and equipment it took to run it, the buyers who flew in to look it over, the pirates who kept trying to take it—he should be able to handle one small woman without going rogue.
 

Except that what she stirred in him felt like a vast, roaring storm that once awakened, might rip him to pieces. “Well. Thanks, Joran.”

“Anything, brother.”

“Same.”

The link winked out, and Creed straightened, relieved to have the conversation over. Give him a technical problem to overcome or equipment to fix any day. Or a fight—something he could throw himself into physically and still remain in control emotionally. Sex, he was not so sure.

But Joran seemed sure, and Joran knew him as well as anyone. Creed grinned to himself. The monks had taught him about control and being a force for right. Joran, on the other hand, was an expert at matters of the flesh as well as skirting trouble of all kinds, sometimes leaping headlong into it, and reveling in the ride.
 

So maybe on this, he should once again listen to the expert.
 

Creed strode back through the house, determined. He was back in control, he was calm. He would let her know she could stay, for a while anyway. That he was willing to let her in just far enough to bring him physical pleasure.
 

She was a professional, she would understand that the physical was all there could be between them. That it would go no further.

She was standing in the passageway between the sitting room, galley and guest rooms. Arms twisted behind her back in a fashion he imagined only a woman, with her more slender arms and looser shoulders could do, she stood in profile, breasts thrust out, one leg bent as she regarded the huge holomap on the wall. Her eyes were wide, soft lips pursed.
 

When he neared her, she turned her head sharply, her silky curls swinging. One strand flew across her lips, and clung to the damp curve before slipping free. He followed the movement with his gaze, rapt as her tongue darted out to touch the corner of her mouth in that tiny, flirtatious move of hers.
 

He took that last step, the one that brought him close, close enough to fill his nostrils with her sweet, subtle scent. Close enough that when his hands came up, independent of his brain—which was fogged with heat and very little thought—they closed right around her little waist.

She put her hands on his arms, not pushing him away but holding on. His cloak fell away with a silent sigh, giving up the battle to enclose what he unleashed.

The next thing he knew, he had her against the wall, his head cocked over hers, as he opened his mouth and did his best to chase that teasing, silky tongue of hers into her mouth and wrap it in his, capture every taste of her wet, welcoming mouth.

Through slitted eyes he watched her, lashes fluttering against her cheeks as she kissed him back.
 

Soft hands slid up to cup the back of his neck and his head, holding him there as she gave unreservedly of her mouth, letting him suck that butterfly tongue into his mouth, letting him pull at her lips with his. He drew back once, just enough to admire her lips wet and swollen from his, then cocked his head the other way and went back for more.
 

Doing his best to devour her. He was starving, and he hadn’t known it. She was the only thing that could assuage his ravenous hunger.

Her breasts were pressed against his chest, two soft pillows with hard points teasing him. Strong thighs held him in a sweet vise, accepting the helpless flex of his hips as he ground his cock against her. The friction was overwhelmingly good, so good he felt helpless heat roar through him, every sensation in his body arrowing to that place.
 

He jerked his mouth from hers, and pressed his forehead against the wall beside her head as he climaxed helplessly, his ass flexing as he thrust against her.
 

Release. Sheer physical ecstasy.

Followed swiftly by fiery shame. The darkness of humiliation.

“Quark,” he gritted. “I’m ...
sorry
.” He’d used her like a simudoll. He’d never touched one, but he’d seen them in holovid ads, heard men joke about them.

She turned her face against his cheek and proceeded to shock the seven hells out of him.
 

“Why?” she whispered into his ear. “That’s the nicest compliment a male ever gave me, what you just did.”

He lifted his head, eyed her warily, his cheeks hot with more than the flush of completion. She met his gaze, hers warm and bright.
 

“I mean it,” she murmured, her voice wrapping him in intimacy as surely as her arms and legs. “I take it as the highest praise that you find me attractive enough to ... you know. Just from kissing me.”

Then she grinned, as gleefully as if she’d just won a game of holodice for high stakes.

Weird. Were all women like this—accepting, happy with whatever happened? He didn’t think so. But his shame receded, and the wetness in his pants felt less like failure. He’d go change and then ... consider the possibilities. Since she’d be here for a while.

Creed straightened, letting her down carefully as her legs loosened around his ass. “You’re something else, you know that?”

She wrinkled her nose, and opened her mouth.
 

But her answer was lost as a dull, thunderous boom shook the house. Her eyes widened, mouth opened in shock. She clung to him.

Creed hit the floor, covering her with his body as the house rattled around them. He waited for a nanosec for the ceiling to fall, but the house held. He vaulted up, dragging her with him.
 

“Hells. Come on. We’re under attack.”

She ran with him, her wrist locked in his grasp, but she kept up with him easily as they raced for the passageway to the mine offices.

Chapter Seven

Creed took one instant to be thankful he was wearing dark pants of a moisture-wicking weave that—hopefully—would not show wetness. Inside they were wet and sticky, but that had to wait. He got his mind back on business, racing through the possibilities and scenarios of being under attack.