Creed of Pleasure; the Space Miner's Concubine (The LodeStar Series) (16 page)

* * *

Taara was up when Creed strode into the kitchen the next morning. Clad in a soft yellow dress that framed her ass in an extremely fetching way, bared her pretty legs and was also nearly see-through, she stood before the coffee maker, gazing at it bemusedly.

She looked around as Creed walked in, her expression friendly, though her eyes were guarded. “Good morning,” she said. “Can you show me how to work this thing?”

He nodded, walked over to stand close, where he could catch her scent. Fresh and sweet. He reached around her and flipped a switch on the front of the gleaming black unit.
 

“It’s self-cleansing, sets itself up every night. Just add some coffee beans once in a while.”

She nodded and gave him a sidelong glance, her near cheek pink. “Okay. So, I just noticed you linked me yesterday?”
 

He smiled to himself as he moved away. “Yeah. Nothing important.” It had been, but she’d find out how important later. “You could get your com attached to your ear, then you wouldn’t miss a link.”

She shook her head, her nose wrinkled. “I don’t know. That’s a big step.”

Creed nodded, scanning the table. As usual, Lani had been there to set out breakfast, cereal and fruit with muffins, these bursting with moonberries. “Pour me a cup of coffee when it’s ready?”

“Of course.” She was still watching him, her cheeks still pink. Wondering if he’d seen what she was doing when he linked her, he realized. He raised his brows, keeping his expression bland. She looked away.
 

She brought his coffee and hers to the table and he watched her add a large dose of the soy creamer, then take a drink. He’d remembered right, she closed her eyes when she took that first sip, as if it was very pleasurable. He liked watching that. He also liked being able to see the shadow of her nipples behind yellow lace. His hands twitched and he grabbed a muffin. It was warm and soft and pliant, but it wasn’t her.

“So,” she said, setting her elbows on the table as he began to eat his big bowl of roasted grains and berries. “Lani does all your cooking?”

“Mostly. I cook when I’m not too busy.”

She nodded, looking around the big kitchen with interest.
 

“You cook?” he asked.
 

“I love to cook,” she said, a little wistfully. “When I get the chance.”

“Not too much to work with on Earth II,” he remembered. “Ah, got lots of fresh stuff here. Agroponic garden, and regular shipments of what we can’t grow. Some big farms further south by the sea. You’re welcome to use this kitchen, cook anything you want.”

She looked at him, eyes wide over her cup. “I can?” she breathed.

He nodded, biting back a grin. Not that big a deal, but she acted like he’d just offered her the code to his new cruiser.
 

“I’ll make ... crispies.”

He swallowed another big bite of chewy sweetened grains and tart berries. “What’s a crispie?”

“Well, you might call them something else,” she said. “Cookies, or biscuits ... or flatties.”

“Cookies,” he repeated with interest. “Had those. Rose Masterson bakes them, up in New Haven. Those are
good
.”

She nodded, then pressed her lips together, her eyes twinkling.
 

He cocked his head in silent invitation.
 

“When I first arrived, I worried that out here, you foraged for food. You know, forbs and grains—whatever.” She chuckled behind her cup. “Glad I was wrong.”

He took this in, and shook his head. “With fast cruisers and regular supply convoys, no reason not to live well.”

“So your, um, your training … or whatever, doesn’t mean you have to eat only certain things?” she asked hesitantly.

He stared. “My training?”

Color stained her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry. But I saw your meditation place by the pool. So I thought…” she shrugged.

“Oh, right.” He gazed into his coffee, considering how much to tell her. She already knew he had not led a normal life up to now. “I was with the Zhen-Lou for several years. Trained with them, fought alongside them. Was a brother. Then decided it was time to leave, but I … kept some of their teachings. Meditation settles the mind.”

Her eyes widened, a look of awe on her face. Pride swelled his chest, but at the same time heat surged under his own skin.
 

“Oh, my,” she breathed. “The Zhen-Lou are legendary. Fighting the wicked and protecting the weak. When I was a girl they moved in on Sunspot City and cleaned it
up
.” She smacked the table for emphasis. Then she leaned forward. “Do you think maybe sometime you could tell me a few of your adventures?”

Relate the things he’d seen and done? He’d told Logan and Joran expurgated versions of a few of the battles he’d been in, and known from their expressions they understood that some things were just too bad to talk about. For her, he would have to edit even more heavily.
 

“For some of those cookies, I might.” Or for more of the look in her eyes—he could bask in the warmth of her admiration.

She nodded, smiling again. “I’ll see what I can find here, and make you some.”

“Tell you what you’ll find. Chocolate and nuts.” He’d ordered some after tasting Rose’s cookies. Then all this blew up, and he’d forgotten to talk to Lani about turning them into treats.

Her eyes widened, her mouth made an ‘o’. “You have
chocolate
?” she breathed, with nearly the same awe she’d shown for his Zhen experience.

He grinned. He never knew what she was going to do, how she would react. “Yeah. The good stuff.”

“Wow. I’ve only tasted it a few times, at Maitresse. We had it for the clients.”

“Maitresse?” he asked curiously.

Her smile froze. “Oh. Just a—a place I used to work. So, tell me about your mine. What are you, um, mining?”

She didn’t want to talk about this Maitresse place. Well, her past was her business, he guessed. Still, he filed the name away in his memory.

“We mine iridium,” he said. He pushed his empty bowl away and picked up his coffee cup to take a drink.

“Irridium?” she asked, looking genuinely interested. “Isn’t that a precious metal?”

“Very. Used to have trace amounts on Earth I and II, but here there’s more. Didn’t sink into the molten core of the planet the way most did on Earth.”

“So you sell it for what, jewelry?”

“Not just for jewelry. It’s stable at high temps and doesn’t corrode much at all, so it’s also used for key parts of space ships and thermo-generators, things like that.”

She nodded wisely. “That’s why the pirates come here, isn’t it? To steal your iridium?”

“They won’t get it,” he stated positively. “And they won’t get another chance to attack here, either. You don’t need to worry. Nikk put some locks on the system, so it won’t shut down again.”

“Good.”

He drained his cup and she half rose from her chair, reaching for it. Creed shook his head, pushing back his own chair to stand. “Come on, I’ll show you some irridium. If you like.”

When she nodded again, he led her into the next room, which contained a huge, comfortable sofa in a U shape, and various ottomans and hover tables, as well as a huge holovid viewing area in front of a blank wall. But on a side wall hung a large light box. Inside, lit with tiny glowlamps, was an odd chunk of silvery metal larger than a man’s head but serrated and cratered, with jagged edges that flashed in the lights.

“There it is,” he said, pride swelling his chest again. “What we extract from the mountain.”

She walked over to examine the piece. “It’s beautiful. And certainly shiny. No wonder it’s used for jewelry as well as tech.”

“Toughest metal in the galaxy,” he said. “Can melt it, but you can’t destroy it.”

She nodded with clear respect. He liked that.
 

He also needed to get to the mine, or there would be no more iridium.

“Got to go,” he told her. “Be home for the evening meal.”

Felt weird saying that to a woman, a woman he’d fucked and would again. Almost as if they were—he shut that out of his mind, locking it in a compartment of solid cerametal. They weren’t and would not be together, not in that way. They had tonight, possibly tomorrow and beyond that he would not plan.

“Okay.” She turned, arms twined behind her back. He liked when she did that, it was such a graceful and uniquely feminine pose, and one he wouldn’t mind seeing when she was naked. “May I go for a walk? I’d love to explore.”

“Yeah, sure. But don’t go out of sight of the compound and let me or Lani know where you’ll be. There are catamounts, and skrog are quarking big although mostly peaceful.”

He waited to see that she understood and then lifted his chin. “See you.” Then he strode out to his hovie and glided off up the mountain.
 

And when he got home, he’d see to his next project.

* * *

Creed shocked the LodeStone techs by knocking off work early that afternoon for the first time. Nels, who knew about his guest, merely smiled. Creed knew damn well his foreman would let the others know about Taara too, but Nels wouldn’t say too much, because he didn’t know much.

Creed made sure he and Taara ate dinner together and then he asked her to come to his room in an hour, to give him time to think on their past encounters—not that he hadn’t already been doing that in every spare sec. He’d also run through what he’d learned in his ‘research’, and pinned it down to one particular scenario.

Thus, when she appeared in his doorway, clad in her filmy, peach kimono, he held out his hand and waited until she walked across the room to him. Her green eyes held a mystery that beckoned him in; her lips were soft and parted. Just looking into those eyes was enough to stiffen his cock like a club in his soft pants, but he ignored it for now. This was about a sweeter prize than just his own release.

When he put his hands on her robe, it seemed to melt away under his calloused fingers like spun sugar, sliding off her slender, toned shoulders, revealing her pretty breasts. Her nipples were soft, but under his gaze they stiffened into hard points.
 

His mouth watered. Without a word, he took her hand in his and backed up, pulling her with him to the edge of the bed. He sank down on the edge and pulled her between his thighs.
 

“Do you want me—” she began.

He shook his head and gave her a look. “Not this time. You don’t have to do anything.”

She gave a kind of shiver at that, which he liked as it made her breasts quiver. Reaching up, he cupped his hand carefully over one and squeezed. Her flesh was firm, but so soft, resilient. Her nipple tickled his palm and he drew his hand back far enough to rub the tip between his thumb and forefinger. Velvet, warm and responsive.

The other breast beckoned, hanging before him like tempting fruit. Leaning forward, he nuzzled her. Ah, so silky and warm against his face. Her scent filled his nostrils as he slipped his hand around behind her, cupping her ass in its thin layer of lii silk. Then he opened his mouth and did what she’d done to him, what he’d dreamed of doing to her... suckling her.

She made a little sound in her throat, not a sigh, nor quite a moan but in between. Her hands fluttered up, then settled on his skin, one on his shoulder, the other cupping the back of his neck. She leaned into him, her body flexing in his grasp as her head fell back. Through their thin clothing, his cock rubbed into the yielding notch between her legs. His eyes nearly crossed at the painful pleasure.

He suckled harder, drawing on her, then playing the stiff nub with his tongue. Enjoying her at length before turning his attention to the other breast. It tasted even better with the scent of her pussy rising up to him, tinged with her perfume. The male predator in him growled his approval of her readiness for more.

He drew back just enough to wrap his arm around her waist, pull her kimono off her hips, turn with her and lay her back on his bed, her lower legs dangling.

Her eyes flew open, and she opened her mouth as well. He pressed his fingers to her lips and shook his head.
 

“Only thing I want to hear from you is if you need me to stop.”
 

He raised his brows in a silent demand for an answer and she nodded slowly, the skin of her face brushing his fingers. Her gaze was focused entirely on him. On what he’d do next. Her pupils were dilated, her breathing quick. She was excited by his taking charge—she liked it. So did he— a lot.
 

On instinct, he slid one fingertip between her parted lips. Their gazes locked as she curled her tongue around it and sucked his finger into her mouth up to the first knuckle. He groaned.

“Fuck. So soft. Like you are here.” He laid his free hand on her mons.

She moved under his hand, her hips flexing up to meet his touch, her sparse curls caressing his palm. Looking down, he spread his hand, encompassing the space between her hipbones, and stroking the satin skin of her belly, then drew his hand down, to reveal the neat triangle of hair and what lay below.