Creed of Pleasure; the Space Miner's Concubine (The LodeStar Series) (9 page)

Behind her, the pilot appeared in the open doorway, finger-combing her short, damp hair, eyes on the food. “Morning.”

Quark. He’d come out here to get away from people, to have space and quiet and peace, and suddenly he was surrounded by them. Creed wanted to snarl, wanted to rise up, grab Taara from her chair and throw her over his shoulder, bear her off to his pool and lock the doors after them. So no one could interrupt them. And so he could just have one swift fantasy before he sent her away.
 

Instead he nodded. “Morning. Breakfast?”

The pilot strode forward with alacrity. “Thanks, don’t mind if I do.”

She poured herself a mug of coffee, and slid into the chair between Taara and Creed. “Hey, rolls. And are those vegsausages?”

Creed sent the hovertray gliding closer to her. “Help yourself.”

* * *

Taara worked hard to enjoy her meal, despite the uncertainty of her position. She surely wasn’t going to get another breakfast like it any time soon, if she was being sent back to Frontiera City.
 

It would take a long, long time for her and Daanel to work off their debt to Logan Stark, if he let them even stay on planet. Maybe he’d have them labeled criminals or something and they’d be shipped back to Earth II in the hold of some horrible old ship like the one Kiri had been shanghaied onto. Or he’d put them to work doing manual labor to pay off their debt to him.

No, Kiri wouldn’t let him go that far, but whatever his price, it might not be pleasant.

Creed Forth seemed to take the food for granted, eating with silent concentration. He ate a lot, but then he was solid muscle and probably weighed half again as much as she did. She eyed him from under her lashes, half resentful, half longing. She even enjoyed watching him eat, for goddess’ sake. Daanel, slim as a raile serpent, ate in a desultory way, but this man was physical and fueling a powerful, efficient machine.

She blushed when he shot her a glance and caught her staring at him.

He turned to the pilot. “You’ll be taking her back to Frontiera City.”

 
Taara’s breakfast knotted in her belly, her last bite of roll sticking in her throat. She dropped the rest of it on her plate. It was warm, sweet and laden with nuts and dried bits of fruit, with icing drizzled over the top and down the sides. The eggs were good too, hot and savory. She’d had them a few times when the owners of Maitresse had put on breakfast buffets to celebrate a profitable quarter. But she could not force down another bite now. She wiped her sticky fingers on the napkin of nubbly recycled fabric, looking at her plate to avoid the look of surprise and dismay from the pilot. Grabbing her mug, she drained the last of her coffee, sighing as the warm liquid soothed her tight throat.

Kind of funny, in a black holish way. She’d come here with such dread, then met him and made up her mind that her task would not be quite so horrible after all, in fact it would be quite pleasant. Okay,
really
pleasant. Only to have him reject
her.

“Well,” she murmured into the ensuing silence. “I’ll ... just go pack up my things. Meet you outside,” she added to the pilot.
 

Without another look at him, she rose and walked out of his kitchen, her shoulders stiff, braced against the weight of rejection and fear.

“Okay,” the pilot called around a mouthful of eggs. “Twenty minutes?”

Taara nodded without looking back.
 

Back in the room she’d been given for the night, she quickly repacked her bag and set it by the door. Then she stood in the middle and looked around her. The bed was still mussed, the covers trailing on the floor. Well, quarked if she would straighten it. Let him clean up after her. Or his housekeeper, anyway.

Then the end of the covers trailing on the floor twitched.
 

Taara froze. Who knew what kind of creatures roamed this planet? There were birds of prey, which meant there were other creatures. Of course there were, this was a temperate planet with plenty of food, water and clean air.
 

She took a cautious step toward the bed. If it was a serpent of some kind, she was fine with that. Another good thing about being from a planet with reptiles of all kinds, she feared only a few. Doubtful that there were hiss vipers here.

The covers twitched again. She froze. The fabric tented outward, toward her. A dark, hairy appendage appeared, behind it the shadow of a form. Two slitted eyes glittered up at her.
 

A yelp of sheer terror burst from her throat. She bolted backward toward the door, and tripped on the edge of the woven rug. As she hit the door frame, the creature sprang.
 

She screamed.

Chapter Six

Creed drained his coffee mug and set it on the table.
 

The pilot had just gone out to power up her cruiser, after thanking him politely for the bed and breakfast. Her carefully neutral expression told him volumes—she thought he was a fool for sending the blonde away and a hard-ass for upsetting her.
 

Or maybe he was imagining this. Quarked if he knew.

What he did know was, his fine breakfast was a knot in his gut and his skin felt tight, as if some impending battle loomed. The way he got before diving in with his Zhen brethren to scour out a nest of thieves or slavers. Only this time it was caused by one small, pretty woman, whom he could subdue with one arm tied behind his back and not break a sweat.
 

Except that conversely, it felt like all she had to do was crook one of those dainty fingers and he’d be on his knees, begging for anything she would give him.

Sweat did break out on his skin at this, and he shuddered, digging his fingers into the cerametal frame of his chair. He would never beg for anything again—not for freedom, and certainly not for affection. She’d be gone soon, and he’d be at peace, if lonely.

Then a high, shrill scream cut through the quiet air, and he vaulted for the open door and dashed through the house to get to her, grabbing a laser from the wall as he went. She was in danger. Had pirates snuck into the compound somehow? Did a Mau have a cutter at her throat even now? Had a young gyre hawk dived in through an open window? That had happened once when they were first raising the house.

She met him in the passageway outside her room. Her green eyes were wide with fear, her face pale as soy creamer. Dashing toward him full-tilt, she climbed him like a tree, wrapping her arm around his neck, her legs around his waist while she twisted to peer back over her shoulder.

She was trembling, her breath coming in quick shuddering gasps. “It’s in my room,” she gasped. “Don’t go in there. It has big, sharp teeth, and—and fangs. Oh, it’s horrible. It jumped out at me. It tried to get
on me
.”

Half his mind reeling with the sensation of having an armful of soft, lithe, fragrant woman, Creed did what he had to and set this aside. He thrust the laser in the back of his belt—no lasers in the house, as long as the threat wasn’t pirates, because they cut through furnishings and destroyed walls just as efficiently as flesh—palmed his blade and side-stepped until he could see into her room. She was light enough he could move fast if he needed to.

“How big?” he asked, his mind cataloguing the possibilities. He knew he hadn’t seen all the creatures here, no one had but the native tribes and they didn’t keep holovid records.
 

“It was—it was
huge
.” Her silky hair brushed his throat and his jaw as she hitched closer, her arm tight around his neck. “All hairy.” She shuddered.

What the hells—a catamount in the house? That had never happened before.

“Maww-wr.”
The plaintive cry sounded close.

“There. Did you hear that?” she breathed.

Creed nodded. He had. He tightened his arm around her waist, and carried her into the open door of her room, looking at the small, dark bundle of moving fur crouched on her bag, investigating the latch. “That it?”

She nodded. Then peered uncertainly into his face. “You ... you don’t seem too worried. What is that thing?”

Creed fought simultaneous overwhelming relief and the absurd urge to throw back his head and give a shout of laughter. He shrugged. “We call them mawwr. Small felines, far as I know. They have teeth and claws, but they’re not dangerous to people. Though this one’s not tame, so if you try to grab it, you’d probably get bitten or scratched.”
 

Which Noni had, her first day here. He wasn’t sure who’d screeched louder, her or the mawwr. The creatures weighed only a few kilos, but they were fierce when cornered.

“Oh.” Her voice was small, and he watched with fascination as a tide of red swept across her delicate cheeks. “I ... I thought it was some kind of giant insect. A—a spider or something.”

“Not too many animals left on Earth II. Guess you’re not used to seeing them.”
 

Now that the danger was past, his attention strayed to the very soft, warm feminine body parts currently rubbing directly on his groin.
 

“Not in New Seattle.” She shook her head, her hair caressing his face like silk. “Except ravens and rats.”

“New Seattle?”

She nodded, her hand on his chest moving up, over the thin fabric of his shirt. “I’m from there.”

“So am I.” Without thinking, he looked down into her face, so close.
 

She was eyeing the mawwr, which was now looking back at them, golden eyes slitted in the pointed, furry face. The long legs were folded under the lithe body as it crouched on the bag and both tails lashed slowly. Wary, but too curious to leave just yet.

“So, the creature’s not dangerous?”

He grunted, all he could manage at the moment. His cock was hardening, heat arrowing into his groin in a hard, intent rush. So close ... just beyond thin layers of fabric lay heaven. And he held a blade in his hand that could nick neatly through that thin layer in a nanosec. Laying her bare, open to him.

Her gaze fell to his hand and her eyes widened. Quark, what was he thinking? He clicked the short but wicked blade shut and reached back to tuck it safely in his belt—before he used it on himself for his own idiocy.

 
Her lips curved up in a grin, her green eyes abashed. “I’m sorry I scared you by screaming. Do you need to ... shoo the creature out, or something?”

Creed stared at her mouth. “‘S’okay,” he muttered. “The mawwr wandered in, it will let itself out.”

His arm tightened on her back and his free hand came up to cup her round, firm ass. To balance her in his arms, although once he touched her there, his hand squeezed in a paroxysm of pleasure at the lush resilience.

She was closer now. Had she moved or had he? All he knew was that her mouth was inches from his and her breath puffed warm on his chin.

“A kiss for a hero,” she whispered.
 

Then she pressed those petal-soft, warm, damp lips to his.
 

His first kiss. Pleasure streaked through him. He’d seen kissing, imagined it, even craved it. But never had he imagined it would be this sweet.

He heard a deep muffled groan—his. He didn’t care, was blind, deaf to anything else but her lips moving on his, caressing him with clinging silk.
 

She cocked her head, her arm tightened and she pressed closer, sighing into his mouth as she opened hers, the tip of a wet tongue slipping past his lips to touch his delicately. She tasted of some mysterious sweetness all her own and he had to have more.

 
It was this powerful surge of longing, conversely, that snapped him out of his haze of arousal. He froze, his mouth open over hers, tongue quivering to slide into her mouth and conquer that intimate space. To mimic what he craved doing to her below—drive his cock into her again and again in mindless search for release.
 

Control. He had to get it back. He was a grown man and a business owner. A warrior, strong and honorable. He needed no one, chose who to let in and how far he let them in. She could slip in and rip his cloak to shreds, bring his demons roaring back to life.
 

‘On your knees, boy. Do as I say or you’ll get another beating. Now open that mouth and take what I give you.’

No. He would not remember those old nightmares, would not let them rule him. Cold sweat broke out on Creed’s skin as the demons seized his arousal and twisted it into a dark, sickening echo of the past. Only the lust was no longer his, it belonged to the demons. This was why he avoided females.

He reached up, pulled her arm from around his neck and set her down, stepping back until an arm’s length separated them.
 

She stared at him, her lips soft and wet, gaze uncertain. A little dazed, as if she’d just emerged from sleep. The way he felt. He clenched his hands to keep from reaching for her again, hauling her soft, pliant form back into his arms, getting those breasts against his chest again, that ass in his hands. Took a deep breath, and searched for his calm. Felt it slipping beyond his control. He took another step back.

“I have to go,” he managed, his voice hoarse. “I’ll, ah, see you later.”