Forbidden Worlds - Box Set (30 page)

“Us all?” Talia kept one eye on him while she slid one leg, then the other into the coverall, using the wall for support. She shrugged into the upper half of the garment and quickly fastened the front, then took a deep breath and tried to block the images of the last few minutes from her mind.

Had she really just demanded that a perfect stranger fuck her? If it hadn’t been the best sex of her life, she might have believed it, but the experience she’d just had now seemed more like a distant dream.

“Look, I know you’re a little disoriented, Miss—?”

“Talia.”

“Miss Talia, but—”

“Lory, Talia Lory. I work for CalTak Corp. I’m a trinium scout.”

“That’s nice.” He shrugged, peered over his shoulder and, finding her dressed, turned back to face her. “Kind of a solitary job, though?”

“How did I get here, and what…just happened?” Talia gestured to the floor where the puddle that surrounded their feet seemed to be evaporating.

Fletch held up his hands. “Slow down. Let me go through my speech because I had it all rehearsed before I decanted you.”

“Decanted me from where?”

He sighed and rolled those gorgeous eyes. Gods, he was cute, and she was so…hot…and overly dressed. Her fingers slid involuntarily to the front of the coverall, and the first of the snaps she’d just fastened over her breasts came undone. She shot him an innocent glance and bit her lower lip.

He crossed the slippery floor and grabbed her hand. “Can you just hold on for a second, please? I need you to listen to me before you go wildcat again.”

“Sure,” she purred.

“I know you’re a little disoriented, but what I’m about to tell you is very important. This is a Mogarthan slave ship.”

“Uh huh…” Talia ran one finger over his lips while he talked. What if she dipped her thumb into his mouth and let him lick— “Slave ship?”

Now she remembered…or vaguely recalled a faint snippet of something that might have happened before her ocean dream began. “I was on Demar, scouting for trinium in a switchback canyon, and something bit me.”

“A Mogarthan tranquilizer dart, no doubt. You were captured and put in one of those pods.”

Talia saw them now, stretching along the dim corridor, glowing bulbs of bright green gooze with women floating inside them. It boggled her mind that the sight hadn’t registered on her muddled brain before this. There had to be at least two dozen of them, gently humming, the fluid inside pulsating with a rhythm that matched that of her heart.

“How long?”

“I don’t know. A few months, maybe.” Fletch’s tone was apologetic.

“Months!”

“We can worry about that later. Talia—Talia, focus…” Fletch loomed before her, his eyes clear and his expression serious. Her vision blurred, and her gaze fell to his sensuous lips. The enticing scent of sex filled her senses once again, and she leaned toward him, her pelvis leading the way toward his.

The sound of his fingers snapping drew her back to reality for a moment. “Stay with me here, Talia.”

“Am I drugged?” she asked, wishing he’d shed his clothes for her again.

“Yep. You’re so high on U-4EA you can’t see straight.”

She blinked. She’d heard of U-4EA. They sold it at all the clubs, the resort worlds, and luxury liners—all the places she couldn’t afford to go on her salary as a scout.
So this is what it feels like to have your sexual senses heightened to the max…not bad…not bad at
— “Oh, my God! You…
you
!”

Fletch backed up. “Good news! It wears off eventually. Bad news, it can take a while. You’ve been literally swimming in the stuff for a long time.”

Talia wanted to be angry. She wanted to slap him for taking advantage of her strangely inebriated state, but he looked so damn good, and she was sooo tight and wet and ready for another dose of Fletch. Her fingers found the collar of his shirt and slithered inside. “I’ve never used U-4EA before…it…it’s good.”

He grasped her elbows and pushed her back just a step. “Yeah, it’s a hell of a holiday all right, but it’s also a nuisance. The reason I decanted you was because I need help flying this ship. It’s a two-person job. I’m going to show you some basic piloting and navigation controls and you’re going to help me get this ship somewhere safe where we can decant the rest of the women in those pods. Got that?” He lowered his head and looked up into her face. So sweet. So sincere. She wanted to eat him alive.

“Talia, do you understand what I need you to do?”

“Sure.” She winked.

“So you think you can help me?”

She nodded. “Only if you help me, first.” She slammed into him with the force of a tropical storm hitting a mountain.

They dropped to the damp floor, a writhing mass of limbs and, fortunately, he didn’t resist when she began pulling off his clothes.

“Finished?” A voice echoed through the cargo hold, seeming to come from everywhere at once. Talia started. Was there another man here she could use when she’d worn Fletch out? Never mind. She’d track him down later; right now her objective was simple. She sank down onto Fletcher Gray’s straining erection and rolled him on top of her.

Before setting to work easing her sexual frenzy, he looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “Not quite yet, Gan. Not quite yet.”

Chapter 2

Talia stared at Fletcher over the rim of a metal coffee cup in
Xector IV
’s mess hall. The hot, hyper-caffeinated liquid seemed to clear the cobwebs from her brain and help her get her bearings after the second round of sex with Fletcher in the cargo hold.

She’d known him for an hour and they’d had sex twice already. She wondered if maybe the fuzzy, hazy U-4EA high was better than full knowledge of reality at this point. At least when the sexual wave took her over, she forgot how utterly mortified she felt.

“Start at the beginning again,” she said after a long, soothing sip. She couldn’t quite begin to process everything he’d told her thus far.

He sighed and continued to arrange vita-wafer rations on a small plate that sat before him on the table. He pushed the plate toward her before answering. “Eat something. It’ll help. Now, from the beginning again. Gan and I are with Earth-Sec Pan Galactic Division. We’re working undercover to crack one of the largest Mogarthan slave rings in this sector.”

“The Mogarthan’s have slave rings? How come I’ve never heard of that before?”

“War,” said a voice from behind Talia. She turned her head just slightly, having already discovered that Fletcher’s Metrian partner was better viewed from an angle. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the alien’s shimmery form. The outline of a broad-shouldered being with a snout-like nose and long, tapered ears appeared next to the food recycler.

Fletch nodded. “During the war, Earth-Sec didn’t really have time to police the Mogarthan’s properly. They’ve been getting away with this stuff for decades.”

“Go on.”

“Gan and I stowed away aboard ship when it landed on Vega for refueling. It’s disguised as a typical freighter. The pods would normally be full of grain or other perishable foodstuffs, but we had inside intelligence that the captain of this ship belongs to one of the slave cartels.”

“Where is the captain now?” Talia didn’t know much about Mogarthans. She’d always thought they kept mostly to themselves, shunning races like humans and Breoxan. She had no desire to meet up with one now.

“Brig,” said Gan.

“We’ll take her back to Earth-Sec headquarters for ques—”

“Her? The slaver captain is female?”

Fletcher shrugged, and Talia ignored the stab of desire caused by his bewildered look. It had only been half an hour. Could she be starting another cycle of U-4EA-induced heat already?

“The best Mogarthan pilots are female. It’s because of the four-arms and all, which brings us back around to why I had to decant you. I can’t make the necessary course corrections without your help.”

* * * *

Talia blinked at him and took another long, languorous sip of coffee. Despite his frustration at having to explain all this to her again, his body responded to her hot scrutiny. Her dark eyes were so deep and keenly intelligent, it was hard for Fletch to keep in mind that she was geared for only one thing right now. The overdose of U-4EA had clouded her judgment and, in all honesty, had Ganymede been corporeal, she’d be giving him the same sultry, longing looks right now.

Eventually the aphrodisiac would wear off completely, and she’d probably hate him, so he had to force himself not to think of how much he’d enjoyed their two juicy interludes so far, or how nice it felt to have a woman want him so badly. His undercover mission had kept him away from human-inhabited worlds for too long with only Gan for company. Fletch needed some female companionship, and he hated that thus far, the only way he was going to get it was from a woman who had absolutely no other choice in the universe at the moment.

He shook off his disappointment and finished the last cold swallow of his own coffee. “If you come with me to the bridge, I’ll show you what you need to do.”

“Okay.” Though the coffee seemed to improve her mental status quite a bit, she hadn’t quite shaken the U-4EA buzz. She gave him a smile that said she’d follow him anywhere, and she snagged a vita-wafer as she rose from her seat. “I’m not much of a pilot, you know.”

“Don’t worry. Gan is the navigator. He can read Mogarthan, and he knows exactly what we need to do to change our course. All we have to do is follow his instructions.”

Fletch left the mess with Talia wandering behind him. He realized halfway to the bridge that she’d fallen behind to get a good view of his backside. He should have been flattered.

“Can we step on it? There’s not much time before you cycle through again, and I’d like to get started.”

“Getting started sounds good to me.” She winked then sobered a bit. Fletch could almost see the waves of chemically enhanced hormones surging through her body. She was on a down swing again. “You knew what was going to happen when you decanted me, didn’t you?”

“Ah…” Fletch leaned back, cast his eyes up and pleaded with the gods to grant him strength. He’d wondered how long it would take her to get around to this. “Yes. I knew. I didn’t have a choice. Gan can’t use the controls for obvious reasons. If I’d decanted you and left you…alone, you would have hurt yourself. It may not be the ideal solution, but sex is the only cure for a U-4EA high.”

“There’s no other antidote?”

“Sorry. Most people don’t really need one.”

“Well, don’t think you’re going to get lucky again, Mr. Gray. I’d prefer it if you left me alone from now on.”

“Actually, it’s Agent Gray, if we’re being formal, Miss Take-Your-Pants-Off-Right-Now. I have no problem leaving you alone. Just remember,
you
jumped all over me.”

She huffed at him and stormed ahead through
Xector IV
’s narrow main corridor.

He followed. “Aren’t we past this? If it means anything, I didn’t enjoy it.”

She swung back in his direction, and now she looked really mad. “You didn’t?”

“I mean, I did, on a purely…physical level. But I didn’t want to. The way U-4EA works is it ramps up all your mating hormones to a dangerous level. If all that…energy, for lack of a better word, has no outlet, things can get ugly. You know what would happen if we decanted all the other women at the same time?”

She shook her heard.

“They’d literally screw me to death, then they’d start on you, and since that would be kind of frustrating, they’d end up killing each other. The only safe thing to do is get to a planet where I can recruit a couple dozen males who can handle them until the overdose wears off.”

“So twenty-four men get free sex slaves for what, like a month?” Her dark eyes blazed. Fletch rubbed his jaw, remembering her last down cycle.

“Do you have a better suggestion?”

“How about a hospital station? There must be something that can be done.”

“No known antidote.”

“Sedation?”

“You were sedated in the pod. It prolongs the effect.”

She glared at him, clearly not certain she believed him. He wished he was lying, but honestly there was no alternative. She whirled away. “Show me what I have to do, then stay out of my way. No more free rides for you.”

Fletch glowered at her back. “No problem.”

Chapter 3

She smelled like warm honey. The scent was a remnant of the stasis gooze, but nevertheless intoxicating.

It bothered Fletch that he had to force himself to concentrate on the navigation controls while he pointed out the relatively simple sequence of commands he wanted Talia to remember.

It was hard enough forcing her to concentrate, though she caught on quickly enough. A trinium scout had to have a brain, so it was obvious she was capable, but after thirty minutes on the bridge, her U-4EA cycle had begun again in earnest.

“Now, when I shut off the autopilot, you’ve got to turn on the aft thrusters immediately and maintain power for thirty seconds while I re-calibrate the overdrive. You have to keep output at seventy-five percent or better, so you need to watch this gauge.” Fletcher tapped the controls impatiently. Talia stood so close that he could see minute golden flecks in her brown eyes.

She bumped her hip against him as she spoke. “How long will it take to lay in a new course?” she asked.

“I think I can do it in thirty seconds, but, if not, you can ease back on the thrusters just a little. Once it’s set, we’ll have smooth sailing for about a day. Gan will keep watch over the long-range sensors and alert us if anything turns up in our path. We shouldn’t have to do more than minor course adjustments for a while, but when we do, I’ll handle navigation, and you handle thrust.”

She smirked and licked her lips. Her demeanor had done a one-eighty in less than the blink of an eye. “Maybe you should handle thrust.”

Fletcher clamped his lips shut and glared at her until her smirk morphed into a pout. A very kissable pout. He looked away. “We’re almost done here. Then you can go lock yourself in the crew quarters.”

She tossed her hair. “When are you going to shut off auto-pilot?”

“Whenever you think you’re ready. We can’t stop in the middle, so you have to be able to focus.”

“I can focus now. Let’s do it.”

The seductive purr in her voice didn’t fool Fletch for a nanosecond. “Not now.”

“Why not? I’m ready.”

“You might be ready for something, but piloting isn’t it. You’re going to lose it any minute now.”

“How do you know?”

“Because unless the Mogarthan pilot escaped from the brig or Gan suddenly became corporeal, that’s your hand on my—”

“Thruster?” She licked her lips again and winked at him.

“Yes.”

In response, her fingers tightened on his crotch for a moment, then trailed away. Fletch realized he was sweating.

“Okay. How about as soon as we’re finished?” Her lips grazed his jaw, and her hot tongue laved his skin. His balls went tight.

“I don’t have a problem with that, but you did say not half an hour ago that I should forget about any more free rides. I figured you’d want a couple of bulkheads between you and me before you went all sex slave again.”

She laughed, deep and throaty. “The only thing I want between you and me is a layer of sweat.” She purred into his ear, growled and nibbled. “I might have been mad at you before, but I’m over it. Now I want you over me. There’s room on the floor.” She grabbed his collar and wrapped one leg around the back of his thigh.

“We could go to my quarters. That way Gan won’t—”

“The Metrian can watch. I don’t care.” She slid one hand under his shirt and the other burrowed into the waistband of his pants.

“Sure, you say that now.” He wanted to refuse her, maybe lock her in the brig for a while until she really cooled off, but his hands traveled of their own accord to the snaps of her coverall. A second later, she was kissing him, heaving her body against his, and trying to drag his shirt over his head without breaking lip contact.

The still-coherent part of Fletch’s brain reasoned that if he didn’t participate, she’d probably hurt herself or him. Coming down off a U-4EA high without sex was torment. He’d seen it enough times, during early raids of other pod carriers. Providing a willing sex partner was the only humane way to deal with a U-4EA overdose.

Fletch doubted any man alive would have sympathy for his plight right now.

Talia pushed him down into the extra wide pilot’s chair and straddled him. Rising up on her knees, she freed his all too ready erection from his flight pants and cooed her appreciation.

“Just don’t get mad at me later,” he panted while she licked his nipples. Her dark head bobbed in front of him while she performed some limber movements that liberated her from her own clothes. “I offered to lock you up.”

“Fine, fine. I promise I won’t blame you for letting me fuck you senseless.” She threw her head back and moaned as she lowered herself onto his shaft. Good gods, she felt fantastic. Fletch arched a little, and she purred then slithered her upper body across his chest. Her hot sheath tightened around him when he filled his hands with her perfect breasts.

She began an undulating rhythm that had him groaning to a hard, fast orgasm only minutes later. “Now who’s a sex slave?” She punctuated her question with a movement he’d only read about in a Breoxan sex manual. He wondered how she’s learned that trick. The pressure on his balls from heaven knew what part of her anatomy had him practically squealing with ecstasy. He was certain, had she not been riding him, his seed would have shot across the room, he came so hard.

She moaned through her own orgasm and collapsed on top of him, panting. “I’m ready now.”

Through a blurry haze of satisfaction, Fletch murmured, “Gods, woman, give me time to regroup.”

“I mean to pilot the ship.”

“Oh. Uh…sure, just give me a second to…”

“Regroup?” She smirked and caught his lips in a succubus kiss that left him breathless. Deep in his chest Fletcher’s heart stuttered when a stab of unfamiliar feeling lanced through it.

Damn, he didn’t have time for this. He had a job to do, granted one that currently came with perks most men would kill for, but nevertheless. He could not afford to develop any real feelings for Talia Lory, even though right now she seemed ready to crawl into his skin with him. When the U-4EA wore off for good, she’d probably want nothing more than to crush his balls for good measure and to be honest, he couldn’t blame her for that.

Gently, she pushed her sleek body off him and retrieved his pants from around his ankles.

Her contented sigh made his cock pulse with gratitude.

“Okay, then. Can we get back to work now?”

She winked at him and slithered back into her discarded coverall. “Ready when you are, captain.”

* * * *

Less than an hour later Talia closed the door to the small stateroom Fletch had led her to and leaned her sweaty forehead against the nearest bulkhead.

The next down cycle had begun shortly after they switched the ship off of autopilot and reset a course for the GemCon Mining Dome on Asteroid X7658 of the Threxis Belt. The two dozen full-shift emerald miners there were apparently doing zero-gee back flips at the prospect of hosting a cargo of sex-starved females for a month. By the time
Xector IV
reached them, they’d be caught up on their vaccinations and sterile patches and ready to perform their civic duty for the Mogarthan abductees.

The idea still didn’t sit quite right with Talia, but her muddled brain could not formulate an alternative at the moment. She wondered if the other women in the slave ship’s cargo hold would be grateful to be saved or resent, as she did, that there was no choice but to work off their sex addiction with the nearest willing male.

Annoyed now by thoughts of Fletch, she tried to follow a path through her jumbled memories to her last coherent thought before he’d decanted her. How could she not remember being abducted by a Mogarthan?

A ragged sigh escaped her, and she sank to the floor. She ran trembling hands over her face, which burned with shame when she thought of the way she’d used the Earth-Sec agent. Not that he really seemed to mind but—

“Help you?”

She looked around, searching the room for the source of the echoing syllables. “Gan?”

“Here.” The Metrian shimmered into view, nothing more than a dim outline in the corner of the room.

“How long have you been there?” An hour ago the prospect of an alien voyeur had turned her on, now it made her shiver to think of Fletcher’s partner floating aimlessly around the ship, nearly invisible, observing anything he wanted to.

“Short time.”

“Go away.”

“Help you?”

“Help me do what? You’re incorporeal.”

He made a choking sound that Fletch had already explained was Metrian laughter. “Help you remember.”

“How can you do that?” She unfolded her arms from around her knees and sat forward, trying to focus her tired eyes on Gan’s barely visible form.

“Close eyes.”

She wanted to protest, shoo him away, but there was something strangely soothing about his gravelly voice and his simple, direct communication. She obeyed. “Now what?”

“Think back.”

“I tried that.”

“Again.”

She sighed and ran events back through her mind, skipping over the unforgettable sex she’d had with Fletcher. The pleasant floating dream came back to her and before that, her last moments on Demar. Could Ganymede read her mind, or was he guiding her thoughts? How could the events that had been so elusive a moment ago be coming back to her now?

“Speak.”

She obeyed. “I was alone in the canyon. I’d found a small lake that shimmered with a layer of trinium scale. The flakes colored the lake bed and the surrounding soil silvery blue. I moved closer to take a reading.”

“Go on.”

“The reading was faint, but I figured the water was interfering. The trinium scale seeps up through the water table from deeply buried deposits, so the lake was a good place to start an excavation. I set a marker at the water line where the readings were more stable. Then…something bit me…right below my ear. I slapped it away. Figured it was an insect and I’d had all my vaccinations so—”

“Tranq dart.”

She nodded. “You’re probably right. I don’t remember anything after that. Crap. How long ago could it have been? CalTak has probably given up looking for me by now and cancelled my payroll account. With my luck they’ve probably listed me dead, probated my will and sent my death benefits to my next of kin.”

“Parents?”

“No. CalTak. I don’t have any…family.” No one she cared to acknowledge, anyway. That thought actually caused her more distress now than the idea of nearly being sold as a Mogarthan sex slave. She’d disappeared from Demar—maybe months ago—and no one except CalTak’s payroll computer would care enough to wonder what happened to her.

Talia’s shoulders sagged, and her head drooped. She sensed, rather than saw the Metrian cross the room. “Lonely?”

She sniffled once and glared up at the specter above her. “Hell, no. I like solitude. Why do you think I’m a trinium scout?”

“Fletch, too.”

“Fletch what? He’s lonely?” She pursed her lips. “He’s got you. What’s your deal, anyway? I didn’t know Metrian’s bothered with the corporeal races. Don’t you get tired of hanging out with people who can barely see you, surrounded by things you can’t touch?”

“Curious.”

“You joined Earth-Sec because you were curious about corporeals?”

“Of course.”

“Do you have a family? Do you get to go home to them now and then?”

“Of course.”

“Do you miss them?”

“Of course.”

“What’s with the two syllable thing anyway?”

“Fletch.”

“Huh?” A knock on the stateroom door cut off any further conversation. Ganymede’s pearlescent form floated through the closed door without another word.

Talia tried to ignore the knocking, but it only grew more insistent.

“What?” Her voice held a bit more impatience than she planned.

“I thought you wanted to take a shower.” Fletch’s muffled voice sent a wave of shame through her. She’d thrown herself at him, demanded things from him…that he’d willingly given despite her altered state. What would she have done if he’d refused her?

She set her jaw. “I’m going to. Can you leave me alone until I’m done?”

The door opened a crack. The man had no shame. Of course, as far as he knew, neither did she.

She scowled when he peered into the room. “Ever hear of privacy?”

“Not with a Metrian for a partner. Sorry. Was Gan bothering you? I saw him leaving.”

“We were having a conversation.”

“Did Mr. Monosyllable talk your ears off?” Fletch laughed. His quick smile lit his handsome face, and Talia’s heart lifted for a moment.

“Yeah. Does he read minds or something? He seemed to know what I was thinking.”

Fletch shrugged. “A little. That’s why the one word answers, or if you’re really lucky, two. Metrians communicate non-verbally to each other for the most part. They use words just to convey major ideas, and the details come through telepathically.”