Forbidden Worlds - Box Set (31 page)

“So you can read his mind?”

“Nope. I just guess a lot. He tells me when I’m wrong.”

“How’d you get him as a partner?”

“He picked me. Thought I’d be interesting. This is sort of a hobby for him, but he’s a damn good agent. I can see and hear things through him that no other human agent could. It’s like being telepathic sometimes.”

She gave a short, rueful chuckle. “I suppose he comes in handy for undercover work.”

“When he’s not in a chatty mood.” Fletch sighed. “Look, I know this has been a difficult day for you. If you don’t want me around, I understand. I just wanted to check on you and thank you for your help on the bridge.”

“You’re welcome. After the Belt, then what?”

“We’ll take the pilot back to Earth. You, too, if that’s where you’d like to go.”

“Could I get dropped off at CalTak headquarters? I need to know if they will rehire me.”

“Sure. Earth-Sec will vouch for you, if you need a reference. You’ll get your job back.”

“Good.” If only she was sure she wanted it back. Right now, all Talia could think of was Fletcher’s strong arms, his masculine scent and the way one dark eyebrow lifted when he smiled, or came. She just had to find a way to keep her hands off him, and her lips and all her other body parts until this damn U-4EA addiction wore off.

He rose and dusted off his hands. “Okay. Well, I’ll be around, if you need me.”

“I won’t need you.”

“Suit yourself. There are plenty of vita-wafers in the mess if you get hungry again. Don’t eat any of the Mogarthan food, though…it has a high lead content.” He didn’t wait for a response, and Talia was glad. She’d already begun feeling flushed, and the rough fabric of her coverall had begun to abrade her tightening nipples. Not again. She absolutely wasn’t going to use Fletch for sex a fourth time today. She’d stay away from him, even if it killed her.

She moaned softly when the door closed behind him and forced herself to think about that shower, cold water sluicing over her skin, cooling her desire and clearing her head. That’s what she needed. Nothing more.

Chapter 4

“I need you, right now.” Talia’s demand reached Fletch through the closed door of the captain’s quarters.

Groggy from barely an hour of sleep, his first instinct was to ignore her. After all, Gan would hear her. He could find a way to keep her busy so Fletch could sleep.

“Come on, hot stuff, you know you want it.”

“Go away.” He pulled one thin, Mogarthan pillow over his ears and tried to imagine something unpleasant that would take his mind off sex. The vision of a Mogarthan orgy came to mind…definitely a sight that would shut down even the wildest of human libidos.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work.

His brain said no, but his cock had other ideas. It had enjoyed itself way too much today and now, the mere sound of Talia’s sultry voice woke his desires.

She’d begun pounding on his door.

“You told me to stay away from you. I’m trying to do that!”

In response, she whimpered quite convincingly. “Please? Just one more time. Come on, Fletch. I’m sooo hot…”

Yes. She was that. Damn. Why hadn’t he chosen a Breoxan to decant? It would be so much easier to turn down the sexual demands of a woman with gills.

He threw the blankets off and rolled to his feet.

“It won’t take long, I promise…I’m halfway there already.” A sexy purr laced her voice, and Fletch began to imagine what she might look like, standing naked in the corridor, sweat-slicked and panting, needing a warm male body to…

He turned his back to the door. “Come on, Talia. You know you don’t really want to do this.”

“Yes, I do. I’ve been, you know, trying to take care of it myself, but it just isn’t the same.”

“Ah!” Fletch growled in frustration as he palmed the door controls. How could he let her suffer, after all?

She was on him the moment the panel slid aside, and sure enough, she was naked.

Her warm skin smelled of sex and the faint, sweet scent of U-4EA. Surely the stuff would have begun to wear off by now.

“I don’t think this is—”

She cut off his protest by plunging her tongue into his mouth. Something gripped his insides like a fist, tangling his gut and stealing his breath. He let her kiss him until they were both gasping.

“God, you taste good!” Talia slithered down his body and had his pants open before Fletch could form a response.

“You’re going to regret this,” he said, though he wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to himself.

“Yes, yes. I know.” Talia pulled off his shirt and sank her teeth into the flesh of his right shoulder. He moaned and his cock surged, begging not to be denied.

“Ooh…a bed!” She dragged him toward the captain’s cot and threw herself down on the thin mattress.

“Take me!” With one arm flung melodramatically over her eyes, she assumed the classic pose of a quivering virgin about to be deflowered. “Do what you must. My virtue is yours.” She giggled as he landed on her.

“Are we channeling Twentieth Century romance novels now?” Fletch tried to focus, but with her hips heaving under his and her breasts in his palms, he really couldn’t think straight.

“Trinium scouts read a lot.” She panted the words between hot, wet kisses planted on his chest and neck. “Did you know that male Leonids tie their females to trees to keep them upright during the sex act, which can last as long as three days?”

Fletch groaned as he settled himself with one determined thrust into her willing body. She let out a sound that was half sigh, half growl and locked her legs around his ass. “No, really?”

“God, yes! They…oh, harder! Come on…that’s it. The Leonid couple remains in coitus for days and sometimes have to be…oh,
good
…pried apart by—by—” She tightened around him, and her body went rigid, squeezing him to his own heights of ecstasy. “Kiss me, Fletch,” she demanded, her story momentarily forgotten.

He obeyed because he wanted nothing more than to taste her while her supine body shuddered under his.

It was too good. Too sweet. He’d hate himself in the morning, but probably not as much as Talia would hate him. At the moment, that was a chance he was willing to take.

* * * *

Talia awoke entwined with Fletch, the thin, blue sheet of the slaver captain’s bed barely covering their bodies.

He looked so good. Handsome and virile, sleeping peacefully. His broad chest was dark beneath the pale skin of her own hands, and his heartbeat was a steady rhythm under her fingers.

Damn him. He’d done it again, and again apparently, several times throughout the
Xector IV
’s night cycle. Why hadn’t he turned her away?

Silly question. He was a man. There was no way he was going to turn down sex, especially if she begged for it.

If she wanted to put an end to all this free love, she was going to have to do it herself. Anything to preserve what little was left of her dignity.

On the downswing of her U-4EA high, and self-conscious again, she extricated herself from his embrace, careful to quell the urge to run her hand over the smooth expanse of his back. She had to get away from him before the U-4EA kicked in again because, by God, she refused to be caught dead begging him to tie her up and spank her. At least he hadn’t complied with that request, but she groggily recalled his cooperation in the master-slave scenario she’d devised after she’d finished telling him about the sexual rites of the uninhibited and strangely acrobatic Leonids.

This was getting totally out of hand. Wasn’t the drug supposed to be wearing off? Shouldn’t she be getting less horny? A sobering thought stopped her. What if the U-4EA had permanently changed her metabolism somehow, and she was destined to be a nymphomaniac for the rest of her life?

That would certainly explain why she was entertaining thoughts of burrowing under the blankets and waking him by wrapping her lips around his magnificent—

“Morning.”

“Ah!” Talia dropped to a crouch, her heart hammering against her ribs. “Ganymede? Is that you?”

“Who else?”

“Don’t you knock? Silly question, forget I asked. Shhh!”

“Said nothing.” Fletch’s mostly invisible partner sounded quite amused with himself.

“I know…I know. I’m shushing me. I don’t want to wake Fletch.”

“Why not?”

On the bed, Fletch stirred. He rolled to his side and bunched a pillow beneath his head. The look of contentment on his face made Talia’s belly tighten. God, he was so cute!

Not cute.

In fact, he was a horny bastard who deserved a kick in the balls for letting her talk him into having sex with her three—no four!— times during the night.

She slipped out the door of the captain’s quarters before responding to Ganymede’s question. “I don’t want to talk to him. Do me a favor, Gan…Gan? Where are you?”

The Metrian appeared then, a shimmery outline in the center of the dim corridor.

“There you are. Oh, my God, I’m naked.” A blush heated her face and she crossed her arms over her breasts.

Ganymede’s broad silhouette seemed to shrug. “So?”

“Gan, can you do me a favor?”

“Maybe.”

“What’s that supposed to—oh, you mean it depends on the favor?”

“Yes.”

Talia wondered if the Metrian could roll his eyes in frustration. With a quick glance at the closed door of Fletch’s room, she plowed on. “Can you not tell him where I am today? I’m going to try to get lost for a while. I can’t keep tracking him down and…um…”

“Fucking?”

“Yes.” Now Talia rolled her eyes. There was obviously no point in being subtle with a Metrian. “Yes. I can’t keep doing this. So for both our sakes, I’m going to avoid him. Can you just tell him not to look for me for a while?”

“Yes.” Ganymede made a sound that might have been a wistful sigh. Talia ignored it. The last thing she needed was a Metrian matchmaker.

“Good. I’m going…that way.” She pointed down the corridor in the general direction of the stateroom Fletch had assigned to her. The first thing she needed to do was put some clothes on. “I’d appreciate it if you’d do whatever you can to make sure Fletch and I don’t cross paths for a while.”

“Small ship.”

“I know. That’s why I need your help.”

Again, the rippling outline of the alien seemed to shrug. Talia took that as acknowledgement. Had Gan been corporeal, and she been fully clothed, she might have hugged him. Instead she hurried off down the corridor, hoping there would be some place she could hide until the desire to jump Fletcher Gray’s bones wore off completely.

* * * *

Talia stood knee deep in the crystal surf on a little beach somewhere on the planet Narex. Dotted with thousands upon thousands of tropical islands, Narex was a lovers’ paradise, a place Fletch often dreamed about dropping anchor with a gorgeous woman someday when his commission with Earth-Sec had run to retirement.

Wouldn’t Talia look perfect there? He contemplated the sexy vision even as his mind floated back to consciousness. With the sugar-white sand beneath her feet, the salty ocean breeze teasing her dark curls, she was every man’s fantasy.

Maybe after all this was over, he could convince her to…not cut his balls off and fry them in hot oil. No point in hoping for any more than that.

What was he thinking? Reality crashed around him, cold and unforgiving. The Mogarthan mattress was lumpy and the pillow too thin. The bed was too short for him to stretch out comfortably, although it had seemed large enough last night when Talia had mounted him…

Fletch sat up, rubbed at the stubble on his lower jaw, and blinked his blurry vision back into focus.

Of course she was gone. Once the U-4EA buzz wore off, why would she stay with him? Her scent lingered on the thermal sheet, and on his hands, reviving the ache in his gut that had plagued him from the moment she’d first kissed him.

And right now she was probably in the galley looking for a sharp knife and some seasonings to compliment fresh gonads.

“Dammit, Fletch. Why didn’t you listen to the big brain?”

“Not here.” Gan semi-materialized then, nearly startling Fletch off the bed.

“Crap, Gan. Can’t we tie a bell on you? What do you mean, not here?”

“Big brain.”

Fletch sighed. “I didn’t mean your big brain. I meant mine.”

Gan’s response was a chortle. Fletch hated that Metrian’s could chortle. “Very funny. Have you found those coordinates yet?”

“Yes.”

“Ah. Finally.” Fletch rolled out of bed and retrieved his pants and shirt from where Talia had flung them during their recent escapades. “What was the Mogarthan’s destination?”

“Camilax.”

Fletch nodded, shrugging into his shirt which also smelled like Talia. Damn. Why couldn’t he seem to get away from her? Not only did her very essence seem to cling to him, he’d actually wasted valuable dreaming time by imaging he’d taken her on vacation to Narex.

Maybe the U-4EA was rubbing off on him, because all he could think of at the moment was finding her and tearing her clothes off.

“Camilax. Okay. Well, I’ll go transmit that to Earth-Sec—”

“Already done.”

“Good. Now we just have to drop off our cargo and then we can get to work on our next assignment. What’s our ETA to the Belt?”

“Two days.”

“Perfect. Where’s Talia? She’ll be happy to hear that.”

“Avoiding you.”

That stopped Fletch short. Of course she’d be avoiding him. The fact that she’d been lying in his arms only a few hours ago blissfully asleep, content and trusting, meant absolutely nothing. To her.

It shouldn’t have meant anything to him, either.

With a grunt, he padded into the head, tossing instructions over his shoulder to Ganymede. “Good. Better to have her out of the way for now. Let’s give the miners an update on our ETA and send all our data back to Earth-Sec. I’m not greedy. If they can get started shutting down the Mogarthan operation on Camilax, all the better.”

“Will do.” Gan’s voice receded, and though Fletch couldn’t exactly see his partner, he had the impression that the Metrian had left the stateroom.

“Yep. Glad to have her out of the way for a while,” he told his reflection in the small, square mirror above the sink. Talia Lory had served her purpose by helping him change the ship’s course. Apparently, he’d served his as well as far as she was concerned.