Heart of Stone (2 page)

She bridled. "I remember you, too.
Holding court before the fire, like some feudal lord, while your
subjects hung on your every word."

"You didn't hang on my
words."

"Branch wouldn't let me near
you."

He tried to look surprised. "Oh,
wouldn't he, now? Can't think why."

He knew why, of course. He was a
dangerous man. He might not run contraband for a living any longer,
but he ruled his frontier empire with a titanium grip, backed up by
beings with weapons and deadly fighting skills.

Thorne was protective of his only
sister. He hadn't wanted her to make the long, expensive journey
here from Earth II, as he planned to be gone less than a lunar
year. But apparently Rose had a bit of the adventuring spirit in
her too.

"Anyway," she went on with a toss of
her head. "Everyone here has been more than happy to fill me in on
the sort of females you consort with, Mr. Masterson."

"What sort is that?" he asked
innocently.

She blushed, her mouth primming up.
"Expensive ones."

He grinned at her. Her long auburn hair
was bound up with leather head bands, tendrils escaping around her
face and throat. One tug and it would come loose. Those glossy
curls would spill over her shoulders in a cascade, tickling his
skin like a silken whip.

But first he wanted to know just how
far she was willing to take this. He was intrigued by the rosy
flush decorating her face and the pale skin of her throat and
chest. She had the body of a courtesan but the reactions of an
innocent.

Unease niggled icily in his gut,
cooling his arousal. Seven hells, what if she was a
virgin?

Branch Thorne was willing to undertake
any adventure, but when his sister had arrived, he'd refused to let
her get her own apartment and he'd found her a job where she was
surrounded with people. Had he protected her so thoroughly that
she'd never been with a man?

Stone tried to imagine growing up with
care like that. He couldn't. He'd trust a few of his people with
his life, but those were bonds forged of battle, not
blood.

The cold, filthy streets of Old Europa,
Earth I, had been his school and his proving ground.

He'd fought his way to the top and
never looked back, but part of him would always be that wild street
thug, willing to do anything to maintain his place in the
world.

The bed dipped as she knelt at his
side. He watched with interest as she struggled to wrap one of the
restraints around his near wrist. His hands were much larger than
hers. Next to his arms, knotted with sinewy muscle, hers were
slender.

"Miss Thorne and Mr. Masterson," he
mused. "Don't you think that's a bit formal, considering where we
are?"

She eyed him suspiciously. Goading her
was the most fun he'd had in weeks. He'd enticed the juicy, tender
prey within reach, and he was going to toy with her before he
decided whether to gobble her up—figuratively, at least.

"Where you are—" she reminded him as
she marched around the bed to lash his other arm "—is in my power.
I'm going to ask you some questions, Mr. Masterson, and you're
going to answer them."

"Ah, I see. And what if you don't like
my answers? What are you goin' to do then?"

Her eyes flashed emerald fire. She took
a deep breath, visibly fighting for calm. Her breasts struggled
against the confines of the low-cut dress. He hoped devoutly they
would win the battle and burst free.

"You'll just have to wait and find out,
won't you?" For a moment he thought she was answering his unspoken
wish.

She laid the laser on the bedside
table. He noted its location and then looked back at
her.

His captor crossed her arms, which also
had an interesting effect on her cleavage. "Now, where is my
brother?"

Ah, the battle was joined. He raised
his brows. "Why would I know where he is?"

"Because you made him go."

"Did I?"

She leaned over him, planting one knee
and both hands on the bed in the hollow of his body to glare at
him. Quark, she was fun to tease. "You know you did. Branch has
been working for you on some hush-hush project, probably un—." She
broke off, her look turning wary as if she knew she'd almost said
too much. "I want to know where he is, and I want to know how to
get him back. He hasn't contacted me or answered my comlinks for
more than a week. And he never does that. So don't play games with
me."

So she thought he'd embroiled her
precious brother in something unlawful, did she? He smiled, a slow,
taunting stretch of his lips. "Oh, but I very much want to play
games with you, lass."

He'd gone too far. The fire in her eyes
drowned in tears, and a strangled sob lodged in her throat. Her arm
flew back and she slapped him, hard.

Her palm struck his cheek with a smack.
His head snapped to one side on the pillows, his ears ringing. He
shook his head to clear it and turned back to her. Quark, those
little hands packed a wallop. His cheekbone was on fire.

"The rose has thorns." He wasn't sure
which stung worse, the blow or her suspicions.

She stared at his cheek, her soft mouth
rounding with horror. "Oh, no. Oh, no. I've never done anything
like that before." She looked at the heavy ring on her middle
finger as if it had done the slapping, not her.

"That's quite a weapon."And why did it
look familiar?

She grabbed it with her other hand,
yanking it off her finger. Her hands were shaking. "I forgot about
it—not that that's any excuse."

"It's not yours?" Was it a gift from a
lover? His cheek throbbed, but he ignored it. He wouldn't poach,
not if she was bound to one of his men. They deserved better than
that from their boss, no matter what she thought of him.

The look she gave him was laden with
guilt. "It belongs to Branch. He never wears it out into the
field—it's all he has left of our father. I'm so sorry, I didn't
mean to—"

She stopped short, clearly realizing
the irony of apologizing to him for doing what she had come here to
do: hurt him if necessary, to make him talk.

Her struggle was fascinating to watch,
as he was used to dealing with rough traders who would do anything,
including maiming and killing, to get the better of a business
deal. Some were female, but that made them no less
deadly.

But this one was fighting not for
contraband or credit, but for someone she loved. And she was
clearly out of her depth, yet kept pushing forward
anyway.

He ought to turn her over his knee.
What the quark did she think she was doing, sashaying about on a
dark winter's night alone with a storm blowing in and only a laser
weapon to protect her? What if her hovie had quit on her, or he
hadn't been home? She might have frozen to death.

Or met an even worse fate. Wild
catamounts prowled these hills, and so did sentient beings that
were even wilder. They knew to stay away from him and his, but an
unprotected woman like this would be fair game. Just a few weeks
ago, a young tourist had disappeared from the other side of the
mountains. Her parents had offered a hefty reward for her return,
but by now she'd probably been sold as a sex slave.

And if a would-be assassin found Rose
on his mountain dressed like this and thought she was his … His
blood ran cold at what they'd do to her.

Lifting her chin, she firmed her mouth.
She shoved the ring into the pocket of her dress. "You see to what
lengths I'm willing to go. Now, will you tell me where he
is?"

Masterson moved his jaw experimentally.
Wet trickled down his cheekbone, which was already beginning to
swell. Branch Thorne was a lucky man, and he himself was a fool to
wish even for an instant that her staunch loyalty could be for the
likes of him.

"Well, as to that, darlin'," he
drawled. "I don't like pain. But I can see that you like inflicting
it even less, so I don't think that line of questioning is goin' to
take us very far. You haven't the stomach for it."

She blinked. He smiled to himself. He'd
called her bluff. She hadn't thought of this contingency. As her
gaze fell on his cheek, she winced, and he thought for a moment her
eyes were going to fill again. Damn, her tears were stealing his
ire, which annoyed him.

But she surprised him. "Where are your
handkerchiefs?"

"Haven't any."

She tsked. "Never mind, I always carry
one." She scooted off of the bed, scrabbled in the pocket of her
cloak and returned to kneel beside him again, a snowy scrap of
cloth in her hand. Leaning over him, she dabbed gingerly at the cut
on his face.

She was even prettier up close. Her
silky skin had a bloom like a plum-quot from a Frontiera orchard.
Her mouth was plump and sweet.

He inhaled slowly, and heat rolled
through him. She smelled good—warm, healthy woman, her essential
scent overlaid with that of some sweet spice, like … pastries, that
was it. He wanted to bury his face in the curve of her throat and
nuzzle, then unwrap her like a treat.

He'd follow that scent into every
hollow and damp crevice, until he reached the deepest, sweetest of
all, between her thighs. He'd eat her up, even if she hadn't been
wrapped for him. She'd delivered herself to him, hadn't
she?

The heat intensified, arrowing straight
to his groin. Oh yes, he was going devour her all right, until her
soft, hot center enfolded him and sated his most basic male
appetite.+

She applied pressure to the small wound
and cast him a look from under her long lashes. "Stop smiling at
me."

"But you see —" he winced as she
pressed harder "—I've thought of the way you should deal with
me."

# # #

“
What do you mean, you’ve
decided how I should deal with you?”

Rose's captive shifted slightly in the
bed, the heat of his torso against her thigh.

"Well, I'm a very easy mark for a
lovely woman. You could no doubt seduce me into telling you
everything you want to know."

It was a good thing Rose was sitting
down. There was a faint ringing in her ears, and she felt dizzy, as
if she was falling into his gleaming gaze.

"Th-that's ridiculous. I—I certainly am
not going to seduce you." He thought she was lovely? Even compared
to all those mistresses? They said he brought them in on the big
space cruise ships, then sent them home laden with expensive gifts
when he was tired of them.

His mouth quirked ruefully. His lips
were thin but beautifully shaped. She jerked her gaze back to his.
How did he smile with his eyes like that? Even with the devilish
glint, that look still called to her.

"You wouldn't have to do much. Why,
you'd be amazed at what I'll admit for a kiss."

She swallowed. Fidgeted. Braced herself
on his broad chest with one hand as the bed shifted beneath her. He
was very warm, and his heart beat beneath her palm with a steady
thump.

This close, he was even sexier than the
first time she saw him standing like a conquering warrior before
the inn's hearth. This close, he was nearly
irresistible.

"Come kiss me, and I'll tell you where
he is," he whispered. Only it sounded like 'coom kess me,' and it
was the most beguiling offer she'd ever had from any man, brigand
or not.

Her gaze skittered to his mouth and
back. It was just a kiss. Ever so much easier than hitting and
waving guns, both of which she now understood were not for her. The
thought of the heartbeat under her palm ceasing to beat made her
soul-sick.

Just a kiss … and just what she'd
wanted for so very long.

Slowly, warily, she bent over until
they were only a breath apart. He lay very still, watching her,
daring her without a word to come closer. She leaned just that much
further and brushed her lips across his.

He smelled of the forest outdoors,
tarma pine and fresh air, underlaid with a tantalizing scent that
was his own. A lot of men who had come to Frontiera seemed to feel
that personal hygiene was no part of the frontier experience. Stone
Masterson smelled of clean, healthy male in his prime.

As their lips met, her breath hitched
at the surge of sensation. His lips were warm and silky against
hers, firm. He lifted his head, prolonging the contact, deepening
it. Kissing her back.

Until she recalled just who he was and
why she had begun the kiss. She jerked her head up a few
inches.

"Your brother is north of here," he
coaxed. "Want to know how far away?"

She nodded and he lifted his head,
making it clear how she would get the information.

"Is he in trouble?" she demanded, her
fingers curling into his shirt. "Or—or hurt?"

"Nay, lass. He's fine."

She could find no slyness in his gaze.
Relief swept through her, followed by doubt. "Why hasn't he
contacted me, then? He knows I worry about him. Our parents—" She
bit the words off. That was a hurt too deep to share.