Justin (7 page)

But he couldn’t help it. Sybellie tossed her veil around her throat, her clear voice touching Justin like a caress.

Deanna glared at him. “You’re up here to watch them, aren’t you? Aren’t they a little young for you?”

“I wasn’t watching them.” Justin had gotten so good at lying.

She ignored him. “Are you stalking one of them? Was she who you were coming up here to meet? If she’s underage, you are so screwed. Tell me, Justin. I’ll find out anyway. Or was it all of them together?”

Justin pushed her harder into the wall. “You leave them the hell alone.”

Deanna’s eyes widened again, this time with a look of pain. “Oh, gods, Justin, you really are stalking them.”

“No, I am not.”

“Then why are you up here? Why are you risking your life?”

Justin let go of her, fear swirling through him. “All right, all right.” He raised his hands, pretending to be cool, when his heart was pounding so hard he wanted to die. “It’s true,” he said quickly. “I’m a perv. I like young, soft flesh.”

Deanna’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”

“Shareem can’t lie.”

“But you’re doing it. Again.”

Fuck.

Her pistol came up. It was a stun pistol only, but she could drag him anywhere if she knocked him out.

“You are going to tell me every word of what’s going on,” she said. “Or I’ll arrest you again, and I don’t care how many d’Aroths gang up on me to get you out.”

“Fine.” Justin reached into his robes. Deanna’s trigger finger tightened until Justin pulled out his handheld. “I’ll call my ride. It’s more comfortable than a patrol car.”

“Why not watch from the car, then, where I couldn’t find you or shoot you?”

Justin pushed buttons that summoned the chauffer. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Bor Nargan glass tended to be very thick and full of shielding. Looking through the shielded glass of Brianne’s car to the heavy windows of the coffeehouse rendered the coffeehouse’s windows an almost opaque gray. If he stayed in the car, he wouldn’t get a clear view of Sybellie.

The car slid to a silent halt at the other end of the alley. Justin grabbed Deanna’s hand and towed her along with him toward it.

The car’s back door slid open. Justin all but shoved Deanna inside and climbed in behind her, dropping onto the seat with her before the door closed again.

The chauffer turned and looked at them through the window of his compartment. Deanna’s gun was obvious, but Justin shook his head.

“It’s all right,” he said through the speaker.

The chauffer, used to Shareem by now, turned away and darkened the window between passenger and driver compartments.

The car was a bubble of privacy and luxury. Cushions softer than any bed Justin had owned cradled his backside. The air was cooled and lightly scented with the odor of meadow flowers. Justin had walked across real meadows on Sirius, and knew that they smelled of mud, decayed grass, and the last passing cow. But none of that would do for the highborn ladies on Bor Narga.

“How did you afford this?” Deanna asked, looking around in wonder.

“I didn’t. It’s a friend’s. She loaned it to me for the afternoon.”

“What friend?”

“Brianne d’Aroth.”

Deanna made a noise of exasperation. “I might have known. She’s been very helpful, hasn’t she? Is she one of your . . . clients?”

“No,” Justin said with emphasis. “She’s just a friend.”

“Why should I believe anything you say?”

“Why are you trying to make my life hell?” Justin countered.

They faced each other, Deanna breathing hard, red-faced, and still sexy.

“Why did you come back to Bor Narga?” Deanna asked.

“Why is it any of your damned business?”

“Because it’s my job to protect women from people like you!” Her voice rang in the small compartment.

“Oh, right, to protect the women who make so many rules that my friends and I can barely exist? The same women who hire us in secret to make them orgasm all night? You’re protecting them from
me
?”

“You didn’t have to come back here,” Deanna said hotly. “You lived on Sirius, for the gods’ sake. You left there to come back to this hellhole. You’re up to something. I need to know what.”

“Nothing that’s going to hurt you or the precious women you’re protecting.”

“How the hell can I know that?” Deanna shouted. “Shareem aren’t supposed to lie, but you’re doing it. Shareem can’t touch a woman without her permission, but you grabbed me and shoved me around without a flicker of pain. Has someone been messing with you inside? Did they break your programming? Who was it, and what does it have to do with those girls?”

“
I
broke it.” Justin grabbed her wrist again without mitigating his strength and twisted the stun gun from her hand. “I broke my programming myself. It has nothing to do with anyone on Bor Narga. With more than twenty years on Sirius without the stupid inoculations, I had plenty of time to practice.”

Deanna stared, openmouthed, as he clicked on the stun gun’s safety and tossed the gun to the other side of the car. “I could have you terminated for doing that.”

“Fine. Then do it.” Justin shoved his handheld at her. “Call your patrollers. Arrest me. Terminate me. Hell, I don’t care anymore.”

He did care, but Deanna was right. He shouldn’t have come back to Bor Narga. But after Shela had died, his craving to see Sybellie wouldn’t leave him alone.

Now he realized his selfishness. Deanna wasn’t stupid. If she figured out what was going on, if she reported it, he might as well have killed his own daughter.

Deanna took the handheld, but she rested it between her fingertips and didn’t turn it on. “I don’t want you terminated, Justin.” Her voice was low, that bedroom silkiness again. “I told you that when you were in the cell. I would have helped you out of there, without you having to bother Brianne d’Aroth. Why didn’t you believe me?”

“You’re a patroller.”

“You’re a Shareem.”

She continued to rotate the handheld between her fingers, not making any move to use it.

“That means we’re always enemies?” he asked her.

Deanna’s eyes were soft. “I don’t want us to be.”

Justin didn’t want them to be either. Not enemies. In different circumstances he’d be happy to get to know this lady. She had beauty, strength, and grit, as the plain, hardworking folks on Sirius liked to say.

As Deanna continued to turn the handheld, Justin scooped the veil back from her face. He caressed the corners of her mouth with his thumbs, parting her lips, studying the red, moist heat of her mouth.

Justin leaned closer, her breath on his skin as soft as the silk veil. Her hands came up to rest against his chest, the corner of the handheld pressing his tunic.

Justin parted her lips a little more before he slanted his mouth across hers.

He tasted the heat of her as he stroked his tongue inside her, felt the pulse pounding in her throat as he slid his fingers down her neck.

Deanna opened her lips to his, trying to imitate what he did. The flicker of her tongue was erotic as hell, making his already hard cock that much more rigid.

Justin slid his knee between her thighs, liking the tight coverall that let him feel every part of her. She gasped as he pressed her legs open, then her eyes softened as he stroked his thigh against her pussy.

Her little noise of surrender made his Shareem needs kick in. Justin looped his hand around her wrists, holding them locked together while he pushed her down to the seat.

She squirmed under him, but Justin held her firmly, continuing to lick and stroke her mouth. His questing fingers found the fastening of her coverall, and he jerked the coverall open from neck to waist.

Beneath it, Deanna wore an almost sheer tunic, the rosy buds of her nipples displayed against the fabric. Justin held her down while he tongued one nipple through the tunic, loving how it rose and tightened against his lips. Deanna arched up to him as Justin closed his mouth over her breast and suckled.

He could have her now, holding her down on the soft cushion of the seat. He could tear the silk open and feast on her bare flesh, licking his way down to her pussy, which he could scent was wet and open for him.

She’d taste good, her hot spice flavoring the bare flower of her pussy, the hard berry of her clit. Then he’d have the coverall off, and he’d thrust into her, sating the need that was burning him up.

The driver couldn’t see—he’d cut off sound and sight to give his passengers privacy. The man was used to driving Brianne with Aiden and Ky. He’d probably learned a long time ago that it was best not know what went on in his back seat.

Justin’s imagination flicked briefly to Aiden and Ky, two hard-bodied Shareem sandwiching pretty Brianne, in this compartment, pheromones thick, and his libido snapped tighter. Justin liked a bit of voyeurism now and again to whet his appetite—these days, he didn’t have much more than that.

But the picture quickly dissolved. He wanted it to be just him and just Deanna, for them to find their deepest pleasure alone together.

Justin kissed his way up to her throat. “Hire me,” he whispered.

“What?”

“Hire me.” He raised his head. “Like I offered before, let me show you what being with a Shareem can be.”

Deanna gave him a little smile, her eyes languid. “You mean, this isn’t it?”

“No.” Not by a long way. He wanted to discover every single one of her desires and feed them to her. “Hire me, and I’ll give you a night you’ll never forget.”

From the heat blossoming in her eyes, she wanted it. She wanted him. Her body gave off desire in waves, the female scent of her kicking Justin’s hard-on into high gear.

Her eagerness died. “I can’t.”

No, no, sweetheart, don’t say no.
“Yes, you can.”

Deanna shook her head. “I don’t want it to be like that.”

Neither did Justin. He wanted her to be with him because she wanted him, nothing more.

On Sirius, selling sexual favors had been illegal. Sex between two consenting adult beings—human, alien, cyborg, same sex, same whatever—was fine, but no using sex as a commodity. Almost the opposite of Bor Narga, where physical sex was taboo, but ladies secretly hired Shareem for forbidden pleasure.

Justin traced her cheek. “Here’s what I want you to do. Go home. Get plenty of rest. Then come back and find me. I’ll give you a night. Just you and me, no strings, no contracts. Just you and me,” he repeated, kissing her. “Understand?”

“Justin, I’m a patroller.”

“On leave of absence. Leave the uniform at home. We’ll be Justin and Deanna, not patroller and Shareem, not anybody but us.”

The car slowed and stopped, and Justin knew they’d reached his apartment. “All right?” he asked, not moving.

Deanna’s breath came fast, her chest rising to his. “I’ll think about it.”

“Think until dark. Then come to me.”

“I said, I’ll
think
about it.”

Feisty sweetheart. “Fine.” Justin sat up, gently pulled her coverall together and fastened it, then turned on the speaker to the chauffer. “Take the lady wherever she wants to go.”

“Got it,” the chauffer answered.

The door next to Justin slid open, revealing the dusty street and Justin’s front door.

Justin pulled Deanna up for one last kiss, then he extricated himself from the car and signaled for the driver to go. He stepped back and made himself not give in to his impulse to dive back into the car and ravish Deanna all the way home.

The car sped off, spewing dust all over Justin while he stood in the street and watched them go.

*** *** ***

Justin knew he’d never last until Deanna came back—
if
she came back. She was the kind of woman who’d talk herself out of giving in to her desires. Justin might have to chase her a little harder, but he didn’t mind the chase. In fact, he looked forward to it.

But right now, his body was hot, his cock pounding hard again. His choices for release were to spend more time with his hand, to get falling down drunk, or to work it off.

He didn’t want to be falling down drunk or hung over if Deanna returned, and his hand wasn’t the funnest date, so he decided to work it off.

Judith, the sweetie, had rented out a small warehouse and turned it into Shareem paradise. The place contained baths and showers, a private place to hang out and be with Shareem friends, and a dungeon-like room underneath where Shareem could bring their more adventurous ladies.

The enormous pool in the bath area had one mirrored wall, behind which women could sit and watch Shareem cavort, if cavorting Shareem was their thing.

Usually the pool was for Shareem alone, but today a lady was there—Jeanne, the lover of Eland. They were in the water together, both naked, Jeanne with legs wrapped around Eland while Eland cradled her hips in his hands. They never minded who watched whatever they did, those crazy kids.

Jeanne had been a factory worker who’d met Eland right after DNAmo shut down. She’d protected him from the patrollers who were hunting Shareem to terminate them, and Eland and Jeanne had hit it off.

When the termination order for all Shareem had been lifted, Eland and Jeanne had stayed together. They sometimes brought in other partners, male or female, for fun, but the two had formed a permanent bond.

Watching the two now in the water together, gazing into each other’s eyes, gave Justin a lonely feeling. He was glad for them, but their happiness underscored the emptiness inside him.

“Get a room,” Justin said jokingly as he stripped to the skin and splashed his way into the pool.

“We did,” Eland rumbled. “We’re relaxing.”

Eland was big, even for a Shareem. A level three, he had muscles like a heavyweight wrestler.

Justin swam a lap, liking that the water was cool today, refreshing after the heat. Water cascaded into the pool from a stone spout high in a wall, and Justin came up under the waterfall.

“You’re displacing half the pool with that cock,” Eland said. “If you’re going to blow in here, tell me so I can get out first.”