Silver Bound (3 page)

“Jewel,” he whispered, his mouth against hers before he licked her shivering lips.

She moaned with the exquisite pleasure. His soft, luxurious clothes rubbed against her instantly aroused body, sensitive and aware of his every movement. Her master lingered over her burning mouth, lapping at her as if he consumed her. Lips parted with her panting, she strained against her bindings. His tongue dipped inside to tantalize. Sweet torture. She needed to press against him, the urge rocking her into a senseless haze, but she couldn’t move enough. The restraints rubbed against her wrists, ankles, her throat and across her belly.

“Shh. I’ll take care of you, Jewel. That’s your name, my love. Jewel.”

Her chest swelled until it grew tight and hot. He eased back and stared down at her lips as she licked them, hungry for his taste. The once-white paste painted on her mouth had imbedded in her skin, sealing and activating the nanobots that would give a bright sheen to her skin. Did he like how she looked?

“Silver.” He shuddered and pressed his erection, hard and long, against her, but despite the instinct she couldn’t wrap her legs around him and bring him into her. Guttural and harsh, he rasped against her cheek before he fed her more kisses. “No one will touch your lips again but me.”

Had anyone touched her lips before? A dark shadow flickered, no longer than the blink of an eye, before she banished it. When he left her mouth to kiss her on the forehead, she blinked. He’d kissed an area without the comp-paste. Paying attention to her, not just the areas for silver-tipping, he showed signs of sensitivity and affection. She answered as she’d been instructed by the technician. “Yes, master. No one but you.”

Hot open-mouthed kisses trailed her hairline and around to her ear where he whispered an intimate order only she could hear, a command she would obey as if her life depended upon it. “Do not call me that. You may call me lover.”

He moved his lush mouth, wet and evocative, to her other ear and kissed her lobe before biting it gently. She shivered as her toes curled.

“You may call me by my name, Guy.” More kisses, soft and fluttering, swept across her chin. Fathomless eyes stared into hers. “You may call me with a crook of your finger.”

Her head spun, and the shadows circled. She served him. Not the other way around.

“Shh. No more speaking,” he murmured when she opened her mouth to protest.

A soft caress along her wrist freed her fingers, which itched to tunnel in his hair. She stretched toward him, and he grasped her hand, turning the palm to his mouth and licking the sensitive skin. In fascination she watched her hand change. Before, it had been covered in a milky substance, carefully applied to give the appearance of a glove. It shifted. Little spots, nearly invisible, tingled as they burrowed in. It wasn’t painful, but it burned pleasantly. In seconds, her hand appeared to be lacquered in a silver sheen. Her other hand came free, and he started to do the same to it, but in her desperation, she couldn’t keep her fingers still. She couldn’t touch him enough. She grasped at his clothes, trying to unbutton the offending material that slipped free of her eager movements.

“Not here. I’ll let you touch me when we’re away from here.” His expression softened, and he guided her hands to her side. “I won’t bind you again, but you must be still. Leave them there. If you touch me, it’ll be over before it’s started.”

Beneath her, the chair remained cool where she gripped it. She yearned to brush fingers through his hair, rasp his stubble and bring him down hard and strong on top of her. He’d silver-tipped her lips and hands. Anticipation built, coiling in her middle, for him to turn the remaining areas—her nipples, her vagina and the rosette of her bottom. His gaze moved from her eyes to her breasts. His breathing hitched, and the air in her own lungs seized. Time seemed to stand still until he lowered, his mouth parted, and he took her nipple into his mouth.

She moaned. It felt so good. Her whole body reacted with a tingling rush. A crazed longing to pull him into her fought with the command he’d given her. She’d rather die than disobey. Heat seared through her. He suckled, pulling and tugging around his groan, filling her ears like music.

His breath warming and tickling, he spoke against her skin. “You’re so soft and sweet, more than I could ever have imagined. I’ve waited so long for you.”

Waiting. He’d waited for her. He didn’t need to wait any longer. He had her. All of her. She wiggled, pressing back into the platform beneath her.

Sweet endearments pouring from him, he whispered against her chest and trailed molten lava across her skin. He nipped her other breast, teasing, making her eyes cross as he engulfed her and plucked at her abandoned nipple. His tongue danced, fluttering back and forth across the excited nub so hard that it ached.

Intense burning embedded inside her, and the emptiness between her thighs throbbed. She whimpered. Her fingers dug into the chair, as useless as if her hands were still bound. “Please.”

“I’ll make it better. Hush, sweetheart.”

She’d failed already, hadn’t obeyed his first command for quiet. No more words would pass her lips. Anything to please him, make him want her, make him give her the release she needed before she melted in a puddle. She spun. Her world narrowed on him, her master, her life. His sexual desire resounded in her with a primal need that would make her burn, drive her into madness if she didn’t give him release.

Brows drawn together in a slight crease, he stilled. She recognized that look. Deep within her, she’d never forgotten it, and the recognition unsettled her enough to ease her suffering a small degree. He was concerned for her.

“I’m sorry.”

He had no reason to be sorry.

He knelt between her legs—no longer in her line of sight—and kissed the inside of her thigh. Her hips bucked against the ties binding her. Blood filled her mouth as she bit her tongue to keep her cry inside. Unable to tilt her head to see him, she stared at the blank white ceiling reflecting them in such a dim smudge she couldn’t make out his movements, only feel. She closed her eyes and gave herself to the moment.

A soft pressure on both ankles moved the stirrups wider, wider, as far as her legs comfortably opened. A brush of his hair tickled the side of her knee as he moved closer to her apex. Breath fanned low on the underside of her bottom, and gentle hands opened her to his perusal. Chills tumbled up and down her spine.

The hot, wet pressure of her master’s tongue pressed hard against the rosette of her bottom. As she jerked against the restraints, her breath came in heavy gusts at the intense burn. He trailed a slick lap up the outside of her smooth, hairless vagina from bottom to top. He paid the same treatment to her other outer lip, ending at the top to press against the pinpoint of fire. A conflagration erupted in the small spot of her erect clitoris. Cool fingers gently probed her open farther. He paused and the embedded nanobots settled while she craved more. The rapid succession of intense arousal brought her to a pant.

Another long, languid lick curled and dipped briefly inside her before zeroing in on her clit to stroke and throw fuel to the bonfire burning out of control. Her jaw ground together, and her fingers ached with the pressure against the seat. Her muscles tensed as a climax shocked through her. Her vision went black for a moment, and a smile curved her lips. Waves ricocheting through her at his lightest touch, the sweetest contentment relaxed her. She’d pleased him.

“You’re sweeter than honeysuckle.” His voice was so rough, she barely understood him. In a quick maneuver, he leaned over her while his hand rustled beneath his clothing. He sucked in a breath and laughed in a pained short exhale. “Damn, this lube is cold. That bit a little of the frenzy back, sweetheart.”

Face etched with fine lines, he nudged against her. A dull pressure at her wet entrance made her moan despite her best intention. Fear shot through her and she sought his eyes, looked for reassurance even while her body grew hot and languid, receptive to the only man she’d ever know in such a carnal fashion.

“Talk to me now. Me. Guy. Not your master. Something sweet from your tongue,” he said against her lips, and everything paused. His breathing. Hers. The touch between her thighs. His mouth hovered over hers.

“Guy.” She said the sweetest word she could imagine. His tongue delved to take her in a rough kiss.

His hips moved forward and he pushed inside. Large and filling, his cock pressed into her. He halted, tense and unmoving over her. Her inner walls stretched, pulsing around the tip of him.

“Jewel.” Face contorted, he groaned.

“Guy,” she managed through her seizing throat, wanting to soothe him, stroke and lick the moisture collecting on his brow.

“Damn, you’re tight.” He chuckled with a rasp and settled his weight on her. The welcome pressure of him on top of her, his heat seeping through his clothing while her nipples brushed against the soft material, excited her further. He kissed her throat. “I’m not going to last at all, sweetheart. I’m sorry, but I have do this fast. Relax, it’ll be over in a moment.”

Guy surged hard inside her, tearing the hymen of her refurbished body. A sharp sting momentarily shocked her. She whimpered, but the pain had already fled. He pushed back in, farther, deeper, and she didn’t care about the small pinch. He’d claimed her from head to toe. He filled her completely. Her reason for being, he nearly overwhelmed her as she memorized the feel of him inside her. His groin dug into her, hard and brutal. He spent with a soft curse and shook in fine tremors.

The moments spun out, dangling as everything righted, at peace. The band around her throat vibrated softly and grew quiet. A voice intruded. After a moment the nurse’s words finally registered. “The last program is in place.”

His weight didn’t move, but her awareness of him burst in her mind as if she’d only now fully awakened. His longing for her, his need to have her, his primitive pleasure in claiming her, his undying devotion and impulse to protect her. Above all, his bone-deep love for her, and since it was now part of her makeup, a large part of her essence, she sought and found his longing for her and only her.

It was done. She was his, inside and out, ready for him at a moment’s notice.

She smiled so widely her mouth stung at the corners.

Guy stirred and lifted his head, his brown eyes soft and slightly dazed. “I’ll always take care of you. No matter what happens. Understand that, if nothing else.”

Subduing a strange instinctive urge to tell him she could take care of herself, she swallowed hard as he adjusted himself, righting his clothing, covering what she yearned to see beneath the fine material. More so, she wanted him inside her again, in that moment when she could sense his emotions and understand how to fulfill him. Without that connection, she floated, strangely adrift.

The nurse moved forward, but Guy snarled, “Back away. Don’t touch her.” His fingers brushed her ankles, her midriff and her head. Released from her bindings, she couldn’t move her languid body. He glanced over his shoulder toward the nurse. “Give me the clothing.”

The nurse handed him a tube, which Guy used to apply a glossy protectant to Jewel’s lips. As he rustled through a pile of clothes and made his choices, she missed his gentle, warm touch on her mouth.

DNA-safe gloves fit her perfectly. He helped her to sit up and get dressed. She swayed, and he caught her. “Take it easy. Let me put this wrap on you and we’ll get out of here.”

A long, flowing silver robe decorated with small patterns of pink birds and blue flowers snapped around her. She managed to put her languor-weighted arms into the sleeves. With careful, tender care, he wrapped the soft dress around her and tied the belt at her waist. The tight weave would not allow stray DNA through the fabric to her nipples or between her thighs, but she still had to be careful nothing intruded beneath or slipped inside. If one strand of the wrong DNA touched her silver-tipping, her collar would punish her unless Guy’s matching wrist band overrode the command.

At her station, the nurse touched the screen of the U-panel in deft, practiced motions. “You’ll need to pick up her Broker from the office before you leave.”

“Yes.” As if that one word were an aberration and they the only two still in the room, Guy didn’t look away but continued to stare at her, his newly claimed silver-tip.

“Beautiful,” he whispered. He hooked her beneath the arms and lifted her against him before he slid away for her to stand. His heat soaked through her wrap. “Let’s go. I want to see this station in our wake before the hour is done.”

Missing his strength, she wobbled, trying to steady her legs. Guy stepped back to her side and put his arm around her waist. Leaning against his side, she welcomed his help. He was so much broader than she, so comforting and protecting.

“Like a newborn kitten you are, my Jewel.”

“My name?” she asked, another shadow flickering in her vision.

“Yes, my love. Say it. Say your name.”

As if a punch hit her chest and left a hole, she reeled until she gripped Guy and struggled to allow his presence to fill the emptiness. She straightened on her unsteady legs and clung to him.

“My name is Jewel.”

Guy would never be the same again.

A range sheriff keeping his town safe from the occasional rustler, going off-world several times a season to collect a few kidnap victims from a lawless space station, he’d thought his life would contain no more surprises. A steady diet of bland existence and hard work on his ranch had been enough. He’d never thought to leave the gravitational pull of Grassland or her sister planet, Taphgan. He’d even begun to get over his fruitless crush on the mayor’s daughter and started to turn his mind toward finding a wife. But need knew no boundaries, legal or spatial.

The long and short of it was that, even with her memory wiped, his love for Jewel had no limits and left him with no protection around his guarded heart. He’d made love to her, but at what cost? Had she been herself, she wouldn’t have called it making love. She’d call it slavery, prostitution, or maybe something worse. He’d had to save her, but he’d made her a slave, and he’d enjoyed every second of it. Despite the circumstances, it was more than sex to him, an act that came from his soul and stamped her into his very being until he took his last breath. The circumstances were laughably atrocious. It made him worse than a scrungy cattle poacher.

He’d claim her again in a heartbeat, though she hadn’t chosen him five years ago. If he could give her back her life, he would, without hesitation, even if she’d never care for a man like him. His father’s son, no doubt about it. When the going got tough, his morality flew the coop.

His aero-comm, in an adhesive fabric holster at his hip, vibrated with a message as the silver-tip clinic door closed behind him. With Jewel on his arm, the excitement of a new case—a new criminal to take down—caught him unaware. His gut burned with instinct. Something was about to go down.

Jewel’s stride faltered as he checked the message. He stroked her arm and spoke in the soothing tone he used on spooked cattle. “Quinn sent coordinates to a medship in a nearby quadrant. The ship’s research doctor had some success with reviving memories of silver-tips. We need to get your Broker right away and get off this station, but let’s talk to Quinn real quick. Ease his mind.”

They entered the clinic. Before his comm connected, a guttural shout boomed from the office.

He reached for the phaser on his gun belt. The phaser that wasn’t there. Instead, his hand skimmed over his silky trousers. Before he’d had a rational thought, he opened a small closet to the side of the entrance and stuffed them inside, where lab coats and soft slippers had already been pulled from the shelves and trampled. A man’s displeasure poured through the closing door.

“She’s mine,” the man yelled. “Who has her? I’ll kill the bastard, right after I beat you to a bloody pulp, you greedy little whore.”

A pleading whine was cut off abruptly as the man stormed again. “I don’t want another one. She’s mine. Now give me what I want, bitch.”

A small sound brought Guy’s head around to check on Jewel, her breathing loud in the tight space.

Jewel whimpered and brought a hand to her throat. The yelling grew louder and more vulgar. Her shaking hands cupped the patch of once-scarred skin. A scar he’d never forget even if it was gone now.

“Damn.” He made soothing noises while he ran a hand through her hair. She’d never cried in front of him before. Even after her mother died, she’d been strong, unshakable, no tears.

“Love, forget what’s happening there. You’re safe with me.” He pulled Jewel into his side and itched to plow into the room and accost the man who’d tried to claim her. But he’d never put Jewel in that kind of danger. They had to stay out of sight until the man left. If only he had his six-shot. They’d already searched this closet. They wouldn’t look in here again.

A loud crack heralded an ominous quiet. It didn’t take much for him to decipher what had happened. Jewel buried her face into the side of his chest. Under any other circumstance, he’d have rushed inside to save the woman who’d received the brunt of a backhand, but instead, he quieted Jewel with soft strokes along her back, mumbling soft, barely-above-a-whisper inanities as if he held a child afraid of a thunderstorm.

Today’s activities weren’t in line with the man who wore a silver star, but he’d think on it later. As he’d done the other time he’d skated outside the law, he’d put the shame aside for a tomorrow he never embraced.

Through the closet door, it sounded as if a bull got loose in the county fair, trampling everything in its path. Amid the angry belligerence and the pleas from a woman, at least two other men spoke in calm tones, too low to be heard above the crashing, breaking and loud screeches.

“Where is she?” the man yelled again as more sounds of destruction batted against the door.

He could call station security, but then clinics like this paid half the cost of running the station just so they could be ignored, even when one of the workers was getting roughed up—or worse. Still. As Jewel huddled against him, he gripped the outside of his aero-comm, itching to get help for the woman. The search seemed to broaden out, as noises of shattering and tearing grew farther away, to the other clinic rooms.

It quieted.

The hair on the back of his neck rose. The silence could not be good.

He ran a hand down Jewel’s hair and she looked up, tears pooling in the blue depths. Even in the dim light, she looked different. No only from the passing of a few years, but the innocence in her eyes, the guilelessness was unfamiliar. This wasn’t the woman who’d promised to wait on him, then left in a skimmer cloud of dust as she followed her husband to the rich, indulgent spacer life. The Jewel he’d known had that smile, that look in her eye that said she knew a secret, and he’d always wanted to find out what it was. He never had.

And he’d never seen fear on her face before.

With a frown, he gripped her hand and led her to the door. The shadow bidder and his men had to be gone. It’d been quiet for too long.

Before, the clinic office had been neat, sterile.

The room was a disaster.

“Oh,” Jewel exclaimed softly.

Helping her step through the mess, he picked his way over to the desk.

The office manager lay there, crumpled beneath the desk. Her wide, empty eyes stared at nothing. The bruises at her neck showed the rage of her killer. For a moment, he gave in to the sadness and the wish that her plastic smile still sneered at him. He stepped in front of her body, blocking Jewel’s view.

Then he wiped the pity away. He couldn’t help this woman any longer. She sold women for a living, and he only had time to worry about Jewel now. The men who’d done this would stop at nothing. A chill swept over him, and he made himself look around to find a way out of this mess.

The chairs broken on the floor, ripped paintings, overturned plants spilling dirt didn’t faze him. The splintered pieces of tech, silver-tip collars and owner bracelets spilling from a cabinet did.

Not a single intact Broker was anywhere to be seen. Guy struck out, scattering the already destroyed tech everywhere.

“Oh.”

Jewel’s polite little exclamation pissed him off even more. Even her emotional outbursts weren’t the same. “Try something like ‘We’re in deep shit now.’”

“I…I couldn’t say that. Unless it’s a command. Do you want me to?”

“Never mind.” Careful to keep blocking the view of the manager’s body, he sat behind the desk to find the panic button. There had to be one.

The glass-like surface was scratched and cracked. The comp panel smashed. His fingers slid beneath the lip. Where was it?

He barely kept his rage in check as he tried to focus on finding the switch. They needed that Broker.

A bump beneath his finger made him hesitate. He didn’t want to deal with the people behind this clinic, but he couldn’t leave without the Broker. Jewel would have no safety at all without it.

He snorted. Yes, she needed protection from him. Without that failsafe, she’d be open to his sexual urges for the rest of her life and would never be able to be out of range of his physical body.

He pushed the button.

If he handled security for this place, it wouldn’t have taken several moments for a response that stretched awkwardly while Jewel, head bent, sat on the floor next to him. He also would have hired real guards.

The door slid open to a phaser. The nurse’s hand shook as she held it, the aim precarious. “What did you do?”

“Take it easy.” He put a hand on Jewel’s head. “Stay down, sweetheart.”

“Where’s Donna?” The nurse let the door shut behind her but kept the phaser aimed in the vicinity of his head.

“If Donna’s the manager, I don’t know.” Shifting in the seat which hid the crumpled body, he swallowed the guilt of that lie, but he couldn’t work with the nurse if she panicked. “Someone else came in here and made this mess. You have to call security, but first I need our Broker.”

“It was here.”

“Where is it?” he snarled.

Both women flinched.

The nurse hustled to the desk, and he moved to block her view beneath the desk as she stared at the destruction. She frowned. “It’s broken.”

“You have to have others. Another comp.”

Glancing at him with a nod, the nurse put the gun in the waistband of her pants and led them back to the room where he’d claimed Jewel. The empty platform where she’d been strapped down sent a pang of guilt through him. Her face placid and content, she smiled at him, unaware of the hell they’d be in if they didn’t find the Broker.

From her position at the command console, the nurse made a small sound of distress.

“What?” He couldn’t shake the feeling of doom sinking into him.

“Her data has been erased.”

He turned cold. “Her data. Is gone?”

The nurse nodded. “I can’t make her a replacement Broker.”

Hot, undiluted rage shot through him. An urge to throttle the woman surged through his arms to the tips of his rigid fingers. “Who did this? Who destroyed her data?”

“I don’t know.” The nurse’s face was nearly as white as her uniform.

“You don’t know his name?” He took a menacing step forward, unable to stop the unfettered temper he’d never before had trouble subduing.

“How should I? I didn’t see who ransacked the office. I saw you. And her.” She fairly squeaked.

“I need the name of the man who wanted to buy Jewel.”

“Her?” She pointed at Jewel, still quiet and meek as a field mouse.

“Yes. Who wanted to buy her?”

The nurse’s face turned rigid. A curl to her lip showed a hidden cruelty beneath. “He had that data erased, too. But I remember. Kalon Geanus. Her husband.”

With her first show of emotion unrelated to their silver-tip procedure, Jewel’s brows drew down as she stared at the nurse.

He reeled back. “Not anymore, he’s not.” What kind of human would do such a thing to his wife?

“There’s no way for me to replace the Broker. I’m sorry.”

He didn’t respond—outrage had taken his speech away. The man had killed one woman and enslaved his own wife. What else was Kalon capable of? Mechanically, he gripped Jewel’s hand and pulled her up. It was as if she didn’t understand anything that’d happened. Or that they’d talked of her. Maybe she didn’t.

The nurse couldn’t reverse the procedure even if she had the data. She couldn’t remove the collar either, so Jewel was truly bound to him. She’d feel every single sexual thought he had, and her programming would prompt her to satisfy him or suffer pain for her failure.

Without the Broker, that programming could never be paused. It was designed to be a failsafe, so the silver-tip’s owner wasn’t constantly sending signals. Without the Broker, he could never be far from her or remove the control bracelet, or else her programming would eventually kill her. Without that Broker, if he had sex with someone else, she’d feel his thoughts and be punished. There was no way to set her free. No way for her to live without him. Every single day, for the rest of her life, she was bound to him.

He owned a human—body and soul—a woman who’d been another man’s wife hours before.

The hell of it was, he didn’t regret it as much as he should.

There was no more help for them here. “Come on. Let’s go. I have to get us to those coordinates Quinn sent. To see that doctor.”

“You’re upset?” Her question quavered low. He almost missed it.

Upset that now she was stuck with him?

Upset didn’t cover it.

He’d shelve the anger toward Kalon until he could get to a comp station and run his name. Until then, he wouldn’t bother Jewel with it. It wasn’t as if she remembered Kalon. Or him, for that matter. Nor the long-ago connection between them, the desire he had. Still had.

“Without that Broker, I can’t remove this control bracelet,” he muttered as evenly as possible. Jewel didn’t deserve his anger.

“You want to take it off?” Jewel’s voice trembled, so unlike the woman he’d known before.

He’d had a vague plan of giving her the Broker and letting her go. In essence, the home base for his slave command unit acted as his proxy and kept Jewel in a neutral state unless he was wearing the bracelet, which he never would have done again once he had the Broker.

But with him constantly wearing the bracelet, he’d send her all his desire and lust. Passions he couldn’t control around her. With Jewel receptive to his every fleeting thought, she’d be in constant arousal and need to fulfill his desires.

“Damn.” He needed his boots.

“Guy?” Jewel slanted her face up to him, complete trust in her soft expression. With a slight upturn of the corner of her mouth, the hesitant smile sent a rush of bittersweet memories of her laughing, teasing, driving him mad when, as a love-struck youth, he’d longed to be her future.

“No time for us to stand around here and mope, sugar.”

Her brow wrinkled as she looked up at him.

They weren’t heading to Trident Ranch. Maybe they never would. “Never mind. I’d planned on taking you straight home, but now that’s impossible.” Now they had to find a way to have her memories returned and hope against hope they could replace the Broker.

A complicated rescue had just become impossible.

He squared his shoulders and changed direction. Instead of heading to the bay where he’d parked his hopper, he turned the opposite direction in the smoothly tooled corridor. He led them toward the bazaars and shops to make preparations.