Thieves In Paradise (6 page)

He didn't respond. His attention seemed focused on the scene outside for a little longer than it should have taken to reconnoiter. “There's nothing out there. They've gone."

"I guess they weren't hungry after all."

Now he swung his upper body around and glanced at her. For a moment his eyes lit with lust. The weight of his gaze caused a heaviness in her belly and her breasts and all the spots that still tingled from his demanding touch.

He'd been as good as she imagined. Not a gentle lover, but Goddess knew a thorough one. Her clit still pulsed from that last orgasm, and had she been standing when he fixed her in his sensual gaze, her knees probably would have buckled.

"Now they know where to find us, though. I'm sure they'll be back when it's time to eat."

She nodded. “That could be a problem."

"We'll have to pack our supplies and move off to a place that's more defensible. The adults might not fit through the hatchway, but an adolescent might. We won't be safe."

Charity moaned. “I'm too tired to move right now."

His eyes held no sympathy. “Your other option is to be eaten."

She blew out an exasperated breath and rolled to her feet. The spell was definitely broken and as they both pulled their clothes back on and her body cooled from the heat of his touch, she wondered what had come over her.

She'd never felt such an overwhelming desire to copulate before. She'd been in love and in lust a number of disastrous times in her life and she certainly enjoyed a good romp for its own sake now and then, but this had been beyond description. She was certain she'd have died if he hadn't given her exactly what she demanded and now that he had, she felt ... complete in a way she never had before.

She shivered with the thought that neither of them may have been in control of their impulses. It certainly wasn't something she'd planned on, and by the look in his eyes when he'd finally torn her clothes off and taken her, he hadn't either.

"Well ... I don't want you to get the wrong impression here,” she said between sliding on one boot and the other. “I didn't seduce you in order to convince you to let me go."

Proving her words held weight, he crossed the shuttle and disengaged the laser cuffs.

"But if you have decided to do so based on that little interlude, that's fine with me."

He seemed unaffected by her hopeful grin. “I'm not releasing you. You'll need both hands free to carry supplies."

"Of course. But let's just say I
did
seduce you in an attempt to get you to let me go, would it have worked?” She raised a brow and he scowled in response.

"No. I don't allow myself to be
seduced
."

Charity laughed. “Then what do call that?” She pointed to the damp spot that darkened the deck covering. Her stomach muscles clenched at the memory of him using her so well, and she had to sit down and squeeze her knees together to calm the sudden pulsing in her clit.

"I call that a physiological response to the environment. Obviously this is mating season for higher mammals on Lebron. We are higher mammals and therefore very likely subject to whatever chemical conditions are at work on the other creatures."

Charity squinted at his big silhouette. “Chemical conditions?"

"On a number of worlds weather conditions dictate population expansion. A deluge such as the one we experienced yesterday will likely trigger a wellspring of new growth. Young animals, conceived now, will benefit from the effects on the environment."

A cold tingle swept through Charity's body at the word
conceived
. She couldn't afford a new contraceptive patch this quarter. It was first on her list of priorities after her payoff for the selenite, but in the meantime she'd been resigned to temporary celibacy.

As if he'd read her thoughts, A'Kosu dismissed her with a quick wave. “I doubt we're compatible. Antareans are too far removed from the original human gene pool for crossbreeding to occur."

"You're sure about that?"

"Reasonably."

"Oh. Great."

"You should have thought about that before you seduced me."

Charity opened her mouth to protest his chauvinistic remark, but the very faint smile on his lips stopped her. There it was again, that barely perceptible hint of humor showing through his otherwise impenetrable armor.

It was going to be a long four days.

Kol employed every mental technique he'd learned from the A'Kosu elders to put the disturbing incident in the shuttle out of his mind.

Nothing worked. Images of the female on her hands and knees before him crowded out thoughts of survival. Memories of the scent of her, the texture of her skin and her appreciative moans of pleasure plagued him during their trek through the moonlit forest. A few paces ahead of him, loaded down with a third of their supplies, she walked in silence. He wondered if she was also having trouble keeping her thoughts under control.

When they'd put about half a kilometer between them and the shuttle, Kol halted her with a sharp command. He disliked setting up camp so far from the coordinates of the shuttle's locator beacon, but the carnivores would very likely return to the site looking for food. He'd left some open rations there to attract smaller animals, hoping the large predators would lose interest in humans if they found easier prey readily available.

He'd also opened a bottle of disinfectant from the medical kit and sprayed the contents at various intervals along their trail to confuse their scent. With their pheromones ripe after the ... incident ... he didn't want the big cats to be able to track them everywhere they went.

The idea of bathing actually did have merit, but so far they hadn't come across a source of fresh water, and that worried him. The four liters they carried with them would not last long.

"You want to stop
here
?” Fatigue showed in the prisoner's eyes and in her stance when she turned to look at him.

"What's wrong with here?” The spot he'd chosen was dry, defensible and seemed devoid of any nests or burrows.

"Nothing. Here is perfect.” She dropped the sacks and cases he'd given her to carry and sank to the ground as if her bones had dissolved. “I need to sleep."

"Not until we set up camp. You can sleep at dawn when the predators are less likely to be hunting."

She glared at him. “I'm a prisoner, remember? Won't I be less likely to escape if I'm asleep?"

He handed her the water bottles and a container of ration bars. “Find a secure place to store our food. Then you can sleep."

"You're a cruel man, A'Kosu. Very cruel.” Despite some minor grumbling under her breath, she obeyed. Satisfied with his leadership skills, Kol stalked away and began setting up a fire pit.

If his last vision ever came to pass, he thought, he would certainly understand the true meaning of her words. She might dislike him now, but in time she would grow to despise him. The thought chilled him.

He had to find a way to change their fate, but short of leaving her to die here on Lebron, he had no idea how to do that.

The rain of pollen continued in earnest at sunrise. Charity watched the golden dust settle all around their makeshift camp and wondered if the hitch in her breath every time she glanced in A'Kosu's direction might merely be the onset of an asthma attack. She hoped that was the case.

She'd rather die than develop a crush on the bounty hunter. Of all people, why did he have to turn her on so?

She permitted herself another reluctant glance at his sleeping form. He probably assumed she'd be too tired to run at this point, and he'd be right. The irony of the situation annoyed her. While her captor slept, she could have strolled into the forest never to be seen again, except that he'd cleverly fashioned a pillow from a thermal blanket wrapped around his pack, into which he'd placed the sack of selenite crystals along with her communicator and her stunner. It couldn't be very comfortable, but it was certainly an effective deterrent to her attempting escape.

Left with little to do, she passed the time by plucking burrs from her flight jacket and pants and picking patches of dried mud off her shirt. When that task became boring, she decided to explore.

If she couldn't run away yet, at least she could learn the lay of the land in case the opportunity presented itself.

"I'll just be taking a little walk,” she whispered as she tiptoed past his bedroll. If he interrogated her later, she could truthfully say she'd told him where she was going and he hadn't objected.

She sniffed the breeze for essence of carnivore and moved slowly, listening for movement in the trees which seemed to stretch on forever. The closely spaced trunks covered a series of ridges that had likely been underwater valleys millions of years ago during the planet's youth. Despite the height of the sun, the shadows grew deeper the farther she ranged from camp. The leaves above seemed greener and more lush than they had yesterday, no doubt due to the drenching storm.

She'd just found a bent tree suitable for climbing when his voice reached her. Damn. Why hadn't he slept a little longer?

His angry yelp galvanized her and rather than head back to camp, something primal took over at the thought of being pursued. Her heart hammered and panic drove her through the trails between the trees. Her logical brain told her to stop, but a deeper part of her psyche that had been trained early on to avoid punishment at all costs wouldn't let her. Drawing in huge gasps of the humid air, she ran for her life.

Once again, Kol's vision came to pass. He flung himself through the forest, racing after the prisoner's barely concealed trail.

Oddly, his concern was for her safety rather than his mission. He'd seen her foot slip in his vision and he'd watched her tumble into a deep ravine. The fall would no doubt injure her severely.

His heart thundered and blood pounded in his ears. Why hadn't his damned vision shown him the outcome of her escape attempt?

"Prisoner!” How foolish to expect her to answer. He tried again, though her proper name seemed foreign to his lips. “Charity Foster, do not run from me!"

The snap of a branch, the clatter of pebbles against stones, drew him off the main trail. Yesterday's deluge had created a perfect path of smooth soil amid the trees. Of course she'd veered from this natural trail into rockier areas where he had to slow his pace.

Her footprints led towards the ravine, closer and closer to disaster.

Kol ignored the fatigue that tightened his thigh muscles and cramped his back. The thick pollen made breathing difficult, slowing his progress. Finally he stopped and doubled over, gulping the warm air. “Charity! Stop now before you injure yourself."

Just as he remembered from his vision, her sharp scream tore through the relative quiet of the morning. Now able to pinpoint her location, he ran again.

"Charity Foster, where are you? Can you hear me?” What would he do if she were hurt? Kol was no sadist. He enforced the law, often on planets where there was no other authority but the highest bidder for his services, but he never reveled in the pain or the plight of his targets. The thought that he might have to watch the female suffer, curdled his stomach. “Please answer me!"

"Here! I'm here.” Her response drifted on the hot breeze, faint and small. At least she had the sense to call out to him. He headed for the ravine, vaulting among the trees, unconcerned for the moment by how far they'd ranged from the shuttle's locator beacon.

"Where are you? Are you hurt?"

"Come look.” Her voice grew stronger, and that gave Kol hope that she hadn't been injured.

He burst from the tree line and caught himself one step short of the edge of the ravine. Beyond the newly formed canopy of leaves, Lebron's orange sun lit the landscape a coppery gold. The broken earth looked like a wound, a bloody gash between two ridges of pristine forest. At the bottom stood Charity Foster, waist deep in a shimmering freshwater lake.

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Charity smiled when A'Kosu appeared at the top of the ravine. For some reason, her irrational fear of being captured again disappeared the moment she'd tumbled over the crumbling rim of earth. During her descent down the muddy slope, her only thought had been that she didn't want to die on this goddess-forsaken planet with only a stoic Antarean bounty hunter to mourn her passing.

"Look what I found,” she said, splashing shimmering arcs of water over her head. The lake wasn't deep, but the water was cold and fresh. There'd be plenty to bathe in and to drink.

"Don't you mean, ‘look what I fell into'?” He shook his head, seemingly bemused and exasperated. “Are you injured?"

"No. I'm fine.” She leaned back, closed her eyes, and let her body ease back into the water, arms outstretched. Heaven. Funny how a day and a half wearing dried mud had cured her newfound disdain for large amounts of water. She reveled in the sensation of the gentle waves loosening the dirt from her hair and her skin.

After a moment, she opened one eye and searched the slope of the ravine. A'Kosu had worked his way about halfway down to the water line. “What are you waiting for? You need a bath as much as I do."

With far more grace than she would have expected from someone of his size, from where he stood he executed a long, shallow dive into the water and headed toward her with swift, powerful strokes.

Anticipation fluttered in her stomach, battling with the desire to tease him and swim away so he'd have to pursue her. Had she gone mad? Wet and panting, he looked delicious parting the water with his muscular arms. The desire to flee gave way to a bone deep need to surrender to him. She thought of the carnivores and their uninhibited coupling and instinctively widened her stance, meeting his gaze when he reached her.

Rather than anger, his light blue eyes burned with lust. Charity's clit pulsed in response when he snaked an arm around her waist.

He didn't speak, merely pulled her trembling body against his and bent his head to suckle cool drops of water from her throat. Beneath the surface of the water, his legs tangled with hers and he teased her left nipple to attention with the rough pad of his thumb.