Unbound (4 page)

No one moved that fast.

With a huff of disgust, she dropped her head into her free hand. “Spirit of space, Asrial, now you’re seeing things.”

Her nipples throbbed, the soft drape of her top irritating the sensitive buds. The flesh between her thighs pulsed in concert. She could almost feel hard fingers stroking her folds.

Impossible. She was in space, headed outsystem toward the first of several Jumps to the Eskarion Ring, one of Xerex sector’s gateways to the Inner Worlds. No one could have gotten past her security—the one system she made sure was up to date—and boarded the
Castel
without her knowledge. She’d learned her lesson from her parents’ deaths and kept up with the latest security advances. Never again would pirates set foot on her ship.

Despite that, her paranoia forced her to double-check. “
Castel
, head count, number of sentients aboard?”

“One, identified as Asrial Dilaryn.” The ship comp’s voice was blandly anonymous, never having been programmed for emotion. She hadn’t bothered with the preset profiles, deeming it unnecessary. Personality was for conversation, and she didn’t want conversation. Anyway, the
Castel
’s comp wasn’t an AI; it couldn’t have handled the load.

“See, just a dream.” The solitude was getting to her. Too many hours at the board or wrestling with the control runs of that thruster, not enough downtime. That had to be it. She’d promised herself and her cousins she’d make time to visit and relax when she brought the
Castel
in for its upgrade. Clearly that wasn’t soon enough for her body.

Asrial swept the cabin with another glance. The storage compartments remained sealed, as were the door to the rest of the ship and the door to the bio unit. If any of them had opened, the indicators would have lit up. No one had used them to escape, certainly no one faster than a stunner blast.

But still her body throbbed, hungry for relief. She rubbed her breasts, the worst offenders, so sensitive the slightest pressure sent tingles sizzling through her.

Strange what her subconscious dreamed up. She’d never been drawn to the dark and brooding type, preferring lanky, gregarious blonds with friends in every bar. Pilots, not dockhands. Light-hearted fun. She couldn’t afford anything more serious with her runs to the Rim and all her funds tied up in her ship or earmarked for Amin’s family.

So why did her heart race at the thought of a dark stranger bending over her, his large hands roaming her body at will? Why did her breath catch at the imagined pressure of long fingers parting her tingling folds?

She cupped her wet and aching flesh, the contact sending her body shuddering with carnal hunger. Yearning flooded her veins, her very skin shivering from the strength of her need. No way she could go back to sleep feeling like this.

Frigging biology.
Asrial shook her head in resignation.

She scrounged through the locker under her bunk for her pleasure wand. Best she release some of the tension humming in her veins. She couldn’t afford to wait until she got to a station and found a willing partner. Being distracted in space was guaranteed to get someone killed—her, most likely.

There it was. The pleasure wand’s hard, familiar lines filled her hand like a friend. She’d been using it rather frequently of late. Amin’s medical expenses had wiped out her emergency funds, and she’d been cutting costs wherever she could since then. Shorter stops on stations, less convenient docking bays, fewer drinks, cheap food. Which came down to less time to meet a man to warm her sheets.

Impatient now, Asrial wriggled free of the constriction of her clothes. Lying back, she activated the pleasure wand, its barely audible hum waking anticipation. Here, with this, she was certain of satisfaction.

She pressed it to the side of her breast, quiet sparks leaping out to lick at her nerves as she laid it against the erogenous zones repeated practice had made familiar. The passionless stimulation performed as designed, however much she might dislike the clinical effect.

Shivering at the electrifying contact, she stretched out on her bunk and closed her eyes to shut out the sight of the device. The wand might bring her body release, but it couldn’t give her the sweat and heat and exertion of real sex.

But as soon as she closed her eyes, that dark man she’d thought had been bending over her came to mind. A brooding presence more sensed than seen. Even now, it felt as though he watched her, watched her hands as she pleasured herself.

A gulp of air did little to ease the tightness of her chest. How perverse to envisage him instead of one of her previous lovers, men with whom she’d actually shared intimacy. But whatever worked. She wasn’t choosy. Efficiency had been her byword since Amin’s accident. The end was what mattered—release from the tension tying her in knots.

Asrial used that erotic awareness to build her desire, imagining a mysterious lover who watched her from the shadows, wanting to tempt him into joining her in her empty bunk. The fantasy added spice to her usual routine, heightening her excitement. Her heart leaped at the scene, cool tingles sweeping her body in ever stronger waves as need rose.

Each touch of the pleasure wand was a spark of delight that fed the humming tension within. The throb homed in on her core, the low thrum of thrusters preparing for launch. She abandoned her usual restraint, embraced the fever of need rising in her veins, allowed her body to arch and twist as the mood took her.

In her imagination, she watched her lover’s eyes heat as he watched her in turn. The thought of it made her so wet her womb clenched in a fury of desire, emptiness demanding fulfillment.

She pressed the wand between her legs and into herself, gasping at the jolt of pleasure it wrenched from her body. The imagined pressure of long fingers stroking her intimately taunted her with what she didn’t have. She drove the wand deeper, chasing guaranteed release. Caught up now in carnal hunger, she writhed, riding the wand, its electrifying touch winding her need ever tighter. But it wasn’t enough. Spirit of space, to have a man inside her, pumping her to overflowing.

The peak came inexorably, rising higher and higher with each erotic spark. With a final thrust of the pleasure wand, she slipped over the edge, breaking the bonds of need. Pleasure fountained up, effervescent delight shimmering through her veins in sweet waves.

Asrial powered down the pleasure wand and set it aside, her body spent. She let her eyes drift shut, savoring the aftershocks of her orgasm. The cool breeze of the climate control’s night setting dried her sweat, the contrast with her hot skin sending another shiver through her.

And still she couldn’t shake the notion that someone was watching her.

As mist,
he found his prison tugging at his essence, a loose chain drawing slowly, inevitably taut. But the woman’s fascinating performance gave him the strength to resist. That and his fear that succumbing to the grayness would lose him what little freedom he had somehow gained kept him in her room.

He was still djinn, still tied to this despicable existence. But for some inexplicable reason, the woman who should be his master had no power to command him. Even more perplexing: she was alone when no vyzier was ever left alone. She wielded an energy weapon instead of weaves. From her reaction, she did not even know what he was.

Impossible hope clutched at him, clawing at the cloak of apathy that protected him. Suddenly all the strangeness he observed felt significant. He had to know what it portended.

Re-forming by the bedside, he looked down at the woman. “What is this place?”

With a gasp, she scrambled away, clawing around her as she pressed her back to the wall. “Lights, full!”

Brown eyes rounded, irises narrowed to tiny black dots in the sudden brightness from the walls, she stared at him. “Who are you? Where’d you come from?” She spoke with an unfamiliar accent, her words tumbling together like flowing water, not the harsh, guttural tones of the hated Mugheli.

Not Mugheli.

She was not the enemy!

He returned her stare, stunned. He was not in enemy hands? How was that possible? A djinn was a prize among the highest vyziers, their mastery a recognition of rank and power.

And yet he had seen his prison standing among trifles . . . and she did not know what he was.

Without taking her eyes from him, she continued to claw the beddings around her.

Spotting that curious object she had brandished at him, he picked it up, turning it over in his hand. Yet another thing made of some material he had never encountered, the energies at its heart like harnessed starlight. “Is this what you seek?”

Her eyes widened further when he offered her the object. She scrubbed her face. “Spirit of space, I’ve lost it. I did
not
see that.”

He set it down, since it seemed to upset her. He had frightened her with his unthinking reappearance. More emotions long unfelt woke inside him: awkwardness, embarrassment, remorse . . . and something else.

The urge to touch her filled him once again, to explore the bare, creamy skin before him. But if she could not command him, did that mean the desire . . . was
his
?

Had it been his all along?

She lowered her hands slowly, then groaned when she saw him still there. Squeezing her eyes shut, she chanted in a low voice, “Wake up, wake up, wake up already.”

He touched her face with disbelieving fingers. “You are awake,” he assured her, hoping he was not the one who dreamed.

 

 

She was awake?
Asrial opened her eyes to stare at the intruder standing within arm’s reach. Grabbing distance. Kissing distance. She stifled a spurt of awareness at the observation. What a thing to notice when she was sitting here naked!

The incongruities of his appearance gradually registered. He didn’t wear spacer gear—in fact, his chest was bare—and it was rather obvious he didn’t bear any weapons. Yet he didn’t have the desperate look of someone who’d been abandoned on Maj and had managed to stow away.

What man would enter her cabin uninvited, then give her stunner back? Besides, how could he have gotten aboard in the first place, and how had he disappeared? She had to be dreaming. His presence didn’t make sense.

“
Castel
, head count, number of sentients aboard?”

“Two, identified as Asrial Dilaryn and—anomaly detected.”

Asrial froze at the ship comp’s response, her head jerking to the speaker panel on the wall. “
Castel
, identify anomaly.”

“Unregistered sentient exceeds set parameters.”

No way.
There was no way anyone could have boarded in mid-flight, not without her knowing. They’d have had to match trajectories and velocities, run a boarding tube to the
Castel
, then force a hatch open. Just the magnetic seal of the tube would have set off the alarms.

Secure in her logic, she relaxed infinitesimally, the stunner under her hand reassuring her further. “What are you? How’d you get on board?”

A strange look crossed his face. More than discomfort. Almost . . . shame?

“Well?”

“I am—” He drew a deep breath, that magnificent bare chest expanding. “A djinn.” He spat the word as though it were poison, disgust twisting his features. If it was pretense, he put on a good show.

Asrial nearly believed him but . . . a djinn? That was straight out of her mother’s stories, the same ones she’d been thinking about recently. “And how’d you get on board?”

“Someone put my prison here.”

Prison?
That wasn’t in the tales. Djinn were always fearsome spirits guarding fabulous treasure or in the service of evil sorcerers.

The tension inside her eased, relief letting her breathe easier. He wasn’t real. Her subconscious was playing games, drawing inspiration from recent events. She must have fallen asleep after her session with the pleasure wand and was now dreaming. A continuation of her fantasy.

“Perhaps I can prove it.” His voice rasped, like a rough velvet tongue on her skin. His touch on her shoulder was light and tentative, unlike the intimate caresses she’d imagined ranging over her body. But the implication was clear.

Sex. Of course, it would be sex. She’d had sex on the brain since before she’d undocked from Nudra 4 for Maj.

What would it hurt? This was a dream. Best to get it out of her system while she was in local space. Her brain was obviously telling her she needed some downtime. Still, she couldn’t deny some alarm at having a tall stranger standing at her bedside and her all naked.

Asrial took a longer look at him and felt a tingle of response. Her subconscious had a lot to answer for.

Broad, corded shoulders above an equally broad, bare chest. A smattering of hair across his pectorals. Flat, lean belly. Thin line of hair below the navel. Loose pants hung low on narrow hips. Mouthwatering details.

His features gave her no cause for complaint, somewhat drawn but not gaunt. Rim rat stubble shadowed a stern jaw and upper lip. Straight nose, a bit on the long side. Level brows. Direct gaze, wary and unblinking. If he were truly a man, she’d have said he had a past—a chancy one—and given him a wide berth. Especially after seeing the dark tat on his left shoulder.

But he had long hair no self-respecting spacer would sport, what with vari-grav zones and all the nooks and crannies it could catch on. Worn straight and loose, it ended at mid-thigh and was so dark it held a sheen of midnight blue. What had prompted her to imagine that?

“D’you have a name?” Just because this was a dream didn’t mean she was willing to spend some rack time with a nameless stranger. She still had standards—however low.

Silver eyes stared at her blankly, darkening to gray as his pupils widened. His mouth opened then closed repeatedly while he searched—seemed to search—his memory. Frowning, he thrust his fingers through his hair as if the motion would jog an answer loose. “R—Ro—Romir. Romir . . . Gadaña.”