Assassin (10 page)

Over and over again he brought her to the edge, letting her glimpse at sweet, erupting release but never letting her fall. She’d never dreamed it was possible—this endless euphoric state. It left her breathless. Aching from head to toe. Just when she thought she couldn’t take anymore, that she was going to come in a gushing flood, he would pull back, withdraw his cock and cover her body with hundreds of soft, tender kisses that burnt her up and left her gasping. Time ceased to have meaning. Nothing existed anymore except Zeric, his mouth, his tongue, his hands and his unrelenting cock.

He gazed down at her, golden eyes burning with an intensity she could almost feel, as if he fought to control a power beyond them both. “God damn it, Jaienna,” he ground out through gritted teeth. “I can’t hold it back much longer. If I don’t come now…”

Pressure built, continued to build. Waves of undulating tension crashed over her. Through her. The soles of her feet began to tingle. Her nipples became painful. His cock hammered into her, her pussy gripped it. “Oh gods, Zeric! Oh, gods!”

Her orgasm smashed through her, taking her breath with it.

His responding growl was fierce, turning into a cry that sounded like a howl as his strokes grew harder and faster. Wilder.

Jaienna’s nails shredded the sheet, and before the last of his seed spurted, before the force of her climax destroyed her sanity, she slipped into his mind.

Don’t ask me any questions, just let me go
—

His hands clenched at her hips, a shudder rocked his body, and another howl escaped his throat.

Let me go? Do I really want to be let go
?

No. She didn’t.

When he stretched onto his back, taking her with him without breaking their sweet connection, she knew, irretrievably, that she never wanted the moment to end.

What would be so bad about surrendering to it? To feeling something in her life apart from bloody hate and empty sorrow.

Nothing.
Except knowing your sister’s killer escaped unpunished. Alive when she is dead
.

Like an icy blade, the tiny thought slipped through the wanton haze that shrouded her mind.

It was enough to jerk her back to cruel reality. She had to focus. She had to remember her training. Until Crortek suffered—immensely—no other life existed for her except that of a killer. Detached. Manipulative. Alone.

She opened her eyes, gazing down at Zeric, waiting for her planted suggestion to take hold. Wanting everything he wordlessly offered. Wanting it all. Knowing it was out of her grasp.

Slicing pain tore at her heart. She blinked, hot tears stinging her eyes. Tears? Tears? How had this happened to her?

“Jaienna?”

Zeric’s voice was soft. She looked at him through a blur of salty grief. This was it; he would tell her to leave. “Jaienna, love? What’s wrong?”

A question? Didn’t she–?

“Tell me what’s making you sad.”

The worry was clear in his voice. It completely destroyed her confusion over the never-before failed plant. Her heart gripped harder instead on the cold pain eating at it and fresh tears threatened to wet her cheeks.

“Don’t ask me questions,” she whispered. “Don’t be nice to me.” Her pussy still held his cock. She could feel his strength and heat inside her, like a charge of life-giving energy. Energy she must deprive herself. “I don’t deserve it.”

Zeric shifted, never letting their bodies separate as he gently lowered her back down onto the bed. “Jaienna,” he touched her face, tracing her lips with his fingertips. “Let me take away your pain.”

It was too much. Her heart broke. She clung to him.

He held her silently, giving her his warmth. Through his arms, his lips. He pressed his lips to her damp cheek, kissing at her tears. “Whatever it is,” he murmured, “I will make it better. I promise.”

She closed her eyes.
Take this one moment, Jaienna. You will never have this again. Take this one moment for yourself and then get the hell away from him
.

I can’t. Not while Bhel’s killer is still alive
.

Opening her eyes again, she met his gaze. “You have no idea who I am.”

“I know,” he said. “But let me show you who
I
am.” And he reached for the chains hanging behind her back and placed them in her hands.

The manacles were icy on his skin. It was a shock to his flesh, burning and flushed from the feverous desire coursing through his veins. Without lifting his head, he looked at Jaienna.

She knelt before him, naked and nubile. The long silky curtain of her hair fell over her shoulders in a cascade of wild copper waves, hiding the expression on her face. He wished he could see her eyes. He would know what she was thinking, feeling, if he could gaze into their clear green depths. Instead, he had to guess what was going through her head as she locked the manacle around his right wrist.

Jezu, what was he doing?

A cold metal chink told him his left wrist was now also locked in steel, and without moving his gaze from the woman kneeling before him, he gave the chains a gentle tug. It had been a long time since they’d been put to use.

He pulled in a long breath, feeling his blood surge through his body. He shot a quick look at his wrists.

Chained. Contained.

Controlled.

He’d never been more vulnerable. Or scared.

Or excited.

His control of the beast licking through his veins was becoming shakier. More tenuous. But it was still there. Just. His last orgasm had almost been too much. He’d felt the wild animal struggling to break free, to consume him. But Jaienna’s passion had been stronger. As had his own; an emotion he didn’t want to analyze that scorched through him, choking the thick brutal hunger of the beast and forcing it down.

He gave the chains another sharp tug. What might happen next would change his life. He couldn’t let it end Jaienna’s.

Would she stay and make love to him, or would she flee?

Wordlessly, he raised his eyes and found her studying him. Hot blood flooded into his painfully stiff cock. What smoldered in her clear green irises was a passion so forceful, any thought of telling her to leave—to escape with her life now—vanished. He leant forward, the chains rattling as he offered his body to her.

 Her lips brushed his lightly as her soft warm palms smoothed up his arms, over his shoulders and down his chest. When her fingers touched his nipples, gently at first and then with more pressure, a low groan escaped his throat. She captured the raw sound with her mouth, taking it and returning it with one of her own.

Unable to hold her, he moved to deepen the kiss, to draw her closer to him by the power of his lips and tongue alone. For a giddy moment he did just that; he could feel her heat warm his flesh, but as his blood began to turn to mercury she pulled back. Away from him.

He looked at her, confused. “What’s wrong?”

Green eyes locked on his. “I’m sorry, Zeric,” she whispered, slowly rising to her feet. “But there’s something I have to do on Pellaxion Four.” She stepped backward from the bed, crouching once to retrieve her discarded clothes without breaking eye contact. “Someone I have to see.”

Ice filled his veins. “What are you doing?”

She continued backward, reaching the door. “I’m sorry, Zeric,” she said again. “Maybe one day I’ll get a chance to explain.”

Zeric sprung to his feet, chest constricting painfully. “Jaienna, what—?”

Picking up his disrupter from atop the lock-box, Jaienna waved her hand over the door sensor and with one last unreadable look, stepped over the threshold and was gone.

“Jaienna?”

Blood roaring in his ears, hot fury ripping through his veins, he yanked savagely on the chains, bellowing her name. She didn’t return, and the chains didn’t break—as he knew they wouldn’t.

He stared at the door. She’d deceived him. She’d fucking deceived him. Throwing back his head, he let out a chilling howl and the beast began to surface.

* * *

Jak sat in the
Reaper’s
cockpit, watching as the Sprinter jumped into hyperflight and disappeared from the sky. He sighed. Zeric had been right.

She’d taken the bait after all.

Lyso swaggered through
The Pit
, Pellaxion Four’s wildly popular sex club, iced Xolotlan Sniff in hand. A leering smirk spread across his face.
Fuck, I like this
place
.

Naked slaves surrounded him, some dancing, some offering Bliss to Hrung Crortek’s clientele, others offering themselves. On just about every lounge scattered throughout the shadowy room, groups of beings were fucking: two-somes, three-somes, four-somes and, in one particularly busy corner, an eight-some. Lyso’s cock twitched at the sight. If it weren’t for Crortek waiting in his private suite he’d saunter over and join in. After the meeting, though... He gave his heavy balls a rough rub, eyeing off the busty Pellaxion currently on all fours. He licked his lips and groped at his balls again.
Yes, definitely after the meeting.

Weaving his way through the humping bodies, he glanced toward the centre dais. Crortek’s favorite slave swayed to the pounding beat of the nearby giz band, her hands sliding over her scantily clad body, cupping her breasts, dipping into her sex. Her mouth hung open slightly and her eyes glowed with a dim pink haze—the typical signs of a Bliss euphoria. If not for her mangled face, she was easily the most stunning creature in the club. Lyso’s cock sprung harder again. If he handed the two Boundary Guardians to Crortek on a silver platter, maybe the Ornithion might let him have a go at her.

He let his gaze travel over her. Gods, she really did look like Jaienna.

An angry grimace distorted his face. When he had the Terran in his grip he was going to put a neuro-pistol to the freak’s head and demand to know where the fuck his slave was.

Downing a mouthful of Sniff he continued through the club. It pissed him off that he’d never got the chance to screw the Raavelian. She’d come to him from one of his dealers—a payment for a Bliss haul—only a day before the grand fuck-up on Ornith, and he’d been so busy setting up the deal with the Shikz-fucking Terran he’d never got around to sticking his cock in her. The closest he’d come was the interrupted blowjob at the
Suck and Blow
.

Hot blood pumped into his growing hard-on at the memory. He may have been distracted at the time, but it was still the best he’d ever had. When he got her back—and he
would
get her back—he’d stick his cock in every orifice of her delectable body until he had no more cum to spurt.

A grin stretched his mouth and his blood-pink eyes glinted. Things were looking up—the inevitable execution of the two Boundary Guardians and the reclaiming of Jaienna Ti. If he were really lucky he’d have a ménage with her and Crortek’s slave. He took another slug of Sniff.

The fiery liquid was burning its way down his throat when he saw the female being led across the room by one of the club’s dom masters, a thick tantium chain attached to a black leather collar. Head down, body barely covered by a clinging black slave tunic.

Jaienna
?

Sniff spurted out his nose, stinging his narrow nasal passage as it sprayed across the room.