Dark Runner: LodeStar 3.5 (24 page)

He stared. She looked down at her hands, unable to bear the dawning suspicion in his gaze.

“Well, who did you think I was working for? I mean, keeping tabs on you. It was partly for the IBI.”

His lips barely moved. “What? The fucking IBI?”

She nodded, her eyes searching his uncertainly. “I told you—that I was sent here, I mean.”

“I thought you meant you were working for Stark’s people, to keep me off his back.” His face was white under the ink. “Fuck, why me? Why my ship?”

“Okay, here’s where it gets complicated,” she admitted. Then she gasped as his hand fisted in her short curls, yanking her head back. His eyes blazed into hers.

“Sounds pretty simple to me. You’re not just a spy for Stark, you’re a fucking plant from the biggest law agency in the galaxy.”

“Well, yeah, but only because—” Her words were cut off as he shoved her violently away from him, so hard she flew backward and landed across the table. She skidded on her back, catching herself only by hooking her leg and hand on the edge.

He glared across the small space at her, two red spots burning on his taut cheekbones. “Yeah, I get it. Because I’m a criminal. A very successful, wealthy one.” His eyes blazed with contempt and rage. It emanated from him in suffocating waves. “
Get out.
I want you off my ship in five minutes, or I’ll throw you off.”

Her heart pounding in her throat, fear nearly suffocating her, she flipped off the table, moving between him and the door.
 

“No, Tal.” She shook her head, one arm outstretched to him. “No. Not like this. You have to listen to me.”

“I’ve gotta do
nothing
,” he raged, his voice full of loathing. “You may be with the big cops, but you’re still nothing but a whore.
You whored yourself to find out my secrets for them? What did you get, eh? Not as much as you were about to. Should’ve kept your secrets till I gave you the keys to the kingdom.”

He stalked toward the hatch, but she plastered herself against the panel, her jaw trembling with her turmoil of hurt and grief. Enough. Even if this was the end, even if she never saw him again, she’d had enough of the blazing contempt in his gaze.

“
You listen
,” she ordered, pointing a trembling finger at him. “You call me whore? You think you’re the only one with a sad story? Yeah, I whored myself, Tal Darkrunner. After
my mother died when I was fifteen, and none of my illustrious relatives could be bothered to take me in. I whored myself to stay alive, to stay unharmed by the pimp who got hold of me, and the men he sold me to. I whored myself to stay fed and clothed and warm, and I did it for two stinking
years
, until I was strong enough to escape. And you wanna know how I did that? I killed him. Yeah, not with a fancy kick. I waited until he was drunk and pushed him in front of a transport. He’d just finished beating me for not bringing him enough credit. I hadn’t eaten for two days, but he had enough to buy his drugs.”

He stared at her with what looked humiliatingly like pity—or maybe deeper disgust—dawning in his gaze, but she raged on. “I worked whatever I could find, dirty jobs, anything but going back to what I’d been. Then I met a man who promised to take care of me and set me up in life, because that was the only way I knew to get along, the only thing I knew how to do—what my mother had done. He got me into the academy, where I finally learned a skill I could use. I learned to fight, to use my body for more than sex, how to maim or kill with one blow. And to do it on the side of the law. I thought I’d landed in heaven. Then we got hired on the
Orion
.”

He shook his head once, lifting his hands toward her, but she cut him off. “It was a cush spot, but of course my man got greedy. When he told me we were going to steal the ship. I was so stupid I told him to his face I wouldn’t do it, wanted out. That’s when he showed me I was trapped, because I’d told him I killed that pimp. He told me he’d have me fired, blackballed from guard duty throughout the galaxy. I didn’t know what to do, where to turn. That’s when he started to hurt me. And he told me he wanted another woman in the guard as well, an innocent girl. He wanted to do us together, wanted to hurt her too, because the captain was in love with her, and Ssaar hated him.”

She hugged her arms around herself, staring into the past. “That did it. I wasn’t going to stand by and let him rape another woman, not while I was there. So we fought him. She was going to let me escape, for helping her. But they caught us. That’s when I found out he wasn’t going to just steal the ship, he was going to murder everyone on board. They believed me when I said I didn’t know about that, but they still had me for theft. And you know what my life’s been since then.”

Finally she was done, spent. Her anger was gone, leaving her reeling with the surge and ebb of adrenaline. She leaned against the bulkhead, so drained she could hardly stay upright. All she wanted to do was sink to her knees and moan like a wounded animal. She’d been so close to having something real, something precious, and it had slipped through her hands, like always.

“So how did I come into it?” Tal asked, his voice only a thread of sound.

She focused on him with an effort. His face was still pale, but the rage was gone, replaced by something just as dark, just as turbulent, but different. She gave up the effort to decipher him.

“After you ... grabbed Kiri,” she said. “Everyone knew you and Stark hated each other. When he disappeared and holed up in New Seattle, they thought you’d kill him if you found him. Kiri was grateful to me for saving her on the
Six-Pac
, so she got them to pardon me, in return for my help making sure you stayed away.”

“So it’s all been … you’ve just been spying on me,” he said. He sounded almost … sad.

She looked at him in disbelief, and then rolled her eyes. “You’re such an idiot, Tal Darkrunner. No, I haven’t been spying on you, not really. They knew what you were doing, chasing Slidi, yeah. But you notice anyone after you to arrest you for murder now that she’s dead? Nope, because no one cares that there’s one less slaver. I was just supposed to report in if you headed back to Earth II before they found Stark. So, that’s it. That’s my grand sin. Now you can throw me off your ship, never to darken your door again, blah, blah, blah.”

“Blah, blah, blah? They teach you that in tough-girl school?” He’d moved closer. Too close.

“You stay away from me.” She drew a breath that became a dry sob, and then turned away, leaning into the hatch, and fumbling for the control. “I can’t do this anymore. You want me gone, I’ll leave. But I can’t—”

His voice was suddenly in her ear, and his hands on her, warm and strong. “You’re not going anywhere, sweet fire. We got some unfinished business.”

She heard something snap beside her ear, and turned her head. A pair of soft restraints dangled beside her, from one of his long fingers.

“Oh, no,” she said, pulling at his grip. “For God’s sake, Tal. You’re not going to cuff me. I said I’d leave.” What would be next? Following through on his humiliating threat to send her naked from his ship?

“Nah,” he said. “I thought maybe this time, you’d like to use them on me.”

She couldn’t even process the strangeness of that offer.

“You know, oddly enough,” she answered, “I don’t really feel like having sex right now.”

He held onto her, managing despite her struggle to turn her to face him. “Oh. Then maybe you’d like to just rough me up for a while. Until you think I’ve paid enough for being such a stupid, suspicious fuckhead.”

She gaped at him, and he grimaced. “Trying to say I’m sorry, Snake Eyes. Evidently I’m not doing such a great job.”

“You—you mean ... you’re not mad at me?”

He sucked in a harsh breath that caught in his throat. “Oh, God, no. No, sweet fire. I’m not mad—not anymore. Please ...
please,
just come here.”

With a choked cry, she dove into his arms, her face tight in the curve of his neck. She hung on to him, hardly able to believe his terrible rage had melted away, turned to forgiveness.

“Okay. Okay. Good enough, as apologies go,” she managed. “I might still cuff you, though.” Just until he’d repeated his intentions a few hundred more times, and she was sure he wasn’t still addled by all the medications he’d had pumped into him.

He gathered her closer, his arms tight, his face against her hair. “Whatever you want, I swear. And some night, when it’s just us alone, I’ll tell you my sad story, how I got so suspicious of beautiful women. Why I wasted so much time chasing after one who was really just a stupid dream, not reality. Not the reality I want.”

She kept her face against his skin, breathing in his spicy heat, reveling in his hard strength against her smaller, slighter body. Even though she could totally take him down if she saw him looking elsewhere. “I really don’t wanna hear about you and other women,” she said. “Except maybe Trix.”

“You’ll listen, though,” he said. “And then we’ll be done with the past, and on to the only thing that’s important—our future.”

“Our future? Um …what will that be?”

He smiled against her face. “It’ll be you by my side, helping me. Maybe you’d like to manage my club—you could dance every night, and I could watch you. Start fights, or stop them, it’ll be up to you. As long as you end up in my bed in the wee hours of the morning.”

“It sounds like heaven,” she said. “Am I awake, or just dreaming this?”

“I could spout some poetic shit about living our dreams together,” he said. “But I don’t know any poetry, so I’ll make you a promise instead. I’ll fight alongside you,” he added fiercely. “Until everyone who hurt you, who’s hurting other kids, at least in our city—is on Deep Six, or in the deepest level of the seventh hell. And we’ll use what I learned from that bitch Slidi to clean out one particular nest of vipers.”

“Oh, God,” she choked. “We’ll be like vigilantes. I love you, Tal Darkrunner.”

He froze. “Uh ... “
 

She kissed him again, laughter bubbling up. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say it now—I’m guessing you’re out of practice at that too. I’ll torture it out of you—in the best way—when I have you cuffed to your bed.”

“Deal.” He bent and swung her up in his arms and carried her through the hatch to his stateroom. Carefully, because even a man recovering from near death didn’t drop something priceless.
 

And then he showed her that she was.

And eventually he told her. Actually he muttered it in her ear and then distracted her immediately, but she heard him, and soaked in the sweet certainty that Trix and Darry were right—she’d finally found a man she could trust.

They were lying together—on top of the covers, because Scala had insisted on turning the heat up while Tal convalesced—their arms, legs and bodies entwined, when Darry’s voice came over the com. “Is he still alive? Can we come in now?”

Scala tilted her head back to look up at Tal. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Don’t look at me. Your choice, my queen.”

“I’m your queen?” she asked, biting her lip.

“Of a gaudy, tarnished kingdom.”

“My favorite kind.” She raised her voice. “Come in, please.”

Darry and Trix entered arm in arm, both wearing clothing from the Lure Valley resort shops.

“You look nice,” Scala said, smiling at Darry’s green shirt, which was the same shimmery green as Trix’s dress. His hair was tied back sleekly from his boyish face. Trix’s braids were caught up on top of her head with a jeweled clip.

“Thank you,” Trix said, preening.
 

“This shirt itches,” Darry complained. “May I take it off? And my pants?” His eyes twinkling, he began to unfasten the front of the shirt, revealing his smooth chest. Then he shrugged the shirt off.
 

Scala had been right—he was extremely fit, and tanned all over. Trix snapped her fingers, and smoky, swaying music began to play.
 

“Watch now,” she coaxed.
 

“No worries,” Tal said, amused. “She can’t take her eyes off of you.”

Since it was true, Scala didn’t bother to argue. She watched raptly as Trix swayed against Darry, and he unfastened her dress for her. It slid to the floor under his hands, revealing her pert, coral-tipped breasts and lithe hips, clad in a tiny black thong.

Smiling at Scala, Darry pulled Trix back against him and slid one hand under the thong to cup her mons. Trix tipped her head back against his shoulder and moved slowly to the music. She looked petite and feminine against Darry’s compact masculine frame.

“D’you want the thong off of her?” Tal asked Scala, tracing a pattern on her bare arm.

“Yes,” she said, admiring how large and strong Darry’s hands were on Trix’s pale skin. “I want to watch Darry make her come.”

“Oh, yeah,” Darry approved. He tugged the thong off of Trix with his free hand, and she lifted one leg, setting her foot on the bed so Tal and Scala could watch Darry’s strong hand move on her swollen, pink labia. “Inside?” he asked Tal.

“Please,” Trix begged, her eyes glazing. “Please, Tal. Say yes.”

Tal nodded, leaning to press a kiss to Scala’s temple. “All right. Come for us, Trix—but only once. And then you can make us come and Darry too. And perhaps we’ll let you have another.”

Scala half expected Trix to protest at this, but the little blonde nodded happily in a way that said she was quite content to let Tal direct her pleasure. Knowing the man who held her in his embrace would choose all that happened next sent a thrill of pleasure through Scala. She knew he felt it when he nipped at her ear. “And I’ll tell you how many times to come, too, sweet fire. Will you like that?”