DeadlyPleasure (4 page)

Falynn stared at him. Hate roared through her. Hate and lust
and unending rage.

He wasn’t dead. After all this time, he wasn’t dead.

Sucking in a silent, steadying breath, she lifted her chin,
letting a mask of bored disdain fall over her face. “Perhaps you’re not as good
as you thought.”

His gaze dropped to her lips, an arrogant smile curling his.
“I am.”

A rush of memories consumed Falynn, too powerful to
suppress. His hands on her body, his lips and teeth and tongue pushing her
toward a sexual precipice, his thrusting cock sending her over in a screaming,
moaning climax. She sucked in a short breath, red heat filling her cheeks, wet
heat flooding her sex.

By Kiirs, she wanted to kill him.

Isn’t that the idea?

As if knowing exactly what was going through her head,
Thanatos drew closer, holding her gaze, his breath a warm kiss on her lips. “Go
back to UZ. Tell them you couldn’t find the target. Tell them their intel was
wrong. Tell them Corvan Jareth doesn’t exist.”

She stared at him, the distinct scent of his body seeping
into her very being. “And if I don’t?”

His eyes grew cold. “I will kill you. And then disassemble
the outdated R42 currently standing behind me who thinks he’s your protector.”

Falynn gasped, snapping her stare from Thanatos’ face to the
’droid behind him. Forty-Two’s eyes burned bright red, murderous rage etching
his chiseled face. He reached for her ex-mentor, hands a blur of bio-mechanical
speed.

But Thanatos moved quicker. So fast he seemed to be in two
places at once—standing between her and Forty-Two, gaze fixed on Falynn, but
also standing
behind
the ’droid, fingers of his right hand behind her
companion’s ear.

“Don’t!” Falynn yelled, just as Thanatos flicked his wrist.
There was a soft click, so low it was almost inaudible, and Forty-Two’s blazing
red eyes turned black. Devoid of any light at all.

He slumped forward from the waist, his massive body
lifeless. Deactivated.

She tore her stare from the motionless ’droid, ripping her
neuron destabilizer from its hidden holster, searching the crowded bar for her
former teacher.

Nowhere.

She stood still, too stunned to move. Kiirs, how could he
get away from her so—

A glimpse of someone tall, almost as tall as Forty-Two, with
short, dirty-blonde hair and broad shoulders moving with obvious haste through
The Steam’s entryway grabbed her attention. She bolted, shoving her way through
the throng, destabilizer still drawn, mindless of the indignant shouts and
insults.

Bursting from the bar, she scanned the immediate area,
wishing to Kiirs she had Forty-Two’s bio-rhythms reader. Being able to zero in
on Thanatos’ specific heat waves amongst all the others on the thoroughfare
would make it easier to track him.

Falynn ground her teeth. Fuck. Where was he?

Taking a guess, she took off down the port passageway. She
had to find him. If she didn’t, he’d disappear again. Or worse still, come
after her. She wasn’t ready to die. Not yet.

Heart thumping, mouth dry, she sprinted along the walkway,
desperate to catch another glimpse of his towering form in the spaceport’s
eclectic multitude. The passageway led her deeper along Level 7, past the row
of Slessorian hookers offering their mouths to whoever had the credits to pay,
past the slavers hawking their “product” outside the slave auctions. Deeper
into the spaceport—with no sign she was running in the right direction.

“Fuck.” Falynn ground to a halt, sucking in a ragged breath
as she searched the crowd streaming past her. He could be anywhere. For all she
knew, he’d ducked into one of the small sex-den rentals lining the passage.

Kiirs. For all she knew, he could be on a completely
different
level
. She shook her head, disgust and contempt boiling
through her veins. “Fuck,” she spat again.

“Gladly,” a passing human dressed in Master Merchant’s robes
answered. “How much?”

“You couldn’t afford her, Echo.” Thanatos materialized from
the masses, intense stare locked on her face. He stopped directly in front of
her, thighs brushing hers, his heat wrapping around her like a hungry mist.
“Besides,” he continued, expression devoid of any humor, “she’s taken.”

The merchant raised his eyebrows before shooting Thanatos a
nervous look. “Sorry, Mister Jareth.” He dropped his attention to his feet,
scampering away with haste.

Falynn gazed at her one-time lover, the slight contact of
his thighs making her blood hot and her pussy damp. Kiirs, she couldn’t help
it. She wanted to fuck him. She wanted to be fucked by him. Needed it. More
than she needed breath in her lungs. “
Am
I taken?”

Thanatos’ eyes flared silver fire. “You’re about to be.”

And with that, he grabbed her ass and yanked her against his
body, crushing her mouth with his.

She tasted like ambrosia. Like sin and heaven and pure
pleasure all at once. He drove his tongue past her open lips, deepening his
possession of her mouth. Fri’ac, she tasted good. As good as he remembered.

Sinking his fingers into her butt cheeks, he jerked her
closer, wanting her to feel the rigid pole his cock had become. She was going
to try to kill him later, of that he had no doubt, but that didn’t stop his
body reacting to her. He’d spent years hungering for her, every moment of every
training session, every second of every job they’d shared. To expect his body
to behave itself now? With her pussy grinding against his cock? Her tongue in
his mouth?

Take this opportunity, Corvan. Fuck her out of your
system and then fix the problem she presents once and for all.

The thought surged through him, turning the lust in his
veins to something darker. Bitter. More potent.

He growled, tearing his mouth free of their kiss to stare
into her face. “I’m giving you one last chance, Proserpina. Leave Port Mercy.
Now.”

Falynn shook her head. “No.”

Corvan felt his heart thump in his chest. “Very well,” he
said. Low. Completely calm.

Before she could move, he snatched the backs of her thighs
and hauled her feet off the ground, wrapping her legs around his hips and
slamming her groin to his.

He spun about, the speed impacting their center of gravity
to grind her cunt harder to his cock. Falynn’s nails sank into his shoulder as
she clung to him, bruising his flesh through the leather of his jacket. White
pain licked through his body, a pleasurable sting that pumped fresh, hungry
blood into his rigid shaft.

“Kiirs, Thanatos,” Falynn gasped, wriggling in his hold. The
soft junction of her thighs rubbed his erection, her excitement already
dampening the crotch of the red suit she wore. “What are you doing?”

Corvan gave her a cold grin. “This.”

Mindless to the startled stares of those surrounding them,
he crossed the passageway, struck his boot against the control panel of the
nearest sex-den to activate the opening mechanism and carried her through the
doorway into the dark room beyond. “Lock,” he said, two steps in.

A sharp hiss cut the air, followed by a sharper click as the
door slid shut behind him and a dim light flickered into existence. It
illuminated the wide bed dominating the small room, and all the sanitized
apparatus in sealed display units on the walls.

Without preamble or ceremony, Corvan threw his former
student onto the bed.

She landed on her ass, arms and legs flailing as she fought
for balance. In a heartbeat, she found it, springing back to her feet to glare
at him, sharp blue eyes burning with indignant anger and base desire. She
wanted him. Just as much as he wanted her. And it annoyed the hell out of her.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Corvan chuckled soundlessly. Fri’ac, she was beautiful. Even
pissed off, she was the most gorgeous female he’d ever encountered. What a
shame she was here to kill him.

Turning his back on her, he crossed to the den’s control
panel beside the door, withdrawing his credit chip from a pocket in his jacket
and swiping it across the scanner. “Full service.”

A rapid series of chirps followed his instruction, the only
sounds to be heard as the sex-den’s processor deducted the appropriate credit
charge from his chip and produced a receipt.

Corvan pocketed both. Then spun around and grabbed Falynn’s
right wrist just as she was about to bury a hooked blade into his ear.

He shook his head, reaching up to unfurl her fingers from
the weapon’s curved hilt. “Tsk, tsk, Proserpina.” He gazed into her turbulent
stare. He removed the dagger from her grip and tossed it aside, uncaring where
it landed. “Very amateurish. Perhaps I need to refresh your training.”

Falynn’s eyes narrowed, her nostrils flaring slightly as she
drew in a slow, even breath, the bones of her wrist twitching under his palm as
she clenched her fist. “Fuck you.”

“Yes. That
is
the plan.”

He flicked his wrist, spinning her around. Whipping his free
arm around her torso, he flattened his hand against the firm plane of her
stomach and yanked, smashing her back against his chest.

His throbbing cock nestled perfectly in the crevice of her
ass cheeks, the second-skin suit she wore leaving little barrier. Even through
the leather of his trousers he could feel the toned curve of each cheek hug his
erection. A wave of hungry desire rolled through him and he smoothed the hand
on her belly upward, closing his fingers around her left breast, taking
possession of its swollen weight, her nipple a rock-hard point under his palm.

Corvan pulled in a breath, the distinct scent of her arousal
filling his nostrils, his being. His head swam for a split second. Fuck, he
could never forget the perfume of her desire. He’d taken it into his body every
training session in the holo-dojo, a soft, subtle, intoxicating muskiness he’d
grown addicted to. She’d lusted after him from the very first moment, just as
he had her. It had taken all his control to not throw her onto the nearest
surface and bury himself up to the balls in her tight wetness every time he was
near her.

Falynn arched into his hold, thrusting her breasts forward
and her ass backward, grinding against his cock as she placed her free hand on
top of his. She guided his caress on her breast, making him cup and squeeze the
heavy swell. Making him massage its full form in slow, deliberate circles that
sent ribbons of delicious heat through his body down into his groin.

“You always were an arrogant SOB,” she stated, her fingers
threading through his, her ass sliding up and down the length of his clothed
shaft in a rhythm mimicking the one she set with the hand on her breast.

He dragged in another deep breath, heat flooding his
balls—and almost lost his grip on Falynn’s wrist when she hooked her nails into
the pressure point in his palm and twisted in his hold.

She spun about, the arm he’d pinned behind her back now
skewed out to the side, her other arm locked straight as she gripped
his
wrist in a fierce hold and stared straight at him. “But
I’ve
come a long
way since you disappeared.”

With a speed he couldn’t help but admire, she lifted her
right leg and smashed her booted foot against his chest, launching herself back
and upward, flipping head over heels. The fluid motion tore their grips free,
and Corvan leapt forward, driving his shoulder into Falynn’s gut the second she
landed, feet perfectly steady, on the floor.

He drove her across the room, smashing her against the wall
with brutal force. Her teeth clicked together and he captured the sound with
his mouth, crushing her lips under his with a savage kiss. Her hands knotted in
his hair, forcing his head still as she drove her tongue into his mouth,
meeting the kiss with her own, demanding more. Lashing his teeth with her tongue
before biting down on his bottom lip.

He hissed in a breath and jerked his head free, backing up a
step, the coppery tang of blood filling his mouth. Lifting his fingers to his
lip, he gave Falynn a quick grin. “I should have remembered you bite.”

“Of course you should have,” she replied, breasts heaving,
cheeks pink. “You taught me to.”

A snort rumbled up Corvan’s throat, the sound suddenly lost
in his own grunt as she lunged and smashed her knee into his solar plexus. Pain
erupted in his chest, stealing his breath. He snapped straight, snatching her
right wrist before she could strike him, yanking it down as he swiped his foot
in a swift, hard arc against her ankle.

She stumbled, falling sideways before flexing her arms and
throwing herself into the fall, executing a graceful cartwheel that threw him
completely off balance. His face hit the floor first, followed by his shoulder,
a shudder rocking his body as he came to rest facedown.

Before he could move, Falynn rammed her boot heel into his
back, right between his shoulder blades, and he bit back a cry of surprise.
“You fucking left me.” She panted, spiked heel pushing harder into his back.
“You took me to the nine levels of sexual heaven then vanished. Not a fucking
word. I thought you were dead.”

Corvan twisted his neck, staring up at her from the corner
of his sweat-stung eye. “I left you?” he ground out through clenched teeth,
shutting the slicing pain—
and
unexpected joy at her admission—from his
mind. She’d improved since he’d dropped off the radar. A lot. Fri’ac, at this
rate he’d need to Call just to stay alive. “Is that why you’re trying to kill
me? An
emotional
reason? Didn’t you learn anything I taught you?”

A haunted emptiness filled Falynn’s eyes and she twisted her
heel deeper into his back. “I learned how to kill a man,” she growled. “Isn’t
that enough?”

“No.” Corvan shook his head. “It isn’t.”

A shimmer rippled through him. A thrumming of every molecule
in his body. Time froze for an infinitesimal moment—before he tore it apart,
ripping its very fabric as he Called his dimensional twin.

Two men from different temporal dimensions, now occupying
the same temporal plane.

He moved. Both of him. Whipping his arm out, he flipped
sideways, smashing his elbow into Falynn’s knee as his “other” grabbed her
wrist and flung her against the wall before she could regain her phenomenal
balance.

The back of her skull connected with the sheet metal, the
den’s array of sex toys and devices rattling in their display units from the
shuddering impact. Her palms smacked the wall behind her as she fought the
g-force slamming her body backward, her long, thick plait slapping her own
cheek, drawing blood.

Corvan charged the short distance between them, realigning
time and his dual existence as he did so, until only one man occupied the
current plane. The Call terminated.

“What the
fuck
?” Falynn cried, gibbering at him with
shocked confusion. “What the fuck did I just—”

He snared Falynn’s wrists and pinned them to the wall on
either side of her head, ramming his body to hers. “Learning how to kill was
never the lesson,” he stated, cutting off her incredulous question, his heart
pounding, his blood roaring.

“What
was
the lesson then?” Falynn asked, her
normally cool, composed voice husky with anger and bewilderment. Her pulse
hammered under his palms, a powerful beat that vibrated all the way down his
arms into his chest. “What
were
you teaching me all those years, if not
how to be an emotionless killer? Tell me, because I really need to know.”

He gazed into her face, wanting to take away the pain he saw
there. “How to live.”

His mouth took possession of hers. As forceful as ever. His
tongue plunged past her lips, tasted her, taunted her. He yanked her arms
higher above her head, the action thrusting her breasts harder to his chest as
he rolled his tongue over hers. Falynn whimpered, the inaudible sound trapped
in her tight throat.

Why was he doing this? She’d been sent to kill him, he
knew
that, and yet he was kissing her? Was it a ruse? An intoxicating, incredible,
fucking soul-searing ruse?

Kiirs, she had to stop him.

Stop him? Why?

Because you have to kill him.

Because you’re not his inferior anymore.

Because you’re over him.

Because there were just two of him—
two of him!
—and
then there wasn’t.

Because he will break your heart again.

The last thought cut like a photon blade, slicing through
her confusion and anger. Shearing into her chest and stealing her breath.

No. She couldn’t do this again.
He
couldn’t do this
to her again. She had a job to do.

Thanatos tore his mouth free of her lips, staring into her
face with eyes that burned with lust. “You can think about how you’re going to
kill me later,” he growled, his fists closing tighter on her wrists, his cock
pressed harder to her mons. “After I’ve made you come with my mouth and my
fingers and my dick.”

The statement sent a ribbon of concentrated rapture into
Falynn’s core. She ignored the base response, squirming in an attempt to escape
his hold, the wall behind her cold on her ass, his body a hot brand on her
belly. “I know how I’m going to kill you,” she snarled, wishing to all the
hells her sex would stop squeezing and fluttering and contracting with pleasure
as though Thanatos’ thick, long cock was already there. “
Both
of you, if
the other one makes another appearance.”

Her ex-mentor chuckled, a low, filthy sound as smug as the
light in his eyes. “Both of us? Deep space is fucking with your head, I think.”
Shifting his weight slightly, he rolled his hips, stroking the bulge of his
erection against the curve of her pussy. “And this is your tactic? A standard
seduce and terminate? Again, I thought I’d taught you better.”

Falynn bucked, trying to dislodge him.

Really? Sure you aren’t trying to get his cock closer to
your clit?

She bared her teeth, traitorous heat pooling between her
thighs at the thought. “I’m pretty certain your last lesson was seduce and run
away, Thanatos, but I could be wrong. I was also wrong about you being a normal
being, it seems. Just as I was wrong about you being dead.”

His lips curled in a small smile, his eyes unreadable as he
pressed his body harder to hers. “UZ Agent code name Thanatos
did
die
three years ago, Proserpina.”

“So what do I call you now? Casper?”

His head drew closer to hers, his breath a warm tickle on
her cheek. Tugging her hands together, he ensnared both wrists in one
inescapable fist, smoothing his free hand down her arm until his fingers
skimmed the upward curve of her left breast. “Corvan,” he murmured against her
lips. “When you scream with release, that’s the name that should burst from
your lips. The name to shake the nine heavens and shatter the stars.”