Gambit (8 page)

“A bastard?” His breath warmed her lips and his palm gripped her waist, hot fingers pushing under the band of her wet trousers to her backside. He squeezed. “You have no idea.”

“Why are you doing this?” The question escaped her. It was insane. She didn’t want to distract the…interesting play of his fingers. Yet she had to know why he’d given in to the lust. “You don’t want…” His mouth teased hers and heat bloomed in her chest. She couldn’t stop the escaping groan. “…me.”

“Fucking you wasn’t on the mission report.” His wicked grin made her heart race and his tongue teased her lip. “Though the use of extraordinary measures was.”

“A report?”

Daned eased his hand to the curve of her hip and dipped his thumb to stroke along the hollow of her pelvis. Heat scorched under her skin and a gasp broke from her. “A detailed report.”

Damn him. He didn’t want this…but he pressed her tight up against his erection and all sense left her. She took his mouth, her tongue battling with his, eager, desperate. Her hand snaked up over his chest to his neck and then she buried her fingers in his damp, tangled hair, urging him hard against her lips. The temptation of living gold couldn’t be denied. And she didn’t want to.

Daned pushed at her trousers. The wet fabric resisted and, with a growl, he shoved them down. This wasn’t how her bought flesh had ever behaved, the control had always been hers—

She arched into him at the first thread of gold making a teasing push against her skin. “What—?”

Daned smothered her question with his mouth, his fingers tight on her arse, and the gold shifted. It caressed her skin, slipping, sliding over her hip, her shoulder, binding them together, wanted, inescapable.

With a groan, he pushed her up the smooth metal of the bulkhead and she cursed the fact that her trousers, her boots, trapped her legs. She twisted to try to free herself. She wanted to circle his waist so that he drove into her, hard and fast. “I need—”

“Leave them.” His command cut her off. “I’m not flesh to be ordered. Get used to it.”

Chae glared at him, wanting to ignore the press of his cock against her flesh. She wanted to stay angry at him because that would let her deny how much she craved him. How the gold burned against her skin and made her ache. “Your pleasure is my pleasure. Remember?”

“Not exactly.”

His hands gripped her hips and, with a sharp grin, he eased forward. His cock teased her, sliding through her slick flesh, sparking need low in her belly and making her arch into him. She wanted him hard and hot inside her. “Fuck me. Now.” Her low demand only brightened his wicked grin.

“The gold binds us both.” He slid back and the feel of him ran a tremor though her flesh. “I can do what the hell I want.”

Chae’s breath caught and she held his gaze. The fierce, dark desire there forced her to push hard against him. He growled and his fingers bit into her hips hard enough to bruise. “Then what are you waiting for?”

Daned found her mouth, his ruthless kiss searing through her flesh. His hips stroked forward, found her, and his groan fused with hers as he sank deep into her pussy. Heat and need made her meet each slow thrust, urging him to take her, the wet slap of their bodies an increasing rhythm over the growl of the engines.

The gold scorched into her skin, tight, hot, firing a molten need into her thoughts, her body, that she didn’t want to resist. Chae broke her mouth from his, dragging in air, fighting the surge of liquid fire in her veins. She wanted to savor him, the delicious feel of him against her bare skin, her fingers in his hair, his hot, ragged breath against her sensitive throat. She wanted him imprinted on her flesh, as fiercely as the gold searing to her skin.

His mouth dipped to her breast, his teeth grazing her nipple and she gasped. “No.” It was little more than a groan. It would be all over too bloody fast. Bastard.

“No?” He ran his tongue quick, hot along the underside of her breast. She knew he was grinning. “Really?” He stroked into her harder faster, hitting her clit with each thrust. “You want me to stop?”

The pressure of her approaching release had her gasping, her body shuddering in his hard grip. She clutched at his shoulders, his hair, wanting to deny that he could play her like this. Flesh did what she wanted. But he couldn’t stop. If he did, she just might have to kill him.

Daned’s mouth brushed over her lips and she watched him, hating him, craving him. “Do you?” His smile teased her. “Because I can. I have the control to stop and just walk away…”

“Bastard.”

“You knew that already.”

He bit at her lip and the quick pain spiraled through her flesh, stoking the growing fire in her blood. Damn him. He could not stop. She had no clue who this man was, no clue…but she had to have him. The gold—hell, instinct—demanded it. “Make me come.”

Something shifted in his gaze, turning dark and predatory, and her heart tightened. “As you wish…lady.”

His mouth took hers as he drove into her. Chae clung to him, wanting him, wanting whatever-the-hell it was that burned between them. The gold flared against her skin, igniting her flesh, her thoughts. Almost, she could almost taste the first fire of her release, and she wanted Daned with her. She broke her mouth from his to nip at his jaw, find his earlobe, her teeth tugging, biting.

“I own you.” She breathed the words into his ear, enjoying the growl of his fury and the increased thrust of his hips. “You’re bound to me.” The promise triggered the first unexpected wave of orgasm and it smashed into her. She needed him to come with her. Everything screamed in her that it had to be that way.
Everything.
She rasped more words into his ear. “Your prince isn’t your master. I am.”

Daned swore, anger, fury coloring his choice…and he came, the heat of his release coalescing with her own, pulling her into a wild rush of sensation that swept over her thoughts and ran shudders down through her limbs. Chae pressed kisses to his damp neck, needing to taste him, touch him and slowly, slowly, the insane thrum of her orgasm slipped away. The threads of gold curled away from her skin, snaking against Daned’s before melting back into place.

Chae pulled in a shaking breath and let it out hot against his skin. “Shit, that was…” Words failed her. Maybe it was finally time to give up tech-enhanced men grown in a vat and try out the real thing. She giggled—she
never
giggled—and pressed a final kiss to his throat before she lifted her head. “Maybe we should take ourselves off to…” The shadows in his gaze, his thin drawn lips made her words falter. Her gut twisted and something like panic tensed every muscle. “What?”

“You’re fifth caste.” He eased his hands from her hips, pulling himself free of her body.

She staggered as her boots hit the tiled floor and she tugged at her trousers, yanking the cold wetness over her thighs and backside. “And? So?
What?
”

“I’m first caste.” Daned ran his fingers through his hair, and a muscle in his jaw jumped.

Chae blinked and the anger flowed hot and hard. Was that what had him so reluctant to touch her, so angry with himself for wanting her? “You’re a fucking sexual
snob?
” She backed away from him. Hell, she wanted to put as much distance between them as she could in the cramped space of the ship. Her fury had her shaking. How stupid was she to think that he’d want more from her? “Is that what the Ladaians do? Fuck within their caste? Everything must be done to keep the genetic imperative pure?”

She traced over the bulkhead, searching for the doorplate. Her fingers found the smooth change in metal. She pressed her palm flat against it and the door unhooked and slid back with a soft clunk. “Now, if you don’t mind—”

“Take it off.”

She stared at him as he backed her into the cramped bunkroom. Her thighs hit the edged of the single bunk and she grunted. “Get out.”

His gaze fixed on her as he swung his hand back and thumped the doorplate. The door thudded into place. “Take this off.” He ran his thumb along the living gold seared to his chest. “Now.”

Chae ignored the sour burn in her chest. She’d known she couldn’t keep him bound, but the reality of it was suddenly painful. “Fine.” She willed herself to close the distance between them. His scent taunted her, a sinful mixture of him and sex, and the last thing she wanted to do was touch him again. But she had to. Only she could break the hold the tech had on his flesh.

Her fingers curled into a fist over his collarbone and she fixed her gaze on the gleaming gold. Her mouth thinned. Fuck it. It was his loss. Her palm pressed flat against his shoulder and the gold writhed against it. Daned sucked in a tight breath and his body tensed.

“I free you,” she muttered, her fingers curling away again. The gold shriveled from his skin, falling in the path she had taken. Unbound flesh would now be incapacitated, a lump of flesh and cybernetics ready to be returned to one of Aleph’s storage tanks. She should be so lucky with Daned. “There. Done.”

She turned away from him to the small wash facility built into the side of the narrow room. A towel and quiet time were what she needed. Her day had been shitty. She wanted it over for the next few minutes, at least.

“Do you really know nothing about Ladaians?”

Chae ignored him. The clunk of metal said that the living gold had broken free of his body and found a home on one of the shelves jutting out of the far wall. She dialed out a pattern for a towel from the unit. The air fizzed with the hum and clunk of tech and then a thin white towel sat on the shelf above the sink.

She pulled it free and pressed her face into its warmth. “I said get out.”

“We look human, but we’re not.”

Chae swore into her towel. If she ignored him, he’d get the hint.

“When the Founders screwed with our DNA, they planned to ensure an individual’s genetic inheritance was never corrupted.”

She let out a heavy breath and dropped the towel over the edge of the metal sink. “I got that. You’re first, I’m fifth and never the twain shall fuck.” She leaned back against the sink, her hands gripping the curved edge, and gave him a sharp grin. “You can always say the gold made you do it.”

Daned had wrapped his towel around his waist. She told herself that wasn’t a damn shame and knew she was lying to herself. The need to kiss and lick his cider-brown skin taunted her. The knowledge that his taste would burn hot and sweet against her tongue twisted her gut tight. Her fingers pressed hard against the metal sink until her knuckles hurt. “So, as I said, I understand how you’re mortified. Conversation over. Get out.”

She kicked her boot to the plate and the door to the washroom thunked into place. She sank onto the toilet bowl and her fingers caught the wet tangles of her hair. A slow breath escaped her.

“It was just sex.” Her mutter became lost in the roaring vibrations of the engines as they shook the metal walls. “And I’ve had sex before.” She wasn’t scrabbling back through her memory to when she hadn’t fucked flesh. When it had been a born man. “He’s no different.” Lust. It was simply lust driven by Igasho tech. Nothing more. Hell, wrap it around Aleph-Nun and she would’ve been slavering over him too.

Daned’s…distaste stabbed at her again and she found her feet in a hot rush of adrenaline, the blood heating her cheeks. It burned with the old pain that had driven her to seek out flesh-pets in the first place. “Fuck him.” A sour laugh burst from her. “Oh, I already have.”

The vibrations changed and she winced. Time had flown. The tau was about to break out of the rift lock. Chae cursed and wrapped the towel around her chest. She palmed the doorplate and pulled in a tight breath, preparing herself…but the room was empty.

Her fingers curled into a fist. Just another man. Just another fuck. Chae ignored the cramp in her stomach. She had more important things to worry about than Daned Traern. The end of the rift lock would spit them out in Shavgar-7 and she needed her wits.

She palmed open the door and the silver streaks of the rift lock flickered across the cockpit. Daned sat in the second-pilot chair, studying the instrumentation, the silver gilding him. Sensibly, he kept his hands on his towel-covered thighs. She refused to let her gaze wander over the smooth muscles of his arms, the strength of his shoulders…and with a wince she realized she was doing exactly that. He was just flesh. And now the false push of the living gold had been removed, she could forget about her insane rush of lust.

“We’re coming out of the lock,” she said and Daned’s attention snapped to her. His dark eyes, holding pools of glistening silver, flicked over her body before he found her gaze again. His mouth thinned. She ignored it. “In a few minutes.”

She ran her hand over her tunic hanging from its jag of metal and found it dry. She dropped the towel over the back of the pilot seat and made a smile cut her mouth. “Better to be dry and covered up when dealing with Shavgar’s tower. The Misae there can smell nakedness.”

Daned had pulled in a breath, but didn’t turn away. Chae straightened her shoulders. She’d been strip-searched more than once and could weather a man’s stare. She hooked her thumbs into her trousers and yanked them down. Stretching the material, she stamped free until she stood only in her boots. “Still horrified, Daned?”

“We’re coming out of rift lock, Captain.”

Chae shrugged the tunic over her arms and head, its dry warmth tingling against her skin. Daned was still watching her, his gaze unreadable. Hell, she’d had her taste of him—She gritted her teeth and willed herself not to go down that route. She dropped into her pilot chair and ran quick fingers over the gleaming interface. The rough vibrations rattled her bones and she cursed the tau wreck she sat in.

“Strap in.” She reached for the belts tangled around her chair with a free hand. They clunked under her breastbone and she braced her body, her boot planted hard against the curve of the instrumentation. Her fingers flexed around the guidance rods. “The de-lock is going to kick.”

Real space snapped over them, fire and force ripping through every muscle. Chae bit down on a scream, willing her eyes to stay open, to focus on the broad screen curving over her. Shavgar-7 was deadly for those who came out of rift lock unprepared.