Thrill-Kinky (8 page)

Chapter Nine

Drax kissed her before they left the
Malcolm
, kissed her while his hands skimmed her body over her new dark gray climbing pants, which looked surprisingly festive with some of Xia’s costume jewelry dangling from the gear-clips, and black long-sleeved cling-shirt, teasing deliciously inappropriate places that made even Xia say, “Cabin’s that way. Either that or invite us all to play.”

That prompted Gan to follow up with, “That’s what’s polite on my planet,” which cracked everyone up, even though it was the actual-factual truth. Everyone apparently needed a laugh to relieve the tension of going out to pull off a job that was slated for a professional spy with functional wings and an array of tools and weapons that were no longer available.

While the others were busy laughing, Drax slipped his hand inside Rita’s shirt, cupped her breast, and brought his strong fingers together, milking her nipple. She let out a little gasp of need, and he captured the gasp with his mouth. His wings burst loose and surrounded her in a heated, soft-feathered embrace. Then his lips traveled to her ear. “I want to fly with you,” he whispered, his voice husky and warm enough to heat the chill of space. “I want to fly with you in my arms and my cock deep inside her.”

Her pussy clenched. “Oh marling stars, yes.”

“You’re the only woman not of my species I’ve ever wanted to do this with. Most women who aren’t Banjali would be too afraid. But you wouldn’t be, would you?”

She thought, but only for a second. “I might be nervous, but not nearly as scared as I was in the alley today and that was still exciting. I trust you to keep me safe, if the situation’s within your control—no one shooting at us and stuff like that—and this would be.” She ran one hand over the bulge at the front of his rather spiffy, very green, very fitted borrowed trousers and purred, “Zero-G sex is crazy good but you have to do that indoors. I can’t imagine how amazing sex while flying in some pretty place would be.”

“You won’t need to imagine. This will happen, Rita. Consider it extra motivation for both of us not to get killed.” He caught her wrist, moved her hand away from his cock, much as it had obviously liked the attention. “But if you keep doing that, I’m going to have my way with you right in the galley of the
Malcolm
and I think that might shock even your crewmates.”

It took Rita a few seconds to clear her head enough to remember why ripping off all of Drax’s borrowed clothes and taking his cock first into her mouth and then into her body was a bad idea. She didn’t think anyone would be all that perturbed by a little public passion, except maybe Buck, who was curiously shy for a big, scarred-up, scary-looking ex-soldier.

But they had things to do. The peace between two planets to protect. An assassin to deal with.

And before that, a building to climb, a rope to slide down, and a theft to prevent.

At least the part with the climbing and the ropes might be fun, though she could imagine more fun ways to play with rope where Drax was concerned. But she couldn’t imagine anything fun about a run-in with hardcore criminals.

“You’d think the whole risk of death in awful ways would put a damper on my wanting to sex you six ways to Saturn,” she said quietly as she smoothed out her clothes. “Again.”

Drax shrugged, a movement made spectacular by his wings. “It hasn’t stopped me from wanting you, and Nitari Belesku would kill me
without
getting paid.”

Buck surprised them both by stumping over, patting them both on the backs, and saying, “A little sexytime can take your mind off the fact you’re about to do something dumb and potentially fatal. But we should get going before the rest of us remember it’s summer on Jahar, pretty Jahari are grilling plekfish on the beach while wearing next to nothing, and we could be there by the time their sun’s up without even stressing the
Malcolm
’s jump-tech.”

Rita smiled. A Jahari beach sounded good at this point, but only if Drax was there too.

The gravity was pretty low on Jahar. Maybe they could fly out over the ocean.

It was dark when they headed toward the National Museum, but the festival was still in full swing, clogging the streets with zipbikes and foot traffic and filling the air with personal flyers. Many of them were piloted rather erratically by people who’d enjoyed a little too much of the green bubbly stuff or some other local libation. Many of the San’balese partygoers were now masked and in costume, some amazingly elaborate. In contrast to last night’s feathers, tonight’s competing themes seemed to be green and purple holographic sequins and a skin-tight, leathery-looking fabric that mimicked San’balese striping, but in lurid colors that Rita sincerely hoped didn’t exist on actual San’balese people. Many of the off-world visitors, and there were a lot of them, were still in ordinary clothes, brightened up with silly hats, masks, or other festive touches, so the
Malcolm
’s
crew, in their breaking-and-entering clothes and simple masks that kept Buck and Rita’s paler complexions from being too visible in the darkness, didn’t stand out too much as they made their way through the crowd.

Gan was off in the flyer. The airspace restriction over the heart of the city had been lifted at dusk and was now over an athletic field on the outskirts of the city, where fireworks had already started and would continue until near dawn. That made life easier for them, both the restrictions being lifted and the distraction of the fireworks. Gan planned to circle over the city, occasionally passing high over the festival grounds but not hovering, as if he was a tourist trying to get a feeling for the size of the festival without getting too close to the fireworks. The flyer pads near the museum were mostly full, but they’d noticed earlier in the day that no one was landing flyers or parking zipbikes or other vehicles in the big courtyard in front of the museum, despite the festival crowds.

“And all it took was a ‘no parking’ sign,” Buck mused. “No cops. No barricades, even. San’balese are polite, I tell ya.”

“Except for the one that kicked the crap out of me last night.” Drax absently rubbed his left side. “Although she didn’t actually use any foul language while she was doing it, and that’s rare for a thug. You’d expect the occasional
marling driftdwell
, at least, while someone’s breaking your ribs with her boots.”

Drax sounded remarkably good-humored for someone who was talking about his own attempted murder, but he was squeezing Rita’s fingers so tightly it hurt.

All the better, she supposed, to maintain their cover as lovers. Though it wasn’t exactly a cover anymore, not that they’d had a chance to talk about it much. Though if they’d had that opportunity, Rita would be at a loss for what to say. She’d helped Drax because he’d needed help, and that had led to some intense sex.

And that intense sex had led to Drax saying some things she’d have to classify as downright romantic, things about flying with her. Maybe it wasn’t so romantic to a Banjali, though it sounded galaxies beyond ordinary sexytime talk of fucking and sucking and “need you now”. But the intensity in his voice, the way he’d looked at her…he wasn’t acting like a man who’d just had a fling, even a super-hot one, with a stranger.

She wasn’t feeling like a woman who’d just done the same. She knew what that felt like. She’d done it often enough: hooking up with an interesting man when she was dirtside (granted, usually not as abruptly as she’d hooked up with Drax, and always before, without anyone shooting at them as foreplay), sharing some fun, and going their separate ways, often not even exchanging comlinks because they knew the odds of being in the same place again were slim.

Maybe she and Drax had a spark that could grow into a real connection given time, but they didn’t have that time. They’d get back his artwork and he’d return to Banjal to bask in glory, or at least covertly enjoy the rewards of a job well done. Either that, or something would go supernova and even if they both survived, they wouldn’t want
to see each other again.

Yeah, thinking this could be more than a fling was all adrenaline and sex. Drax flat-out said he was thrill-kinky and she suspected she was. Heck, she’d kissed Buck that time they’d almost crashed on Delfeen. Buck had pulled away, patted her on the back, and said, “It’s just the scare talking, Rita. Makes people want to grab something that reminds them they’re alive. Give it a few minutes and I’ll look like Buck again and you’ll feel like you just planted a big wet one on your brother by mistake.”

He’d been right. Buck had probably never read a book in his life, not even one of those book-implants that played the story out in your brain without you having to do anything except say “book on” and “book off”, and she knew he hadn’t finished even basicschool. But he was wise about the kind of things you can learn from leading the kind of tough life that leaves you down one leg and looking ready for full-body regen before you’re forty.

The urge to “plant a big wet one” on Drax and following it up with all kinds of interesting naked activities that would be illegal in the entire Vega system, on the other hand, hadn’t calmed down one bit, even though they’d been together not long ago. She was letting her mind wander in that direction more than was probably a good idea, considering she was about to scale a public building, jimmy open a skylight, and slide down a rope into a place where some highly paid professional killer might be waiting to blow her to star-stuff.

Then again, Xia, who ought to be more frightened than any of them, even Drax, was dancing and twitching her tail in time to the music and begging complete strangers for nibbles of whatever they were eating (and surprisingly often getting them). Maybe she was terrified and the silliness was her way of dealing with it. You could never tell with Xia.

Mik had pulled tight into himself, his face a polished brown mask less expressive than the actual masks sported by people in the crowd. Rita had seen him turn cool and remote before in tight situations. Now, he looked like a statue with eyes of steel, moving through the crowd as if he didn’t see them at all—yet, Rita suspected, observing everything. She already knew she was clinging to Drax a little too hard and thinking about anything except the task ahead. Only Buck seemed to be pretty much business as usual, ambling along looking no more nervous than he generally did in a crowd. Though his normality was an illusion.

Buck had taken Sober-Ups. He almost never did that, especially when things might go bad. A little soy whiskey took the edge off his paranoia, made him less likely to fly off the handle and get trigger-happy when it wasn’t necessary.

Buck figured this was a situation when being paranoid and trigger-happy might be a benefit. He was a little bit crazy, sure, but he wasn’t stupid, and he had more experience with violence than anyone else on the crew, and possibly more than Drax. Drax seemed like a guy who, whenever possible, thought or charmed rather than shot his way out of a bad situation.

Rita clutched Drax’s hand even harder and sent up a prayer to any of the roughly seven thousand deities worshipped in this quadrant who might be listening that Buck was wrong. But she suspected he wasn’t.

She found herself praying even harder when she finally got a good look at the National Museum. Its surface was rough and irregular, a combination—strange to human sensibilities—of a rough, unfinished rock facing thrown together seemingly at random to imitate the glacial deposits found all over the planet, and elegant windows with balconies below and ledges above. It was no worse than some of the rock faces she’d climbed with Xia.

But she hadn’t been in a hurry then, with other people’s safety depending on her success.

And she hadn’t been trying to do it in the dark. The front façade of the museum was lit by floodlights that highlighted signs in San’balese and Standard, advertising the visiting exhibit of “Artistic celebrations of love and sexuality from fifteen worlds!” But the back side, the side that faced a now-deserted sculpture garden, was dark.

“Nice, easy climb for you, just like that one place we like on Leeric. I’m jealous,” Xia said, nudging her. “Mik’s right. A kitten could climb that, with all those balconies and outcropping rocks. Well, maybe. Some of the good handholds are pretty far apart for a kitten.”

Rita was already talking quietly, but she dropped her voice even quieter. The area around the museum was nearly deserted, and that made her feel even more conspicuous, like she was wearing a big sign reading UP TO NO GOOD. “Some of them are pretty far apart for me. I’m short for a human.”

Xia shrugged and examined her claws. “You’re my height, pretty much, and I could do it no problem.”

“Felinoids also have great low-light vision. Humans, not so much. I hope I can feel where I’m going, because I’m not sure I’ll be able to see very well.”

Drax’s wings were hidden below a fashionable deep gray cloak gleaned from Mik’s history-flash wardrobe. He wrapped his arms and the cloak around her, then, under the cover of the cloak, also wrapped her in his wings. The feathers danced on her skin, caressing even through her clothing. Where they touched skin, at her wrists and at the narrow band where her shirt had pushed up from her pants as she walked, the sensual jolt unmarred her terror. “You don’t have to do this,” he whispered, his voice deep and soothing, his breath on her ear in itself a caress. “Xia volunteered you.” He turned his head and said to the cat-girl, “And you certainly don’t have to take on Nitari Belesku. I chose to do this job for the sake of my world, knowing it would be dangerous. You all got sucked in like an asteroid gets sucked into a black hole, and the results could be just as deadly.”

“No,” Rita said firmly. “I
can
do this. It’s climbing, and I’m good at it. Just hadn’t thought about it being dark, but there’s enough reflected light on the building that I’ll be okay.”
I think. I hope. And I can’t distract an assassin and hope to live through it so I’ll stick with the part of the job I have the skills to
possibly
survive.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Drax. I have to do this. I could have been Nitari Belesku if it wasn’t for Mik and Gan. The Cat-Mother must have known they’d need someone like me down the road, or why else would they have raised me themselves instead of finding me another home, like they do for the other kids they rescue?”