“You’re running from something, probably the station guards,” he said shortly. “Tell me what your problem is. Maybe I can help you.”
“You’re wrong.”
“If you have nothing to hide, you won’t mind me calling the station guards. Computer, open a connection—”
“No,” she whispered. “Don’t call them. Please.”
“Tell me.”
“I saw something,” she whispered, defeated. “I saw one of them commit a crime. Justice is for sale here, you said it yourself. They’ll kill me if they find me.”
“The guards?”
She nodded quickly, hoping desperately that he would have the decency not to turn her in.
He smiled broadly.
“I take it they know where you live,” he said slowly. “That you came here as a last resort?”
She didn’t reply. He was right, of course, but she’d be damned if she’d admit it openly.
“You need to get off the station.”
She nodded.
“And you don’t have any money? Or not much.”
She stayed still, once again unwilling to confirm how desperate her situation really was. Something about saying it out loud would make it too real.
“I can take you off-station,” he said slowly, his smile growing broader. “But I won’t do it for free. Can you pay me?”
“No,” she said shortly, suddenly beyond lying. She needed to get off-station, and he was her best bet. “I don’t have any money. I came here because I was hoping to find some.”
“That’s a real shame,” he said. She was starting to hate that smile of his. He was enjoying her pain, there could be no doubt. Bastard. “Because I won’t take you off the station unless you can think of a way to pay me.”
Silence fell between them.
“I don’t suppose you need a crew member?” she asked hopefully. He actually laughed at her then, and shook his head.
“You know what I want. Of course, I understand you aren’t for sale.”
She felt a slow rage start to burn within her. The bastard had no morals at all.
“You want me to have sex with you.”
“More than once,” he said lightly. He leaned forward, and his face grew intense. “In fact, I want to f**k you. I want to f**k you long and hard, and I want to keep doing it until you start screaming at me from need. I want to lick you and bite you all over your body, and push inside you long and slow. Later I want to take you fast, ram into you and fill you with my seed. And I want you to love every minute of it and beg me for more.”
She gazed at him, mesmerized and horrified at the same time. He actually licked his lips as he stopped speaking.
“What if I won’t do it?” she asked softly.
“Well, then,” he said. “I’ll just have to call the guards and let you work things out with them yourself.”
“You wouldn’t,” she whispered, but she knew he would. She could see from his face that he was dead serious. He had no softness, no mercy. Only lust. She closed her own eyes, trying to escape from that terrible, hungry gaze.
A scene from a vid she had watched as a teener popped into her head.
“When I was a kid, my friends and I went to see a show,” she said slowly. “The heroine, a beautiful Imperial princess, was being held captive by a pirate. He forced her to choose between her life and her virtue. That princess chose to die rather than allow her touch. My friends thought it was very romantic.”
“Your friends sound stupid,” he said abruptly. She could hear him walk across the room.
“That’s what I thought,” she replied, opening her eyes again. He was sitting on the small couch across from the bed. She looked at him closely, taking in his cold, hard face, the black leather breeches, and the spacer’s belt with the blaster hanging off it casually. “I guess I’m for sale after all.”
“It’s a good price,” he said softly. “You won’t regret the transaction.”
She nodded, knowing he was right. She wanted to live, dammit. “Now what?”
“We seal the deal, of course,” he said.
“Let me guess, with a kiss?”
“Hell, no,” he said. “Kisses are for princesses. We’ll seal this deal with a f**k.”
Chapter Four
Jerred watched closely as the words hit her. A part of his mind, something that sounded suspiciously like a conscience, whispered that his behavior was disgusting. What kind of bastard treated an innocent woman like this? It was one thing to offer her money, quite another to blackmail her when she was in fear for her life.
He pushed that part down, hard. He wanted her and he was going to have her. He’d already decided that, long before fate dumped her in his lap with a bow tied around her pretty neck. This just made getting her onto his ship and into his bed easier.
“How long does this little deal last?” she asked quietly. “Will you let me off at the next port?”
“No,” he replied, gut clenching at the thought. “I’ll let you off when I’m damned well good and ready. If you have a problem with that, find someone else to take you off-station.”
“It seems that you have all the power in this situation,” she said softly.
“Yes, I do,” he said shortly. He leaned back in the couch, lifting his hips as he unbuckled his belt and slipped it off. He took the blaster and set it on the bolster behind him, carefully locking the trigger, then turned his attention back to her.
“You ready to seal the deal?”
She nodded, looking faint. He wondered how far he could push her, and considered letting things go for the moment. After all, he’d have as much time as he liked once they were on the ship. But then she took a deep breath, her br**sts swelled beneath her low-cut blouse. The freckles that dusted them stood out against her pale skin, and her riot of red curls had gone completely wild as she slept. He had never wanted a woman so badly in his entire life. His c**k filled to bursting; there was no way he would let her off now. He needed her in a way he’d never needed a woman before.
A bitter thought crossed his mind. Was this a shadow of what his Saurellian brothers felt when they found their life mates? If it was even half as bad, he was happy he would never have a life mate of his own. This was too much power for a woman to have, for anyone to have. Thinking about it made him angry.
“Come here,” he said roughly. He reached down and opened his pants crudely. His c**k sprang forth, and he ran a cupped hand up and down its length. A small pearl of moisture was already beading up at the tip. He ran one finger across it, rubbing the fluid in a circle across the head, and shuddered. She looked at him, her pouty, red mouth open in a silent “O” of shock. He imagined those lips cupping him and shivered.