Such flattery.
The guard hovering around us snorts. “You sure this is what you want?”
“I’m sure,” she says in that calm, firm voice. Then she smiles, all sweetness as she looks at the guard. “You can’t know how much I appreciate this.”
“Oh, I know,” he says, and holds out his hand.
She nods and pulls out a series of metallic chips—untraceable credits—from a pouch at her waist. A fair amount of them, too. Well now. So she is buying herself a slave. “You sure I’m the right purchase?” I can’t help but tease, wondering if I can get her to smile at me like she smiled at him. “Want to check me over a bit more? Squeeze my biceps?” I flex one arm and lean over a little so she can reach it. “Should I strip? Everything I have to offer’s all covered up.”
“Stripping’s not necessary,” she tells me in a surprisingly crisp voice. “I can see everything I need to see right now.” And she reaches forward and puts her small, human hand on my still-hard cock. “You’re showing everything already.”
I bark with laughter, shocked—and aroused—by her bold touch. “I stand corrected.”
“Hold still,” the guard says to me, and then a shock-bracelet goes around my wrist. I grit my teeth, trying to hide just how much I hate the damn thing. He hands her the small control to it and beams. “Pleasure doing business with you, human.”
“Miss Evans,” she corrects him again, then puts that too-sweet smile on her face again. “Thank you ever so much.” Then, she turns to me. “Come along, my friend.”
I follow, because what else can I do? The bracelet will go off if I wander too far from her side, but at least I’m out of that cell. I’m not entirely sure I’m still going to prison at this point, so this is definitely a step up. I can easily overpower one small human female, given the chance.
I can still make my off world rendezvous with the va Sithai brothers.
I follow the female out to her air-sled. It’s an older one, one that looks like it’s had many repairs. A piece of keffing junk, I’d call it, but it fires up all right and with the right hand, it could probably purr like a kitten. That’s my speciality—fixing up old machines, especially sleds. But I don’t show this. I keep my face neutral as we get into the air-sled and she taps on a button with an unfamiliar word on the screen. The air-sled speeds up and starts on its course, leaving Risda III’s sorry port behind and heading across the open fields and crops that make up most of the land here.
Neither of us says anything. I’m too busy mentally mapping out our location and eyeing the speeder. It shouldn’t be a problem to hotwire. A good override program, then a few tweaks here and there—
“We’re far enough away now, I think,” she says. Her voice sounds entirely different. Gone is the calm, sweet tone. Gone is the air of fragility, too. In its place is a woman with steel in her spine. She reaches over and pulls off the shock-bracelet and then tosses it out the window. “Fuck that thing.”
Well, well, well. This gets more interesting by the moment. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”
She gives me a cool glance. “Jutari said you were re-captured and waiting for deportation. I thought you might be perfect for my needs. So I went to the jail and greased a few palms to get you out.”
So she knows my old friend Jutari? I narrow my eyes, watching her. She went there looking specifically for me, then. It means that the entire show of “choosing” someone at the jail was all made up. It means she knew exactly what she wanted the moment she showed up. It means she’s been planning all this and played the innocent, bewildered miss back at the jail to work those guards over.
Kef me, but I’ve never been so damned turned on in my life. “You have me out. What do you want?”
I expect to hear any number of things. I’m a convict, on the run from prison. No one comes to Risda III because the universe has given them a good shake. They come here to hide out, to hope the universe never notices them again. She could be asking me to steal something for her. To murder someone. To help her do any number of things, both sordid and not.
Instead, this fascinating human looks over at me with those big brown eyes. “We have to get married. Also, I need you to get me pregnant. Tonight, preferably.”
2
PIPER
His reaction to my proposal is…not encouraging.
I know it’s a lot to take in. I’m still processing all of it myself. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and I’ve learned that I’m willing to do anything—anything at all—to save my farm and my freedom.