Tighter, tighter. Katarina drew a sharp breath as excitement laced through her, followed by a warm sensation and the feel of cream between her legs.
“Careful,” Braden said, glancing over his shoulder. “Don’t let the patrollers think you’re enjoying yourself. I might get arrested.”
Katarina looked up to see two women wearing sand-colored overalls and carrying stun pistols, watching Braden with narrowed eyes.
“Why would they arrest you?” she asked, trying to catch her breath. “You’re unnerving me, but that’s not illegal. Is it?”
“All you have to do is call for help and they’ll come running to throw me into the cells. They’d love to do it.”
“That’s terrible,” Katarina said.
“It’s life on Bor Narga. Home sweet home.” Braden grinned at the patrollers and gave them a cheerful wave. They returned the look grimly.
“I’m sorry, I should go then. I don’t want to get you into trouble.”
Braden gave a short laugh. “Apologizing to Shareem. No woman does that, unless she’s in bondage at the time.” He gave her another allover look that said he’d love to see her in the position to apologize to him. “Don’t go yet, baby. I’m fascinated by your need to talk to Calder.”
“Do you think he would see me if you asked him? It’s very important.”
“I don’t know. Calder is with a woman once and once only. You let him do what he wants then you’re done. It’s in his consent form.” Braden chuckled. “He’s the only Shareem I know with a consent form.”
Katarina remembering Calder mentioning it. “Consent form?”
“Calder won’t allow a lady to walk through his door without signing his form. That way he knows she’s already given him permission, and then he does anything he wants. Didn’t you sign it?”
Katarina shook her head. Her colleagues must have done that for her, laughing.
“It’s a beautiful idea,” Braden said. “But not for me. I suck at paperwork. Calder spends way too much time alone, comes up with all these different and exotic scenarios.
Me, I just get out the manacles.”
“Why doesn’t he see a lady twice? I would think he’d be much in demand.”
“Because when ladies are with Calder, they lay everything out for him. They offer up everything they have, and believe me, he takes it. Besides, you feel it more don’t you, when you know it’s only once and never again?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Katarina said. “He sent me away. We didn’t do much.”
Braden stared. “No shit?”
She shook her head. “No shit.”
“Huh.” Braden swallowed the dregs of his coffee, a thoughtful look on his face.
“Will you take me to see him, Braden? If it’s money you want, I’ll give you as much as you ask—”
He held up his hand. “It has nothing to do with money. Forget about Calder, sweetheart. He’s… Well, when he got burned he went to a bad place, and I don’t mean the DNAmo lab. He never really recovered. There’s a darkness to him that a pretty lady like you doesn’t need to touch. He’s taken level three to a height even I don’t understand, and I’m pretty badass.”
“It has nothing to do with that.”
He took her hand, his Shareem pheromones flooding her again. “Why don’t you spend the rest of your afternoon with me? I’ll give you what Calder would have, and we’ll figure out what you really need. All right? Say you will.”
He looked slightly distressed, white patches pulling at the sides of his blue eyes.
“I have to see him.” Katarina gently disengaged her hand from Braden’s. “I’m sorry, I hope I don’t hurt your feelings.”
He stared at her in amazement. “Hurt my feelings? Sweetie, you are the strangest lady I’ve ever met. You’re not supposed to worry about a Shareem’s
feelings
.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
Braden shook his head, chuckling, his tension suddenly gone. “I have to see this.
He’ll kill me, but…”
He slid off the stool, crumpled the coffee cup and tossed it at a passing garbage bot.
The bot’s metal claw caught the cup and snaked it back into its body.
“I’ll take you to Calder’s place and I’ll get you into the same room with him. After that, it’s up to him whether to talk or throw your ass out.”
Katarina exhaled in relief. “Thank you.”
“If he doesn’t cooperate, you’ll consider my offer, right? You’re adorable. We could tear up this town.”
Katarina dragged Braden down to her and kissed his cheek. The connection of her lips with his skin sent another river of warmth through her, but it was nothing compared to the volcano Calder had given her.
“I’ll consider it,” she said with a smile.
“Gods give me luck.”
He gave Katarina’s backside a Shareem swat, winked at the outraged patrollers and led Katarina back to Barkelo Street.
Chapter Five
Calder sensed something wrong as soon as he stepped into the cool whiteness of his living quarters. The air felt charged, fresher, as though an ionizer had changed the stale molecules.
He set down the box of supplies he’d gone out to buy, unwound the sun-blocking cloths from his face, and tossed his robes and breath mask to their hooks. Stripping off his gloves, he strode into his front room and stopped.
“Hell,” he said.
Braden lounged on Calder’s square sofa, his leather-clad legs propped on the table.
He’d folded his brawny arms behind his head and a spill of black hair fell over his shoulder to his lap.
“Nice to see you too.”
Braden was the closest thing Calder had to a friend, but Calder was not in the mood for Braden’s sense of humor right now.
Braden maintained a casual approach to life and didn’t care who didn’t like it. He thought Calder too anal and Calder thought Braden too careless. Usually they got along fine.
“I knew I should have changed the locks,” Calder growled. “I have a client coming.
Whatever it is, make it quick.”
“She’s not coming.”
Calder halted in the act of going back for his supplies. His leather-clad body creaked as he turned around. “What do you mean? How do you know?”
“I found her in your computer. I sent her a message that said you’d been delayed and will call her later.”
Calder’s rage warred with relief. The client was a woman from Delta-Terra, a high-handed bitch who’d sent him messages specifying what she expected him to do to her.
Women sometimes tried to command him—and then Calder taught them that their dictates didn’t mean shit. It was one more way he turned their power against them.
He hadn’t really wanted to see the woman today, but then again he did, to expunge what had happened yesterday with Katarina. A good hunt, followed by a good fuck, and he’d be all right again.
He swung toward his terminal but Braden’s next words stopped him.
“I brought someone else to see you.”
The door to his kitchen slid open, and Katarina d’Arnal, dressed in a soft silk tunic and pants, with no face veil, paused on the threshold. She regarded him in trepidation, as though she wasn’t sure Braden’s idea of bringing her had been a good one.
She was right about that.
Calder watched her give him a once-over, taking in his black clothes and his naked face. His cock was already hardening as those beautiful brown eyes roved over his body. He never covered his face when he was alone, so she saw his scars in all their glory.
He glared at Braden. “Take her out.”
Katarina took a step forward. “I need to talk to you.”
“Book an appointment. Don’t ask my friends to sneak you into my house.”
“At least talk to her,” Braden said, bringing his feet to the floor. “What will it hurt?”
Braden, the idiot, couldn’t know how it would hurt. Usually Calder didn’t care about a woman’s fascination with The Beast, but with Katarina he did. She’d want what they all wanted—to touch him and lick him, have him pretend to overpower her.
“Then talk,” he said tightly to Katarina.
Katarina wet her lips, making them luscious and red. “I still need to scan you.”
Calder stared. Of all the things she could have said, he wasn’t expecting that. “You thumbprinted the exam. It’s finished.”
“Because you forced me.”
Braden’s black brows rose. “He forced you?”
“He grabbed my thumb and pressed it on the handheld.”
“Calder, you shithead.”
“I don’t need to be scanned,” Calder said. “You already have records of my body. It hasn’t changed.”
“But those aren’t the rules.”
“
Fuck the rules.
”
Damn it, his control was slipping—again. What did this woman do to him?
“If I reported you—”
Calder was across the room, pinning her to the doorframe before she could complete the sentence.
“Are you threatening me?” he growled.
“I’m saying that if someone found out, if they’d seen you do that, you could get into trouble.”
Braden returned his booted feet to the table. “She has a point.”
Calder released her. She smelled too good when he stood close to her. His cock danced.
“What do you want, Katarina?”
“I told you. To scan you.”
“And if I don’t want you running your wand over my naked body?”
Gods, I
shouldn’t have put it like that.
“Will you report what I did to you in my pleasure rooms?”
She reddened. “No.”
Calder remembered how pink her other cheeks had gotten when he’d spanked her.
He’d wanted to get her ready to take him in her ass, something that would be as unfamiliar to her as flapping her arms and flying.
He’d known Katarina had never been fucked, not properly fucked in her pussy. A highborn woman got her hymen removed at a clinic when she came of age. Women made a big deal about it, pretending that losing the hymen taught them all the mysteries of womanhood. They forsook sweet cock-in-pussy fucking so they could study philosophy and learn how to create children without touching a male.
“Then what will you do?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She folded her arms, which pushed her breasts into luscious mounds.
“I’ll scan you privately and enter the data. After that, no one can accuse you of breaking the rules.”
She was serious. Her pretty eyes regarded him worriedly.
Calder leaned over her. He liked the way her breath smelled, spicy and sweet. He wanted to put his tongue in her mouth.
“No,” he said.
“I know your body has been burned. I don’t mind seeing that.”
Old rage boiled up inside him, the rage that had kept him alive when the scientists in the lab thought he was a write-off. “But
I
mind.”
“I’m not trying to humiliate you.”
Calder straightened up. “Braden take her home.”
Braden grinned from the sofa and didn’t move. “Nah. She’s right. How come I have to get scanned and you don’t?”
“What you do when you go to the clinic is your business,” Calder said.
“I think you’re missing a fine opportunity here, my friend. Maybe you two can strike a bargain.”
Calder looked back at Katarina. She stood still, folded arms shutting him out.
But he felt her pheromones, double-strength almost, her wanting pouring from her.
His own body couldn’t help reacting. He wanted to rub his cock against her, first on her pussy then her bare ass.
Straddle me,
he’d say.
Ride me, sweetheart.
Braden was here, but Calder didn’t mind him watching. Having Braden’s hungry eyes on her might turn Katarina on.
He let his voice grow dangerous. “You’re right, Braden.”
Katarina looked at them nervously. “What are you talking about?”
“What kind of bargain can I make with her?” Calder asked, looking at Katarina.
“What do you think, Braden?”
“I think if you don’t want her, I’ll take her.”
Katarina broke in. “Would you two please not talk about me like I’m not here?”
“Ooo,” Braden chuckled. “She has a temper too.”
Katarina stuck her tongue out at him.
“Bring that over here, baby. I have a few things you can lick.” Braden smiled as he spoke, the blue of his eyes getting wider every second. His cock showed hard at his crotch, and he unashamedly adjusted it under the leather.
“Not without my permission.” The tug of possessiveness surprised Calder, but no way would he let Braden simply have her.
Braden switched his gaze to Calder. “I like that idea. Will you order her to pleasure me? Pretty please?”
Calder sensed Katarina’s heightening pheromones, could taste them on the air.
Braden turned her on, did he? Calder wasn’t sure whether the twinge in his heart was jealousy or excitement.
He put his hands on Katarina’s shoulders and leaned toward her. Her lovely scent made it hard for him to remember how to speak. “You agree to do what I tell you now and I’ll submit to your scan.”
“For how long am I agreeing to do what you tell me?”
For the rest of my life.
“For the afternoon.”
“And then you’ll come back to the clinic for your scan?”
“Yes.”
Fuck that.
By the time he was done with Dr. Katarina d’Arnal, her thoughts would be far from her clinic. He’d finish what he should have yesterday and she’d never want to see him again.
He had no idea why his heart constricted in that annoying way when he thought of never seeing her again.
“All right.” Katarina drew a breath that pushed her breasts toward him. “I agree.”
Calder straightened up. His heart pounded. “Go on then. Pleasure Braden. Suck his cock for me.”
Katarina stared, mouth open, her body temperature climbing. “But—”
“Do it,” he said. “I want you to.”
Braden closed his fist. “Yesss!” He started unhooking his leggings. “The carpet’s soft. We’re good.”
Katarina moved to him woodenly and Calder watched, holding his breath. Would she do it? Would she and Braden get so turned-on by each other that they’d go away and leave him alone? Then he wouldn’t have to think about her anymore.
No
, came a voice in his head.
Mine.
Braden paused, his hand on his fly. “You want to do this?” he asked Katarina.
“Make sure. I have to have your permission, like I told you. If you say no… I’ll probably die right here, but hey, no pressure.”
“What about Calder? Do I have to give him permission?”