He raised her wrists over her head, but let her bite. Slyly, she slid around to grind her hips at his leg, riding him like a badly-trained bitch. He yanked her to her feet at once, and then pushed her away. The back of her knees struck the bed and she fell onto the mattress, bouncing like a little kid.
Kane approached her, smiling crookedly. “Close your eyes,” he said. “Count to ten.”
She started to obey, but she only got to three before she realized he was tying her up again. She started struggling at once, howling dismay, but Kane had her bound hand and foot in less than a minute.
She lay glaring at him, twisting ineffectively at her restraints. “You’re mean.”
“Ah, I’m just misunderstood.” He sat down beside her, his eyes running scorchingly down her body and back up again. “Look at you,” he growled. “You look like someone shot you.”
She writhed on the mattress, pulling at her bonds one at a time, her face contorting with frustration and ecstasy. “Can I fuck you, pleeeeese?” she whined.
“No.”
“Can I blow you?”
“Not a chance.”
She pouted for a second or two, still struggling. “Can I have breakfast?”
Kane glanced toward the door, his eyes narrowing. “I suppose so. Where do you keep the money?”
“I don’t know.” She grew crafty. “Why don’t you search me?” She snapped her teeth at him.
His nostrils flared and half his mouth drew up in a smile. He leaned over and put his hands on her shoulders, and then swept them down, cupping her breasts. She arched up, moaning happily, and his hands continued down over her ribs to her belly, her hips, her thighs, and finally up again to stroke and tease at her sex. Pleasure blew out and out until it enveloped her completely.
“Nope, no money.” Kane stood up and backed away as Raven surged against her restraints.
“No! Come back here! You jerk!”
He laughed as he fished through her skirt pockets. He came up with the cash and then climbed into his long coat.
“Are you leaving?” Raven asked plaintively.
“Close your eyes,” he said again. “Count to ten.”
He left as she counted four. Raven cried, got distracted by her toes, and then lay quietly and watched the ceiling.
She had completely forgotten all about Kane when he suddenly returned, holding a paper bag stained with good-smelling grease. The unexpected sight of him caused her to shout his name with giddy delight, renewing her struggles. He came and sat beside her, tolerating her snapping teeth when they closed on his forearm, and held an eggy croissant to her mouth so that she could eat.
“I love you,” she said happily, chewing.
Kane shook his head and rubbed at his eyes. “I really have to work with this formula a little more.”
“And I love eggs.”
“Good for you.”
She bit him. He smiled.
*
Another day dawned, and it dawned hot.
Tagen woke in an sticky ocean of sweat-soaked sheets. He felt out for his pack and chewed a suppressant before he even opened his eyes. He didn’t want to see how few he had remaining.
He showered under a cool spray and dressed in the tight-fitting human clothes Daria had given him, all the while feeling heat and ill humor gnawing at him. It had been another long night of little sleep, another span of restless hours he had spent wandering the dark halls of this alien house and wondering what in hell he was still doing here. And another program on the tee-vee demonstrating all the creative positions in which humans could mate, while Tagen drank iced water and thought brooding thoughts on the subject of his unwilling host.
She had wakened before him. He could hear her moving around in the back of the house, still trying to force more order into the already painfully-neat structure of her home. The air stung his nostrils; the scent of cleansers was everywhere.
There was a plate of food waiting for him on the table, although she was not in the kitchen. It was a great portion of food, too, and if it hadn’t been for the acid tang of disinfectants fumigating the room, it would have smelled divine. Unwilling though she might be, she was a very good host.
Tagen ate, listening to his human at work in the utility room. It sounded like she was scrubbing the tool shelves. He’d never heard of such a pointless pursuit. Even as a first-year recruit on a military ship, no one scrubbed the tool shelves. She was more than a little unbalanced on the subject of dirt.
No. This had nothing to do with dirt, and everything to do with avoiding whatever the real problem was. Tagen was no mind-doctor, but he knew that much. Just as he knew that his presence was serving to amplify her little habits into something much more obsessive. He no longer believed it would break her just to have him stay—she’d have done so by now, if that were true—but his being here was infecting that secret wound of hers, that much was certain.
The worst of it was, he felt guilty. He had to be here. Leaving aside the physical necessities of food and water and sleep, his understanding of human technology and N’Glish had been greatly furthered, so he knew he had no choice but to stay. All the same, he realized a little more every day that he was an invading force. Daria was enduring him, but her anxiety came through, and his remorse was inescapable.
These episodes of conscience bothered him more than the mere summing of guilt. More and more, the thought was worming into him that he would not feel as much self-condemnation if his host were male.
Daria didn’t act like a female. She was fidgety and shy and altogether selfconscious. Still, there was something in her very vulnerability that struck Tagen as perversely arousing. The fact that she definitely noticed he was male—feared it, but noticed it—only exacerbated the situation. He found himself displaying for her, completely subconsciously, but very obviously, and it irked him fresh every time he did it. And she did not notice, which was even more aggravating.
Tagen put his dishes in the sink and retreated from the kitchen before Daria could come in and find him there. He couldn’t face her yet. Not her fear, not her questions, and not her alluring female scent. Gods, why did it have to be so
hot
?
He took a seat on the sofa in the front room and put his feet up on the low table. The cat, Grendel, was already there on the cushions beside him, but it permitted only two passes of Tagen’s hand before expressing its own feelings on the cursed weather by leaping down and waddling upstairs. Tagen watched it go, feeling deserted and pricklish about it. He picked up the tee-vee controller and turned it on, scrolling rapidly up through the channels until he found the program he liked.
He heard Daria coming down the hall, but he did not turn to watch her approach. After a second, he realized he was pretending to ignore her the way he would pretend to ignore any approaching female, waiting with male politeness for her to notice him. The thought got in close to the skin like sand, abrading and irritating to the effect that when Daria came into view, he shot her a glare potent enough to stop her in her tracks.
She was holding a glass of something iced, holding it out as a gift for him. He felt like hitting himself.
“Forgive me,” he said instead, and directed his glare at the tee-vee. His favorite law program didn’t deserve the glare either, but at least it couldn’t get its feelings hurt.
“It’s okay.” She inched a little closer, set the glass on the low table before him, and then backed out of reach again.
She was sweating. It was only mid-day and already hot enough to set teeth on fire, so that she should be sweating was hardly surprising, but it aggravated Tagen anyway. He could smell her female musk faintly through her clothes. Her stare had a weight he could feel; it was a look that would be flirting, if only it came from another source. He gazed into the screen of the tee-vee without seeing the images on it.
She seemed to be waiting for something. “I brought you iced tea,” she said finally.
Tagen reached out automatically and picked up the glass. It was cool, refreshing even just to hold. “Thank you,” he said. He risked a glance in her direction. She was examining him almost as intently as he’d pretended to be watching the tee-vee, and his spine seemed to straighten and his chest to swell of its own accord, making himself as impressive a specimen as possible. Displaying again, damn it all. He growled low in his throat and sipped at the sweet beverage she had brought him. He was taking his suppressants, for the gods’ sakes, what was the matter with him?
“Is it okay?” She looked unsettled by his expression, and was already reaching to take back the drink. “I could make some juice if you’d rather—”
“It is fine,” he said, and drank deeply to prove it. The scent of it filled his nostrils, a blend of subtle herbs that took away the scent of her musky sweat. He could feel himself relaxing. “Very fine,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Well, I figure you’ve been watching
Law & Order
for days on end, and your strength might need some shoring up by now.”
He gave her a narrow look, killing her slight, teasing smile.
“Sorry.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Your N’Glish has gotten better.”
Tagen searched the words for sarcasm and found none. “Thank you,” he said cautiously.
She exhaled in a short rush and then said, “I never was any good at small talk,” while casting an irritated glance at the ceiling.
He felt himself straightening again, and the smell of her suddenly seemed very strong. But when she met his eyes, the sketchy thought that she might be making an overture evaporated (which was good, he insisted sourly. Which was very damned good.). Her face was set for a grim undertaking, and he was right in the scope of her sights.
“Don’t you think it’s about time you told me the whole story about why you’re here?”
She said it like she thought there was so much more than what he’d already told her. Tagen directed his gaze to the tee-vee screen, sighed, and shut it off. He stood up to face her and she promptly (but not unexpectedly) backed up a step.
“I am a police,” he said. He paused. “A police officer. I am…investigating the disappearance of a criminal who has escaped us. He may have come to Earth.”
“What did he do?” Daria asked. “I mean, ‘criminal’ covers a lot.”
This was dangerous ground to be traveling with such an unstable opponent. It was all too easy to imagine that Daria could think him capable of the same evils as E’Var. If he did not go carefully, he would undo much of the tentative connection he had forged with her. And if he said nothing at all, he would shatter it.
It would have to be the truth, but he would be vigilant about the quantities in which he offered it. “He has killed many people,” he said. “Your kind and mine.”
It was an answer she had clearly anticipated, but having her suspicions confirmed did not silence her. She came into the room and sat beside him on the sofa, clasping her hands too tightly and staring at the dark face of the tee-vee. “Why did he come to Earth this time?” she asked. “Is it just because of…because he thinks your army won’t follow him here, or is there another reason?”
“There is,” he said slowly. But he did not want to tell her. That look was in her eyes already, the look of one who expects the worst and has never been disappointed. He wondered again what could have happened to her to make her believe so fervently in the evils of others.
For now, he said, “E’Var comes to Earth to hunt your kind.”
“To—?” She stared at him and shook her head. “Why?”
“He takes something from those he kills,” Tagen told her. “And sells it to other criminals.”
She said nothing, but she had heard him well enough. Her face was pale. The decorations on her left cheek stood out like fine filaments of circuitry.
“We have been pursuing the ship E’Var and his…his…” He gave her a helpless glance. “Those who pilot and work on a ship.”
“His crew.” She looked away, rubbing at her arm as if she were cold. “You’d know that if you watched more
Star Trek
and less
Law & Order
.”
“Crew. Thank you.” Tagen ignored the comment on his tee-vee preferences. “The ship belonged to Uraktus E’Var, his…father, you would say, and perhaps the most notorious of all criminals of his kind. Our forces had pursued him…ha, nearly all my life. And at last, he was found.”
“You caught him,” Daria guessed.
“We killed him.”
Her features sobered alarmingly.
He shook his head in answer to the question unfolding in her eyes. “If it was vengeance he wanted, he would have gone to Jota to hunt,” he told her, and she frowned, considering that. “E’Var’s ship was taken and all his crew captured. Only Kanetus E’Var escaped us.”
“And he came here, of all places.”
“As you say, he no doubt believed no one would follow.”
“And as you say, he can hunt here.” She raised her head and looked at him sharply. “How much are his…his trophies…worth? Enough to buy a new ship, maybe?”
“Such is our fear,” he admitted, impressed no small amount that she had so rapidly come to that conclusion.
“But you don’t know for absolute sure he’s here,” she pressed.
“Little in life is an absolute surety,” he retaliated. “That is why police are employed to investigate the uncertain.”
She smiled with half her mouth. “Touché, spaceman.”
He raised his iced drink to her, supremely pleased with himself. Scoring a point off Daria Cleavon was like getting one off Kolya Pahnee. Tagen could count the number of times that had happened on his hands, and still have fingers to spare.
“But you’ve got me wondering now,” she said, and Tagen braced himself as for physical attack. “E’Var’s been here more often than any of your police have. Do you suppose he might be better equipped than you?”
“No. He escaped from one of our own ships. He could have had access to none of his equipment.”
“Um. I hate to have to burst your happy superior-Jotan-army bubble, but I think maybe you should consider the possibility that he only escaped because he had help aboard your own ship.”
Tagen glowered into his cup. The thought had occurred to him. Frequently. Hearing it now from Daria’s mouth only made it sound more plausible.