Mercenaries (3 page)

She gritted her teeth and twisted her wrist free of his sweaty hold. “Well, you haven't bought me yet, so you don't have the right to manhandle me.”

Gordon's cold, black-pebble eyes narrowed between folds of fat. “Once we're married, you're going to learn your place.”

The men of this town really needed to come up with a new threat. “My place,” Trin growled, “is where I say it is. And right now it's in there.” She pivoted on her heel and stalked through the door of the bar, knowing her tormenter would never set foot inside.

“You come out this minute, Trinity Yeager, or you'll be sorry!” he yelled after her, his voice spiraling into a squeal. “Trin! I'll tell the elders, see if I don't!”

Trin eyed the door, waiting for him to barrel through, wrapped in sanctimonious outrage. Instead his boots rang on the sidewalk as he stomped off. She'd been right; he didn't have the guts to risk being seen going into the tavern.

This had damn well better work, because if she was still here when they held the auction, she was finished. She could handle Gordon—though she'd probably end up tied to the Sinner's Post afterward. But if she married good ol' Andy, she knew the chances were very good he'd eventually beat her to death.

Trin had a strong suspicion that if he did kill her, all the men in town would just shake their heads and say, “Well, she never did know her place.” Hell, they'd probably put it on her headstone.

The mercs were the only chance she had of avoiding that auction. She had to get them to take her with them. One way or another.

Taking a deep breath, Trin turned and surveyed the bar's dark interior. She'd never been inside, since it was strictly for infidels. The elders only allowed it to exist at all because they didn't want rowdy foreigners starting brawls in local restaurants. Trin was courting a week in a prayer cell just by stepping through the door.

“Oh, fuck me!” a female voice purred.

Startled, Trin's gaze shot to the central trid globe hovering over the bar. To her astonishment, it depicted a huge ruddy shaft sliding slowly between a woman's glistening vaginal lips.

They were showing a pornographic trid.
Right there in the bar.

Did the elders know?

Trin stared at the image in scandalized fascination. She'd lost her virginity in a furtive encounter with another teenager five years before, but it had been so painful and they'd come so close to getting caught, she hadn't dared try again. The penalty for fornication was thirty lashes at the Sinner's Post and five years in a prayer cell, and it hadn't seemed worth it. Not for so little pleasure.

But Maker's Beard, she didn't remember Jimmy's cock being that big. . . .

Focus, Trin,
she told herself sternly, dragging her eyes away from the globe.
You're not here for the porn.

“Ohhhh!” the actress moaned. “Deeeperrrr!”

Trin's cheeks flamed. Slinking to the bar, she edged her hip onto the nearest stool, trying to keep her eyes averted from the amazing things the handsome, very naked man was doing to his partner.

“May I take your order?” the bar asked as a trid menu appeared before her eyes. Like the other businesses in the OQ, the tavern was automated. It got too few customers to maintain a human staff.

Trin blinked at the selection. It had been ten years since she'd been in a place like this. She hoped she remembered how to order.

Too, she'd never had alcohol in her life. Orville taught that drinking spirits was sinful, so nobody in Rectitude served liquor. On the other hand, she didn't want to look like a prig to the captain, so . . .

“I'll have a Star Mead, please,” Trin decided finally, managing a matter-of-fact tone as she placed her palm on the bar's surface. A blue light flashed around her hand, signaling that the computer had recorded her palm print and would debit her account. She thought she had enough credchits to cover it. Barely.

An opening appeared in the bar's surface, and a curving bottle thrust upward, filled with something blue and faintly phosphorescent. Trin accepted it and took a wary sip. The cold, bitter liquid bit into her tongue and burned its way down her esophagus. Gamely she forced herself to swallow another foaming mouthful, hoping she wouldn't get drunk on one bottle. She needed her wits about her.

“Oh, God, your cunt is so
tight
and
wet
!”

Trin shot a glance at the trid. Jimmy definitely hadn't been that big. Or flexible. Or imaginative.

As she swallowed and looked away, she saw the mercenaries. Two of them, both male, sat at a small table rimmed in glowtubes that cast the only illumination in the room. One was a big, handsome blond, the other equally big, but dark-haired. They were the only other patrons in the tavern. She hoped one of them was Captain August.

Eyeing the pair cautiously, Trin tried to decide on her approach. A small forest of bottles stood on the table between them; they must be well and truly launched. She wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

Either way, they were an intimidating—and attractive—pair. Matte-black half-armor and holstered pistols gave them an air of exotic danger enhanced by broad shoulders and brawny arms. Trin felt a wickedly sensual interest steal through her.
Stop that!
she told her stirring libido. Sex was a distraction she didn't need right now.

As she watched, the blond threw back his head and boomed out a laugh. His hair was as long as a woman's. It flowed halfway down his back in a stream of molten gold that matched the short goatee framing his mouth.

As Trin gazed at him in scandalized fascination, she realized the thick mane actually enhanced his masculinity rather than detracted from it. Otherwise, his broad, angular face and square jaw would have seemed too hard, too aggressive. As it was, he reminded her somehow of an archangel, one of the martial kind who carried swords.

Then his full mouth curled into a smile so wicked and knowing, Trin changed her mind. If the man looked like an angel, it was one the Maker had kicked out of Paradise. And that carnal grin made it clear why He'd done it. The man was a menace to anything female, saints and angels included.

The other mercenary sat back in his chair, drawing Trin's attention with the way he settled into a long-legged, arrogantly male sprawl. He was as dark as his partner was blond, and his hair was cropped ruthlessly short, emphasizing the stark lines of his face.

He wasn't anywhere near as pretty as his friend, either. His face was narrow, the bone structure a little rougher and less refined, with a long nose and thick brows that drew low over deep-set blue eyes.

But it was his mouth that made Trin feel downright uneasy. The upper lip was narrow and curving, while the lower was full, sensual. He looked cruel, she decided. Yet there was an air about him, an indefinable something that made her acutely aware of being female.

“Oh, God,” the trid actress breathed, “you're so hard, so thiiiick. . . .”

Trin blinked and licked her lips. Chances were good one of the men was Captain August. She had to approach them. Convince him to give her a chance.

Unfortunately, she had a feeling the captain wasn't the handsome, laughing blond. It was the dark one. The cruel one.

She wasn't sure what scared her more: the idea that he'd turn her down, or the thought that he just might take her on. She wasn't at all sure she could handle him.

But he looked like he was more than capable of handling her.

CAPTAIN Nathan August took another sip of his Star Mead as he sprawled at his table listening to his internal com unit.

“We won't have any trouble filling the order for the 10,000 crates of meat and produce,”
the Paradise broker said through his communications implant.
“A ground transport will deliver them to the Rectitude shuttleport at 1500 today.”

They'd have to shuttle the cargo up themselves, then process it into ration packs. Apparently the locals thought even orbital flight was sinful. Idiots. Space travel had gotten them to this mud-ball, hadn't it?
“Sounds good,”
Nathan commed back, the implant transmitting his mental reply to the other man.
“We'll be looking for it. I'll have the other half of the payment ready for you.”

Nathan gritted his teeth and reminded himself again just how low the
Starrunner
's rations were.
“August out.”
His com disconnected. Looking over at his executive officer, he glowered. “You do realize all these people are bugshit crazy? What the hell kind of religion is Orvility, anyway?”

Sebastian Cole grinned and picked up his bottle of mead for a slow sip. “I'm not sure
religion
is the right word. I think the actual term is
scam
. As in, ‘Hand over all your earthly possessions to me, and I will lead you to a promised land where I will enjoy the fruits of your labor.' ”

“And they fell for that?”

“Like the saying goes, there's one born every nanosecond.” He curled his lip. “Hell, one of the local bigwigs even tried to talk
me
into immigrating.”

Nathan hooted, rocking his chair onto its back legs. “You? Live on a planet where sex is a sin?”

“I was a little surprised myself, but evidently I look ‘genetically pure,' whatever the fuck that means.” Sebastian's smile went sly. “The elder told me I needed to assume my proper place, instead of serving under a mongrel so obviously my inferior.”

“A mongrel?” Nathan glowered. “Me? What the hell did he mean by that?”

“I'm not sure, but I don't think he likes your nose.”

“My nose? What's wrong with my nose?”

Sebastian widened his eyes in exaggerated innocence. “I don't know, Captain. It's a very nice nose. Really.”

Nathan snorted and picked up his own bottle. “Kiss my ass.”

“Sorry, you're not my type.” He glanced toward the bar and lifted a brow, attention evidently caught. “Now, she, on the other hand . . .”

Nathan followed his friend's gaze to the little redhead colonist perched on a barstool across the room. She was staring at them as if afraid they'd eat her. Which wasn't a bad idea, come to think of it.

She looked delicious.

T
HE black unisuit the little colonist wore was snug enough to display a long, lean, lightly muscled body. Her breasts mounded beneath it in deliciously ample handfuls. Nathan found himself wondering whether her nipples were the same pretty pink he'd seen on other redheads. He wouldn't mind finding out.

Normally that thought would be his cue to wander over for a seduction, but there was something about her that kept him in his seat.

Maybe it was the innocence in those big green eyes. They made her look younger than the twenty-four his computer estimated. The effect was only heightened by her pretty, gently rounded face with its pointed chin and slim, straight nose.

There was nothing little girl about her mouth, though. It was full-lipped, pouting. Starkly carnal. He'd love to watch his cock ease between those red lips as she slowly suckled him.

Then there was all that hair, shimmering copper shot with gold highlights, neatly coiled in an intricate arrangement on top of her head. Nathan could almost see her, lush, tanned, and naked, spread out on top of that fiery mane as it spilled across his bed.

Except—there was that damned innocence. Something about her shouted
Keep off the virgin!
On any other world he'd assume the impression was an illusion created by those big, soft eyes. But given the zealotry of the Orville cult, it was entirely possible Red was as untouched as she looked.

Nathan shifted uncomfortably in his seat, feeling heat spin into his groin as that thought aroused a certain predatory protectiveness, a yen to guard her from every other man while simultaneously corrupting the hell out of her himself.
Down boy,
he told himself sternly.
You don't play your kind of games with an innocent.

Now, an experienced redheaded submissive with innocent green eyes and a taste for bondage . . . God, there was an arousing thought.

“Mmm,”
Sebastian commed, eyeing her with lecherous interest.
“Captain, mind if we invade this tight-assed colony? I see somebody I want to take captive.”

Nathan grinned, not even remotely surprised his friend was thinking the same thing he was.
“She'd probably just lie there and pray the entire time you were trying to seduce her.”

“Not if I gagged her first.”
Sebastian dipped one lid in a lascivious wink.
“Preferably with my dick.”