Mercenaries (33 page)

Cassidy tore her mouth from his and cried out, digging her nails into the bunching muscle of his back. God, it felt so good!

Bracing her bare heels against his thighs, she ground back at him, taking him, feeling her climax build like a burning storm.

He growled something at her in Dharani, the words liquid and alien as he surged into her grip. Grabbing the back of her head, he pulled her into another devouring kiss.

Moaning, on fire, she rolled her hips as he pounded her without mercy, his strokes long and savage and impossibly delicious.

Until at last he hurled her into a screaming orgasm, heat and pleasure surging through her body until her every nerve and muscle jerked and danced. Even as she writhed in his arms, he bellowed, a raw male cry of pleasure. She felt him pump deep within her slick depths.

“Rune!” She clawed at his shoulders, maddened.

“Cassidy . . .” He gasped, shuddering against her. “Goddess, Cassidy . . .”

Long, fiery moments went by before his arms lost their impressive strength, and he let her slide down his body. He took a staggering step back.

Cassidy braced her trembling legs apart and managed a grin of triumph. “Got you.”

She half expected him to get angry at the taunt. Instead he threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, yes. You certainly did.” Then that cool silver gaze met hers again, and heat flashed through it. “This time.”

Cassidy shivered, knowing he was going to seek a deliciously erotic revenge.

She also knew she'd probably enjoy every minute of it.

“
O
KAY, I'm dying to ask—how is it you've never had a blow job?”

Rune shrugged. They had staggered out of the pool to collapse together on the sun-warmed ground. Now his chest hair tickled Cassidy's cheek as she lay draped over him in sleepy lassitude. “As I said, it's not something our women do. It's . . . servile.”

She lifted her head and stared at him. “Do I look servile to you, stud? Besides, you don't seem to have a problem doing it.”

He grinned. “On the contrary, I don't give blow jobs, either.”

“Smartass. You know what I mean.”

He threaded his hand through her hair and contemplated the remains of her braids. Casually he went to work unwrapping them. “A Dharani warrior is expected to know how to pleasure and arouse a woman. It's a necessary skill, if one expects to be invited to a
Mahiri's
bed.”

Cassidy fisted one hand on his chest, then propped her chin on top of it. “I had the impression you just flashed your pussy pass and the ladies just . . . accommodated you. And what's a
Mahiri
?”

Rune frowned, a line forming between his dark brows. “It doesn't translate well. High woman? Mistress?” Releasing her hair, he reared up and braced his elbows behind him, the better to meet her eyes. “But what was that you called it?
Pussy pass?
”

She shrugged, realizing there was genuine offense in his eyes. “Well, you said something about getting a pass to the women's deck, and I thought—”

“It's not a brothel, Cassidy. A warrior is invited to the women's deck to recount his exploits, to display his skills—not
those
skills,” he added, reading her grin. “Singing, poetry, dancing, perhaps hand-to-hand combat with another fighter. If he manages to impress, one of the
Mahiri
may invite him to her bed. And he'd best know what to do when he gets there, or he won't be invited back.”

“Dancing?” Biting down on her lip, Cassidy managed to suppress her snort of laughter at the sly image that appeared in her mind. Fierce Dharani warriors staging
Swan Lake
for a bunch of pampered women, all in hopes of getting laid . . . “I gather you fight.”

“No, any tribesman is expected to be able to fight. I sing. It gains their attention.” Reading her skepticism, he said, “I'm considered to have a very good voice.”

“Yeah? Sing something.”

She expected him to demur—most men of her acquaintance would have. But Rune being Rune, he wasn't going to back down from a challenge of any kind. He sat up as Cassidy moved back to give him room, folding her legs under her as she settled in to listen.

For a moment he looked across the pond, a distant look on his face. A slight smile curved his seductive mouth.

Then he began to sing.

His voice was a lush baritone, deep and seductive. Even though she didn't understand Dharani, the liquid, slightly guttural words made the song sound like distilled sex. The effect was only enhanced when he turned to give her that hot, heavy-lidded silver gaze.

Yet there was more than sex in his eyes—there was a tenderness and admiration that seemed completely genuine. Looking into his handsome face, Cassidy felt something draw into a tight, warm ball in her chest.

When his song finally drew to its gently pleading end, she had to clear her throat before she could manage anything suitably teasing. “It's really not fair. Women would sleep with you just for that voice. Add the rest of the package, and we don't have a prayer.”

One corner of Rune's mouth curled up in blatant male satisfaction. “Good.”

“You've got no shame at all, do you?”

“Not really, no.”

She shook her head and tried throw off his spell with a change of subject. “So what do your women do when they're not having sex or being entertained?
Do
they do anything when they're not having sex or being entertained?”

“Of course.” He looked a bit indignant at the suggestion. “They raise the children, of course, but they also serve on the ship's council, deciding maters of justice, administration, and policy. And they perform the genetic engineering to create our warriors, deciding who will be permitted to father children. That is one reason they have such power.”

Cassidy asked the question softly, seriously. “But do they pilot fighters?”

Rune went still, as if realizing where she was going with that. “Our women don't serve in combat. They're too precious to risk.”

Bracing an elbow on her knee, she met his gaze steadily. “Rune, all I ever wanted to do was fly. I can't let you take that away from me.”

He flinched just slightly. “Cassidy . . .”

“My parents weren't mercenaries,” she said softly. If she could only make him understand that he couldn't turn her into some kind of hothouse plant, she wouldn't have to kill him. And the more time she spent with him, the more she hated that idea. “They were hydroponics farmers. But from the time I was a small child, I was fascinated by flight—by the freedom of it, by the romance of the air.”

Naked, he rose to his feet and moved away from her, but she stood and followed him.

“I joined my colony's space defense force. I loved being in the cockpit, watching the ground fall away and curve below me. I loved the punch of acceleration, the roar of the engines.”

Rune crouched to examine one of the bamboolike stands of trees that surrounded the pond. The set of his shoulders shouted that he didn't want to hear what she had to say, but Cassidy had no intention of letting him off that easy.

“Then Acron's Space Force went through a budget crunch, and a bunch of us were released from service. I found myself without a job—or a fighter to fly.”

That got his attention. He looked at her, frowning. “What did you do?”

“What could I do?” As she watched, he drew his knife and began to hack at the base of the small tree. “I couldn't give up flying, but I had no interest in becoming a passenger pilot. I wanted to fly fighters.”

“So you became a mercenary.” He broke the trunk free and began to cut off the small branches.

“Yes, though it wasn't that easy. I had to get nanotech implants before I could find a ship willing to take me on. I had to use all my payoff from the service to pay for the procedure, and I was flat broke for months.”

Rune frowned, obviously troubled at the idea of Cassidy in such straits. Encouraged, she continued, “Eventually I was able to sign on with a mercenary vessel. I served on three other ships before I met Captain August and joined the crew of the
Starrunner
.”

Still frowning, he turned to carry his knife and pole back toward his pack. Cassidy strode after him. “You don't seriously think I'm going to let you take away my wings?”

He tossed down the pole and got to work unloading his pack. The frown he aimed at her was forbidding. “Cassidy, I challenged you to a Claiming Duel, and you lost. You belong to me.”

Frustrated, she glared at him. “Stud, I don't belong to anybody but myself.”

“Does your honor mean that little to you?”

“Dammit, Rune, I didn't know what a ‘Claiming Duel' was! You didn't tell me. I thought it was to the death. You can't hold me to—”

“I can. I do.” He turned and took one long step until his boots tapped her toes. “You are mine.”

“Fuck off.”

“I won your life. I could have taken it, but I spared you. Every breath you take, you owe to me.”

Cassidy bunched her fists and gritted, “You are
not
doing this to me!
I will not allow it.”

“You can't stop me.”

“Watch me, stud. And watch your back.” She whirled to stalk off, but a big hand landed on her shoulder.

Rune spun her around and snatched her into his arms. His mouth crashed down on hers, muffling her outraged snarl. She planted her hands against his chest and shoved, knocking him back a pace. For a moment they stood staring at each other, breathing hard in fury and frustration.

Then he surged toward her.

The fight that followed was short and nasty, but it ended with Cassidy on her face in the leaves as Rune bound her wrists behind her back. To her grim satisfaction, blood streamed from his upper lip. She'd gotten in one good punch.

But she'd still lost.

PATIENTLY Rune wrapped coil after coil of cord around the hilt of his knife, working to tie it to the pole he'd found to create a serviceable spear. The balance would likely be poor, but at least it would give him some reach if the caravores attacked again.

Though at the moment he supposed he should be more concerned about what Cassidy would do to him when she got free. And it wasn't as if he could keep her tied up forever.

He glanced over at her as she lay on her side against the wall of the tent he'd erected. Her green eyes burned with sullen rage. Her arms moved restlessly as she pulled at her bonds. Despite his superior strength, it had been all he could do to get the restraints on her.

He'd say one thing for Cassidy: She didn't give up.

Suppressing a sigh, Rune studied the new spear, then put it aside and picked up the other knife and pole. As he went to work making the second weapon, he brooded.

He'd thought he was making good progress in stirring her affections. Her body definitely responded to his, and he'd sensed a warming in her attitude.

Now he knew he had a very long way to go.

But he'd get there, Rune thought, wrapping the cord around the knife hilt.

He didn't give up, either.

Eventually he'd make her care about him. She'd find his love and the love of their children would compensate her for what she'd lost.

His hands slowed in their work, and his frown deepened as he remembered the light in her eyes when she'd spoken of flying. There was no question she loved being in the cockpit.

Did
he have the right to take that away from her?

Dharani philosophy insisted he did. He'd won their battle, and he kept proving he could seduce her no matter how she tried to fight him. She belonged to him by right, and she should feel honor bound to yield.

Yet . . . he also knew that if he'd been in her place, he wouldn't have stopped fighting, either. That was one of the things he found so appealing about her: He understood her. Admired her fire and her courage, her intelligence and sense of duty. Her beauty added to her attraction, but wasn't the deciding factor. After all, there were many beautiful women on the Tribeship. None of them spoke to his spirit the way Cassidy did.

He was falling in love with her.

It felt as if the bottom had dropped out of Rune's stomach. It couldn't be. They barely knew one another. Only a few hours before, he'd been doing his best to kill her.

And yet . . . he felt as if he'd met the other half of his soul, like a hero in some Dharani ballad. He knew her, recognized her, on a level that went beyond thought or reason. She wasn't just a warrior with desirable virtues he wanted as the mother of his sons—she was Cassidy Vika, pilot and mercenary, as fiery and brilliant as she was beautiful.