Not the Man She Thought (10 page)

Rade didn’t answer, but she could tell from the hard glint
in his eyes that he was furious. More furious than he’d been even after he had
caught her snooping in the hold the other night. Suddenly, standing up to him
didn’t seem like it had been such a good idea. Her pulse racing, she took a
step back, but it was too late. Rade reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling
her against him.

“I’ve had it with you,” he growled. “You’re a spoiled brat
who stowed away on my ship, which is a crime in any corner of the galaxy, and
yet you have the nerve to call me a criminal. Well, I’m tired of your
condescending attitude, little girl, and I’m not going to put up with it
anymore.”

Tightening his grip on her arm, Rade dragged her across the
hold to a big wooden crate. Laken fought against him, but it was useless. He
gave her arm a jerk that sent her tumbling forward and over the crate in one
swift motion. She tried to push herself upright, but he put a hand on her back
to hold her in place.

“I thought I got through to you with the other spankings I
gave you,” he ground out. “I guess I was too soft on you. When I get done with
you this time, you’ll be lucky if you can sit down for a week.”

Laken opened her mouth to tell him to go to hell, but all
that came out was a gasp as Rade flipped up her skirt and yanked down her
panties. Her face went hot with embarrassment. She thought that being over his
knee was mortifying, but being bent over the crate like this was absolutely
humiliating. Not only did the position give him a perfect view of her ass, but
it let him see her pussy, too. She reached back with one hand to cover herself,
but he caught her wrist and pinned it the small of her back, then did the same
with the other. She was as helpless as if he’d tied her up.

She threw him a murderous look over her shoulder.
 
“Let me up, you bastard.”

Rade only answer to press her more firmly against the rough
wood of the crate and deliver a sharp smack to her ass. Like with the other
spankings he’d given her, the smacks came hard and fast, with him moving back
and forth from one cheek and the other until her entire bottom was blazing.

“Owwww!” she cried. “Damn you, that hurts!”

  
“Good,”
he said. “That way, maybe you’ll stop acting like such a brat.”

Laken cried out as his hand found her tender sit-spots. She
danced from foot to foot, attempting to get away from the smacks, but it didn’t
do any good. His hand kept coming down on her ass cheeks over and over and
over.

  
“Please,” she begged. “I promise not to say anything about your or your
crew ever again. Just please stop spanking me.”

  
Considering she’d made him so angry, she didn’t think her words would
have any effect on him, but to her relief, after once more hard smack to each
cheek, he released her.

Pushing herself upright, Laken she reached back to cup her
red-hot ass cheeks, and gasped at how tender they were. Rade had obviously
wanted to make good on his threat about her not sitting down comfortably any
time soon. She waited for him to say something, to warn her to behave herself,
or promise her an even harder spanking next time she stepped out of line, but
he only gazed down at her, his face unreadable. A moment later, he turned on
his heel and strode out of the cargo hold.

Chapter Five

He had spanked Laken too hard, dammit. He’d realized it the
moment she’d begged him to stop. The other times, she had called him names the
whole time he’d spanked her, then jumped up with defiance in her beautiful,
green eyes when he’d released her, but this time, she’d barely looked at him at
all. It had made him feel like shit and he’d almost taken her in his arms and
apologized. He doubted she would have appreciated the gesture, though, not
after everything that had just happened between them.

“You were a little hard on the girl back there, weren’t
you?” Kellen said. He was standing outside Rade’s cabin, leaning back against
the wall, arms folded.

Rade clenched his jaw. He doubted his first officer had hung
around to watch him spank Laken, but if anyone knew what had gone on in the
cargo hold, it would be Kellen. There wasn’t much that went on within the ship
the older man didn’t know about.

“She’s a naïve, spoiled brat,” he muttered.

Kellen nodded. “The girl is that, but that wasn’t what
pissed you off. It was the fact that she called you a pirate.”

“That didn’t bother me,” Rade said, opening the door to his
cabin and leading the way inside. “I know I’m a pirate, and I’ve made my peace
with it. She had no right to say the same about my crew.”

Kellen’s mouth curved into a smile. “The crew is aware of
what they are, and you can’t take blame for that. Every one of them follows you
willingly, and it’s not because of the money, either. You do the best you can
to take care of them. None of them can ask for more than that. If the girl
wants to call them pirates, none of them will care.”

Rade ground his jaw. “Maybe not, but it pissed the hell out
of me anyway.”

Kellen regarded him thoughtfully. “I wonder. Would Laken’s
accusations have bothered you this much if you weren’t so attracted to her?”

Rade frowned. “What are you talking about? I’m not attracted
to her.”

Kellen shrugged. “If you say so.”

Rade opened his mouth to reply, but Kellen was already out
the door. Rade walked over to the sideboard and poured himself a drink. He
stared down at the glass, thinking about what his first officer had said.
Usually, the old man was dead on, but in this case, he couldn’t be more wrong.
Rade would agree that Laken was attractive, but that wasn’t the same thing as
being attracted to her. The idea was ludicrous.

  
His hand
tightened on the glass. Kellen may not be right about that, but he was correct
about one thing. He had been too hard on Laken. He’d just been so damn on edge
after that ambush by the Federation. He and the crew had barely gotten out of
there with their lives. If it hadn’t been for that, Laken’s insults probably
wouldn’t have pissed him off quite so much.

What was done was done, though, and trying to apologize to
her would probably only make matters worse. The best thing he could do was keep
some distance between them the rest of the time she was on the ship.
Unfortunately, they weren’t due on Marlon Prime for close to a week, so
avoiding her might be difficult. Although, after the spanking he’d just given
her, she was probably going to be on her best behavior. He supposed he should
be grateful for that.

Realizing he hadn’t heard anything from the med-bay yet, he
put down is glass untouched and headed for the door.

* * * * *

Laken was lying in bed on her stomach, wondering if soaking
in the tub would help her throbbing bottom when someone knocked on the door of
her cabin. She ignored it, hoping they would go away, but whoever it was only
knocked again.

“Laken, it’s Dev. Can I come in?”

Laken groaned. She didn’t want to see the other woman, or
any of the crew, for that matter. She opened her mouth to tell Dev to go away,
but changed her mind. She couldn’t ignore the other woman forever.

She rolled onto her side and she sat up, letting out a
little, “Ouch,” when her sore bottom touched the bed. “Come in.”

The door slid open and Dev hesitantly stepped into the room.
She chewed nervously on her lower lip. “I came to apologize. I didn’t mean to
take advantage of you. I assumed you knew we skirted the law on some of the
jobs we did. This time, we needed the code to get past the Federation’s
sensors, and I couldn’t get it to work. I wouldn’t have accepted your help if I
knew it was going to upset you.”

Laken didn’t say anything. Whatever else she was, Dev was
still her friend. “I just wish you would have told me. I don’t know if I would
have helped you, but at least I wouldn’t have felt like you were trying to
trick me.”

“I’m sorry,” Dev said. “I really am.”

Laken sighed. “It wasn’t you I was mad at anyway. It was
Rade. He makes me so furious that all I want to do is scream.
 
When I was yelling at you, it was
really all directed at him.”

A smile curved Dev’s lips. “You have that same effect on
him, I think. You seem to be able to get him to lose his cool faster than
anyone I’ve ever seen.”

Laken’s bottom could vouch for that. “We do seem to get on
each other’s nerves, that’s for sure. The sooner I’m off his ship the better.”

The other woman frowned. “You know, the captain isn’t
usually so bad-tempered. He just has a lot on his mind right now.”

Laken made no comment. The man was a pirate. He probably
spent most of his time worrying about getting arrested. “So, how is Jorn?”

“He’ll have some stiffness in his arm for a while, but
otherwise, he’s fine.”

Laken was glad to hear that. As much as she might dislike
the captain, she did like his crew. “Does that kind of stuff happen a lot?
Getting shot at, I mean?”

Dev shrugged. “Not a lot, but it does happen sometimes. We
watch each other’s backs, though, and the captain takes care of us.”

Laken nodded even though she didn’t see it that way. Rade
was the one who put them in that position in the first place. She couldn’t
imagine why Dev or any of the crew would be loyal to a captain who would put
them at risk just in the pursuit of money.

* * * * *

Over the next two days, Laken did her best to stay out of
Rade’s path. To her relief, he did the same. It was impossible for the rest of
the crew to miss the tension between her and their captain, though, and they
went out of their way to make up for it. She was surprised they even wanted to
talk to her after she had accused them of being pirates, but they didn’t seem
angry with her at all.

She was having lunch with the rest of the crew for lunch two
days later Rade came in to make an announcement. They were a little ahead of
schedule, so he’d decided to make a short stop at one of the more reputable
planets in the area that night so the crew could have some down time.

“We’ll only be there for a few hours, but I’m sure that’ll
be enough for most of you to spend your share of the money we made off these
last few jobs.”

The crew laughed, already talking about where they would go
that night. Laken listened with half an ear as Rade took out a handheld
computer and encode credit sticks for each member of the crew..

“Doesn’t mean you have to spend it all tonight, you know,”
he muttered as he handed them out.

Laken leaned over to look at Dev’s credit-stick, her eyes
going a little wide at the amount on it. She didn’t have any experience with
pirate wages, but the amount seemed generous. While that surprised her, though,
it was nothing to how surprised she was when Rade offered a credit-stick to
her.

“Your share of the profit for helping Dev with the codes,”
he told her.

Laken stared at the credit-stick in his hand. It didn’t have
as much on it as Dev’s did, but it was certainly more than she had to her name
right now. It might even be enough to book passage on a really cheap ship
headed to Marlon Prime. When she made no move to take it, he lifted a brow.

“I don’t want it,” she said coolly. She wanted to say
something insulting about it being dirty money, but remembered her promise not
to provoke him anymore.

Rade shrugged. “Suit yourself. You earned it, whether you
want to admit it or not. If you prefer, I can have it credited to an account
once we drop you off on Marlon Prime. I wouldn’t want you to accuse me of
stealing from you. What was the name of this guy you’re supposed to be engaged
to? I can put it in his name, if you want.”

She didn’t was anything to do with Rade or his money once
she got back to Mallin, and she certainly didn’t want her fiancé knowing how
she had earned it. She reached out and snatched the credit-stick from Rade’s
hand before he could erase it. “Don’t bother. I’ll take it.”

Rade’s mouth quirked, but he made no comment.

Laken closed her fist over the credit-stick, her face
coloring. She was going to have a hard enough time explaining to Mallin how she
had gotten all the way to Marlon Prime. She certainly didn’t want him asking
questions when mysterious sums of money just started to show up in his account
with her name on it. It would be better to simply take the money and forget the
whole thing had ever happened.

They landed on Konteline early that evening. Though it
didn’t look quite as cosmopolitan as Tellune, it was considerably better than
either of the other planets the ship had stopped at previously.

Other than Kellen, who had volunteered to stay back with the
ship, everyone else was going into the city. The crew was all gathered in the
cargo hold when she got there. Keir immediately came over to meet her at the
bottom of the stairs.