But for her to… She’d taken him in her hands, had put her lips around him… Like something out of his deepest, dearest fantasies. The woman had finally touched him of her own accord.
He sent the trays back via the transporter and sat in his chair, staring at nothing.
When he’d hired her over a year ago, he’d been intrigued and disappointed to see someone so vibrant and beautiful with such little character. He’d found her in debtors’ hell—a place for those who refused to pay their debts, the lowest of the low. The government found and forced them to contribute to society, indentured until they’d earned back their freedom.
Jamie had appeared out of place on the Block. Lush, dark red hair framed a siren’s face. Her brown eyes had seemed so innocent and so sad as she stood there awaiting sentence. A young woman with a body that wouldn’t quit could have had a shorter stretch. Yet she’d turned down a two-year stint with the Lowren brothers, apparently having no desire to work off her service on her back.
He’d bartered with several other agencies to get her, but when he’d read her contract, he’d known why there weren’t more interested. She’d added a no-sex addendum. Indentured contracts were fairly standard, but her no-sex requirement had been a smart one, and fully backed by the government’s new Debtor Protection Bill. If Roarke tried to have sex with Jamie in any shape or form, the contract became null and void. So what had just happened in the office?
She’d been correct in that there were no rules about her initiating intimacy, but it was a slippery slope. Far too easy for the indentured to claim rape and get out of serving her term. From the get-go, Jamie had told him there would be nothing but a professional relationship between them. Even when every atom in his body told him she meant something more to him than an indentured dockworker, he’d agreed. There were other ways an honorable man might break a legal bond. She could give up, quit and take the offer of becoming his lover.
Yet Jamie met every challenge he issued. She didn’t balk at hard work. She didn’t lag behind. A fast learner, she often did the jobs he assigned her better than those who’d been working here longer. She’d won the admiration and loyalty of his men, and his as well.
Problem was, he wanted her. Bad. Today had proven how little control he had. He should have pushed her away, forced her to move back. But when she’d touched him, he’d been helpless to do more than feel. Fuck, but coming in her mouth had been a dream long in coming. Literally. He grimaced, wishing he’d given her more than that echo of orgasm. The Otra side of him functioned the way it should. Though he didn’t possess any psychic abilities, his climaxes always spurred his partners to theirs.
But she’d been empty. She should have had him buried balls-deep inside her, riding her while he commanded her body and soul. Just the thought had him getting hard again. A definite problem he’d been dealing with since he’d hired her. But now that he knew what she could do with that mouth, his desire would be even more painful.
Hell. At least he’d worked off his frustrations with Woreski. He allowed himself a grin then buckled down to try to work. To no avail. Putting her in her bed and leaving her clothes on the other night had nearly killed him. Hell, she had the little
yjor
flower he’d secretly given her on her nightstand, and the alien bloom gave the room a positive energy that felt seductively like home. Like Jamie. The woman got to him on every level. He had to have her. Though he tried, he couldn’t banish Jamie from his mind, or his heart.
And then he received a phone call that changed everything.
Chapter Three
Jamie finished the last item on her list, conscious that she hadn’t seen Roarke—
Talson
— since early morning. She’d been thinking about him all day, mortified at what she’d done yet relieved as well. She’d wanted him for the longest time. It gratified her to know he wanted her too. A more dishonest person might charge him with coercion. Those damn berries had been partly responsible for her actions. But in hindsight, she knew he’d done his best to push her away.
Good to know he wasn’t as immune to her as he pretended.
Working without him hovering over her shoulder also gave her an added sense of relief, easing her stress of discovery. Gregory, the alien she’d smuggled aboard the shipping crate, must have made it to Werfal 7 by now. His contact would have hidden him away from the docks on the Otra planet. Freedom for Gregory. No arranged marriage for the poor scholar, but no more contact with Susanna either. Her sister’s lover might be safe, but she’d truly sacrificed all for love. And at least this way Jamie had kept Susanna from trying to free Gregory and getting herself arrested in the process.
If Gregory had stayed on the planet, she and he would never have continued anyway. He’d have married the woman of his parents’ choosing and lost that bit that made him so special to her sister.
Jamie understood about wanting freedom, about being punished for what others had done, about sacrifice. If she ever saw her scum-sucking parents again, she’d—
“Where the fuck is Kendrik?” Talson’s shout froze everyone in their tracks.
Shit. He knows.
When Larry turned to her she put her finger to her mouth, pleading for silence. He nodded and motioned to the back door of the warehouse. It was near quitting time anyway. Talson wouldn’t necessarily be alarmed she’d left without checking with him. Maybe he’d think she felt too embarrassed to face him after what had happened this morning.
As she raced home going the long way, she dreaded having to put her escape into action. But she’d known what the outcome might be if she were caught. Better her than Susanna. Her idiot sister would have been in lockdown by now. Jamie still had a fighting chance of not getting caught. With anyone other than Talson, there would have been no question she’d have gotten away with it.
She made the half-hour commute in half the time and grabbed her pathetic excuse for a suitcase and the backpack containing her most prized possessions, to include a flower from her
yjor
plant. For some odd reason, it made her think of Talson. After double-checking that she hadn’t left anything vital behind, she took a deep breath and slowly let it out. The minute she left Port Watch her life would forever be at risk. A fugitive, and a female one at that, once caught, she’d be lucky if they killed her right away. A lifetime of sexual slavery would await her.
Negative thinking, negative thinking
.
She shook off the bad feeling and focused on the here and now. Gregory was headed to freedom and a new life, one he certainly deserved. Susanna would have peace of mind knowing she’d helped her lover avoid a bad end, giving her no reason to put herself in jeopardy to aid him. And Jamie could live with herself knowing she’d done the right thing.
“And no more Roarke Talson breathing down my neck.” The thought should have put a wide smile on her face. Instead, she felt a worrisome sadness that she might never see him again.
Reaching for the doorknob, she watched in horror as it began to turn. Swiftly locking the deadbolt, she took a step back and almost tripped over her unwieldy luggage.
“Dammit, Kendrik, open the door.” The familiar growl made her knees weak. “We have to talk.”
Jamie found herself unable to process. What to do? She had no back door, no other means of escape. She hadn’t thought he’d come after her this soon.
“Jamie, open the door,” he said in an uncharacteristically soft voice.
She eyed the door as if it were the gateway to hell. The doorknob jiggled again, this time violently. Spying salvation in the most unlikely of places, she shoved her bags to the side and lunged for an ancient faux-log doorstop. While holding it above her head, she quickly unlocked the deadbolt and hid next to the doorframe in the space that would be concealed by the door when it opened.
“Finally.” Talson walked through her door, sounding gruff and much more like the ogre she knew. “Kendrik?”
Sensing this might be her best shot, she crept from behind the door and whacked him in the back of the head. Instead of going down, he cursed and wavered, turning around to stare at her accusingly.
Before she could react, he crumpled to the floor, dazed, but not out.
“For God’s sake.” She scrambled to adapt. Running to her hole-in-the-wall of a kitchen, she yanked a loose cord from the blinds in her lone window and raced back to Talson.
She rolled him over, surprised at how guilty she felt having felled the giant. For the past year he’d been a thorn in her side, not an evil man, but one that made her life a living hell nonetheless. But this morning, after how nice he’d been, what they shared, doing this felt wrong.
Yet what choice did she have? Sure, she’d given him a helluva blowjob. But Mr. Rules would never overlook a smuggling infraction. He’d probably feel it his personal duty to escort her to prison himself.
Tying his hands behind his back with an effective knot, one she’d learned courtesy of working the docks, she stood and planned how best to reach the train yard.
Donning her backpack and grabbing her suitcase, she headed for the door when his words stopped her.
“You’re making the mother of all mistakes.” His voice was raspy with pain, but his eyes were clear and direct when she turned to stare at him. “In fact, your best bet would be to finish me off. Because once I’m free, there’s not a place on Earth or offworld that I won’t look to hunt you down.”
The satisfaction on his face alarmed her, and his words brought forth an ugly reality.
She stared at him, then at the doorstop, then back at him, weighing her options. As if she had a choice. Knocking him in the head had been impulsive. Dwelling on the matter made the decision simple. There was no way she could strike him again, not when he lay helpless on the floor. Much as she wished he’d bother someone else, she knew harming him further was out of the question. She couldn’t murder in cold blood. Not Talson.
“You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?” She sighed and closed her eyes, wishing she’d let the easygoing Lowrens purchase her servitude instead of Roarke Talson. But living in New Hattan, across the country, and working her time off as a love slave had less appeal than working her ass off for Talson.
Opening her eyes, she stared down at the glowering man, wondering why fate had let him purchase her debtor’s ticket. For that matter, she still wondered why he’d bothered to buy it in the first place.
He shifted on his back and brought her attention to the present in a flash. When she narrowed her eyes, he stilled. She wanted to slap herself for being so stupid. While she’d been reminiscing, he’d been trying to work his hands free.
Dropping her bags
, again
, she found the reinforcing structural tape she normally used to block the slow leaks in her barred window and approached him. He tried to resist her pull, but the blow he’d taken to the head made him weaker than she’d suspected. She rolled him onto his belly and reinforced the cord around his wrists with a layer of tape. Rolling him over onto his back, she straddled him, in a position of authority once more. Remembrances of this morning refused to leave her as she took charge.
He glared up at her, his lips a thin line and his eyes…she couldn’t quite figure out what she saw in his eyes. Anger, annoyance, but no real hatred. And something else, something that made her look away in a hurry.
She really didn’t need this. Not now. Not after a year of dealing with her insane attraction and the impossible man who’d instilled it. But what if she never saw him again? Much as Talson annoyed her to no end, she’d be a fool to deny his physical appeal. Blue-black hair, dark brown eyes, a firm chin and a straight nose. Not a pretty man, but a thoroughly sexy leader in his prime. Jamie was a sucker for muscles and drive, both of which he had in spades.
What the hell? She’d already hidden an Otra aboard neutrally declared cargo and brained her boss with a doorstop. What was one more sin on top of a life sentence?
Ignoring the caution that flashed in his eyes, she lowered her face until she could feel his sweet breath on her lips. A wave of heat feathered through her, and without giving it another thought, she pressed her mouth to his. Finally, her first real kiss with Roarke Talson.
Instantaneous fire shot through her, and the moan that escaped startled a sharp intake of breath from both of them. His lips felt like silk, smooth yet with the male firmness she associated with him. All too easily she could imagine his taste, and before she could help herself, she penetrated his lips with her tongue.
Like warm chocolate with a hint of brandy, he packed an addictive wallop. She wanted more. Her hands settled on his muscular chest of their own volition, and she absorbed his heat through his thin shirt. He might as well have been naked.
Delicious
was all she could think as she practically devoured the man. Lost in her desire, she didn’t immediately pick up on the fact he offered little resistance.
Then again, she could barely think at all through the haze of sensation coursing through her blood. Just this morning she’d felt like this, so needy, so unbelievably sexual. It was as if her entire body centered on the ache in her womb. She couldn’t blame the berries this time. Only Roarke had this effect on her.
She squirmed atop him, unable to stop herself, and his groan and the resulting hardness rubbing between her thighs made her press closer. Rocking over him, she drew closer and closer to the ecstasy she’d felt hours ago. His scent, his touch, the strength abundant in his confidence and sensuality drugged her into taking more.
Roarke whispered against her lips, encouraging her to ride him. He plunged his tongue back into her mouth and took charge, even as he lay helpless under her.
Jamie couldn’t understand her desperation, but she couldn’t stop. She had to reach that pinnacle he promised with every caress of his lips.
“Yeah. Fucking come,” he said on a breath when she leaned up, rocking against him.
Staring down into eyes now as black as sin, she twitched over the hard length of him and let the fiery blaze overtake her. “Roarke,
Roarke
.” She blew apart, her climax explosive. Sensation obliterated all thought and she floated in a sea of pleasure.