Stark Pleasure; the Space Magnate's Mistress (The LodeStar Series)

  Stark Pleasure:

  The Space Magnate’s Mistress

  LodeStar Series

  Published by Cathryn Cade

  Copyright 2013

  Cover by Gilded Heart Designs

  ISBN: 978-0-9889469-1-0

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at cathryncade@cathryncade.com.

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. www.cathryncade.com

  Dedication

  This book is for my own hero,

  My husband Jeff

  Thanks, honey, for always encouraging me

  and believing in me.

  Love you.

  Chapter 1

  New Seattle Spaceport, Earth II

  Kiri te Nala eyed the holovid marquee across the concourse. Her insides knotted with nerves. Starfall, which meant the display changed from Quasi-ball to the big event, StarLotto. The game that was going to solve all her problems—she hoped.

  Intent on the brilliant turquoise levitating ball, she didn’t notice her customer until he spoke.

  “Buy a Lotto marker?” His deep, smooth voice was traced with amusement.

  With an effort, Kiri focused on the man standing at her counter. It was polished to a gleaming black—no thanks to the Lower Aquarian who had trailed slime all over it earlier in the evening and left a stench. She’d broken out the big sprayer she kept for emergencies like Bartian visits.

  This man was as smooth as her counter, in the metaphoric sense. He certainly wouldn’t slime anything he touched. She had to look up to meet his gaze and his broad shoulders blocked a chunk of her view. Unlike many residents of Earth II, his skin was clear and healthy, his gaze direct under his heavy, arching brows.

  For a few secs Kiri gazed back, his words a pleasant echo in her mind. Wow. His eyes were the dark gray of the heavy clouds that always hung over the Sound. Only when they narrowed slightly in speculation was she jerked from her reverie.

  “What?” She straightened, her face heating. Smooth, Kiri, very smooth. Gonna drool and slime him like the Lo-Aq? For one crazy instant she visualized herself offering to spray him like her counter.

  “Yeah, I have a marker,” she said, finally remembering his question. Her voice, always husky, cracked with embarrassment.

  Then a flash of turquoise over his shoulder caught her eye. She held up one finger, her gaze riveted on the display over the gambling kiosk, heart pounding hard, as if it was trying to climb out of her throat.

  “Excuse me one sec. You think about which coffee you’d like. Got some new Pangaean dark in today. My flavors are all organic, no synthetics.”

  He ignored her suggestion, turning to watch with her as numerals began to pop out in long, glittering rows on the ball—Earth numbers around the center, Galactic numerals just below, and the symbols of other planets arrayed above and below. Some of them looked like irregular blobs.

  Kiri took a breath and exhaled. This was it—the day she’d planned for.

  “One,” she counted under her breath. Without looking, she pulled her comlink from the pocket of her trim black smock and flicked it on. The unit sputtered and she smacked it with the heel of her hand. “Seven.”

  She glanced up and back, checking the numbers against her marker, displayed electronically on the tiny screen of her comlink. Although after spending the last three days figuring the probabilities, she knew them by heart. They’d danced through her dreams, luring her from sleep.

  Sleep she needed after a week of rioting near the docks, accompanied by the faraway thump of flashbombs and tube rockets. Night after night she woke in a cold sweat, wondering if that last explosion had been nearer to her tiny apartment.

  She’d awakened in a sweat this morning, too, but from excitement this time. If her plan worked, she’d be able to afford a new apartment. Not much larger, but if she could sleep safely and shower-dry in a clean tube, she wouldn’t mind. She was tough, but not too tough to appreciate that.

  “Three … nine. Four, come on, four. Yes! Just one more …”

  The concourse rumbled as a big transport took off overhead. Kiri ignored it, her comlink shaking in her hand, damp with nerves. She rose up on her toes, gazing raptly at the holoscreen.

  The final number gleamed. Kiri blinked, unable at first to believe what she saw. “Eleven?” She looked again. “No, it can’t be.”

  It should have been a ten shining at the end of the row. Around her, time stilled. Her customer moved, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back against her counter. The coffee machine sputtered as boiling water steamed in the well. A Serpentian female glided past on the concourse, her red-gold snakeskin suit glimmering in the lights. Travelers passed the other way chattering in Galactic, ciphers moving through their own world.

  As their ranks parted, movement across the concourse caught Kiri’s eye. The small, crouching figure of a Vulpean lurked behind the counter of the gambling kiosk. His mouth opened in a sly grin, sharp teeth gleaming as he watched her. As their gazes met, his beady eyes widened and he ducked behind the rack of cheap fabricated snacks on his counter.

  “You fanged pile of stinking skrog manure,” she said through her teeth. “You cheated me!”

  She threw back the end of her counter and bolted through the opening. Dashing across the concourse, she dodged a family of Barillians, leaping over their large luggage hovie-cart. One of the adults trumpeted an indignant protest through the lavender pipes protruding from his head.

  “You cheated!” she shouted at the cowering Vulpean. “Come out here, you little rat! I’ll rip my credit out of your mangy hide. You can’t do this to me!”

  The Vulpean leapt aside with an agility that belied his rotund frame. Just as Kiri reached the opening of the bay that held his kiosk, a network of glaring electrical charges hissed to life—a powerful security grid, capable of repelling even a huge Argonautian.

  Kiri would have slammed straight into it, but a powerful arm clamped around her waist, yanking her back. She found herself hanging off the floor, held against a hard body. Electricity from the grid inches away crackled in her short hair and prickled the bare skin of her face and hands.

  Her rescuer had saved her from injury, even disfigurement. And not all the heat was coming from the grid. She hadn’t been held by anyone for months, and by a man this strong? Maybe never.

  Not that she had time for that now. Squinting through the hissing glare of the grid, she could just make out the Vulpean hiding in the shadows.

  “Let me go.” She kicked and twisted against her captor’s grip, beguiling as it was. “I’ll kill the cheater.” She’d figure out some way to get to him.

  “Quiet.” He was already bearing her back across the concourse. “You’ve attracted enough attention. The port authority will be here in a few secs.”

  He was right. The Barillian family had stopped to watch, their young wide-eyed. Other travelers were slowing as well. Humans, Serpentians and even a few Mauritians spilled out of the bar next door, grinning avidly at the disturbance. Kiri glared back, daring anyone to ridicule her.

  “Give ‘em trouble, girlie,” one of the women called in a whiskey-so
aked voice.

  “I’ll help you,” a Mauritian added, waving his heavy ale mug. “We’ll all help you.” The bar crowd laughed raucously.

  “That gambling stand is crooked,” she protested. “The Vulpean will be arrested soon—you just watch and see.”

  One of the Barillians trilled in disgust. The family trooped away. A stocky man who looked like an off-duty Space Forces officer shook his head, grinning at her and her captor, but several of the bar’s denizens moved further out onto the concourse, muttering amongst themselves.

  “Quiet, you little fool.” Her rescuer’s arm tightened around her waist. “Do you want to start a riot? The city is on edge, and those drunks are ready for trouble.”

  He set Kiri down before her coffee stand and pushed her through the opening in the counter. The end slammed down, the stranger crowding inside with her. Kiri turned on him, taking care to stay clear of the steaming coffee machine.

  “But he cheated me! The port authority had better arrive, or I’m calling them myself.”

  “Why, because the random assortment of numbers you expected didn’t come up? Let me guess, you’ve been watching it all week, and you had it all figured out—couldn’t lose.”

  “But I … I did have it figured. I’ve been watching it for more than a week—for fourteen turns.”

  “And he was watching you. What in seven hells were you thinking, gambling there? Humans can’t trust a Vulpean, you should know that. They consider us easy marks.” He didn’t add ‘for obvious reasons’, but then he didn’t need to.

  Kiri lifted her hands to her face, battling the urge to sink to the floor and weep. She’d gambled money she didn’t even have.

  She was so quarked.

  “I’ve been where you are,” he added more gently. “And I know you’re fighting mad, but violence won’t help, just sink you deeper.”

  Yeah, he might have been this desperate once, but he clearly wasn’t now. She wasn’t even sure she had enough credit to buy next week’s supply of coffee, unless she went without protein tubes, or sold herself along with her coffee. She got plenty of those kinds of offers too.

  Even going to Tal Darkrunner would be better than that. At least he wouldn’t expect her to share her body with other men. He was the jealous type.

  She had other friends, but none with credit to spare except Illyria, also her coffee broker, and Illyria’s father watched every credit with a mean eye. Her narrow array of options set panic beating inside her chest like the wings of something too large that wanted to devour her from the inside.

  And she still had her uninvited guest to deal with.

  She lowered her hands far enough to look up at the male crowding her coffee stand. Sure enough, he was still watching her, and it wasn’t with the abstracted kindness of a good-doer. His gaze held enough latent heat to run that security grid. Maybe he’d help her. And if he wanted something for it, well, he was certainly the most attractive man she’d seen in a long time.

  She tried a smile. A poor effort, given the winged thing inside her, now hissing with a voice darker than the constant fog outside the space port. It fed on her twinge of shame at even considering hitting up a stranger for money.

  “Thanks. I guess you kept me from getting fried. But you must have things to do, so …”

  When his eyes crinkled slightly with amusement, her panic veered in a new direction.

  “Wait. You’re not some uppity-up in the space port authority, are you? I wasn’t really going to kill the Vulpean.” Well, she was, but not publicly. She’d wait until the little sleazebag ventured out into the dark alley behind this section of port, and then she’d …

  She didn’t know what she’d do. She’d like to claw her credit out of the gambler, and she knew a few tricks from her years of living in the area near the port, but Vulpeans had claws too, and fangs. She could always pour scalding coffee on him. Teach him to mess with a barista.

  “Do I look like a helmet to you?”

  She let her gaze drift down over him again. For the first time she noticed the charcoal gray business suit tailored to his lean, powerful frame. “Um, no. You don’t. So who are you?”

  He smiled, creases grooving his taut cheeks. He had a beautiful mouth, with thin, sensitive lips that belied the ruthless set of his jaw. His teeth gleamed white and straight. The twinkle in his eyes sent a curl of heat straight inside her. Amazing, considering her turmoil. This guy was truly a powerful force.

  Why was he here, anyway? The wealthy didn’t stop to buy her coffee. In this old, shabby area of the space port, her stand was frequented by travelers and pilots on the small, discount flights and those of questionable legality. So even if she had the credit for a flashy display like the big MoonPenny chain that had a choke-hold on the port coffee market, she still wouldn’t get customers like this one.

  “I’m the man who’s going to take you to dinner. Close down your machines, and let’s go.”

  Dinner? She started to shake her head. But her stomach growled, reminding her it was as hollow as an empty coffee mug. Had she eaten anything but the soy in her latte that morning?

  Besides, that smile of his ... Her light-headedness wasn’t all from hunger. Undecided, she pushed away from the counter and pulled the lever that emptied the unused coffee into the recycler. Only a liter left, not too bad. She hated wasting coffee, even the cheap stuff she could afford, but she refused to reheat it and serve it again—smelled like burnt veg and tasted just as bad.

  “Why do you want to take me to dinner?”

  “Maybe I need a barista.” He waited by the opening in her counter as she finished tidying the area, cleaned her hands on a moist wipe and tossed it away.

  She grinned over her shoulder, charmed in spite of her turmoil. “No, you don’t. Excuse me, I need to close that. I go out the back.”

  “Not today. My cruiser is waiting across the concourse. Come.”

  A private cruiser? Who was this guy? She planted her feet, facing him. “I’m not going anywhere with you until I know who you are. Name and credentials, please.”

  He gave her an approving look. “Wise of you to ask.”

  She shrugged. “Slavers have been out. And you don’t look like one of those either, but…”

  The slave runners had been getting bolder lately, with all the rioting over jobs going to off-worlders. The cops were preoccupied with keeping the unemployed workers and the crooked unions from blowing up entire city blocks in their battles, and had little time or energy left for individual disappearances.

  When a strange slider with no markings cruised slowly along her block, accompanied by suited-up outriders on aircycles for the third time in recent weeks, it had been the final impetus behind Kiri’s reckless gamble. She had to get out of the port slums before she disappeared as well. The slavers had already taken more than she could bear to lose.

  This man didn’t look like a slave runner, but appearances could be deceptive. Not every criminal inked their skin and wore leather and outlandish tails of hair like Tal.

  Instead of answering her, he sauntered out onto the concourse, beckoned to her to follow him. When she did, he nodded toward a huge holovid screen hanging from the vaulted ceiling. The ever-present fog swirled high above, carrying the dank smells of cruiser exhaust, dirty streets and the mildew that pervaded the city, summer or winter.

  Kiri frowned up at the display. A panoply of stars against the midnight of space swirled through a complicated pattern that became a gleaming white space cruise ship speeding toward a guiding star. As the ship neared the star, words became visible.

  “‘Fly LodeStar,’” she read aloud. “‘Where the ride is as good as the destination.’” Starry. Like she had credit for a cruise.

  The ship accelerated out of the hologram, and a group of beings in silver flight suits filled the screen. With muscular builds and direct gazes, they looked like the Intergalactic Space Forces pilots who came through the space port, tough and cool.

  In their center st
ood her rescuer, the only one wearing business attire. And clearly the man in charge.

  Kiri peered at the man waiting beside her. As arrogant as he was patient, those smoky quartz eyes fixed on her.

  “That’s you,” she blurted. “You’re …”

  “Logan Stark.” He bowed slightly. “And you are?”

  “Kiri.” She looked at the hand he held out and wiped hers surreptitiously on her smock before holding it out. “Kiri te Nawa.” Quark, he had credentials all right, solid iridium.

  His hand engulfed hers, warm and powerful. “Kiri,” he repeated as if he were tasting it. “It suits you.”

  Her gaze locked with his. Was the gleam in his eyes that of a predator? Had he saved her so he could devour her himself? His grip tightened and she rocked forward onto her toes. Her knees trembled, the warmth of his hand arrowing deep inside her as if he was touching her far more intimately.

  And although his gaze held hers instead of sliding down to catalogue her physical assets in the overt way of many males, she felt uneasily that he saw far more than she wanted him to. The lonely, vulnerable woman inside the veneer, starved for the warmth of a tender touch, for the knowledge that she belonged to someone.

  Oh, quark, that was ridiculous. He was just a guy, a rich one. He wanted what all guys wanted from her, a quick fuck and someone to listen to them. And that was all she could hope for here, someone to make one night less empty and cold. She sure wouldn’t be keeping warm with happy thoughts of how she’d invest her winnings.

  But her dark humor was tinged with excitement, the kind she felt when she was about to leap. Much as she reminded herself she needed both feet firmly on the ground, sometimes she reached for stars that were out of her grasp. Sometimes it worked, like investing her savings into this stand, going indie.

  Today’s leap had been an epic fail. She’d been flung into empty space with nothing to grab onto. And she quarking hated this feeling. Played hell with her usual confidence.

  Here was an escape from her current freefall. Later she’d figure how to get her credit out of the Vulpean. Because she would have it—she didn’t care if what the little vermin had done was legal, no one cheated a te Nawa.