Calder (13 page)

“You mean besides you?”

Braden barked a laugh. Calder ignored him. His blue eyes burned Katarina across the room.

“Afraid I have to go with Calder on this, babe,” Braden said.
“So the pair of you thinks I ought to run home to the Serestine Quarter? To my luxurious house and sequester myself like a good highborn woman should?”

Braden rubbed his lip. “I didn’t say that. I kind of like having a pretty lady sharing my digs.”

“Keep your fucking hands off her, Braden.”

Braden smiled at Calder. “I don’t know. It will be a challenge.”

“Stop it,” Katarina said. “Both of you.” Their arrogant posturing angered her—as did her own foolishness in blurting out to Calder that she loved him. Gods, she was no better than the sex-starved women who hired him to fulfill their fantasies. Her face burned. “I have to go, Calder. I’m supposed to be at the clinic in a few hours. I’ll hire a bodyguard so you won’t have to waste time following me anymore.”

She fastened the last clasp on her tunic and swept out of the apartment.

Calder didn’t try to stop her. His silence, the fact that he didn’t demand she stay where she was, hurt her more than she wanted to acknowledge. She stepped quickly into the street to let the last burning rays of sun dry her tears.

*

“I didn’t know it was that bad.”

Katarina had no idea what Braden meant, and for the moment, she didn’t care. The two of them entered Braden’s apartment together—Braden had raced after her, declaring once more that the streets weren’t safe.

“How much I didn’t want to leave him?” Katarina raked her hands through her tangled hair as Braden slammed the door against the heat.

“I meant, how bad his injuries must have been.”

“Didn’t you live at DNAmo when it happened?”
“I did, but Calder was kept in a separate wing and I really only met him after DNAmo closed. I knew he’d been burned in some damn experiment, and I knew it was bad but…”

“He saw you pitying him. He didn’t like it.”

“Sweet baby, the fact I saw him unclothed at all is a major breakthrough. And he was so worried about you, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about my reaction.”

Katarina plopped onto a chair and buried her face in her hands. “Gods, Braden, it was so wonderful to be with him. I’ve never felt anything like that in my life.”

Her tears returned, sliding silently down her face. Her body was tender, her pussy stretched and aching. The feeling of his touch, of his cock, was still imprinted on her, as though she could open her eyes and find him in her arms again.

“It’s over, isn’t it?” she said. “He’s only with a lady once and won’t have them back, no matter how hard they beg or how much they offer to pay.”

Braden crouched in front of her, resting his hands on her thighs. “Want me to make it better?” He brushed her cheek with the ball of his thumb.

“No. I’m stupid. I want Calder.” Katarina closed her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll wait. When you forget about the shit, I’ll be here.”

She tried to laugh but it came out a croak. “Sure, if you’re not off chasing other ladies. Thanks, but no thanks.”

Braden leaned toward her. His hair smelled like soap and sunshine. “I wish I could say, ‘Oh, he’ll come around, give him time’, but I don’t think he will. Calder’s all twisted up inside, and the way women react to him has made it worse.”

“Bitches.”

“Now you’re getting it.” Braden slid his arms around Katarina and held her close.

“I’ll do what I can for you, I promise. And if Calder won’t come around, I’ll throw over every lady in this town to get you in my manacles.”
Katarina lifted her head, laughter mixing with her tears. “You’re a shit, Braden,”

she said, then she let herself cry on him again.

*

Calder let his client database go. After Katarina stormed out with Braden, he toyed with the idea of trying to build it again but he’d lost the taste for it.

His clients weren’t so happy. The woman from Delta-Terra, Lady Demata, whose appointment Braden had broken for him, was still on Bor Narga. She insisted that Calder honor the engagement. Calder returned her money but every morning he found nasty messages from her that he started deleting without reading. Women like her, who fled him in his labyrinth then shuddered in pleasure when he caught and fucked them, now filled him with disgust.

They’d always disgusted him, he forced himself to admit. Being with Katarina had opened Calder’s eyes about a lot of things.

Katarina looked at him—
at
him—and touched him, unafraid. Not repulsed. Not fascinated. She wanted to understand his pain, to talk about it as if he were a normal human being. Which he’d never be.

Only Dr. Laas had ever treated him like that, but even Dr. Laas tended to look at Calder like he was a precious experiment. Katarina, on the other hand, had drawn Calder into her arms, kissed him, touched him, wanted him.

The other women wanted The Beast. Katarina wanted Calder.

Katarina—who’d gone home with the smug Braden, damn his ass.

The problem with letting the database go was Calder’s Shareem metabolism, which demanded constant sating. An option would be to seek out the level-three lair that Braden talked a lot about. It had started as a place for women who preferred level threes, but now Shareem of all levels gravitated there.

Braden had told him that there was a room kept dark so you could screw whatever women you found there in complete anonymity. Some women liked to enter the dark
room at the beginning of the evening and stay until dawn, getting screwed by a dozen different Shareem.

Calder could visit this lights-free room, get out his needs and go home. Just a wet, waiting pussy, nothing more.

Gods, was he that desperate? Even with the highborn women who paid him to ravish them, he preferred
some
light, knowledge, contact. He might as well stay home with his hand.

Calder balled his fist and punched the wall. The mirror on the other side, in his bedroom, slid from the wall and shattered.

Fine. Calder was sick of looking at his wrecked body anyway.

*

Three days later—three lonely days from hell—Calder answered his door chime to find Rees on the threshold.

“What?”

Rees lifted his brows and stepped into the apartment’s front room. “Yep, you have all the signs. Flushed face, nervous sweats, cantankerous attitude. We have a bet on at Judith’s that you aren’t getting any. I say I win.”

“What do you want?”

Rees had never come to visit Calder before. Smart-assed Rio had been Rees’

preferred Shareem companion before Rio had moved off planet with his lady. Rio, much like Braden, was a shit with a love for jokes. Calder supposed that both he and Rees needed a laid-back friend who looked at the world a different way than they did.

Calder and Rees had far too much in common to become close friends. Rees had been screwed up deliberately, not by accident like Calder, but both of them had dark sides to their nature from which they needed relief. Together, they’d combust. Probably why Ky, another screwed-up level three, had gone so far as to take the sunny-natured level one Aiden as a lover.
“That pretty medic you’ve been seeing, Katarina d’Arnal,” Rees said. He stopped, sniffing the air. “Shit, you haven’t had a woman in here in days.”

“What about Katarina d’Arnal?”

“She’s in trouble.”

One of the pesky emotions Calder wasn’t supposed to have—fear—swooped in and froze his blood. “Trouble? Why? Where is she?”

Rees considered him with eyes more intensely blue than any other Shareem’s.

“Come with me.”

Calder grabbed his sun-blocking robes. He’d taken to covering his body again, the brief moment of being naked and unashamed in front of Katarina a fading memory.

Rees led him quickly through the streets toward Katarina’s clinic. Sun cut at them through overhangs, patches of burning heat that made the shade seem blissfully cool.

They ended up at the clinic’s door and Rees ducked inside. “She’s expecting us,” he said to the startled receptionist.

Calder charged into Katarina’s exam room—and she looked up calmly from a tray.

Calder nearly sagged in relief. She was whole, unhurt, beautiful. She’d tucked her hair into a bun, with curls straggling from it to her neck. Her brown eyes took in Rees then Calder, and she smiled.

“Thank you, Rees.”

Calder spun around. Rees, the asshole, grinned. “No problem. I’ll tell Talan you said hello.”

Before Calder could snarl a question, Rees walked out. The automatic door slid shut behind him, the mechanism grating.

“What the hell is this?” Calder asked Katarina.

“I need to talk to you. I had the feeling you wouldn’t open your door to me, and it’s easier to meet here anyway.”

“So you sent Rees to trick me here?”
Katarina smiled. So innocent.
Darling, you are so going to pay for this.

“I knew you’d never believe Braden. He’s not very good at lying. So I asked Rees.

He was happy to assist.”

“My friends must have nothing better to do.”

“Than help each other? I like your friends. Leave them alone.”

Calder had to get out of there, fast. Standing near Katarina shot his adrenaline high and his heart began to pump like he’d been running. He either had to leave now or take her on the metal table.

“What do you want?” he growled. “I’m busy.” He was such a fucking liar.

“I’ve been doing a lot of reading. And research.” She turned away, lifted something from a tray. “Medics do that—have to in order to keep up with the latest techniques.”

“So?”

“You’re grouchy today.” Katarina turned around again, a smile on her lips. “Oh wait, you’re usually like this. Anyway, I’ve been reading about some new techniques developed for skin grafting, with excellent results. I thought you might be interested in hearing about them.”

Calder took a step back, icy disappointment flooding him. “Katarina, I’ve been through every technique dreamed up, back when I was first hurt up until last month.

Dr. Laas contacts me all the time to try something new. I used to let surgeons screw with me, but they did experiments and tossed me out. Nothing ever works. My body is the way it is, and that’s the way it stays.”

“It can’t hurt to try.”

“It can. I’ve been subjected to everything from strange injections to having the skin peeled off me and put back. My cells died a long time ago, end of story. And don’t think about trying to fuse plastic to me like I’m a fucking android. I’m not that desperate.”

“No plastic, I promise. It’s a technique developed on Ariel, and it’s hideously expensive. If it will even work on you, which it might not.”
“And you think I can afford it? I use all the money I get for being a whore to help other Shareem and to make my life comfortable. I don’t have it to spare.”

Katarina’s lips flattened. “I don’t want your money, Calder. I want a skin sample.”

“No.”

“It won’t hurt you. One little strip of skin that never got burned, that’s all I need.

You have some of that. I saw it.”

Calder straightened up in a hurry. “And you’re not putting a knife anywhere near my cock.”

“Don’t be stupid. I’ll take it from your side, under your right arm. I only need a little.”

“What for?”

“To test. I’m curious.”

“I can’t tell you how sick I am of being a lab rat.”

“Even more than being The Beast? I’m a medic, Calder. I’m trying to learn. Give me one little piece of skin and I’ll leave you alone.”

Calder stopped. She watched him intensely, her earnestness radiating from her. She wanted to Help with a capital H.

“That’s not what women usually ask from a Shareem,” he said.

“It’s what I’m asking.”

What the hell?
Calder shucked his sun-blocking robes and pulled off his tunic. He was sweating beneath, his ruined skin gleaming with moisture.

Katarina started toward him with a test tube. When she reached for his side, Calder caught her and held her back. “You don’t get this for free, darling.”

“Then what do you want?”

Good. She had a little tremor in her voice, her cockiness wavering.

Calder leaned to her. “I want you—going down on me so hard, working me up so bad, that I come in five minutes. All over your pretty face.”
Her breath caught, her cheeks going rosy. “I can do that.”

Calder straightened, a fierce smile breaking through his agony. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“My shift ends in a few hours. Do you want me to come to your place?”

He laughed, a grating sound. “No, you’re going to do it right here.”

Katarina’s eyes widened. “Here? What if someone comes in?”

“What if they do?”

“It would be…” She went redder, and he scented her pheromones on the air. Hot, ready, smelling so good. She was wet. He smelled that too.

Calder wrapped his hand through her hair and pulled her head back. “It would be exciting. You want to get caught, don’t you? Have everyone know you let Shareem fuck you?”

“Not really.” The words were so faint they weren’t convincing.

“Right here. Right now. Or no samples.”

Katarina turned the empty test tube over in her finger. A thin-bladed knife, covered with a guard, protruded from it. Gods, Calder hated knives.

Katarina gently set the test tube back on the tray. “All right,” she said.
Chapter Eleven
Once again Katarina was doing things she’d never have dreamed of in her life. She found herself on her knees in front of Calder while he unlaced his leggings.

His cock tumbled out, long, hard, dark with blood. Moisture glinted on the tip and Katarina licked it.

To think that a few weeks ago she had never seen a cock in the flesh. Now she’d seen two, Calder’s and Braden’s. Not only seen them but touched them, tasted them.

Calder’s cock took her breath away. One standard foot, it gleamed with sweat, the balls at its base tight and smooth.

Katarina licked the shaft. Calder moved slightly, his hand closing in her hair. She smiled with her power and licked some more.

“Suck it,” Calder said. “Suck me.”

Katarina kept licking. She ran her tongue around the flange and again across his tip.