Freeker

Freeker

Space Grit: Book Three

ELLA DRAKE

Freeker

She’s never needed a man
but she’ll make an exception for her big, sexy alien.

Chara has a past. Her memories are used to create an exotic drug called Freeker. But she doesn't remember what she's done or why. She just knows that Warrant can get her away and his unusual DNA means he's safe from her. But how can she convince him to help her escape when it risks everything he holds dear?

If there's any way an independent trade ship can make a credit or two to support the Scoriah, pilot Warrant Bronson is willing to give it a go. Smuggling, delivering goods, or gun running--none of it is too risky when it comes to the survival of his brothers and family.

When a paid escort turns out to be a stowaway, Warrant has no choice but to run. But ripping away from port leaves the ship damaged and dragging a docking boot. Giving up his uninvited guest is the only way to get his ship free and finish his trade run, but giving up Chara isn't so easy.

Thank you for reading the Space Grit series and I hope you enjoy

~Ella

http://www.elladrake.com

Reading order:

Black Ice Heart

Kilt in Space

Freeker

Willing Skin

Killer Mate

For more about this series and the upcoming novel
Killer Mate
, visit:

http://elladrake.com/SpaceGritSeries.php

Chapter One

Chara. That might be her name.

She clawed through the fuzz and fought back the confusion. It was. It was her name. Chara DuBlie.

Her thoughts muddied and she stopped thinking of it. It was a memory she was supposed to shun, not to dwell on and relish. Her mouth watered and she shook her head.

The cord at the back of her neck tugged and her eyelids fluttered.

The unusually attentive intern had brought her around and after a confusing time, she realized he’d promised not to dose her. Then he’d shoved a needle in her veins and the bright fire of pain had taken her world to oblivion. Still, he was good for his word. The room around her spun but it became clearer. The sounds rushed in on her in sharp detail instead of the muffled world she’d lived in for too long to count.

The intern had said she’d been comatose for three years.

Her sentence was for ten.

She blinked.

Head bowed, a doctor stood over some equipment. She didn’t recognize anything about him but the white lab coat. The room sharpened and her long-forgotten body lay under a sheet but now she noticed it. Inert but coming to life, it was slack, unused, but no stranger to violence. A violence she knew was being sucked out of her brain, through this tube, to the machines that took her memories from her and changed them, copied them, created a freeze-dried hallucinatory snack that the wealthy used to take a stroll down the adrenaline laden path of murder memories.

The murders she’d done.

Freeker. The drug was called freeker and only created on a rehabilitation clinic on one space station. Concentrating, she chased the elusive name. She couldn’t remember where she was.

She wanted to go back under. Or maybe she didn’t. There was peace in not knowing.

Her breathing went erratic and her limbs trembled.

She didn’t want to remember. Or did she? Yes, yes she did, the memories were sweet. Fulfilling.

Wrong. They were wrong.

She shook her head and the cable pulled.

Another man entered. They all looked alike. Men. Always the same.

Until now. She frowned. This one she recognized. He was the intern. He’d whispered to her and then come and gone. Now he spoke to the doctor. “Sorry, Doc. This program is disgusting and was ordered shut down a year ago. It’s over.”

The doctor tried to swing around but the intern had his arm and had injected something in it. The doctor’s body went limp. The intern helped him to the floor while murmuring, “Couldn’t hide behind bribed authorities forever.”

Her liberator shrugged out of his own white lab coat and unhooked the tube at the back of her neck. Her body screamed at the pain of movement. Her mouth opened but no sound came out. A pinch on her arm sent a flood of heat radiating through her.

“Give it time,” he told her and didn’t bother to say much more.

The heat burned. It sent bolts of pain through her muscles. She bowed from the bed as he ignored her and fiddled with the equipment. A faint burning smell came from the comps and then the bed moved.

“I’ve paid for a bunk at a place called Johnson’s. I’ll leave the drugs that will jumpstart your muscles to recovery. You have five days. After that, you’re on your own.”

Then he left her at a whorehouse.

*

The outer hatch alert buzzed twelve ticks too early. Warrant Bronson slicked back his wet hair and tightened the towel about his hips.

The hookup to station had tempted him to stay under the hot water too long. He wasn’t one to curtail creature comforts when he had them. Clean fatigues hung on the back hook of the door, but he hadn’t had time to get dressed. Claws clicking with each step, he padded barefoot down the corridor. He needed a trim. Shrugging, he didn’t pause. There’d be time for personal maintenance later but not now. There was no need to impress.

Early was good. He only had the ship to himself for the next hour. His brothers and crew were aboard Station Viesel staying the hell out of his way until the assigned time to load up and get the hell out of here.

Punching in the unlock code, he gripped the manual lever—used at station dock to guard against hacked entry—and yanked it down.

The mechanism clanked and the seal between his ship and the docking ring separated.

Pssssht
.

The portal opened a crack but before he could pull it open, a rail-thin woman brushed by him. Her purple-streaked black hair was a startling compliment to her brown skin. A strange but tantalizing scent trailed her. A haunted expression etched her features and she turned to glance behind. Then she jerked her face around and up to his, squared her shoulders, and leaned against the door. It slid closed behind her.

She smiled. The momentary reflex toward his knife—which he wasn’t wearing—fled in the face of her clear, open beauty.

The front of his towel shifted.

“Pilot Bronson?” Her voice held a richness to it. From such a tiny woman, it carried a huge sexual punch.

“You can call me Warrant.” The gravelly response he expected but not the giving of his name. He hadn’t meant to do that.

“I’m Chara.” She tilted her head and studied him. It was an invitation. He let his gaze roam, too.

Her glossed lips were plump and inviting. He could stare at them all night as they traveled his body and performed his favorite trick. But then, a blow job wouldn’t take all night and fast gratification had been all he’d indulged in for quite some time.

“Johnson sent you?”

She blushed and her gaze dropped to the floor.

“New?” He hoped that wouldn’t be a problem. Usually he didn’t even speak this much and had never had a reason to calm fears. Fifteen minutes in a paid escort’s mouth didn’t leave room for exchanging many words. He frowned. Something was off.

“Does it matter?” That slightly panicked look of hers came back.

“No,” he drawled. He didn’t point out that his tented towel had answered for him as her eyes rounded. Her gaze snagged on that tell-tale bulge on the way up from the decking. For a brief second, he was relieved her attention hadn’t caught on his clawed hands, his fangs, or on any patch of his unusual skin tone. Apparently his purple eyes—sometimes a distraction to others—didn’t bother her either. No. Her full attention was on his cock. His voice came out strained. “Why don’t we talk more after?”

She nodded but didn’t quite meet his gaze, or move. She was skittish. He hesitated. It’s not as if she was being forced. Near as he could tell, Johnson ran a completely aboveboard service. His women—and men—had all their preventatives. All registered. All paid per union regs. Warrant had signed a longer contract to hire a sex worker than he had to buy their ship, the
Twelfth Night
.

He shrugged and reached for her hand. It was cold. Small. A strange protective thing rose in his chest.

With a gruff command, he tugged her. “Come on.”

She’d loosen up after what he had planned to do to her.

Trailing behind him, her steps were quiet. Her fingers trembled until he threaded his through hers and gripped her gently. He should send her back. He shouldn’t want to take the time to be gentle with her. The wad of credit he’d spent had been intended for shoving a buxom woman against the ship corridor and fucking them both into oblivion before they made it to a bed for something even more rough and feral.

Something soft and soothing hadn’t been a remote possibility, but now, he couldn’t think past his need to run clawed hands over smooth skin.

She didn’t speak. His voice hoarse, he surprised himself by filling the quiet between them. “Chara is a nice name. Did Johnson pick it for you?”

He’d heard that the workers didn’t use real names. They walked through the common area where the Scoriah nest was unusually neat. He and his brothers slept together in the nest but after a while they’d taken their own rooms for such things as sexual visits or to stow their gear. If they spent too long apart, they got even more testy and rambunctious. It was a social quirk that had never mattered before, but now he wondered what Chara would think if she knew he slept in a pile of Scoriah on the floor.

Didn’t matter. He stopped in front of the door to his quarters, opened it with a swipe across the access panel, and led her inside. The door swished closed behind them, soft but nearly drowning her reply. “Chara is my name.”

It almost sounded like a question and he shook his head. There wasn’t a reason to get to know her. Shifting his fingers to grip her gently, he spun her from behind him and into his arms. Her small body collided into his and he wrapped her tight against him.

“Small and soft,” he murmured. He snapped his mouth shut. His fang sliced his lip. Dammit. He hadn’t done that since he was a toddler.

“Big and… big.” Her breath feathered over his chest. His nipples tightened with the warmth of her skin so near. He’d never been sensitive and his response made his mouth go dry.

His towel pooled at his feet. All his skin came alive, brushing against the rich material of her clothes. A nagging thought at the cost of them threatened to intrude but the blush across her delicate face forced all thought away except one. He grumbled, “Kiss me.”

He didn’t usually kiss—couldn’t remember the last time and had never really enjoyed it. That was as much about his not letting himself look for something more as it was about any woman. Her face tilted and her mouth parted. He ached to thrust his tongue between those tempting, full lips. She came up on her toes. A worried expression flitted across her face and was gone. The material of her dress stroked over his hard as hell dick. She stretched her arms and her hands flitted over his shoulders before alighting. She licked her lips. With a groan, he dipped his head and took her mouth.

His tongue invaded her, seeking her taste. She whimpered and melted against him. His arms tightened around her and he fell into the kiss, stroking her tongue and feasting. Like she was a fresh cooked meal after being on rations for a dozen long hauls in a row.

His head spun and he pulled back to nibble on her lips—careful of his fangs in his newfound haze. Nearly giddy with the lust curling around him. He left the heaven of her mouth and stared down. Her eyes were unfocused and her cheeks reddened. The drowsiness of a woman steeped in pleasure stared back at him. He’d never seen that look directed at him before, and all from a kiss.

His dick hurt with the need to plunge inside her, but that look, that drowsy, pleased look of confusion, he wanted to keep it there. He’d done that to her. Satisfaction expanded in his chest. His deep rumble vibrated across the non-existent space between them. “How do you want it?”

His question, that he should ask it, struck him. He chuckled and her eyes cleared and her nose scrunched. Confusion was adorable on her.

“Usually, a woman asks me that instead of other way around. I answer, on your knees, mouth on my cock.”

She gasped. Her body jolted against him and she frowned. “How vulgar.”

“Is it? What if I tell you that’s what I want? Now?” Inexplicably angry, he let his hold go. She dropped and as luck would have it, fell to her knees. Her wide eyes stared directly at his cock and a strange whimper gurgled from her.

“That’s what you want?” She licked her lips and her body seemed so small, shaking at his feet.

Next time, he’d tell Johnson the woman had to be tall. Sturdy. Meat on her bones. Curvy and large. Tits abundant enough to spill from his hands. Chara’s were barely noticeable beneath that dress. And she looked so fragile her shivers rattled her to her bones. A hard fuck against the bulkhead would break her. “Get up. And take off that sack.”