No Limits (13 page)
Stepping into the tub, he cleansed his host body with the fragrant soap that smelled similar to Gen’s skin. What had gone so horribly wrong? He needed to talk to her yet felt sure she required some time to herself. Maybe the avalanche of feelings had been too much for her to endure.
They would have plenty of time to sort out their differences over the coming weeks. Rhys had once heard a man profess that visiting the empath’s solar system was a monthlong sojourn. So, figuring half the time to reach the moon where he’d been captured, it would take them at least two full weeks.
His cock hardened at the thought of two weeks with nothing to do but explore her magnificent body. Discover every secret little hot spot with his fingers, his tongue, his shaft. Letting her do the same to him ...
He’d just gripped his renewed erection when something pounded on the bathroom door.
“The weather is getting worse. If we don’t leave for Albany now, we’ll never make it to the spaceport before it shuts down.” Her voice was brisk and matter-of-fact, and white-hot tension radiated from her, so strong he could feel it through the door.
Grunting, he rose and let the water out of the tub. There would be plenty of time to indulge himself soon enough.
13
“T
ook you long enough,” Gen muttered when Rhys climbed inside her rental. Not wanting to arouse suspicion at Illustra, they decided to leave Marshal’s vehicle at the cabin. Returning it early might send up a few red flags, and she needed time to figure out what she was going to say and do. Should she go with Rhys, to ensure nothing bad happened to Marshal’s body? She couldn’t help but feel responsible for Marshal’s well-being, even if he was the evil bastard Rhys claimed. But going with him meant staying with Rhys, and that didn’t seem smart, regardless of what her runaway hormones wanted.
ook you long enough,” Gen muttered when Rhys climbed inside her rental. Not wanting to arouse suspicion at Illustra, they decided to leave Marshal’s vehicle at the cabin. Returning it early might send up a few red flags, and she needed time to figure out what she was going to say and do. Should she go with Rhys, to ensure nothing bad happened to Marshal’s body? She couldn’t help but feel responsible for Marshal’s well-being, even if he was the evil bastard Rhys claimed. But going with him meant staying with Rhys, and that didn’t seem smart, regardless of what her runaway hormones wanted.
Gen eyed him as he settled into the safety harness on the passenger’s side. Watching him made her uncomfortable, so she stared at the layer of snow coating the other rental. If Marshal ever got his body back, he’d have one hell of an overdue fee on his hands.
“Why are you so angry?” Rhys turned to stare at her. White flakes littered his dark hair, making him look as though a halo encircled his head.
Gen backed out of the driveway, careful to avoid the low-hanging limbs of the fir trees weighted down with heavy snow, and pointed the car toward town and the highway. “Do you really need to ask?”
His tone was patient as he explained, “I’m an empath, not a mind reader.”
“I really don’t want to talk about it right now. How about you let me in on your travel plans?”
“We need to get to the Mars Outpost and from there book passage to the outer rim.”
“You’re shitting me, right?” She risked a glance at him before paying closer attention to the push of the wind against the vehicle. Rhys wore the expression she recognized when he didn’t understand her colloquial speech—part puzzled, part annoyed. “Do you have any idea how many credits it takes to get to the rim?”
“That won’t be a problem.” He waggled his palm at her. “This one’s on Marshal.”
A hearty gust blew the car too close to the trees on the right side of the road, and it took some serious engine revving for her to correct their course. “You’re determined to violate him in every possible way, huh?”
He had the nerve to wink at her. “Just keeping up with the precedent you set, sweets.”
Gen cleared her throat, tamping down a fresh wave of guilt. “Touché. Okay, can you tell me where on the rim we’re heading?” She winced at the implication that she’d be going with him.
“One of the moons in the Omicron Theta system.” Rhys didn’t elaborate further, and Gen was tired of pulling information out of him a thread at a time. She’d be better off plucking all the gray hairs from her head one by one. At least then she’d appear less frazzled.
Rhys touched her arm lightly, making her jump. “You need to leave this at the spaceport, maybe even in storage. We don’t want to provide them a way to track us.”
She made a noncommittal sound. Here she was with a handsome man, asking her to run away with him and leave all traces of her previous life behind. Fantasy was not all it’s cracked up to be.
Despite the inclement weather, they made decent time to the spaceport. Before returning her rental, Gen phoned Amelia, one of her contacts at a local travel agency. “Hiya, Ami.”
“Gen! Oh, girl, I heard about what happened to you. A damn shame losing your job over such a small thing.”
“I lost a person. That’s not exactly a small thing, Ami.”
Amelia snorted. “Ornery old bat had it coming if you ask me. They found her holed up at one of the mining settlements, drunk as a star sailor on leave. Found herself a new husband too. You’re practically a matchmaker. Bet you’ll get an invite to their wedding.”
Gen snorted. “Not holding my breath on that one. Can you book a trip for me?”
Her friend squealed and pivoted to start typing on an invisible keyboard. “You’re doing the right thing here, honey, taking a trip with your man and getting away from it all.”
“He’s not—”
Rhys made a quick slashing motion with his hand, and Gen thought it through. Probably better if it looked like she was taking a trip with a lover, at least from a records point of view. Customs beyond the casinos on Saturn’s rings were not as stringent as they ought to be. Having Marshal/Rhys traveling as her significant other made their trail murkier for anyone who might want to follow.
“Not what?”
“Not stingy with anything. No expense spared. That’s my man.”
Rhys grinned appreciatively.
Ami typed in a few requests. “When do you want these for?”
“The sooner the better.” Gen cracked her knuckles and waited.
“I’ve got two last-minute cancellations on the Farewell Star cruiser heading out first rotation in the morning. It’s cutting it a little bit close, but your shuttle should get there in plenty of time.”
“Excellent, Ami. I owe you one.”
“Do you want me to book return passage now?”
“Sure. Whatever you have returning, in about a week.” Rhys could get what he needed to accomplish done by then or he was on his own.
A low hum as Amelia queued in the reservations. “All set. How do you want to pay for this?”
Ignoring the charge that raced through her body at the unshielded contact, she took his hand in hers. Splaying his fingers, she pressed the pad of his thumb against the screen of the comm unit. “Credit scan should be coming in now.”
“Acknowledged. You are good to go! Have a fantabulous time!”
Gen smiled until Amelia’s image faded. “Do we really have to do this?” She winced at the underlying whine in her voice.
“No,” Rhys surprised her by saying. “I have to, but the choice is yours. Consider what you’d be turning your back on if you don’t come with me now. I want you with me and not just because you make me stronger.”
Frustration welled in her. “I’m no hero, Rhys. I don’t know how you expect to bring down an entire corporation, no matter what they are doing. We should just go to the authorities.”
Green eyes burned with a passionate resolve. “Do you honestly think your authorities would care? Our system is isolated and produces nothing of trade value. We don’t have a seat on the embargo council—don’t want a voice under the flag of free commerce. No, the only way to get your government to acknowledge what the board at Illustra is doing is to show them how it will impact their lives.”
He opened the car door and retrieved their bags from the back. “You don’t have to help me, Gen. But please consider what would happen to this world if Illustra succeeds. No more rational thought, everyone being governed solely by their emotional drives and impulses.”
She stared out the windshield at the parking lot full of hovercraft. “I’m not sure it would be so different.”
He tilted his head to the side, obviously studying more than just her facial expression. “So you’re willing to let your people be emotionally manipulated into making decisions?”
“I didn’t say that. I’m not questioning the validity of your argument, Rhys. I’m just wondering if there’s anything I can do to change the outcome.”
“Not if you don’t get out of the car.” He slammed the door in her face.
Gen continued staring out at nothing, her mind whirling. What was waiting for her at home? No job, no man. An empty apartment. Even worse, Nana and her litany of questions. Was a trip to the rim really such an imposition?
Gen’s moral compass had always pointed in a different direction from the norm. She worried over things her peers dismissed or ignored altogether. Yet when compared to Rhys’s absolute conviction, she felt as shallow as a puddle.
He promised her nothing and asked for her help over and over, even after she’d refused him before. Pride didn’t matter to him, nor did he feel shame—just a burning determination to continue on his quest. He wanted her with him, though she still didn’t understand why.
And you’ll never figure it out just sitting in the car either.
And you’ll never figure it out just sitting in the car either.
Gen tossed the key to the sloe-eyed rental steward and scurried across the icy blacktop after her empath.
“We’re going to miss it.” Gen’s knee bounced as she stared straight ahead. Rhys turned from the vid screen where he’d watched the blur of warp space to survey her nervous mien. Her colors formed a sickly yellow shield around her body.
Reaching forward, he placed his hand on her knee. “Why are you so anxious?”
Though he’d intended it as a gesture meant to soothe, she jerked away as though he’d scalded her flesh. “Hands to yourself, please.”
“Why, when my touch brings you pleasure? Why would you deny yourself?”
“Habit,” she muttered. The knee resumed bouncing.
Her actions continued to puzzle him. He’d taken an enormous chance by leaving her in the parking lot to make her own choice. It had been a calculated risk, one that had worked in his favor. Gen could no longer claim she had been coerced into coming with him. Perhaps her agitation was due to their time table. “We will not miss the cruiser—we are actually several minutes ahead of schedule.”
She nodded once but kept up her agitated movements. The woman across the aisle looked at her twitchy actions before catching his eye, her aura shining peach with understanding insight. “Nervous spacer?”
“I’ve never been up before,” Gen responded automatically. Rhys’s eyes went wide at her admission.
“But I thought you worked in the off-world travel industry?”
Her complexion appeared waxy. “I arranged vacations for other people. Never had enough time or credits to take one myself.”
The woman tsked. “You’ll get used to it after the first couple of days.” She offered them a smile and returned to her portable reading device.
Rhys took the woman’s calm assurance into himself and was tempted to let it flow into Gen. But he had vowed not to impact her emotions without her express permission. “Let me ease you.”
Her eyebrows drew together for an instant, but then she leaned away from him, as though the physical distance might keep her safe. “I don’t want your emotional mickey to mellow me out, all right? Just let me feel what I’m feeling when I feel it.”
He glanced at the nearby passengers before pitching his voice low enough to barely be heard over the roar of the warp drive. “Don’t those emotions taste bitter to you?”
She frowned and cut a glace at him. “Feelings don’t have any taste at all for me. They do for you?”
He nodded. “It’s why I like to see you happy. The resonance from your joy is so much sweeter than this agitation.”
She snorted. “Figures. You only want me to be happy because it makes
you
happy.”
you
happy.”
Her irritation chafed at him. “Why does that offend you?”
“It just does.” Her knee bounced double time.
The warp engines’ droning faded to a low hum. Out of his view screen, he saw the chalky red surface of Mars, Earth’s nearest neighbor. Though the planet remained uninhabitable, the space station in elliptical orbit around it teemed with life. Several star cruisers and large freighters were docked along the cylindrical tubing that made up the lower levels of the space station. He reached forward and retrieved the pamphlet stuffed in the seat pocket in front of him. According to the printed material, the upper levels housed lavish restaurants that revolved within in the station alternately overlooking the planet and the vast expanse of space beyond.
Gen leaned over him, careful not to make direct contact, and sighed with regret. “I always wanted to dine at one of the restaurants. The views must be breathtaking.”
She smelled divine, like a combination of winter blossoms that peeked out of the snow on his home world and the fresh clean mountain air at the abbey. And something else inexplicable but just as alluring. His cock grew hard as he recalled the taste of her on his lips when he licked the tender folds between her thighs. How he wanted to do that again, to see the sparks erupt from her skin as she climaxed while he feasted on her pleasure.
Though she had asked him to keep his hands to himself, he couldn’t help but touch a strand of her dark hair, silky tangles that fell forward as she craned her neck for a better look.
She jerked away abruptly. “Back off, loverboy.”
“Why do my attentions unsettle you all of a sudden?”
Her lips compressed into a thin line. “It’s not right, what you’re doing. To Marshal, to me. We’re just tools to you, like you were for Illustra.”
Anger flared deep, and it took all his mental composure to hold his tongue. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. Two wrongs don’t make a right, Rhys. It’s not okay to hurt people because someone hurt you. To use me to hurt him. He didn’t consent to what we did, and in my mind that spells rape.”
That’s what had been troubling her? “Gen, I’m not hurting Marshal in any way. Neither have you. Sure, he wouldn’t be happy not being in control, but it’s not a grave offense, especially considering he was responsible for the ruination of hundreds—if not thousands—of lives!”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “That still doesn’t make it right.”
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