The Claiming (2 page)

“Let’s try that, shall we?” He snapped his fingers. “Computer, dim the lights. Now, a faint blue glow.” The computer complied and Marty approached her, leaning close and studying her. After a moment, he stood up once more, smiling. “Yes. By God, in this lightening he wouldn’t know if you were forty! It’ll do…. If I can convince him to play.”

Jana smiled back at him, swallowing her fear with an effort. “You can. I know you can. And he’ll enjoy it! The last time I did this the customer thoroughly enjoyed it, don’t you remember?”

Marty frowned and Jana wished she’d refrained from babbling. Now she’d reminded him of that unpleasant episode. Not that the customer had been dissatisfied. He’d been so satisfied he’d come back for a repeat performance the very next week, but Jana, in the meanwhile, had tried to escape and had sprained her ankle in the process. She had not been in any condition to entertain and the customer had gone away angry, and had not come back.

After several unnerving moments, Marty had decided he didn’t have time to further discuss Jana’s transgressions. He had gone away and left her alone. The servants had returned, dressed her in a child’s night gown, and placed her in her bed.

Jana was so tense, and so frightened, she didn’t know how she could’ve fallen asleep. She decided she must have, however, for one moment she was lying in her bed in frightened anticipation, the next a man was standing directly beside the bed.

She almost jumped out of her skin when she realized she hadn’t even heard him come in, hadn’t been aware of him at all until he was standing over her. It took a tremendous effort of will to remain perfectly still and pretend to be sleeping.

“I know you are not asleep,” he said quietly. There was amusement in his voice.

Jana didn’t know whether that was her cue to ‘wake up’, or if he was testing her.

She decided he must be testing her.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and very gently lifted the hair that had fallen across her face, smoothing it over her shoulder. Leaning toward her, he whispered in her ear. The warmth of his breath sent a pleasant little shiver through her. “I must tell you I find the little ‘fantasy’ your master cooked up repugnant in the extreme.”

Jana cracked an eye open and looked up at him warily. “You do?” she whispered doubtfully.

“Indeed. Sit up, if you please. I’d like to have a look at you.”

Jana sat up, clutching the sheets to her chest, more from a case of nerves than because she felt any modesty, but then that was part of the conditioning that helped to promote the image of ‘the virgin’. Behaving as one unused to being intimate with men was nine tenths of the facade according to her instructors, and it wasn’t sufficient to act. One must ‘be’ the part.

He tucked a hand under her chin and tipped her face up, studying her, frowning.

“Do I displease you?” she asked, uneasily aware that if he refused her, Marty was bound to be even angrier.

He caressed her cheek with a long finger. “A difficult question. It’s far too dark in here to really see you,” he muttered with a mixture of amusement and irritation. “Are you a child?”

Jana thought about it for a moment, trying to decide what answer he wanted.

It was almost as if he read her mind. “The truth, if you please.”

Truth? She had been genetically engineered—accelerated growth had produced maturity within a half a decade. She was the virgin model, designed to appear as if she had just crested puberty, and she would look pretty much the same for the next twenty years. She decided, however, that the ‘truth’ he was seeking must be around the chronological age of an adult. “Eighteen.”

His hand dropped to his lap. “Little more than a child, in truth.”

Jana frowned in confusion. “You wanted someone more experienced?”

He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair irritably. “Splitting hairs.”

Jana tilted her head uncomprehendingly.

“I requested a virgin solely because I wanted someone a … little fresher. I’m afraid I’m a bit too fastidious…. In truth, I don’t make a practice of frequenting this sort of establishment. I just felt the need to work off a little frustration. I’ve come a very long way, only to discover the person I sought has traveled off planet and not expected to return for a month or more.”

Jana’s eyes widened, a shaft of fear going through her. Despite the fact that he’d startled her, she hadn’t thought he was the type to look for someone to take out their frustrations on. He’d seemed so … in control of himself.

Apparently, despite the deep shadows, he saw, or sensed, her fear. He placed a finger on her lips, gently. “Shhh. I didn’t mean that the way you obviously took it.”

Jana wasn’t sure she believed his reassurance, but she was sure she had to do something to please him or she would be in deeper trouble than before. “Would you like me to do something else?” she ventured.

“Turn on the lights?”

Jana bit her lip. “I can’t. Marty set it so it would only respond to his voice, because … because.”

“He beat you and he didn’t want me to see the bruises?”

He sounded truly angry. Jana was tempted to tell him that was exactly the case… After all, Marty had beat her before, even if not this time—yet. “No … well, yes.”

“Yes, he beat you?”

Jana shook her head. “No. But I did get bruised. And I thought if the lights were dim then you wouldn’t be able to see that I looked … that I didn’t look very appealing just now.”

He studied her for a long moment and finally reached for the sheets, tugging them gently from her hands. The night gown she wore came only to the tops of her thighs. She wore nothing beneath it.

He reached for the hem of the garment, lifting it off over her head. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders.

He studied her a long moment and finally stood. Jana thought for several nerve wracking moments that he intended to leave, but, to her relief, he began to remove his clothing. She wondered if she should help him, but finally decided that that would appear too practiced—or did he want practiced? No. He’d specifically said he didn’t want anyone with too much experience.

She was fairly certain that she should not watch him, either, but found that she was intrigued. In truth, she was not as experienced as she should have been, given her position. The men who had come to her before were either very young and inexperienced themselves--looking for someone who would not make them feel inadequate and inexperienced—or very old—seeking their lost youth, or in search of a peculiar thrill.

Despite the fact that he obviously felt that he was too old for her, and the deep shadows which prevented her from seeing him particularly well, Jana was certain the man was not so very many years her biological senior—mid to late twenties, or perhaps early thirties.

He was—quite large, she saw when he had discarded his clothing. Uneasiness displaced her curiosity. She knew what that meant—this would be particularly unpleasant for her.

She stiffened when he climbed into bed beside her and reached for her.

He noticed immediately. “I won’t hurt you.”

She knew better, but forced herself to relax as he settled beside her, pulling her against him. She had been designed for a man’s pleasure—not her own. She wasn’t even certain she possessed whatever it was that made sex pleasurable for a woman, but she suspected she did not, for she had never found the act more than tolerable and, most of the time, it was a good deal less than that. Considering his endowment, it was a foregone conclusion that this was going to be very difficult for her, whatever he might think, whatever his intentions.

Regardless, she forced herself to take a deep, calming breath and relax trustingly against him. Reaching for his hand, she placed it upon her breast, bracing herself for the assault that generally came next.

He chuckled.

Startled, Jana looked up, trying to gauge his mood.

He lifted his hand from her breast and cupped her cheek. “You really are not very experienced, are you?”

Instead of answering, because she wasn’t certain what answer would please him most, she smiled.

“I suppose kissing is not allowed?” he asked pensively.

Jana stiffened in surprise, not certain how to answer. In fact, she had been told never to kiss a patron. It was considered far too intimate. It not only suggested emotional intimacy, it could actually lead to it and that was forbidden.

Not that she could see why. The few times she had been kissed had been most unpleasant. The men had either tried to throttle her by shoving their tongue down her throat or nearly drowned her with saliva. One had sucked her tongue into his mouth so hard he had seemed bent on uprooting it. She had not liked it at all.

On the other hand, she had been instructed never to deny her patrons anything they specifically requested. “Do you want to kiss me?”

He answered by lowering his mouth to hers, just touching his lips lightly to hers.

Jana felt her heart clutch in her chest. Her lips tingled at the feather light touch. A strange weakness swept through her. She sucked in her breath in surprise, tasted him.

He brushed his lips teasingly across hers once more, as if he was testing his welcome. The sensations he’d created before became more pronounced. A strange sort of warmth settled in the pit of her stomach and glowed, sending warmth throughout her body.

Jana felt herself relaxing against him, welcoming the sensations.

When he settled his mouth firmly over hers an odd sort of eagerness seemed to grip her. Her heart leapt, began to thrum more rapidly. It was strangely like fear—her accelerated heart rhythm, the weakness that crept through her limbs—except pleasant.

She moved her mouth experimentally against his, wanting more, not quite certain how to encourage him, but it seemed her reaction had been the signal he’d been waiting for. He kissed her deeply then, and Jana felt her awareness of everything else vanish.

She was disappointed when he ended the kiss, but in a moment she felt the touch of his lips on her throat, and then lower. She held her breath as his mouth settled over one peaked nipple—waiting with a mixture of anticipation and fear.

To her surprise, the moment his mouth closed over her distended flesh, ripples of pleasure echoed through her. The sense of pleasurable anticipation grew inside her, climbing a little higher with each nibbling kiss he placed upon her body. She felt dizzy, disoriented, unable to think, but that inability to do so seemed to focus her whole being on feeling the sensations more acutely.

When at last he moved over her and pushed her legs apart, she found that she welcomed it. She sensed that this time the joining of bodies would bring pleasure she had never known.

She supposed it was that certainty that made the pain all the more stunning when he plunged deeply inside her. She couldn’t prevent the cry of pain that scraped past her throat.

She bit her lip when he stopped abruptly, pulled away from her slightly to stare down at her in surprise.

She could tell nothing about his expression, for the shadows lay deeply on his face, but she sensed that he had not intended to cause her pain and did not welcome it.

“I’ve hurt you.”

She shook her head, though she found she couldn’t speak.

“Don’t lie.”

She felt a lump of misery settle in her chest. It had truly felt wonderful right up to the moment of joining. “It didn’t hurt much,” she lied, “truly it didn’t.”

He didn’t believe her. She could tell he didn’t. After a moment, she felt him gathering himself to withdraw. Panic seized her. She clutched his shoulders, moving against him.

He groaned, as if in agony. Heartened, she pulled at him, urging him to lower himself against her once more. When he didn’t, she rose up, kissed the corner of his mouth. As if he’d been restraining himself only with an effort, and her kiss had opened a dam of barely controlled emotions, he kissed her hungrily then, began to move inside her, faster and faster.

When he found his release and collapsed against her, a tide of both relief and, strangely, gladness, filled Jana. For the first time in her life, and despite the fact that she’d ultimately received little pleasure in the act, she had found pleasure in having given it.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured finally.

She had been stroking his back, but she paused, surprised. “Why?”

“It wasn’t my intention to hurt you.”

“I know,” she said, and found that his remorse was comforting.

Finally, he rose and dressed. He didn’t look at her again, which she discovered was oddly hurtful.

A tap came at the door as he moved toward it. He paused, looked back at her questioningly. “You were expecting someone else?”

His voice was chilly. Jana sat up. “No.”

At the sound of their voices, the door opened and a man stuck his head inside. “Uh … sorry.” The stranger looked from the patron to Jana. Jana could tell nothing about him, for the light was behind him, throwing him into deep shadow, but she sensed from his voice that the stranger was younger than the patron. He seemed unable to speak for several moments, as if the light had dazzled him. But then the light was in Jana’s face, not his. After several moments ticked by, he seemed to shake himself from his distraction. “We’ll miss our ship if we don’t go now.”

The patron nodded, paused, almost as if he would turn to look back, and finally strode from the room without having done so.

Chapter Two

Savana, Orleans

"She was most ... insistent on this last ... stipulation."

John J. Dees, attorney, placed his fingertips together on the desk top, resisting the urge to tug at his cravat. It began to feel uncomfortably tight, however, as he awaited his client's reaction to what he could not, had he been the most sublime optimist, believe to be welcome news.

He was a man of little imagination. It occurred to him, however, that he felt as if he’d become the object of interest of a predatory cat. His client lounged with a casual, almost somnolent air in the high-backed chair before his desk, idly swinging a golden watch fob, but there was a lithe, feline grace about him that seemed to suggest that, like a cat, the relaxed posture was merely a pose to ensnare the unwary.