Unbound (9 page)

“I—certainly not. That is not it at all.”

His shocked protest did not seem to make an impression on her. She entered the larger storeroom with an air of purpose, her attention focused entirely on the contents of the shelves. If today was a repeat of the previous day, he could expect more silence while she took inventory, ignoring him as a matter of course. He did not want that.

The sudden realization stunned him: he
wanted
her attention . . . and he could
do something
about it. He was no longer trapped in the gray mists, subject to a vyzier’s whims.

“May I help?” Romir stood deliberately close—too close for her to ignore gracefully. Despite her abrupt manner, instinct told him grace was ingrained in her nature.

“You might as well make yourself useful.” Her acceptance of his aid was less than gracious, but it was better than the alternative. He found an unwitting smile on his face, one that took conscious effort to erase.

Asrial was methodical in her undertaking, always starting on her right, working by sections, from the lowest shelf to the topmost. Her comments hinted at an inquisitive mind, yet she displayed no curiosity about him and his admission of being djinn. The dichotomy puzzled him, drew him in, made him watch her even more closely.

And what he saw made him want her more.

 

 

After several days,
Asrial didn’t know what to make of Romir. She could tell he wanted her; there was no denying his willingness. But he’d bring her to orgasm . . . and that was as far as he went! What man didn’t want pleasure? He wasn’t doing it to build her excitement; he gave her pleasure then just stopped. After several nights of that, he still held out.

What did that say about her as a woman, that he didn’t want her that way? She shoved that thought into storage in the back of her mind and locked it down. That had nothing to do with anything!

Consider the fact that he didn’t eat, not in her presence, and wasn’t raiding her supplies behind her back. That was enough to throw any sentient for a loop. Plus he didn’t use the bio unit, didn’t seem to need to piss or crap. He didn’t shave, but his stubble didn’t get any darker or thicker. And he didn’t share her bed.

That last peeved her. She was accustomed to her solitude, reveled in it to a certain extent. She wasn’t used to sharing her space with other people any longer. Ever since her parents’ deaths, she’d flown alone.
Face it, you’ve become a hermit.
Now, she was constantly tripping over him, worried about him when he wasn’t around, didn’t have any privacy unless she went to the bio unit, but he made no effort to share her bed, and that last was what really peeved her. How contrary was that?

Every night since she’d told him she couldn’t sleep with him on her floor, he left her cabin once he’d finished pleasuring her. And each morning, the first thing she saw when she stepped out of her cabin was Romir standing in the corridor, waiting for her.

On top of those, there was the mystery of the doors: no amount of troubleshooting revealed why they opened to him without his touching the lock panel. She’d had to set that question aside to focus on the thruster problem, but it still bugged her.

Despite the perks of frequent sex, in her heart, Asrial suspected she’d cheer when Romir finally left the
Castel
for . . . wherever his destination. He posed too fascinating a distraction at a time when she couldn’t afford one.

The sudden shrill interrupted her train of thought. She clicked the tester off, irritation driving her thumb harder on the button than necessary. Her frigging mind had wandered again.

At this rate, the
Castel
would be Jumping into the Xerex sector with a dodgy thruster. Not a good idea. Unlike entry into a deserted planet with all the atmosphere to maneuver in, Eskarion space was less forgiving. Constellation authorities and the Patrol frowned on sudden course corrections and fined erring ships accordingly. She couldn’t blame them when lives and trillions of creds were on the line.

She jiggered with the contacts, adjusted the settings, and tried again.

The control run still didn’t test stable.

Asrial kept up a stream of swearing, soft and steady, as she struggled to pinpoint the faulty circuit. Power words. Sometimes the
Castel
’s hardware responded to threats.

“Is there a problem?”

She started at the question, not having noticed Romir’s reappearance from wherever he’d gone off to. He looked over her shoulder, making no comment when she pressed a hand over her bounding heart. “Don’t do that.”

Disgust at her lack of progress magnified the shock he’d given her. She exhaled sharply, willing her pulse steady. She’d be glad when she had the
Castel
to herself once again. “There’s an intermittent signal somewhere that’s causing a power drop. I can’t isolate the frigging circuit.” While it didn’t pose any danger on Jumps, she preferred not to approach a station when a thruster might act up. With the volume of traffic in Eskarion space, sudden loss of fine control could be hazardous.

Asrial didn’t hold out much hope for useful advice from him. Her stowaway seemed surprisingly clueless about spacer matters—witness his reaction to Jump. It was like he’d never experienced it before boarding the
Castel
. If he’d been drugged on the ship that had brought him to Maj, that might account for his ignorance, but that implied he’d been . . . cargo.

“Try here.” He indicated a point in the wall, a different block of the control run from the one she’d been wrestling with.

To her surprise, the tester confirmed his suggestion, and a quick replacement of that block cleared up the fluctuation. Putting the tools she’d used back with the rest of the kit, she stared at him in perplexity. He’d simply looked at the wall then put his finger right on the problem. His performance only emphasized how little she knew about him. He never spoke of his past or how he’d gotten to Maj or why he’d been abandoned there—or had he escaped? “How did you know that?”

“The flow flickers there.”

“Flow?”

“The flow of energy.” Romir slid his fingers along the wall, tracing a pattern that—uncannily—matched the circuits she’d been troubleshooting. Only a thorough knowledge of the
Castel
would have let him do that; over the years, the
Castel
’s design had diverged from the specs for its class. His tracing of the circuits couldn’t be explained by rote training from outdated technical manuals.

“I am a weaver,” he said—at least that’s what she thought he said. He’d used an archaic word for
weaver
and given it a strange intonation that made her doubt her ears. “I weave energy, the threads of creation. It was why I was made a djinn.”

“Please, I’m not a child to be fed children’s tales.” She turned away from him and stared hard at the wall. She slammed her hand into it, the sharp sting in her palm confirming its solidity. She was awake, not dreaming. She could not—
would not
—believe such a story. Djinn were children’s tales, told by generations of Lomidar mothers to entertain offspring. He had to be an ordinary man, someone who’d managed to stow away on the
Castel
, no matter that he didn’t look like he’d been abandoned on Maj, didn’t act like it, either, and shouldn’t have been able to get aboard in the first place.

Any other explanation was too fanciful for words. Life didn’t work that way. There were no happily-ever-afters. The Spirit of space didn’t play fair. Crap happened, then she had to clear the mess. Her parents’ deaths and Amin’s accident had taught her that.

“No!” The pained shout spun her around in surprise.

Asrial gasped, disbelief welding her feet to the deck. Romir was fading right before her eyes. She could see the wall through his body! “What’s happening?”

Raw fear blazed in his eyes, desperation bordering on panic. “My prison. It is pulling me back. I cannot stop it.” Clawing at his left shoulder, he struggled against an invisible towline, leaning so far forward he should have fallen on his face. Yet he didn’t fall as he streamed backward down the corridor. His feet didn’t slide on the deck—they didn’t seem to touch it at all.

His gaze locked on her, wide and fixed. As if she were his one last hope. Infecting her with clawing desperation.

She’d thought she wanted to see the back of him, that she resented Romir’s invasion of the
Castel
, that she would welcome a return to her solitude. But not like this. Not this way.

“No!” She lunged for him.

And missed.

Landing hard on the deck, Asrial gave chase, forearms stinging.

He disappeared, melting into the door of the work cabin.

Heart in her throat, she slapped the panel to open it, cursing the delay as the hatch slid aside.

In the half-light, that precious example of Majian pottery glowed, a shimmering gray mist winding about its narrow neck and up to the lid. A mist that led to a transparent, writhing Romir floating in midair.

She threw herself forward with some crazy thought of wrenching him away from the flask that was sucking him in, not knowing what else to do. She half expected her arms to go through him, certainly light already was.

Her fingers brushed something solid as she lost her balance. Romir was there. Despite what her eyes told her, he was there. She grasped at him, invisible muscles sliding over her falling body in a final sensual caress.

A hiss of surprise. Hard hands caught her waist, saving her from a rude landing on her face.

The gray of the worn carpet vanished, replaced by slabs of caffe brown flesh. Warm muscle tipped by small dark nipples.

Solid muscle.

Asrial clung to that beautiful sight as her knees folded under her. Her heart thundered in her chest, in her throat, in her head. Her skin throbbed, too tight, too empty.

 

 

Strength rushed into
Romir, uncoiling the reel of his prison—snapping it loose. He was still bound, but no longer straitly. He had been so weak, the measure of freedom he had thought won spilling through his fingers like trickles of water. Yet just as his prison was about to reclaim him, this happened.

With a choked sob, Asrial pressed her face to his chest, her small breasts soft against his belly as her arms tightened around him. Her rapid gasps warmed his chest, a damp heat that burned away the gray fog numbing his senses.

Pleasure and desire streaked through Romir, and he understood. Somehow the contact, the sensations, interfered with his prison’s pull and weakened it enough that he could resist. Or perhaps it strengthened his resistance. Power had no effect against the Mugheli trap; neither did desperation nor the yearning for freedom. The sensations flooding him promised so much, promised life—and perhaps that was what weakened the reel of his prison.

He lifted Asrial up to kiss her cheek in gratitude.

She twisted around, twining her arms around his neck and meeting his lips with hers. Her kiss was hungry, frantic, salty with tears he had not realized she had shed, returning the pressure of his lips with ravenous intensity.

They had never kissed before, not mouth to mouth, though he had given her more intimate kisses when he pleasured her. This seemed more personal—a greater privilege.

Asrial opened her mouth, her tongue darting into his—there then gone. Sweet modesty, seductive beyond all measure. He wanted to immerse himself in it for as long as he was able. With each shy thrust, her warmth filled him, her kindness, her gentleness. She woke so much hope inside him—gave him a reason to hope. She reminded him of happier times, before he had become djinn.

Making him long to be simply a man once more.

He wanted her, now more than ever, this angel with her soft and generous heart. Wanted to give her everything she desired. Wanted to kiss away her tears and replace them with smiles.

Romir pressed his lips to her shoulder, gently, making no demand he was not entitled to make. He wanted to cherish her, to give her all the pleasure she deserved for her unstinting generosity, for the care she had given a nameless djinn who had given up hope.

Murmuring his name, she sank her fingers in his hair, twining the mass around them like a skein. She enfolded him in the circle of her arms, trapping him. But it was a sweet trap he had no wish to escape. He wanted to be caught in her silken embrace, wanted to remain there for as long as she would let him. There were far worse cages to be caught in than her arms.

Asrial used his hair to draw his head back so she could take his mouth again. This time the strokes of her tongue were bold, hungry, certain of her desire and confident of her welcome. She hooked a leg over his and rubbed her body against him, her soft mound etching a line of fire along his thigh.

The carnal friction inflamed his essence.

Heat filled him. Need. Hunger. They overflowed, burning away restraint and gentle desire. He kissed her back, returning heat for heat, lust for lust, thrust for thrust.

She tugged on her pants, shoved them down her hips, and kicked them off to stand before him half naked, the neat patch of brown curls at the juncture of her pale thighs already dewy. “I want all of you.”

Romir hesitated.
All of him?
He had been owned, mastered, dismissed. Choice wrested from him. Reduced to a slave. Yet never had the Mughelis taken all of him. He had kept the core of himself, however much reduced. Even when pleasuring Asrial, he had held back part of himself.

Now she wanted all?

Doubts struggled for the upper hand.

But this was Asrial, and pleasure with her was not slavery. It was—

A giving and a taking.