Two hours alone in my room with more couture clothing than I need should be enough to distract me. It isn’t. I’m still due a lengthy explanation, but have to process what I know about slave laws and how this affects me. Here. Now. With Jérémie.
First, it explains why the Tu'Ver refused to take Jérémie away. They can’t break the ownership contract for any reason. In fact, if they came across a bloody beating in progress, they’d still have no right to interfere.
If only I’d known this while on Jérémie’s merchant vessel. I’d have thrown myself at the feet of that poor Federation agent instead of knocking him out. He could have helped me, because Earth doesn’t recognize ownership laws. It’s exactly why Jérémie never brandished this information to the human. And its why I chose Earth as my new home when I escaped from the Flux all those years ago.
Getting out of Jérémie’s custody and ship the way I did, getting all comfy in this expensive cabin, wasn’t at all the close call I thought it was. I walked right into the worst possible situation.
Second, ownership gives Jérémie power over what happens to me in regards to my crime. According to Flux law, either I suffer the consequences, or Jérémie could face the judgment on my behalf. Technically, he could choose to do that at any point and wipe the slave’s record clean. Not that many of the Flux choose this route. Ever.
Basically, unless he returns me to suffer the sentence of death, he’ll eventually be forced to serve in my stead. But as my owner, his sentence will be much lighter, so I won’t feel the least bit guilty if he ends up in prison.
What’s tripping me up is that I killed my owner and left the Flux a free, albeit a wanted, woman... Or so I thought for the last five years. To own me, however, Jérémie would have had to buy me from my previous owner. But Alexandre is dead. Ownership terminated.
“Eden.”
I turn away from the walk-in closet where I’d just finished hanging my new clothes. Jérémie has also done some shopping. He wears a black leather jacket snapped at the top over a white, skin-tight cotton shirt. His black pants are on the loose end, and tucked into combat boots that near his knees.
“You’d better be paying your own way,” I tell him, looking pointedly up and down his expensive new outfit. “I don’t own you, after all.”
He glances absently at the rolling table of cold leftovers that room service left almost two hours ago. “We have bigger concerns than money.”
Edmond. The asshole with his laser sights trained right on me. Yeah, that’s a Flux problem I hadn’t foreseen. But one I’ll deal with once I get rid of my “owner”.
I let out a sigh and pull out a bright red, shimmering shift dress. The fabric catches the eye, but also barely covers my ass. If anything, it’ll make Jérémie’s life hell. May as well have some fun while we’re trapped together.
“I need to change,” I tell him and toss the dress onto the rumpled bed.
“We are staying in tonight, beauté. We are not finished speaking.”
With an eyebrow kicked up as a dare, I toy with the loose knot of my robe. “And I need to get out of this room. Staying or going?”
His arms fold over his chest, and his feet plant shoulder width apart. “Staying.”
“Fine.”
Knot pulled, I let the thick robe fall off my shoulders and puddle at my feet. The cool air hits my bare nipples, tugging them into points. I pull in a deep breath, letting my breasts rise and fall in slow motion for the dark eyes across the room.
Jérémie’s arms unfold and fall to his waist. His Adam’s apple bobs twice.
I turn back to the dress and proceed to shimmy into it. Slowly.
“You have not put on any undergarments,” Jérémie says, his accented voice thick with lust.
“You’re right. I haven’t.” At the closet, I bend, straight-legged, at the waist for a pair of nude heels.
Jérémie lets out a soft curse, and his arm appears suddenly encircles my waist. In two steps, I face the wall with my dress creeping high. His erection fits perfectly in the crease of my ass.
Hot breath sears the back of my neck, and the weight of his chest bears down on my back. The tighter his arm gets around my waist, the closer I grind against his erection. And the hotter I get. My lust-crazed mind calculates approximately five seconds from removing his pants to his filling me root to stem.
His mouth settles over my ear. “You cannot leave the room like this.”
He has to go and ruin everything, doesn’t he?
I turn and smile. Push fingers through his thick hair. Cup his neck and guide his mouth toward mine...
And kick him right in the nuts.
I push his pained-wracked body to the floor. “Watch me.”
The casino is two floors, and decorated in dark reds and golds. Millions of lights cover the ceiling supported by marble columns. Bells and bongs collide with laughter and groans. The room is packed, and everywhere I walk on the thick carpet there isn’t a free seat to be had in front of the machines or gaming tables.
The tables are three bodies deep, and the different races mix into a strange collage of unity over their easily won or lost money. Hexo stand beside Uopipii despite the Hexo being xenophobic by nature, and the Uopipii’s open need to touch to see. Angelic J'relim toast pink drinks with the slug-like Xem who spit widely every time they talk. Everywhere I look it’s like this.
A Tu'Ver recognizes me—a perk of spending so much money on the luxury suite—and asks which game I would prefer to play. I tell him, and the Tu'Ver picks up a Syoli out of his—her? I can never tell the sex of these androgynous beings—chair and uses all six arms to simultaneously push him/her away and collect his/her money off the green felt.
Once I’m seated, the Tu'Ver dealer shuffles cards while setting up stacks of chips in front of me. A waitress slinks by and sets a glass of fizzing blue alcohol to my right. Please be a good one, I think and throw it back in a single gulp long before all my cards are dealt for the poker game. A fresh buzz warms my insides with a cozy fire, rather than the mind-erasing blaze I’d hoped for.
I’m signaling for another drink, and preparing to discard two cards when a different sort of heat warms my back. The spicy scent is one I’d left writhing on the floor back in my room.
Figures he’d find me. It’s not like I have a Palm Springs hideaway to run off to. Or Jupiter. Or even a teleport to get off this ship at all. I have floors and floors of entertainment, not to mention all the “helpful” Tu’Ver at the ready. All he had to do was ask one where I was, and poof, location known.
“Drink?” I ask.
“No,” Jérémie says. Fury licks along the edges of his measured tone. “I thought I told you we were staying in tonight.”
“And I thought I told you to go fuck yourself.”
“Actually, you did not.”
“Oh, well, rest assured, I definitely thought it.”
The four other players at the table throw their attention at me for two solid seconds before acting like they hadn’t heard a thing.
A Tu'Ver—no idea if it’s the same one who helped me into the table—appears beside Jérémie. “A seat for you, sir?”
“Yes,” I say. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Or something.
Jérémie is not of that opinion, however. “No.”
I twist and narrow my eyes skyward. Fuck, he’s tall. “Sit or I’m letting the next lucky winner figure out whether or not I’m wearing panties.” I wink at the Rhelob on my right. “I’m not.”
“Yes,” Jérémie tells the Tu'Ver, and up goes the drooling Rhelob with saber teeth.
The dealer deals Jérémie into the next hand, a waitress serves him a yellow drink, and the table goes eerily quiet on either side of us. We are a little tense, though, so I can’t really blame them.
“You wanted time to think. I gave it to you. At some point you will have to let me explain,” Jérémie finally says.
I lean toward my left-side neighbor, a pretty Eoir girl with green skin and four arms—she has to hold two up at all times for the dealer; poor thing. “He wants to explain how he’s come to own me.”
The Eoir nods and gives me a sympathetic smile. Her abnormally high-pitched voice says, “Maybe there’s a good explanation.”
Oh right. The Eoir are diplomatic by nature. Or she’s just struck by his animalistic good looks. This night just gets better and better. Is it too much to ask for a little girl power?
“He’s Flux,” I tell her. “His people killed mine. There is no good explanation.”
The Eoir has the good sense to gasp.
Jérémie leans right to the wolven-looking Tobaar. “She killed our leader five years ago. I’m trying to save her from a death sentence.”
A collective head shake takes everyone over.
I’m so annoyed that I set my shitty hand face down and raise the table five hundred credits. “That so-called leader wanted to whore me around to his crew leaders like a bonus.” I smile at the Eoir and explain further. “I’m Gemini. Somehow this always equates to awesome sex.”
Jérémie lifts a finger to the Tobaar. “And in her case, it happens to be true.”
“Don’t try buttering me up, Beast.”
He looks down his nose at me, while shoving a thousand credits toward the middle of the pile. “No need. You are always ready, aren’t you? In fact, you are ready right now.”
“Yep,” I say, popping the P on the end, then turn to the dealer. “I’m all in.”
My stacks fall into the center of the table, and everyone but Jérémie tosses their cards in face up. He waits two beats, glancing between me, his cards, his chips, and the overflowing stack of winnings in the middle.
“All in,” he finally says.
“No doubt charged to my room, which make it my money,” I tell the Eoir.
The dealer motions for our cards.
“Side bet,” Jérémie says. His breath fans heat into my eardrum. “If I win, we go back upstairs.”
“I’m not having sex with you.” Or should I say that I’ll try not to have sex with him.
“To talk. Then I promise you...” He leans even closer, putting his hand on my bare thigh. “You will beg me to fuck you.”
Cocky. Speed bump. This guy. “Your hand’s that good, huh? And by hand, I mean poker, not...” I look pointedly at the hand squeezing my leg.
He releases my thigh. “Are you in or out?”
I have no idea if he’s bluffing his hand right now. He seems pretty sure of himself. And my hand being what it is... Screw it. “In.”
I throw in my pair of fives. Jérémie hesitates and blinks silently at the cards as if he can’t believe I did it.
“Go on,” I say. “Show us what you’ve got.”
Jérémie sets down a pair of fours.
The table groans.
“I’m out,” I tell the dealer. “Please take care of this for me.”
Jérémie twists and turns through the swarms of bodies to end up by my side. “Where are you going now?”
I’m not sure, but I hear the distant beat of music. Must be a club nearby. “You know...I kind of feel like deflowering a virgin to all things Gemini. Since I’m apparently so good at it. You can watch if you like.”