“I’m sorry to hear that. I was captured too, but that’s a long story. The point remains the same. Whether you’re a Colonial born in the backseat of a jumpship, or Earthside living in the five hundredth floor penthouse suite, no matter where you come from, you can agree that it’s a nasty business to supply illegal worker drones to the Cats!” He jabbed his finger in the direction of the worker drones on the other side of the bars separating our cells.
“You see those cages full of idiots who will work until they die? Nobody knows they exist. This is the sealed portion of the Treaty that was never divulged to the media. We didn’t win the war, though it’s possible we could have. Instead, the DC brokered a deal. The Cats get to buy human slaves in exchange for minerals, and they agree to stop blasting the shit out of us. Perfect solution! No one Earthside or Colonial has to get their hands dirty or send their children off to war. Worked out great for everybody – except them.”
He jabbed his finger once more at the cell full of men who stared at us with their emotionless, simple looks. I was at a complete loss for words. Suddenly, everything that had never made sense began to align. The entire Nugene Station operation was run in secret. I was a secret. My existence was illegal. The Criminal had assumed I was a Colonial, born somewhere off in space on Luna or Mars.
The Criminal’s intense gaze seated into my soul. “I’ll be damned if I give these Cats a perfectly good human child to throw into slave labor.”
Before I could say a word, or ask any of my burning questions, Captain Cronin cut in. “If the Criminal will not breed, he will be punished.” I caught the Captain’s eyes, and knew he would not hesitate to hurt this man. I couldn’t let them kill the Criminal. He was too important to me, to my escape, to learning the truth that Carver and D’Anton had hidden from me all my life. I suspected the Criminal had seen a life that no one on the station had experienced.
I stood and approached him. “The Captain says he will punish you if you don’t cooperate.”
The Criminal’s eyes hardened and he squinted at the Captain, then me. “I don’t give a shit. I’m not here to put on a fuck show, and I definitely won’t give them anymore human slaves. If you’re in such a hurry to please them, go fuck the damn drones.” He was suddenly angry, hurtful.
“I don’t work for the Gran. I don’t work for the Defense Council. They took me from Nugene Station.”
He watched me, and his eyes hardened even more. He didn’t believe me. They were going to kill him if he fought them…
I moved in close despite his rank smell. “Please. This ship is jumping to the other side of the galaxy. We may never have contact with another person, besides each other. I don’t want you to die. Everyone I have ever cared about is dead.”
He looked me up and down. “Why are you so eager to get it on? What’s in it for you?”
“Survival.” I unzipped my blood-stained, shredded jumpsuit and shrugged it off my shoulders. The suit fell to my feet and left me naked. He stared at my blood-caked body bared for him. “If we bathe first, it might be fun…”
I could hardly get near him without wanting to gag from the stench. I had forced Carver to shower daily, for me, so I didn’t have to smell the acrid stink of his sweat. I knew my senses were acute, more so than anyone else, but, I had never grown accustomed to the smell of people who didn’t bathe regularly.
The Criminal lunged for me and grabbed my arms. His face inches from mine, he hissed his hatred. “I don’t give a shit about getting kudos from the damn Cats. I don’t give a shit how you got here, all covered in blood, yet still smiling at me. I think you’re fucking crazy.”
Captain Cronin unlocked the cell and sent his tallest warrior inside with an order. “Bring me the Criminal.”
I fought loose of his grip on my wrists and shoved him back against the far wall, into the shower. The warrior came towards us and I held out my hand in the ‘stop’ gesture. “He will breed. Need time. Please. I promise.” I backed up into the Criminal and wrapped my arms around him, blocking him from the warrior with my naked body. “Please. Promise. More time.”
Captain Cronin growled at his warrior and the Cat backed off to the entry of the cell. The Captain’s eyes trailed up and down my body. I thought for a moment I saw something flicker on his face, but I had no way of knowing his emotional expressions.
As the Captain closed the cell door I took a chance. “Need soap. Need bathe clean.”
He looked at me again and broke into growling, hissing laughter. He flicked his claws to the right and one of his warriors retrieved something from down the hall. The warrior tossed a bottle into the cell and it hit the floor and rolled towards me. I bent down and picked it up, a familiar-looking plastic bottle.
Kiwi-strawberry shampoo, same bottles we had on Nugene.
I could have kissed the Captain I was so happy. This one courtesy meant so much to me as I stood cold and naked, trying to convince a man to have sex with me in order to save his life. I knew then that my world would never be the same again.
* * * *
Chapter 7
“Don’t you dare start crying, dammit. I hate when women cry!”
I wiped the tears from my eyes and stood watching the Gran as they retreated down the hallway, finally leaving us alone. Somehow, I had connected with the Captain, he believed me. Or maybe he left us alone for other reasons I couldn’t understand. They were not human, and it would be a mistake to ascribe human characteristics to their actions.
“I’m not crying for you.” I turned to him, uncaring that he stared at my breasts.
“You’re this overjoyed about a bottle of shampoo? Don’t take much to please you.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “I need to bathe, and so do you. Now strip, and turn on the water. If you’re nice to me, I’ll wash you.”
He frowned and did nothing, so I flipped the lever on the wall at the shower and instantly felt the warmth of scalding mist. If I could ever find a reason to believe in God and heaven, I assumed that heaven must include hot steamy mists that glide down your body and wash away all the grime and stink. I stood there for a time, soaking up the delightful warmth, moaning in pleasure.
I always loved bathing, but Nugene had strict rules about fresh water conservation. I never understood, because we had filtration systems that removed all the impurities, with a 99% recovery rate. We received regular shipments of ice blocks from Europa. We literally had tons and tons of water on that station, but they were always concerned about the birthing chambers and all the water they needed to produce and maintain the worker drones.
Drones were the number one priority. Had to keep the Cats in good supply … or else.
“Are you planning to stand there forever, or let me have a shot at it?”
He had stripped his clothes and was now crowding me with his stench-covered pale body. A muscular, slim, sexy pale body. I leaned back against the wall and let the steam roll down the front of me as he slipped under the jets and wet himself in the mist. The smell was so thick I could almost taste it. I started squirting shampoo all over him.
“Hey, what the fuck?”
“Stay still. You haven’t bathed in forever.”
I lathered him all up and down, and he shut up quickly. I had bathed Carver many times – using his ident override was the only way to get past the station’s water restrictions. Carver’s cabin was one of the few that had an actual water-based shower instead of the sonic ones everyone else used.
Washing the Criminal wasn’t much different from washing my dead lover, except he was so pale. I’d grown accustomed to the dark skin and contours of Carver’s body. I’d never appreciated another man’s body besides Carver, and it seemed strange.
“Calm down girl.”
I stroked his cock, squirted some soap on it again and stroked him some more. He was already hard in my hand, and groaning. I pulled and squeezed his soapy head and slid down to wash his soapy balls. I kissed his warm, steam-wet lips and smiled at the feeling of his st
ubbles tickling my face. His hand slipped up my side and over my shoulder, cupping the back of my neck to pull me in closer. I tasted his tongue, darting in and out of my mouth, a gentle flicker.
This was nice. Steam baths, warm kisses, and slippery, hard, wet cock. I straddled his hard length, enjoying how it rubbed me softly. He gripped my ass and pulled me in tight. I stood on my tippy toes and maneuvered my hips to slide more of his hardness where I wanted it. I was too short for him, but I could grind my wet clit on him, tickling myself.
His kisses swallowed my mouth, my tongue, and soon I was humping harder and harder, wishing I could have him inside me. He let up and breathed deeply. His eyes watched me as I bounced against his cock, rubbing my wetness all over him.
When he pulled away from me, he was so hard his cock bounced up and down in the air. His mouth opened and I saw the protest in his eyes. I shushed him with my fingers on his lips. The time for complaints had passed. Now was time to live up to my promise to Captain Cronin.
The Criminal would breed. The fact that I couldn’t bear his children was irrelevant. This man was all I had in this harsh new world. I would make him appreciate me as much as I appreciated him. I stepped in and regained the loss of his hard body rubbing all over mine. Slowly, first one leg, then the other, I climbed up on to him and hooked my feet around his slippery ass. The low G made climbing him easy, despite his slick, soapy skin.
“You don’t have to do this. They can’t make us do this.”
I shook my head. “Fuck me now. We can talk about it later.”
His intense eyes drilled into me and he opened his mouth to protest again, but I reached down and slipped that bouncing hard cock inside me. As I worked my way down onto him, inch by glorious inch, I gripped his stubbled face in my two hands. “Don’t. Say. A. Word. I want you. You want me. They are not going to wait for it, and neither will I.” Slowly, slowly I stretched to receive him, and pushed him deeper and deeper inside me. He was large, but I was more than ready for him.
His muscles were hard, much harder than Carver’s, and when he finally thrust into me, the slight upper curve of his cock rubbed a delicious grind against my clit. I’d long since learned how to make myself come, but this criminal was doing a damn good job of it.
I loved the feeling of his wet, muscular chest sliding up and down my nipples and squishing my breasts as he impaled me, grinding his pelvis hard against mine. I curled my hips in to meet him, matching his every move.
Soon his thrusts became ramming slaps that hit the very deepest places inside me. It hurt, just the way I liked it. I met his thrusts over and over and watched the depth of emotion reflected in his eyes and gritted teeth. These were the moments when I really needed to flip my pain switch. I bit down hard on my arm to keep from screaming out my orgasm. I didn’t want to draw more attention from the Cats with my screams echoing up and down the halls.
From the tension singing through his tightly-flexed muscles and the hard grip of his hands squeezing my ass, I knew he was almost there. I had been there twice already, and was grinding my way to a third. I loved this man’s stamina and strength. I could really enjoy riding that kind of strength for hours, cooped up in this cell together.
Pinned against the wall of the shower, catching a hard pounding from the Criminal, I caught the scent of Cat musk. The Captain stood at my cell door watching us. His tongue flicked out and cleaned his lips. He reached between his legs and adjusted a large lump pushing out the hanging skirt covering his groin. His vertical slit yellow eyes never broke contact with mine as I rode through the crest of my orgasm. I shuddered and held on tightly, drawing blood on my arm as I bit back another scream.
The criminal pumped deep inside me. I could feel the spreading warmth and sense the change in him as he gripped my ass harder, and buried his cock as far as he could fit. The Captain growled and adjusted his crotch again. Though I couldn’t understand why, I knew the Captain was somehow turned on by watching us.
At the height of our moment, quivering with my orgasm, being watched by this large, perverse male put a smile on my face. I got mine three times over, the Criminal got his, and the Captain was stuck with nothing but his claws to keep him company.
The smile faded from my face as it occurred to me that I had yet to see a single female aboard, Cat or human. I may be the only piece of ass on this cruiser, and I had a funky suspicion that’s exactly what the Captain was thinking too.
* * * *
Chapter 8
With no clean clothes and no towel, I stood naked shivering in the cool air of the cell as Captain Cronin watched. The Criminal watched me too, and invited me to sit on the bench, on his lap.
“Do you think he’s satisfied now?” The Criminal teased me with a smirk as he stroked my back. I loved the sensation of his gentle, absent-minded touch. I hoped I had found a genuinely loving man who would mean the words when he finally said them.
I hugged him tight, trying to get some warmth from his slippery body. I hadn’t considered the fact that I had nothing clean to wear, or even a blanket. Shivering, my teeth chattering as I spoke, I tried to growl one more request to the Captain. “I need clothes. Need warm.”
One of his eyes squinted up at me, almost like he was winking, and his tongue flicked out to clean his lips again. “Come here.”
My instincts were to deny him, to fight him, to get ahold of his gauntlet and cut his head off, but that wouldn’t get me any clean clothes, or get me off this ship. Might be a good way to commit suicide, but I wasn’t up for that anymore.
“He wants me to go to him.”
The Criminal held onto me tightly, hugging me, as if he could protect me from them. I loved the way it felt to be in his arms, but I knew what would happen if I ignored the Captain’s orders. “Let me go. I’ll be fine. If he wanted to kill me, he’d have done it after I gave him that scar on his face.”
The Criminal chuckled. “That was you? Damn I wish I coulda seen that. You’re a strange little woman, but you got heart.” He released me and I slid off his lap and stood at the cell door. “Make sure you come back in one piece, you hear?” He smiled at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back. I hoped I could return to him and enjoy another steam bath, soon.
The Captain opened the cell door and gestured for me to come out. My smile went away. Arms wrapped tightly around my shivering torso, I came out of the cell and stood before him, wet and naked. I’d never felt so vulnerable in all my life as I did then.
His claws reached out and touched the back of my shoulder. He prodded like he wanted me to turn around, so I did, slowly. I felt like a piece of meat being inspected. His claws tapped at the skin on my back in several places. Not painful, just enough of a tap to let me know I’d been scratched. I recalled the feeling of his sharp talons cutting into me as he retraced the places he had wounded me.
“You heal too fast. You are not normal.” I nodded and looked over my shoulder at him, unsure what to say. He scratched me once more, slightly deeper, enough to bump my pain switch slightly. Seconds later a light tingle of euphoria spread across my body. I feared the day the Gran figured out how much I liked pain and decided to test me on it. I could sustain serious injury and still function, but I knew how dangerous it could be. D’Anton had warned me repeatedly that severe injuries could be life-threatening, but I probably wouldn’t recognize the danger. I’d be nothing but a puddle of euphoria.
He growled and flicked his hand down the corridor. “Walk. I follow.”
I started walking.
“Where the fuck are you going?” The Criminal was up against the bars of the cage, a concerned look on his face.
“I’ll be okay. Don’t cause problems. Wait for me.” I reassured him, but I really didn’t know. I only knew I couldn’t watch another man I cared about die for me.
The Criminal did not look happy. “You better be right.” He watched as I marched down the hallway with the Captain.
Captain Cronin directed me through a series of corridors to a p
art of the ship I’d never seen. I passed what I thought might be a cafeteria of sorts, filled with strange, fluffy-looking low couches that surrounded circular tables. I supposed the Gran didn’t sit in regular human-designed chairs.
He brought me to a door and clicked something on his wristband, which made the door open. I needed to get my hands on one of those wristbands, or maybe his. He directed me inside, and I instantly knew we were in his personal cabin, which made me shiver even more. The place wasn’t cold, but his reasons for bringing me here could not be good.
He began removing his armor a piece at a time, first his left shoulder, then his right, and his breastplate. He set aside his gauntlet in a cabinet built into the wall. Those weapons were wicked. I needed to learn how they worked. Watching him methodically strip his armor and clothing, I could think of no reason why, except for the one thing I prayed he wasn’t planning to do.
I shivered and looked around for something that might resemble clothing. “Need warm.”
I could make my core temp higher if I concentrated, but that also required lots of energy and food, which I hadn’t eaten in far too long.
The Captain removed the last bit of clothing covering his waist, which was nothing more than a belt with a skirt of fabric hanging in front and back. I’d never seen anything comprehensive on Gran anatomy, but they weren’t so different from us. He had smooth, furry, muscular thighs, and not much of an ass to speak of. I’d hurt these creatures before by going for the balls, so it was no surprise to see the Captain had all the same basic equipment of a male human. But larger. Much larger.