Free Creed of Pleasure; the Space Miner's Concubine (The LodeStar Series) by Cathryn Cade Page A

a mouthful of sausage, thinking about that. “Explore. View the local wildlife, watch holovids, swim in my pool.” Spar with his robot, although he doubted she wanted to hear about that. And he watched a fair amount of Quasi-ball.  
    Her head jerked up, green eyes wide. “You have a pool?” she breathed. “Oh, my goddess. I’ve seen them in the travel holovids.”  
    He nodded, his mind full of graphic images of her, sleek and wet, in the grotto-like pool built into the back of the house. His cock, which had been in various states of stiffness since she arrived, sprang to full attention.  
    His mouth opened, independently of his brain and his intentions. “Maybe we could—”
    Behind her, the pilot appeared in the open doorway, finger-combing her short, damp hair, eyes on the food. “Morning.”
    Quark. He’d come out here to get away from people, to have space and quiet and peace, and suddenly he was surrounded by them. Creed wanted to snarl, wanted to rise up, grab Taara from her chair and throw her over his shoulder, bear her off to his pool and lock the doors after them. So no one could interrupt them. And so he could just have one swift fantasy before he sent her away.  
    Instead he nodded. “Morning. Breakfast?”
    The pilot strode forward with alacrity. “Thanks, don’t mind if I do.”
    She poured herself a mug of coffee, and slid into the chair between Taara and Creed. “Hey, rolls. And are those vegsausages?”
    Creed sent the hovertray gliding closer to her. “Help yourself.”
     
    * * *
     
    Taara worked hard to enjoy her meal, despite the uncertainty of her position. She surely wasn’t going to get another breakfast like it any time soon, if she was being sent back to Frontiera City.  
    It would take a long, long time for her and Daanel to work off their debt to Logan Stark, if he let them even stay on planet. Maybe he’d have them labeled criminals or something and they’d be shipped back to Earth II in the hold of some horrible old ship like the one Kiri had been shanghaied onto. Or he’d put them to work doing manual labor to pay off their debt to him.
    No, Kiri wouldn’t let him go that far, but whatever his price, it might not be pleasant.
    Creed Forth seemed to take the food for granted, eating with silent concentration. He ate a lot, but then he was solid muscle and probably weighed half again as much as she did. She eyed him from under her lashes, half resentful, half longing. She even enjoyed watching him eat, for goddess’ sake. Daanel, slim as a raile serpent, ate in a desultory way, but this man was physical and fueling a powerful, efficient machine.
    She blushed when he shot her a glance and caught her staring at him.
    He turned to the pilot. “You’ll be taking her back to Frontiera City.”
      Taara’s breakfast knotted in her belly, her last bite of roll sticking in her throat. She dropped the rest of it on her plate. It was warm, sweet and laden with nuts and dried bits of fruit, with icing drizzled over the top and down the sides. The eggs were good too, hot and savory. She’d had them a few times when the owners of Maitresse had put on breakfast buffets to celebrate a profitable quarter. But she could not force down another bite now. She wiped her sticky fingers on the napkin of nubbly recycled fabric, looking at her plate to avoid the look of surprise and dismay from the pilot. Grabbing her mug, she drained the last of her coffee, sighing as the warm liquid soothed her tight throat.
    Kind of funny, in a black holish way. She’d come here with such dread, then met him and made up her mind that her task would not be quite so horrible after all, in fact it would be quite pleasant. Okay, really pleasant. Only to have him reject her.
    “Well,” she murmured into the ensuing silence. “I’ll ... just go pack up my things. Meet you outside,” she added to the pilot.  
    Without another look at him, she rose and walked out of his kitchen, her shoulders stiff,