* * * * *
Trin was distracted for hours after her encounter with her new slave. He bothered her…and not just because she suspected something serious had happened with his last Master. There was something about the huge Havoc she’d spent her entire bank account on that drew her. But what? Well, there was the fact that he was so different from anyone she’d ever known for one thing—she couldn’t help remembering his rippling abs and muscular biceps. She had never been around males much—certainly not enough to develop an appreciation for the male physique. But even she had to admit that the big Havoc was impressive.
But it wasn’t just the way he looked that interested her—it was the way he acted. The way he’d distrusted her at first when she tried to give him a drink, the way he’d flinched from her touch and his deep, bass roar the first time she’d tried to open his trousers.
Why did he dread being touched? What did he fear? What had happened to him to make him that way?
Maybe something the slavers or his old master did to him, she speculated idly as she checked and re-checked the new course the navigator had set for the Demon’s Eye. Maybe just waking up in a strange place and finding himself chained down. That would be disturbing to anyone—I sure as hell wouldn’t want it happening to me!
She hoped she might be able to let him up eventually but that wasn’t going to happen until she got some answers out of him. Anyway, there was no denying he was easier to manage in his current condition. Even lying on his back, the Havoc was huge—every part of him more than twice as big as every part of her and she was considered tall and well proportioned for a female on her home planet. Plus, she’d felt his terrifying strength for herself first hand. She touched her bruised throat and winced. No pun intended.
Just keep treating him like a spooked horse, she told herself. After all, her equine pets outweighed and outmassed her many times over and she still managed them quite nicely. Of course, neither of them had ever tried to throttle her.
Trin sighed, thinking of them now. Her stallion, Swift, galloping in the pastures of purple grass and pink gana flowers in the fields by her mother’s house…and her mare, Silk, tossing her glossy main and neighing like thunder the moment she caught sight of Trin coming over the rolling hills towards her.
The two of them were old now and they had never managed to breed for some reason. Every time Trin spoke to her mother she was afraid one or both of them might be gone but they carried on, always happy to greet her when she made one of her increasingly infrequent trips home.
But could she really equate the Havoc she’d inadvertently bought to the large equine pets she’d left back home? For all his voice didn’t allow him to speak much, he at least was able to manage a few words. And there was awareness burning in his striking eyes—intelligence she couldn’t deny just because he was male. Intelligence and something else…some veiled threat or barely buried rage she couldn’t name but also couldn’t discount.
Trin decided she would have to keep a close eye on him. Though she hated to admit it, Sidna was right about one thing—the Havoc was big enough and strong enough to cause a lot of damage and injury if he went on some kind of a rampage.
She patted the stunner in the pocket of her black flight jumpsuit. She wasn’t going to give him a second chance unless he earned it.
Chapter Five
Thrace lost track of the time he spent chained to the narrow cot. He spent many long hours trying to force the memories which had been unearthed like half-rotted corpses back into their crypts. It wasn’t easy. Being restrained and unable to do anything for himself brought the past back strongly—too strongly to be denied or ignored.
To counter it, Thrace instinctively knew he needed something positive. Something to take his mind off what he had suffered, something to distract him from the agonies of the past.
He chose his new mistress, Trin.
Not that she was really his mistress—he sure as hell wouldn’t call her that even if she had bought and paid for him. He did accord her the title of “captain.” She owned the ship he was prisoner on and kept the crew in order and she appeared to do it effortlessly—though he knew from personal experience it was much harder than it looked.
He could hear her talking to various crew members from time to time since their voices echoed in the long, metal corridors and he had to reluctantly acknowledge that she handled herself and her responsibilities well.
Her calm self possession in the face of his own rage was also remarkable. Thrace had known fully grown males who cowered when he was in one of his moods. Trin simply spoke gently and looked at him with those big, dark eyes, meeting his gaze without fear or any anger of her own.
All in all, impressive.
Not to mention fucking gorgeous—a fact he mostly noticed at night.
Though she mostly dressed in the black flight jumpsuit which covered her considerable curves, she always came to check on him before she went to sleep. At those times, she was usually dressed for bed and her sleep outfits were considerably more revealing than the jumpsuit—a fact that wasn’t lost on Thrace.
Trin didn’t seem embarrassed to walk around half dressed in front of him at all. At first he’d thought she was deliberately teasing him. When she leaned over him, showing the creamy brown swells of her breasts or walked past his cot in a slip-like garment that barely covered her to mid thigh and showed her long, smooth legs, he was sure she was tormenting him on purpose.
But gradually he came to understand she didn’t realize what she was doing. It was as though she thought of him as an animal—one of her pet horses which she had told him about when she came in to tend and check on him.
It was fucking insulting and yet, probably not that surprising when he thought about it. After all, she came from a world virtually without males. How could she know the effect she was having on him? She probably did think of him as a kind of pet. After all, he was completely dependant on her for everything—food and water and shelter. How else would she see him?
Thrace supposed she wouldn’t be embarrassed to let a pet see her half-naked and it didn’t bother her for him to see her that way either. The difference was, a pet didn’t get hard at the sight of his mistress half unclothed.
Of course, at first, neither did Thrace. Being chained down and helpless was an effective damper for his lust—it was too much like his time with the old Master. The manacles around his wrists provoked too many painful memories.
But as the days went by, he grew used to it—as used to it as he could, anyway. And as he grew accustomed to being restrained, it actually became easier to push the old memories away and concentrate on his new reality. And on Trin.
The situation came to a head on the night when she came in, dressed for sleep in a thin, see-through white gown that fell to her thighs and a silky robe to match that belted loosely around her small waist. The berry-dark points of her nipples were clearly visible pressing against the thin fabric and when she bent over, he could see a hint of the wispy little panties she wore underneath.
Gods! The sight of her lush body half unclothed as well as the sweet scent she always carried with her made his cock ache. She moved around his small room, often brushing against him since the space was so close, doing something with a basin of steaming water.
“What are you doing?” His voice had finally come most of the way back though it was more of a hoarse growl than its normal timbre.
“Getting ready to give you a bath.” Trin turned to face him, a friendly smile on her face. “I have to go away tomorrow and Sidna, our medic, is going to be looking after you. I want you to feel as comfortable and clean and happy as you can—under the circumstances.”
“Someone else is going to be touching me? Handling me?” Thrace didn’t like the surge of panic the news caused in his chest. He’d gotten used to Trin hooking him to the medi-bot—her hands on him no longer caused the flood of unclean memories that had threatened to drown him at first. But he didn’t want someone new—someone besides Trin—touching him while he was chained helplessly to the cot. Just the thought made his jaw clench and his entire body feel tight.