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“Okay, I’ll bite.”
“I do prefer biting over stabbing,” I tell her with a grin. Her glare has become permanent, but I like watching the way it changes shape, her mouth twisting, eyes narrowing, brows twitching. At the very least, I provokesomethingin her, even if she hasn’t fallen onto my cock with unbridled passion like I had hoped.
“If you’re telling the truth, and I have no reason to feel like I’m in danger, then why is the door locked?”
“A couple of reasons,” I reply. “First, I agreed to terms with my captain. He told me that if I intended to treat you as my personal guest, then you must be confined to my quarters like anything else belonging to me. And that, alternatively, if you were to be treated as plundered goods, you should be kept in the public access areas to be shared with the rest of the crew like any other useful good . . . Now, does that second option sound appealing to you? Because I don’t like the sound of sitting in the commons and growling at any male that looked at you twice.”
“I’m not sure how either of those options should make me feel safe here,” she snaps.
“You shouldn’t,” I say.
“But I’m not in danger? And I’m free? Do you see how the confusion and mistrust comes in?”
“You are with me; therefore, you are safe. When you are not with me, you stay in this room so that anyone with bright ideas about touching you will know that they will have me to reckon with if they follow through on their baser instincts.”
“This is the company you choose to keep,” she states flatly. “And how exactly are you different?”
“In many ways I am not. And many of these crew members would no doubt treat you with either respect or absolute indifference. But there are a few that I would not leave alone with any vulnerable female.”
She snorts. “Do I look vulnerable to you?
“Second reason,” I say, purposefully avoiding that loaded question, “is that you and I both know that your plan once you open that door will include some form of stealing from this ship. Whether you go find some stingers and money or you seek out an escape pod and make off with it. Whatever brilliant little plans have popped into your beautiful, diabolical head—”
“So, I’m vulnerableanddiabolical? Hm, I’m a woman with real depth.”
“I love it, really. I thank the spirit for it,korika, but anything you steal from this ship that doesn’t belong to me . . . I’ll be footing the bill for it in the end. And it seems you’ve already taken every credit I own.”
“Let me get this straight. When you found me, you were raiding a cargo hold that was presumably dropped when you attacked the ship I was on, and the only reason I’m not locked in some other pirate’s room is because you stole me first, but I’m the one that is in here for my own good so I don’t steal from your captain, a man that steals for a living on a regular basis?”
I blink, absorbing her quickly rattled summary.
“Essentially,” I agree. “Then there’s the mating call, but I’ve taken the hint that you don’t wish to discuss that matter.”
“Mating call,” she huffs. “You’re a liar. And that’s the worst lie of them all, an insult really that you expect me to believe it. How many has it actually worked on, huh? How many have dropped their panties because you told them you were their fated mate, the only woman in the galaxies that you would ever love?”
I had been having fun with this exchange until now. I know it’s wrong to find amusement in the back and forth, because it seems my mate really believes she needs to escape me. But now, hearing her talk of the sacred bond so derisively, the fun is fading away.
“I might be a thief and yes, I am a decent liar, but you must believe me when I say that every Kar’Kali male waits their entire life just passing the time until theirkorikaarrives. That is, if they are so lucky to experience the mating fever. It is sacred to my people. A simple search on any system will qualify what I’m telling you as the truth.”
She hesitates.
“I only lied to you out of necessity,” I remind her. “If you had your way, I’d be bleeding from my cock. You lied to me, telling me you’d spare my life.”
“You wouldn’t have died,” she mutters. “No one bleeds out from a dick wound.”
“You don’t know big my cock is,” I say, grinning once again. “And with you making demands and pointing that weapon around . . . I’m male enough to admit all my blood was in southern regions at the sight of you.”
“I should stun you again, just for that,” she says. “So what’s your plan, then? Keep me in here forever until I’m so riddled with Stockholm Syndrome that I stop trying to escape?”
“I don’t have any sexually transmitted diseases,” I tell her, although I’ve never heard of one that would make her fall in love with me. This “Stockholm Syndrome” must be unique to her planet. “Honest. And the captain runs a clean ship, requires regular medbot visits.”
She just looks at me like I’m the insane one here.
“Anyways, I had hoped to get to know you before we make plans for the future,ti kori,” I say, ignoring the return of her angry glaring. “At first, I thought I might be headed for a miner’s job or saving up for a plot on a cozy colony, but now that I’ve seen you in action, the pirate’s life might suit you fine.”
She opens her mouth, no doubt to start spewing arguments at me, but I keep talking.
“We can’t stay on this ship,” I tell her. “This captain only hires single males. We’ll be dropped off at the closest station.”
