Page 18 of The Captain’s Bounty (The Collectors #2)

He needed to go back to his room, see if Lissa was still there and, assuming she didn’t need him to bust her delectable little ass again, he probably ought to take care of her.

He checked the time. He’d lost hours in Reformation.

Lissa was probably hungry again. He needed to bring her something to eat and drink, make sure she had everything she needed…

from her place on his bed, maybe with a nice leash around her neck.

And here he thought his cock couldn’t possibly get any harder.

Fuck, he had to stop thinking like this.

His arms shook as he climbed off the floor. When he reached the kitchen, though, it wasn’t empty. He almost kept going, but stronger than his desire not to have to fence off questions, was that annoying need to take care of his Bounty.

Everyone was gathered around the same table, all of them hunched together—Cory, the Doc, Aldar, Kyiel and Vullum. They immediately stopped talking the moment he entered, which only made their hushed conversation of moments before that much more obvious.

“Why are we whispering?” he asked, pretending it didn’t bother him, but already his blood was tingling. Every nerve spiked, feeding that prickling at the back of his head, the one that insisted something was wrong.

“Bruwes!” Vullum announced in cheerful greeting.

“What is this?” he demanded this time.

“We were just reminiscing about old days,” Aldar said, drinking from his cup.

“What old days?”

“Product running,” Kyiel supplied. “How this kind of feels… you know… like Product running.”

“She’s not Product, she’s a bounty.”

“Yes, yes, we know.” Vullum waved him to sit down.

Reluctantly, Bruwes took another few steps towards the table, but stopped just shy of being close enough to join them. “So why the private meeting?”

“It’s not a private meeting,” Aldar scoffed. “We’re eating and talking.”

Kyiel leaned towards him, hands on the table, his gaze half curious and intent. “Be honest, though. Doesn’t it feel a little like that to you? Like it did during that last run. You know, with Cory. When everything went wrong?”

“Thanks a lot.” Cory flashed him a disgruntled look. “You kidnapped me, remember? Things should go wrong.”

“That’s enough.” Doc raised a hand and his mate resettled at once, scowling at Kyiel even as she leaned into Demin’s side.

The sight struck a different chord with Bruwes, one of yearning. Watching them together made him wish he were with Lissa.

He looked away. “There’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing.”

“Except that we’re all lazy birds without a working jump coil,” Aldar said, taking a sip from his cup.

“Sitting ducks,” Cory corrected. “The phrase is sitting ducks.”

Saying nothing, Aldar took another sip.

Bruwes agreed with him. It didn’t matter what the phrase was. They were still a crippled ship limping through space, hoping they got where they were headed without attracting the attention of any of the many scavengers salvaging the thick belt of junk orbiting both Cutirut and its moon.

He was almost distracted by these thoughts—who was on navi-comm and how were they going to navigate said junk-belt with nothing but docking thrusters?— but then Vullum had to go and ask, “Does she smell? You know. That smell.”

His eyes burned. Did they just flash red? Was it noticeable? For all that he was determined to be calm, he’d been on the verge of Rage practically from the moment he met Lissa. Having the randiest member of his crew ask after her in such a coarse way was enough to rile his temper all over again.

“No,” he lied.

Nobody believed him. They just leaned back in their chairs and stared at him, all except for Vullum, who smirked.

“She does, doesn’t she?” he said. “She has a scent just like Cory. God!”

“I do not stink!” Cory said, offended.

“Nobody said you did,” Doc soothed.

“I wouldn’t call it a bad smell,” Vullum corrected himself. “More like a… a perfume you can’t get out of your nose. A scent you ache to bend over the table and fuck.”

Bruwes took a step before he realized he intended to move. Kelys jumped up, hands held up to stop him from going after their shipmate. Vullum started laughing, and the only reason Bruwes didn’t go over the top of the table and after him was because Doc grabbed his arm.

“Let it go,” he soothed. “Let it go and give her to Cory to care for. You shouldn’t be keeping her in your room anyway. Especially since Medibay is a mess, and I don’t have a tube anymore to put you in if you go into full-blown Rage. Find your calm.”

Bruwes barely heard him. Everything was bright red no matter how hard he fought himself to calm. He took his breaths and struggled, willing his heart to slow again. Willing his breathing to smooth instead of seething huffs in and out of lungs now starting to burn.

“I am not keeping her for myself,” he growled.

Doc Demin arched his brow. “That’s not what I said.”

“Sure you are,” Vullum corrected them both. “Who could blame you? Hell, I’d keep her in my room too, if you’d let me.”

“She’s in my room because our brig won’t hold her!” And Vullum had a history of fucking anything that couldn’t move faster than he did.

Vullum scoffed. “Oh, that brig holds everyone.”

“Uh…” Cory held up a cautioning finger. “We all saw what she did on the dock, and Medibay is in pieces right now. So don’t be so sure about that.”

Bruwes ignored her. “No one we’ve ever had before has been able to shoot electricity out of their hands! She melted through the linkcuffs. She’ll melt right through the bars. She is dangerous!”

“So dangerous that you’re keeping her in your room ?” A tinge of resentment creeping into his voice, Vullum laughed. “You know, I’ve never mated anyone more dangerous than I was. What’s it like?”

Exhilarating.

Exciting.

Unlike anything Bruwes ever thought mating could be, and yet so far beyond what mere mating should be.

As if he would know.

He stepped back from the table, glaring at Vullum, the only one at this table… well, apart from Cory and the Doc… who had mating experience. At this point, he probably had more experience than all the rest of them put together.

And he was jealous, Bruwes realized. He envied Vullum’s easy lust and ability to just go out whenever they landed, find a female, and get her into bed.

Bruwes couldn’t do that. He’d didn’t see the sense in it.

Why get intimate with a woman he already knew he’d never see again?

Worse, why get intimate with a woman if all she really wanted from him was money?

Lissa didn’t want his money.

Lissa didn’t want him at all. She was only here because of the bounty on her head. A bounty he intended to collect, all but guaranteeing that he never saw her again.

He didn’t want to think about this. The last thing he needed was strife between himself and his shipmates. At the same time, just the thought of sharing guard duties, with Vullum in particular, was enough to make him see darker and darker shades of red. His eyes burned from it.

No way was he going to put Lissa in that man’s care.

Not that Vullum wouldn’t take care of her, but there was no doubt in Bruwes’s mind that he would also mount her.

Not forcibly, that wasn’t Vullum’s nature, but Bruwes had given Lissa two firm lessons in submission and she might not be picky about who she submitted to.

Bruwes could barely see past the fury of Lissa moaning beneath anyone but him, or past the realization that he was being completely unreasonable.

Lissa wasn’t his, but he wanted her.

He never should have mixed business with pleasure, and yet the minute he was in the room with her, her scent lured him to her and he just couldn’t help himself.

He had to stop, but he wasn’t sure he could. Not without losing control, and not without risking her life if he did.

And yet, without a working jump coil, the Raider was all but adrift, easy pickings for better pirates than they were. Even with a jump coil, they had no home-world or safe harbor to run to.

Turning Lissa over was his only option, no matter how alluring she was or how much he loved watching her yield to his authority. He ached for every chance he could steal to be close to her; he burned to take command of her small body.

When the time came, though, he would give all that up. He’d trade her to Corporate for the money to fix his ship, and probably spend the rest of his days resenting himself, the way Vullum resented him now, for making such a trade.

Bruwes shook his head and left the kitchen. When he saw Lissa again, he wouldn’t blame her if she destroyed him.