No Rules

Book 3: Illustra

by Jenna McCormick

Genres: Erotic & Steamy Romance; Paranormal Romance

Synopsis

Games of chance, worlds of desire. . . Nowhere To Run Light years from home in a world where everything is unfamiliar, Alison Cartwright barely recognizes her own self. But dressing and acting as a pleasure companion is the only way she can stay ahead of the assassin marking her every move. And with seduction the name of the game, she'll do whatever it takes to survive. . . Del Fenton has enough troubles without getting aroused by the sexy siren across from him at the gaming table. He's determined to keep a promise to his sister and can't allow lust to get in the way. But temptation is strong and his body is hungry. Just one touch, that's all he needs. . .. This book contains adult content.

Release date: September 1, 2013

Publisher: Aphrodisia

Print pages: 273

Sample

Alison Cartwright missed many things about her life as an Illustra executive. Her personal vehicle—a Pegasus EXC that could break the sound barrier and came in a sexy cherry red with buttersoft leather seats. The apartment overlooking New Central Park and the self-sustaining smart house on Martha’s Vineyard she’d purchased when she’d been promoted from pleasure companion to management. She longed for her wardrobe containing designer suits, cocktail dresses, and hand-painted undergarments for every occasion from demure to dominatrix. And her shoes—all the latest styles in every color of the rainbow—some she’d never even worn.

But more than anything else, Alison missed her perfect body. Staring at her reflection in the dingy bathroom mirror, she assessed the changes. Her lip curled when she saw that not only was the cellulite back on her stomach, hips, ass, and thighs, it’d brought friends and was having a kegger. The carefully sculpted six-pack was long gone, as was the glorious definition in her shoulders, biceps, and calf muscles that she’d paid contouring surgeons a pretty penny for every three months like clockwork.

The damage wasn’t just to her body either. Her face showed lines of strain and anxiety, her lighter blond highlights had completely faded, and her hair had returned to its original dirty dishwater color, stuck in some gawd-awful limbo between blond and brown. She hadn’t had a decent cut in months and the layers had grown in raggedy. Picking up a strand, she couldn’t suppress a grimace at the texture. Limper than a whisky dick at last call.

She’d gone from a high-maintenance demigoddess to stressed-out soccer mom, complete with lumpy, dumpy tennis ball butt. The only things missing were the hole-riddled sweats and the minivan full of urchins.

How the hell was she supposed to seduce a wealthy man looking like something the cat dragged in, shat upon, and then abandoned? Assuming a decent man ever came to this armpit of the universe. She’d been stuck on Pental for over a month and hadn’t seen one yet.

The johns who blew through here, hoping to score at the demjong tables, were usually one-shot wonders, with no money for much more than a consolation quickie. She’d lost count of how many hand jobs she’d given while sweaty, grimy men with eighty-proof breath pawed her. No one had purchased her services for the entire night in weeks. It was one thing to be a whore, another entirely to feel like a desperate one.

In her darker moments, she wished Illustra’s assassin would hurry up and put her out of her misery.

She shivered as she recalled her last encounter with the assassin. He hadn’t physically touched her, but icy tentacles had wrapped around her major organs and squeezed, giving her a taste of his power. It was a dish she never wanted to sample again, no matter how ugly she became or how many losers she had to jack off.

Using the bucket of tepid water she’d dragged up to her one-room rental, she washed herself as best she could and tried not to think about the clean efficiency of a sonic shower back on Earth. She was never able to completely remove the slick oil Madam Brizella had given her. Some of it saturated her hair until it clung to her shoulders. She left it there. With nothing to secure it back it would only stick again every time she moved.

The collar went around her throat next, the mark of a woman for sale. The corner of her shirt—or at least what passed for a shirt—was secured to the collar right at the hollow of her throat. From there the shiny fabric skimmed over her breasts and abdomen until another corner tucked into her utility belt, containing the tricks of her trade. She secured the other corners at her sides with some glue-like substance, which she would have to reapply after every tumble, at least if her patron paid to see her breasts.

Most didn’t want to cough up for that pleasure, were content to grope her through the fabric. She tried not to take it personally, but the girls were hanging lower than they had even a year ago. Wishing she’d invested in an augmentation to perk them up now was a waste of time. She needed to focus on the positive.

She was still alive. Had money for a little food and a safe, warm place to sleep. She was surviving, if not really living.

Ignoring the wild bush at the juncture of her thighs, she fastened the metal panels to her waistband. Luckily she’d had the hair on her underarms and legs genetically demolished so those areas were smooth, but she couldn’t get past the idea of having a highly concentrated genetic beam zapping away anywhere near her pussy. The hair was there to stay. Though the panels reached down to her ankles, the way they shifted as she moved exposed her every imperfection.

Once dressed, she started smoothing the oil over her exposed skin. One of the other working girls would coat her bare back before she hit the floor, but she wouldn’t seek them out until the last second. Despite her constant loneliness, Alison avoided spending time with the other ladies of the night. They were nosy, asked too many questions, and she had too many secrets to hide. Better they think her a stuck-up bitch than for one of the working girls to whisper her name in the wrong ear.

Leaning close to the mirror, she studied her face again. Her meager makeup box wasn’t designed to fix damage of this nature. She had nothing to adequately cover the age spot beneath her right eye or smooth the fine lines at the corners of her mouth. In this part of the galaxy, whores had no power, no money, and very little hope.

An aging whore was just plain screwed.

“Think positive. Visualize a rich man taking me away from all this,” she instructed her haggard reflection. It didn’t seem impressed so she turned and headed down the rickety staircase to the ground floor of the brothel, the panels of her skirt clinking with every step.

“Alien girl, come here!” Brizella, the proprietor of the gaming hell, beckoned her over with a frantic wave of her bejeweled sausage fingers. Brizella’s translator chip was faulty at best, definitely an older model, but Alison had learned to catch the gist of what she said.

She wasn’t sure exactly what species the madam was, her purple-tinted skin was unique and she resembled a toad more than a person. “I have special man for you tonight.”

Brizella’s definition of “special” resided on the opposite end of the spectrum from Alison’s. Most of the gamblers were humanoid, even if certain parts were relocated. “Missing limb? Testicles on his chin?” she guessed as the madam dragged her down the pokey hallway behind the casino. Sounds of talk and masculine laughter filled the air, and Brizella pulled back a shimmering tapestry to reveal the low lights of the main room.

“There!” Brizella pointed at the closest demjong table. “He is most famous patron; family owns half of the Tibiath System. He likes the exotic girls, like you.”

Alison had no idea where the Tibiath System was located and honestly didn’t care as long as it was a long way from Pental. She’d remained here too long already. Following the madam’s bulky digit to the source of her excitement, she studied the players, hunkered down over their cards. Unlike yugnie, demjong was a game of skill, not chance. Alison had picked up enough to know it was some complex form of poker, though the images on the cards made no sense to her, as they held no numerical value.

Though the table was crowded, she caught a glimpse of a dark head bent low over his cards. His profile was hard, as though carved from the dead surface of the moon they occupied, and though his shoulders were rounded, she got the impression he was only feigning relaxation. A predator lying in wait for the perfect moment to pounce.

The man to his right said something and he turned toward her.

Alison took an instinctive step back as a pair of icy blue eyes swung her direction. Bam! She couldn’t remember the last time she’d experienced such an instant attraction. Desire pooled low in her belly as he held her gaze with his. The feeling was so foreign, she almost didn’t recognize it.

He was horrifically scarred. A nasty jagged line ran along the left side of his face, giving him an almost sinister look. But the truly frightening thing about him was his unwavering focus on her, a cold precision so intense it practically burned her with frost, even as her body warmed from the inside out.

He eyed her up and down, his attention lingering on her lips, her breasts, and the skin exposed between the metal panels. He hid it well, but she saw his flare of interest, as molten and unstable as her own. This powerful and alluring man wanted her imperfect body, the same way she wanted his.

Abruptly, he turned back to his cards and she started as she realized he was shielding his ruined face from her gaze. Feminine power jolted her, another long-forgotten friend she greeted eagerly. The feeling was why she’d become a pleasure companion in the first place, to experience such a strong desire focused on her and her alone. The blue-eyed stranger was a far cry from the dregs she’d been servicing to survive. Hell, he was more appealing than most of her regulars back on Earth.

She wondered if he was any good in bed. Handsome men rarely were, too used to being fawned over to bother learning how to please a woman. And this one had money as well as his striking looks. No doubt she’d have to do all the work, but it might just be worth it to spend one night feeling the way she used to feel.

Desired.

“You go to him now,” Brizella urged, slathering the noxiously sweet oil across her back so her skin would glisten under the low lights.

Alison moved forward, then paused. “What’s his name?”

“Larshe,” the madam warbled. “Mig Larshe.”

Alison practiced saying it back a few times, to ensure she had the sound correct before moving forward. Her knees actually shook as she approached the table, the man. Perhaps her luck was changing.

He didn’t turn when she reached his side so she said, “Mig Larshe?”

“That’s me, beauty.”

She turned and faced the speaker, the man seated to the right of her scarred heartthrob. Pushing his chair back quickly he stood, only attaining eye level with her breasts. She fought to hide her disappointment. The scarred man wasn’t her target, this orange midget was. He was as wide as he was tall, bul-bously round like one of those dolls that got knocked down and bounced up again. Two tufts of deep green bushy hair stuck out over large ears with thick, hanging lobes. His teeth were sharp, almost like a tiger’s, and he eyed her lasciviously.

But he might be her ticket out of here.

Plastering a smile on her face, Alison moved toward him. Well, she’d asked for a wealthy patron and the universe had delivered. She hadn’t asked for a pulse-pounding sex god, so she had no right to be disappointed. As she kept reminding herself, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Without looking at the other player—the one she wanted—she bent low and greeted the man she needed. “Welcome to The Nebula. My name is Alison. Let me know if I can do anything to make your stay more pleasurable.”

The whore had been crying.

From his seat at the octagonal table, Fenton had an unobstructed view of the clean streak along the side of her face where her tears had washed her makeup away. He shuffled his cards, feigning pondering his next move in the game, when really all he wanted was to figure out why that clean streak captivated him.

Why she captivated him.

He’d made her as a working girl the second he’d felt her gaze roving over him. Even without her degrading outfit, she had that lean, hungry look Fenton associated with camp followers and women who sold their flesh to survive. When she’d approached, he’d been tempted to leave this important game to spend a few hours learning every dip and curve of her luscious body.

Then she’d asked for Mig—the little dung heap—and he’d tried to concentrate on the game. Tried to forget about her, which was damn near impossible with her seated on Larshe’s lap.

Her pale skin glowed in the low light of the casino floor like moonflowers. Though she was coated in some kind of oil, Fenton imagined her clean, dewy fresh from a bath. He’d seen one of her kind before, knew what planet she hailed from. The question was, what the hell was she doing out here on Pental, millions of light-years away from Earth?

“Get me another drink.” Mig slapped her bare back and she jumped up to refill his glass at the bar. Fenton tried to catch her gaze. He wanted to know more, to find out what she was doing here, so far from home. He wanted to help her.

“Del, my man. You gonna play those cards or just hold ’em all night?” Reed, his second-in-command, slapped the table, pulling his attention away from the whore.

“She’s quite the prize.” Mig tugged on one of his ear tufts and looked to where his paid companion had gone. “I was going to keep her all to myself, but what say you we raise the stakes?”

Fenton sat stock-still. He needed to win this game, needed the winnings to buy a new identity out of the Hosta System. And Mig, regardless of his personal flaws, had currency to burn. “What do you propose?”

The Hibariate studied the small fortune on the table in front of him, then Del’s meager pile. “You’re part of the old regime, are you not?”

“Xander’s dead. He no longer rules Hosta.” For which Fenton was eternally glad.

“Yes, yes, but I need someone to take me to the ruling planet, into the main palace.” Mig’s beady eyes gleamed. The whore returned with his drink, and he bade her stand beside him. “I’ll bet you the girl for a guided tour.”

She gasped and her gaze flew to Fenton’s. Her lips, colored unnaturally red, parted but she was well trained in her trade and knew better than to interrupt. Fenton forced himself not to react. Despite his wealth, Mig didn’t have enough money to force Fenton to return to the crown planet. No power in the galaxy would do that. So why was he considering making the bet?

“Why would I do that when I have more than enough to buy my own bedmate?” Fenton cocked an eyebrow at the pile before him.

“Because she’s unique. And all mine.” Mig held his gaze as he gripped her arm, bringing it to his lips, sinking his teeth in. She cried out in pain, but didn’t pull away, just closed her eyes and endured it. Fenton knew that if he lost, or didn’t take the bet, Mig would sink those teeth into her tender flesh over and over, getting off on her pain, as Hibariates customarily did. By morning she’d look like a chew toy.

Fenton made the mistake of looking at her face again, his mind superimposing the bastard’s bite across her creamy flesh. He’d betrayed one human woman, leaving her to a cruel fate. He hadn’t been able to help her any more than he could save his own family. Late at night he saw their faces as the guilt pressed down on him, crushing his lungs until he couldn’t take a deep breath. At the time he’d had another, higher priority concern and no alternative. Would the whore’s face haunt him too?

But he couldn’t cave so easily. “All in or no deal.”

Mig released her arm and she snatched it back, her breasts rising and falling quickly as she looked from him to her tormentor and back again. Mig ignored her, though her blood still coated his lips, and studied his credit chips. “I have over a million drachmas here.”

It would have to be enough. “Those are my terms. Take it or leave it.”

Reed whistled low and placed his cards facedown. “Too rich for my blood. Think I’ll rustle up some company of my own. See you in the morning, Del.”

Fenton nodded once. If Lady Luck was on his side, he would never see Reed again.

Mig studied him and he blanked his mind as he stared back, the moment stretching out endlessly.

“Agreed. All in and the girl, for a guide to the palace on Hosta and back again.” Mig pushed his drachmas to the middle of the table. “Let’s see your cards.”

Fenton pushed his own neatly regimented stacks forward. “Your grand idea, you go first.”

Mig licked his lip. The whore held her breath. He winked at her as he laid down a glider streak, with a Regent on high. “Sorry, buck-o, only one hand beats that.”

Fenton stared at the cards impassively. “You’re right.” He looked up at the woman. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” Clutching her injured arm, she wavered on her feet.

Laying down his cards without any theatrics, he continued, “Sorry, but you’ve had a change of plans this evening.”

“Impossible!” The Hibariate raged as he studied the complete cataclysm, Overlord to Slave. “The odds of drawing that hand are astronomical! You must have cheated!”

Fenton was already on his feet, with his arm around the woman. “Careful, Mig. I’m part of the military contingent here on Pental. Accusing a soldier of cheating is the equivalent of issuing a dueling challenge. And I am an expert marksman.”

The Hibariate seethed as Fenton led the whore to the cash-out table. Issuing an order to have his winnings transferred to his credit account, he then retrieved his coat. “Do you have a cloak?”

“Upstairs.” Her voice was faint.

Absently touching the scar along the side of his face, he muttered, “You don’t have to come home with me. He’s paid for you either way.”

She pulled herself up out of her daze, squared her shoulders, and extended a hand to him. “My name’s Alison.”

“Alison.” He brought her thin, white hand to his lips, enjoying the smooth texture of her soft skin. “The pleasure’s all mine.”

Though she knew better than to leave the casino with a john, Alison didn’t look back as Del Fenton led her out of the main gambling area, toward the exit. Staying at the brothel didn’t seem like the best course of action anymore. Her heart still pounded frantically after her near miss with the little bastard and his shark-like teeth. She cradled her aching arm against her chest. Fenton draped his coat around her shoulders and took her uninjured hand in his as he led her out the door into the street. She didn’t know why he was being so nice to her—it certainly wasn’t common on Pental for a man to treat a whore with respect—but she was smart enough to accept it for an hour, a night, a year, or however long it lasted.

He’d just won a million credits. By Alison’s recently reassessed standards of care, he could afford to keep her for a very, very long time. Ignoring the part of her that chafed at the thought of being kept by any man, she set her sights on doing her damndest to make sure she made herself worth his trouble. Pride had no place in a game of survival.

“Thank you for saving me. When Madam Brizella told me to entertain him, I had no idea what he would be like.”

Fenton released her hand and she immediately missed the warmth. “Brizella is one of the only madams who will cater to Mig and his unusual . . . appetites. She’s always looking for new blood to throw his way, because he can pay for it. With diplomatic immunity, the military can’t stop him. I’m surprised her girls didn’t warn you that Hibariates enjoy inflicting pain during mating.”

“They don’t like me very much.” Her own fault. If she’d just made friends with the other prostitutes she would have been warned about the sharp-toothed troll. Making female friends had never been her strong suit, especially now that she had so many things to hide.

Fenton didn’t answer her as they made their way through a steamy alley jammed with vendors hawking food and souvenirs to the visitors. The air in the atmosphere dome was full of spice and frenetic energy. Alison hadn’t spent much time outside, and she drank in the bustle and buzz of life happening all around her. In a way it reminded her of New New York, and a pang of homesickness made her oblivious to the cracks in the sidewalk. She stumbled and would have gone sprawling if he hadn’t caught her.

“Careful.” Fenton’s solid grip held her up. He didn’t linger, just made sure she was steady before turning to resume his course. His shoulders took up almost the entire span of the narrow walkway between the carts and she pressed deeper into his side. Safety was an illusion, but right now she needed to trust somebody at least a little bit. The man had gone out of his way for her, and she figured he would continue to do so, at least until he got what he wanted.

An entire night with him. Her body tingled in anticipation. Hopefully he’d let her patch her arm up before he set in on her, but she wouldn’t complain either way. Once activated, her germ shield would eradicate anything that might lead to an infection, as well as protect her from sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.

“You just flinched.” She started, unaware that he’d been watching her. Fenton didn’t require an explanation but his eyes asked the question.

“Just a random thought. The worst-case scenario.” A baby was about the only thing that would make her life harder. Even the thought of a child made her twitchy.

“I won’t hurt you.” Those icy eyes assessed her. “By the looks of you, you’ve been hurt enough.”

It was almost impossible not to take offense to that. Alison was a realist, but knowing she looked like hell and hearing a potential lover say so were on opposite ends of the universe. What was she expecting anyway? Fenton said he was a soldier and he’d saved her ass. Envisioning him sweet-talking her into bed w. . .