It was true he’d been chaste since his wife and son died of the plague. It was true that he, Sassik, should not be bothering these men. Except, he also knew what Boda was capable of, no matter how calm he seemed.
He was too tired for this and should’ve walked by.
People were likely to get shot.
If he were being truthful, her naked ass when she squirmed over into the driver’s position had sparked his interest. The five fools hadn’t noticed, being too intent on the threat he posed.
Fine. He hefted his long gun.
“You know me, Boda. This is not worth arguing over.”
Boda inclined his head. “I know you.” The other men shifted their feet.
“It can go like this. I pay you everything I own, or I shoot, you shoot, men get torn up, I walk away with her anyway, if bloodied.” He paused. That none of them leapt into action was telling. His reputation was having an effect.
“You want to pay us what?” Boda smiled thinly. “Why?”
A short blond man with an eyelid scar began, “Boda, I want to fu—”
“Quiet. Go on, Sassik. Why?”
“Truth is easy. I’m done with this chaos.” He shrugged, and indicated the battleground with a chin jerk. “I’ve no family. Our esteemed leader, Osta, has vanished. The future bothers me. I’m going to the Chasm to find guidance. Money...” He grimaced. “Doesn’t concern me anymore. I’ll give you the password to my vault at Inuka and you know I’m good for over tenK worth. You can buy a lot with that. Only thing I want is her and this truck.”
“The truck too?” Boda’s forehead furrowed but he smirked and looked down.
In a time past, that look away would’ve had Sassik attacking. Not today. Even so, his hands were ready to smack in someone’s skull with the good end of his long gun, Leassa.
“The truck too. It’s not yours anyway. You can find others here more easily than I can with a girl in tow.” There was another thing he could sweeten the deal with. “If you want to fuck a human, there’s one in the grounder town of Manua.” His money would pay for that a thousand times over.
“Manua? Huh. All you’ve saved for years?”
“Except the coin I have on me.”
“In blood. Sign the password in blood and we have a deal. Correct?”
Three others agreed, one by one.
“Fuck,” the short man muttered and spat. Another man scowled at him. “I guess though, sure.”
“Deal. I’ll sign in blood. Excuse me.” The truck’s engine roared and the vehicle jerked forward.
Boda slewed around and spotted the girl. He grinned. “Oops. She has ideas. You bought her...”
Sassik dodged around the men and in two strides was at the driver’s door. Though she saw him, there was little she could do. He yanked open the door, hauled her out, and pinned her while he retied her hands and feet in a hogtied position. Uncomfortable, but hard to undo.
“Stay,” he admonished, leaning over her. The girl almost snarled.
“What are you doing with this one if you’re not keen on fucking anymore?” Boda asked from close behind his shoulder.
“I’ll sell her to someone less greedy than you lot. You want me to sign this in blood?” He leaned Leassa against the truck’s side. “Let’s do it fast. If the Mekkers get more Ramms into the air we’ll be sizzled meat. Paper?”
“Haven’t got any. Any of you?”
“These.” Grinning, the short one dangled a pair of white underwear. “Sign the deal on her panties.”
Sassik resisted rolling his eyes. Dirt was ground into those. It made him wonder what these assholes had already made her do.
Though Boda grumbled, he pulled out a pen and wrote, cut his finger and pressed a print to the cloth. “Here, Sassik. Sign.”
Blood meant no going back, for any of them, not without nasty consequences. He nicked his fingertip and inscribed his name. “We all need to get out of here.” He saluted them with his knife. “See you in the stars, if not before.”
“Yep.” After grabbing his gun, Boda winked. “You want to stay chaste, don’t look at her ass.”
He watched them jog off before stowing the disgruntled girl on the long passenger seat, with her head at the door end. He did a jump-slide over the hood to the driver’s side, installed himself, then shook his head at the sight of her.
“Cramped as a fish in a can.” He leaned over and cut the link between her bound hands and her ankles.
She groaned softly and stretched her arms, arched her spine. Sassik frowned. At the small of her back, her fingers flexed and extended. He loved the look of the black cord twined across her skin.
Don’t look at her ass? Sure.
“Too late,” he muttered.
And damn, it was nice.
Mourning was long over. He’d chosen to remain chaste and wasn’t compelled. Maybe it was time to do something about that. He owned her.
“I thought you’d let me go? Please?” She craned her head around.
Her eyes were so big he could fall in there forever. The curves of her eyebrows, of her cheekbones, of her neck, she was definitely the prettiest thing he’d owned. Not that he’d ever owned a human. Rare things.
“I bought you. Never said I meant to free you, just saving you from trauma.” He turned on the engine and guided the truck forward. Some Scav had driven it in here so he was sure he could sneak it out through this long, concealed trail. “I’ll find you a good owner and then I’m done with you.”
“You paid over all your money to those...men.” Derision dripped off the word. “Just to sell me. Why?”
“Money doesn’t interest me.” What did it matter if he said this, to her? “The dead on that battlefield, and all for little gain, it sickened me.” His family gone too, it’d set the stage for this, he guessed. Tired of all the crap. He wanted direction. Somewhere to aim for that was meaningful.
“Huh. Then let me go. Good Samaritan points galore.”
“What’re those?” He shook his head, lifted a finger off the wheel to point. “You, out there? By yourself? No. I’ll find you a good man.”
“Fuck you,” she muttered.
He reached over and grabbed her ass, squeezed until she squealed. “No cursing me. Not unless you want punishment.”
Her gaze was almost lethal. The shirt she wore had crept up above her navel, revealing her stomach. Licking that...
He looked away, annoyed. He needed to negotiate the irregular ground and shouldn’t be looking at her...his purchase. He’d deal with her anger if it became a problem but, if anything was a problem it was her rear end.
Boda got that part right.
Once he’d navigated his way out of the danger area, he placed his hand on her again, and casually stroked the skin where marks from his pinching showed. He’d never owned a slave. The reality of having her lying there beside him in only a bunched-up shirt, with her legs together but showing off her slit, it was causing problems – a hard-on that likely wouldn’t go away for days.
She muttered something.
“What’d you say?”
“You never killed anyone. None of those dicks back there.”
“No. Not my way. They were scared enough to bargain. Got what I wanted.”
“Scared?”
“I’m big. I shoot straight. I’ve killed when I had to. A reputation’s worth a lot of bullets.”
She fell silent and he wondered what she was thinking, but wasn’t ready to ask. So he told her things instead.
“I heard humans are from another world. The Mekkers brought you here using some new science, which is why you all have bright hair and nails?” She still said nothing. “What’s your name?”
“I’m...Blue.”
“A color? Like your hair?”
“Yes, a color. I didn’t plan on matching hair to name.”
“Okay. Well, Blue, my name is Sassik.”
He took a second to correct the steering as they went over the ridge at the edge of an ancient road. Now he knew where he was. There weren’t many roads. This one was mostly made of holes but it led to Peko. There was a leathersmith in Peko.
“One thing you need to remember, here in Scav and grounder lands, humans stand out. They end up owned because you have attributes that are valued.”
Cock-exploding ones. His own swelled at the idea of burying itself in her. Damn thing.
Blue grunted, seeming to stare under the dash. Not good news for her, though he’d said a truth.
“I’m the good side. Boda and company are average. There’s worse you could end up with, if you were loose.”
“You think I’m your slave?” she said dully.
“Until I find you a new owner. You aren’t free here, and can’t be.”
“The Mekkers messed up my languages. Sometimes I can’t tell what’s a word from here and what’s one from home. Like curse words. I hear fuck in English but it’s also that in the words here, which can’t be right. Anyway, there’s a whole lot of those words I’d like to use right now.”
But she didn’t say any.
Sassik grinned at how she’d expressed her frustration without actually cursing. He understood. If he were her, yeah, same sentiment. He stopped the truck, shrugged off his jacket, took a last long peek at her and sighed. Then he laid the jacket over her rear end.
“Thank you.”
He steered back onto the road. “Wasn’t for your sake. Was for mine.”
He preferred his fucks a little less snarly, but he was a man. With that cunt staring at him for miles, he’d go crazy and do something he didn’t want to...sort of.
They hit Peko late that day and he used some of his coin to buy her panties then visited the leathersmith. The shop was quiet apart from a lean young man in gray pants and long-sleeved shirt, who studied them both a little too much as the door banged shut behind Sassik.
He had Blue in only her shirt, with her hands roped at the front, which was admittedly leaving her bottom partly poking out at the rear. Some slaves wore less. Maybe it was that petulant if cute pair of pretty lips that’d attracted him? They stuck out and looked fairly kissable, even with her death glare.
“You okay there, sir?”
The man in gray shrugged and went back to handling an animal harness. The walls were hung with plentiful merchandise.
He picked out a leash, a red collar, cuffs, and a slave harness, in case he needed to restrain her. The gods knew it was likely with her attitude. A physician would need to be found to remove her Mekker collar. Then he chose a red-and-black skirt that’d just cover her ass and a matching bandeau top.
That he was near salivating at the thought of her dressed in these boded poorly for when he sold her.
Such was life. He handed her the clothes.
“Get dressed.” He untied her hands and strapped on the wrist cuffs then the ankle ones. Going to one knee to do that put him on a level with her most intimate and naked anatomy. The little wedge of hair leading down drew his eye.
“Damn, I’m tempted to take you outside and lick you all over.”
From her intake of breath and stare, she took that as a threat. He wasn’t inclined to clear up the misconception.
She cleared her throat. “Your hand is on my thigh.”
“Yes.”
“Where do I get changed?”
“Here.”
“I’m used to privacy.”
The red flush creeping over her face amused him. He moved his hand over her leg, sliding his palm over her skin as it left where it wanted to be. He exhaled slowly, feeling the fire build in his blood. Even touching her was near orgasmic.
Having her sit on him might blow more than his cock. His chasteness was no longer an issue, it was the wrongness he felt whenever he considered simply taking her – which was not normal.
“I need to teach you how to refer to me. Sassik will do. Use it regularly. I’m used to privacy, Sassik. Respect, girl.” He stood, waited.
“Oh. Um.” Her blush reached the deepest shade. “I’m used to privacy, Sassik.”
“Good.”
What was the man’s name? “Lator! Where she can change without us watching?”
“Out back. Stockroom?” The leathersmith grinned. “You sure she can’t do it here? Slave, right?”
The man had a point. Sassik shook off his doubts and indicated the door. “Go. Be quick.”
She scampered through the door and closed it.
“I heard you Scavs attacked a swathe of landships?”
Sassik eyed the craftsman. It was news already. “Yes. Osta led us. He’s gone.”
“You didn’t win, did you? There’ll be a cost. The Mekkers will make someone pay.”
“We didn’t lose either. The swathe ships never change route. Not since the war. Hundreds of years, it’s been. They mine as they go, they trade, they keep inside their ships, unless they decide you’re worth killing. If you’re off their path, you’re fine.”
The gray-dressed man spoke up. “You never know what may change. The future is mutable.”
An odd comment. Sassik only grunted. Lator looked worried.
He occupied himself paying then perusing wares, until the gray-clad stranger walked closer and said, “She’s escaping. Heard the window open and her jump down.”
Perplexed, Sassik hesitated. “You couldn’t have.”
The man shrugged.
He raised his voice. “Is there a window, sir? One she might squeeze through?”
“I ...guess, it is possible?” The leathersmith sounded contrite, already.
“Fuck.” He snatched up Leassa and sprinted outside.
He found Blue in the dead-end alley behind the shop.
“Going somewhere?” He let Leassa hang loose.
She backed against the old wall. Cornered, with her cute mouth downturned. The fevered movement of her breasts made the twisted leather top look like it’d burst her tits out of there any second. Hypnotizing.
Three yards high, that wall, so he didn’t expect her to jump. She did. And made it to the top. If it wasn’t for his fingers snagging the ankle cuff, she’d have climbed over.
He dragged her back down, caught her as she fell. Despite her frantic attempt to struggle loose, he brought her cuffs behind her back and clicked them together. Then he shoved her to the wall, caged her with his arms planted either side of her, and glowered...a nice annoyed monster from the depths glower.
“Did you not hear anything I said to you?”
“Ummm.”
How did she make ummm so sexy?
“You didn’t hear?” He towed her to where boxes were stacked at various heights, sat on one, and pulled her belly down over his knee.
The first smack hit leather skirt and that was obviously not effective. He flipped up the skirt, rolled the panties down a tad, swallowed his awe, and proceeded to deliver ten hard smacks to her ass. Her yelps were pleasing, as was the redness on those previously smooth and pristine cheeks.
Sassik paused. He shouldn’t be breathless. This shouldn’t be such hard work.
But...
Those red panties. That fresh line of darkness on the cloth. She was wetting through the crotch. He thought about all the things he could do with Blue over his lap and her hands tied.
“How’re you doing down there?”
Her fingers opened, clenched. Her blue hair swished on the paving and his pants as she turned her head.
Silence reigned, but he could hear her breathing, slow but ragged, as if she were holding her response in tight.
He placed his hand between her legs and traced the wet line on the panties, up and down, pressing in with his forefinger. “What’s this? Is your lesson learned?”