Read Online Thrill-Kinky by Teresa Noelle Roberts - Free Book Online

couldn’t name, weren’t aching, Drax would have enjoyed it. It had been over a decade since he’d taken a joyride on a boosted zipbike with a pretty girl. He’d boosted someone’s luxury skyyacht recently, sure, and the guy’s gorgeous, expensive mistress with it, but that had been to get Drax, and information that would prevent a war, off a dangerous planet, and even with his peculiar wiring, he’d been too anxious to enjoy the ride. The mistress, far from falling into his arms like an actress in a mediocre holo-drama, had tried to kill Drax until she remembered she didn’t know how to land the damn thing and killing him would effectively kill her too. It hadn’t been a fun trip.
    This could have been. Even under the circumstances, he was enjoying the ride a bit, though he would have been happier if he’d been pressed against Rita.
    He would have been a lot happier if he hadn’t hurt quite so much.
    How could something that traveled above the ground hit bumps? Logically it couldn’t, but the faster Xia pushed the zipbike, the more it felt like it did.
    Xia turned abruptly to avoid a drunken pedestrian and clipped one of the incised boulders that the San’balese used as public art. She managed to keep the bike upright—felinoid reflexes were notoriously good—but the impact jarred every inch of Drax’s battered body.
    Which obliged him by deciding this might be a good time to pass out.

Chapter Six
    “What in a marling black-hole hell is going on?” Mik roared. “You lost the floater, you dumped the cargo, we’ve got a complete stranger bleeding all over my ship, and Xia stole something large this time. Rita, you have two seconds to explain yourself before I space you and your decorative but criminal friend.” Mik had an impressive roar, especially considering he wasn’t a very big man. To Rita’s quiet amusement, Drax jumped when he heard it.
    Not in a way anyone else would notice, but with her hand on his bare back, she could feel the slight twitch of his skin as he tried to pretend he wasn’t startled.
    “Gotta be in space before you can space someone, Captain,” she said calmly, “and we’re sitting on the ground at the spaceport at the moment. Not to mention, I’m the only person on this ship who can get the airlock open and I’ll quit if you order me to space someone. Especially if it’s me.”
    Mik couldn’t help himself, apparently: he smiled at that, and the smile lit up his narrow dark face. “I’d hate to lose a good mechanic. So tell me why I shouldn’t have to—and who is this positively lovely stranger who’s eating half our provisions after decimating our med-kit?”
    Rita opened her mouth to answer. She knew how to deal with Mik, knew that he’d understand when she explained the situation. If she’d crashed the floater, or just misplaced it after a wild night, that would be one thing. But armed pursuit was another story. And armed pursuit by people who were cheating the crew as well as trying to kill Drax? No question that he’d back her decision.
    She had the words put together in a way that Mik would understand and accept. But Drax, weak as he was at the moment, beat her to it. “Your crew member saved my life, sir. In the process, she managed to stumble into an incident involving interplanetary art theft and espionage—an incident in which the Malcolm may be inadvertently involved.” His voice was rich, cultured, smoothstyle. He sounded like a diplomat, or maybe a spy who could play diplomat. Certainly not like someone she’d pulled out of a recycling bin only a few hours ago.
    The words, and the smoothstyle accent, certainly got Mik’s attention. The last time Rita had seen him looking that flabbergasted, the hold of the ship was full of kittens thanks to Xia, who’d managed to seduce a security guard at an interplanetary cat show into helping her “rescue her little cousins”.
    Except Mik always found it hard to keep a serious face when he was trying to fix