Hitting the Target Read online

  She cast a longing look at the bathing pool—which looked like a mini swimming pool and had tendrils of sweet-smelling steam rising off of it. But it also looked deep and she remembered what Trey had said about it being over her head. She didn’t need to end this stressful day by drowning.

  Sighing, she took off the dress and underclothes and went over to the shower instead. It was a kind that Mia had never seen, and she was surprised and pleased to find that it had six different showerheads that sprayed her tired body from every angle.

  The hot water felt wonderful and she scrubbed herself all over with some sweet-smelling liquid soap solution she found in a bottle with a tiny squirt nozzle. She even washed her long, black hair and squeezed the water out of it, letting it hang damp and clean around her back.

  The shower had one more trick that Trey had showed her. After turning off the water, she pressed a special button near the door. Immediately warm gusts of hot air started coming up from around her feet. Mia turned this way and that, letting them dry her almost completely, though her hair was still a little damp. Then she stepped out of the shower stall and found the uniform shirt Trey had left for her to wear.

  It was cool and silky and unexpectedly sensuous, rubbing against the pointed tips of her nipples in a way that made Mia shiver. The fabric was also surprisingly heavy and dense as it draped over her bare body. As expected, it was much too big but when she buttoned it up and rolled up the sleeves, she found it fit all right.

  She picked up the crumpled red-flowered dress and stepped out of the bathroom. She was just about to open the bedroom door and go climb into bed—she felt bone weary and the excellent dinner and warm shower had relaxed her wonderfully—when she heard that voice in her head again.

  What do you think you’re doing, Mia? Your job isn’t done yet—not nearly. That Kindred is out there in the living area and you’re supposed to seduce him. If you don’t and the Commandant finds out, who knows what he’ll do to Neemah? Get out there and do your job!

  The voice in her head was right and Mia knew it. Her work wasn’t finished for the night—she had to go and get the big Kindred to let her meet his needs. She had to seduce him.

  Except now that she thought about it, she had no idea how to go about seducing anybody. The lectures about sex and needs back in school hadn’t included any methods for enticing men. The school mistress who lectured Mia and the other girls in her class had implied that men with needs to be met would need no urging. Presumably they would just take what they needed, and the woman’s roll was to hold still and give whatever was required. But how could she go about meeting the big Kindred’s needs if he didn’t ask her to or simply take her the way the Commandant had attempted to do?

  The memory of that morning seemed far away now but still somehow so real it made her stomach clench. Mia tried to push it away. She told herself it would be different with Trey—he was so nice and he smelled so good—so warm and spicy. Surely it would be no hardship to meet his needs.

  But then the Commandant’s words came back to her. She remembered him saying that the Kindred were “absolutely huge in the cock department.”

  He’ll split you in half, whispered the nasty voice in her head. The Commandant said so. This is going to hurt, Mia—you’d better be prepared for that.

  The thought scared her so much she wanted to go into the bedroom and hide her head under the covers like she had when she was a little girl and thought ghosts might be in her closet. But another thought frightened her more—the thought of Neemah being put out into the street because the Commandant didn’t see any progress on the picture-feed that was beaming to him from the Mercy Star pin which was still on the red-flowered dress in her arms.

  I have to do this—I have to! There’s no way around it so just get it over with, Mia told herself harshly.

  Taking a deep breath, she unpinned the Mercy Star from the dress and put it on the lapel of the silky teal uniform shirt she was wearing. Leaving the dress in the bedroom, she made her way down the hallway towards the living area.

  She had to seduce the big Kindred, whether she wanted to or not.

  There was no choice.

  Chapter Ten

  Trey was dressed in his sleep trousers and watching an informational vid about some of the animals that lived on his new home world of Ormyu Five. He was interested because the creature the vid was talking about—the targen—looked a lot like the beast inside him. It had tawny fur and a mane and golden eyes and it roared when it was angry and…

  “I don’t “roar”—that is my normal speaking voice,” his beast protested indignantly. “And besides, those creatures look nothing like me. I am much larger and my eyes are much brighter. They are pathetic imposters.”

  “Sorry about that—I’m sure you’re right,” Trey murmured to his other half, with a little smile. “I just thought they looked a little like you so—”

  “Trey?” Mia walked into view, standing in front of him with an uncertain—almost desperate—look on her face.

  Concerned by her expression, Trey turned off the vid and looked up at her. Though he didn’t have to look far—even though he was sitting on the couch and she was standing, he was so much taller than her they were still nearly eye-to-eye.

  “What is it, little one?” he asked, worried that she was somehow unwell. She looked lovely in his uniform shirt with her long, dark hair hanging down her back and her legs bare, but she didn’t seem happy at all.

  “Trey…I…” She stopped abruptly, nibbling her lush lower lip and twisting her fingers together in front of her, which he had already noted was a sign of distress for her. She had pinned the pretty little star ornament she’d been wearing earlier to the lapel of the uniform shirt, he noticed distractedly.

  “Yes, Mia? Is something bothering you? Something you need?” He couldn’t imagine what was wrong, but something clearly was. She was looking more upset and uncertain all the time.

  She didn’t say anything in reply to his question but her small, slim fingers crept up to the golden buttons on the uniform shirt she was wearing and began unbuttoning them one by one.

  Trey watched, mesmerized, as she came to the last button and spread the shirt open, revealing full, luscious breasts tipped with berry-dark nipples and rounded hips with a neatly trimmed mound of dark curls between her thighs.

  “Trey,” she said, speaking at last in a low, trembling voice. “You can…can have me, if you want. You can use me to meet your needs.”

  Then she stepped forward and reached for one of his hands, which lay open on his thigh. Lifting it, she pressed her left breast into his palm, so that he could feel the hard little point of her nipple right in the middle of his hand.

  “Touch me,” she whispered. “Take me. Go on, I…I want you to.”

  Her breast felt heavy and silky in his palm and her naked body was so close to his face he couldn’t look at anything but her luscious curves. Trey could feel his shaft going painfully hard in his sleep trousers, no doubt tenting the thin, silky material shamelessly. And inside him, his beast moved restlessly. Gods she was gorgeous! And Gods how he wanted her!

  But several things stopped him from taking her up on her offer.

  For one, he couldn’t help remembering her words to him about males having needs while females didn’t. So she couldn’t be doing this because she really wanted to—it must be from a sense of obligation.

  The second thing that stopped him was more visceral—her scent. Under the sweet smell of the shower soap, the flowery bouquet of her hair, and the warm aroma of her skin, he scented something else that no one but a Kindred could have caught—her fear.

  It breathed from her pores and tainted her sweetness with a bitter tang. Also, he could feel the breast he had cupped in his hand trembling and Mia’s breathing was shallow and quick. Her blue eyes were wide and she was nibbling her lip again, almost compulsively.

  My Goddess, he realized, looking up at her. She’s frightened nearly to death! It’s scaring