Misled (Carnal Thirst 1)

He glanced up sharply and bore his metallic gaze into hers through the video screen. He couldn’t see her, but his gaze still searched for answers. “It seems to me that I’m the one being played. Was I just a convenient fuck for you, baby? A couple dozen orgasms and I’ve outlived my usefulness?”

“Go to hell,” she bit out, even as she shivered at the memory. “You were going to do the same to me, I just beat you to the punch. Now back off!”

He backed away a few steps, affording her a clear view of the massive bulge of his cock straining his suit. His handsome face was set in harsh lines, his gaze piercing in his fury. “If you believe that, Sable, after all the time I spent inside you, you don’t know anything about me at all.”

Sable closed her eyes for a moment, willing away the burning behind her lids that would prevent her from seeing her way out of the narrow docking bay. If only things could be different.

“Goodbye, Derek,” she said softly as she terminated the audio. When she opened her eyes and looked at the screen he was gone.

And with a skilled tug on the controls, so was she.

* * * * *

Derek sat on the deck of his ship the Viper and watched Sable’s sleek new model Starwing burst into lightspeed and disappear. The ship suited her perfectly. She liked new toys—the faster and more powerful the better—which was probably why she was so hot for him.

His lips twisted wryly. The last forty-eight hours had been the most pleasurable of his life. Considering how old he was, that was saying something. He’d never experienced anything as powerful as being with Sable; his cock had been painfully hard almost the entire two days.

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He waited until it was clear for him to follow, set the navigation for the jump and went to take a shower. As he stepped under the spray of water, the unmistakable scent of hard sex rose from his skin to dissipate in the steam. Derek closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the cool metal of the shower stall. It wasn’t hard to picture Sable as she’d been only a few hours ago, imprinting her smell on him in a way that he knew would never leave him. She was the fuck of the century, several centuries actually. He groaned a low tortured sound. It would probably take several more before he burned her out of his blood.

Now that he’d actually had her…well, he wasn’t sated yet. Not by half.

Derek sighed as he finished rinsing his hair and then stepped out of the shower, his mind weary and heart heavy simply because Sable was no longer with him. She’d become a complication in a way he should have seen coming.

Entering his cabin, he paused at the sight of his rumpled four-poster. Sable had been astonished and then delighted at the sight of the bed. It was a luxury he indulged in because he spent so much of his time in pursuit. He’d tied her to that bed, draped her over the edge of it, fucked her on the floor beside it, taken her standing against the posts at the foot of it. He knew he would never look at that bed again without thinking of her.

And wishing she were in it.

That damned impossible woman. She was going to get herself killed. Sable was too reckless and too impatient to study the rules of the worlds she invaded in search of her prey. Derek had attempted to offer his assistance, but every time he’d brought it up, Sable had silenced him with her body until he was too exhausted to keep trying. Part of him was grateful to put off the conversation, feeling a strange desperation to enjoy what he could, while he could. Then he’d woken up this afternoon and found himself handcuffed to the bedposts, her ship no longer trailing behind his.

Apparently, she didn’t know how powerful a Master as old as he was could become. He’d dissipated into mist and followed her easily. She’d looked so astonished 19

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to find him behind her in the concourse bar. Astonished and instantly aroused.

Whatever her reasons were for leaving, it wasn’t because she didn’t want him anymore.

Derek knew she was headed back to the Gamma Sector to turn in Castle and collect her bounty. There were field headquarters in every sector, but she seemed to prefer the one in Gamma, which was his. She’d collect the updated list of fugitives, settle on the one worth the most credits and then immediately take flight again in the hopes of avoiding him when he docked for the same reason.

She was running from him, but he wasn’t fool enough to take it personally. He hadn’t missed the regret in her voice when she’d said goodbye or the emotion in her gaze the last time they’d made love. Despite her fierceness, Sable was a tender and giving lover and she’d worshiped his body in a way that had to mean something to her.

It sure as hell had meant something to him.

But he knew she wouldn’t let her personal feelings get in the way of her plans. She was very good at her job. He’d have to be better if he hoped to catch a hunter of her caliber.

So the hunt was on.

And Sable was his prey.

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Chapter Two

Impatient, Sable tapped her boot in rapid staccato against the floor. Detained for almost an hour in the captain’s office of the Interstellar Council’s Special Task Force, her nerves were on edge. The Gamma Sector field office should feel like home considering the amount of time she spent there, but Captain Hoff didn’t like vamps. He didn’t trust them and he’d lobbied hard to get them removed from the Force. The field office was his bastion and because of his anti-vamp sentiments she didn’t like being there.

Groaning with frustration, Sable looked at the framed picture on the desk for the thousandth time since she entered the room. She was sick of looking at the redheaded captain with his pretty brunette wife and two red-haired kids. She’d give him another minute or two to show up and then she was leaving, whether he liked it or not.

Suddenly, she stilled, wondering if Derek had comm’ed ahead and arranged this delay.

As quickly as the thought came to her, Sable wrote it off. She knew how deeply she’d pleasured him—how could she not when he filled her mind with it?—but Derek Atkinson wasn’t just known for his skills as an agent. He was also known for his prowess in bed, a singular skill he had no trouble sharing freely. She refused to believe she meant any more to him than the thousands of other women he’d screwed over the last six or seven hundred years.

But, damn, he knew how to fuck well. Sharing his bed had been so good, she couldn’t regret it. There was something to be said for a man with several centuries’

worth of experience in seducing women.

Okay. Who was she kidding? There was a lot to be said.

She’d always admired Derek’s dark good looks and amazing body, but he’d been no more than that, a gorgeous man to drool over. She hadn’t known anything more 21

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personal about him than she could gather from gossip and a few lines of text in a thin personnel file. Now she knew him as a man, in every way possible.

Derek was beyond amazing as a lover,

sometimes wild and animalistic, other times tender and reverent. His mind, which she knew as intimately as his body, was clever and intelligent. He had a deep sense of honor and a desire to give meaning to his endless life with the worthwhile pursuit of justice. In short, he was all the things she admired in the male half of her species.

Sable wished she could have found something wrong with him, any little thing that would have made him less appealing. But she hadn’t and because he was everything she wanted, she’d fallen for him. Hard. When he’d looked into her eyes the last time he slid inside her, she couldn’t make it impersonal, couldn’t make it just sex. He’d built the mental connection between them and they’d made love. Just the remembrance of it made her ache for him.

But she couldn’t have him.

The door opened behind her and she rose. “Captain,” she greeted with relief, thankful it wasn’t Derek and grateful for the respite from her thoughts.

Hoff’s tall, lanky form dominated the doorway. “Have a seat, Special Agent Taylor.”

Sable sank back into the chair as the captain took his place on the opposite side of the desk. Behind him was an expansive window with a view of space beyond. “Good work bringing Castle into custody.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Were there other agents in pursuit when you caught him?”

“Only Agent Atkinson.” Sable’s cheeks heated just from saying Derek’s name. She hoped the perceptive captain didn’t notice.

“You seem to run into Atkinson quite a bit. Do you think he suspects you?”

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“No way.” She knew that for certain. Derek would never have fucked her if he’d known she worked undercover for Internal Affairs. Instead he’d have looked at her with disgust and considered her a rat for hunting fellow agents. Her chest tightened painfully at the thought. Losing his respect would be too much to bear.

“Have you discovered anything new since last I talked with you?” he asked.