Forbidden Worlds - Box Set Read Online Free Page A

like dark colors.”
    “Dark is one thing, shades of mud is another. Here, I fixed these.” He handed her several shirts that he’d split up the front. “When you wear them, tie the front low at your waist. No long pants. Skirts are preferable, but I see you don’t have any. What’s your function in the Company, anyway? Head of security?”
    Lea bristled at the cavalier question. Her father and four uncles owned Vargas Industries and ruled their family enterprise like a small, military empire. Like her sister and eight of her female cousins, she functioned as a figurehead. Though they were treated like royalty at every Vargas installation, none of the girls possessed any real power, and as long as the first-born Vargas sons lived, they never would.
    “I’m a line inspector.” Would he detect the blatant lie? She knew the job, better than most that her family employed, but the exorbitant “salary” she drew from the Company coffers represented compensation for her mere existence, not for any valuable service she provided.
    Damon grunted. “Ah, that explains it.”
    “I dress conservatively for most occasions. I wasn’t expecting to attend any formal receptions on Ambrax or I’d have packed a gown or two.”
    She caught her breath when he rose from the bed. “I’m going to take a chance and fit you with a sheath. My identification lists me as a native of Spartha. They carry ceremonial daggers, and I can get away with giving you one as well.”
    “Are you?”
    “Am I what?”
    “From Spartha?”
    He favored her with a dark glance that bordered on mischievous. Something in her belly fluttered in response. “I’ve been there. I wasn’t born there.”
    “Where were you—”
    He cut her off with the sardonic arch of a brow. “Answers to personal questions will cost you extra.”
    Lea abandoned her plan to interrogate him. The less she really knew about Damon Cantor, the better.
    “Are you finished mutilating my clothes yet?”
    “For now. Put something on, something small and tight, and meet me in the storage compartment so I can work on that sheath.”
    He didn’t wait for a response, merely let himself out of her cabin and stalked off down the corridor, leaving Lea feeling once again like he’d taken all the oxygen with him.
     
    * * * *
     
    Keeping Lea Vargas safe while they searched for her brother-in-law posed a unique set of problems for Damon. Arming her with one of his ceremonial daggers was the most he could allow her for self-defense. Now that he’d seen her completely naked, he understood how difficult his job would be. Protocol required that Braxan males ask permission to use bonded females, and if Damon refused too many requests for Lea’s services, he’d become suspect. He’d have the right to kill converts, the non-Braxans who’d succumbed to the transformation, but despite appearances, he took no pleasure in the thought.
    The barbaric nature of the forbidden world had once excited him. Now, it only imbued him with a sense of hopelessness.
    He forced the melancholy away when Lea arrived in the storage compartment. This was where he’d fucked her when he came on board, and he liked that her gaze flickered over the bulkhead against which she’d held herself while he played her.
    He’d have to do it again before they reached Ambrax, just because he’d enjoyed feeling her come, hearing her moan as her knees gave way and she surrendered to his invasion.
    “Is this short and tight enough?” Her voice brought him out of his increasingly wicked thoughts, and he turned to find her leaning against the open hatchway. She wore the black shirt he’d torn from her earlier. Somehow she’d turned it into a sexy halter top that left her flat abdomen bare above a pair of moss green pants that he’d hacked to almost nothing with the galley shears.
    A bloodred jewel hung between her breasts, suspended by a thin, black cord, and on each wrist and ankle she wore bands of woven leather. The