Chapter 52: Chapter 52

Damn it, we’ve got to get out of this somehow,” Mil said, pacing the sealed white chamber. “And no, I

do not have any handy explosives tucked in my pocket.” To his right, a port twice the size of his head displayed the alien planet below. The wrong alien planet. His hyperspace navigation had turned out to be completely inadequate to their needs.

Lenora lounged against the opposite bulkhead, staring up at what was, despite its bizarre design, clearly a monitor: bulbous orange pods followed their every move and vibrated with each word they spoke. She said, “You might as well sit down. There’s no hurry now.”

He snarled. “If you recall, they’ve got our ship. The only thing we possess. The only way we have to stay ahead of our former employers.”

“These aliens haven’t hurt us.”

Yet, Mil thought.

As if she’d heard his thought, Lenora made a face at him and said, “There is a way out. Demonstrate the human mating ritual, and they let us go.”

Mil threw himself into the only available chair, which was pulpy and green, and fumed.

Lenora sauntered over to him.

Mil eyed her, suspicious. “They aren’t controlling your mind, are they?”

“No,” Lenora snapped. He didn’t care if he had annoyed her; it was a perfectly reasonable question, under the circumstances. She sat on the lumpy arm of the chair and traced the rim of his ear with her fingertip. He batted her hand away. She tangled her fingers in the hair at the back of his neck, tugging gently. She had nice hands. Skilled. Also soft. She—

“Stop it,” he said. “I can’t believe you’re even consid- ering giving in to them.”

“Can you think of a better way to make them let us go?”

“Several ways. But I still don’t have any handy explo- sives in my pockets, so…”

She grinned, trailing her finger down his throat. He felt his pulse thump against her warm fingertip.

He vaulted out of the not-chair. “They’re watching

us.”

“You do want to get out of here?” She rocked forward on her toes and kissed him.

It wasn’t at all the carnal assault he’d expected. When she pulled back, he sighed. “But—” His words were cut off when she kissed him again, warm and sweet.

She leaned forward until the tip of her nose bumped his. “Yes?”

He couldn’t see anything but her brown eyes. “There must be another option.”

“Must there?” She lunged. “Lenora! Stop it!”

He had no idea what he was doing on the deck. No, he did know, but he wasn’t sure how she had put him there, flat on his back.

Lenora’s warm weight pressed into his cock as she straddled him. “You’re not being helpful. I want out of here,” she said. “And you know this won’t hurt.”

He scowled. “Well, the hell with it.” “With what?”

“I don’t know. Dignity.”

She grinned at him, the mischievous grin that was his secret favorite. She leaned forward and kissed him in earnest. His reluctance steamed away within seconds. Moments later, his hands were firmly gripping her arse, and she was muttering into his ear. “You sure you don’t have any handy explosives tucked in your—”

“You did this to me,” he said, in mock annoyance. “You broke it, I think.”

Lenora dissolved into shaking peals of laughter, entirely satisfying, even through clothing. “Do you have a spanner?”

“You’ll have to improvise,” he said.

Lenora’s grin turned devilish. Her hands swept out and grabbed his wrists, pinning his arms far from his sides. He stayed where she had put him, obedient for the nonce.

She swiftly bared his chest, but when he moved, she stopped him with a touch. “If you like,” he said. He hadn’t thought about it in detail before now, but he could see how Lenora might be one who preferred to take charge. He was willing to let her, so long as he had his turn later. Later?

She unfastened his trousers, a delicate maneuver. Mil winced, and then held still, thinking of cold empty space.

When she licked gently around the crown of his erec- tion, realization struck. The aliens didn’t know what to expect. The two of them could have danced on their toes, and it would not have made a speck of difference to—

Never mind.

The square root of fifty-seven is seven point five- four…nine-eight. And its sine is point eight-three-eight- seven, and its cosine is point five-four-four-six…no, not good enough at all. Eighty-nine squared is seven thousand, nine hundred and twenty-one, which has a cosine of point nine-nine-nine-eight. No, that’s far too rhythmic. How about three, lovely three, prime three, the square root of three is one point seven-three-two- one…

Good-bye, higher brain functions, he thought. Will she respect me in the morning…will she shoot me in the morning? And then he could no longer think at all, the hot, tight suction of her mouth so painfully sweet that he thought he would scream with the pain or the sweet- ness; then he was coming in hard bursts that seemed to burn all the way up his spine.

When he could see again, he realized that Lenora was laughing, but coughing at the same time. He couldn’t think why. That wasn’t usual.

Lenora rubbed her face with the tail of his shirt. He couldn’t see what she was doing, but she was still laughing. Drowsily, he asked, “What’s so funny?”

She collapsed against him, her soft cheek landing on his chest, warm puffs of her breath stroking his bare skin. He gathered her closer. At last she said, with one final throat-clearing, “Sorry. I miscalculated.”

Surely she hadn’t heard him spouting mathematics— no, she couldn’t have. “What do you mean?”

The question made her laugh again, breaking up her sentence. “Not…your fault…never heard of anything like…”

“What?”

“It…it…missed…my throat. It…came out…my nose.” Lenora shrieked with merriment, slapping his leg in her enthusiasm.

No. Mil covered his face with his hand. Every milli- second had been recorded indelibly by an alien space station. On top of that, he might have hurt his…well,

his closest friend. “Damn it! I’m so sincerely sorry. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“It’s all right. Really. Very memorable.” Delicately, she scraped her nail across his nipple and grinned.

He shuddered deliciously and stroked her cropped hair. He raised his voice. “We demonstrated! Now open the door!”

Nothing happened.

Lenora wriggled upward until her face was nestled against his neck. “Really, I haven’t had that much fun in years.”

“Don’t be sarcastic. The door isn’t opening.” “You worry too much.”

Mil took a deep breath and sat up, pulling her with him. He yelled, “Let us out! Now!”

A strangely accented voice boomed, “We have allotted precisely three segments for the human mating ritual. Only a portion of one segment has been stored. Please provide further demonstrations of the human mating ritual. You will be released when the specified time has passed.”

Silence. Then Lenora snickered. “You said you would make it up to me. Get to work.”

He unfastened the collar of her jacket. “This time, I promise I won’t miscalculate.”