Читать книгу The Pleasure Palace - Evangeline Anderson - Страница 5

“Tony, I need to talk to you.” Tyson’s entrance into the busy Peace Control station was, as usual, right on time. He looked over at Shaina’s empty desk as he called to his friend, noting that she had yet to make an appearance, and sighed inwardly. Punctuality was a concept he had never been able to instill in her when she was an officer in training and now he doubted it was a principle she would ever embrace. But even though she was often disorganized and less than punctual there was something about Shaina McCullough, a kind of brilliance, an instinctual intuition that made her a valuable addition to the force. Tyson had no doubt, given the time and opportunity, she would be instrumental in catching the Red-Head Rapist. He just didn’t intend for her to get that opportunity.

“Tony?” he repeated and his colleague’s head finally surfaced from the latest batch of reports. Tyson knew he had promised to stay out of Shaina’s life, at least directly, but this was different. Shaina was putting herself in danger and he couldn’t just stand by and watch her risk her life the way she had last night.

“Tyson, hey, what can I do for you?” Tony—short for T’onzxlyslr, his Xaxian name, which no one could pronounce—raked one pale hand through his neatly clipped white-blond hair and blinked his pink eyes nervously. He took a small sip from the recycled cardboard cup in his other hand and spit it back immediately. “Man, this stuff is awful. I mean, even for synthesized beans—really awful. You’d think they could afford better brew for New Brooklyn’s finest.”

“Dream on.” Tyson sat on the edge of the Xaxian’s desk, casually pushing the reports aside. “Listen, I need to talk to you about Shaina.”

“Oh, man…” Tony groaned. “How did I know you wanted to talk about her? Look, Ty, she’s an officer now and she has the right to steer her own career. You can’t keep holding her back.”

“I’m not trying to hold her back. I’m trying to keep her safe. You and I both know that Shaina has a great mind—she makes the most amazing leaps of logic sometimes—but she’s not good at undercover work. She’s too apt to leave her backup behind or lose her weapon, both of which happened last night. Did she tell you?”

“Not in those words, exactly. She more or less just said the night was a bust.”

“A bust? It would have been a complete disaster if I hadn’t come along when I did. Look, Tony, this assignment is too dangerous for her. I want you to pull her off it right now.” Tyson rapped the plasti-wood desk he sat on for emphasis.

The Xaxian took another small sip from his cup and grimaced, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Tyson, I don’t know if I can do that. The chief himself approved it. It seemed like a good idea at the time, since she’s the only natural redhead in the department and with looks like hers…” He trailed off, perhaps seeing the glint of anger in Tyson’s eyes. “Ty, you can’t protect her forever.” His voice was gentle. “You know, you’ve trained lots of officers. Hell, you even helped train me when I first came on the force, but I’ve never seen you become so overprotective and paranoid about any of your past trainees. I know you’ve got a thing for McCullough but…”

“We’re not an item, Tony.” Ty cut him off. “It’s just that Shaina’s too valuable to waste on an assignment like this.” Tyson stood up and began pacing back and forth in front of the desk. “You ought to have her behind the scenes, directing your investigation and putting the pieces together—not out in the line of fire. Now, I don’t care what it takes or who approved it, I want you to make some plausible excuse and get her off this case. It’s too damn dangerous.” He was pacing almost angrily. Stopping in front of Tony, he looked the other humanoid right in the eye. Mild pink was no match for blazing amber and the head of Vice dropped his eyes first.

“Well, I’ll see what I can do, although it may be completely unnecessary anyway.”

“Completely unnecessary—what are you talking about? I think I just outlined the necessity of getting her off this case very clearly.” Tyson slapped the desk angrily.

“Yeah, I know, but right now McCullough’s in the Chief’s office volunteering her sweet little…uh, her very fine mind for an extremely dangerous off-planet mission.”

“What? But she’s not even here.” Tyson pointed to her empty desk as evidence. “She never comes in on time.”

“Yeah, well, never is a long time. It just so happens she came in early this morning while the Chief was asking for volunteers. She spoke right up. Wait, you can’t just barge in…” But the rest of his words were lost on Tyson, who was already striding angrily toward the solid real-wood door in the middle of the station.

TO PROTECT AND TO SERVE was written in large, black block letters over the arching doorway. Under the lettering a small digital message was running in a loop: BUSY, DO NOT DISTURB UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES it said in red, spooling holo-type. Tyson paid no attention whatsoever as he grasped the brass knob and pushed his way into the room.

“Ah, good, another volunteer!” The jovial voice came, not from the Chief, who sat silently at his large glass desk with holo displays showing different parts of the city, but from a small, nattily dressed man in the plush chair across from him.

Beside the little man, in another plush chair, sat Shaina, looking beautiful in the standard jumpsuit uniform of black pleather. Tyson had one on, himself—hell, every officer in the place did—but he couldn’t help noticing how well his former protégée filled hers out. The pleather clung lovingly to every lush curve of her ripe body and he couldn’t forget that he’d held those luscious breasts in his hands just last night, the creamy mounds and berry-pink nipples straining out of that black lace bra she’d had on…God! He wanted her so much. From the first there had been an undeniable attraction between them and yet Shaina refused to acknowledge it.

Right now she looked flushed with excitement. Apparently she’d been picked to go on this “dangerous mission,” whatever it was, and just couldn’t wait to throw herself in the path of peril.

She looked around now to see who the small man was referring to. When she saw Tyson, her face fell. He could almost see her thinking, “oh no,” but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. There was no way she was risking herself on some damn-fool, off-planet mission if he could prevent it.

“Chief Hamilton,” he began when the Chief, a stocky, balding man whose pleather jumpsuit bulged more than a little in the midsection, interrupted him.

“Officer Tyson, I’m so glad you’re here. Let me introduce Minister Waynos. Minister Waynos is a direct emissary of the Chancellor and he’s here for a very important reason,” the Chief emphasized, giving him a glare. Tyson reluctantly took the hint and held on to his lip—at least for the present.

“Yes indeed, my good officer, and I’m so very glad you’ve come to volunteer for the mission.” The little man seemed to assume that Tyson couldn’t possibly be in the office for any other reason. He had a silver-plated goatee and mustache and he was dressed in a triple-breasted dove-gray suit with platinum buttons and mother-of-pearl lapels. He was clearly excited as he jumped out of his chair and began circling Ty, who stood in center of the room. “And I think you’ll do quite well too, just the kind of physical specimen we were hoping for.”

“What in the name of…” Tyson caught another glare from the Chief, and forced himself to modify his tone. “What does this mission involve, Minister Waynos? In terms of danger and personal risk, I mean,” he added, giving Shaina a meaningful glance.

“I’m going, Ty.” Shaina glowered at him with her gorgeous green eyes and spoke in a low, intense voice meant only for him, but the little Minister heard her as well.

“Why of course you’re going, my dear. You’ll be going with our Chancellor’s hopes and thanks and you’ll be outfitted in style. No expense will be spared; you have my word. As for danger, well…” He turned back to Tyson, who was watching him expectantly with a frown growing on his sharp features. “Well, there’s no denying that there will be some. Quite a lot, actually. Syrus Six is a lawless place and if you were to be found out…” He shook his head mournfully, the silver goatee glinting in the office’s overhead glows.

“Wait a minute, Syrus Six? You want us to go to the Pleasure Planet?” Tyson demanded, incredulous. “But why? What’s there?”

“The Chancellor’s only son, we believe.” Minister Waynos looked sadly at him. “As you no doubt know, Syrus Six is at the heart of the illegal slave trade. Paul, the Chancellor’s son, was abducted over a month ago by people he believed to be his friends. We tried to keep it quiet at first, hoping for a ransom demand, but there was nothing, just nothing. The Chancellor has been quite beside himself.

“Just this morning we received information that Paul is at the Executor’s Palace on Syrus Six. The Chancellor has been forced to accept the fact that the boy is being held there and is possibly even being trained as a pleasure slave. A most reprehensible fate, I’m sure you’ll agree.” He nodded sagely at the Chief, who, Ty noticed, had put on his most concerned face. He supposed he couldn’t blame him. This man represented the Chancellor, as close to royalty as New Brooklyn got.

“There must be a personal motive behind this.” Shaina spoke up for the first time. “Surely even a well-trained pleasure slave wouldn’t bring as much as the Chancellor could afford to pay in ransom. Whoever took Paul wanted his father to suffer. It wasn’t just a random abduction.”

“Impossible…the Chancellor has no enemies that we know of on Syrus Six.” The Minister spoke a little too quickly, Ty thought. “However, I like the way you think, young lady: already on the job.” Waynos beamed at her approvingly.

“So the plan is what, to auction ourselves off as slaves in hopes that we might see the Chancellor’s son somewhere along the way?” Tyson didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. He couldn’t believe what Shaina had gotten herself into now.

The small Minister blinked at him in surprise, evidently unable to believe that anyone would be less than overjoyed to risk their lives for the esteemed Chancellor’s brat. “Most certainly not, Officer…Tyson, was it? No, if you both go as slaves, who will protect you? Slaves on Syrus Six have no legal rights whatsoever. They are chattel to be bartered and bought and sold. Most dreadful, really.”

“Not to mention completely illegal,” the Chief pointed out drily. “Tyson, one of you will pose as a pleasure slave and one of you will pose as a wealthy owner. The officers who go on this mission will be responsible first and foremost for bringing back the Chancellor’s son. As a bonus, it would be nice if they could find out who was behind the abduction.

“So…” The Chief had risen from his desk and was staring meaningfully at Tyson. “Officer McCullough has already come on board this mission. Very eagerly too, I might add. Her ambition is a real credit to our station and your own training, Tyson. The ship is being equipped as we speak and we were only waiting for one more volunteer to start. Obviously, from the Chancellor’s point of view, the sooner things get under way, the better. Are you in or out?”

Tyson looked at Shaina, who was giving him a stony glare out of those deep green eyes. Obviously she was hoping he would decline the mission and just as obviously she was determined to go herself. Chief Hamilton was sanctioning her decision and making it very clear that he would brook no arguments from an overprotective ex-mentor and partner. The only way to protect her from herself was to go along.

The notion of just letting her go alone never even entered Tyson’s head. From the moment she had come into his life, he hadn’t wanted to let Shaina McCullough out of his sight. There was an innocence about her, and a passion for life, that made her unlike any other woman he’d ever met. Ty wished he could lock her up someplace and keep her safe, keep her all for himself. He knew that sounded dominant and possessive and overprotective but damn it—those were the emotions Shaina had roused in him from the first. His D’Lonian blood boiled when he even thought of her with anyone else, when she ought to be Bonded to him. He could no more give her up than stop breathing—although he could cheerfully have strangled her for getting them into this position.

“Well?” Minister Waynos was looking at him expectantly and Tyson realized he’d been taking too long to think over a decision that was no decision at all. The minute Shaina had volunteered herself, she had volunteered him as well, whether she knew it or not.

“Yes. Count me in. Although I can’t understand Officer McCullough’s affinity for dressing up in skimpy outfits and going undercover lately. I hope her slave-girl costume covers more than the hooker outfit she had on last night.” He gave Shaina a sly wink.

“That was a cheap shot, Ty.” Shaina glared at him with her arms crossed over her full breasts. Tyson only grinned back, meeting her eyes and baring his sharp white teeth. He let his D’Lonian half show because he knew it made her uncomfortable. As he stared into her green eyes, he was already wondering what her luscious body would look like in a skimpy slave-girl outfit…maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad mission at that.

Tyson could just imagine getting a handful of that silky auburn hair and holding her down while he sucked her ripe nipples. He wanted to part those long, gorgeous legs and taste her sweet, creamy pussy until she moaned and begged for more. He could almost feel her slender fingers digging into his shoulders, pulling him closer while he pressed his face between her firm inner thighs and tongued the tender cleft between her legs. It was only a fantasy, of course, but a man could dream, couldn’t he? Hot amber clashed with ocean-green as he let his desires fill his eyes. A deep blush stained Shaina’s cheeks, but she refused to look away.

“I’m afraid you are laboring under a misapprehension, Officer Tyson.” Minister Waynos interrupted Ty’s lascivious thoughts. He cleared his throat and Ty looked up, dragging Ty’s eyes reluctantly from the silent battle of wills he had been engaged in with Shaina.

“What do you mean? I thought you said one of us would be posing as a slave and one of us would be posing as the owner?” He looked at the Chief for clarification. “You said that,” he pointed out.

“Yes, but I didn’t say who was going as which.” Chief Hamilton said. “You see, the slave quarters at the Executor’s Pleasure Palace where you’ll be staying are sex segregated. Since the Chancellor’s son is male, or was when he was abducted”—he cast an apologetic glance at Minister Waynos, who looked troubled—“a male slave will have the best chance of finding him.”

“So you’re saying…” Tyson hoped against hope that what he was thinking was wrong. But the Chief and the Minister were both nodding. Only Shaina looked surprised.

“Yes, Officer Tyson. You will be going undercover as the pleasure slave. Officer McCullough will be going as your Master.”