The Pleasure Palace. Evangeline Anderson

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СКАЧАТЬ moss as though for comfort. The gesture tore at his heart; he had never wanted to hurt or scare her, it was just that his need for this woman was so damn strong…

      “Shaina…” he thought and then tried again out loud. “I’m sorry, McCullough. Please…” He didn’t know what else to say. Obviously he had scared her to death with his strong emotions and his desire to possess her. “It was just the aftereffects of the hypersleep talking, Shaina. I’m sorry if I scared you,” he said desperately, although it was untrue. She obviously wasn’t ready to reciprocate his emotions, and until she was, he would just have to keep them under wraps. If these damned symbiotes would let him, that was.

      “Come, dear one.” Faron’s voice was soft and coaxing. “It is difficult to have another in your head for the first time. Let me help you.”

      Shaina straightened and wiped the tears from her cheeks in quick, jerky motions. “I don’t feel like I can trust you now, Faron,” she said quietly. “After what you told Tyson about me…”

      “Child, I am sorry that I revealed your secret, but you must understand that it was not a secret you could be allowed to keep.”

      “I don’t see why not. It’s no one’s business but mine.” She raised her chin defiantly and stared at the constantly changing, jewellike eyes of the Glameron, which swirled green and amber alternately. Faron stared calmly back.

      “Have you really so little understanding of what will be expected of you on Syrus Six?” he asked sternly. “You cannot abstain there and expect to be believed. If your innocence is suspected, your lie will be exposed and you will be found out and killed. Better for your partner to know now than have to guess later at some critical time when both your lives and the life of young Master Paul hang in the balance. Do you see?”

      “I…I guess so. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.” Shaina frowned and took a deep breath. Ty could see her gathering herself for the ordeal ahead. “Can you really help us control this?”

      “It is a certainty. Come, take my hand.” Reluctantly, Shaina did so. Inwardly, Tyson breathed a sigh of relief.

      “Now,” the Glameron said. They stood in a loose circle, both holding hands with Faron, although Ty made sure not to touch Shaina and he noticed she was equally careful not to touch him. “Close your eyes and clear your minds of everything but what I tell you. I want you to picture a blank white wall. Nothing has ever been written there. It is smooth and clean as an eggshell curving in the void of your minds…”

      Tyson began to see the wall that the Glameron spoke of. It curved across his mind looking like the huge white barrier between the regular and private port sector back home.

      “Good, Master Tyson, a very apt analogy,” Faron murmured. “Now behind this wall is where you will keep your private thoughts. When you want to send a thought to one another, I want you to picture what you are saying being written in bold black lettering on the wall. The script that you see is all that you will send through your link. Master Tyson, you will attempt this first.”

      “I…don’t know if I should.” Ty had never felt so uncertain of himself before. He only knew he didn’t want to hurt Shaina any worse than he already had. The Glameron didn’t answer him in words but only squeezed his hand slightly. Ty found the gesture oddly reassuring. Hesitantly, he began to picture a black marking tube writing words on the vast, curving expanse of the blank white wall in his mind.

      “Shaina, I don’t know what to say.” He concentrated fiercely on only sending the words and not the emotions he felt for her. After a moment, he heard her answer.

      “I don’t either.”

      Now that he was calmly concentrating, Ty noticed that her mental voice left a very distinctive flavor on the back of his tongue, sweet and a little salty. It was the way he had always imagined her soft little cunt would taste. He was very careful to keep this particular thought behind the white wall. “You taste good inside my head, sweet.”

      “You taste spicy.” Unexpectedly, he felt her soft, cool hand slip into his. Ty dared to open his eyes and look at her. Her hair was tousled and her eyes were still a little puffy from crying. Her full lips were swollen from the passionate kiss they had shared earlier. God, she was beautiful.

      “Thank you.”

      Hastily Ty closed his eyes and concentrated on the wall.

      At last Faron declared himself satisfied with their progress. “Master, Mistress, I shall prepare nourishment for you if it would please you both to step into the fresher and cleanse yourselves. I will provide appropriate clothing for both of you after we eat and your real lessons will begin. I warn you, however, that mastering the mannerisms and society of Syrus Six will not be quite as easy as mastering the symbiotes.”

      Tyson groaned as he stumbled off to the fresher to take a much needed shower. If the second lesson was harder than the first one, he wasn’t sure he could take it. Already he felt wrung out emotionally and physically and all he’d done for the past hour and a half was hold hands with Shaina and think really hard.

      7

      Lunch—Shaina assumed it was lunchtime, that was what her body clock told her anyway—was a silent meal. She didn’t know about Tyson, but she was concentrating fiercely on keeping her private thoughts behind the big white wall. To her it looked like something out of an educational vid she’d once seen in Second School about the atmosphere domes the first spacers had erected on the Earth’s moon.

      Mostly, she wanted desperately to examine the emotions she’d felt coming from Ty during the searing kiss they had shared. The passion and intensity she’d felt coming from him, the desire to possess her utterly, was both frightening and intriguing. But, she reminded herself, everything he had said and felt was just an aftereffect of the hypersleep—he’d said so himself. She knew she had certainly woken up feeling frisky, which was how she ended up in a lip-lock with her aggravating partner in the first place. Still, it was hard to also discount what Faron had told them both…There were stories about D’Lonian males—that they mated for life, that they were the most dominant and relentless lovers…but Shaina wasn’t quite sure if she believed all that…

      “Not quite sure you believe what?” Ty was looking curiously at her from across the small table covered with containers holding small quantities of high-energy food supplements, and Shaina realized she’d been projecting through the link again. Oh Goddess, would she ever get used to these bloody, double-damned symbiotes?

      “Nothing. Just…nothing.”

      “In the second personal chamber you will find appropriate clothing for your role as a Mistress and slave owner on Syrus Six. Please put it on and return to the ship’s central chamber,” Faron said. “Master Tyson and I will meet you there.”

      “Fine.” Shaina left the food prep area quickly and went to find her costume. It was, as the Glameron had promised, laid out on a plush mattress that was furred with the same soft, comforting gray moss that lined the walls. Faron had explained that the moss was a mood sensor, genetically engineered to detect the emotions of the person touching it and produce the necessary endorphins to promote a sense of peaceful calm. Shaina wished she could lie on the mattress and let it soothe and comfort her until she felt composed but she knew there was no time. They only had the rest of this day period to learn their roles. By the next time cycle they would be orbiting Syrus Six and their deception would begin. Reluctantly, she picked up her costume and started putting it on.

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