Little Red

All characters belong to me. ;)

Chapter 2

On her very worst day, Dame Reatrix McCleod could be called nothing less than stunning. Fine threads of grey in her auburn hair betrayed her respectable age, but the years had lovingly sculpted her face with few lines, and those of good humor which added to her appeal. Experience had gifted her with enough pride to keep her looks good and enough pride in those years not to hide those small signs of the march of time. At the moment her lush frame tensed with rage and her bottle-green eyes flashed with fire.
“What do you mean, she never came through? She passed every checkpoint beneath yours! She did not just disappear.” Reatrix McCleod stared piercingly at the squirming guard on her comscreen. Behind him a Sentinel unit sputtered and fizzled, backed to the farthest corner of the checkpoint platform it could reach without falling off.
“I’m sorry, Dame McCleod, we simply don’t show any record of a Red McCallen having come through this checkpoint today.”
“Somebody saw her, Guardsman. She is very distinctive. Your job now is to find out where she is and insure her safe passage to my skypalace.” At her tone the Sentinel unit gave one last pitiful popping sound and collapsed into a smoking pile of parts. The guard gave it a cursory glance before facing the comscreen again.
“I have no directive—”
“I am making this your directive, Guardsman. Find her or I will make your life very interesting.”
“With all due respect, Dame McCleod, she’s just a courier. The package she carries can’t be that important to you—”
“With all due disrespect, you let me decide what is important to me. It is none of your business. What is your business is finding her. Now.” She narrowed her green eyes at him, her gaze bright and sharp in a face that age hadn’t dared to line, despite her nearly sixty years of life. He shifted, but didn’t give in.
“Dame McCleod, the Guardsmen and Sentinels play a key roll in the safety of the Upper Reaches. Sending us out to find one missing person—especially one who has only been missing for several hours—is a waste of time and manpower.”
“I happen to know, Guardsman Jameson, that the Shield Leader has more than enough manpower to successfully man a checkpoint and mount a single sector search at the same time. To imply otherwise could be construed as questioning a commanding officer.” Her eyes narrowed on him before a chime drew her attention to another comscreen, and internally she grinned with near-vicious triumph, keeping the expression from her face before she focused on the Guardsman again. “You seem to be a gambling man, guardsman. You show impressive debt to both the Celeron and Rigil credit lenders. I know that the Shield Leader frowns on such tendencies in his Guardsmen.” She leaned forward just the slightest bit, and he leaned away from his comscreen. “It leaves them open to blackmail and such. Who knows what one might be forced to do with the right leverage compelling them.”
“You can’t—” the Guardsman began.
“Claren Celeron and the Duke of Rigil Kentaurus both happen to be personal friends. I’m sure they would not have a problem transferring a simple debt to me. They might even be grateful for the chance to get it off of their account books.”
The guard sputtered for a moment before he fell silent, his brow furrowed. Finally he looked up at her, defeated. Not a stupid as he seems.
“I’ll do what I can, Dame McCleod. I’ll be in touch.”
“You do that.” She sat back as her screen went black, sighing tiredly. Worry for her granddaughter furrowed her brow as she fingered her lower lip, thinking.
“Reatrix, do you really consider it a good idea to blackmail a lawman?”
She felt a cool crystal glass slide into her hand and looked up at her personal assistant of ten years. His clear gray eyes met hers, edged with concern.
“Not really. I know the Shield Leader, and he’d put me in my place if he found out.” A small grin quirked the corner of her mouth. “After he flayed the Guardsman for denying my request. But the Peace Keeper was so blasted stubborn. He seriously wasn’t going to look for her, Dalin.” Her knuckles blanched white with the strength of her grip on her glass. Dalin walked around to prop a hip on the desk in front of her.
Not for the first time, she noted how very good he looked in his perpetually perfect, dignified black suits. They matched his inky hair and set off the dignified flares of gray at his temples and seemed unreasonably attractive.
Having thoroughly researched him before hiring him, she knew him to be her junior by several years. He came from a staid background of accounting and secretarial work, and he came with recommendations from the most demanding of employers; hardly the stuff that her libido took notice of. Her body flagrantly ignored these facts, sparking with energy and arousal when he walked into the room, and she found her near-ironclad control over her body language tested. She’d caught herself mirroring his movements during simple conversations too many times to count. Mentally she threw her hands up with disgust at herself, unable to understand why she responded so to him.
When he grinned he had sexy grooves in his cheeks, and a white, even smile that melted her just a little bit more every time.
Those smiles never revealed anything more than gentle affection, and it drove her insane. As far as she could tell, he was not interested in anyone—male, female, alien, or human. Not once in his ten years in her employ had he even acknowledged that he might need companionship—sex or a marriage.
It’s a damned shame.
“Just be careful, Reatrix. The Shield Leader isn’t one to be trifled with.”
“Fah! I’m not trifling with him. I’m protecting my bloodline. When I talked to him, he seemed to have great respect for bloodlines. And Colin, that stupid ass” her voice dripped with derision when she spoke of Red’s uncle, “has so many enemies. This wouldn’t be the first time she ‘disappeared’.” Dalin removed his hip from her desk and walked around her chair, stopping behind her. She leaned into his hands as he began to massage her shoulders, digging the strain and worry of the day out of her muscles with talented hands. “Oh, don’t stop. That feels nice.”
His hands paused for a moment before he continued, rubbing more slowly.
“Alright. I won’t stop.”
A shiver worked down her spine at the softness of his voice, and she knew that she imagined the sensual undertones. More and more often she found herself preferring Dalin’s quiet company to her usual stable of beaus, and more and more often that led her to fantasies about getting under his proper façade. If it was a façade. His countenance and body language were a challenge to read, and for a woman used to seeing to the needs of her companion before he knew he had them it was aggravating.
She needed a good diversion. The Duke of Rigil Kentaurus had announced he would be on Orion Galis for a visit, and the man had definite plans to visit Reatrix. She always managed to adeptly deflect his demands – thinly veiled as requests – to be his companion. Reatrix knew the kind of man she could get along with, and the Duke failed to fit the bill. For all of his money and beauty, Reatrix found herself nonplussed by him in nearly every way. Unfortunately he had too much power for her to outright reject him, so his pursuit of her resumed every time he came to Orion Galis.
Perhaps this time she would let him seduce her, despite her misgivings…
Her back arched sharply as Dalin’s fingers dug into a nerve along her spine she’d never known was there, sending pleasure shooting from her head to her toes, and she found herself looking up into his eyes, her own dazed as he continued to dig into the spot with two strong fingers. His oddly fierce expression didn’t change when her head fell back on the chair’s headrest, maintaining the arch of her spine as her body flushed with arousal, her nipples and vagina reacting simultaneously to the stimulation, swelling suddenly with arousal. His cool grey eyes sparked with something new, something she had never seen in them before and couldn’t define, not leaving her as she found herself rocking in her seat, her body instinctively trying to rub her pulsing cunt against the fabric of the cushion to relieve the heat building within her.
His fingertips stroked a particularly sensitive spot and her pussy spasmed with a small, fierce climax, robbing her of strength. Her breath came out as a low moan. She met his eyes with wonder, then he pulled away and she collapsed back into the chair, staring at the screens in front of her, her brain refusing to function. She felt like a horse that had been released to roam free only to have that freedom taken back within minutes. She ached for more.
“You need to take more time to relax, Rea. You’re carrying a lot of tension in your muscles.” His voice was cool and professional, shocking her into looking at him. His composure was perfect, not a hair out of place, and his gaze had returned back to its natural distance. He gave her a quick bow that barely bent his frame and left the room, the tall, ornately accented guilt-and-glass door closing soundlessly behind him.
She collapsed back into her seat, starting to wonder if he had been aware of how that particular massage affected her. He was such a non-sexual person, maybe he hadn’t recognized the signs of arousal—but no, the look in his eyes spoke of awareness, almost of anger.
Unsure of how to deal with this new development, she stared at her monitors. Then she leaned forward and set to finding answers. No way did a man with hands and knowledge that carnal come without a past to match.