Intimacy with a Femme Fatale

He woke her before dawn with a sensual stroke of her ass, moulding it, massaging it, waking her with caress.

She sighed when a long, thick finger slid between the folds of her pussy, and she parted herself for him.

He stroked with languorous patience, driving her wild.

Her head turned, and their lips met in a passionate kiss that ignited her even more.

She dripped over his fingers, her own reaching for his throbbing cock.

She fondled and pulled while he manipulated and rubbed.

It was so sensual that she was soon pistoning her hips off the bed, thighs open, mouth panting, begging, keening for him.

His laugh was a rumble as he twisted his pelvis away when she tried to impale herself on him.

‘Kodan, please,' she begged.

After a few more moments of sweet torture, and with his lips tugging on a nipple, he thrust into her, sending both of them into soul-shattering bliss.

They plunged back into sleep's embrace, kissing and stroking each other, neither wanting to let go.

She woke with a smile and a catlike stretch of her limbs.

Eyes still closed, she savoured the warm kiss of light on her face and the spice-soaked scent of roasted kahawa.

She caught the clink of a cup and resisted wakefulness.

Then, a voice, deep and tectonic. ‘Katya. Drink.'

Her eyes flung open.

She searched the room until her gaze landed on the hulking silhouette moving like a meko panther through it.

He hadn't been a dream.

He'd made all her fantasies come true,she thought as she drowned in the beautiful mocha green eyes that gazed with intensity at her.

Their eyes met, clashed, locked.

She sat up in bed and reached for the steaming cup on the bedside panel.

She drank.

‘Good morning,' he rumbled.

‘To you too. Sleep well?'

‘Like a baby, after we unlocked a new level of intimacy,' Xion drawled.

She leaned forward, sipping her kahawa, gazing with intent at him. ‘You're after intimacy, Sable?'

‘Aren't you?' he levelled with her.

‘Perhaps. What sort are you looking for?'

Katya's question hung in the air, lingering between them like a delicate thread waiting to be pulled.

He cocked his head at her, lost in thought for a beat. ‘Something, someone real,' Xion rasped, his attention fixed on the horizon beyond the window. The early morning light cast a soft glow on his features, highlighting the jade glow in his eyes. Katya studied him, her thoughts swirling with a mix of emotions.

Xion's gaze was intense as he met her eyes. A flicker of vulnerability crossed his visage before he spoke, his rasp filled with raw honesty.

‘I'm looking for the bona fide thing,' he continued, his utterance measured yet laced with emotion. ‘In a universe where facades and masks are the norm, I crave something legit, something genuine. Someone who discerns past the surface and understands me for who I am, not just what I appear to be.'

As the words hung between them, a sense of introspection settled over the room. It was as if they were both on the precipice of something profound that had the potential to change their lives irrevocably.

Katya listened with intent, her eyes reflecting a mixture of compassion and understanding. She reached out to brush a lock of hair away from his face, her touch comforting yet tinged with a silent plea for connection.

‘I understand,' she whispered. ‘I want that too, Xion. To peel back the layers and reveal our true selves without fear or reservation. In a world where everything is just a facade, finding something real can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack.'

‘I'll tell you what's real,' she added. ‘The love of children. It's so pure.'

The way she said it sent Xion's heart lurching.

He jolted. ‘You? Kids? Got some?'

She hesitated, then reached for her wrist comm.

She gave him a tentative look, then bit her lip. Flicking on a holo screen.

‘Can I trust you?' she asked.

The question hung in the air between them. Katya's eyes held a challenge and a vulnerability.

Xion nodded, overcome with an intense longing to know everything about her, all of her secrets.

Katya flicked to a series of image files on her wrist comm, the holographic projection shimmering with children's smiling faces.

In some stills, they were all over Katya, and her face was wreathed with such happiness that it was clear her love for them ran deep.

Xion's breath caught in his throat as he gazed at them.

His mind raced with a million questions, hit with a profound desire to journey through Katya's mind.

‘They're your children?' he asked, his voice filled with awe.

‘Naam,' she breathed. ‘They're my adopted kids and my world.'

Katya's eyes misted as she studied a single image of a little girl with dark, bouncy curls and gleaming blue eyes.

‘Where are they?'

That's when Katya's face blanched.

Xion lifted a brow as her armour crumbled, revealing the raw vulnerability she'd concealed with care for so long.

He'd seen a sadness lurk in her eyes before, but not like this, so steeped in pain and regret.

‘What's happened to them?' he asked with gentle concern, reaching out to her.

Katya blinked away threatening tears, her voice shaky as she began to speak. ‘It's complicated. I'm caught up in a nightmare, Xion, costing me everything. That continues to destroy my life and those of many around me.'

Her words trailed off, and she looked away, unable to meet his gaze.

Xion's heart ached for her, but he didn't push or question. Instead, he waited, letting her share her story when she was ready.

Eventually, she worked up the courage to continue. ‘They were taken from me. I lost them, and I've never been the same since.'

‘What the fokk, Katya? Tell me, how can I help? I'm the freakin' head of security of a galactic organisation. I can -'

His words were interrupted by the trill of a call coming in on her wrist comm.

She glanced at her device, and Xion's insides lurched even as his limbs locked.

All because of the expression on her face.

Of utter terror.

‘What's wrong, woman?' he rasped, his heart rate ratcheting.

She jerked her head to the view outside, fighting tears and panic. 'Everything, everything is wrong,' she murmured.

She rushed from the bed and moved to the wardrobe, slipping on a sheathe dress and shoes.

He raked his eyes over her from head to toe, his entire body on alert. ‘What's happening?'

Her eyes dipped, as did her chin, and with a sob, she plunged into the lounge area and headed to the suite's front door.

He followed.

At the entrance, she hesitated for a moment and flashed her fokkin' hot eyes back at him. Her irises flit to the corner of her eye as if she were speaking to someone via a neural node.

Her gaze tracked back to him, and he realised her expression was one of deep regret.

‘Sorry,' she whispered. ‘I'm so very sorry, Xion.'

‘For what?' he grunted, perplexed.

Suddenly, his neural node began to pulse with warning vibrations across his skull. His metanoids, which he'd set on the three guards a few days earlier, were sending proximity alerts.

He had no time to react before she turned her agonised eyes to him.

‘For this,' came her small whisper under the pulsing internal klaxons.

The door to the hotel suite was wrenched away from Katya's hands.

A phalanx of shadows rushed towards him.

He dropped his kahawa, which splashed all over the floor as he was hit with a barrage of electric shocks.

As the insane voltage surged through his body, Xion's muscles convulsed involuntarily, his limbs jerking and contracting with each shock.

The world blurred around him, his vision fracturing into shards of light and darkness.

Katya stood in the doorway, her expression distressed as the scene unfolded.

He saw her step toward him, but one of the kinais pulled her back with rough disdain.

Her eyes locked on his, her regret palpable, her chest heaving with agitation, a stricken observer of the violent retribution being dealt to her lover.

Caught in a flex of electrical charge, Xion clenched his jaw as he tried to steady his breathing and push down the rising tide of panic threatening to consume him.

His mind was in a wild riot, racing with agony while trying to make sense of the betrayal unfolding before him.

He had believed in their connection.

But now, as he writhed in agony on the floor, he realised that she'd been playing him all along.

He'd made a grave mistake, falling for Katya's allure without understanding the dangerous web of power and deceit she was entangled in.

The world blurred around him, his vision fracturing into shards of light and darkness. Through the haze of pain, he just made out the figures looming over him, their faces obscured by the harsh glow of the stun guns they wielded.

One of the silhouettes leaned in. ‘Wouldn't you know it? We've got ourselves a real, live Rider,' he sneered.

Another laughed as the third cuffed him up. ‘I never thought I'd see the day,' he said. ‘They're difficult to bag, but thank fokk, our patron advised us to use a mega-charged laser to bring him down.'

‘What do you want?' Xion's words came out as a hoarse whisper, barely audible amidst the chaos around him.

The figure who seemed to be in charge loomed over him, a cruel smile playing on his lips. ‘Xion Sable, you've been fooling around with the wrong woman. You see, Katya here is not just any femme fatale. She's one of us—a scion of the D'Hanna family. We've been planning this heist for a while, and now we have plans for you.'

Fokk, these were her siblings?

The Rider's mind reeled, still convulsing from the electric shocks, trying to make sense of what he was hearing.

The shock of her gaming his heart hit hard, even as his metanoids fought off the effects of the laser attack.

Through the haze of his emotional and physical pain, the elder of the quartet growl to Katya. ‘The Iris? Where is it?'

Katya rose with a press of her lips and moved to the bedroom.

She returned with the jewel in a clear crystal-boxed container.

‘Keep it safe and close to you,' her older brother commanded. ‘Now let's move.'

Katya gathered her things in silence, her face tight and worried, her eyes flicking every so often with concern for Xion.

He ignored her, seething in private.

The Rider was lifted off the ground.

The three assailants dragged him through the opulent hotel suite.

Despite his reeling mind and aching muscles, a spark of defiance ignited within. He would not go down without a fight when there was still a chance to turn the tables on his captors.

He gathered his meta strength at the door and launched into high-velocity mode.

Knifing out of the three men's hands, he threw himself at the nearest figure at lightning speed, driving his shoulder into their midsection.

A grunt escaped the startled assailant as they staggered back, caught off guard by Xion's sudden burst of resistance.

Two of the brothers grabbed hold of him, and he stumbled, still weakened from the electric shock pulse.

‘Katya,' the lead kinai roared. ‘The injection.'

Xion whirled his head around, stumbling as her face paled. She hesitated.

‘Do it,' the eldest man growled, barely holding back the enraged Rider. ‘Or everything goes pear-shaped; you lose your fokkin' kids, and we have a target on our back for years to come.'

Xion tagged her expression as it melded into terror.

With trembling hands, she extracted a needle vial from the folds of her bag.

‘I'm so sorry, Xion, so sorry,' she whispered as she approached. ‘I was not willing for this to happen. I tried to call them off, but they have-'.

A side blow from the third brother, who wasn't holding onto a struggling Rider, shut her up, and she gasped, raising a hand to her cut lip.

‘Do it,' came the grating demand.

With Xion staring at her, she plunged it into his thigh.

He jolted at the agony and then collapsed as the high dose of toxin flooded his system and immobilised his ligaments.

Katya's eyes met his for a fleeting moment, and in that gaze, he caught the abject sorrow and regret in their depths.

The betrayal pierced deep, but he couldn't dwell on it now. Survival was the only thing that mattered.

Limp and unable to control his muscles, the group dragged him out of the suite.

He was dumped into a trolley cart, covered with a tablecloth, and trundled through the silent, abandoned service elevator and corridors.

He guessed their trajectory as they wheeled him to the outside, to the rear of The Grande.

It took all three of the kinais to bundle him into a waiting five-seater flyer parked in the basement garage.

Katya moved to the front beside the pilot, staring stonily ahead.

Flanked by the two of her brothers, Xion slumped into his seat, staring at the passing view, unable to move a single muscle.

Winging over Enia's bustling streets, his mind raced with thoughts of escape.

But each time he tried to move, a sharp prod of the electrified weapon or slap from one of his captors reminded him of his helplessness.

Finally, the flyer stopped in a secluded aerospace hangar on the city's outskirts.

Rough hands pulled the Rider out of the craft and into the graceful Ccyth ship he'd seen Katya disappear into days earlier.

Dragged past a luxury stateroom that he glimpsed for a moment, he was thrown in a dark hold in the ship's lower levels.

The metallic clang of the door slamming shut echoed in the confined space, leaving Xion alone in the darkness.

He wanted to roar with bitterness and anger, but his limbs and muscles were unable to comply.

There was one thing he still had under his control.

He sent a neural command to the Tachy, and in moments, Mirage's proxy node had located him and the vessel he was on.

The engines of his captor's ship rumbled to life as their takeoff sequence began.

Follow me,he snarled neurally to the AI, and then he slumped over, unconscious.