Masters of Eden Read online

  “Is that because he’d tuck you all in at night and read you stories until you fell asleep?”

  Ghost’s hand fell in a hard swat, connecting perfectly with the round of her cheek. “That is enough from you, young lady,” he drawled. “It’s enough from both of you, actually. Mixer, three rations in the simulation room. Stat.”

  There was no defying Ghost’s order. A few minutes later, all three of them were hooked up, chairs set on the stationary tread-pad, headsets displaying a completely lifelike representation of a fancy restaurant, complete with candelabras, smooth waiters, and a string quartet playing in the far corner of the room.

  “What is the point of this?” It was nice, but Eden didn’t trust it at all. Jailers didn’t take you out to dinner, or pretend to with the help of a simulator.

  “Would you prefer this, or sitting alone in your cell?”

  “This, I guess,” she said, casting a questioning look at Mixer. The simulation had dressed him in a dinner suit, which seemed incongruous on his broad frame. He looked better as a barbarian, she mused to herself. Ghost, on other hand, looked perfect in a suit. It fit his athletic frame, accentuated his height and his refined features.

  “This isn’t for me,” she said, smirking at him. “This is for you.”

  “It has been a long time since I took a woman to dinner,” Ghost admitted.

  “Mixer doesn’t count?”

  Mixer growled, tossed his napkin down, and disappeared. That was the interesting part of being in a simulation. If you didn’t like it, you could just take your headset off and it was over. Not like real life, which was relentless with its persistence.

  “He doesn’t like to be teased,” Ghost said. “You should be careful with that. If you push him too far, you’ll find your little butt in a whole world of hurt.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” Eden said, taking a bite of the food in front of her. In the simulation it was chicken parmigiana. In real life it was nutritious slop. To her surprise, it actually tasted like chicken. “Whoa,” she said, digging her fork in again. “How does this work?”

  “The mind is capable of creating all sorts of realities,” Ghost said. “Especially when it has some help.”

  “Wow,” Eden said. “This is good.” It was good. Better than any food she’d eaten in years. Strictly speaking, it was an illusion of course, but being an illusion didn’t make it any less pleasurable.

  “There are rewards for good behavior,” Ghost drove the point home. “This is really just the tip of the iceberg. If you behave yourself, you can spend a week in the Bahamas. You can take a skiing trip. You can cross the Sahara on a camel if you like. The three months you spend on this station could be your last chance to fulfill any dreams you ever had. Or they can be three months in a little cell waiting to be shipped off to a colony where everybody is living in the dark ages.”

  Eden sipped the wine that was actually water and looked at him. “You’re a clever son of a bitch,” she said. “I bet this little talk usually works wonders.”

  “Most people like to make their lives easy,” Ghost said. “They take the opportunity and we show them the time of their lives.”

  “You mean you keep them sedated in some digital coma until they’re ready to be shipped out. No work for you.”

  She took another sip of wine, let it swirl around in her mouth. “Fuck this,” she said succinctly. “I’m not going to make your life any easier.” She finished her mouthful, lifted her hands and removed the headset. The steel of the simulation chamber was dour and dull compared to the rich ocher of the restaurant paper, but she was determined not to be distracted.

  Ghost also removed his headset, his pale blue eyes narrowed on her with displeasure. “Back to your cell,” he said. The friendly demeanor was gone. He was pissed off. She couldn’t have cared less about that; in fact, it gave her some small measure of satisfaction to know that he hadn’t gotten his way. His expression was haughty as he took hold of her arm and began escorting her down the hall. There was no more Mr. Nice Guy. There was no more giving of space. There was only the long arm of the law taking her very firmly in hand.

  Eden was grinning her head off as he put her back in the cell.

  “What are you smiling for?”

  “You lost,” she said. “That’s what this is about.”

  “I’m not the one who will be in a colony in eleven weeks’ time.”

  “No, you’ll be stuck on this ship, playing make believe with your little computer,” she snarked as the door slid closed, giving her the last word.

  Unfortunately, her sense of triumph was short-lived. Though she’d spoken last, Ghost’s words stung more than she’d let on. She was a prisoner bound for a colony, and no amount of tormenting her guards would change that fact. Defying Ghost and Mixer was satisfying only in the short term, and really, they had won. Even now they were no doubt watching her through the station’s camera array. She had no privacy, no dignity. Every part of her mind and body was laid bare to the men.

  Frustration mixed with anger and produced a flash of action. She made toward the camera, reached out and covered the prying lens with her palm. But that was not enough. Their vision was obscured, but she was stuck there with her hand over the bulb of black glass, more a prisoner than ever. With a grunt of anger, Eden drew her palm away, curled her fingers into a fist and slammed her hand back into the bulb. It burst with a most satisfying shattering sound, revealing the lens beyond. She smashed that too, not caring for consequences. For a few minutes, maybe mere seconds, she would have real privacy. She drew back and saw there were a few superficial cuts on her hand where the glass had punctured her skin. Pinpricks of blood ran in little lines down the heel of her palm and the side of her hand. They were worth it.

  Chapter Five

  Eden was a frustrating little minx at the best of times, so damn stubborn, so determined to make life more difficult than it really needed to be, Ghost thought to himself as he showered. He wished he could just talk some sense into her, but she was as resistant to sense as she was to incarceration. It wasn’t that he didn’t see her point of view. He did. He knew he probably wouldn’t be cooperative in her situation either. But they were in for weeks of hell if she couldn’t settle down a little and come to terms with her fate.

  Having restored a sense of cleanliness and mental equilibrium, Ghost redressed in his uniform and made his way to the bridge. He found Mixer there, smirking darkly at a screen that was displaying nothing whatsoever. It should have been a window into Eden’s cell. Instead it was a window into the deeper nature of static.

  “What’s wrong with the feed?”

  “Nothing on our end. My guess? She’s broken the cameras,” Mixer said. “I guess your romantic dinner didn’t go well.”

  “Not exactly,” Ghost admitted, rubbing his hand under his chin. Stubble was starting to grow in, making it prickle and itch. He needed a leather strop, both to sharpen his antique razor for a shave, and to teach their prisoner a lesson about respecting equipment. He didn’t have a strop. But he did have a paddle.

  “You want to be the one to whip her ass for vandalizing the cameras?”

  “I surely do,” Ghost said. Eden needed a damn good spanking. She was rebellious to a fault, happy to refuse an option that would make her life easier if it meant sticking it to the man in authority. She took cutting one’s nose off to spite one’s face to a whole new level.

  He strode to her cell, slapped the door open, and entered the room without a word. Eden was sitting on the bed, pretty as could be and smirking. The smirk dropped off her face as he took hold of her hand, sat down on the bed, and yanked her over his thighs.

  Her pants didn’t last a second. He swept them down along with her panties and bared her round, jiggling cheeks. She was squealing this and that, but he didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to what she was saying. It didn’t matter. She was going to get her butt roasted, and maybe then they’d talk.

  Ghost turned the paddle off, disabli
ng the electric aid designed to work through rubberized suits, or very defiant bottoms. Eden hadn’t been disciplined near enough to develop a resistance to traditional methods. She didn’t need a beating. All she needed was a good, long paddling. Ignoring her cursing, he brought the implement down in a firm swat that caught both her cheeks. She squealed as the force of the swat jolted her pretty behind, casting a pink shade across her cheeks.

  One swat quickly turned to a half dozen. Eden wriggled and thrashed around like a fish pulled out of water, her legs kicking furiously as her bright red butt jiggled. He was treated to the pleasant sight of her nether lips—cute, pouting, and puffy. There was a sheen there he couldn’t help but notice, a sign of no doubt autonomic arousal. Eden certainly wasn’t enjoying the spanking; her foul and vicious cursing told him that, as did the steady deepening of the color of her cheeks.

  “This is what will happen if you do damage to the station,” he said, speaking for the first time in the proceedings. “I will personally paddle you until sitting is a distant dream.” He emphasized the point with three crisp swats that landed full force across the center of her cheeks, catching both crowns in its punitive blast.

  Her legs scissored as she kicked frantically. He doubted it did much to relieve her discomfort, but it did provide him with an unparalleled view of her pussy and her tight little anal bud. It was tempting to run his fingers across her drenched lips, but that would defeat the purpose. The discipline would be far more effective if she thought he could deliver it without being distracted by her sex.

  Landing the paddle another three times, he heard her cries crack and become sobs. She had reached the point where fighting no longer seemed like a good idea. She was trying submission. That he would reward. Laying the paddle down, Ghost ran his hand over her cheeks. The heat radiating from her flesh was quite pleasant for him, though he doubted she would share the sentiment.

  “Let me go, please,” Eden sniffed into her hands. She was covering her face, as if hiding the fact that she was crying would change it.

  “I’m not finished with you yet, young lady,” Ghost said firmly. There was little mercy in his voice. He had tried being nice and it had resulted in nothing but snark and misbehavior. If she wanted to do things the hard way, he would accommodate her.

  He slapped her bottom sharply, ignoring her plaintive sounds. “You will be moved to another cell,” he informed her. “If you tamper with it in any way, your punishment will be escalated. Understand?”

  “Yes!” she squealed in agreement as his hand began to land over and over in a quick tattoo. Her bottom was nice and full, providing ample target for swats and slaps, and the way her toned flesh rebounded from his hand was quite rewarding.

  “And are you going to damage my cells again?”

  “Probably!”

  Ghost fought down amusement at her honesty and focused on slapping her bratty little butt until she was howling for clemency. “That was the wrong answer, girl,” he drawled, resting his palm on her quivering hot cheeks.

  “It wasn’t the answer you wanted,” she whimpered. “But it was the right answer.”

  Ghost tapped his lapel. “Mixer, you there?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Bring me down that cane, please.”

  “No!” Eden’s protest was panicked and real. She tried to escape his grasp again, but only succeeded in getting herself pinned with her thighs spread around his leg. The girl was learning her lesson hard, that was for sure.

  “If you don’t want to be caned, then you better behave yourself,” Ghost warned her. “Now are you going to mess with my cell again?”

  She was quiet for a long moment, then she sniffed and answered him with a small, “Yes.”

  Ghost sighed. Problem was, she was telling the truth. She could just as easily have lied to him and promised never to touch the cameras again, but that wouldn’t have meant anything. How the heck were you supposed to discipline someone who turned her nose up at rewards and endured discipline without deviating from her goal for one single second?

  Mixer appeared on the scene with one of the ship’s canes in his hand. He stopped and raised an eyebrow at the state of her bottom. It was red, very red, with some darker places where there could easily be some bruising later on. He was also getting the full tour of her naked anatomy, but Ghost could tell from the expression on his face that it wasn’t the bare pussy that was weighing on his mind.

  “I’ve been asking our girl here whether she’s going to leave the equipment alone or not. She’s insisting that she won’t,” he said by way of explanation.

  “Well,” Mixer said after a moment. “If you can’t keep the puppy off the couch, maybe it’s time to put the puppy in another room.”

  “What other room?” Ghost said, his hand wrapped around one of Eden’s thighs to make sure she didn’t tumble off his lap. “We have cells. She messed with this one, and she tells me she’ll mess with another one.”

  “We can put her in suspended animation for the next three months,” Mixer said. “Just knock her little ass right out.”

  “That’s cheating,” Eden sniffed, squirming her hips.

  “Like I said before, this isn’t a game,” Ghost said, slapping her bottom again. “We are not going to let you escape. And we are not going to tolerate you tearing this ship apart either. So either you’re about to get your ass caned, or you’re about to be put under for the duration of your stay.”

  Eden sniffed for a few seconds, then took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “I won’t mess with the cameras again.”

  “You won’t mess with anything again,” Ghost said firmly. “Deal?”

  “Deal,” she sniffled.

  Mixer shook his head. Ghost knew he preferred the option of just sedating her. That would save them both the trouble they could feel brewing on the horizon. In just a few short days they had already both formed personal connections with this prisoner. Alliance protocols strongly stated that guards should not fraternize with prisoners. Doing so could lead to emotional connections, and emotional connections were completely disallowed.

  He should have listened to Mixer. He should have hauled her off to the medical bay and sedated her. That would have been the right thing to do. What he did instead was slap her gorgeous bottom hard and let her up.

  She scrambled onto the bed, her naked rear end glowing, her face covered with uncharacteristic tears, dark strands of hair sticking to her cheeks as she wiped her nose on the back of her hand and tried to compose herself.

  “I’m shutting this cell down for the night,” he said as he stood. “Lights are going off, you’re going to bed.”

  She nodded woefully and kept her mouth shut. The forlorn look on her face almost made him cave and hug her, but he abstained. Better to let the lesson sink in than to comfort her immediately. A night spent with a sore bottom would not harm her in the slightest.

  He left the cell with Mixer. She let out a little sob just as the door was closing. The sound tore at his heart, but he remained steady in his resolve.

  “You really thrashed her,” Mixer noted as they walked away. He sounded surprised.

  “She destroyed part of the station,” Ghost replied. “I’m not going to tolerate that kind of behavior. She can make things difficult for herself all she likes, but she’s not going to get out of hand on my watch.”

  Mixer nodded. On that point, they were in agreement.

  *

  Ghost went to bed, but found that he had difficulty sleeping. It wasn’t that he felt guilty for disciplining Eden. She’d more than gone out of her way to deserve what she’d gotten. The way they’d left her was less than ideal though. His good nature said she should have been comforted before they left. She should have been told that she was forgiven for her transgression.

  But Eden was so badly behaved, so defiant that she probably would have taken such measures as weakness. One good spanking wasn’t going to hurt her. It was probably the best thing he could have done for her.
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br />   Still, sleep evaded him. He ended up rousing himself and returning to the bridge, where he found Mixer in an equal state of concern.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Mixer turned up the audio, letting Ghost hear what he was hearing—the sniffling, sobbing sounds of a woman. “She’s been crying for three hours. I’m wondering if there’s something more serious going on. Did you hurt her?”

  “Only her bottom.”

  “You’re sure? She could have hurt herself when she was flailing around. Or when she broke the camera out.”

  “She’s never been properly disciplined before, that’s all. I’m sure it’s a shock to her system.”

  “She isn’t the type to cry for three minutes, let alone three hours. I’m going to check her out.”

  Ghost nodded. “Very well. I’ll accompany you.”

  The two men made their way to Eden’s cell. Her crying was audible up until the moment they opened the door. The moment she became aware of their presence, she stopped and fell silent, curled up under the thin blanket like a sad little armadillo.

  Mixer went forward, touched her shoulder gently.

  “Leave me alone,” she sniffed.

  “I need to examine you,” he said, using his doctor voice, not his dominant one. His tone was softer, more understanding than usual. Eden must have been curious, for she poked her head out from under the blanket and looked at him.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ve been in distress for three hours,” he said. “I’m concerned you could be injured.”

  “I’m not injured,” she sniffed. “I’m upset.”

  “I’ll still need to do an examination to make sure.”

  Eden’s fine brows drew down into a scowl. “You just want to look at my ass.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with her,” Ghost said. “But do the examination just in case.”

  “No.” Eden drew the blanket around her more tightly. “Go away.”

  Mixer sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m not going anywhere until I’m satisfied you’re unharmed.”