Fontanas Trouble Read online

  Fontana’s Trouble

  T. C. Archer

  Copyright © April 2014 by T. C. Archer

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design © Melissa Alvarez BookCovers.US

  Cover Photography DepositPhotos.com, ©ysbrand, ©rolffimages, ©tarasla.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Publication Loose Id as Trouble at the Hotel Baba Ghanoush

  This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. This e-book is for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  Chapter One

  Fontana spotted trouble when the man first burst into Spacer Jack’s Bar and Grill. It wasn’t his chiseled jaw and blond hair or the way he scanned the joint with his intense blue eyes. No, the trouble was—he was naked. The towel wrapped around his slim hips had snagged on the swinging bar door when he entered, and he didn’t look back in his sprint toward the kitchen. He shot past where Fontana sat at the bar, his muscular ass bunching with the effort of his long strides.

  Her pulse jumped. If that's trouble, I want some.

  The naked man disappeared through the kitchen doors. A collision of bodies sounded.

  Fontana straightened. How was a woman to mind her own business when a nude man was in trouble? She shoved off the corner stool and dashed after the naked man, swiping a man’s trench coat off the coatrack standing beside the kitchen door. She pushed through the swinging door and halted centimeters from where the naked man lay sprawled on top of a waiter. A tray of pasta entrées hovered on its anti-grav suspension, where the waiter would have been holding it in his upturned hand before the man rammed into him.

  In all her years of undercover work, she had never come across a situation quite like this. And probably wouldn’t again.

  Fontana seized the naked man’s arm, hauled him to his feet, and threw the coat over his shoulders as she bolted with him toward the rear exit. She dragged him through the back door, and they practically fell into the back alley by the dumpsters. A furry rodent skittered from nearby tin cans and disappeared behind a stack of pallets. She couldn’t help a smile. The alley was a replica of mid-twentieth-century Earth, complete with robo-rats and all.

  She grasped the man’s shoulders and shoved him against the restaurant wall. Her pulse sped up when the steely muscles beneath her fingers tensed. How was it possible for his hard body to get any harder? She’d seen Aslothian gladiators with less muscle. His blue-eyed gaze locked on to hers.

  Fontana ignored the tremor that rippled through her, pressed her body against his solid two meter frame, and demanded, “What the hell is going on?”

  His cock pulsed against her abdomen and began to thicken. This diversion was exactly what her superior, Colonel Stephaney Lyons, had ordered. “Find a man and reaffirm life. Let him fuck your brains out.” The colonel wasn’t usually one for getting quite so personal or so crude, but she knew how angry Fontana was about Jenny’s death and the failure of the mission on Rigil IV.

  The naked man grasped her shoulders and drew her closer. “Who are you?” His drawl belied the intensity of his stare.

  Well, well, a man who knew how to pace himself. Fontana slipped a hand between them and wrapped her fingers around his erection. Her mouth went dry. He was hard as a rock. She squeezed the thick rod. He hardened even more beneath her fingers.

  “I’m asking the questions.” Damn if she didn’t sound like Detective Friday from the twentieth-century series Dragnet. Dragnet’s brand of law was before the Criminal Rights Act of 2141.

  The naked man gave a low laugh. “Oh, tough girl.”

  “Who are you running from?”

  “Maybe I should be running from you.”

  “Not while I have hold of this.” She yanked his cock with just enough force to keep his attention.

  He sucked in a breath.

  Now she had him. “I can play yanky-panky all night.”

  His shaft throbbed, and his warm hands slid down her arms, stopping to rest on her hips. Long fingers flexed against her carbon-fiber parachute pants. That and the halter she wore were a woman’s standard garb in Spacers. She released him when he rolled her mound against his rod. Fontana grasped his arms and angled her hips so that the steely length slid along her clit. He groaned, and the sound sent butterflies skittering across the inside of her stomach.

  While she imagined the tingle of excitement was caused by her Corps-issued bionanobots readying to attack foreign fluids and infection and sperm, she had attended enough briefings to know she would never feel the microscopic robots’ activity. The warmth was old-fashioned arousal, and it made her feel alive.

  “A little more of this and I’ll make a mess all over you,” he growled.

  Fontana splayed her palms across his broad chest. Fine, silky hair covered the tanned flesh. A man this good-looking, good feeling, and so ready for a woman had to be from one of the dozens of brothels on the space station Club Sagitariun, the final destination for the fantasy of your choice. She couldn’t have planned a better fantasy if she’d tried. No fuss, no muss, and, most importantly, no strings.

  She lifted her gaze to his. “Why are you running naked through the streets?” She repressed a laugh. Maybe the brothel he worked for wanted him to service an ugly, smelly woman, and he’d decided at the last minute fucking her wasn’t worth a day’s pay.

  “I had a towel,” he said.

  Fontana raised a brow.

  “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “I was in the shower and… Your eyes are an unusual shade of amber,” he murmured. “They match your hair.”

  He fingered a lock of her long brown hair. She usually war her hair in a tight bun, but Retro was in, especially on the early twentieth-century corner of Club Sagitariun, so she’d left it down. He bent and kissed her, his full lips teasing in a feather-light caress before covering her mouth. His tongue flicked at her closed lips. She opened. He plunged inside and pulled her hips closer. The velvety head of his cock contacted the exposed section of her belly, then slid up until the full length pressed a groove into her skin—warm, hard, and throbbing.

  She kissed him back, sparred with his tongue, then broke the kiss. Her heart was beating like a Mandorian Racer. Except for the two times when she and Jenny had taken solace in one another’s arms, she’d remained celibate during the year they’d spent in the jungles of Rigil IV. Mixing work and pleasure seldom turned out well, and losing Jenny was more proof of that. Fontana had been ordered to rest while on Sagitariun. She always followed orders. Almost always.

  “You going to fuck me right here?” she asked.

  Fontana ran her gaze up the alley, which traversed a complete circle inside the resort. The architects had built the entire habitable area on the inside of a huge tube over a kilometer in diameter. Streets ran along the length and around in circles. The alley where they stood was an arounder, meaning the alley curved up in the distance like an ever-steepening hill until the street headed straight up and overhead. It continued around the circle, then down a slope to meet u
p behind them in one continuous loop in a four circle.

  When Fontana arrived three days ago, looking up had produced a sharp case of vertigo. The buildings seemed to tilt toward her at an increasing angle with distance. Even from a short distance, the tilt became so severe, it looked like everything would fall out of the buildings and off the roofs and tumble onto her. It had taken two days for her body to accept what her mind knew: everything remained securely in place because the whole resort was spinning. The apparent gravity operated on the same physics that held a roulette ball in the rim of the spinning wheel, so everything got forced against the round floor and everywhere felt perfectly flat.

  The strangest part about the design of Club Sagitariun was that everyone on the arounder streets could see what was happening along that street if they looked up in a great circle, except directly overhead, where the bright sun-tube along the axis of the resort blocked the scenery directly opposite. At the moment, few people were in sight, and even those who were out and about would need binoculars to observe her and the naked man. She wasn’t into voyeurism, but maybe he was.

  Fontana met his gaze again and traced his jaw with a finger. “I’m open to new things.”

  He grasped her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’d love to satisfy you now, my lady, but I’m in a hurry. Where are you staying? I’ll look you up.”

  She blinked. His raging cock was digging into her stomach, yet he was promising to call her? This wasn’t her fantasy, after all.

  “Maybe next time.” She turned.

  He grasped her wrist. “Where are you staying?” He actually looked hurt.

  “Be careful—”

  Blam!

  The back door of Spacer Jack’s blew off its hinges. Fontana whirled and, through the dust and smoke, saw the door sail across the alley. It hit the opposite wall with a crash and rebounded toward them. She turned to shove the naked man out of the way, but he yanked her aside, hugging her in a protective embrace as twisted metal slammed into the wall where they’d been standing. It thudded to a rest, kicking up a dust cloud.

  He held her close. Her heart thumped against his chest and reverberated through her before she lifted her head and met his gaze. “Was that for you?”

  He grinned. “Gotta go.”

  Releasing her, he whirled and sprinted down the alley, the coat flapping around his ass. She stared. He hadn’t been the least bit afraid or surprised by the blown-up door.

  Five men in black body armor piled though the wrecked doorway, grunting and cursing. Fontana tensed. Shock troopers. What had the naked man done to piss them off?

  The lead man turned his gaze on her. She would have concluded this was part of the naked man’s fantasy, but the excessive force of blowing off the door while two people stood near enough to get killed was a crime. Didn’t galactic law limit how far a reality vacation could go? The naked man had to be in serious trouble and, according to the Galactic Coalition, she was one of those people who went after troublemakers. Still…

  Fontana stepped in front of the leader. “What the hell are you doing?” she demanded. “You could have killed me.”

  The trooper shoved her aside and started down the alley. His men followed. The last man stumbled past her, and she realized he was trying to clear his head from the ringing that must be ricocheting inside his skull as a result of being inside the building when they’d blasted the door off. She stuck out her foot. He tripped and grabbed for the man in front of him. Three of them hit the ground like dominoes.

  “That’s what you get for standing too close inside the building when you’re blowing off a door.” She’d learned that her first year at the academy.

  She shifted her gaze to the naked man running down the alley. He had a substantial lead. A moot point, really. The troopers could see him all the way up the slope until he reached the next cross street a quarter of the way up. Fontana released a breath. Yeah, he was trouble.

  A shame. That was the finest kiss she’d had in longer than she could remember.

  Chapter Two

  Fontana leaned back in her chair in the 1930s speakeasy the Rag Time Club and looked across the dance floor at the black woman singing on the stage. Her sultry voice poured from the microphone into the dimly lit room like Norak silk. The early twentieth century had its moments. The tables surrounding the dance floor accommodated two people, the white vinyl booths that lined the wall, six. Every seat was filled. Most people were dressed in character from the twenties and thirties. Fontana wore a black satin dress with a flared skirt and her long hair contrasted the short cuts nearly all the other woman wore.

  Anyone who saw her would assume she wasn’t quite the avid 1930s fashion fan most female tourists were, but she fit in well enough. Still, she couldn’t help admiring the elaborate flapper dresses and the long, elegant gowns. The waist-length necklaces, long cigarette holders, and feathered wraps would be fun. Fontana thought of the man she’d met in the alley two hours ago and pictured his shoulders filling out one of the knee-length pinstripe suit coats. She remembered the gorgeous cock that would fit snugly in the trousers. The black collared shirt and white tie would be an irresistible finishing touch.

  The front door of the bar opened, and a man stepped inside. The carved ebony nose ring he wore identified him as New Kenyian, a reclusive race of nomads who currently inhabited two planets on the Second Spiral Arm. His gaze passed over the room in casual interest. His eyes didn’t linger on her, but she knew he saw her.

  She was taking a chance, hiring him. She was, after all, supposed to be on vacation. The idea still made her laugh, despite the fact that if the Track Cartel found out where she was, she would be dead within a day.

  The Corps said she needed to stay safe until the hearing where she testified against the cartel members, and a vacation resort was the last place they would look for her. But her safety was only part of why the Corps had sent her to Sagitariun. This vacation was supposed to make her forget about Jenny, a young geologist fresh out of school with a head full of hopes and dreams who’d been tortured and murdered on Rigil IV.

  If Stephaney knew Fontana was conducting her own investigation into Jenny’s death, Stephaney would revoke Fontana’s leave. The last thing the Coalition wanted was a Corps soldier interfering in Special Ops. But the Coalition had no intention of expending any more energy on Rigil IV. One failure on that planet was enough.

  Fontana figured that whatever cartel leader Gaelen Castor had beamed off the planet before she and the rest of the Corps had closed in on him had something to do with why he’d murdered Jenny. If the Coalition wouldn’t uncover the truth behind Jenny’s death, Fontana would. Jenny deserved justice. So did the parents who’d lost their only daughter. A daughter lost under Fontana’s watch.

  Her contact sauntered to the bar and ordered a drink. Fontana sipped her Scotch. She hadn’t had a Scotch this good in years and wondered if Sagitariun replicated the smoky-oak barrel taste, or if it was the real thing. The synthesized liquors typically didn’t compare well to the real thing, but aged liquors had become too cost prohibitive for the average person. Only a handful of manufacturers catered to the wealthy, and the best oak for aging came from Earth. Oak had become so valuable—along with other irreplaceable woods, herbs, fruits, and berries—that Earth had turned into an agricultural paradise.

  She threw back the remainder of the drink, then signaled the waitress for another. The song ended, and the singer began an even slower song. From the corner of her eye, Fontana saw her contact lean against the bar. He gazed around the room and paused when their eyes met. She gave a small smile, indicating interest, and he pushed off the bar and wound his way through the tables toward her.

  “Care to dance?”

  “I’m not much of a dancer,” she replied.

  “Leave it to me.” He set his drink on the table and extended a hand.

  She rose, and he led her onto the dance floor and into the heart of the swaying throng. Fontana entwined her arms around his nec
k and pressed her cheek against his jawline. He smelled of light cologne and musky male, a pretty good combination. So why was she picturing Mr. Naked streaking through Spacer Jack’s?

  Her contact pressed his mouth to her ear. “This is one big favor.”

  Her mind snapped to attention. Favor? Was he kidding? “Ten thousand credits is no favor,” she said.

  “I should have gotten fifty thou for the risk I’m taking.”

  “Is the little mouse afraid of the big bad wolf?” He was no little mouse, but he was acting like a pussy.

  “If my transmissions are intercepted, I could get popped,” he replied.

  “Then keep quiet and listen close, friend. You were paid for one small piece of information. Nothing more, nothing less.” She felt him stiffen. “Loosen up,” she ordered. “I expect you to act like you want to dance with me. Now, what have you got?”

  A heartbeat of silence passed before he answered. “Ten days ago, a small freighter entered Draconian space. It was heading for customs when it vanished off the screens. The freighter asked for permission to pass but warped out when ordered to stand down and be boarded for inspection.”

  Fontana whistled under her breath. That was not only illegal but marked the ship for challenge anywhere in the four galaxies. The ship might have to be dismantled and the hull number abandoned. The going rate for a new hull number was a billion credits.

  “That’s not something that happens every day,” she said. “Any idea why they disappeared after asking to enter customs?”

  “Customs detected an unknown source of energy onboard. They figure the captain was on to them and took off. In any case, that’s the only incident that showed up on the grid you outlined in the time frame you gave.”

  It wasn’t much, not nearly what she’d hoped for. What had she hoped for, the cartel to wave a sign that said ‘this is the reason we killed Jenny?’

  “Your precious Galactic Coalition made a real mess on Rigil IV,” he said.