Rayven's Keep (8 page)

* * * *

Nick felt like all the air had been sucked out of his lungs. He was going to kill Seth when he saw him, slowly and with a great deal of pleasure. When he’d sent him to find something suitable for Tru to wear, he hadn’t meant for it to be one of his shirts. His favorite shirt, no less. And, why were her legs bare? A man could only take so much, and the sight of those lovely, long legs made his mouth water. Swallowing hard, he crossed the room until he was standing in front of her.

“I see Seth found something for you to wear?” Nick’s question sounded inane even to his own ears and he winced.

He tried not to notice the delicate lines of Tru’s collarbone revealed by the too-large neck of the shirt, or the fact the fabric clung like a second skin to her small breasts. He jerked his gaze away from her and looked over her head toward Callen, who had the nerve to grin at him.

She shifted in her seat and the hem of his shirt rode up higher on her thigh. His blood pressure rose and his face felt frozen into a permanent scowl.

“Yes, thank you for the loan. There were trousers, but I couldn’t keep them up and they were too long to walk in,” she answered with a charming smile.

Callen choked on a laugh and Nick was ready to commit murder. Tru leaned around the chair and looked at Callen. She seemed surprised to hear him laugh.

‘Damn it,” Nick grumbled. “This isn’t going to work.”

He grabbed her hand, hauled her out of the chair and pulled her unresisting out of the room. She had trouble keeping up with his long stride and tried to jerk out of his grip. He didn’t pause or slow down, just held her hand with bone-crushing force, leaving her to figure out how to keep up.

“Hey, boss...” Seth’s words trailed after them but Nick didn’t give him a chance to finish. He slammed the door to his office, cutting off the sound of Callen’s amused chuckle and the bewildered look on Seth’s face. He’d deal with the two of them later.

Nick dropped her hand as soon as they were alone and went behind the desk, motioning for her to remain where she was. He punched a series of buttons with more force than was necessary and a callscreen rose from its hidden place in the desk.

“Briella’s,” he barked to the automated inquiry, and then drummed his fingers on the desk while waiting for the connection to be made.

“Briella’s, how may I help you?” The voice belonged to a striking young woman, elegantly dressed and smiling with just a hint of hauteur.

“I need clothing for my...er...client,” he said. “I need it delivered immediately.”

“I see. Is there any particular style you want?” The woman’s smile was arch, implying Briella’s catered to every type of need without unnecessary embarrassment to either of them.

Nick glared, and her smile slid away to be replaced by cool professionalism.

“She will need things suited for space travel, nothing frilly–utilitarian,” he snapped, eyeing Tru. “Everything from the skin out. Dark colors.”

He needed the clothing to be dull and sufficient to cool his growing sexual attraction to her. He gestured for Tru to join him behind the desk, positioning her so she could be seen by the salesperson on the callscreen.

“I don’t like dark colors,” Tru declared and raised her chin.

The sales woman looked from Tru to Nick and back again before she focused on Tru. Her smile warmed and she quirked an eyebrow. “Permission to scan?”

“Granted,” Tru replied and then urged Nick to step out of the way. A small rainbow hued beam fanned out and scanned Tru from head to foot. Measurements, skin tone and other pertinent information was gathered and transmitted to the store.

“I will see appropriate garments are delivered right away. I’m sure you will be completely satisfied with the collection.” She smiled serenely at Nick who inserted a data slip into a slot by the callscreen and authorized funds to be transferred. “It has been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Rayven.” Her image blinked out and the screen slid into the desk.

Satisfied one immediate problem would soon be taken care of, Nick escorted Tru to a nearby seat. Too restless to stay in one spot, he paced the room.

“There was no need for you to order clothes for me, you know? I could have taken care of it myself.”

“Really? How? If I’m not mistaken you are on the run right now without any credits to your name.” Nick’s voice sounded harsh, even to his own ears. He exhaled and forced a calmness he was far from feeling. “Speaking of running, it is time to tell me what is going on, Tru.”

“I know.”

Chapter 7

“Why were you on Lodestone? If I’m going to help you, I need to know the truth. Don’t even think about lying to me.”

Tru glared at him and then looked away.

“I don’t have all day, Tru,” he snapped.

“Fine! I worked in the department handling accounting for my grandfather’s many interests. I’m good with numbers, but the job killed me with boredom. I wanted adventure and to travel, not sit in an office all day.”

Nick crossed his arms over his chest and waited, his patience growing thin. Tru sat a little straighter in her chair and rushed to continue. “I was responsible for Lodestone Mining’s account, and I began to suspect something wasn’t right with the accounting. Money was being funneled into subsidiaries. It all looked good on the surface, but I kept running into walls when I tried to track it further. It was small things I couldn’t explain and it made me take a second, deeper look.” Her voice rose. “I tried to talk to my father about what I noticed, but he patted me on the head and told me not to be ridiculous. Lodestone Mining was a sound investment and I was letting my imagination run away with me.”

“Go on,” he encouraged, before relaxing enough to sit on the corner of his desk. He plucked a small, decorative glass disc from the desktop and tossed it from one hand to the other.

“I decided to take matters into my own hands and prove I was right.”

Nick raised his eyebrows in mock alarm.

“I informed my family I was going to visit a friend. I didn’t want them to worry, you see. I caught a transport to Lodestone under a false name so no one would know where I was and come after me. I informed the operations manager, Anto Geir, I was an auditor from Creighton Mutual doing a routine check. Everything was going as planned. I had even been able to discover the head of Lodestone Mining was not correctly accounting for the amount of mineral being shipped for sale–”

“How did you manage that?”

“I made friends with a shipping clerk. It wasn’t hard to get him to talk about his job and fairly easy to figure out some of the shipments were conveniently going astray.” Tru shrugged.

“Him? Just how, exactly, did you get him to talk, Tru?” Nick’s voice was dark, dangerous as unwelcome jealousy stirred at the mention of another man. The emotion was so alien and so out of place, given the circumstances, it caught him off guard. He put the glass disc down with a little more force than necessary and curled his fingers under the edge of the desk, waiting for her answer.

Tru’s shirt hem had ridden up her thigh again and she tugged it down. Nick almost groaned out loud.

“Oh, you know, we had drinks at his place a couple of times,” she replied.

“Just drinks?” There it was again, a slight growl in his voice, and he winced. Damn it all, she was driving him crazy.

“Of course, just drinks. Good grief, Nick, what did you think was going on? He thought he impressed me with his importance. A few cups of the local ale and he prattled on without much encouragement. It was easy to cross-reference the dates he let drop on shipments against delivery. It wasn’t until Anto Geir started questioning me that I got a little nervous.”

“What kind of questions?”

“At first I didn’t think much about it. He wanted to know how my audit was going, was everything in order, that kind of thing. He tried to make conversation about the people I spent time with. He started to really make me nervous.”

She clasped her hands in her lap tight enough to turn the knuckles white then continued in a small, strained voice, “The next work cycle, the shipping clerk wasn’t at his station. His body was found in one of the mines. Anto called it a tragic accident.”

Expressions chased each other across her face, fear shadowed her eyes, and his long suppressed protective instincts chose that moment to make themselves known. Pushing himself off his desk, he crossed the short distance to her. Squatting, he took her small, clenched fists in his much larger hands, offering comfort as he rubbed his thumbs across their back.

“Tell me the rest, Tru,” he ordered in a gentle tone.

“When I got back to my rooms someone had been there. Everything was tossed about. My clothes were in ruins. I knew whoever had been there was looking for information, but I never left my data drive in my rooms. It was always with me.” Her voice trembled, and her pulse raced under his fingertips.

“I knew I had to get back home, but whenever I tried to contact anyone the channels were blocked. I couldn’t even get a transport off-world. I wasn’t sure what to do, whom I could trust. I was scared to death.”

She raised fear-dilated eyes to his, the bruising on her temple dark against her pale skin. “I waited until it was full dark and managed to get out of my rooms unseen, and once the shift changed at the space port offices, I was able to sneak in and find an unoccupied room. They don’t fully staff during the off hours and security is a little lax so it wasn’t hard to do. I was able to gain access to an unblocked haloviz. I’d heard rumors you were coming to Lodestone when no one thought I was listening. It seemed to make people very nervous for some reason.”

“It seems like Geotern Mining isn’t as good at keeping secrets as they thought,” he murmured. “What were the rumors you heard?”

“There weren’t many really–rumors of a new mineral, speculation on why Rayven Security would be involved, but nothing concrete. Your name kept coming up. Even my grandfather had shown some interest in your company. I knew you were going to be my best chance to escape, so I waited and hid, praying the rumors were true and you would help me get home.”

Nick released her hands and stood. He crossed to the window, his back to the room. “Finding me didn’t prove to be such a bargain though, did it?” He glanced over his shoulder when he heard her leave her chair and cross the room to stand beside him. Her touch was hesitant against the rigid muscles of his back.

“If you hadn’t arrived when you did, Nick, I would probably be dead,” she said simply. “I owe you for saving me...and for helping me now.”

“Do you still have the drive?” He turned enough to see her, but not enough to force her hand from touching him. Tru had been rubbing his shoulder in a soothing circular motion and he enjoyed the contact. He suspected she wasn’t even aware she did it, but he would take what he could get.

With her free hand, she slid her fingers under a thin chain around her neck and pulled the end of it from under the shirt she wore. It looked like an ornamental piece of jewelry until he looked closer and realized it was a cleverly camouflaged data drive.

“May I?” He indicated the necklace with a lift of his chin.

She nodded and reached behind her to unfasten the dainty chain. He forestalled her by cupping her shoulders and spinning her around so her back was to him. He skimmed his palms along her tense shoulders until he reached the velvet skin of her neck and took his time tracing the fragile links of the chain with his fingertips, moving with the lightest of touches from her collarbone to the fastening at her nape. He slipped his fingers under the links and lifted the chain away from her warm, fragrant skin.

She caught her breath.

Slower than was necessary, he unlatched it, enjoying the softness of the curls clinging to her nape and wrapping themselves around his fingertips. Her breath trembled as she exhaled, and he struggled to keep himself from doing more than removing the necklace.

He cleared his throat to relieve the unexpected tightness. “I’ll have Callen take a look at the data, if that’s all right with you.”

He didn’t wait around for her answer. He left the room without a backward glance, needing to put some distance between them.

* * * *

Tru raised her hand and rested it against the pulse pounding in her throat as she watched Nick stride from the room in search of Callen.

She didn’t move.

She couldn’t even if she wanted to.