Thief (16 page)

“Practice?” Bailey asked.

“Perhaps Captain Lawless wants to make sure that he can still fly the ship in case of an emergency.” She had done the same on her ship and it seemed a likely excuse that Bailey would accept.

“Captain Lawless isn’t getting rid of me, is he?” A frown creased the smooth plump of Bailey’s face.

Since they both still touched the plastiware plate, she read Bailey through it. She discovered Bailey feared that Jace knew and resented his interest in her enough to kick him off the ship.

“Of course not.” She handed Bailey a cup of swassing. “I’ll bet Captain Lawless would appreciate your help, though.”

Reassured, Bailey trotted off to the bridge with Jace’s breakfast.

Kraft turned her attention to her own meal. She’d eaten two bites and could feel them sitting in her belly like lumps. She wasn’t hungry and pushed her plate aside. After a sleepless night pacing the floor of her bunk, she couldn’t decide what she wanted more, sleep, sex, or salvation.

With methodical precision, she washed the breakfast dishes. Lemon-scented suds popped along the top of the wash water and puffed up along her forearms. She enjoyed the sensual feel of the warm water with a greedy pleasure. The other crew members thought doing the dishes a nasty chore, but not her. Warm water and fluffy bubbles soothed as her mind drifted in thought.

In a way, she was relieved she didn’t have to face Jace this morning, because she had no idea what happened last night. She remembered feeling almost desperate to get him to back down. By the most remote fringes of honor, Jace should have folded faster than a market street huckster. Manipulating him should have been child’s play. His blushing and turning away from her slightest provocative overtures filled her with confidence that she could force him away with her pointed flirting and, if that failed, she had the power of her gaze.

But then the so-much-more-than-pretty Captain Jace Lawless touched her and a surging resonance multiplied her passion until desire filled every cell in her body. The power of his touch had been strong enough to wipe away her genetically ingrained self-preservation. She could not have fought him even if she wanted to. Honor did not hold her back nor compel her. Something far more dangerous made her his virtual slave, and it wasn’t lust.

Jace evoked desires in her that went far beyond carnal needs. He compelled emotions so intense she couldn’t defend herself from the onslaught. He enthralled her with his strong hands, direct words and erotic need to possess her fully. His control excited her to a degree she didn’t think possible. She never let a man take charge the way she let him.

Well versed in bedroom power plays, Kraft always found herself still able to ultimately take command and walk away. No man was
that
good. But for Jace.

The only thing she refused him was a kiss. The sweet intimacy of locking lips with him would have sealed her fate.

Submissive did not come to her by nature or design. She could
play
a submissive woman, but she could never actually
be
one. Assertive and aggressive in both body and word came automatically to her. Never had she felt so consumed. Never had she allowed a man to so fully command her. But for Jace. The things he’d said. Those wicked words and harsh commands…

If Jace hadn’t accidentally grabbed her injured shoulder, she would have let him take her right there, on that kitchen counter where she now stacked the dishes to dry. Just looking at that innocuous piece of countertop made her nipples and passage tighten.

She danced such a tight two-step with Jace that one wrong move would send her spiraling out into the Void. She lifted her gaze to the window in the ceiling and saw strands of brightening sunlight fill the mocking darkness of the Void.

The kitchen wall com squelched, and Jace said, “Everyone, we’re about twenty minutes off Dahank. Prepare for landing.”

Kraft stowed the dishes and battened down the hatches. Just the sound of his husky voice issuing curt commands made her physical condition almost unbearable, and she knew, in that instant, she had to prepare not for landing, but for leaving.

After Kobra’s men carted away the goods from the Runner salvage, Jace divvied up the script from the job. Since she’d convinced him to strip the ship of both equipment and electronics, the job netted a solid 10K. If Jace considered the Basic 5K a fluke, the Runner salvage coming in at that price must have made his head spin.

Despite Heller’s bitching and moaning, she received a fair percentage. Not that she got a chance to defend her rightly deserved portion. Not that she’d needed to. She’d been trapped in her room while Jace, Garrett and Heller loudly argued in the cargo bay. She could have left her room, but her only escape was to cross the hold where the three men argued. Just about the last thing she wanted to do was run into Jace when he had a full head of steam. She paced her room and listened to his imperious captain voice via the air vent.

It seemed that once Heller clapped an eye to 10K he got mighty greedy mighty fast. He made no bones about wanting his fair share, and he thought he deserved more because he’d carried all the heavy equipment.

Jace allowed that Heller had earned a fair ten percent by doing the bulk of the grunt work.

Heller thought he’d earned at least double what Kraft did.

Jace calmly reminded Heller that if not for Kraft, they’d probably still be bunkered down, hiding from the autofires.

Heller insisted she hadn’t helped enough to deserve ten percent. He thought two percent was more than fair. For a man who couldn’t count, Heller quickly calculated out her take at a paltry two percent.

Garrett thought ten seemed low after what Kraft contributed to the job itself and her work running the kitchen.

Jace agreed.

Heller resisted, citing the fact Jace took fifty percent for the ship.

Kraft thought fifty low. She took sixty for
Whisper
and that didn’t include her wage.

Heller made the colossal mistake of reminding Jace he’d spent fifteen hundred on a freak-show cook-whore who didn’t belong on the ship in the first place.

There was a long stretch of dead silence, and she wondered if Jace would end up punching Heller again.

“I’m splitting the job the way I think is fair. If you don’t like it, you can leave,” Jace said with his imperious captain voice.

The argument simmered down after that, and she could only hear snatches through the duct work. She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but she really couldn’t help it, trapped as she was in her room. She felt inordinately pleased when Jace stood up for her in his straight-shooting, no-nonsense way. But then she wondered if he wanted to give her a solid ten percent to assuage his guilt over last night.

Looking at her reflection in the small bathroom mirror, she touched the marks Jace had made on her neck. Her now clean and stitched shirt kept them well hidden, but she shivered every time she thought of when he’d put them there; how she allowed him to put them there; encouraged him to mark her as a way to claim her as his own. She felt a surge of fear when she’d felt his determination to never let her go. By honor, if he refused to release her from the contract, she would have to stay. She found the thought both profoundly erotic and deeply terrifying.

While she waited, she prepared herself to face Jace. She decided the best way to handle the situation was to act like it wasn’t any big deal. What happened last night was just a pissing match that got out of control and turned sexual.

She jumped when she heard a rhythmic tap from the wall com speaker and then ran to open the door. It took mounds of effort to hide her disappointment when Garrett stood on the threshold.

Garrett handed her a bundle of battered and smelly script. Everything that Kobra touched ended up reeking of sweat from Push addicts. Before she could read further into the money, Garrett flicked the brim of his hat and drawled, “Far as I’m concerned, you done earned more’n that.” Garrett nodded and ambled off.

Kraft closed the door and thought it might be for the best if she avoided Jace for a while. Through the script, she felt Jace’s shame for hurting her, and his determination to keep their relationship honorable. Mixed up with his erotic need and lust, lingered his emotional fear and confusion. She understood, for she felt the exact same way.

Once Jace and crew departed the cargo bay, she left the ship and made her way into the cluttered streets of Jade.

She quadrupled her script at the Double Whammy, bought herself some blades, a gun, some clothes, a decent pair of boots, and a clutch of personal items. She also restocked the kitchen. She hired a jobber to take the goods to the ship so she could continue to shop.

“Heller, are you trying to follow me around again?”

Heller stepped out of the alley, glared at her, then spat a wad of brown-green rubtab that exploded, splashing the street and building. A combo of rubber and tobacco, rubtab continued to be one of the most despicable, disgusting and destructive habits.

“Since you’re so eager to spend time with me—”

“Just keeping an eye on you.”

“Any particular reason why?” Kraft stopped at a window display of chic dresses. She’d love to wear something so dramatically beautiful, but such a getup wasn’t practical, and she moved on. With a flush of female pleasure, she wondered what Jace would think of the lacy black bra and panties she now wore below her crisp new dextex shirt and pants. She had a feeling he would find them nothing but in the way. And he would probably like her to wear a skirt, so he could just yank it up when—

“Maybe you’re a spy or something.”

Heller’s comment jolted her from her flight of fancy.

She kept walking but turned to him. “A spy for who?”

“Maybe Trickster.”

She laughed at the absurdity of his accusation. After what Trickster had done to her, she wouldn’t help him on pain of death. “What could I possibly tell him?”

“Don’t know.” Heller was distracted by a scantily clad huckster at the doorway to a touchy-feely show. “But you should be off our ship by now.”

“How do you figure that?” Kraft glanced at the exhausted woman below the bright makeup and garish clothing. The woman’s voice rang shrill and desperate. When Kraft slipped a ten-flat to her small hand, she felt the pressure behind the woman’s struggle to support her three children after the IWOG killed their father, her husband, over a drunken exchange outside this very establishment.

“You could wager your script up and buy your own damn ship and get the hell off ours.” Heller’s words rushed out in an annoyed tumble.

Turning away from the woman after the brief exchange, Kraft thought that was a grand idea, but it simply wasn’t practical.

“There’s a limit to how much I can win at one time, Heller. If I took a thousand and tried to run it up to 500K, I’d get myself banned from every hell on every planet in a matter of hours. I need to start with big money and go up from there.”

“You ain’t ever leaving
Mutiny
are you?” Heller turned his gaze to a small boy herding goats through the street with a sapling stick.

“Believe me, Heller, as badly as you want me off the ship, I want it a thousand times more.”
For reasons you couldn’t comprehend.

Day by day, she felt more comfortable on Jace’s ship and enjoyed her respite from the pressures of being in charge. And Jace, well, he became ever more interesting when he decided to take charge. She didn’t think she could handle another encounter like last night without taking it to a soul-shattering climax.

Her determination not to kiss him wouldn’t last long under the wicked seduction of his touch. She didn’t have to read him to know how badly he wanted to kiss her. Jace lost his focus when he gazed at her mouth. His striking green eyes went all soft and dreamy, and he damn near licked his lips with anticipation, just like he had when she confirmed she could cook. Hell, he wanted to kiss her so badly he almost forced her. If not for a shock of pain, she would have let him. And then she would have been lost forever.

She had to get off his ship, and fast. It’d be too easy to fall into a life where all the burdens rested on a captain who wasn’t her. Falling in love with that same captain would be disastrous. To her
and
him. Eventually, she’d want to be in charge and run the ship. No matter what power games they played in the bedroom, when it came down the sticking place of who gave the orders, she would take control.

Ingrained reactions, inculcated in her from the day of her birth and in her genes, Kraft had to take control or die. Self-preservation ran so strong she would kill anyone and everyone to protect herself. But for Jace.

For the first time, she found herself in the impossible position of putting another human being before herself. It ran counter to her rational mind, her training, her genetic code—the very foundation of her being.

Putting another before herself was suicide.

Only her heart understood.

Submitting to Jace in the galley, willing her body to him by clinging to her honor, she almost allowed the Void to take the last thing she had left.

As if a talisman, she held back her kiss. If only she didn’t lock lips, she would not fully lose her heart to him. Determined to give up any part of herself to his pleasure, she would hold that one compelling intimacy back, almost like an ace up her sleeve.

Her refusal to kiss confused Jace to an alarming degree. Kissing loomed primary to him. He couldn’t envision penetrating her body in any way until he took possession of her mouth. By her refusing him that, he refused her everything else.

Stalemate.

Her little chat with Heller made her realize she needed a big haul to start over and get her own ship. As they walked the market street, she set her mind to scheming and came up with the perfect plan.

“You want to knock off an IWOG transport station? Did you get brain-bashed on Dahank?” Clean-shaven and smelling of spicy aftershave, Garrett tipped his new straw hat off his brow as he propped his feet, clad in shiny-new snakeskin boots, on the kitchen table. “Lady, I got all kinds of faith in your ability to kick some serious behind, but this is just plain crazy.”