Thief (21 page)

“At this moment, at this time, it’s you and me against it all.” Jace squeezed her hand. “Feel
Mutiny
below your feet, over your head. Look out to that fathomless black. It’s nothing but us in here against everything out there.”

“Berserkers and Randoms and all things dark and dangerous,” Kraft said. “IWOG worst of all.”

“Yes. All that out there and my tiny ship. Since you came aboard, Kraft, I’m a lot more confident when I face that blackness.” He squeezed her hand. She squeezed back. “You could kill me, my crew, and take this ship in under sixty seconds.”

She gripped his hand a bit tighter as she laughed. “I’m unarmed, Captain.”

Jace twined his fingers tighter to hers. “You have your hands. You dropped Heller with two fingers. Since you dropped him, you know you can drop me.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Why?” He had to know.

“Because you’re my captain.” She clasped his hand tighter and tingling rushed through his body. “You give me greatly yet hold back from your own crew.”

Jace let go of her hand. “I didn’t ask you here for a reading, Kraft.”

“They know me better than they do you. I know you better than they do, and I’ve been here only a few weeks.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me being a private person.”

“Private or paranoid? What is it about yourself that you are so afraid for everyone to know? You go off by yourself, lock yourself down for hours in your bunk, and you won’t tell anyone why. Your crew gossips endlessly about it.”

“Why is it you throw yourself at me every chance you get, but when I take you up on your offer, you run away?” Jace was so frustrated he wanted to bellow.

“Back to playing dueling questions, are we?”

“I think you’re deliberately trying to start a fight.” He pulled her into his embrace. “The last thing I want to do right now is fight with you.”

Peering up at him with her extraordinary eyes, Kraft said, “You could compel me to your bunk.”

“What?”

“You bought me as a cook-whore.”

“You’ll come to my bunk if I demand it?”

“Yes.”

“But you won’t come of your own free will?”

“This isn’t about my will.”

“Do you want to come to my bunk or not?” He was sick to death of playing games with words.

“It’s not a matter of what I want. By honor, by the unwritten contract between us, I have to if you demand it.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“Captain—”

“Don’t you dare start flinging platitudes at me again.” He pulled her tighter. “Do you want to dance with me or not?”

“If you want me to be your whore, I will.”

“My whore?” Jace pushed her away. “You think that’s what I want from you?”

“That’s what you bought me for. I’m your cook-whore. If that’s what you want—”

“I want you in my bunk because I thought the attraction between us was mutual.”

“Are you demanding this of me?” She kept her gaze out at the blackness of the Void.

For a moment he almost reminded her of the agreement to pay off her contract with a night of kissing, but he didn’t want her to come to him because she felt she
had
to. “No.”

“Then I’m your cook and nothing more.” Kraft left the bridge without another word.

Jace plopped down in the pilot chair. He cast his gaze out to the fathomless Void. All he could think of was Kraft’s hungry eyes, and how he’d been bitten by his own words.

Kraft slapped the com and closed her bedroom door. After chucking her boots off, she curled up on top of her bunk, but couldn’t sleep. Why was doing the right thing so damn hard all the time? Honor compelled her to be his whore should he demand it, and a part of her wanted him to demand it. She wanted Jace to haul her to his bunk with no questions asked. She’d like him to enforce that kissing contract to pay him off, but he wouldn’t. She knew that. Jace wouldn’t force any woman to his bed, not by contract or strong-arm tactics.

Kraft wanted to go to his bunk. “Tell you what, I’m amazed I haven’t hauled that man to the floor and had my wicked, wicked way with him.” She’d wanted to undress him like a fancy-wrapped gift since the moment she laid eyes on him, but she would only go to his bunk if he demanded it.

“Doing the smart thing is hell.” Kraft knew if she went once, she’d never leave. Counting on the fact of Jace’s honorable heart, she challenged him, knowing he would take the high road. He wouldn’t force her. A part of her longed to submit to every naughty whim he could concoct, but the smart part feared the emotional enslavement that would ensue.

She held to only two things. Honor dictated her actions, her code. The other didn’t dictate as much as it compelled sacrifices.

“No power in the Void can rob me of love lest I allow it.”

Only by her own heart could she grant it. Kraft granted it to her crew. She loved them dearly, deeply. She would have died for them. She lived because of them.

And now a man who accepted that she could best him but wouldn’t, a man who wanted her more because of it, a man who wouldn’t force her but could compel her—Jace didn’t know it, but so far, he was the most dangerous man she’d ever met. He could best her. He just didn’t know how.

Kraft wasn’t about to tell him. It wouldn’t take much to enslave her heart and soul to him. One kiss would seal the deal. She knew it as sure as Jace knew she could break every limb in his body if he tried to force her to kiss him.

“I’ve got to get off this ship.”

She slept fitfully.

In the morning, she entered the galley to find Garrett walking wounded from the party the night before. She couldn’t resist teasing him.

“Got a hangover?”

He grumbled something unintelligible.

“Want another beer?”

Garrett looked up with a face tinged green.

“Would some lukewarm pork help?”

He covered his mouth like he was on the verge of blowing chunks.

“Don’t pick on him.” Heller slapped Garrett’s back. “I think he’s learned his lesson.”

“I’ll never, as long as I live, ever do that again.” Garrett cupped his head in his hands and curled to the table.

“Have you done it before?” Kraft readied the kitchen equipment and food.

“Yes.”

“Then you’re apt to do it again.”

Kraft created a huge breakfast, but made a special drink for Garrett. “Here, try this.”

Garrett looked at it warily. “What is it?”

“Trust me, it’ll help.”

Garrett took a dubious sip. “It tastes awful!”

“I know, but in half an hour you’ll feel a lot better.”

“I better.” Garrett drank it down. “If I don’t, and I feel the urge to hurl, I’m gonna do it on you.”

“Fair enough.”

Jace strode in from the bridge and made a point of not looking at her. He heaped his plate high and took his place at the head of the table. “Looks like everyone survived.”

“Barely,” Garrett said.

“Well, you’re lucky because we have a two day cruise to Windmere. You should have ample time to recover.”

“How come you look all frisky this morning?” Garrett took a sip of his hangover drink, tweaked his face, then glared at Jace.

“I was smart enough to stop at one. How many did you have? Six? Seven?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Garrett polished off his drink and curled his head to the table.

“What kind of beer was that, Kraft?” Jace asked without turning around.

“A variation on the classic German Pilsner.”

“And the alcohol content?”

“Seven percent. Give or take a percent.”

The kitchen table stifled Garrett’s groan. “Next time I vote you make something a bit lighter.”

Kraft knew there wouldn’t be a next time. When they finished their business on Windmere, she would disappear.

Jace turned around and gazed at her speculatively.

She read in his face that he knew it too. Within a week, she’d be off
Mutiny
and appointing a crew to her newly bought second ship.

“I thought next time you were gonna let me make it?” Heller dropped her an I-knew-you-were-lying look.

“That’s right. I’ll walk you through it today if you want.” Kraft shot back an I-meant-what-I-said nod to Heller then glanced at Jace. Every line of his expressive face and body drew into a tight, knowing posture, as if he’d accepted the inevitable. Like a clock loudly ticking, their time together drew to an end.

“That won’t be an improvement,” Garrett slurred against the table. “Heller turns everything into a weapon. He’ll make beer more deadly than yours.”

“What makes you think I’m gonna share it with you?” Heller settled at the table with a heap of food on his plate.

“What makes you think I want you to?” Garrett asked.

“Next time you shouldn’t be such a guzzler.” Heller shoveled food to his face.

“Like you didn’t—”

“Enough.” Jace held up his hand. “We have some decisions to make.”

Kraft cast her gaze to him with a wary quiver in her gut. He could refuse to let her buy her way out of the contract, or demand a payment she didn’t want to make. And they both knew it.

“After Windmere, we’ll have some serious script in our pockets. We need to decide what to upgrade on
Mutiny
. Any suggestions?”

Chapter Eighteen

“Tell your crew to stand down.” Kraft lifted her hands to her shoulders.

“I thought you said you knew this guy.” Jace lifted his hands into the crisp, dry air of planet Windmere. It would have been a beautiful autumn day if not for the thirty men with Slim Shot rifles surrounding them. “You said we could sell the IWOG transport goods here without the hassle of Trickster or his ilk.”

Their reception on Windmere went splendidly until they’d opened the hold of
Mutiny
and displayed their ill-gotten goods. Now they stood on the cargo bay ramp with their hands up.

“That’s what I thought.” Kraft flashed him a wan smile.

“We’ve got enough firepower pointed at us to chew away the side of the ship in two seconds.” Jace had never seen so many bright barrels all pointed his direction.

“I can see that, Captain.”

“Michael ‘Overlord’ Parker, a mythical figure who just happens to be your friend.” Jace shook his head but stopped when the guard below tensed. “I’m an idiot for believing you. I’m thinking the IWOG owns this planet.”

“Look at them, they’re not IWOG.” Kraft rolled her eyes and flicked her chin to the men below. “Michael told his henchmen to greet us like this. As to why…” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged.

Jace noticed the men below didn’t dress in uniforms, and certainly not in IWOG uniforms, but most of them wore light-colored fabrics and sturdy boots that matched the high-desert colors of the land surrounding them. The only thing they had in common was their rifles and the intensity in their eyes.

“I honestly don’t know what in the Void is going on, but we’re dead if you don’t order the whole crew to stand down.”

Jace considered. He’d surrendered once to Kraft and it’d turned out okay. If he didn’t surrender to her supposed friend, he would be responsible for killing everyone.

With a longsuffering sigh, he said, “This is Captain Jace Lawless ordering the crew of
Mutiny
to stand down.”

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Kraft whispered.

Out the side of his mouth, he whispered back, “Since I say that so much, I’m going to have that phrase tattooed on my chest. That way, I can just rip open my shirt and make this faster for everyone.”

To his amazement, Kraft laughed, really loud. She actually doubled over and dropped her hands on her knees to steady herself. When the men below tensed, she again stood straight and lifted her hands, but she kept on chuckling.

“You surprise me more and more, Captain Lawless.”

A man with dusty blond hair approached Kraft. “Remove your weapons.”

Kraft dropped her hands to her hips. “Only if you say please.”

The man lifted his rifle to her face.

“Golly-gee, Duster, with your gun up my nose, I guess I’d better obey.” She unbuckled her belt and tossed it aside. A guard grabbed the belt of weapons from the ramp and backed away. Jace noticed he never took his eyes off her.

“Remove your boots,” Duster said.

Kraft complied, but chucked her boots at him. He sidestepped and kicked them to another guard.

“Socks too.”

Kraft pulled her socks off, wadded them up and tossed them into the circle of men below. They rippled away like water in a pond. “No bombs, boys, and they’re clean.”

“Remove your pants.”

Jace startled at the command, but Kraft laughed.

“How about some bump-and-grind music?” As she peeled off her black dextex pants, she uttered notes to enhance her show. She did it in jest, mocking, but Jace found her display provocative nonetheless. He couldn’t believe he was getting turned-on watching her in the midst of such a dangerous situation.

Kraft twirled her pants above her head and tossed them into the crowd of men. They backed away then cautiously approached her discarded clothing.

Jace was horrified that she was being ordered to strip in the company of nothing but men, yet Kraft laughed as she did it, making a crude joke of everything when he didn’t find the situation at all amusing. He wanted to protect her, but had no idea how.

“Now your shirt.” Duster gave the order without a bit of leering in his gaze. In fact, he seemed afraid, not titillated.

Jace assessed the guard and realized they were afraid of not only her, but her clothes. Did they think she had weapons hidden in them? They must, by the way they were behaving.

Button by button, she undid her shirt then slipped it off her shoulders. She spun it over her head then tossed it into the crowd below. They all backed away and the black dextex landed on the tarmac with a
fwump
. Standing in nothing but a pair of lacy black panties and bra, her creamed-coffee skin glistening in the sunlight, she didn’t seem to be embarrassed, intimidated, or even slightly perturbed, not with that bright smile on her face.

“If you don’t stop this, Duster, I’m going to die of amusement.” Hands on hips, absolutely unfazed by her undressed state, she further offered, “You’d have to cut off my arms, legs and hair to render me weaponless.”