Spy to Die For (Assassins Guild) (16 page)

She didn’t want to think about the future. She certainly didn’t want to think about the future with Jack.

If he had asked her what was wrong, she would have answered him in less blunt terms. She would have said,
Let’s survive this first
.

But he didn’t ask, and she had the sneaky feeling that he knew what she was thinking. She didn’t like that.

She didn’t like it at all.

She had been alone her entire life. She wasn’t about to change it.

That didn’t stop her from wanting to help Jack. She would have done it even if it hadn’t benefitted her, although she didn’t tell him that. Let him think she was doing this out of self-interest. Both of their worlds were filled with self-interest, and he understood it.

Hell, she did too. It was, she once said to Guild Director Ammons, what made the universe tick.

The best way she could help Jack was to get them out of Zaeen safely. They needed to go to a system or an area where they could research everything without worries of getting caught.

They also needed a place that would allow them to talk freely about the Rovers and the Guild.

They needed to be alone.

It was impossible to be alone on Zaeen.

They left the restaurant and picked up supplies, including clothing. Over Jack’s protest, she bought a laser pistol as well. She had been trained to use one; it was time to have one with her.

They sped through the shopping, and didn’t worry about prices. Or at least, she didn’t. Jack occasionally made a few faces. He also complained about the fact that she hadn’t negotiated the ship.

But she hadn’t wanted to negotiate. She was pleased with the ship, which according to the registration was
Hawk
. She and Jack arrived at the port less than two hours after the purchase, and she watched the crew from the store load the last of the food on board.

The ship was huge, just like everything else on Zaeen. She wouldn’t have thought it built for speed except that she saw the additions to the engines as she walked around the ship.

Jack walked with her, looking up as she looked down. She would have thought that he would like Zaeen, since it seemed to be the only space station in the universe that could accommodate a man as tall as he was. But he had hurried them through the stores, and then he had taken one store’s offer of transport to the port without a second thought.

He wanted to leave immediately, but she wasn’t going to let that happen without all of the safety checks she could think of. Since Jack didn’t have any real piloting skills, she handled the actual examination of the practical things like engineering and the navigational systems.

She gave him the task of examining the communications systems, the nonship-related computer systems, and she also asked him to make sure that no one had placed tracking devices on the ship.

He had gladly taken that job. Although as she walked around the engineering area and looked at the cargo space, she also looked for tracking devices.

In one of her bolt holes, she had left a device that located tracking devices. She hadn’t ever used it on a job, so she had decided it was too much baggage.

She wished she had it now.

It took three hours to examine the ship. When she returned to the cockpit, Jack was there, folded underneath one of the navigational desks, his body tilted so that he could reach upwards.

“Did you find something?” she asked.

Instead of sliding out, he extended his left hand. He turned it upward, and then opened his fingers. On his palm, she saw dozens of tiny chips.

“Trackers?” she asked.

“The obvious ones,” he said, and slid out.

“You mean there were some that weren’t obvious?” she asked.

“Most of them,” he said. “I neutralized them. I don’t suppose you found any.”

“Just the ones I expected,” she said. “The ones that were built in.”

“What I found wasn’t built in,” he said. “They were added to the computer system. I also found some in the trays of food the catering service left.”

“I expected that,” she said.

“Me, too.” He slid out. His cheek had a scrape on the left side, and a scratch on the right. He’d clearly wedged himself into some very tight places.

“You want to double check the engine room?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t know what I was looking for,” he said. “You might want to check for more of these things.”

He held out that handful of chips toward him.

“If someone put those in the engine, the ship wouldn’t run,” she said. “I did check to make sure no one had tampered with it or with the controls. I reset everything to factory levels, then I customized it, and did it all again. I looked for add-ons and things missing. Nothing came up.”

“We’re not going to lurch when the ship leaves the port?” he asked with just the trace of a smile. This man was resilient, if he could smile about nearly dying just a few hours ago.

“Not if I can help it,” she said.

“Did you check the living quarters?” he asked.

“I thought you were going to do that,” she said, staring at those chips.

His smile grew. “I did. I meant, have you looked at them?”

“No,” she said, feeling wary. “Why?”

“Five suites, and eight single cabins. We could take a crew out in this thing.”

“It’ll fly with just the two of us,” she said.

He laughed. “You are determined to miss my point. This thing is amazing.”

“Oh,” she said with a bit of a smile. “It is.”

“I think we should just take it somewhere we haven’t been before, and try every one of the beds.”

She laughed and blushed at the same time. “You thought of that?”

“You haven’t?” he asked. Then he touched his forehead with the heel of his other hand as if he had forgotten something. “That’s right. You haven’t had the time to inspect the important stuff.”

“Jack,” she protested.

“I think bedrooms are important,” he said. “Although I do have a fondness for cockpit floors.”

Her cheeks grew hot. “We have to get out of here safely.”

“Yes, we do,” he said. “And then we’re on no timetable but our own.”

She hadn’t thought of that. It made her breathless.

“We have research to do,” she said primly.

“And I think we need some sleep,” he said. “But then.…”

She laughed again. “Then we’ll check out some of the other beds.”

“And maybe,” he said, “the cockpit floor.”

The third bed they tried turned out to be Jack’s favorite. Not because it was the first bed he actually fit in, although it was, but because he learned something about Skye’s body that made her coo.

He wasn’t sure she was aware she had cooed. She probably would have told him that she “ooed,” but she had made a sound that was uniquely her and something she probably didn’t even know she could do.

Just the thought of that sound made him want to replicate it. He shifted slightly on the bed, so grateful that his feet didn’t hang off the end and that he didn’t have to worry about hitting his head on the low ceiling. The suite itself was magnificent, with built-in upholstered chairs, a table, and trim that looked like real wood.

He would have inspected all of it, if he weren’t so interested in the woman beside him.

She had a hand behind her head, her eyes twinkling as she smiled up at him. “We’re like teenagers,” she said.

“And that’s a problem how?” he asked. Then he frowned. “You’re not saying that I am a bit too excitable?”

She laughed, and slid her hand down his flank. That simple soft gesture would have made him hard if he hadn’t already been. She was like candy to him. Candy and alcohol and the best burgers in the universe, things he couldn’t get enough of.

He’d never felt like this about a woman.

She slid her legs around his hips, then used her heels to guide him. Her hands played with his back, her mouth found his, and he was lost in sensation. Skin against skin, the tip of him pushing against her dampness, his tongue exploring the inside of her mouth as if he’d never explored it before.

But he had: her taste was familiar to him already, and the lower half of his body knew exactly where to go.

He slipped inside her slowly, rubbing against that spot that made her coo, and she did it again while her mouth was against his. He pulled her closer, her feet pushed him upward, and the rhythm started. He could barely control it, hitting that spot one more time.

She made a different sound of pleasure, a new one, and he slid all the way in. He buried himself in her, not moving, feeling her around him. She disentangled her mouth from his.

“Don’t slow down,” she said.

He smiled. “But slow drives you crazy.”

“C’mon,” she said. “Not slow.”

But he ignored that. Slow made her even wetter, made her moan, made her tilt her head back so he could find that spot on her neck that made her grab him so hard he felt like he could fuse with her.

“Now,” she said, her head back, his mouth on her neck. He felt the words as she spoke them. “Please.”

The please got him. He moved in and out just a bit faster. Her hands grabbed his buttocks and pushed him deeper, and all idea of control left him. He started a rhythm that she matched, then she sped it up, he kept up, and her hands fell to the side of the bed. He’d obviously hit the rhythm she wanted, and that was the last coherent thought he’d had for some time, lost in her, the taste and smell of her, the feel of her against him, the thought of her—

And then he lost that last bit of control, pouring himself inside her. She matched his pulsing or maybe he just thought so because his orgasm was so powerful that he felt like he was turning himself inside out.

He collapsed on her, unable to support himself by his elbows. When he realized what he’d done—and he wasn’t sure how long that was—he tried to push up, but she grabbed him again, those hands on his buttocks, which should have been (were, if he were honest) arousing, but he was exhausted too.

“We need sleep,” he said.

“Okay,” she said, and that was all he remembered for a very, very long time.

He woke up hours later, still inside her—or as close as he could be without being aroused. Her hands touched on his hips, her head on his shoulder. He had rolled to one side at one point, but he still rested on her left thigh. Her leg had to be asleep, and one of her arms had to be asleep. He was probably crushing her and she hadn’t yet noticed.

He tried to ease off her, but she moaned and flexed her hands, holding him. He waited a moment. She sighed, still asleep, and didn’t move. He had to.

He needed to know if they were being followed. He needed to check a whole bunch of things. He wanted to stay in bed with her, but he also needed a shower, actual rest, some food, and a lot of information.

Jack continued to inch himself off her, managing to do so without waking her. She did clutch at him one more time, but her eyes never opened.

Her mouth was swollen and slightly bruised. Her hair was mussed. She had never looked so beautiful.

He finally managed to get out of bed, and staggered just a little. His legs were wobbly, his thigh sore from pressing against her. She sighed just a little, then shuddered visibly.

That was when he realized the room had a chill.

He grabbed the edge of the blanket and covered her, pausing for just a moment to look at her. Her nipples were hard, probably from the cold. Her breasts leaned toward the bed, confirming they had no enhancements at all. Her legs were long, considering her height (or lack of it), and her muscles weren’t really visible; they just kept her trim.

He knew if he touched her again, he would wake her. He didn’t want to do that, not yet. But it took as much control as it had when he had started to make love to her.

She was addicting.

He finally understood why some men chose to spend their lives with one particular woman. No other woman would ever measure up.

He tucked the blanket around her, then investigated the en suite bathroom. It wasn’t as large as the bathroom in the captain’s suite. He knew that from personal experience, since he’d made love to her there after they had tested that bed. But the shower was still large enough to handle him.

He took a quick, hot shower, then grabbed some clothes from the pile of clothing Skye had convinced him to buy as they were leaving Zaeen. He almost felt overdressed, primarily because he and Skye had had such a good time naked in this part of the ship.

As he passed through the suite, he glanced in. She was still in the same position, and still sleeping. She was probably as deep-down tired as he was. The sleep he had gotten felt good.

He went to the cockpit. Skye had shown him the basics of this navigation board. He knew how to run the autopilot. The ship was keyed to his voice, so he could do voice commands. And it was also keyed to his DNA so that he could shut the ship off from anyone except Skye.

He used the voice commands now, asking the ship to show him if they were being followed.

The ship didn’t answer verbally. Instead it raised a holographic screen, which showed the ships that had followed them off Zaeen. Those ships flew off when it became clear that the
Hawk
was heading out of the Brezev sector.

Too many people were wanted elsewhere to leave the sector. And many others preferred easy pickin’s, and figured that anyone who traveled between sectors probably had a lot more defenses than a thief would want to encounter.

He told the ship to keep monitoring, and then he moved to the workstation that he had isolated while Skye was checking the ship. After he had found the trackers, most of his work had been on this station.

It wasn’t because he distrusted Skye, so much as he never trusted anyone. He needed a private place to work and research. Normally, he would have taken one of the cabins, and he probably would (after they had tried all the beds), but he also wanted a station here, since he needed to guard himself.

It felt odd to think about that. He always considered himself low-key, someone who didn’t get noticed, someone not worth noticing. He figured no one would ever come after him for the information he had because no one would ever see him as a threat.

He figured wrong.

He and Skye had programmed the
Hawk
to leave the sector and head deeper into the NetherRealm. Krell was in the NetherRealm, but close to the junction of three sectors. He tweaked the ship’s navigation program so that it would take the ship past an asteroid belt and into a part of the NetherRealm most traders, government agents, and thieves never entered.

He wanted privacy to research and time to figure out what was going on. Skye said she had no schedule, so she wouldn’t mind.

Or so he hoped.

He set up his research area with passcodes and double access keys, as well as DNA and retinal scanning blocks. He also set the scanners to identify a handprint as the last access. The handprint had to come from him, and the hand had to not just be warm, but it had to have an obvious blood flow.

The last thing he wanted was for someone to sever his hand to get access. He’d learned from his assassin buddies that at least one personal entry code needed proof that the person accessing it was alive.

He settled in and started to work. Before he did anything on the possible conspiracy in the Guild or the ties between the Guild and Heller, he opened one extremely private file.

He needed to know everything there was on Skye, and he needed to know it now.