Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance) (23 page)

“Can I come in? I need to talk to you. In
private.” Viktor poked his head around the door, looking not at the
bed but directly at her.

She didn’t remember making a noise, but he
had known somehow that she was standing there. She licked her lips.
“All right.” It came out as a whisper.

Talk
. Was that truly all he
wanted?

Viktor stepped inside, shutting the door
behind him. He had changed out of his battle armor and wet
clothing, and stood before her in clean black trousers and T-shirt.
He must have showered, for the mud and grime—and blood—were gone
from his body, and his short dark hair was clean and combed, his
face shaven. For the first time since she had met him, he wasn’t
armed, at least not visibly. Jamie hadn’t misspoken; he
was
a handsome man, especially with the grim-faced soldier left
somewhere else for the moment. She swallowed, again aware of her
bare legs and the unflattering monk’s robes. Her hair was probably
a tangled mess, too—she had gone to bed with it wet.

Not that it mattered. For talking.

“Uhm.” Ankari spread a hand toward the simple
wooden desk chair. It was the only place to sit in the room, aside
from the bed, and she wasn’t going to invite him to join her
there.

He rejected the desk with a flick of his
fingers, only resting his lantern on it, then he leaned against the
wall. Oh, right. His no-sitting thing. She folded her arms across
her chest. She would stand, too, then.

“I have a conundrum,” Viktor said. “Several
of them, and you’re at the center of most of them.”

“I hope you’re not looking for sympathy,
because
you’re
the one who picked me up.” Ankari decided not
to complain about her destroyed ship again, since she might have
cost him a combat shuttle. It was probably worth more than her
rainbow junker with its shag carpet in the lounge. Albeit, the
scientific equipment might make it a draw.

“Not sympathy. Just... tell me what you want
to do about Felgard.”

“Avoid him?” Her voice rose in a question,
because she wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear. It was as if he was
giving her some kind of choice, but that couldn’t be right.

Viktor gazed into her eyes. “I no longer
believe that you’re a criminal.”

Her reflex was to snap that it was about
time, but she kept her mouth shut, realizing the simple words might
contain more than their literal meaning. Dare she hope that he no
longer wanted to turn her team in?

“But because my whole crew knows I have you,
letting you go when there’s such a sizable bounty on your head
would be... problematic. I’m sure you don’t care if I’ll have a
hundred well-armed soldiers with their hackles up, especially if I
let you go voluntarily, but it’s a problem for me. Also... I’m not
convinced that letting you go would be doing you any favors, when
there are so many dangerous men after you.”

Ankari listened, barely breathing, barely
daring to hope that he was contemplating releasing her instead of
turning her in. Most people wouldn’t care whether someone deserved
a bounty or not when that much money was on the line. Was it
possible he actually
cared
what happened to her? She
couldn’t imagine what she had done to win that regard—she wasn’t
that
good of a kisser, and she had been a pest to him from
their first meeting—yet his words intimated that her life or death
mattered to him for some reason.

“I don’t know if I have a solution when it
comes to mutinous mercenaries, but they wouldn’t
have
to
know that you let us go voluntarily. You could just look the other
way, couldn’t you?”

His lips twitched into a wry smile. “So
they’d think me incompetent? I’m not sure that would save me from
their ire.”

“I’ve escaped a couple of times,” Ankari
pointed out. “They couldn’t be all that surprised if it happened
again.”

He snorted but didn’t deny it.

“As to the rest... I appreciate that our
welfare seems to matter to you, but I don’t expect anything from
you. This is our problem, however unfair it was of the universe to
dump it on us, and we’ll have to figure something out. Find a place
to hide out. Maybe we can create fake identities.” She had little
experience with such things, but if they found their way back to
civilization, a real city, she would feel more confident in her
ability to take care of herself.

“And spend the rest of your life hiding?”

“Maybe Felgard will forget about us.” That
sounded overly optimistic, but after a couple of years,
maybe...

“Even if other passions catch his fancy, as
long as he leaves that bounty out there, the rest of the galaxy
won’t forget about you.”

Ankari closed her eyes. He was right. She had
never met this Felgard, but she already hated him. As long as that
bounty was out there, her life would never be hers again. Her
dreams for her business, for other businesses, for taking her
family off Novus Earth and giving them the safety and security
they’d never known... Nothing would come to fruition. Sooner or
later, she would end up in another bounty hunter’s brig.

Moisture gathered behind her eyelids. “I
guess we’ll have to confront him somehow. Figure out what he really
wants and hope it’s not... despicable. Or impossible.” If Felgard
had read that sensationalist article, he might very well expect
them to be able to do something they couldn’t, not yet. Maybe not
ever.

Ankari lowered her chin, not wanting to open
her eyes or admit to the tears there, not with Viktor watching on.
This wasn’t
his
problem.

“In sending the galaxy to my door,” Viktor
murmured, surprising her because his voice was closer than it had
been, and because she hadn’t heard him move, “Felgard has made an
enemy of me. If I were given the opportunity, I would shoot him for
this.”

Ankari blinked a few times and did a quick
rub of her eyes before looking up. Viktor was still a step away
from her, but he was close enough that she could smell the soap he
had used to wash, the clean scent of his shaving cream. He lifted
an open hand. An offer. What exactly was he offering? To go with
her to confront Felgard? Why?

She took the step toward him, sensing that
was what he wanted, and asked, “How do I give you this
opportunity?”

“That’s something we have to determine, but I
find myself wanting to help you, to protect you.” His hand found
its way to her back, and he drew her into a hug.

Even though this new turn surprised her,
Ankari didn’t resist. The defiance had seeped out of her; there was
no reason for it now. If he spoke the truth, he was no longer the
enemy. He might even be an ally. She laid her cheek against his
chest, feeling the warmth of his body through his T-shirt. After
the constant angst of the last few days, it felt good—incredible—to
lean against something. No, to lean against him.

“That’s strange,” Ankari murmured,
“considering all of the things I keep stealing from you.”

He chuckled softly, a pleasant sound, one she
hadn’t heard before, one she immediately liked.

“I know,” Viktor said, lifting his other hand
to the side of her head and stroking her hair. “But in a world
where people are constantly trying to kill me, having a woman
sticking her fingers in my pockets isn’t as much of an invasion as
you’d think.”

His own fingers worked their way through her
hair, combing it away from her face, grazing her scalp and sending
delightful shivers down her neck. The kiss from the day before—or
had it only been the evening before, a part of this endless
night?—returned to her thoughts. He had asked her to suggest a
solution to their mutual problem, though, not to rub lips with him.
She should concentrate. She definitely shouldn’t be admiring the
curve of his pectoral muscle beneath his shirt, or the way his
nipple poked against the fabric. The urge to rub her face against
his chest, to nibble at him through the shirt... it was silly and
should be ignored. He had said something, hadn’t he? About fingers
in his pockets. That only made her think about her fingers and
letting them wander. Not to his pockets, but to other places. Wait.
Solutions. That’s what they were supposed to be working on.

“You probably just feel guilty because you
blew up my ship,” she said. Hm, that wasn’t a solution.

“I
am
feeling contrite about that at
this point.” Viktor rubbed her through the robe, strong fingers
kneading the muscles of her lower back, muscles that were sore and
tight after that slog through the mud, and she groaned softly, hot
pleasure radiating through her. “This would be a good time to ask
for a favor,” he murmured, his voice close to her ear, soft and
secret, just for her, “if you’re so inclined.”

A favor? After he had just told her he wanted
to help her deal with Felgard? She was more inclined to want to do
him
favors. Would he appreciate that? She tilted her head
back to gaze into his eyes, to search them for an answer. He
returned her regard, his green eyes half-lidded, gentle. The last
time he had looked at her like that, before they had kissed, he had
whispered that he was a Grenavinian, and that he, too, had lived
through the destruction of his world. Maybe that had something to
do with why he was here, why he wanted to protect her. It had been,
what, eight, ten years since Grenavine had been destroyed? He would
have been an adult, a soldier in the fleet then. She had been so
young when her own world had been destroyed that it couldn’t have
affected her the way losing his affected him, but if he saw some
common link between them, someone worth saving... how could she
complain about that? Of course, if his tender feelings had more to
do with her heritage than her, she should probably object.

Maybe it had something to do with the
exquisite massage he was giving her, but she didn’t want to object
to anything about him. She wanted to make him care about her based
on her own merits.

Ankari lowered her chin, his chest filling
her vision again. She slid her hands up his back and buried her
face in his shirt, feeling the contours of hard muscle through the
fabric, drinking in the clean manly scent of him. Her cheek brushed
against one of those erect nipples, and she gave in to her earlier
urge. Her lips parted, and she teased it with her tongue, then her
teeth. The hand massaging her scalp stilled, and he took a deep
breath, his hard chest rising against her, the fabric of his shirt
rasping against her face. An interesting sensation, but she wanted
to touch him, to taste him, without the material in the way. His
lower hand kept kneading her muscles, pressing her against him as
he did so, against something else that was erect, straining for
escape. They hadn’t even kissed, but the feel of him responding to
her touch filled her with desire, a longing to feel more of him
against her. In her.

He wasn’t wearing a belt, so she freed his
shirt from his waistband easily, running her hands along his warm,
smooth flesh, alternating between rubbing him and scraping her
nails along his ribs, over a knot of scar tissue from some past
battle. Her memory of him in the jungle came to mind, a panther
springing from log to tree, bringing down lesser predators as if
they were hapless kits. She pushed his shirt up, wanting to see the
great predator before her in the flesh. He rumbled with pleasure,
almost a purr. Or a soft roar. He pulled his shirt over his head,
tossing it on the desk. Before it landed, she was crouching,
kissing his abdomen, the smell and taste of him intoxicating her.
She ran her hands up his back, rising and finding that nipple she
had teased before, licking and sucking, then grazing it with her
teeth.

“Ankari,” he murmured, almost a groan. He
bent down to nuzzle her hair, inhaling deeply.

Hearing him whisper her name, hearing the
ache of desire in his voice, rather than the frustration that could
have been there after all the trouble she had caused him, it made
her want to please him. Not to prove her worth or anything else to
him, just to make him enjoy his time with her. But he kept
distracting her with his strokes and massages, making her forget
her original intent. She wanted to kiss him hard and hot on the
mouth and demand that he take her over to that bed.

Instead, she found the buttons of his
trousers, unfastening them even as she kissed and nibbled her way
to his other nipple, sucking it, promising more to come. She slid
his trousers over his hips. This time he
did
groan when he
whispered her name, digging his fingers into her hair, arching
toward her. As she kissed her way lower, past the dark hair
sprinkling his chest, down the ridges of his abdomen, she lowered a
hand, stroking his straining shaft, feeling the blood pulsing
against her palm. Her body ached and throbbed in sync, aroused by
his groans, his touch, and the sight of him. She dropped to her
knees, the soft wool of a sheepskin rug touching her skin, making
her realize how alive her body felt, how much any touch, however
slight, roused her flesh.

She grasped the base of his shaft with one
hand and gripped his firm backside with the other, then leaned into
him, her tongue darting out, licking his heated flesh. His head
fell back, his muscles taut. A bead of sweat snaked down his
abdomen, and she sensed the tension in his body, how much he wanted
to grab her and bear her to the floor beneath him. But he wanted
this too, she was certain of it, and she smiled as she ran her
tongue along his engorged length. When she found the tip, taking
him in her mouth, he snarled a “yes” that incensed her, as well. As
she drew him deeper, the hot taste of him raking across her tongue,
she lowered one hand between her legs, finding a gap in the robe,
pleasuring herself even as she quickened her pace with him. He
pumped against her, filling her mouth, though she could tell he was
trying not to be too forceful, too rough. She scarcely would have
noticed. She couldn’t get enough and worked him faster, deeper,
trying to take more of him in, craving all of him. She lifted her
gaze, watching his magnificent form as he arched into her, his
sweat-slick skin gleaming by the lantern light, the corded muscles
of his arms flexing beneath his tattoos, his fisted hands as he
kept himself from grabbing her head, forcing himself against her.
Her hot core pulsed beneath the frantic movements of her hand, and
she found her release before he did, but she didn’t slake off,
still reveling in the trembling of his body, his ardent desire
straining into her.