Runner: The Fringe, Book 3 (9 page)

Her bold admission drew his gaze to her.

“Why does that surprise you, Mr. Nash?”

“Because you shouldn’t.” He didn’t want to go any further into this conversation. Mainly because he wasn’t sure he could handle hearing what she had to say.

“Why? Because
you
found it degrading?” She tilted her head, exposing the vulnerable curve of her neck, almost like an invitation for him to pick up where he left off.

“You should,” he said pointedly, trying not to think of how close he’d come to lowering his lips to kiss and bite at her silken skin.

“Yet I don’t.” She looked so impossibly beautiful in that lilac dress with his big white socks on her feet.

“I could chain you up and do anything I wanted to you.” He deliberately raked his gaze over her, as if he gave the idea serious consideration. “You don’t find that degrading?”

“I find that oddly compelling. And you wouldn’t have to chain me up.” Demurely, she lowered her gaze. “Unless you wanted to.”

Swallowing hard, he wished at the moment he wore anything but tight jeans. That damn swelling became painful. He wished something on the ship would beep or whine so he could leave without another word. No such luck.

“So, in addition to accepting your fate, you’re also giving me free rein with your body?” He had no idea where the question had come from other than directly from the little brain.

“Yes.”

Her response was quick and automatic, sending another surge of desire through him. He wanted to go to his workout room and drive himself to exhaustion with exercise. If he didn’t, he feared he would wrench open her cage and take her hard and fast against the bars. All he had to do was yank up her skirt and push her thong panties aside.

“Don’t even have to think about it, just—”

“Yes.”

When she stood and strode to the bars, his lip twitched. When she wrapped her slender hands around two widely spaced rods of solid durosteel and looked right into his eyes, he growled. She was beyond alluring without even trying.

“There are many things I regret not doing. I don’t want you to be one of them.”

He fought the urge to let his jaw drop to the floor in shock. She’d stunned him. He’d never known any woman to be so sexually assertive.

“I still won’t set you free,” he said coldly.

“I know,” she said, her voice warm with acceptance.

He shook his spinning head. “Let me get this straight.” He used his fingers to tick off each point. “With your permission, I keep my rep, earn a pretty penny,
and
get to exercise the very depth of my physical needs upon your body?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not unbelievable; you’re insane.”

“I’m honest.” Jynx peered at Foster as he stood beyond the confines of her cage. “I enjoyed your touch. I liked the feel of your new beard against my skin and the smell of your aftershave and the deeper scent of your body. Even the bubblegum on your breath aroused me. You have a beautiful body, Mr. Nash. Physically, I find you extremely attractive. I can tell that the feeling is mutual.” She nodded to his painfully obvious erection. “Just as you can’t fake emotional distance, you probably can’t fake a physical interest either.”

“So we’ve got the hots for each other.” He shrugged, deliberately downplaying the sparks he’d been flashing since he entered the cell room. “Big deal.”

“Then why are you reluctant to indulge yourself?” She lifted her chin in challenge, a bit shocked at herself. What had the Fringe done to her? She’d never said such unashamed come-ons to any man in her life. Perhaps her bold behavior was prompted by the fact she had so little of her life left to live.

“I thought you only kissed four guys?” he mocked, raking his gaze over her body with laser blue concentration.

“Only four.” She struggled to keep some kind of perspective. Her honesty stunned him and it started to frighten her. She should be lying her head off and doing anything she could to escape, but she simply couldn’t.

“You’re acting like you’ve done a fleet.”

“I’m not acting.”

His eyes went wide with mock terror. “You’ve done a fleet?”

She laughed. “I’m telling you that I’m interested in you. Just because I’m willingly tossing my favors at you doesn’t mean I’ve tossed them around lightly to other men.” Her one-night stand with Brandt came to mind. “Well, one other time I’ve cast my favors rather lightly, but I certainly haven’t done a fleet.”

“Four men.” Foster held up four fingers.

“Not all at the same time.”

He wiggled his fingers. “You’ve made love to every man you’ve ever kissed?”

She considered his question for a moment. “I had sex with them, but I didn’t love all of them.”

“There’s a difference?” His question revealed more about him than he realized.

“A very clear and distinct difference. Brandt was a coworker, and I enjoyed his companionship very much, but I didn’t love him.”

“Yet you had sex with him.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to. He wanted to. Mutual delirium. We were rather drunk and full of ourselves, having just solved the perplexing riddle of how to deliver Tyaa plague vaccine to the entire Void in a month.”

“A month?” Foster’s eyes went wide. No mocking surprise this time.

“I had a hunch, and I checked it out with Brandt’s help. Turned out I was right. We filed a hasty report and celebrated ourselves stupid.” All the joy left her then. “Within hours, the entire lab and everyone connected to it but me was destroyed.”

Foster grimaced but didn’t interrupt.

“Anyway, I cared for Brandt, and I slept with him, but I didn’t love him.” With a frown, she considered. “I might have come to love him, if my life could have gone on the way it was, but it didn’t, and I no longer have that choice to make.” She reeled her gushing mouth in. “I’m sorry, I’m babbling. It’s just, I’ve been in this cell for four days and nights, and I’m bored, lonely, and—”

“Randy as hell,” he finished for her softly, his gaze making a pointed sweep of her body.

“Yes.” She realized she had practically snarled the word at him. “I’m sick to death of thinking about my life when I have no control over it. Thinking about you has become an extremely pleasurable diversion. I’m randy as hell, as you say, because you are in my head constantly. Looking at you, standing there beyond my grasp, knowing you are beyond my grasp, is akin to waving a chocolate cake under a diabetic’s nose. It’s mean to flaunt something at me I can’t have. It’s—”

“Teasing.” He lowered his head and pursed his lips with a cool seduction.

“Precisely.”

“Something to be said for an educated IWOG lady.”

His low voice rumbled up her body, and it took her a second to catch her breath. “And what’s that?”

“You’re smart.” He looked into her eyes. “I find smart extremely sexy.”

Lifting her chin, she smiled knowingly. “It probably doesn’t hurt that I’m blonde.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He approached the bars. “You could be bald. I don’t think I’d care. I’d probably find it sexy on you. Then again, there’s nothing I’d rather do than run my fingers through your hair, cup your head, then ravish every inch of your face and neck with my mouth.”

Intrigued, she pressed closer to the bars and offered out her wrists. “You can chain me up if you want.”

With a grunt, he considered her supplicating stance. “I can pin you to the floor if I want.”

Heaven help her, that’s
exactly
what she wanted him to do. With her voice barely above a whisper, she said, “You could pin me to the floor, the bars, or my bunk.” He thought he could get her to back down, but every time he upped the ante, she matched him. “Or you could just take my hands in yours.”

Grasping her small hands, slipping his huge fingers between hers, he barely tightened his grip as he surged forward. When he pressed against the bars, she felt the teasing hint of his erection against her belly.

He groaned and closed his eyes. “The bars are like a chastity belt.”

She laughed and lifted her head. “You could take it off.”

“I think you’re safer behind bars, Jynx.”

Arching her neck back and her face closer, she whispered, “I like the sound of my name on your lips, Mr. Nash. I’d love to hear you whisper it in my ear.”

It took a moment, but he realized he hadn’t called her anything but Sweets until now. Lowering his mouth to the hollow of her neck, he stroked his rough new beard along her sensitive, willing flesh. “Keep calling me Mr. Nash, Sweets. I like that.”

He seemed determined to keep some kind of emotional distance between them, and she thought that wise.

“Of course, Mr. Nash.” She rolled her head back until she could look into his eyes. “I wouldn’t want to displease you.”

“You are getting very close to critical mass. You best consider the ramifications of playing this game with me.” There was no mistaking the warning in his words or his gaze.

“I’m not playing you. I want you.”

“I’m not letting you go,” he reminded.

“I know.”

“There’s no reason for you to do this.”

“Other than I want to.”

“Why?” Suddenly he gripped her hands tight. “Why would you do this? Why would you allow me such”—he searched desperately for the right word—“liberties?”

“Liberties?” She chuckled softly. “You make it sound like a horrific sacrifice on my part.” She clasped his fingers more firmly with hers. “You are behaving as if you are a despicable wretch that I’m only indulging out of pity. That simply isn’t the case at all.”

“You don’t love me.”

What he said so shocked her, she let go of his hands and stood utterly speechless.

Chapter Nine

Yanking his hands back from the bars, Foster didn’t say a word as he strode from the cell room. He went straight to the bridge and turned the music up to a deafening degree. Stabbing his finger at the main console, he checked everything twice.

“Stupid ship. Where are you when I need you?”

For the first time, he fully appreciated his ship’s name.
Damn You
seemed to sum up everything in one breath.

Damn Roberts, damn Jynx, and damn himself.

“Damn it!”

Sifting through the litter on the floor, he found the printed contract. Flipping rapidly, he didn’t find what he wanted. Turning down the music, he popped a fresh wad of bubblegum into his mouth as he went through the contract line by line. He felt a glimmer of hope and popped rapidly at his gum.

“No way.”

Carefully noting each line again, he didn’t trust his eyes and looked the contract over three times. Still not satisfied, he pulled up the ecopy. “No way did I leave that out.”

A red light flashed on the main console. Request for live audvid. He checked the source. Planet Windmere. Had to be Duster. Relieved to have something to focus on other than what he’d said to Jynx in the cell room, he opened the link with, “How’s the Bandit of Taiga?”

“I’m fine.”

He fought down an urge to cover his balls. Scary Mary. Calling him on an unscrambled live audvid from Windmere. He locked her signal from cross feeding.

Her plain face with the haunted velvet-brown eyes peered up from the holoplas. “Come near me again, and I’ll rip your balls off and stuff them up your nose with the finger I bite off.”

The holoplas went black with a faint
whizzle
.

Tapping at the boards, he couldn’t reestablish the link.

A million questions surged in his mind. Within moments, the live audvid request again flashed red. He traced it back to Windmere. Mary again? Trying to tap his ship? He verified a complete lockdown three times before he opened the channel.

“What took you so long?” Duster’s furious face leaned close to the camera. “I’ve got a job for you.”

Relived that Duster still drew breath, Foster nonetheless held back his hand like an expert poker player. “What job?”

“Find Mary.”

“You mean that crazy chick who scares the crap out of you?” Foster gave Duster a wry smile.

“She scared the crap out of you too,” Duster said pointedly.

“Scary Mary got away, did she?” Foster asked as if it were news to him. No way was he going to admit the woman in question just called and threatened him. If Duster didn’t know, Foster certainly wasn’t going to enlighten him, not when she’d broken Windmere security. Doing so pretty much confirmed Foster’s estimation that Mary was one scary and dangerous lady to mess with.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Duster sighed like he’d been running a marathon. “I’m sitting here not believing it myself.”

“You want me to go get her and bring her back to you?” Foster couldn’t understand why. “I thought you wouldn’t feel safe with her in the same quadrant?”

“I want you to find her and give her whatever amount of money she wants on the condition she stays the hell away from Windmere.” Duster sounded dead serious and looked more determined than a gambler with a royal flush.

“What about Michael?” Foster sensed some kind of pissing match between the two of them. Not like that was anything new. Duster and Michael were best friends, but they’d always had a fairly combative relationship from what he could see.

“He’ll want her back,” Duster said. “I’ll pay you bonus to blow Michael off when he calls. Because he will.”

“How much?” Foster asked, not seriously considering the job but curious as to how far Duster would go to keep Mary away from his boss.

“To pay her off?” Duster pondered. “I don’t know. A couple of Mil. Just give it to her. I’ll give you double whatever she wants. I’ll give you triple the amount to tell Michael no when he tries to hire you to get her back.”

Foster wondered what would make Duster so desperate. “Last time I took such a generous deal, I found myself in a rather deep pickle barrel with my naked ass in the air.”

“You know what you’re getting with Mary,” Duster countered.

“Exactly.” Foster nodded. “I’m not going anywhere near her.” Partly because she threatened him, but even without her pointed warning, he didn’t want to deal with her again. “If she’s gone from Windmere, count yourself lucky. There’s no way in the ever-loving Void I’m going anywhere near her again.”