His hands were nearly delicate as he worked. Hoping he didn’t notice how much she stared, she continued to watch him. His shoulders were nice and wide. He’d taken off his sweater so he was in a short-sleeved, snug-fitting shirt. A dusting of dark hair lay against the golden toned skin of his arms.
There was nothing left of the boy he’d been, not physically. The years had done him good. Fleshed him out. Brought a gloss to his hair. Self-conscious, she patted a hand over the ropes of her braids, captured at the base of her neck.
“I like it that way.”
Surprised, she drew her fingers back, blinking. She couldn’t have stopped her pleased smile to save her life. She’d inherited her mother’s hair. They had the photographs to prove it. Jiao Roundtree had been a beautiful woman. Strong, but three children, several miscarriages, famine and violence had done her in.
Piper shook her head to free that memory and send it away.
It was silly to have long hair when her job had her traveling all over the place in storms and intense heat and cold. But she hadn’t allowed herself many luxuries, and her hair was one of those few.
It made her feel like a woman. Even if her hands were work-rough and her nails were a mess. “I should cut it,” she said, hoping he’d argue.
“That would be a shame. Though your face is certainly beautiful enough that short hair wouldn’t harm it.”
“Thank you. I hope you won’t cut yours either.”
“Not unless I absolutely have to.”
There was a story that went with the way he worded that, but he didn’t add anything. “You’re . . . taciturn, yes, that’s the word.”
His laugh did things to her. Low, dirty things, and she allowed herself to wallow in them a bit.
“Shooting your mouth off can get you in a lot of trouble.”
“Thank you.” She said it quickly and with finality.
“For what? Not shooting my mouth off?” He looked up from his work, all the focus in those eyes on her.
She wondered what he’d be like in bed as a man. They’d been in a sweet, young, passionate love. A smile she couldn’t stop came to her mouth. There was not much evidence of the boy who’d been just as virginal as she had been. This Andrei would most assuredly know his way around a woman’s best parts.
“For the courier packets.”
He shook his head and went back to work. “Nothing to thank me for.”
“I beg to differ. Also, Andrei Solace, I have known you a very long time. Don’t you presume to know what I do and don’t need to thank a body for.” She crossed her arms and gave him her best glare.
He chuckled rather than skittering off like so many did. He put time into her, attention. She narrowed her eyes, waiting.
“Okay then. You’re right, and you’re welcome.”
She played through his words, looking for any sign that he’d patronized her, and found none.
“Last night I noticed you didn’t have guards posted, and correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t have anyone here in medtech training?”
“You’ve been busy.” Anyone but him poking around that much, and she’d be suspicious and angry. She respected his opinion, and it helped that he was right.
“Just took a look around. I spoke with Kenner about doing some defense training while I’m here. That can address the lack of posted guards. Really, Piper, with all this upheaval around you, there should be guards posted every moment of the day. Perhaps a little update on munitions would be helpful as well.” He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal.
“How long will you be here?”
“Long as it takes.”
“You used to be nice to me,” she teased with a laugh. If she hadn’t, she might have blurted out how glad she was to see him. How much she’d missed him.
He looked up again, amusement clear on his features. Her gut squeezed at how he looked, at the way it felt to simply be with him again. She fisted her hands rather than let them shake.
He went back to work, the smile still on his lips. “You used to say that all the time. Usually when you wanted to be involved in something inherently dangerous, and I said no.”
Unwillingly, she snorted, totally guilty. She supposed she might have—at one point in her life when she was very young and had the most beautiful boy around—been a tad spoiled. He’d guarded her. Protected her. Everyone had known she was his, and because of that, no one dared harm her.
“You wound me.” She sniffed delicately and looked back to the valve in his hands. She still had the little tributes he’d brought back to her. A bracelet made from the shiniest of baubles he’d boosted from some outlander down at the Portal. A picture in a delicate frame. Someone else taken somewhere else, but the lady in it had been regal and beautifully exotic to Piper’s eyes. A scarf, a pin, a hat, gloves. Most precious of all were the books. Two classics from Earth. Because he knew it meant something to her. And a collection of poetry from Ravena’s top modern poet, Eleni Portony.
“I read Little Women to Eiriq and Lune’s children.”
He swallowed and licked his lips. Inside, in that place she hadn’t wanted to face, the place where the voice in her head had told her he didn’t care anymore, that place eased, dissolved like smoke.
She did still affect him. To what extent she didn’t know. But it hadn’t been some memory she’d embellished over the years. That connection, that bright spark that she’d always felt was special and unique, really was between them.
Then and now. Perched near him, watching him work and enjoying his presence, it was as if those years hadn’t existed. It was so very simple to her. She wanted him now, as she’d wanted him then. No, no, she wanted him more. She was older. More experienced. Harder in many ways. She wanted to know what he felt like, naked, against her back. His lips on hers. Wanted to know what it felt to have his cock inside her when they didn’t have to worry about getting caught. When they both knew a few more things about pleasure.
“Do they get any schooling?” he asked, bringing her back from the dirty place in her head where she’d been riding his cock, his hands all over her.
“The children here? The town school sends out teachers a few times each lunar cycle. We supplement with practical life work. Taryn works with them in the greenhouses and nurseries.”
Her grin lightened his heart. “He told me you were able to provide eighty percent of the food for the compound with the produce from his greenhouses.” Taryn had also let it slip that it originally had been the credits Andrei had sent that had financed the rows of indoor growing areas within the well-guarded fences around the compound.
“Taryn’s greenhouses have brought us through many rough patches. Kenner teaches them how to hunt. How to use weapons. How to fix things. I teach some of them how to fly, and I like to read to them, too. I don’t want them to only have the rough parts of life.” She hopped down from the stool and began to pace.
“Of course they have to know how to fix a generator and how to make effective dust seals. But I want more for them. I don’t want them just existing. I want them to live their lives with enthusiasm and happiness. I want art and music in their lives.”
The soft hope in her voice tore at him. That she still had the book he’d given her so long ago really tore at him. That it had meant anything to anyone but Andrei had been something shattering to him.
Books were so fine and beautiful. They were the very symbol of what made humanity special. There hadn’t been very many books in Andrei’s life until he started with Phantom Corps. But when he came by one, he did all he could do to make it his.
To that day, when he held a book in his hands, it was a sign of how far he’d come in his life. The spine, cracked or supple, was the backbone of whatever journey the pages took him on. There was nothing in the Known Universes like a book.
“I can send books. If you need them, that is.” He kept his head down, tried not to think of how desperate he’d been for them as a child. “The wife of one of my friends is a te
acher. She would most likely have some good suggestions.”
“I . . . I’d like that. Thank you.”
He wanted to touch her. Wished he could just let himself want her without feeling guilt or shame.
Instead he continued to rebuild the valve, thankful for that diversion. He’d jerked off twice since he arrived, and it hadn’t helped at all. Andrei wasn’t a slave to his prick, but damn it if his cock wasn’t at attention every second in her presence.
It was stupid of him to be here this way. There were other merc camps on Asphodel. None of them had this . . . baggage. This weight of memory.
He repeated to himself that this was the best option. And it was. He knew enough to understand the Roundtrees were the only mercenary group where he’d get the trust and access he needed.
He needed to keep his dick in check. Needed to keep his focus on the mission. If there had been any time in his life where it had been more important to avoid mistakes, he wasn’t aware of it. The cost of failure here was higher than he was willing to pay.
It didn’t mean he couldn’t help out while he was there. It would be good for his cover if he acted like one of them anyway, so why not combine it with getting a few things repaired and helping with some skill building.
And it would keep her safer. He still needed that. Accepted a long time ago that he would always feel that need and that he would obey it when he could.
She mattered in a way no one else ever had or would.
A flash hit him then, straight in the gut. Piper’s braids in his fist as he fucked into her body from behind. Her pussy, hot and creamy around his cock as she writhed against him, pushing back to meet each of his thrusts.
Her skin would be moist and salty from sweat as he licked up the line of her spine. She’d whimper when he sucked hard just below the edge of her shoulder blade, marking her.
“Where do you go?”
Startled, still vibrating with the need to be in her, he risked a glance to her. It was funny how little she’d changed, even after eleven years. She’d been a lovely child. Lively. Pretty and smart. Sullen then as her mid years had hit. And then she’d been perfect and small and all his. At his side always as they marauded through the streets. She’d sewn up their wounds, had been their lookout when they’d nicked food or gear.
He’d laughed with her. Been her shoulder when she cried. And then she’d been his in every way. Had given herself to him shyly, but no less beautiful for her inexperience. She’d been the place he was never angry. The person who gave to him without expecting something in return.
With Piper there’d been acceptance. The quiet place in the noisy storm of his daily life. She’d brought him calm when the rage had pumped through his veins like fire.
He hadn’t tasted her in eleven years, but the phantom feel of her skin against his fingertips still tingled from time to time as the ghost of her lived in him for a breath or two.
The velvet of her voice still soothed, even as she teased. Maybe because she felt comfortable enough with him, even after all they’d been through.
“What do you mean?”
“You think so deeply. You just go away. Your eyes show it. Where do you go when you think like that?”
He nearly choked, and she laughed. “Oh! You were in that place. Tell me about it. Who is she, this mystery woman you were with in your head?”
“A true man does not kiss and tell, Piper.” Desperate to change the subject, he held the valve up. “I think we’re good. I’m going to go see if that’s so.”
She put a hand on his arm. “I’ll go with you. And then, shall we take a trip to town? See what business we can get our way?”
He nodded, hoping she’d go out first. Of course she didn’t, and he had to hold his things in front of his crotch so she couldn’t see the raging evidence of just exactly what place he was in.
Work then. He needed to put his mind back to the job.
He’d checked in the night before, after he’d read over the data Benni had passed him. Mining for something. Clearly they were Imperialist troops, there to guard the dangerous open pit mines. No one would notice them so far away from population centers.
Daniel would pass the information to Julian and Vincenz and told him to report in daily, even if it was to say he saw nothing. They had the key, at least one of them anyway. They now needed the lock. In the chip, on the very edge, there had been a sliver. Andrei assumed it was the material being mined.
With the parts he found around the compound, he’d managed to extract enough data to send to Vincenz. He and Julian would figure it out and he’d hear back and they’d know what the next steps were. In the meantime, Andrei wanted to get closer to the Imperialist minister and his lackeys who had shown up there in the Portal town.
Chapter 6
Two days later, Andrei sat next to her in the truck as they headed toward the ramshackle cluster of buildings on the north end of the portal town often referred to as Thieves’ Alley. Though he’d been there a few nights before when he’d met Benni, the place was different in the light. Despite the ominous name, really it was several bars, a few houses of prostitution, boardinghouses and flats and food carts. Those streets had been his second home for years of his childhood.
He pondered a trip down those memories, just to take his mind from the alarming rate of speed they traveled at.
She drove like she did everything else. Fast and bordering on reckless.
In the case of driving and flying, the pleasure of watching her so intent on her job, on the level of skill and competence she had, was nearly too much. Not that it would stop him from watching her. Watching her had become something of a favorite activity since he’d arrived.
When they’d returned from running cargo, Kenner had told them that on his trip to town that morning, he’d seen some Imperialist types around. Imperialist types attempting to hire on a crew.
“More troops around lately.” She slowed as they entered the more populated areas heading into the center of town.
“Yes.” She had no idea how truly bad things were. He found himself caught between wanting to keep her safe from the truth of it and telling her everything so she’d be better equipped to handle any trouble.
“Listen, I need to make contact with them, but that doesn’t mean you have to. Why don’t you stay here or go to the mercantile to grab supplies? I’ll find you when I’m finished.”
“Oh, you mean while you go over there and get hired on because you have a penis and therefore are more qualified than me? Me, who has a reputation here as a cargo runner?”
He nearly growled at her. Until several days before when he’d saved her ass from being murdered by Imperium troops, he’d not been tempted to growl at anyone in years if one didn’t count Abbie Lyons and Carina Fardelle. They were other men’s problems though. This one—he glared in her direction—was most definitely his problem.
“Don’t growl at me. Just look pretty and scary in that way you have. I’ll do the talking. I will, however, take any advice you’d like to give me on what it is you want me to say.” She said it as she pulled the conveyance to a stop.
Annoyed as he was, he had to admit she was right to take point. They knew her, though some knew him, too. “Fine. But if I start giving orders, you take them.” He ignored her snort and continued speaking. “We just need an in with them again. We want to run goods, but not whatever it is Cheney wanted you to move.” He’d been working with others like him so long, he wasn’t sure if he was making the distinction clear.
They needed to earn enough trust to look around, but not to actually do the bidding of the Imperium that would cause harm. He’d be sure to drop the location of the cargo, whatever it was, to the Federation, but there were other parties working on other things, other pieces of the puzzle, and he had to keep his pace even with theirs.
“Good.” She sat back a moment, clearly relieved. “I don’t want any part of this whatever it is they’re trying to do. I want to help stop them. I’ll do
everything I can, even take orders from you if necessary.”
“If I could do this all without you, I would.” He hesitated.
“You can’t, and no matter what, I’m happy I can help.” She pushed from the door she’d opened, hopping to the ground, and he followed.
Her walk was confident. No one would get the drop on her out here, which made him relax marginally.
She headed toward a man Andrei had seen in his briefing materials. Jan Karl, one of Fardelle’s top ministers after Hartley Alem had been put to death some months before. There was strong suspicion the man had engineered the recent biological outbreak in the Imperial ’Verse, Faelene. So many had died, even before all outgoing communication had been halted.
And here he was, in Federation territory engineering their own natural resources to aid them in murdering Federation citizens. Anger spiked through him at the sight of this man who shat upon the Federation with such impunity. He wanted to punch someone over it.
Dust, rage and impotent frustration. The scents and memories of Asphodel all knotted within him.
“You owe me quite a packet of credits.” Piper’s snarl at the man in the chair next to Karl yanked Andrei from his anger.
It also began to revive his cock. At this rate, he’d lose all sensation in the area from overstimulation or something.
The man twisted a smile up at her. “So I do.” Drawing out a pouch, the man counted out the chips, sliding the small pile to the center of the table, where the magister checked and then handed it to Piper.
“I assume this makes us square?” He leaned back, and Andrei realized who the man was. Back in their youth, Kenner and Andrei had done numerous not-even-legal jobs for him. Porter, yes, Rhymen Porter. Andrei was surprised to find him still drawing breath, but then, he always had been a canny bastard.
“This a new crew member?” He tipped his chins toward Andrei.
“Only if by new you mean someone who ran your cargo back in the day.”