Page 21 of Star Champion

“You ain’t ever gonna be like one of them upper-class cogs,” he told her. “It just ain’t in ya.” Then he went rigid, grabbing a fistful of her hair at the base of her skull to pull her close, his other hand landing on her bottom.

“Nico! What the hell—?” Her protest was muffled against his chest.

“Pretend ya like it. It’s them scouts—the pros and theVash.” He cursed.“They’re back, and headed this way.”

CHAPTER6

“Don’t say nothing,”Nico warned. “Nothing at all.”

Jemm’s pulse boomed like the detonations of ore-charges. She let her hair spill forward to camouflage her face from the off-worlders. The crunch of several pairs of boots on grit came from only about twenty steps away. “Nico, glad to find you still here.” Even without a view of the voice’s owner, she knew that lovely brogue belonged to theVash. “I’m looking for Sea Kestrel.”

Her timepiece slid around her wrist she dragged her palms down Nico’s sweater and pretended to nuzzle the side of his neck. “Cut me loose before they get too close,” she whispered. “Make it believable, or we’re done for.”

He nodded. “Run along now, darlin’! I’ve got business to attend to.” He moved her backward and gave her a pat on the bottom for good measure.

She used a flirtatious hair toss to keep her face hidden before she turned her back to the off-worlders and sashayed off, hoping they would act like men and fix their attention on her swaying rear-end instead of the fact they had not gotten a good look at her. She felt their gazes following her all the way to where she disappeared around the corner a half block away. She stopped there, her blood roaring in her ears.Craggin’ crat.

“Who was that?” she heard Skeet ask in an admiring tone.

“My girlfriend, Jemm. She’s a good lass, she is.”

Jemm? Was he crazy? “It takes some truth to make a lie believable,” went the saying. Her brother had taken that advice to heart.

“Kes has already gone home, fellas.” Nico herded Sir Klark and the two pro players back to Narrow Margin’s back entrance. A group of drunken miners stumbled past behind Jemm, their loud conversation making it impossible to hear what was being said as theVashstopped to hand something to Nico. Then goodbyes were said.

But before Sir Klark made it back inside the club a sex server stopped him. Her hands were all over him as she tried to separate him from his companions. Despite the weak light, the contrast between this aristocrat from the stars and the thin, dirty, scantily dressed young woman curling around him like oily hallucivape smoke was obvious.

Breathless, Nico careened around the corner. “Crag me. That was close,” he said.

“Too close.” Jemm peeked around the corner again. Despite how far the sex worker was beneath Sir Klark’s lofty station, he refused her advances without visible disgust or disrespect. It took two tries before he was able to disentangle himself from her and disappear with his players inside, leaving the girl to gaze after him in awe.

Then it hit Jemm that she was standing there doing exactly the same thing.

Xirri made a low whistle as Klark herded his players back through the bar. “That’s some sweet piece Nico’s got on his arm.”

“Did you see that walk of hers?” Skeet lifted his brows at them.

Klark kept quiet. Of course he had noticed the way the woman carried herself. What man wouldn’t? She was tall, confident, dressed from chin to boots in black leather, and she knew exactly what she was doing when she undulated away. Leaving him to gawk at her tight ass and incredible hair—long, wavy strands that ranged from reddish brown to amber to the palest blonde that he could all too easily picture tousled after some bed sport. Too bad it had hidden her face. He would have liked to know if her features were as captivating as the rest of her. But all that aside, her laudable physical attributes were not what had left him both drawn to and puzzled by her. It was her scent.

A light, clean musk—only a faint, fleeting trace, yet it was enough to register as familiar. Then it vanished before he could sort out why.

He knew that scent.

Klark discarded the thought. It must be the bad air fooling his normally dead-on nose. Or, maybe the ale he drank had scrambled his wits. Whatever it was, he hoped that with a good night’s rest he would be back to himself in the morning.

“Look at you, sis, all dreamy-like.”

“What do ya mean?” Jemm dragged a hand over her face, as if one could wipe off traces of wonder like badlands grit.

“You’re all agog at those off-worlders,” Nico teased as they took off in the direction of the old city. “Well, they want you, too. The owner does—for his team.”

Her insides cartwheeled at the thought. “Wouldn’t that be something. Eh, Nico? What did they want? I saw theVashgive you something.”

“Aye, it’s for—” He stopped hard, glanced left, then yanked her close. “Whoa. We’ve got visitors. Don’t turn around.”

“The off-worlders again?”

“No. Keep moving.”

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