Page 102 of Auctioned to the Convicts
“If you want my help, just ask. No need to be polite.”
“Why shouldn’t I be polite?” she said as she matched his longer strides. He surged through the dense jungle down a path that didn’t appear tobea path. She’d been on Narkos for over five weeks and had never been to his workshop.
“I don’t want to intrude on your time or space.”
“You mean like you and the trio of cheer and happiness have done in my home?”
Hannah didn’t know what to say to that. She had never had trouble making friends and getting along with people, but Ren was a challenge, had been from the start.
“Would you like us to move out, Ren? So you can have your home and all your possessions to yourself, where no one will bother you? The rules say we’re a unit, but there’s nothing saying we have to share a house.”
“Yes, there is. Dresden. He took Sersie’s and Vaughn’s housing away from them. He won’t assign housing to any of you.”
“If you can build a house, then the rest of us can do the same.”
They arrived at a door in the middle of nowhere. If there was a structure behind it, she couldn’t really see beyond all the vines and trees.
Ren punched a code into the panel by the door. At the click, he pushed the door open. The lights turned on automatically.
The workshop was larger than she expected, with real walls. This building was not something Ren had constructed from discarded materials, but from the same cement that was common throughout all The Company buildings on the planet. Tools lay neatly in bins in wall units lining one wall, with other odd-shaped tools hung from pegs on the opposite wall.
“You have this place to yourself?”
“The other engineers have access, but they have most of what they need on-site where they work. I prefer to work here. Alone.”
She didn’t miss how he’d emphasized that last word.
The back section of the workshop housed larger machines with a huge access door. Mining equipment most likely. Up front, Ren had a very long table, with pendant lights hanging from stiff adjustable tubes overhead, giving him light at whatever angle he needed. There was even a computer here, which surprised her. He flipped a switch, turning on the computer. A long list of machine designs popped up.
The Company gave Ren everything he needed to perform his job. And only his job. They didn’t care about how angry he was all the time or why.
With several loud clanks and a curse from Ren, he dug out an old-fashioned scale. “You think you can build a house, Princess? The Company gave you architecture training?’
“No.”
“Construction experience on the fringe of the sector where they don’t care much about safety and long-term viability of the structure or occupants?”
“No. You know I don’t have any of that.”
“Then why the hell would you make an offer to leave?”
“Because you’re miserable with us there, and I won’t have the fact that we usurped your housing held over us any longer.”
Yeah, she was getting mad, for no real reason. He wasn’t trying to push her out. In fact, Ren was being Ren. Moody and difficult. She dropped the paddadou she’d been carrying. Coming here to weigh and measure the fruit suddenly seemed like a bad idea.
Ren slammed the scale on the table with a resounding clank. Several of the weights rolled off onto the floor.
“I was miserable before you arrived, and when you leave to build some shack elsewhere in the jungle, I presume far away from me since you don’t want to be near me, I’ll still be stuck on this rock, except I’ll be even more miserable than before your unit took over my house.”
“You’d miss us?”
Blue eyes harder than diamonds held her as if they had a power of their own. In a way, they did. She couldn’t look away, not from those piercing eyes or from Ren. Her heart was already racing, despite his scowl and equally daunting furrowed brow.
One step forward, with his eyes locked on her, was all it took for her knees to weaken. Damn, he was intense, had been since the day she’d met him.
“There are benefits to having a unit,” he said as he glided one hand down her hair. “I didn’t see that before.”
Had he been any other man, those eyes would have been traveling down her body, focusing on what he wanted. Ren was different though. Wicked smart and quite blunt. He didn’t play games, though she was starting to imagine some games she’d like to play with him.
